When Claws and Swords Collide

by N M Zoltack

  Or had shared nothing of importance with Greta.

  “Please send for Tiberius Davis. Do not tell him he is to see me. It… It will not do for my chances of proving my innocence if too many learn I am locked away here. Please, Pate, I need your assistance."

  The guard nods, his hook nose almost touching one of the bars. “I will go,” he promised.

  And he left.

  Greta stepped back into the shadows and turned around before allowing her lips to curl into a smirk.

  But hours passed. A day and then another and another. Although Pate would come and talk to her, flirt with her even, he never brought anyone to see her.

  Tiberius Davis never came.

  But those hours and days? They were not wasted. Greta plotted and plotted.

  Revenge would be hers even if she could trust no one other than herself.

  3

  Prince Marcellus Gallus

  The Prince of Vincana wasn’t sure which confused him more.

  The young warrior in front of him or the massive winged beast flying about the battlefield.

  It could not be.

  Neither of them could be.

  He had taken notice of the young warrior almost as soon as the battle started. Long, dark hair, dark blue eyes… She was a female. A female fighting for Tenoch.

  Vincana had a long, proud history of training both men and women to be warriors. All were soldiers in their military. Unlike the ignorant beings from Tenoch, Vincanans knew and understood and respected the might of women. If trained, a woman could be every bit as formidable and powerful as a male. Pound for pound, muscle for muscle, a woman could not compete, no, but with training, footwork, skill, practice, and precision perfect form, a woman could hold her own and even survive against a larger man.

  So he fought and tried to get closer to her until he realized two things.

  He had danced with her in the castle. She was the princess, the one thought to be lost.

  And he knew where she had been hiding.

  As a spy.

  In Vincana.

  Learning and studying with their females, his female warriors. Why? The answer was clear as day.

  She meant to learn his swordplay, his methods, to try to kill him.

  She would not succeed.

  They fought, and Marcellus, more or less, teased her, fighting her offensively, not allowing her a chance to counterattack. She was skilled, though, and she hadn't tired easily, and with training and hard work ethic—both of which she already had demonstrated—she would actually prove to be worthy of the rank of Valkyrie, the highest position a woman warrior could hold in the Vincanan army.

  Except she wasn’t Vincanan.

  Or perhaps not only from Tenoch.

  When a Valkyrie crept up behind Vivian, perhaps recognizing her or erroneously thinking Marcellus could not handle the opponent, Marcellus shocked himself by pulling her to safety. He would be the one to decide when she would die. A cowardly death by stabbing through the back would not be for the likes of Princess Vivian Rivera, also known as Cateline.

  Darkness descended, but he felt no fear that the princess would attack him while they were blinded.

  And then, the darkness ended as quickly as it appeared, and when he looked up, expecting to see clouds rolling away, he instead saw a massive winged beast.

  A dragon.

  Soon, two more joined the first. One flew off in the direction of the castle, but the other two remained, breathing fire at the various warriors on both sides.

  The battle ended just like that, with warriors fleeing, running for their lives. People screamed as they were burned. Armor would trap the fire inside, burning the person, and Marcellus could only watch in horror as a man on a nearby hill struggled to remove his Chestplate as flames had gotten inside and licked at his neck.

  Vivian darted forward and yanked a man back by wrapping an arm around his neck, kicking his knee out from under him. He flailed about, but once he realized she meant to save him from a massive stream of fire, he scrambled to get his feet back from under him.

  Marcellus started toward a fallen Vincanan but paused mid-step as Horatia Ramagi approached, racing toward him.

  “We must get you to safety,” the Valkyrie urged, her gaze turned more toward the dragon than to the battlefield.

  Marcellus stiffened. Fleeing seemed very much the coward's way out, and so many others were lying down on the ground, injured scattered among the dead. If they were abandoned, they would soon become charred alongside their fallen brethren instead of having the chance to recover from their wounds. Even Horatia, the powerful warrior that she was, had been injured in the battle.

  “You are our prince,” Horatia insisted, grabbing his arm.

  “Our men and women—”

  “You are more important.”

  Marcellus's nostrils flared. His father would think as she did, but Marcellus was not his father. He hadn't asked to be prince, and one day, if his father had his way, Marcellus would be king.

  His father remained in Vincana. Marcellus was, in essence, a traveling king of sorts.

  As such, he withdrew his arm from Horatia. “We will not abandon our people.”

  The Valkyrie’s nostrils flared, but maybe his expression was sufficient because she gave a curt nod. “So long as you leave the battlefield now, we will assist our fallen.”

  “I will assist as well,” he argued, and he set about doing just that, heading forward to grab a man.

  A dragon swooped down so low that Marcellus had to fall down on top of the man. The injured gave a faint cough, but Marcellus didn't dare move, not until the shadow of the dragon passed by. This dragon was moving a bit slower than the other and was far more massive. They both breathed fire.

  The dragons. They had returned.

  Fire and brimstone. How had this happened? Why? And why did the dragons seem intent on killing every last one of them?

  4

  Princess Vivian Rivera

  The battle had been chaotic, but this was sheer anarchy. Burning people flailed about, trying to run away. The stench of burnt flesh and hair seared Princess Vivian Rivera’s nostrils, and she feared she would never stop smell the revolting stink.

  Her stomach churned as she took a step and jumped back, having almost stepped on a burned man’s hand. She hadn’t realized it was there, so black and charred were his fingers.

  She sheathed her blade, for once not bothering to wipe it clean. This was another battle altogether, one that did not require a weapon. In truth, it was not even a battle at all as they had no means to fight back. The dragons were waging war against all humans, those from Tenoch and Vincana.

  Their own war no longer mattered, and Vivian didn’t bother to pay attention to where a person hailed from as she strove to help people along, away from the flames.

  But even as she wandered about, trying to assist as many as possible, she felt a well of fury rising up within her.

  The dragons had returned, and the dragons were punishing them.

  Yes, she could understand fury all too well, but the dragons were clearly blaming them for the acts of their ancestors who lived long ago. They were the ones to have killed the dragons.

  And if the dragons had been killed once, they could be killed again.

  But to do so would only restart the cycle of hatred between the humans and the dragons, would it not? That was to say that if the humans once more slaughtered the dragons three, the dragons might return once more again, and another war between the two races could occur, on and on without end.

  “No, with an end,” she muttered to herself, her words hardly audible even to her own ears among the screams of those racing away from the fires, the death shrills of the dying, the wails and grunts of those injured, and even the hissing crackling of the flames from the giant maws of the winged beasts.

  There would one day be one inevitable result—the dragons would win. The humans would be the ones to fail, whether now, with this day and edge,
from these dragons three, or in the next cycle or even the next.

  Because the dragons could be resurrected.

  But humans lived but one life.

  It wasn’t until after Vivian dragged several wounded warriors across the field to the point that she needed to give her arms and back and legs a break that she paused and glanced around to survey the scene. The people she had helped were now out of the range of the dragons’ fire, but there were only two dragons circling about. Hadn’t there been a third?

  That didn’t matter. A dragon was racing toward the west, and she spied one man in particular with curly dark hair in that general direction.

  Marcellus.

  Reacting without thought, she sprinted and plowed into his side, knocking him flat against the ground. She lifted off him, ready to explain herself, when he grabbed her and held her tight to him. The claws of the dragon sliced against her back, but if the beast meant to pick her up, he failed.

  He. She?

  “Thank you,” Marcellus said, a bit breathless. “Although you could have merely told me to get down.” His tone was a bit dry and certainly not filled with enough gratitude.

  Annoyed and bothered by his lack of appreciation, she wiggled, wishing he would stop holding her and wishing even harder that she hadn't noticed that his eyes were even darker than she originally thought but also had a bit of light to them, not quite gold but almost.

  “You can release me,” she said.

  “The danger hasn’t passed,” he said, his gaze not on her but the sky above them, and she froze, closing her eyes, holding her breath, preparing to feel a hot blast on her back at any moment.

  She felt a burning sensation—not from the fire at least—when Marcellus finally did release her. Straightening her back to stand was not easy in the slightest, and she staggered away from him.

  “Are you—” he started when Vivian noticed a knight from Tenoch heading their way.

  “Go now,” she interrupted. “He will fight you and not give a moment’s hesitation, dragons flying and blazing about or not.”

  For an awkward moment, they stared at each other, and the prince… Was she really accepting him as the Prince of Vincana? Perhaps she should at this point until the war was over, not that their war could continue onward now, could it? That hardly seemed possible given the dragons. The prince swept into a bow, which she found ridiculous given the circumstances, and she laughed until she cried, and she wasn’t certain where the tears came from because she was not overjoyed in the slightest.

  Marcellus hurried away, and Vivian ignored her tears, held her head high, shoulders back, and marched over to the knight with sandy brown hair and gray eyes.

  “We aren’t leaving,” she declared. “Not yet. Not until—”

  “Reports state that the third dragon flew off to the castle.”

  Vivian scowled at the nearest dragon. Her jagged fingernails, ruined by the long hours of training, pierced so deeply into her palms that her hands began to bleed. She wished for a javelin, a spear, any long-distance weapon so that she might return the dragons' attack.

  But even she could not deny that the dragons had every right to rage against the humans. While their ancestors had been the ones to wrong the dragons three, their descendants, the ones living now, were no better than their predecessors.

  There were innocents, though, ones the dragons should leave be. If the dragons thought Vivian one who should be dead, so be it. She had killed and would kill again if given a chance. Fighting for her kingdom, in her eyes, meant she fought with honor, but perhaps the dragons made no distinction in that regard. However, Vivian would not stand for the dragons to go after innocents. If they went after children… if they would go after those like Noll…

  Vivian narrowed her eyes at the knight. “Fetch me a horse.”

  “Most have run off—”

  “Find me one,” she snapped, “or you won’t have to worry about meeting death from a fire’s kiss but by my sword!”

  5

  Queen Rosalynne Rivera

  Queen Rosalynne Rivera hadn’t even noticed the arrival of Queen Sabine on the other plateau, not until the dragon soared over their heads, flying with great haste despite hardly flapping his long wings. His destination remained quite clear.

  Tenoch Castle.

  “We must make haste to Atlan,” Rosalynne declared.

  Wilfrid Frye, her guard, shook his head, his blond hair fluttering in the slight breeze. “That dragon flying to the castle means you are far safer here.”

  She glared at the coward’s, hating that she saw concern for only herself in his blue eyes. “What would you have me do? Sit here and watch the battlefield that is a burning mess? This battle has… I…”

  Rosalynne could hardly talk. A few moments ago, she had been watching her sister fight with grace. Who knew if Princess Vivian still lived, or perhaps she had been burned by those fire-breathing monsters.

  Coming here to witness the battle had been a foolish decision, one she regretted bitterly.

  “If that dragon decides to set fire to the villages surrounding the castle,” Rosalynne spat out.

  “You’ve had most of the people brought inside the castle walls,” haven’t you?” Thorley Everett asked. Another of Rosalynne’s guards, Thorley had not been near her much as of late as he had been assigned over to Sabine so Rosalynne could know what the other queen had been up to.

  But Sabine was nearly as cunning as her mother, although perhaps not as ruthless. A part of Rosalynne longed for the morning to come when she would witness Greta Grantham executed.

  Sabine's mother had killed Noll, had pushed him down the stairs, had attacked him first. Who could do such a thing?

  And try as she might, Rosalynne could not forget that Sabine had kept the matter to herself as to who had murdered the prince. Then again, had Rosalynne ever asked the other queen when she first learned about her mother’s role in the matter? Had Sabine maintained her silence to protect her mother—and herself—and only spoken out against Greta because Greta had been caught plotting her death as well as Rosalynne’s? Or had she only just learned about what her mother had done?

  If Rosalynne had to guess, Sabine knew from the start. Perhaps she had even witnessed the brutal attack. And to think the servant Ulric had been imprisoned for a time for that criminal act! When Ulric had been nothing but a perhaps overly committed servant. His heroic act of saving Princess Vivian and removing her from any potential threat in case the murderer meant to move against all of the Riveras had been returned by his being arrested shortly upon his return to the castle. Admittedly, it hadn’t looked the best for him to return without the princess, but Vivian was Vivian, and there was no stopping her. She had it in her head that she would have been better off alone.

  There hadn't been another direct attack against the Riveras since Noll's murder, no, but still, death hovered Rosalynne. It had for a long time now, starting with the previous queen, Aldith. Her father had never loved the woman, and when it became clear she was with child, he planned on killing her, only Aldith died in childbirth.

  And then the baby, Bates, had died. To think that Rosalynne had left her father alone with the babe shortly after he had been born! Her father had killed Bates.

  Noll, of course. The loss of her brother still pained her. Vivian had fled for safety reasons and had been gone for so very long a time that Rosalynne had given up hope to ever see her sister ever again.

  Others, too, innocents in the marketplace. One man, in particular, had been executed in Rosalynne's name by Bjorn Ivano. Adair Ainsley had been the man’s name, a man so desperate and poor he resorted to stealing to feed his family. What had become of the man’s family? Rosalynne thought she had sent for them or perhaps had sent them food, but she could not be certain. She had intended to, but intentions meant very little if they counted at all.

  She glowered at the guards. If they would not accompany her back to the castle, then she would go on without them.

&nbs
p; Rosalynne turned her horse around. She and Vivian used to race each other on horses until Vivian realized she would never ever win. The elder Rivera was the better ride, and Rosalynne now used every bit of her skill to urge as much speed from her mount as was possible. The thundering of the hooves of her guards and her own horse almost drowned out the swiftly pounding beat of her heart that echoed in her ears. No matter their speed, the dragon would reach the castle first, but Rosalynne did not fret over what she could not control.

  No, she would rather focus on all she could and would do.

  The scene awaiting Rosalynne inside the castle walls had her fuming. The few guards left behind at the castle were scrambling about, trying to find arrows to shoot up at the dragons, which was beyond absurd. Did they seek to aggravate an already clearly furious beast?

  “See to the people,” she shouted. Everywhere she looked, she could see huddled forms, crying children.

  Rosalynne slid down from her horse and patted his rump. He neighed and hurried off as she surveyed the scene, desperate to find a location where the people might be spared. Although flying about the castle, the dragon seemed more content to blast anyone he saw lurking about rather than attempting to burn the stone structure.

  Would that change, though, if she directed the people inside? She must change it.

  The queen sank down to her knees beside a trembling family of two children, a tear-stained mother, and a frightened father.

  “Slip toward the castle. Head on inside the keep,” she instructed.

  They did not move immediately, gazing fearfully at the skies, but their hesitation proved a blessing as a thought occurred to her.

  "I would avoid the courtyard," Rosalynne murmured, thinking of the dozens of beautiful, colorful plants and flowers her mother had planted long before she died giving birth to Vivian. Some of the plants weren't native to Tenoch, hailing from Vincana and even some of the islands, including Tiapan and Zola. Considering the mountainous terrain of Tiapan, little vegetation grew there at all, making the chances of having to rebuild the garden to its former splendor would be an arduous, if not unmanageable, endeavor.