The Dragon Knight and the Light

by D. C. Clemens

  What made the situation a precarious one wasn’t the cold rain, but our proximity to the oft contentious Iunt Delta. According to Eu-Sook, this broad wetland and the voluminous river that fed it was where the greatest concentration of Jegeru’s forces resided. Patrols on the water, in the air, and on foot watched for any signs of Wregor movement, and now I had to wonder what their orders consisted of. Had they closed all border crossings yet? Did they believe Wregor to be at war with them? Or were they still ignorant of the attacks?

  If someone spotted us trying to get into Wregor territory, what then? We couldn’t out fly war beasts on our laden, tired wings. And these same wings, even when fresh, could not hope to cross the expanse of the sea to skirt their attention. Supposing we did manage to elude Jegeru forces, Wregor soldiers waited on the other side, all of them charged with fending off enemy incursions. Some form of confrontation was likely going to be necessary somewhere along the border.

  Our time in the rain was spent planning the most effective route to avoid being overwhelmed if we met trouble. No one possessed a detailed map of the delta’s towns and fortresses, so much of we had to go on came from the memories of our allied riders. Gods, if the homeland they loved and defended was destined to be conquered by Advent or Wregor, then I needed to ensure their names would be commemorated in the accounts of my own kingdom. They certainly did not deserve to fight their own people.

  After learning everything applicable about the defenses here, we determined that the most sensible course of action was to fly at night and hug the shoreline. The delta’s bigger islands had a military presence, but we could still use the smaller islands to prevent foot soldiers from surrounding us with too great a force in the event airborne units coerced us from the sky. Although the delta brimmed with villages and patrols, we expected the clutter would work to our benefit. Heading farther north to a more uniform, exposed border offered less cover and places to exploit if and when somebody spotted us.

  Given that the calendar promised more moonlight in the coming days, we prayed that some cloud cover showed up when we made the attempt. We could send our whiptails higher than the standard air patrol, but a weary griffin carrying two people—even fairly dainty people—could not preserve such a height for long. Thinner air also meant harder flapping, leading to more wasted energy. Adding to the complications, an organized patrol schedule should always have several sentries higher than the customary altitude before switching with someone else after a short time.

  Flying low was our only realistic option. It conserved energy being in a thicker, richer sky and provided a better view of possible hideaways. Clarissa’s wonderful eyes should likewise bestow us with our best chance at dodging misunderstandings, so she would take point on Sechen’s mount. Still, she couldn’t see everywhere at once.

  The thunderstorm’s crux passed over, but showers continued to trickle in from the sea throughout the rest of the day and evening. Thus, using the beginning of night and the middle of a light downpour, we lifted off the ground. We moved west for several hours, doing our utmost to avoid the line of sight of any human on a ship or in a village. This led to a zigzagging pattern over the coastline that slowed our journey, though we expected it to take two days to cross the breadth of the delta no matter how swiftly we flew.

  The clouds emptied their reserves and broke apart rather quickly, unleashing a startling amount of moonlight in less time it took for a youth to disagree with their parent. To someone accustomed to the safety the darkness provided, midnight now looked little different from midday. Any hint of movement from below and above fluttered my heart. That flutter became a rigid, faster beat when an entire division of thirty griffins flying from west to east came into view.

  Mirroring Sechen’s whiptail, we dove to the nearest clump of tall grasses. On jumping into the waterlogged ground, I ordered for the not so low-key griffins to be unsummoned and for Ghevont to cast an illusion spell above everyone except for Clarissa, who needed to see beyond the ruse. No doubt they had a prana finder in their group, so all our precautions could be for naught if they flew low. We cowered into the weeds to make that harder, though I had to awkwardly lift my left boot to prevent it from sinking too much into the muck.

  I watched Clarissa’s cloaked head slowly turn as she tracked the division. She turned her body next as they passed on by. The longer nothing happened, the louder the marshland became. Croaking frogs, buzzing bugs, and the sloshing of water expressed how alive the area must have been the second we landed. The sounds may have calmed me, but despite the strong breeze, the marsh smelled stale. Those humming insects also seemed to find us as soon as I relaxed.

  Shaking his head free of a bothersome bug, Gerard asked me, “Should we rest awhile?”

  Checking that my boots had not sunk too much, I answered, “If we can find drier ground with better cover. Clarissa, get on Gerard’s shoulders and look around.”

  Standing up, the vampire said, “Ooo, I always wanted to be taller.” Clarissa climbed on to Gerard’s shoulders, who easily picked her up in the uneven, muddy ground. After completing a full rotation on her human platform, she pointed north and said, “There’s some trees not too far away. They might be on higher ground. I don’t see any other good options.”

  “All right. Let’s check it out.”

  Our feet trudged through the dense grass and slick mud. I leaned on Gerard’s right shoulder to keep the pressure off my left foot, which felt better, but best not to take needless risks.

  A few minutes later, Clarissa, from her place at the head of the line, looked back and declared in a loud hush, “It’s perfect!”

  Those ahead of me cleared away the grass to expose a good hiding place to accommodate us all. The midsized, grayish brown trees did not stand on higher ground, but much of their bundles of roots curled above the shallow water line. Circling the trees were the drooping branches that budded fuzzy, trim leaves, creating a delicate curtain we could hide behind. We couldn’t huddle together lest we overstrain the roots, thus obliging us to find our own secluded nooks to sit in.

  In defiance of the threat of discovery still in the middle of my mind, I felt serene enough to exhale and take in the nighttime babel. I was so relaxed, in fact, that a lizard the length of my pinky finger snuck on to my right shoulder by climbing down the tree trunk my back laid against. I’m sure it hoped to feast on one of the many gnats swarming me, and I hoped he had the stomach to accomplish the feat.

  Not that I needed more reminding of my friend, but the lizard sparked a memory of Aranath, which of course led to the lost dragon knight. No one had spoken of Mercer since I told Hanying to keep an eye out for him, and I knew it was because any mention of the dragon knight would have to include the spoken possibility that he did not escape Uratama. Then would come the unproven assertions that there was no need to worry, he would be showing up on the captain’s kingclaw any day now.

  I hated planning for the worst, but all of Orda was at stake. Even if we could depend on Mercer being with us when we called for the world’s aid, we could not depend on his legendary title any longer. It might be possible for him to someday refine what was left of his prana to summon Aranath again, but that would take years of training, years we did not have.

  He must have felt terrible for not being able to fight with his power intact. I expected he put too much blame on himself. I wanted to tell him that he wasn’t the only one who thought themselves inept, and that summoning a dragon did not define him among the gods and the people that cared about him. Indeed, he exposed the Advent without one. He saved us in Furubiro by sacrificing his sword and soul without a second thought, a selfless act I have yet to fully comprehend and appreciate with the pressure always on. I needed to change that. Gods give me the chance to mitigate any sense of failure he saddled himself with.

  I was in and out of consciousness for the remainder of the night, never quite entering the realm of dreams. Having to keep shifting my weight and slapping off an influx of insects were par
tly to blame, but the fact I was not that tired probably had more to do with it. Not to mention that my ears remained attuned to the sound of movement, whether that came from the rustling grasses, rippling water, or the beat of a wing.

  Going by Gerard’s childlike snoring, he experienced no trouble catching up on sleep. The riders slept easy as well, though apart from Eu-Sook’s somewhat wheezy breathing, no one announced their slumber as soundly as my green knight. I overhead Clarissa and Ghevont intermittently whispering to one another, but joining them required me to move, so I let them be.

  Morning light faced difficulty penetrating the canopy, keeping our hideaway shaded for a couple of hours longer than the dawn desired. The sunrise’s glow eventually slipped under my eyelids, eliminating the pretense that I had to yawn much less sleep. I stood up and decided to explore the thicket.

  As with all things, the thicket looked smaller from the sky, no bigger than a noblewoman’s garden. Not the case when on foot. I had to walk for ten minutes to get to the opposite side. Of course, it would have been quicker without the mud and my fastidious tiptoeing through the undergrowth. I stared out at the wetland from the thicket’s northern fringe, doing nothing but staring out for a few long moments.

  With no sign of patrols in the air or ground, I risked alerting a prana finder by casting my ward. The clear partition shrank as I brought my hands closer together, shrinking it not by evaporating the boundaries of the ward, but by condensing its entire form into a smaller space. As always, reducing the ward to the width of my shoulders gave the ward’s surface the appearance of an abstract glass etching. The frosted effect exaggerated itself the smaller I shrank it, as did its resistance.

  The principal objective of this technique was to help display the pureness of my holy prana. A crystal ward was easy to keep transparent at its standard size, but the thicker it became, the purer my prana needed to be to maintain that clarity. While I could get the ward to be as small as a hand mirror, its sheer density made it impossible to see through it. Lately, however, attaining brief gleams of clearness was happening more often.

  The tips of my fingers trembled as I held the ward’s compressed shape, inhaling and exhaling in long practiced breathing exercises. I thought of my mother between breaths. This technique was one of the few ways she continued her prana training. She too experienced difficulty getting her ward-mirror to clear up on most days, but in the rare occasions my goading worked, she would grow serious and get her bloated ward to be as unblemished as a child’s prayer. Mine currently looked like the prayer of a convict ready to hang—sullied but mournful.

  I squeezed the ward a hair tighter, causing its center to flash clear faster than my imagination could conjure. I lost control of the entire spell directly afterward. Watching my ward perish into the ether, I whispered, “Please help me, Mother. You taught me so well, but I need a little more help…”

  I sighed, knowing no immediate answer was coming. To be sure, Duality implied that the realm of the dead was well out of reach for mortal minds and words, and that even the gods were somehow prohibited from meddling with the dead once they guided their spirits to their new home. That vague passage always had me wondering about forces beyond the gods, forces even the most powerful of immortals needed to obey.

  Nevertheless, as I cast a second ward, my royal blood trusted that some small exception could be made for my entreaty. Although, if the supplication of a royal valkrean held any weight, then I’m certain Beatrice asking for Mother’s support had to have been heeded first. Who would she go to if she heard both our pleas? The thought of my departed mother needing to choose favorites from another realm humored me for a moment, then my mood only soured all the more.

  My focus broke when I heard smushed footsteps and clanging armor behind me. Allowing my barrier to dissolve, I said, “I know, I shouldn’t be out alone.”

  Gerard wrapped an arm around my waist. “You can be alone all you want, just say the word.”

  I turned to face him. Brushing back a lock of his hair, I said, “You know I’ll never do that.”

  “I also know your thoughts turn gloomy when you’re alone.”

  “Doesn’t everyone else’s?” I could feel the sadness in my smile.

  Gerard leaned in and laid his gentle lips on my forehead. After leaving them there for a perfect while, he said, “I’m here for you, Odet. Talk to me about anything.”

  “Even when it concerns my secret lovers?”

  His forehead rested on mine. “I’m trying to be serious.”

  “And by deflecting your seriousness, I’m assuring you that your presence alone has lifted my mental state.”

  “You sound like the scholar.”

  “What every princess wants to hear.”

  Separating his head from mine, he asked, “Now will you tell your knight what he wants to hear? I’m supposed to protect body, mind, and soul, you know, and training will only help to forget for a while.”

  “Aye, you’re right.”

  “So what do you want to get off your chest?”

  “You already guessed, I’m sure.”

  “Lady Vealora.”

  “That’s certainly a big part of it… I know I had no choice but to finish off the crazed woman, but still… to tell Owen I was the one to kill his mother… He’ll never look at me the same way again, no matter how understanding he may choose to be.”

  “Not if I tell him it was by my hand alone.”

  “That has crossed my mind. Actually, in my head it was Mercer who shouldered the burden. I don’t want Owen seeing you with contempt when the three of us are together.”

  “In that case, we might as well say Captain Shao, Eu-Sook, or a nameless stranger ended her suffering. The dragon knight has enough burdens.”

  “Is it odd that I think that option is too impersonal?”

  “Uh, a little. You want Owen to know the person who killed his mother?”

  “Ugh, I don’t know. I should just face the music myself.”

  “Well, I don’t mind being your replacement if it comes to that.”

  “Thank you. I suppose I won’t really know what to do until I see him.”

  He nodded, then glanced downward. “How’s your foot?”

  “The wrappings are holding tight and I’ve been keeping them dry.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  I frowned. “Well, it still stings, but that’s from Ghevont’s salve more than anything. Give it time. Not everyone can concoct potions like you. Remember the ‘love’ potion you gave me?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Oh gods. If I knew that was going to lead to our first real kiss, I would have come up with something less hackneyed.”

  “But then it probably wouldn’t have worked.”

  “No, no, I would have thought of something grand. You would have been under the stars, not under the stairs. I definitely wouldn’t have been in my armor. I would have preferred to feel your hands on me.”

  “But they’ve pretty much been everywhere since then.”

  “Careful there, we’ll both be out of our clothes in this stinking swamp if you keep reminding me of such things.”

  “Maybe some fun in a dirty, stinking swamp is what I need right now.”

  “The others will surely hear us.”

  “Maybe I want them to watch. Hmm, perhaps even join us.”

  “Even the griffins? I suppose we can use one as a bed of sorts.”

  “How obscene… but let’s see what happens.”

  We kissed with more intensity than we had since leaving Alslana. Truthfully, we might have progressed quite a bit further than that if we were anywhere but a swamp. The best we could do was stretch that one kiss for as long as nature allowed… except it still ended well before then.

  Pulling away, Gerard asked, “Do you hear that?”

  My annoyance at the sudden ending of my carnal enjoyment turned to grim vigilance. We stood as motionless as two people trying really hard to hear something
in a swamp. I originally only heard the breeze and the plants it rustled. However, that same wind ultimately conveyed the far-flung neighing and braying of horses and mules to us. Now that I heard them, not even the stronger gusts could blow away their tumult.

  “It sounds like more than a handful,” I said.

  “I agree.” He crouched. “Get on my shoulders.”

  I was several feet taller seconds later, getting a better view of the world to the north. Hovering my hand over my squinting eyes, I recognized a long column of cavalry marching to the east.

  “Well?”

  “Armored horsemen.”

  “Are they heading this way?”

  “No, they’re going east.”

  “East? Are they Wregor forces?”

  “They’re too far to tell for certain, but I doubt it. We should be in the middle of a battle right now if Wregor invaded.”

  “Then Jegeru is recalling its border armies. That griffin division last night must have been a part of that. Somebody is desperate.”

  “Or misinformed.”

  “Same result.” He retreated into the thicket with me still on top. “Let’s get back to the others.”

  “Hey, put me down. Someone might see me.”

  The knight leaned forward and to his right. I slipped off, but he caught me midway and effortlessly brought my whole body in front of him so that I now laid in his arms. My hands entwined behind his head as I accepted the fact he wasn’t going to let me walk on only one healthy foot. I didn’t feel like walking anyway.

  Once our camp received word of what we saw, two riders offered to keep a lookout at the north side with Gerard. Shortly after they left, I noticed the sporadic dimming of sunlight coming from a cloudless sky. It turned out to be squadrons of flying beasts making their way east. So many defenders leaving might have been bad news for Jegeru’s state, but it should at least make it easier for us to cross undetected.

  The divisions flew in a day that became crisper throughout. It didn’t get as cool as the vampire’s skin, but for someone from my pleasant climate, this early sign of autumn gave me a shiver. Moving around and stepping out from the shade warmed me up some.