Guardians of Magessa (The Birthright Chronicles Book 1) (16 page)

 Lemin stood silent for several moments as
he thought. He paced back and forth in front of the stairs for some time before
turning his attention back to Vladimir.

“And what would you have us do then?” he
asked. His countenance was downcast, and it was apparent that he had already
tried to formulate an excuse for why what Vladimir said was false and came up
empty. “I don’t suppose you would have any brilliant ideas as to how to get out
of here?”

“Well,” Vladimir began, “It occurred to me
that the gaps between the buildings in this city are so narrow that the table
we are using to block the stairwell would probably be able to serve as a bridge
to another building. All we would have to do is find a balcony or window with a
corresponding one on the adjacent building. Then we could lay the table across
the gap.”

“Let me think about that for a while,”
Lemin said and turned away from Vladimir.

“I would make a decision quickly,”
Vladimir responded. Lemin turned around, and Vladimir motioned to the makeshift
barricade that had been erected. Smoke was already beginning to drift up the
stairwell.

“Go and find what you’re looking for,”
Lemin said with some urgency in his voice. “I’ll send a message to Pondran and
tell him what the situation is.”

Vladimir didn’t immediately begin his
task, but first crossed to where Senndra was sitting against a wall, her legs
pulled up and her head on her knees.

“Senndra,” Vladimir said, and Senndra
slowly lifted her head. “I need your help in order to find a way out of
here." Senndra raised her head, and Vladimir held her gaze for a moment
before looking further down the hall.

“Timothy,” Vladimir called out, and
Timothy turned toward him. Vladimir motioned for him to come over, and he did
so immediately. When Timothy got close enough for his eyes to become visible,
Senndra felt a feeling of security travel up her spine at the familiar oddity.
Vladimir waited for Timothy to join them before beginning.

“Here’s the plan,” he said. “If we sit
here, we’re going to get roasted by the fire the dwarves have started
downstairs.” He glanced at the stairwell and saw that the amount of smoke had
noticeably increased. “If we want to survive, we have to get out of here, and
the only way to do that is to reach another building from this one. I’ve
already talked to Lemin, and he approved my plan to find coinciding windows or
balconies from this building to an adjacent one. Then we can bridge the gap
with a table and cross to the other building. Basically what we need to do now
is spread out and search for a pair of windows that will work. You two work
together, and I’ll find another cadet to come with me.”

Vladimir rose to his feet and began to
search for a willing helper. Timothy turned to look at Senndra. With a shrug of
his shoulders, he reached out a hand to help her up. She gratefully took it and
let him pull her to her feet. Timothy took the lead and moved down the hall.
But before they had gone more than a couple of yards, Vladimir was back at
their side, this time with another cadet.

“Lemin is moving the rest of the cadets to
the other staircase that Pondran was defending, so if you find what you’re
looking for, report to him there."

Vladimir was gone once again, so Timothy
and Senndra began to quickly work their way down each hall, looking in every
room along the perimeter of the building. There were a few windows that would
work as a last resort, but none that were exceptionally suited to their
purpose. As they neared the front of the building, they finally came upon a
room with an escape route that would suit their needs perfectly. It had a
balcony that was directly across from a balcony on the adjacent building. As
soon as they had confirmed that the setup would work, they rushed back into the
halls, making their way to where Josiah and Lemin had their soldiers. By this
time, the fire was eating its way through several portions of the second floor,
which they were forced to avoid. Because of this, it took them close to five
minutes to reach the other soldiers. By this time, the fire was quite
extensive, and Timothy had to shout to be heard above the sound.

“We found what we’re looking for,” he
shouted at Lemin. “There’s a balcony that is directly across from one on the
adjacent building. If we tear a plank off of the table blocking the stairs, we
can use it to bridge the gap.”

“Good,” Lemin shouted in reply. “Let’s get
a plank and head there immediately.”

In no time Timothy and Senndra had torn a
long plank loose and carried it between them as they headed back the way they
had just come. Behind them, they could hear Lemin and Josiah ordering their
soldiers, now a small group of just over sixty, to move. They quickly
maneuvered their way through the building to the exit that Senndra and Timothy
had found. Upon entering the room, they positioned the plank and stepped to the
side and allowed the soldiers to file across. Near the end of the line, they
met Lemin and Josiah.

“They’re making the move to the next
building well, I guess,” Senndra said.

“At least the line keeps moving. The
important thing is to make sure that the enemy doesn’t realize we are there
once we get across.”

“Well, let’s go then,” Josiah said and
started for the door. Lemin followed, but stopped and turned when neither Senndra
nor Timothy followed him.

“You heard the man; let’s go,” Lemin said.

"Where's Vladimir?" Senndra
asked suddenly.

Timothy cursed loudly. “He and his friend
are still in the building somewhere! We need to find them before we get out of
this death trap.”

“The ‘no man left behind’ idea, huh?”
Lemin muttered. “Maybe I taught them a little too well.” In a louder voice he
said, “Well, let’s get moving." In response to the looks on their faces he
added, "What? You didn’t expect me
not
to come, did you? After all,
three is safer than two.”

“We can’t spend time arguing, so I’ll
agree,” Timothy said. “But if you’re coming, we need to get moving right now.
This building isn’t going to last very much longer.”

“Josiah,” Lemin yelled through the door of
the room with the balcony. “I’m leaving for the time being and putting you in
charge of my troops.” He pulled his head out of the room. “Okay, let’s go.”

Together, the three companions started
back into the burning building in pursuit of their missing comrades. The building
was burning hot by now, and sweat ran down the faces of all three. The
integrity of the building had been breached quite a while ago, and with every
step, the floor and ceiling creaked, threatening to collapse at any moment. To
add to these dangers, smoke filled the air, making it hard to breathe or see
more than an arm's length in any direction.

As the three moved through the building,
they called out Vladimir’s name, but never received any response. They skirted
the outside wall of the building with no luck and then moved their search
toward the rooms in the middle. As they moved toward the center of the
structure, the smoke lessened and they were able to see more clearly. They
searched for what seemed like hours until they convinced themselves that they
would never find their comrades. They turned and headed back for the outer edge
of the building, but suddenly a section of floor caved in. They headed back the
way they had come only to have another section collapse almost underneath their
feet. Weaving their way through the halls of the building, they tried
desperately to find a way out. The smoke was so thick now that they could not
see more than a few inches, and they had resorted to feeling their way through
the building. Senndra stumbled and fell. She called out to Lemin and Timothy
who immediately moved in her direction. Even using the sound of her voice for
direction, the navigation was still difficult.

“What is it?” Timothy asked when he found
Senndra. He had tied a cloth over his mouth to help filter some of the smoke.

“I tripped over something here,” Senndra
responded.

“Probably just some fallen furniture or
something,” Lemin said irritably. “Let’s get going.”

“It’s not just some furniture,” Senndra
responded indignantly. “It felt soft, almost like a body.” She groped with her
hands through the thick smoke until she found the body over which she had
stumbled. “Over here,” she called. “I think it’s Vladimir!”

“Where’s his friend?” Timothy said. He was
suddenly on his hands and knees beside her and groping about. Lemin joined the
search, and together they explored the surrounding area. After several minutes
of hunting, they turned up nothing.

“We need to get going or we’re not going
to get out of here ourselves,” Timothy finally shouted over the roar of the
fire. “We haven’t found him yet, so I doubt he’s around here.”

“You’re probably right,” Lemin said. He
walked in a stooped posture to where Senndra sat on the floor next to the prone
body of Vladimir, his head in her lap. Lemin hefted the unconscious body onto
his shoulders and started down the hall as fast as he could move. Senndra
scrambled to her feet and followed quickly after him, though it was hard for her
to concentrate due to the vast amounts of smoke she was inhaling. She was
lightheaded and unable to keep track of time. It felt as if she was dreaming,
and her brain couldn’t process anything. Suddenly she bumped into Lemin, who
had abruptly stopped moving. Through blurry eyes, she could see the elf heave
Vladimir through the air toward a wall that appeared out of the smoke. He
turned around and grabbed her arm and shoved her toward where Vladimir was
lying, and she stumbled and fell to the ground. A loud cracking noise startled
her, and she jerked her head around just in time to see a massive beam falling
toward Lemin and Timothy. Smoke rolled in, blocking her view of the two men.
Suddenly Timothy came flying out of the smoke and rolled to a stop at Senndra’s
feet. He sprang to his feet as soon as he came to a stop and turned back toward
where Lemin still was. The smoke hid any view of what was happening, and then
Lemin broke through the screen. He hurried to where the others were and began
to feel along the wall.

“What are you looking for?” Timothy
shouted.

“A fireplace,” Lemin shouted back. “We
should be able to climb up it and onto the roof of this building. The walls and
roof are made of stone, so we will be safe from fire up there.”

Timothy wasted no time in searching for
the fireplace as well. Lemin crossed from where he was searching and headed for
the wall on the other side of Senndra. On the way past, he tossed a rope to
Senndra.

“Take this and tie it under Vladimir’s
armpits,” he explained slowly. “That way I will be able to pull him up the
chimney.”

Lemin hurried off, and Senndra struggled
against her lightheadedness as she tried to tie a decent knot under Vladimir’s
armpits. Her eyelids became extremely heavy, trying to lure her to sleep, but
she struggled to keep them open. She knew that closing her eyes could mean
death, but she was unable to help herself. She had managed to tie the rope
under Vladimir’s arms, but by that time, she couldn't manage to keep her eyes
open any longer, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

Senndra felt a drop of cold water hit her
face and roll off. She coughed and sat up, fighting lightheadedness as she did
so. She could feel the patter of raindrops on her cheeks and arms, and the
chill jolted her to complete consciousness. Slowly the things around her came
into view, and she immediately spotted Timothy and Lemin a few feet away from
her. Both were on their knees in the posture that many assumed when they prayed
to Elohim. Senndra struggled to her feet and saw that they were on the roof of
the building they had just escaped. Vladimir was at her feet, apparently much
worse off than she was.

Senndra looked out over the city and saw
that, despite the stone walls, the fire had spread to several other buildings.
However, as she watched, the sprinkling of rain increased to a light shower,
then to a hard shower, and finally became a downpour. The rain poured out of
the sky, preventing the spread of the fire and putting out many of the lesser
blazes. The larger fires continued to burn despite the rain, though they did so
less ferociously than before.

To the south, the dwarves had penetrated
the first two barriers and were working on the third. They were pressing the
defenders hard, and it was obvious that they were meeting very little
resistance. Suddenly a section of the army broke through the barrier and began
to attack the defenders, who succeeded in repelling them. Another section of
the barrier was breached, and this time the dwarves were able to gain a secure
foothold. Quickly the dwarves rushed through the breach and pushed the
defenders back to the fourth barrier.

Senndra looked away from the fighting and
back toward her comrades. Lemin and Timothy had finished praying, and Timothy
was now checking Vladimir for vital signs. He shook the unconscious boy, and
after a few moments Vladimir's eyes fluttered open.

“Where am I?” he asked as his eyes
searched the area around him.

“On top of the building that we were
trapped in only a few minutes ago,” Timothy answered. “We were able to escape
up a chimney and onto the roof. Luckily it's made of stone so it can’t be
burned.”

“Fire,” Vladimir mumbled. “Yes, now I
remember. The house was on fire, right? And we were finding a way out, and…” he
stopped talking.

“And what happened next?” Timothy
prompted.

“I don’t know,” Vladimir shrugged. “The
last thing I remember is starting to look for a way out of the building. After
that my mind is blank.”

“Well, to make a long story short, we got
out okay,” Timothy said as he helped Vladimir to his feet. “Now we need to meet
up with Josiah and the other cadets. Then, if we can get back around to the
correct side of the dwarves, we can help hold the city.”

“It’s never going to happen, you know,”
Vladimir said as he looked out toward the fighting. “The dwarves will push our
men all the way to the south wall. After that, they will be able to kill our
army with ease, and they will have access to Magessa.”

“We won’t let that happen then, will we,
buddy?” Timothy said.

“And if we don’t have a choice?” Vladimir
countered.

“You always have a choice,” Timothy said
forcefully. “
Always.
Right now we have the choice to give up the city
for lost and give the enemy access to our country or to defend both the city
and our country. Yes we might die in the endeavor, heck we might not even
succeed, but that does not remove the choice.” 

Vladimir shrugged. “Well in that case, we
might as well attack them right now.”

“Hold on, Vladimir,” Lemin said, coming
into the conversation. “I want to attack just as much as you, but I also want
to come out of this alive. What do you have in mind?”

“We pull a left flank attack,” Vladimir
said. “The left flank is the weakest part of the army, and if we can hit them
there, it will throw their army into confusion, at least temporarily. That will
give us a chance to get across the next barrier.”

“Well,” Timothy said shrugging, “it’s as
good as any other plan, I guess.” He looked at Lemin. “We might as well try it.”

“What about our other options?” Lemin
asked.

“What other options?” Timothy countered.
“I’ve already gone over hundreds of ideas in my head, and none of them will
work.”

Lemin scratched his head and looked at the
sky. He rose to his feet and paced back and forth for several minutes before
deciding that they would follow the plan.

******

Josiah and his men crouched in the
building, careful to give no indication to their enemies as to their location.
The clouds overhead made the room almost pitch black, and the recent rain made
wearing armor extremely uncomfortable. Sweat trickled down the faces of the
soldiers as they waited in complete silence, hoping they would remain
undetected.

A lookout crawled back toward Josiah,
carefully avoiding the windows. He had stripped off his armor in order to move
quickly and without noise.

“Commander, the dwarves have left the
immediate area and have pushed the defenders back to the fourth barrier,” the
lookout said once he had reached Josiah. “There are a few straggling dwarves,
but I don’t think they should present a problem.”

“Troops, the danger has passed. You can
get off the ground now,” Josiah said. The cadets rose from their bellies and
heaved sighs of relief as they were able to stretch their aching muscles. They
slid their drawn weapons into their sheaths and began to talk in low voices.

“Well, what kind of a position are we in
now?” Josiah asked the lookout at his side.

“I don’t really know, sir,” the lookout
responded. “I couldn’t see the south end of the city very well from where I
was.”

“Then go round up the lookouts that can
see that portion of the city,” Josiah ordered. “Take a station where they were
so that you can see the largest area possible.”

The lookout saluted and moved away, and
Josiah sat down to think. There was a possibility, now that the dwarves had
moved to the fourth barrier, that he would be able to lead his troops back to
the fighting. A tunnel ran from the museum, which sat between the second and
third barriers, to a building near the training grounds. If he could get his
men safely through the tunnel before the dwarves progressed too far through the
city, they would be on the right side of the approaching enemy and could again
draw swords against them. That would be much better than lying in a building,
sweating and doing nothing.

Josiah was pulled from his pondering by
the approach of three cadets who had been on lookout duty. They saluted him,
and he saluted back.

“What’s our position in the city?” he
asked them. “How far have the dwarves pushed our army back?”

“Well,” the middle cadet responded. He
knelt down on the floor, and Josiah and the other two lookouts crouched down in
a circle around a map that he was scratching in the floor. “If we’re here,” he
made an X, “and the northern wall is here,” he scraped a line, “then the dwarf
army is fairly close to the middle of the campus.” He dragged a long, weaving
line that represented the stream through the middle of the campus.

“What about the museum? Can we get there?”
Josiah asked anxiously.

“Well, I suppose we could get that far,”
the scout responded slowly, “but the whole building is crawling with dwarves.
They’re working on tearing the blockades off the doors now, but they should
gain entrance in a short time.”

“Then we have no time to lose,” Josiah
said and rose to his feet. “Stanslaw, gather all of the men together and get
them ready to move out. Keep the lookouts at their posts and tell them to give
the alarm if anyone comes close.”

Josiah pushed his way through the crowd of
cadets and made his way to the stairs. The room at the bottom was so dark that
he could see nothing down below. He shrugged and looked over his shoulder. Stanslaw
had the cadets in neat, orderly ranks and had switched out the tired lookouts.

“Draw swords,” Josiah said in an
undertone. The room was filled with the sound of sixty swords being drawn all
at once, and Josiah immediately wondered if his order had been a good idea. He
shrugged and headed down the stairs; there was nothing he could do about it
now.

The first floor of the building was almost
pitch black, with light entering only through the cracks of boards that had
been nailed across the windows. The cadets were walking as quietly as possible,
but the sound of sixty cadets in armor was hard to hide. Josiah gave up worrying
and told himself that the enemy would see them soon anyhow. He felt his way
through another dark room until he found the doorway that led out. From the far
side of the next room, he could see light filtering through the bottom of a
door and headed for it.

“Stanslaw,” Josiah called, and his captain
was at his side in an instant. “That door is going to be nailed shut, so I will
have some cadets open it. Now listen closely. When we get out of here, I will
take the first half of the cadets and you take the other half. Make your way to
the museum and fall on the right flank of the dwarves there. I will do the same
thing, but to their left flank. Once we have gained access to the museum, take
your men inside and I will regroup with you in the room that contains the armor
of Jothnial. There is a tunnel there hidden under a large rug near the back of
the room. The tunnel runs from the museum to a building that should be behind
the barrier that the dwarves are attacking now. If I don’t regroup with you in
five minutes, take your men through."

“Yes sir,” Stanslaw responded. He moved
away and began to pass the orders down the line. The first four cadets in
Josiah’s ranks moved forward to the door. They were burly men and immediately
threw themselves into opening the door. The door was nailed from the outside,
so the cadets used their swords and whatever else they could find to pry it
open. Finally, after several minutes of work, the door gave an inch, and light
streamed in through the newly opened crack. The cadets didn’t slack their
assault on the door, and less than a minute later had succeeded in opening it.

Josiah dashed past the cadets that had
opened the door and burst outside. His brain seemed to register everything at
once. Ahead of him he could see a group of perhaps one hundred dwarves
assaulting the museum. In front of them was the bulk of the dwarf army still
attacking the fourth barrier. Josiah could hear his soldiers following behind
him, and off to his right, he could see Stanslaw leading his men at a rapid
pace toward the right flank of the dwarves at the museum. Josiah raised his
sword and sprinted the last few feet to the unsuspecting dwarves. He swung
twice and dispatched two of the enemy. He swung again and continued to press
his way to the museum, but his soldiers were faster. Seeing their commander
facing the dwarves so bravely, they were filled with a surge of heroism and
smashed into the dwarves, crushing all in their path. Suddenly the charge was
over; access to the museum had been gained. Now they needed to defend it from
the rest of the dwarf horde.

******

“There they go,” Vladimir said. He was
looking out over the city from his perch on the balcony. “Looks like Josiah is
trying to gain the museum, but to what purpose? He’ll be easily surrounded and
killed there.”

“
Why
he’s there is not the point,”
Lemin answered. “The point is that we need to meet up with him and his
soldiers.” He jumped over the balcony railing, spun around, and grabbed onto it
as he fell. He let go and landed on the ground some twelve feet below. Vladimir
followed suit, leaving Timothy and Senndra on the balcony.

“Can you make that jump?” Timothy asked.
Senndra could sense some concern in his voice and would normally have enjoyed
it, but now that she was tired and cranky, she merely resented it. Without a
word, she followed Lemin and Vladimir over the railing and landed on the ground
beside them. Timothy watched as she took her bow from where it was slung on her
back. He shrugged and jumped to the ground.

“What now?” Senndra asked. “Josiah’s men
have killed about half of the dwarves, but that still leaves fifty. How are we
supposed to get through that many enemies?” She had been watching the dwarves
while trying to nock an arrow on her bowstring. Now she looked down and saw, to
her dismay, that her bow was ruined, probably in the fire. Lemin did not notice
but answered Senndra’s question instead.