Dragon School_Ancient Allies

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “There is a large caravan from the East. I can finally make out the banners – crescent moons on a field of green.”

  “The Crescent Prince. I wondered if he would really come. I like that kind of confidence.”

  “But we didn’t invite him ... did we?”

  “We invited everyone,” she said, dealing the next hand.

  “Even our enemies?”

  “He’s not my enemy yet. We shall see what happens at A’cauib.”

  “There are two other caravans from the west. They don’t seem to be traveling together although one is much larger than the other.”

  “And A’cauib?”

  I turned to look in the direction of the bowl. It was hard to make out specifics without Raolcan’s help.

  Stragglers continue to wander in from the mountains. There are perhaps a hundred gathered in the bowl now.

  “About a hundred gathered.”

  “Good.” She took another sip of wine. “When our caravan makes camp, we will join them.”

  “Shouldn’t we be doing something productive right now?” I was itching to be active. Too much was depending on us. I didn’t want to cool our heels playing cards.

  “I am doing something productive. I’m teaching my slave to be a decent card player. At this rate, it’s going to take all day.”

  I sighed.

  “And then we’ll work on weeding out those sighs. They don’t make you a more attractive companion. They don’t actually do anything.”

  I was getting better at playing cards by the time the sun began to sink low in the sky and Jalla’s retainers started to set up camp. I’d won a half a dozen hands and even surprised Jalla once.

  “There’s hope for you yet!” she’d said as we packed up our things and remounted Raolcan. We’d wasted an entire day sitting in the sun playing games.

  I never call a day sleeping in the sun a waste.

  “My retinue will want to see me. They’ll have my tent ready,” Jalla explained as Raolcan kicked off the mountain. I was watching the Crescent Prince’s caravan. The dust cloud following it looked larger than I would have expected from a caravan that size.

  “How many people in that group are yours?” I asked, absently. Were they riding fast? Was that why there was more dust? Or was it a trick of the wind?

  “About sixty retainers and three hundred soldiers.” Jalla tone was indifferent.

  “Three hundred?!”

  “I told you, I am a war leader. What did you think that meant? I don’t play cards all the time. It’s just wisdom to know when to push and when to have a few drinks and play a round of cards in the sun.”

  Truth.

  “Stop gawking,” she said indulgently. “Everyone will think you’re a fool.”

  We landed beside her pavilion – which she planned I’d share with her – at the same time that the sun finally dipped over the horizon. I couldn’t shake the idea that there was something more to that dust cloud than I thought. It haunted me as I joined Jalla for dinner. It bothered me as I attended to Raolcan’s needs. It filled my thoughts as I drifted off to sleep.

  Why couldn’t I put my finger on what it was?

  Chapter Thirteen

  My dreams were torrid and troubling. I slipped several times into raging battles featuring Savette at the heart of the battle, her light of Truth bursting Ifrits into shadowy rags and leveling ranks of savage Dusk Covenant soldiers as they charged her. Around her, loyal Dominion soldiers fought on foot, on horse, and on dragon in massive waves of hot human passion. Savette looked faintly ill as she fought and no wonder. I tried not to see the broken homes and shattered walls around her. I tried even more not to see the shattered and broken bodies of men and dragons. Twice, she looked me right in the eye.

  “Amel,” she said the first time and then the second time her bright eyes – no blindfold on them when she was fighting – pierced mine and she said, “Bring me allies. We fight and die without them.”

  I woke from my dreams gasping, sweat pouring down my brow. I drank a little from the waterskin by my bed, the night air chilling my sweat and making me feel clammy. I didn’t like sleeping in Jalla’s regal pavilion. It would be far more comfortable cuddled against Raolcan’s side.

  And then maybe you wouldn’t wake me with your dreams. I have my own dreams troubling me.

  What was he dreaming about?

  Shonan has brokered his treaty with Haz’drazen. Neither my kin nor your friend are entirely pleased. This treaty will mean change. Change always hurts – even good change.

  So, he at least had fulfilled his mission.

  Not quite. The treaty must be ratified by the Troglodytes. They may have their own provisions to add.

  I swallowed and rolled over, trying to fall asleep again. It was long hours before I managed it. The Troglodytes gift to us was both a blessing and a curse.

  This time I dreamed of Leng. He flew above a sea of soldiers marching over a grassy plain. They seemed to be together and I almost smiled before I saw his feverish face. He clung to Ahlskibi’s neck like a child to his mother.

  “I feel you out there, Amel. Return to me,” he muttered. “Where are you?”

  Not close enough. Never close enough when he needed me. Was he ill or injured? Worry gnawed at me.

  I gasped as the vision faded, morphing now into Shonan flying on the back of Rasipaer. Around them were more dragons than I’d ever seen in one place in every color known to me. And was that a color I’d never seen before? He looked worried, his neck stretched forward as if that could bring him to his goal more quickly. Where did Shonan fly with so many dragons?

  I saw that, too. He flies to ratify the treaty with the Troglodytes.

  But he wasn’t underground. He’d been flying over a long archipelago of islands.

  There are things you don’t know about the dragon lands.

  I would have asked what they were, but I was pulled away by a vision of Hubric standing on a stool in a dark room. Hundreds of people clustered around in silence as he spoke urgently and then the door broke in and screams filled my mind.

  This time when I woke, I didn’t bother going back to sleep. There was no rest for anyone who was forced to watch the perils of their friends. All the dreams told me was that we must hurry. Playing cards and sipping wine was so far removed from what my friends were doing that I wanted to pull out my hair and scream. How was I going to bring them the help they needed? How could I steer this to that goal?

  I slipped out of the tent, wandering between the banked fires and silent tents of the camp. It was cool here at night and I wrapped my arms around myself. I stopped at the edge of the camp, looking up at the foreign moon – so different and yet so the same as the one I had seen from my home. How many people had watched the moon in hope or fear or suffering? How many had poured out their hearts under that solitary cold eye in the covering darkness of night?

  With our friends fighting desperately to the south, and Rakturan and I stymied here in the north, it felt so hopeless to even try to win this battle. Even if Rakturan won the artifact and claimed it and the people rallied to him, what then? Would the Crescent Prince just let that go? What if he fought back? How long would we be embroiled in battle here? Even if we won it might be too late.

  What if we returned to the Dominion only to find a smoking wreckage where once a thriving land stood? A place with no skycities or Dragon School, no Castelans or rules. I chewed my lip. What would I do to prevent that? What could I do? One crippled Dragon Rider could only do so much, but if I could do more, I would. If I could speed up our mission here so that we could bring Savette the support she needed – if I could just press my finger in the right spot so that everything rolled back into place...

  I had a sneaking suspicion that the Troglodytes’ gift had given me the information I needed to do that, if only I could figure it out. I needed to think and then I needed to act – and to hope that I had chosen wisely. What had Jalla said about hope? That if that was all you had then
you were a fool. But maybe hope was stronger than she thought if it was combined with gritted teeth and an absolute certainty that I would do whatever it took to save my friends, my family, and my Dominion.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was almost as if fate had a hand in when the caravans would arrive.

  “How could they all know so quickly?” I asked aloud as Rakturan’s caravan and the caravan from the Crescent Prince converged on the bowl below where Raolcan circled. Gahteen’s caravan had arrived only an hour ago, warriors forming up into deadly patterns along the edges of the bowl and retainers quick to set up tents and begin cook fires.

  “My father sent pigeons, and you stated that Rakturan was already on his way here. The timing is simply coincidence.”

  Raolcan dove toward the bowl, spiraling down toward the wide platform where Gahteen waited. Rakturan’s caravan was already slowing their approach, dust kicking up behind them.

  “And the Crescent Prince?” The dust trail behind his caravan still troubled me. It seemed strange – larger, perhaps.

  “He must have spies watching,” Jalla said, avoiding the question, though I was sure she’d admitted yesterday to telling him about this meeting. She was sharpening a knife as Raolcan landed beside Gahteen. “Tell your dragon to stand to the side so he doesn’t accidentally flame someone he doesn’t like.”

  Well, that was just rude.

  She understands me too well.

  I needed to get out of this enslavement, and fast.

  Have you noticed that ‘slavery’ with her isn’t that bad? She treats you more like a protégé than anything else – eating with her, playing cards with her, sleeping in her tent. It could be a lot worse.

  I waited nervously, bouncing up and down on my good foot and leaning into my crutch as Rakturan approached with two dozen guards. The rest of his entourage waited at the back of the bowl – and so did Enkenay, strangely enough. I would have expected him to approach the ledge with his rider.

  He is an odd one, even for a White. And he is free. He is not bound to Rakturan.

  Overnight the center of the bowl had filled with people.

  “The warriors of lesser tribes and communities,” Jalla had explained. Whoever they were, they waited with the tense look of expectation. Whatever happened here, they would be witnesses. “If Rakturan succeeds in winning the artifact, he will rule Baojang as the leader of leaders. Only those in attendance today will be considered for lesser positions – the ruling of tribes or leading of armies. Everyone who came hopes that if he succeeds they will gain honor, too.”

  It seemed like a silly way to do things, but everything here was the opposite of how I would do it. If I kept complaining about it, I’d have to complain all day. At least they wouldn’t all become slaves just for showing up ... I hoped.

  “You will stay beside me, slave,” Jalla said. She was going to have to start calling me by my name.

  At the same moment, Rakturan leapt up the stairs leading to the platform, two at a time and seized Gahteen’s hand in a warm clasp.

  “Uncle,” he said, “I trust my message found you well?”

  “Well enough to watch you grasp the thorns, my nephew.” His grin was smug.

  Rakturan startled before grabbing hold of himself. “The thorns? I was not certain that would be-”

  “Your representative has sworn on your behalf.” Gahteen smiled, but his eyes were watching Rakturan like a desert hawk’s. “By honor, you are bound.”

  Rakturan bowed stiffly, sparing me a baleful glance. “By honor, I accept.”

  “Prince Rakturan,” I began but he cut me off with a chop of his hand.

  “The Crescent Prince also approaches.”

  Gahteen nodded. “Then take your place beside the Kah’deem. Jalla may serve as your second.”

  “Amel will be my second,” Rakturan said icily. There was no approval in his eyes when he looked at me.

  But he still wants you to be the one to back him up.

  “Your messenger is now my daughter’s slave,” Gahteen objected. Rakturan’s eyebrows rose over the white blindfold he wore, but his features softened.

  Exactly, Rak. You aren’t the only one thrown into a ridiculous situation based only on someone else’s traditions.

  “I would be honored to have Jalla as my second,” he said, but he looked away from us coldly, moving to the side of the strange metal contraption. I tried not to look at it as he took up a place beside one of the handles.

  Sweat dripped down my spine but I had no real reason to be upset. After all, these people could only take me as a slave once.

  But they could kill you. They haven’t done that yet.

  Thanks for the reminder.

  Jalla stood at Rakturan’s back, snapping her fingers at me when I wasn’t quick enough to join her.

  Gahteen stepped between the strange machine that held the artifact – the Kah’deem – and the crowd gathering in the bowl. He looked almost as if he were conducting a wedding when he raised his arms and began to speak.

  Rakturan interrupted him, “If it pleases you, could we speak in Dominion?”

  Gahteen looked surprised, but he nodded and began again. Rakturan was still my ally, despite our mutual predicaments.

  “We have gathered here under the burning eye of the sun and in the presence of all who could be quickly gathered, to witness the trial and winnowing of Rakturan, Dark Prince of Baojang. We will witness this day and give true testimony to any who asks of what we have seen here. Are we agreed?”

  There was a roar from the crowd and I watched as many warriors produced spears and began to wave them in the air as they screamed their approval. A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed.

  A simple ‘yes’ would not express their feelings on this. This is a sacred ceremony to them.

  “Does any here wish to stand against the Dark Prince and be tried alongside him?” Gahteen asked in a deep musical tone. This must be part of the ceremony. There were shouts of denial as a cloud of dust rolled into the bowl.

  I coughed, clutching my sides as Rakturan doubled over, coughing, too. Coughs sounded around us and as the dust began to settle a man with a sleek face and oiled hair emerged from the dust on the back of a black stallion. I shivered as his face became clear. The last time I’d seen it, he had sentenced me to death.

  The Crescent Prince had arrived. And he was not alone. Not all of the dust settled. Instead, along the southern rim of the bowl, a long line of warriors stood, watching their prince with eyes like fiery infernos. With a sinking sensation, I realized why those dust clouds had looked too big. They were filled with Ifrits.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I’ll stand against the Dark Prince,” the Crescent Prince said, with a predatory look in his eye as he leapt down from the back of his horse. His horse pawed the ground until a retainer rushed forward to take him by the bridle. He was almost as fiery-eyed as the Ifrits – and no wonder. No horse would want to ride with real demons on his trail.

  Gahteen’s mouth twisted, but this was obviously part of the ceremony, so he said, “What is the reason for your challenge, O Prince?”

  The Crescent Prince’s men rushed to fill the remainder of the basin as he spoke to their booming cheers. “Bao’jang needs a leader who leads from strength and protects her interests. We need a Prince to rule all Princes who will make us strong and powerful, unable to be conquered or dictated to by foreign nations. I am that man, and I will prove it on the thorns of the Kah’deem here today.”

  He stepped forward to stand at a handle opposite to Rakturan’s and my gaze skittered across him as much as it slid off the Kah’deem. He left an aftertaste of fear in my mind even when he wasn’t speaking.

  “Have you a second?” Gahteen asked, loudly.

  “I need no second, for I shall not fail.”

  “The Crescent Prince – Rhuti Alandim – is accepted as challenger. Let the winnowing begin,” Gahteen said. “What our ancestors set in motion, let no man or woman inte
rfere with. The Kah’deem shall test each heart and mind. It shall plumb you to the core. Only the one who opens the Kah’deem will claim the Pipe of Wings as a symbol to us all that he is our rightful ruler. Do the participants accept these terms?”

  “Yes,” Rakturan said, his eyes locked on the Crescent Prince’s.

  “Yes,” the Prince echoed.

  “And do the people accept these terms as witnesses?” Gahteen asked the crowd.

  There were cheers of assent.

  “And if the men here fall today, their blood is on their own heads, for they chose this test. Their seconds – if there are any – will lead their people far from here in great haste and never again will either man have the right to challenge the Kah’deem again. Are all agreed?”

  I saw Rakturan and the Crescent Prince agree, but the sound of their voices was drowned out by the screaming of the crowds and my eyes were distracted as they flickered over to the Ifrits again. I did not trust them so close to us – not even when they were silent and staring like they were right now.

  I don’t trust them either. They will pounce on us all the second they can.

  “Remember honor,” Gahteem said, and then he lowered his hands and walked to Rakturan. “I shall confirm your grip on the arm of the Kah’deem.”

  Rakturan was sweating as he grabbed the spiked handle, letting the metal thorns dig hard into his hand as he gripped it. Drops of blood dripped onto the rock beneath it and my breath caught as I watched him. He never broke eye-contact with the Crescent Prince even as his body shook slightly – no doubt from the pain that had stunned Renn when he grabbed that same handle. Jalla made a noise of approval in the back of her throat.

  Gahteen nodded his head and raised a hand to cheers from the crowd. He circled to where the Crescent Prince stood. “I shall confirm your grip on the arm.”

  Once again, he raised a hand as the Prince tightened his grip over the metal thorns and his blood joined Rak’s in spattering over the rock. Rhuti Alandim also shook with the effort.