The Ikessar Falcon

by Villoso, K. S.

  “You are the last direct Orenar, are you not?”

  “I am.”

  “Your son carries the Ikessar name, yet Lord Rayyel is not a true direct Ikessar. Should your son not be an Orenar instead?”

  “We carry our fathers’ names in Jin-Sayeng, as well as you know. It’s only in the absence of a father that this tradition is ignored, which is why Lord Rayyel himself is an Ikessar when his father was not.”

  “So your line dies with you, anyway.”

  I didn’t answer. I was staring down at the city and the flickering lights below.

  “If it’s not something you’re comfortable discussing, my queen…”

  “No,” I agreed. “It isn’t. You’re aware of the unpredictable nature of my relationship with my husband, of course.”

  She gave a quick bow. “I will not ask further.”

  Huan drew close to us. “Is there a problem, Beloved Queen?”

  I shook my head. “A simple misunderstanding.”

  “Did you bring up Prince Rayyel? Gods, please tell me you didn’t bring up Prince Rayyel, she hates it when you do that,” Huan said, which caused Grana to stick an elbow into his ribs.

  “Nothing of that sort,” I replied. “I shouldn’t say this but—Lord Rayyel and I did find the opportunity to talk while I was away.”

  Huan’s nostrils flared as he gazed at me. “What will happen now?”

  “My understanding is that he wishes for us to set our priorities straight and rule together. You told me you’ve heard of no news about my son in Oren-yaro, but have you come across rumours? Anything that seems amiss?”

  “No. My apologies, my queen.”

  “It just seems so strange,” I said. “You knew I was here even before we could send word to you, yet my own people seem blissfully unaware. They should’ve sent an escort, at least.”

  Huan smiled. “It does take a good week or so to travel from Oren-yaro to the Sougen region, Beloved Queen, barring difficulties.”

  “I suppose.” I nodded towards the chunk of mountain staring at us from the platform. “Tell me about this plan of yours to tame dragons. To hear you admit this with your own lips seem almost…foolhardy. You’re aware of what we at court will think of this.”

  “Indeed, Beloved Queen. You could even call it insanity, if you wish.” He pointed. I strained my eyes to follow the direction of his finger and saw a faint movement in the mountains in the horizon, a quick flash of shadow that was soon gone into the trees. “These dragons are not the same as the dragons of old. We’ve tried to capture some over the years in an attempt to study them, so we know exactly what we’re up against.”

  “If I call Lahei over to us right now, will she agree?”

  Huan laughed. “Of course she won’t. The Kaggawas are stubborn, I can give you that much. You should’ve seen Dai foaming at the mouth when we had that first dragon caged and chained. A tiny thing, no bigger than most dogs, yet you would think we had an army in our hands. Kaggawa’s family has suffered much because of Rysaran’s dragon.”

  “No less than others. My brothers were killed by that very beast,” I reminded him.

  “More apologies, Beloved Queen.”

  I brushed it off with a wave. “So what makes you think they’re not as mad as Kaggawa believes they are?”

  “The dragons are not afflicted with madness at all. Whatever it is that makes them difficult to tame can be…fixed. We think we have stumbled upon a procedure that will make this possible. Once that first dragon is tamed, others are sure to follow.”

  “This procedure,” I said. “Does it have anything to do with mages and the agan?”

  Huan didn’t answer. He leaned over the rails, his eyes gazing back at the horizon, where the setting sun bathed the ridge in orange light. “Such accusations coming from the sort of man Dai Kaggawa is…I shouldn’t be surprised. Forgive me, my queen—I know the east frowns on talk such as this, but the reality in this region is more complex than I think you’re ready to deal with.”

  “Try me,” I said.

  “Now, my love, let’s not scare the queen,” Grana broke in.

  “I’m not trying to scare her…” Huan began.

  “Akaterru, if the both of you say something about my sensitive ears, I’ll throw you over the rails. I said both mage and agan and didn’t burst into flames. So.” I fixed my eye on Huan. “What about Dai Kaggawa?”

  “He’s an abomination,” Huan said in a low voice. “A foul thing that doesn’t belong in this world.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Brother,” Eikaro broke in, walking towards us. “I know we don’t like him, and he’s made our life difficult just like every other rice merchant in this accursed province, but—”

  He stopped in mid-sentence, his mouth falling open. It had grown dark all of a sudden. It took a full second for me to grasp why.

  The dragon above us roared, letting a blast of flame that tore through two scaffoldings at once.

  ~~~

  Through the sudden explosion of smoke and cinders, I saw the creature land on the edge of the tower platform.

  I had never seen a full-grown dragon before. The one that had attacked me and Rayyel in our youth was about the size of a horse, and it had proven dangerous enough. This one was three times that, maybe more. Its scaly head was crested with spikes, and its mouth ended to a point, almost like a bird’s beak. When it opened, I saw two rows of sharp teeth and a tongue that could easily knock a full-grown man to the ground.

  That was as much observation as I allowed myself. I saw the dragon pull its head back. Cho was very close to it, and I screamed at him to duck. He dropped to his knees just in time. A smaller flame blasted through the air, setting a third scaffolding ablaze. I watched in horror as it toppled towards the hatch that would take us back into the tower.

  Burning logs crashed above our only way out.

  There was a moment of shocked silence, and then I saw Lahei emerge from behind the debris to charge the beast. Stirred to action by her courage, I drew my sword and approached the dragon from the other side. It swung its head to face me, lips curled into a silent growl. The membrane around its throat vibrated as it regarded me with narrowed yellow eyes. I felt myself transported back to my childhood, facing that dragon in the woods in Oka Shto. The fear was the same, that odd sense of helplessness that nothing I was going to do in the next instance was going to matter very much. If it wanted to fling me off the cliff, it could.

  I tried to take a deep breath, which I immediately realized was a mistake—the hot air scalded my lungs. I managed to step aside in time to avoid its snapping jaws. Just as I began to cough, I heard Lahei scream, “Watch out!” as the dragon’s tail lashed out towards me.

  It struck me in the belly. I felt the air knocked out of me in an instant. On the ground, I heard a rumble above. I lifted my sword as the dragon’s jaws came down. Teeth met steel; I refused to let go of the hilt as the dragon tried to lift me up, twisting the blade into the gap between its teeth.

  Blood dripped down its jaw as I felt the sword cut into gum. The dragon flicked its tongue out in an attempt to wrench the sword loose. A bubble of fire appeared inside its mouth and I ducked in time to avoid another blast of fire. I realized that the dragon was losing breath—the flame was not as strong as before and the sac underneath its throat was jerking up and down rapidly, like a drunk attempting to heave on an empty stomach. I had a sudden idea. I pulled the sword out, and as the dragon reeled back, spitting out slimy trails of blood, I made a quick leap for the membrane using its leg as a platform.

  It struck me with the damned tail again. This time, I slid nearly halfway across the tower, hitting the far end of the rail.

  Blood rushed into my head. I fought against the sudden urge to sleep. I grabbed the iron rail with one hand, pulling myself up. In the distance, I saw the dragon being held at bay by Lahei and Grana. Grana’s spear was stuck between the scales behind its neck.

  “Now, Kaggawa!” Grana called.

>   Lahei reached for the spear, clinging to the dragon like a monkey. It dawned on me what they were trying to do. I called for her to stop just as she reached up to swing herself onto the dragon’s back. But before she could land, the dragon curled to one side and spread its wings, knocking her back. Lahei managed to hold on to the end of the wing and tried to drop back to the ground.

  The dragon grabbed her leg.

  I found myself racing back down towards them, but it was too late. The dragon chomped down. Blood exploded in its mouth before it let go. Lahei fell from the tower like a rock. I didn’t even see her face before she disappeared into the mist below.

  There was no time to look for her, no time to mourn. The dragon made a leap towards Tori, who had been trying to keep away in vain. Grana tried to distract it. She was knocked aside by its tail.

  “Choke on this, you ass!” Cho hurled a piece of lumber at the beast, the shard spinning past the dragon’s brow. He stepped past Tori, his sword drawn. He looked terrified, but that didn’t seem to make him want to back down. The dragon pulled its head back, and I saw a flash of orange between its lips.

  “Watch for the fire, Cho!” I called.

  Cho snorted. The dragon flamed. He grabbed Tori’s shoulder, pulling her down.

  Eikaro chose that time to repeat Lahei’s mistake. Or perhaps I shouldn’t call it that—he managed to launch himself at the dragon fast enough, and then ducked when the dragon tried to pull the same trick on him. The dragon hissed and tried to knock him away with the other wing before making a quick leap to throw him off. Eikaro reached down to yank the spear free and wrapped it under the dragon’s throat like a collar to keep himself seated.

  The dragon roared, sending another tendril of flame gasping into the wind. A moment later, it spread its wings and launched itself into the choking black smoke. Another moment, and then it was gone with Eikaro.

  I heard Huan’s strangled cry. He threw himself at the hatch, hands grappling at the debris. The flames had died down, but the embers were still red-hot. Cho rushed forward to help him. There was a creaking sound as someone pushed the hatched open from below. The movement dislodged more of the debris, creating a gap big enough for a body to squeeze through. Huan dropped down, Cho right behind him. I gazed out at the railing where Lahei had gone over before rushing off to follow them.

  ~~~

  The entire tower was in chaos. Huan screamed for horses, and when the soldiers arrived with them, I found myself swinging into a saddle without a word. The fourth floor of the dragon-tower had gates that opened up to a bridge that crossed the chasm to the mountain. In no time at all, we were riding through the woods, swords drawn while we searched the skies for the dragon that took Huan’s twin brother away.

  Blood pounded in my head. I was too focused on the beast that my body wasn’t even shaking yet, and I could feel no pain from my injuries. My mind did drift back to a single thought—that I had encountered dragons twice now, and lived to tell the tale. I even fought it myself this time.

  I found myself thinking about my brothers. Did they even stand a chance? When I was a child, stories of my brothers were like fairy tales. My father didn’t talk as much about them as I would’ve liked, so I subsisted on whatever the servants could offer behind his back. They were well-liked in the old keep—polite, brave, dutiful, true examples of the Oren-yaro spirit. But I didn’t think the servants could’ve said anything less of them, especially not where I could hear it. Had they been caricatures, a false construct intended for me to model my own behaviour after? Meaningless tenets. My only true glimpse of how they might have been had been of that ghost in Yuebek’s dungeon. Perhaps it was a trick of Yuebek’s, but the phantom of my father had been accurate enough, so I could pretend the one I saw of Taraji—of the charming, bright-eyed young man—was also true. Rysaran’s dragon had taken that man away from me.

  These are the things you tell yourself, you understand, looking back. To make sense out of mistakes, the image behind spilled ink. I could’ve gone back to the dragon-tower to wait. I could’ve gone down to find Lahei’s body. But I made the split-second decision to ride with Huan to save his brother instead. In the haze of my own confusion, my father’s voice prevailed. Help the Anyus and you might be able to retain their loyalty. You can ask them to save Thanh instead. Why waste your time with commoner rabble? Shards left, and yet here I was trying to piece what I can back together like a damned fool, unable to learn. A dog, Kaggawa had called me, no better than the rest of them. A dog trained to the pantomime of a dead master.

  My horse reared to a stop as we reached the end of the road. Dirt and gravel were piled everywhere, surrounded by wheelbarrows and shovels from where workmen had left them for the evening. After the confusion of the attack, the silence was deafening—like the moment after the last bell of a funeral, before the pyre is lit. Huan looked at the sky with dismay on his face. “No,” he murmured under his breath. The anger exploded. “No! Why wasn’t anyone keeping watch? You were supposed to—on the walls…!” He dismounted from his horse. One of his men followed him, and he turned to reach out and grab him by the collar.

  “My lord,” the man said. “It came out of nowhere. It must’ve seen you on the platform…there should’ve been guards there, bowmen, but it wasn’t finished yet…”

  He pushed the man away and caught my eye. “What should I do?” he gasped.

  “You’re asking me?”

  His face was all white, a shell of the man who had been laughing and talking with me not even an hour before. “You’re the queen,” he murmured. “Tell me. Please.”

  I realized he wasn’t asking about a tactical strategy. The prelude to grief was in his eyes, like he was on the precipice and was looking for a push. But why me? Because I had lost brothers? I didn’t even know their names until after they were dead. Raw grief was not something I was familiar with.

  “It’s too early to give up on him,” I said. “What do you know about these dragons? Where do they lair?”

  “Further up the mountains,” Huan replied doubtfully. “If he even makes it all the way there, if the dragon doesn’t pull him off like it did Kaggawa...”

  “Just stop thinking.” I glanced at Huan’s man, who was waiting for us with a measure of uncertainty. “Have you seen this dragon before?”

  “I think it’s the same one that’s been wandering the western wall the last few weeks,” the man said. “A big male.”

  “Any idea where it could have taken Lord Eikaro?”

  The man gave Huan a wary glance before answering. “There’s caverns along the eastern side of the ridge where we think a few dragons have made dens. If it doesn’t eat him mid-air, it might’ve taken him back for its brood to feed on. My lord,” he continued, returning his gaze back to his master. “He may still be alive. The dragon hatchlings might be asleep, or…”

  “I dare not hope,” Huan murmured. “Even after decades of living so close to them, we know too little about these creatures.”

  “He said the caverns are east.” I reined the horse around and pointed at one of the men. “I need a spear. A few of us can make our way there. Too many may attract more.”

  “One is enough to attract the dragons,” Huan said.

  A man reached up to hand me his spear. I hefted it into my right hand, testing it.

  “You’re mad,” Huan whispered.

  “I’m angry,” I said. “Weren’t you just telling me about wanting to tame these things?”

  “We were hoping to start them young…hatchlings…”

  “Lord Huan, have you never ridden this far before?”

  He swallowed. The truth was clear enough eyes. All his talk, and it was his men taking the brunt of these attacks. I tried to erase the image of the list Dai had showed me from my mind. “You’ll come with me, then,” I said. “Show your men how it’s done.”

  He ran a hand over his lips. “My queen, it is extremely dangerous. The last scouting party we sent never returned.”

&nbs
p; “That was the middle of the mating season,” Huan’s man broke in. “They’re more aggressive, then. It’s the hatching season now—they’ll want to stay close to their nests.”

  “Even better. Lord Huan…” I lifted the spear and pointed it at him. “You asked for my order, and I’m giving it now. We’re heading to the dragons’ den to find your brother.”

  To his credit, he didn’t turn away. “As the queen wishes.” He was starting to shake with fear, but fear was better than cowardice, as I knew only all too-well. I gave a grunt of approval when he returned to his saddle, though he fumbled a bit with the stirrups and looked for a moment like he would fall off. A man came up to hand him a spear. He picked it up with the hesitation of someone who wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

  “We’ll take Cho and you,” I said, nodding towards Huan’s man. “What’s your name and title?”

  “Captain Seo, Beloved Queen.”

  “Pick two of your best men.”

  He nodded and gestured at them. They urged their horses forward while the rest fell back.

  “It’ll be dark soon,” Huan commented.

  My breath whistled through gritted teeth. “Then we don’t have a moment to lose.”

  Chapter Ten

  The Yu-Yan Ridge

  We left the road, driving the horses deep into the forest, which switched between thick brush, steep slopes of loose, dusty rocks, and white, withered trees that grew close together in patches. Brown grass sprouted knee-high in places, not quite as thick as the ones in the plains down below but substantial enough to slow us down. Captain Seo gazed up at the grey sky. “We’ll get there by the time the moon comes up,” he said. “Not sure if we should push through. The route gets rougher in places. Horses might slip in the dark.”

  I grimaced. “The sooner we find Eikaro, the better. If he’s still alive, he may not be for very long.”

  “Breaking our necks won’t help him if he’s dead.” Seo nodded off into the distance. “There’s a waterfall not far from here. We can bed down there until dawn. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours with a clear sky like this.”