In the Hall of the Dragon King

  On the evening of the thirteenth day, an officer approached Ronsard timidly. The knight rested on his arm and watched with weary dread as the flames and water did battle one with the other, clouds of white steam resulting from the conflict.

  “Lord Ronsard, I—” The man hesitated and fell silent.

  Ronsard swung his tired gaze toward the man. “Yes? Say anything but that we are running out of water.” The thought had occurred to him often during this long vigil.

  The man’s face went white; his mouth hung slack.

  “By Azrael! I meant it as a jest! Speak, man!”

  “What is the trouble?” Theido said as he strode up to relieve Ronsard at his post. He was fresh and rested, eyes alert and tone confident.

  “I am trying to find out, sir,” said Ronsard hoarsely. “It seems the news he brings steals his voice.”

  “Well? Speak, sir. We are stout enough to hear it.” Theido looked furiously at the officer and folded his long arms across his chest.

  The man licked his lips and worked his jaw, but it was some moments before any words tumbled out, and when they did, it was in a tangled rush. “Lord Rudd has sent me . . . the water . . . supplies too low . . . we cannot last the night.”

  Ronsard needed to hear no more and sent the man away. “That cuts us to the quick. What are we to do now? Wait until our gates crumble away in flames, or until we die of thirst? Which would come first, I wonder?”

  “We have our wits about us yet. But we have been too slow in comprehending this menace, and that may be our undoing. I have an idea I should have had days ago, but may work yet. Quickly, send some of your men to bring ropes and grappling hooks. Tell them to hurry, Ronsard, and bring all they can find. There is little time.”

  Theido took his place on the barbican directly over the flame-throwing idol. After soaking a long rope in water, he tied a three-pronged grappling hook onto one end and, leaning as far out over the wall as he dared, held only in Myrmior’s and Ronsard’s steely grasp, he lowered the hook toward the monster. The Ningaal, guessing his intent, howled with rage at the sight as above them the long length of swinging rope snaked down the face of the castle wall.

  After several futile attempts, Theido swung the hook out and by a chance it caught on one of the iron beast’s fangs. He called for a group of men to take the rope and pull it tight as he readied another rope and hook. In the space of an hour he had another hook lodged in the idol’s horns. The Ningaal were now in a maddened frenzy, helpless to prevent what they feared might happen. They screamed in frustration as a third and then a fourth rope snagged the fire monster.

  “That should suffice,” said Theido as he scrambled back to safety on the battlements not a moment too soon, for the howling Ningaal had begun launching rocks and flaming debris from slings and mangonels.

  “Do you think it will work?” asked Myrmior. He eyed Theido’s web of ropes and hooks suspiciously.

  “We will soon see. I can think of no better course.”

  “Then let us hope this one does not fail,” replied Ronsard. He signaled to the men, three hundred in all, who were holding the ropes to begin pulling. With a mighty groan they all heaved at once. There came a resounding roar from the enraged Ningaal below as they saw the ropes pulled tight.

  “Heave, men!” shouted Ronsard. “Heave!”

  A few of the enemy, braving the arrows that still whistled through the air on occasion, threw ropes of their own over the ropes that Theido had fastened to the idol. Now they skittered up these like spiders, armed with knives that they carried in their teeth in the hope that they might somehow cut the ropes binding their fire-breathing god that threatened to overturn it.

  The king’s archers managed to keep the ropes of the Ningaal unoccupied, though at great price, for the warlords had appeared on the scene and were directing the efforts to save their endangered machine. The first act of the warlords was to order the mangonels to be filled with flaming coals from the idol and these flung aloft into the archers’ faces. More than one bowman fell screaming to his death after being struck with the flaming debris.

  The ropes were pulled and pulled with force, but the iron image did not move. Three hundred more men were ordered to the battlements, and the ropes were lengthened to accommodate them. They heaved and pulled, straining to their task until their hands bloodied the thick lines. But still the idol stood.

  “It is not working,” observed Myrmior. “We need more ropes.”

  “We have no more,” reported Theido. “At least not the length we need.”

  “Then we must tie them together, and our cloaks and shirts as well. Your plan will work if we have more ropes.”

  “Wait! I have just thought of something,” announced Ronsard. “What about chains? There are long lengths of chain in the gatehouse below. Let the ropes be fastened to the chains and the chains to the windlass of the drawbridge and the counterbalance.”

  “Can such a thing be done?” wondered Theido. “It might mean disengaging the drawbridge.”

  “It is a chance we must take. Send for the gatekeeper!”

  What Ronsard had proposed was done without great difficulty. The massive drawbridge of Askelon was operated by not one but two windlasses and a system of counterweights. It was quick work to release the chain and allow the ropes to be bundled and threaded through a large iron ring. Then, with the counterweights once more in position, a dozen brawny men were placed on the windlass and they began to turn.

  The chain wound around the windlass and disappeared into a hole in the stone floor of the gatehouse. Theido and Ronsard dashed back to the battlements to see the effect of their labors.

  “It is working!” shouted Myrmior as they came panting up. “You lazy geniuses! It is working. May the gods be praised!”

  They looked down to see the ropes stretched tight as harp strings. The iron idol teetered ever so slightly as the ropes pulled it upward.

  “I pray those ropes can hold,” said Theido.

  “They will hold—you shall see,” replied Myrmior. “By all that is good and right, they will hold.”

  No sooner had Myrmior spoken than he was nearly proved wrong. One of the ropes snapped; its ragged length sang through the air and lashed four Ningaal to the ground as it struck like a whip. “Bring grease!” cried Theido.

  “Stop pulling!” shouted Ronsard. The chain stopped moving as the men at the windlass obeyed the marshal’s order.

  Grease was brought up from the gatehouse in buckets and smeared on the ropes and on the ledge of the crenellation where the ropes passed over the stone. Two men were stationed to swab the grease onto the ropes as they passed over the stone, and the windlass began turning again.

  In a few moments the flaming idol was slowly lifted up off the ground, and then began to swing forward toward the gate. A tremendous knock sounded as the enormous iron image banged into the drawbridge; smoke from its fire rolled up the walls, stinging the eyes of the men on the battlements.

  “Keep turning!” shouted Ronsard to the men below at the windlass. The Pyrinbradam inched slowly up the drawbridge, its snout pressed against the bridge’s planks, which began to smolder.

  “The gates are burning!” cried a voice from below.

  Ronsard shot a quick glance toward Myrmior and Theido. “I did not foresee that.”

  “Do not turn away now,” said Myrmior. “Stay with your plan.”

  “Yes, just a little while longer,” agreed Theido, peering over the battlements.

  “Bring water to the gates!” barked Ronsard. “Continue turning!”

  More water was poured down the outside of the gates to quench the fire that had started. White billows of steam rose with the black smoke of the flames.

  The idol rose a few more inches and then stopped. The men at the windlass strained; the windlass creaked.

  “The cursed thing is caught on something,” called Theido. “I cannot see what it is.”

  “Keep turning, and perhaps it will come loose,” sugg
ested Myrmior.

  “Put more men on the windlass! Keep turning,” ordered Ronsard.

  A dozen more strong men were added to the windlass, and they fell to with all their might. The windlass creaked in loud complaint, the ropes stretched, and the chain moved but one link.

  “It is not working,” reported Theido. “Call them off. The gates have caught fire again.”

  Ronsard moved to relay the orders below when there came a whooshing sound, and the ropes went slack. A thunderous crash was heard, and everyone dashed to the battlements to see the flaming monster teetering on the edge of the ramp. The ropes had burst under the strain and had dropped the iron image back to the ground, where it had rolled to the edge of the ramp and was in danger of toppling over the edge into the dry moat below.

  The king’s men saw this and began to cheer wildly, urging the thing onto its own destruction. Ningaal warriors, half-crazed with anger, leaped to the dangling ropes in an attempt to haul it back from the brink. It appeared they would succeed.

  The image righted and stopped rolling with two of its six huge wheels spinning over the chasm. Hundreds of Ningaal were now swarming to the ropes and were tugging it back inch by inch. The cheering from the battlements now abated.

  “Well, we are in for it now, I fear,” sighed Theido. “No better off than before.”

  “It was a good idea, my friend,” said Ronsard. “It almost worked. At least we did not let the monster destroy our gates without a fight.”

  The enemy had placed long beams under the wheels and were attempting to rock the ponderous image in order to allow the rearmost wheels to be pulled back onto the ramp. But the rocking loosened one of Theido’s hooks, and it broke free.

  “Look!” cried Myrmior. “We are saved!”

  Ronsard and Theido turned in time to see fifty men tumbling down the ramp, grasping the end of a falling rope. The snap of the rope caused the towering statue to lurch violently, teeter once, and then plunge over the edge, dragging a hundred men with it, still clinging to the lines.

  The terrible idol spewed fire as it spun slowly in the air, ropes snaking after it with men attached like insects, plummeting to their deaths. The idol landed on its wicked head and crumbled in a shower of sparks, one arm breaking off and opening a great hole in its chest where flames leaped up and showed those looking down from the battlements that the monster was indeed ruined completely and many of its wretched keepers as well.

  “We are saved to fight another day!” shouted Ronsard happily.

  “Yes, but how many days will we last without water?” asked Theido, the short-lived triumph dying in his eyes and his features giving way to the black cast of despair.

  53

  The council was held in Eskevar’s chambers with the king sitting up in bed, frowning furiously and darting quick questions to his advisors. Though he appeared even more gaunt and pale than ever, his eyes burned intensely and his hands were steady as he turned the sword that lay across his lap.

  “This is not good!” he shouted. “It leaves us no choice but to fight them on the plain. The siege can kill us one by one as we drop from thirst.”

  “We have a little water left, Sire,” put in the warder weakly.

  “How little?”

  “Three days. Four.”

  “So we prolong the agony that much longer. No, I will not see soldiers weakened by thirst attempt to hold off the fall of Askelon. If Askelon falls, it must be on the field of battle. If the end is to come, let it come. But let us have our wits about us, and let us die with our swords in our hands.

  “We can at least give these barbarians a fight they will long remember. This Nin will live to regret the day he set foot upon the soil of Mensandor, even if every one of us perishes.”

  This fiery speech of the king greatly heartened several of the lords in attendance. Rudd, Benniot, and Fincher had grown restive during the siege. Not men of patience, they itched to take up arms and meet the foe in a fair contest, even though—as greatly outnumbered as the king’s forces were—there was nothing fair about it and not much of a contest. Still, the idea of taking once and for all a stand worthy of brave men appealed to them. They were ready to fight.

  “What say the rest?” asked Rudd when he and the others had spoken their support of the king’s plan.

  Theido was slow in speaking, and as he stepped forward, all eyes turned toward him. “Sire, what you propose is the last desperate act of desperate men. I do not think we are pressed that far just yet. I say we should wait a few days. Much can happen in that time, and we are safe within these gates. The Ningaal have done their worst and have failed. I think we may yet prevail against them if we but wait a little.”

  “The time for waiting is over! It is time now to act. We have waited these many days, and we are no better for it. I am with the king; let us fight and die like men, since we have no better choice.” Rudd threw a defiant look around the room and gathered support for his position with his fearless tone.

  “I am much inclined to agree with you, Rudd,” said Ronsard. “And when the time comes to stand toe-to-toe with the enemy, you will find me in the foremost rank; but there is good counsel in waiting. Three or four days may mean much. The lords of the north may yet appear at any time, and we would do well to be ready in that event.

  “I say let the time be spent in readying ourselves to fight, but hold off fighting until we must.” Ronsard’s logic cooled several heads that had been hot to rush into battle that very moment.

  “What do you say, Myrmior?” asked Eskevar. “Your counsel has been invaluable to us these last days. Speak. Tell us what you would have us do.”

  Myrmior looked sadly at the king and at those around him. His large, dark eyes seemed wells of grief, and sorrow tinged his deep voice.

  “I have no counsel to give, my lord. I have said all I thought best, and it has brought us to this extremity. I will speak no more but rather take my place alongside these men worthy to be called your loyal subjects and raise my blade with theirs against the hated Nin.”

  The effect of Myrmior’s words was like that of a pronouncement of doom. He had said in a few words what most of them felt but resisted giving words to: There is no hope. We must prepare to die.

  “Sire,” said Theido, coming near the bed, “let us not act hastily in this matter. Let us rather withdraw from here for a time and search our hearts before pressing for a decision.”

  Rudd, too, stepped up, shouting, “And I say we must not wait. Every day we stand by, our men will grow weaker and our chances worsen. Now is the time to strike!”

  The room fell silent as everyone looked to the king to see what he would do. “Noble lords,” he said gravely. “I will not force you to a decision. Neither will I tax you further with waiting which can belabor a man’s spirit.”

  They all watched intently. Theido noticed the set of the Dragon King’s jaw and knew what was coming before the words were spoken. “Therefore, I say that we will ride out tomorrow and engage the enemy, that what little advantage there may be in surprise we may carry with us. Go now and look to your men. See that they are well fed and made ready. Tomorrow at dusk I will lead them into battle.”

  The lords murmured their approval and left at once to begin preparing for combat. Theido and Ronsard lingered and spoke to the king in an effort to change his mind. But he turned a deaf ear to them and sent them away. After they had gone, Queen Alinea came in to spend one last night at the side of her king.

  Eskevar had chosen dusk to lead the attack, because reports from his sentries had it that the enemy’s watch on the postern gate was reduced at that time, while the Ningaal took their evening meal. It was a bold move and a clever one. It was assumed that an attack by the castle dwellers would issue from the main gate—here it was that the warlords had positioned their greater strength in anticipation of such a move. The postern gate—being smaller, and the long, crooked ramp that led from it being walled and narrow—permitted knights to ride but three abreast.
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  These things Eskevar took into consideration and decided the result was favorable. He would achieve a fair measure of surprise in such a maneuver, and he would catch the Ningaal unprepared and in the wrong position to begin a battle. They would mass quickly as the call to arms was given, he knew, but by that time he hoped to have his own men ranged upon the plain and ready, having already dispatched a goodly number of the foe.

  The Dragon King and his army spent the day preparing and positioning men and horses to move through the postern yards and through the gates as quickly as possible.

  When all was ready, a hush fell over the wards and yards where the men waited. The sun sank in the west, a great, crimson orb, and the Wolf Star shone fiercely in the east, shedding its cold, harsh light upon all who huddled beneath it. The villagers and peasants gathered to send their champions forth, and to pray to all the gods they knew for the victory. Women cried and kissed the brave knights; horses snorted and stamped their feet; children stood stiff-legged and stared round-eyed at the men in their glittering armor.

  At the far end of the ward yard, a commotion arose, and those at the near end craned their necks to see the banner of the Dragon King lofted on its standard and waver toward them as a path opened before it. And then there was the king himself, sitting erect upon a milk-white stallion that pranced in trotting steps toward the gate. Over his silver armor he wore a royal coat that had the dragon emblem worked in gold. His helm bore no crest but the simple gold circlet crown. Flanking him on either hand, two grim knights—one astride a black charger, the other riding a sorrel—gazed resolutely ahead. The shield of the dark knight bore the device of a hawk; the blazon of the other showed a mace and flail held in a gauntleted fist.

  Behind them rode Myrmior, who, after the fashion of his own people, wore no armor, but carried only a light, round shield and short sword. Ronsard, however, had prevailed upon him to don greaves, and a brassard for his sword arm at least. He had refused a helm, complaining that it was impossible to see out of the iron pot.