Most of the new families that arrived were from singular homesteads or tiny, isolated villages on the edges of the wild and most of them bore the scars of recent battle and their hurried, terrified flight. Mother Gorlas and Dol Agur had been tending to the new arrivals, encouraging them to see Bower as their king, rising out of the wildest west to deliver them from the tyrant who had torched their homes.
“That is what upsets me the most, I think. Not that there are spies so much…” Bower said with a heaviness to his voice as he looked down at the queues of people as they lined up to get soup from the cauldrons, or the fighters who were sparring with hazel sticks cut from the nearby woods.
“You don’t mind the spies?” I said, confused.
“No, of course I do. I mean that I would almost expect there to be spies you know. This is a time of war, after all,” Bower said, and for a moment, the way that he said it made my young friend look not at all like the wayward, awkward child he was when I first came across him in the woods, but a young prince of the realm: square jawed and clear-eyed, with an expression of deep resignation and contained anger.
“These people put their faith in me, and I failed.” Bower frowned at them.
For a moment, I did not know what to say. Bower was convinced we’d suffered a crushing defeat and given Vere the terrible proof that Bower was no leader of men nor of dragons. But I saw it very differently. “It was you who figured out a way to escape the trap, Bower. It was you who managed to destroy those Iron Guard. Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you so convinced that you are going to fail?” I challenged him. The wind was cold as it whipped around us, biting through our thin cloaks. “It is almost like you want Vere to be right.”
“What? Of course I don’t!” Bower said suddenly. “It’s just…. I keep remembering how that dragon and her rider fell into the river. How they just vanished, blood everywhere. And now all of these refugees are turning up. What am I going to give them, if not more of the same? I mean.” He pointed at the hilltop wreckage of Kingswood. “We only have to lift our eyes to see what awaits most of them!”
“Bower, stop it,” I said sharply, wishing I could just slap him.
“You saw what happened out there—” Bower started but I was having none of this self-pity.
“What I saw, Bower, was an ambush. An ambush that we couldn’t avoid, and some kind of magical spell that we didn’t even know could be cast against us,” I pointed out. “And I saw you, Bower, you, come up with a plan to get us out. I also saw, not so long ago, the only mother that I ever knew fight to defend her children and you and me and the other humans from the enemy. I saw Ryland fall, trying to save us. I saw the Hermit die in our arms, trying to tell us how to defeat Enric. We have seen many, many lives lost in this struggle against the king, and I cannot, I will not let those lives be lost in vain.”
Bower flushed and fell silent, his head hanging and staring at the floor. I had gone too far. Bower had warned me that my life with the dragons had made me speak differently. I was too direct, he’d said. Too honest.
“Look, Bower, none of this is our fault—” I began, but Bower raised a hand.
“No, you don’t need to say anything, Saffron. I know. I know what you are trying to say. It’s just too much, there’s too much riding on my shoulders.”
I smiled wearily, hoping to lighten his mood just a little. “Try being the niece of the worst ruler in the world.”
Bower looked at me as if he was about to apologize, but then he smirked. “Look at us, huh? The niece of the tyrant, and the boy king. What are we going to do?” Even though his words were dire, his tone made them seem like a joke.
“We carry on,” I said gently. I nodded towards the refugees, and then to the distant palls of dark smoke on the horizon to the east as well as the south. “They’ve rallied to you because of what happened to Kingswood. Life can’t get worse for them, the evil king has already burned down their homes, and they have already lost loved ones. They’ve come to you to try and start again. To find some hope after the horror that has been visited upon them.”
“You sound like a poet, Saffron Maddox.” Bower murmured.
I pulled a face. “Maddox. I hate that name.”
Bower didn’t say anything as he turned and looked back down onto the huddled masses below. “Maybe they do need a bit of fantasy after all. Something to believe in after all the nightmares they’ve lived.”
“Hope is the only choice left,” I said, thinking of Zenema, and the old Hermit, and Ryland, and all of the others that we had lost. “We have no choice but to fight on.”
“But first, we need to find out who the traitor is,” Bower said.
“There’s one obvious candidate,” I said and watched the recognition dawn across Bower’s face even before I spoke the name. “Vere. He’s been opposing you at every turn of the way. He wouldn’t send the riders to help Kingswood, and he told everyone you were probably dead, and if you weren’t, then you still weren’t fit to rule the rebellion.”
“This isn’t a rebellion,” Bower was suddenly passionate. “We are ousting a dictator. Not overthrowing a rightful king.”
“I’m sorry, You’re right.” I nodded, grinning as I did so. Bower was back. “Vere,” I repeated.
“Yes. He would be the first choice. Especially since we know the refugees of Kingswood have plenty of reasons to hate the king,” he pointed out, tapping his chin as he thought. “There is another name, but…” he winced and shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Who?” I asked. It must be a serious allegation, if he was being so cagey about it.
“Do you remember the wise woman on Home Island?” Bower asked.
“Yes, of course. Horrible and mean to a fault,” I said.
“And do you remember how it turned out that she had been in contact with King Enric?” Bower paused, a look a pain crossing his face. “It seems like King Enric can connect more easily with mystics and shamans and anyone who uses magic.”
My chest tightened with anger. “Are you trying to say that anyone who uses magic can be influenced by the king? That’s ridiculous!”
Bower opened his hands as if to suggest that he didn’t know the answer to that question either. “I don’t know, Saffron. But Enric seems able to influence you, and that wise woman on Home Island was in touch with him. What if…” He bit his lip. “What if he could use that magical connection to hear what is being said, to look through your eyes, even?”
“No way!” I shook my head, feeling sick. “I would know if King Enric was somehow within or behind my mind!” I thought about the way I could normally sense Jaydra, how her presence was a reassuring, warming touchstone. Surely I would feel King Enric’s influence like a poison or a canker? A thorn in my heart? But what if it was Enric’s influence that had cut Jaydra off from me? I shook my head, too scared by the suggestion to admit to my fear. “Dol Agur had bent over backwards to support your claim to kingship, as well as to train me as best she can.”
“As much as I believe you, and I don’t want to say this, but that would be the perfect cover. Who knows what sorts of powers that the king has?” He regarded me sadly.
“No way. I don’t believe it,” I shook my head. “How long have you been thinking that I’m the traitor?”
“Not willingly!” Bower said. “And maybe it’s not you.”
“Then are you going to be the one to accuse them?” I spat.
“Accuse who of what?” a new voice said, and we both turned, startled to see none other than Mother Gorlas limping up the path to the rise, using her long stick bedecked with runes and scratch marks to help her.
I couldn’t form the words to make an answer, not when the only thought inside my head was how odd it was that she had turned up out of the blue, at the exact moment we’d been speaking of her. Had she been spying on us?
Bower raised his head and shoulders and said, “Mother Gorlas, someone has betrayed us.” His words were heavy and final and he studied the ol
der woman beside us, as if imagining that she would suddenly own up to being the spy.
“Betrayed you?” the old, grey-haired woman frowned. “In what way?”
“When we flew out on Vere’s mission,” Bower continued, “we were ambushed. It was a trap. Someone influenced the dragons and their riders somehow, and when we chose the nearest place to land, we were attacked by the Iron Guard, who had been hiding in wait for us.”
“But you told Chief Vere that you were battling a contingent of the king’s Iron Guard you just happened across!” Mother Gorlas said.
Bower nodded. “That is true. We have not told the rest of the riders all of our fears, that the whole thing was orchestrated to destroy us,” Bower said. That was the story we had told the others as we had flown back, rather than tell them that the king had outsmarted us at every step of the way and give Vere the ammunition he needed to delegitimize Bower.
“This is serious news indeed. But why do you think that there must be a traitor in the camp? Could the king not have some very good scouts?” Mother Gorlas asked.
“No.” I said. “We left flying to the north so no one watching would know our plan to head east once we were out of sight. We didn’t even tell the rest of the riders, and a dragon flies too fast for any scout to send word back to the king in Torvald.”
Bower looked at me and then at Mother Gorlas seriously. “Only the War Council knew ahead of time where we were going that morning.”
“Oh, by the skies.” Mother Gorlas breathed as she realized just how great the danger had to be. “One of the seniors of the camp, then, the chiefs or the captains or the family heads.”
“Exactly. We have a traitor or a spy, and until we ferret out who it is, the king will always be able to anticipate our moves and be waiting for us. Even now, the king must know we are stuck here, by the ruins of Kingswood, and he could be coming,” Bower said darkly.
“Chief Vere,” Mother Gorlas spat. “It must be. I remember him as a boy. A horrible, pompous little bully he was. It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“We can’t just go around accusing people,” Bower said. “We have to be clever, or else Vere will split our forces and ride off with half of my good riders. I cannot risk losing any more of my troops.” His mask slipped for a moment, and I could see just how scared he was, but he took a deep breath and when he spoke again his voice was strong. “We cannot defeat the Iron Guard with just a few of us,” he said quietly. “I saw that just yesterday. We need everyone. All at once, in one massive attack, and then maybe we will be able to defeat the king’s magical army.”
“You’ll never convince the chiefs to do that,” Mother Gorlas said.
“We have to,” Bower said, smashing a fist into the palm of his hand. “We have to throw everything we’ve got at them, and we’ve got to make sure that there is no chance of being found out by the king.” He looked at me, and I knew what he meant when he repeated, “No chance at all. Saffron, I want to be sure that you are immune to the king’s mind magic.”
My magic. He wants me either to master my magic, despite how dangerous it is, or to use the potion to seal myself off from the king, I thought, real fear spiking through me. I didn’t want to use the potion, just as I didn’t want to ever have silence between me and Jaydra ever again. Ever since we had returned from the battle, I could feel my connection with Jaydra growing stronger again. It made me wonder if the king had enchanted just that place, or, I didn’t want to think it, if he had somehow used his magic through me in the way he talked through the Iron Guard? No. I would have felt it, I was sure. All I knew was that the connection was returning, for me at least.
Neither do I, den-sister… I heard Jaydra’s distant voice in the back of my mind. Her voice was growing louder than it had been since I had stopped taking the potion, but it was still not as strong as it had been between us. I was still terrified that I had permanently damaged our connection somehow and would never again be able to reach out and feel my sisters’ emotions with my thoughts.
“If my king wills it,” I said finally, “and if Mother Gorlas and Dol Agur will both agree to help me, I will find a way to use the very least possible amount of that potion needed to keep us safe.”
“Oh, Saffron,” Bower said, rubbing his forehead. “You know that I would not ask this were it not a matter of life or death, of victory or failure for us all.” He looked at me with incredible sadness in his eyes. “I am asking this of you as your friend, not as your king.”
I nodded. I would do as he bid me.
No Saffron! I heard Jaydra’s anguish at losing our connection inside me, and my own heart cried out in a perfect echo.
Bower’s face was a mask of grief as if he had just asked me to cut off my own hand, which, in a way I guess that he had. I saw him take a deep, shuddering breath, squaring his shoulders. He was becoming kinglier, I thought grudgingly. “I will go talk to Chief Vere. I will make him agree with me,” he said and I knew that he was offering me a sort of consolation, but to me it didn’t feel like one at all.
We walked down the hill in silence, until Bower left us to stride across the deepening gloom of the camp towards the main tent, where the Three Rivers chiefs and the heads of the Stone Tooth clan were commiserating. The news of our terrible battle losses had hit them hard, and Mother Gorlas explained to me that they were discussing amongst themselves whether to appoint Chief Vere as the War Chief over all of the Dragon Riders, effectively ousting Bower completely.
“This way,” said Mother Gorlas at my side, her staff striking the stones of the path with a steady regularity. A few of the stars where starting to come out in the sky above as we walked and normally I would have taken time to stop and look up, enthralled by their beauty, but now I could not even bring myself to try and name them.
We used to stargaze, you and I, I said to my sister, feeling mournful at what I was about to do.
This will not be for long, sister, I tried to console her. I will take just enough of the potion to keep us all safe. But I still shared her fear. How much of the potion was enough and how much might be too much? Would it cut me off from my magic as well? What if I needed my magic in the fight against Enric? Was this really such a good idea?
And we shall stargaze again! Do not go through with this! Jaydra urged me.
“I have to,” I muttered.
Somewhere beyond us, I could hear the long, mournful hoot of a dragon that I knew was Jaydra on her nest of charred earth and ash.
“Follow me,” Mother Gorlas said briskly, as if she could feel my hesitation and grief. She gestured to the largest tent in the small huddle away from the main camp. The wisewomen of the Three Rivers tribe appeared to prefer keeping to themselves. They had a central small fire, around which sat a couple of the younger shamans-in-training, young women barely older than me, keeping watch over their precious store of herbs, bandages, and medicines. From the looks of the tents around, it appeared that Dol Agur had brought her own folk here too, to share their knowledge with the Three Rivers shamans.
“I want to make sure,” I swallowed back the lump in my throat as my heart thudded, “that you only use the smallest amount. I want to be able to hear my sister.”
“Well, it will take a few hours for it really to take hold, as you already know.” Mother Gorlas frowned. “I will be adding a few of our Three Rivers’ herbs to it, to make sure that it has a stronger and deeper effect,” she informed me warily, clearly worried I might fly off the handle. I would have, had I not already promised my king, and my friend, that I would go through with this. “We can start small, use just a fraction of the full dose.”
“Yes, please.” From the look of concern in the older woman’s face, I was certain that she wasn’t the traitor.
“A pinch.” Mother Gorlas nodded, sweeping aside the hides of the tent flap to see inside to the long plank-tables and the small burning censers and metal pots. Stacked on and under the tables, and at the end of the tent were every sort of wooden casket, clay pot, box,
leather pouch, bag, and wrapping that I could even imagine. “Over there, we keep it at the far end. That is where Dol Agur brought her supplies, and together we have been approximating the potion, using lowland herbs that should produce the same effect.” She pointed to the farthest table, which had, alongside the leather hides of something white and furred, a small collection of bird skulls.
“To ward off evil,” Mother Gorlas said, laughing. “I have no idea if it works, but I thought that it might not do any harm to try!”
I picked one up; the skull, from beak to the back of the head was no longer than a small rock, and I tried to remember where I had seen one of these before.
“Here we go.” The older woman set a small metal burner on the table, a pot of water, and carefully started to light the coals and twigs inside, waiting until a good fire was present before she set the water to warm. “We’ll heat the water first, before selecting a pinch to go in. The potions always mix much better when the water is hot…” She started to hum and click her teeth to herself as she worked.
A small bird’s skull, no bigger than the middle of my hand. I tried to remember where I had seen one. Maybe one of the other Three Rivers people had it. “Is it common?” I asked. “To use these to ward off evil?”
Mother Gorlas stopped to think, one of the fur-skin bags of the Stone Tooth people in her hands. “I’m not sure. It’s an old custom, not much practiced these days. I haven’t seen many people use it, I must admit. But I like the show,” she cackled, slipping her hand into the pouch, before suddenly looking down in alarm.
“I don’t understand. Where—” She opened the bag wider and rooted around in the bottom of it. “It can’t be! The potion, the herbs—they’re gone!” She looked at me in shock, reaching for the next hide pouch. A momentary examination proved that it was also empty. “But, we made up so many bags of it…” The older woman was muttering to herself. “I stood right here with Dol Agur at my side as we worked out which herbs we could use, in what quantities.”
Dragons of Dark (Upon Dragons Breath Trilogy Book 3) Page 15
