Aaron wished for more support. He wished Cal were here. Since they’d parted ways after Delhonne, Aaron hadn’t seen Cal often. Cal maintained a loose affiliation with the SDC, but had his own dragons, commonly known as the Unflagged. NEST had tried for Cal a few times, but he had proven more resilient than their usual prey. The Unflagged could usually be found somewhere in Garen following Cal’s exile from Castalan. Not close enough.
After a few minutes, Aaron put out his cigarette and drained his waterskin. He handed two daggers and a purse full of gold to Pierce. Not payment, just making himself as light as possible. He would be in the air a long time. He and DeMarco climbed on to the backs of their dragons and kicked off.
When the unmanned dragon reached the Vercount relay, it was greeted by a grizzled Corvale veteran. He’d seen it, even in the dark sky, from several miles away. The watch at this westernmost SDC outpost was kept around the clock. Since the rise of NEST, they always paid particular attention to the west. He shifted his torch to his off hand and removed the note from the dragon’s neckpouch. After permitting himself a surprised grunt at its contents, he returned to the cabin to wake the other two men stationed there. Within ten minutes, one of their dragons was prepped and ready to fly and the other was already winging its way east to the next outpost.
Aaron and DeMarco arrived twenty minutes later. Aaron immediately mounted the prepped dragon and continued east alone. DeMarco would stay here until the first dragon was rested and then continue onwards at a slower pace.
It was when the unmanned dragon from Vercount arrived at the next relay station that things really began to happen. This station had four dragons waiting, which meant it could send three Red Locust notifications out and still have a fresh dragon ready for Aaron Lorne. One of those dragons went to the Great River Branch outpost, the center for SDC dragon routing and logistics for all flights and operations west of Delhonne. Messages flew in all directions from the Great River Branch.
As the sun rose in the east, all SDC flights were grounded, all contracts placed on temporary hold. More than a few nobles awoke in confusion as their hired mounts and guides abandoned them mid-journey. Others arrived at launch pads for prescheduled and prepaid flights only to find no one there. The flight corridor between Ellis and New Wyelin was cleared of non-essential activity. It would take the accountants and logisticians weeks to fully restore normal operations and figure out how much revenue had been lost in a single day’s work. Aaron didn’t care. Their enemy had a significant head start in preparing for the inevitably approaching war. While Aaron tried to close the gap, every second mattered.
He switched dragons in midair about halfway between the Eostre-Tannes border and the Great River. He switched again at the Great River, taking pleasure in timing his jump so he was over the clear blue water. By then he had two fresh dragons, one in front to cut the wind, rotating them every two hours or so. As he crossed the northern border of Tannes, he had been in the air for nearly twenty hours. The last rays of the western sun fell on Aaron as he set down briefly in a field past the border to empty his bladder, stretch his aching back, and drink some water. Two hours later he entered the outskirts of the new Corvale territory. He could see the deep, blue mountains ahead in the night.
The border scouts had already been alerted to the Red Locust. They had fresh dragons and a full escort waiting for Aaron. They joined him and all began the rough climb for altitude up the southern face of the Frome Mountains, the torches on the lead dragons swirling in the wind. After they cleared the first pass, the winds grew more favorable. Aaron was able to sit back and rest as his dragon found a good coasting level. His back hurt. Another hour and they reached the Tear, a flat sheet of rockwall with a jagged gap running down the center. It was hard to fight the winds and clear the rockwall, which left visitors to the SDC and the Corvale with little option but to navigate the narrow path the gap provided. Aaron let his escort lead the way into the deeper blackness, trusting his dragon to navigate the slim turns by memory as the darkness enfolded them. The Tear lasted only a few hundred feet, then opened out into the Deathbowl.
After the claustrophobic Tear, the Deathbowl felt impossibly open, exposed. A massive canyon which stretched in all directions, the Deathbowl’s construction had eaten up a good third of the costs of the new Corvale community in the mountains. It was their great defense against invasion by dragonarmy. The natural bowl spanned a mile across at the center. The Tear was to the south, providing the only entry and exit without fighting for exhausting altitude in unfavorable winds. The rim of the bowl was nearly circular and level. The Corvale had cleared off shelves along the exterior, creating suitable space for dragons to land, rest, and wait. If an enemy entered in force, they would find all the shelves occupied by dragons. As the invaders struggled to find rest and shelter, the Corvale could rotate and attack in shifts. Or they could simply wait until the invading dragons collapsed of exhaustion and sank to the canyon floor to be dispatched easily from above. No one had tried to attack the Deathbowl yet. Outside the Corvale and the rare guest, few had seen it.
Directly across the center of the Deathbowl was the recently built New Wyelin and its crowning jewel, the SDC Hall of Far East. A long landing platform stretched out in front of the structure, like a protruding tongue. After crossing the entirety of Tannes and then some, almost twenty-six hours of straight flight, Aaron landed.
The commanding officer of New Wyelin’s dragonarmy garrison waited as Aaron approached the traditional silver Corvale washing bowl and cleaned his hands and face. Aaron gave the commander a nod but said nothing as he continued forward in a brisk walk towards the Hall of Far East. Moments later, Aaron threw back the large wooden doors and entered the long space, a grand table ahead of him. It was empty aside from Conners Toren, Aaron’s lord, the leader of the Delhonne Corvale and Chief Executive Officer of the SDC, seated at the head. Aaron did not break stride but continued forward, took a knee in front of his master. After Conners bid him to rise, Aaron told him that, after over ten years of searching, they had found the Prisoner, and he sat atop NEST. War was coming and there was no doubt the Corvale would be the ultimate target of this uncaged evil.
The Day of Arrival
Chapter 1. Never Enough Gold
He wasn’t getting paid nearly enough for this job. Trevor crossed the busy street, taking care to keep several people between him and the man he followed. The streets of Ellis were loud and the traffic, both in people and carts, was heavy. No one was able to move quickly today. There was little chance Trevor would lose his mark. And the man was not the type to be aware of unwanted attention. Still, not nearly enough gold.
They’d agreed to thirty gold a day when he pressed the issue. The easterners loved to work on vague terms then pay what they thought they owed you at the end. Trevor didn’t like it. He was spending about six gold a day on food, and his room set him back almost forty a week. That meant he was profiting only about eighteen and change a day. Better than he could do on the trail, sure, but if he was on the trail his room and board was covered. For the third time today, Trevor resolved to talk to his handler next time he could make it over to that corner of the city of Ellis.
The mark had stopped for lunch, grabbing a table at a small tavern across the street, same as he’d done the day before. This job was boring. The mark would sit and stare, probably order the same food and ale as every day and watch the traffic roll by. Trevor walked past the tavern and found a small doorway to squat in. It should be about an hour. The mark was in no hurry to return to work and didn’t seem to have anyone to report to. Trevor carefully unwrapped the sandwich he’d prepared that morning. He folded the brown paper he’d wrapped it in and placed it in his pocket. He’d use it again tomorrow.
As he took a large bite, Trevor scanned the street. All the streets were narrow with tall metal-plated buildings on either side leaning in, looking like a row of iron stoves at a store. Most streets were cobbled, as this one was, which kept things clean even d
uring the frequent rains, though the racket of passing horses and cart wheels drove one mad before he learned to filter it out. This particular corner of Ellis lacked much in the way of defining character. It housed middle and lower class in the upper levels of the tall buildings. The ground floor was generally reserved for all manner of merchants. There were several large government buildings nearby. Two members of NEST walked by, eyes down, easily spotted by their bright blue uniforms. Trevor took care to avoid their attention. He noted he wasn’t the only one. Blues were becoming less popular by the day, not that it seemed to matter to them.
During this job, Trevor had quickly slid into the easterners’ slang. NEST dragon riders were called falsemarked, the soldiers were blues. Still, he had to be careful when he spoke. To say either branded one as an enemy of the far-reaching organization. Trevor rubbed at his thick black mustache, tugged at his longish hair. He was a big man with rough features but could blend easily into crowds. Give him a comb for his mustache and hair and he could pass for high-ranking military, maybe even nobility. Let him mess it up and grow a few days’ stubble and he was a soldier or laborer who rarely drew a second glance. Today, he was going for the latter. He could always clean up if his orders changed once the VIP they were awaiting arrived.
He turned to his side of the street. It was quiet, a few assorted types taking a break from the endless stream of clatter and business, finding shelter in the small alcoves created by front steps and doorframes. To his left, between him and the mark, only feet away, was a fortune teller. She was set up at a small dingy table pulled back tightly against a building.
She managed to catch his eye as only an experienced street vendor can do. “Read your future, sir?”
Trevor shook his head. Only eighteen and change a day. He’d been on this stake for four days, working for the easterners for about eight total. Gathering intel on the morgue, prison, and NEST operations center on the west side. Anything he could learn about the Shields of Glass palace on the bluffs without getting too close.
Jardere was under contract too, monitoring the prison below the Shields. Mario got both of them the job. Trevor trusted Mario. They all knew the guys they were working with were trouble in Ellis, but they paid gold, which had become precious throughout the west. NEST hoarded it all for themselves, which at least kept inflation at bay even as it kept everyone else poor. Eighteen and change for eight days, that made a little over one hundred and forty six, except he started out owing Mario fifty plus some interest to round it out. Trevor stood to be okay for a couple months, provided the easterners didn’t get all of them killed.
“I can see what lies ahead,” the teller continued. “Many a man has found his path to greatness after just a moment of commune with the divine eye.”
Trevor hesitated, an uncharacteristic move for him. He tried to remember if he’d squatted in this doorway yesterday or the day before. It was such a boring job. “Fine,” he said. “Okay, but tell me something worthwhile and you’ll get no more than a piece from me.”
The fortune teller nodded, happy for any business. She was pretty, wearing clothes that had once been expensive and fashionable. Both she and her outfit looked tired, worn. Trying to be heard over all this noise got to all of them eventually.
“Give me your hand,” she said, reaching out to take it. After a glance at the mark, still sipping his lunchtime pint, Trevor gave it to her. He tried to hold his patience as she began an elaborate sequence of events designed to heighten the tension, make him think she was reaching out for some sort of “divine eye”. She may have sensed his desire to be nondescript and at least kept the moaning and swaying to a bare minimum. She pulled tightly on his hand as though drawing something out of it, her eyes closed.
Her eyes opened suddenly, searching rapidly around the busy street as though lost for a moment before they settled back on him. “A dead man approaches.”
Trevor stared flatly at her. Of course. She’d observed who he was watching. Anyone who spent three days staking the city’s head mortician from dawn until dusk was clearly waiting for a dead man.
She continued, “He comes from the skies. He’s not alone, but…he is not alone. I see, smoke and blood, a crowd lined up, a noose made from a belt, a great bonfire with strange creatures dancing around it.” She looked confused.
This was descending into garbage. “You saw me watching him, eh?” Trevor asked. She was hesitant, didn’t answer. “Are you all right?” he asked. When she still didn’t answer, he quipped, “See anything else? A dog smoking a cigarette?”
“No, I don’t normally…” she started, then trailed off. She seemed to return to herself quick enough when he flicked a coin onto the table. Interesting bit she had.
He’d have to take the coin out of his equation. So only seventeen and change today, assuming he didn’t have to buy another ale to track the mark to the same after work watering hole he’d been to the past few days.
“There’s more. I saw an octopus losing its arms, a balcony falling, a set of bloody footprints on a white floor, a broken sword, snakes biting their handlers. A man who casts two shadows. Nothing pleasant.” She looked at Trevor, shaky and seemingly a little angry. “Who are you?”
It looked like the mortician was wrapping up his lunch much faster than usual. “Just a working man, nothing special,” Trevor said, then finished his sandwich in two bites. It would be back to the morgue, tracking the comings and goings for one last day. Then another quick scout of the prison, then the NEST operations center. Home late then another early start tomorrow. At least he was saving on lamp oil. The mark left his table. Eighteen gold a day, not nearly enough.
“A dead man approaches,” the fortune teller said to herself, more a question than a statement, as if curious what had touched the edge of her gift. The sound of flapping wings briefly disoriented her. She turned her head to the left. To her right Trevor slipped back into the street, in pursuit.
Chapter 2. A Harvest of Bodies
Aaron Lorne caught a favorable draft as he rode an SDC dragon towards Ellis. The city’s high buildings broke up the horizon in the distance, cutting into the silhouette of the setting sun. Another SDC dragon flanked him, carrying his companion on this mission, who remained quiet as usual. Aaron had never before worked with or even seen either of the dragons who carried them. They were the very bottom of the barrel of SDC stock. Slow and old. Whatever dragons Aaron Lorne and his companion landed in Ellis, the headquarters and heart of NEST, would be dead or captured and repurposed by tomorrow. No way he was bringing one of his more valuable dragons into this deathtrap.
Aaron had crossed the Eostre-Tannes border at dawn, near the trading village where he’d conducted the midnight reconnaissance of the falsemarked Mal Bueray two months prior. The farthest east NEST outpost, just inside the border, had sent up two dragons when he was sighted. One flew closer to investigate, the other circled the outpost, waiting on a signal. Once the first dragon sighted Aaron’s SDC flag, he made a short series of signals with hand flags back towards the outpost. The circling dragon straightened out and headed west deeper into Eostre, on course to alert the next outpost and return with fresh dragons to outnumber their SDC visitors. The falsemarked closest to Aaron and his companion simply turned and paced them, out front but not bothering to break the wind for them. Aaron was well familiar with the defense system signified by his escort. It was modeled after the one he’d put in place up in the Frome Mountains.
Mal Bueray was now dead, an early casualty of the burgeoning war between NEST and the SDC. Someone with a long view of the slowly developing conflict might have called Bueray’s death retribution for the death of Derrick Issale, the former head of the Corvale Warrior Circle. But with that long view, one would be forced to concede those targets were widely unequal. The SDC was losing the opening notes of a song of war. Recent events had forced Aaron to insert himself publicly into the fray. He had no doubt that the falsemarked riding near him knew who he was. And hated him. About a month a
go, Aaron had started the war.
The war had begun in a tavern in the small town of Dragon’s Cove east of Garenhold. Dragon’s Cove had been on the front end of a trend of renaming communities. The countryside was now full of towns and villages with the word dragon in their name whose residents had never seen one of the creatures. The desperate need to generate any business in the suffering small communities across the countryside had led to a race to accommodate travelers by dragon. Dragon’s Cove was one of the few towns successful at drawing travelers from the skies. They got everything just right, working quickly with developers to put up three large inns with well-marked landing pads on the roofs, got their general store to stock traveling supplies targeted towards dragon riders, and brought in a brothel, small casino, and several bars. That Dragon’s Cove was thriving was a credit to their local vision and decisive action. The geography was also critical.
Cove, as the fliers called it, was a day’s flight east of Garenhold. Anyone traveling east from Garenhold pretty much had to stop thereabouts. This included a large number of wealthy tourists off for an expensive weekend joyride, happy to get drunk and find a girl away from the prying eyes of Garenhold, the most notoriously uptight of the continent’s major cities. Anyone coming west to Garenhold would make Cove their last stop before the hub. Cove was also not firmly in either NEST or SDC territory, so both could operate under a tentative unspoken truce, while independent operators were less likely to be badly outnumbered.
There was a community of dragon riders to be found at any of the taverns on a given night. A blend of NEST, SDC, and independents. The atmosphere was not unlike a port bar or a tavern for the recruitment of mercenaries. Tempers wore thin and blood was spilled from time to time, but most were riding the enormous wave of profit that came with dragonflight. They were more eager to spend gold than invite trouble.
Rise of the Falsemarked (Spies of Dragon and Chalk Book 2) Page 2
