Chapter 17 – The Streets of Stovologard (4994)(DRAFT)

Chapter 17 – The Streets of Stovologard (4994)

Almost at the same instant, it began to rain. The rain pushed the smog down into the streets and yards of Stovologard. Roztov looked up, he could see the rooftops, even though he could not see more than a half dozen paces ahead. Broddor disappeared into the fog as arrows, fired by the gendarmes, either clattered off his armour or went wide.

Ghene, having lost his bow, turned into a bear, roared, then charged forward. More arrows flew through the fog. Roztov could hear them more than he could see them, zipping through the mist. One or two came close, but none hit him.

As Broddor and Ghene pushed the gendarmes back down the alley and the others prepared for battle, he stood where he was, appraising the situation. Looking up through the rain that was falling like lances from the narrow patch of sky above, he could see the dark forms of dragons perching on the rooftops of the surrounding tenements. There would be no escape in that direction, but it did prove that in the narrow alleys and small courtyards the dragons dared not tread. Judging by the size of them, they’d have would have no room to unfold their wings and would have a hard time climbing back out again. The dragons looked young and black, probably manhunters, joining this hunt for sport.

Up ahead, where Broddor and Ghene were fighting at the other end of the alley that led to the courtyard they had become trapped in, was suddenly lit up by dragon flame. There was enough room, apparently, for a dragon to land, out on the wider street. The fire burned off some of the fog and Roztov could see there was a young black dragon some distance behind the gendarmes. Ghene the bear, came bounding back, his fur blackened and smoking in the rain.

‘The dragon’s won’t risk their lives fighting in the alleys!’ shouted Roztov in Enttish. ‘We should fight the gendarmes here. Broddor, fall back, let them come!’

Roztov then turned into an enormous bear and roared so loudly all the gendarmes took a step backwards. This gave Broddor time enough to grudgingly join the others.

The gendarmes fired another volley of arrows, but Meggelaine had already anticipated this and had weaved a wall of wind in front of them that blew the arrows high into the air. The missiles then landed harmlessly off to the side, their force spent.

The gendarmes hesitated, not sure how to take on such powerful magic, but a burst of dragon fire at their feet spurred them on. They cautiously walked through the barrier of wind and found that although it made their arrows fly untrue it was not strong enough to stop a fully armoured man.

When they realised this, a group of about twenty men yelled a war cry and charged forward. Broddor swung at the first man that entered the courtyard, cleaving the man’s spear and cutting into his shoulder. Two more stabbed at the dwarf with spears, but the points skidded off his armour. On either side of Broddor the two bears held the gendarmes at bay, a wall of fur that their spears could not get past. Roztov clawed aside a spear and cuffed a man to the ground with such force it killed him instantly. He was stabbed by two spears on the foreleg, but they did not bite deep.

‘Clear the alley entrance!’ shouted Floran from behind them. The bears stepped to either side and Broddor dove off to the right and landed on top of Roztov. Just as the first of the gendarmes stepped forward to try and gain entry into the courtyard they were hit by a massive ball of ice that exploded in their front rank, sending shards of ice, bits of armour and bits of man flying in all directions. What remained of their attack broke up and fled. Broddor leapt to his feet and chased after them. The bears joined the charge, but as the gendarmes ran out into the main street the dragons there filled the alley with fire, breathing three long jets of flame that washed over Broddor’s holy armour and singed the backsides of the bears as they turned and bound back towards the courtyard.

When the alley had cleared again and was empty except for the smoking remains of dead gendarmes, Floran sent another ice lance down it that hit a dragon in its hind leg. Badly injured the creature limped off out of sight.

After this first exchange, there was a pause in the battle. As the rain came down harder still, they could see just far enough to be aware of the dark shapes of more dragons arriving. They could hear the noises of boots on cobbles and the clanking of armour to guess that more men were arriving, but neither dragons nor men seemed in any hurry to attack down the alley again.

Finding that he had a few minutes to spare, Roztov lifted up a barricade of earth to block off the entrance and turned back into his normal form.

‘They’ll have to climb over that now, to get at us,’ he then sniffed the air and raised his arms. Earth rose up on their side of the barricade to form a step about two feet in height that they could use to look over the parapet.

‘What now?’ asked Ghene as stepped up and looked over the defences and down the smoke filled alley.

‘I can just make out...’ said Roztov as he wiped the rain from his eyes and blinked. ‘I think I see men dressed in the armour of manhunters. It’s not just gendarmes down there now. We’ll get a proper fight when they decide to come at us.’

‘It’s impossible to summon bears here, or wolves, not in this city, so far from nature.’

Roztov sniffed again. ‘No, but I smell rats. Have you ever summoned rats?’

‘Etruna bless me, no.’

Roztov waved over Meggelaine, who was with Tankle and Arrin.

‘One rat isn’t much danger to anyone, but a hundred maybe. Shall we see how many we can do together?’

Meggelaine nodded. ‘I love rats.’

The druids began to chant together and blue light began to form in the cracks in between the cobbles and the air vents in the walls. Then, in a single surge of fur and tails the courtyard filled with a thousand rats, squeaking and hissing and climbing over each other. The druids pointed over the barricade and the rats surged forwards and over it in a wave of brown fur.

Ghene shuddered and held his cloak tight as they went past, the others standing as still as they could as the tide of rats flowed past them.

Chaos erupted at the other end of the alley. The dragons, panicked, took to the sky as hordes of rats nipped at their wings and legs. Two managed to get airborne and shake off their attackers, but one was overwhelmed and completely covered by rats. It breathed fire and incinerated a hundred or so in one go, but as it tried to close its mouth a hundred more leapt down its throat. It writhed and floundered and died. All the men, gendarmes and manhunters fled down the main street, a few of the ones that were already injured or too slow being overtaken by the plague of rats and killed.

‘That is not a nice way to go,’ remarked Broddor as he watched, his visor up, from the barricade. A gendarme, staggered past the other end of the alley, clutching at his throat, trying to pull the rats out of his armour. He staggered and fell, then was lost under the sea of rats, their fur red now from their killing.

‘Well, it will buy us some time at least,’ said Roztov stepping down from the parapet.

‘Well, stop bloody messing about the lot of you!’ chided Meggelaine. ‘I’ve opened this door, come on.’

She had used her magic to break apart the wood of a boarded up door. She ushered them inside and they stepped into a room that once had been a kitchen, and then from there a smaller room full of dusty furniture. Here there was a door which led to a dark corridor full of filth and cobwebs. Meggelaine chose another door and pushed her way into another apartment. After hunting through all the rooms and not finding a single window or any other door, Roztov was about to lead them out, but Meggelaine called them back into an abandoned bedroom.

 ‘These buildings are like rabbit burrows down at these levels, all built up on top of each other. Let’s just keep going in a straight line and not just wander about in the dark like a pack of ninnies,’ said Meggelaine patting the far wall of the room they were in. ‘Stand back.’

As the others kept watch she channelled what little natural magic she could find in the city towards the wall. Gradually roots began to push up from the floor. Seeing that she needed help, the other two druids joined her and the roots moved towards the wall aggressively, pushing in between the stonework and pulling it apart. The wall crumbled to reveal another room.

‘Come on then,’ said Meggelaine, leading them through two more rooms then to a door that lead out into the street. ‘Oops.’

They had come out in a side street, where the gutters flowed with water and clouds of steam rose up from the ground to be beaten back down again by the rain. Off to their right were a small group of gendarmes and with them was Honni. He was the first to see them bust out of the house and quickly pointed them out, shouting and gesturing towards them.

‘Why the little...’ hissed Meggelaine, witnessing the treachery.

‘Come on, Meg, forget about him,’ said Roztov, pulling her away as the others all jogged past, following Ghene in the other direction. She continued to check over her shoulder, as they ducked down side streets and dank rain-soaked alleys.

‘They are still following us,’ panted Meggelaine as they ran.

‘I see them,’ confirmed Roztov. ‘But they won’t come at us in small numbers while we are moving. They just want to follow us and wait for the opportunity to pin us down.’

He glanced up, which made Meggelaine and Floran, who was nearby, look up too. Through the rain and the swirling mixture of smoke and steam they could see the black shadows of the dragons.

‘Ghene, better keep to the small streets,’ said Floran. ‘Or they’ll come down on us.’

Ghene nodded and motioned for them to keep running. After ten minutes or so they all stopped, Roztov came up to the front to see what was going on. They were in an enclosed and abandoned garden between the houses, with walls on all sides and no doors. The tenement windows on either side were all boarded up. A few straggly weeds grew in the packed earth and mounds of dead vegetation.

‘Etruna curse it, I’m lost,’ admitted Ghene. ‘I thought this was the way to the docks.’

‘The docks are no use anyway,’ said Roztov. ‘We’d never get away. We need somewhere to hide.’

As Ghene was about to speak the courtyard was suddenly filled with black scaly wings as one of the manhunters landed on top of them in an undignified heap. Everyone scrambled out of the way as the dragon attempted to gain its feet, but it was stuck down by Broddor stabbing it through the neck with Gronmorder.

‘They’ll not try that again,’ said the dwarf as he wrenched his sword from the dead dragon. ‘Not for a while anyway.’

‘There are more men coming,’ said Floran who was watching the alley they had just came from, and the only way out of the dead end they were in.

‘Listen you druid idiots, we’ll never escape all together,’ said Broddor. ‘Roztov, conjured up one of your fogs, then you druids dig a wee tunnel through yon wall and sneak away. I’ll hold them off here.’

Roztov and Ghene looked at each other, but could come up with no better plan.

‘Very well, Broddor,’ said Roztov. He then began to chant slowly under his breath and with his fingers splayed out extended his arms from his body. In a place like this, summoning up a druidic mist was one of the easiest things to do.

While Roztov did this, the other two druids summoned roots that tore through one of the tenement walls, a hole just big enough to let everyone through.

When the yard was choked full of fog and they all appeared as nothing but grey silhouettes to each other Broddor unslung the bag he was carrying and handed it to Roztov.

‘You can take your bag of dirt with you, I won’t be needing it,’ said the dwarf.

‘Maybe I can summon something up to help you.’

‘Save that for when you need it. Just go, I’ll catch you up.’

Roztov patted him on the shoulder and went to join the others. He was the last one through the hole and he followed Floran who had been bringing up the rear. Up head Ghene was leading them through the abandoned rooms, creating holes where he needed to, trying to get as far away as possible without going back out onto the street. Luckily for them, the area they were in was so densely packed with buildings that they got half a mile before getting back out into the rain. They stuck to the ground floor at all times and never encountered another soul. No one seemed to live at street level in Stovologard.

Back outside the rain had stopped and there was a rainbow in the sky, between the tall roofs. They walked out into the crowds of Stovologard citizens. With their hoods up and masks on they were indistinguishable from anyone else.

As they walked, Ghene and Roztov leaned their heads together and talked in whispers.

‘I think we are safe enough for the moment,’ said the elf.

‘Let’s hope so,’ replied Roztov. ‘Try and find the docks, surely going downhill should do it. Find your way back to where we had the mushroom beer. I’ll meet you there, I’m going back for Broddor.’

Roztov handed over Broddor’s bag, then took off his own pack and gave it to Arrin.

‘I’ll find it eventually, but will you? You are not attuned for scouting.’

‘No,’ admitted Roztov, ‘but I can find you. I’ll turn into a fox and sniff you out or something. I’ll figure it out, but I’d better go now and get him.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Floran as he unslung his bag and handed it to Tankle. ‘I’ve a feeling you’ll need me.’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Meggelaine urgently, who was too low down to overhear all the whispering.

Roztov leaned down and spoke into her ear. ‘You, Ghene, Arrin and Tankle are going to the docks. Me and Tup are going back to get Broddor.’

Meggelaine was speechless for a moment, wanting to voice caution, but not knowing what the best advice to give was. Eventually she settled on, ‘well just be careful.’

Roztov patted her shoulder, bent back up again, nodded to Ghene and turned, walking back the way they had come. Floran squeezed Tankle’s arm and followed the druid.

Roztov and Floran thread their way back through the crowds, then through the tenements until they eventually reached the yard where they had left Broddor. The fog had cleared. There were bodies everywhere. Roztov sighed, ‘Let’s just follow the trail of the dead, we’ll find him that way.’

They walked down the alleyway into a larger side street. From there they could hear the sound of fighting. Still following the trail of dead bodies they broke into a run, arriving at a junction in the narrow side streets where Broddor was being attacked from all three sides by fifty or more men. There was a fountain in an alcove, about ten feet wide, with murky looking water being spouted out of a stone dolphin’s blowhole. The water in the fountains basin was full of bodies on which Broddor was standing, alive but exhausted and covered in blood. Above the street, six stories up, a black dragon hung from the roof, as if ready to drop onto the dwarf at any moment. Broddor had chosen the ground for his last stand well though, as ten feet iron railings protected him on all three sides of the fountain, the fourth side being the wall of a tenement.

Roztov turned into a bear and Floran leapt onto his back. Roztov the bear charged into the mass of men, rearing up and clawing at their backs. Floran shot a fireball into their ranks at the back, killing some and scattering the others. More men charged in from the other side of the street and a volley of arrows flew at them. Two buried themselves into the thick fur of Roztov’s back and several more bounced off the magical armour that protected Floran.

Floran fired an ice lance at the archers, sending two of them flying ten feet into the air and knocking the others all over the street like skittles.

‘That’s it for me, Roz,’ said the wizard as he leapt from the bear’s back. ‘I’ve only got one of the big ones left for now. I’ve still got the fire flies.’

The men on either end of the street were picking themselves up, helping the injured to get away and retrieving the weapons. As Roztov turned back into a man, the arrows in his fur falling to the ground, Broddor stepped out of the fountain and joined them.

‘I can only stay as a bear for a few minutes,’ said Roztov. ‘This city is no good for most druid magic. I could maybe summon up another swarm of rats, but without Ghene and Meg here I don’t know how many that would be...’ As he talked he looked around, up at the roofs, then back down the street to the alley they had first come out of.

‘We can’t just lead them all back to the others though laddie,’ said Broddor.

‘Maybe another fog...’ muttered Roztov as his attention was drawn to the street ahead of them where a dragon was climbing down off the rooftops. It was knocking bricks out of the walls as it went, using the windows as places to put its claws, shattering glass that crashed down onto the rain soaked cobbles below. It was black, but bigger than the manhunters and had a blue collar around its neck.

Floran raised his hands and fired a cluster of the spells he called ‘fire flies’. These were fast moving balls of magical energy about the size of an apple. Three of them hit a group of gendarmes, knocking them off their feet, but otherwise doing them no great harm due to their armour. Four more of the missiles flew onwards, heading for the dragon, whizzing through the air leaving yellow trails of light. When they reached the dragon though they spluttered and fell, then fizzled out of existence.

‘Oh dear,’ said Floran. ‘Anti-magic. That’s not good.’

The dragon was on the ground now, and walking towards them in an ungainly fashion. It said something in draconic and laughed, a deep-throated noise like a cauldron’s contents boiling over into a fire.

‘This is Neith,’ explained Floran. ‘One of the five Stovologard war-dragons, armed with a token of Spurn-magic. We should fear his mighty fire.’

‘He just said all of that?’ asked Broddor.

‘Words to that effect,’ confirmed the wizard.

‘Smug bugger,’ grunted the dwarf. ‘I’ll enjoy wiping the grin off his scaly face.’

Broddor yelled a war cry and charged, knocking aside gendarmes and human manhunters as they tried to stop him. As he got closer the dragon unleashed a truly huge blast of fire that filled the entire street.

Roztov and Floran both gasped involuntary and turned away from the flames. When they looked up, the street was full of burning corpses and Broddor stood alone in the carnage. He shook his head, as if to clear it, then resumed his charge.

‘His armour will not protect him close up,’ said Floran with concern. ‘Its magic will not work.’

‘I know!’ cried the druid, ‘What can we do?’

They edged closer, moving up the street, hiding in doorways and other cover as they went. Broddor met the dragon head on, swiping at its claws as it reared up. Gronmorder landed a telling blow and chopped off one of the dragons claws at the second knuckle. Neith roared, coughed and blew out a big gout of flame harmlessly into the air above. Broddor was relentless, charging forward, swinging and swinging as the dragon back peddled, piling its long body up on itself in the most ungainly and ridiculous fashion. It fell over on its back and Broddor leapt onto its exposed belly and plunged his sword into the dragon’s chest.

The fight was far from over though, enraged the dragon clawed at the dwarf with its rear legs, sending him falling to the cobbles. Neith rolled over quickly and pounced on Broddor, even as dark draconic blood fell onto the cobbles from his chest wound. The dwarf tried to squirm out of the way, but the dragon had him by the left arm and with a crushing, yanking twist he pulled it clean off.

Released from the dragons grip, Broddor picked up his sword and charged in again, using Gronmorder with his remaining right arm. With a mighty blow he struck through the dragon’s front claw, straight through skin and bone, pinning it to the street below. The dragon tried to pull it out, but Broddor had drawn his dagger and slashed at its other claw to ward it off as he applied all his weight and strength to his sword, pushing it down as hard as he could. Broddor was weakening though, and Neith was growing more desperate. Ignoring the dagger the dragon brought his right claw crashing down on Broddor, knocking him down flat.

The dragon held the dwarf under his claw like a cat pinning down a mouse, trying to get a killing grip as Broddor struggled to get free and continued to stab at it. With one claw effectively nailed to the street and a very angry and struggling dwarf in the other, with blood pumping out of a wound in its chest the dragon was becoming desperate. It tried to get is head down to bite at the dwarf, but was stabbed in the nose with a dagger. It wanted to breathe fire, but also didn’t want to let the dwarf go.

Further back Roztov realised, that however this ended it wasn’t going to go well for Broddor who now only had one arm and must surely be bleeding to death. He was about to see his friend die if he didn’t do something.

‘You’ve one big one left Tup?’

‘Yes, enough for another ice lance, but it will be stopped by the dragon’s talisman, won’t it?’

‘Don’t shoot at the dragon, shoot at that roof,’ said the druid pointing above the dragon to the upper stories of the surrounding tenements. ‘Bring it down on top of the bastard.’

Roztov wiped the sweat from his face then rather doubtfully drew his scimitar from his scabbard and ran forward. As he got closer, Floran’s final ice lance swept overhead and a moment later a great pile of tiles, bricks and masonry fell in a cloud of dust into the street, much of it landing on the dragon’s back.

Roztov was hit by a shower of tiles and knocked to the cobbles. His old dented helmet took most of it, but the sharp corner of a broken tile cut a deep gouge through his cheek that filled his mouth with blood. As he picked himself up he put his hand to his face. Painful and bloody as the injury was he didn’t use any of his magic to heal it, saving it for Broddor.

Staggering he edge forward into the ruins. A gendarme, half crazed from dragon fire burns charged at him and Roztov raised his sword. His attacker was then hit by three fire flies that sent him flying backward into the rubble. Roztov made his way as fast as he could through the tangled masonry. Three more men rushed at him, but another group of fire flies struck them down. As he reached where the fighting had been taking place the dragon was attempting to rise, but it was pinned down by two huge beams and a mountain of bricks. It let out a weak roar and tried to rise, but managed no more than a couple of inches before collapsing back onto the ground. I then seemed to notice that it had a dwarf under its claw for the first time. It picked up Broddor’s limp body and tossed it aside dismissively. It tried shift its body from under the beams, but roared out in pain when its right claw pulled at the sword that still pinned it to the ground. Now, not only the sword, but a five-foot tall pile of rubble pinned down its right foreleg.

Roztov rushed over to help his friend, but leapt back when a jet of flame washed over the cobbles and struck Broddor’s body. The dragon then groaned and lay its head and neck down on the ground.

There was smoke, ash and dust everywhere. Roztov went towards Broddor again, but cried out in dismay as he finally fought his way through the smoke where the body rested. His friend was dead, little more than flame-bleached bones in a pile of blackened armour.

‘Oh Etruna!’ he said with a sob. A figure approached through the smoke and dust and he raised his sword, but it was Floran, holding the sleeve of his robe to his face.

‘Roztov,’ he coughed. ‘You’d better get out of that thing’s line of fire.’

They skirted around the rubble, clambering over beams and piles of bricks.

‘He’s dead Tup,’ said Roztov with a sob.

‘We should leave.’

‘Not without his body. His temple will want it. His father. And the armour.’

‘Very well, but we need to deal with that dragon first.’

The rubble shifted a little as the dragon tried to pull itself free again, but too much of its body was trapped, indeed, as the smoke cleared a little they could see that both its wings, all of its body and hindquarters, were underneath the wreckage of a tenement roof and much of the top two storeys. Only its head and part of its neck and its left claw were free.

‘Bone’s blood Tup, you took down a whole building. I hope no one was inside it.’

‘I hope not, perhaps the fighting drove them away.’

The clambered up onto the rubble that lay across the dragon’s back. Then edged towards where its head was. ‘Can you see the talisman?’ whispered Roztov.

Floran looked around. ‘It’s too deeply buried. I can see the hilt of Broddor’s sword though.’

The wizard pointed and Roztov saw that Floran was correct, sticking out of the rubble was the golden pommel of Gronmorder, glinting in the weak smoke and dust filled light.

‘Circle back round, Tup, and distract it for a moment.’

‘Distract it?’ said Floran incredulously.

‘You speak draconian. Strike up a conversation.’

The wizard whistled, then clambered around the back of the dragon. There were manhunters further down the street, but they were keeping their distance in fear. Floran then ducked down a side street and reappeared further back from another alley. He waved to get the dragon’s attention.

‘Ahem, Coo-ee! Mr Dragon!’ called out the wizard in draconic. ‘Mr Neith!’

The dragon moved its head around to look over at the man that was hailing him.

‘What do you want?’

‘That’s an interesting talisman you have there.’

‘A Spurn-magic icon, manufactured by our greatest smiths to defend against the dragon’s of the Spire. Who are you that can call forth fire and ice in the manner of a spire dragon?’

‘I am Floran B’iyano, of the Vizards of Heshmatiye.'

‘Meeting you is not a pleasure. Come closer, so that we may converse further.’

'I think I'll stay where I am.'

'I doubt I am any danger to you... wait who is up there?'

The dragon tried to get is head up and around to see what was going on, but it was too pinned down by the beams across its back. It groaned with relief as it felt the sword pinning its right claw being pulled out of its flesh. As it tried to pull its foreleg out from under the rubble it felt a foot on its neck. It froze.

‘Who dares?’ it asked, but anything else it was going to say was cut off as Roztov drove Gronmorder through the back of its head.

Floran cautiously stepped back into the street as the dragon breathed its last. Roztov stepped down from the dragon’s head. ‘The sword may lose its magic when near that icon, but it was still forged by dwarves. Sharp enough to pierce dragon hide.’

The dragon was stone dead now, its tongue lolling out of its mouth, three foot long and forked. Roztov drew his dagger and cut it out of the dragon’s mouth.

‘When we tell this tale to his brothers in the Holy Order of Aerekrig, it was Broddor that slew this dragon. A dragon that was protected from all magic, and he did it with only one arm.’

‘Of course.’

They then went to gather up the remains of their fallen friend.