by John Marco
"Quickly now!" Vorto roared through the open door. He had picked up a sword and was swatting at the beasts buzzing around him like giant wasps. Kye was tending to the wounded, fretting over their dwindling numbers. The casualties had been unbelievably high. Even now, just outside the courtyard, Vorto could see some of his men being dragged off, pulled into the storm by the impossibly strong birds. Knowing they had to shut the doors quickly, he dashed outside to help unload the formula. The wagon was covered with squawking ravens, violently biting and scratching at his men, denting helmets with their iron beaks. Vorto threw himself onto the wagon, crushing a raven beneath his boots and grinding it to pulp. There were only two of the cannisters left to unload, so the general wrapped his arms around one of them and lifted it with a grunt, ignoring the ravens covering him and clawing at his helmet. Blood from his previous wounds spilled into his eyes, blinding him. He could hear Kye's voice, encouraging him forward. Next to him, two others were manhandling the last cannister into the keep. A raven seized on his helmet just as he staggered into the keep. The doors shut loudly behind him and Vorto dropped the cannister, then reached up with his bare hands, pulling the bird from his shoulders and strangling it with a scream, snapping its neck.
"Damn you!" he roared, tossing the carcass against the wall. "Damn you to Hell!"
Vorto collapsed to the floor, his whole body battered. He tore off the pitted helmet and tossed it aside, then ran his hands over his scalp to feel his hundred wounds. All around him men were groaning, wide-eyed with shock. Quickly Vorto counted up their numbers. There were at least a hundred of them in the hall.
A hundred. He closed his eyes in grief. So few. So many more lay dead outside, a feast for the demon-birds. They were trapped here now, with no hope of escape save for the formula, and Duke Enli and his mercenaries would soon be circling outside, making demands. Vorto balled up a fist and slammed it against the floor.
"We're not done yet," he hissed. "Kye, have some of the men search this place, anyone who can walk. I want all the windows closed and shuttered. Doors, too. Barricade them fast. And find any weapons you can." He looked around the bleak chamber, realizing only now that not all the bodies in the hall were Naren. There had been a slaughter here, just like he had seen in Westwind, the little town below the tower. "God condemn your soul to Hell, Enli," he said, examining the ruined hall. "Hurry now, Kye. We don't have much time."
"General, sir?" came a voice from across the hall. "Look at this!"
Vorto looked up, blinking the blood from his eyes. He saw a man at the end of the hall, one of his soldiers, with another figure next to him. Vorto blinked again, unsure what he was seeing. A woman?
"What the hell . . .?"
The soldier dragged the woman forward, shoving her toward Vorto. She was hissing like a snake. The general got unsteadily to his feet and studied her. Kye did the same, and soon all the men in the hall had their eyes on the woman.
"Who are you?" Vorto demanded.
"Be damned!" the woman spat.
Vorto's hand shot out and slapped her across the face, sending her tumbling backward. Vorto stalked after her, taking her jaw in his hand and squeezing until she screamed.
"I am in no mood for games, wench. Tell me who you are, or I will throw you out a window for those birds to eat." .
"Nina," she choked. "My name's Nina. I'm--"
"Enli's daughter!" Vorto released her at once. "What are you doing here, girl? Are you alone?"
She grit her teeth in defiance, but a threatening, raised hand from Vorto loosened her tongue. "Yes," she said. "I'm alone. I came here looking for something and got trapped here."
Vorto stepped back with a malicious grin, his mind racing with an idea. "Kye, I think we have a weapon here."
Duke Enli and his band of mercenaries had chased the Narens into Gray Tower, a contingency that now had the duke frantic. Just outside the courtyard, his men began to circle the tower, milling around on its eastern face where the gates were and where the ravens now rested, full of blood and waiting for their prey to re-emerge. Enli fretted as he galloped through the group, unsure what to do. Gray Tower was locked up tight, and though Vorto's ranks had been decimated, they suddenly had the advantage of the fortress. They also had the formula, a secret weapon the duke had not told his men about. But he was too desperate to call retreat now. Especially if Nina was inside.
Through the storm, he could see Nicabar's dreadnoughts floating threateningly on the horizon. He wondered if Vorto had noticed them yet. He wondered also if he needed to signal the admiral, or if Nicabar would simply open fire. Enli cursed, wringing his frostbitten hands. His mercenaries wanted to fall back, to let the Fearless and her sisters finish what they'd started. There was a murmur of dissent from the men as they milled about the courtyard. Duke Enli ignored it, trying to focus on saving his daughter. If she was alive, then Vorto had probably discovered her by now. The general would have terms, surely.
"Son of a bitch," muttered Enli, watching the tower's windows for a sign. "What are you waiting for, Vorto?"
Faren, slick with snow and mud, rode up to his master and gave him a disapproving scowl. "We must go, Duke Enli," he insisted. "If the ships open fire, we're done for!"
"We stay," growled the duke. "I won't leave Nina."
"You don't even know if she's alive," said Faren. "Please, listen to me. Let the ravens guard the tower. Vorto won't dare try to escape. And we can't do anything to signal Nicabar. We have to go!"
"No!" roared Enli, turning fiercely on his man. "We stay until I know she's not in there! I won't--"
"Enli, you hellspawn!"
The duke looked skyward, amazed to hear his name. Up on one of the balconies a door had opened, revealing a fist-shaking figure.
Vorto.
The general's head was pitted with cuts and bleeding badly, and he had a woman in his arms. Enli gasped when he saw her.
"Oh, God," he groaned. "Nina . . ."
At Nicabar's orders, the signalmen on the deck of the Fearless waved their flags at Black City and Intruder, giving the go-ahead to fire. All along the flagship, sailors braced themselves for the coming concussions, stuffing balled-up fabric in their ears and holding tight to rigging and rails. Admiral Nicabar lowered his spyglass confidently, sure that all of Vorto's soldiers were trapped inside the tower by now. He would give one warning shot to let Enli's men get clear--then he would pulverize Gray Tower.
"I have waited a long time for this," he said to his lieutenant, a young man who had spent the last hour standing next to him. "One shot to start, high across the tower. Let's make Vorto know we're here. Give the order, please, Lieutenant."
The young man shouted the order down the line. Nicabar folded his arms across his chest, waiting for the fireworks to start.
"What do you want?" Enli called up to Vorto. He was desperate to deal, certain he was running out of time. "Tell me and I will consider it!"
"First, call those beasts away!" demanded Vorto. He had Nina in a headlock, one massive arm wrapped around her neck. She struggled to free herself from the unbreakable grip. "Then we'll talk! Not before, traitor! You know I have the formula. Meet my demands, or I'll use it, I swear!"
Enli considered the ultimatum. He wasn't at all sure if Vorto was bluffing, but he knew the risks the formula posed to them all, even the general. Trapped within the tower, the poison might easily kill them, too. The duke cringed, knowing he had no choice, but before he could speak he saw a gigantic flash of light from far off behind the tower . . .
. . . and then heard the thunderous report.
Overhead, a funnel of flame blasted by, scorching the top of the tower and burning back the storm. The sky opened in a world-shaking boom. Enli's horse reared up in a panic, sending the duke tumbling to the ground, and all around him the steeds broke out in a frenzy, snorting and whinnying uncontrollably. The men began to shout. Faren was looking around, astonished. Enli gazed up to the balcony. Vorto, completely in shock, was craning his neck to
peer at the horizon. Even in the snow the general looked white with terror.
"The dreadnoughts!" Faren called to Enli. "They're firing! Sir, we must leave! Now!"
Enli was in a fugue. "Nina," he said blankly. "My God, I have to save her."
Faren grabbed the duke's sleeve, trying desperately to pull him to safety. "No, sir!" he shouted. "There's nothing to be done for her! Come on!"
"Go, Faren!" cried Enli, snapping free of the man's grasp. "Go and get to safety. All of you! I have to find Nina!"
There was another blast, shattering the sky, and this one was close enough to feel. Enli's nose now burned with a sudden heat as the plume from the flame cannon smashed against a tower wall, wrapping around it like a hand. Two more detonations followed directly. Enli's head rang with their roars. He grabbed Faren's shoulders and shook his friend, demanding his attention.
"Hurry, Faren," he insisted. "Take the others and get back to Red Tower."
Faren's face collapsed with grief. "My Duke . . ."
"Do it!" screamed Enli. With all his strength he pushed Faren toward the woods, then turned and ran toward the barred gates of Gray Tower.
Inside the hall, Colonel Kye could hardly believe his bleeding ears. The place had become a chamber of echoes, so loud and painful Kye thought his teeth would rattle from his jaw. His already wounded men were beginning to vomit from the pressure, hardly able to get to their feet as the barrage hammered their haven and made the walls shake. Vorto hadn't returned from the top of the tower, and Kye wondered if he would at all. He recognized the sound of naval guns and knew they were in a cross fire. Weakly, his head swimming with pain, he put his hands over his ears and got to his feet.
"We have to get out of here!" he shouted, hoping his men could hear him. He gestured to the doors they had barricaded. There was a desperate thumping from the other side. Unbelievably, someone was trying to get in. A pair of legionnaires stumbled forward and began removing the piled furniture from the doorway. Two more blasts rocked the tower. Kye went to join them, to help free them all from their deathtrap, then noticed the teetering cannisters of poison. With each cannon shot the cannisters shivered a little more, threatening to pop their seals. Kye stared at them, not knowing if he should touch them or not. The ceiling overhead began to crumble, shaking down gritty dust and pieces of plaster. The pressure in the hall continued to grow with each blast, louder and louder, until the colonel felt himself blacking out with pain.
Shaking off the agony, he threw himself toward the doors, digging his fingernails into the cracks to open them. His men were grunting and cursing, pulling away the heavy barricades and lowering the wooden bar stretched across the threshold. The banging at the doors continued. Kye heard a desperate voice outside, begging them to open up. When the last of the locks was unbolted, he threw open the doors and was almost barreled over by Enli.
"My daughter!" cried the duke. "Where is she?"
"Get out, you fool!" Kye hissed.
Outside, he could see the deserted courtyard in flames. The horsemen had fled and the ravens had scattered to the winds. The air glowed orange as the naval guns bombarded them, tossing scalding streams of molten fire into the yard and making the granite foundation quake.
Duke Enli heard nothing of Kye's warning. He pushed past the colonel, stumbling through the hall and the crowds of wounded men, now dragging themselves to safety outside.
"Get out, all of you!" Kye clamored. He helped his men to their feet, pushing them toward the door, keeping one eye on the unstable cannisters as he worked. They were metal, he reminded himself. Surely they would hold. But the unbelievable noise had done something to them. Each bombardment made them resonate, loud and louder, until they now sounded like a nest of angry bees. As the tower rocked, so did the cannisters.
Colonel Kye worked like one possessed, desperately helping his wounded men to safety.
High up in the shaking tower, General Vorto stumbled down the stairs, the girl still in his arms. She was biting and kicking but his choke hold was weakening her, and he was determined not to let his only chance at survival slip away. The endless blasts from Nicabar's dreadnoughts had blown off the roof of the tower, and half the stairway stood exposed to the sky, letting wind rush in with the heat from the cannon blasts. A red flash blew by overhead, making him duck. The stairway shook, jarring his knees. Through the ruined wall he could see the Fearless in the distance and knew that Nicabar had come to kill him.
"Let me go!" the girl screamed, wheezing in his hold. She drove her booted feet into his armored shins to free herself. Vorto flexed his biceps to still her, almost snapping her neck.
"You little bitch," he sneered. "I'm going to make your father pay for you!"
His head swam and his face burned from cannon blasts, and the stone risers beneath his feet buckled, threatening to give way. He had barely taken three more steps when he noticed Enli rushing up to greet him.
"Vorto!" cried the duke. "Put her down!"
"Not another step, Enli!" warned Vorto. "Or God help me, I'll snap her like a twig."
"There's no time for this, you idiot. Let her go and we'll both escape. The dreadnoughts--"
"You ordered the dreadnoughts here, you treacherous dog! I came here to help you and this is what you've done! You've ruined us!"
"We can live," argued Enli. "Just put my daughter down."
Vorto shook his head, but before he could speak the girl in his arms slammed an elbow into his jaw, making him stagger. She tumbled out of his arms and down the stairs toward Enli. A cannon blast detonated against the tower, enveloping Vorto in a dazzling heat. When he could see again, he realized suddenly that his armor was smoking. A great pain seized him, a searing of skin and eyeballs. Enli and the girl were looking at him in shock. Vorto screamed in agony as his whole body exploded with fire, covered with the burning fuel from a flame cannon. He staggered down toward Enli, cursing.
"God damn you!" he roared.
Another blast cut off his words. It skimmed the top of Vorto's bald head, blowing out his brains.
"Daughter!" Enli cried. He was blinded by the blast, unable to see her through the orange haze. "Where are you?"
"Father?" came a thin reply. Nina's voice reached him out of the confusion, weak and unsteady. "Father, where are you? I can't see you."
Enli groped along the shaking staircase, blinking against tears and smoke. His own skin was horribly burned. He could feel it through his icy numbness, like acid eating up his flesh. Each step was an agony, but he moved swiftly, dreading what he would find when the smoke cleared.
"I'm here, daughter," he gasped. "I'm coming for you."
The stairway was in flames. Vorto's decapitated body slid down past him. As the smoke and fire cleared, Enli found his daughter. He let out a sigh of relief and scooped her into his arms.
"I've got you!" he told her. "Don't be afraid." Nina's blond head bobbed. Her eyes opened for a brief moment; she was feather-light in his arms. "Father," she moaned. "Am I hurt?" Enli looked at Nina and discovered with horror that her legs were gone, blown off at the thighs and gushing blood. Enli's knees buckled. He fell to the ground with his daughter in his arms.
"You're my daughter," he cried. "My daughter. Mine!"
Nina shuddered. "Is it the truth?" Duke Enli stared at the girl he had called his daughter, the beautiful young thing so much like the woman he had loved. She was very much like her. And his brother.
"Yes," he lied to her. "You are my daughter. Mine alone, Nina."
"Father?" Nina whispered. "I'm still alive. I'm . . ."
Dead.
Enli screamed. All of Dragon's Beak would have heard his cry, but a jagged bolt of orange lightning slammed into the tower, silencing him forever.
Colonel Kye had almost evacuated all his men when the ceiling collapsed.
He lay beneath a bone-crushing slab of granite, his legs shattered, his vision blurred, and watched through angry tears as the cannisters of Formula B shuddered and hissed, ready to bre
ach. The vibrating containers filled the chamber with a high-pitched drone, glistening with dew as the poison inside them heated and stirred, becoming ever more unstable. Outside, his men were hurrying to escape the relentless bombardment. He heard their screams as they cooked in their armor and clawed their way desperately across the yard. But Colonel Kye knew that he was a dead man. The cannisters were just out of reach, and even if he could touch them he didn't know how to stop the reaction setting them off. He cursed, hating life in that instant, hating everything he had ever done for Nar and its indulgent rulers. His life had been a waste.
"Dear God," he prayed. "I am a sinner. If you exist at all, forgive me."
And then the cannisters lost their tenuous cohesion, springing leaks one by one and spewing forth a pestilent vapor.
Colonel Kye shut his eyes, happy to die.
After nearly half an hour of bombardment, Nicabar finally gave the order to stop firing. His signalmen along the Fearless passed the order to the other dreadnoughts, and the world fell eerily silent. Nicabar pulled the tiny balls of fabric from his ears as the smoke cleared. The snow had stopped but the wind was still fierce. A long gale brushed away the last remnants of smoke, until at last Nicabar could see the damage he had wrought.
Gray Tower was a smoking skeleton. Nothing living moved along its courtyard, not even the ravens. Nicabar's first feeling was pride. But then it turned to puzzlement. Surely he couldn't have destroyed everything? And everyone? He snapped open his spyglass and peered toward the tower. Truly, it was demolished. Great fissures gutted the place and the walls were crumbling and smudged with blast marks. But in the courtyard lay an astonishing number of corpses. Ravens rested among the dead, unmoving, littering the white snow, and men that should have made it easily to safety sat frozen on the ground, stiff with death. The bodies of fallen horses dotted the courtyard, not blown to bits by the cannons or pulled to pieces by the birds. To Nicabar's eye, they looked strangely intact.
But when he saw a wisp of green fog, he understood.
"Holy Mother," he whispered. Then, exploding into action, he screamed, "Hoist anchor! Get us out of here! Right god-damn now!"