screaming dactyl that had been skewered by one of the archers. It crashed into the space where he and his horse had just been, taking out several men.
Jarrek chanced a skyward glance and caught his breath. Mikahl had engaged the dragon. Jarrek hadn’t expected the sky to be filled with swamp birds. The archers were doing the best they could, he saw, as another of dactyl came half flapping, half spinning down into a cluster of soldiers.
Jarrek took in the city wall to the south. Archers were gathering along its top. They were sending long arcing volleys of arrows out into the fray. He glanced to the north and saw that hundreds of skeeks, all riding their quick, ferocious geka lizards, had closed off the only way left to avoid being pinned against the barrier. Jarrek realized his mistake. One of the first rules of battle was to never underestimate your enemy. Now, here they were being pushed back against O’Dakahn’s wall by Ra’Gren’s soldiers, Shaella’s skeeks, and her wizard’s dragon. The reinforcements Queen Rachel and Queen Willa had dispatched were still days away. Not only had King Jarrek failed his enslaved people, many of whom were still in chains beyond the huge city wall, he had led all these men who had come to fight for his cause to their deaths. The intensity of his regret almost outweighed the anger he felt at himself for being such a fool.
Overhead the dragon roared and Jarrek mimicked the sound from some place deep within himself. Angry beyond reason, he charged his mount into the heat of the battle.
“Follow me!” he ordered a group of mounted Seawardsmen. “We’ve got to get through or we are done!”
He decided that he would either carve a way out of the press or die trying. The men, seeing his intent, disengaged from their current battles and followed him, each knowing that the endeavor was next to impossible.
Commander Escott saw the realization of the situation come over King Jarrek’s face. The Red Wolf had miscalculated, and now he was attempting the impossible. Escott spoke a prayer to the sun gods of his people and then ordered a dozen of his cavalry to follow the Red Wolf. A moment after they rode into King Jarrek’s wake, the commander sent half a score of men after them. If the old Red Wolf was willing to sacrifice himself to carve them a way out of the trap they had fallen into, he was going to try and make sure that the sacrifice wasn’t made in vain.
He began ordering men to wedge after Jarrek and push away from the wall. Better to be surrounded by an enemy on a level field then be pinned beneath the fifty foot wall that was topped with soldiers. He knew that the reinforcements could never get there in time. It was now a do or die situation. Any thoughts of besieging O’Dakahn were a fleeting memory. This had become a fight for their lives.
Mikahl managed to keep Vrot and Flick away from the men on the ground, but he could tell by looking at the battle below that things weren’t going well. He saw Bzorch stomping around anxiously with his dragon gun at the ready and tried to lead the dragon into its sights, but the black wyrm, or maybe its rider, were wise to his ploy.
Suddenly the dragon inexplicably bolted northward. Mikahl rose into the sky and came around over the wall. He managed to clear the archers from a good length of its top with a series of fiery blasts. After that he swooped toward the ranks of gekas that had closed off the northern portion of the battlefield. He blasted them hard with savage lighting, alternated with streaking swaths of wizard’s fire.
As he passed over the gekas and pulled up into the air, he was overcome with shocked despair, for at least five thousand soldiers were storming in from the north, the Dakaneese trident banner streaming from the flagman’s pike. He cast a wall of fire across their path that startled their horses, but Flick, who was now gliding on Vrot’s back, just above the charge, countered it quickly. Before the horses could even break their formation to avoid the flames, the inferno was extinguished.
Mikahl arced around and started back toward the main battle. He had to warn the others. These new Dakaneese would be on them in moments and would devastate them. As he sped back to find King Jarrek, he noticed that the dactyls had all but vanished from the sky. Only moments ago, thousands of them had been darting down and attacking the soldiers, but now they were nowhere to be seen.
A roar shocked him into the realization that Flick and his black dragon were right on the bright horse’s heels. Mikahl took a jolting blow that dispersed out around the edges of the glassine globe that shielded him, but it still knocked him sideways. He was in trouble, and he knew it. There was no way that he could out fly the wyrm that was nipping at his back. He saw Bzorch out of the corner of his eye and faked pulling away from the breed’s direction, but then dove straight for the big savage looking half-blood. He tried to keep his body between Bzorch and the dragon as best he could so that it couldn’t see what he was intending. At the last moment he pulled up and away.
Bzorch didn’t hesitate to fire his spear. The projectile tore through Vrot’s hind leg at the meaty part of his calf muscle. Bzorch dove out of the way of an acidy blast and somehow got caught up in his uncoiling line.
Mikahl banked around as sharply as the bright horse would allow. He came round just in time to see the rope that led from Bzorch to Vrot pull tight. The black dragon didn’t stop, but the sudden jolt of Bzorch’s weight threw Flick tumbling forward from its back. Mikahl didn’t hesitate either. He forced the bright horse into a dive toward the tumbling wizard.
King Jarrek seemed to have done the impossible. He and several of the mounted fighters had battled a lane clean through the zard force to the north. In a flash, hundreds of Valleyans and Blacksword soldiers, and quite a few dwarves, filtered into the gap and fought to hold it, so that their fellows could escape the closing press of the enemy. The passage wasn’t open long, though. The worst possible thing that could happen did. The Dakaneese cavalry, riding in from the north, came crashing into the battle before Jarrek or his men could even catch their breath. The corridor Jarrek had fought so bravely to open gave those riders a clear path right into the heart of the battle. Within seconds, the Dakaneese began hacking and hewing away the lives of King Jarrek and Commander Escott’s men. King Jarrek tried to blink away his tears when he saw what was happening, and then he was bashed from his horse by a passing Dakaneese fighter’s mace. His red enameled wolf skull helmet went spinning through the air. He crashed into the growing pile of corpses on the bloody ground. Then he was trampled into the muck.
Flick cleared his mind and calmly cast a levitation spell. He couldn’t fly, but he didn’t have to come crashing down to the ground either. As he righted himself and came to a hover in the air, a roar so loud that it shook the city walls filled the sky. Flick ignored it and raised his arms to blast Mikahl as he came swooping in. Mikahl had hoped to catch Flick before he recovered, but he was too late. He half expected to smash into another invisible wall, but he still leveled Ironspike at the bald-headed wizard and called forth a streak of lightning.
Strangely, Flick’s arms fell to his sides and his eyes grew huge. He was looking at something behind Mikahl. Mikahl didn’t care what it was. He let loose his white-hot blast right into the wizard’s chest. The jagged bolt of energy hit Flick with its full intensity. The shocked wizard went spinning head over heels across the sky and into the battle below. A pillar a smoke rose up from the charred husk that hit the ground and exploded into chunks of cherry embers.
Even though he caused it, Mikahl didn’t see Flick’s end. A gust of wind so violent that it sent him and his bright horse tumbling out of control hit him from above.
Bzorch knew he was in trouble, so he rolled under a wandering horse then looped the line over the animal’s saddle horn. When Vrot hit the end of the slack this time, there was an unimaginable yank. The horse was spun shoulder under hooves and nearly torn in half, and Bzorch was snapped up into the air with breakneck force. He only came up a dozen feet, though, before darkness swept across the battlefield and a sound that might have been angry thunder blasted across the sky. He never got to see what it was because he hit the earth again in an ungainly heap.
