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With Spathi circling over the army attacking Olso, Godfrey quickly recognized they were a combination of the men of Pavik and crusaders. Though it was still dark, he spotted Baldwin’s group, Conrad’s, and his own Bastognians all encircling the fortress. Godfrey was about to bring Spathi down in the camp of his own men when Madeline tugged at his cloak.
“We need to see my father,” she insisted. “He came here for me.”
Godfrey’s heart stopped for a moment at this suggestion. He would have preferred to go back to Nera. Begrudgingly, he veered the griffin towards the Pavikian encampment.
Several siege engineers stopped in their tracks as the griffin flew over the trebuchets and catapults launching stones at Olso’s walls. Some of the men aimed crossbows at the griffin, but lowered their weapons as they saw Godfrey and Madeline riding the creature. Landing in front of Tancred’s tent, the pair dismounted Spathi to see the Duke of Pavik rushing out to meet them.
“This is what you came to the Wyrmwind Peaks for?” Tancred pointed at the griffin with an accusing finger.
“Not exactly,” Godfrey admitted with his eyes downcast. “But it’s the best I could manage.”
“Godfrey just saved me, father,” Madeline reminded Tancred. “Nera and Alvir were going to sacrifice me to awaken a dragon, and destroy your army. The ransom was a ruse.”
For a moment, Tancred stood speechless. A range of emotions ran across his face. His daughter had nearly been sacrificed. He had been conned into a ruse that nearly destroyed him with all his men. This night could have turned out very differently.
“Where is the dragon?” Tancred looked to the besieged fortress.
“He is in the mines under the keep,” she answered. “It’s Vozzab.”
“The angel-slayer.” Tancred grimaced.
Madeline nudged her father, indicating Godfrey with a cough. Tancred looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. All of the dismissive pretention and suspicion Godfrey had grown accustomed to seeing in the man’s expression was gone.
“I will not forget this,” Tancred promised, clasping Godfrey’s hand. “We are about to assault the walls. Go to your men. Lead them well. Slay your dragon.”
“If we get Alvir here too, the crusade is over.” Godfrey nodded as he mounted Spathi.
Hoping to cause as little panic as possible, Godfrey opted to have Spathi trot through the attackers’ camp as opposed to flying through the midst of them. All who saw the peculiar sight of Godfrey riding a griffin immediately stopped what they were doing, staring in disbelief. The Pavikians maintained a respectful distance from Godfrey and the griffin, but the mood was different when Godfrey entered the Bastognian camp.
The crusaders excitedly shouted Godfrey’s name as they saw him. Sir Rodair, Varin, Karl the Hammer, and dozens of others Godfrey had come to know over the course of the crusade practically swarmed him. Spathi hissed at the attention, and the crusaders backed away a step.
“Lord Godfrey.” Turpin’s jaw hung open for a moment.
In an instant, his eyes narrowed and he clenched his teeth.
“Tancred beguiled us again!” he spat. “He told us you were dead and tricked us into coming here like at Epsberg.”
“No.” Godfrey waved, dismissing the notion. “The witch left me for dead, and her neglect is the only reason I am here now.”
Turpin nodded in response. He bowed his head and the crowd of knights and men-at-arms followed suit.
“The men are yours to lead.” Turpin gestured to the crusaders.
“Thank you, Chaplain.” Godfrey nodded before addressing the crusaders at large. “Men, I was hoping to bring you reinforcements, an army. Instead, I have but a single griffin and news that other lords might withhold from you for fear of what it might do to your spirits.”
The celebratory mood among the crusaders died down.
“High Warlord Alvir and his wife are in that castle.” Godfrey pointed to the fortress keep. “She is a powerful witch, but she is far less of a concern than what lies beneath Olso. The witch, Nera, captured Lady Madeline with the intention of sacrificing her. That sacrifice was meant to awaken an ancient dragon and bind it to High Warlord Alvir’s service.”
The crusaders listened to Godfrey with mouths hanging open or grim expressions.
“I have thwarted their plans by rescuing Lady Madeline,” Godfrey continued. “The dragon will not serve Alvir now, and still slumbers in the mines beneath the castle. Even with the thunder of our siege engines, the beast has not awoken yet.”
A few nervous chuckles rumbled through the crusaders.
“But it may yet awaken in the course of battle.” Godfrey shook his head. “I cannot deny that possibility, given the prophecy uttered by my own mouth.”
Many of the crusaders glanced around nervously as they too remembered Godfrey’s prophecy. He himself thought it had been fulfilled when he confronted Tancred, and prevented a battle between some of the crusaders and the Silver Suns. Yet there was an uncanny resemblance between the events of the last few days and Godfrey’s vision in the temple. Prophecies had been known to come to pass in both literal and figurative interpretations.
“Right now, focus on our goal.” Godfrey gestured to himself. “If we slay Alvir here at this castle, the Clans will once again be divided and leaderless. Our crusade will be over, and then we can liberate Bastogne from King Wilhelm’s oppression.”
Several crusaders nodded in approval.
“With the gods on our side,” Godfrey brandished Uriel, “how can we fail?”
A cheer erupted from the crusaders. A horn blew from somewhere in the Pavikian camp, and the stone-throwers ceased their bombardment. For an instant, silence overcame the camp.
“Siege ladders,” Turpin ordered, and the crusaders sprang into action.
With Godfrey tugging on the reins, Spathi kicked off the ground. The griffin circled over the field a couple of times. With the Sun still slumbering behind the mountains, Godfrey had difficulty making out much of what was happening on the ground. However, with a little effort, he spotted where the crusaders were beginning to place the ladders against the battlements.
He directed Spathi to a section of wall near the ladders. Swooping down on the parapet, the griffin’s momentum knocked several Nordsmen off the wall altogether. Spathi’s talons raked at the defenders and his beak tore into anyone close enough. In just a few short moments, Spathi had felled nearly a dozen warriors.
Any Nordsman who attempted to face the griffin from the front was almost immediately eviscerated. Godfrey quickly realized his own attacks should concentrate on Spathi’s flanks, where the griffin was more vulnerable. With Spathi’s merciless frontal attacks and Godfrey striking at anyone on the sides, they had soon cleared a small section of wall of any resistance. Crusaders began pouring over the parapet, taking advantage of the gap the two had created.
“I think we can do more good in an area with fewer friends,” Godfrey noted as the wall quickly became crowded with people he did not want to see hurt.
Kicking off the wall, Spathi flew low with outstretched claws over the Nordsmen. The griffin tore into the enemy ranks from above, striking as much fear as physical damage. Godfrey spotted another section of wall where the crusaders were struggling to gain a foothold as the Sun began to crest over the Wyrmwind Peaks. Godfrey urged Spathi to attack, but the griffin gave a disheartening warble in reply.
“We have been at this for a while.” Godfrey frowned empathetically. “And you’ve been flying almost continuously since yesterday. Let’s go back to camp, and rest.”
Flapping his wings, Spathi climbed higher in the air. As they turned back to the crusader camp, a terrible rumbling shook the earth. Godfrey’s mouth hung open as the ground in Olso’s inner courtyard fell into a deep chasm. Shooting out of the chasm with great flaps of his leathery wings, Vozzab looked down on the men and orcs fighting on the walls. Somehow the dragon did not appear to have spotted Godfrey and Spathi yet.
“It looks like we have one more thing to finish before we can rest,” Godfrey sighed.
***
Madeline watched Godfrey ride Spathi out of the Pavikian camp. She waved in farewell, but Godfrey did not see. An emptiness filled her at the thought that maybe she would not see him again. She knew enough about war to understand that even those favored by the gods were not invincible. After all, she had thought once before that he had died.
Madeline ran after him for a few steps, but stopped. Godfrey had a duty. He had men to lead. There was a role for him to fulfill. What was her role in all of this?
Eyeing a heavy hand-ax lying on top of a stack of crates near a tent, she briefly considered taking it. Fortune favored the bold. Could she disguise herself, and join in the coming melee? Though some women were known to be legendary fighters, their examples were few and far between. Madeline had devoted much of her time to scholastic pursuits, and little to the physical training required to excel in close combat. Taking the ax would not end well for her.
As she thought of ways she could or could not contribute to the coming fray, her father blew his horn. With the assault signaled, the siege engines ceased their bombardment, and the men began to charge the walls. The warriors roared as they rushed to battle.
“I want to help.” She tugged on her father’s cloak as he drew his sword.
“I want you to wait here until this is over,” Tancred replied, rejecting her offer, and pointing to his tent. “I lost you once already. It won’t happen again.”
“But,” Madeline insisted, “I have magic. It has grown so much even in just these last few weeks traveling with Godfrey.”
“The Clan warriors will try to capture you if they see you,” Tancred countered. “Don’t jeopardize yourself after all you went through.”
“My fire has more than one use,” she interjected. “Let me use it.”
Tancred gestured to her. She followed him to the edge of the Pavikian camp. Grabbing a Bastognian banner marking the boundary between their camps, he pulled it out of the ground. He offered no explanation to her stunned silence as the two stared at each other for a moment.
“Stay to the rear of the men,” he ordered his daughter. “There will be wounded among the dead.”
Nodding in understanding, she watched her father join his retainers as they marched into battle. Taking a deep breath, she followed them at a distance. The clash of metal against metal rang from the fighting atop the wall. Screams of the wounded and dying followed as well.
Already the ground was littered with the bodies of the fallen as Madeline approached. Many of the bodies lay still, but some gasped, moaned, struggled to move. A pair of Pavikian warriors carried their thrashing comrade past Madeline, a crossbow bolt lodged in his eye. She froze at the ghastly sight. Shaking her head, she reminded herself this was exactly the sort of thing she should expect to see here. Kneeling next to a man attempting to pull an arrow from his neck, she grabbed hold of the shaft, and yanked out the projectile. Blood spurted from the wound as the embedded arrow was dislodged. Letting out a cry of pain, the wounded man looked at her as if she were mad as she laid her hands on the wound. A soft, subdued glow emanated from her hands as the injury to his neck sealed itself.
“Sorcery?” The man stared at her in confusion as his hand explored the new skin covering what should have been a mortal wound.
“Fortune’s kiss,” Madeline answered. “You have a second chance. Go and fight.”
Barely understanding, the man stood. He picked up his spear and shield, and with one last puzzled look back at her, he cautiously marched back to the battle.
Madeline found a dozen others like the first wounded man. With a touch of her hand, she let her fire heal wounds that would have otherwise killed or crippled these men for life. She found this use of her fire much more satisfying than its destructive use. To see the pain leave their eyes, the bewilderment at the restoration of their bodies, that was a gift she never should have concealed. Some of the men she healed were just as scared as they were confused by these miraculous acts of mercy, but none resisted her touch, nor did any try to restrain her efforts.
Here, Madeline treated wounds worse than the one Walaric had suffered back near Narlstad. She hardly understood how her own powers worked to begin with, much less why they were more potent now than before. The best she could figure was as she had guessed all along; the more she used her magic, the more powerful it became and the easier it was to use.
Kneeling over a man she knew was already dead, she laid her hands on him all the same. Despite her best efforts, the wound would not close, and the man would not stir. Cold and lifeless he remained. Now she knew the limits of her power. Still, she had to try. With a heavy sigh, she walked to the next fallen warrior.
With dawn fast approaching, Madeline’s strength was almost spent from healing so many wounded men. Like her more destructive form of the fire spell, the healing variant sapped a portion of her strength too. However, she found her healing fire was not as taxing as the consuming fire.
As the first light of dawn broke over the mountains, she caught a glimpse of Spathi and Godfrey flying over Olso’s walls. She smiled a tired smile. Godfrey was alive. She could think of a sight no more glorious than what she saw now. What else mattered?
What relief she felt was swept away with the rumbling of the earth. She fell. She was so tired. The flapping of immense wings blew Madeline’s hair out of her face. She looked up to see Vozzab fill the sky. The dragon opened his jaws and let out a deafening roar. Panicking, warriors leapt from Olso’s walls as Vozzab swooped down upon them from on high.
The dragon crushed Nordsmen and Pavikians, devoured orcs, and ripped apart crusaders. All fled before the dragon. Vozzab’s fury was primal. His fiery orange eyes knew no friends, only prey.
***
Screeching, Spathi dove onto Vozzab as the dragon occupied himself with the helpless men and orcs. The griffin tore into the dragon’s back with his talons. However, Vozzab’s black scales were hard, and breaking through was difficult. Godfrey was about to strike at Vozzab’s spine with Uriel, but the dragon shook the griffin off.
“Fly,” Godfrey screamed, hoping to gain some distance before the dragon could attack.
Rolling, the griffin flew hard with Vozzab in pursuit. Godfrey had Spathi stick as close to the ground as he dared, remembering that climbing would lose them speed. Snarling, Vozzab let loose a gout of orange flame from his mouth. The fire washed over the inner courtyard as Spathi turned sharply around the corner of the keep. Godfrey risked pulling the reins to have Spathi climb as they circled the keep. Vozzab lumbered around the corner just behind them, digging his claws into the building itself before he launched himself at Godfrey and Spathi. The dragon’s jaw snapped inches behind Spathi’s tail. Godfrey’s hand began to shake, but he gripped his sword tightly, and steadied his breathing.
Spathi dove with Vozzab just behind. The griffin screeched as Godfrey took a steep angle towards the inner courtyard wall. He pulled the reins hard, and Spathi climbed, dodging the wall with not a moment to spare. The dragon, reacting too slowly, crashed through the wall. Stone crumbled and hurtled through the air with the men and orcs that stood atop the battlements a moment before.
The dragon lay inert, covered in rubble from the broken wall section he had crashed through. Blood trickled from his snout, but the dragon did not lie still for more than a moment. He shook himself off, a cloud of grey dust falling from his bruised form. If a dragon’s visage could possibly look even more malicious than it naturally did, Godfrey would have sworn it did in that moment Vozzab looked up at him as he and Spathi desperately climbed higher into the air.
Shooting more gouts of flame up after Godfrey, Vozzab stretched his wings. Launching himself off the ground, he pursued his quarry with outstretched claws. Turning to face the Sun, Godfrey prayed Loxias would not let him falter now. Vozzab squinted as he turned into the bright morning rays.
“Just a little bit farther,” Godfrey urged Spathi.
Below, the battle for Olso Fortress resumed. Baldwin de Ghend and Torcul’s crusaders still struggled to maintain a foothold on the outer wall, but in other sections the battle turned more in the crusade’s favor. The Pavikians were the first to pour through the breach in the inner wall created by Vozzab, but the Bastognians were not far behind. The men of Errans had breached the outer wall, and Conrad directed his knights to aid Baldwin’s group on their flank. The Clan defenses were beginning to fail, and soon only a few groups of berserkers and orcish oath-warriors offered any real hope for their success. Sensing ultimate victory was near, the crusaders took up a hymn as they slaughtered their foes. The sight was the first bit of comfort Godfrey had taken in a while.
With Godfrey pulling on the reins, Spathi made a tight overhead loop. The Sun was in the dragon’s eyes, and Vozzab turned his serpentine head behind himself too late as the griffin attacked his back with beak and talon. Godfrey swung his sword, but Spathi could not get close enough for him to land a blow. To further Godfrey’s frustration, the griffin did little damage to the dragon’s back before they were forced to pull away by Vozzab’s sweeping claws.
The scales were too hard. Though Spathi’s beak and claws were easily the match of any man’s armor, they could only chip away at Vozzab’s back one scale at a time. Uriel could slice through the scales with ease, Godfrey was sure of it. If he could just get in close enough to strike.
“Gods above,” Godfrey muttered as an idea crossed his mind. “May no one sing a shameful song about me.”
Spathi and Vozzab circled. The griffin was more agile and was coming up on the dragon’s tail again. Seeing this, Vozzab twisted in midair and tried to catch the griffin in a deadly embrace. Godfrey had hoped for this response.
Time slowed. Godfrey signaled for Spathi to dive, but Godfrey leapt from the saddle. Spathi screeched in protest but was forced to continue in his dive to avoid the dragon’s reach. For a moment, Godfrey was suspended in freefall. He had known he was going to die falling, but he had never imagined it would be from such heights.
As Vozzab turned to follow the griffin, he was caught completely unprepared for Godfrey to abandon his mount like this. Godfrey narrowly slipped past the dragon’s scarred jaws and grasping claws as the beast dove after Spathi. Grabbing hold of the dragon’s soft underbelly as he passed, Godfrey plunged Uriel deep into Vozzab’s breast. A second, then third thrust from the blessed blade; Godfrey knew he was going to die in this moment. He just wanted to make sure the dragon did too.
Steaming blood flowed freely from the wounds Godfrey dealt. Vozzab bellowed in rage, confusion, pain. Not since his battle with the angel, Othniel, had Vozzab appeared so unsure of his immortality. Godfrey dealt a fourth strike as he made his peace with the gods just as Vozzab flung him off his chest. This final blow went to the dragon’s heart.
The last thing Godfrey was sure he heard was the sickening crunch of bones as Vozzab crumpled to the ground. Sliding across the mud, Godfrey’s head hit something hard. He instantly went blind at the impact, and tasted blood in his mouth. Godfrey was dead.
***
At least, Godfrey was sure he was dead. A distant voice pleaded with him, begged him not to be dead. It was Madeline’s voice. Warmth washed through Godfrey. It was faint. It was just enough to restore sight to his eyes.
Madeline was cradling his head. Tears were streaming down her face. Another faltering spurt of warmth, and Godfrey could feel her hands on the back of his head. He tried to speak, but could not move his tongue. Her eyes darted, focusing here and there as she saw he was alive. A final burst of warmth from Madeline, then her already-fair skin drained completely of color. She pulled back, gasping through extreme exertion.
“If only I could always awaken to such a vision of beauty,” Godfrey managed, coughing up blood.
“You may yet still,” she cried.
The damsel stood and pointed up at Olso’s keep. Looking down from the keep’s parapet stood Duke Tancred of Pavik waving the blue banner of House Cretus. It was Godfrey’s banner. There was no mistaking the white griffin rampant emblazoned upon it. It was only now that he realized the ancient symbol of Godfrey’s house was personified in Spathi. And there was Tancred atop the keep, declaring Olso to be Godfrey’s prize. Was this what the gods had had in mind for Godfrey all along? Tears streamed down Godfrey’s face like never before.
“Victory?” Godfrey asked.
“Victory,” Madeline reassured him.
Turpin and Varin approached him from the ruined form of Vozzab, son of Yoan.
“Victory,” Godfrey sighed.
Turpin nodded, nursing a wound. Spathi landed on the ground close to Godfrey. Folding his wings in close to his body, the griffin rubbed his head against Godfrey’s chest. Godfrey smiled his first genuine smile in a long time.
The battle was over. Every orc and Nordsman was either dead or had managed to flee through the chaos of Vozzab’s attack. All that remained were the crusaders, Tancred’s army, Madeline, and the griffin.
The gods had led Godfrey here to this very spot. He saw their hands in it now. Yet, looking over the bloodied forms of those with him, he realized much tribulation and uncertainty would still follow. Closing his eyes, he bit his lip then slowly exhaled. He was so tired.