Paladin's Fall: Kingdom's Forge Book 2

by Kade Derricks

  “We had some of his army, not the whole of it,” Harren growled. “He kept a large portion of them back, waiting for Chalmer to make his move.”

  “If it’s impossible, then why keep us here? Why not send everything against the elves?”

  “Three reasons,” Harren said without hesitation. “First, if we all left, they could rebuild one of the walls. Second, Chalmer has no doubt convinced him that we might sympathize with the elves, and thus are best utilized here at Thistleton.”

  “Enough to rebel against the Empire?”

  Harren shrugged. “Who can say?”

  Dain wondered for a moment if his father had considered betraying the Empire. Through Thave and others he had contacts among the elves. With this army at his back and more from their homeland, he could change the course of that war. No, Father is entirely too honorable for that. He might defy the Emperor, might argue and drag his feet, but he’d never betray him.

  “And the third reason?”

  “Pride. No emperor has admitted defeat to an enemy since the Empire fought the Highlands, and you know how that ended. Pelion will never allow an enemy to defy him, even if the whole of the Empire has to burn for it.”

  Dain stared out at the wall. Three reasons, and he couldn’t argue with any of them.

  Those last two walls must come down. There has to be a way—a way that everyone’s been ignoring, dismissing.

  He looked back at Kag and Zek and the others, who had been watching Dain’s exchange with his father with quiet alertness. He thought of the faces of his friends who weren’t there with them, and in that moment missed them all terribly. He missed Strale’s steadfast desire to heal and even Falion’s stealth and clever trickery, quick fingers always pinching something of yours just when you’d let your guard down.

  You never saw him coming.

  “What if we had fewer troops?” Dain asked. “What if we had fewer than a thousand? How would you do it then, Father?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Emperor’s army started packing at dawn. At the army’s outer edges, men and camp followers alike prepared to leave. The orders had arrived. In light of the developments in the east, every soldier save for the Paladins and a select few of Lord Harren’s men were needed to protect the capital.

  Thistleton’s defenders watched them go. They cheered from the battlements as the first group marched south over the horizon. Two days later, when the last group departed, the women and even some children of Thistleton joined them atop the wall. Horns blew, their banners soared, and scraps of colored paper, red and blue and green, rained down alongside soft flower petals. The air was alive with applause and laughter.

  After five terrible years, the people of Thistleton lived a day without the threat of an invading army at their door. Dain imagined there would be a great celebration tonight. They’d defied the Empire and won. Only the Highlands had ever managed that, and even they had bent the knee in the end. He smiled to himself. The festivities could go for days. Pity I won’t be able to see them.

  From the rocky little outcropping, Dain sat his horse and watched it all. His fellow Paladins joined him, as did Harren.

  “How did you convince the others?” Bental asked.

  “We showed them the Emperor’s signed order. What else could they have done?” Harren said.

  Bental shifted, the leather of his saddle creaking. “We’ll all be executed. If Pelion finds out you forged his signature we’ll walk the gallows.”

  Dain shrugged. “Maybe. Though we’ll have to survive first to be executed. Besides, if our plan fails, it will cost the Empire nothing but our lives.”

  Bental shook his head. “I don’t know how I let the two of you convince me to go along with this.”

  “My son and I can be quite convincing when we put our minds to it. We’ve teamed up to convince my wife plenty over the years,” Harren said. He studied the celebrations atop the wall. There was an amused curl to the side of his mouth, but his eyes were cold and calculating. “And part of this was your idea, Bental.”

  “Each of us had a part in it,” Dain interjected.

  “There’s the first load,” Zek said, pointing.

  A line of wagons, two dozen altogether, each laden with long wooden poles, lumbered over the horizon.

  “Are we decided, then? On where to build it?” Dain asked.

  “It’s risky. There’s a lot of ground between there and the tents,” Bental replied.

  “There is always risk in war. If we wanted to take the less risky path, we could have continued to do nothing,” Harren said. “And I am sick of doing nothing while the fate of the Empire is decided by that pigheaded fool Chalmer.”

  When the wagons arrived, they dumped their loads in piles and the construction began. In a large square, they hollowed out a ditch and piled the soil into a heap inside a smaller square. Atop the heap they buried the wooden posts, forming a wall. In the center they left a broad avenue for the cavalry to ride through. Everyone worked, and progress was quick.

  Thistleton’s defenders watched the project with growing interest. Gradually, more and more people lined the walls, watching them work; Dain could see them through his spyglass. He could tell the important ones by the decorations on their armor or the tall, feathered plumes on their helms. The plan was starting to work. He watched them pointing and gesturing as the small wooden fort took form.

  They don’t look pleased. Not happy at all, I’d say.

  At the end of the fourth night, Dain sat in a steaming bathtub outside the Paladin quarters. He stared up at the wall, exhausted. His muscles and joints creaked and groaned under the day’s strain. Even with all his training and conditioning, digging ditches was backbreaking work. The moon rose to join the stars and the evening air was both cool and pleasant.

  “I know this is your plan and all, or at least partly your plan,” Zek said as he pulled up a chair beside him, wincing as he sat. “But are you sure this is going to work?”

  “Nothing is certain, but I didn’t come here to wait outside the wall with all the others. Bental and my father both approved it; made suggestions and improvements, even,” Dain said.

  “As someone who’s waited outside the wall for a long time, I agree,” Lord Harren said as he and Bental joined them. From his pocket, Dain’s father removed a telescope and studied the wall’s defenders. There were dozens of men up there, lit by torchlight.

  “There are more of them tonight,” Dain said.

  “Yes. I see at least three of their generals. They are pointing to the fort and arguing,” Dain’s father agreed. “I think they’ll try tomorrow.”

  “Should we head for the fort early?” Zek asked.

  “No. For this to work, everything has to be exactly the same. They have to be confident they can predict our actions,” Dain said. “We dare not break the pattern.”

  “How did you come up with this, anyway?” Bental asked.

  Dain’s father snorted. “The Wampus did it first.”

  “What?” Zek said. He gave Dain a confused look. “I thought this was your idea.”

  “I should clarify,” Harren said. “In the Wolfstaag peaks that border the Highlands, the Wampus is the most feared of hunters. Even the trolls are terrified of them, and they’ve lived in the mountains for generations. The Wampus isn’t the fastest or the largest or even the most deadly of creatures. He is the most cunning.”

  “What exactly is a Wampus?” Zek asked.

  “Similar to a jaguar. Brown and grey, though, instead of spotted. Fully grown, a Wampus stands a foot taller than a wolf, and he’ll outweigh one three times over. He’s got long retractable claws—very sharp—incredible senses of smell and hearing, and day or night he can see for miles.”

  “None of those make him the most feared, though,” Dain
interrupted.

  “Are you telling this story or am I?” Harren paused to give Dain a look, then continued. “What makes the Wampus so feared is his cunning. They appear to think almost like a human hunter would. Sometimes, after a kill, the Wampus will leave a portion of the meat lying out in the open. Then he’ll head up into the rocks and lie down to wait.”

  “Wait for what?” Bental said. It seemed even the older Paladin was interested in the story.

  “He waits and he waits and he waits. No matter how hungry he gets, he just watches that meat he left behind—until finally something comes along to claim it. Maybe a wolf or bear or troll…or human, even,” Harren said. “And when it does, the Wampus springs out of the rocks and kills it. In this way, the Wampus outthinks its prey.”

  “You based your plan on a cat?” Zek said.

  Dain nodded, smiling. “I was thinking about Falion and his habit of lying in wait for the perfect moment to nick something, and that led to the Wampus.”

  Zek groaned and covered his face with his hands. “We’re going to die.”

  “We’re all going to die, boy,” Harren said. “It’s just a matter of when and how.”

  The following day they headed out to work as before. The walls on the small fort were almost finished; only a short section in the rear remained open. They shrugged off their packs, picked up shovels and axes, and started to work. For an hour all went as before—then, gradually, Dain noticed more and more people atop the wall. These weren’t all soldiers. Among them were women and children and what looked to be other townsfolk in plain clothes, as well.

  “Do you see them?” Zek asked, breath coming hard as he dug.

  “I see them. I’m sure father and Bental see them as well.”

  “What time do you think?”

  “An hour, maybe more. They may let us wear ourselves out a bit before moving,” Dain said. He pitched a shovelful of dirt against a post then tamped it down with his boot.

  There was but a single thick gate in Thistleton’s outermost remaining wall. It raised and lowered by way of two great chains. The invaders had attacked it without mercy for years, but there was a jut of wall extending out over the gate, and the defenders poured boiling oil, arrows, fire, and stone down on anyone who tried it. Bental assured him it was a deathtrap. Dain had no doubt that they’d reinforced it with stone behind while under siege. From the half-completed fort, Dain could see it. Around noon, the gate crept slowly open like a maiden dipping a toe to test her bath water.

  Dain and the other men stopped working. They leaned on their shovels and stared at it. No one moved. Then the first row of soldiers emerged. The crowd gathered on the wall cheered them on.

  “To your gear!” Dain yelled. The men dropped their shovels and raced across the fort. In the corner was a tarp covering their armor. Dain ripped the canvas away and scrambled to help Zek with his plate.

  He kept one eye on the approaching soldiers. After gathering into formation, they had set out with a quick march. They were less than a mile out and closing. In another minute they would pass the tents.

  He and Zek switched places and Dain donned his own plate. He belted his sword over his back then jostled it, making sure the blade was loose in its scabbard.

  “Feeling like a midday run?” he asked, grinning.

  “In full armor, under a hot sun? I’d rather not,” Zek said. “We should have brought the horses.”

  Dain glanced at the others. There were four hundred of his father’s men here; he and Zek were the only two Paladins. The rest—Bental’s surviving men along with Trysen, Dremble, and Kag—waited hidden in the tents along with his father, Lord Bental, and another two hundred Highlanders.

  “Think they’ll check the tents?” Zek asked.

  “No. But if they do, we run.”

  “How many do you think?” Grenier, his father’s bannerman, said. Grenier was an older man, grey of hair and ever serious. He’d served with Harren since Dain was a small child.

  “Four or five to every one of us,” Dain said. “Every soldier they have will want a piece of us, and I bet they’ve emptied out the whole city to watch.”

  “You were counting on that,” Grenier said.

  “Hoping for it. It’ll make things easier,” Dain said.

  “Five to one…I’m not sure how much easier I can take,” Zek said, checking the clasps on his armor again.

  All three climbed the soil bulwark to watch as the approaching enemy drew nearer. They were even with the tents now. They ignored them as they passed by, intent on reaching the fort, and Dain sighed in relief.

  “Halfway there,” he said. Thistleton’s men were impressive. Like the good soldiers they were, they marched in steady, even steps, and the officers among them rode horses clad in brightly polished armor. Long plumes of purple and red and gold flew from their lances.

  The plan was working, but Dain’s nerves still felt frayed. His hands shook with the strain of holding himself back. The wait was agonizing. More than anything he wanted the battle to begin.

  “Rub some dirt between your hands, lads,” Grenier advised. “It will help with grip.”

  Dain scooped up a handful of earth and ground it against his palms, the coarse grain of it digging into his calluses. His stomach churned and he was glad he’d eaten sparingly at breakfast.

  “Let’s get ready,” Dain said. He climbed down the bulwark and took a spot at the gate’s center. It was time. The enemy was close now, half the distance between the tent and the fort. The rattle of their armor and the pounding of their horses’ hooves filled his ears.

  Dain drew his sword. He rushed forward, followed by four hundred shrieking armored men.

  Confused, the men of Thistleton paused. They were supposed to be the aggressors here. They had the enemy outnumbered five to one. Why would the enemy charge them? Why would they give up their fortifications? Unsure of what to do, they looked to their mounted officers, then to each other.

  The first officer spurred his horse and renewed the charge. Dain saw the man’s mouth open, but his hammering pulse rang so loudly in his ears that he heard nothing. Checking his grip on the hilt of his sword, Dain headed straight for him.

  The charging soldier raised his weapon, the glint of his blade catching the sun. His horse had only taken two strides when an arrow caught the beast in the chest. The horse whipped his head and tripped. End over end it spilled in a cloud of dust, and the officer pitched ahead.

  The man tried to rise.

  Poor bastard doesn’t know when to stay down. Dain’s sword took him across the neck and then he ran on.

  Even before the charge hit, Thistleton’s army started to buckle. Taken completely by surprise by the answering assault, they hadn’t raised spikes or overlapped shields. Only a handful had even unsheathed their swords.

  Dain, Zek, and Grenier slammed into their lines, hacking and chopping and stabbing their way through the first three rows.

  Still, most of the Thistleton men hadn’t drawn their swords. Their officers screamed at them, and finally those at the back gathered their wits. They drew their weapons and pushed forward.

  Dain felt their surge, and the fighting grew fiercer. There were no formations now, only a melee of blood and shouts. He matched off against a dismounted officer. The man lunged with his sword and, with the flat of his blade, Dain slapped it aside. He countered with a sweeping slash and it clanged against the man’s faceplate. Dain drove his sword tip into the man’s shoulder joint.

  The officer struck back wildly, and Dain backed away.

  He stepped aside as the officer stabbed his sword forward. Dain brought his own sword around and the blade bit deep into the armor at the officer’s back. His opponent staggered forward, then fell.

  Behind the battle lines, Dain found himself alone. His s
word was coated in blood, as was his armor. The bulk of the fighting was moving away. He looked over Thistleton’s men and saw the tents.

  While he watched, his father and Lord Bental burst from under the tarp. Kag, the other Paladins, and the rest of his father’s men all followed behind. Instead of coming to aid them, the mounted men raced full tilt toward the open gate.

  Breathing hard, Dain calculated how long it would take them to get there. In less than a minute he would know if their plan would succeed.

  The rising clang of steel nearby brought his attention back to his own battle. Thistleton’s army was pushing forward now. His father’s men were falling. A flash of Light erupted ahead of where Zek was grappling with a Thistleton soldier, and Dain ran to join him.

  He saw Zek fall. He tried to raise his sword and it was beat aside. A giant of a man stood over Zek. He lowered his broad axe to Zek’s throat, measuring, then raised it.

  Dain roared. He drew on the Light, the power surging into him with almost dizzying speed, and rammed his shoulder into the giant’s waist. The bigger man toppled back. Dain pushed the Light into his sword. It flashed white, and the blade parted the giant’s breastplate like paper.

  “Thanks,” Zek said as Dain helped him to his feet.

  Dain didn’t have time to respond; the enemy was on them again. For what seemed like hours, they fought. Dain fell, rose, and fell again. He fought beside Zek and Grenier and others, until finally, mercifully, the enemy broke and ran.

  “We have to stop them,” Dain said, panting and wiping blood from his brow.

  “How?” Grenier said. “The men have nothing left after that. We can’t chase after them.”

  “We have to get to the tents. Our horses are there. We can ride them down.”

  “Why? They are done—they don’t have any fight left in them, either,” Zek said.