Chapter 14: The Siege

War came to Stokvöllur with a fell northern wind, a stamping of hooves, and a great deal of shouting. The riders must have ridden through the night, for they arrived early in the morning, when Lindír had already awoken but was too groggy to do much more than laze about atop his tower. After the riders dismounted and were brought inside, he thought nothing more of it. It was only when he began to hear the sounds of loud talk coming through the open window of the tower below that he paid even the slightest attention.

“There. Now we can talk without being overheard. How many did you say there were?” This voice was the Countess’s.

“Enough to fill Stavik’s harbor. Some said fourscore of longships. Others more.” The other voice was a man’s, entirely unfamiliar to Lindír.

“Easily six thousand, then. I did not think they could muster such an army, even if all of them were footmen.”

“None did, my lady. But that is what the reports say.”

“And these are firsthand reports? You have seen the invasion?”

There were several seconds of hesitation before the unfamiliar voice stammered out, “No, my lady. B-but I have here several written reports taken from refugees of Stavik, copied down exactly as they spoke them. The garrison at Stavik itself was caught off-guard and either captured or else slaughtered to a man.”

“Where, then?” said the Countess. “Where did you come across the invasion force?”

“Do you have a map? I can show you.”

There was then a minute or two of jostling and confusion, along with the faint sound of rustling paper. When the conversation resumed, it was once again the stranger who spoke. “I am from the garrison here, at the Hrafsker crossing. We fled early in the morning some six days ago, and have been riding our horses to the bone ever since.”

“And you said they were moving up the river?” the Countess asked.

“Indeed, and capturing every defensive post along the way. I believe they intend to use it for resupply.”

“Damn their cleverness,” said the Countess. She paused, and fell silent for some while. “Assuming the river allows them to move with unusual speed, an army on foot could reach here from the Hrafsker crossing in… fifteen days, would you say?”

“It would be a hard march, but with the river aiding them…”

“We will assume the worst. That means we have nine days before they deliver us a siege. Damn them and their oath-breaking, we will not be able to call on our allies in time. Look… If we want them to be able to reach us before the siege begins, we will only be able to call upon those knights who live within this region. That’s a span of less than a hundred meadows in every direction.”

“How many fighting men live within that region?”

“I am a commander,” said the Countess, “not a seer. But it is a great deal less than six thousand.” After several more seconds of silent consideration, the Countess barked out an order. “Sir Vatnar!”

“Yes, my liege?” said another man, who had apparently been standing in utter silence up until that point.

“Take this map, as I have marked it. Assemble the messengers and order them to go to every castle, every town, every man who can pick up sword or spear and who has sworn to come to our aid. If he lives within this region, he is to come to our defense with the greatest haste. If he does not… send him to the Jarl of Arenbak. He is the strongest of our allies, and will be the pillar around which our relief force will be built. For all his faults, he’s a shrewd commander, and will know how to use his forces in our defense. Now go.”

There was a great deal of rattling mail as Vatnar hustled off. Lindír comprehended none of this, unsure if he was merely dreaming or imagining the voices from down below. But at that moment, he rolled over onto his back in order to scratch a pernicious itch. This caused an unsettling rattle within the tower, no doubt sending dust cascading down from the ceiling of the room below.

Several seconds later, the Countess’s voice sounded again, this time with much greater clarity. “Lindír Heimirsson!”

Lindír, suddenly realizing that he was in fact not dreaming, woke up. Finding himself on his back, he was forced to roll and squirm about, scrabbling with wing and foreclaw, until he was up on all six limbs. He crawled carefully to the edge of the tower roof and peeked over the edge, seeing Halldis Fast-Tower leaning out of the window, looking up at him from below.

“What is it?”

“Firstly, it would please me if you did not destroy this tower when there is an impending siege. Secondly, I am calling upon your oath. Come down somewhere we can talk.”

Lindír crawled down the side of the tower, moving in a spiral with weight divided amongst limb-claws and wing-claws such that no one piece of stone had to bear too much of a burden. The inner courtyard of Stokvöllur castle was too cramped for a dragon of his size, and was full of servants and soldiers bustling back and forth besides. Instead he wrapped himself around half of the tower in a serpentine arc, raising his head high so that humans could still come and go through the door.

When Halldis stepped out, Lindír spoke at once, softly. “I overheard some talk. There will be a siege, you said? In nine days?”

“Nine days or thereabouts,” said Halldis. “Greater than one week, but less than two. You will not leave before then, for Stokvöllur will have need of you when that time comes.”

“You aim for me to fight in your defense,” Lindír said.

“Indeed.”

“I cannot fight a whole army,” Lindír said. “How many did you say they were? Six thousand?”

“Or half that or twice that. Would only that I had a wizard to show me the exact count of the enemy in his crystal ball.”

“A score of trained knights have given me great difficulty in the past,” said Lindír. He shifted his posture, bringing his flank momentarily into the Countess’s view. There was a wound there where one of the scales had not yet fully regrown, the product of a lance-blow delivered at full charge. “Six thousand armed men would destroy me.”

“But you are a dragon nonetheless,” the Countess said, her voice growing deep and hard-edged. “Your flames are akin to no weapon which man may possess, and your scales are stronger than any mail. My armies will fight with you, but you will be the unblunting tip of the spear.”

Two forces warred within Lindír. One was his old draconic pride, the memories of the battles which he had fought during his era of rampage, his lust for glory and war. The other was the cold wind on the patch of bare skin over his heart, and the aching of the scars over his muzzle.

“I grow weary of carnage and suffering.”

“Then you should wish to bring the siege to as quick and decisive an end as can possibly be attained! Do you know the sorts of suffering that a siege brings about? Every day that we are encircled, the people of the city will be riven with plague and starvation, and the folk of the countryside will face the wrath of the enemy almost unabated.”

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Lindír nodded. Ámnistr spoke rarely of war, but when he did it was always in the tones of distant tragedy. A faint awareness arose within Lindír that he had been responsible for much the same.

“Who is it who lays siege to Stokvöllur?”

“Is it not obvious? There is only one force in this part of Northland so foolishly aggressive.”

Lindír made a noise in the back of his throat, lips peeling back from his teeth in a sneer of disdain. “Halldis, you know that I abhor politics. Tell me, or keep it a secret, but do not pretend that I already know.”

Halldis nodded. “To the south of here, there is a kingdom which has been stricken by land-greed. Over the last two years it has been swallowing every city, every county, every petty manor over which it can exert its strength. It was only a matter of time before they turned a greedy eye upon the Flaxenvale, and Stokvöllur as its crown jewel. Its name is Hvalheim.”

The flames in Lindír’s chest roared to life. Instantly his claws began to dig into the earth, embers to spill from his jaws, his tail to lash back and forth. The scars on his snout began to sting in earnest. “I know Hvalheim too well.”

All doubt about his role in the coming war was banished from his mind. He would charge out to meet his father at the front of the oncoming army, seize the old man in his jaws, and swallow him whole in front of all of his knights. Then, perhaps, it would be clear to all who was the greater between the two of them.

The Countess set her jaw and glared up at Lindír, though a nervous sweat broke out upon her brow. “I see. I shall not ask how you came by the name Heimirsson. I assume, then, that you will do as I have ordered?”

Lindír bared his teeth. “I will do more than you have ordered. I do not intend to surrender until King Heimir Sooty-throat lies dead before me and his army is in ruins, his people screaming for mercy before me, a mercy which I shall not—”

“Heimir Sooty-throat is dead,” said Halldis.

In an instant, Lindír’s momentum was halted, cold water poured upon the flames in his heart. His father was eternal in his eyes, an unbreaking monument to cruelty and mistreatment. He could not be dead. “What?”

“His ship was lost at sea this winter. Storms are common, it should have been no oddity, but because his final port of call was near the Flaxenvale, his widow used it as pretense for war.”

“His widow? Queen Guthrún?” Lindír’s image of his mother was not quite so hate-tinged as that of his father or brother. He mostly remembered her as an object of pity, a victim of his own monstrous birth.

“Yes. Guthrún the Pyromancer rules Hvalheim now. I do not believe anyone in the kingdom would be so foolish as to contest her rule.”

Not once in his entire life had Lindír heard his mother called pyromancer. Nor, for that matter, did he know what a pyromancer was. Most shocking of all was the way in which Halldis spoke Lindír’s mother’s name. It was in the same way that one would speak of a monster, a fiend, a creature which dwelt in the depths but could very well appear to prey upon kith and kin at any moment.

“But how? Guthrún could not possibly lead an army in her state.”

Halldis nodded. “I have no doubt that another will lead the invasion force in her stead. But if you wish to know who, I cannot tell you. I scarcely know who the candidates are, let alone enough of the details of Hvalheim’s internal politics to say which one may have earned her favor.”

Lindír had a suspicion, though he did not voice it. Ásgeir. Ásgeir would be the same age as Lindír was, nineteen and very nearly twenty. Technically that would make him still a squire, but between the martial spirit he had always displayed and the way Guthrún doted on him, he had no doubt that an exception would be made for the prince. Though he did not have half the rage for his brother as he had had for his late father, Lindír’s chest still puffed at the prospect of vengeance upon his twin.

“Are there any preparations I should make before the siege? Or shall I set to sharpening my claws?”

“You’ll need to gather enough meat for the siege, I don’t want you hunting once it’s begun. Raw meat won’t last that long, of course, but I can have it salted for you. And if you have the spare time, there will be a good deal of lifting of stones and timbers as we do what we can to repair the walls…”

The next nine days were all frantic activity. Great streams of people poured into and out of the city as some fled for the hinterlands and others sought the solace of the city walls. Everyone who could work, did, be it gathering food and water, or shoring up the defenses along the river, or repairing the ill-maintained walls of the city and adjoining castle. After the first few days, another element arrived in the form of knightly retinues, the outlying barons and landholders with their suits of mail and warhorses, flanked by archers and footmen, joined the defense. The feeling in the air was one of overwhelming fear subsumed only barely by intense discipline.

On the ninth day, it all sank to a simmer. What repair work could be done, had been done, and the flow of arriving soldiers slowed as all those who could easily make it to Stokvöllur had already arrived. TLindír was instructed to remain within the walls immediately around the castle and to stay out of the air, such that his presence would be a surprise to the attackers until the crucial moment.

The army of Hvalheim arrived on the morning of the tenth day. It arrived amidst fog and smoke, with a hail of arrows from many hundreds of archers and a low, droning song of slaughter and conquest. The clattering of thousands of scabbards against thousands of shields combined with the heavy thudding of many hundreds of well-shod hooves to produce a clamor so deafening that the very heavens must have heard it. There were no battles that first evening, only tension being drawn like a bowstring as the invaders set up camp after camp after camp, dozens of individual companies encircling Stokvöllur from every angle. That night, Lindír slept uneasily, his mind constantly buffeted by the sound of flames and jeering voices, and the thought that his brother might be standing but a short distance away, his terrible gaze peering avariciously at the castle walls.

All were prepared for the first clash to come that morning. It was assumed that the attackers would attempt an escalade, charging forward with ladder and wooden bridge in an attempt to test the defenses of the outer walls. But none came. Were the Hvalheimers cowardly, or were they shrewd enough to know that no charge would bear fruit against the bowmen standing atop the outer walls of Stokvöllur castle?

The first act of aggression came late in the morning. There was no forewarning. No heavy marching footsteps presaged the first death, no calling of horns or creaking of wooden war-engines. The first sign was a single cry of pain from the outer walls of Stokvöllur castle. All eyes, including Lindír’s, turned in the direction of the cry just in time to see a body falling backward off the wall. Barely two breaths later, another one of the sentries fell limp, this one without even the chance to cry out. Lindír smelled blood, and those who were closer could see an arrow sticking from the archer’s throat.

One by one, the archers upon the wall fell. Each arrow was precisely aimed to kill at once, striking the unarmored face or throat. The archers began to quail and flee, leaving the wall unguarded in each man’s terror that he might be the next to fall. The silent anticipation spilled over at once. If the wall were left unguarded, then any man with a ladder might surmount it. With a great deal of shouting and a whirl of horses and swords, the Countess and her commanders prepared to sally forth to face the mysterious source of the bows. One knight expressed a wondrous horror to his fellow: the archers on the wall had never fired back, and no advance had been reported. The arrows were coming from well out of ordinary bowshot.

Finally, Lindír decided to take matters into his own claws. The Countess had given no order for him to show himself, but he was no subordinate of hers anyway. So, from his nest in the courtyard, Lindír drew himself up onto all six limbs. With a roar of challenge that made the knights around him part like a curtain, he charged forward, then sprang into the air with his wing-muscles.

From above, the situation became much more clear. The camp of the Hvalheimers was pressed up against the North-west wood, though they were not stupid enough to intrude upon it. Between the two forces was an open field, easily half again as long as standard bowshot. The Hvalheimers had assembled. Hundreds stood battle-ready at the edge of the camp, though it was but a fraction of the seven thousand which Lindír had heard of. They stood with ladders in hand, dressed in mail and linen, ready to attack.

In the very front of the host, standing next to a black horse, was a lone archer. He was the leader of the army, or at least that part of it, given his horse and the red-painted crest which stood out on his odd, pointed helm. When Lindír first crested the wall, the archer was at full draw, prepared to loose his shafts once more upon the defenders; but in an instant, even as Lindír bore down upon him, the general acted swiftly. He un-drew his bow, dropping it to the ground, and with incredible speed he sprang onto his steed. From a leather strap at the horse’s side he drew a short lance, and held it in a ready stance.

At first, Lindír had intended to crush the man beneath his claws, kill him with brute strength and be done with it. The archers, mixed in amongst the rest of the assembled throng at a measure of perhaps one bow for every fifth man, quickly dissuaded him. None of them were half as fast as their leader, but nonetheless they took bow and arrow and prepared swiftly to fire. Lindír thought of the soft spot in the dead center of his chest, and reconsidered aggression.

Instead, he came crashing down just before the army, close enough to hear the rattling of their mail as the soldiers shrank from him. The general, sat astride his horse, lance in hand, did not shrink.

“My name is Al-Khanjar Razan bint Garas ibn Atrar ibn Yulmes al-Qatratha, Captain of the… Lindír? Is that you?”

 

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