with the realisation that this screaming horde was hell bent on killing me, it caused a bloodlust to explode in my brain. Some men never get over this experience and sell themselves as mercenaries for the rest of their lives in order to feel that savage passion again. As for me I have no want to repeat the experience but I would be lying if I said it was unpleasant. In fact it was damn exciting. Never have I felt so alive. It was kill or be killed and every fallen enemy soldier was one that I knew I wouldn’t have to face with my sword and I cheered with the rest of my comrades as each went down.
When the ladders reached the ramparts I finally got to use my sword. It was a good blade but heavier and nowhere near as finely balanced as the Sword of Duir. I missed the Lawnmower. I had a fleeting image of the last time I saw it, sticking out of the underbelly of Dragon Red. A ladder hit below my gap in the wall. I tried to reach down and push it but it was just out of reach. Leprechaun boulder tossers were engaged elsewhere so I waited for the first of the Brownies to climb the ladder. He reached the top in no time and we engaged in a pointless just out- of-reach sword-fight where we clinked sword tips but were too far away from each other to make serious contact. My father’s sword-fighting instructions sprang into my head. ‘When an attack ceases to make sense,’ he once said to me, right before he tripped me over a low wire he had earlier set up in the garden, ‘look around – something else might be happening.’ I continued to swing but looked under the ladder and saw another Brownie with a crossbow taking aim at my nose. I ducked back just in time to avoid a bolt in the brain.
A gleem came over the wall far to my right. The gleem-team got to it quickly but not in time to prevent a couple of Banshees from clearing the ramparts. They fought and another five were allowed to reach the top before they were thrown back over. Ladders had now reached almost every part of the rampart wall. All of the ladders seemed to me to be too low. It made them difficult for us to repel by pushing them over but it also made it extremely difficult for the enemy to breach the top of the walls. It didn’t make sense. I used my father’s advice again and scanned the length of the battlements. That’s when I noticed that under every ladder was a team of two soldiers crouched down fiddling with something at the base of the wall.
I shouted to Dahy, ‘SOMETHING IS HAPPENING UNDER THE LADDERS.’
As he looked, a horn was blown and all the attackers dropped from their ladders and ran away from the wall.
‘RETREAT!’ Dahy shouted. ‘EVERYONE OFF THE BATTLEMENTS!’
Having been a student of the Master I didn’t have to hear a Dahy order twice. I flew off my post and into the midst of the Hall of Knowledge. A few of my comrades were not so lucky. The explosions blew a dozen holes in our defences. The Leprechauns and Imps who were on the wall were thrown twenty feet in the air.
‘BACK TO THE AISLES,’ Dahy ordered. ‘BACK TO THE AISLES.’
Our secondary defence was what Dahy had called ‘The Aisles’. We had knocked down some of what was left of the Hall’s walls and reinforced others. The idea was to force any advancing army into narrow channels – aisles, allowing us to battle one or two abreast as opposed to a huge wave of marauders. Archers were positioned so as to shoot anyone that tried to come over the top.
The air hadn’t even cleared when the Banshees, covered with the white dust of the explosions, came screaming out of the smoke. Dahy had said that there would be blood; well, this was the time he was talking about. I don’t know how many I killed. All I know is that they weren’t very well trained. They had strength and the energy that adrenalin brings but they all swung madly and allowed me to parry their wild swings to the outside and stab them in the chest, or the shoulder if they were wearing a breast protector. May the gods forgive me but what else could I do?
Even though I was killing many, I gave ground with almost every clash and I was getting tired. An Imp finally grabbed me from behind, pulled me back into the Hall and took my place at the front of the aisle.
I found Dahy barking orders outside of the library. On my left a bunch of Banshees broke through and Yogi, as a bear, roared into them, throwing two into the air and shing the others into a retreat, while Dahy ordered swordsmen back into that aisle. This battle was not going well and it was just about to get a whole lot worse.
A troop of Banshees had snuck around to the site of the first attack. They guessed that if they each carried a bough of a tree that the gold strips might not register the branches as weapons and would let them through. They guessed right. Because of our small numbers we had only defended the hill with a handful of soldiers. The Banshees attacked with the branches and at the same time catapulted a bag of swords over a wall from the side. The Banshees quickly overpowered the guards on the hill and armed themselves. Our defences were dangerously thinned as soldiers were ordered to defend the Tree of Knowledge on two fronts.
I think at this point Dahy would have surrendered but no one was offering. This was it – it was a fight to the death and the realisation hit me that the death would be ours.
That’s when time began to slow for me, not a good sign. My gift is only a help when I am personally in a fight. Here, watching this failing battle, my gift was a curse, just as it was when I watched Fergal die. I saw my comrades fall in slow motion. I saw every wound, every spurt of blood as if I was watching some bad war movie. It also gave me time to assess the entire battlefield and what I saw told me it was all over. We were moments away from being overrun.
The aisle on the left broke. Banshees and Brownies poured out. Dahy called forward the soldiers that had been guarding the Tree of Knowledge. A melee of hand-to-hand combat opened in the yard.
I looked for Essa. If this was to be the end I wanted to be at her side. In the confusion I couldn’t see her but I heard her when she yelled, ‘THE SKY!’
I looked up as the entire firmament turned into flame. A huge fireball rolled over and through the holes in the shattered battlements. Fire leapt in and set alight the attackers at the entrances of the aisles. Flames rolled over the top of the defences forcing us to hit the ground as hairs curled on the top of our heads. Then, swooping through the smoke flew a huge green dragon. It circled and came in to land almost exactly where I was standing. As I dived for cover I saw that the dragon had a rider. I got to my feet just in time to see him jump off as the dragon skidded into a stone wall. The dragon rider hit the ground in a graceful roll and popped up on his feet, banta stick in hand. It was – Araf!
I didn’t question how or why. I just got to my feet and shouted, ‘IMPS AND LEPRECHAUNS, TO ME. THE DRAGON IS ON OUR SIDE. EVERYONE, TO ME.’ Araf blew his whistle. To their credit our force spent no time in dazed wonder when they saw their prince arrive miraculously from the grave astride a dragon, they went right into battle mode and cheered as they went back on the offensive.
The attackers that were still standing retreated as fast as their legs would carry them. If that Banshee sixth sense is true then it pretty quickly told them to get the hell out of there.
Another explosion of fire lit up the southern end of the battlefield as a crimson-coloured dragon – one that I recognised as Red – swooped over our position. Its rider, with that unmistakable American accent, shouted, ‘YEE HA.’
Dragon Red landed on the top of the headquarters building just long enough for Brendan to slide off.
‘Hey, O'0%' widtheil,’ the policeman/dragon-rider shouted over the sound of Red launching himself back in to the sky, ‘it’s good to see you’re not dead.’
‘Same to you, Copper,’ I shouted. I was just about to ask Araf what the heck was going on when we heard a sound of a battle horn coming from the courtyard.
Someone shouted, ‘THEY ARE ATTACKING THE TREE!’
By the time I got to the entranceway it was almost over. A dozen Brownies were lying dead on the ground with arrows sticking out of the centres of their chests. Spideog was still firing even though he had a crossbow bolt in his thigh and another in his shoulder. There were four remaining Brownies; two of them had axes and were trying to get to the Tree of Knowledge. Spideog went for the axe bearers when he should have gone for the one in the back. I saw that Brownie cock his arm and then I saw the dagger leave his hand. A split second later two arrows hit the knife thrower – one in the throat from Spideog and another in the chest from Brendan on the roof – but they weren’t in time to stop the throw. The knife was well off the mark but as I watched, it curved in midair and honed in on the ancient archer’s heart. It hit him square in the chest. He dropped his bow, then crumpled first onto his knees and then onto his back.
Brendan dispatched the other attackers from the roof and then out of habit shouted, ‘OFFICER DOWN.’ He slid down a buttress and arrived at Spideog’s side almost as quickly as I did. I lifted the archer’s head; he coughed and blood poured from his mouth.
‘Is the Tree safe?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Master.’
