Warlords Rising Page 23

  Garth darted ahead, his speed belying his size. He must have seen them as well.

  The first part of their plan depended on Trev’nor raising up walls. He would not only create barriers along the road, breaking up the ranks, but do it in such a way that the army would funnel off in different directions. Each mage (or mage pairing, as the case may be) had their own section they were in charge of. They were depending on Trev’nor’s walls to be the dividing lines.

  Cat let out a satisfied roar. “Walls up!”

  Becca tapped her neck twice in acknowledgement and then concentrated on hanging tight as her dragon tucked in her wings and dropped quickly towards the earth. Her eyes teared up at the pressure, so she closed them in defense, only opening again when Cat’s descent slowed.

  ‘Lots’ about covered it.

  Becca had faced off with soldier-priests, been around guards and sailors, but had never seen an army on the move. Danyal’s predicted thousands of men marched along the road. Or they had been, until Trev’nor’s walls, thick and tall, cut in between them and forced them to scatter.

  She took in a moment to gather her bearings and make sure that things were going according to plan. Becca had to time this correctly, as Azin and Trev’nor both needed to see what they were doing. Even though she glided only a few hundred feet in the air now, the people below still looked like ants to her, making it hard to discern details. It was clear enough when Nolan’s persuasion worked, and the enemy dragoos threw off their riders and headed off, running full speed to the west. But she couldn’t see more than that.

  “Cat, did Azin take away weapons?”

  “Some gone,” Cat confirmed, sounding quite smug.

  Becca twisted in the saddle to take a look as Cat did a lazy circle, coming around again. There had to be at least a dozen walls up now. Trev’nor never had told her how many he was planning to build, but hopefully this was all of them, as Ehsan couldn’t do a thing until she called down the rain.

  Focusing her attention on the clouds rumbling in from the sea, she urged them to come in a little faster. They pitched and rolled, becoming darker and more saturated as they moved. Little flashes of lightning could be seen arcing in the clouds. It wasn’t quite a mother storm, but it was far more serious than a summer shower. Becca had made sure of that.

  Ehsan flew around on her right, waving to get her attention. She threw up a hand in acknowledgement, showing him that she saw him and was ready.

  And then the storm hit.

  The rain pelted down, so fast and furious that it blinded. It soaked her within a minute down to her marrow, and cut visibility down to a foot in any direction. Cat had to be navigating by her other senses as they miraculously avoided clashing with any of the other dragons. Even sound was obscured, although Becca thought she heard at least a few dragons roar out.

  She let this go on for several minutes, making sure that they had plenty of water to work with, and then she eased up the storm and sent it on, letting it visit the area south of them. The land needed it, what with all of the planting that Nolan had done. By the time it arrived, it should be reduced to a soft, soaking rain that plants would appreciate.

  Wiping water from her face, she slicked back any stray tendrils and looked about her. Between the random walls, the dragoos running off, and the storm, the army below milled in complete disarray. She could hear warhorns going off as commanders tried to regain control of their troops, but of course that wasn’t happening. The mages attacking wouldn’t let it.

  Nolan led the charge, still on Llona’s back, which surprised her a little as he typically went dragon about now. The dragons were clear on not hurting the soldiers much. Or at least they were supposed to be. Becca watched them dive toward the scrambling humans and wondered if anyone had explained that seeing a two-ton, fire breathing creature bearing down a person might cause heart failure. Some of the more brave hearted managed to fire off arrows, most missing, some connecting only to bounce harmlessly against hard scales. The occasional arrow did seem to strike as she heard intermittent roars of pain.

  Ehsan went to work. The water lifted under his control and whirled into motion, creating liquid barriers that flowed and moved like a river that never touched the ground. It kept men from moving, from rejoining their commanders, and terrified them in turn.

  Trev’nor started connecting his walls, making barriers, also blocking people into little groups that ensured they wouldn’t be moving. Becca nearly missed it, but from the corner of her eye she saw shields and weapons shift again, flying through the air like an invisible hand had scooped them up. Azin taking away another group of weapons. Good.

  Between her lightning bolts, Ehsan’s barriers, and Trev’nor’s walls, they managed to corral everyone in the better part of an hour. The dragons dropped their soldiers into little regimented ranks on top of the walls, as instructed, and they made sure that no one tried to climb those walls. Never had Becca been so thankful that she had Commander Danyal and his men to take care of the captured enemy. It would have been challenging to try to keep track of this many men on her own.

  It looked like everyone had finished their jobs. Time for Becca to do hers.

  She urged Cat around, looking for the banners that would signify the warlord. He undoubtedly marched at the front of the line, but with all of the disarray, who knew where he was now. “Cat, do you see banners?”

  “Do,” Cat assured her.

  “Go to banners,” Becca directed. “And land there, if possible.”

  Easier thing to say than do, as there were pockets of people everywhere, and it was hard to find a clear enough space to land. Cat eventually straddled two different walls and perched there, as comfortably balanced as her namesake. Becca looked for the most flashily dressed man in the group and found him standing half-behind two burly looking men that must have been his bodyguards. “Are you Warlord Trexler?”

  “I am,” he proclaimed. “But you. Who are you! Magicians, I can see, but why are you on these…” his lip curled up in distaste but even from here she could see the whites of his eyes.

  “I am Magus Riicbeccaan,” she introduced herself. “I am one of the three people that took Rurick and Tiergan from your control.”

  He turned nearly purple with rage, veins throbbing in his temples. “Y-you! How dare you!”

  “How dare you,” she retorted. “Your prejudices against magicians have locked up and destroyed thousands of innocent lives. What you teach your people is sickening, but it’s so engrained in them that they think they can lock up foreign strangers as well! I spent several days in slavers chains thanks to you and your people.”

  “THAT IS WHERE YOU BELONG!” he bellowed.

  Becca’s temper spasmed and as it did, lightning shot from the sky and landed not a foot away from him. The warlord, vaunted for his courage and tenacity, squeaked like a mouse and jumped back. The sight made her smile.

  Trev’nor walked casually along the top of the wall, joining her. “Why are you bantering with this idiot?”

  “I’m issuing a declaration of war,” she responded, making a face at him.

  “War’s over,” he riposted, exasperated. “Or did you miss that?”

  “It’s not like he can do anything,” Nolan agreed.

  Becca twitched, wondering how she’d missed his approach, when she saw that part of his back still had a tail. Ah, so he had gone dragon at some point. To her amusement, watching a dragon turn into a man made several people nearby faint dead away.

  Wimps.

  “Trexler,” Nolan stated in a formal, royal fashion, “you and your inner circle have violated the laws of this land. That includes committing atrocities I would rather not repeat. For this, we will hold your judgment and execution tomorrow afternoon.”

  Trexler regained his dignity and marched forward, shaking a fist. “I am Warlord of this state! You cannot execute me!”

  Trev’nor snapped his fingers in sudden inspiration. “In Sagar. We should do it in Sagar. That way we
don’t have to fight or argue them into submission.”

  Nolan gave him an approving nod. “You’re learning. That’s a good idea, let’s do that.”

  “We shouldn’t do it in Trexler itself?” Becca asked uncertainly.

  “She does have a point,” Trev’nor admitted. “It will have more impact in the capital. Maybe, the warlord in Trexler, the rest of his inner circle in Sagar?”

  “It’s not a bad plan,” Nolan agreed.

  The warlord threw an apoplectic, screaming fit as they ignored him. Becca got tired of it and threw another lightning bolt at him, which promptly shut him up. Now, what to do with the rest of the army? “Cat, how loud can you be?”

  “Not loud,” Cat denied. “Garth can.”

  Garth gave a deep, guttural clearing of the throat before lifting himself up onto his back haunches so that everyone could clearly see him. In his very best Khobuntish, he declared in a thundering voice, “WE HAVE CONQUER THIS PLACE. JOIN US, BE FREE. NOT JOIN US, DRAGONS EAT YOU.” With a leer, the giant elder dragon gave a dramatic lick of the lips. “WE NOT MIND. HUMANS GOOD WITH BARBECUE SAUCE.”

  It took willpower. It took effort. Somehow, Becca managed not to laugh. Now, when had he come up with this speech? All they had agreed on last night was that they would try to get the army to come over to their side and would use the presence of the dragons to scare them into line. For that matter, when had the dragons been introduced to barbecue?

  Not a single enemy soldier had a doubt that they would become lunch if they dared to try and fight. In fact, most meekly went to their knees with their hands high above their heads, signaling their surrender. Becca blew out a secret breath of relief. Hopefully this decision would stick and they wouldn’t try to rebel later. They really had no idea what they would do with this many enemy soldiers. And truthfully, most of them were just following orders. It wasn’t like they were bad people. Misguided, poorly led, with deep prejudices, but not bad.

  Becca hopped down off the wall and into the nearest barrier. She did so under Cat’s keen eye, as this was risky, to put herself within arm’s reach of the soldiers. Still, trust had to start from somewhere.

  She held out her hands to the nearest soldier, taking his own and pulling him to his feet. He did not look comfortable with this, not at all, but rose under her persistence although he couldn’t meet her eyes for more than a second at a time.

  Trying out her best smile, Becca greeted, “Hello. What’s your name?”

  “O-omid,” he stammered out.

  “Where are you from, Omid?”

  “R-rurick,” he managed, looking more alarmed at this question than the first one.

  “Are you?” she asked, genuinely happy to hear this. “Would you like to go home?”

  He looked at her as if she were saying something to him in a foreign language, even though she had deliberately spoken to him in his native tongue. “Home?”

  “Yes, home. We left Rurick protected so it could not be reconquered.”

  “That was your doing?” another, younger soldier blurted out. As soon as he had spoken he clamped his mouth shut, appalled he had said anything.

  She turned her smile to him in reassurance. “That was us. We were worried about the city being conquered while we were gone. We’ve been trying to find where all of the people went. We want them to go home again.” Phew, that had been close, but she’d managed to think of all the words she needed to explain.

  Omid stared at her hard, face like carved stone, his dark skin making him look like smooth obsidian. “What do you want?”

  “Magicians to be free,” she answered simply. “Khobunter to be free. Help me.”

  “What you want,” another, older soldier said, “is not possible.”

  “No,” his brother soldier sitting next to him denied slowly, “I think it is. They defeated us in an hour. Less. There’s only five of them. Commander Danyal follows them. They have dragons. I think they can do it.”

  Feeling like she’d connected to at least one person, she held out her right hand to him, grasping it firmly when he took it. “Swear to me loyalty. Do that, and you can go home.”

  The man looked wistful. “Truly?”

  “My word as a Riic.”

  The suns flirted with the top of the horizon, sinking slowly and heralding the night. Trev’nor was so tired that he was flopped next to Garth’s side and tried very hard to not just fall asleep right there. How long had it been now since he’d had a full night’s sleep? Three? It was hard to remember. Today alone would’ve been exhausting in anyone’s opinion as he had either flown, fought, or walked around talking to soldiers the whole day. This was the first time he had been able to go horizontal.

  Trev’nor hovered in that realm belonging to flying elephants and incredibly punch-drunk sleeplessness, in that dicey area of giggling like a child or crying. The only thing that distracted him from doing so was the mesmerizing feel of stubble scraping along the rocky soil under him. He wanted to sleep. Desperately wanted to sleep. He couldn’t, of course, there was too much turmoil for his brain to shut off. While they had divided up the enemy soldiers by hometown, and spoken to them about returning home, there were still people to organize and decisions to be made before they could call it quits.

  He nuzzled into the ground a little harder. Nice ground. Undemanding. Smooth and rough in equal measure. Smooth, rough.

  Smooth.

  “Trev, why are you nuzzling the ground?”

  He didn’t open his eyes as he responded to Becca. “I like it. It likes me. Mutual kinda thing.”

  “Uh-huh.” The exhaustion was clear in her voice, bleeding into her words, but still she tried to stay light and teasing. “Hey, Nolan, I think Trev’s lost it.”

  “He’s done more magical work than the two of us combined for three days straight,” Nolan pointed out, the words accompanied by the crunch of gravel as he walked over. “Of course he has. Trev, you do realize that your magical level is getting too low?”

  Trev’nor cracked open one eye to stare generally upwards. “Noooo, you don’t say.”

  “Sarcasm, sure sign he’s gone over the edge,” Becca intoned. “Trev, you’re hereby banned from doing anything magical for at least a day.”

  She had a funny idea of punishments. That sounded like bliss.

  Fortunately for everyone involved, Trev’nor had an amazing dragon that knew when to let his mage sleep and take over. “Work done?” Garth asked them.

  “Mostly.” Nolan dropped like a sack of potatoes and grunted at the impact. The grunt sounded like relief. “We’ve sorted through the leaders and put the dangerous ones all in a separate holding area. The others are clear that they can go home, they’re not part of the military anymore. A lot of men are happy about this, actually. Some of them haven’t been able to go home in six years or more.”

  That didn’t sound right to Trev’nor. He prodded his brain back into working order long enough to force out a question. “How many of them?”

  “About four thousand.”

  “Trexler must live in a constant state of war-ready, otherwise why keep all of those troops on hand?”

  “It does tell you something about his neighbors, doesn’t it?” Nolan agreed. “Either that or he’s one of those paranoid people that over-prepare. Commander Danyal reports that the warlord left about two thousand troops back in Trexler that will need to be taken care of as well. He suggests having the commanders and captains that joined us ride in on dragons to be visible for the troops and the citizens, show them that they’re on our side. He hopes this will lower the casualties when we take over.”

  “How many were there this round?” Trev’nor couldn’t help but ask.

  “Sixty-two accidentals, which, while not great, could have been higher. There are also three-hundred seventy-four soldiers who refuse to surrender,” Becca said quietly.

  “Ah.” The three fell into quiet contemplation as the weight of the lives lost and the lives yet to deal with fell on them.
Unable to handle the emotional stress, Trev’nor went back to nuzzling the ground.

  At some point, who knows when, he fell asleep. He awoke feeling more than warm—almost hot and sweating—with the smell of dragon strongly in his nose. Blinking, he tried to stretch and failed as his arms were trapped, legs tucked up into each other. He blinked again and found that there was a whooshing noise in his ears that he knew well at this point. Was he flying?

  Lifting up his head, he glanced around and saw nothing but blue skies and the occasional cloud drifting by. Garth had him firmly tucked up against his chest, like a sleeping child. “Garth?” he called loudly.

  The dragon cocked an ear his direction. “You awake?”

  “Just now. Where are we going?”

  “Trexler.” The dragon had a rumble in his chest of amusement. “You not wake up earlier.”

  Ah, hence why Garth had just picked him up and flown off like this? Just as well. When Trev’nor got truly exhausted, he became impossible to wake up unless he had at least twelve hours of sleep. “How far away are we?”

  “Not far. Look.”

  He turned his head more and craned upright into a half-crunch and found a city sprawled out below. Trexler easily contained a population of sixty-thousand. It had huge walls all around it, wide enough for at least four carts to ride side by side on top. The city seemed crammed to the gills with houses on the inside but there was not one permanent building outside of the walls. That, too, told Trev’nor something about the neighbors of this province. People didn’t feel it was safe enough to live outside of the walls for any length of time.

  The architecture didn’t seem all that different. It was the same type of stucco he’d seen before, thick mud walls that kept the suns and heat out, tiled roofs. The only variation came from the colors, the city painted like a rainbow of every possible color. It was bright enough from here to seem garish.

  There was a lot of activity in the streets below. Trev’nor got a better look as they flew over the city itself. They had ninety dragons with them, each dragon carrying soldiers or prisoners in their claws. The guards below were up in arms about that. The citizens were racing for cover.