And last of all, a chant, as his body was dragged away. “Daecar, Daecar,” the men of the order were crying. “Daecar, Daecar…Daecar…”
“…Daecar…Lord Daecar? My lord…Amron…”
He stirred from his sleep, eyes snapping open at once. A hand was shaking at his shoulder, black leather over dark grey steel. Before him stood a shadow in the darkness, half lit by the gentle flicker of fire from a torch.
“My lord, a messenger has come. He is waiting for you at the River Gate.”
Amron cleared his throat and sat up. He’d only intended to rest his eyes a moment, but after two days without sleep… “What messenger, Rogen? From where?”
“North, my lord. From up the river.”
“Crosswater?”
Whitebeard nodded. “He has a letter, he says, for your eyes only.” The ranger’s own eyes looked black in the dark, like a shark’s, yet all the same Amron could see the worry in them. “It isn’t good news I fear, my lord.”
There is no good news anymore. Amron stood wearily, lumbering over to a side table to gulp down a cup of water. Pain tore through him with every step, his right thigh burning, his left shoulder jumping and cramping in spasms. He ignored it, harnessed it, as he was learning to do. As I have to do. At a touch the Frostblade would cast aside his ails, but he could not rely on it forever. I will give it up, he promised himself, as he had ten thousand times before.
He put down his cup, and met the eyes of Rogen Strand. “How long was I sleeping?” he asked.
“An hour or so, my lord.”
Amron nodded. It felt shorter. A blink and no more. His head was heavy, his eyes the same, the exhaustion thick in his blood.
“You need to rest more,” Rogen Whitebeard said. “If there’s another attack…”
“Soon,” he promised. The assault on King’s Point had happened only two days ago and there had been much and more to deal with since then. In the meantime, tonics brewed by the medics would do to keep him functional. And this, he thought, as he hitched the Frostblade around his armoured waist. The power of Vandar himself lay within the metal. It was plenty to sustain him for now. “Lead on.”
They passed through the broken doorway of the building in which Amron had taken his rest, some part of an old soldier barracks that had been only partly destroyed during the attack. Outside was a world of rubble and ash, of tumbled towers and stone-strewn squares, blackened and scorched. The survivors from the battle had taken up temporary residence in the ruin of the city, raising tents and shelters where they could, living like rats among the wreckage as they crept about, eyes skyward, ever fearing the return of the Dread. Amron Daecar shared that fear, though did not let it show. If he wilted under the weight of it all, what hope did his soldiers have? Far too many men have deserted us already. If I crumble, the rest will follow.
Ash coated the streets like snow, billowing and stirring with each step of his godsteel sabatons. Amron had not taken off his armour since long before the battle began, nor would he for some time to come, he knew. He felt filthy beneath it, his linens and leathers soaked and stained, his face spotted with gouts of dirt and soot, his hair an unwashed cascade of oily, greying black locks. I feel like this city, he reflected. Broken and covered in grime.
The way to the River Gate was choked with sleeping men, tucked up into whatever nook or cranny they could find; up against half-broken walls and under half-fallen roofs, in doorways and arches that once led into buildings and now led nowhere but rubble. Many huddled around fires to keep warm, muttering in muted tones, or gazing into empty space in a thousand-yard stare. Shock had gripped great swathes of them, an ailment not all would escape. Mental scars that would render them useless should they see wings in the skies again.
Others had suffered physical injury, broken limbs and savage cleaves from claw and fang and steel. Many more were burned. Great long lines of men lay down the alleys and lanes and across open stone squares with bandages wrapped about their legs and arms, torsos and necks and faces, moaning in pain as medics moved about, trying to tend to them as best they could.
Some stirred at Amron’s passing, but few. Those that did tried to smile, or raise a fist in salute, or render words of courtesy for their commander and champion. Amron returned their smiles, passed on words of comfort where he could. To dying men, it was all he could give them. Solace, and a promise that their trials on this earth were done.
The great square inside the River Gate had been cleared of much of the rubble. Here the command posts were raised by whatever senior lords and captains remained, to take account of their losses and what men they had left, to list out the names of the dead and deserters, to arrange crews to search for those as yet unaccounted for, of which there were thousands lying dead beneath the rubble or trapped underground within the subterranean sanctuaries that spread beneath King’s Point like a warren.
Before the fighting, Amron had ordered Lady Brockenhurst and her courtiers to take refuge in the sanctuary beneath the Spear, along with Lord Warton, her Castellan, and Walter Selleck as well. By some stroke of fortune, all of them had survived, even as the tunnels and chambers collapsed around them, the ceilings crumbling as the Spear itself came down, torn apart by the wrath of the Dread. It was Walter’s doing, Amron knew. “Your luck remains, my friend,” he had said to him, when greeting him after the battle. The self-styled ‘luckiest man in the world’ had been insistent that Vandar’s light had deserted him. Clearly that was not so.
Others were not so fortunate. Many civilians had gone down into their refuges to take cover before the battle, and many soldiers had joined them when they saw the Dread approaching. Most still remained, dead or trapped it was hard to know for sure. Even now, the search crews could hear tapping echoing from below, hear the faint fearful sound of voices crying out for a saviour. Getting to them was another matter, however, with the city so unstable. In truth most would die down there, entombed forever in the sanctuaries that were meant to save them.
I was meant to save them, Amron Daecar thought. Dream or not, his ancient namesake had been right. I have not yet earned the name…
The River Gate was under the guard of Sir Adam Thorley, Commander of the Pointed Watch, the King’s Point city guard. It was a charge as dead as the city itself. As dead as tens of thousands of men. “My lord,” the young knight said, seeing him approach. He had with him a dozen of his men, wearing war-weary faces, all clad in doom. And the messenger, standing with his horse. By the look of that lather about the horse’s mouth, he’d been riding hard for hours.
“Sir Adam. Anything new to report?”
“Yes, sire. More stragglers and deserters have returned. Mostly Vandarian. But some southerners as well. The former are being taken in by their own commanders. Captain Lythian is handling the latter.”
There’s no better man for it. It was not just their own men who’d deserted during the battle. Many thousands of southerners had done the same, fleeing into the woods at the sight of the Dread, and over the past two days, scores had returned, preferring to give themselves over as captives than try to make it on their own in the north, with enemies all about them. Lythian had been given the charge of handling and housing them, such as he could, though it was only a short term solution. One problem among many, Amron thought. Has this messenger brought me another?
He gave Sir Adam a nod, then turned to the man in question. “Your name,” he said.
“Sir Hutchin, my lord. A knight of House Bygate, sworn to the Harrows of Crosswater.” He glanced uneasily about, then withdrew a scroll from within his leather glove. “Lord Harrow had me ride here with his finest horse…with all haste, my lord. We have barely taken rest over the last two days.”
“Take it now. Your duty is done.” Amron turned. “Sir Adam, see that Sir Hutchin is taken somewhere quiet to sleep, and make sure his horse is fed and watered.”
“Yes, sire.”
Amron took the scroll, ripped the seal, and read the words. The colour drained at once from his cheeks. It was just as he had feared.
“My lord,” Sir Adam prompted. “What does it say?”
Our worst nightmare. He rolled up the note, slipped it into a pocket in his cloak, and drew a breath. “Gather my council, Sir Adam. There is something they need to hear.”
It did not take long for them to assemble, each man stepping through the flaps of Amron’s command pavilion in quick succession as soon as they got the call. Some had been sleeping. Others were on duty elsewhere, attending to their orders. They came all the same, bleary-eyed and battle-worn, with scorch marks on their cloaks and armour and haunted looks in their eyes. Some were nursing minor injuries - Sir Quinn Sharp had a broken wrist, Sir Taegon Cargill a deep cleave across his left cheek - while others bore wounds of grief. Rodmond Taynar had lost his uncle, Lord Dalton, the First Blade dying in his arms on the battlefield from a fatal loss of blood. The Ironfoot, Lord Gavron Grave, had lost his nephew Sir Marlon. Others had seen dear friends die, those they counted as brothers. Amron had lost his brother by blood, Elyon his beloved uncle. Yet none compared to the suffering of poor Sir Torus Stoutman, whose sons Darun, Elmid, and Hoddin, had all gone to the Eternal Halls.
The pavilion was empty but for a single oakwood table and blocks of uneven stone to act as seats. There was no carpet, no furnishings, no comforts whatsoever. Two iron braziers had been brought in to provide light and warmth, yet there was a coldness here that could not be driven away by fire. Few sat. Only Lord Warton - who shuffled in, coughing - and the Ironfoot took perch; elsewise the others remained standing. Amron looked across at them all once the full complement had come, standing on the far side of the table. Some scrolls scattered it; scribbled plans, the early workings of strategy, flanked by a pair of fat tallow candles, burning low.
He decided to avoid preamble. Withdrawing the note from his pocket, he said, “Varinar came under attack two days ago, after the Dread flew north…” He looked around, saw nothing resembling shock. Desperation and despair, yes, but those were already present. In truth all had expected this. “The defences were quickly overwhelmed, Lord Harrow writes. We all saw how many dragons Drulgar had with him when he left. That many…with the Dread at the fore…”
“Is it destroyed?” Elyon asked. He stood to one side, near the canvas wall, pale-faced, still recovering from the exertions of the battle. Elyon had been hit by a blast from the Bondstone, the very will of Agarath striking at his chest mid-flight and knocking him to the earth. Though his godsteel armour had protected him from the brunt of it, it had taken its toll all the same, rendering him incapable of flight ever since.
“I don’t know, Elyon,” Amron answered. “But after what happened here…we must assume the damage is considerable.”
“How did Lord Harrow get word?” asked Sir Quinn Sharp, a Varin Knight broad-faced and homely, stout and capable. “Is he not in Crosswater?”
