Sunset of Lantonne (90 page)

“Did the city just riot against us?” he asked Greth, noticing most of those approaching were carrying simple or rusted weapons. Those people outnumbered Phillith’s men nearly twenty to one in that area of town.

Greth did not reply, but he did reach down slowly and pick up his fallen shield and one of the bloodied weapons Raeln had discarded during his fight for the gate. He did not raise the sword, but he kept it at the ready.

The two dark elven men, with their starkly white hair and nearly black skin, jogged ahead of the main group and headed straight for Raeln and Greth. Like so many others in the crowd, these men wore rags and appeared as though they had endured hardship to arrive at the gate, but they somehow managed to give off the appearance of nobility as they moved. They lowered their own weapons as they got closer, then slowed and each took a knee in front of the two wildlings.

“Would one of you surfacers be Commander Phillith?” asked one of the men, watching Raeln through his long hair as he kept his head low. “We owe the man our thanks and wish to give it before death rains down on this land.”

Raeln glanced over at Greth, who shrugged. “Commander Phillith is on top of the wall,” Raeln answered once he was sure his voice would not reveal his confusion. “Where did all these people come from?”

The other dark elf slid back the sleeves of his shirt, exposing faded scars on both wrists from struggling with chains. “We came to these lands to seek freedom from the dead that overwhelmed our cities,” the man explained, lowering his sleeves. “Altis had already fallen. The commander offers us our citizenship and freedom in exchange for service. We never wanted anything less than to fight beside other free people against this foe.”

“The labor camp,” Raeln said softly, feeling Greth’s confused look at him. “Phillith kept his promise and set them all free.”

“Where are we most needed?” asked the first of the elven men, picking up the bow Raeln had used during the beginning of the attack and eyeing it as though it were filthy. After a second, he sighed and picked up several arrows. “We will do what we can with the rabble that followed us here. A similar force went to the other gate and stragglers were dispatched to the rest of the walls.”

Greth walked past the men, slapping one on the shoulder as he began pointing toward the stairs that led up to the ramparts. He seemed not to notice the annoyed glare both men gave him at having touched them. “Deploy people along the battlements,” he told the elves. “There are more bows and more arrows than we know what to do with up there. Have either of you fought before?”

The men grinned almost in unison, any affront forgotten. “Our land has been ready for war for nearly a century,” one of them replied quickly. “We did not anticipate the undead marching, but we are more than ready, wildling. My mother’s line would see shame in me if I were not prepared to stand against an enemy greater than myself. We will die honorably.”

The elves did not wait for any further cues from Greth, turning immediately and running to the main group of former slaves. Within seconds, the mob began to part, sending groups toward all of the stairs onto the walls, while a small contingent positioned themselves near the wagons, ready just in case the gate fell.

A distant rumble drew Raeln’s attention to the eastern arc of the wall, where smoke rose from part of the battlements. As he watched, a ball of fire erupted a little farther down the wall, engulfing many of the defenders there. The undead had plenty more spellcasters out there, and they were not being shy about pushing their attack.

Greth took off running, heading for the nearest stairs.

Eyeing the wall, Raeln decided there was no time to waste running all the way to the steps. He picked up a sword lying near several of the dismembered zombie corpses, hopped up onto the overturned wagon on one side of the gate, and began climbing up the wall. Within a minute, he was atop the high stone wall, overlooking the main force of the undead at the city’s front gate.

Raeln had not realized how bad things had gotten from the limited view he had on the ground. Down there, he had seen the huge force marching on the gate, filling the outer city’s streets. From atop the wall, he could see they had filled the outer city, and the largest of the undead—mostly ogre corpses from what he could see—were ripping down the buildings starting at the outer edge of the city and working inwards. Another group of undead was dragging bodies out down the streets toward the outskirts of town, where they likely would be added to their army.

Far beyond the last of the undead he could see, the quarry stood out against the plains with its swirling black cloud at its middle. Past it, Raeln could make out another group of undead approaching, though they were going wide around the quarry, taking a long route toward Lantonne to avoid getting too close.

“Bout time you got up here, boy,” shouted Phillith, coming toward Raeln from a little ways down the wall. The man limped slightly and had his left arm in a sling stained with blood. “Good work with their wizard. Until they move another one to this part of the wall, we just have the stumblers to deal with, and I don’t think they know what they’re doing.”

Raeln leaned over the edge of the wall, looking down about twenty feet to the zombies clawing at the stones and crawling over one another in an attempt to reach him and the other defenders. The pile of squirming dead continued to grow as he watched, slowly making its way up the wall at the expense of those at the bottom.

“Right about now,” Phillith added, shaking his head sadly, “it’s going to take an act of some god to save us. I don’t even care which one. I think I’d sacrifice my cousins on an altar if it got us some help.”

Around them, the former slaves began taking up positions all along the wall, falling in beside trained soldiers and regular citizens that had joined the fight. Raeln saw a few hard glares exchanged, especially between the better-dressed Lantonnians and the more battered former slaves. There were no harsh words spoken, with former enemies willingly taking a stand at one another’s sides. In more than one place, he even saw men in Altisian clothing that had the demeanor of former soldiers working beside Lantonnian soldiers. If the city was to fall, he could not imagine a better way for it to go.

A distant roar drew Raeln’s eyes to the west, searching the undead horde there for some indication of what might be happening even as another volley of arrows was launched from the wall into the undead force at the gate. He saw hundreds if not thousands of undead, but the roar seemed entirely out of place. Undead simply did not make enough noise to fit the sound he had heard. Just as he was going to stop searching for its source, he looked up and saw them.

Dragons.

Sweeping in across the plains at high speed, a trio of massive winged creatures flew low across the ground, kicking up plumes of dust in passing. They were more than a mile away from the undead, but they were coming fast toward Lantonne.

“Phillith…” Raeln whispered, his voice lost in the din of battle. He resorted to pawing at the man, trying to get his attention while pointing west with his other hand.

The dragons were coming in faster than Raeln thought possible, charging both the city and the undead at its walls. As he watched, they fanned out, flying in a V-shaped formation straight toward where he stood.

“Speaking of gods,” muttered Phillith, having apparently noticed what Raeln was pointing at. “Are they coming to help, or finish us off? If the old gods are coming down off the mountains to help the undead, then the end of this city will be the thing of legends…assuming anyone lives to tell them.”

“Wait and watch, commander. I’m hoping it’s not that bad.”

Before the archers behind Raeln had fired a third volley, the dragons had changed path and soared over the farthest group of approaching undead. As they reached the zombie soldiers, explosions lit up the horizon as a wizard near that group began firing off bolts of lightning from the ground up into the sky. The dragons broke formation at the first crack of light, each attacking different sections of the army with flames they breathed in brilliant cones of red and blue, burning huge swaths with each pass. After several trips through the undead force, the dragons turned and began their flight toward Lantonne again, this time with a smoking and blackened section of the plains at their backs.

Leaning on the battlements with his good arm, Phillith’s face was slack with awe as he watched the dragons approach. Half-hearted cheers began erupting around them, though Raeln knew they were unsure if things had suddenly gotten worse or better.

“Even if they attack us, too,” Phillith began, smiling over at Raeln and laughing himself nearly to tears, “I never thought I’d live to see old gods come back to the world. My papa would have given anything to hear this tale, even if he thought I was lying.”

The dragons came straight toward the city, turning slightly to avoid the column of black roiling near the quarry. As they moved to avoid it, Raeln realized the cloud was actually moving, reaching out with tendrils of darkness. Seconds later, a group of shadowy bat-like creatures flew from the darkness and chased after the dragons.

The three dragons parted as soon as the shadow-creatures appeared, two continuing toward the city while the third tucked its wings and banked through and past the creatures. The entire pack of smaller shadows chased the solo dragon, as did the cloud that absorbed the light, trailing long strands of thick shadows that tried to grab the dragon right out of the air. Wherever the dragon turned and spun in the air, the shadows pursued. After several high-speed circles around the cloud, the dragon flapped its wings and took off toward Lantonne again, trailing its pursuers but having put a great deal of distance between them and its companion dragons.

The lead two dragons continued toward Raeln and the city, details of their shape soon coming into view as they sped closer to the outskirts of Lantonne. They were huge beyond imagining, the closest large enough that its wings cast shadows across entire blocks of the outer city. Scales of differing shades caught the light, sparkling in places and giving the impression they wore armor of polished metal. The lead dragon was mostly a deep forest green, a paler section of green running down its chest, while its long horns contrasted the scales with an almost bone-white hue. The second dragon was even larger than the leader, though its scales had a reddish coloring, a faint hint of green among them. Like the lead dragon, that one’s skin was dotted with bone-white horns. The farthest dragon was well beyond Raeln’s ability to see detail, but he got the impression of a more brilliant red from the sunlight glinting off of it.

A moment later, the closest of the dragons roared past the walls of Lantonne, the wind from its passing throwing Raeln onto his back and Phillith clinging to the battlements to stay upright. The entire section of the wall was buffeted, knocking dozens of people to the ground and ripping the shutters off of buildings nearest the wall.

As Raeln lay on his back staring up at the large creature flying past, he got a better view of the dragon’s four legs…and specifically, the claws nearly as large as he was. A palpable wave of tingling panic rolled over him and was gone with the dragon as it headed into the heart of the city toward the tower, almost as though the dragon’s very presence pushed his mind to utter terror regardless of the awe he felt at watching the creature. The second dragon passed over nearly touching the tip of the first one’s tail, a similar feeling of dread and panic wheedling its way into Raeln’s chest until the dragon was well past him.

Raeln sat up once the second dragon had gone by, just in time for the third dragon to reach the walls. This one did not follow its companions but instead slowed until it hovered over the undead army, the incredible force of air rushing from its wings knocking most of the zombies to the ground. Before the undead could recover, the dragon unleashed another torrent of flame, burning many of the corpses to ash where they lay and drawing a nervous cheer from the defenders on the wall.

Close behind the dragon, the wall of black smoke from the quarry followed, though its speed had lessened as it got farther from its source. Even the black shadowy creatures that had come from it returned to the quarry, unwilling or unable to continue their pursuit. The dragon seemed to notice this as well, looking to the quarry after it finished burning the undead army. This dragon raced over the wall toward the southern gates, where Raeln saw it land among the buildings and disappear behind the keep.

Raeln tapped his forehead on the battlement stones, offering up a quick prayer to the old gods, though the words felt so insignificant after seeing the actual creature up close. Whether these were gods or not, they had already done more than he could have dreamed of and had earned a prayer of thanks.