“What do you know about the brass eggs Iyesta was guarding?”
If Lanther had thrown a bucket of ice water on her, Linsha could not have more stunned and surprised. She choked on the ale. “What?”
“I know Iyesta took you somewhere the day the triplets disappeared. Some place that left smudges of dirt on your face and the smell of damp on your clothes.”
Linsha glared at him. Good gods, where had this come from? “She took me into Thunder’s realm to see him. I told you about that.”
“Yes, you did. But I know Chayne and Ringg came back long before you and Iyesta. The dragon took you to another place.” He narrowed his eyes and stared at her; his blue eyes gleamed cold like the water at the foot of a glacier.
Linsha felt his gaze bore into her brain to the very back of her skull, and she felt a shiver run up her back.
Fiercely, she closed her thoughts and shuttered her eyes and brought her pulse back under control. He had taken her by surprise but it would not happen again. “Iyesta and I spent some time in her garden talking. She was worried about the triplets and furious at Thunder. She wanted someone to listen.”
A flash of speculation tightened the lines around Lanther’s eyes, then he smoothly changed his tone. “I’m sorry. I should have approached this from a more discrete direction. Those men we hold told me Thunder is looking for eggs. He has ordered his entire force to search for them as soon as the city falls. This was news to me. I had no idea Iyesta had a nest of eggs around here.”
“What makes Thunder think there are eggs?” Linsha countered, but the answer came to her with sickening certainty. The three young brasses. If the giant blue captured and tortured any one of the triplets, or all of them, he could have used his greater, more malevolent power to wrench the knowledge from their minds.
“Dragons have ways of learning things,” Lanther said. “The men did not say how Thunder came by this information, only that he had it. Is it true?”
Linsha felt a cold sickness creep through her and settle in her stomach. She took a long swallow of her ale, but it tasted flat on her tongue. Of all the dreadful possibilities to endanger the eggs, it had to be Thunder. She did not doubt Lanther’s information. There was no reason that he would make up something like that and several reasons to believe his sources.
“I don’t think we need to worry about it,” she said, trying to sound casual. “If there is a nest, it is too well hidden for anyone to find.”
Lanther rested his elbows on his knees and gazed deep into the golden depths of his ale. “Not if there are enough people looking for it.” He stopped and looked at her again. “Just why did you want to go to Iyesta’s lair so desperately after we freed you from the Citadel?”
“To look for Iyesta. I found her, too. Remember?”
“Linsha, we cannot let Iyesta’s eggs fall into Thunder’s control. He will destroy them.”
“What about Iyesta's skull? It seems to me we should be more concerned about Thunder collecting dragon skulls. Did you ask those men if he is building a larger totem?”
“Yes, I asked. They did not know. All they would tell me is that Thunder plans to move into Iyesta's lair as soon as it captured.”
“Like Chaos he is!” Linsha snapped. She shot to her feet.
Lanther grabbed for her arm. “Where are you going?”
Linsha was too quick for him. She twisted out of his grip and backed away. “To the palace. I can fight as well there as anywhere. I will not let that foul monster use her lair as his own!”
With a speed that belied her aches and exhaustion, she tossed him the empty cup, spun away, and jogged into the last golden streaks of the setting sun toward the palace of the dragonlord.
Lanther made no move to follow. He watched her go, his face impassive, until he could no longer see her in the gathering twilight. Only then did he allow a faint smile to lift his lips.
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.