Torbrek...and the Dragon Variation (The Torbrek Trilogy)

by Lexi Revellian

  Tor put her arms round his neck and hugged him silently.

  On the morning of the third day a messenger in Skardroft’s crimson and black was let in through the postern and shown into Barlanik’s office. He waited while Barlanik broke the royal seal and read the brief letter, expecting it to be a call for surrender.

  When the Castle falls to my troops, it will be no place for a woman. It must be a relief to you that your sister Linet is safe in Tarragon. Send Torbraya out now and I will give her safe passage.

  Skardroft

  Barlanik made the messenger wait outside, and sent for Tor. Skardroft had a point; he was indeed relieved that Linet was out of the Castle the way things were looking. Tor arrived and he handed her the letter. She read it indignantly.

  “Why is he writing to you? Don’t I get a say in what happens to me? He wouldn’t do this if I were a man. Anyway, I’m not going.”

  “I thought you’d say that.” He reached for a pen and wrote, even more succinctly than Skardroft,

  Tor does not wish to go.

  Barlanik

  “I want to add something.” Barlanik passed Tor the paper. Below his distinctive and individual handwriting she added in her careless scrawl,

  Why didn’t you ask me? Don’t you think my opinion matters? You are no longer a Knight, but I am. I have made my choice.

  Truth unto Death.

  Torbrek

  Barlanik sealed the letter, went to the door and handed it to the messenger.

  Tor and Barlanik were still talking quietly together when the messenger returned. This time the letter he carried was addressed to Tor. She opened it.

  Dear Torbrek,

  Forgive me if I have offended you by writing about you to Barlanik. I beg you, as I did on another occasion, not to run headlong to your death. I would miss you so much. There is nothing you can do to save the rebel cause; do not throw your life away. It is too valuable. I promise to give you all the freedom you desire, and anything else you want. You have only to ask.

  Skardroft

  Tor wrote in reply;

  Dear Grandfather,

  I cannot leave my friends to fight while I sit safe in Tarragon. I have to be here. Try not to mind too much.

  And after all, we’re not playing chess; you may lose.

  Torbrek

  When the messenger returned for the second time, Skardroft found himself reluctant to open the letter he brought. She had written because she was not coming.

  “How did my granddaughter look?”

  “She looked very well, Your Majesty.”

  The messenger was uncertain what the King wanted to be told; Skardroft himself was not sure what he hoped to hear. He dismissed him and opened Tor’s note.

  It was what he’d expected her to say, but that did not make it any better. Her response sat like a weight on his heart. But there was no going back, nothing he could do. He sat in thought for a while, then summoned Routh.

  “Start the assault on the Castle tomorrow at first light.”

  Good, that’s more like it, Routh thought. “Yes, Sire.”

  CHAPTER 28

  The Hundred decide

  Pom woke early with the sun on his face. He heard the lapping of the waves and the cries of seabirds, and smelled the sea air. Suddenly he felt happy, and could not wait to be outside. He pulled on his clothes and jumped down the steps on to the sand, and ran towards the sparkling sea. His whole life had been spent in the forest, and this was so different. The sand was flat and smooth once more, crisp under his feet, and at the sea edge he saw a white shape; Muffin busily rootling about in the flotsam. Two sets of footprints led to some rocks, and there sitting together were Farren and Gwenderith, her black hair and his fair hair blowing in the breeze. He had shown her how to make stones skip across the surface of the sea, and they were doing this while he told her about his father; his memories of him and what he had been like. They smiled at Pom as he joined them.

  “This is the most amazing place. How did you find it?”

  “It used to be a pirates’ retreat,” said Farren. “You can’t sail in here because of the rocks unless you know the way, and to come by land you need to fly. We bought it from a retiring pirate chief. Luckily, when the Knights left Atherly Berrow, they took their gold with them.”

  “Have the Knights got a ship?”

  “No, we hired one at first to move all our stuff here, but we manage just with the dragons now. Mortheano is off at the moment getting supplies. We’ve got a rowing boat; you can have a go in it later if you like.”

  Pom stared into a rock pool. The more he looked, the more there was to see. He gently moved a piece of seaweed and a small green crab edged after it, not wanting to be in the open. Pom moved the seaweed again and the crab changed strategy and buried itself in the sand.

  “When will the Knights decide about helping Barlanik?”

  “This morning after breakfast. They’ll want to talk to you first.”

  “They will come, won’t they?”

  “If I have anything to do with it.” Farren’s pleasant face hardened. “Skardroft’s evil. He deserves to die.”

  “Then would we go straight away?”

  “As soon as Mortheano gets back.”

  To Pom, any delay was a bad idea. “Wouldn’t it be better to go quicker with only two dragons, than later with three? It might be too late then.”

  “I agree, but there’s no chance of persuading two of the dragons to go without the third. I wish there was.”

  A noise in the sky made them all look up. Ottobar and Zik raced into view, chasing each other in turn, circling and tumbling, tails coiling, the sun flashing off their golden scales.

  “They do that,” said Farren. “Youthful high spirits. Mortheano’s a bit more sober.”

  Pom screwed up his eyes, gazing above; he wouldn’t mind being a dragon, it looked fun. Soon the mock-skirmish went out of sight again back beyond the cliffs.

  A boy, younger than Pom, walked over the sand towards them, sent to call them for breakfast. Food was laid out on a table, and two or three boys were serving people. Pom asked who they were, and Farren told him they were Knights’ sons, nephews or grandsons, squires in training. Not all the Knights were there. Pom looked at those who were with interest. Farren, at twenty-six, was the youngest, and several of them seemed older than Quintern; past fighting age, surely. A distinguished-looking man in his late sixties came up to them and bowed to Gwenderith.

  “My name is Marden. It is a pleasure to meet you.” He turned a sharp eye on Pom. “So you are the young man who is our sole informant on the state of the war?”

  Pom did not much like the sound of this; it was as though the man was wondering whether to trust him. “Yes, I’ve been at the Castle every day now for weeks working for Tor.”

  “And Tor is?”

  “She’s a Knight, she’s going to make me her squire once the war is won.”

  “A female Knight…how times change. Princess Gwenderith, come and sit with me and tell me how your family is.”

  They moved off, and Farren said to Pom in an undertone, “Marden’s one of the Atherly Berrow Knights. They tend to be sticklers for tradition; they don’t much like change. My father always said you had to change to stay the same, but some of the Knights want everything set in aspic. The Knights who left before they had to, like Barlanik, are a bit more forward-looking. Luckily for us there’s more of them, because Skardroft found it harder to track them down.”

  After the meal, Gwenderith helped clear the breakfast things while the Knights and Pom went into the large bare room which they used for formal meetings. There was a long table with chairs round it, and everyone sat, Pom beside Farren. Pom counted seventeen men; except the one Knight who was away with Mortheano, and the two who were after the fourth dragon, they were all there; the last of the Hundred, the missing Knights.

  Pom’s stomach knotted. He could not remember ever feeling this nervous; too much depended on him. He had thought
the difficult bit would be to find the Knights, but having to persuade them felt like much more of an ordeal. There was a hush. Cassarian was at the head of the table.

  Farren said quietly, “Cassarian is First Knight – we take it in turns each year. We all have an equal say, but the First Knight is acting principal and organizes things.”

  Cassarian looked round the assembled Knights. “There is only one subject for discussion at this meeting, namely, whether to support Barlanik now with our dragons. Pom, if you would stand up so we can see you and tell the Knights what the position is?”

  Pom got up to speak, feeling, as he seldom did, at a disadvantage because of his age; he was only twelve, and he had to convince a room full of grown men that he knew what he was talking about. Farren was on his side, but knew nothing at all about the situation at the Castle. Pom wished Quintern was there. His hands felt sweaty. They all looked at him, and he started talking.

  “Barlanik’s been fighting Skardroft’s army on his own for months, and he’s done really well. He’s got nearly half the country, and everyone supports him. But he’s in trouble now because Skardroft’s army is twice the size of his, and Xantilor (that’s Tor’s dragon) has got a broken bone in his wing and can’t fight till it’s mended. Prince Edric was supposed to turn up with his army but he hasn’t. You want to defeat Skardroft as much as Barlanik does, and he’s done really well so far, but now he needs help. I expect you’ll be extra keen to help because Barlanik and Tor are Knights. Oh, and it’s really urgent, because when I left Kallarven Castle five days ago Tor thought they’d be there in days, that’s why she sent me away.” Pom sat down.

  There was a pause. An elderly aristocratic-looking Knight said to Pom, “Do I understand you to say that one of the Knights at the Castle is a woman?” Pom nodded. The Knight looked around the table. “Surely a woman cannot be a Knight? There is no precedent for this. I think we should discount her presence at the Castle for the purposes of making our decision.”

  Cassarian said, “Some of us here are old enough to remember Attalor. He trained Tor, and if he thought she was a Knight that’s good enough for me. Do we have so many Knights that we can afford to reject her on a technicality?”

  There was a murmur from the Knights. Pom could not say whether they agreed with Cassarian or not. One said, “Are you suggesting we should lower our standards and accept anyone simply because our numbers are the fewest they have been since we were founded?”

  “Not at all; of course there is no question of lowering our standards. But if a woman succeeds in being as good as any other Knight, why should we not welcome her?”

  Another Knight spoke. “The validity of a female Knight is not what we are here to discuss and we should not be sidetracked by the issue. We have to decide if we are going to support Barlanik’s campaign or not.”

  Marden, the Knight who had spoken to Pom earlier, now caught Cassarian’s eye and said in measured tones, “Seven years ago, when we realized how desperate our situation had become, we settled on an ambitious course of action to defeat Skardroft; we agreed to form the first Dragon Battalion for over eighty years. It has been an arduous, long drawn out project, but we are now within sight of its achievement. We have three dragons, and we are reasonably confident that a fourth is on its way to us. However, our task is not complete; besides having as yet only three dragons, we have failed to find Dragon Masters for any of the three, and unmastered dragons are notoriously captious creatures of impulse. So we have a choice before us; we can respond to this request for help, unready as we are, with the risk of failure because of that unreadiness. If we fail, it will almost certainly mean the end of the Hundred Knights. There will be no second chance.”

  Marden spoke this last sentence slowly and emphatically, then paused before saying, “Or we can stand by our original plan, seven years in the making, and realize our vision of a full working Dragon Battalion that will, in the absence of any rival Battalion, sweep all before it. I, for one, think we should not jeopardize everything we have worked for, in spite of our very real sympathy for Barlanik’s situation.”

  The Knight next to him said, “It’s a gamble with high stakes. Remember, we have already lost four-fifths of our number, and Skardroft killed another of us only this week.” He looked at Farren. “Can we afford to take the chance of losing everything?”

  Pom was hopping up and down in his seat. He could not believe what he was hearing. He had thought that once he had found the Knights and told them what was happening, everything would be all right. Now it seemed that they might choose not to help; that they might leave Tor, Barlanik, Xantilor and the whole army to be killed by Skardroft’s troops for reasons that seemed to him feeble and cowardly. Another Knight was speaking.

  “There is the further point that, going by what our young friend has said, we may already be too late. If we set off directly Mortheano returns this evening, we will still arrive nearly a week after he left. Skardroft may have won by now, and all we will be doing is alerting him to the information which we have hitherto concealed so successfully, that we possess fighting dragons.”

  Haskell said, “I think the danger of being too late should make us hasten to their aid, not decide to stay out of the battle. Barlanik will not be easily defeated, however outnumbered he is. He will fight to the bitter end.”

  A Knight shook his head. “I advocate caution. Why risk what we have spent so long working for? We have to strike a balance between our natural desire to help, and the jeopardy to the very future of the Hundred Knights. It would be to our shame if centuries of tradition ended with us.”

  Farren got to his feet. In that company he looked young, even to Pom, but he had an air of his father as he addressed the meeting. He spoke with passionate conviction.

  “Risk? Caution?” He looked one by one into the faces of the Knights round the table. “If these weigh heavier with the Hundred Knights than honour and courage, then indeed we should feel shame, and it is time our centuries of tradition were laid to rest. The Knights have grown soft and decadent and will be no great loss to the world. We do not deserve to defeat Skardroft if we are not prepared to risk all to fight on the side of right. My father died fighting, hunted down and butchered by Skardroft’s mercenaries; like him we should believe our lives less important than our cause. We have three trained dragons; yes, they are not as compliant as we might wish, but they can fight, they will do the job. Since when have Knights waited until they were certain of winning before entering the fray? And where is our loyalty? Barlanik fights on our side, he deserves our support. I am astonished there can be doubt in any of your minds as to what we should do. If the decision of this meeting is to stay safely in our hideout while others fight our common enemy and lose their lives, then I shall no longer consider myself a Knight, since the Hundred Knights, renowned throughout the centuries, will have ceased to exist.” He sat.

  After a silence Cassarian said, “Does anyone wish to add anything? No? Then let us put it to a vote. Those in favour of going to Barlanik’s aid?” Of the seventeen men present, fourteen raised a hand. Cassarian nodded. “Haskell, will you talk to the dragons and tell them what we are planning. I’d like the rest of the dragon riders to get the equipment ready so we can leave immediately Mortheano returns. The meeting is over.”

  Pom, after a quick word with Farren, ran to find Gwenderith.

  “Is it all right, Pom? Will they come?”

  “Yes, though at first I thought they wouldn’t. You should have heard Farren, he was cool. He says they’ll take us too and drop us behind the battle lines, so you’ll be on your way home.”

  It seemed a long wait till the return of Mortheano. After they had helped to get everything ready, Pom went for a swim with Farren and they took the rowing boat a little way round the coast. Gwenderith joined them in the afternoon. She had insisted on helping in the kitchen, peeling vegetables for the first time in her life, laying tables and washing up. The novelty of these tasks made them quite interesting, tho
ugh she was far from deft and the squires teased her in a friendly way for her slowness. Once the evening meal was cleared away, there was nothing to do but wait for the third dragon’s return. Pom fell asleep, and it was dark when Farren roused him.

  “Wake up, Pom, we’re leaving.”

  The three dragons were lined up on the sand, dark gold against the rippling black sea, with men climbing on to their backs. No time was wasted; a minute later they were in the air, heading for Kallarven.

  CHAPTER 29

  Assault on Kallarven

  As the sky lightened and showed the enemy through a mist of fine rain, Barlanik knew that the strange standoff was over, and the battle was about to begin. All over the plain, Skardroft’s troops were in motion, activity everywhere; he could hear sharp orders from the officers, sounding faint at this distance. His own officers sent for the men who had been off duty. Everyone went to his assigned place ready to resist the attack. The work Barlanik had put into planning the defence of the Castle meant that now it was happening there was comparatively little for him to do. A soldier went round lighting the braziers placed at intervals from which the men would light their fire arrows; between these were stacks of boulders to drop on the climbers. Men with pikes and grappling hooks were ready to dislodge the ladders as they came within reach. Barlanik went round the walls checking all of his men, giving a word of encouragement here and there, then resumed his station.

  Tor appeared beside him, her bow in her hand, raindrops sparkling in her hair. She was the only soldier without a set place, as they had hoped right up till the last moment that Xantilor would be in fighting condition for the battle.

  “Xantilor’s in position. Can I fight beside you today?”

  “Yes, Tor, I’d like that.”

  They put on their helmets, and moved forward to look over the edge of the battlements. On either side of them were soldiers, shoulder to shoulder all round the walls, waiting to beat off the enemy. Below, Skardroft’s men were bringing scaling ladders, and would soon be in bowshot.