City in the Sky (38 page)

The pressure of the oncoming Draconan troops was too great, and the Claw companies couldn't retreat. When the survivors of the Second joined Ikeras in his attack, the Draconans simply died.

Even as Erik began to relax, thinking that both flanks were under control, an eerie sound from in front of him drew his eyes inexorably.
Someone
on the other side was playing games, and had brought a full-size brown dragon to the party.

They must have kept it out of sight until the troops had closed to hand to hand combat, as the only
real
threat to a grounded dragon was archers or artillery, and with the archers gone, it was mostly safe. The only other weapons that might be able to hurt it were sky steel, and there were only a handful of those among the defenders.

The only sky steel blade that Erik could reliably locate, in fact, was the one at his belt. He
had
to stay here, though. He couldn't rely on the security of his flanks, and the two companies of former archers with him were the only reserve he had left.

Then the brown lifted its head and launched a fireball, which arced over the Draconans to explode messily in the center of the Aeradi lines. He didn't think it did too much damage, but it scattered the men, and they only barely closed the gap in time to prevent the Draconans pushing through.

With a curse, Erik gestured for his last reserve, the two archer companies, to follow him, and drew his sword.

Erik and his reserves reached the berm where the Aeradi line barely held on, just in time. The brown had closed the range, and chose the moment before they reached the line to hose the Aeradi with flame, driving the soldiers back off of the berm. The heat from the flame beat against Erik's face as he drove forward furiously, leading his men into the fire to block the gap.

The Draconans came surging up out of the ditch, taking advantage of the momentary distraction, but Erik's two companies arrived just in time. With a snarl, Erik led them into the fray, using his greater strength and body weight to spearhead the Aeradi counter-attack.

For a moment, Erik began to appreciate just what the Draconans had been facing all day, as they tried to attack up even the slight height difference of the berm. The Draconan shields covered everything he could reach, and their shorter swords stabbed down.

A man next to Erik went down, a Draconan blade in his guts, and Erik lunged forward into the moment of distraction on the part of his killer. The sky steel blade of his father's sword punched clean through the Draconan's heavy shield to run through the man behind it.

Erik yanked his sword free and shoved the suddenly heavy corpse and shield backwards. The heavily armored soldier knocked several of his compatriots back as he fell, and Erik leapt into the gap opened.

For a moment, he lay about himself almost blindly, cutting down Draconans too distracted by the enemy in front of them to pay attention to the one Aeraid in their midst. Then, just as the Draconans started to focus on him, more Aeradi forced their way into the gap he'd opened, driving the wedge wider.

The Draconan line wavered, and the Aeradi swordsmen pressed their advantage, shoving their way back onto the earthen berm. A fragile balance teetered on the top of the berm, as both sides tried to push the other off.

Erik prepared to drive forward again, but some inner instinct warned him to drop. Obeying without a thought, he only barely avoided the razor-sharp dragon-claws that swept through where his head had been.

The brown dragon and its bonded rider had finally reached the lines, and instead of bothering to use the fire that would have killed their own men as well, had fallen back on teeth, claws and ten meters of nearly-unkillable dragon. Even as Erik ducked under the claws, the spiked tail flicked out, scything through several of their own troops, but smashing half a squad of Aeradi to paste.

The claws came back towards Erik, and this time he lashed out with his sword as he ducked under them. The sky steel scored along the dragon-hide, drawing a blood-red line as it cut through the steel-hard scales.

The dragon screeched, nearly deafening Erik as it rose up on its hind legs, wings flapping as it lashed at him. Erik ducked under the claws, noting with grim humor that the wings had driven back an entire Draconan company.

Evading the creature's lethally sharp tail, Erik lunged in, closing the distance and stabbing his sword into the dragon's right leg. For a moment, it seemed as though the great beast hadn't noticed, then he yanked the blade out and
heard
the hamstring pop.

Before the dragon could fall, however, the great wings beat harder, and lifted its massive bulk from the ground. It rose into the air, and twisted around, bringing its flame-dealing jaws to bear on Erik. The jaws yawned open, a small spark flickering in their depths, and for one instant of horrific clarity, Captain Lord Erik
septon
Tarverro
knew
he was going to die.

Then the dragon exploded in a shower of gore as six crys-bow lightning bolts converged on it, burning it out of the air.

Kolanis' lips twisted in disgust at the sight of the dragon among the ground troops. He could see the value of the great beasts in a ground fight, but he still had to wonder what Skyborne had been convinced to humiliate his dragon so.

He knew, intellectually, that hundreds – if not thousands – of dragons back in the Citadels had their wings clipped and spent their entire lives in one place, driving machinery. That was vastly different, in his mind, from forcing a war dragon, a creature trained to fly and kill in the air, to walk on all fours like an animal, simply because it was convenient.

Inevitably, the dragon rebelled and took to the air, and died under the guns of the forts. All they'd really achieved had been to lose a dragon that could have been far more useful in the air.

It wasn't like they were losing the battle anyway. Even as the sky-major watched, two more regiments entered the Square, moving to reinforce the attackers. The battle would soon be over, and the Aeradi crushed.

Even as he thought that, however, a glint of sunlight caught his eye. He glanced over towards the inner city and swallowed, hard. A moment later, he was scrabbling for his communication tablet.

There had to be
some
way to warn the Claws of what was coming!

The damage the dragon had done to its own ranks opened a gap in the solid Draconan line standing atop the berm. The Claws stood in shock for a moment, staring up as the gory remnants of the dragon rained down on them.

Erik brought his attention back to the surface before they did, and saw the opening. “Newport!” he bellowed, drawing the attention of the Aeradi to him. “Aeradi to me! Push them! Newport!”

He lunged forward into the gap, and the Aeradi around him followed him unhesitatingly. The survivors in the gap the dragon had opened were thrown back onto their own rear ranks, and the gap widened as the Aeradi troops pushed their way back into the formations.

For a moment, Erik was lost in the force of the battle. The rear ranks that should have already closed the gap pushed in hard when they realized what was happening, and Erik and his men met them with glittering steel. The battle wavered for a moment on the top of the berm, the two sides locked in mortal combat.

Finally, slowly, the Aeradi pushed the more heavily armed and armored Draconans back, shoving them off the berm by sheer passionate fury. Erik almost
felt
the line solidify around him as the Aeradi retook the position.

Somewhere along the way, he'd fallen behind the front line, and he paused, breathing heavily as he surveyed the line across the Square of the Gods. All along, the Draconans were pressing against the Aeradi lines, and pressing hard. He had no reserves left to send, and he wouldn't have known where to send them if he did –
everywhere
needed them.

Movement attracted his eyes, and he looked across the Square at the Avenues where the Draconans had originally entered the Square. The sight of two more regiments, another four thousand Claws of the Dragon, entering the Square caused his heart to fall. There were too many Draconans. His handful of militia could
never
hold.

Then a voice bellowed across the Square, at parade-ground volumes and tones that could cut through any noise, any battle. Ikeras had mastered the skill, Erik knew, but few others had. Only the best non-coms and the better officers could do it.

“Archers ready!” the voice bellowed, but that made no
sense
. Erik
knew
he'd brought all of his archers forward to use as reserves.

“Fire!” the voice bellowed again, cutting through the din of the battle, and Erik's disbelief vanished as a storm of arrows passed over his head to hammer the regiments entering the Square. Another volley followed, and another, and Erik turned in place to look behind him.

He was nearly blinded by the glitter of the sun on silver chain mail. No!
Sky steel
chain mail! Neat, ordered lines of soldiers advanced into the Square, leaving a detachment of over eight hundred archers behind to hammer the Draconans.

“Wind Guard!” the voice bellowed. “Advance!”

And the three-thousand strong personal bodyguard of the King of Newport advanced to defend their city.

“Split the ranks,” Erik ordered his signaler immediately.

“Sir?” the man queried.

“They can't charge
through
us!” Erik snapped. “Order them to split the ranks!”

The message passed up and down the line, and slowly, stubbornly, the Aeradi militia and regulars slowly withdrew off of the berm they'd shed so much blood to hold. As they withdrew, they opened gaps in their lines. They weren't large gaps, but Erik hoped they'd be wide enough.

The Claws of the Dragon, many of whom weren't even aware of the arrows hammering their reinforcements behind them, only saw that the Aeradi were retreating, and charged over the berm to follow.

They reached the flat ground on the other side of the berm just in time to meet the Wind Guard coming the other way. Despite everything, the Draconans still had more soldiers than the two thousand Wind Guard swordsmen, and it didn't matter.

The Wind Guard was armored in sky steel, and every man of them was as well trained as the King's money could make them. All of them were veterans of real wars, real battles as Marines and Regulars of their city.

For all the skill and numbers of the Draconans, they couldn't penetrate the Guards' armor, and the Guards were even more skilled. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster, the Wind Guard drove the Draconans, until the regiments broke into a full-scale rout.

Then Erik led his lighter-armored men, who were much faster than the Wind Guard back in to finish the job. Encumbered by their own heavy armor, the Draconans could never have run fast enough to escape.

Only a handful left the Square of the Gods alive.

Somehow, given the way the day had gone, Erik was far from surprised to see Captain Dekker
sept
Corens picking his way across the battlefield towards him, followed by the Wind Guard command group. While the Wind Guard was barracked inside the Palace itself, their officers lived in the main city.

“Erik,” Corens greeted him. “You're in command here, I'm told?”

“I am,” Erik replied. “And you?”

“I was officer on duty,” the Wind Guard captain said simply. “So far as I can tell, not a single Wind Guard officer made it into the Inner City.”

“It was much the same for the Regulars and Militia,” Erik told him. “They planned this
very
well.”

“I'm sorry it took us so long to get here,” Dekker said quietly, “but we'd only barely finished organizing when your officer warned us.”

“My officer?” Erik asked.

“A Lieutenant Felsten,” Dekker told him as he turned to survey the field, where his men, mixed in with the survivors of Erik's, were now clearing the bodies and renewing the defenses.

“He got us here just in time, and the Draconans are done,” he said with quiet pride. “We'll hold them here.”

A day ago, even knowing all that would happen, Erik would have agreed. Today, he'd seen what a single dragon could do to the best troops on the ground.

“And if they bring up dragons on the ground?” he asked.

The Wind Guard's acting commander was silent for a long moment. “We'll stand a better chance than Regular troops,” he said quietly. “But you're right. We could probably take down three or four, perhaps more with the cannon, but if they send in enough, all we can do is die bravely.”

“I dislike any plan that involves dying, bravely or otherwise,” Erik observed. His gaze was resting on one of the great corpses mounding the field, where the forts had shattered an entire
regiment
of dragons. “We need bait,” he muttered to himself.