Guardians of Magessa (The Birthright Chronicles Book 1) (20 page)

“That is taken care of,” he said. “Now, is
there any other reason that you wish to speak to me?”

“Not right now,” Lemin said. “Get back to
your men and keep them ready. It looks like the dwarves may attack before the
general gets here. Other than that, stand by for further orders.”

Josiah nodded and left in the direction
from which he had come, his entourage in tow. Lemin turned his attention back
to the dwarf army and saw that they still did not appear as though they were
about to attack. He wondered what was taking them so long, but welcomed the
reprieve.

“Vladimir,” He called to his cadet. When
Vladimir reached him, he said, “I want you to round up as many of our cadets as
you can find and bring them here. There may not be many left alive, but I need
our cadets reunited. Keep an eye on the dwarf army, and when they attack,
defend where you are. If you don’t get back here by the time the dwarves
overrun this barrier, look for me at the next one.”

Vladimir jogged down the defenders’ lines,
looking at the faces of as many soldiers as possible and gathering those from
Belvárd. Lemin sighed and looked back at the dwarf army. The fact that they
were still not even getting ready to attack made him uneasy. With a snap of his
fingers, he wove three strands of magic together and looked through them down
the length of the city. What he saw wasn't a surprise to him, but even so, a
curse jumped unbidden into his mind. A large group of the dwarves had marched
to the end of the city where there were no defenders. They had crossed the
barrier there, and they were now heading back toward the defenders. Lemin waved
away the magic that covered his eyes and turned to see Josiah coming toward him
with another man in tow. The second man was a large brute with a full head of
red hair and a dull red beard. By all appearances, he was just another ordinary
soldier, but Lemin could tell from the intelligent glint in his eyes that he
had better than normal military genius.
“After all, that is all that
separates the regular soldiers from their commanders,”
he told himself,
“intelligence.”

“You wanted to speak with me?” the large
man asked.

“Yes,” Lemin replied. “You must be General
Uriah. Josiah told me that you are in charge of the soldiers from this
academy.”

“That is true,” Uriah answered.

“Well, in that case, I need to speak to
you.” Lemin pointed to the east. “What can you see in that direction?” he
asked.

“Nothing,” Uriah answered. “There’s so
much dust in the air that I can hardly see a hundred yards.”

Lemin deftly wove three more strands of
magic in the same manner that he had only minutes ago. He spread the spell over
Uriah’s eyes and stepped back.

“Elohim, protect us!” Uriah almost
shouted. “What on earth am I seeing?”

Lemin wiped the spell away and faced
Uriah. “I just used magic to allow you to see through the dust and smoke to the
east end of the city. You saw exactly what you thought you saw and what I saw
only minutes ago. The dwarves have bypassed our defenses and are marching up
from the side. They’ll end up between us and the gate, and we’ll be pressed
from both the front and the back. If that happens, we won’t have a chance of
surviving.”

“And I suppose you have a plan for making
sure that this won’t occur,” Uriah said, “or you wouldn’t have sent for me.”

“Indeed, I have an idea,” Lemin said. “No
doubt, with enough time, you would have thought of something similar, but this
is my plan. We no longer have enough men to defend the entire length of the
city. The most important thing at this point is that we hold the south wall and
gate so that when our reinforcements arrive, they will be able to join the
fight and not get slaughtered.”

Lemin was interrupted by a shout from the
dwarves to the north, and the army began to advance. “We have an advantage
here,” he said quickly. “The dwarves to the north are attacking too soon. We
may be able to repel them because they will be counting on us being surprised
by the dwarves to the east. We still have about five minutes before they reach
us, so if we work quickly, we can repel the enemy to the north without putting
ourselves in danger. After that, we need to form our soldiers into a box that
surrounds the gate. Our archers and half of our swordsmen need to be on the
wall to protect the stairs leading up to it.”

“I have a better idea,” Uriah said. He
pulled a horn from his belt and blew two blasts on it. “That is the signal for
the engineers to destroy the stairs leading up to the south wall. Now all we
will have to defend is the gatehouse.”

“Good idea,” Lemin called over his
shoulder. “If your men can drive back the dwarves to the north, I will see what
I can do to stall the ones to the east.”

“How…” Uriah began, but Lemin cut him off.

“Don’t worry about that. You do your part
and I’ll do mine.”

******

Senndra groaned and rolled onto her back.
It felt like there was a herd of horses stampeding around inside her head, and
when she opened her eyes, the sudden assault of light hurt. She groaned again
and, despite her body’s complaints, pulled herself to a sitting position. She
dropped her head into her hands, and on the right side felt a large spot of
dried blood. She explored the area thoroughly with her hand and found that it
wasn’t very bad, so shrugging off the pain, she pulled herself to her feet. Her
vision was blurry for a few moments, but it soon cleared, and she was able to
look around. She was in a tower that she recognized as one on the wall of the
city. Where she was in the city, she couldn’t tell, so she headed for the door
of the tower. She stepped out onto the wall. The strong sunshine blinded her so
that she could not see for several seconds. Finally her vision adjusted, and
she noted that she was on the south wall of the city. The sun was directly in
front of her to the east, but it was still fairly low.

It would have been a beautiful day if the
circumstances had been different. As it was, the sound of fighting coming from
the north interrupted the serenity of the morning. Senndra turned to take in
the battle, and as she did, she spotted Timothy on the wall to the east. She
knew that he wanted to be in the middle of the fighting, and she could only
guess what he must be feeling at the moment. She walked down the wall to join
him. As she drew closer to him, he turned to face her. The look on his face was
grim, and she questioned him with her looks. He motioned with his head to where
a lone figure was making his way to the east of the army. Senndra could just
make out that an army of dwarves was approaching him. She squinted to try to
distinguish his features more clearly and gave a start.

“Is that Lemin?” she asked Timothy. He
nodded and she continued, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “What does he
think he’s doing out there? He’ll get himself killed.”

“Not exactly,” Timothy answered. His voice
was low, and he added in a whisper that Senndra could not hear, “He has
rejoined our ranks.”

“You think he can take on all of those
dwarves single-handedly?” she asked. “That’s impossible, even for someone of
his skill in fighting.”

“Just watch and see,” Timothy answered.

Senndra started to answer, but his look
silenced her. Instead, she turned her attention back to Lemin. The dwarves were
closing the distance to him quickly, and Senndra estimated that they would
reach him in about three minutes. As the dwarves drew closer, she began to pray
to Elohim.

“Please be with Lemin as he faces the
dwarves,”
she prayed.
“Let no harm
befall him though his enemies outnumber him greatly. Be with him as he faces
death and bring him through this alive, amen.”
 

Senndra turned her attention back to
Lemin, but even as she did so, she heard a small voice. She knew it was not
herself that spoke. The voice was much kinder and more glorious than she could
imagine, but it spoke to her clearly. She turned toward Timothy, who had also
turned to look at her.

“You heard him too,” he said, not as a
question, but as a statement. Senndra nodded, and together they turned and ran
down the wall to the east. Senndra grabbed her bow and an arrow from her
quiver. With a smooth motion, she placed the arrow on the string of the bow and
began to gauge the distance of the dwarves even as she ran.

“Get ready,” Timothy told her. She barely
had time to wonder what he meant before they were flying through the air, off
of the wall. Senndra screamed at the unexpected danger, but Timothy seemed unalarmed.
As they approached the ground, their speed of descent decreased until their
feet touched down; a slight bending of the knees was all that was necessary to
absorb the shock of the landing. Senndra glanced over at Timothy for an
explanation, but he was facing in the direction of Lemin and had already
started to sprint toward him. Senndra followed, but she steadily fell farther
and farther behind. She clutched her arrow in one hand and her bow in the other
and increased her speed. Slowly she began to gain ground on Timothy and was
only a few seconds behind him when he reached Lemin.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked
them. “You’re supposed to be in a safe place.”

“Elohim commanded us to come to your aid,”
Timothy explained. He looked toward the advancing dwarves and added, “And it
looks like you’ll need all the help you can get.”

“In that case,” Lemin said, “I’m working
on weakening the supports of the buildings between us and them so that they
will fall and form a wall. I know that Senndra won’t be able to help with this,
but you should be able to, Timothy.”

“So you knew all along, just as I
suspected,” Timothy said. He turned his attention to the buildings Lemin had
indicated and began to concentrate. His hands made slight motions, as though he
was weaving invisible threads, and Senndra was confused as to what she was
seeing.

“It’s magic,” Timothy answered her
unspoken question without even looking at her. “I’m not exactly what you would
call a normal person. I’m a magician. I can work magic. Just as Lemin can.  Now
prepare yourself; the dwarves are coming.”

Senndra was stunned by what she had just
heard. And Timothy wanted her to get ready to fight?
“He expects me to just
turn around with a cool head and fight after what he just said,”
she growled
to herself. Without taking her eyes off of the dwarves, she placed the arrow in
her hand on her bowstring.
“I guess I’ll just have to make him tell me all
about his being a magician later,”
she decided. She loosed several arrows
at the approaching enemies then slung her bow on her back and drew her sword.
The dwarves broke into a run and charged toward her between two buildings.

“Now,” Lemin said calmly, and suddenly,
the buildings gave a mighty groan and collapsed inward on the dwarves.
Buildings across the city, all the way to the south wall, began to collapse,
one after the other, until a wall separated the dwarves from the defenders.

“That will stall them for a while,” Lemin
said, “but not forever. We need to get back to the main army and help them
stave off the dwarves from the north.” He broke into a run, and Timothy and
Senndra followed. They tore across the city to where they could see a vicious
fight in progress. The cadets and soldiers of Magessa were holding the dwarves
back, but just barely. Every instant it seemed as though the mass of enemies
would break through the line and crush the resistance, and yet they never quite
managed it.

“They’re holding the dwarves back, but we
need to repel them entirely,” Lemin gasped to his companions. “Get into the
fight and rally the troops. If we can’t push the dwarves back, we will fall in
short order.” He sprinted to a point along the defenders’ line where the
dwarves were especially thick and began to hack his way through them. A small
explosion rocked the enemies around him, sending them flying in all directions.

Timothy sprinted to another point on the
line of defense and began to attack with renewed vigor. Senndra followed close
behind and saw him engage the enemy. His sword swung wildly, but in such a way
that it blocked the blows aimed at him. The dwarves around him tried again and
again to push him back, but to no avail. From the ranks of the dwarves, a dwarf
giant came out to challenge him. The giant was six feet tall and was
well-muscled. In his hands he carried a battle ax that had to weigh at least
fifty pounds, yet he held it as though it was a toy. He approached Timothy from
the side so that he did not see him coming. With a roar, he swung his ax at
Timothy, aiming for his waist. But Timothy heard the roar and, with superhuman
reflexes, jumped over the blade and landed on his heel, spinning to face his
attacker. With his free hand, he began to make strange motions that ended with
a thrust toward his opponent. Blue lightning shot from his fingers and hit the
dwarf giant in the chest. The blow knocked the soldier to the ground, and he
lay there twitching as sparks continued to spider web across his body. Timothy
ended his suffering with a quick thrust of his sword. He turned to face the
dwarf horde again, but they had retreated just far enough to get out of the
range of his sword. He thought he could detect fright on the faces of some of
his enemies, but he knew that he needed to drive the stake of fear deeper into
their hearts. With a slight motion of his hand, he sent a fire ball careening
into the enemy soldiers, causing them to turn in panic and scramble to get
away.