Chapter 178 - Risky Plans

Tenebris and I waited silently overhead while our friends fought their way through the enemy castle. We kept shadows wreathed around us long enough to hit the clouds, which hung low over the world that night and gave us plenty of cover. Once we were up in the lower portion of the clouds, high enough to be obscured yet low enough to still see the castle itself, we simply circled in place. It was a race, and we waited to see who would win, our friends or Peter.

One plus side to having an undead dragon was that Tenebris didn't get tired. He never would. He was perfectly able to fly in circles forever, if I ordered him to do so. That was all well and good, but the circling left me far too much time to think about all the things that could go wrong.

My friends could be captured. They could get in there and find nothing, no eggs or baby dragons. Peter could arrive before they escaped. There were so many ways this plan could go pear-shaped that it was starting to give me anxiety.

Breathe, Tenebris said. You're still alive. You need to remember to keep doing that. Even if you are tied to my back, falling off because you passed out won't be comfortable.

"Fair enough," I replied, embarrassed because he was right, I hadn't taken a breath in the last minute or so. I wasn't holding it, but I wasn't remembering to breathe right, either. "I'm just worried for them."

This was a risky plan. With that risk there's a chance things will go badly. But there's also the potential for great rewards if all goes well.

All true, and all things I'd been telling myself for the past forty minutes. I checked my watch again; forty-one minutes. Peter would be here soon. If they didn't find the eggs or whatever and get out in time, we were going to be in for the fight of our lives.

Musical sounds reached my ears from somewhere below. For a moment I wasn't sure what I was hearing, then it clicked.

Yes, those sound like alarm bells to me, too

"Shit."

I knew the team I'd sent in there would have to kill some guards. They took out the ones on the tower roof, and they'd undoubtedly killed a few more, deeper inside. That alarm probably meant someone had spotted some of the guards they'd killed, not that my friends were already caught. But the alarm would make things much more difficult for them. Every sleeping guard would be waking now, arming and preparing to defend the place. With enough guards roused, they'd be able to quickly search the entire castle.

"We need to get in there and distract the guards," I said. "Give them something to worry about besides our team. Otherwise Kara and the rest of them are going to get caught in no time."

Attacking the castle would give them something else to concern themselves with. We'll need to watch out for those ballistas, though. They can wound me, and they would kill you. Let's be cautious.

"Good point. In fact, let's deal with that first, shall we?"

Let's.

We dropped into a dive, leaving my stomach in the clouds as Tenebris swept in his wings and arrowed downward at an insane velocity. The wind whipped past my face, roaring in my ears, but I knew that our progress was almost soundless. They'd never know what hit them until it was far too late.

There were four towers with siege weapons mounted. Four ballistas to take out.

Tenebris opened his wings just shy of the first tower, the same one where we'd dropped off Clay and the others. We stopped so fast that I slammed into his spine hard enough to knock my breath away for a second, but that was fine, because my dragon was doing the hard work. Tenebris opened his mouth and breathed fire all over the rooftop. The ballista went up in seconds, as did the four guards who had take up positions there.

We wheeled and circled around, coming at the second tower. They'd all seen us. It was impossible to miss the gout of orange flames that had engulfed the tower top. On the three other towers, soldiers worked frantically to load and aim all three remaining ballistas.

The first one was far too slow. Tenebris reached down with his claws and ripped the siege weapon right off the roof, dropping it over the side. It sailed down to the courtyard below, landing with a crash as wooden shrapnel flew in all directions from the impact. That was two down, two to go!

They're firing! Tenebris warned.

I grabbed onto his spinal ridge as he spun hard, briefly leaving me hanging upside down beneath him. A huge bolt slipped past us right where we'd been flying a moment before. Then he finished the spin and I was back upright again, gasping for breath. With a quick pivot up on one wing, the dragon brought us back around to face the tower in question and bathed it in fire.

While he was doing that, I decided I'd had enough of being fired on. I reached out for my Lightning Bolt spell and drew power down from the heavens. A flash of light streaked from the sky, slamming home against the fourth and final tower. The ballista exploded, sending a rain of wood fragments in all directions.

Well done. All four weapons are gone. What's next?

"Let's see what other havoc we can wreak, eh? Come down along the battlements. Those soldiers down there look cold."

As you wish.

Tenebris dove again, this time more gently, as he sped toward the inner walls. Guards were everywhere, responding to the call to battle. To their credit, many of Peter's troops were armed with bows, and they actually stood there on the parapets firing at us. They were way too far away, and we were moving much too fast, for them to be any sort of serious threat, but I had to admire their guts. I wasn't sure I'd have the courage to face down a fire-breathing undead dragon on final approach.

Many of them didn't. They dove from the walls, rather than face the flames pouring down on them. It didn't matter that the drop was forty feet. At least there was a chance they might survive that, especially if they had a few Stamina or Agility stones. No one survived a bath in Tenebris's fire.

An arrow darted past us, a little close for comfort. I spied where it came from and cast Drain Life on the offending archer. He dropped like a stone.

I quickly came to realize that without the ballistas, this castle was basically defenseless against an attack like ours. Those siege weapons had been the only anti-dragon defense Peter installed. Sure, if a flight of avians attacked, all those archers would prove their value. But not against me. We glided through their airspace with impunity, arrows slicing through the air around us without coming close enough to do any damage.

It was almost sad. It felt sort of unfair, fighting and killing this way. They had no chance at all.

Then I remembered all the shitty things Peter had done, to his people and others. Those soldiers weren't innocent victims. They knew what sort of monster Peter was. They'd seen how he treated his 'serfs.' They were his enforcers, which made them complicit.

We went back and forth along the walls, bathing them in flames. Tenebris knocked out part of one wall with his claws, ripping the stone away and dropping it to the ground below. Then we went back to work on the towers, killing another set of guards who'd dared show their faces on those heights.

I left the town itself alone. Most of those people were only in KingsHaven because they wanted someplace safe to survive this mess. They were farmers and workers, put into hard labor by Eddings and his war machine in order to feed his armies. For someone intent on conquering as much of the world as possible, it was a good scheme. Get a bunch of people to grow food for you, then pay a bunch more to guard them and conquer your neighbors. Repeat until you have an empire. The people out in the town were victims, not collaborators. They were being used by Peter's war machine, not willing participants in it.

Well, I was putting a stop to that right now.

More flames washed over the walls, clearing out more guards, but fewer were showing their faces now. They seemed to have finally realized that going out there meant death. I had Tenebris fly low and blast a barracks with his breath, setting it aflame. Soldiers went scurrying from the place, fleeing for safer structures.

I wanted to do more, wanted to hit this place harder and do even more damage, but a glance at my watch told me we were basically out of time. Peter could arrive at any moment. He'd had just enough time to get here from the Farm, so I ought to expect his arrival soon. We soared over the castle one more time, looking for any sign of my friends, but there was nothing.

They were still in the castle. I hoped they were still hunting for the eggs, or baby dragon, or whatever it was Peter used to maintain control of the beast. I hoped they were still looking and not caught, or pinned down by guards. With the 'distraction' we provided, there shouldn't have been too may soldiers running through the interior of the castle, anyway. They'd all rushed outside to deal with the obvious threat.

Now it was decision time.

If they'd been captured, then I should leave. With Peter arriving soon, I wouldn't be able to rescue them. But he wasn't likely to kill them straight away, either. He'd want to use them as leverage against me, which would give me time to rescue them.

But if they were still in there looking for the source of Peter's control over his dragon, then what I ought to do is buy them more time. Unfortunately, we didn't have radios, so I was going to have to guess which it was.

It didn't take more than a few moments to come to a decision.

I was going to bet on my friends.

"Let's get some altitude. He's coming, and we want to be hidden in the clouds when he arrives," I said. "Can you do the sneaky shadow thing again to hide us?"

I can. He'll know we are somewhere nearby, of course. The Domain will tell him that. But it won't tell him precisely where

"Good."

We sped skyward and took shelter in the low-hanging clouds again, Tenebris's magic cloaking us further. Below, the castle still burned merrily. One tower was ablaze, as were the barracks, two walls, and a cluster of buildings inside the courtyard. The damage was substantial enough that he couldn't possibly miss it as he approached. My hope was that he would see the damage and fly straight toward the castle.

We waited. Another five minutes ticked by. Was his dragon not as fast as I'd estimated? Or was she getting tired, maybe? He'd flown her north to conquer the orcs, then to Camp Johnson, then again to Carver's fortress. After that he'd come straight at the Farm, then flown back down here to KingsHaven before returning to the Farm with troops, and now he was back here again.

Even if the red dragon was tier twenty or something, it had to have limits. Maybe he was approaching those.

Then suddenly he was there, soaring in a few hundred feet above the ground. Large as life, dangerous as ever, Peter and his dragon approached the castle from the north.