The Sword And The Dragon (49 page)

Inside the tent, Glendar was just finishing up his present business. The shade that the canvas provided did little to cool his sweating body, and the aroma of many couplings hung heavy in the thick air. He had taken, or been offered, in some cases, the virtue of many a Wildermont woman while he waited for Pael to return. 

He had done exactly as Pael ordered, and sent the bulk of the women and children south to O’Dakahn. Of course, he had handpicked the ones that he fancied, and imprisoned them at a wealthy nobleman’s mansion near the city’s edge. The Duke, or Lord, or Regent, or whatever title the man held, didn’t mind. His head was drawing crows on a pike in the house’s yard. Tonight, very soon in fact, out of sheer boredom, King Glendar was going to start terrorizing King Jarrek and his men from afar. It could be weeks before Pael came back to help him take the castle, and King Glendar figured to weaken their spirit while he waited.

The idea of his tent sitting just outside of the fortress’s outer walls gave him a sort of smug satisfaction. It showed a cocky lack of fear, or respect, for his enemies. Besides that, it made him feel superior. At first it had unnerved him. The idea that a horde of Redwolf soldiers could, at any moment, come storming out of those open gates had been overwhelming. Only after he had toured the area beyond the gates, with the smoldering buildings, body-strewn streets, and the clouds of carrion that attended them, did he realize that he had nothing to fear. He would have moved his pavilion in front of the secondary wall’s main gate, if doing so wouldn’t make it too hard for all those eyes way up in the castle to look down upon it. Where it was now, any who looked out toward the west were forced to see it. Glendar was about to decorate the area around his tent properly, so that all those peering eyes had something substantial to see when they gazed out.

“Out now!” he ordered the two women who were trembling and naked in his bed. 

They rose quickly, and began searching for their clothes on the floor. “I said now!” he screamed, and shoved the mother out the tent flaps into the dirt, sniveling and bare-skinned. He gave the daughter a swift boot in the rear as she stopped to grab her mother’s dress. She went sprawling out behind her mother, her arms so full of bundled clothes, that she couldn’t stop herself from smacking into the ground. The mother, shamed and terrified, helped her daughter up. They huddled together right in the middle of the street, until a soldier from a group of Glendar’s attendants came hopping over to lead them back to their prison.

“Roark!” Glendar yelled through the closed flap of the tent. 

The biggest, and meanest of the guardsmen turned and stepped into the tent. He quickly averted his eyes, while Glendar pulled his leggings up over his spindly white legs.

“Yes, your majesty?”

The big man had to stoop awkwardly, because the pavilion’s roof pressed down on the sharp horns of the helmet he sported. Glendar found it comical and chuckled.

“From now on Roark, remove your helmet before entering the tent.” 

Glendar laughed again as the man fumbled the helm off like a scolded child. 

“It’s a rule now. Tell the others.” Glendar voice turned serious, almost sharp. “I don’t want the canvas ripped by those fargin helmets.” 

He looked around the room for something, then sighed heavily and continued. 

“Send a handful of men over to where Lord Abel is holding the rest of the Wildermont City Guardsmen, and help escort them all here.”

He gestured through the tent wall towards the open gates outside.

“As you command,” Roark nodded. He bowed in his gold chased plate armor, as if the heavy steel weighed nothing on his frame, then spun, and exited the tent.

He froze three paces later, with this helmet held nearly in place over his head. King Glendar was calling out his name. He turned to go back inside, but Glendar stuck his sweaty grinning head out saving him the trouble.

“Have Captain Stimps bring some torches and the chopping block. Oh yeah, pikes, Roark. We’re going to need plenty of pikes.”

King Glendar had expected a reaction over his gruesome display, but not so soon. The sun had long illuminated the sky, but hadn’t risen up over the mountains that cradled Castlemont quite yet. Glendar’s pavilion was deep in the morning shadow. 

Glendar’s evening had been spent laboring. Now he was being ripped from a deep, deep well earned sleep. The kind of sleep a lumberjack might find after a day of felling trees, or a blacksmith, after swinging his hammer all day; or maybe like a young tyrant might earn after a night of piking men’s heads.

“Your majesty!” Roark yelled for the third time. This time, he pulled the silken sheets off of his king, and added a threat. “I’m going to yank you out of bed and carry you out of here! Get up and dress!”

“What is it man?” Glendar growled. “Didn’t last night’s display teach you better manners?”

Glendar held his hand up in front of his eyes to shield them from the brightness of Roark’s lantern. He was naked, save for his small clothes. To Roark, he looked like a bleached wood scarecrow, with a dark mess of a wig on his head.

“They’re riding out to break us!” the big guard said excitedly. “Captain Hinkle’s man said there are at least four thousand of them between horse and footmen. Maybe more!”

Suddenly, King Glendar was fully awake. 

“What? Four thousand men?”
King Jarrek couldn’t be foolish enough to send out the whole of his forces. Blast!
 

That’s more men than Glendar had left himself in the city. Panic tore through the young King. He had no idea what to do. He had sent the bulk of his forces through the mountains, just as Pael had instructed him to do.
Pael! Where was Pael anyway?    

“Get dressed, uh, um, if you please,” Roark stammered, holding out the King’s leggings and an undershirt.

“Bring my chain mail,” Glendar barked, as he took the offered clothes. His stiff attitude did little to hide his confusion, though it did mask is growing fear fairly well. 

He could hear the distant sound of battle now, the chink and clang of steel on steel, the clattering of horses, and the occasional death cry. The sound was coming from somewhere beyond the open gates. He could tell, though, by the sounds of his own men riding in from the encampments around the city, and the hustling of his troops outside his tent, that there was not much time to waste. 

Suddenly, an explosion shook the earth. A brilliant flash of light lit the morning shade so brightly, that its glow could be seen plainly through the thick canvas walls of the pavilion tent. The sheer volume of the noise was deafening. 

In the long, relative silence that followed the blast, the shriek of a man died away slowly. The terrified “oohs” and “aahs” of the men outside of his tent, made Glendar tremble. 

What could’ve made that explosion?
He had no idea what was happening. He heard the words, “wizard” and “magic,” shouted in fear outside. He remembered vaguely, Lord Brach once warning him about King Jarrek’s old sorcerer Keedle. He had scoffed at the warning, saying that Pael was far more capable.
Where is Pael anyway?
Glendar needed him right now, and badly.

A few moments later, King Glendar emerged from the command pavilion into a world of utter chaos. This was no dominating rout like the taking of the city had been. Already, some of the Redwolf Cavalry was getting through. The men holding the inside of the outer wall, Glendar’s men, or what was left of them, were falling back. Most of them were covered in something black, soot maybe, or oil, Glendar couldn’t tell exactly what it was.

Roark yanked him out of the way of a volley of arrows that came thumping down in a tight grouping where he had just been standing. The other men of the King’s personal guard swarmed around them then. They forced King Glendar to fall back away from the battle that was taking form right there in the gateway of the outer wall. Glendar looked around frantically for some indication, some sign of what he should do. 

More Westlanders were charging in from the north and south to clog the way, some in organized groups, and some in stumbling tangles. From the road that led out to the Locar Crossing Bridge, a huge band of Lord Abele’s Cavalry, came charging past with weapons drawn, and faces set for grim and bloody work. 

Seeing them, Glendar sighed with relief. Up until that moment, he’d thought that King Jarrek’s soldiers held the advantage. He had thought it was all but over. Now, with so many of his men in sight, ready to drive the Wildermont soldiers back behind the walls, he began to feel that smug confidence returning to him.

Suddenly, from the top of the wall, a sizzling streak of yellow, blazed down into the crowd of Westlanders at the mouth of the gate. Where it impacted, a man-sized divot of dirt and debris exploded up from the earth, causing the horses and men around it to go flailing blindly into the heated battle. A figure, robed in black, with his hands raised up high, sent another blast, and then another, into the fray below him. At first, Glendar thought it was Pael, but through the smoke and distance, he saw a long, white beard trailing from the sorcerer’s chin. It was Keedle.

As if he had sensed Glendar’s eyes on him, the old wizard stopped his attack, and met Glendar’s wide-eyed gaze. Across the great distance, Glendar could see the rage and hatred burning on Keedle’s face. 

Then the moment was gone. The wizard’s next crackling blast was larger than the others had been. It shot like a bolt of lightning from his fingers, across the open air, over the battling men below him, towards the piked heads in front of Glendar’s pavilion. They, and the pavilion tent, exploded in a roiling ball of flame. In the sudden light from the blaze, Glendar could see that the Redwolf soldiers were pressing out of the gateway now. More of them spilled out into the bloody mix, and his Westlanders were beginning to fall.

From the north, more of his men were charging through the city to join the battle, a few hundred it looked like. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel more confident or not. As he gained the saddle of an offered horse, he stood in the stirrups, and looked southward. There, a small group of soldiers, maybe three dozen Wildermont cavalrymen, were casually riding up toward the gates. A few of them ranged ahead and dispatched any Westlander who dared to get in their path. At the front of the main group, a rider carried King Jarrek’s personal banner. Glendar’s strained eyes could tell by the brilliant red enameled armor that those men wore, and by the glinting ruby-eyed wolf skull mounted on their leader’s helmet, that it was the Wolf King himself and his infamous Blood Pack. 

The realization sent a chill of terror and confusion racing through him. Why would King Jarrek risk himself, when Wildermont was losing the battle so badly? It didn’t make sense. Again Glendar wished Pael was there. The wizard had promised to take Castlemont down for him. It seemed that Pael had forgotten him.

Roark’s gasp brought Glendar’s attention back to the men riding in from the north. Glendar cursed at what he saw. Then he cursed Pael for not being there.

“I think we should get you to the bridge,” the big guardsman suggested.

Glendar didn’t have the heart to argue with him. What he had thought were a few hundred Westland soldiers coming in from the north to tilt the battle in his favor, were really only a few dozen Westlanders fleeing from several hundred Wildermont soldiers. 

To make things worse, another wizard, this one with dark hair and white robes, was sending bright blue bolts of energy into the group of fleeing Westlanders by the dozens. Like glowing sapphire arrows, the magical blasts shot forth from the wizard’s finger, one after another, as fast as he could point out a new target. Each magical pulse struck true and the victims fell, only to be trampled flat as the Redwolf Cavalry rode them over. 

Glendar didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away. He wasn’t in immediate danger. At least he didn’t think so. He still had six guardsmen, now mounted and surrounding him, each of them looking more eager than the next to be allowed to go join the battle. Only a short gallop away was the bridge. He knew for certain that enough soldiers remained there to discourage any pursuit back into Westland if he was forced to cross back in retreat.

A knot of Westlanders, who had been too crowded into the mass at the gateway to be effective, peeled off at the order of a screaming captain. Fifty men or more turned their horses, and rode out to meet King Jarrek’s fearsome looking Blood Pack. One, two, and then a third Westlander fell to the huge swords of the crimson clad wolf’s men. The Westlanders appeared to be outmatched, until a pike found a painted breast plate, and one of the Redwolf’s men flipped backwards off of his horse, and crashed to the ground. 

Encouraged, the Westlanders roared out, and went forward. The battle graduated into a gleaming, bloody frenzy. Swords rose, fell, and swept through the air in blood slinging arcs. Men screamed in agony, horses reared, and came twisting down on their sides, as pikes were rammed through their chests and flanks. A helmet flew spinning through the air, smashed from a man’s head by the blow of a huge war hammer. King Jarrek, in his crimson armor, cut through Westlanders like an explorer hacking his way through jungle vegetation, with big heavy slashes that cleaved everything in their path. 

Most of the Westlanders that faced the King’s Guard were down now, but more were quickly coming. Half of King Jarrek’s red armored honor guard was dead as well. A pair of them had been unhorsed, and we’re now fighting viciously back to back on their feet. The half dozen Westlanders surrounding them looked weary.

Along the top of the wall, a troop of archers, followed by the black robed wizard, ran southward, trying to get into a range that might help their struggling King.

To the north, the white robed wizard had reined his horse to a halt, letting the Wildermont soldiers he had been leading ride past him. They broke off into groups of four and five, and met, with a sickening crash, the Westland archers who had been firing up at the men on the outer walls. The rest of them charged headlong into the knot of men still battling outside the gates, and began hacking, stabbing, and slashing their way through.