Michael Stackpole - When Dragons Rage

The Irregulars entered the city. As they had been ordered, they slipped into buildings and moved through them, hunting for anything out of the ordinary. The Svoin survivors had spent so much time lurking in the warrens and byways of a dead city that Adrogans knew they would feel right at home. They crept through it like mildew growing up a wall and signaled back as they cleared each block.

His infantry moved in next and secured roads. Squads searched for signs of traps, but Adrogans didn’t see anyone deploying the red flags that would indicate danger.

Then, as the cavalry reached the outer walls he saw it. A figure in black, a small man, came walking up the street from the inner city. His cloak flowed out after him as if made from forty yards of diaphanous black silk. Little pieces of it seemed to snap in a breeze that did not exist.

The figure stopped, then bowed, and the cloak shifted from black to white.

“Tricks to amuse children.”

Adrogans smiled at Phfas. “A sign of a truce. Nefrai-kesh offered the same at Svoin.”

“That is not Nefrai-kesh.”

“No, but it is his herald.” Adrogans glanced at Caro. “Care to ride with me once again, General?”

“Of course, my friend.”

Phfas made it a trio. They rode down into the city and nodded to the troops who had entered it. Warhawks flew above them and landed on the roofs of buildings near the large intersection where the herald stood. Adrogans waited to feel the breeze that was making the white cape flow, but it never touched him even as he drew close.

The figure sketched a bow. He wore a black mask, and the flesh beneath it had a corpselike pallor. His eyes, however, remained alive. They literally burned, with flames licking up from the sockets. He clasped his gloved hands before him, appearing more a solicitous tavernkeeper than a creature of power.

“I shall boast, my father is your host; in the tower he resides. He wishes you no harm, no undue alarm, until the morrow’s battle tides.”

Adrogans nodded. “You are Nefrai-laysh. You’re the Norrington’s father.”

“‘Tis a mistake you make, my role to take, and give that gutter whelp. When all is done, and we have won, he will have been no help.” As the sullanciri spat out his verse, sparks flew. “Speak not of that son, for he is but one and nowhere near. But here we are, in Okrannel’s star, let us make things clear.”

The sullanciri opened his arms to take in the whole of the outer city. “We have laid in for thee, a feast, you will see. Wine, bread, and meat, enough to eat. Warm houses to keep, tonight you will sleep. Spend a safe night, rise to the fight. Tomorrow you die, widows cry, soldiers bled, join the dead.”

The Jeranese general frowned. “That’s it, then. Your father sent you to tell us he will feed us then kill us? We have a night of peace before slaughter?”

“What you have heard is entirely his word. Here you will dwell. He wishes you well. Without fail, on epic scale, tomorrow forces flail, but tonight peace and torment surcease.”

Phfas snorted. “Words and games.”

Will things be poisoned? Does he want my troops drunk and sick ? Adrogans glanced up and beyond Nefrai-laysh to the tower in which his opponent dwelt. Nefrai-kesh appeared in a window and gave Adrogans a salute.

Pain remained quiescent and asleep at his back.

Adrogans nodded. “We will accept this hospitality. Thank your father.”

“From your mouth to his ear, have no fear.” The diminutive sullanciri smiled easily. He waved a hand and his cloak wrapped tight around him, then exploded into a hail of snowflakes. They spun up into a funnel, then danced back to the inner city and disappeared, carrying Nefrai-laysh.

Caro had a concerned expression on his face. “You can’t actually mean to eat their food and drink their wine.”

“I don’t fear poison. Nefrai-kesh is trying to do the honorable thing, and I will accept that. I think the reason he’s trying to be honorable, however, is because tomorrow he won’t be.” Adrogans sighed. “And that , my friends, is what I fear unto death.”

Alexia stood in the window of her tower chamber, unconcerned that the light behind her silhouetted her for the Aurolani dragonels. She had to admire the Aurolani leader’s calm deliberation. After Kerrigan killed a sullanciri , the city’s mood was jubilant. The Aurolani sent no more sorcerers forth, and the magick duel had been counted a solid victory for Nawal, despite the frightful cost in personnel.

Kerrigan had explained the importance of the pilfered iron ball. Smiths had already shattered it into more than a dozen pieces. Kerrigan and others used them to create spells that would deflect shots directed at the city. Plans were advanced, from shields to loadstones that would concentrate shots in one area. It all sounded promising, and since supplies of firedirt and shot were being cut by Crow or diverted to the siege at Caledo, hopes were high for success.

The Aurolani commander clearly had a different view of the situation, and Alexia could not fault his analysis. As dusk fell, the Aurolani dragonels began to speak. They roared defiantly and spat their iron cargo at Nawal. The waiting sorcerers used their magick to deflect shots and divert them, rendering them all but harmless. Efforts to blast the city were futile.

But the Aurolani commander just stepped up the rate of shots, keeping them flying faster and more furiously. Dragonels went off in volleys. And where a single magicker might have been able to handle a single shot, now he had to choose among a flight of them. The more he tried to deal with, the more strength it required. Balls arced by untouched as exhausted sorcerers collapsed.

Moreover, her opponent’s crews heated the missiles in fires until they glowed cherry red. When one of those shots made it into Nawal and crushed its way through the wall of a house or granary, it ignited whatever it touched. From her vantage point, Alyx could see dozens of little fires burning. With a cadre of magickers, they might have been able to keep the fire in check, but too few magicians were being forced to do too much.

And the shot was not the only weapon employed against the city. Just the constant booming of the weapons was enough to fray nerves. Alexia was awake at midnight because she needed to study what her enemy was doing, but others were awake because they could not sleep. For all they knew a thunderclap was the only warning they had before an iron ball bashed their home into burning splinters.

Already people had begun to stream toward the docks.

Alyx frowned. She was confident that the enemy had neither enough firedirt nor shot to sustain the assault for long, yet their profligate expenditure seemed to contradict that. The commander facing her was a fool, a daredevil, or had more supplies and support coming and was not worrying about running out of charges for his dragonels.

Her obvious strategy for dealing with that problem would be to send a force out to raid his position, but she did not have enough troops to hit the Aurolani hard enough. While they could hold the city in bitter fighting, they were incapable of lifting the siege. Moreover, if she were to charge out with a mounted force aimed at taking the dragonels, a volley by draconetteers or, worse, a leveled volley by the dragonels themselves, would be devastating.

She hated having to sit and wait, but she had no choice. As long as the Aurolani had diverted part of their force here and were using up a lot of supplies, those same troops and supplies were denied the forces closing on Caledo. King Bowmar’s messages from the capital were rather sanguine. He labored under no misapprehensions about Alexia’s being able to hold Nawal. He just wanted her to delay the loss for as long as possible.