Chris Pierson - Spirit of the Wind

Kurthak blinked, surprised. “Riverwind of Que-Shu,” he repeated.

Malys thumped the mountainside with her tail. The impact knocked stones loose from the peak, sending them bounding down its slopes. “I do not know this man,” she said evenly. “Who is he that his presence in Kendermore would make you leave your place?”

“He’s a Hero of the Lance,” Kurthak said.

“A what?”

The Black-Gazer stared, dumbfounded; then his eyes narrowed as he tried to understand the dragon’s joke. He soon realized, however, that Malys was serious. “You haven’t heard of the Heroes of the Lance?” he asked. “But they’re known everywhere in Ansalon!”

“I am not from Ansalon,” Malystryx replied. “And I care little for the legends of mortals. This Riverwind is one man. He is of no concern to me. You should not have left your army, Black-Gazer. You will not leave it again, even if more of your precious ‘Heroes’ arrive in Kendermore.”

Stunned by her intransigence, Kurthak could do nothing but bow his head obediently. “Yes, Malystryx.”

“Very good,” she said to him. “Now come here, Black-Gazer. I have a gift for you.”

Kurthak walked forward, his legs moving against his will. He tried to stop himself, but he kept on moving until he was less than ten yards from Malystryx. He winced at the heat that emanated from her immense body.

“Kneel,” she breathed.

The word lodged in his mind, driving out all thoughts of resistance. He knelt. Gracefully, she extended a long, taloned finger and touched its tip to the middle of his forehead. Back along the ridge, Baloth winced and turned away, waiting for the dragon’s claw to plunge through Kurthak’s skull.

Malys’s touch, however, was gentle, almost a caress. She held her talon against him, and whispered words in a strange language the ogre didn’t understand. The air seethed with unseen energies. The Black-Gazer tensed as magic coursed both around and within him.

He sucked in a long slow breath, shivering. His good eye glazed, becoming as vacant as the empty socket that had once held its twin. His lips formed words, but it was the dragon’s sibilant voice that issued from his mouth.

“My mind to yours,” Malystryx said, her voice coming from two tongues at once. “I am in your thoughts, Black-Gazer. I can see inside your mind. And you are in mine. If you come to Blood Watch again, I shall destroy you. But,”-her voice became acerbic with irony-“if you should choose to warn me of anything more, you need only call to me with your mind. Our thoughts are linked. I can speak to you, and you to me, though we are a hundred miles apart.

“Listen for my call, Black-Gazer,” she continued. “The time will come when I am done working my magic upon the Kenderwood. I will tell you when to attack. The kender will be yours to do with as you please, and their forest will be mine to shape to my whim. I will raise a new lair, a peak to dwarf even Blood Watch, where Kendermore stands.” The dragon and ogre both smiled at this.

Kurthak took a deep breath, then answered with his own voice. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled. “Why don’t you attack them yourself?”

“I could do that, yes,” said the dragon. “But I choose not to-yet. I must conserve my strength, Black-Gazer.”

“Why?” Kurthak asked.

“To shape the land, as I’ve told you,” she answered. “To corrupt the Kenderwood-and the kender. But there is also another reason-one that only Yovanna and I know. Shall I tell it to you, Black-Gazer?”

“Yes. Tell me.”

Malys’ crimson lips curled into a cruel, mocking smile. So did Kurthak’s.

Standing away from them, forgotten for now, Baloth shut his eyes tight, whimpering wretchedly as Malystryx spoke.

The attackers rushed the base of the wall, howling for blood. Atop the battlements, kender scrambled to repel the assault. Shouted orders rang through the air as Kendermore’s defenders ran this way and that, flinging debris down upon the invaders. Below, the attackers toppled beneath the pelting bombardment and lay still upon the ground. The kender atop the wall raised a hearty cheer for every foe who fell and did not rise again.

“The cauldrons!” Brimble Redfeather barked hoarsely. His wrinkled face was red from shouting. “Don’t just throw things at them! Use the cauldrons!”

At his order, dozens of kender scurried to several huge cast-iron pots that stood atop the wall. The cauldrons, which had been brought from Kendermore’s many feasthalls and hauled up to the walls, could each hold enough riverbean stew to feed a hundred kender. Today, though, they brimmed with something other than stew.

“Don’t touch them!” Brimble shouted as several kender reached for the cauldrons with bare, curious hands. “You’ll burn your fingers off, you lamebrains! They’re scalding hot, remember?”

The kender snatched their hands back, grinning sheepishly at what they had almost done. “Sorry.” one of them said.

“Don’t be sorry, doorknob!” Brimble roared back. He jerked his thumb down at the ground below, where the attackers continued to surge against the base of the wall. “Pour the stuff on them! Now!”

“Right!” the kender replied. Crabbing pry bars from the catwalks, and working in teams of twenty, they levered the cauldrons up. Muscles bulged and teeth gritted as, groaning with the effort, they tilted the enormous kettles toward the edge of the wall. The contents of the cauldrons lapped against their rims.

“Heave!” the kender shouted, more or less at once.

Leaning on the pry bars, they tipped the cauldrons still farther. Streams of liquid spilled from the pots, first in thin drizzles, then building into deluges that drenched the attackers below. Shrieking and clutching at themselves, the wall’s assailants fell to the ground. They writhed a while in the mud, then were still.

But it wasn’t enough. The attackers kept on coming. More debris hammered down on them from the walls. “That’s it!” Brimble bellowed. “Keep at ‘em! Don’t stop to watch them fall! Grab something else to throw!”

Suddenly, a new chorus of shouting sounded from below. Another wave of attackers surged forward, these ones carrying long ladders. They charged the wall, yelling wildly, and though the kender on the battlements felled many of them as they ran, more than half of them evaded the defenders’ bombardment. A dozen ladders slammed down into the dirt, then swung up toward the top of the wall. Hollering attackers lunged up the ladders before they were even in place, brandishing weapons and taking the rungs two at a time.

“Stop them!” Brimble shouted. “They’ll take the wall! Move!”

The defenders grabbed up pitchforks, billhooks, and other pole arms, and used them to push the tops of the ladders away from the wall. One by one, the ladders tipped over, swinging back away from the wall and crashing down to the ground.

It wasn’t enough, though. Two ladders stayed up long enough for the attackers to reach the top. Quickly the attackers cleared away the wall’s defenders, more of them coming up every second. The defenders backed away, forced to give up more and more ground.

“Come on, you mangy, lazy halfwits!” Brimble was roaring. “Keep them back! Contain them, or they’ll take the whole bloody wall! Move, or I’ll-”

Suddenly, one of the attackers broke past the wall’s defenders and charged across the battlements. Before anyone could stop him, or even knew what he was doing, he grabbed Brimble and threw him off the wall. The old kender howled furiously, cursing the air blue, as he fell.

The kender atop the wall watched him drop. The attackers did not. All at once, the faltering defenses crumbled. Attackers boiled across the battlements, knocking down Kendermore’s defenders or shoving them off the catwalk. Soon there was no one left on the wall but attackers.