R. Salvatore - The Dragon King

So I will be the taunting mouse for the Avonese cats, Katerin thought. She would be the distraction, the daring, darting little mouse, trying hard to stay out of the cat’s claws, while her companion vessels found the openings left in her speeding wake.

Of the next eight ships that struck colors or filled with water, six were Avonese.

The spirits of all the Eriadoran crews began to rise, bringing new energy to continue the fight as the sun began its western descent. Katerin’s spirits were perhaps highest of all, the fearless woman full of energy, full of the fight for Eriador. She would continue her wild run until one of her sails went down, she determined, and then she would find an Avonese ship to ram, that she might keep up the fight.

Something about the tone of Oliver’s groan gave her pause, though, as profound a lament as the fiery young woman had ever heard. She looked to the halfling and then followed his gaze out to the north, the starboard side.

There she saw the end of the invasion, the doom of her fleet: a solid wall of sails, it seemed, lining the horizon. The vessels were not galleon size, but neither were they little fishing boats. “How many?” Katerin gasped. A hundred?

“Green flag!” cried a crewman straddling the mainmast, sighting the new fleet as he was trying to repair some of the rigging damage. “White-bordered!”

Katerin was not surprised. She had expected these newcomers, though not in such numbers. “Baranduine,” she muttered hopelessly.

Phelpsi Dozier ambled over. “Not bad folks, the Baranduiners,” he said. “Not like these damned cyclopians! I seen ’em often in the open waters. Might be they’d accept an honorable surrender.”

The mere mention of the word sent Katerin’s teeth to grinding. How could they surrender, thus laying open the entire western coast of Eriador? What would Brind’Amour and his forces do if Greensparrow walked in the back door and flattened Caer MacDonald?

There came a burst of billowing orange smoke on the deck right before the wheel, an eruption out of nowhere, it seemed, and after the initial shock, Katerin thought she might get her answer. Had Brind’Amour come personally to her ship to speak with her?

When the smoke cleared, though, the woman saw not Brind’Amour, but another man, middle-aged, but undeniably handsome. His dress was practical for the weather and rigors of the sea, but fashionable and showed that the man was not wanting.

“My greetings,” he said politely, giving a sweeping bow. His eyes locked on Oliver, the halfling all in his finery—purple cape, green hose and gauntlets, and wide, plumed hat—sitting astride Threadbare. “I am Duke Ashannon McLenny of Eornfast on Baranduine.”

Katerin and old Dozier stared open-mouthed.

“And I am not amused by your show of silly wizard tricks,” the halfling proclaimed, never at a loss for words. “Etiquette demands that you ask permission before you board a ship.”

That brought a smile to Ashannon’s face. “There was little opportunity,” he explained. “And in truth, yours is the third Eriadoran ship I’ve boarded already. I must speak with a woman, Katerin O’Hale by name, and a man of Port Charley who is called Dozier, and a halfling . . .” His voice trailed off as he continued to stare at the most-curious Oliver.

“You would be Oliver deBurrows,” Ashannon reasoned, for there simply couldn’t be two such halflings in all of Avonsea!

“And I am Katerin O’Hale,” Katerin interrupted, finding her tongue—and her anger. Her hand went immediately for the hilt of her belted sword. This was one of Greensparrow’s wizard-dukes standing before her, and considering her past experiences with these men, she figured that Ashannon’s demon ally wouldn’t be far away.

“Fear not,” Ashannon assured her. “I have not walked into your midst as an enemy. Some consider me a fool, perhaps, but I am not.”

“Why are you here?” Oliver had to ask.

Ashannon swept his hand out to the north, forcing them all to look again to the incoming fleet. “A hundred warships,” he began.

“You come asking for surrender,” Katerin said grimly, and she wasn’t certain that she could refuse such an opportunity. The Baranduine ships were fast closing on a group of several Avonese vessels, whose mostly cyclopian crews were standing at the rail, cheering wildly.

Ashannon smiled. “You will see,” he said, turning to the north.

By the end of the first volleys, balls of smoking brown earth that exploded when they landed and scores and scores of arrows, most of the cyclopians on those three Avon ships were dead and fires raged on each of the galleons.

Katerin, Dozier, and Oliver snapped blank stares on the duke of Eornfast.

“I have met with Brind’Amour,” Ashannon explained. “Baranduine is no friend to King Greensparrow. Pass the word to your fleet,” he instructed. “I warn you, any of my ships that are attacked will respond.” With a burst of smoke, the man disappeared, and a similar puff of smoke rising from the midst of the Baranduine fleet told the three startled companions which ship Ashannon marked as his flagship.

The fight was over hours later, in the dark, with thirty Avon galleons scuttled and ten others sent running, and a weary and battered, but now tripled, invasion fleet ready to move on. The Baranduiners sent skilled seamen to aid the Eriadorans, and gently passed over some peat bombs, the brown earthen balls that would violently burst apart upon impact.

Katerin and Oliver readily accepted Ashannon’s invitation to board his flagship and sail beside him, the two of them intrigued and full of hope.

The fleet, more than a hundred strong, crossed out the southern end of the Straits of Mann, past the lights of Mannington, before the dawn.

Though he had never been in this region before, Luthien Bedwyr needed no map to tell him which city was next in line. The Eriadoran army had thundered across a hundred miles and a dozen villages since coming out of the mountains. Resistance had been light, even nonexistent in some places, as the cyclopians—particularly the Praetorian Guards who had been routed out of the Iron Cross—continued to flee to the south, pillaging supplies as they went. That rowdy retreat had played well into Luthien’s hands, turning the populace against Greensparrow. And with the help of Solomon Keyes and Alan O’Dunkery and other important Avonese, there had been minimum loss of human life to either side.

But now . . .

Luthien walked Riverdancer to the top of a small hillock. He peered south in the waning light of the day, following the silver snakelike Dunkery until it widened and dispersed into a shining blot on the horizon. There lay Speythenfergus Lake, and on its northern banks, along the strip of land between the Dunkery and Eorn Rivers, sat high-walled Warchester, its militia no doubt swelled by the thousands of cyclopians who had forsaken the villages to the north.

Below him on his right, Luthien’s army plodded along, making steady progress. They would march long after sunset, setting their camp in sight of the mighty city.

How would the Eriadorans and mountain dwarfs fare against the fortifications of mighty Warchester? Luthien and his forces had never laid siege to a city, or tried to battle their way through towering walls of stone. They had won in Caer MacDonald by fighting house to house, but they had already been inside the city’s walls when the battle had begun. They had won in Princetown by deception, luring the garrison outside of the city into a killing valley known as Glen Durritch. But how would they fare against a fortified city that expected them and had prepared for their arrival?

Luthien entertained the thought of convincing Bellick to go around Warchester, flanking Speythenfergus Lake on the east and marching straight out for Carlisle. The young Bedwyr understood the folly of such a plan, of course; they could not leave an entire cyclopian army behind them!