“Khollo, we have a question for you,” Sermas said, clearing his throat.
“Yeah, about some of the traps,” Hern elaborated, looking back at the northern wall.
“Thing is, we need a little help to make them work,” Sermas said, raking a hand through his short hair.
“What kind of help?” Khollo asked curiously.
“Ah, well, that’s the problem,” Hern said, grimacing. “We don’t really know the best way to do this. We were thinking your dragon could help out a bit.”
“Kanin?” Khollo asked, surprised.
“Yes,” Sermas said quickly.
“We would need to know how the trap works in order to help implement it,” Khollo said, folding his arms across his chest and looking from Hern to Sermas and back again.
Hern sighed dramatically. “We thought you might say that, Khollo. And trust me, it’s a terrible disappointment giving away the surprise before the battle – ”
“ – but in order to maximize the spectacle and the vertaga casualties, we’ve decided to let you in on what we’re doing,” Sermas finished. “For this trap at least.”
“So how does it work?” Khollo asked.
“We’ve dug a trench, just inside the outer wall and covered it with woven mats,” Hern explained. “The vertaga get to the top of the wall and jump down – it’s short enough for them to do that easily enough – and when they do, they punch through the mats and fall into our stake trench.”
“Sounds traditional enough,” Khollo muttered. “Where are we supposed to help?”
“Ah, but we also put some little surprises along the base of the trench,” Sermas said, grinning.
“Oil jars?” Khollo guessed.
“Precisely!” Hern said excitedly. “The jars in the trench will shatter and spread oil everywhere when the vertaga fall in. Once that happens, all we need is a solid flame source and presto! Raging inferno and lots of dead monsters.”
“And so you want Kanin and I to fly along the trench and light it up,” Khollo guessed.
“Yes,” Sermas confirmed, nodding.
“We can do it, unless Janis calls us up to defend the front of the fortress,” Khollo decided. “You do have a backup plan, I assume?”
“Flaming arrows,” Hern grunted. “Nowhere near as spectacular.”
“Or foolproof, or reliable, or powerful,” Sermas added.
“But enough to get the job done.”
“Hopefully,” Sermas interjected.
“Sounds good,” Khollo decided. “Was there anything else? Care to explain the rope contraptions over the wall?”
“Not yet,” Hern replied. “You wouldn’t want us to give away all of our secrets would you?”
“But there is one other thing we need to discuss.”
“And that is?” Khollo prompted.
Hern and Sermas exchanged a look, then produced two contraptions made of thick rope.
“Thing is, the wall of fire will start to die down in places,” Hern said, shrugging.
“Unavoidable,” Sermas confirmed. “No matter what we do, the vertaga will manage to tamp it down somewhere. So we want to be able to safely drop some more oil jars on the fire where it starts to weaken.”
“And the safest way to do that – ” Hern said eagerly.
“ – is to fly with you and Kanin and drop them from above,” Sermas finished.
Khollo looked at the rope harnesses skeptically. “Where were you planning on hanging those?” he asked.
“Well, we have a few options,” Hern replied excitedly. “Kanin can hold them in his claws and we can dangle underneath him and pitch the oil down from there.”
“Or we could hang these from some of those marvelous spines and be pressed against either side of your dragon and drop the oil from there,” Sermas added.
“Or even sit behind you, if it comes to that,” Hern said, frowning thoughtfully. “Might have to adjust the harnesses a bit though for that situation.”
Khollo sighed heavily and looked back at Kanin. The dragon was awake and eying them curiously.
Do they want me to carry them as well? He asked Khollo.
Yes. Can you?
Perhaps for a short time. They do not look heavy.
Khollo sighed. “Let me get this straight: you want to lob jars of oil down on the heads of fearless killing machines while dangling from the underside of a fire breathing dragon, and the only thing to keep you from falling to your deaths is a highly-combustible, easily-frayed rope harness? Has it occurred to you that you will be easy targets for vertaga archers?”
“Yes,” Sermas and Hern said in unison.
“To both parts,” Sermas added. “We know the risks, but we also know this is the best way to make sure our plan works.”
“Besides, we’ve never flown before,” Hern said eagerly, eying Kanin.
Khollo looked back at Kanin. The dragon eyed him steadily, but made no comment.
“All right,” Khollo said finally. “We’ll give it a shot.”
Chapter 43
THUMP.
“I think these ropes could do with a little more shortening!” Hern shouted, his voice muffled by his position somewhere below Kanin’s wings. “I just slammed into Sermas again.”
“Focus, Hern!” Sermas called, his voice also muffled. “We’re coming up on the target.”
Khollo leaned forward over Kanin’s neck, the wind whistling past his ears as they flew. Ahead was a charred swath of earth roughly the same length and width as the ditch that had been dug just inside the northern wall of the West Bank. Kanin was flying out of arrow range, gliding stealthily over the land.
“Fire away!” Sermas shouted gleefully, releasing a medium-sized rock. The rocks were being used to simulate oil jars, since there was no sense in wasting good ammunition.
Khollo looked down and saw a trail of six rocks plummeting towards the charred patch of earth below. “Take us up, Kanin,” he said, aloud for Hern and Sermas’ benefit.
The dragon pumped his wings twice, gaining altitude, soaring further out of range. Below, the rocks struck the charred patch, bouncing and rolling
