The Dragons of Argonath (13 page)

Rustum Bullard had ordered the potboy to bring up some water, and the emperor and Lessis took a few gulps. Then they splashed some on the ambassador.

"Welcome to Quosh, excellencies," said Bullard, not knowing quite who it was that he addressed.

"I thank you," said the emperor with a gasp.

An outbreak of shrieking and horn blowing just fifty feet away told them that the enemy had not given up. The imps were still coming, pouring out of the woods. There were three hundred at least on the common, and now there were some of the other things, huge brutes running easily through the crowd of imps.

The temple bell from across the common started ringing in a frenzy. The priestesses had realized the town was under attack. That bell could be heard as far as Barley Mow, even in Brennans on a good day, and the men would heed the summons.

The dragon came up and accepted a few buckets of cold water. Relkin clambered up his shoulders and worked on the arrows that had lodged on his head and neck and shoulder. Two were easily dug out, the third he had to cut out carefully, since it was too deep for an easy pull. Bazil muttered and hissed in discomfort until it was done, and then poured a bucket over his head, soaking his dragonboy in the process.

"To the barricade!" went up the cry, for the massed imps were now being goaded forward by horsemen in black leather at the rear. The dull horns of Padmasa sounded across Blue Stone for the first time since the Demon Lord of Dugguth had marched this way long before.

The imps jogged forward to the attack, and with them came three of the bearlike brutes. They wore leather aprons and shoulder armor, drew long swords and uttered harsh war cries as they advanced.

At the sight of them the defenders uttered thin wails of fear.

"What in all the hells are they?"

"They're not trolls, they move too quick."

"What can we hope to do against them?"

But Thorn jumped up on a wagon and shouted.

"If they move, then they're alive! And if they're alive, then we can kill them!"

This put some heart back into the men of Quosh, and they roared out their own challenge to the enemy.

The imps shrieked back at them and bounded up onto the wagon, where they exchanged blows with the first line of defense. Other imps tried crawling under the wagons or pushing their way through the spaces between.

The sound of steel clashing on steel, of cursing men and screaming imps became a general roar, into which the monsters came with a special shriek of triumph. Their big swords burst asunder the line of men, and Odis Shenk was slain, cleaved from neck to crotch. One wagon was heaved up on its side, and in a moment it would have been thrown back on the men behind. Then they were roughly shoved aside, and the huge figure of the dragon came up and put his shoulder to the wagon and heaved it back, almost crushing the monsters.

They barked at him in rage, and their eyes, which were yellow with black pupils, dilated with their fury. They rushed at the wagon with their swords waving high. Bazil responded with Ecator. The first to reach him engaged. He parried the thing's thrust and knocked the sword aside. With smooth precision he riposted and drove Ecator home, spitting the brute through the chest. It gave a gurgling cry and sagged down on its knees while dark blood bubbled from its mouth, and then it was gone, trampled by its fellows as they assailed Bazil from either side.

The wagon was all that lay between them, and it was taking a beating from the giant swords: shards of wood flew and the wagon buckled in the middle.

Bazil deflected a blow from the right and just managed to simultaneously twist aside from a thrust from the left. He actually felt the flat of the enemy sword slick against his belly.

The one at the right struck again and again. Bazil hacked its weapon aside and brought Ecator over in a hurried stroke to trap the left one's sword before it could stab the dragon's side.

These damn things were just too quick. They were smaller than trolls but had twice the speed, and were therefore deadly.

Bazil defended himself with desperate strokes to right and left. Without a shield he was perilously close to being overmatched. He grabbed desperately at a broken brass bedstead that had been thrust into the barricade, and hauled it out and used it to defend against the thruster from the left while he engaged the one on the right.

Ham Pawler and his brother Roegon jumped up with spears in their hands and thrust them home into the breast of the one on the right as it was defending itself from Ecator. It stiffened, gave a coughing grunt and doubled over.

Ecator came down a moment later to decapitate it, and it collapsed.

The bedstead broke asunder at the same moment, and the brute on the left got up on the broken wagon and thrust for Bazil's throat.

By a near miracle, a barrel hurled by Thorn and Tarfoot Brandon together interposed and spoiled the stroke. Bazil jerked his head out of the way.

Relkin stepped under Bazil's arm and hurled a spear into the brute, piercing its chest and driving it off the wagon, which further disintegrated.

Imp archers filled the space with arrows, and Bazil sprouted new shafts on his shoulder and chest. Relkin felt an arrow zip unpleasantly close to his ear, and he ducked down.

Tarfoot and some other men responded with a rain of cobbles, pulled up from the Brennans Road by the women and children. The cobbles struck imps and beasts, and forced them back. The imp archers lost their aim and fell back as well.

The men of Quosh gave up a big cheer. They had held the barricade, thanks to the Broketail dragon.

The cheers died away slowly. The enemy milled beyond range of their rocks and spears, but occasional arrows flew. Tenzer Haleham gave a sudden gasp of surprise and fell backward dead, an arrow sprouting from his open mouth. Everyone kept their head down after that.

"We need more stuff on the barricade" came the cry, and groups began moving furniture and barrels out of the houses on Schoolhouse Street and adding them to the pile stretching across the road. The enemy held the common and most of the green.

Thorn squatted down beside the panting form of the emperor.

"They are driven back for the moment, Your Majesty."

Rustum Bullard heard those words, and his eyebrows rose. He glanced at the slender woman in the grey robes. A witch? It had to be. And who was the other one, in the fine wool overcoat? And what were those things out there?

At that moment Thorn finally informed Rustum Bullard just who the fugitives were, and Bullard paled.

"The emperor?"

Pascal Iturgio Densen Asturi had recovered his breath and some of his poise.

"I am," he said simply.

Bullard floundered for a moment, then bowed and frantically summoned his servants to attend the emperor.

"Here, lads, 'tis the emperor, himself. Needs our help!"

The potboys stared goggle-eyed for a moment, and then sprang to assist the barrel-chested man who was still getting to his feet.

The emperor did his best to assume his Imperial posture, chest out, head back, eyes level and calm, despite his shortness of breath and the wobbly feeling in his legs. Then he saw Koring struggling to get to his feet.

"Ho, Ambassador, how are your legs?"

"Weary, Your Majesty, I never would have thought I could run like that."

"When you've got the devil at your heels, Ambassador, there's no limit to what one can do!"

"Indeed, Your Majesty, indeed."

Pascal looked into the eyes of the men standing close around him. He spoke in a stronger voice, much more like himself.

"And now we can take the fight to the enemy, for we are in the stouthearted village of Quosh."

More men had thrust their way through to surround the emperor, and their eyes blinked as they learned his identity. Gil Haleham, Tenzer's brother, and Avil Benarbo were at the front, and they took it on themselves to speak for the village.

"Welcome to loyal Quosh, Your Majesty," said Bernarbo, bowing low in what he imagined must be the etiquette of the Imperial Court in Andiquant.

"I thank you, and all the true folk of Quosh. I am sorry only to have to meet you in such conditions. I'm afraid I have brought great trouble to you."

Their response was steady as a rock.

"Quosh is ready to fight to the death for the Argonath and the Empire of the Rose, Your Majesty."

The emperor clutched his hands together and shook them to the folk of Quosh.

"Then, we shall fight and die together, for your emperor will not shirk the battle." His words brought a flush to the men's cheeks, and Pascal enjoyed seeing the effect he'd had, but purposely avoided Lessis's eyes. He knew that she would do everything in her power to make him stay out of the fighting, if it came to that.

"We need to send a message to Cross Treys camp," said Thorn.

"Good idea," rumbled Bullard. "Where's Pip Pigget? He's got a fine horse."

In a few moments young Pip Pigget was clattering up the north road past the pump house on his way to Felli and the road over the Rack up by Big Baldy.

Three men pushed forward with a captured imp between them.

"Kill that thing," snarled someone.

"Hold. We got him to talk. Listen."

One of the men grabbed the imp by the chin and spoke to him. "Here, you tell the good folks what those things are, the beasts like trolls."

The imp had a slightly dazed expression. The black drink was wearing off.

"They are bewks of Waakzaam. They are mighty fighters and will kill and eat all of you," the imp said.

"Bewks?"

"Yes."

"A strange, fell name. And who is Waakzaam?"

"Hush, Thorn, do not speak that name," said the Lady in a quiet but commanding voice. Thorn turned to her in surprise.

"Bewks?"

"The enemy mixes life in his vats of evil and produces monsters. Most are slain. A few are bred for improvements. These are his latest offering."

"Bewks, then."

"Whatever they call them, they can still be killed," said the emperor in a loud, commanding voice.

"That's right, Your Majesty," rumbled old Bullard while the other men nodded and waved their weapons.

Now there came a sudden outburst of cheering down Market Street. Dragons were swaying down the street with Old Macumber at their head. They wore leather plate armor and helmets, and carried full shield and sword. There were the young brutes from Macumber's Dragon House, Weft and Fury, plus several older dragons who now lived close to the village and worked in the fields for a living.

Among this group were Zambus and Big Eft, both massive brasshides retired from legion service. And then there was old Edda and some other females, like big Bejja and Osteoba, carrying long spears.

"The dragons, the dragons are coming!" came the cry, and more and more people came out to greet them. A drum was beating somewhere, and a distant voice shouted that the emperor was in the village of Quosh.

Macumber's assistants were carrying a shield and some leather armor for the Broketail. Relkin ran out to help them, anxious to get Bazil into some kind of armor as soon as possible.

Macumber greeted the emperor with a legion salute.

"More dragons are coming, Your Majesty. The message has gone up the road to Barley Mow and Felli. Gompho and Belo will come soon, and the men from Barley Mow will be with them," said Macumber.

The female dragons were not trained for combat, but they were just about as powerful as the males and able to fight with a spear. They took places behind the highest parts of the barricade. There was now a good crowd there, so much so that Thorn was beginning to worry about its vulnerability to arrows and spears coming over the barricade.

Suddenly groans and cries of disgust rang out. Smoke was rising from some of the houses on Brennans Road just outside the village. Old Ma Fowles house was the first to burn, then went the Potishars' place. Gelmey the Pigman's, which was closer to a hut, caught at once and burned like a torch. Gelmey's swine, however, had broken free at the back and were running up Pigget Lane toward the farm. Old Ma emitted piercing wails of horror at the sight of her home going up in smoke. But her plight was only a small fraction of the disaster facing the village.

The imps had lit fires on Brennans Road down a ways from the barricade, and were sending fire arrows into the roofs of the houses along Market Street. The thatch above the Bull and Bush began to smolder. With a scream of outrage, Rustum Bullard ran inside through the side entrance on Market Street. His potboys ran after him with buckets in hand.

Then came the sound of more bright horns as Farmer Pigget came riding up the south lane with all his men, a force of more than twenty. Gelmey's swine scattered with shrieks of alarm as the men on horses came through the lane at a gallop. Even as the echoes of Pigget's horns died away, there came more horns as Farmer Birch and his men took up the call from the northern end of the green, where they had regrouped to aid the defense of the temple.

More riders came up through Temple Lane to join them, men from Dorn's farm, Offler's farm and the other northern homesteads along the road to Barley Mow. Their numbers had grown to thirty by then.

The smoke along the south side of Brennan's Road was thick now as the houses caught and blazed. Rustum Bullard appeared at the loft window of the Bull and Bush, and threw out a bucket of water, then another. That put out the fire, but then arrows flashed, and Rustum Bullard gave a cry and vanished inside.

More fire arrows arced across the sky.

Here and there a man came up with his hunting bow and started shooting back at the imp archers, but they were outnumbered ten to one and could do little to suppress the imp fire.

The group around the emperor was forming into an ad hoc command center. It moved around the corner into Schoolhouse Street to be out of the line of flight of the imp arrows, which were falling regularly in Market Street. The emperor, with Thorn at his side, was quick to assume control. It was a time for firm leadership, and the local men had indicated that they were ready to fight.