The Shadow of Dread: The Bladeborn Saga, Book Six, page 22
Three double gates gave access to the fort; one at the river to the north, one to the south, and one at the centre between them, where the walls extended furthest from the waters, facing east across the plains. All the gates were portcullises, heavy with godsteel bars and chains, impossible for anyone but Bladeborn to lift. Between the two walls sunk a deep moat, spiked and flooded. Drawbridges linked the portcullises.
Inside the inner wall, the great ward was vast and open, a sprawling space designed to house armies come to defend the west. Those armies had come, Elyon saw.
He smiled, hope stirring.
He could see the banners of House Amadar at the heart of the great ward, see his uncle’s pavilion in its hues of pink and pale blue, the tents of his captains and commanders ringed about it. Lord Rammas was nearby, the canvas walls of his command pavilion in a sludgy grey and brown, colours common among the Lords of the Marshes. There were others, too, tents and shelters showing greyish blue and white, Oloran colours, and those of House Kanabar; silver, green, deep river-blue, with the great blade-antlered elk of their house showing on many flags. And House Payne, of Rasalan, under the command of Lady Marian. The house of the Stormwalls, grey and black and brown. And among all that were a hundred other sigils, lord and knightly, vassals of the greathouses, spreading far and wide.
My army, Elyon Daecar thought. He had been with them at Dragon’s Bane, and had fought with them when the fortress was sieged. Retreated with them to Oakpike. And found them again many days later, after he’d gone off on other errands, marching down the Mudway to defend Mudport from attack.
Folly, that had been. Mudport was already destroyed by Vargo Ven and that only left the army open to attack. Nights of raids had followed, dragons swooping from the skies, and hundreds more men had been taken in the dark by the bog lizards and marsh serpents and ghoulish swamp-dwellers.
But they made it, Elyon thought. There had been thirty thousand men left after the Battle of the Bane, thirty thousand who reassembled at Oakpike, thirty thousand who marched the Mudway. Some five thousand had been lost on the road, but no more. A strong host, Elyon reflected.
And one of several, he saw.
The Pentar banners were here too, whipping proud in silver and red, steel and blood, tens of thousands strong. They grouped to the south of the great ward, alongside a huddle of enormous stables, and would be garrisoned at the city across the river as well. The bridge that spanned the city and the fort was busy with wagons and carts and men, supplies being brought over; food and fodder, arms and armour. Preparing for war, Elyon knew.
The last army was most welcome, a third force assembled in the north of the great ward, tents and shelters packed shoulder to shoulder in the shadow of the high battlements, all in tight lines and rows with many lanes and alleys between them. Those colours showed mostly brown and green. Banners fluttered with the crossed sword and hammer of Tukor. One pavilion sat in a space of its own, grander than all the rest, multi-roomed with many poles supporting its canvas walls.
Elyon smiled. It was the largest pavilion of them all, larger than those of the Vandarian greatlords and heirs. Well, that makes sense. He is a prince, after all.
Elyon began his descent, flying lower, looking east beyond the battlements as he went. The lands outside the fortress were open and flat for half a mile, before thickening with woodland and forested hills. The trees had once come right up to the river, but those had been cut back so that no enemy could approach unseen, concealed beneath a canopy of leaf and branch. Elyon cast his eyes that way, searching the skies, and saw wings in the distance, shadows circling. Dragon scouts, he thought. He did not doubt that Vargo Ven was near.
The men upon the battlements were beginning to spot him, shouting to one another, raising their fists. He flew above them, his newly oiled blade gleaming bright beneath the sun. A cheer rang out, spreading.
Men began to emerge from their tents at the sound, stopping in their duties to look up. The cheering grew louder, erupting from the lips of the soldiers he had fought with, travelled with, the men who had been there at the Battle of the Bane. He felt a rush of pride at the sound, as they welcomed back their prince, a fluttering in his heart, and for a moment it felt like victory. Despite King’s Point, despite Varinar and Vesryn, hope remained.
Hope.
He saw his uncle step out of his pavilion, armoured, a cloak of Varin blue at his back. Waves of chestnut hair fell from his head, bright brown eyes peering up. A smile spread upon his lips. Elyon flew right down to greet him, landing in a swirling dismount, the canvas walls of tents and pavilions billowing, men shielding their eyes.
He stood from his knee, strode forward. “Uncle.”
“Nephew.”
The two men wrapped arms in a strong steel embrace, then parted.
“You got here safely,” Elyon said. “Did you suffer any further attacks after I left?”
Sir Rikkard Amadar shook his head. “Ven was good to his word.”
The word of a snake cannot be trusted, Elyon thought, though perhaps Vargo Ven had a few shreds of honour after all. He had met the dragonlord at the Burning Rock, invited to join him in parley. There, Ven had said his raids upon Elyon’s army would stop, that he would allow them to continue to Rustbridge unmolested under terms of a temporary ceasefire. Well, he didn’t lie about that. Though he did try to kill me, as soon as the parley was done…
Elyon looked around, saw many faces he knew among the men gathering nearby. They smiled at him, nodded. Elyon returned what gestures he could and turned to look back at his uncle. “How are the men?”
“Well enough. The Pentars have helped to resupply us, though we’re on strict rationing here. It’s worse for the civilians across the river. Our soldiers are being prioritised.”
Elyon understood. Their strength was needed. During the march along the Mudway, Vargo Ven’s dragons had made sure to target their baggage train and food stores, leaving the men to march on meagre nourishment. Most of the wagons transporting their tents and pavilions were left unharmed, only those containing food and fodder attacked. The dragons could smell it, Elyon thought. They knew which wagons to burn.
Rikkard put a hand on his arm. His eyes were serious. “How is it in the west?”
It was a conversation Elyon had had already. With Lord Harrow, with Artibus, with his grandfather. He turned to the tent flaps. “We should speak inside.”
Rikkard nodded, waving over a spearman in Amadar pink and blue. “Send word to the others. Convene a council in my pavilion.” He stepped inside with Elyon.
The interior was basic; bed, chest, command table, a few camp stools and chairs to sit on. An iron brazier sat to one side, unlit. There was a mannequin upon which Rikkard could mount his armour, a rack beside it for his weapons.
“I noticed poles outside, Uncle,” Elyon said. “Something I should know about?”
He had seen them when flying over, scores of enormous great posts that rose at intervals throughout the ward, like the masts of ships, surging skyward, much higher than even the tallest pavilions. They seemed to be wrapped in lengths of tarp, so far as Elyon could tell, glistening under the rising sun.
“A new defensive system,” his uncle told him. “Each post is rigged with sails of fire-proof canvas. They can be raised up to create a roof above the ward.”
“The entire ward?” Elyon asked, surprised. It was common enough for fire-proof shelters to be raised in open squares, to defend from dragonfire, but those were typically individual structures, beneath which only a certain number of people could take shelter. This was on an altogether larger scale.
“That’s the theory. I’m told they have tested the system, and when all the sails are raised, they fit together almost seamlessly. The process is very quick, apparently. The engineers here are very proud of themselves.”
Elyon pursed his lips. “So if a thunder of dragons should be sighted…”
“We will not need to go running for cover beneath the battlements. They might try to rip at the roof with their claws, but they are very smooth, hard to grip. And to get that close would make them vulnerable to the ballistas and scorpions. It’s a good system. Wine?”
Elyon frowned. “It’s only morning. And wartime.”
Rikkard shrugged. “Life cannot stop entirely. Perhaps you have been away too long. You know how the men of East Vandar are. Half of them fight better when they’re drunk.”
Elyon smiled, even let out a huff of laughter. It soured at once as he thought of what he needed to say. “Uncle…I have bad news. You remember what Ven told me. About Drulgar. How he said he had awakened.” Elyon had gone straight to Rikkard and Rammas and Lady Marian after that, warning them, then flown to Varinar to warn them too. It had made no difference, in the end. Varinar had fallen all the same.
Rikkard was watching him with a knitted brow, a jug of wine in one hand, a goblet in the other. He stopped, mid-pour. “It’s true,” he said.
Elyon frowned. The way he said it… “You knew already?”
“There were sightings, some days ago. Most of the men here scarcely believed it at first, but more and more have come forward telling versions of the same tale. He was seen flying west, to the north of here. There was a fear he was making for Redhelm, but he flew right past the city, we’ve heard. We have sent out crows and riders to find out where he went, but…now that you’re here.” He stopped, to let Elyon speak.
“Pour your wine, Uncle,” Elyon said. “I fear you’re going to need it.”
He told him of King’s Point, of Vesryn’s death, and that of Dalton Taynar. He spoke of Varinar, and the desperate state of the city. And Ilivar, blessedly untouched. “Your father is well, Rikkard. I saw something in him…some fire returning to his belly. He is sending soldiers to relieve Varinar as we speak.”
Rikkard nodded, digesting what he’d heard. “And the Dread has fled back across the Red Sea, you say?”
“The trail led to the coast. Most likely he has returned to the Nest.”
There was a knock, a man rapping steel knuckles against a support post outside. “Come,” Rikkard called out.
The same spearman stepped in. “My lord,” he said. “The council members are arriving. I wanted to check with you first before I let them in.”
“Good man.” He clearly suspected Rikkard might want a few moments with his nephew first. Rikkard turned to Elyon. “Are you happy to share, Elyon? All of it?”
You don’t know all of it yet, Uncle, Elyon thought. He had made no mention of the Eye of Rasalan, and saw no great urgency to do so. He nodded and looked at the spearman. “Send them in,” he said.
Rammas was the first to enter, stamping muscularly into the pavilion, all blocky shoulders and square jaw with a tight crop of hair on his head. “Prince Elyon.” He gave a curt nod. The Lord of the Marshes had always been a man of few words. He wore his dull-coloured cloak, fastened at the neck with a brooch denoting his rank of Warden of the East, a simple golden circle split by a sword with its tip pointing to his right, denoting east.
“Lord Rammas,” Elyon said. “Good to see you.”
Lady Marian Payne followed right after, tall and graceful in her fine, smoky-grey armour, short dark hair slicked back, intelligent blue eyes taking him in. “I smell foul news in the air.”
Insightful as ever. “My lady.” Elyon gave her a courteous dip of the chin. “You look well.”
“I would love to say the same about you, Elyon.” She stepped up to him, regarding the scorch marks on his breastplate, the godsteel distorted and melted, the deep cut that split his right eyebrow. It had been sewn up, but would leave a scar. “I hope that is the worst of your wounds?”
He nodded to confirm.
“It makes you look more like your father,” Rikkard said.
“It does,” Marian agreed. “No bad thing. Though his scar is bigger. How did you come by it?”
Eldur, Elyon thought. It wasn’t time for that yet. “I sustained it in battle.”
“And these marks on your armour? Dragonfire?”
A blast from the Bondstone. He didn’t say that either. He only nodded, in a sort of diversionary way, and looked back at the flaps as another man entered. To his great surprise, it was Sir Killian Oloran.
“Kill,” he said, smile quickening on his lips. “I hadn’t expected to see you here.”
“I arrived overnight.” Sir Killian’s voice was a whisper, soft as a spider’s step. He looked awful. As though he had just been awoken, for this meeting, by the look of those black bags beneath his eyes. He hadn’t washed in weeks, either, to judge the stink that came with him, and his once-luscious locks of long wavy hair were more brown than blond, now, owing to the mud and grime. A pair of thin lips pulled into a weary smile. “How are you, Elyon? I’ve heard great tales of your valour.”
“And I yours,” Elyon said. He gripped Killian’s arm, smiling broadly. “You’ve been putting the fear into the enemy. Just as you said you would.”
Sir Killian had gone out from Oakpike with several dozen warriors, one of three separate companies with the single directive of harrying and harassing the enemy wherever possible, killing as many as they could, as brutally as they could, to put the fear of Vandar into them. Killian had hoped it would give them time, at least, to regather their own forces after the humbling defeat at Dragon’s Bane. In that he had succeeded. But at what cost? Elyon wondered.
“How many of your men survived, Kill?”
“Too few,” said the heir of Oloran. “Though each made the enemy pay twenty times over.”
Elyon nodded, not doubting it. “And the other two squads?” He glanced over at Rikkard. “Has Sir Gereon returned? Elmtree?” Sir Solomon Elmtree was Killian’s man, a senior knight and commander among his Oloran forces. He had led the third squad. Barnibus had gone with him. “Have any of them returned?”
He saw shared looks, doubts. “We haven’t heard of Sir Gereon’s company, not for a while,” Rikkard said.
“And Sir Solomon?” Elyon paused, not liking their reticence to answer him. “Barnibus? Have you heard from them?”
Rikkard seemed like he was about to speak. Then his eyes shifted to the door as another figure stepped inside, brushing past the flaps. He wore silver armour, polished and unspoiled, bordered in green around the breastplate, with darker green markings at the knuckles of his gauntlets. A fine cloak of emerald-dyed lambswool hung from his back, clasped at the neck by a golden brooch in the sigil of Tukor. Hair, a rusty brown, thick with tight waves. Green-brown eyes, the colours of his kingdom, keen and confident. Raynald Lukar looked every bit the prince he was. On his head was a small crown, modest enough, silver and set with emerald jewels.
“My lords, my lady,” he said, to each in turn. Then he stepped forward and took Elyon’s forearm, shaking hard. “A fellow prince, I’m told,” he said, a broad smile on his lips.
Elyon smiled back. “How are you, Prince Raynald?”
“Well. Tired, but well. It was a long march from Ilithor.”
“We’re all happy you’re here.” Elyon had always liked Raynald and his brother Robbert, neither of whom seemed to have suffered from the corrupting effects of their grandfather. No, they are their father’s sons, that is certain. “The last time I saw Rikkard, he told me there was a rumour you were marching to our aid. I was not sure if I should dare believe it. But here you are.”
“Here I am.” Raynald said that very proudly. “And with thirty thousand Tukoran swords and spears for company, eager for a fight.”
It was a strong force, there was no doubt. Elyon looked over at Rikkard. “Are we waiting for anyone else?”
“Sir Karter is on his way,” Rikkard told him. “He shouldn’t be long.”
It took a minute or two for the knight to arrive, Karter Pentar breathing heavily as he stepped into the pavilion. The man wore godsteel plate, mixed in with some mail, enamelled with panels of deep Pentar red. His cloak was silver, slashed with crimson cuts, clasped at the shoulders with arrow-shaped pins. He was slim of jaw, hair thinning about the crown, a smallish man of two and forty who was deceptively skilled with the blade. “Apologies if I’m late, my lords, my lady,” he said.” I was doing my rounds upon the walls.”
“No apologies are necessary,” Elyon told him. “Are your brother and father joining us?”
“No, my lord. They are both in the city.” Karter’s younger brother Sir Kitt had command of the city defences, Elyon recalled, while Karter commanded the fort. Both answered to their father, Lord Lester, who was the younger brother to the late Lord Porus, now succeeded by his worm of a son, Alrus. There were a lot of Pentars about these parts.
“Very well then.” Elyon stepped to the command table, drawing the attention of those present. “Thank you all for coming at such short notice,” he said, in official tones. “I have grim tidings from the west that I must share with you.”
He looked at them in turn, took a short pause, made certain he had absolute silence, and then went straight into it. Drulgar, Eldur, King’s Point, Varinar. The trail to the sea. The losses they had suffered. When he was done, a silence lingered. Rammas’s expression was all anger, Killian’s deep in thought, Lady Marian’s face betrayed nothing at all. Raynald was staring at him with youthful wonder, even envy, or so he felt. “You…fought him, Elyon?” the prince said. “The titan? The…the Dread?”
“And Eldur,” Elyon added. He tapped his breastplate. “The Bondstone left this mark upon me. Lesser plate may have succumbed, but by luck I had visited the Forgemasters at the Steelforge only days before. They strengthened my armour. I advise you to do the same, if you can.”
“We have a Forgeborn armourer here,” Sir Karter said, swallowing. He wiped his brow of a bead of sweat. “He has a workshop over on the city side, across the river. Nothing like the Steelforge, and he has not the skill of the masters there, but at a pinch he could make improvements. I’ll speak to him. See…see what he can do.”
