Doom of the Dragon (15 page)

Bjorn nudged him in the ribs. “You didn't tell us anything about piercing their hearts. She is reading your thoughts.”

“Let her read
my
thoughts,” Sigurd growled. “I'm thinking I'm not going anywhere near these three-eyed freaks.”

Before Skylan could argue, Keeper arrived with an ogre godlord and his shaman. Skylan was glad to see them. Although they had long been enemies of the Vindrasi, at least they could not see inside his brain. He turned to greet the godlord and the shaman, then stopped to stare.

“I know you!” Skylan exclaimed. “Bear Walker and Raven's-foot!”

The ogre godlord was hard to forget. He was the tallest ogre Skylan had ever seen, standing over eight feet in height, and he wore a distinctive bearskin cloak with the paws as clasps. The shaman was likewise memorable, a skinny ogre with legs like a heron's, who wore a black feather cape and carried a gourd he used to work magic. He had once worked his foul magic on Skylan, stealing the Vektan Torque from him.

The godlord appeared equally amazed to see Skylan. “I remember. You kept the body of our friend, Keeper, on board your ship. You tried to keep our ship from sinking.”

“And then the kraken attacked us,” said Skylan. “But what are you two doing here in the afterlife? I saved you both from the Aquin prison. The Aquins promised to take you safely to land.”

Bear Walker shook his head. “I don't know anything about an Aquin prison. All aboard our ship either drowned or were killed by the kraken. Our bodies lie at the bottom of the ocean.”

The shaman squinted at Skylan then turned to the godlord to mutter something Skylan couldn't hear.

“What did he say?” Skylan demanded.

“Raven's-foot says you must have encountered the Gods of Raj. They were testing you. He says you must have passed the gods' test, because when you died they brought you here with the rest of us,” said Bear Walker. “Raven's-foot doesn't like you, but since our gods accept you, so will he.”

Skylan didn't believe such nonsense. Why would the Gods of Raj test him? He concluded that the ogres were lying. Undoubtedly they didn't want to be beholden to him for saving their lives.

“How did
you
die, Vindrasi?” Bear Walker asked.

Skylan didn't want to take time to explain that he was both dead and not dead. “Never mind. We have more immediate worries. The god Aelon is going to attack this island at dawn. I need all your warriors to help defeat him. Joabis promises that if we defend his island against Aelon, he will give us back our lives.”

Raven's-foot drew Bear Walker aside and the two were soon deep in conversation.

Skylan waited impatiently. All he could think about was that Aelon was planning to attack at dawn and Aylaen and the
Venejekar
were sailing ever closer.

“Bear Walker?” he called. “Do you and your ogres stand with us?”

Raven's-foot scowled, but Bear Walker ignored him. “The ogres will stand with you, Vindrasi.”

Skylan looked at Dela Eden. “What about the Cyclopes?”

“We will fight
with
you, Skylan Ivorson,” Dela Eden answered with a grin and a shake of her head that made her earrings flash. “Just not
for
you.”

Skylan turned to Bear Walker and Raven's-foot.

“Tell your people I am grateful to them—” he began.

He was interrupted by the astonishing sight of the hall evaporating around them. Walls disappeared. Tables and mugs and benches vanished, and he was standing on a sandy beach beneath the stars and a black dome of a sky. Keeper and Bear Walker and an army of ogres stood with him, along with his men and Dela Eden with her Cyclopes.

The sky was clear and cloudless. No moon shone this night. Waves lapped on the shore. Men and women were streaming toward them, their voices shrill with panic.

“Aelon is coming!” they cried.

“Where?” Skylan demanded.

They pointed to the east. Skylan could see a fiery glow light the sky. The revelers did not stop, but kept running, racing past Skylan to disappear into a grove of trees that seemed to spring up out of the sand to conceal them.

Skylan watched them flee in disgust. “The glow is only Aylis, the Sun Goddess…”

His words trailed off.

“Your goddess is gone,” said Dela Eden in grim tones. “She has fled the heavens. The light you see is the New Dawn. Aelon's New Dawn.”

A ball of fire, bright and glaring, rose from the sea, heralding the arrival of the Faceless God. Aelon rode in a chariot of burnished gold drawn by four winged serpents. Four more serpents flanked the chariot, their long, sinuous bodies rippling in the air, their silver scales red in the light of the fiery new sun.

He held a shining sword in one hand and a fistful of spears in the other. He flung a spear to the ground, then another and another, splitting the earth, opening huge cracks in the ground. What seemed at first to be hordes of vermin swarmed out of the cracks, then Skylan saw that these were hellkites.

He could not count their numbers.

Skylan watched their ranks grow, then turned his back. “They crawl out of the ground like worms,” he said to Bear Walker and Dela Eden. “I have a plan of battle—”

“Good for you, Vindrasi,” said Dela Eden, walking off. “I'll be with my people.”

“You haven't heard the plan yet!” Skylan said.

“I don't need to,” Dela Eden called over her shoulder. “Whatever it is, we know what to do.”

Skylan made a mental note to keep well clear of the Cyclopes.

 

CHAPTER

12

Aelon soared above his army in his chariot, bellowing commands to the hellkites below. Their shiny obsidian armor, forged in the bowels of hell, glistened in his light. Armed with spears in their right hands and shields marked with serpents in their left, the hellkites obeyed the god's commands and formed into ranks.

“I was right,” said Skylan, watching. “Aelon is not using the shield wall against us.”

“The hellkites are forming into phalanxes,” said Keeper. “That does not bode well for us.”

The hellkites stood shoulder to shoulder, with those in the front row holding a solid wall of shields that protected the men in the rows behind them who were armed with spears and short swords. The ranks of the hellkites increased, forming row after row, bristling with spears. The sheer weight of numbers would break through his defenses.

“The phalanx has a weakness,” said Skylan. “Acronis described it to me.”

Observing the swelling ranks of the hellkites, Keeper shook his head. “We face an army of the damned led by a god. And you talk of weaknesses. Do you never despair, Skylan?”

“To despair is to lose hope,” said Skylan. “So long as I breathe—and even when I don't—I will always have hope.”

Skylan formed the Vindrasi warriors into the traditional shield wall comprising warriors standing shoulder to shoulder in long rows. Those in the first row were armed with battle axes, war hammers, swords. Each warrior carried his shield to protect his neighbor, standing with shields overlapping.

The warriors in the back rows were armed with spears, as many as each man could hold, in addition to battle axe, war hammer, or sword. Their spears were used against the enemy and to bolster the courage of any in the front row who might think of running.

According to Skylan's plan, the ogres under the command of Bear Walker formed into a shield wall on the left flank of the Vindrasi. Skylan had fought against ogres before and held them in high regard, for the ogres were fierce, brutal warriors. They painted their heads and faces when going into battle to look more fearsome and each ogre carried a shield as big as Skylan and spears by the fistful in their huge hands.

Keeping one eye on the foe, who were still forming ranks, Skylan took the opportunity to see what the Cyclopes were doing. Hundreds of Cyclopes were taking refuge far behind the shield wall, all of them milling about in seeming confusion. Some of the Cyclopes were armed with small bows made of wood and horn and sinew. Other Cyclopes carried lead-tipped wooden clubs and spears.

“What are you doing back here far behind the shield wall?” Skylan asked Dela Eden. “The battle will be up there.”

She gave him a soothing pat on the shoulder. “Go to your shield wall, Vindrasi. When it falls apart, you will be glad we are here.”

Skylan glared at her, about to argue, when a shout from Bear Walker caused him to hurry back to take his place in the front row of the shield wall, with Bjorn on his right and Sigurd on his left. Erdmun fidgeted nervously beside his brother and Grimuir stood on the other side of Sigurd. Skylan had removed one of the dust-covered shields from the wall, cleaned it up as best he could, and carried that, along with his sword, God-rage. The other Vindrasi had their favored weapons: battle axes or war hammers or sometimes both. Many, like Sigurd, also carried spears. They would throw the spears first, then use their weapons.

Other Vindrasi warriors stood behind the first row, armed with spears and war hammers and battle axes. Their task was to assist the warriors in the first row, keep pushing those in the first row forward, and attack any of the enemy who broke through.

In forming his strategy, Skylan had borrowed the tactics the ogres had used to attack his people last spring. He could still vividly remember the jarring impact when the ogre shield wall had crashed into his own, smashing through the line, causing it to disintegrate. He had freely admitted that if were not for the Dragon Kahg, who had come to their aid, his people would have lost the battle.

Thinking of Kahg made him think of Aylaen and his friends on the
Venejekar
. He had been keeping watch for the dragonship, worried that Aylaen would reach the isle in the midst of the battle. His hopes and his fears vied with each other. On one hand, he hoped she would be able to find the isle; on the other, he feared she would be in danger if Aelon found her.

“Here they come,” said Sigurd, gripping his sword.

Skylan looked up and down the line of warriors. Back when they had been alive, warriors in the shield wall boasted of how many foes they would kill, making grim jests about death to ease fear. The dead did not jest about death. The warriors stood in silence, vastly outnumbered, waiting to face an army of the damned.

Aelon flew above his army. At his command, the hellkites began their advance, moving at a walk to keep in formation. The closer they came to the wall of waiting dead men, the more their speed would increase.

Skylan exchanged glances with Bear Walker, standing to his left. The ogre shield wall was close, but not touching the shield wall of the Vindrasi, all part of Skylan's plan. He and his forces had to survive long enough to put his plan into action. As he watched the advancing forces, he began to think that surviving might be more difficult than he had anticipated.

Skylan did not fear any living foe. He had fought giants; he had once killed an ogre godlord in single-handed combat. But now, as he watched the hellkites draw nearer, he could not repress a shudder. They wore black helms over their skull-like heads. All one could see were the eye sockets and they were empty, their lives, their souls gone. They lived their unholy lives to kill.

“You should leave while you still have the chance, Skylan,” Bjorn told him.

“Do you take me for a coward?” Skylan asked angrily. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“Because you are still alive,” said Bjorn. “You should quit the field of battle. Let us deal with these fiends.”

Skylan smiled at his friend. “I know you mean well and I thank you. But we are Vindrasi. We stand—or we fall—together.”

Skylan looked at his men and he was proud. For the most part, they were holding firm and steady. Only a few, such as Erdmun, were shuffling their feet or gripping their shields in hands that shook.

He looked to the ranks of the ogres. With their heads that seemed too small for their massive bodies, and their small eyes and chubby cheeks, ogres looked very childlike and, as such, did not tend to inspire fear in a foe. To compensate, ogre warriors painted their faces with stripes of blue or red and brown, both to mark their rank and to appear more intimidating.

Bear Walker had painted his face red with a black stripe running over his head and down his nose and he was holding a spear that looked as big as an oak tree. In the rear, behind the shield wall, Raven's-foot in his black feather cape was dancing about, waving the gourd and howling something.

“What sort of magic is your shaman working?” Skylan shouted at Bear Walker. “He's not going to rain down frogs on us, is he?”

Bear Walker gave an explosive laugh.

“Raven's-foot is calling on our gods to bless our weapons and join us in battle.”

Hearing them talk, Raven's-foot ran up to Skylan and poked him with the gourd that worked his magic.

Skylan started as though he'd been burned.

“For luck,” Raven's-foot grunted and then he dashed off with feathers fluttering to continue his dance.

Skylan glanced over his shoulder at the Cyclopes. Dela Eden and her archers had each chosen a patch of ground and were nocking their arrows and raising their bows, some of them calling on the Gods of Raj to guide their aim.

The ground began to shake beneath their feet. Bjorn nudged Skylan, who turned to see the front ranks of hellkites had broken into a run, pounding over the beach, hoping to smash into the shield wall and cause it to collapse. Aelon's chariot circled in the sky above. The god was laughing, confident of victory.

Seeing the vast numbers of the hideous foe, Skylan couldn't blame him.

“Stand firm!” Skylan shouted.

“Can we even kill these fiends?” Erdmun asked, his voice quavering. He looked as if he was going to be sick again. “Will they die or just keep coming?”

“A good question,” Skylan admitted. “I guess we'll soon find out.”