Cloak & Dagger: Book II of The Dragon Mage Trilogy (44 page)

Another strategy that played itself out well was when General Larsen appeared on the defenders’ right flank with his full complement of cavalry. His task was to prevent the attackers from circling around the moat on the east side where moat construction had ceased. He charged the enemy’s left flank at full speed, taking out a large swath of enemies. The cavalry did a sharp U-turn and continued their attack at full speed. As quickly as the cavalry appeared, it vanished around the back of the battlements. A hidden doorway constructed within the walls opened up, allowing the cavalry inside. The door closed again, any evidence of an opening vanishing entirely. General Larsen planned sporadic attacks like this as the war raged on. He had to use the cavalry wisely to make them last as long as possible.

Unfortunately, the numbers of attackers were still too great. The humans were still being pushed back toward the moat.

The youth fighting alongside Cyril was openly bleeding in several spots, but didn’t seem to notice as he slashed at a sea of green ugly creatures. Cyril continued swinging his light magical mace with ease, killing monsters without even touching them. Any creatures that got too close had to contend with the old woman’s spear. She repelled attackers so Cyril could swing his mace to full effect.

Rebecca lost two more farmers, leaving the drunken one with the pick axe. He was a big man who had little difficulty swinging the pick axe, but he was still sweating with exertion. Both his size and the fact that he was sweating meant the ale’s effect was quickly wearing off. His blows were becoming more accurate, and any creatures who approached were wary of his fierce expression. With hardly anyone on either side of her, Rebecca discovered more and more creatures pressing in on her from all sides. She withdrew her dagger and was forced to fight with the hand axe in one hand and the dagger in the other. Her training at home had covered one-handed attacks, and she was grateful for every technique she had learned. Her axe and dagger were a blur of motion as the dwarf danced and spun with amazing agility. Every time the dagger penetrated the flesh of her enemies, the blinding flash and blood curdling screams of orcs, goblins and ogres rang across the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Cyril was having fun killing several opponents at a time with his magical mace. He didn’t notice the fireball intended for him until he staggered off balance, stumbling over a dead body. The fireball whizzed past him and struck the drunken youth in the chest. The youth fell down and lay still. Angered, Cyril turned to face the spell caster who stood only a few feet away. The lizardman scowled and prepared to cast another spell. Cyril growled and moved toward the lizardman, staring at its ugly expression. It wasn’t until his third step that Cyril noticed something interesting. The lizardman wasn’t moving. He was paralyzed! The cyclops stopped and turned to the old woman. Without looking at her directly, he said, “He’s all yours.”

The woman pursed her lips and thrust her spear into the lizardman’s chest. The spell caster fell to the ground silently. The old woman gave Cyril a satisfied expression but the cyclops had turned to face some new adversaries. These opponents were what Cyril had been waiting for - fellow cyclops.

There were two of them and they were both bigger and stronger than Cyril. Cyril didn’t care. He almost laughed when they intoned, “Look into my eye!” Did they actually think he was susceptible to that magic? With a lightning quick lunge, he launched himself at the closest one. It caught the cyclops off guard. In the collision, Cyril and the cyclops fell to the ground. Cyril thrust his elbow into the cyclops’ throat and sprang to his feet. With his trusty mace still in hand, Cyril jabbed its handle into the standing cyclops’ midriff. Then, while the cyclops was gasping for air, Cyril brought his mace down hard on the first cyclops’ head. The skull caved in like a melon. Then Cyril swung his mace around to do combat with the second cyclops. That cyclops brought its own club up to parry Cyril’s mace and the weapons came to a dead stop. Then the cyclops with the club gurgled and blood trickled from the corners of its mouth. It had a surprised expression as it looked down at its chest. Protruding from between its ribs was a spear. Cyril didn’t hesitate long, and clobbered the cyclops over the head with his mace, putting it out of commission for good. The old woman stepped forward and retrieved her undamaged spear. Cyril marveled at this old woman’s skill and bravery but said nothing.

The next challenge for Rebecca and Cyril was something they had never encountered before. A group of brown creatures made of earth lumbered toward them. They were a magical creation of the earth elemental known as golems.

A well-placed spear thrust by the old woman penetrated the golem’s chest. It did nothing to hurt or injure the golem. Cyril stepped forward and bashed the creature with his mace. Chunks of the creature sprayed in all directions, yet it kept coming. Cyril wasn’t quick or agile, but compared to the golem, he was fast. He took a couple more swipes at the golem before it punched him in the chest with a rock hard fist. The cyclops staggered back, winded, but sprang back to swing his mace hard against the golem’s head. The head shattered into bits of rock and clay and the body stopped moving. Then the body crumbled into a pile of dust at Cyril’s feet.

Rebecca had a similar experience. She sliced off the golem’s arm with her axe and then dodged the golem’s other arm as it tried to punch her. Swinging around, the dwarf sliced off the golem’s outstretched arm leaving it unarmed. The creature stood there uncertainly, long enough for the dwarf to slice her axe deep into its neck. In what seemed like slow motion, the golem’s head toppled from its shoulders. Then the body collapsed just like Cyril’s opponent, into a pile of dust.

Across the battlefield, screams and yells could be heard as the inexperienced farmers stabbed and hacked at the golems in a futile effort to kill them. Rebecca and Cyril had discovered how to defeat the golems, but there was no way for them to communicate that to anyone in the midst of battle.

A sudden, burning light appeared behind the defenders, causing most fighters to glance in the light’s direction. A gigantic flaming figure stood high above the crowd. It was Tyris. He spread his fingers and from his fingertips sprang numerous bolts of flame. These bolts became tiny figures of flame, like miniature fire elementals. They ran through the fighters with incredible speed, seeking out orcs, goblins, ogres, lizardmen and cyclops. When they found them, they set the creatures ablaze. Even the lizardmen couldn’t defend themselves, since magic was useless against elemental magic. When the mini fire elementals encountered the golems, they attempted to set them ablaze, but the golems were fireproof. The fire elementals were simply absorbed by the golems. But that wasn’t the end of the fire elementals. They continued to burn inside of the golems. Eventually, the golems became red hot - then white hot. Finally, the heat was so intense the golems became like molten magma. The golems could do nothing as their bodies built up with so much heat they exploded in a shower of stones and debris. All fighters from both sides ran to avoid being showered with molten debris. When the scene settled, both the mini fire elementals and golems were gone. The earth elemental continued making golems while Tyris made more mini fire elementals to help the sides they fought for.

The introduction of Tyris’ flame creatures gave the defenders hope and momentum, and for the first time, they pushed the attackers back ever so slightly.

Another ongoing battle was the magical one. The close combat was taking its toll on the grey mages, and their numbers were dwindling rapidly. Lizardmen were doing more damage with isolated fireballs and ice bolts and they were casting more ‘slow’ and paralyze’ spells that were hindering the defenders. The tide was turning in favour of the attackers again.

The new surge of enemies pushed Cyril and the old woman back even further. They now had their backs to the moat. The farmer who had been fighting with Rebecca had gotten lost in the confusion, so Rebecca stood with Cyril as the last survivors of the front lines were forced to put up their most valiant resistance. The battle was intense, but the numbers were too few to fend off the tide of darkness. Lieutenant Farnsworth was bloody and battered when he signaled the retreat. The defenders withdrew across the makeshift bridges of the moat while archers in the remaining towers gave the army a chance to escape. The hordes of darkness followed the humans, showers of arrows raking their number as they pursued.

Once the humans were across, a signal was given at each bridge and the footings were blown using magical fire sticks. One by one the bridges collapsed into the moat and those fortunate enough to avoid the arrows were thrown into the cold waters of the moat. Those who could swim tried to reach the shore without getting hit by arrows. And if that wasn’t challenging enough, a number of mermaids in the western end of the moat surfaced to pull unsuspecting enemies down under the water. Very few of those creatures were able to come back for air.

The battle along the shoreline of North Lake surged back and forth as the sailors battled valiantly with the support of the ships’ cannons. The cannons were the only thing that prevented the sailors from being overrun, the lethal cannon balls doing damage to large contingents of enemies at a time. Captain Rubin was at the forefront, his sailors fighting as valiantly as their captain. Providing support from behind with her bow was Della the elf. She was too busy to wonder where Kazin was.

Alric tread carefully as he selected his victims. He could only use his dagger to stab a few enemies here and there without being detected. His dagger thrusts were quick and lethal. By the time the body fell, he was long gone in the crowd of enemies. The elf kept this up as he searched for the lizardmage who had used him. Lizardmen were difficult to tell apart, but Alric had a good eye when it came to identifying his targets. His experience with tracking targets he was planning to steal from gave him an edge in that skill. So far, he never saw anyone close, but he still had plenty of territory to cover. Undoubtedly, the lizardmage he sought would be higher ranking and positioned near the back of the army out of harm’s way. He was presently working his way to the back. Thankfully, this led him away from the heavily guarded earth elemental, who was now approaching the moat. Even back here the ground shuddered with each step the elemental took. Monsters and humans alike kept falling to the ground like drunken idiots. The elf used this to his advantage by stabbing some orcs and ogres who were trying to get back to their feet. To anyone watching, it looked like the monsters simply fell down with the shuddering ground. No one paid attention when they failed to stand up again.

Not far from Alric another elemental appeared. It rose, swirling like a storm cloud, high above the battlefield. Taking a deep breath, it blew a strong wind in the direction of the sailors and their ships. Several ships broke from their moorings and were pushed out to sea. Some of them even capsized. The heavier cannon ships were blown into disarray, their cannons pointing the wrong way. The stirred up dust and sand gave cover to orcs and ogres, who charged against the sailors. The sailors had nowhere to run with their backs to North Lake and most of their ships adrift.

Meanwhile, the earth elemental had reached the moat. A contingent of lizardmages followed it, chanting their summoning magic. A short lizardmage with a black robe and red trim raised his curved staff and issued commands to the earth elemental. The elemental bellowed and pulled some arrows from its chest. Then it stamped its foot with such vehemence that the remaining archer towers collapsed. With the shower of arrows halted, the elemental moaned and raised its hands. With an ear-splitting grinding noise, the earth below the moat began to rise. It pushed up so that the water that was in the moat was thrown back against the defenders like a tidal wave. The wave washed the defenders right to the wall of the Tower of Hope. Many people died in that onslaught, being drowned or crushed like ants. With a cry of victory, the attackers surged ahead once more.

A shriek that sounded in the sky above was barely audible to the attackers, whose cries of victory sounded across the battlefield. Only when a wide swath of flame and destruction scoured a path through them did they notice the dragon. The first casualties were the creatures who were making headway against the sailors. The sailors eliminated any stragglers and took a breather as they waited for the next ranks of attackers to approach. Many cheered the dragon on when Della informed them it was Kazin.

The next swath of destruction occurred in front of the tower where the heaviest fighting took place. Kazin made sure his flame was directed at the earth elemental and everyone around it. Unfortunately, there were too many lizardmages guarding the elemental, and their shield fended off the blast of fire. Those not close enough to the elemental were incinerated.

Cyril and Rebecca exchanged glances. Who was this dragon? It couldn’t be Kazin. He was dead. Whoever it was didn’t like lizardmen any more than they did. Thankful they had a dragon for an ally, the duo rallied their forces and began a counterattack.

Now Kazin was at the right flank where General Larsen and his cavalry were caught in a pitched battle. The fighting here was close, so Kazin had to keep his flame directed at the second rank of enemies. It was enough. General Larsen and his cavalry were able to disengage and return to the back of the tower’s battlements. This time, they didn’t go into the courtyard, but changed direction to charge the enemy once again. This time Frosty joined them as well, his horn striking any creatures that got close.

Kazin had turned around by now, so he gave the enemies another blast of flame. This disoriented the front lines and made it easier for General Larsen’s cavalry to strafe the enemy. The general signaled his thanks to the dragon.

Seeing things under control on that front, Kazin made a brief landing in the courtyard to allow Mara and Vera to disembark with their supplies. Then he flew up and over the battlements where skink warriors were firing their crossbows at enemies who were already within range. As Kazin looked across the battlefield, his heart sank. There were enemies as far as the horizon. Ten dragons wouldn’t be enough to stop the tide of monsters. Nevertheless, he knew he could make a difference. He lunged toward the earth elemental and blasted the area with fire. The result was the same. Magic protected the elemental, but destroyed those who were not close enough to the shield protecting it. At least this allowed the ground forces to get nearer to the elemental to have a chance to attack the lizardmen who were summoning it.