Hearthfire Gorin Mogen, fully armored, face half obscured by a helmet, and carrying both an axe and an enormous shield that must have been six feet tall.
The Fornish had their plans, no doubt, little scheming weeds they planted with the Nentians, which they hoped would grow and choke us out. The last thing I should do is wait for them to proceed. A warrior’s duty, above all, is to shit on the enemy’s plans.
Before dawn even grayed the sky, I lit an arrow and shot it over the walls to fall into the needle-covered ground of the mountainside. And then, standing on tiptoe to peer over the walls, I accelerated that fire and spread it along the ground in a line parallel to the wall, illuminating the front ranks of trees, which revealed a Fornish siege crew putting together the interlocking pieces of a catapult. I knew it! Burn them all.
I urged the flames up the mountain to surround the crew and then ignite them. Their screams tore into the night, and it was better than birdsong to my ears. Those who killed my son and would kill me and all my people deserved to die in pain.
There would be more of them, no doubt, unseen in the darkness, farther up the mountain. I spread the flames directly uphill from that crew and saw nothing, but they had to be out there. I needed to take them out before they could get set. It turned out that only Sefir and I were armored and ready to go, however. The city had gone to sleep while Sefir and I set Jerin’s spirit free. I roared the alarm: we were under attack and needed hounds in the hills, hunting at will.
Halsten got four out the southern gate in a hurry, but they ran into the same flesh-eating plant that the Fornish used on Jerin’s patrol. One made it through and up into the hills, but for the others it was a grim business. Three of them immediately showed signs of distress, their paws pierced by those barbed toothy things that grew inside them and ate their muscles and organs. One rider was thrown from his mount, and two held on; I thought perhaps they would have time to jump free, but the hounds spun and caved in on themselves, trying desperately to nip out the pain in their paws, and they flipped onto their sides. One rider’s leg was crushed and trapped by his hound going down, and once he hit the ground, I saw one of those horrible toothy blossoms take a mouthful of him as well, and he was helpless to free himself. The other rider leapt clear of his hound before it went down and shouted something at me, looking at the ground beneath his boots, but I couldn’t make out the words over the noise the hounds and the trapped rider were making. Soon he was high stepping as if his own feet were in pain; a barbed seed must have pierced through the sole of his lava dragon boots. He was a sparker, though, and before he crumpled to the ground, realizing that they were all dead anyway and he could help clear the way, he set the hounds and himself on fire as well as the land all around the gates. He was immune to the flames until he died, but the third rider, who had been thrown from his mount, was not. He howled as his hair and beard ignited, but strangely, he didn’t move otherwise. He must have broken his spine in the fall and become paralyzed.
I ground my teeth. The eastern gate no doubt would be seeded as well. Better to burn through this first gate since the fire was already started, make sure the plants were exterminated, and plow through with armored lavaborn to take on the Fornish.
I added to the flames in front of the southern gate to hasten the end both for the plants and for the houndsmen.
“I want all the lavaborn with me!” I shouted. “Armor and shields and axes! And Halsten, get the rest of your riders ready. Once we’re through, you follow behind with the houndsmen!”
I sought out Olet Kanek after that. She was with La Mastik and, seeing me coming, stepped in front of her. She was already armored and carried a sword, I saw, rather than an axe. Serviceable, even fine work, but not up to the Mogen standard.
“I’m not here to fight either of