close now that she could see his legs and arms dangling beneath his body. "Vaerana is the bait. The dragon will follow her, and we will take the oil to the barracks."
Hsieh shook his head. "That is not-"
"The witch is right. Minister. Cypress knows who the desperate ones are. He'll follow us." Vaerana turned to
Pierstar. "Do it."
"You hold one skin, Lady Ruha." Hsieh passed an oil sack to the witch, then hung the other on his own saddle and nodded to Yu Po. "You hear plan. Prepare line at edge of wood."
As the two adjutants passed the orders along, Vaerana led Ruha and Hsieh off the road. "Once you hit town, you can see Temple Hill from practically anywhere. Elversult
Hall is straight across the market square from there, and the Jailgates-that's the city prison-is a block north of the hall." She looked at Hsieh. "And try not to kill any of my Maces when they challenge you. They don't know what's going on, and we don't care much for foreign armies running through our city streets."
"Not one man falls to Shou blade," Hsieh promised.
Vaerana accepted the reassurance with a grim smile.
"Then I'll see you in the barracks, Helm willing." She turned away and spurred her horse after Pierstar and the rest of the Maces, who were just disappearing into the wood. "May your steel bite deep!"
Hsieh's Shou followed close behind the Maces, then stopped at the forest edge and dismounted. They quickly formed a long wall bristling with halberds and cross- bows. Ruha and the minister slipped through the line and guided their mounts past the rein holders, taking up a sheltered position from which they could flee in any direction.
There was no time to grow nervous or contemplate the coming battle. The last few men were still settling in when a deep, steady throbbing began to pound the air.
The dragon appeared an instant later, flying low and fast, then wheeled toward the hill. Ruha raised a hand toward the sun. Before she could utter an incantation,
Hsieh pushed her arm down.
"They are soldiers. It is their duty to die." He gestured at the skins hanging from their saddle horns. "We must not draw attention to ourselves. What we carry is too important."
As Cypress neared the trees, he suddenly turned and swooped along the edge of the wood. "Give me the oil!" he roared. "The oil and your gold!"
"Kozah save us!" Ruha gasped. "He speaks!"
The clacking of a hundred crossbows reverberated through the wood, and a wall of iron darts rose to answer the dragon's demands. Cypress roared and wheeled into the trees, and the battle did not begin so much as erupt.
The forest shook with the crack of splintering treetops and steel blades glancing off bony scales and men scream- ing in fury and anguish. Ruha saw a huge, dark shape dancing across the broken oak trunks, his head swiveling this way and that as he bit attackers in two and searched for the precious ylang oil. Shou soldiers rushed him from all directions, flinging halberds and firing crossbows and hurling themselves against his flanks. Shattered scales and runnels of dark, smoking ichor began to fall from the dragon's body, and for one moment, the witch thought
Hsieh's warriors might bring their foe down through sheer weight of numbers.
Somewhere up the hill, Pierstar Hallowhand cried,
"Ride!"
The ground trembled with the distant thunder of pounding hooves. Cypress's slender head rose out of the melee and turned toward the sound. He tried to raise his wings so he could pursue the fleeing horsemen, but even he lacked the strength to fling off the hundred Shou hacking at his flanks. He opened his mouth, and the leaves in the trees began to rustle.
Instinctively, Ruha's hand dropped toward her pocket.
"He's going to breathe!"
Hsieh reached over and grasped the witch's arm. "We must let him."
The dragon swung his head in an arc around himself, spraying a boiling black vapor from his maw. The caustic fog billowed through the treetops and began to settle groundward, filling the wood with a tremendous sound of sizzling and popping. Out of the dark cloud fluttered a deluge of leaves and sticks, disintegrating as they fell.
Then came a cascade of heavy branches that crashed down upon the heads of the Shou and turned the forest floor into an impassible tangle of smoking, acid-drenched wood.
Hsieh's men cried out in fear and confusion, and their attack faltered. A low, bitter growl rumbled from
Cypress's throat. He beat the air with his tattered wings, then rose above the carnage and, dripping runnels of acid from his dull scales, flew after the Maces.
Some of the Shou dove beneath the jumbled tree limbs to seek shelter, while others clambered across the tangled branches in a desperate effort to escape the black shroud descending upon their heads. Hsieh glanced toward the hilltop to be certain that Cypress was gone, then released Ruha's arm so she could help his men.
It was too late. The burning fumes had already reached the ground, and a hundred Shou warriors were raising their voices in a single wail of agony. Mercifully, the very darkness of the fog spared Ruha the sight of the dragon's acid eating the flesh from their bones.
Fifteen
As Ruha and her companions gal- loped into the shadow of Temple Hill-a barren, stone-flanked tor towering high above the city's close-packed heart-they met a wall of jabbering, frightened townsmen. It was the first sign of dragon-spawned fear they had encountered. Until now, the people of
Elversult had leapt into nearby doorways and hurled insults at the battered foreigners charging up Snake Road. This mob barely seemed to hear the clattering hooves.
Ruha reined her mount to a walk, slowing the whole column. Counting Hsieh, there were thirteen riders behind her. It seemed likely that more Shou had survived the battle with Cypress, but neither the witch nor the mandarin had thought it wise to spend time regrouping.
They had simply turned their horses toward the heart of the city and urged them into a gallop, trusting that any warriors who could would follow.
The mob began to swirl around the column of riders.
Ruha saw no blood or horrible acid burns, and the crowd appeared more determined than panicked. The witch stopped her horse and caught a swarthy man by the shoulder of his embroidered merchant's robes. He cried out and whirled around, glaring at the witch as though she had tried to rob him.
"Sir, please tell me what is happening."
"Haven't you heard? They say a dragon's coming!"
"Where?" Ruha asked. "Is he ahead?"
The merchant shrugged. "Don't know. No one's seen him, and the Maces don't mean us to… They've ordered everyone out of town."
"How much farther is…"
The man turned away and vanished into the crowd before Ruha could finish the question. She urged her horse forward. The mob reluctantly parted ahead of her, alternately shouting warnings and curses. The witch ignored both and cast thoughtful glances down the empty alleyways that occasionally separated one wattle-and- daub tenement from the adjacent one. She was tempted to search for a faster route to the Jailgates, but she had seen the back streets of enough Heartlands cities to know most were confusing labyrinths of filth and dead ends.
Hsieh edged his horse alongside Ruha's, drawing sev- eral vehement curses from the river of people coming in the opposite direction. The mandarin leaned over and grabbed the rope holding the witch's skin ofylang oil, then deftly looped it an extra time around her saddle horn.