Chapter 59: Ch. 059 – (Now) A Single Spark

Jon had expected the men from the Garrison to arrive the following day, but a few hours before sunset he heard the horn blow twice while he was eating dinner. Whoever was on watch saw soldiers coming up the road to the palisade. 

Tonight he’d invited the headman, and several other important people of the town, to dine with him, so the last thing he wanted to do was look like he was panicking. For a brief moment, he toyed with finishing his meal to show them all how unworried he was. He probably had the time, as he and the villagers had finished setting the trap had already been laid hours ago. 

That wouldn’t have been very smart, though. Giving up tactical advantage just to show off was the kind of mistake he hoped that his enemies would make, so he wiped his mouth and then stood. “Gentleman,” Jon said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have a battle to fight.” He ran upstairs briefly to grab his brand, though if he actually needed to use it, it wasn’t going to be a very good day. Once that was done, he went to the stables to retrieve his horse, and then he was off. 

The road to the valley’s narrow southern entrance weaved unhurriedly through fields and pastures, and was just as lovely as it had been when he arrived a few days ago. It had been a glorious sunny day, and within the hour the sun would start to disappear behind Mount Orobun. That didn’t trouble Jon, though given what Lord Burton had no doubt told these soldiers about fire and how effectively he wielded it, night seemed like a strange time to try the front door, as it were. 

Before Jon could quite reach the embarrassingly old fortification, the horn blew a second time, revealing the watchman’s nervousness. The palisade wasn’t much, but Jon doubted very much that anyone had made it up several miles of switchbacks and over a thousand feet of incline to try to breach the gates in the last few minutes.

Moments later he was climbing the ladder to join the guard on the narrow catwalk of the valley’s only real defense from bandits. In normal times two men were usually on watch, but this far out from the kingdom they were rarely needed, and if they were, Dalmarin would likely be in real trouble; the village rarely had more than eight or ten soldiers here for the Warden, and most of them were hopelessly green. Today Jon didn’t even have that though. He just had one scarred farmhand, an old wooden wall that might not withstand the night, and a small army coming up the mountain to pay him a visit. 

“Hell of a view,” Jon said, smiling as he gestured to the soldiers marching up the slope. 

“Are you sure you can handle so many?” The boy asked wide-eyed as Jon tried and failed to remember his name, but all he could remember was that he was only 16, and just innocent enough to make Jon feel old. “I mean, Mister… I mean Lord Shaw, It’s just that…”

“It’s fine,” Jon said, sounding more confident than he actually was. 

He’d thrown around the number fifty in his speech, but he actually hadn’t expected the former Warden to raise more than half that, but he’d been wrong. The fort at Malora pass hadn’t looked particularly well maintained when Jon had come through a week ago, and he doubted that they’d be willing to empty the garrison for one man, but from the looks of things that’s exactly what they’d done, because behind the half dozen people on horse back there were three columns of men marching that were just long enough to make him lose count of how many there were. 

“I need you to do me one favor, though, before you go.” While Jon spoke, he took a quick look around and was satisfied that the sacks he’d prepared earlier, and the twine attached to them were still all in place. “I need you to take my horse and bring it back to the manor for me.”

“Your horse?” the boy asked. “Won’t you need it? You know? If things go wrong?” 

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” Jon said, “But what I’ll do to stop that many men will definitely spook it. It’s fine. You take Kurdin back to the manor for me and tell the man that answers the door that I told someone to fetch you some supper in the servant’s kitchen as a reward. Let them know that I’ll be along when I’m done here.” 

The young man nodded once, and smiled. Now that his fear and hunger had been dispelled by the promise of a good meal, he was once again happy to place his trust in Jon again. Jon laughed as the boy left. If only all of his problems were that easy to solve. 

Over the next two hours, he alternated between watching the sunset and watching the advancing soldiers. Unlike his last opponents, these men had drilled together and bore matching armaments. Every one of their shields bore the clasped hands of the kingdom, and the quartered colors across their face showed a mix of red/white and red/green that correspond to the local lords of the area. Belvon and Jordam. He’d already been a thorn in the side of both of them, so maybe the commander of the fort had orders to take any more misbehavior of the peasants a little more seriously than normal. 

It was as good an explanation as any. 

Jon had expected the group to break for the night and camp well outside of arrow range, but instead they just kept right on marching until they were practically at the gate. When Jon saw two of the men on horseback surreptitiously unlimber their bows, he took cover behind a higher part of the rampart just in case, but otherwise he just stayed there and watched their progress. This close, the clatter of men in armor marching was far more intimidating than watching them. Their footfalls were in almost perfect sync, and they hammered the ground in a way that he felt as much as heard. 

When they finally called a stop, one man called out. “Open the gates by order of the Constable, Captain Anton, and in the name of his Majesty The King!” 

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Jon yelled from behind the wall, “but if you—” 

“The constable does not talk terms with brigands too cowardly even to show themselves!” The herald interrupted. 

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“So you want to talk then? Okay. Let’s talk.” Jon had a good lay of the land, and only the men on horseback seemed to be ready to shoot him, though he noted that all three of them had bows out and arrows nocked. He stood, apparently fearlessly, falling into what looked to be an obvious trap. “Alright, let’s talk.” 

No sooner had Jon popped above the battlement than all three archers raised their bows as one. Jon didn’t try to duck again. Instead, he channeled just enough fire to burn through the bow strings. It didn’t take much, but in the space of a second, all three weapons became unstrung in their owner’s hands, forcing them to look around in confusion. 

“I don’t think you need bows pointed at my head to talk, though.” 

The man he presumed to be Captain looked sourly at Jon’s handiwork before he said, “What you have just done is an assault on my men and an insult on my person. You will surrender immediately, or I’ll have you drawn and quartered for that.” Jon ignored him, looking through the front ranks of soldiers for an air blooded that might be planning a sneak attack, or maybe a dwarven mercenary hidden in the ranks somewhere with a brand. He saw neither. He didn’t even see a ram for the gate. Just a few assorted scaling ladders. 

“Is this a parlay or a shoot out?” Jon asked, obviously amused, “Because I’d have no trouble hitting you from here. Your men, on the other hand would find it harder to reach me.” 

“One man cannot hold a wall,” the captain remarked dismissively, “and ten men could not hold a decrepit fortification like this against my soldiers.” 

“If you go now I’ll let you leave with your life,” Jon said flatly. 

The captain smiled humorlessly before nodding to his herald. 

“Advance!” the herald called out. Instantly the drums returned to life pounding out the double beat that spurred the men behind the captain to life. The squads with the ladders ran up first, but the rest crowded in behind them. They had no reason not to. Jon wasn’t shooting at them. He didn’t even seem to have a weapon. 

“Just remember,” Jon said, his voice lost over the sudden clamor. “I warned you.” 

With that grabbed the half a dozen long lengths of twine that ran across the battlements to both sides and looped them around his hand with one motion. Jon swallowed. He was sure that the second part of his plan would work flawlessly, but only if the first part worked half so well. In theory, it was going to work great, but well… as the dwarves liked to say, theory didn’t matter half as much as how the hammer met the anvil. There was a first time for everything, right? 

As the first few ladders began to clatter against the palisade, Jon jumped from the rampart towards the ground. It was ten or twelve feet up, but he wasn’t worried about a leap like that, even in the fading light. He just hoped the sacks ripped open like they were supposed to. 

A few feet into his fall he felt the cloth give, and the sacks that had been crudely sewn shut by the other end of the twine strands he was holding suddenly gave way, ripping the flour sacks open. This deep into the gloom it was hard to see the result, but Jon could picture it in his mind's eye almost as well as he could feel it the fire in the coal spreading into the cool night. 

Jon hit the ground and rolled, not bothering to come to his feet. It was better to be low for what was going to happen next. Right now, 200lbs of coal dust was being dumped onto the men that had decided to fight him, and in the dark they could scarcely even see it. Jon heard a few men near the wall cough as they suddenly choked on the stuff. Then he heard someone call out, “Watch out. The fire blood is using one of his vile tricks. He—” Jon didn’t give whoever the smart guy was time to finish his warning. He brought his hands up to cover his ears, and with a single thought he detonated the whole noxious cloud surrounding the soldiers. 

Jon didn’t light the cloud with a single spark. The wind that a small explosion like that generated would have sent most of the dust harmlessly away before he could ignite. Instead, he went all the way back to the trick he’d first used when he tried to show Anda what the stars had looked like, and generated a web of sparks across the top of the dark cloud. Their blast wave only forced the fuel closer together and made the fire burn hotter as it got closer to the center. For a moment, night became day, as the fire Jon started lit not just the cloud of coal dust, but the very air itself on fire. A giant roiling fireball suddenly erupted on the other side of the flimsy palisade, and though it sheltered Jon from the worst of the shockwave, Several logs buckled in the process, and the bar holding the gate closed shattered under the force of the explosion. 

After the mercifully brief explosion, the darkness returned, thicker than before.

His fire dragon had been kind by comparison. With it, he could choose who lived and died, but with the terrible knowledge of dwarves combined with the magic of men, there was often too much power to control or endure. Jon slowly rose, checking to make sure that none of the flenders from the wall’s destruction had gotten him. The smell of burning was starting to fade in the face of the breeze, but it was being replaced with something worse: the smell of burning meat. 

Over the ringing in his ears, Jon could hear screams. Some had lived at least. As he started walking toward the gate, he wondered if there would be anyone left to take his message back to the powers that be, or if the complete disappearance of a unit like this would be the only message he could offer them.

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