and he absolutely didn’t want to dishonor the wild looking half-blood that had saved him from the Choska’s claws. Mikahl wasn’t sure how to react, so he gave them a deep nod of respect and did his best imitation of King Balton.
“I pray you get the chance to slay the dragon, mighty Bzorch. It has killed far too many. As for Coldfrost, I had no part in the battle there, other than as squire to my father and king. King Balton’s reign over Westland has ended. Mine is about to begin. None of us who were there can forget, but we can stand together and start anew.”
“One king, one kingdom!” someone yelled from beyond the fire’s light.
“One king, one kingdom,” another repeated loudly. Others took up the chant as well, including King Jarrek, and many of the dwarves.
It was in that spirit of unified purpose that the forces marched away the next morning toward their positions outside the city gates of O’Dakahn.
The few Dakaneese people who hadn’t sought safety inside the city’s walls were escorted away from the massive dwellings and shops that had been built against the protective barrier. It took most of a day to get them clear. Hundreds of stubborn families were displaced and sent north out of harm’s way. The besieged Dakaneese inside the walls didn’t waste any time taking action. During that first night they doused the structures with oil and set them to burning. They had no intention of letting the Eastern armies use them to build on, or the wood to build siege engines.
Lord Gregory’s planning counted on them doing this. They weren’t planning on building siege engines, other than for the sake of show. They would sit there, outside the city, and wait for the rest of the reinforcements Queen Willa and Queen Rachel had dispatched to arrive, while the dwarves dug a huge collapsible cavity under a single section of the imposing wall. The charred and smoldering structures outside the barrier gave the dwarves excellent cover when they crept in close and started to dig.
According to Oarly, the wall’s size and weight would bring it down. All that was needed was a large well placed gap under the foundation, and a little push. Oarly took his sappers away from the gate in search of a favorable area to collapse. Other crews of dwarven diggers were spaced around the barrier, each trying to bore a passage under the wall that might allow a small human force to gain entry. If they got through, the sheer number of people that lived in O’Dakahn would make it easy to blend in. If a small group of men could manage to get one of the gates open from the inside, then the eastern armies could just swarm in and go to work. Still, Oarly and many of the other dwarves agreed, collapsing an area of wall to make their own gate would be much more effective.
A day’s march due west from O’Dakahn, on the bank of the Leif Greyn River, sits the marshland village called Nahka. For several days, the zard and their gekas used the powerful current of the Leif Greyn’s main channel to carry them from the marshes. Larger dactyls carried roped bundles of weapons and supplies, while flying in small unnoticeable flocks. The snappers that resided in the marshes didn’t bother with the zard, and only one geka met its end during the crossing. By the time O’Dakahn was ringed with the fires of the structures burning outside the city’s wall, fifteen thousand zard-men had gathered along the river.
Flick, on the back of his dragon, flew high overhead during the night. He had rallied the zard with the telling of how sneaky King Mikahl murdered Queen Shaella in cold blood. The zard loved and respected the Dragon Queen. She had armed them and trained them and led them out of the swampy muck that the Westlanders had spent centuries driving them into.
Flick reminded them of all she had done, and incited their desire for vengeance. It wasn’t that hard to get them riled and moving, not with Vrot sitting proudly beneath him. Now he was studying the forces that had besieged Ra’Gren’s massive cesspool. Flick wanted them to attack outside the northwestern gate first. He had seen the ragged Red Wolf banner of King Jarrek fluttering among those soldiers earlier. His instincts told him to move on the southern gate first, though. The zard were extraordinarily silent swimmers and the forces that were gathering there wouldn’t be expecting an attack from the bay. The zard could slither through the water carrying weapons and creep up on the men before they established position.
Confident that he was making the right choice, Flick turned Vrot northward. The Dakaneese pirate ship that the sell-swords had taken over was speeding south to warn Jarrek and the High King of the zard movement. His zard had been watching the ship for days from the lake that now stood over Seareach. It baffled Flick how a king without a kingdom, with no coin chests, could buy up Ra’Gren’s well paid sell-swords. Maybe the High King had promised them land and titles in his make believe realm. Flick couldn’t imagine any real Dakaneese mercenary not demanding payment, at least partial payment, up front. It didn’t matter, Flick decided. The traitorous bastards were about to be snapper food. He brought Vrot down out of the sky in a streaking dive then leveled the dragon a few dozen feet over the river’s surface. Ahead, the boat could be seen riding the current swiftly southward.
Maxrell Tyne opened his mouth and screamed out a warning as he took a leaping stride and dove from his ship. Grommen looked up into a searing splash of corrosive breath. For long moments after the top half of his body was eaten away, his legs and lower torso stood frozen in place. The other men were either directly covered, or splattered and sprayed with the acidy liquid. The Shark’s Tooth was eaten through and sinking before the dragon’s tail had swept past it.
The pieces of the crewmen that weren’t eroded to a pasty liquid were quickly gulped down by hungry snappers. And those that were whole swam desperately, trying to get out of the water as quickly as they could.
As Flick brought Vrot around in a hard banking arc, his blood was alive with glee. A few snappers were now floating dead. The acid residue from the human flesh had eaten through their innards and killed them almost as quickly as it had killed the men. Flick shivered at the sight. His body was full of anticipation and the lust for vengeance. He couldn’t wait to destroy the High King and the eastern armies so that he could claim his place as the new king of the realm.
The Dragon King.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Master Amill was having a rough time of it. Between conferring with Master Sholt on Phen’s condition, and helping the dwarves clear out civilians from the ships and warehouses at Port O’Dakahn, he was exhausted. He was more than pleased to find his tent had been erected and that a meal of stew and biscuits was waiting inside with his things. The stew was cold, but he wolfed it down anyway. He didn’t bother to unpack his small satchel of books and personal necessities. This night, if it was actually still night, lasted far too long and he had only one thing left on his mind. Sleep.
With the practiced ease of a man who’d been afield for several weeks, he snapped the straps on his bedroll and kicked it. It rolled open invitingly. A heartbeat later he was stretched out and trying to clear his mind so that sleep would take him.
The situation with Phen was too disturbing to think about, so he forced it out of his brain completely. He wished that Queen Rachel’s flotilla would hurry and arrive. Keeping the harbor clear would be far easier once they had support from the sea. The extra soldiers those ships carried would come in handy as well. He figured that the other two gate areas were easier to clear. Merchants, traders, and travelers had to be more cooperative than the hardened crews, pirates, and salty dogs they came across here. It was done, though. The harbor area was clear of all but the men and dwarves under King Granitheart. And now Master Amill was finally slipping into slumber.
The zard came silently and swiftly, from under the docks, from the rocky jetties that extended out into the bay, from the lightly forested shore. Small groups creeping on clawed feet snuck through the shadows or slithered through the alleyways of the shipping district. Several of the human sentries had to be killed to keep alarms from being sounded, but otherwise the first part of the zard assault went unnoticed.
