Paul Cook - Brother of the Dragon

The riders approached the bridge, led by a mounted figure in a macabre hood studded with animal horns and teeth.

Surrounded by torch-bearers, the fellow raised his hood and shouted, “People of Arku-peli, listen to me! I am Zannian, chief of Almurk! Put down your weapons! If you resist, we’ll kill you all!”

The villagers huddled behind their shields. Encouraged by their silence, the hooded man said, “Lay down your spears, and I will spare your lives! This is your only chance for mercy!”

Amero shouted back, “This is our valley, and we’ll defend it!”

“Die then!” The chief yanked his hood back down.

Riders dropped deer-antler grapples into the tangle of thorns laid around the end of the bridge. Then a mob of slaves was driven forward. Whips snapping, the raiders forced the captives to haul on the rawhide ropes attached to the grapples. The thorn barrier quickly came apart.

“Stand ready!” Amero shouted. “Those in the back, brace those in the front!”

Villagers in the rear of the formation pressed their shields into the backs of their comrades. Some laid their spears over the shoulders of their neighbors, creating a bristling hedge of points. Their steadfastness didn’t discourage the raiders. In fact, Zannian’s men seemed outraged at this show of resistance. Screaming threats of bloody death and destruction, they thundered across the bridge, slamming into the wall of shields.

The bridge was too short to allow a full charge, but the impact was still enough to dent the line deeply. It was an awkward fight, with the raiders jabbing at the villagers’ exposed heads and the villagers stabbing at the riders’ legs. Zannian ordered more men across the bridge to press home the attack.

Leading from the front rank, Amero shoved his spear forward and felt it strike home. A raider reeled off his horse, a deep wound in his thigh. He fell among the churning horses’ legs and was impaled by another villager before he could escape.

Horses reared, lashing out with their hooves, and several villagers were knocked down. Gaps opened in the line of shields, and the raiders pushed forward to exploit them.

Beramun found herself trapped on all sides by friends and foes. Hemmed in so tightly she could hardly breathe, she threw down her wooden buckler and climbed on the back of the man in front of her. A dart whisked by her face. Raiders who couldn’t reach the front line were using their throwing sticks to bombard the tightly packed villagers.

Beramun clambered over the heads of battling townsfolk until she reached the entwined supports of the bridge. She hauled herself up the thick cable under a constant barrage of darts. One scored a line across her calf, another tore through her hair, just missing her skull. She kept climbing.

Atop the south tower, she found both sentinels slain, their bodies studded with darts. She pried stones loose from the ledge and dropped them into the mob below. The crowd was so dense, it was impossible to miss, and she brained several raiders.

Realizing there would be no quick victory, Zannian ordered his men back. The raiders retreated, to the jeers of the elated villagers. A few townsfolk broke ranks to chase the raiders and were set upon by the yevi, hiding in the shadows on the bridge. They were dragged, screaming, into the darkness. Amero called the rest back, anxious to prevent unnecessary casualties.

As the raiders withdrew up the canyon out of sight, the villagers set up a cheer, thinking they’d vanquished their enemy. Their joy was short lived. In moments, the raiders came galloping back. They’d retreated only to gain room for a charge. Thundering down the slope three abreast, each raider was bent low, their long spears leveled.

From her high perch on one of the bridge’s support cables, Beramun shouted, “Form up, quick! They’re coming back!”

Amero yelled, “You, on the far right and left, move in behind and support the front!”

The bridge was thirty-two paces long. When the raiders were halfway across, Beramun cast her spear at one of the lead riders. She missed, but a horse in the second rank tripped on the shaft and went down, hurling its rider into the river. Another horse stumbled on the first fallen beast, then another.

The momentum of the raiders was so great that they surged past the fallen men and horses and hit the wall of shields. The villagers directly in their path were ridden under. The second line collapsed, but the third held. Villagers in the broken lines cast aside their shields and hauled raiders off their horses. A close, bloody fight ensued at the south end of the bridge.

“Push on!” Zannian bellowed from the north bank. “Kill them! Ride them down! Go! Go! ”

Raiders emulated Beramun and began climbing up the bridge’s rigging. Six of them closed on the lone girl. Her spear gone, all Beramun had was a flint knife and whatever stones she could pry loose from the tower top. Standing fearlessly exposed to enemy darts, she knocked two raiders off the rigging in quick succession.

More and more horsemen piled onto the bridge. The villagers’ line was slowly bending backward under the sheer weight bearing against it. Amero’s people dug in their heels. Men and horses toppled into the river, and the swift current bore them away.

A creaking groan sounded, and the bridge canted to one side. There followed a louder crack, and one of the cables weakened by Amero broke. The thick cord whipped through the air, knocking several riders into the river, and the west side of the bridge collapsed, pitching everyone in the water.

A roar went up from the embattled villagers. Raiders and their horses were swept away by the frigid current, though a few clung to the planking still attached to the bridge. The attackers who’d gained a toehold on the south shore were soon battered and subdued.

Beramun had noticed the weakened condition of the upper rope on her side of the bridge. She hacked at it with her knife. At last, the cable parted. Men still clinging to the crazily canted bridge were swept away. The water roiled with people and horses, some swimming, some drowning, others already floating lifelessly. A handful of villagers ran along the water’s edge, bombarding the frantically swimming raiders with rocks and spears. Any raider who made it to the hostile shore was swiftly dispatched, their bodies thrown back in the river.

On the north bank, rams’ horns sounded the retreat. Dejected raiders rode down the canyon out of sight of the cheering villagers. The yevi slunk away as well. The green-daubed men melted into the shadows at the foot of the western cliffs. Though Amero could no longer see them, he was sure they were still there, lurking in the dark.

Zannian alone remained, gazing over the battlefield. He removed his fearsome hood and threw it down in disgust. By the light of the blazing barricades and in full view of the people of Yala-tene, he removed his leather breastplate and drew his bronze sword. Slowly, deliberately, Zannian scored a cut along his left breast. Dark blood seeped from the wound. He extended his bright blade to the gawking villagers, so they could see the blood on it.

The formerly cheering townsfolk fell silent. Nubis asked the question for everyone: “Is he mad? Why does he injure himself?”

“He’s sending you a message,” Beramun said grimly. “This defeat is a small hurt, like the cut he gave himself. He’s not giving up, not after one fight.”

His message delivered, Zannian laid the bare blade on his shoulder and rode away.

Zannian withdrew his men from the pass, leaving a score of Jade Men and yevi to make sure the villagers didn’t reoccupy the heights. When the sun rose, the majority of the band was drawn up on the western plain: nine hundred twenty-two warriors on horseback, another forty without mounts, and just under two hundred slaves and prisoners.