The Free Kingdoms (Book 2) (22 page)

Chapter Eleven

Darik and the griffins flew to the Citadel early in the morning. Averial’s death still weighed heavily on his mind, but a cold rage had replaced Daria’s sorrow. The look of stony determination in her eyes reminded him of her father. Griffin riders obeyed her command as readily as they obeyed Flockheart.

They arrived to discover that the enemy already gathered against Eastgate, and Cragyn’s Hammer was a mile distant and closing fast, dragged on a specially made cart by teams of oxen. Dragon wasps followed them to the city, killing two more griffins before they reached safety.

The griffins appropriated a tower of the Citadel complex, too far back to be of strategic importance, but easily defended from aerial assault by a core of archers given them by King Daniel. Other stragglers joined the aerie throughout the day, survivors from Sleptstock, and boosted their numbers to ninety. Thirty griffins and riders were dead or missing.

Toth’s army swelled all day. Like a vast swarm of locusts, they descended upon the fields, destroying everything outside the city walls. War drums pounded and trumpets blared, drowning the memory chimes ringing in the city. Cloud castles gathered overhead, as if eager to see their two rivals destroy each other.

Toth served notice that he had no intention of occupying the city, but planned to destroy it completely. Veyrian troops burned farmhouses and other outlying buildings to the ground, while others impaled those Eriscobans who’d ignored last night’s warnings to get inside the city walls. The Veyrians set their trebuchets in place to hurl flaming pitch and large stones into the bailey. It was only a precursor to what awaited them when Toth finished assembling his bombard; Cragyn’s Hammer positioned itself directly in front of the Golden Tower stretching above Eastgate. Dozens of Veyrians worked with winches and muscle to bring it into position.

Until the battle began in earnest, Flockheart didn’t dare further losses, so they watched the enemy from their tower. It was then that Darik made his discovery.

All that day and throughout the night, the dragon flew over the city beyond bow shot, belching fire onto buildings, while the mud creature, a gurgolet, someone called it, soared over the courtyard, spewing hot mud. Arrows prickled its underbelly by the dozen, but the creature absorbed them into its flesh. The monster killed dozens with blasts of hot mud.

But as it lifted above the towers to make another pass, it inadvertently drew close to the dragon and the two flinched away from each other. Darik thought at first that they didn’t care for each other, but later, when the gurgolet flew outside the griffin tower, he noted a curious fact. The facing side of the monster was significantly drier and more shrunken than before, with bones and wooden posts plainly visible. It might have replenished itself after Sleptstock, but whenever it spat mud, it lost liquid and soil that held it together. As it grew drier, the dragon’s fire posed a greater risk.

So far, the weather was dry, with the only clouds belonging to the cloud castles. It would likely grow drier through the night. But the gurgolet might return to the river to renew itself if it grew too dry. Indeed, he thought it likely the monster would do so when night came.

Darik told Flockheart what he thought and the bare bones of a plan, then ran to find Markal. He pushed his way through the men in the courtyard, but when he reached the Golden Tower, guards wouldn’t let him in.

“He’s with the king, and won’t be disturbed. Go back to your company boy, before your captain comes looking for you.”

Darik took a deep breath before he spoke, not wanting to sound shrill. It was something, at least, that they thought him part of the fighting force. He guessed the sword and battle grime made him belong.

“Please,” he said. “Go find Markal and tell him Darik is here. I promise he will let me up.”

The guard looked skeptical, but after a glance at his companions, turned up the stairs. He appeared a few minutes later, looking surprised. “They
both
know you. Even the king said to send you up.” He bowed. “I’m sorry, master Darik.”

“Please don’t,” Darik urged. “I understand.”

He found King Daniel and Markal high in the Golden Tower, where they could best see the battle. Three more guards stood at the door, but they stepped aside when he approached. Markal and the king stood in front of the window, watching the enemy. The king still looked tired, but much better than last time Darik had seen him. He remembered seeing the king’s soul inside Toth’s box in the Estmor swamps. What a terrible thing to have the dark wizard’s fingers around your soul.

Markal wrinkled his nose, for a moment the same old man Darik had known. “Whew! You need a bath, my boy. A hot Balsalomian bath in perfumed water, hopefully attended by beautiful serving girls.”

Darik laughed at the image, so far removed was it from his present situation. “Do I smell that bad?”

“Like you’ve slept in a sack of dead crows.”

King Daniel said, “What’s the urgency, my friend? Have you heard news of Whelan and the Brotherhood?”

Darik shook his head. “No, but I know how to kill the gurgolet.”

Markal hesitated, making Darik wonder. Did the wizards think they could retake control of the monster? And then Markal explained what he had learned last night about how Chantmer the Tall had corrupted the gurgolet to his own purposes. Toth controlled the gurgolet, but Chantmer channeled the life force of those it killed to his own magic. He’d barricaded himself into a magical fortress at the top of the Citadel.

The news didn’t surprise Darik. He hadn’t known Chantmer long and knew nothing about his previous devotion to the Order, King Daniel, and the Martyr’s crooked path. All Darik knew was the memory of broken glass in his mouth.

“If we destroy the gurgolet, we will weaken Chantmer,” Markal said. “But we do nothing to stop the dark wizard, I’m afraid. Tell us your plan.”

Darik explained, while Markal and the king listened quietly and added the occasional modification. But they both thought it would work, and relieve pressure on the Citadel for a few more hours.

The floor rocked below them and they staggered against the walls. When they recovered, they looked out the window. Cragyn’s Hammer stood askew from its cart, smoke pouring from the mouth. A great cheer went up from the Veyrians who blackened the plains for miles.

Markal leaned out the window, then pulled back a moment later. “No damage yet,” he said, voice relieved. “The magic binding in the stones held. But we won’t stand much pounding.”

The Golden Tower served as the city wall on its outer edge; to undermine and destroy the tower would open a vast breach in the walls. But Darik didn’t think it the weakest point in their defense.

“Why is he shooting at the tower, and not the gates?” Darik asked.

“The defensive gates of the Citadel are the greatest in Mithyl,” King Daniel explained. “If they break through Eastgate, they still face four sets of barbicans, and hundreds of murder holes and arrow loops overhead. We pin them inside with the barbicans and kill them at our leisure. We might destroy his entire army before he breaks through.”

Darik nodded at the explanation. The Tothian Way traveled beneath overhanging walls and towers for a hundred feet past Eastgate. But he hadn’t guessed the strength of the system.

The king turned to Markal and asked, “How long until the Knights Temperate arrive?”’

Markal shook his head. “Too long. Two, maybe three days. The bombard will open a breach before then. But we have no other help.”

A figure stepped from the enemy. Walking boldly along the road leading up to the gates, he passed men and cavalry taking position beyond the walls and stepped away from any protection. The man wore a gray robe that completely hid his face, but his hands and feet were bare. As he approached the walls, a hail of arrows raced to meet him, but they lost momentum and fell harmlessly to the ground.

He opened his mouth to speak, but his words drowned under the shouts and cries of men on the walls and towers. Shouts went through the ranks to be quiet so they could hear what he said. When he spoke again, it was directly at the Golden Tower itself.

“I am willing to end this foolish war,” he said, in a voice that wasn’t particularly loud, but reached their ears nonetheless. “Some of you will survive if you surrender the city at once. If not, I will turn Eriscoba into another Desolation.”

King Daniel hesitated for a moment, then shouted down, “I will need a few days to consider your offer. We must draw a covenant between our kingdoms to assure that we maintain certain rights.”

Darik didn’t believe this for a moment. Daniel was stalling, hoping to gather more defenders, to hold out for Whelan and the Knights Temperate. The dark wizard didn’t believe him either.

“This is no parlay. There will be no bargaining. Either you accept my offer or I destroy this city and everyone who lives here. Which will it be, King?”

Both armies looked up to the Golden Tower, waiting for Daniel’s reply. Even the dragon and the gurgolet flew high above the city, waiting for the answer to Toth’s question before resuming their attack.

“Don’t answer him,” Markal whispered. “The Order has prepared a little surprise for our friend.”

Even as he spoke, a bolt of lightening sprang from the Golden Tower and split the air with thunder. It lashed the wizard like a whip, throwing him to the ground. Toth lay on the ground, smoke rising from his body. Another cheer sounded the air, but this time from the Citadel.

Their joy was short lived. A second man stepped from the Veyrians, wearing the simple armor of a footman. He ignored the hail of arrows and he walked forward until he stood next to the other man, body still smoking. Darik saw Hoffan crouched below the battlement, waving for his men to stop wasting arrows.

This new man cupped his hands together. A ball of light grew between his palms, then burst outward in a cone of light. It raced toward the Citadel, striking the Golden Tower at the spot from which the wizards had attacked. Cries of pain reached their ears.

By now, everyone in the Free Kingdoms knew their true enemy was King Toth, and not Cragyn, but it still came as a shock to see the man shrug off death to simply possess another body. By the Brothers! How could they stop this man?

The dark wizard walked back to his army. As he did, a great cry sounded. “Toth! All hail King Toth!”

This disturbed Darik as much as anything. All through his life he’d heard tales of King Toth, whose lust for power had destroyed Mithyl, ruined civilization for ten generations from one end of the Tothian Way to the other. The same tales were told in Veyre, and the rest of the khalifates on the eastern plains. Why then, did these men follow him on a second path of destruction, knowing it would end in misery? Surely not just for pillage.

Markal’s face paled. “Nathaliey was over there. If not casting the spell herself then leading the others. Maybe Narud too. I have to go.”

“But what about the gurgolet?” Darik asked.

Markal said, “Should we leave Chantmer alone and see what he can do?”

“I don’t know,” Darik admitted, still dismayed by the Citadel’s weak response. “Maybe Chanter was right. Maybe we should let him fight the dark wizard. At the least, they will weaken each other, maybe opening the door for our own attack.”

“No,” the king said in a firm voice. “If we win it won’t be by killing our own men.”

Markal looked ashamed that he’d even considered the idea. “You’re right, my king. Chantmer weakens the Citadel with his treachery. We must deal with him. We will take the gurgolet and its master down at the same time.”

#

As it turned out, they didn’t have an opportunity to test Darik’s plan that day. The gurgolet retreated from the city and returned caked with fresh, wet mud, fully replenished. Even without the wasps, the dragon and the gurgolet laid waste to large stretches of the city, the former burning markets and homes alike, the latter savaging the Eriscobans in the Citadel’s main bailey.

Markal discovered the extent of Toth’s counterattack on the wizards of the Order. Three wizards lay dead, including Nathaliey Liltige, and four others were wounded. The fireball burned Nathaliey until she was almost unrecognizable, and when Markal first saw her, he reeled in shock and stomach-churning nausea. Narud had survived with minor scalds on his face and chest, but they had lost the two most powerful wizards in the Order, one to Toth and the other to treachery.

Cragyn’s Hammer sounded again before dusk. This time, it did more than break through layers of gold, but shattered a chunk of masonry. The smaller, but faster-firing trebuchets joined the attack, striking again and again at the Golden Tower with hundred-pound stones.

Night fell and the gurgolet retreated, leaving the dragon to burn large swaths of the city before its fires grew weak and it fell back. Thousands of men worked throughout the night to put out the fires. But nothing could be done for towns and fields outside the city, where fire raged across the countryside until the plains glowed and smoke suffocated the air. Cragyn’s Hammer fired twice more that night, while trebuchets relentlessly exploited the weak spots left after its assaults.

Two ravens brought news to Narud and Markal late in the night: three more dragons stoked their fires in the mountains and flew west to join the battle. News raced through the Citadel with the speed of the dragon’s own fire. The city clung to a single ray of hope: the Knights Temperate. But behind this hope lay the stark truth that ninety griffins weren’t enough to fight a gurgolet, four dragons and hundreds of dragon wasps.

When dawn came, a man stood on the battlements and played the gut-pipe to mark another night of freedom, a tradition that predated the Citadel itself and was followed throughout the Free Kingdoms. The pipes commemorated the Third Battle of Eriscoba, when the Free Kingdoms overthrew Toth’s army at Sleptstock and marched in support of Syrmarria. Many wondered if it would be the last morning the piper sounded his wailing tune.