Upon This World of Stone (The Paladin Trilogy Book 2) (24 page)

“But you can’t be sure about the castle-breaker,” Adella concluded, her tone showing growing comprehension. “And the second tier of the city is the bazaar.”

The Colonel nodded, and Shannon felt as if he had actually smiled. “Exactly. The favored hunting grounds of rogues, robbers, and thieves of all types and descriptions. For centuries, these brigands have eluded even the redoubtable magistrates in that rat-warren.”

“Now, you would like these folk to be present during a retreat and offer some cover to your troops if they are hard pressed,” Adella concluded.

This time, the man actually did smile, though it was hardly more than a small twist of one side of his mouth. “Yes. The enemy will be scattered and disorganized as they press for the third wall. A force that is able to rise up unexpectedly after the first rush passes might be able to do serious harm to the invaders, perhaps even take some of their commanders unawares.”

“Except the enemy will fall with real ferocity on these raiders and pursue them wherever they flee,” said Adella. “You will have time to get your troops safely behind the third wall. At the piddling cost of our lives.”

“You will be able to use the sewers to affect your escape,” interjected Tallarand. “Any invaders who try to follow you down there won’t last long.”

“Don’t you mean ’us’?” Adella asked.

“I fear I have other obligations and might not return in time for the main event,” Tallarand said with regret. “But the underground warriors of this city will follow you better than me in any case. You and Bloodseeker.”

Shannon exchanged a nervous glance with Jhan, and she could tell they both were in complete agreement with Tallarand. The woman was perfect for the task they were assigning her.

“And if I should decline your offer?” Adella asked casually, her hand coming down lightly on the hilts of Bloodseeker.

“Then you are naught but a common thief, and I shall encourage Malcolm to make an example of you,” Brillis replied coldly. “More, I have received a very complete list of your operatives within the walls of the city, and with the extraordinary powers invested in me during this crisis, I shall issue warrants for every last one of them.”

Adella looked venom at Tallarand who smiled slightly and shrugged, confirming her suspicion.

The woman considered for a moment, then let out a short sigh. She bowed low to Brillis. “It would seem, Lady Mayor, that for the duration of the invasion, I am at your service. Let us hope we all profit from the victory. And from the peace that follows.”

Brillis’ cold stare did not change. “Thieves will never be welcomed in the Drift, no more than rats or other vermin. Serve well, and we may find a place for a woman of your special skills. Betray us, and you will find neither profit nor peace here or anywhere in the Southlands. Of that, I make you a promise.”

CHAPTER 21

The Dragons at War

Malcolm levitated in the chill, crisp spring air, the touch of the afternoon sun on his face, and tried to keep from disgracing himself by vomiting. Directly beneath him was the poisonous green blanket that stretched from horizon to horizon, the Canopy of Oblivion, and even here, there was a stain of sulfur and brimstone on the brisk winds. But the stench was only a small part of the trouble assailing his stomach and his heart. As terrible as that noxious covering was, still worse were the images his Wizard’s Sight enabled him to see of the dreadful armada marching beneath it and all those images implied. It was staggering proof that no matter his mastery of the wizard’s craft, his powers were still tied to a fragile human body.

“You tremble, Wizard,” a mighty voice said behind him.

He turned to see Mraxdavar hovering only a few feet above his head, so close he could feel the vibration of the words and smell the past carnage on the breath. The dragon king had his wings spread wide and was lazily floating on the thermals (air heated by the sun and rising in turn) just as seabirds were wont to do, and around them, almost forty of his older children were following suit, some with greater ease than others. The wider the dragon’s wingspan, the easier it was for them to ride on these warm upward winds, and Mraxdavar had brought only those of his family who had reached their full size; and their full power.

“‘Tis naught but the chill spring air,” Malcolm answered. “I’ve become far too accustomed to ethereal travel where I cannot feel the cold.”

“…or feel the other powers of the world,” the Dragon observed. “Do you tremble because you dread retribution for the number of my children you have slain?”

Fear touched him, his heart fluttering at the sheer power of the entity before him, and Malcolm brought himself up sharply. He had been caught in the midst of a despairing day-dream, and the sudden fear he felt was the power of the dragon-speech working on him, the intimidating and overbearing power of an immortal that commanded the truth from weaker minds. Untruths laid a mortal open to the force of the dragon-speech, and the master had heard the hollow lie echoing from the Wizard’s voice. He steadied himself, knowing that only truth would help to keep him from being dominated by that august presence.

He looked firmly at the jaws of the wyrm, carefully as always to avoid the eyes, and said, “I have never killed without a pressing need. Can you make the same claim about the thousands of my kind you have destroyed?”

There was a dark rumble in answer, the sound of a dragon’s chuckle. “A good and proper counter. But speak then. Why do you tremble?”

He took a breath and forced himself to look down at the green clouds beneath them. Lies would not serve here, not on this day, not before this fell being. “Power is a sword that cuts both ways, and knowledge that feeds the mind can also weaken the heart. Somewhere beneath that canopy marches my death. It comes upon me. Possibly today, perhaps tomorrow, but my death marches there as sure as prophecy.”

A moment passed between them, the truth re-establishing their boundaries, and finally, the dragon said calmly, “Immortality is vastly over-rated by beings who face the certainty of death. They ever seek to delay the time of their end, and so come to think the best answer is never to die at all. But time is a cruel master who takes a hard toll even on the gods themselves. Trust me, Wizard. There be worse things in this world than to die.”

For the first time, Malcolm dared to look the Eldest Dragon directly in the eye, and he saw there an endless experience and a cool and balanced wisdom, the eyes of a being that had beheld ten thousand births and tens of thousands of deaths and knew from whence he spoke.

“Come,” Mraxdavar said softly. “The time is upon us.”

Malcolm nodded slowly and took a breath, knowing that he must formally demand the completion of the bargain. If a thing is to be done, he told himself, it should be done well. And if a few words from my mouth unleashes the power of forty dragons, it will be by far the most devastating incantation I have ever uttered.

“Then I call upon you, Mraxdavar, Lord and Eldest of Dragons, Master of Winds and Ruler of the Deeps, to fulfill now the obligation you have undertaken,” Malcolm announced. Such a pronouncement called for the echo voice that could be heard by the entire pride of dragons, but he was careful to use only his human voice that could be heard by the immediate entourage around the king to avoid any chance of attracting unwanted attention from below. “The force that marches beneath the clouds is foe to both our bloods, and thus their deaths insure the survival of our houses, our children, and ourselves. Strike, then! Strike, and show why the word dragon elicits terror in every language of the world!”

It was a poor invocation, and for just a moment, Malcolm feared that he had not said enough. Mraxdavar continued to ride the thermals and bask in the warm sunshine as if he had not heard a single word, small sparks of energy actually dancing down the eldest wyrm’s back as he gently flexed his huge body, a sign of both health and well-being. Then he lifted his head and let out a low hiss that caught the instant attention of every dragon in the pride, the dragon-speech coming from the lips of their lord and father.

“To honor our obligation, we shall plunge and flame the ground beneath the clouds,” were the words hidden within that hiss. Malcolm was one of the few humans who had ever mastered the dragon-speech, and shivers ascended his spine as he grasped the meaning. “The brood of Bramaclese shall lead, and the broods of his brothers shall follow in his wake.”

Malcolm’s eyebrows rose slightly at that. He had assumed that all forty dragons would descend together and engulf the entire area in a single firestorm of dragon breath to inflict the greatest damage and take the smallest risk. Instead, Mraxdavar was sending forth his assault in small family groups, perhaps only three or four dragons at a time. He actually opened his mouth to ask the question and then realized how pointless and insulting it would be. One of the largest dragons in the formation folded his wings and dove down towards the Canopy of Oblivion, two of his smaller kin right with him.

As the three dragons passed from sight, Mraxdavar uttered a single word, “Albathor.”

Instantly, another group of four dragons broke away and plunged after the first group. Taking a trembling breath, Malcolm summoned his protections, pointed his staff downwards, and headed into the noxious green cloudbank right behind them.

*

Two thousand feet below, Regnar was in council with the chieftains of the Northing tribes, and all eyes were locked on the distant outer wall of Jalan’s Drift, the prize for which all their labors and struggles had been put forth.

“The Juggernaut shall pound a breach squarely in the middle of the wall,” Regnar said, every word savored. “The undead shall follow it like the sea and kill all in their path. The stone giants of Ug-Lan-Jo shall attack the portal to the right known as the Highlander’s Gate, while the Merchant’s Gate to the left shall be broken by the remaining stone giants and the mountain ogres…

We are assailed
, the Ohric interrupted suddenly.
The dragons are upon us.

Startled, Regnar began to look upwards, but three tornadoes of red-green fire were already flashing down from above and cut swathes of destruction through the ranks of the undead surrounding the black titan. Scores were utterly consumed in each train of fire, and hundreds more were staggering away, many of them burning as well, some actually spreading the flames to others.

“No!” he roared in answer, lifting the Ohric and summoning its power to him. Even as the dragons had emerged from the gloom, they were gone as swiftly, the momentum of their dive giving them power to disappear again into the clouds. But they had no sooner vanished than four more dragons burst out of the Canopy.

A human is flying there…
the Ohric interjected and Regnar’s sharpened eyes focused on the tiny figure hovering right beneath the clouds, insignificant in size beside the monstrous beasts that had preceded it. Yet even as he spotted it, the human unleashed a dozen balls of fire to impact on the vanguard of the Undead goblins, killing scores of them, a tally as good as any of the dragons. I shall deal with him in due course, Regnar promised himself.

“Irna Albos Kana Selenz!”
he thundered and sent a beam of green power slashing towards the largest dragon in the group. The beam struck true, the beast writhing in agony as its wings buckled to send it plunging towards the earth and certain death. Regnar’s fury rose again, however, when he saw a slender bolt of blue from the human figure striking the falling dragon and slow its deadly descent.

“Impertinent fool,” Regnar muttered as he again summoned power. “You have simply made it clear where my second blow will fall.”

*

Malcolm had barely seconds to decide his fate.

He had slowed the fatal fall of the stricken dragon with the power of his staff, but it would take real magic to actually stop the momentum of a creature that big and lift it back up into the safety of the clouds. Real magic, and that meant conjuring, conjuring right out here in the open, exposed to all the forces arrayed beneath him, conjuring when he knew his death was already forged. Worse, far worse, he could not separate the knowledge that the dragon he was trying to save was Albathor, Mraxdavar’s second son and Malcolm’s sworn nemesis.

“Esse Alal Na Ebrus Ful,” he began, even as arrows from the barbarians below began plinking off the invisible shields he had placed around himself. “Thela Ma, Thela Ma, Ebrus Zen!”

Albathor stopped falling as if an invisible giant’s hand had reached out and caught him, and with maddening slowness, the massive body began to rise again, reaching for the sanctuary of the clouds. Malcolm had to maintain full concentration to keep the spell functioning and block out any and all distractions around him. That was suddenly very difficult as a dozen dragons suddenly plunged down out of the green clouds around him, and somewhere to the right, the largest body of them all appeared and streaked through the sky directly at the source of the crippling green beam.

*

Regnar’s second cast did not strike Malcolm.

Ware! Mraxdavar himself comes forth!
was the only warning Regnar received, and even the cold voice of the Ohric showed a specter of fear at the assault by the Father of Dragons.

The titanic body appeared as if by magic directly before them, the stupendous maul open, the power of the breath already sparkling in the gullet, an instant away from the inferno. Desperately, Regnar changed the crushing beam he had intended for the human into a huge cushion to absorb the coming damage, even though he longed to trade blow for blow with the wyrm lord. But the scrambling bodies behind reminded him that all his chieftains were gathered in this one place, and he could not afford to lose a single one with the main battle looming.

He unleashed all the power of which the Ohric was capable, thrusting it forth in a massive wave against the coming devastation.

Mraxdavar’s breath detonated like an exploding volcano all around them, the searing flames roaring by on every side, and even the constraining power of the Demon Scepter was stopped and devoured by that hellish blaze. They were captured in a small shrinking sphere of protection, the cries of the chieftains turning to screams of pain as the temperature surged around them, baking them alive even within the protections of the scepter. First one, then a second, and then a third of the men burst into flames even within the shelter of the shield, their mad writhings spreading the fire further. For an eternity the flames continued, the air itself threatening to ignite, and Regnar gritted his teeth and blindly threw still more power into the confrontation, matching energy to energy and fighting off the growing certainty that he was losing.

Then the flames were abruptly gone, the Dragon-King soaring back up into the clouds, and Regnar was left blinded by the brilliance and gasping for breath, his chieftains lying scattered around him, half a dozen dead and the rest barely moving. It had been no more than a single pass by Mraxdavar, only a portion of the power of which he was ultimately capable, and yet it had nearly overthrown Regnar and the Ohric.

Something else was happening, something that had drawn off the assault of the eldest wyrm, and the Tyrant blinked and passed a hand before his eyes with a simple clearing spell as he tried to make out what he was seeing, not trusting his vision.

For it appeared that for a second time, the Juggernaut had turned from its course.

*

Malcolm, too, could not at first credit the evidence of his eyes.

He had lifted the limp body of Albathor only half the distance to the safety of the clouds when his peripheral vision warned him that the Juggernaut had stopped. The dozen dragons who had plunged through the Canopy of Oblivion had centered their breath weapons on the black titan, utterly encapsulating it in fire, and the thing was now turning its baleful countenance on these swarming mosquitoes. Unlike the first two waves, these dragons had remained below the clouds, streaking across the sky in bewildering patterns to help distract the enemy from the helpless Albathor, and for a moment, Malcolm’s hopes had leaped at the assistance. Now, fear returned with triple force.

The Juggernaut raised one hand and a mass of blackness shot forth directly towards the crippled dragon. Another of the wyrms, a powerful adult male named Shelemaz, swooped in front of Albathor and unleashed his breath weapon on the dark cloud, only to have it totally engulf him.

The blackness coated the dragon like a huge bucket of tar, and he fell as a stone, his outline still feebly struggling against the suffocating material that was killing him. Shelemaz struck the ground hard, and all that was left behind was a pool of black liquid.

More dragons charged in and tried to distract the titan, and two more met the same horrible fate as Shelemaz, plunging into the ground to form two more pools of blackness. But their sacrifices were not in vain. With a grunt of exhaustion, Malcolm lifted the prostrate body up into the clouds, and a moment later, he passed through the barrier himself.