A Sword for a Dragon (33 page)

Paxion’s eyes widened at this summary assumption of power. The Great Witch had decreed that they drop the diplomatic niceties to ensure the survival of the legions. He wondered why he himself had not asked for this. Too long as a fort general he concluded.

“And the broketail dragon’s return will be good for morale I think.”

“Indeed it will, lady.”

“Well, at least we can say that we will have reinforcements and, in time, enough strength to take the field against the enemy. There will be a second legion from Cunfshon and then a legion from the cities, regiments from here and there, stripping the garrisons. That will give us five legions.”

“Twenty-five thousand men and eight hundred dragons, lady. Such a force would be match for any army on this Earth.”

“Yes, General, I think you may be correct on that score.”

“Meanwhile, we must hold the walls with ten thousand.”

“We must. But within two months, we will take the field and break through to Dzu and cut out the source of this dreadful power.”

“What about this report of giants in the enemy’s ranks? What is to be made of this?”

Ribela tightened her lips. “Yes, the blood myrmidons. They are another horror of the Dark Arts of the Masters. It takes the blood of many people to bring one of these things to life, and they can only keep their strength for a single month, from the moment of their creation.”

Paxion was ashen-faced. “They are slaughtering the people to make these things then?”

“Did you not hear that the land is empty of people on the western side of the river? Even as we speak, huge columns of fresh victims are being marched to Dzu from Kwa and the country around here.”

“That many?”

“We will see the myrmidons soon. They are a terrible foe.”

The siege of Ourdh was now into its tenth day and already supplies of food were very tight. Outside the walls, the enemy displayed a powerful appetite for activity. Wooden towers set on massive wheels rose up from the ruins of the suburbs amidst an infernal clatter of hammers that went on day and night. Catapults had been completed on the sixth day and ever since had been lobbing great chunks of the walls of fine houses from the suburbs over the city walls, where they crashed in the streets and smashed into houses.

Beneath the walls, a deadly war of mine and countermine had been going for several days. And here a new enemy weapon had appeared, the giant men made of mud. These creatures were of human shape, but almost ten feet tall and weighed half a ton. Only the fact that little intelligence resided behind their utterly blank faces gave the dragons an edge. It was like fighting a herd of almost unkillable imbeciles armed with hammers. In the darkness beneath the walls, there was usually little room for maneuver. It was a contest of grappling and rending with teeth and talon. It brought to the surface the primeval dragon. And yet the mud men kept coming in a seemingly endless supply. The dragons were getting tired. It was a worrying addition to the struggle.

As the siege wore on and the supply situation in the city deteriorated, Commander Porteous Glaves felt the jaws of a gigantic trap shutting around him. Darkness and doom rode through his dreams. He drank whatever wine or whiskey he could obtain, but it was getting harder by the hour as supplies in the city ran low.

With the lack of supplies had come a marked increase in the city’s meanness. Corruption was mounting. Everyone stole from the supplies meant for the legions. This had meant starvation rations for the men and officers for the past couple of days; a bowl of porridge and a handful of dried fruit. There had been no meat of any kind for days, and there had been hardly any of the famed Ourdhi beer. The men were unhappy as hell.

The whole thing was getting very trying.

Glaves had not exactly enjoyed the long march from Salpalangum, or even the trip down the Oon, but arduous as they had been, the rations had been adequate. In Ourdh, at least, one could buy some excellent wines. In fact, in retrospect, it had all been rather jolly, in a way, sitting around camp fires while the men sang the songs of the Argonath, The food had been, well, basic, and Glaves’s traveling cot was narrow and hard, but with Dandrax to serve and the interesting wines of Ourdh to explore, it had not been without its rewards. He had thought of many colorful images to use in later life when he addressed the political clubs of Marneri. Indeed, even the Battle of Salpalangum was taking on a rosy glow now, in the light of what they had come to.

Glaves never visited the regiment’s section of wall. The sight of the siege towers was too depressing. Glaves left the inspections up to the captains. Glaves knew that the men hated him. To tell the truth, he hated them, too. And he loathed the dragons now, damnably inconvenient beasts. They had quite ruined his hopes of an early exit from the siege.

Glaves had taken over the house of the Merchant Saubraj on Fatan Street. There wasn’t much to drink there and it had soon run out, but Glaves had remained, holed up in a salon on the first floor while Dandrax was sent to scour the city for decent wine or some Argonathi whiskey.

Occasionally he would be forced to come out, to attend General Paxion’s pep meetings for the regimental commanders. He hated these events with a passion and could barely restrain himself from denouncing General Paxion out loud for incompetence.

After all, Paxion had willingly led them to this doomed position. General Hektor had been mad enough, but Paxion had decided that they had to defend the city of Ourdh. This had sealed their doom. Instead of escaping on whatever shipping was available, Paxion was staying put.

Even Hektor’s body, in a state of coma, had been kept in Ourdh where the damned surgeons poked and pulled at it in a vain attempt to reawake intelligence within the hulk. Glaves had seen it, he knew that Hektor would never awake. It was just as well. Hektor probably would have ordered them to attack the enemy or something equally insane.

But the loss of Hektor had not prevented the very worst thing from happening. They were trapped here, and soon they would be fighting for their lives on those walls.

Porteous Glaves knew now that it was every man for himself in getting out of this. He told himself that he really had no choice. The damned priestesses had broken their word, and so there was no chance of getting a boat now. They acted as if it was his fault that the dragon had broken loose and escaped!

That damned dragon! What did it take to get a little cooperation out of the world? It was all so frustrating.

And so he had convened the first of his secret meetings with the Kadeini regimental commanders. They were quite receptive to his idea. Some kind of peace had to be negotiated. It was utter folly to just let two legions be destroyed in a hopeless siege. They were all going to starve to death in a week or two more. There were just no supplies.

Eventually a “Committee of Emergency Action” was set up, consisting of Commanders Hayl and Vinblat of the Kadein First, Commander Glaves of the Marneri Second Legion, Captains Sikker and Rokensak of Kadein, and Captain Ferahr of the Kenor Archer detachment.

Glaves had received no encouragement from any of the other officers in the Marneri Second. They seemed blind to their doom and were determined to stand behind Paxion until they were overwhelmed by the seething hordes of Sephis. Well then, let them have their wish. It would make it easier for Glaves anyway, when he got back to the Argonath.

Now he had brought the committee together to meet with the very useful Euxus of Fozad, who was their link to the enemy beyond the walls. Euxus had business dealings with Dzu, from before the resurrection of the serpent god. He knew the priests of Sephis, he’d sold them oil and wine for years. Naturally, he also had extensive business in the city of Ourdh. He thought he could bridge the gap between the armies and help begin the negotiations.

Euxus was a narrow-faced fellow with a black mustache and a direct, stern gaze from dark eyes. His black hair was severely cut, and he dressed in a suit of dark brown silk and expensive shoes. He was clearly prosperous, although somewhat forbidding of countenance. However, he possessed a golden tongue and could be perfectly charming. The men from Kadein were ready to believe him. He seemed eminently trustworthy. They were eager, even desperate for the chance to escape the trap.

The Kadeini entered Glaves’s quarters looking expectant and watchful. Introductions were made, the conversation begun, and quickly an atmosphere of general agreement arose. Euxus would be the perfect emissary for them.

“There remains a single major difficulty,” said Euxus. Eyebrows shot up.

“The good General Paxion, I mean. He will not agree with our position.”

The men from Kadein shrugged. “Something’s gotten into the old fellow.”

“It’s that damned witch they sent from Cunfshon, that’s what,” snarled Commander Glaves.

“Is he then the final arbiter?” purred Euxus.

“I say drop Paxion and promote General Pekel. Old Pekel could be brought round to it,” said Commander Vinblat.

Glaves bit his tongue. Excellent, they were making progress. He looked at Euxus and saw the man’s eyes gleaming as he stared at Vinblat. Something about those eyes made Glaves suddenly uncomfortable.

“Then I should continue my efforts to begin negotiations?” Euxus inquired.

“Go ahead,” said Commander Vinblat.

“What about General Paxion?” said Captain Ferahr, the Kenor bowman. “Are we not even going to give old Pax a chance? He might see it our way.”

“Look! We’re going to be eating the Talion horses in the next few days. After that we’ll be eating the leather on our belts. Old Pax just has to understand that staying here is a recipe for complete disaster,” said Captain Rokensak.

“But how are we going to do it?”

There was a silence.

“He has to stand down and hand over authority to Pekel.”

“What if he won’t?”

“In that case,” murmured Glaves, “he will have to be restrained. If he wants to die that badly, then we’ll leave him here for the Sephisti to find when they take the place. We’ll leave him here with the emperor.”

There were grins around the table. The Emperor Banwi was not popular with the legions.

“We won’t see a whit of resupply for at least two weeks. White ships or no white ships, we won’t make it that long.”

“It’s all wrong. We won a great victory, and now the general’s gone and bungled it.”

“The Ourdhi have no provision at all for a siege. Their granaries, pathetic!”

Euxus provided them with the final shape of their offer. “We should propose that the legions agree to abandon the city and head either south to meet the white ships, or east to the mountains and the long march home.”

Everyone was agreed, though the bowman Ferahr was still unhappy at the thought of laying hands on General Paxion and “restraining” him. Glaves assured him that it would all be taken care of and Ferahr need not be involved in the slightest. Ferahr seemed to accept this.

The Kadeini left, and shortly afterward, so did Euxus of Fozad, a charming, but somehow chilling presence. Glaves was left with the dregs of a bottle of whiskey that Dandrax had purloined. He stared out the window and across the small garden to the wall and the houses on the far side. It was set then, his course. They would remove Paxion, negotiate a way out of this, and then get out of this death trap city and march south.

Although, in fact, Glaves had already decided that it would be better if the legions marched east and went back home over the mountains. That would take them months. Glaves himself would be going home with the first white ship to leave for the Argonath.

Once he was back in Marneri, he would resign his commission and start his campaign to win election in Aubinas. His position was already strong there. With a military reputation, from the great victory at Salpalangum and surviving the disaster in the city of Ourdh, he would be able to mount an overwhelming challenge to old Klosper, who held the seat. At last, he would be on his way to real power in the white city.

Thunder and lightning rocked the skies over the great city that night. On the walls, men and dragons tucked their heads into their freecoats or took shelter under the wicker withe fascia that had been erected down the center of the wall to provide protection from enemy arrows. In the flashes of lightning, the men could see the siege towers only a few hundred feet distant. Even in these conditions the work did not pause in the enemy camp. Thousands of slave workers were being driven to complete the towers.

Beneath the walls, the deadly game of mine and countermine continued. Only the skill of the weather witches and the efficacy of their ground-sensing spells had protected the besieged so far. Digging a mine to bring down the walls caused vibrations that could not be hidden. To the sensitive weather witches, the vibrations could be calibrated to betray the location of the mine.

With the power of the dragons to call on for speed in digging, the defense had stopped the enemy time after time. So far not a single section of the walls had been breached. That night it was the turn of the 109th Marneri to be working in the hastily sunk countermine just west of the Fatan Gate.

The countermine had to be narrow so as not to sap the walls above, but it had also to be wide enough for a dragon to work in. These constraints produced the typical tunnel, cut through the riverine rocks beneath the walls, only eight feet across at the narrowest point and a mere ten or twelve farther out past the walls.

In these confines, a gang of mud-covered dragons took turns working the tunnel face with huge shovels and digging bars. Well-fed dragons were capable of driving such a tunnel at a prodigious rate. They had tunneled forty feet since taking over from the 86th Marneri Dragons a few hours before. Despite the precautions of a tent at the entrance, the floor of the countermine had become slick and muddy with rain that had seeped down from the surface. The air reeked of dragon exhalations and warm, wet mud.

While the dragons dug out the face and shoveled the dirt back behind them, a huge gang of equally muddy men worked at removing it on wheelbarrows, trundled in an endless line back up the countermine to the surface.