by J H G Foss
They had come out in a side street, where the gutters flowed with water and clouds of steam rose up from the ground to be beaten back down again by the rain. Off to their right were a small group of gendarmes and with them was Honni. He was the first to see them bust out of the house and quickly pointed them out, shouting and gesturing towards them.
‘Why the little...’ hissed Meggelaine, witnessing the treachery.
‘Come on, Meg, forget about him,’ said Roztov, pulling her away as the others all jogged past, following Ghene in the other direction. She continued to check over her shoulder, as they ducked down side streets and dank rain-soaked alleys.
‘They are still following us,’ panted Meggelaine as they ran.
‘I see them,’ confirmed Roztov. ‘But they won’t come at us in small numbers while we are moving. They just want to follow us and wait for the opportunity to pin us down.’
He glanced up, which made Meggelaine and Floran, who was nearby, look up too. Through the rain and the swirling mixture of smoke and steam they could see the black shadows of the dragons above the rooftops.
‘Ghene, better keep to the small streets,’ said Floran. ‘Or they’ll come down on us.’
Ghene nodded and motioned for them to keep running. After ten minutes or so they all stopped, Roztov came up to the front to see what was going on. They were in an enclosed and abandoned garden between the tenements, with walls on all sides and no doors. The windows on either side were all boarded up. A few straggly weeds grew in the packed earth and mounds of dead vegetation.
‘Etruna curse it, I’m lost,’ admitted Ghene.‘I thought this was the way to the harbour.’
‘The docks are no use anyway,’ said Roztov. ‘We’d never get away. We need somewhere to hide.’
As Ghene was about to speak a shower of roofing tiles shatter across the paving stones. As they looked up, the courtyard was suddenly filled with black scaly wings as one of the manhunters landed on top of them in an undignified heap. Everyone scrambled out of the way as the dragon attempted to gain its feet, but it was stuck down by Broddor stabbing it through the neck with Gronmorder.
‘They’ll not try that again,’ said the dwarf as he wrenched his sword from the dead dragon. ‘Not for a while anyway.’
‘There are more men coming,’ said Floran who was watching the alley they had just came from, and the only way out of the dead end they were in.
‘Listen you druid idiots, we’ll never escape all together,’ said Broddor. ‘Roztov, conjured up one of your fogs, then you druids dig a wee tunnel through yon wall and sneak away. I’ll hold them off here.’
Roztov and Ghene looked at each other, but could come up with no better plan.
‘Very well, Broddor,’ said Roztov. He then began to chant slowly under his breath and with his fingers splayed out extended his arms from his body. In a place like this, summoning up a druidic mist was one of the easiest things to do.
While Roztov did this, the other two druids summoned roots that tore through one of the tenement walls, a hole just big enough to let everyone through.
When the yard was choked full of fog and they all appeared as nothing but grey silhouettes to each other Broddor unslung the bag he was carrying and handed it to Roztov.
‘You can take your bag of dirt with you, I won’t be needing it,’ said the dwarf.
‘Maybe I can summon something up to help you.’
‘Save that for when you need it. Just go, I’ll catch you up.’
Roztov patted him on the shoulder and went to join the others. He was the last one through the hole and he followed Floran who had been bringing up the rear. Up head Ghene was leading them through the abandoned rooms, creating holes where he needed to, trying to get as far away as possible without going back out onto the street. Luckily for them, the area they were in was so densely packed with buildings that they got a quarter of a mile before getting back out into the rain. They stuck to the ground floor at all times and never encountered another soul. No one seemed to live at street level in Stovologard.
Back outside the rain had stopped and there was a rainbow in the sky, between the tall roofs. They walked out into the crowds of Stovologard citizens. With their hoods up and masks on they were indistinguishable from anyone else.
As they walked, Ghene and Roztov leaned their heads together and talked in whispers.
‘I think we are safe enough for the moment,’ said the elf.
‘Let’s hope so,’ replied Roztov. ‘Try and find the docks, surely going downhill should do it. Find your way back to where we had the mushroom beer. I’ll meet you there, I’m going back for Broddor.’
Roztov handed over Broddor’s bag, then took off his own pack and gave it to Arrin.
‘I’ll find it eventually, but will you? You are not attuned for scouting.’
‘No,’ admitted Roztov, ‘but I can find you. I’ll turn into a fox and sniff you out or something. I’ll figure it out, but I’d better go now and get him.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Floran as he unslung his bag and handed it to Tankle. ‘I’ve a feeling you’ll need me.’
‘What’s going on?’ asked Meggelaine urgently, who was too low down to overhear all the whispering.
Roztov leaned down and spoke into her ear. ‘You, Ghene, Arrin and Tankle are going to the docks. Me and Tup are going back to get Broddor.’
Meggelaine was speechless for a moment, wanting to voice caution, but not knowing what the best advice was to give. Eventually she settled on, ‘well just be careful.’
Roztov patted her shoulder, bent back up again, nodded to Ghene and turned, walking back the way they had come. Floran squeezed Tankle’s arm and followed the druid.
Roztov and Floran threaded their way back through the crowds, then through the tenements until they eventually reached the yard where they had left Broddor. The fog had cleared. There were bodies everywhere. Roztov sighed, ‘let’s just follow the trail of the dead, we’ll find him that way.’
They walked down the alleyway into a larger side street. From there they could hear the sound of fighting. Still following the trail of dead bodies they broke into a run, arriving at a junction in the narrow side streets where Broddor was being attacked from all three sides by fifty or more men. There was a fountain in an alcove, about ten feet wide, with murky looking water being spouted out of a stone dolphin’s blowhole. The water in the fountains basin was full of bodies on which Broddor was standing, alive but exhausted and covered in blood. Above the street, six stories up, a black dragon hung from the roof, as if ready to drop onto the dwarf at any moment. Broddor had chosen the ground for his last stand well though, as ten feet tall iron railings protected him on two sides of the fountain and to its rear was the side of a tenement building.
Roztov turned into a bear and Floran leapt onto his back. Roztov the bear charged into the mass of men, rearing up and clawing at their backs. Floran shot a fireball into their ranks at the back, killing some and scattering the others. More men charged in from the other side of the street and a volley of arrows flew at them. Two buried themselves into the thick fur of Roztov’s back and several more bounced off the magical armour that protected Floran.
Floran fired an ice lance at the archers, sending two of them flying ten feet into the air and knocking the others all over the street like skittles.
‘That’s it for me, Roz,’ said the wizard as he leapt from the bear’s back. ‘I’ve only got one of the big ones left for now. I’ve still got the fire flies.’
The men on either end of the street were picking themselves up, helping the injured to get away and retrieving the weapons. As Roztov turned back into a man, the arrows in his fur falling to the ground, Broddor stepped out of the fountain and joined them.
‘I can only stay as a bear for a few minutes at a time,’ said Roztov. ‘This city is no good for a lot of druid magic. I could maybe summon up another swarm of rats, but without Ghene and Meg here I don’t know how many that would be...’
As he talked he looked around, up at the roofs, then back down the street to the alley they had first come out of.
‘We can’t just lead them all back to the others though laddie,’ said Broddor.
‘Maybe another fog...’ muttered Roztov as his attention was drawn to the street ahead of them where a dragon was climbing down off the rooftops. It was knocking bricks out of the walls as it went, using the windows as places to put its claws, shattering glass that crashed down onto the rain soaked cobbles below. It was black, but considerably bigger than the manhunters and had a delicate blue collar around its neck from which hung a small lapis stone that glowed with a sparkling blue light.
Floran raised his hands and fired a cluster of the spells he called ‘fire flies’. These were fast moving balls of magical energy about the size of an apple. Three of them hit a group of gendarmes, knocking them off their feet, but otherwise doing them no great harm due to their armour. Four more of the missiles flew onwards, heading for the dragon, whizzing through the air leaving yellow trails of light. When they reached the dragon though they spluttered and fell, then fizzled out of existence.
‘Oh dear,’ said Floran. ‘Spurn-magic. That’s not good.’
The dragon was on the ground now, and walking towards them in an ungainly fashion. It said something in Draconic and laughed, a deep-throated noise like a cauldron’s contents boiling over into a fire.
‘This is Neith,’ explained Floran. ‘One of the five Stovologard war-dragons, armed with a token of Spurn-magic. We should fear his mighty fire.’
‘He just said all of that?’ asked Broddor.
‘Words to that effect,’ confirmed the wizard.
‘Smug bugger,’ grunted the dwarf. ‘I’ll enjoy wiping the grin off his scaly face.’
Broddor yelled a war cry and charged, knocking aside gendarmes and dragonriders as they tried to stop him. As he got closer the dragon unleashed a truly huge blast of fire that filled the entire street.
Roztov and Floran both gasped involuntary and turned away from the flames. When they looked up, the street was full of burning corpses and Broddor stood alone in the carnage. He shook his head, as if to clear it, then resumed his charge.
‘His armour will not protect him close up,’ said Floran with concern. ‘Its magic will not work.’
‘I know!’ cried the druid, ‘What can we do?’
They edged closer, moving up the street, hiding in doorways and other cover as they went. Broddor met the dragon head on, swiping at its claws as it reared up. Gronmorder landed a telling blow and chopped off one of the dragon’s claws at the second knuckle. Neith roared, coughed and blew out a big gout of flame harmlessly into the air above. Broddor was relentless, charging forward, swinging and swinging as the dragon back peddled, piling its long body up on itself in the most ungainly fashion. It fell over on its back and Broddor leapt onto its exposed belly. He then plunged his sword into the dragon’s chest.
The fight was far from over though, enraged the dragon clawed at the dwarf with its rear legs, sending him falling to the cobbles. Neith rolled over quickly and pounced on Broddor, even as dark draconic blood fell onto the cobbles from his chest wound. The dwarf tried to squirm out of the way, but the dragon had him by the left arm and with a crushing, yanking twist it was pulled clean off.
Released from the dragons grip, Broddor picked up his sword and charged in again, using Gronmorder one-handed with his remaining right arm. With a mighty blow he struck through the dragon’s front claw, straight through skin and bone, pinning it to the street below. Broddor then stood on the claw, and with the last of his strength used is right arm to ram the sword down into the ground as far as it would go. He then put his foot on the hilt and drew his dagger to ward off the dragon’s other claw. It couldn’t get is head down far enough to breath fire and the dwarf was slashing ferociously with his dagger, fending off all the dragons attempts to free itself. Broddor was weakening though, and Neith was growing more frantic. Ignoring the dagger the dragon brought his right claw crashing down on Broddor, knocking him flat.
The dragon held the dwarf under his claw like a cat pinning down a mouse, trying to get a killing grip as Broddor struggled to get free and continued to stab at it. With one claw effectively nailed to the street and a very angry and struggling dwarf in the other, with blood pumping out of a wound in its chest the dragon was becoming desperate. It tried to get is head down to bite at the dwarf, but was stabbed in the nose for its trouble. It wanted to breathe fire, but also didn’t want to let the dwarf go.
Further back Roztov realised, that however this ended it wasn’t going to go well for Broddor who now only had one arm and must surely be bleeding to death. He was about to see his friend die if he didn’t do something.
‘You’ve one big one left Tup?’
‘Yes, enough for an ice lance, but it will be stopped by the dragon’s talisman, won’t it?’
‘Don’t shoot at the dragon, shoot at that roof,’ said the druid pointing above the dragon to the upper stories of the surrounding tenements. ‘Bring it down on top of the bastard.’
Roztov wiped the sweat from his face then rather doubtfully drew his scimitar from his scabbard and ran forward. As he got closer, Floran’s final ice lance swept overhead and a moment later a great pile of tiles, bricks and masonry fell in a cloud of dust into the street, much of it landing on the dragon’s back.
Roztov was hit by a shower of tiles and knocked to the cobbles. His old dented helmet took most of it, but the sharp corner of a broken tile cut a deep gouge through his cheek that filled his mouth with blood. As he picked himself up he put his hand to his face. Painful and bloody as the injury was he didn’t use any of his magic to heal it, saving it for Broddor.
Staggering he edge forward into the ruins. A gendarme, half crazed from dragon fire burns charged at him and Roztov raised his sword. His attacker was then hit by three fire flies that sent him flying backward into the rubble. Roztov made his way as fast as he could through the tangled masonry. Three more men rushed at him, but another group of fire flies struck them down. As he reached where the fighting had been taking place the dragon was attempting to rise, but it was pinned down by two huge beams and a mountain of bricks. It let out a weak roar and tried to rise, but managed no more than a couple of inches before collapsing back onto the ground. I then seemed to notice that it had a dwarf under its claw for the first time. It picked up Broddor’s limp body and tossed it aside dismissively. It tried to shift its body from under the beams, but roared out in pain when its right claw pulled at the sword that still pinned it to the ground. Now, not only the sword, but a five-foot tall pile of rubble pinned down its right foreleg.
Roztov rushed over to help his friend, but leapt back when a jet of flame washed over the cobbles and struck Broddor’s body. The dragon then groaned and lay its head and neck down on the ground.
There was smoke, ash and dust everywhere. Roztov went towards Broddor again, but cried out in dismay as he finally fought his way through the smoke where the body rested. His friend was dead, little more than flame-bleached bones in a pile of blackened armour.
‘Oh Etruna!’ he said with a sob. A figure approached through the smoke and dust and he raised his sword, but it was Floran, holding the sleeve of his robe to his face.
‘Roztov,’ he coughed. ‘You’d better get out of that thing’s line of fire.’
They skirted around the rubble, clambering over beams and piles of bricks.
‘He’s dead Tup,’ said Roztov with a sob.
‘We should leave.’
‘Not without his body. His temple will want it. His father. His wife. And the armour.’
‘Very well, but we need to deal with that dragon first.’
The rubble shifted a little as the dragon tried to pull itself free again, but too much of its body was trapped, indeed, as the smoke cleared a little they could see that both its wings, all of its body and hindquarters, were underneath the wreckage of a tenement roof and much
of the top two storeys. Only its head and part of its neck and its left claw were free.
‘Bone’s blood Tup, you took down a whole building. I hope no one was inside it.’
‘I also, perhaps the fighting drove them away.’
The clambered up onto the rubble that lay across the dragon’s back, then edged towards where its head was. ‘Can you see the talisman?’ whispered Roztov.
Floran looked around. ‘It’s too deeply buried. I can see the hilt of Broddor’s sword though.’
The wizard pointed and Roztov saw that Floran was correct, sticking out of the rubble was the golden pommel of Gronmorder, glinting in the weak smoke and dust filled light.
‘Circle back round, Tup, and distract it for a moment.’
‘Distract it?’ said Floran incredulously.
‘You speak Draconian. Strike up a conversation.’
The wizard whistled, then clambered around the back of the dragon. There were manhunters further down the street, but they were keeping their distance in fear. Floran then ducked down a side street and reappeared further back from another alley. He waved to get the dragon’s attention.
‘Ahem, Coo-ee! Mr Dragon!’ called out the wizard in Draconic. ‘Mr Neith!’
The dragon moved its head around to look over at the man that was hailing him.
‘What do you want?’ it groaned.
‘That’s an interesting talisman you have there.’
‘A Spurn-magic icon, manufactured by our greatest smiths to defend against the dragon’s of the Spire. Who are you that can call forth fire and ice in the manner of a Spire dragon?’
‘I am Floran B’iyano, of the Vizards of Heshmatiye.'
‘Meeting you is not a pleasure. Come closer, so that we may converse further.’
'I think I'll stay where I am.'
'I doubt I am any danger to you in my current condition... wait who is up there?'
The dragon tried to get is head up and around to see what was going on, but it was too pinned down by the beams across its back. It groaned with relief as it felt the sword pinning its right claw being pulled out of its flesh. As it tried to pull its foreleg out from under the rubble it felt a foot on its neck. It froze.