Throne of Dragons

A battle was raging around them.

The sergeant and Vars’s guards were holding a rough crescent around the door, Rodry and the others’ horses within it, waiting. The men there were surrounded by King Ravin’s troops, who were limited only by the ditches, which meant that they could only come forward a few at a time, fighting and falling, the screams of the dying horrible to hear.

“We need a way out of this,” Rodry said to the sergeant. “We need to get my sister to safety.”

“We still have the horses, your highness,” the man said. “But there’s no path for them. The most my men can do is hold this line, draw their strength. To escape… you’d have to cut your way through. We could distract them with a charge, but then…”

Rodry knew without being told how difficult that would be. There were deep ranks of the enemy now, easily enough to bring down horses. To get his sister through all of it seemed impossible. Yet what was the alternative? Surrender? Give her back to King Ravin’s men to do with as they wished? He turned to Lenore.

“Can you ride?” he asked.

She hesitated, then nodded. Rodry picked out the strongest of the mounts there, his own, helping Lenore into the saddle. He took Seris’s horse, swinging up beside her. Around him, his friends mounted up, while the sergeant’s men continued to hold the regiment around the lodge at bay.

“Men!” Rodry called out. “I wish I could say that I was sorry for leading you into this, but the truth is that I would do it a hundred more times if it would save my sister.”

“And we’d follow!” Kay called back. He had blood at his side, but he sat straight in the saddle.

“We need to cut our way clear. I’ll not lie, it will be far from easy. But we must try! We must be the warriors I know you all to be!”

He’d never been prouder of his friends than as they started to ready lances, sitting tall in the saddle. They formed up in a wedge around Lenore’s horse, even though they must all know how dangerous that was.

“We shield the princess,” he told them. “We get her to safety. Whatever the cost!”

He turned back to his sister.

“Remember, keep riding, no matter what happens.”

“Rodry…”

“I love you, sister,” he said.

“I love you too.”

“Then keep riding,” he insisted. “Get to the bridge. Get to safety.”

He turned back to the battle before him. “Sergeant, when you’re ready.”

The other man nodded. “Men, to me! Charge!”

The guardsmen moved as one, plunging into the enemy, a fist punching into their ranks. Men died in the first rush of that charge, but they cut into the ranks of Ravin’s men, slicing so deep into them that for a moment Rodry thought they might scatter them completely.

Then the ranks of King Ravin’s soldiers closed around them like a tightening hand, cutting them off. Rodry’s instincts were to ride in, to save his men, but he knew that this was the only chance they would get. He saw the ranks of King Ravin’s men thinning on the right as they all charged in to take on the guardsmen’s attack, and that was an opportunity they could not miss.

“There,” Rodry called out, pointing with his sword. “Forward!”

He kicked his horse into a gallop, riding down the first row of the enemy. Beside him, his friends punched into their ranks, lances plunging through foes, swords hacking them down. The sun shone from their armor, and they looked as heroic as any knights out of legend as they fought their way forward.

They cut their way through the ranks of their foes, the goal not to defeat them, but simply to fight their way clear. Rodry cut left and right with his sword, clearing a path almost the way he would have if hacking his way through a forest. It was important not to stop, not to slow. Only getting Lenore to safety mattered now.

The first of his friends fell, Hult, the son of an earl, caught by a spear coming up under his armor. Rodry couldn’t even turn and cut down his attacker, had to just keep riding. Greenfell, who was always quick with a joke, went down next, his horse toppling and crushing men even as more poured in to hack at him.

One by one, his friends died, and Rodry felt the ache in his heart of having led them to their deaths, even as he felt pride at what they were doing, at the ground they were making. They shouldn’t have been able to cut their way through so many men, even with the distraction of the guards, and yet they were, slicing their way forward step by step, stride by stride, until it seemed that they were just a few yards from freedom.

Looking around, Rodry saw that it was just him, Kay, and Lenore now. He kept going, cutting into the throat of a soldier who got too close, battering away a spear. A sword struck his leg and he ignored it, keeping going, keeping fighting.

Kay charged forward past him, striking a rank of soldiers, riding them down. One grabbed him as he passed, dragging him from his horse. He rose briefly, cutting left and right, opening a path. Then a sword tip seemed to rise up from his chest as a soldier plunged it into his back.

Rodry didn’t hesitate, but threw his horse into that last gap, trying to widen it. For a moment, there was a space, and he held that space, turning his horse in place, lashing out at all who got close. He struck down at one soldier, then another. He felt a pain in his side and looked down to see an arrow sticking from it, but he didn’t slow, kept fighting.

Lenore was there, level with him now.

Rodry turned to join her, and his horse reared. He saw the spear that plunged into its neck, felt the moment when it went down. Its weight was crushing, but Rodry somehow rolled clear, coming up with his sword already in his hand. He sliced through one soldier’s throat, then hacked off the arm of another. He saw Lenore staring at him.

“Go!” he yelled. “Go!”

Pain lanced through him, but Rodry ignored it, cutting down a man who, it turned out, had just stabbed him. Another was there then, and Rodry could feel the weight of his sword now, barely able to lift it as he cut down another foe. He could see Kay on the ground, eyes staring up, mouth moving in silent words as blood poured from him. That distraction cost Rodry as another sword struck him, plunging into his hip. He killed another foe, stumbled and tried to stand.

A dozen men stood around him, spears poised. Rodry didn’t care. He rested on one knee for a moment, but didn’t stay there. He wouldn’t be a prisoner here, wouldn’t stop now, when he could buy his sister another few seconds before they started to chase her. He hefted his sword…

He saw the spear that plunged into his chest before it hit him, but he was too weak by then to dodge, too slow. Amazingly, it didn’t even hurt. It was just that one moment he was on his feet, and the next, he was on his back, pinned to the mud like an iron moth trapped by a tack. Another spearman stood over him, the weapon aimed at his head.

The last thing Rodry saw was Lenore, riding away, clear of the grasp of those who would hurt her. He’d won. He’d…

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Nerra did her best to settle into life in the refuge. Under Kleos’s watchful eyes, she fit in with groups of others like her, helping to prepare food in the kitchens, and chop wood, and clean the compound. She had never been afraid of work.

The others around her seemed to have come from all over the known world. Several were from spots that meant they spoke no language Nerra understood. More had come on boats from the Northern Kingdom, and when they found out who Nerra was, they looked at her strangely.

She could feel the weight of those gazes as she worked at a well, drawing water. A girl stood beside her, twining strands of wool into cord.

“They’re just wondering how a disease like this can affect a princess,” the girl said. “And how a king would send his daughter to a place like this.”

She was probably Nerra’s age, a little shorter but broader and stronger, with round, almost heart-shaped features. The scale sickness, dragon sickness, Nerra corrected herself, had been particularly cruel with her, not in what it had done, but in what it had left alone. On her left side, this girl was a vision of perfect loveliness, untouched by the marks of the illness. Dark hair fell in waves past her shoulder, while a one-sided smile quirked across her features.

On the other, the black lines of the sickness spread everywhere, leaving only scarred skin on that side of her head, while half of her face was twisted and almost inhuman.

“He didn’t send me,” Nerra said, thinking of all the things that her father had done to try to save her. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to order her death, the way the law, and his nobles, demanded. “I left myself, and then… a dragon brought me here.”

“A dragon?”

Nerra would have expected most people to scoff at that, or to call her a liar, but most people didn’t have the circling forms in the far distance, over the continent.

“I’m Lina,” the girl said.

“Nerra,” Nerra replied, even though it was clear that the girl knew who she was. “How long have you been here?”

“Since I was little,” Lina said. “My parents saw that I had the sickness, and they couldn’t bring themselves to… to kill me, so they brought me here.”

“They brought you here and just left you?” Nerra asked. “They haven’t come back?”

Lina shook her head. “They send money sometimes, to help Kleos maintain this place. They haven’t returned.”

Nerra couldn’t understand how a parent could do that. Her own parents had done everything they could to help her, to protect her. How could someone just send a child… here?

“You’ve been here all your life?” Nerra said. “And you’ll stay here until… until you die?”

It was the kindest way to put it, because what else could Nerra do? Remind Lina that she might transform into a monster, or that Kleos might eventually thrust a knife into her heart?

“Well,” Lina said, with a surprising smile. “Unless I go up to the temple fountain to drink the waters, of course.”

She laughed as if it were a joke.

Nerra stared at her. “I don’t understand.”

“No one has told you about the temple waters?” Lina said. “It’s an old story here. There’s a temple up on the far side of the volcano.” She nodded to the peaks that dominated the island. “There’s a fountain there whose waters are supposed to be able to cure the sickness.”

She said it casually, as if it were nothing, but the words struck inside Nerra like a hammer.

“There’s a cure?” she asked, her eyes going wide.

“Oh.” Lina’s expression instantly became one of concern, her hands going to Nerra’s shoulders. “Nerra, it’s a story, a rumor. People go and try, but when I asked Kleos, he told me that it wasn’t real.”

Nerra felt her hopes deflate a little. Even so, she knew that she couldn’t let this go. She had to know the truth about the waters. She had to ask Kleos.

***

Nerra found Kleos in a simple wooden hut that seemed to be his own. There was no ostentation here, no display, barely anything at all beyond a bed, a table, and a mat on which Kleos knelt, apparently deep in prayer or thought.

Nerra waited for him to finish, standing in the doorway, trying to remain patient in spite of what she’d heard. Her hands clenched and unclenched, working with the urge to rush forward and grab him by the shoulder. She forced herself to stay still and wait with an effort.

“Yes, Nerra?” Kleos said, without turning round.

“Tell me about the temple fountain,” Nerra said.

She heard the older man sigh. “You’ve heard that story, then.”

“Lina mentioned it,” Nerra said.

Kleos turned to her, looking at her with pity, but also with a kind of determination. “And now you’re wondering why I am not sending everyone here to drink those waters?”

“I… yes,” Nerra admitted. If something like that existed, why wouldn’t everyone know? Why weren’t all those like her being sent to be cured?

“Because the story is not true,” Kleos said. “There is a temple, and there are waters, but those waters are not a cure.”

“But why?” Nerra said. “Why is there even a story?”

Kleos moved back to sit at the table there. “It is hard to be sure,” he said. “It is said that the temple was once intended to be an attempt to cure the sickness, back in the days when dragons were more common outside of Sarrass. It is even said that it worked, although I am not sure if I believe that. I do know that the waters were cursed.”

“Cursed?” Nerra said. “You don’t believe in healing waters, but you believe in curses?”

“I’ve seen enough evidence of this one,” Kleos said. “The waters are death, Nerra. I have seen dozens, hundreds, try them. All have died.”

“So they’re poisoned?” Nerra asked. Instantly, she found herself thinking of the herbs she knew so much about, and the ways the world held to counter poisons.

“Not poisoned, cursed,” Kleos said. He sighed again. “These are stories out of the oldest days, half-remembered things. Some say that dragons ruled in those days, or those who sided with them, it is not clear. Some say that the Slate River only exists because of dragon fire in the wars to be rid of that rule. Those were days of things that could not happen now.”

“Like a fountain to cure the sickness, and a curse to stop it working?” Nerra said.

Kleos nodded. “The stories say that a sorcerer worked magic on it. That he proclaimed that those who drank would die mad, twisted, torn apart.”

Nerra paused, considering those words.

“And now you’re wondering if the cure might be worth the risk,” Kleos said. He shook his head. “Believe me, girl, there’s no cure.”

“How can you be so sure?” Nerra asked.

“Because I’ve seen all the others who were certain that they would survive,” Kleos snapped back. “Do you think that everyone else doesn’t think they might be special, that they might be the one to break the chain of endless death? They go, one after another. Many of them die on the way, because that way is hard.”

“And the ones who don’t?” Nerra asked. She had to hear it.

“They drink, and they die,” Kleos said. “Their bodies twist into horrific things, and their minds are worse by the end. They die screaming and raging, their own bodies turned into weapons against them. The same way you will die if you try this.”

He made it sound as certain as the sun rising.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Nerra asked. “Just sit here and wait to change so much that you kill me?”

“You’re meant to live out your life,” Kleos said. “To make the most of the limited time that you still have. To prepare yourself for what will, inevitably, come.” He paused for a few seconds. “Do you want to know what I believe about the temple? I believe that the stories of a cure were created for those who could not do that, for the ones who couldn’t find peace. I think the fountain was put there as a way out for them, as a way to think they were helping themselves even while they died. Do not be so foolish. You still have time; live in it.”

Live in it. That was easy to say when Kleos didn’t have the sickness that the rest of them had. When he was the one who killed them when they changed too far. Did he enjoy that part? Would he enjoy cutting Nerra’s throat when the time came?

“Promise me,” Kleos said. “Promise me that you won’t seek out the temple.”

“I promise,” Nerra said, but even as she did so, she knew she was lying.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

As she and Odd came into sight of the largest bridge to the south, Erin barely slowed. She raced toward it, Odd’s mule struggling to keep up in the wake of her horse. She charged down toward the bridge, and it was only as she reached it that she slowed, stopped, dismounted.

Dead men lay around the start of the bridge’s span, wearing the uniforms of her family’s men, clearly cut down before they could react. Erin stared down at them, wondering what it must have been like for them to be cut down so suddenly.

“They came this way then,” Odd said, dropping down from his mule. “There are more tracks, too. A second force went this way afterwards.”

He pointed, and Erin could see what he meant. Although with one of the great bridges, it was hard to truly tell when people had gone across. Erin was more interested in the fact that Odd could pick apart the tracks so easily. He’d mentioned being a former knight, but Erin still didn’t have the first clue who he was. He was just… Odd.

“We need to cross,” Erin said.

Odd nodded. “If that’s where your sister is, that’s where we have to go.”

Erin frowned at that. “No speech about how this is too dangerous, or about how angry the king will be if his knights start raiding across the bridges and start a war?”

“War is coming anyway,” Odd said. “And I… I have a poor record of listening to those I should.”

He set out over the bridge on foot, leading his by now exhausted mule. He paused by one of the slain guards, closing his staring eyes, but also lifting the man’s short bow and a quiver of arrows. Taking her cue from him, Erin did the same with a crossbow.

“A real bow is better,” Odd said. “Crossbows hit harder, but an archer with the skill to do it can send six arrows flying for every bolt they fire.”

“A crossbow is what’s here,” Erin pointed out. Did this strange man think he was her teacher now?

“True,” Odd said, and kept going across the bridge’s broad span.

Erin had never been across the Slate before. The bridge between its shores was wide enough that it seemed to take an age to walk it, its wooden slats creaking beneath her feet. She supposed that she should have felt some security in that instability, in the power of the Slate to keep the two kingdoms apart. Yet, from what Odd had said, even that wasn’t enough anymore.

Who was this man who was not a knight, or a monk, but both and less all at once?

There was no answer to that, so Erin kept leading her horse. She was most of the way across when she saw figures emerge from the trees on the far shore. There was a chasing cluster of horsemen, dressed in the colors of King Ravin, but Erin was more interested in the figure riding out in front of them, racing ahead of the chasing pack for her life.

“Lenore!” Erin called out. It was too far for her sister to hear her, but Erin shouted it anyway. She started forward toward her sister, horse moving at a flat run now, Odd following in her wake.

The distance between them closed quickly. Erin could see every detail of her sister’s face, see the fear there, but also the determination. She saw one of the chasing pack of riders getting closer, breaking from the pack. She raised her crossbow and fired it, saw the bolt arc out and slam into the man’s chest. He toppled, and Erin kept riding.

She reached Lenore and wheeled her horse, all three stopping for a second. Lenore was staring at her, in obvious shock that her sister was there, but where else in the world would Erin be when Lenore was in danger?

“Erin? How… how are you here?” Lenore asked.

“I’m here to help you,” Erin said.

Beside her, Odd raised his bow. He fired once, nocked another arrow, then fired again. Horses toppled among the chasing pack.

“We need to go,” he said. “Reunions later.”

“We could hold here,” Erin said. “Give Lenore time to—”

“No,” Lenore said. “That’s what Rodry did!”

“Rodry?” Erin said.

“Rodry…” Lenore looked pale, shaking her head in grief. “He came to save me. He fought to get me out, and… he’s dead, Erin. He’s dead.”

Grief hit Erin like a punch to the stomach. She felt as though she might fall from the saddle, the whole world starting to curl inward around her. She sat there blankly, not comprehending…

Then Odd slapped the side of her helmet, hard enough to make it ring. “There is no time for this,” he yelled at her. “No time for grief, no time for hesitation. No time even for me to ask why your entire family seems to have the names of King Godwin’s children! We need to go.”

Erin nodded, and wheeled her horse back toward the bridge, alongside Lenore and Odd. They galloped at full pelt, but a single glance back over her shoulder told her that the men there were closing, even though they were almost at the bridge. Erin could feel the slats of the bridge under her horse’s hooves now, but the men didn’t stop. One was ahead of the others, an axe raised…

Odd was there, sword in hand, intercepting it and knocking the man from his saddle, off into the waters below. Erin saw Odd leap down, letting his mule keep running.

“We need to face them,” he called. “We can’t run fast enough over the bridge. They’ll just cut us down.”

Erin dropped down beside him, onto the slats of the bridge, turning to face the onrush of enemies.

“At least you didn’t tell me to keep running,” Erin said, as she readied her spear.

“And face all those alone?” Odd countered, nodding to the horsemen approaching, slowing as they came to the bridge. “I might be called mad, but I’m not stupid.”

Erin looked at the group there. There had to be twenty of them, but the bridge was narrow enough that only a few of them would be able to fit onto the bridge side by side to fight.

“How do we do this?” Erin asked.

Odd frowned at her. “What’s to understand? We fight them, we kill them, we back away step by step until we cross this thrice damned bridge.”

Erin looked at the slow advance of the men there. “Why aren’t they coming faster?”

Odd shrugged. “No one wants to die first.”

That didn’t last long though. The riders came forward, the first of them obviously confident that they could ride down a girl and a monk with ease. He swung at Erin and she turned the blow away, thrusting up with her spear into his ribs and toppling him into the waters beyond the bridge.

Another was already striking at Odd. He swayed back from the cut, dragged the man from his saddle, and killed him with a downward thrust of his sword before backing away a few more paces.

They came on foot then, obviously realizing that without the advantage of space, horses wouldn’t work. They came in tight formation, three wide, thrusting and cutting with swords and spears while Erin and Odd gave ground.

Erin blocked one blow, kicked at a man’s knee and stepped back. Odd hacked a man’s head from his shoulders, pushed another by his shield into the water. Erin caught another blow that was aimed at his heart as he did it, and he grinned at her before cutting open a soldier’s throat.

Erin glanced back to see how Lenore was escaping. She saw her sister waiting at the far shore now, clear of the fight but making no move to keep moving further back. She clearly wasn’t going to just run and leave them—

Odd caught a sword blow just in front of her face. “Focus! Unless you want to lose your head?”

Erin stabbed another of the attacking troops in answer. It was getting worse now, because she could see a whole cluster of infantry coming in from the trees now, too many to ever fight. All she and Odd could do was keep killing, and keep giving ground.

Odd fought with speed and power, but also a seeming lack of care. He didn’t hide behind his defenses like many warriors, but threw himself into cuts like a whirlwind. Erin found herself fitting into the rhythm of his attacks, striking in the spaces that he left, trying to cover any openings. Her armor protected her as a sword glanced from it, her buckler took a blow from an axe. Both of them took wounds though. Erin felt the impact of every blow that landed, even if her armor stopped her from being cut in half. Odd seemed to be bleeding from a dozen places, even though at least that many men lay dead in his wake.

They both gave ground, step by step. They were running out of ground to give, though. It should have been a good thing that they were getting closer and closer to the Northern Kingdom’s shore, closer to home, and to safety. The problem was that, for now, the bridge was safety. The bridge was the thing that meant that the soldiers before Erin and Odd couldn’t surround them, couldn’t spread out and overwhelm them with their numbers.

“We’re running out of room,” Erin said, with a nervous glance back at the end of the bridge.

“So we hold them back at the edge of the bridge and kill all of them,” Odd said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Did he actually believe that? Did he actually think that they could stand there and kill King Ravin’s armies one by one?