Blade of Erogrund

Chapter Thirteen- The Sound of Steel

Declan stumbled in a desperate attempt to stand. Many of the torches on the corridor had been burned or broken, vastly diminishing the light that glimmered on the sad scene. Some guards, like Declan, were standing with varying levels of difficulty and tending to a wide variety of injuries. Many others were not so fortunate. Their bodies lay like dolls that had been arranged in gruesome poses for some sad play. The flickering light of what torches remained danced across their glassy eyes with sickening beauty.

Once he stood, Declan grabbed Aeis and Godric by the shoulders. His voice was stern, but was calm. "Go back to your quarters.  Should anyone stop you, tell them that the Captain of Ithil sent you."

Aeis nodded. "Yes, sir. What will happen here?"

The Captain sighed heavily. "We will man our posts until Dawn. I suspect Ennor will call another War Council by then, but that's all we can do at the moment."

"And of the patrol?" The watchman asked.

Declan sighed again. "There was nothing that could be done for them."

Aeis led Godric back down the steps they had come up not an hour ago. Soldiers in armor like the guards they had just seen passed by, some glancing at them questioningly but mostly ignoring them completely. A messenger or two ran wearily up and down the steps.

"Did what I think just happen actually happen?" Godric asked once they came across an empty stairway.

His companion cocked his head. "Depends. What do you think just happened?"

"It sounded like a patrol came and was attacked outside the gate. But they were denied entry?"

"That's about accurate," Aeis replied. "The troop was supposed to come in this afternoon, but they were late. Ennor had sent them to survey the Dragons' nest, or as much of it as they could, and come back, but we never heard from them.

"Declan gave the order to open the gate, but when a Dragon is as close as those were to Iris-Ithil, he had no choice but to close it again. A small Dragon could fit within the gate and a large one could break it down once it's open. He had no choice but to close it for the safety of everyone within."

They were silent for a moment.

"How many men are in a patrol?" Godric asked.

Aeis shrugged. "It depends on the purpose. This one was twenty-five men strong."

Twenty-five men, Godric thought. Almost a fifth of Dunn. All siblings, spouses, children...... Dead. Gone. It's no wonder Caeros is so desperate.

They made their way back to the Men's Quarters. Things were still quiet in that section of the city, leading him to assume that word had not spread of the attack yet. He causally asked Aeis about it.

"No doubt they have heard of it from the watchmen already," Aeis contradicted. "Or at least those that are still awake. But what is to be done? They are dead. The Dragons are gone. Nothing will remedy it now."

The steely look of determination on a face so youthful made Godric's stomach knot. No one should have to go through the suffering these people face.

The beds in the quarters were arranged in simple rows, one on each side of the wide, lengthy hall that went on for longer than he could see. They were simple and semi-clean with coarse overblankets and a single cotton sheet beneath. Candles, opposed to torches, burned at irregular intervals all across the hall, casting uncanny shadows that seemed to lull his mind. A mixture of grunts, scratching, either from mice or men he could not tell, and snoring broke the silence. Padding across the dirt floor, he found a bed with relative ease and left Aeis, who made his way to a more distant one. For a moment he thought to unstrap his belt and daggers, but thought better of it. Instead he stored his scabbard in the small, aged wooden lockbox that sat at the foot of his bed. Wrapping himself in his cloak and strapping his daggers in their sheaths so they would not strike him while he slept, he laid atop the bed without slipping beneath the covers and let the solemn fingers of sleep take him into their grasp.