grip; it was more like a baby’s hand grasping an offered finger, than anything.
Mikahl made no further movement. Vaegon stayed for a good while to make sure. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but the urge to slide the sheath off of Mikahl’s sword, was overwhelming. He was blinded with relief when the revealed section of the blade bloomed with brilliant blue light. It shone so brightly that it threw deep shadows across the magically lit room.
He studied his friend for a few more moments, hoping to see some sort of reaction to the reenergized blade’s magic, but none came. Feeling disappointed, but not completely so, because the sword had regained some, if not all of its power, the elf let out a long, frustrated sigh.
“I’ve got to find Hyden Hawk,” he said to Dugak.
The dwarf was slouched against the wall, finishing the last of his second bladder of liquor. When he was done, he tossed the skin aside and belched deeply.
“Be off then, elf,” he slurred. “I’ve had nuff runnin an’ frighting for one day. I’m old, and tiresome, and fleelin’ such.”
“And more than a little drunk, it seems,” Vaegon smiled, despite his sadness. “Don’t let anyone touch that sword.”
“That’s done, then. Iff’n ya see me lady dwarf, would you snend her my way, lad?” Dugak whispered, conspiratorially.
Vaegon could only laugh half-heartedly at the dwarf as he started away.
After fighting his way through the crowded hallways and corridors, Vaegon spotted the pixie-man, Starkle, hovering over an aggressive dispute among nobles. The sight of the strange looking, one-eyed elf coming down the corridor silenced Starkle, and drew the notice of the argument long enough for him to get the pixie’s attention.
“Can you tell me where I can find Hyden Hawk?” Vaegon asked.
“He’s gone into the Tower of Dahg Mahn,” Starkle replied.
A hushed whisper rolled out from the epicenter of the crowd. Everyone was focused on them. The sensation alarmed Vaegon, as did the way Starkle had made it sound as if the tower he spoke of was on the other side of the moon.
“How do I get there?” the elf asked.
Somewhere in the crowd, a woman said loudly, “The hawkman is lost.”
Another voice echoed in agreement, and the murmur turned into an argument of grim speculation over what Hyden’s fate might be.
“Only the wizard, Targon, can tell you that,” Starkle answered Vaegon’s question in an almost regretful tone. “Targon is on the outer wall, making ready for the coming attack.”
“Thank you,” Vaegon said, with a sinking feeling in his chest.
He squeezed into the crowd, and as he parted his way toward the castle’s main entryway, the lady’s voice echoed in his head: “The hawkman is lost.”
It took forever to work his way through all the people crowded in the torch-lit streets between the castle and the secondary wall’s open gates. From there to one of the many ramps that led up the inside of the outer wall, wasn’t so hard to manage.
The streets between the two walls were occupied primarily by soldiers, and the occasional magi. Even though it was dark, it was clear where one should travel, because there was a torch lined throughway. Everywhere else, there were men and soldiers posted, warning of places that had been booby-trapped to burn.
The physical exertion of his and Dugak’s run through the hills was taking its toll on Vaegon’s body as he started up one of the ramps. Men were starting to shout above him. It was clear that something was happening. Despite his exhaustion, he began to run up the ramp to see what it was. The excitement and fear of the moment filled his body with a rush as he went.
Just as he gained the top of the wall, a roar sounded. The call was terrifyingly deep, and Vaegon reflexively crumbled to his knees, like a frightened child might.
A bright and thunderous blast, a jet of orange flame, so hot that he felt its heat from over a hundred feet away, shot across the wall. Reflected in its own fire’s light, was the swooping plated head, and breast of a sparkling crimson beast. It was so daunting, that it could only be one thing: a dragon. Vaegon had thought the Choska demon they had fought in the forest a formidable creature. The dragon, which had just obliterated everything in the path of its fiery breath, could have bitten the Choska in half.
Thunder sounded in the distance, and rumbled closer with unnatural speed. In an explosion of blinding white energy, a not-so-distant section of the outer wall shattered, and crumbled away. The structure underneath Vaegon’s feet shook with the force of the blast.
Claret’s mighty roar sounded again from somewhere behind the elf. Men screamed and shouted in a cacophony of disorder. The deep “Thrum” of the machines loosing flaming spears sounded from nearby.
Vaegon managed to get back on his feet, as an explosion of fire erupted outside the wall. In its flaring light, he saw huge wooden towers rolling up close. The men pushing, and climbing them, seemed oblivious to the flames that threatened, and clung to them.
A barrel came down out of the darkness, into the throng below, and when it crashed, it splashed liquid in a great radius. A moment later, another flaming arrow went streaking from the wall, down into the huge circle, and a yellow-orange fireball erupted with a resounding “Whump!” The undead soldiers caught in the inferno, writhed and twisted on the ground. The ones only partially burned, came on as if nothing had happened.
Down the length of the wall, Vaegon saw one, two, no, three of the ladder towers, resting against it. The stench of sun-rotten flesh hung in the night air like a blanket of fog. The undead were swarming the wall already, and the battle had only just begun.
Vaegon searched around him in the wildly flaring light. There, some distance away, was a man in a white robe who might be a wizard. Vaegon charged along the top of the wall, heedless of all the arrows streaking by. A man at a crenel screamed, and fell back into his path, cursing. An arrow protruded from his head like a horn. Vaegon stopped, and helped the man tear it out of the skin. It hadn’t fractured the skull, but had pierced the flesh along his scalp, down to the bone. Vaegon took a moment to knit the skin together with his magic, but it was a poor and hasty job.
He saw ahead of him, between him and the robed man that he hoped was Targon, a group of pike-men, trying desperately to push off one of the ladder towers. Another man was throwing buckets full of oil down onto the attackers, who were scaling it. As he shot by them, the whole lot of them went up in a torrent of flame.
“Targon!” Vaegon yelled, as he came upon the white-robed man.
There was no response. The man was in the middle of a casting, and left Vaegon pleading with the air. The desperate elf was about to shake him, when a crackling bolt of yellow lightning shot forth from the man’s hands, down into a swarm of undead soldiers, who were trying to set yet another scaling ladder against the wall. The base of the wooden structure exploded, as Targon’s lightning superheated the sap in the fresh green timbers of the construction. The ladder began a slow tilting arc back into the troops below. When the spell had expired, Targon turned to the elf with clenched teeth, and a wild, almost insane, look in his eyes.
“If you can heal, then heal!” The black haired wizard shouted excitedly. “If not, then grab up a weapon! It’s all we can do here until Hyden Hawk returns!”
Vaegon started to ask, “From where?” but a great light began to fill the darkness out beyond the soldiers below. Out in the distance, a globe of reddish purple energy was forming over the head of a bald white-skinned figure wearing an ornately decorated black robe. The ball of swirling energy was the size of a wagon-wheel now, but it was growing steadily.
“Pael,” Targon hissed, then immediately began casting another spell.
Vaegon looked on, with his feet rooted to the plank walk, as the dragon passed at the edge of the evil wizard’s brightening lavender light. He shuddered with fear when he saw the beast’s huge horned head cut through the edge of the illumination. Several long seconds passed before its tail finally disappeared back into the darkness, but all he had really seen was the edge of a wing, a smattering of sparkling scale, and a huge undefined mass of slithery motion. By then, the sphere of energy building over Pael’s egg-like head was the size of a farmhouse. With a throwing gesture, and a psychotic, almost primal yell, he launched the globe into a comet-like arc, high up over the wall. It lit up the whole section of city as it started its way down. It’s churning, wavering
