by Devin Hanson
Her breath was starting to come easier now, and she pushed herself away from the building and took stock of her surroundings. They were a street away from the wall, in fact most of the buildings in front of her backed up to the wall itself with only a narrow alley separating them. The structures around her were a combination of workshops and housing, some sort of craftsman district where the residents constructed alchemical devices with their living quarters above their workshops. The buildings were at least two stories tall, with the occasional thee-story building sticking up above its fellows.
The buildings were also built next to each other, sometimes even sharing walls. These were the homes of wealthy people who didn’t need to grow any of their own food. The doors were heavy hardwood, the glass in the windows alchemical pureglass. A soldier expecting to easily break through would be in for a surprise. It would take a battering ram to get through the doors.
The row of buildings was an even more effective barrier than the wall just on the other side.
If a soldier did make his way over the wall, he would have to follow the alley back toward the heavily guarded barricade or in the other direction. Iria gestured for her spear to follow and set off at a jog. Time to find out where that alley opened up in the other direction.
The buildings continued without break for another two hundred yards before opening up into a courtyard with a public well in the center. Shops lined the courtyard: a butcher, a green grocer, and a few other shops that catered to the residential community. The alley came out behind the butcher shop and the wall stretched unbroken for thirty yards before vanishing behind a brewery.
Voices came from the courtyard, almost buried under the distant sound of fighting, and Iria signaled her wardens to advance slowly with caution. She reached the butcher shop and crouched down low before peering over a window sill and into the shop.
The butcher was empty, except for a neatly halved pig carcass and an impressive array of coldboxes with pureglass windows showing an assortment of meats, prepared and ready for sale. Out the windows on the other side of the butcher, Iria saw a knot of soldiers huddled by the wall. As she watched, another soldier dropped over the wall and joined his fellows in the courtyard.
The Salians had beaten them to the courtyard. Moving quietly, Iria checked the door to the butcher and was somewhat surprised to find it unlocked. She eased the door open and gestured to the wardens to follow her and slipped into the shop. She kept low, hiding behind the counters, and made her way to the rear of the shop. Behind the front of the butcher shop, a door led to a coldbox the size of a room, with a great wooden chopping block still littered with the carcass of a sheep partially through the butchery process.
A stairway led upward to the second story. Without having to be asked, a warden carrying a bow took the stairs to find a vantage point on the second floor. Using hand signs, Iria directed two of the remaining wardens toward the back entrance before returning to the front of the shop.
The soldiers had spread out in the meantime, advancing cautiously into the center of the courtyard. Iria made her way to the side entrance of the shop and crouched next to the door while the remaining wardens came up behind her.
Iria flashed a hand sign, checking for readiness, and got a nod in return. She took a deep breath, shoved the door open and sprinted into the courtyard. The first soldier heard the door bang open and was still turning in surprise when Iria plowed into him. The soldier staggered, off balance, and then went crashing to the ground as Iria swept his leg out from under him.
She left the soldier on the ground for the moment; there was no time to stop and be sure of a killing stroke. A sword swung at her head, a ponderous blow like the owner was expecting to chop down a tree. Iria ducked the swing and stabbed the soldier up under his armpit as the force of the swing pulled his stance wide. The mail links there gave way under the narrow blade of her dagger and she shoved him back without trying to wrench her dagger free.
The soldier sprawled backwards into two more, giving Iria a second to draw her scimitar. To her sides, she was distantly aware of the wardens engaging with the soldiers. Feathers seemed to sprout from the neck of one of the soldiers facing her and she leapt at the survivor with her scimitar already dancing around his desperate guard.
The wardens killed a dozen soldiers in rapid succession, but there were twice as many left standing, and the element of surprise had been lost. With shields raised and weapons held at guard, the surviving Salians squared off against Iria and her wardens. They were confident, their postures radiating eagerness. Twenty against four were good odds, odds they were willing to take.
It took them several long seconds to realize there was a second pair of wardens behind them. Confidence turned to uncertainty, then turned to panic as Iria pressed her attack the moment their attention swung around to their rear.
Twenty against six turned into fifteen against six, then ten, then five. The last two Salians threw down their weapons, raising their hands in surrender.
“On the ground!” Iria ordered. She was breathing hard again and her leg stabbed pain from her knee to her hip every time she took a step. During the fighting, she had completely forgotten about it, but now that it was over for the moment, it throbbed again.
The Salians moved to obey, and fire lanced out from the wall, striking the surrendering Salians and searing flesh to the bone. Iria was already rolling out of the way, combat tension giving her an edge of speed that she didn’t normally have. One of her wardens hadn’t been so lucky and fell to the ground screaming, his clothing on fire and half his body charred black.
“Surrender is so out of style,” the alchemist said as he dropped lightly over the wall. “Such a waste of time, checking them for weapons, and then imprisoning them somewhere out of the way.” He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Much easier to kill them quickly and have done, don’t you think?”
Iria pushed herself to her feet, holding her leg out stiffly to the side. The dive had wrenched something deep within her leg and pain stabbed through the wound she had taken earlier. The alchemist’s face roughly matched the description Travis had given of one of the Incantors. Hooked nose, scar through one eyebrow, thinning black hair, ugly little goatee and mustache. It wasn’t a truly unique description, but coincidences only went so far.
“Incantor!” she cried.
A warden leapt for the Incantor and slammed into an invisible wall. A second later, fire burst from the Incantor’s hand and the warden toppled amid clouds of oily smoke.
“Ah, ah. Some respect would be nice. I wonder what the Dragon Speaker offered you wardens to get you to follow him. I’ve always wanted a few pet swords to follow me around.”
Iria limped in a wide circle around the Incantor. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the warden in the window peek out. Not yet, she though desperately, wait just a little longer. “You wouldn’t understand,” she called.
“You have to be human!” the Incantor mocked. “Tired lines from the weak and oppressed. You have no understanding of what I am. You haven’t the wit to comprehend–”
The warden on the second floor of the butcher shop loosed his arrow and it slammed clear through the Incantor’s chest, the razor-edged steel barbs protruding through a good six inches.
The Incantor coughed out a Saying and a shield sprang into existence around him, blocking the second arrow aimed for his heart.
“Not bad,” the Incantor said, and his teeth were red with blood. “I should have expected an archer behind.” Without a care for the way the arrowhead slashed his fingers open, the Incantor yanked the arrow through his chest. His lips moved and the ragged slashes on his hand sealed closed. His breathing grew easier.
“Get the Speaker!” a warden called to Iria, grabbing her arm.
She looked up in surprise, mesmerized by the way the Incantor’s wounds were healing.
“Run!” the warden said, “We’ll hold him off as long as we can.”
She wanted to stay. She w
anted to fight. But she also knew she was in no shape to be fighting an alchemist. “Stay alive,” she ordered the warden. It was a futile gesture, and as she turned her back and ran stiffly for the edge of the courtyard, she knew none of the wardens remaining behind would survive.
Corvis couldn’t see the progress of the battle from where he was standing, out in the field a safe distance from the cannon towers, but he could see through his spyglass as the last of the towers within the outer ring of Andronath was captured by the Salians. Flares went up one at a time trailing a column of reddish smoke, proclaiming each tower to be under Salian control.
It was time. Corvis opened his satchel and drew out the flare gun. From a case, he picked one of the flares with a stripe of blue paint around it, fit it into the gun and fired it into the sky. A column of blue smoke shot up into the air, trailing behind the furiously burning projectile. After taking a few steps upwind so the acrid smoke wouldn’t drift into his face, Corvis fit his spyglass to his eye and trained it on the distant Black Drake.
Almost immediately the pennant line was drawn in and a replacement hoisted into position. The message was clear: attack!
With the Drake in the vanguard, the fleet fell into formation, only the Pride hanging back. With engines at full throttle, they thundered across the sky. There were only three towers remaining under the defenders’ control, and they swung about, trying to get a fix on the approaching airships.
As per the plan, once the airships drew within range of the towers the Drake and the other ships owned by the baron fell back, letting the rest of the fleet close the distance. There were only three towers left, but the guards manning them were desperate and there was no need to throw away his brand new ships.
The first airship to get within range of the towers was shredded, a single shot punching through both balloons and a second cannonball scored a direct hit on the engine. With a flash of light and an explosion that shook the ground, the airship’s fuel detonated, spraying debris in a broad circle. A rolling mushroom cloud of smoke lofted into the sky.
Before the towers could reload, the airships swung into range. They were facing the wrong direction and going much too fast to try and swing around for a broadside, so swivel guns on the prows fired first. Dozens of cannonballs crashed into the tower. The heavy stone structure shuddered but held firm. The swivel guns had a smaller bore so a single man could aim and fire them, and the balls they fired simply weren’t heavy enough to do significant damage to the tower.
The defensive towers fired again. An airship dropped out of the formation like a stone to smash into the city beneath it, the remains of its balloons flapping wildly as it fell. Another airship stalled as its propellers were smashed and it slewed wildly, almost crashing into an airship adjacent to it in the close formation.
Then the leading airship pulled level with the closest tower and a full broadside rocked the gondola with the force of the recoil. Under the fusillade of heavy cannon shot, the tower crumbled, the wreckage lit from within by explosions as it fell.
The remaining two towers were beyond where Corvis could see and he lowered his spyglass. The airships were sure to be victorious over the towers. Another one or two airships might be destroyed, but that was irrelevant. None of his personal ships would be damaged in the exchange, and that was all that he cared about.
The distant roll of cannonfire came back to him and Corvis tucked his spyglass away in its case and started looking for a horse. It was time he was in the city.
Andrew paced the command post in a foul mood. He wanted to be out in the city, helping defend it! Instead he was stuck here twiddling his thumbs while others fought and died. He understood why, of course, though he hated the reasons for it. And there were a few reasons, as first Iria, then Jules, and lastly Fakhir had explained to him.
First, he was too important to die because of a stray arrow. If he was down in the front lines throwing alchemy at the Salians, eventually there’d be a hole in his shields and he would be wounded or die. It was inevitable. Second, he was the only one who could hope to confront the Incantors when they made their presence known. With luck, a group of alchemists could work together to bring one down, but if Trent was there, or multiple Incantors were together, it would fall to Andrew to do something about it.
Reports coming in of the cannon towers’ destruction only increased his frustration. Intellectually, he knew there was nothing he personally could have done to protect the towers, but burn it, he could have tried.
It was almost with relief that he saw Iria running toward the command center. She was limping heavily with a bloody bandage wrapped around her leg. She pushed away the wardens who rushed to her assistance and made it to the central table spread about with maps on her own.
“Speaker,” she said between gasping breaths, “there are Incantors within the lines!”
Andrew had never seen Iria out of breath before, and it was a little disconcerting. The petite warden had the stamina of an ox. How far had she run? “Show me on the map,” he requested.
Iria traced a finger across the map, trailing back across the route she had just run, before tapping her finger at a small square. “Here. The Salians were coming over the wall. My spear intercepted them, but an Incantor attacked us.” She swallowed. “My spear held their ground so I could bring warning, Speaker. I came as fast as I could.” Iria gave a brief description of the encounter with the Incantor.
“You did fine, Iria.” Andrew gestured and the wardens hovering behind Iria jumped in to support her. “Get yourself taken care of now. I’ll deal with the Incantor.”
“Be careful, Speaker,” Iria said before allowing herself to be led off deeper into the Academy.
Andrew waved and turned to find Jules. If he was going to be going into a combat zone, he needed Jules by his side. He started to ask a warden where she was, then spotted her outside leading a pair of horses.
“You have the location?” Jules asked when he ran out to her and swung himself up into the saddle.
“A market square by one of the barricades. I know the way.” He clucked to his horse, getting it turned around before breaking into a canter.
By horseback it only took a minute to get near the square. He kept one eye on the sky as he rode, wary of an airship deciding a pair of galloping targets was too juicy to pass up. When he was a few streets away from the square, he reined his horse to a stop. The area was quiet, but Iria had said the Salians were coming over the wall. Charging into a block of Salian soldiers would only get him killed. It had been several minutes since Iria had left to bring warning so there could be dozens of soldiers waiting around the corner.
Jules swung herself off her saddle and checked her revolver one last time. “What’s the plan?” she asked.
“We’re here for the Incantor,” he said reluctantly. “We only engage soldiers if they’re in the way or attack us.”
Jules nodded, but she had a grim look about her and a hunger in her eyes. “I’ll watch your back,” she said.
Andrew gave her a brief smile. She wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks, he knew, but that didn’t mean she would let opportunities to avenge Andronath pass her by. He couldn’t blame her. The Rune Song stirred in him, phrases and Sayings weaving together the threads of alchemical destruction, hovering on the top of his tongue waiting to be unleashed.
Moving quickly, but taking time to check around corners, Andrew led the way, shielding runes ready to be called out. Behind him, Jules followed close, her eyes raised to the roofs and second story windows, scanning for archers or alchemists lying in wait.
Andrew heard the soldiers before he saw them, and he crept around the corner of a building until he could see down the next street. The next street over was the courtyard Iria had come from, and it was crowded with Salian soldiers. They were looting the shops and buildings. A bonfire burned in the center of the square, fed by shattered furniture.
“Those filthy animals,” Jules hissed. Her eyes were narrowed, her hands c
lenched into fists.
“We’re not here for them,” Andrew reminded her.
“How can you say that? Andronath is your home too! I can’t just walk away and let them pillage my city.”
Andrew frowned but he didn’t refute her. “And the Incantors?”
“We can’t fight Incantors with that many soldiers to back them up,” Jules pointed out. “We kill the soldiers then go looking for the Incantors.”
“I don’t know, Jules…”
“We’ve practiced for this,” Jules said fiercely. “You’re the Dragon Speaker. I’ll shield us, you do the rest.”
Andrew looked at the soldiers and felt anger stirring within him. It was one thing to be on a righteous path to save your city against the evil alchemists, it was another to loot and burn the homes and shops of other ordinary people.
“Let’s make it quick,” he growled and Jules grinned up at him, her smile feral.
Andrew stepped out around the corner and ran up the street, the threads of the Rune Song twisting about in his mind. The nearest soldiers saw him coming and a cautious alarm was raised. Two people weren’t a threat, after all. There was over a hundred Salians within the square and surrounding streets. There wasn’t anything two people could do to them.
Andrew was still twenty paces away when he let loose with the opening phrases of the Song. Ribbons of white fire lanced out from one outstretched hand and tore through the Salians. Where the fire touched, men burst into flames and died. Screams and shouts of alarm turned the square into chaos. To the left, an archer raised his bow and died as a plane of force sliced through his weapon and into his chest.
The Song was powerful, but Andrew could only see and react against so much. A half-dozen other soldiers scattered about the square had the same idea, nocking arrows to bowstrings or raising crossbows. But Andrew wasn’t alone. Jules matched him stride for stride and her alchemy wove an impenetrable web of shields about them. Arrows hummed in to shatter against alchemical shields.