Of Blood And Fire by Ryan Cahill (best classic books of all time .txt) 📕

pale blue sky was the first thing Calen noticed. He stepped out into a massive open courtyard. The cool light of day bounced off the walls, and the breeze kissed his face.

He wasn’t sure what he had thought a city built into the side of a mountain would look like, but this wasn’t it. The smooth stone courtyard was immense, easily as large as the entire Glade. It was hemmed in all around by stone-grey walls, as thick as Calen was tall, with large square towers set into every bend.

Long purple and gold banners hung from each of the towers. Each banner was emblazoned with a crossed axe and a sword, with a lonely mountain in the background. On top of each tower was what Calen could only describe as a massive crossbow, fixed into the ground with large steel plates and bolts. He had never seen their like before.

To the right of the courtyard stood a massive keep, embedded in the climbing rock face, rising high up into the sky. Set into the front of the keep were a massive set of thick wooden doors, arching into a point towards the top. They were easily fifteen feet wide and twenty feet tall at their highest point.

It took a minute for Calen to notice the two parallel columns of soldiers that occupied the courtyard, framing the pathway out of the tunnel. They wore shimmering plate armour, with pauldrons on each shoulder and billowing purple cloaks. Their helmets covered most of their face, leaving only two almond-shaped openings for their eyes and a narrow slit from their nose to their chin. It was an impressive sight. They looked very much like they had walked straight out of Therin’s stories. Calen’s first instinct was to reach to his sword, an instinct that he had to actively stave off.

These are friends. We are safe here.

Calen felt the same sense of awe – and caution – from Valerys. The young dragon padded around Calen’s feet, taking in the sheer size of the courtyard. He had grown quickly during their travels, although he was still about half the size of Faenir.

“The royal courtyard,” Ihvon said, opening his arms and gesturing outward. “This is the inner circle of the city. It has the thickest walls and the tallest towers in all of Epheria. It has never been breached, not in the over two thousand years since it has stood.” There was a look of gleaming pride on Ihvon’s face. “Do you want to see the city?”

Ihvon marched off towards the walls before anybody even had the time to answer the question. The column of soldiers fell in either side of him as he walked, hemming the group in between them.

“Don’t mind them,” Ihvon chirped. “They are the Kingsguard, and you are guests of the utmost importance.

“The machines you see mounted atop the towers are Bolt Throwers. They have been installed here, with the help of the dwarves, since the fall of The Order. They are a large part of why the empire was never able to take the city. The bolts they fire are eight feet in length and nearly two handspans wide. Even dragons hide from them,” Ihvon explained as they ascended the zig-zagging staircase to the top of the walls. “And this,” he said, gesturing out over the ramparts, “is the city of Belduar.”

Calen felt it as the breath was taken from his lungs. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined something like this.

It felt like they stood on a sheer cliff edge at the end of the world. So far was the fall that Calen could not see the bottom. To the west were the gargantuan mountains of Western Lodhar; to the east, the plains of Illyanara rolled off as far as the eye could see.

Hundreds of feet below, the sprawling city of Belduar was separated from the Inner Circle by a heavy-set stone bridge that spanned a cavernous gap between the two areas of the city. Calen could not help but think that if he fell off that bridge, he would keep falling until the end of time.

The city itself fanned out in tiers of concentric circles. Each circle was ringed by more walls, each set with countless towers, with a Bolt Thrower nestled into its centre. The lowest tier, which touched the plains down below, was so far away that Calen could only just make out the brown spots atop each tower.

Just past the outermost city walls was the fabled lake of Haftsfjord, where the people of Belduar first broke bread with the dwarves. All Therin’s stories flushed through Calen’s mind as he looked out across this city of legend. It was the last bastion of freedom in Illyanara, the only place that the empire’s hand did not extend freely.

Calen peered over the ramparts. He rubbed the disbelief from his eyes as a pair of eagles glided through the air, not thirty feet from where he stood. They strafed sideways and nosedived down the sheer face of the Inner Circle walls. He knew that his mouth was open wide, but he did not care.

“Not many people get to see the world from where you are standing right now,” Ihvon whispered. He leaned his arms down on the stone walls, gazing out at the spectacle in front of him.

Calen couldn’t help but allow a smile to creep onto his face. The view from those walls was one of the most incredible things that he had ever seen. He knelt down to Valerys. “You will fly over this city as soon as you’ve grown.”

The dragon shook his wings, a low rumble escaping his throat.

“Now that is something I would pay some silver to see!” said Dann, grinning from ear to ear. “How long until he can fly?”

“It depends,” Aeson replied. “Some dragons can fly as early as a few weeks old. Some can take a couple of months. It will depend how he grows and how soon his wings can