by Aaron Pogue
Caleb didn't answer. He moved in a straight line, the same direction the rustle had gone, cutting a little north of west and out of the camp. We stormed right into the heart of the formation there, rushing past dancing fires and bubbling pots and dozens of men sprawled in peaceful slumber wherever they had stood.
We broke free on the other side of the camp and passed between two posted sentries sound asleep. I felt my eyes widen and glanced back over my shoulder toward the king's position. "Caleb, what's happening?" I asked again, a little frantic. "Are we under attack?"
"Hush," he said.
"No, this could be a strike on the king! By wizards. There was a rebel wizard before the dragons—"
"Shut up, Taryn."
The camp had stretched as far as the open plains allowed. Beyond the sentries' careful line lay perhaps a dozen paces of level ground before the earth fell away into the wide bed of a dried-up river. Caleb threw me on ahead of him, and I nearly sprawled. I caught myself with my palms, sinking one hand wrist-deep in the thick red mud of the riverbed. The smell of it was awful.
Caleb didn't even slow. He landed lightly beside me, rapped me on the collarbone with one knuckle in an effort to spur me on, and trotted the short distance across the bed. I was barely moving again before he'd heaved himself up the far side and pressed into the low bracken that grew against a shallow hillside.
It took me three tries to climb the slippery bank, and by then I could only follow him by the clear trail he'd left in the tall grass. I scrambled up the hill, hurrying after him, but then a shadow washed over me like winter's chill. It passed in a heartbeat, and as the shadow sped up the hillside above me I followed the motion up to the sky.
A dragon hung silhouetted against the moon.
It couldn't have been a hundred paces away. It was bigger than a house and glowed the same silver-white as moonlight. But...no! There weren't any dragons. Not in this part of the world. Not for years. The thoughts sizzled in my mind, defying the reality before my eyes. A sound like a whimper escaped my throat.
It was real. There was no denying it. It was nearly within reach. And it was flashing true as an arrow in the direction Caleb had gone. Everything in my body screamed for me to turn and run, but I couldn't believe anyone in the king's sleeping camp could protect me from that monster.
I needed Caleb. I barely even faltered. I sprinted on up the hill, eyes fixed on the dragon as it banked lazily off to the left and curled back to the right. I had just time enough to worry it might turn back my way, that it might see me, as I reached the top of the hill.
I dropped my gaze for a moment and had that one moment's warning as I saw the steep drop-off. For a hundred paces to the left and right, the hill's gentle slope was torn away, leaving a ledge of dirt and dry grass some three or four paces above a nearly-hidden dell.
The hollow looked like the work of some great sinkhole, and I could see the wide, dark stain of a still pool toward the heart of the dell, but between that and the edges were a hundred paces of twisted scrub growing like a forest in this sheltered little hollow at the desert end of the world.
My left foot came down within a hand's width of the edge, and my momentum hurled me right over. I got one good glimpse out at the dell, and I thought I heard, very small in the night, the sound of my mother crying out in alarm. "Taryn!"
I saw no sign of her, though, and I had no attention to spare to look for her. It wasn't a huge fall, but panic had me. I tried to twist in the air and grab for the ledge. I succeeded enough to slam an elbow and forearm painfully against the cliff. I got a boot against the loose dirt face and kicked down to slow my fall. I still hit the ground hard. I threw myself into a roll as Caleb had always instructed, but the thorn-studded trunk of a scrubby little tree stopped me short.
For a moment I lay stunned. A rain of disturbed dirt pattered down around me while I fought to catch my breath. I heard or imagined Mother's voice again, like a faraway whisper. Then that terrible shadow passed over me, and the silver shape of the dragon ghosted silently across the sky. And now I knew without a doubt that it had seen me. It was watching me.
I wrenched my way to my feet, and before I was even fully upright my feet were churning. I scrambled away from the loose dirt wall and into the dell. There was at least some manner of cover there. Caleb was nowhere to be seen, and I didn't dare face a dragon on my own. My only hope lay among the tangling trees. They had little in the way of leaves or canopy, and they grew too low to really offer an easy path beneath their branches, but it was still better than waiting out in the open. I hurled myself against the growth like a battering ram, and forced my way in among them. Thorns caught on my clothes and scored long, shallow, stinging scratches on my face and arms.
I bulled my way ten paces into the scrub before it caught me fast. I couldn't move forward. I couldn't pull back. I was stuck, and I thrashed in place like a wolf in a trap. My clothes and my flesh ripped on the stinging thorns, while my head whipped left and right searching the sky for some sign of the pale shadow. I saw nothing.
A shiver of fear rattled me from top to toe. I had to fight it, and for the first moment since I'd spotted the monster, I stopped long enough to catch my breath. I fell still. My eyes yet scanned the sky, but my mind began to work again. I had seen dragons before, in all their terrible power. I had seen their corpses by the dozens. And I had been trained, like everyone in Father's fortress, to survive an attack.
Yet that had been in the fortress. That had been with an army of veteran dragon slayers waiting all around. That had been with the cover of paces-thick stone crafted of solid will all around me. I had never trained for this. My heart started to race again at the thought, and no number of calming breaths could slow it now.
But then my hand closed around the hilt of my sword. The steel thread felt shockingly cool against my fever-hot skin. I thought of my father who had made it as a gift for me. He had never trained for this, either, but he had survived. Without a fortress and without an army. How many encounters with the nightmare beasts had he survived before he ever dreamed of the Tower of Drakes?
I found courage in the thought. I pulled back from the tangling limbs, disengaged, and then sank down to my knees. For a long moment I sat as still as stone, eyes closed, lost in the silence, and all I did was breathe.
And then, for the first time, I remembered Mother's voice. I could hear it in perfect clarity. She had called to me as I fell into the dell. She had cried out in worry when the dragon went searching for me. She was here. Caleb had been going to her.
My teeth ground so hard at the thought that my jaw hurt. He was not sowing discord among the king's men. He was not finding friendly souls to stand with us in a crisis. He was meeting with Mother, every night. He was allowed to see her, while I was trapped with Souward's slovenly seventh.
Another tremor chased down my spine. She was here. Mother was here, where the dragon was hunting. I cast back desperately in my memory, trying to guess where the distant cry might have come from. I had caught just one glimpse of the wide hollow, and that by pale moonlight, but I searched the frail impression for some hint where Mother might be. Where she would hide with a dragon circling in the sky.
The answer came to me with a sudden certainty. It had to be the pool. There had been a pond at the heart of the dell. It would provide more protection than these brittle, dry woods. The water could perhaps be deep enough to conceal someone from a dragon's sight. It could certainly offer some hope against the forge-hot fire of a dragon's breath. She had to be there, and I had to get to her.
I stayed low, beneath the reaching branches of the trees, and made a hasty crawl toward the pool. Once I heard the low, slow thunder of the dragon's wings beating past above, but I froze in place and it passed over me. I moved again, and some short time later I heard a terrible crashing as a massive monster tore ferociously into the gnarled trees that gave me cover, but it was some distance off to the left, and I was able to slip past it during the commotion.
And then I saw the rippling glint of moonlight on water up ahead. I scrambled forward, filled with a sudden hope, but reason caught me one pace short of the pool's edge, and I went still. I strained my ears and caught the sound of breathing—the short, sharp breaths of someone trying to maintain a tenuous calm, and the low whistle of a dragon catching its breath.
It had to be Mother. I dropped a hand to my sword hilt again, summoning my courage, and inched forward to get a clear view. I wanted it to be Caleb. Perhaps I was praying deep in my soul that it was Caleb so unnerved he could not hold his breath steady. But I knew it couldn't be him. Stretched out almost prone, I pressed my palms flat against the earth, dug in with my toes, and pushed myself ahead without a sound.
She was there, just across the water from me. She wore a simple, light dress of cotton like one of the servant women might have worn. Her dark hair was tied back, her skin unadorned. She looked younger than I had ever seen her. She looked...soft. Fragile. This was not the Lady of the Tower of Drakes. This was just a defenseless woman, small and weak.
And towering above her was the dragon. It was so much larger than I'd thought. I had never seen a white dragon before. I had never even heard of one. Moonlight hung around the beast like the glow of a perfect pearl. The dragon stood as still as a statue, gathered high above my mother, ready to strike at any instant, but neither of them moved.
They were perhaps a dozen paces away from me. I could see the careful control in her eyes, but her lip trembled. Her hands, too, at her sides. She had no weapon. Still, she stared up the creature with something almost like defiance. I marveled at her control, but it would count for nothing against one of those scything talons, or teeth strong enough to crush stone.
She was no more than a dozen paces away, but the pool stretched between us. I could not approach with any kind of stealth. I'd have to throw myself into the open, then run splashing through the water. I might gain some advantage of surprise, even over a monster like that, but I could not cover the distance in time. It had only to take to the air, and I'd be unable to touch it.
But at the very least I could help her. I could distract it. I could lead it away and give her a chance to run. I nodded once. I took a slow breath and let it out, then dropped a hand to draw my sword. For all my care I heard a rustle in the brush by my hip. I froze, eyes fixed hard on the creature looming over my mother, but neither of them gave any indication they'd heard the tiny sound. I tore my gaze from that tableau and looked down to my side.
Caleb's eyes shone wide and white with reflected moonlight, but otherwise he was a shadow lost among the trunks and branches. Somehow he had moved all the way to my side without a sound. I gestured with my free hand to catch his attention and jerked my head back to the dragon.
A frown creased his forehead, and he nodded sharply at me. He knew what was out there. I reached on toward my sword, but Caleb shook his head. I frowned right back at him, and jerked my head toward the dragon again. Then I gave a little sigh and eased myself back the way I'd come, out of his line of sight, so he could see the threat hanging over my mother. For everything I held against the man, I could not believe he might leave my mother in any kind of danger. He'd have given his own life a dozen times over to protect hers.
And he watched. For a long moment after I'd ceded the place he lay still, staring across the short distance at her. I could see all the fear and worry this man would ever show in a tiny wrinkling around his eyes, a tension at the back of his jaw. It was there, though. I loosened my blade in its scabbard, and steeled myself to rush beside him into battle. With Caleb here, everything was different.
He raised one hand, and I watched it closely. There were hand signs he used to direct the knights in battle—a silent language for passing orders in utter stealth. He'd never taught me the signs, but for Mother I would figure them out. I stared hard at the big hand, spread wide, and watched as he made a pushing gesture, straight toward my face.
He didn't stop. He clamped his hand over my mouth and nose and pressed me back with an effortless force that nonetheless drove me a full pace backward sliding on my belly. I strained my eyes wide, pleading with him, but he twisted in place almost like a cat and came crawling after me. He blocked my only path to the pool and bore down on me.
I shook his hand off my face, and as he came closer he couldn't get the same angle again. He pressed his palm around the top of my head instead and tried to push me that way, but I dug in my toes and tried to shake his hand off.
I jostled one of the trees, and dry branches rattled above me loud as a raging sword fight in the night's stillness. I froze, but Caleb relented too. He drove his chin against his chest to try to look past his own bulk toward the pool, but neither of us could see anything. So we lay still for several long seconds, suppressing our breath and straining our ears desperately for some hint of whether we'd been heard.
And then, before I had stopped listening, Caleb moved. He didn't try to push me this time. Instead he threw himself forward, fast and silent as a snake on stone, until his face was mere inches from mine. I could feel his hot breath puffing on the ground beneath me.
"Just. Go." He weighted the words with as much authority as I had ever heard from him. Yet somehow there was a plea in it, too. Perhaps I took that from his eyes. He looked terrified, and I knew it was not for his own safety. He pinched his brows together when he saw me considering him and showed me his teeth. "Go!"
I felt a flash of gratitude toward him then, but I hissed back. "No! I can't leave my mother—"
"It's hers," he said. I blinked at him, uncomprehending, but before I could ask for explanation he growled, "That is Isabelle's dragon. It will no more harm her than Vechernyvetr would turn on your father."
"Mother doesn't have a dragon," I said.
Irritation flared in his eyes. "She does, and it's a skittish thing for all its strange power. Now go before you scare it off."
"But—"
"Wind and rain, child. I'll come with you. I'll explain."
When I didn't respond he raised a hand to my shoulder and propelled me another pace backward scraping on my belly. I blinked and shook him off and started moving backward on my own. I went ten paces before I found a spot I could turn around in without raising a great rustle.
Another fifteen paces had me halfway back to the outside edge when he slapped the side of my boot to catch my attention. I turned and found him climbing into a sitting position where the tangle of branches above us did not press quite so low. He beckoned me back, and I went to sit before him in the darkness beneath the twisted trees.
"This is far enough, I think," he said. His voice was still low, but it was not the puffing whisper he'd used before.
"You...you truly believe she's safe with the dragon?"
He nodded.
I shook my head in disbelief. Her dragon. "How? When did she...how?"
"It's a long story," Caleb said. "And a secret one." I frowned, and he spread his hands to forestall my anger. "I will explain. I said I would explain. But you will be only the third person to know."
"My father—"
"Would be furious," Caleb said. "Hah. He might have torn the Tower down. Might still do, when he learns of it."
"Then why would she...I mean, why did you let her?"
"Let her?" He gave another half-hearted chuckle. "I do not control Isabelle's choices. And I can no more restrain her than I can you."
I was barely listening to him. I chewed a thumbnail while my mind raced. "She bonded it?" I asked, not really looking for an answer. Cold shock cramped in tight behind my eyes, pushing away the world around me. She bonded a dragon? Tears stung in my eyes. She bonded a dragon? "Why?"
"The same reasons Daven bonded Vechernyvetr. She believed she was out of other options. And she had no idea how dangerous it was."
"She was cornered? But...when? How? Has she ever left the Tower?"
"She has, but no, she was not cornered. She heard a rumor of a white dame's den near Palmagnes, a
nd one night while we were all distracted, she stole away in secret."
I gaped. "She did it on purpose?"
"She thought she had to."
"But...there are rules! You never bonded a dragon."
"And never will. But Isabelle came through it, Taryn. Calm down."
My heart pounded as hard now as it ever had when I only thought the dragon was hunting me. This was worse.
There were rules to the dragon bonding. The monster had to be subdued somehow, restrained until a willing warrior could complete the blood rite. The rite itself was a vicious trauma, leaving dragon and man alike unconscious, but one of them would wake first....
In five years of trying, the Captains of the Hunt had never found a way to control which one woke first. It was no matter of stamina or strength, or mental or moral fortitude. There was nothing they could find to influence the chance, but whichever soul recovered first could obliterate the other and control its body.
If the man woke first, he would speak a ritual phrase to the other dragon hunters present and cause the beast to bow. Then he became a dragonrider. If the beast woke first.... The hunters were very good at killing dragons, but they hated having to kill their brothers.
"She did it in secret?" I asked. "No one went to stand her vigil?"
He narrowed his eyes. "Who would have agreed to such a thing?"
"No one," I said, numb. "She went alone. She performed the rite. And now the dragon has control of her."
"Don't be a fool," he said. "Isabelle is in full control."
I shook my head. The tears were blurring my vision again. "No. Oh, Haven, Caleb. No, you couldn't see it. You were too busy. But I noticed."
He rolled his eyes. "Noticed what?"
"She changed. I never understood, but I noticed." I swallowed hard, and tried to ignore the crushing pain around my heart. "The dragon has control of her."
Caleb didn't answer. For a long time he didn't answer. At last I sniffed and scrubbed quickly at my eyes, then looked to his face. I found him smiling. There was not much joy in it, and no mockery, but still I felt heat rise in my cheeks. "Why do you smile?"
