The Dragon King

27 The Walls of Warchester

The cavalry made the courtyard inside the gates and found it surprisingly deserted—even those one-eyes who had just reentered the city had fled for better ground. And that, Luthien saw with despair, would not be difficult to find. Warchester was surrounded not by one wall, but by several, all spiraling around the city proper and offering scores of defensible positions. Cyclopians were terrible with bows and even with throwing spears, but the defenders of the city were not all cyclopian, and Luthien could see just from this one area that those archers among the Avonese ranks would have many opportunities to fire their bows at the invaders. Luthien wished that he had the luxury of proper preparation, that he and Siobhan, Bellick, and some others could sit around a fire with a map of the city’s interior and lay out organized plans. The young Bedwyr had been in enough large-scale battles to know the impossibility of that. He had pointed his forces in the right direction, but now, in the helter-skelter of pitched fighting, each warrior would have to make his own choices, each group would find new obstacles and would have to discern a way around them.

Luthien hated the prospects of this city fighting with so many miles yet to go, but the Eriadorans had gained the main gate, and this was an opportunity that simply could not be passed up. Luthien prodded Riverdancer to his right, where the curving courtyard began to slope up. Most followed in his wake, some went to the left. Still others, mostly dwarfs, went straight ahead at the next wall, hoisting ladders or throwing ropes fixed with strong grappling hooks, then pulling themselves upward, fearless, seemingly oblivious to the many one-eyes who came to defend the high wall.

Luthien didn’t have to go far to find a fight. Just around the bend, he came to a jag in the wall, behind which a score of cyclopians had dug in. Calling for Siobhan, he plunged ahead, cutting down the closest of the brutes with a mighty swing of his heavy sword. Riverdancer trampled yet another one, and then Luthien leaped the horse ahead, leaving the one-eyes behind to the throng coming hard in his wake.

Further around the bend, Luthien was able to gain a vantage point where he might look back to the inner wall directly across from the broken gates. He turned just as a dwarf went tumbling from its height, sliding off the edge of a cyclopian sword. But that brute, and others near it, were overwhelmed as a dozen other bearded warriors crashed in. The wall was taken.

An arrow zipped past Luthien’s face, and he turned to follow its course in time to see it nail another one-eye right in the chest. The brute staggered, but was pushed aside as a wedge of cyclopians charged down the gap between the walls, heading Luthien’s way.

The young Bedwyr and his cavalry unit met them and trampled them.

The central and highest area of Warchester, like all large Avonsea cities, was dominated by a tremendous cathedral, this one named the Ladydancer. Around the structure was an open plaza, which on quiet days served as a huge open marketplace. Now that plaza was swarming, the terrified populace desperate to get inside the cathedral.

But the doors were not yet open.

Deanna Wellworth, Brind’Amour, and Akrass the cyclopian stood on the balcony that opened above the cathedral’s main doors. Over and over, Brind’Amour, posing still as Duke Theredon, called for quiet, and gradually the hysterical crowd did calm—enough so that the sounds of the battle raging along the outer walls of the city could be clearly heard.

That done, the old wizard stepped back, taking a place next to Akrass, and Deanna took center stage.

“You know me,” the woman cried out to the crowd. “I am Deanna Wellworth, duchess of Mannington.”

Several calls came back, some for the opening of the Ladydancer, others asking if Deanna’s garrison would come to Warchester’s support.

“What you do not know,” Deanna went on, and her voice was superhumanly powerful, enhanced by magic, “is that I am the rightful heir to the throne of Avon.”

The people didn’t react strongly, seemed not to understand her point. Of course they knew of Deanna’s lineage, at least the older folk among them did, but what did that have to do with the present situation, the impending disaster in Warchester?

“I am the rightful queen of Avon!” Deanna shouted. She looked to Brind’Amour and nodded, and before Akrass could even begin to digest that proclamation, the one-eye was dead, Brind’Amour’s dagger deep into its back.

“I can no longer tolerate the injustices!” Deanna cried above the growing murmurs and open shouts. “I can no longer tolerate any alliance with filthy one-eyes, nor the truth of Greensparrow! You have heard the rumors of a dragon lighting on the fields south of the city. That was no Eriadoran ally, my people, but our own king, in his natural form!”

Like a giant wave caught between many great rocks, the crowd jostled back and forth, erupting in places, noisy everywhere.

“Hear me, my subjects of proud Warchester!” Deanna shouted. “This is no invading army, but a mercenary force hired by your rightful queen! This is my army, come from Eriador to restore the proper ruler of Avon to her throne!”

Brind’Amour heard a tumult behind him and casually turned about and threw his magical energy into the huge door of the balcony, warping the wood and sealing it tight. “You will start a riot,” he stated, an obvious fact, given the level of commotion mounting below them.

“We need a riot,” Deanna insisted.

Brind’Amour could not disagree. He had seen the defenses of the fortress called Warchester and knew that there remained several thousand cyclopians ready to fight in the place. Add to that the thirty thousand humans who called Warchester city their home and Bellick’s forces were sorely outnumbered.

The old wizard stepped forward, dragging dead Akrass with him. Yet another enchantment—and Brind’Amour was fast exhausting the energy to cast such spells—made the cyclopian as light as a feather pillow, and Brind’Amour lifted the corpse high into the air above his head. “Take up arms against your true oppressors!” the fake Duke Theredon instructed. “Death to the one-eyes!”

That cry echoed back from a surprisingly large number of men and women, and the plaza erupted into chaos. There weren’t many cyclopians about—most were down at the lower walls—but not all of the gathered people would heed Deanna’s call. Thus the riot Brind’Amour had predicted began in full.

“Sort it out,” he bade Deanna. “Find your allies and secure the Ladydancer. Get the wounded and the defenseless inside.”

Deanna was already thinking along those same lines, and she nodded her agreement, though Brind’Amour, in a puff of orange smoke, was already gone to find Luthien.

Deanna continued to prod on her supporters, telling them to join together, to clearly identify themselves. Her speech was interrupted, though, as a heavy spear thudded down on the balcony just beside her. Turning, Deanna saw that several brutes had gained a perch on the tower high above her.

Her response—a crackling bolt of writhing black energy—only bolstered Deanna’s support as it cleared that tower of one-eyes.

Turning back to the crowd, Deanna soon discerned a large group of organized supporters, working coherently and trying to get the innocents behind them, between them and the cathedral doors. The rightful queen of Avon turned and shattered Brind’Amour’s stuck doors with yet another bolt, then fried the band of surprised cyclopians standing in the anteroom just inside. Soon the cathedral doors were thrown wide, and Deanna had her growing army of Warchester rebels.

The riot raged across the plaza.

Brind’Amour knew that his magic was nearing its end for this day. Despite the adrenaline rush and the wild fighting all about him, the old wizard wanted nothing more than to lie down and go to sleep. He used his wits instead, using his disguise to break up groups of cyclopians who were holding defensible regions of the wall by ordering them off on some silly business, weakening the line with improper commands.

It was more than an hour before the old wizard finally spotted some allies, a force of nearly a hundred dwarfs battling fiercely in ankle-deep water on the edge of a small moat surrounding one of the guardhouses. With no magical power to spare, Brind’Amour moved on. It took him another half hour to finally hear the thunder of hooves.

Coming to the edge of a high wall, Brind’Amour saw the forces squaring off on either side of a long and narrow channel: Luthien and a hundred riders, Fairborn mostly, at one end, and a like number of cyclopians on ponypigs at the other.

The charge shook the ground of all the huge city. Luthien’s cavalry gained an advantage with a volley of bow shots, but unlike the encounters on the open fields, they could not strike and then turn away. This time, the forces came crashing together in a wild and wicked melee, many going down under the sheer weight of the impact, others held up in their saddles only because there was no room for them to fall.

Amidst it all, the weary old wizard spotted Luthien on that shining white stallion, his mighty sword chopping ceaselessly, his voice calling for spirit and for Eriador free.

But the cost, Brind’Amour pondered. The terrible cost.

Luthien and nearly half his force broke through, and a swarm of Eriadoran foot soldiers came into the channel behind them, finishing off the beaten cyclopians, tending the Eriadoran wounded, and running off eagerly after the Crimson Shadow.

The fighting soon got worse—by Brind’Amour’s estimation, and by Luthien’s—for it became, in many places, human against human.

It ended late that afternoon, except for a few pockets of fortified resistance, with another victory for Eriador, with Warchester taken. The price had been high, though, devastatingly high, the northern army taking casualties of four out of every ten. Nearly half of Bellick’s fearless dwarfs were dead or wounded.

Support for Deanna Wellworth was strong among the populace, but not without question. The woman had taken credit for the attack, and every family in Warchester had suffered grievously. Still, those Avonese who came out of the Ladydancer that night spoke of the evil of Greensparrow and their common hatred of cyclopians, and, sometime later, of the mercy shown by the conquering Eriadorans, who were tending Warchester’s wounded as determinedly as they tended their own.

Brind’Amour was glad to be back in his own form again, though he was so exhausted that he could hardly walk. He introduced Deanna to Luthien, Bellick, and the other Eriadoran leaders and told them all that had transpired.

“We have won the day,” Siobhan declared, “but at great cost.”

“We’re ready to march on,” a determined Shuglin was quick to respond. “Carlisle is not so far!”

“In good time,” Brind’Amour said to the eager dwarf. “In good time. But first we must see what allies we have made here.”

“And I must return to Mannington,” Deanna added, “to find what forces I can muster for the march to Carlisle.”

Brind’Amour nodded, but did not seem so encouraged. “Mannington is still a city of Avon,” he reminded. “This battle might well be repeated in your own streets, but without the support of Eriador’s army.”

“Not so,” said Deanna. “Most of my Praetorian Guards are out with the fleet, and no doubt at the bottom of the channel by now, and I have sown the seeds of revolt for some time among the most influential of my people.” She managed a sly grin. “Among the bartenders and innkeepers, mostly, who have the ear of the common folk. Mannington will not be so bloody, and a large number, I believe, will follow me out to the south, to Carlisle, where we will join you on the final field.”

It was encouraging news, to be sure, but for the Eriadorans, who had fought through fifty miles of mountains and a hundred miles of farmland, who had fought four battles over the course of one night and one day, the mere thought of continuing the march brought deep and profound sighs. They were tired, all of them, and they had so far yet to travel.

“Keep a transportation spell ready,” Brind’Amour warned, “in case Greensparrow looks in on you and discovers the truth of it all.”

“He will know soon enough,” Deanna replied. “And he will not be pleased.” With a comforting smile, and a pat of her hand on the old wizard’s stooped shoulder, the proclaimed queen of Avon went off.

“Secure the city and our camp,” Brind’Amour instructed Bellick. “We will stay five days, at the least.”

“Time favors Greensparrow,” the dwarf warned.

“Who could have anticipated the fall of Warchester in a single day?” Brind’Amour asked. “I had believed we would be bogged here for at least a week, perhaps even several, perhaps even leaving half our numbers behind to maintain a siege. We have the time, and need the rest.”

Bellick grunted and nodded, and walked off with Shuglin and his other dwarven commanders to see to the task.

Luthien and Siobhan also went off, to determine what remained of their cavalry, and what new horses might be garnered within Warchester. They tallied their number of kills as they walked, after agreeing that they would not count, or even speak of, the men they had necessarily killed this day. Counting dead cyclopians was one thing, a relief from the pressures of the war, an incentive to keep up the good fight. Counting human kills would only remind them of the horrors of war, something that neither of them could afford.

“Sixty-three,” Luthien decided for himself, and Siobhan’s fair face screwed up as she admitted a total of only “Sixty-one.”

Neither of them spoke it, but they both realized that the half-elf would find ample opportunity to catch up in the days, even weeks, ahead.

When the army left Warchester, six days later, they were well-rested and well-supplied, their ranks thick with soldiers indeed, for many of Warchester’s folk decided to join in the fight against Greensparrow, to join in the cause for their rightful queen.

“It is as I told you it would be,” a grinning Luthien said to Brind’Amour as they started out. “Avon will rise against Greensparrow in the knowledge that our cause is a just one. Perhaps we should have continued our last war from Princetown, after we together destroyed evil Duke Paragor.”

“You did predict this,” Siobhan admitted, riding along easily beside the pair. “Though I never would have believed that the folk of Avon would join in the cause of an invading force.”

“They did not,” Brind’Amour said in all seriousness. “Those who have joined have done so only because of one person. Had Deanna Wellworth not risen against Greensparrow, then our fight for Warchester would have been desperate and the army marching from Mannington would be marching against us.”

It was sobering talk, a reminder of just how tentative this had all been, and would likely remain. Brind’Amour said nothing of the sea battle in the Straits of Mann, for he had not found the time or the magical energy to discern how his fleet had fared.

The old wizard could guess at the situation, though, had a good feeling about it all that he kept private until he could be sure.

The rout of Avon was on in full.

Greensparrow paced anxiously about his great throne, wringing his hands every step. He went back to the throne and sat down once more, but was standing and pacing again within a few short moments.

Duke Cresis had never seen the king so agitated, and the cyclopian, who had heard many of the reports, suspected that the situation was even more grave than it had reasoned.

“Treachery,” Greensparrow muttered. “Miserable treacherous rats. I’ll see them dead every one, that wretched Ashannon and ugly Deanna. Yes, Deanna, I’ll take whatever pleasures I desire before finishing that traitorous dog!”

So it was true, Cresis understood. The duke of Baranduine and the duchess of Mannington had conspired with the enemy against Greensparrow. The brutish one-eye wisely held in check its comments concerning the irony, realizing that a single errant word could bring the full wrath of Greensparrow. When the king of Avon was in such a foul temper, most thinking beings made it a point to go far, far away. Cresis couldn’t afford that luxury now, though, not with two Eriadoran land armies and one, possibly two, fleets converging on Carlisle.

Greensparrow went back to the throne and plopped down unceremoniously, even fell to the side and threw one leg over the arm of the great chair. His kingdom was crumbling beneath him, he knew, and there seemed little he could do to slow his enemy’s momentum. If he threw himself into the battle with his full magical powers, he would be putting himself at great risk, for he did not know the full power of Brind’Amour.

There is always an escape, the king mused, and that part of Greensparrow that was the dragon longed for the safe bogs of the Saltwash.

He shook that notion away; it was too soon for thinking of abdicating, too soon to surrender. Perhaps he would have to go to the Saltwash, but only after the Eriadorans had suffered greatly. He had to find a way . . .

“The Eriadoran and Baranduine fleet approaches the mouth of the Stratton,” Cresis offered. “Our warships will hit them on the river, in the narrower waters where the great catapults lining the banks can support us.”

Greensparrow was shaking his head before the brute was halfway finished. “They will sail right past the river,” the king explained, confident of his words, for he had seen much in his days of dragonflight. “A battle is brewing on the open waters south of Newcastle.”

“Then our eastern fleet will join in, and we will catch all the Eriadoran ships and those of treacherous Baranduine in between!” the cyclopian said with great enthusiasm. “Our warships are still the greater!”

“And what of the Huegoths?” Greensparrow snapped, and fell back helplessly into his throne. That much of what Deanna had told him was true, he had confirmed. A great Huegoth fleet was sailing with the Eriadorans in the east. In his dragon form, Greensparrow had swooped low, setting one longship aflame, but the wall of arrows, spears, even balls of pitch and great stones that rose up to meet him had been too great, forcing him to turn for home.

He had gone to Evenshorn first, and there had confirmed that Mystigal was not to be found. Then, flying high and fast to the west, he had spotted the second Eriadoran army sweeping across the rolling fields between Deverwood and Carlisle, like an ocean tide that could not be thwarted. Still, it wasn’t until Greensparrow had arrived back in Carlisle, his fortress home, that his spirits had been crushed. In the time the king of Avon had taken to go so far to the east and back, many had come running down from the region of Speythenfergus to report the disaster in Warchester, and word had passed along the coast and up the Stratton about Duke Ashannon’s turnabout in the Straits of Mann.

Cresis appeared truly horrified. “Huegoths?” the cyclopian stammered, knowing well the cursed name.

“Evil allies for evil foes,” Greensparrow sneered.

The cyclopian’s eye blinked many times, Cresis licking its thick lips as it tried to sort out the stunning news. To the brutish general, there seemed only one course.

“One army at a time!” Cresis insisted. “I will march north with the garrison to meet our closest enemies. When they are finished, if time runs short, I will turn back for Carlisle to prepare the city defenses.”

“No,” Greensparrow said simply, for he knew that if the garrison went north, that second Eriadoran army would swing west and catch them from the side. Greensparrow was even thinking that he had better focus his vision on Mannington for a while, to see if treacherous Deanna had raised an army of her own to march south.

“Prepare the defenses now,” Greensparrow instructed after a long silence. “You must defend the city to the last.”

Cresis didn’t miss the fact that Greensparrow had not said “We must defend the city to the last.”

With a click of his booted heels and a curt bow, the cyclopian left the king.

Alone, Greensparrow sighed and considered again how fragile his kingdom had become. How could he have missed the treachery of Deanna Wellworth, or even worse, how could he not have foreseen the efforts of the duke of Baranduine against him? As soon as Deanna had reported the supposed fight with Brind’Amour, Greensparrow should have gone straight off to find Taknapotin or one of the familiar demons of the other dukes and confirmed her tale.

“But how could I have known?” the king said aloud. “Little Deanna, how surprising you have become!” He had underestimated her, and badly, he admitted privately. He had thought that her own guilt, his cryptic stories and those of Selna, and the carrot of ruling over Mannington, and perhaps soon in Warchester as well, would have held her ambition in check, would have kept Deanna bound to him for the remainder of her life. Greensparrow had long ago seen to it, using devilish potions administered by his lackey Selna, that Deanna would bear no children, thus ending the line of Wellworths, and he had sincerely believed that Deanna could prove no more than a minor thorn in his side for the short remainder of her life.

How painful that thorn seemed now!

His northern reaches had crumbled and four armies were on the move against him. Carlisle was a mighty, fortified city, to be sure, and Greensparrow himself was no minor foe.

But neither was Brind’Amour, or Deanna, or Ashannon McLenny, or this Crimson Shadow character, or the Huegoths, or . . .

How long the list seemed to the beleaguered king of Avon. Again that dragon side of him imparted images of the warm bogs of the Saltwash, and they seemed harder to ignore. Perhaps, Greensparrow considered, he had erred so badly because he had grown weary of Avon’s throne, had grown weary of wearing the trappings of a mere human when his other side was so much stronger, so much freer.

The Avon king growled and leaped up from his throne. “No more of that, Dansallignatious!” he yelled, and kicked the throne.

I would have kicked it right through the wall, the dragon side of him reminded.

Greensparrow bit hard his lip and stalked away.