Throne of Dragons

“And then you still wouldn’t have a thief,” Renard pointed out.

“You would really refuse freedom? You would really choose death?”

Renard nodded. “If the alternative is going with you, yes.”

It turned out that he’d found a new worst thing. Compared to this one, even all the others didn’t seem so bad.

Void gestured to the others. “Very well. Come. We must do this… another way.”

He turned, walking out of the cell, the robed forms of the others following in his wake. The door shut behind him with a bang, the lock clicking back into place. Renard supposed it was too much to ask that they might leave it open.

Even as he settled back to wait for his death again, he couldn’t help feeling that he’d just avoided something far, far worse.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rodry and his friends raced into the landscape of the south, trying to catch up to his sister, while Rodry hoped against hope that he would be in time. They rode down paved trackways and over dirt roads, following the signs of the party that had been ahead of them ever since they crossed into this country.

For what had to be the hundredth time since the river crossing, Rodry cursed his brother Vars. Had he been a little braver, they might have had Lenore back by now, and the ones who had taken her might already be dead. When Rodry returned, their father would hear every detail of his cowardice.

For now, there was only the chase after Lenore.

One thing that surprised Rodry a little was how much the landscape had changed simply by crossing the river, as if the whole climate differed just with that small shift. There were trees here, but they were olive and fig as often as apple, the forests light and hot rather than the rain-filled landscapes of the Northern Kingdom. The ground around seemed drier, and Rodry was sure that they had ridden past at least a couple of vineyards, set into the sides of hills. The people they had seen dressed as simply as peasant folk back home, but differently as well, with slashed skirts and blouses in place of dresses, broad hats in place of hoods. It seemed that almost everyone wore a flash of red or purple somewhere too, perhaps in homage to King Ravin.

They shrank back away from Rodry and the others as they passed, perhaps sensing some of the fury of their mission.

“How much further to this hunting lodge?” Rodry asked Kay.

His friend shook his head. “I don’t know, Rodry. I only know that it even exists because of my father.”

“What use is knowing that a place exists if you don’t know where it is?” Rodry demanded, and then bit back his anger. He wasn’t his brother, to lash out at those who didn’t deserve it. “We ride on.”

And in riding, they had to hope that they were going in the right direction. Seris, Mautlice, and the others were doing their best to track the group ahead, the way they might have done when hunting, and a whole traveling party was easier to track than any deer might have been, but even so, what if they took a wrong turn? What if they rode right into the heart of Ravin’s kingdom, but couldn’t find the place in it where they were keeping Lenore?

The answer to that was simple: they would burn Ravin’s kingdom until they found her.

They paused in a spot where the trail branched a dozen different ways, tall, arching trees rising up around in a rough circle. There was a low hut there, barely more than a lean-to, while around, the ground was churned up as if it had seen far more than a dozen riders come through there. There were bushes and rocks around the diverging paths, some set here and there with candles, as if the whole place were some great shrine or meeting place. Rodry saw it as far more than that though.

He saw it as the perfect place for an ambush.

“Down!” he yelled, as arrows flew from the bushes, throwing himself from his horse even as a shaft flashed past where his head had been. Around him, he saw his soldiers and friends duck, or raise their shields, or fling themselves from their horses the way Rodry had. Some weren’t quick enough. He saw Mautlice spin, blank-faced, from the saddle, a crossbow bolt sticking from his chest. A soldier took an arrow in the shoulder, crying out in pain.

The enemy poured out of their hiding places then, and it seemed that half a dozen of them were dressed in odd clothes, carrying a strange selection of weapons that marked them out as Quiet Men rather than normal soldiers. There were those too, though, red tunics marking them as King Ravin’s troops, armed with spears and short bows.

“You didn’t think that we’d notice you following, Prince Rodry?” one of the Quiet Men said, drawing a pair of long knives. He was tall and shaven headed, the glint of oiled chainmail showing here and there under his clothes. “You didn’t think we’d be waiting?”

Rodry drew his longsword as he stood, taking it in two hands, holding back his anger just for a second.

“You’re one of the ones who took my sister?” he demanded.

The Quiet Man nodded. “Shall I tell you everything that we did to her while we had her to ourselves? Shall I detail every last—”

Rodry struck out in the middle of the man’s words, his anger driving him forward into the attack. The Quiet Man caught that attack on his knives, but Rodry was already twisting away, cutting down toward his foe’s legs. He heard the crunch of bone as the blade struck home, but he had to fall back to avoid the next sweep of the man’s knives.

Rodry’s friends charged forward then, taking their cue from him, while the soldiers jumped in to support them. He heard the sudden clash of blades, and the screams of the dying. In that moment, everything was chaos, the ambush unfolding around him in one continuous stream.

One of King Ravin’s soldiers appeared in front of him, and Rodry hacked him down with an overhead stroke. He felt a blade bounce from his armor, turned, and kicked another soldier away.

One of the Quiet Men, a woman, had a strangling rope around Kay’s neck, pulling tight and hanging on close as a lover. Rodry lunged forward, plunging his longsword up under her ribs, no hint of remorse at cutting down one of those who had hurt his sister, only satisfaction. Kay turned and nodded his thanks, then barely parried a sword blow in time.

Rodry had no time to help with this foe, because the one with the two knives was there again before him, staggering forward on one leg, cutting high and low. Rodry gave ground, looking for room to wield his longsword in full strokes, but the Quiet Man kept pressing forward, giving him no room to strike the way he wanted to. Rodry had to twist and turn, using the bracers of his armor to deflect thrust after thrust.

Rodry heard the scrape of someone behind him, felt the whisper of something heading toward his head. If he hadn’t spent so long training in the House of Weapons, he might have done the foolish thing and turned to face the new threat. Instead, Rodry dropped to his knees, thrusting up over his shoulder with his longsword. He heard a cry as a curved sword passed over his head, felt the give of flesh under the thrust of his sword’s point. He ripped it out, then struck forward with the pommel of his sword, catching his attacker in the stomach and doubling him over.

Rodry came back up to his feet, half turning as he brought his longsword around in a great swing that hacked through his opponent’s neck and kept going into the dirt. It stuck there for a moment, and the foe he’d struck at over his shoulder all but fell into him. They went down together, neither of them holding their sword anymore, both of them punching and kneeing and grabbing while around them the fight continued to rage. An elbow smashed into Rodry’s face, a knee struck his stomach. He clung on for dear life, because he could feel his opponent weakening, the blood pouring from him thanks to the wound Rodry had inflicted.

Then Rodry saw his foe starting to reach down for a knife at his belt and knew that if he reached it, it wouldn’t matter how much greater Rodry’s strength or stamina was, because he would slide that blade into a gap in Rodry’s armor as easy as breathing.

Rodry grabbed for his foe’s arm in desperation, forcing it away from the weapon. They rolled, and Rodry came up on top, striking down with an armored forearm again and again. He heard the crunch of bone, but kept going, until it seemed that blood filled the whole world, and the foe beneath him went limp. Only then did Rodry dare stand, snatching up his longsword, looking around for another foe to fight.

There were none; his friends and the soldiers with them stood victorious, or most of them did. Mautlice still lay unmoving on the ground, and two of the soldiers who had accompanied them lay just as dead. Rodry wondered what he would be able to say to Mautlice’s father, and he simply didn’t know.

It was worse for King Ravin’s forces. Around them, King Ravin’s men lay dead or dying.

“Take their tunics and their flags,” Rodry ordered his men. “We might need them, soon enough.”

Only one of King Ravin’s forces still stood. One of the Quiet Men stood with his back to a tree, sword out, surrounded by Rodry’s men. Rodry stormed over, pointing to him.

“Where is she?” he demanded. “Which way?”

“I surrender to you,” the Quiet Man said. He dropped his sword. “It is said that you are a brave and noble prince, so you will not cut a man down in cold blood.”

“Which way?” Rodry demanded again.

The Quiet Man said nothing, but his glance to one of the paths was enough. They would find the tracks, would find where Lenore had been taken.

As for this one, who had been part of this, who had done unspeakable things to his sister… Rodry stepped forward then, sword back behind his shoulders.

“You would not,” the Quiet Man said. “You would not murder a prisoner.”

He took one large step level with the tree, letting out a cry of pure rage as he struck in a horizontal blow. The Quiet Man looked at Rodry in shock as the weapon struck home, slicing through flesh to cut deep into the bark of the tree behind him. He tumbled, headless, eyes still staring.

“This is not murder,” Rodry said, spitting into the dirt. “It’s an execution.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

From the moment Odd arrived on the shores of the kingdom, his small boat bumping against a rocky shore, he knew that he needed to head south, to Royalsport. He needed to warn the king of the impending invasion via Leveros, needed to save the kingdom from what was to come.

Maybe that would even make up for some of the things he had done in his life.

No, nothing would do that. Penitence as a monk he had not, even though he still wore their robes, still had the shaved head of their order. No amount of prayer or meditation had brought him peace, and when the attack on the island had come… the man he had been was there waiting inside him.

He shook his head and started walking, up off the shoreline, scrambling up a slope of sandy rocks until he reached the top of a cliff. There were trees in the distance, thick and green and tangled, with only the faintest of paths leading into them. From the position of the sun, it seemed that they were to the south. The right way then.

The small wounds he’d suffered on the island ached now, but he kept walking, because if there was one thing the monastery had taught him, it was patient endurance. With every step, he could feel the movement of his sheathed sword at his back, long and slender, enclosed in a covering of black leather for now. It was an unfamiliar feeling after so long in the monastery, but at the same time the most familiar feeling of all. There had been a time when he hadn’t felt alive without a sword in his hand, the thrill of battle running through his veins.

The abbot would not approve of that, if he was still alive. Odd suspected that he was not, when his whole plan had been to offer himself up to the soldiers as a kind of sacrifice. He suspected that any monk who had remained on the Isle of Leveros would be slaughtered now; King Ravin’s men were almost as bloodthirsty as…

…as he had been.

Images came to him, of villages sacked, people slaughtered. Many had been the armored forms of worthy foes, bandits and rebels, but many more had not been. The faces of women and children mingled with those of others he had killed, and the worst part was that Odd couldn’t even make out specific ones. He hadn’t been watching closely enough for that when he’d been Sir Oderick the Mad, consumed by battle rage, consumed by the love of the fight.

“I am not him,” Odd told himself aloud, as if the certainty of that would make the words true. There had been a reason why he hadn’t brought his noble’s clothes, or his armor.

Yet who was he? Not a monk, not a knight, not… anything. At best, a messenger, whose sole purpose was to warn the kingdom of what was coming on the flank they didn’t know about. That was a purpose, though, and Odd would fulfill it, whatever it took.

He kept walking.

How long he kept walking, Odd didn’t know. At one point, he came to a crofter’s hut, pieced together from aged planks and turf squares for a roof. The crofter’s wife came to the door, offering him a bowl of soup, clearly seized from an already bubbling bowl.

“You could stay for the night,” she said. “A monk in the house is said to be lucky.”

“I am anything but lucky,” Odd assured her, and pressed a coin into her hand before he kept walking. Somewhere in his walking, day might have turned to night and back again, but it was hard to tell under the canopy of the trees. He lit a candle and kept going, until tiredness forced him to stop.

In the morning, he knelt in meditation, the way he had for so many mornings now. His mind would not still itself though, and if he had prayers within him, he could not bring himself to say them. Odd rose instead and continued on his trek. In the midmorning, he came upon another hut of forest folk, and along with a little bread and cheese, these sold him a mule they had grazing behind the house.

Compared to all the mounts he’d had in his time, it was easily the humblest. Sir Oderick the Mad had ridden stallions and war-trained chargers, not dappled mules that seemed to snort with every step as if in contempt of the world. His saddles had been finely wrought, not blankets laid simply across a beast’s back. Still, it meant that he could move south quicker, and that was all that mattered.

He sat upon his mule and tried to use the jolting of it as a different kind of meditation, but somehow the beast managed to move without even a consistent rhythm, jarring Odd from his thoughts every few steps as it seemed that the mule found bones in its back Odd had not suspected a steed could have. He knew he must look ludicrous like this, a far cry from the noble he had been, and Odd laughed at the foolishness of it all, long and loud.

“What’s so funny, priest?” The first man to step from the forest was a bear of a man, huge and broad shouldered, dark-bearded and dressed in rough clothes suitable for a day of felling trees. Scraps of leathers serving as armor said that his days held more violence than that though, and the axe he held was a thing of war, not just work.

The second man was smaller, hard faced and armed with a long, single-edged knife, a nail hammered into the hilt to serve as a cross guard. Together, they looked like the kind of men who were farmers or foresters some days, bandits others, drifting back and forth across the line to lawlessness. Odd had seen many men like them before.

“I’m not a priest,” Odd said, stepping down from his mule. “I was a monk, but my abbot told me that I was no longer welcome. As for what’s funny, I suppose that’s just how far I’ve fallen.”

“Things can always get worse,” the big one said, fingering his axe.

“True,” Odd said. He didn’t reach for his sword, not yet.

“How about you give us what you have, and they won’t?” the smaller one said.

Odd laughed again, and if these men had known him, they would have known the strange, mad edge in that laugh. “Really, boys, is that the best you can do? I mean, yes, good, menacing approach, but if you’re robbing someone, you should make more of an effort.”

“How about I make the effort to split your head open?” the axe man suggested.

Odd’s laugh wouldn’t stop now, not even when the big one swung the axe at his head. He was still laughing when he sidestepped, still laughing when he kicked the thug in the knee, sending him sprawling. He didn’t draw his sword yet, but took it from his back, sheath and all, using it like a club to smash the long knife from the other one’s hands. Odd spun and kicked him square in the stomach, sending him to the ground alongside his friend.

Idly, Odd noticed that his mule was at the side of the path, chewing grass as if nothing were happening. The madness in him found that as funny as all the rest of it, so that he laughed even while he drew his sword.

There was no blood on it yet, but his mind’s eye supplied all the ways that blood could run through the etchings on the steel, all the ways that redness could fill in the dips and furrows of it, picking out the knots and the whorls on the surface. He stood there, holding back the urge to kill only with difficulty, smiling at the two would-be robbers like the demented thing he was.

“Best run, boys,” he said. “I’m a little out of practice, but two on one is hardly even worth the effort.”

“What about eight?” another voice said behind him.

Half a dozen other men stepped from the trees, and a part of Odd cursed himself for not seeing that coming. They were dressed in similar ways to the others, in scraps of leathers, mostly armed with hatchets or knives. They had obviously hung back just in case Odd had friends hidden out of sight, in case this was a trap laid to catch those who might rob travelers.

Odd smiled at them. “I take it that you still want my money pouch?”

“And your sword, and your mule,” the large one said.

“Ah now,” Odd replied. “I have become quite attached to that mule. Besides, I need it to head south.”

“You’ll give us all of it, or we’ll gut you,” the short one with the knife said.

Of course, the sensible, even sane thing to do would be to give them all that they wanted. It was what the abbot would have done, no doubt. Even most warriors had the sense to know when they were outnumbered too badly. To charge in would be madness.

“But then,” Odd said aloud, ignoring the men’s looks of confusion, “I am, famously, mad.”

“What are you—” the one with the beard began, but by that point, Odd was already charging, sword held high.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Erin rode back and forth along the column of knights heading south, frustrated that she could, frustrated that they weren’t charging along at a full gallop. Around her, the Knights of the Spur shone atop their horses, their armor and barding glinting in the sun, but that only seemed to make it worse; it made it seem like a parade, rather than a charge to save her sister.

They were crossing the farmland south of the Spur, the column of knights shining against the green and gold of the fields, but they weren’t far off the forests that covered so much of the ground between them and Royalsport now. It still didn’t seem like they’d gone far enough; not even close.

Erin reached the front, where Commander Harr sat atop a horse so large it barely seemed like a horse at all beneath its armor, more like some steel-clad monster. A pennant flew from his lance, with the image of the spur outlined against a blue background.

“You seem to be riding three leagues for every one the rest of us manage,” Commander Harr said, his tone far too calm for Erin’s taste, given that they were riding to war. Shouldn’t he have sounded more urgent, more worried for Lenore’s safety?

“We’re going too slowly!” Erin said. “We could be riding twice as fast as this.”

“For a day, perhaps,” Commander Harr said. “But then we would have to stop. Even if we did make it to the river in a hurry, we would be exhausted when it came to any fighting.”

“But we’re the Knights of the Spur!” Erin insisted. “Aren’t you supposed to be warriors out of legend, able to fight all day, against any enemy?”

“And because of that, the king expects us to be able to fight his enemies when we arrive,” Commander Harr said. “Resume your place in the ranks. There is much marching still to go.”

“I know how far there is to go,” Erin said. “That’s the problem.”

Commander Harr raised one closed fist, and behind him, the entire column drew to a halt, stopping with the kind of discipline that only the Knights of the Spur could manage.

“I gave you an order, recruit,” he said.

“You think that’s the most important thing right now?” Erin shot back. “When my sister’s out there somewhere, in the hands of King Ravin, you think that’s the thing that matters?”

“I think it matters whether I can trust you to do what you’re commanded, no matter what you’re feeling,” Commander Harr said. “I think the lives of your companions might depend on how well you can do that.”

“I won’t endanger the others,” Erin said, but even as she said it, she itched to keep riding. Every second they wasted here was another in which her sister was growing further away.

“Won’t you?” Commander Harr demanded. “Til, Fenir, get up here!”

The two knights rode forward, coming to a halt before Erin and the commander.

“You said that Erin here was a little too eager,” Commander Harr said. “What does that mean? What did she do at the village?”

To Erin’s surprise, the two knights hesitated a moment, obviously caught between loyalty to their leader and to her.

“The truth!” Commander Harr bellowed.

“She charged into the village,” Til said. “I told her to hold off, but she went in anyway.”

“Fought well though,” Fenir said.

“It doesn’t matter how she fought!” Commander Harr said. “Not if we can’t trust her to hold back when she needs to.” He turned to Erin. “Even now, I can see you twitching, like you want to ride for the horizon to save your sister.”

“Lenore’s in danger,” Erin shot back. How could he expect her to stand there when they were wasting time?

“And if she’s in danger when we reach the bridges, you’ll abandon your companions and do what you feel you must to save her?” Commander Harr asked.

Erin didn’t even understand why it was a question.

“No,” Commander Harr said. “I can see that I made a mistake, bringing you. You will return to the fortress, for your own safety, and for ours.”

“You… you can’t ask me to do that!” Erin said, unable to believe that Commander Harr would even contemplate it.

“I am not asking,” the commander said. “Remember that you are under my command.”

Erin bit back her counterargument, knowing that there was no way that she would be able to convince the commander, not in time. Instead, she offered a bow, leaning low over the back of her horse.

“Very well…” she said, then heeled her horse into a run.

Commander Harr bellowed behind her for her to stop, but Erin didn’t even slow. She glanced back, half expecting to see knights charging after her, but they were stock-still in their positions, obeying their leader’s command to halt in a way that she never could. Commander Harr called something else then, and Fenir and Til set off after her, but Erin was already well ahead, already galloping clear of them.

She galloped for the forest, knowing that in the shelter of the trees they wouldn’t find her. She plunged under the shelter of the branches, following the path, not slowing down. Her horse leapt over a fallen log, its hooves thundering against the dirt of the track. Erin ducked under a branch, kept her head low, kept riding.

The sounds of pursuit faded behind her, but Erin kept going. She didn’t want to risk being dragged back to the fort when she could help her sister. She had to keep going, couldn’t slow down now.

So she rode, and kept riding, until her horse slowed of its own volition, unwilling to gallop any further. Erin walked it then, leaping down from the saddle because she didn’t want to risk pushing it to exhaustion. She walked along the forest track, certain now that the knights would be long behind her, probably still moving at a snail’s pace. She would reach the bridges before them, would find her sister…

A sound drew Erin from those thoughts, though: the sound of steel on steel, coming together in violence. Erin looked around, not certain where it was coming from in the close confines of the forest, but quickly realized that it lay ahead, along the track.