Trysten looked up into the fluttering leaves. The grove of aspen was replaced by pine a little farther down the slope. She preferred the aspen with their flat leaves that let the light through. The forest floor beneath the pine was darker and more secretive. Trysten reached out for Ulbeg again. He was nearby. Her sense of him was muted for some reason, but she could tell he was not far ahead. His longing pulled at her like she was a fish on a hook.
“Egrara shassit,” a man’s voice rang out.
Trysten and Kaylar froze.
“Fale. Fale metrip.”
Slowly, Trysten and Kaylar turned around. A man stood beside the trunk of a large tree. He held a notched arrow at them.
“He’s speaking Western,” Kaylar said quietly.
“I heard,” Trysten said.
Recognition flooded the man’s face.
“You’re not Opples?” the man asked.
“Opples?” Trysten asked. “You mean we’re not from Opplenot?”
Another man spoke up behind them. “Not if you speak the coward king’s tongue.”
Trysten looked over her shoulder. The second man dropped from the canopy and landed in a crouch upon the forest floor. His left hand drew a short sword from his belt. Trysten’s eyes widened at the sight of his left hand, covered in a tattoo. The tattoo was an image of a dark hand that covered the man’s hand from wrist to fingertips. Like one figure right behind another.
Trysten’s heart hammered in her chest. Her mouth went dry.
“What are a couple of Cads doing all the way out here?” the tattooed man asked. “You’re a long way away from the coward’s comforts.”
Trysten’s gaze dodged to the man’s right hand, but he held it at his side, and from her angle, she couldn’t see it, other than to know that it, too, was colored with ink.
“We’re looking for a friend,” Trysten said. “Lost in the woods.”
The tattooed man grinned. “Well lucky for you, we’re all friends out here.” He looked up slightly and clucked. The branches above him stirred, and a man and a woman dropped out of the canopy. Neither of them had tattoos, but they didn’t look any more friendly than the first two men.
Finally, a little, olive green dragon with a gray belly dropped out of the tree and landed on the tattooed man’s shoulders. Hardly larger than a dog, the wild dragon wrapped his tail around the man’s right arm. His claws dug into thick padding on the shoulders of the man’s vest.
“Where did you learn the Western tongue?” Trysten asked.
The man with the wild dragon grinned. “Why, we’re well-educated out here. Quite cultured.” He shot a glare at the man who had dropped out of the tree after him. “Jonatan! Why haven’t you bowed yet to these ladies, you fat cur!”
Jonatan snapped to attention, then bent at the waste in an exaggerated bow as the others chuckled.
The leaves above rustled. Trysten took her eyes off the rogues long enough to risk a glance up. Wild dragons slipped from branch to branch. Some of them scampered up or down the trunks of the trees. None of them was larger than the one perched on the man’s shoulders.
As far as Trysten knew, wild dragons weren’t supposed to bond to a human. They were thought to be solitary creatures that gathered together in loose hordes.
“Well,” Trysten said with a nod. “Thank you. It was a pleasure to meet you and your friends. Now if you will please excuse us, we really must get back to looking for our friend.”
She took a step forward. The tattooed man stepped in her path and raised his chin. The wild dragon upon his shoulder shifted and lowered his head, His forked tongue flicked out at Trysten, teasing or warning.
“Now wait just a minute,” the tattooed man said as he held up an open hand. “I’m a bit hurt that you haven’t even had a chance to turn down our offer of hospitality.” His right hand went to his chest, and Trysten steeled herself at the sight. The man’s right hand was covered in the tattoo of a dragon’s claw, its fingers stretching out along his own. He was a Stroll.
“We’re every bit as concerned about being good hosts as you are in the mother city,” the Stroll said.
“I’m not from the mother city. I am Trysten of Aerona.” She held her tongue, and there her title sat, unspoken for now.
“Of Aerona,” the man said with an exaggerated look of awe and surprise. He peered at the other. “Did you deaf mullibocks hear that? This one is of Uh-rona.”
The man behind them let out a low whistle.
“We’ve heard some amazing things lately,” the tattooed man said. “Things about Aerona.”
“Is that so?” Kaylar asked.
“Ha!” the woman barked. “That one speaks, too!”
Kaylar stepped toward the woman.
“Kaylar,” Trysten warned.
“Ah!” the tattooed man said. “Ah-hah!” He wagged a finger at her. “You see that? You saw that, right?” He looked at the others. “The way this one, the way Tris-ten of Uh-rona commanded the other one to stop. They’re soldiers.”
“Really?” Jonatan spat. “You mean you couldn’t tell by their armor and armament?”
“That could have been pillaged off the body of any dead Opple,” the tattooed man shot back with a glare. “But it’s her mannerisms that tell us who she is. What she is.” A sly grin spread over his face.
Trysten’s hand went to the hilt of her sword. “We really have to go now.”
“So,” the tattooed man went on. “The coward king has finally heard through his haze of mead and meat that an army has been amassing in the woods, eh? Sent out a couple of spies to confirm the rumors. Well, then, you two are in luck.”
He returned his sword to his belt, then held his arms wide. “We are loyal men to the last. Subjects of the coward king, at your service. And we are here to tell you that the rumors are indeed true. True as the day is long, steady as a dragon’s wings.”
“Yes,” Trysten said with a nod. “I noticed that you, or at least your friend back there, speak the Western tongue. We are in need of a translator. Perhaps we can arrange for his services?”
“A translator?” the tattooed man said. “Whatever for?”
“We want to speak to the Western soldiers.”
An amused grin spread over the tattooed man’s face. The wild dragon’s claws flexed on his shoulder, but he seemed not to notice.
“Speak to them? Why, my dear lady, they are not in the mood to speak to you. They are in the mood to kill you. You’re fortunate that Holder here didn’t plug you upon sight.” He gestured toward the first man they’d encountered.
“Remind me to thank you later,” Trysten said in a deadpan over her shoulder.
The tattooed man shook his head. “There is no speaking to the Opples, and so a translator wouldn’t do you the least bit of good. You and your translator would simply be killed for your troubles.”
Trysten considered his words, his warning. She held her tongue about Rodden.
“Why are they here?” Trysten asked.
A sly smile spread over the Stroll’s scraggly, unshaven cheeks. “They are here so that you may come and find out the reason. That is the order of things. There are answers, and so you must come with questions.” The man threaded his fingers together, dragon claw and human hand entwining.
Trysten stiffened. “I’m not in the mood for riddles.”
“Pity,” the tattooed man said softly. “For I love me a good riddle.”
The wild dragon shifted and flicked his right wing out, then looked up. He hissed and crouched a bit along the man’s shoulders.
He looked up. So did everyone else.
“Dragons,” Holder spat, as Elevera and Verillium sailed noiselessly overhead.
The tattooed man looked back to Trysten. “Your friends can’t get to you down here, can they?”
“We’re all friends down here, right?” Trysten said.
A grin cocked up half the man’s face. His lips pulled slowly away from his discolored and crooked teeth. “Indeed. Now, as a to
ken of your friendship, I’d advise you to lay that pretty sword and that handsome bow at your feet.”
Trysten gripped the hilt of the dragonslayer sword. “That’s not very friendly.”
“Then call it a tax. Tell the coward king that I’ve collected it for him, and he’s welcome to bring his yellow self out here to claim it whenever he wishes.”
The tattooed man pulled his sword again. Holder’s bow creaked with tension.
Trysten took a deep breath and searched through the woods in her mind. The wild dragons were there. She could sense them. Like shadows, hidden all throughout the trees.
“I’m not from the mother city,” Trysten said meeting the Stroll’s glare. “I told you as much. And I won’t be going there any time soon to deliver your message. My place is here. I am the Dragoneer of Aerona weyr.”
“Oooh!” the tattooed man said in a mock coo. “A dragon-eer!”
At that moment, fire erupted downward through the canopy. The wild dragons burst into a frenzy of screeching. Holder’s arrow zipped past Trysten’s shoulder and off into the woods as everyone except her ducked. She drew the dragonslayer sword and lunged forward, swinging.
The wild dragon leaped from the man’s shoulders with a cry and bolted into the trees. The edge of the sword nearly sliced the man open as he tucked into a ball and rolled backward before leaping to his feet several yards away. He had dropped his sword in the excitement, and it lay at Trysten’s feet.
“Hold it!” Kaylar shouted from behind. “Stop!”
Stone crunched. Trysten swung around just as Jonatan lunged for her, his dagger raised. She swept her sword between herself and the man. As she did, three wild dragons shot down from the canopy. They snapped over him, claws raking his shoulders and arm. One dragon hit his cheek. He thrashed his arms about him and let out a scream before he stumbled, fell, and collapsed at Trysten’s feet.
Trysten glanced at Kaylar, then Holder. Holder was on his knees, arrow pointed at the ground as his eyes watched the canopy.
“Run!” Trysten shouted.
Kaylar unnotched her arrow and turned to run. Holder, reminded of her presence, drew up his own arrow, ready to strike Kaylar in the back.
Four wild dragons dropped from the canopy, screeching in a blur of brown and green, gray and yellow. Holder’s arrow skipped off into the woods before he started swatting at the diving dragons, dodging their talons.
Trysten ran as the tattooed man yelled after her. He screamed something she didn’t understand, and then called for the others to get them.
Kaylar had a lead of a few feet. She bounded down the side of the hill, leaping over stones and nearly lost her footing. Her arms pinwheeled as she found her feet again.
Trysten didn’t dare glance back at their pursuers. The scrabble of dirt and rocks let her know that that they were there, and that they were gaining ground. They had to be much more used to the terrain than Kaylar and herself.
A ball of screeching erupted behind her. A man yelled. Screamed.
“Jonatan!” a woman yelled.
A stone slipped from underneath Trysten’s heel. Her foot shot out from under her, and she crashed to the ground. The dragonslayer sword slipped from her hand as she rolled on the hillside and slammed into a tree that knocked the wind from her.
“Trysten!” Kaylar shouted.
Trysten coughed. She gasped and tasted dirt and dust, some pungent odor. She rolled away from the trunk she had landed against. Her rib cage throbbed in such pain as to make her dizzy. A wave of nausea passed through her.
Ahead, Holder stopped. He notched an arrow and took aim at Trysten.
Thwip.
Holder’s arrow went wide. He threw his head back in a scream. His bow fell from his hands as he reached to clutch his thigh.
Gray fletchings quivered at the end of an arrow that protruded from his thigh.
“Come on,” Kaylar said as she stomped up to Trysten.
“Sword,” Trysten gasped.
Kaylar looked around. “Found it.”
She stepped away, then returned with the weapon clutched in her hand. It looked both ghastly and ridiculous in her hands.
Trysten took the sword and slipped it back into the scabbard as the tattooed man emerged from the cover of the canopy. Blood streaked from a gash across his brow. It ran down the bridge of his nose and formed a smear across his cheek where it had been wiped away.
He stopped beside Holder, then looked down at the man who appeared to be working up the courage needed to snap the arrow shaft off above his flesh.
The tattooed man pointed at Trysten with his right index finger. The claw of the dragon was visible on the back of his hand.
Trysten turned and hurried down the hillside, grimacing at the pain in her ribs and shoulder. Above, the canopy rippled and cracked with a horde of wild dragons chasing after her like a score of sprightly shadows.
Chapter 18
“I think they’ve had enough of us,” Kaylar said after a glance over her shoulder.
Trysten leaned against the trunk of a pine, her hand in a puddle of sap. She grimaced at the stickiness as it spread across her palm. “Fish and birds,” she murmured. She pulled her hand away, and then looked over her shoulder.
There was no sign that they were being followed. At least not by people.
Above, the wild dragons perched in the boughs of the pines and stared down at Trysten. Lowest among the branches was the dark green one with the gray belly that had perched on the tattooed man’s shoulders.
“Can we keep them?” Kaylar asked. “Please?”
Despite the pain coursing through her, Trysten grinned. “They’re wild dragons. No one keeps them.”
“Oh? That green one looked very much like a pet on that creepy man’s shoulders.”
Trysten stared into the cat-like eyes of the wild dragon. He cocked his head at her. She tried to sense him like she could battle dragons, but there was nothing distinct she could identify. Whatever it was wild dragons thought or felt, she could sense they were thinking it and feeling it, but she couldn’t know it like she could with the domesticated battle dragons.
“Thank you,” Trysten said to the wild ones. “For your help.”
“How far away is Ulbeg?” Kaylar asked.
Trysten turned her attention to the hillside beneath them. She started to take a deep breath, and then winced at the pain. “Close.”
“What was up with those creeps, do you think?” Kaylar asked as she surveyed the hill behind them. “That one spoke Western.”
Trysten nodded. “Yeah, but it didn’t seem like they had much use for the Westerners.”
Kaylar scoffed. “Who does?”
“A better question,” Trysten said through a grimace as she tested her weight on her ankle, “is why are there enough Western soldiers out here for it to even be an issue?”
Kaylar didn’t respond right away. “Good point. We’re pretty far south of their staging area.”
“Are we?”
“What do you mean?”
“When I tried to get Rodden to tell me where the army came from, he pointed to an area on the map south of the Gul Pass. And the horde that came through the pass this morning turned to the south.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Kaylar said with a shake of her head. “Unless they’re coming up from the Sonjah Pass. Do you think that’s why they destroyed Hollin? So that they could move the army through the pass down there?”
“Except that the army has been in Cadwaller for more than a year, remember? There’s no way they could have come through the mountain pass anywhere and built those spear launchers between the time the passes opened up and the time they attacked.”
Kaylar nodded. “So Hollin would still have been around.”
“Exactly. And though they may not have noticed an army coming through, because you can’t see the Sonjah Pass from Hollin any more than we can see the Gul Pass from Aerona, it still seems unlikely that they would come through the mountains there
when they planned to march to Aerona. Dealing with The Wilds would be a challenge.”
“But the wildmen said the soldiers were here,” Kaylar said, looking around as if she might see one lingering nearby.
“I don’t know,” Trysten said. “They’re not exactly trustworthy sources of information. They tried to rob us. By the way, excellent shot back there.”
“I wasn’t aiming for his thigh,” Kaylar growled.
Trysten focused on the ground in front of her, trying to walk off the pain in her ankle. It still hurt a great deal, but she shuffled along on it, keeping it pliable. If she stopped, it might seize up. She looked at the canopy above and wished to see the bits of blue between the trees blotted out by the passing forms of Elevera and Verillium. Instead, she only caught glimpses of gray clouds eclipsed now and then by a darting wild dragon.
“Do you think they’ll follow us back to the weyr?” Kaylar asked. “The wild dragons, that is?”
Trysten sighed. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“They’re kind of cute.”
Trysten picked up her pace. The pain in her ankle flared, but the sensation became dulled slightly by the longing of Ulbeg. They were practically on top of him now.
“Ulbeg?” Trysten called.
The dragon’s longing grew in bounds and a wave of dizziness swept over Trysten.
“He’s right over here,” Trysten said, and walked as fast as she could to a stack of boulders a few hundred yards below them.
When they rounded the boulders, they found themselves stepping down into a long, thin yard in which the carpet of pine straw had largely been worn away or otherwise cleared. Ulbeg stood next to a tree, wearing his harness, his reins tied around the trunk of a sturdy pine growing between two boulders.
The courier dragon let out a pitiful cry and lowered his head as he flung his wings open.
Trysten sucked in a tight breath. Sadness and longing filled her and she grabbed Kaylar’s arm.
“Ulbeg!” Kaylar called.
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