by Marc Secchia
He hugged the Prince fiercely. “Ye tell that soul blade to keep ye safe on the battlefront, alright?”
“Och aye, on the battlefront.”
What did that echo mean? Keir wanted to ask farther, but Zyran went over to the dragonet and hunkered down. Stroking her muzzle, he said, “Alright. Ye miniature firestorm of beauty, I want ye to ken ow’t important. That there’s my best friend. In the noo, I must confess he’s a hot-headed nitwit pretty much most of the time, so ye have to keep him from doing his usual bunch of insanity and nonsense. A touch crazy is fine and normal in his world. Totally loony is now’t. Ye understand the drift of my azure snows?”
Meeting his gaze, she purred coyly, Zzz-rrrin.
Zyran crowed, “Aye! Zyran! Ye … wow, yer eyes are something ….” She must have communicated more to him, because he tickled her behind the ears and laughed, “Of course, ye wee rascal. That’s the whole point. Tricky, eh?”
“What? What’s tricky?” Keir asked.
“See ye around a mountain peak, Kestrelfoot.”
Best friend or none, he refused to offer one word further on the matter. Soon, in the hurly burly of upheaval, it vanished from his mind altogether.
* * * *
On the evening of that same day, the twenty-second of Februarus Month, Granny Garadi took a turn for the worse. The two Elves went over to treat her. Rhyl wept openly and twice as loudly as Keir thought might reasonably be justified in the circumstances, half-hiding her tearful face in the hood of her cloak for the benefit of the curious neighbours. He could only imagine the firestorm of gossip that was about to envelop their small community.
Shanryssill winked at him on her way out. “Granny’s trouble is real, but that – a few herbs to increase her tears, a touch of makeup, and besides which, yer cousin’s a decent actress.”
With that, they were off.
Keir shook his head slowly. Lies, and ripples of more lies. When would this end?
Later that evening, his father sat almost obsessively sharpening his axe by the fireside, his face shadowed with concerns Keir could easily guess at.
“Something wrong, Dad?”
“Battle bones, son. Keep yer ska’etaz close, alright? I’m going to check over the packing one more time.” Switching to Elven, he said, Shanri-adored-one –
One more day, beloved? Granny’s not out of the jungle yet. Then, I promise …
Humans say woods. His eyes crinkled fondly at the corners.
Pah. Far too tame for the Elf in me.
Wow. Stormy mother! Then he remembered spying her matched pair of ska’etaz beneath her light, threadbare cloak that evening when she went out. Auroral Storm Diamond followed his father with her eyes as he stumped out of the back door. Obviously, he needed a short walk in the frigid air to clear his head, perhaps to the barn. They now had two zaribar ponies stabled there. Ready.
The following day, they held an almost word-for-word repeat of the previous evening’s conversation. Granny Garadi was at the jungle’s edge. One more day. That night, the hatchling woke him five times as she stirred restively. The floorboards creaking at his father’s tread announced a soldier on patrol. He had not wanted to say anything to his mother, but Keir knew how the battle bones could go with him. He always used to get this way, he remembered, before marching off to war with the King’s army. Impatient. Irascible. Itchier than a fiery river-rash. He knew himself well enough not to take it out on his family, but that did not make it easier.
The twenty-fourth of Februarus, exactly two months after Dragonmas Eve – hard to believe so little time had passed between the day that presaged a miracle and now – dawned grey and foul. A mountain irdashoon, they called this wind, that moaned about eaves, rattled shutters and blustered down chimneys, snuffing out fires. It was like Darkfall, minus the huge masses of storm clouds, but often the irdashoon had a strange effect on mountain folk, making them snappish and irritable, causing headaches and migraines for many. Animals escaped their pens and shelters, chickens went off their laying, and cats woke at odd hours, chasing unseen things in the corners of rooms.
All wariness, he walked the twins over to school through the drifting snows that morning, since his parents had decided to keep everything as normal as possible for the children – and to keep up appearances before their departure. He need not have worried. Amarinthe Town was just the same as ever. Returning to the house, he and his scaly shadow hunted rats in the barn. She missed three fine specimens in a row, to her very vocal irritation, and when Keir’s overarm throw pinned the last to the boards at the back of the barn, she growled at him and – well, threw a tantrum! Raking the air with her talons, hissing, spitting, and … sparking!
“Whoa! Fire …” he stomped about quickly, and for good measure, ran to the barrel they always kept ready beside the door, dipped in a pitcher, and snuffed out the sparks for good. “What was that?”
She looked equally startled. Keee-irr?
“Well, are ye planning to be a big fire-breathing beauty, or are ye planning to twirl lightning about yer pretty talons whilst ye paint lightning bolts across the peaks, my darling?”
This occasioned a droll, extra-dry version of her smile.
“Mind ye, I’m now’t sure they make lightning-proof armour in my size.” Keir ran his fingers through his shock of white hair. “How did the Guardians of yore do it without, for instance, getting frazzled up there in the sky and floating to the ground as crispy flakes? Besides which, when are ye planning to grow into those mighty paws of yers? Ye dinnae grow steadily, d’ye ken – now’t one smidge these last two weeks.” Although, had she put on muscle beneath those sleek scales? “We couldn’t be missing something in yer diet … in the noo, let’s just take a wee little look down here …”
Keir was not sure what passed for reptilian anatomy, but as best he could tell as an amateur, she lacked the – erm, outlet – one expected. He had little sisters, so he was not a complete ignoramus on the subject of female anatomy. He had changed wet cloths, and bathed and cleaned the twins more times than he could count, due to his mother’s ailing. Nonetheless, the matter of examining a Dragon’s nether regions was an intensely uncomfortable experience. If she laid eggs, where did those come out? How might she one day mate? And if she did not produce either liquid or solid waste, what happened to all the food, milk, water and indeed, leather bones, boots and gemstones, that she ingested? Could it all be coming out of her as pure heat? Some impressive digestive system she must possess if that was how it worked!
The day turned hectic. Keir popped over to help lift some roof beams for the neighbour’s roof reconstruction, and then stuck around because two of the carpenters were lads he had gotten on well with in school, and they wanted the entire mountain range of information on Dragons. In his enormous experience, he inquired? At least he had one, they returned wryly. One who was currently trying to climb a ladder onto the roof, but had not yet quite worked out how to clench and unclench her dexterous forepaws in sequence to enable her to climb. She whined for him. Purred. Tried to catch his eye …
“Keir! Have ye forgotten school, son?”
“Dad – got to go, lads.”
“Back to school? Aren’t ye a wee bit long in the tooth for the bairns’ class there?”
“Och nae! Well, at least I dinnae grow goat scruff on my chin and try to call it a beard. Ye thought of trying fertiliser?”
“Says he who lacks the least patch to fertilise?”
Laughing, Keir scooted down the ladder. “Come on, ye scoundrel. Let’s go.”
Whipping up his backpack, he popped the hatchling in headfirst. Evidently she did not mind, still being small and flexible enough to turn around in there, which she did as he jogged across town. Lightly. Loving the run, but suddenly, remembering how his father talked about the battle bones, his feet developed an itch. His long legs pumped with new urgency. Down into the marketplace, darting through the crowd to the tune of a few startled cries, and away again up a slight incline toward
the school building. The tall, grey double storey building housed seven classes, covering the ages from five anna up to fourteen. That was the age at which most children left education and went to work in trades, on farms, or began their Army training in preparation for deployment.
As he trotted up to where a few knots of parents and relatives stood about chatting, he observed that the younger children had been let out to play in the snow. The wind had dropped enough. The older ones whiled away the time at a game of darts aiming at different targets affixed to a tree, or playing around the edges of the front yard, which had a knee-high stone fence demarcating an area of fifty yards by twenty, which in the summer would be lovely bluegrass fringed with flowers. Now it was just heaps of azure snow criss-crossed by the footprints of eager children, like a snaking maze created by many feet.
Across the sea of heads, he spied three men in close conversation in the shadow of the last house before the end of town. He only noticed because they were not behaving like the parents or relatives. No smiles. No neighbourly chatter. They spoke earnestly to a fourth person, a beefy young man whose broad back he recognised all too well. Chamos. What was he doing here?
As he slowed, a chill trickled down his neck and then shot back up into his scalp, for Chamos turned, his arm swinging in an unmistakable gesture. Keir had no need of the lip-reading Rhyl had started to teach him to know what he said, nor exactly where he pointed.
“Elven children? Right there.”
He indicated Arami and Narini, now thankfully dashing away from the sinister group as they chased their classmates, shouting with laughter. Blissfully unaware. They wore bright but worn turquoise winter dresses, with thick leggings beneath and heavy snow jackets. As their hoods were down, their upswept Elven ears and Arami’s long platinum hair easily distinguished them from the other children.
Keir froze. The faces beneath those heavy hoods were too shadowed to read, but he read their body language readily enough. He caught a glint of what he took for armour or weapons half-hidden beneath their robes. One man melted back out of sight. The other two started walking directly toward the playground, watching the playing children, disturbingly intent.
His legs moved in a manner entirely disassociated from his brain. His boots crunched in the snow while his brain crunched scenarios. How could he get his sisters somewhere safe? Call in the townspeople; who knew how many would be injured or killed? Those dark cloaks meant business. They moved like they meant business, like they knew what it was to slide a dagger between a person’s ribs with a twist. Have his sisters run home? What if there were more rogues than these three? What if they had already staked out the house?
Hurdling the wall with a swift leap, he swooped down upon the twins and seized them each about the waist. “Any wee Dragon Riders want a swing?”
“Brother!” they chorused.
Whirling, he checked the position of the men. Too close. The road, too dangerous. One of them had a quarter-sized crossbow partially hidden in his voluminous sleeve, the weapon rising to take aim at his back, curved protectively over his sisters. One chance.
“Inside. Quick!”
Narini squealed, “But we want to play!”
Arami begged, “Aye. Five more minutes, Keir? C’mon, ye always let us –”
“Code Wyvern!” he barked. “Go, go, go!”
His sisters stared at him in open-mouthed shock.
A tingle of fear clasped his neck in talons of ice. Move! Keir dived for the front door, like all schools in Amarinthe, painted a bright yellow to welcome students. Banging it open with his shoulder, he launched the twins and himself inside. Kick the door shut! Whap! Thonk! The thick oak vibrated as one quarrel pierced right through the wood, stopping an inch short of his nose.
It might have been fair to say, said nose quivered like a frightened snow hare’s just then.
Arami screamed!
Wrenching his attention back to the twins, he said urgently, “Code Wyvern. We’re in danger. Remember how Mom and Dad drilled ye? Dinnae ye panic. Keep yer heads down and listen closely. There are some bad men outside. I’m going to try to stop them, alright? But ye have to get away. Ye have to run as fast as ye can to a safe place.”
“Where to?” Arami asked.
Narini burst into tears.
Casting about, Keir found a huge, heavy table and heaved it up against the door. “Listen. When I say, we’re going to go out the back door and I want ye to run, alright? Just skedaddle. I ken ye both can run like the wind, ’cause yer Elves. Here’s the trick. I need ye to look out for each other. Hold hands and dinnae ye let go. Repeat it for me.”
“Run fast,” Narini sniffed.
“Hold hands,” said her twin. “Look after each other.”
Keir gave them a big hug each. “As Mom drilled ye, run straight to Alaxar Blacksmith’s forge. Ye will be safe there. The forge, alright? Nowhere else. Ken ye the way?”
“Around the outside of town,” Arami stammered.
“It’s now’t far. Keep as close to the houses as ye can, and keep ye under cover. I’ll be right behind ye, but I need to stop those bad men first, alright?” Taking one of his leaf-blades from his belt, he gave it to Narini. “Remember what Mom showed ye? If someone comes who yer scared of, stick him with this. Now’t Alaxar. He’s a friend good and true. I will come find ye at the forge –”
BLAM! BLAM!
The twins jumped and whimpered again as the two men began to hammer on the schoolhouse door. Grabbing them each by the hand, Keir walked them quickly through the familiar building, past the classrooms with their slate boards and long bench desks where he had spent so many hours learning or daydreaming, to the back door. It should be open. The main field used by the school during the summer months was back here, and a simple playground for the younger children with a wooden obstacle course, three swings and a big, very fake wooden Ogre the lads always used to beat with sticks.
Crack open the door. Check both ways.
Pretend a level of calm and assurance alien to any bone of his body. What he wanted to do most of all, was to throw up. Bravery was so different when his little sisters’ lives hung in the balance. Santazathiar grant him strength.
“Ready to run?”
“Nae, nae, I cannae,” quavered Narini.
“Come on, I got yer back, sister,” said Arami, clasping her hand. “Ye be brave now, alright?”
He swallowed past a huge lump in his throat.
To Keir’s surprise, Auroral Storm Diamond elected to wriggle out of his backpack at this point and hopped down to the ground. Assuming a protective stance beside the twins, the hatchling growled, Keee-irr. Grr … a-grr … sssss-af. Sssss-af!
It was the longest sentence she had ever spoken. “Safe? D’ye mean ye’ll keep the girls safe?”
Keee-irr. The fire that filled her eyes now was pearlescent, like the Queen’s necklace he had once seen, made from fabulously rare pearls fished out of the Cyantar Ocean. Sssss-af!
Clear enough, even to a half Elf who was occasionally as thick as a short plank, he supposed.
He said, Good girl. You run with the twins and keep them safe. I will come as soon as I can. Girls, Storm’s with you and she will fight to keep you safe.
Could the hatchling even run that far? Would she flounder in the deep snow or flit over the top of it like an Elf?
Please, please, please let the girls be quick enough!
“Let’s go,” he ordered. “Go! Run!”
They burst out together, running along the back of the school building before dashing toward the first line of houses. All that play in the snow out back of their house, he realised now, had helped the dragonet learn how to steady herself. She even opened wings to help her navigate a soft snowdrift.
Drawing his remaining ska’etaz, he flicked open the blade. Sensing something. Movement. Danger. Darting ahead of the girls and the galloping hatchling, Keir leaped into the air just as he passed the corner of the schoolhouse. A blade swished beneath his bent knee
s. He landed lightly upon hard, slippery footing, but spun in the same motion to face his opponent.
“Freaking half-breed!” snarled the man, raising his sword.
His brain raced. Was this the third of their number? Where were the other two? Were there more than he had seen?
Keir stalled, shuffling sideways to block the rogue from any attempt to reach the twins. Give them longer to get away. The dragonet was with them, he sensed, but her concern was for him. Go. He pushed outward with his mind. Keep our loved ones safe.
He shifted steadily, keeping the blade ready. “What d’ye want?”
“Yer blood, Elf boy!”
The sword whistled through the air as the leather-armoured man came on fast, clearly trying to overwhelm Keir with a single sustained attack. He danced away, dodged and danced again. Thank heavens for all his recent training! During his last trip, the soldiers had been keen to show him a number of tricks or traps he could fall into in single combat or mêlée situations. Their instruction paid off now. As he heard shouts of pursuit, his attention wavered for a crucial instant. His opponent sold him a cunning feint and then tried to hack his ankles out from under him. Keir leaped forward over the blade’s blurred arc, smashing his knee solidly into the lowered jaw. The impact threw the man backward with a brutal snap. The ska’etaz followed through with an underhand thrusting motion, piercing the base of his throat more by accident than by design. Warm blood spurted all over his hand before he relaxed from his near-paralysed posture and pulled the blade free.
So easy. So easy, it was vile.
He had just killed a man for the first time.
These rogues wanted to slay his five anna-old sisters. In cold blood. Fire ignited his blood. Keir ran as he had never run before.
Chapter 8: Flight
AT A GALLOP HE followed their tracks through the snow; four small feet and four paws. They had been running fast at this point, swerving to avoid the lip of a well almost buried in the snow, and a few dozen yards further on, detouring again to skirt a huge snowdrift banked up at the back of Gamax Tanner’s workshop. As he raced along, the row of tall stone houses curved steadily away to his right, hiding the fleeing children from view, but he knew he was close behind. He also realised that the other shouts had gone quiet.
