EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (393 page)

He seemed to consider. “Well, if you are truly as you say, we could never be inhospitable to those who bear the blood of dragons in their veins, and warriors are always worthy additions to our armies if they are well trained.”

“I can vouch for Khavi. He has courage and strength beyond measure. He struck a copper dragon as tall as those doors and lived to tell the tale. He is as skilled as he is fierce.”

“Very well,” said Vrax, “we will require proof of these deeds. But it may be in Ssarsdale’s interests if those three be kept as reserves within the city.”

I couldn’t leave everyone. It was our fault that the humans had come in the first place; for Khavi, Tzala, and I to gain entrance to the city, leaving the rest to be butchered, that could not sit on my conscience. “No,” I said. “We came here as a group. It is all of us or none of us.”

“No?” Vrax’s voice rose and he turned to face me properly now, his oversized hands by his sides. “By what right do you disobey my commands, goldenscale?”

“By the right of common decency! By the right of the community!”

“I have made you an offer. Take it, or march with the Eighth Talon.”

I turned to Tzala, the desperation lodged deep in my gut. “What do I do?” I whimpered. “I can’t abandon the others.”

Her face was solemn. I felt as though she were judging me. “You can only do what you think is right.”

I agonised, looking up at the faces of all the kobolds behind me. They were defeated. They knew they were going to die, and that there was nothing I could do to save them with whatever course of action I chose. I saw no anger in their eyes. No resentment. They knew that it was not logical to send thirty to die when one could send twenty-seven. The decision should be easy.

Thirty to die or twenty-seven. I could have a cool place to sleep tonight, food in my belly, and power and prestige. Tzala would continue to mentor me, and even Khavi, that crazy kobold, would have something to give his life purpose. We could spare ourselves a battle we could not win and think nothing more of those who had died to give us this place, and how they were doomed anyway.

We could even grieve for them. Throw ourselves on the stone and wail. Cry for their defeat, for their sacrifice, for their blood spilt in a hopeless battle. We could honour them, hold them in our hearts always, keeping their memories as treasured gifts, and be thankful that they had given us life.

Or we could die beside them.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Vrax. “We came here together, and we’ll join your community as a group or not at all.”

“So be it,” he said. “We can always breed more sorcerers.” He turned and walked back to the gates of Ssarsdale. I watched every step, staring at the back of the giant kobold. The gates slowly swung open. Beyond their iron sheets were hundreds of soldiers, spears ready.

They were not here to defend against the humans.

Vrax stepped into their ranks, then the doors sealed themselves once again.

“I’m proud of you,” said Tzala with a calm, reassuring smile.

Feeling numb, I turned and walked back the way we came.

“Aren’t you mad at me?” I narrowed my eyes at Khavi. “And where did you get that?”

Khavi swung a two handed blade over his shoulder, looking as pleased with himself as I’d ever seen him.

“No, not mad. And one of the wounded had this. I figured I could put it to better use.” His stance was easy, relaxed as we marched away from Ssarsdale. “I have a sword again, and I’m dying for this fight. Humans! I enjoyed fighting them before. They’re easier to kill than they seem.” He grinned maniacally. “I need a new suit of armour anyway.”

I could not shake the wrenching feeling in my gut, that I had doomed us all. “We won’t win. We can’t win.”

“Pah,” said Khavi, “you thought we were going to die when we marched on the gnome city. And what did we do? Marched right back out again!”

“Only because all the gnomes inside were already dead or gone.”

“You underestimate me! How many humans did I kill back in that pissant village, mmm?”

“Fat and lazy guards who were not expecting death to come for them in the dark. They were not warriors as we understand it. The men after us will be their strongest, with horses, too. Horses are killers. I’ve seen them up close, a single kick can break bones. And that’s excluding the rider!”

“Hah. If the humans want to place themselves so high up that their beast’s guts are exposed, then they will simply have further to fall when I cut it out from under them!”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “You are insane.”

Khavi grinned, baring all his teeth. “You say that now, but I’m confident we can win. We have two sorcerers and countless fodder, and they have what? Stink-kickers and their useless riders?”

“Horses. They’re called horses.”

“Call them what they are, I say. They stink, and they kick. Stink-kickers.”

I clapped him on the shoulder and stopped walking, waiting for the rear of the troupe where Tzala walked.

“I’m sorry, Leader.”

She shook her head. “I told you already, I would have done the same.”

I felt tiny and useless. “Would you have?”

“Yes. Although it would have pained me as it pained you.”

“It hurts. I feel like I failed everyone. I did the best I could, and now we’re all going to die.”

Tzala reached out with her remaining claw, resting it on my far shoulder. She drew me to her, leaning her cheek against my shoulder. “May I tell you a secret?”

“You can tell me anything, Leader,” I said, confused by her nearness to me and the softness of her voice.

“This pain you feel now is the burden of leadership. It is the feeling that you could have done better or tried harder, or that you have cost those who trusted in you because you made a decision that leads to death. If you become a leader, this is a burden you will carry for all of your days.”

Tyermumtican had spoken of burdens too. I was trying to be strong, but Tzala’s words made me feel like bursting into tears. “But I’m going to die. You’re going to die. Khavi is going to die. Every single one of us is going to die, and I’m never going to be the leader of any more than a ragged group of refugees that Ssarsdale couldn’t be bothered to feed. Nobody will remember us.”

“Leaders are rarely remembered, especially because their defeats are so often not their fault. If you want to be a leader for the glory, I’m afraid you are going to be disappointed.”

“I don’t crave glory. I just want everyone to live. I want everything to be okay.”

“And I wish I was a dragon. We cannot always have what we want. We can only do what we can with what we have, and let fate play itself out.”

I shook slightly, and Tzala’s grip on my shoulder tightened. “No, Ren. You cannot cry. You cannot be weak before these warriors, your soldiers. They will need you in the battle; they will need your strength and courage. You must be strong. The situation is hopeless. I know that, and you know that.” She glanced over my shoulder, and I knew who she was looking at. “Your friend, though…he thinks he can walk through fire and not be burned. Somewhere in that head of his, not buried very deep I suspect, is the belief that he cannot ever be beaten in combat. Only death will dissuade him from this notion. I have seen many like him in my days, and they all had one thing in common.”

“What was that?”

“They all died in the end.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek to keep my mind focused on the physical rather than the emotional. “What do I do now?”

“When we reach the mouth of the cave, you will need to inspire them. Give them something to cling to.”

“But there is nothing.”

Tzala lifted her head, moving her claw down to my back, patting comfortingly. “There is always something.”

I didn’t believe her.

Chapter XXII

T
HE
CLOP
OF
HORSES
REACHED
my earholes before the light from their riders brightened the tunnel.

Khavi and I had established a defensive line according to our training, hiding in the darkness, waiting for the signal to strike. Although Khavi wanted to fight with the others, his wound would mean his place was here with the injured and spellcasters. Jorena and Cevota, the two warriors, commanded our front line. The front line was whatever warriors we had and the caretakers who were strong or confident enough to wield what weapons we could give them. All of them crouched low in the darkness, their positions laid out well in advance.

Praxa stood with Tzala and I farther back down the tunnel. Our ankles were surrounded by the wounded or those too weak to move. Khavi stood in the front, protecting us. We could see nothing, hear nothing, except the thump of horse legs on stone, and we waited.

“Not yet,” I whispered. “Not yet. Wait until we see the light from their flames.”

The faint squeak of squeezed leather. “We should go now,” urged Khavi.

“No. Wait. Wait…”

The first human rounded the bend, puffing the white gas from their mouths. I had told the others about it. It was just their breath fogging and was harmless. I did not want them to be alarmed as I was.

The first row of horses came around the bend, three abreast, bearing their riders uneasily in the dark. I could see them. Humans, tall and strong, wearing thick leather coats. I knew them now. Goatskin over metal chain, the hilts of their weapons carved from the bones of trees. They wore shields made from the same, shaped into a triangle with the wider part at the top and the narrow at the bottom.

Even the horses had armour. A chain blanket that hung down to their knees.

“What are you waiting for?” hissed Khavi over his shoulder.

“Wait.”

I kept my focus. Everything depended on the first strike.

The second row of horses and men appeared around the corner. The light grew uncomfortably bright.

“Now!”

Tzala spoke words of magic behind me, a spell I knew but was nowhere near powerful enough to cast. She was drawing on the fire of dragons, much as I did, but to produce a different and more powerful effect. A diminutive yellow ball flew out from behind me, sailing gracefully over my head. It shed a pallid radiance, a speedy flying glowbug rushing to greet our attackers.

Cries of alarm and shouts of warning sprung from the humans who led the assault, but their warnings would not save them. The orb struck the ground by the legs of the beasts in the second rank, bursting in a roaring sheet of flame that enveloped them, charring the flesh from their horses and washing over the riders.

The first ranks were blown down, dismounted by the blast. Cevota and a half-dozen caretakers fell upon them, stabbing and slashing in a screaming frenzy, their yipping war cries echoing down the tunnel towards us. So did the screams of burning humans.

Those screams fell silent, one by one, as Cevota and her group made short work of them.

One horse from the front rank got up. It staggered around in a daze, throwing its head around and emitting a terrible noise, echoed and amplified by the long tunnel like a horn. I reached out, sending magical needles of force to end its misery.

The smell of roasted flesh and blood wafted down the corridor towards me, signalling a job well done, but farther up the corridor came shouts in another tongue. Not the panicked, frightened warbling from the warriors we had killed, but firm commands given by experienced soldiers.

“They are warning their companions that we have a spellcaster.”

I sometimes forgot that Tzala spoke many tongues. “Good,” I said, “let them be wary.”

The lights that the humans had brought in, coupled with the scorched and burned corpses of those Tzala’s magic and Cevota’s spears had fallen, made the ambient lighting too high for my taste. I cupped my hands around my snout and called down the corridor.

“Extinguish those flames!”

They did so, the caretakers scurrying around with remarkable efficiency, grabbing the burning lights where they fell and dousing them in the water. Steam wafted into the corridor as the glare was reduced down to tolerable levels.

“That was easy,” said Khavi, stepping back with me. “Bah. And I thought I’d get a chance to test my new blade.”

I went to reply, but another sound, just like the one that had accompanied the bolts of electricity outside, reached my earholes. It grew louder and louder. The roar of a stampede, of horse legs pounding on hard stone.

“Back!” I shouted to Cevota’s team, “back into your positions!”

More horses charged around the corridor, their riders armed with long spear-like weapons that were held in one hand, their bodies protected with kite shields.

Cevota’s team was scattered and exposed, half way between the ambush point and their cover.

“Tzala! Do it again! Hurry!”

She began casting, but the horses moved with a speed and ferocity that surprised everyone. They ploughed into the ranks of Cevota’s team, the strange one-handed spears expertly skewering warrior after warrior. The weapons were torn out, each leaving a horrific wound, and then the horses trampled over the top of them.

Cevota was the last to die, torn in half by two spears.

Tzala’s spell completed. Another golden ball flew down the corridor and exploded in the air, forming a solid sheet of flame. This time though, the men and their horses rode through it, shields raised to protect their faces.

But there were no shields for the horses. Their mounts panicked and fell, sending their riders crashing to the stone.

“Shit of the dead Gods!” said Khavi.

“Jorena!” I shouted, “Kill them all!”

Her team leapt to their feet. They had fewer weapons and were weaker, but still they engaged, leaping upon the humans in a biting, clawing frenzy, stabbing and slashing with what weapons they had.

But the humans were ready. Spears, weapons twice as tall as a kobold held easily in one hand, pierced through scales and flesh. I cast again and again, sending my missiles down. I wounded one with such a blast, distracting him long enough for Jorena to thrust her spear into his belly.

Then her head was taken from her shoulders.