Worldbinder

HEROICS

At Cantular, Warlord Madoc fought for his life, swinging his battle-ax, cleaving a wyrmling’s head even though he had to strike through the creature’s helm. As the wyrmling fell, Madoc peered back across the bridge.

The fortress on the north end of the bridge was lost, and for nearly a mile along the bridge’s length the wyrmling troops were backed up, pressing to reach the fortress on the southern banks.

Madoc and his men were fighting their way into the south fortress, trying to fend off the wyrmlings on their tail. They hadn’t been able to get the drawbridge up in time, and only managed to close the portcullis gates. And so his men fought the wyrmlings as they tried to climb the gates and walls.

The floodwaters roared through the river, which was white with foam. Apparently it had rained in the mountains, and trees and brush raced past, swirling in the moil.

There had to be ten thousand wyrmlings on the bridge, while enormous graaks glided overhead, snaking down to strike at Madoc’s troops on the fortress wall.

The battle was lost. Fewer than a hundred men held the south fort, and they could not hold out for long.

But Madoc had one last trick for the wyrmlings: It was there, under the bridge-a trap, cunningly wrought. It had been there for a hundred years.

A single rope woven from cords of steel held the bridge aloft. The rope connected to a series of supports, and if it was pulled hard enough, the supports would tumble, and the bridge would collapse. Even now, the Emir and a dozen men were under the bridge, turning the great screw that would pull the cable while Madoc and his men fought.

Madoc screamed “Beware above!” as a giant graak swooped. His men hurled a dozen war darts, most of which went hurtling into the monster’s open maw, burying themselves in the roof of its mouth or in its gums. Their poison seemed to have no effect. But one dart went hurtling into the beast’s eye and disappeared in the soft tissue of its eyelid. The creature blinked furiously, snapped its head.

Madoc leapt away as the giant graak’s lower jaw hit the tower wall, knocking over stones, sweeping them away.

Then the monster was past, and wyrmling warriors leapt into the breach, howling in glee.

“Despair take you!” a great wyrmling lord shouted, leaping toward Madoc with two axes in his hand.

Madoc ducked beneath his swing, even as a battle dart whizzed past Madoc’s shoulder.

“Not today,” Madoc spat as he split the lord’s skull and then instantly kicked the wyrmling, sent him tumbling thirty feet to land on his fellows. A pale hand grasped onto the wall, and with a quick stroke, Warlord Madoc severed it from its owner.

There was a sudden grinding sound and a series of snaps beneath the bridge as the steel rope pulled its first support free. “Beware!” the Emir shouted. “Everyone out of the way!”

Then the bridge collapsed.

The first break appeared forty yards out from the fortress. Huge blocks of stone went crashing into the wine-dark waters. Wyrmlings screamed in surprise-a fearful shout, deliciously cut all too short as they were swallowed by the river.

Then the whole bridge suddenly snapped for a mile in the distance, seeming to shatter one section after another, and great portions of it sank beneath the waves.

Dust and debris rose in the air, and the water churned, sending white plumes high, creating a silver streak across the river where the black bridge had spanned.

Only on the bulwarks, every two hundred yards, did portions of the bridge remain standing, and even those began to tilt inexorably into the river as wyrmlings screamed and tried to hold on.

Perhaps five thousand wyrmlings were suddenly gone, while here and there a few dozens or hundreds clung to portions of the bridge, now stuck out on small islands in the roaring flood.

Madoc’s men screamed and cheered and went leaping over the gates onto what little of the bridge remained intact, driving the wyrmlings toward the water.

The wyrmlings that were closest drew back a pace, tried to find the room to fight. But their fellows behind were pushed, and some of them went screaming into the waves.

Madoc turned away, left his men to finish the job. He had more urgent concerns back at Caer Luciare.

With mounting excitement he realized what a victory he had won here this night. He would be hailed as a hero at Caer Luciare. And when Urstone was dead, the people would beg him to be their new king.

All he had to do now was race back to Luciare and save what he could of the city.