They marched in five columns as Alayse headed north to put the king under siege. The whole affair was done to convince their enemies that crushing the kingdom was their only objective and draw attention away from the true goal. Their enemies were laboring in a massive network of camps and forges. The priests of Gorrin and the shapers of Whiteford were combining their talents to produce weapons meant to slay dragons, and Alayse wanted them destroyed before any of them could be used.
It was a matter of timing, secrecy, and a little luck. Alayse devoted a significant portion of her cavalry to the effort, but not so much that it would be easily detected. So far, the camps were lightly defended, and their enemy thought safely hidden. That belief would be their undoing when Alayse's small force came charging in.
The army would then turn away from the capital and head straight to meet Whiteford head-on. Gersius was surprised by this strategy, assuming she would fall back to the river and use it as a defense. Alayse explained that she feared the enemy might entrench on the other side and simply stall for time. This would not only force them to keep the army in the field for weeks or even months longer than anticipated, but it gave the enemy time to relocate and rebuild the forge works. Plus, if she rode out to meet the enemy, the local king would have to abandon his fortified position and come after them or risk being isolated. Two battles could be fought in a short amount of time, thus putting this whole situation to rest.
Gersius was impressed with her foresight and understanding that he needed the army elsewhere as quickly as possible. She was a very skilled commander, and her over-aggressiveness was exactly what was needed here. He had no doubt she would crush this threat and send a powerful message that the dragon empire was not to be crossed.
Sarah flew above the marching columns; her presence meant to ensure their enemy believed the city was the objective. If they could keep the bulk of the kingdom trapped behind those walls, then the raid on the forge would be a success.
Lilly rode beside him on a horse, enjoying the ride with a big smile. Since the enemy had a stated goal of taking her head, she was to avoid using her dragon form. Instead, she wore her new battle dress and looked like a proper noble queen, marching at the head of her army. Thayle was above on Sarah's back to be the visual presence of the dragon knight for the trapped city.
“So we’re not going to attack the city?” Lilly asked.
“That is the plan,” Gersius said. “We only need to make them think we plan to. The king has put all his men in one place, assuming he can hold the walls for a few days. They may be hoping the army from Whiteford arrives to trap us against those walls.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Lilly said. “But after what you did to Calathen, who would trust in the safety of their walls?”
“Who would indeed,” Gersius agreed with a smile. “But we need him to feel like he must stay behind those walls until it is too late. By the time he realizes we are not going to attack, we will already be engaged with Whiteford.”
Lilly sighed, and he read her mind, seeing how she longed to be back in the dream. They had spent what appeared to be four days in the dream while sleeping only seven hours. During that time, Sarah had strained herself to bring about a vision of a functioning household. She even went so far as to cook meals, though these left a little to be desired. She promised to get better at it, but the end result was still something magical. For the first time in a long while, they were at peace. It felt almost unnatural, but slowly it started to work as Lilly and Thayle played like young girls. That brought Sarah such a measure of Joy and comfort that he was still confused about it. He knew Sarah wanted to take care of them, but he had no idea she wanted to wipe away all their worries and concerns.
“She just wants us to be happy,” Lilly said as she read his mind in turn.
“I am aware of that,” Gersius replied. “I was just surprised how hard she is willing to work to make that happen. She intends to do almost all of the chores herself, laboring every day so you can run wild.”
“Thayle said we should help her, but not too much. She said some women derive a great deal of enjoyment through service to others, and if we don't let her serve, she will be unhappy,” Lilly replied.
“Thayle can be very wise on matters of motivation,” Gersius said.
“I want us all to be happy,” Lilly said and looked around at the marching columns. “But all we ever seem to have is this. Armies always marching to another battle to end with songs of remorse being sung over our dead.”
“It will end one day,” Gersius assured her. “I promise.”
“I am beginning to think this conflict can’t be ended by men,” Lilly said and looked directly at him. “It was started by dragons eons ago, and only we dragons can end it.”
“Let’s hope you are wrong,” he said and looked ahead. “There are not enough dragons left to fight another war.”
“And more die on every march,” Lilly sighed.
Gersius nodded silently, as there was no point in denying the truth. He was the highest priest of the queen of dragons and the husband of two dragon wives. He, perhaps more than any other human, understood the importance of the dragons to his Goddess. On the other hand, Lilly took this deeply to heart, often praying over fallen dragons and giving them Balisha's parting blessing. She felt every death keenly, even when she was the one delivering it. Lilly would do anything to stop the killing of dragons, and slowly that desire was consuming her heart.
A full day's ride brought them closer to the city as they waited for news of the attack. By now, Jessivel, who was leading the charge, would have raided the complex and sent messengers to report. So it was with some relief when three riders charged down the road and handed Alayse a letter.
She read it twice to ensure she understood every detail and then announced the attack had been an overwhelming success. The weapons were burning, the forges shattered, and the men who worked them dead or captured. He even had a number of Weavers and shapers from Whiteford in his custody and was marching them back to question later. With a triumphant cry, she ordered the army to turn around and march away from the city; it was time to face Whiteford.
They marched late into the night, arriving at a camp she had prepared in advance. A short sleep later and they were marching again, even as the dew still soaked the grass. Alayse wanted to meet Whiteford as soon as possible to avoid the king sending help. Jessivel arrived late that afternoon with twenty captives, and Gesius sat with his wives in a tent as he questioned them one by one.
It was clear from the weavers and shapers from Whiteford that Lilly, having escaped her chains, was a disaster. The city's rulers and the land's king demanded an explanation as to how a dragon got loose in their city. The Father Abbot blamed the shapers guild, stating that he had only come to ensure their safety. It was the faulty chains that they promised would hold Lilly that were at fault.
The leadership turned on both the weavers and shapers guild, but the shapers suffered the most. A powerful noble family headed the order, and their young son stood a good chance of being king. It would appear their son had been a priest of Astilkar and a member of the raven's guard itself. He was killed during Lilly's escape, and their daughter was exiled shortly after for reasons unknown. The family was stripped of their titles and holdings, which appear to have been considerable, causing a great deal of distress.
The guild was disgraced, and the city's people seethed in anger over Lilly's rampage. To turn that anger away from the leadership, they pointed it toward Lilly, promising to make her pay for what she did. Now the city prided itself on its hatred of dragons and created an order of knights known as the dragon slayers.
“How unfortunate this city is so close to our valley,” Sarah said silently over the bind as Jessivel questioned another prisoner.
“Will we be safe from this danger?” Thayle asked silently.
“The valley is hidden deep inside the Greenwall forest,” Gersius answered. “Few people venture more than a mile or two inside. It is very well hidden with only a small cave to gain entrance unless you can fly.”
“It’s a shame,” Thayle added. “It would have been nice to be able to use Whiteford for supplies.”
“We can use Todds creek or Millwater,” Gersius suggested as the questioning went on.
Lilly suddenly felt happy over the bind, causing Sarah to question why she was so pleased.
“Because we're talking about the valley like we live there already,” Lilly replied.
“I promise you,” Sarah said as she put a hand over Lilly's. “One day, we will live in that valley, and Whiteford will leave us in peace. If they don't, they really will need their dragon slayers.”
“I wonder what happened to the daughter,” Thayle said as she considered the story. “Why exile a woman who seems to have no connection other than blood?”
“I am sure they had their reasons,” Gersius replied.
The questioning went on, and some vital information was brought forth. First, there was an entire contingent of weavers in the army, nearly two hundred strong. They were primarily there to deal with dragons and keep them from attacking from above. Second, nearly twelve hundred priests of Gorrin were marching with them now. This posed a concern as their order was nearly as militaristic as Astikar. They would have elite soldiers and excellent battlefield discipline. The last bit was the most concerning but difficult to verify. One of the shapers claimed to have come from a smaller camp where weapons were being made. He placed it close to the southern border where the army from Whiteford had already been.
“So they may have some of these weapons ready to use,” Sarah said.
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“We have to face that possibility,” Gersius said as he began to puzzle out what to do. The smart move would be to keep Sarah from the battlefield, but her size and power was what gave them the upper hand. Not to mention to effect on morale when his army learned the dragons would not be lending support.
“I am flying anyway,” Sarah insisted. “They have promised to take my wife's head. I am not going to leave that challenge unanswered.”
After the questioning, Alayse set about planning where the armies would meet. She wanted a location that favored her forces and prevented the enemy from easily maneuvering. She also wanted to pack them up so Sarah could sweep as many as possible. The concern that they might have these modified ballistae to repel her was an issue, but Sarah insisted that she was flying.
Alayse also laid out a strategy that her women knew well, but she wanted to drill into the other forces. It was a clever plan to use the chains Ulustrah could summon to quite literally immobilize the enemies front ranks. Her plan was to crash the heavy infantry into the line while tangling the enemy's line with chains. This should immediately break cohesion and create a breach that, once widened, would be exploited by cavalry.
Gersius saw this as a bold strategy because it assumed the enemy's lines were thin. If they had the numbers to create thick ranks, they might just encircle the cavalry. Still, he had to trust Alayse to see this through, or he would be undermining her authority. She picked a location directly in their path that gave her a clear open field and plenty of room to use her calvary. Of course, it gave the enemy plenty of room to use theirs, but she could shape the battlefield, and he could not.
The eve before the fight, scouts reported that the enemy force was larger than expected and numbered nearly eighty thousand men. A large portion of this was heavy cavalry with unusually long lances. It looked as if the center were held by extremely well-armed and equipped priests of Gorrin whose boots withered plants as they walked over them. Similarly, enchanted shoes had been placed on the horses, leaving a swath of dead earth behind them.
Alayse realized they must have enchanted them to prevent the women of Ulustrah from using their plant growth to entangle them. She began to work on a new plan almost immediately and turned to Sarah and Lilly for aid. The two dragons listened to the suggestion, and Sarah nearly laughed when Alayse described what she had in mind. Sarah, Lilly, and a hundred women of Ulustrah toiled through the night to build earthworks dug by dragons. By the time the dawn graced the sky Alayse was already in formation.
“So now we’re waiting for them to come to us?” Lilly asked as she stood beside Gersius at the head of their priests of Balisha.
“Alayse has an ingenious plan,” Gersius said with a nod. “I actually feel bad for our enemy.”
“She seems very confident in her ability,” Lilly said.
“She is a brilliant fighter,” he replied. “And if her strategy works, this fight will go so badly for our enemy they won't dare try it again.”
“Why did we have to build these walls of dirt?” Lilly asked.
“Alayse wants them to think we mean to dig in and resist in fortifications. That's why she has the doveshields manning all the large mounds. It needs to look like we are worried we can't match their strength.”
“Can we?” Lilly asked.
Gersius nodded. If all went to plan, that wasn't going to be an issue.
The first flags appeared late in the morning, and horns began to blow as a massive army marched into view. They roared and chanted death to the dragon as their formations took shape. Alayse lined her forces up as if prepared to receive a charge, with the women of Ulustrah in the front. Behind them, the men of Astikar waited patiently for their orders.
Banners of pure white bearing an emblem of a knight skewering a dragon appeared among a massive amount of mounted knights. They took up five ranks on either side of a central wedge of heavy infantry bearing the hammer and shield logo of Gorrin.
“I can’t believe they are taking the field against us,” Lilly said as she looked over the dense ranks. “Gorinn’s emblem appeared in the sky with the other divines that day you were marked as their chosen.”
“All they see is the offense that I condemned their holy leader to death,” Gersius said. “Which I intend to see happen as soon as we get back to Calathen.”
Behind these formations came thousands of infantry, archers, and pockets of men in gray uniforms.
“Those must be the weavers,” Gerisus said as he pointed to the gray uniforms. “Spread out through the ranks to provide cover.”
“What are those?” Lilly asked as more of the army came into view.
His face soured to see the wooden structures being pulled by teams of horses. They looked like giant crossbows pointed to the sky and armed with metal spears.
“So it was true,” Gersius said sourly. “There were two camps making the weapons.”
“Does that mean we can’t use Sarah?” Lilly asked.
“We have to use her. She is too important to Alayse’s plan,” Gersius replied.
“And I still have to take my dragon form?” she pressed.
“Just until they take the bait,” Gersius replied. “Then we will see.”
Shouts and horns filled the air as the rival army readied itself for battle. There would be no effort to talk or meet leaders as this was a fight of annihilation. Alayse was at the front, shouting orders and making last-minute adjustments. It appeared the enemy wanted to come right down her throat, and with those magical boots, they would almost certainly accomplish it. The plant barriers of the woman of Ulustrah would be useless against them unless, of course, that was exactly what Alayse wanted.
Word was passed, and Lilly left to go to the very center of their line. Here an earthen ring had been made to give her privacy as she stripped and took her dragon form. Once she was changed, she climbed up the hill they made so the enemy could easily see her. Roars and shouts echoed from the other side as Lilly flared her wings and roared back with all the fury of a dragon.
The blaring of horns signaled a quick advance, and the enemy's front line went into motion. The cavalry marched alongside the heavy center, their armor like a wall of steel closing in. Alayse held her forces back but let the archers fire as soon as the enemy was in range. She wanted it to appear she was purely on the defensive until the last possible second.
The heavy armor did its job, and a few arrows found their mark. Still, the lines advanced until a, with the blare of a horn, a charge was called. Horses burst into motion as Alayse shouted for everyone to get ready. Her front lines packed up behind the women of Ulustrah as every second seemed to take forever.
Gersius smiled as the men were now only twenty meters away. Already Sarah would be in her dive, timing the attack with such precision that it was almost a work of art. From here, he could see those boots and horseshoes turning the ground around them into withered dust just as Alayse hoped. They rushed forward in a great wave, and suddenly the ground beneath them gave way. They fell into a deep trench that Sarah and Lilly had dug through the night. Alayse had women sing until the trench was choked with plants so dense you couldn't tell it from the ground around it. She then had them sing to the whole field to camouflage the fresh growth and bare soil so the enemy would suspect nothing. Now those boots worked against their enemies as they withered the plants and dropped them into the trench.
The entire cavalry charge vanished in a tremendous crash, followed a moment later by the priests of Gorrin. A shadow appeared overhead just as they fell, and Sarah flew down the trench, filling it with fire. Piled on one another, they were as tightly packed as only one could hope for. In one fell swoop, Alayse deprived the enemy of their heaviest forces and managed to keep Sarah from flying over their main body. Red bolts still raced out to greet her, but she took few hits as she wheeled away and headed up.
By the time the stunned enemy saw through the haze of smoke and fire, something was already happening. The woman of Ulustrah had run forward and, using their magic shields, created bridges. Alayse's cavalry was already charging across, and the lead horses that leaped from the fire must have looked like death itself. At the flanks, the infantry was pouring across other bridges and fanning out to trap the enemy with a pincer attack. Gersius was leading the forces of Balisha to the left as he took them over the bridge to be the first on the other side. Ten thousand infantry would follow in his wake and, with some luck, would devastate the enemy.
Light infantry charged to meet them, hoping to cut off the bridges before too many could cross. But all the charges were being led by battle priests, and blessings soon erupted everywhere. Hammers of Astikar flashed along the lines as Gersius ordered his forces to put their dragon's claws to work. By the time the light infantry reached them, fifty of their number were already dead. His priests and priestess, with Lilly's blessing, wasted no time in breathing frost in the faces of shocked foes. Their charge faulted and then crumbled as the reinforcing infantry raced across the magical bridge. Now thousands of men and women were forming fresh lines as Alayse started the next phase of her plan.
Four men who were seasoned veterans of Astikar and whose faith was without question approached the center. They formed a line, with each man placing his hands on the shoulder of the one before him. The front man was an old friend of Gersius and a great champion named Johns. He had once wanted to be a priest of Gorrin and had great skill with the forge. Now this man put those years of dedication to work and reached to the sky while chanting in a deep tone as his eyes started to glow red. While the priests of Ulustrah could sing together to combine their power, the priest of Astikar did it differently. They could lay hands on another, channeling their power to the other man to increase the blessing they were calling on. As far as he knew, there was no limit to the number of men one could put in a line, but it worked best with men of deep devotion, and the lead man had to be strong of heart.
Above them, the sky darkened and began to twist as it flashed with orange lightning. A moment later, a pillar of fire roared out of the heavens and slammed into the enemy's rear. It billowed out in a wave of chaos and destruction as it burned the five siege engines to ash. Such was the might of their combined power that it flared out wide enough to scorch the rear ranks of the army, sending reserve units into disarray.
Sarah was now free to engage as the enemy center went up in flames, depriving them of their dragon-slaying weapons. She dived on the back, creating a wall of fire as she took out a significant portion of the enemy leadership. Red bolts of daghost filled the air, and she was struck several times, but they failed to cause serious harm as she wheeled around to make another pass.
Now the enemy was starting to panic. Although they still had the advantage of numbers, they were now without elites and leadership. Lesser commanders were trying to rally a defense and push ahead, but a dragon flying barely unchallenged was too much for them to bear.
The battle raged for the next two hours as pockets of men were isolated and destroyed while Sarah focused on scorching any formation that tried to flee. When it was over, the landscape was a burned and blasted waste. Less than one thousand men had surrendered from an army of nearly eighty thousand. It was a massacre of unprecedented scale, and despite that, Alayse had suffered relatively few losses. By the final count, she had suffered just over eight hundred casualties. Far more than that had been injured, but the rapid advance of her forces meant these soldiers were quickly recovered and healed.
Now she set about having the battlefield looted of anything of value. Armor and weapons were badly needed in the west, and Sarah spotted the enemy's supply wagons from the air. They captured three hundred wagons complete with supplies and materials for war. It was victory without precedence, and it was all due to the clever thinking of Alayse. Then came the news that her plan had worked. The fool king had rushed out of his city to join the fight with his army. They hoped to catch Alayse in a trap and pin them between the two forces, but he was still hours away.
Alayse quickly reorganized and mounted an offensive catching the king by surprise when he assumed Alayse would be too occupied. This battle was another slaughter as the king was not prepared to face the full might of the army. Sarah was used to cut off retreat and even managed to locate the king himself, plucking him and his horse from the ground to toss them at the feet of Alayse.
An hour later, the kingdom surrendered, and the border was once again secure. Thayle went to great lengths to congratulate Alayse on her great skill and command of tactics. She quickly pointed out this wasn't her usual method of dealing with an enemy. Alayse credited Jessivel for showing her that not every fight needed to be taken head-on.
Gersius and Sarah held a ceremony before the whole army where they named her Commander General of the Dragon Empire. This put her on par with Gams and meant that only Gersius himself outranked her. Sarah wanted to give her something special, so she named her a sister of the scale, marking her as an honorary dragon.
Two days later, the army crossed the bridges into the dragon empire. The entire conflict with Whiteford had been decided in a single afternoon, and the army was now free to march west. It seemed like nothing could stop them until Sarah, flying in all her glory, flew over the river. Nobody noticed the group of soldiers hiding in the dense trees; their siege engines pointed skyward. But everyone heard the painful scream as Sarah fell from the sky.
The ground shook from the impact as men and horses stumbled. Gersius was running to her side before anyone else was even aware of what had happened. She lay motionless in a heap, having landed on the spear and drove it up through her back. Even as he reached her side, he could see her aura fading away.
“Lilly!” Gersius shouted as she came rushing along, still in her dragon form. Thayle was on her back, and hundreds of priests and priestesses were rushing to help behind them.
“Sarah!” Lilly cried and tried to begin healing as Thayle jumped down.
“Lilly, pull out the spear!” Gersius shouted as he couldn't reach it from where he stood.
With tears in her eyes, Lilly clambered over Sarah and reached the barbed tip poking through her back. She grabbed hold and yanked the evil weapon through her wife as blood bubbled up profusely. It was long as a tree was tall and made entirely of metal covered in back pointing bards and magical symbols. She cast the hateful thing aside as a hundred voices went up in chants and songs, calling on the heavens themselves to heal the stricken dragon.
By luck or fate, the golden glow came, and a few moments later, Sarah lifted her weary head. Lilly was at her head in an instant with tears pouring like rain, pleading with her to be alright.
“I am very tired, child,” Sarah said and put her head down. “I need to sleep.”
“Sarah,” Gersius said as he came to stand before one large eye. “Change for us first so that we can get you back to Calathen.”
Sarah sighed, but the black smoke began to crawl across her skin. Everyone ran back as the cloud engulfed her, and when it finally subsided, a naked woman with long red hair lay in the center under her massive saddle.
Gersius scooped her up and handed her to Thayle, who was already on Lilly's back. He ordered Alayse to find those weapons and destroy them, then march the army west. With that, he climbed up to join his stricken wife, and they took to the air on Lilly's back, racing ahead to return to Calathen.
Having been so close to death, she would need a few days to recover, but at least she was alive. Lilly was a sobbing wreck who kept turning back to lick Sarah's arm. Thayle was quietly stunned that Sarah had come so close to the brink but afterward would break down in tears when the shock finally cleared. However, Gersius had something else on his mind as he pondered if perhaps it was time to eradicate the order of Gorrin.