Bazil 7: Dragon Ultimate by Christopher Rowley

Author:Christopher Rowley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy fiction, General, Fiction, Fantasy, Broketail, Bazil (Fictitious character), Dragons
ISBN: 9780451455482
Publisher: Roc
Published: 1999-01-25T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-nine

General Tregor was not a stupid man and his scouting intelligence was good. Consequently, he went to his cot that night reasonably convinced that he would be ready for the enemy's assault the following morning, at dawn.

All would have proceeded as expected, if he had not been facing in General Munth, an extremely aggressive commander determined to make his mark, and the power of the greatest sorcerer of any age, the Dominator of Twelve Worlds, Waakzaam the Great.

The moon set in the second hour of the morning, two hours before dawn. In the darkness Munth threw two huge assault columns across the river. To guide them were Baguti who had trained extensively for this job.

They kept the lumbering trolls and imp columns marching steadily through the shallow waters, over rocky bare islets and stretches of mud.

The Great River was three miles wide at this point in its course, and in the dry season it formed a braid of channels and islets and flat expanses of rock. The guides knew it all, and they performed faultlessly. Through the hours of complete darkness, the assault parties moved swiftly.

As they closed within a mile of the farther shore a strange effect arose off the waters. A faint mist, glowing green, seemed to breathe out of the ground in wisps. As it came it laid a complete silence upon the world and all the noise of their passage, from the splashing of thousands of feet in the water, to the clank of metal, the rasp of wood and leather, all vanished.

They seemed to glide on in silence, and the very moments of time became stretched out, dreamlike, as they moved on toward the Argonath lines. A great wonder spread among them, and with that wonder came a savage hope that at last they would surprise an Argonathi army in its sleep.

Under the deep darkness the Padmasans came on, silent and almost invisible. They passed into catapult range, undetected. Then they passed the range of the best archers and then the crossbowmen and now the stockade wall was dimly visible to the vanguard, a pale barrier stretched across their front.

They were just a couple of hundred yards now from the Argonathi wall and still there had been no response. With a sense of mounting triumph the men in the black mercenary uniforms exchanged cheerful sallies, urged the imps on, even patted the vicious trolls on the shoulder as they went by, ignoring their sullen snarls.

In the vanguard strode enormous albino trolls carrying huge hammers.

Behind them came blocks of imps with scaling ladders and pry bars.

They left the water behind and ascended the shingle beach. The scrape of stones was masked, not a sound reaching the sentries on the towers.

And then the huge feet of trolls trod on the petals of a rose that had been scattered there earlier by a witch.

As the petals were crushed so Hadea, the young witch attached to the front line force, broke out of her meditative trance.

There! Something was on the beach, something had broken the invisible cordon she had established.

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