But the dragon was in trouble, and he knew the truth of it. Soon his scrambling had purpose, turning him about, then running him flat out for the wall of Dharyan. He neared and leaped, crashing over the wall and tum-bling hard into the courtyard.
Brynn was on that wall, urging him on, and as soon as the dragon passed over her, she and her batteries of archers drove back the Behrenese pursuit.
"The west gate!" came a frantic cry, and Brynn spun about to hear the screams of anguish and anger, and she knew that the city would be lost, that if the Behrenese got through that western gate, their flood would sweep her and her army from the city.
And she couldn't get there in time.
But down below, her greatest warrior was moving again, clawing and fighting his way along the streets, his blood drawing a red slick behind him.
Agradeleous arrived in the western courtyard just as the gate began to crumble, and the To-gai-ru, seeing his approach, cleared the way.
The gate fell in, and in charged the Behrenese.
Or at least they started to, and then they were dead, melted in dragon fire. There Agradeleous stayed for the remainder of the attack, a living barricade.
Behind him, on the walls, Brynn rushed from spot to spot, bolstering the defenses with her cries of victory and with her deadly sword and bow.
Soon after, the Behrenese line retreated. Dharyan had held through the first day.
There was little revelry within the city, though, for many To-gai-ru lay dead about the walls. Several thousand Behrenese had fallen to less than one thousand To-gai-ru, but in looking at her depleted resources, and in looking at the gravely injured dragon, Brynn could not claim victory that day. They had held, and that was something.
But that was all.
Thanks to the heroics of Agradeleous, the barrage from catapults would be less that night. But several huge fires did erupt, forcing the weary men and women to battle them - all with the knowledge that their enemies would come on again in the morning.
Pagonel and Merwan Ma had little trouble getting into Jacintha, for the city was in seeming turmoil, with people rushing all about, selling and buy-ing all sorts of staple goods. Soldiers marched about all the avenues, school-ing hard the lessons they knew they would soon put into real combat.
"It would seem that Brynn's efforts have been felt far, and to the heart of Behren," Pagonel remarked to Merwan Ma, the mystic still playing the part of the Shepherd's slave.
"Many of the brigades are from visiting districts," Merwan Ma explained ?I have seen the pennant of Yatol De Hamman and Yatol Peridan, Yatol Shie-guvra and - "
"Does that mean that the Yatols have assembled here?"
Merwan Ma nodded. ?That would be the usual reason for their garrisons to be about Jacintha," he explained.
"But who can say in these strange times?"
"Can you find out?"
The Shepherd nodded and moved across the crowded square, to a merchant selling baskets of dates. He bent in and whispered to the man, then nodded, reached into his pouch, and produced a few coins - which Pagonel had given to him out of the loot from one of the conquered cities.
The smiling merchant took the bribe and bent in, whispering to Merwan Ma for a long, long time.
"The Yatols are in Jacintha," the Shepherd reported to Pagonel a few minutes later. ?And they are not pleased by the continuing war. Brynn's ef-forts in hiring the mercenaries and pirates have played into the ancient ri-valries between some of the Yatols, particularly those trading rivals along the coastline. Now the Yatols are angry that so many soldiers have been pulled from the disputed zones in the east and sent along to the west to join in Yatol Bardoh's pursuit of Brynn."
Pagonel nodded, considering the words. He wished he had known of this internal strife before, long before, when there might have been some op-portunity to exploit it further.
"There is word from the west," Merwan Ma went on, his voice going suddenly grim. ?Brynn has conquered Dharyan once more."
Pagonel nodded, knowing what was coming next.
"Yatol Bardoh is even now moving to encircle her and destroy her there," the Shepherd went on. ?Likely the fighting has already begun."
Pagonel took a long moment to digest the information, then took a deep and steadying breath and stared hard at his companion. ?It is irrelevant to our present course." As he finished, the mystic looked across the way, to a large