Free Dragon Rescue by Don Callander Page B

cathedral aisles of Greenlevel Forest. He’d stopped only to order Manda’s Chief Forester, Strongoak, to issue the call to arms to his men in Manda’s name—it was her forest and they were her retain-ers—before pushing on through a light snowfall in the late afternoon, refusing escort again as he had in Morningside.
    The walls of Lexor were now a dark loom in the frost-gray late afternoon. No sound or light came from either the city or the villages and farms clustered about the capital’s southwest gate.
    The southwest high road that circled the capital walls was completely deserted, he thought. He’d just turned in toward the city gate when a dozen white-fur-clad men in steel-pot helmets leapt from a close-set stand of dark cedars, bearing him and the Morningside horse to the ground with a loud bump and startled double snort from the man and his poor mount.
    “Hold up there, stranger!” snarled a guttural voice in his ear.
    He felt a sharp prick near his Adam’s apple and caught the dull flash of cold steel.
    “Hold on, here! Ye’ve found a home in our army, I’d say!”
    “Rellings!” muttered Murdan in a hoarse gasp. “I’m not surprised.”
    “Softly, now,” snapped his captor. “Truss the bloody rich man up!”
    To a chorus of rough laughter, leather thongs were whipped about his wrists and elbows. His sword and dagger disappeared in a trice.
    His horse was set on its feet again and led away into the gloom.
    “Rather eat walrus!” said someone leading the animal, laughing.
    “Still...beggars can’t be too particular!”
    Someone thrust a nasty-tasting gag into the Historian’s open mouth before he could protest or even utter a curse. The Rellings jerked him rudely to his feet.
    “Drag him to old GB now,” ordered their leader.
    Mutters answered him.
    “None of your nasty fun and sassy games, says I! GB won’t take it at all kindly if the prisoner can’t be interro...interrog...ah, questioned.
    Hustle, you sons of eared seals! Get back here on the run! Others may be following this one.”
    Smelling of rank sweat and rancid fish oil from long days of marching and meals of salted fish, the soldiers hauled the Historian along the perimeter road at a fast clip, laughing when he stumbled, but waiting until he regained his footing on the slippery pavement before moving forward again.
    Two hundred yards beyond the tightly barred and heavily fortified west gate, the band turned onto a path that followed the high wall around to the north. The going became more difficult; the snow here was deeper. Murdan had time and breath to glance about.
    He glimpsed movements on the top of the city’s outer wall and sensed the presence of Carolna soldiers up there, keeping careful watch. His captors moved carefully and silently, just out of range of longbow shot, obviously fearing a sortie in the dark from behind the silent walls.
    The city had been warned of the invasion and had managed to slam shut its gates before the invaders could force an entry, that much was clear.
    Lexor was under siege.
    Two hundred or so paces farther along, as they slogged through the deep, soft snow, the guard sergeant halted his men with a growl and plowed forward to mutter a password to a snow-covered sentry.
    Beyond him, the Historian could just make out groups of heavily armed men in white fur huddling together for warmth about tiny campfires.
    The soldiers and their prisoner left the road to enter an open field. A bit farther they climbed a low stone wall and crossed a narrow, wooden bridge over an ice-glazed moat, frozen black by the early cold.
    They passed through a double-towered gate guarded by a company of archers, their bows held at the ready.
    “Brevory, by the gods’ toes!” swore Murdan to himself.
    He recognized the Achievement of the traitor Fredrick of Brevory, long since stripped of his property for kidnapping Murdan’s daughter and grandchildren under the orders of Peter of Gantrell.
    “Lively, now!” snapped