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.
