The Sword and the Dragon

by M. R. Mathias

  “Get dressed, uh, um, if you please,” Roark stammered, holding out the King’s leggings and an undershirt.

  “Bring my chain mail,” Glendar barked, as he took the offered clothes. His stiff attitude did little to hide his confusion, though it did mask is growing fear fairly well.

  He could hear the distant sound of battle now, the chink and clang of steel on steel, the clattering of horses, and the occasional death cry. The sound was coming from somewhere beyond the open gates. He could tell, though, by the sounds of his own men riding in from the encampments around the city, and the hustling of his troops outside his tent, that there was not much time to waste.

  Suddenly, an explosion shook the earth. A brilliant flash of light lit the morning shade so brightly, that its glow could be seen plainly through the thick canvas walls of the pavilion tent. The sheer volume of the noise was deafening.

  In the long, relative silence that followed the blast, the shriek of a man died away slowly. The terrified “oohs” and “aahs” of the men outside of his tent, made Glendar tremble.

  What could’ve made that explosion? He had no idea what was happening. He heard the words, “wizard” and “magic,” shouted in fear outside. He remembered vaguely, Lord Brach once warning him about King Jarrek’s old sorcerer Keedle. He had scoffed at the warning, saying that Pael was far more capable. Where is Pael anyway? Glendar needed him right now, and badly.

  A few moments later, King Glendar emerged from the command pavilion into a world of utter chaos. This was no dominating rout like the taking of the city had been. Already, some of the Redwolf Cavalry was getting through. The men holding the inside of the outer wall, Glendar’s men, or what was left of them, were falling back. Most of them were covered in something black, soot maybe, or oil, Glendar couldn’t tell exactly what it was.

  Roark yanked him out of the way of a volley of arrows that came thumping down in a tight grouping where he had just been standing. The other men of the King’s personal guard swarmed around them then. They forced King Glendar to fall back away from the battle that was taking form right there in the gateway of the outer wall. Glendar looked around frantically for some indication, some sign of what he should do.

  More Westlanders were charging in from the north and south to clog the way, some in organized groups, and some in stumbling tangles. From the road that led out to the Locar Crossing Bridge, a huge band of Lord Abele’s Cavalry, came charging past with weapons drawn, and faces set for grim and bloody work.

  Seeing them, Glendar sighed with relief. Up until that moment, he’d thought that King Jarrek’s soldiers held the advantage. He had thought it was all but over. Now, with so many of his men in sight, ready to drive the Wildermont soldiers back behind the walls, he began to feel that smug confidence returning to him.

  Suddenly, from the top of the wall, a sizzling streak of yellow, blazed down into the crowd of Westlanders at the mouth of the gate. Where it impacted, a man-sized divot of dirt and debris exploded up from the earth, causing the horses and men around it to go flailing blindly into the heated battle. A figure, robed in black, with his hands raised up high, sent another blast, and then another, into the fray below him. At first, Glendar thought it was Pael, but through the smoke and distance, he saw a long, white beard trailing from the sorcerer’s chin. It was Keedle.

  As if he had sensed Glendar’s eyes on him, the old wizard stopped his attack, and met Glendar’s wide-eyed gaze. Across the great distance, Glendar could see the rage and hatred burning on Keedle’s face.

  Then the moment was gone. The wizard’s next crackling blast was larger than the others had been. It shot like a bolt of lightning from his fingers, across the open air, over the battling men below him, towards the piked heads in front of Glendar’s pavilion. They, and the pavilion tent, exploded in a roiling ball of flame. In the sudden light from the blaze, Glendar could see that the Redwolf soldiers were pressing out of the gateway now. More of them spilled out into the bloody mix, and his Westlanders were beginning to fall.

  From the north, more of his men were charging through the city to join the battle, a few hundred it looked like. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel more confident or not. As he gained the saddle of an offered horse, he stood in the stirrups, and looked southward. There, a small group of soldiers, maybe three dozen Wildermont cavalrymen, were casually riding up toward the gates. A few of them ranged ahead and dispatched any Westlander who dared to get in their path. At the front of the main group, a rider carried King Jarrek’s personal banner. Glendar’s strained eyes could tell by the brilliant red enameled armor that those men wore, and by the glinting ruby-eyed wolf skull mounted on their leader’s helmet, that it was the Wolf King himself and his infamous Blood Pack.

  The realization sent a chill of terror and confusion racing through him. Why would King Jarrek risk himself, when Wildermont was losing the battle so badly? It didn’t make sense. Again Glendar wished Pael was there. The wizard had promised to take Castlemont down for him. It seemed that Pael had forgotten him.

  Roark’s gasp brought Glendar’s attention back to the men riding in from the north. Glendar cursed at what he saw. Then he cursed Pael for not being there.

  “I think we should get you to the bridge,” the big guardsman suggested.

  Glendar didn’t have the heart to argue with him. What he had thought were a few hundred Westland soldiers coming in from the north to tilt the battle in his favor, were really only a few dozen Westlanders fleeing from several hundred Wildermont soldiers.

  To make things worse, another wizard, this one with dark hair and white robes, was sending bright blue bolts of energy into the group of fleeing Westlanders by the dozens. Like glowing sapphire arrows, the magical blasts shot forth from the wizard’s finger, one after another, as fast as he could point out a new target. Each magical pulse struck true and the victims fell, only to be trampled flat as the Redwolf Cavalry rode them over.

  Glendar didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away. He wasn’t in immediate danger. At least he didn’t think so. He still had six guardsmen, now mounted and surrounding him, each of them looking more eager than the next to be allowed to go join the battle. Only a short gallop away was the bridge. He knew for certain that enough soldiers remained there to discourage any pursuit back into Westland if he was forced to cross back in retreat.

  A knot of Westlanders, who had been too crowded into the mass at the gateway to be effective, peeled off at the order of a screaming captain. Fifty men or more turned their horses, and rode out to meet King Jarrek’s fearsome looking Blood Pack. One, two, and then a third Westlander fell to the huge swords of the crimson clad wolf’s men. The Westlanders appeared to be outmatched, until a pike found a painted breast plate, and one of the Redwolf’s men flipped backwards off of his horse, and crashed to the ground.

  Encouraged, the Westlanders roared out, and went forward. The battle graduated into a gleaming, bloody frenzy. Swords rose, fell, and swept through the air in blood slinging arcs. Men screamed in agony, horses reared, and came twisting down on their sides, as pikes were rammed through their chests and flanks. A helmet flew spinning through the air, smashed from a man’s head by the blow of a huge war hammer. King Jarrek, in his crimson armor, cut through Westlanders like an explorer hacking his way through jungle vegetation, with big heavy slashes that cleaved everything in their path.

  Most of the Westlanders that faced the King’s Guard were down now, but more were quickly coming. Half of King Jarrek’s red armored honor guard was dead as well. A pair of them had been unhorsed, and we’re now fighting viciously back to back on their feet. The half dozen Westlanders surrounding them looked weary.

  Along the top of the wall, a troop of archers, followed by the black robed wizard, ran southward, trying to get into a range that might help their struggling King.

  To the north, the white robed wizard had reined his horse to a halt, letting the Wildermont soldiers he had been leading ride past him. The
y broke off into groups of four and five, and met, with a sickening crash, the Westland archers who had been firing up at the men on the outer walls. The rest of them charged headlong into the knot of men still battling outside the gates, and began hacking, stabbing, and slashing their way through.

  Glendar’s breath caught in his chest, and a powerful wave of sadness and shame came over him. It was a hopeless situation. The siege was broken. The battle was lost. He had failed.

  Targon, Willa the Witch Queen’s man, sensed something in the air. It alarmed him so much, that he steered his horse out of the road, and away from the many skirmishes that were taking place there.

  The complexity of the spell he needed to cast required his full concentration. He had to find out what it was he was feeling because it seemed horribly wrong to him. The spell he wanted to cast would identify the source of the strangeness, but already the sensation had gotten so much stronger that it might be too late.

  Off the horse he stepped, and strode quickly to the semi-protective shelter of a nearby building’s awning. It wouldn’t do to take a stray arrow while he was distracted. He backed himself up against the rock and mortar and began his casting.

  Some of the soldiers were feeling it too. Some of them so much so that they stopped in their tracks trying to identify the odd sensation.

  The air was becoming static and electric, like it does right before a lightning storm. Hairs rose on the backs of necks, and cold shivers ran down spines. A low, vibrant humming sound began to fill the air. For the briefest of moments, it seemed that, save for the humming vibration, the whole world stood still. Even the fighting had stopped. Then the hum became a droning buzz, and the sound of battle slowly resumed as if it had never ceased.

  On the far side of the gates, Keedle was raging from atop the wall. He was so lost in his anger, that he didn’t even notice the strange sensation, or the way it was affecting the soldiers below him.

  From either side of him, Wildermont archers rained deadly steel-tipped arrows down into the crowd as quickly and as accurately as they could. From the smoldering remains of Glendar’s pavilion, a few Westland archers loosed back up at them, but not many. One of them struck their mark. The man next to Keedle fell into him, with a Westland arrow sprouting out of his chest. Keedle, seeing how close he had come to being hit, stopped his assault on the Westlanders for a moment. He cast a spell that would shield him from the arrows flying up at him. The spell would protect him as long as he didn’t leave that particular section of the wall. As soon as the magical barrier was in place, he was back at it, sending hot sizzling bolts down at any man or horse that ventured too close to King Jarrek and his crimson armored guards.

  The bone-tingling buzz had turned into a deep vibration, a tangible feeling in the guts of all of the men. It frightened a lot of them. Wildermont soldiers, and Westlanders alike, were staring at each other, wide-eyed, making ward signs with their hands, and mumbling prayers. Roark, who looked like the Dark One’s own champion, in his gleaming plate armor and devil helm, was terrified.

  But not Glendar, who thought the sensation had a familiar quality to it, a quality he recognized all too well. He wasn’t about to leave just yet. King Glendar shrugged Roark’s heavy arm from his shoulder.

  “Just a few minutes more,” he growled at his big horn-helmed guardsmen.

  Targon came out of his visional trance with a start. What he had just learned, defied almost every law of magic and demon lore he knew, and he knew almost all of it.

  He had to think. Soon, every ounce of available magical energy would be gone from the area, sucked out of this little part of the world into a thing that was part man and part demon. Pael, Shokin, whatever it was, was right here. It was about to unleash all that power it was drawing in, and Targon wanted no part of that horror.

  His mind raced through his cataloged memory of spells and protocol. He couldn’t just flee. Queen Willa despised cowardly actions. Targon was no coward, but he was wise enough to know when to retreat. Every base instinct he had was screaming for him to flee. In his mind, he repeated the orders she had given him when she sent him here. A plan formed, and an appropriate spell revealed itself. Without concern for stray arrows, crossbow bolts, or even the straggling Westland soldiers, he hurried out into the middle of the lane. He faced towards the cluster of still battling men by the gates, and began his casting.

  It wasn’t an easy choice to make for him. The very act of getting into position went against everything he had ever learned about self-preservation – a subject of great importance to a wizard of his abilities and skill. He couldn’t fail to warn Queen Willa of the thing Pael had somehow become, for whoever or whatever it was now, it would sooner or later set its sights on the Wardstone foundation of Xwarda.

  He couldn’t abandon King Jarrek either. He had no choice but to leave his body open and vulnerable to the physical. As risky as it was, it was his only choice. He was in a race to harness enough of the depleting magical force to cast a spell, before the demon-wizard took it all. Just like the attempt to break the siege, from here it was all or nothing.

  The explosive blast of energy that accompanied Pael’s sudden appearance amidst the smoldering remains of Glendar’s pavilion shook the very earth like a quake. The world fell into a deeper sort of chaos as terrified horses bolted this way and that, and men fell to their knees, grabbing at the sides of their heads. Blood pulsed from the ear holes of any man or beast that had been close to Pael when he had come. Equilibriums were thrown off kilter, and a few men simply died from the concussion. One of the northernmost towers, up on the mountainside, tilted slowly, starting its slow, arcing fall down into the clustered buildings below. The battle had all but stopped. All eyes were drawn to Pael.

  King Glendar and his men were behind Pael, and far enough back, that it only took a moment to get them and their horses back under control. The earth-shaking boom had scared them all senseless, save for Glendar. He had sensed Pael’s signature on the grand entrance, like a child senses his mother’s mood. The young King of Westland raised his fist, and let out a primal yell that trumpeted out what little bits of fear and doubt remained inside him. He had nothing to fear now. Pael was here!

  The site of the wizard standing there, his arm stretched wide in his flowing black robes, the golden embroidered patterns on the belled sleeves and collar sparkling in the new sunlight that had just peaked over the mountaintops, was awe inspiring.

  Pael’s right hand shot out towards Keedle, up on the wall, and a huge swathe of blazing white light flashed forth towards the stunned old wizard. The power of the blast shot straight through its target, taking a huge bite-shaped chunk out of the wall as it went. The blast exploded into the southern part of the castle, in a brilliant shower of rock and flaming debris. It cleaved two of the castle’s massive towers in the middle. One of them fell straight down on top of the stub that had just been its base. The other canted slowly over, until its upper half failed, and the whole thing went tumbling down into the castle proper.

  King Glendar, emboldened by the blatant display of power, spurred his horse into a trot towards the gates.

  “To me!” he cried out raising his sword up high. “To me!”

  It was all Roark and the other guardsmen could do to pull themselves out of the stunned trance that Pael’s blast had put them in so that they could follow their King.

  “Westlanders to me!” Glendar kept screaming at the top of his lungs. He stopped his horse while still out away from the gates. He wanted to draw his men away from the Redwolf soldiers. He knew Pael wouldn’t hesitate to level them if they were in his way. It was a brilliant move, and it probably saved the lives of half of his remaining men, for Pael’s wrath knew no colors.

  The Wildermont soldiers were stunned, as much by the fact that the Westlanders were pulling back, as by the wild magic the white-skinned, egg-headed wizard was hurling about.

  Pael’s second massive charge of white-hot magic went arcing across the sky like a monstrou
s flaming arrow. It was brighter than the sunlight, which it eclipsed at the apex of its flight. When it came down towards the castle, into what remained of the mountain’s shadow, it blazed like a falling star. When it impacted, the explosion and the amount of devastation that resulted was heart-rending.

  The whole front of the castle proper fell into a crumbling heap, leaving partial rooms and hallways exposed in the swirling dust. Distant colorful specs that were people, tumbled out and fell to their deaths, as floors collapsed, and the smaller towers came crashing down into the main structure. A large piece of the castle, as big as a merchant’s mansion, came free from the southern corner. It rolled once on its way down the mountain, like it was a boulder, then slammed into a landslide of rock and timbers as it rolled over dozens of lesser buildings and homes.

  Pael glanced back over his shoulder at where all the Westland soldiers were gravitating. King Glendar was there. A few hundred men were struggling to form up into some sort of order behind him. A huge plate-armored warrior with a wicked looking horned helmet caught Pael’s eye as he barked out orders, and threatened the soldiers into their ranks. Pael sensed a dark and brutal quality about the man, and marked it in his mind for later recollection. Satisfied with what he had seen behind him, he turned back to the matter in hand.

  With only the slightest flicker of motion from his hand, he sent a crackling yellow streak of jagged lightning into the chest of a nearby Wildermont soldier. It held the man in place for a heartbeat, shaking him, and smoldering his flesh. From his back, two more bolts shot forth, and found other bodies to decimate. One was a limping Westlander, who was trying to reach his King; the other, a Wildermont soldier who was on his knees and still holding his ears from the concussion of Pael’s initial coming. From each of them, the lightning branched again, and soon more than twenty men were curled on the ground, writhing, and smoldering, or dead.