by K. C. Julius
Ilyria raised her gaze to them. “I chose Maura not because she is brave, although she has great courage.” Maura sobered upon hearing this, and Ilyria looked fondly into her bindling’s face. “I was drawn to you because of what Master Morgan told me of the depth of your compassion for others.” The dragoness turned back to Leif. “Maura may not be a born warrior like Halla, but even if I’d known before my talon pierced her heart that she would take a vow to serve Urlion’s rightful heir as a defender of the realm, she would still have been my choice.”
“As you would be mine, Leif,” said Rhiandra stoutly.
Leif placed his palm against the bluewing’s heart. “I hope I’ll live up to your expectations.”
Halla dropped down by Emlyn and stretched out her long legs before the fire. “I just hope I can get to Palan before anyone else does.”
Maura, nestled against Ilyria, drew her cloak closer around her neck. Leif suspected that she was not only worried about the coming battle, but also about the state of Borne’s health. “Maybe the sight of dragons will scare the Albrenians off before we have to engage,” she said hopefully.
“I wouldn’t count on it.” Halla reached for her wineskin and uncorked it with a savage jerk. “Palan’s arrogance knows no bounds.”
“You sound almost admiring of him,” Leif said.
Halla gave a harsh laugh. “The bastard is the scum of the earth, and I hate him. I’ll wager his men only follow him out of fear.” She lifted her wineskin. “Here’s to your first blood. It’s no time to get cold feet.”
“No one said anything about cold feet,” Leif protested. “But ending a life isn’t something to be taken lightly.”
“Keeping slaves isn’t either!” Halla squeezed the neck of the winebag as if she were strangling it, then drank deeply. After wiping her mouth with her sleeve, she added, “And I haven’t the slightest qualms about exterminating vermin who do.” Then she softened her tone. “You’d both do well to get a good night’s sleep—you’ll want to have all your wits about you tomorrow. Lord Ennius will be here in the morning, and then we ride to war.”
* * *
Seven thousand Konigur men stood at battle readiness, looking out over the broad fields. Lord Ennius, astride his black destrier, was at their fore, accompanied by Lord Nolan of Lorendale and Lord Grathin of Valeland. Weaving through the leaden clouds that curtained the sky, the three dragons circled overhead.
The defending army had left the road and traveled due east cross-country to reach this place, which Halla had chosen for them to await Palan’s forces. With a forest at their backs and the sloping plain before them, they would have the advantage of the high ground.
By mid-morning, the distant rumble of marching feet and the pounding of hoofbeats reverberated up to Leif and the other dragonfast. A break in the clouds offered Leif a view of the entire field as the invading force, more than three times as large as that of the defenders, appeared at the far side of the plain.
Lord Ennius ordered the white flag brought forward, and he raised it high.
In answer, the entire Albrenian force surged forward, their battle cries and unsheathed swords making clear there was to be no treating.
A Konigur trumpet sounded the charge—the signal the dragonfast high above had been waiting for. Rhiandra dove with her siblings toward the earth, but as soon as they broke free of the clouds, the bluewing veered sharply back up again. Leif had to clutch at her neck to hang on, and only just kept his seat. Ilyria swerved as well, and Leif saw Maura sliding down her dragon’s neck, her arms flailing as she scrambled for a firm grip to keep herself from plummeting to her death.
Halla and Emlyn were nowhere to be seen.
Leif shouted Maura’s name, and with his heart in his throat, watched as she flung her arms tight around the bronzewing’s neck and began pushing herself backward along it.
His relief was short-lived, though, for as Rhiandra leveled out, he saw the two armies below racing toward one another. Lord Ennius was expecting the dragons’ support in this clash, and here they were, still far from the fighting.
“Rhiandra! We must go down, not up!”
“We cannot! Something is blocking us!”
Then Emlyn shot out of the clouds toward them. “That traitor Audric is with them!” Halla called. “He must have cast some sort of repelling spell to keep us in the sky!”
Leif’s keen eyes could now make out the Albrenian king, who sat astride a rare snow-white horned horse, joined by three escorts: Roth Nelvor, Audric, and Celaidra, who, like the wizard, had her staff raised to the heavens.
“There are two mages with the Albrenians,” Leif said.
Ilyria circled around them. “We must find a way to get around their magic!” she called.
A resounding crack of wood on wood rent the air as the opposing shield walls collided with a resounding impact that rolled on across the plain as those in the front lines pushed and shoved while stabbing at their opponents’ legs under the wall. The lines held for the moment, but given Palan’s obvious advantage of numbers, it was only a matter of time before the Konigur wall would be breached. In fact, a regiment of Albrenian riders was already fanning out and streaming toward either side of the defenders, intent on flanking them and enclosing them in a circle from which there would be no escape. The dragonfast had to act quickly, and Leif saw only one option.
“If we can’t get at the enemy from above,” he shouted, “we’ll have to attack them from below.”
Maura paled. As long as the dragons fought from the air, there was little chance they would be injured. On the ground, it was a different story, and in close combat, dragonfire would be a danger to their own troops as well as to the enemy.
“But how do we get past the barrier?” Halla called.
“Follow me!” Leif leaned close to Rhiandra’s ear. “Are we ready?”
In answer, the bluewing shot a stream of fire across the sky. With Leif flat against her neck, she sped west toward the woodlands and away from the battle.
In the long months Leif and Rhiandra had spent in Belestar waiting for the hatchlings to be old enough to fly south, they’d had little to do but practice all manner of flight maneuvers. When it came to aerial acrobatics, Rhiandra was mistress of the air, and Leif had learned how to stay astride her regardless of how sharply she banked, climbed, or went into a dive. But now they simply flew straight on until the battling sides were no more than tiny specks in the distance before Leif called to her, “I think we must be beyond the mages’ range now. We’ll have to fly in as low as possible if this is going to work!”
He held on tight as Rhiandra banked into a turn, then dropped like a stone. The earth rushed up to meet them, and only at the last moment before impact did she level off and shoot back the way they’d just come, flying so low over the plain that birds rose up from the flattening grass to flee before them.
As they neared the heat of the battle, Leif braced himself to be deterred by another repelling spell, but Rhiandra’s flight remained unimpeded. As he had hoped, the enemy mages had not anticipated such a low approach, and they had slipped underneath the barrier.
They came up right on the rear of Lord Ennius’s force, and men fell to their knees in fright as the hurtling bluewing overflew them, headed directly for the front line. Leif knew what they risked in coming this close to the enemy, but he was counting on the sight of a fire-breathing dragon bearing down on them to throw Palan’s army into disarray. And so far, his gamble seemed to be paying off. As Rhiandra drove at the Albrenians, the men cowered, and at the first burst of her dragonfire, they altogether broke and ran. On the rise behind the retreating soldiers, their tall commander stood in his stirrups, shaking his fist as he futilely exhorted them to hold a line that no longer existed.
Rhiandra rushed headlong at Palan, Roth, and their two magic-wielding guardians. As the dragon closed in, Celaidra lifted h
er staff.
“Left, Rhiandra!” Leif shouted as crimson fire came cracking their way, but Rhiandra was already rolling, neatly dodging the spell.
A green blur swooped past, and Halla and Emlyn sped ahead toward the rise from which the mages were launching their assault. Emlyn spewed a long blast of fiery breath, but Celaidra repelled it and countered with a blazing jet of her own. The jade dragon swerved, and the deadly magic missed her by a hair’s breadth, furrowing the earth in a flaming stream.
Audric raised his staff high now as well, sending a red ball of fire at Ilyria, who had been flying in the greenwing’s wake. Ilyria twisted her sinuous body out of its path and lashed out with her tail to strike down the Albrenian soldiers so unlucky as to be in the vicinity, then sent a gout of flame into their midst. The screams of the dying rent the air, and glowing embers from their burning bodies whirled up as the dragon beat her wings, the sparks igniting others trying to flee her wrath.
Audric lifted his staff once more, and this time a blinding vermillion flash seared the sky. Rhiandra reeled back, all the while spitting tongues of fire at the wizard. Leif felt the dragoness lurch under him, then looked down to see smoke rising from a black gash in the bluewing’s shoulder where Audric’s spell had grazed her.
But though the injury appeared to be minor, its effect on the Albrenian army was not. Emboldened by the mages’ display of firepower, Palan’s men were at last regrouping. Their longbowmen knelt and nocked their arrows, forcing Ilyria to reel away and Emlyn to shoot up toward the clouds. Rhiandra was still circling back toward the invaders when the archers’ first volley arced into the air.
“Rhiandra, away!” Leif shouted, but it was too late. He threw his arm up to shield himself as a rain of arrows descended on them.
The bluewing bellowed and let loose a torrent of fire, then dipped her wing in an effort to protect her rider. Most of the arrows glanced off her scales, and miraculously, the rest of them missed Leif.
Ilyria and Emlyn roared up on Rhiandra’s flanks.
“If we want to defeat them, we’ll have to attack from different sides, so they can’t target us together,” Halla said. Maura, though she was the color of parchment, gave a firm nod, and she and Ilyria swept away, to circle around behind the mages.
Leif and Rhiandra sped to the right, while Halla and Emlyn shot left. A flurry of spells whizzed past the dragons as they wove through the air, then turned to blast a simultaneous rage of dragonfire at their attackers. As the flames barreled toward them from three directions, the mages spun first one way then the next, but they could not release their spells fast enough to keep up with the fiery barrage.
It was under this unrelenting assault that Audric grabbed hold of Roth and vanished in a swirl of darkness. Celaidra’s cry of fury rang in Leif’s ears before she too wrapped herself in her shadow and disappeared.
The Albrenian king wheeled his adarrak and plowed through his own ranks to escape the inferno.
“Oh no you don’t!” cried Halla, and Emlyn shot past her sisters to give chase.
Maura and Ilyria flew on to harry the retreating invaders, but Leif followed Halla.
The Albrenians scattered as the green dragon came to earth to block their commander’s retreat. By the time Leif and Rhiandra had landed, Halla had already dismounted and drawn her sword. Leif slid to the ground and went to her side.
“Get off your horse and fight, you devil’s spawn,” she ordered Palan.
Leif felt a chill run up his spine at the sound of Palan’s laugh.
“I can hardly believe my luck,” the man sneered. “The tainted whore appears yet again. But why would I sully my blade with your dirty blood?” He drew himself up to his imposing height and turned to address Leif. “I demand my right to be ransomed, according to the protocol of war. In any case, it’s beneath my dignity to fight a woman.”
“But you’re not averse to raping them,” Halla said, lifting her blade. “You will fight me—to the death. You can get off your horse now, or you can wait for the dragon to burn it out from under you.”
Leif laid a hand on her arm. “He yields.”
Halla shrugged him off, never taking her eyes from her quarry. “I’m not giving him that option. Emlyn?”
A thin line of black smoke streamed from the dragon’s nostrils, and a flicker of doubt crossed Palan’s face.
“I’ll fight you, wench,” he snarled, “if you”—he cast a look at Leif—“will see that I’m accorded the respect of a ransom after I kill her.”
“If you kill her,” Leif said, “you’ll have to deal with me.”
Palan bared his wolfish teeth. “It will be my pleasure.” He dropped from his horse, then slid his blade from its scabbard with a flourish. “But ladies first.”
He had no time to lift his sword before Halla charged, her steel crashing down on his with lightning speed. She pressed forward with a furious series of strikes, and although he met her blow for blow, the ferocity of her attack forced him into a gradual retreat.
Leif saw surprise register in Palan’s eyes. The Albrenian altered his sword grip, and Halla seized on his slight hesitation to execute a vicious slash, forcing him to leap back in order to narrowly avoid being opened from chest to hip.
He swore viciously at her, and Halla laughed, then began circling him, her blade all the while hissing through the air. His mouth twisted in a grimace as he struggled to deflect her whirling sword.
Then, just for a breath, Halla drew back, and Palan lunged, driving his blade at her heart with lightning speed. She had barely time to parry the strike, and their swords crossed with a ringing clang. The Albrenian was on the attack now, steadily swinging and thrusting. It was clear to Leif his intent was to wear Halla down. But she received each blow he dealt her with calm composure. Although Palan continued to advance, Leif sensed it was he who was tiring.
And when the big man shifted his weight ever so slightly to his back foot, Halla seized her moment. She lashed out as swift as a serpent, and with a twist of her wrist she sent the Albrenian’s sword clattering to the ground. In a flash, the tip of her blade was against his throat, and Leif saw a bright prick of blood.
“You have something of mine,” Halla growled, reaching out and ripping the knife from the sheath at Palan’s waist.
The Albrenian kept his pale eyes locked on hers. “I yield.”
“Fitting,” Halla murmured, as if he hadn’t spoken, “that the knife you forced me to kill Nicu with will now taste revenge.”
“Halla,” Leif said. “Did you not hear him?”
Halla lowered her sword ever so slightly, and triumph lit Palan’s eyes for a brief second.
Until she smiled, then plunged the knife deep into his throat.
With a strangled gargling, the Albrenian grappled for the hilt protruding from his neck, his eyes wide in disbelief. He dropped to his knees, his mouth working, and emitted a thin whine as dark blood spurted from the fatal wound.
Halla raised her boot and kicked him onto his side. Then she met Leif’s gaze defiantly. “He deserved to die. If anything, I let the pig off lightly.”
Leif was stunned at the naked ferocity in the woman who stood before him. He had known she was a dangerous warrior, but her swift execution of the man had shocked him to his core.
“He yielded, Halla.”
She leaned down and yanked the knife from Palan’s throat, then wiped the bloodied blade across the fallen man’s cloak. “What did you expect me to do?” she demanded, sheathing the blade. “Forgive him? I did plenty of forgiving during my dragonfast trial—my father for abandoning me in favor of my brothers, my mother for trying to make me turn against my nature, and my brothers for being preferred by both my parents because they were sons. I even let go of the guilt that haunted me over Bria’s and Nicu’s deaths. But this?”
The steel in her eyes was unbending. “If I hadn’t ki
lled the bastard, I would never have been able to forgive myself.”
Chapter 54
Whit
Whit was the first on his feet when Halla, her face smudged with grit, burst into the hall. She raised her fist to the rafters and called out, “The Drinnglennin army has driven the Albrenians back to their ships!”
A chorus of cheers answered her, and amidst the clamor, Halla crossed the hall and bowed to Fynn, then at his invitation, sank into an empty place beside Whit. Fynn sat opposite them, for he had done away with the traditionally raised royal board. The lines that had seemed to permanently crease their new High King’s brow in recent days smoothed at Halla’s incredibly good news, reminding Whit just how young he was.
“How do our soldiers fare?” Fynn asked. “Did we lose many men?”
“I don’t know the numbers,” Halla confessed. “I flew back here once the Albrenians began their retreat to the coast. Lord Ennius is dealing with the captives, and he sent a contingent to hound the remnants of the invaders back to their boats. But the battle was over almost before it began. The usurper Palan is dead.”
A slow smile spread across her face. Then she ran a grimy hand over her throat and pointedly eyed Whit’s tankard. “I’m spitting feathers here.”
He pushed it over to her. “Did you return alone?”
Halla drank deeply, then set the mug down. “Maura and Leif are shadowing our army. I only came ahead to share the good news, then I’m going back as well.”
Grinner frowned. “Seems t’ me we could use sum dragons here t’ defend us should tha’ fiend Strigori creep up on us unawares.”
“You have Whit here, and Selka too,” Halla reminded him. To Fynn she added, “I can fly out now to see how Lazdac is progressing overland.” She rose stiffly to her feet, then caught hold of Wren’s shoulder to steady herself.
“For gods’ sake, Halla,” said Whit. “You’re in no condition to ride, let alone fly. Even the dragonfast need to sleep.”
