Dragontiarna: Thieves

by Moeller, Jonathan

  DRAGONTIARNA: THIEVES

  Jonathan Moeller

  ***

  Description

  Ridmark Arban defended the town of Castarium from dark forces.

  But the Warden of Urd Morlemoch has other servants.

  Now a sinister cult is stirring in the great city of Cintarra, corrupting the lords of the realm as it searches for lost relics in ancient ruins.

  And if the cult finds what it seeks, worlds beyond count will burn...

  ***

  Dragontiarna: Thieves

  Copyright 2019 by Jonathan Moeller.

  Smashwords Edition.

  Cover design by Clarissa Yeo.

  Ebook edition published October 2019.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

  ***

  A brief author’s note

  At the end of this book, you will find a Glossary of Characters and a Glossary of Locations listing all the major characters and locations in this book.

  A map of the realm of Andomhaim is available on the author’s website at this link (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4487).

  A map of the Empire is available on the author's website at this link (https://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=10514).

  ***

  Chapter 1: The Gate of the Shield Knight

  Ten days after it began, ten days after the day in the Year of Our Lord 1491 when the sky ripped open, and the dragons returned, Ridmark Arban braced himself.

  This wasn’t going to be pleasant. It wouldn’t hurt Ridmark or inflict any harm. Indeed, it wouldn’t even be all that difficult in the end.

  But it was still a strange and unsettling experience.

  He turned and looked back at the town of Castarium and the waiting force.

  High King Arandar Pendragon had selected a small army to accompany his son to Cintarra. A thousand men-at-arms and five hundred knights with their horses would escort Crown Prince Accolon Pendragon. They made a formidable force, one capable of defending Andomhaim’s borders from all but the most powerful raiders.

  Ridmark hoped they would be enough.

  That force did not go to defend Andomhaim from external threats but from internal foes. Matters were not right in Cintarra, the largest city in Andomhaim. The commoners and freeholders had been driven from their farms, their lands enclosed to create grazing pastures for sheep. The Regency Council that ruled in the name of the child Prince Tywall Gwyrdragon was either indifferent to the chaos or profiting from it, and the city was on the edge of revolt.

  All that was bad enough, but something darker stirred with Cintarra. A cult called the Drakocenti had arisen within the city, and they had tried to murder Crown Prince Accolon. The murder had been planned far enough in advance that the Drakocenti had killed Accolon’s mistress Caitrin Rhosmor to lure the crown prince to Castarium. Grieving from her death, and believing himself responsible for her suicide, Accolon would not have seen the blow coming.

  If not for a young man Ridmark had recruited as a soldier, Accolon would have perished.

  And now Accolon was going to Cintarra, with full authority from his father to investigate and issue decrees. He might need the thousand men-at-arms and five hundred knights to back up his authority, to convince the proud merchants and nobles of Cintarra to obey.

  But if the Cintarran lords decided to defy the Crown Prince…

  Ridmark had seen one civil war in Andomhaim and a second in Owyllain. He had no wish to see a third.

  He looked past the gathering men to the stone walls of Castarium. The town stood on a peninsula jutting into the ocean, surrounded by the sea on three sides. Castarium looked peaceful, but Ridmark saw the charred buildings where the goblins had set fires during their attacks. The town had withstood the attack of the Signifier’s soldiers, but the victory had not been without cost.

  Such things never were.

  But perhaps Ridmark and the others could keep worse things from happening. Thousands had died in both Andomhaim’s and Owyllain’s civil wars. Maybe they could stop it from happening again.

  Ridmark turned and walked towards the standardbearers. Two horsemen rode at the front of the small army. One carried Ridmark’s own banner, the one he had taken when he had agreed to become Comes of Castarium. It was a field of blue adorned with a sigil of a silver shield. The second horseman carried a lance with a larger banner, blue with a red dragon. It was the banner of the Pendragons, the royal house of Andomhaim.

  A small group of men and one woman stood near the banners.

  “We’re ready?” said Ridmark.

  “Aye, my lord,” said Vegetius, the decurion of Ridmark’s men-at-arms, a grizzled veteran soldier. Ridmark was only taking twenty of his own men to Cintarra, leaving the rest to hold Castarium against any attackers. Of course, Arandar had named Ridmark magister militum of the force, giving him the right to command any of the royal soldiers. “The entire column’s ready. We’ll be able to march everyone through the gate in a half-hour or so.”

  Ridmark nodded. “Good.” He thought he could hold the gate open for a half-hour, but he had never used the power to transport such a large force.

  “I suppose the better question is whether or not you’re ready for this,” said Calliande Arban, Ridmark’s wife. She was slender and blond, with a windswept sort of beauty and keen blue eyes. Today she wore her favored traveling clothes – a long green tunic, trousers, worn leather boots, and a green cloak. The ancient staff of the Keeper was in her right hand. Her expression was worried as she looked at him.

  “I’m ready,” said Ridmark.

  “We would be able to reach Cintarra in a week if we marched swiftly,” said Accolon Pendragon. The Crown Prince looked a great deal like his father, with the same hawk-like features and gray eyes. He had thick black hair, and there was a grimness to his expression that hadn’t been there before. Some of it was the soulblade that now rested on his belt. Hopesinger was a powerful weapon and bearing a soulblade sobered a man.

  But much of it was the dark truths that Accolon had learned in Castarium.

  Ridmark shook his head. “We could. But if we use the gate to reach Cintarra, it will give us a mighty advantage. I doubt any news of the battle of Castarium has reached Cintarra yet. If we arrive before the news, it will take the Drakocenti and any allies they have among the Regency Council off-guard.”

  “Very well, Lord Ridmark,” said Accolon. “I will heed your counsel.” He turned to another middle-aged knight, a grim-faced man with a facial scar that left his mouth turned in a constant sneer. “Sir Peter, are we ready?”

  “Aye, lord Prince,” said Sir Peter Vanius, one of the High King’s household knights and the commander of the force that Arandar had sent. Despite his battle-scarred appearance, he had a deep, mellifluous voice, and was something of an accomplished bard. “We’re ready. We can get the men and supplies through the gate as fast as you wish.” He shook his graying head. “It’ll be damned strange to march from Taliand to Cintarra in a half-hour.”

  Calliande smiled. “Would you rather walk, sir knight?”

  Peter snorted. “I’m too old a campaigner to turn down a chance to rest my feet, my lady. Even if it means walking through a magic hole in the air.”

  “Think of the song you’ll be able to make of the experience,” said Accolon.


  “Aye, but no one would believe it.”

  Ridmark looked at Calliande. “Where are the children?”

  “With Rhiain and Lucilla among the baggage wagons,” said Calliande. “They’ll be well guarded.”

  Ridmark nodded and walked to the north, Calliande following him. He moved perhaps twenty yards along the dusty road, stopping at where it turned west to follow the shore of Taliand to Cintarra. To the east, the road continued to the River Moradel and Tarlion, the chief city of the realm. Ridmark’s son Gareth was in Tarlion at the High King’s Citadel, serving as a page. Soon he would be a squire, learning the skills and arts necessary to become a knight of Andomhaim. He hoped that when Gareth came of age, Andomhaim would not face any dangers like the Frostborn or the Enlightened of Incariel. Ridmark could not control that, but perhaps he could ensure that the Drakocenti, whatever they really were, did not become as dangerous as the Enlightened had once been.

  “Will this spot work?” said Calliande.

  Ridmark shrugged. “One is as good as another.”

  He reached for his belt and drew his sword. Oathshield’s blade of blue metal flashed in the morning sun, as sharp as it had been on the day the high elven archmage Ardrhythain had given Ridmark the weapon. Most soulblades had a single soulstone set in the tang of the blade. Oathshield had two, one in the tang, another in the pommel. Unlike most soulblades, Oathshield let Ridmark summon the power of the Shield Knight, making him all but invincible for a few moments.

  And after his journey to Owyllain, the sword now let Ridmark open magical gates.

  That power had limitations. Ridmark could only open gates to places he had visited before, places he could see clearly in his mind’s eye. He did not have the rigorous mental discipline that wizards acquired through wielding magical forces, so he could not always target the gates accurately, and sometimes they appeared several miles from his intended destination. Though given that it was hundreds of miles from Castarium to Cintarra, a difference of five miles was trivial.

  And Ridmark could not hold the gates open for long. He could maintain them for about an hour, perhaps, if he concentrated and did nothing else.

  “All right,” said Calliande. “I will guide the gate with the Sight, and will help focus your will.”

  Ridmark nodded and rested Oathshield’s point on the ground, both hands grasping the sword’s hilt. Calliande laced her fingers around his, her eyes growing hazy as she drew upon her magical Sight. Ridmark took a deep breath, and then another, concentrating on his link to the soulblade, the bond that let him summon speed and strength. But as he did, he focused on the city of Cintarra, trying to remember the way the road leading to the city’s Great Northern Gate looked, the smell of the river, the noise of the horses on the road, the green grass waving in the sun.

  Oathshield shivered in his grasp, and Ridmark unlocked the power of the Shield Knight.

  But instead of armoring him, the power reached out and folded around itself.

  He could think of no other way to describe the sensation. The Guardian Rhodruthain had told Ridmark that magical gates were created by folding time and space upon each other, and Ridmark had no idea what that meant and knew the concept it was beyond his comprehension. But however the power functioned, it worked, and he saw a curtain of gray mist rise from the ground, about twenty feet high and twenty feet wide. The mist thickened and then became translucent. Beyond the mist, Ridmark should have seen the fields and villages north of Castarium.

  Instead, he saw the red stone walls of Cintarra, the largest city in Andomhaim.

  “The gate is open!” shouted Calliande. “Move quickly!”

  Both Vegetius and Sir Peter bellowed commands, and a second later Ridmark heard a low cacophony of noise – the tramp of boots, the neighing of horses, the cracking of reins, and the creaking of wagon wheels. He glanced to the south and saw the men-at-arms and knights moving forward, hurrying in an orderly line for the gate. Ridmark had emphasized that the men needed to move quickly, and Accolon, Vegetius, and Sir Peter had taken the instructions to heart.

  A wave of dizziness went through Ridmark, and he lowered his head and closed his eyes. The effort of holding the gate open was a strange feeling. It felt like lifting a heavy weight over his head, but with his thoughts instead of his arms. Perhaps the Magistri and the Arcanius Knights of Owyllain could grow used to the sensation, but Ridmark was not a wizard, and it would always feel bizarre to him.

  “Focus,” murmured Calliande, her voice soft. “Focus on my voice. Remember to breathe. As slowly and as deeply as you can. That will help keep the gate open for longer.”

  Ridmark said nothing and concentrated on breathing, the power of the Shield Knight thrumming through him.

  ###

  Niall of Ebor, who in the last month had gone from a landless commoner to a cattle thief to a prisoner to a man-at-arms in service to Lord Ridmark Arban, tried not to gape as the soldiers moved with haste.

  The assemblage of knights and men-at-arms that the High King and Dux Tormark had brought to reinforce Castarium had seemed like a vast force, an endless army. Yet Vegetius had assured him that it was but a tenth of the entire host of Andomhaim, should the entire strength of the realm gather in one place. But that had not happened since the days of the Frostborn war.

  Still, Niall found it very hard not to stare. He supposed that made him an unsophisticated rustic, as a few of Lord Ridmark’s men had joked, but that was still an astonishing number of men and horses and wagons gathered in one place.

  “Move your asses!” roared Vegetius. He had gotten a cudgel from somewhere and waved it over his head, using it to direct men and horses. Niall hadn’t yet seen him use it to strike a laggard, but he suspected that would happen before the day was done. “Move! If you’re not through the gate in a half-hour, you’re walking to Cintarra. And if you have to walk to Cintarra, then by God you’ll wish those red orcs had killed you before I’m done with you!”

  Niall, who had actually fought and killed some of the strange red-skinned orcs who had been raiding the lands near Cintarra, did not find that a credible threat. The men of Ebor had been traveling along the coast road when the red orcs had attacked. It had been a sharp fight, but they had driven off the red orcs at the cost of several lives. Few people believed the red orcs were real. He knew that Lord Ridmark and Lady Calliande did. The Keeper had sent her apprentice Antenora to search the archives of the Tower of the Keeper, to see if there was any mention of them there.

  Then again, as he watched Vegetius shout, Niall decided that he neither wanted to fight the red orcs again nor to get on the decurion’s ample bad side.

  “Horsemen first!” shouted Sir Peter. The knight’s voice was melodious and pleasant, but he could make it loud. “Then footmen, then wagons! Go!”

  The horsemen, footmen, and wagons started moving at once. But the horsemen were cantering, and even as Niall looked, the first of the knights rode through the strange gate that Lord Ridmark and the Keeper had opened. By the time the footmen reached the gate, all the horsemen would have passed through, and then the wagons would roll through the portal.

  Niall watched the horses with unease, but the animals moved through the gate without slowing. That was a good sign. He liked horses and sometimes thought them wiser than men. If there was anything dangerous about the gate, the horses would have flinched in fear or refused to ride through it, but the beasts did not slow.

  But a magical gate? Niall’s mind reeled a little at the prospect. He knew such things were real, of course. The Frostborn had come through a magical gate, and the distant ancestors of mankind had traveled through another gate from Old Earth. But that knowledge had no relevance to his daily life. Until a few weeks ago, Niall had seen magic only a few times. But during the battle of Castarium, he had seen rifts to another world, dragons, and the Keeper and her apprentice wielding mighty battle magic.

  Compared to that, a magical gate didn’t seem that unsettling.

  He still wasn’t
looking forward to walking through it, though. But Niall had sworn to Lord Ridmark as a man-at-arms, and that meant where the Shield Knight went, Niall would follow.

  He was still glad his aunt Rhiain was coming.

  Niall stood with Vegetius and Lord Ridmark’s other men-at-arms and watched the horsemen go through the gate, followed by the footmen. The High King’s men-at-arms were well-drilled and trained, and they jogged through the gate at speed. After them came the wagons carrying the supplies. Niall spotted his aunt Rhiain, a lean, proud-faced woman with long graying hair walking alongside the wagon holding Lady Calliande’s household supplies. Lord Ridmark’s son and daughter rode in the cart, and Niall had the sudden impression that the little girl was staring right at him. He stood up a little straighter as Rhiain passed, memories of lectures about his posture flashing through his mind. He supposed he looked quite different now, clad in chain mail and the blue tabard of Lord Ridmark’s men.

  Rhiain caught his eye, smiled, and winked at him, and Niall blinked in surprise. His aunt had never winked at him before. Then again, he had never been a sworn man-at-arms of a lord before.

  The final wagons vanished into the gate, and then Prince Accolon and Sir Peter rode through. The Prince made a commanding figure, stern-faced and lordly in his chain mail and tabard. Niall knew that Accolon was a kindly man. Rhiain always said that you could tell the quality of a lord by how he treated his servants, and the Crown Prince had never been anything but courteous. Yet something had hardened in Accolon, becoming stern and implacable.

  If more of those Drakocenti cultists were in Cintarra, Niall suspected, they were about to have some difficult days. But Niall could not blame the Prince for his fury. He had only heard the end of Abbot Caldorman’s gloating, taunting confession to Accolon, but the false abbot had murdered Prince Accolon’s mistress to draw him to Castarium.