After they had said their farewells, Delcan and Aria each left their gaze on the other for a moment as they joined their respective groups.
“She is a princess, farm boy,” Stanlo said as he walked past Delcan and Sandrion on his way to the banquet table. He looked back at them and gave Delcan a serious, knowing look.
“You know, Sandrion, each time he speaks I find myself liking him less,” Delcan said.
“I know what you mean.” Sandrion nodded. “But he is right in this case. Aria is a princess; and a princess wants a prince—”
“Not a peasant farmer’s son. I know. But my father—”
“Your father may have been a royal servant once, but you are not a knight’s son, Delcan."
They stopped on the way to their table, the two friends looking into each other’s eyes. “You are not of noble blood.” Sandrion wore a serious expression on his face, one he did not wear often.
“She is stunning," Delcan whispered. "And incredibly brave, and—”
“And not like a princess at all,” Sandrion chuckled.
“Oh, no, brother.” Delcan said, looking at Aria as she sat at her table and began a conversation with another noble lady. “She is more a princess than any other woman this kingdom has ever seen.”
“Seems like you’ve been hit by a certain arrow yourself.”
“I just met her and already I feel I miss her presence.”
“Oh, yes. You have been struck hard,” Sandrion said and laughed heartily. When his laughter subsided, he added, "But keep in your mind what I said, Delcan."
Delcan nodded, once again taking note of Sandrion’s unusually serious tone.
“Come," Sandrion put his arm around Delcan’s shoulder. "Let us bid the King farewell. In the morn our service to him begins.”
Chapter Seven
Delcan and Sandrion had arrived at the castle on foot; as they set out the morning after the Flarian Festival they left on horseback, compliments of the King himself. It was a sign that they had succeeded in securing a place in the court as squires. Each horse given to them wore the King’s brand on the left, front thigh and Royal ornamental cloth covered its head and back. The Royal horses themselves were theirs for as long as they remained in the King’s service, but that day following the festival was the only time the three young squires would be permitted to display the colors and markings of the King’s court until their dubbing, the official ceremony in which they would be knighted.
The magnificent stallions were to ensure Delcan’s and Sandrion’s speedy return after they had shared the news of their success with their families and had said their good-byes. At the rising of the sun on the day after next, they would begin their squire hood, returning home only as knights or as a tale—one of their rise and fall—told in their villages for decades to come.
Traveling West this time, the countryside and mountains lay before them, the hill and the castle’s stone walls at their backs were no longer visible. A canopy of green leaves formed by the trees lining the King’s Road hung high above them, creating a blanket of shade through which the sun peeked occasionally. The tall maples and oaks had been planted as cover for guards to stand along the road during times of war, keenly watching for an enemy to approach the castle. Beyond these parallel barriers grew fields of waist high brush.
As the day came to a close and the night strode in, the sun hid behind the distant mountains. When Delcan halted as the road turned northward, a handful of clouds still reflected its bright, red light. Sandrion stopped beside him, watching the clouds, each one a projection screen for the dragon fire the sun blew towards the fading blue.
“The sun is already behind the mountains,” Sandrion said solemnly. “The day has only an hour or two remaining.”
Delcan nodded in agreement, getting ready to urge his horse forward again.
“So if the sun is no longer out,” Sandrion continued, “Why is it we’re dragging shadows behind us?”
Delcan looked at Sandrion quizzically. “What?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder.
“We have a pair of shadows behind us,” Sandrion said.
The road behind them turned in a subtle curve to the left; at the point where the bend began, Delcan thought he saw movement. He sat with his shoulders turned and his eyes squinting. He looked closely among the trees and suddenly his thought was confirmed as he distinctly noticed a well-hidden horse shake its head just behind the army of trees.
Delcan turned to Sandrion and said, grinning, “It’s the wind, pushing us home. Nothing more.” He held on tightly to the reins. “These are mighty horses, Royal blood, you know. Some might even say that they could probably outrun their own shadows.” He smiled and dug his heels into the horse’s side. Sandrion followed.
They rode the galloping horses with their shoulders hunched forward, their eyes fixed on the road ahead and their hair pushed back. Delcan felt the throbbing of the horse’s muscles under him and the animal’s energy flowed into his own body like an electrical storm. He was alive and the adrenaline that sprinted through him was proof.
As the squires bolted down the road, two of the King’s guards on horseback stepped forward from behind the trees.
"Do you think they’ve seen us?" Farco asked.
"Nah," Licius responded. "They’re young and eager for adventure. They have their legs wrapped around Royal horses and you know they’ll want to test their speed."
The guards had been following Delcan and Sandrion since they passed under the castle’s front gate. During the festival’s celebration, King Orsak himself had ordered Malden to assign a shadow to each squire.
"Discover the type of folks they are, and where they live," the King had whispered to Malden during the banquet, "I want to know to which family they belong, whom they hold dear; what and whom are they willing to die for."
Malden ordered the guards to keep the young squires in view at all times during their trip home; to report their destination and whatever information they could find.
"We should let them go ahead a short while, it will give us better cover," Farco said.
"Yes. We’ll wait until their dust begins to settle,” Licius agreed.
They trotted casually for a few minutes, watching the two horses in the distance take the next bend in the road.
“Now,” Licius said and they drove their horses forward into a gallop.
Delcan did not need to turn around to know they were still being followed by the pair of guards. He knew that if he were to look over his shoulder he would only see the dust lifted by his own horse. And if he tried to listen for their approach, the world would be drowned by the hooves of his horse crushing stones underfoot. Yet, he knew they were there, tactfully distant, dangerously close.
He and Sandrion took the turn in the road that led them to even ground. They were no longer in the valley and all that lay before them was flat countryside. Here the road forked for the last time. To the North it led into the Square in Berest. To the South, the King’s Road was nothing more than a dirt trail that stretched toward the forest’s ancient pines and the Twilight Mountains where it would abruptly end.
Sandrion called his horse to a halt past the curve and Delcan followed suit.
"Well, if we are to separate, now is the time," Sandrion said and dismounted.
On the northern side of the road, beside a large stone Sandrion once mentioned looked like a large nose sniffing at the dirt, there was a slight gap in the trees, hardly noticeable unless one knew of its existence. Behind the line of trees, the shrubbery had grown thick enough to disorient any traveler who would steer off the road. A straight path through the wild brush would lead directly into the village center. As children Sandrion and Delcan had come to know well this part of the King’s Road near Berest and the gap near the stone as a shortcut home. Here, in the most remote area in Paraysia, Berest was the only village in the vicinity and Delcan considered it his home. Roimas’s cabin was South West of the road, outside of the village, and its
roofline could be seen in the distance.
Delcan dismounted and pulled his horse toward the trees. “I’ll come for you in the morning,” he said.
“Better come early or there will be none of my mother’s biscuits left for you,” Sandrion said from across the road. He raised his arm in a wave and pulled his horse into the gap in the trees.
The guards took the curve at full gallop, their bodies leaning as their horses panted violently to maintain their speed. They passed the large nose-shaped stone on their right and continued to follow the road. A moment later, Licius pulled hard on the reins, bringing his horse to an abrupt stop, searching for the tell-tale cloud of dust ahead.
"What is the matter?" Farco asked.
"I don’t see them."
"They are far ahead of us. We must go if we are to catch up."
"No." Licius was looking around him. "I don’t even see their dust."
Farco watched the road stretch before him in the dying daylight and followed it with his sight. It was clear. He saw the mountains sitting in the horizon and the thick clouds swimming above them. But he saw no one on the road, or any sign that travelers had been here.
"Where did they go?" Farco asked almost whispering.
"They didn’t follow the road," Licius responded, looking behind them. He pulled on the reins and steered his horse around to face the way they had come. He trotted back to the curve in the road and stopped, beckoning Farco to join him.
"See here," he pointed at the ground. "The road is covered by many hoof marks. Now, go forward a few steps.” He urged the horse forward slowly then stopped. “Here. This area here is not as trampled. There are only our hoof prints."
"What do you imply?"
"I imply," Licius continued, "that the young squires abandoned the road somewhere near here."
Farco studied the ground and after a moment nodded in agreement. "They may be hidden within the trees."
"May be. If that’s the case, they’ve hidden well." He looked around at the trees and sneered. “And if so, they are now enjoying a quiet laugh at our expense.”
The guards dismounted and hung their reins on nearby branches.
Licius stood for awhile, listening, hoping to catch some unusual sound that would point them in the squires’ direction. But there was none.
They searched the trees, Licius on the northern side of the road and Farco the southern side, for any hoof marks or trampled foliage. Again, they found nothing.
"Perhaps we should just follow the road to Berest and search for them there," Farco said. "We may even arrive before them."
"Yes," Licius agreed. "Although I’m sure we’ve been fooled."
They mounted their horses and galloped westward. Soon after they passed the large stone, a bear cub emerged from the gap in the trees through which Delcan and Sandrion had escaped and crossed the road.
When Delcan arrived at the cabin, he found his father as he had expected: outside, axe in hand, splitting firewood. A substantial pile of wood resting against the cabin wall made it clear that more was not needed. Roimas had always been an example of restlessness to Delcan. He was a man who had worked his entire life and who would not have life left in him were he ever to be passive.
Delcan stopped a few yards from the cabin and watched as Roimas raised the axe and brought it down in an arc against the log. The fading sunlight cloaked the twilight world under a thin blue-gray shadow and even in the limited light Delcan could read on Roimas’s chiseled face the satisfaction of laboring with the taste of the mountain air on his lips. Time had done its best to soften this man but his strength was still evident as his entire body flexed with each swing of the axe. Delcan thought, or rather hoped, this to be a glimpse of the man he, himself, would someday become and it made him smile.
He pulled his horse forward, both anxious and somewhat fearful to introduce his new friend, his prize, to his father.
"You will need to trap some fireflies in a bottle before long so that you can keep working in the dark," Delcan said as he approached his father. His lips trembled as he spoke and his hands shook.
"The air is cleaner at night," Roimas responded as he situated the next piece of wood to be split. "One breathes easier and thus has more energy." When he looked up there was a hint of a smile—that of a father who is always glad to see his son, even in the most challenging of times, even in times of anger or disappointment. As he caught sight of the majestic stallion and its Royal adornments his smile faltered and the lines on his brow disappeared.
"I see you had a good day at the festival," he said in a hardly audible tone. For a moment, Delcan sensed surrender or defeat in that tone.
"Yes." Delcan watched his father gaze at the horse and wanted to lower his head in shame. He took hold of the thought and forced himself to keep his sight forward and not on his own shoes. Never fear confrontation, Roimas had told him time and again; a face-to-face exchange is a sure way to find the truth within a man’s heart.
"A royal stallion," Roimas whispered. "It has been quite some time since I last saw that garb on my horse. There is reason for that, you know." Roimas looked at Delcan directly and their eyes met.
Now, it was Delcan’s turn to look at Roimas with questioning eyes. "Your horse?"
Roimas did not respond. The long silence that followed filled the space between them.
After a long while Delcan spoke in a defensive tone. "Father, I regret not having told you of my intentions, but had you known—"
"My father was one of the bravest men Paraysia has ever known," Roimas interrupted, resting his axe against the cabin wall. When he spoke, a long sigh escaped beneath his words, as if a heavy weight were crushing his lungs and pushing the air out. "He was a noble man of strong character."
"Yes. You’ve spoken of him," Delcan said. "I know of his years in the castle, of yours as servant to the King. I know—"
"You know nothing," he muttered. He suddenly looked old to Delcan, as if time had snapped its fingers and had broken some sort of enchantment. For the first time, his father’s face looked scarred and his hair gray. His eyes seemed saddened, almost defeated, by his thoughts. Even in the growing gloom of early night, lines were visible at the corners of Roimas’s mouth and eyes. "You know nothing at all."
Chapter Eight
Father and son stood facing one another, Roimas watching Delcan closely, trying to anticipate his reaction.
"What you know of my past, Delcan, is a fabrication."
"I don’t understand."
"You will," Roimas said solemnly. "Or, so I hope."
Delcan watched his father’s face intently but was unable to identify the expression upon it.
"I was once known—," Roimas said, lowering his head, words stumbling on his lips on their way out of his mouth. "That is, my name, it is not Roimas. I was known, up to forty years ago, as Rojimon; Sir Rojimon, highest ranking knight in King Orsak’s army."
Delcan stopped caressing the horse’s mane, his brow suddenly carved with deep lines as age fell upon him like a rain of stones.
"I was trained as a squire under my father, Roen, one of King Marcius’s most honored warriors and one of only two people in the land the King trusted in blind faith."
"Roen? Father, I—"
"Delcan," Roimas said almost in a whisper, rubbing his eyes with his palms. "I have much to tell you, an entire history, and I must get through it in my way—all at once. There have been many years of silence between those days and my life today. Do you understand?"
Delcan nodded.
"Good. I will begin then with the man who saved your life. The only other person to whom King Marcius the Great trusted his life—Galyan."
Roimas walked slowly toward the large boulder beside his cabin, the same stone upon which Galyan had sat nineteen years before, when he had briefly emerged from the forest after twenty years as a recluse.
"He was unlike any sorcerer the kingdom had ever seen; there were more of them about in the world back then."
With a knot wedged in his throat, Roimas searched his mind and his heart for the words with which to tell Delcan of Galyan, of Orsak, and of the days when his body bore the weight of armor.
“When Galyan was born in the year 290 he was seen as a cursed half-breed,” he began. “A misfit child who did not belong among humans—a living fusion of bloods that until then had never joined.
“His mother, Arsia, was a servant to the Queen. She was beautiful and regal. His father, Saimon, the King’s personal advisor, was a tall, handsome wizard with the darkest of skins who legend told was able to ride on the backs of dragons as if they were mares. Their marriage in the latter half of the Third Century was looked upon with contempt and for years both were treated with disdain by most of the King’s subjects. Many folks never truly trusted a wizard. But a wizard and a common woman bound in marriage… well, it was sinful and viewed by some as an offense worthy of banishment. Or worse.”
Delcan looked at his father as he spoke and saw the same signs of aging he had recognized only moments before begin to disappear. The lines on his face and the gray in his hair were still present, but the tired look in his eyes had vanished and his voice strengthened with enthusiasm as he spoke.
Roimas looked at him and noticed the intent look in his son’s eyes. He smiled and beckoned Delcan to his side. “Sit. I promise it will be a long tale.”
Delcan approached and sat on the ground beside him, looking up at Roimas as he did when he was four years of age to listen to his father tell him tall tales of dragon hunts.
Roimas leaned forward and set his arms upon his knees. He sat in silence for a moment, as if listening for the wind to whisper the rest of it in his ear then licked his lips before continuing.
Dragon Fire Page 7
