The Dragons of Argonath (20 page)

There were dull horns blaring, and the imp drums were louder.

"They come."

The dragon roused himself wearily onto his feet.

"We are ready."

In front of the inn, they made their stand. There were less than thirty men now, and only a handful of dragons, most of them too old for this work. But they fought alongside the Broketail dragon, who held the middle of the line. The enemy knew him and the power of his terrifying sword now, and they had to be filled to the gills with the black drink to face him.

Still, they came, their dull horns blaring and their drums thundering, despite the dead that lay so thickly in the street.

Bazil watched them come through eyes reddened by smoke and fatigue. His arm ached from weariness, but the great sword still quivered in his hand with anticipation. How it loved this work. Such a strange thing was this sword, inhabited by its own fell spirit. Bazil had sensed it many times as it awoke to its work. Strange but deadly, more so even than his first blade, great "Piocar," which had been lost long ago in Tummuz Orgmeen.

Let them come!

Relkin had twenty arrows ready, all cut down from long imp shafts and fitted to his Cunfshon bow. He waited at the side of the barricade, behind a table on its side stacked against a pile of broken chairs and a heavy wooden post. The imps came forward, a mad snarl on their faces and their voices a whooping war chant. Behind them loomed the bewks.

Relkin aimed carefully and shot the imp nearest him through the throat. It gagged and sank to its knees. Arrows flashed and flickered around the barricade as imp archers farther back let loose another volley. A man staggered back from the barricade with a sharp cry. He fell to his knees.

Women rushed up and helped him away, the shaft sticking up from his shoulder.

The bewks made their growling roar as they came, and now behind them Relkin could see men on horses, blowing horns and urging on the hordes in front of them. Always it was thus, these men who sold their hearts to the enemy were the commanders of these dreadful battalions. His hate was strongest for men like these. Carefully he drew aim, but the smoke was thick and swirled up higher when a beam collapsed in the house across the way. The rain had started again, and it was damping down the fires, but sending up enormous clouds of steam and smoke.

Bewks stamped forward through the yelling imps. Relkin put arrows into them, trying for their eyes, but missing. Bewks with arrows sticking out of their thick-skinned skulls came on and broke into the barricade. Relkin used up the last of his arrows on a huge brute that wielded a two-handed sword which was almost as big as a dragonsword. The bewk did not seem to notice. Relkin dove through the legs of the table as the big sword chopped down and broke it right through the middle.

Close, much too close. He rolled and stood up and almost got crushed as another dragon, big old Essa, thrust in with her spear at the bewk.

Essa was old and untrained in war. Her thrust was avoided by the agile brute, and she fell off balance into the barricade and stumbled to her knees. The bewk needed no encouragement, and it hewed into her with the sword. She twisted away with a shriek, blood spraying from her neck. After a couple of steps she collapsed.

Bazil had his hands full with a pair of bewks, one of which had forced its way almost through the barricade. Bazil kept whipping the sword back and forth between them, but both were wily and quick and had avoided his blows.

The bewk that had slain Essa stormed through the rest of the barricade, and men rushed it, bowling over the imps in the fury of their attack. But the creature's sword was too heavy, and it broke other blades and sundered shields and sent heads spinning from their bodies.

Relkin slid under the broken table, wriggled forward under it, and came up behind the bewk. He stabbed home with his sword, deep into the monster's back. It roared and thrust an elbow at him instinctively and knocked him flying. As he got back on his feet, an imp swung in and would have gutted him if he hadn't caught the wrist and kneed its owner in the crotch. The imp's stinking breath washed over him as he dug his hip into its side and tossed it over his leg into a broken wood crate.

Relkin had his own sword up in time to defend against the next. A scream of warning made him duck as the bewk hewed at him from behind. The bewk was on its last legs, but it had turned to find the man-child that had done it such harm. Its sword took the heel off Relkin's left boot as he dove for safety under the ruined table.

He scrambled and the table was smashed as the bewk stove it in. Relkin rolled out and flung himself sideways. The sword missed him by a hairbreadth.

And then Thorn arrived and drove a spear deep into the breast of the bewk, and it went down at last with a gurgle of helpless rage. Other men surged past and threw the imps back over the barricade or slew them on the spot.

Bazil drove the bewks back and knocked one silly with a crack from the hammer he carried in his gripping tail tip. The bewk fell backward, rolled over, and got up slowly. Bazil had time to deal with his other immediate opponent. He caught its next thrust, whipped Ecator down, and shattered its shield.

It gave a moan of astonishment, and the next moment Ecator went deep from neck to crotch. The monster slid away in blood-soaked ruin.

The battle met once more at the midpoint, hovering over the barricade. It did not remain static for long. The imps came back, and then flanking movements began around the inn. They had broken the line north of Market Street and were sweeping into the rest of the village. But now there were only twenty-three men in front of the inn, and the women of the Bernarbo family, still occupying the windows of the inn, hurled rocks down on the imps as they milled below.

More arrows were lofted at the windows, and fire arrows at the thatch. But the Blue Stone Inn refused to burn so easily, and the women threw buckets of water on any arrow that lodged and burned.

In the yard at back Farmer Pigget and twelve men plus old Zignus, a huge, slow-moving brasshide that had never been bright enough for the legions, were keeping the imps and bewks out. Zignus was so strong he fought with a wheelless wagon that he picked up bodily and used as giant swatter to smash imps, bewks, and anything else that got in the way. The only problem was that he was slow and the imps were quick.

Nor was this the only small group. Others existed in pockets within ruined houses, fighting desperately to hold onto the entrance to an alley or just an isolated house. There were also two small barricades around the pump house, where a lot of wounded men were lying on the floor.

Yet desperate as the situation was, the survivors still fought on in the hope that help would come soon. By now the folk in Brennans must be aware of the battle. They would have smelled the smoke long since, and if they climbed up Durn's hillock, they would have seen the fires in Quosh.

And still the enemy came on. There were hundreds of imps, and with the black drink to fuel them, they would fight until they dropped dead.

Once more Lessis implored the emperor to seek safety in flight. There was still the open west road. They could get across the Roan Hills and down to Querc. From there fresh resistance could be organized.

Pascal Iturgio Densen Asturi, Emperor of the Rose, was wounded, sore, and bloody, but he was determined to fight to the death. He would not leave.

"We will stand here in Quosh and defeat the enemy!"

The enemy horns began to blow, the drums to thunder. Another round of the black drink, gulped thirstily from canteens made of human leather, was investing the imps and bewks with hellish energy. Their war screams became general, and they came on again with a wild will and the cry of war.

The men at the barricade rose to meet them, and once again everything from swords to mattocks was employed in the fight. The hellish clangor rose to the rooftops, mingled with the smoke of the burning village. How long the defenders could last was in doubt, but surely the end would come soon.

And then there came another sound, a harsh singing, huge voices roaring together in song.

"Oh, to be in the land of Kenor, green grassland so far away.

"Oh, to be in the land of Kenor…"

"Dragons!" went up the cry, and it was caught and repeated down the street to the inn. And the hearts of the men of Quosh rose up like a high flame, and they renewed their assault on the helm and shield of their enemy.

"Oh, to be in the land of Kenor, green and grassy and faraway…"

A gust blew smoke from the guttering ruins, and with it came the distinct sound of heavy steel biting into sword and shield.

Bazil started roaring the words of the "Kenor Song." Zignus picked it up and threw his hoarse bellow into it. Then everyone in the inn took up the refrain and sent it high and lovely and unafraid over the roar of battle and the stench of the burning.

Shouts echoed from Pump Street, and there were screams and then a few imps ran full tilt into the market, in flight from that which came behind them.

Then the Purple Green of Hook Mountain, with Alsebra close behind, burst into the Market with a bewk stumbling ahead of them, its arms cartwheeling as it tried to increase its pace.

"One hundred and ninth Marneri dragons are here now!" roared the Purple Green.

The men at the barricade gave up a great shout, and there came an echo from Pump Street as men from Felli and Barley Mow came pouring in carrying everything from swords and spears to scythes and flails to join the weary few at the barricade. The tempo of the fighting surged. Meanwhile the great dragons embraced the Broketail and urged him to stand back, help was at hand. Then they turned and rushed the barricade with a collective roar that scattered everyone that had their wits about them.

Little Jak discovered Relkin leaning against the wall of the inn. Bazil was lying stretched out in the courtyard while Pessana Bernarbo and the other girls were pouring water on him.

"Relkin!"

"Jak," said Relkin looking up. "Thank the gods!"

"Curf heard you in a dream, Relkin. Curf and the dragons. You said come to Quosh. So we did!"

Relkin's eyes got very wide. It had worked! Somehow or other, even though he had no idea what he was doing, he had gotten through to them. The enormity of it came home to him.

Swane was coming over, a big smile on his simple features. Relkin took a deep breath.

At the barricade the fight soon turned. The Purple Green borrowed Zignus's idea and took up a battered delivery wagon, using it to flatten a group of bewks. The rest scattered, and the dragons went over with their swords at the ready.

Behind the dragons came the men of Felli, fresh and hot for battle. The imps broke and ran, the bewks lumbered after them. The men who commanded them could do nothing to stop their flight, not even when they slashed at them with their whips, or even their swords.

"It seems like a miracle," said Thorn, standing there for a moment while the smoke rose over the ruined village.

"By the Hand of the Mother, we have witnessed an amazing thing." Lessis looked over to where Relkin stood with little Jak.

"The emperor was right to make his stand here!" Thorn looked defiantly at the witch. Lessis looked back with a neutral expression.

"It would appear that he was," she said, unable to force herself to be completely enthusiastic.

"We stood here and we held them, and somehow these dragons got here in the nick of time."

Lessis's eyes slid across the street to where she saw Relkin standing listening to an excited babble from another dragonboy that she knew well, little Jak. They were joined by another, and more were coming, while enormous dragons moved off down the street in pursuit of the enemy, who had now fallen back to the village green past the smoldering remains of the old Bull and Bush.

Relkin sensed something and looked up. For a moment their eyes met.

Lessis made a mental note that Relkin had not been interviewed concerning his experiences in Mirchaz. The boy had crossed the lands of terror, and wandered through the most secret places in the world. Ribela should have seen to his full interrogation by the skilled questioners of the Office of Unusual Insight. But Ribela had behaved oddly following what happened to her on her astral projection to Eigo. She changed the subject whenever Relkin's name was mentioned and seemed quite uncomfortable with the topic of dragonboys in general. Ribela was a mystery, that was all you could lay it to. Lessis had served in the older witch's pathway for all her own enormously long life, but never had she fully pierced all the veils of the Queen of Mice. Whatever the case, this odd failure concerning the dragonboy would have to be corrected and soon. It appeared that something very strange had happened there.

The great green freemartin Alsebra emerged from the smoke that swirled thickly on Market Street, carrying her bloodstained sword flat on her shoulder.

"Greetings, Lady Lessis," said the dragon.

"Well met, great Alsebra. You came just in time."

"Almost too late, you mean. We smelled the smoke when we were in Felli. All the men came with us. They're cleaning out the other end of the village now."

"It was very well-done, a wonderful thing. Our enemy almost succeeded in his great aim, but by your aid he has been thwarted."

Jak came up, eyes searching for any cuts or damage to the joboquin.

"Everything's fine, not even a scratch," Alsebra hissed.

"What are they doing down there?" Lessis nodded to the smoke-filled street.

"Running, if they got any sense at all."

"Yes, indeed." Lessis stroked her chin.

"Tell me, Alsebra, why was it that you all left camp together and came here?"

"Easy," said Alsebra turning and pointing to Relkin, where he was standing with Swane, Manuel, and another boy Lessis didn't know.

"We all have dream of Relkin. Worthless boy Curf say he hear Relkin tell him to come to Quosh. Since we all have similar dream, we decide we better do it."

Lessis was rocked. It was what she'd expected, but to hear it from the dragon herself was still amazing.