Michael Stackpole - When Dragons Rage

Resolute nodded. “And if they said nothing about having it, it was because they didn’t want spies alerted to its presence. How did they learn the fragment is there?”

The signal-mage shook his head. “It was not stated.”

Crow and Will spoke at the same time. “Kerrigan.”

“If it’s Kerrigan, I’m willing to trust the report.” Resolute’s argent eyes became slender crescents. “We have to assume it’s moving. They need to keep us informed of its location. We can find it and them if they do.”

“Wait a minute, Resolute.” Crow jerked a thumb west. “If we head into the mountains, we bring pursuit with us. We could find the fragment and then have to face them.”

“True, though if we flee before them, they might not pursue as aggressively. They want to stop our raids, after all.”

Will raised a hand. “What if they learn of the fragment?”

“I doubt they will want us more dead.” The Vorquelf shrugged. “Their motivation doesn’t matter; they’ll die all the same. The mountains will just make us a bit harder to find, and we’ll have to hope that will make enough of a difference.”

Erlestoke hated the feeling of being stalked. For close to a week his team had moved through Sarengul. They had intended to keep as close as they could to the Aurolani forces, and if there was another Sarengul attack that created an opening, they wanted to break through the lines to what they hoped would be safety.

Their plan, however, had been predicated on what they thought of as logical behavior for a military force. The bulk of the Aurolani troops had continued to move south along the main route. They fought little skirmishes here and there, but the Saren attacks did not amount to much. The Aurolani forces pushed on, and Erlestoke followed them, ignoring side passages off the main line.

Then the Aurolani leader made a classic mistake and split one group off his main force to follow a sideline. Erlestoke’s people had missed the signs of that departure, but quickly became aware when that unit came back into the main route. They hunkered down, hoping the enemy would return to the main body of the Aurolani force, but they never did.

The main Aurolani force had started acting much more intelligently, too. Erlestoke’s group could find very little in the way of supplies left behind. What they did find was occasionally poisoned and often booby-trapped. For the first several days he had no reason to suspect the Aurolani were doing anything more than looking for urZrethi stragglers, but after four days, the hunting became more diligent and his people had been forced to flee into the byways and smaller passages.

Jullagh-tse had explained how villages and towns existed up and around the main routes, but Erlestoke had never quite grasped the idea until he moved into some of them. They could be built around a cylinder, with the doorways to corks opening onto that central circle, or as a maze of corks that were chopped into rock as miners followed the serpentine twists of an ore vein.

Erlestoke and his people were moving through an ore town. Its narrow roads broke off at odd angles. They rose, then curved and dipped sharply before coming to a broad stairway that slanted upward and cut to the right. Facing down that stairway were the empty black pits of windows, but at any moment archers or draconetteers could pop up and the stairs would offer his people nothing by way of cover. Worse, he couldn’t see the entrance to the building, so even if they got up there, getting in to kill the snipers would be difficult.

While he knew they were being pursued, he couldn’t be certain that some of the enemy hadn’t gotten in front of him to wait in ambush. The village’s abandonment only added to his sense of insecurity. The lack of any indications of a massacre was a good sign, but there could easily be a lot of blood splashed over stone walls before any of them got out.

If any of us get out.

Being pursued didn’t bother him as much as having the sensation that his pursuers knew what he was carrying. He would have expected any Aurolani troops cutting across his band’s trail to follow—that made sense. What would drive them on faster was knowing he had a piece of the DragonCrown with him. He had been hoping, however, that the journey through the bowels of Fortress Draconis would have been enough to throw informed pursuit off.

It further disheartened him that their pursuers did not come after them pell-mell, but seemed to be moving deliberately. The gibberers should have used numbers to compensate for a lack of sense, but they hadn’t. While Erlestoke still felt that he and his people were making their own choices in terms of the path they were taking, the enemy force clearly was cutting off all avenues of retreat. They could only go forward and, at some point, the enemy would be there waiting for them.

Erlestoke crouched at the base of the stair, then turned and pointed Ryswin and Finnrisia to the stairs, indicating they should mount them. He then signaled for lands to come up so both of them could shoot into the windows if any targets showed themselves.

It was a desperate tactic that could have turned out badly in any number of ways. While the two elves could take cover at the base of the wall, avoiding easy shots by the snipers, it could be that off to the right there were more lurking who would catch them in a horrid trap. Still, there was no choice, so hefting their bows, the elves swept past him and sprinted up the stairs.

The stairs did not really rise that sharply, but the steps were just long going to have its own cisterns. This high up, we’re looking at a quarry where snow melts and flows down in. We have to find the internal reservoir here, where the trickling water will collect, then break into the flow tube. We crawl out and we’re on the outside.“

“How big a tube are we talking?”

She shrugged. “The thing chasing us won’t be able to follow.”

“But can the rest of us get through?”

“I don’t know, Highness.”

Erlestoke rubbed a hand over his mouth. “But you could shift your shape enough to get out, right? No question of that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, here’s the plan. Let’s find this way out. If we can all make it, we do. If we can’t, the fragment is yours. Get as far away as you can.” Erlestoke laid his hands on her shoulders. “And none of this brave, ‘I don’t want to go.’ None of us want to go, but we’d all do it if we had to.”

“Yes, Highness, I know.”

“Good.”

Another shot sounded and Verum cursed. “Dammit, Nygal, give me your draconette.”

Erlestoke looked at the heavyset weapons-master. “Did you miss?”

The grizzled warrior shook his head. “No, I hit it dead center. Mistake I was making was giving it a chance to stand up before I shot again.” He raised the borrowed quadnel and triggered a shot.

“Got it. Broke its left leg, I’m sure of it.” Verum nodded. “It’s crawling away from the stairs.”

“Good, maybe that buys us some time.”

Jilandessa glanced at him. “Will it be enough?”

“Who knows. Right now I’ll just settle for more.” The Oriosan prince gave her a confident smile. “What we do with it will decide if it is enough or not.”

Isaura clapped her hands over her ears to shut out the screams of the burning mage. The Murosan sorcerer who had opposed Corde collapsed in a flaming mass. People on the walls of Nawal shrank back or reeled away. Seated there before Naelros’ pavilion, which had been set up barely five hundred yards from the city, Isaura could not smell the roasting flesh. For that she was thankful, for at least that was one aspect of the display she could escape. Being Chytrine’s daughter, there was no way she could avoid watching, since all of Lord Neskartu’s charges saluted her, their master, and Naelros before marching off to do battle. For her to absent herself would greatly affect morale, so she sat there.