by C. Greenwood
I had no choice. It was telling me something, warning that my enemy was approaching from the same direction I had come. At least I now knew he wasn’t ahead of me or stationed in the heights above.
I saw my opportunity. There was a tall pile of rocks against the crevice where I lurked. I scrambled to the back of the heap and began carefully scaling the rocks. Despite my caution, I sent streams of pebbles raining in all directions. I could only hope my pursuer did not see or hear the disturbances. From the top of the heap, I could look down on the cleft in the rock, where I’d hid only minutes ago. There was nothing to see yet, but I felt the approach of that other presence. His slowness signaled caution, hinting he was unsure what he would find ahead. Good.
I waited, pressed flat against the hot rocks, tension making the sweat stream from my pores. My mouth was as rough and dry as the desert sand, my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. Then I saw him. The black-cloaked figure approached my former hiding place, creeping toward the rocky crevice with the wariness of a hunter stalking his prey. If he knew I was no longer resting within the shadows, he gave no sign of it. I could make out little of him from this higher vantage point, could discern only that he was tall and young. His hood was thrown back against the heat, affording me a view of the top of his head and his close-cropped, brown hair.
But what commanded my attention above all else wasn’t the young man but the weapon he carried. A longbow. I stared, transfixed. It couldn’t be. Surely my eyes were failing me or the heat had driven me mad. There could be no other explanation for what I saw. For it was no ordinary bow he carried.
It was mine.
My old bow, enchanted with the twisted magic that had eventually forced me to discard it. Weeks ago, before setting out on this journey, I had tossed the thing into the falls above Red Rock, never to be seen again. Yet here it was now. I could feel it, could sense the life humming within it as I used to in the old days. It fairly glowed with a power of its own, a magic I remembered all too well. My mind rushed back to the broken arrow I had kept after the attempt on my life. No wonder it had emitted an almost tangible aura that I had been aware of despite the stunted state of my magic. It had come into contact with the bow, which I would recognize anywhere.
I shook myself and forced my attention back to the danger at hand. A fresh arrow was nocked to that bow now, and it was meant for me. I licked my lips and silently drew a knife from my sleeve. But my movement upset a nearby stone and sent it tumbling with a noisy clatter.
My enemy’s head whipped around at the sound and he half turned, bow at the ready.
Chapter Seven
Unwilling to give him time to take aim, I leaped down on top of him. My weight slammed into him and bore us both to the ground. The impact of our collision knocked the breath from my lungs, but to remain motionless until I could breathe again would mean death. Ignoring the pain in my chest, I plunged my knife at my adversary’s shoulder. But he recovered from his surprise in time to catch my wrist in midair and turn the blade away from him. Unable to twist free of his powerful grip, I fumbled with my free hand to draw my second knife. I stabbed it into the only place I could easily reach from this position, his upper thigh.
It was a glancing blow. I hadn’t much strength to put into it, but it was enough. He screamed in pain, instantly releasing his grip on my wrist. In the same moment, I discovered I could breathe again and sucked in great gulps of air even as I wriggled off the prone form of my enemy and groped after the bow that had been knocked from his hands.
Writhing and clutching his injury, my enemy didn’t try to stop me.
My fingers closed around the elderwood arm of the bow. Immediately my fears abated, and confidence surged through me. My feelings or those belonging to the bow? It didn’t matter. When my other hand, fumbling in the sand, found the loose arrow it sought, I scrambled to my feet.
My opponent, finally realizing his predicament, unbent from his pained posture to grab at my legs, but I kicked free. Panting from the struggle, I stood over my fallen enemy and trained the arrow at him. It was strange, feeling the smooth elderwood in my hands again. But I couldn’t let myself be distracted by the familiar sensations it awakened in me or by the soft, welcoming whisper I could almost hear stirring through the back of my mind.
“Tell me why you’ve been trailing me,” I demanded of the stranger at my feet. “Why are you trying to kill me?”
He glared up at me with eyes that seemed, once again, hauntingly familiar.
Although he still gripped his wounded thigh, his anger was so intense he seemed to forget his pain and the blood trickling past his fingers. “I hunt you because I was paid to do it,” he spat. “But I’d have taken the job for nothing, if only to avenge my father, dead at your hands. Or near enough by your doing as to make no difference.”
I stared as questions tumbled around in my head. I had made my share of enemies in the past, but who could want me dead badly enough to hire an assassin to track me across the provinces? And more to the point, most of my enemies were the sort who would come after me themselves if they wanted to kill me. I couldn’t think of anyone with the means or inclination to send this person.
Yet the words that found their way out of my mouth weren’t about that at all. “Whose death do you speak of? Who was your father?”
My words sounded rough, but looking on a face as familiar to me as if I were seeing a ghost, my stomach squirmed.
His eyes were defiant. “My father was Brig. An outlaw of Dimmingwood.”
The name, even though part of me had been expecting it, struck like a blow.
He sneered at my stricken expression. “I see you remember him now. Doubtless it’s hard to forget a friend you betrayed to his death.”
Even stunned as I was, I could not let that pass. “I never betrayed Brig,” I murmured. “He was like a father to me, and I cared about him to the last. When he was dead, I killed the man who turned on him, a spy named Resid.”
But I wasn’t thinking about the explanation as I gave it. Instead my mind was yanked powerfully back into the past.
I was a small child, lying in a pile of moldy leaves in a cave hidden deep in the heart of Dimmingwood. Feigning sleep, I eavesdropped on the conversation of the two men standing over me.
“Brig, you know this child’s not yours to keep, right?” one of them asked. “You understand she can’t stay long in Dimmingwood? Your sons are gone and Netta with them. There’s no bringing your family back or replacing them with this girl.”
Right from the beginning, that was the first thing I learned of Brig, the man who saved my life and eventually adopted me. That he had once had a family, and they were gone. He would never speak of where they were or why they had left him, although others would gossip behind his back. Exactly what had become of his two small sons was always a mystery to me. Until today.
My mind was drawn back to the present by a disbelieving snort from the enemy before me.
“A convenient story,” he said. “But I’ve heard better and from lips I trust more than yours.”
“Whose would that be?” Past the initial shock, I was angry now. “Who invents such an evil charge against me? For I will stand any other insult but never the lie that I turned against Brig.”
He did not give the name of my accuser, but a flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. Off his guard, his features no longer twisted in fury, his resemblance to Brig was striking. It was as if I had turned back time and stood looking at the man himself, twenty years younger than when I knew him. It was a sight to make my eyes sting and my throat tighten.
I wasn’t aware of lowering my bow until I saw the youth reach surreptitiously for the dagger at his belt.
“Don’t do it,” I warned, training my arrow again at his heart. For a tense moment we stayed like that, he with his hand on the knife’s hilt, me holding my breath, sweat trickling down my back as I prayed he wouldn’t draw the weapon. Could I shoot him if I had to? Could I put an arrow through Brig’s flesh and
blood?
My expression must have said I was prepared to.
Slowly, reluctantly, he drew his hand away from the weapon. “So what happens now? Is this the part where you murder me, as you did my father?”
I didn’t rise to the bait this time but ordered him to disarm very slowly and to toss me his waterskin. He obeyed, and after collecting his things, I backed away.
“Here’s how this is going to play out,” I told him, slinging his waterskin onto my shoulder to join my own. “My destination is a two-day journey across this wasteland. With an injured leg and no water, you’ll never make it that far. Even if you were foolish enough to try, you’re unarmed, and I would shoot you down the first time I caught you following me.”
His eyes glittered with hate. “So you leave me to die in this desert?”
“There’s nothing stopping you from binding up your leg and limping back to the river. It’s a kinder option than you would have given in my place.”
“If our positions were reversed, you would be dead by now and my father avenged.”
He was either stupid or made fearless by his hatred of me. I didn’t have the patience to deal with either possibility. “Your accusations are growing tiresome. I cannot make you believe that I had no hand in Brig’s death, but I advise you to reconsider the trustworthiness of your source. Ask yourself what motive the one who hired you might have for lying about my past and seeking my destruction. What is he afraid of, that he is so eager to ensure I never return to Ellesus?”
“Ridiculous,” he sneered. “A respected member of the Praetor’s council has nothing to fear from the likes of you.”
“Praetor’s council, you say?” I mentally shuffled through my limited knowledge of the Praetor’s advisers. My only glimpse of these exalted people had been on the occasion where I had made my ill-conceived attempt at assassinating their ruler. I had failed miserably and, in the end, had been forced to join the very man I had hoped to kill. There had been councilmen present for that, but none of them stood out in my memory. None had cause to act against me now.
My enemy looked annoyed at his slip. “Kill me if you want, but I’ll tell you no more than that. I’ll never disclose the name of the one who hired me.”
“Then maybe you’ll give you own?” His bravery reminding me of Brig, I softened slightly. Maybe he had more than appearance in common with his father.
He scowled, and I thought he would refuse me this piece of information too, if only to be obstinate.
But it seemed he had used up his store of defiance. “Martyn. I am Martyn.”
“All right, Martyn. I have only one question more for you. How did you come to possess my bow?”
“Everyone knows of the famous bow belonging to Ilan of Dimmingwood,” he said. “Your precious forest outlaws fished it out of a stream and were saving it in your memory. When I went sniffing around the outlaw band, looking for answers about my father’s fate, I soon learned of the bow. People say it’s the only weapon that can defeat you. So I took it, thinking it would be a fine irony to destroy you with your own bow.”
“And so you nearly did.” Privately, I was amused by the nonsensical idea that I was some unnatural being who could only be killed by a magical weapon. But I sobered, remembering this young man might be ignorant but he was still an enemy it would be unwise to turn my back on.
“For your father’s sake, I am leaving you alive. That is more than I’ve ever done before with someone bent on killing me. I won’t ask why you are suddenly so concerned with Brig’s fate, when none of his kin seemed interested in him while he lived.”
He tried to protest, but I cut him off. “You should tear off a bit of your cloak and wrap that wound tight before you lose any more blood. Then take yourself back home, wherever that may be. You have no honest quarrel with me, and I want none with you. But make no mistake. The next time I lay eyes on you, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
I glanced at the sky where the sun was dipping behind a ridge. “And now I have a long way to go and not many hours left until dark. Good-bye, Martyn, son of Brig. I hope we do not meet again.”
I left him there, sitting on the blood-spattered sand and looking after me in confusion. I offered up a silent apology to Brig and tried not to wonder what would become of his son.
* * *
Following Calder’s map, it took me two more days of travel to reach the mountains. I never saw any sign of Martyn following me and wondered with a pang of guilt whether he had successfully retraced his steps to the river or if he was dead by now.
It was a rough climb up the mountainside. The air here was as dry as that of the desert I had left behind, but temperatures dropped the higher I went. I saw snow on the slopes above and hoped I would not have to go that far. I wasn’t equipped for cold or for scaling steep peaks. Luckily, my map showed the Drejians’ fortress at a lower level.
I had only been climbing for a day when I found myself on a craggy bluff overlooking a familiar prospect. It was exactly as the map showed, a place with high rock walls on three sides and a hill of shale on the fourth side leading up to a pile of boulders.
One of those tall rock walls was an entrance to the Drejian stronghold in the side of the mountain. The stone gates were high and wide. It was impossible to imagine them being opened by any outside force. Certainly it would take more strength than mine to budge them.
Equally intimidating were the two statues on either side of the gates, soaring rocks carved into the rough resemblance of winged men. I doubted Drejians were as tall as these were depicted, but even allowing for exaggeration, they were a fierce-looking enemy.
Fortunately it was not the Drejians I had come to face.
I had no sooner had the thought than my eye caught movement from below. Pacing before the entry to the Drejian fortress was a creature now familiar to me. Massive and black scaled, she was not just any dragon but the dragon. Micanthria. Just as I remembered her from the attack on the high field in Swiftsfell.
Memories of that day flashed through my mind. Again I heard the screams of the villagers, saw Myria’s blackened corpse. Heat raced through my veins to rival the flames of the dragon. In my hatred, it was hard to think of anything but the need to destroy the creature before me. But some rational part of me knew I mustn’t give in to the desire for vengeance yet. I had been no match for Micanthria then, and I would be none now. Not while she was on her guard.
So I bided my time and waited until daylight faded and the moon rose high in the sky. I watched while the dragon patrolled her ground, watched when she finally settled down to gnaw on the carcass of some large wild beast she must have killed earlier. When she had eaten her fill, I feared she would resume her watchfulness. But instead, she lay down against an outcropping of rock, lowered her head, and was still.
Now that it was safe to move without great danger of detection, I crept closer, scrambling as speedily as I dared down the side of the ridge. I was cautious, crossing near the mouth of the Drejian stronghold, but I needn’t have been. There were no warriors in sight. Supremely confident in the strength of their dragon, these people apparently felt no need to post any other guard. It did not occur to them anyone would be foolish enough to come looking for a fight with Micanthria.
The immense bulk of the dragon loomed before me, a blue-black mountain of teeth and claws. I only had to get near enough so that I couldn’t possibly miss my shot. It almost seemed too easy as I readied my bow and looked for the most vulnerable point to target. The head was best, I decided, drawing near. I would aim directly between the eyes.
I was so close I could almost have reached out and touched the creature, when a piece of gravel crunched loudly beneath my boot, breaking the silence of the night.
I froze, holding my breath, as one giant fiery eye snapped open to fix upon me.
In the back of my mind, a voice screamed at me to loose my arrow, but my numb fingers refused to obey the command. I stood paralyzed beneath the dragon’s hypnotic stare. For
a long, silent moment, the world seemed to stand still.
Then so quickly I barely saw it coming, Micanthria lashed out with one giant wing, catching me in the chest and throwing me a dozen yards to the side. I crashed into the ground with painful force and rolled, my bow knocked from my grasp and lost somewhere behind me.
I lay sprawled on my back, waiting for my head to stop spinning and for everything to come into focus again. Before I could regather my thoughts or my strength, hot dragon breath blasted over me, and I looked up into the gaping jaws of the beast. My hands moved to the knives tucked up my sleeves, even though I knew they would be little more than sharp splinters next to the gleaming row of huge teeth lowering toward me.
From nowhere, a thought slipped into my mind, as if Myria herself were tapping me on the shoulder and whispering what I must do. Instead of drawing my knives, I gripped the dragon-scale augmenter on its chain around my neck. Drawing on my rusty magical skills, I scoured my mind of all its fear and dread. I pushed these powerful emotions outward, away from me, and rolled them in a great wave to crash over my enemy.
Micanthria, poised to devour me, hesitated as the wall of magic hit her. Her eyes widened, growing glossy and dazed. If not fear, she was at least feeling confusion, and it was enough to distract her. Using the opportunity, I crawled from beneath her jaws and ran. A steep hill of shale sloped before me, and I scrambled desperately up the incline. My concentration broken, I felt the magic that held the dragon in confusion seeping away. Dissolving.
My fears were confirmed by the sound of pursuit from behind. The dragon was so much larger than I that it took her only a few strides to catch up to me. Her claws anchored her firmly into the side of the mountain while I struggled to keep my footing on the steep surface. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her long neck stretch toward me, saw the approach of her great maw, filled with teeth glinting like ivory daggers.
