The Dragonlord’s Palace

19

Thunder’s forces launched a second attack just before midnight. From the hill of the ruined Citadel came a great horn blast that soared out over the city and, in the quiet of night, was heard from Legion’s Gate to Iyesta’s palace west of the Garden District. A roar rose up from the enemy surrounding the beleaguered city, and in almost the same movement the Brutes and the mercenaries gathered by Thunder threw themselves forward against the fortifications and walls. Rank after rank pressed forward, their spears and swords gleaming in the light of hundreds of torches. Their trampling feet made the ground tremble. Grim and angry, the defenders held their ground. Falaius had placed most of his available troops in a line across the Northern District and the Artisans District to block entry into the heart of the city through the missing sections of the walls. During the lull in the fighting that evening, they had built hasty fortifications and barriers, and there the centaurs had placed themselves foremost before the barricades, counting on their size, strength, and speed to help beat back the attackers.

At the Legion Gate, the Brutes revealed they had come prepared for a siege. From the shadows of two buildings they wheeled out two squat catapults. With practiced efficiency, they set up the machines just out of arrow range and began to hurl missiles at the watch-towers. At the same time, another engine of war wheeled up the street and rolled into position outside the big gate. It was shaped like a simple, peaked tent covered with damp cow hides, but inside the wooden framework hung a heavy tree trunk tipped with iron and suspended with ropes. Men inside the framework swung the ram, and the first loud boom echoed through the streets. While the siege engines kept the gate defenders busy, other Brutes stormed the city walls.

Falaius, the Legion, and people from all walks of life fought back with everything they had. Arrows flew in deadly showers into the struggling enemy. Firepots, jugs of lime, and cauldrons of boiling water were hurled over the walls. Older children with axes scrambled back and forth around the archers to cut the ropes of the grapnels that Brutes threw over the wall in an attempt to climb to the battlements. Women carried away the wounded and the dead, collected spent arrows and spears, beat out fires started by fire arrows, and piled up rocks and debris behind the big gate. Everyone who could do something at the walls did their best, but the toll for their courage was high.

Try as they might, the defenders could not keep the ram away from the gate. They killed many Brutes inside the tent structure and scorched the hide covering with burning tar, but there were always more Brutes to fill in the gaps and the ram continued to swing with relentless force. Already cracks appeared in the tough oak timbers and the iron supports were buckled and bent. The hinges creaked with every crash of the heavy tree.

“My lord,” a Legionnaire cried to Falaius on the wall. “The Brutes are nearly through. The gates are about to fall.”

The city’s commander drew a small horn from his belt and sounded three long notes-the signal for retreat.

Boom, the ram crashed against the gate. The oak doors shuddered.

“Go!” shouted Falaius. “Get off the walls! Fall hack!”

The Legionnaires obeyed. They grabbed their wounded comrades, herded the women and children off the walls, and drove everyone back to the streets and houses that formed their second line of defense.

Boom. This time the gates shook, and the right half split from ground to peak.

Falaius was the last to the leave the wall. Gripping his sword, he watched the ram swing back and forward into the city gates. The heavy oak barriers splintered into useless firewood. Feeling sad to his bones, the old Plainsman dashed down the steps and raced across the pavings to the house directly across the street. There he lined up his archers and prepared to make the Brutes pay dearly for every man who crossed that threshold.

All around the perimeter of the city, the defenders gave way step by bloody step in the face of the merciless onslaught. The two gates, the Garden Gate in the west wall and the Legion Gate, held out the longest, but they were overwhelmed by the siege engines, and the defenders were forced to retreat into the streets, buildings, and cellars of the city itself. In the Port District and the western edges of the Garden District the fighting in the streets became ferocious. The city dwellers fought for their homes and their families, but their courage and devotion was not enough to overcome the Brutes’ superior expertise and hunger for battle. Only the centaurs were the Brutes’ equal in skill and weapons, and most of them were too busy fighting among the barricades to the north. House by house, street by street, the defenders were pushed back toward the center of the city.

Shortly after the fall of the western Garden Gate, the mercenaries under the command of the Brute officers slowed their advance when they reached the wealthy neighborhoods in the Garden District. These warriors-thieves, thugs, outlaws, exiles, and sellswords-lacked the discipline of the Brutes. They took one look at the richly furnished homes and lost their momentum in a spree of looting, pillaging, and gluttony. The Brutes who handled the siege engines looked on in disgust.

The battered militia, who had guarded the gate until it burst apart at its hinges, withdrew toward the palace and the wild gardens of Iyesta’s lair. Half of their number met with the dragon’s guards and established a defensive ring around the palace. The other half melted into the city streets to set up ambushes, build barricades, and recruit more help. Runners were sent to Falaius and messages arrived from other strong points. Linsha and her companions learned the lines of centaurs and militia had grudgingly fallen back all along the northern defenses, but they had fought hard and did not flee in panic. They had abandoned the entire Northern District and most of the Artisans District and were gathering along a line north of the palace to the Little Three Points.

When dawn lifted the veil of darkness the next day, Falaius and the people of the Missing City still retained control of the heart of the city, Little Three Points, large areas of the Garden District and not quite half of the Port District. But there was little cause for celebration. The walls had fallen, the harbor was lost, and many members of the irreplaceable militia and Legion were dead or wounded. There was no hope of aid or godly intervention.

As the sun rose and the heat returned to the land, the fighting in the streets and houses dwindled to an exhausted standstill. Thunder’s army settled down to strengthen their grip on their stolen territory while the defenders assessed the damage and looked to a gloomy future.

At the edge of the dragonlord’s gardens where the wild parkland gave way to the homes and streets, Linsha dispatched the last swarthy swordsman that had probed too far into the defenders’ lines. Panting, she wiped her sword blade clean and slid it back into the leather scabbard.

“Vermin!” Mariana said vehemently. She dabbed ineffectively at a slash that crossed the back of her right shoulder.

“Sit down,” Linsha suggested. “I’ll do that.”

The wound was not deep, but it was a long laceration and would be very uncomfortable for a few days. Linsha cleaned it as best she could and wrapped a pad made from Mariana’s torn shirt around the shoulder.