Draconis' Bane (30 page)

“What minor trouble?”
She probed.

Gerald shifted
slightly in his chair which only served to increase her worry.
“Nothing grand Euri, they were attacked by bandits and your brother
was slightly injured.”

“How slight?” She
insisted, her eyes narrowing.

He cleared his
throat, casting his wife a nervous glance. “He, um…” He began.
“Well, he took a crossbow bolt to the shoulder.” He muttered
quickly.

“He
what!?
”
She yelled.

“Now Euri dear,”
Hanna consoled. “Your brother is fine. He’s survived much worse
than this, don’t get yourself all worked up.”

Completely ignoring
her Danai she persisted in her questioning. “How long ago was
that?”

“Oh, maybe four
months now.” Gerald answered dismissively. “We would have heard by
now if something had happened.”

Irritated beyond
measure Eurydice continued her ranting. “I should have been told.”
She replied darkly.

“Sorry dear,” Hanna
replied. “We didn’t want to worry you.”

“I want to know about
these things,” She yelled. “He’s my brother!”

“Fine, fine.” Gerald
soothed. “We’ll tell you everything.” Hanna shot him an irritated
stare. “Everything.” He emphasized locking gazes with his wife.
“She’s a grown lass and she’s right about family. I’d want to know
if something happened to you.” He insisted.

Hanna’s shoulders
slumped as she nodded her understanding. Eurydice had more
questions though; she tried to form her thoughts as best she could.
All she could clearly recall was a city name.

“Where’s
Heatherington?” She asked.

Gerald dropped his
fork, sending his bacon flying off the table. He looked up at her,
eyes narrowing. “What do you know child?” He asked.

She leaned forward,
placing her elbows on the table and looked into his eyes.
“Siege.”

The effect was
instantaneous. Gerald stood up and began pacing the room, muttering
to himself while Hanna tried to make herself busy by re-organizing
her cutlery on the table.

“So it’s true!” Euri
accused.

Gerald stopped in the
middle of his pacing, looked at the young girl. “How do you know?
Did a servant tell you?” He said frantically. “It’s important
Eurydice.” He asked calmly.

He’d never spoken to
her as if she was an adult before, it caught her off guard. She
tried to word the dream in such a way as to not sound bereft of all
of her senses. Giving up, she just blurted; “I saw it in a
dream.”

Hanna’s hand went to
her mouth, tears gathering in her eyes as Gerald resumed his
pacing. Still muttering to himself; “…sent a letter to Kevin, I’ll
need to send another to Dion…”

“Wait! What about my
brother and father.” She insisted.

He stopped pacing and
took a good long look at her. He sighed as he said; “I don’t
understand everything going on, it’s best if your family tells you
little one.” Eurydice stabbed a piece of fruit moodily, her concern
weighing heavily on her young mind.

~

“Tristan.” Draconis
softly called.

The young Prince was
still on his knees, his face covered in soot with two reasonably
clean trails going down either cheek from his tears. Tristan
answered; his voice still heavy with emotion.

“What?” He
croaked.

“It’s time to gather
yourself my boy.” Draconis replied.

Tristan stood, still
shaky as bits and pieces of his life and nightmare collided in his
mind. He slowly bent down and retrieved his blades, sliding each
slowly; almost methodically back into their scabbards. His real
life still felt like he was watching another person, he definitely
wasn’t the spoiled brat he remembered. Fate it seemed, as Captain
Robertson always enjoyed pointing out, is a heartless bitch at
times. He smiled as his sword slid the remaining few inches into
his scabbard.

“Lesariu was right,
this is a pleasant change.” Draconis observed.

The young Prince
looked up at his grandfather, a wry grin on his face. “Yes well,
being forced to endure years of humiliation and ill treatment will
do that to a person.”

“Remind me to thank
the fool who did that.” Socolis joked.

“Before or after I
skewer him?” Tristan asked sarcastically casting the white dragon a
crooked smile.

“Enough you two, we
have important things to discuss. I assume you accept what I say is
true?” Draconis chastised.

“Yes grandfather.”
Tristan replied.

Draconis smiled,
“Good.” He paused slightly, composing his thoughts no doubt. “I’m
sure you’re aware that
Draconis’ Bane
means to end all
draconic life on this planet?”

“I am.” He
answered.

“Do you know how they
block our magic?” Draconis asked.

Tristans shoulders
slumped, so occupied he’d been up to date with revenge, the motives
behind the attack completely eluded him.

“I don’t.” He
admitted.

Draconis cursed.

“I had hoped someone
would have let it slip by now.” He groaned as he stretched.

“I miss my home; I’m
too old for this adventuring non-sense.” He chuckled.

He looked back at
Tristan, sighing deeply.

“I’m going to ask
Socolis to take you back to the keep.” He said. Tristan began to
protest, but Draconis cut him off.

“No. You have duties
to perform and soon another of their puppets will make themselves
known to you.” He announced. “We need to know how they’re blocking
our magic. Without it we can’t do much to help you, there are
precious few of us remaining.” He explained.

Tristan looked up at
the old dragon, smiling wryly.

“So, I need to find
out what they’re up to, stop it and then maybe, just maybe I’ll
live to see another year?”

“Perhaps, fate is,
after all, a….” Draconis began.

“Yes, yes…you all use
the line too much. Did it ever occur to you that she’s heartless
because you keep calling her that?” He accused jokingly.

Socolis laughed,
lowering himself to allow the young Prince to mount him. Draconis
lowered his head so that he was eye to eye with Tristan.

“No matter what
happens from here boy, I’m very proud of you.” His deep booming
voice echoed in Tristan’s head as he turned with surprising agility
and walked back into the dense woodlands.

~

Horns sounded from
the enemy camp as the Heatherington defenders rushed to the walls.
Tristan ran up the stairs next to his cousin William as three
towers slowly rolled towards the wall. A swarm of attackers rushed
forward like ants running up a hill. They were already so close
that when the defenders reached the parapets they began picking
targets and firing.

For the last five
months the siege had dragged on. Small bursts of pressure from the
attackers would gain them the walls for an hour or two. Thus far
the defenders had always regained control, tossing the dead bodies
over the wall. After the dead had piled up six feet, the Suttenites
had begun organizing cleanup crews to run out, stack all the dead
in a huge pile and set fire to them to keep the maddening black
flies under control.

Tristan had
volunteered for one such outing, only to have the horns sound as a
small squad of men and orcs swarmed all over them. William led a
force out to beat back the attackers, but if it hadn’t been for the
bowmen on the walls it would have failed as more and more attackers
rushed them.

The young Prince had
watched as the Suttenites used spear and shield to form a highly
defendable mobile position and he was deeply impressed with the
tactic. When they’d routed the attackers, he’d pestered William
endlessly to teach him how to fight with a spear and shield.
Between attacks from the Terum forces, William had instructed
Tristan endlessly until he judged him ready, if barely, to use
them.

King Roger had not
appeared again since he’d taken the tumble from the platform.
However, once again the large structure made its way through the
defenders lines. The sorcerer made himself busy launching
ineffectual fireballs at the defenders wall from his place next to
the King while Tristan and William chuckled at the futility of it
all.

Defenders got
careless and stood too close to the wall and finally Tristan
understood the sorcerer’s tactics. With the non-stop random balls
of fire colliding with the protection afforded the walls, large
columns of flame and ash would sweep up the slanted wall and either
set defenders on fire, ash would render them temporarily blind, or
on the odd occasion, burn their bows and arrows beyond use.

Meanwhile, Chieftain
Frederick was on the wall shouting for half of his forces to drop
their bows and prepare pole arms for the scaling ladders. No sooner
had the walls of flame stopped erupting from below than the first
orc showed his ugly face over the parapet near Tristan. The Prince
dropped his bow, picked up his spear and shield and joined the
quickly forming wall of shields at his side. Each man carried his
shield on his left arm, raising it high enough to protect most of
his body as well as the man beside him. A score of orcs and men
poured over the battlements and turned to face the Suttenites as
they readied their weapons for the assault.

Tristan shouted for
those around him to ready themselves in formation for repulsing the
attackers. Off to his left he could see a tower lumbering forward,
packed to the point of rupture with attackers. He yelled for the
shield-wall to move backwards so they wouldn’t be trapped between
two forces. Attackers, already on the battlements, were pushed
forward by the press of more of their forces coming over the
parapets. They were the first to fall to the organized strike as
Tristan shouted.

“THRUST!” The Prince
shouted.

As one the small unit
of perhaps twenty defenders lowered their shields and lashed out
with their spears, killing a similar number of attackers.

“Push!” Tristan
shouted over the din.

The wall of shields
shoved back the attackers who were attempting to crawl over their
dead comrades. More and more of the enemy crested the wall until
eventually they pushed the defenders back with sheer numbers.

“Abandon the walls!”
Chieftain Fred yelled from farther along the battlements.

The men around
Tristan began to stir, some of them eying the immediate area for a
place to leap down onto a roof of a cart.

“HOLD DAMN YOU!”
Tristan yelled, doing his best impression of Sergeant Frose.

The wall tightened
around him again, every man listening closely for his next
command.

“Find us a nice wide
staircase and we’ll back down it together.” He ordered; all
hesitation and self doubt disappearing as an odd calmness descended
upon him.

The shield-wall
backed up slowly, making their way to the nearest clear set of
steps leading down into a nice wide courtyard at the base. The men
grunted in time as they stepped one foot back at a time. The
attackers threw themselves at their shields. Every few paces
Tristan would call for another thrust, sending another twenty or so
of the enemy host crashing off the walls to their death.

His unit slowly made
their way to the courtyard as six others joined them, turning their
small defense into a clear threat. Arrows sped from the walls as
attackers unlimbered their bows and opened fire on the defenders.
Together the wall of shields became a semi-sphere of protection
against the Terum forces.

“Who has a bow and
some arrows?” Tristan shouted.

He was greeted by a
dozen or more men sideling along behind him, William appeared at
his shoulder.

“What? You left yours
behind?” He asked with mock irritation.

“I ran out of arrows
anyway.” Tristan joked.

“On three; lower
shields, archers pick your targets and fire quickly, and then raise
the shields back up again.” He ordered. “Let’s see if we can take
some of these motherless whores with us, shall we?”

The men laughed as
Tristan counted; “One, two…three!”

As one the archers
stood, shields were lowered just enough to allow them to shoot. A
dozen arrows sped through the air killing attackers as they
struck.

“Well done.” Tristan
congratulated.

The attackers swarmed
down from the walls, running madly towards their position.

“Thrust!” Tristan
commanded.

Once again as one
they lowered shields; drove spears forward, and then raised them
again. Still more came.

“Push!” He shouted as
their unit shoved back attackers.

“Archers! On three
again.” He yelled. “One, two…three!”

Again the dozen
archers fired their deadly missiles at Terum soldiers. Over and
over their unit pushed, speared and shot attackers until fear
caused three of the men to break formation and run.

“Forget them, fill in
ranks!” Tristan commanded with a shout.

The men obeyed,
tightening the gaps in the shield wall. The cousins watched as the
three deserters ran for it and were quickly picked off by enemy
archers from the walls.

“We can’t last like
this much longer.” William observed.

“I know.” Tristan
replied darkly.

~

Kevin ran down the
keep steps yelling; “Form up! We ride!”

He’d just spent the
last thirty minutes questioning a runner from Heatherington about
the ongoing siege. The man had been slipped over the northern wall
during the night and arrived two days later in Irudin; travel
weary, bruised and starving. After he’d been tended to by the
matron, eaten his fill and drained his glass of water he’d outlined
the dire situation unfolding in Sutten.

Gerald came running
out next, followed closely by his wife.

“If you take the
Golshy Pass you can hit them from the rear.” He instructed handing
him a bundle of rations.