The Dragon's Blade_Veiled Intentions

by Michael R. Miller

  “Marus?” Garon couldn’t believe it.

  “Not a word, human,” Marus groaned. He too was lying on the earth, spread-eagled with pieces of his crutch by his side. “Saw you lot up there. Couldn’t let you die.”

  “I might have preferred it to this,” Garon said. “I think everything is broken.”

  “You’ll mend,” Marus said.

  Both of them lay there, taking laboured breaths, enjoying something close to a respite. Before long there were dragons and fairies all over them like a hot rash. Garon felt himself being lifted and carried away. Marus had fared a little better and could and least be pulled to his feet. It was a pleasant weightless feeling being carried like this. A pleasantness sorely interrupted by the appearance of Rohka. The Chief-of-Chiefs loomed over him as his carriers continued to bear him away from the battle.

  “You went against my wishes, Garon, pack leader.”

  “You got your food and we saved the clan as well,” Garon said. “Are my people up on the ridge? Is Ochnic —”

  “I sent my Silver Furs up to aid dem,” said Rohka. “As for da demons below, they’re going mad. Wild. So are de spectres. Dey are dying quickly.”

  “Everyone wins then,” Garon said.

  “Everyone but you,” Rohka said.

  “Well, I don’t matter much,” Garon said. “After all, I’m just one human. Aren’t I?”

  “Rest, you should,” Rohka said. Starlight flashed against the metal on his tusks and he left. Garon moaned softly, though the pain wasn’t so intense when his body didn’t have to carry its own weight. He closed his eyes. He did not intend to open them for a long time.

  Chapter 28

  A SHEEP AMONGST DRAGONS

  The First War between humans and dragons began at the Rump Coast, to the east of Deas. Enough sources confirm that a dragon trading galley was shipwrecked there late one autumn. Dragons claim the humans refused to feed the survivors. The humans claimed their harvest had been poor and so they had little to share with ravenous dragons. Tensions mounted and sadly, blood was spilt. A human child was supposedly the first victim. Those shipwrecked dragons were all cornered and killed in revenge, save for one who managed to flee. When he reached Aurisha with the news, war was inevitable.

  From Tiviar’s Histories

  Cassandra – Brevia – Arkus’ Palace

  I KNOW WHERE LORD Boreac is.

  Cassandra tossed and turned in bed, kicking off her sheets despite the cold night. The howling wind and lashing rain might have been blamed for disturbing her, had her mind not been racing.

  I know where Lord Boreac is.

  She had repeated that to herself and Orrana for days now. The words echoed in her mind as she drifted from sleep to near-sleep. In her broken dreams, the thought floated above her like a butterfly she couldn’t catch. Then her hands caught it, crushed it, and its wings turned to ash.

  She woke in a start.

  Sitting up in bed, she rubbed her eyes, grinding the crust of her disturbed sleep away. She reached for the half-drained cup of wine at her bedside, hoping the heavy red would weigh her mind down and let her dream in peace. The windows rattled in their lattice frames. Then a more unsettling sound reached her – a baying of pain. Brackendon was not sleeping well either.

  Cassandra finished off the rest of the wine. She hadn’t been allowed much at the Bastion, but here she was offered it daily. She could even make demands here, have things brought to her, done for her. She’d gotten used to it quicker than she cared to admit. She’d got more used to wine as well, and after some weeks of wincing at the taste, she was enjoying it. Already, she felt more settled.

  I know where Boreac is.

  The words came song-like as her head hit the pillow.

  She was sure; in her gut, she was sure. The trouble would be finding him amongst all the dragons. Tomorrow was her chance. There might not be another. She just had to trust that Balack would come through.

  At last, she slept.

  In the morning, Cassandra threw on black leathers again and pulled back her hair in a ponytail. She ate breakfast with Orrana in her colourful parlour. It was becoming a habit of theirs. Even the clash of colours had become welcoming; a burst of brightness within a gloomy palace. Thane would sometimes join them when he had slept well enough to rise early with the rest of the palace. Today was just such a morning.

  “Mother,” Thane said, pushing his scrambled eggs around his plate. “Will father join us?”

  “Father is busy meeting the lower houses, darling,” Orrana said. “Come along. Eat up.” Thane pushed a forkful of glistening egg into his mouth and chewed slowly.

  “You know my stomach feels wriggly in the mornings,” Thane said.

  “Just have what you can manage,” Orrana said.

  “Arkus will be busy all day then?” Cassandra asked.

  “All day,” Orrana said, her voice full of knowing. “I doubt he’ll have time for anything else. Especially the dragon refugee camp.”

  Cassandra smiled and helped herself to another strip of bacon. The fat was perfectly seared. Arkus being kept out of the way was one part of the plan. Cassandra had been tempted to go to him and tell him everything but thought better of it. He would not want her to go alone, and would insist on sending the hunters in force while she stayed safe in the palace. Cassandra had weighed those options but flooding the refugee camp with hunters to look for Boreac would only increase tensions there. Worse still, it might spook Boreac into fleeing further afield. The missing lord might not even be there, of course, and so a lot of effort might go to waste. Better to catch Boreac and come to Arkus bearing the fruit of her investigation all at once.

  “Your talks with the houses went well, I take it?” Cassandra asked.

  “Well enough,” Orrana said. “The MacKenzies and the MacKinnons both think they should take the lion’s share of Boreac’s lands. The Erskine’s have agreed to bring their extensive constructing assets to help rebuild the worst affected areas, for a pretty price I will add. It’s tricky but we might be able to come to an amicable arrangement in time. Everyone feels reconciliatory and polite right now, the scoundrels.”

  “Mother!” Thane exclaimed. “Father says we are to be nice.”

  “I am,” Orrana said. “But some of them must have been tangled up in the plots against us. Forgive them, Thane, but do not be so foolish as to forget.” She turned to Cassandra. “More shimmer brew?”

  “Please,” said Cassandra. She’d need the energy. “Thane, could you pas—” But Thane had already taken up the pot and was at Cassandra’s side in an instant. He began to pour, filling the cup dangerously close to the brim.

  “Is that enough, Cassandra?” Thane asked brightly.

  “Perfect,” Cass lied, cautiously taking a sip to lessen the chance of a spillage. Thane beamed then returned to his breakfast, attacking it with a little more gusto than before. Cassandra couldn’t help but feel a pang for him whenever he took ill – a protectiveness she had never felt before.

  “I should take my leave,” Cassandra said. “Thank you again, Orrana.”

  “For the breakfast? Nary a thought child. Don’t mention it. Go on now and be safe.”

  “For all your help, as well,” Cassandra said. “Goodbye, Thane.” The Prince waved at her with a slice of toast dangling from his mouth.

  The parlour door opened just as she was reaching for it. Gellick’s tall frame loomed on the other side of the doorway. He pulled himself back in a great show of humility, bowing his head and saying, “Princess,” ever so solemnly as she walked by. She heard him step inside the parlour after her.

  Down in the palace courtyard, Cassandra waited for Kymethra, but after twenty minutes of feigning interest in the artful work of the hedge trimmers, she moved on. She slinked casually out of the palace grounds without anyone paying her a passing notice. Brevia was quiet now that the troops had sailed. Many soldiers were still in the Dales, leaving only the hunters to keep watch on the dragon refugee camp. As
the camps sprawled, the nerves of those inside the city strained. The people of Brevia had drawn a collective breath. Waiting.

  The quicker the war is over and the dragons can go home, the better. For everyone.

  To her relief, Balack was already waiting at the southern gates, surrounded by a baggage train to support a small army and an eclectic entourage – hunters and huntresses, merchants and giggling admirers. Balack stood a little apart from them all, looking nervous.

  “Quite the retinue you have these days,” Cassandra said.

  “The extra hunters are to help keep order,” Balack said. “And many of the city’s traders were interested in helping me in this endeavour.”

  Cass thought them sycophants hoping to absorb a splash of the honour and prestige now associated with Balack. At least they were helping, she supposed. A beefy man with a red face in a red doublet smiled hungrily beside a stacked cart.

  “If nothing else, the poor dragons will eat a little better today,” Cassandra said.

  “Humans need to eat as well,” Balack said. “If this keeps up for long, even the palace will have to start rationing.”

  “Well, I’ll live. It’s not the dragons’ fault they’re stuck here like this.”

  “It might not be so drastic if Arkus hadn’t issued an open invitation for them to sail home.” Balack stepped closer to her then and glanced quickly around before continuing. “Arkus may well have made a mistake. He’s trying to appease the Assembly but such a huge migration to Brevia is putting the city under pressure. Lord Esselmont says that his harvest in the Crescent will fall short with all the damage and disruption.”

  “Yes, the Kingdom is a wreck,” Cassandra said. “We’ll just have to pull through it. Complaining won’t help, nor will blaming it all on the dragons.”

  “I know, but it’s easy for people to blame others, as it was for me.” He turned to look at the city gates, staring intensely, as though seeing through the iron and wood to the refugee camps. “Arkus won’t be pleased when he finds out what I’ve done. But I want to help. I find myself without my home as well. The Boreac Mountains are deserted, the people I knew dead or scattered. I won’t claim to have it as hard as the dragons out there, but I can sympathise with them, I think. I should have done so sooner.”

  Cassandra looked at him when he turned back to face her; really looked. Under all the pampering, Balack was hurting. His eyes gave it away. They lacked their full colour and he seemed distant within them, as though still tethered to the sorrow and pain of his recent heartbreaks.

  “You’re doing the right thing now,” Cassandra said. “And don’t worry about Arkus. If I find Boreac, he won’t care.”

  Balack nodded. “I hope you’re right. You should have told me sooner. We need to get that ridiculous engagement cancelled.”

  Cassandra gasped in mock anger. “You’d reject your Princess in such a manner?”

  “I know how hard you can slap a man,” Balack said. “I just wouldn’t feel safe, Your Highness. Besides you wouldn’t want me. Too many damned issues of my own to sort out.” He smiled, then stepped back, put two fingers between his teeth and whistled loudly. The cogs above, twice the size of cartwheels, began to grind with the effort of moving the enormous gates.

  An hour later, they were at the centre of the refugee camp. A podium had been hastily thrown up at Balack’s request. Grim-faced dragon after grim-faced dragon had gathered with an eerie stillness. Most were female, with children following dutifully at their heels. The few men were the old or wounded, scowling from their loss of dignity. Cass felt a tension here as well. It wasn’t the quiet brewing fear inside of Brevia, but a grief at fallen pride.

  They were bitter, these dragons and it only intensified each day. They’d been sent from Val’tarra by Kasselle or travelled on their own volition, all under the promise of going home. Instead, they’d been penned in. The number of hunters out in force for Balack couldn’t be helping. It gave an impression of herding animals. At least this stunt was having the desired effect. The city-sized-camp was pooling in the centre with the promise of food, dragging even the most distant dragons in. After the night’s storm, the chill morning and freshly sodden ground, some thought of relief would be welcome. If Boreac was indeed here, she reckoned he would stay well away. There were too many hunters, who, as far as he knew, could be chasing him down.

  Balack took to his stage, not as confidently as he had been doing for human audiences. There was no Arkus to back him now, no resplendent Chevaliers to add glamour. The eyes of the dragons looked not to him but to the sacks, carts and barrels collected behind him.

  “I have been called the ‘Hero of the Bastion’,” Balack began. He’d grown skilled in projecting his voice and it carried towards the back where Cassandra was lurking. “But I did not storm the walls alone. How could I? It was dragons who took the walls, who fought on them, bled on them, bled for us all.”

  Arkus would not like this at all. Cassandra wondered whether the hunters cared, whether they would trip over each other to report it to the King or his Chevaliers. I better find Boreac after all this or I’ll find a white gown and veil in my room at the first opening in Arkus’ schedule.

  Something sharp nudged at her ankle.

  Cassandra felt relief at seeing Kymethra behind her. The witch would be invaluable in covering the camp quickly. Cass held out her arm and Kymethra settled there, delicately placing her talons into the thick leather vambrace. The weight made Cassandra’s knees buckle before she gained her balance. Kymethra’s big bird eyes looked imploring at her.

  “I’m glad you came,” Cassandra told her. Kymethra opened her beak and tilted her head playfully. It sufficed for a smile. “Are you feeling up to it?” Kymethra nodded. It was singularly strange to see a bird make such a movement. The witch lifted a wing and stretched it to its impressive length behind and around Cassandra’s head. Is this a hug? There were equal white feathers to brown now, but they were soft, comforting, like the taste of butter on hot bread.

  “I forgive you,” Cassandra said through a mouthful of feathers. She ran a finger down the back of Kymethra’s head and the witch closed her eyes in some pleasure. Afterwards, Kymethra pulled her wing back, snapped her beak happily, and turned with those penetrating eyes to stare across the camp.

  “Look for any man on his own,” Cassandra said. “He’ll be older and likely staying as far away from the hunters as he can.”

  Kymethra took off in a flurry of beating wings and Cassandra began her search the only way she could. One tent at a time. One row at a time.

  Most of them were empty, but some were occupied by women with infants or newborns at their breasts. Cassandra hoped someone would bring them some of the food. One growled, low and threatening like a mother wolf when Cassandra peeped behind the tent flap. Cassandra ducked out immediately, hardly wishing to come to blows with a dragon. Two children passed her looking especially dishevelled, their clothes ragged with neglect and dirt, and their bodies were little better. Thin, with wild hair and sharp long nails, the children looked feral; starring at her as though sizing up a meal.

  Poor half-starved things. Are their parents even here? Are they even alive?

  “Haven’t seen an older human wandering around, have you?” she said. They just gazed blankly at her. I guess not then. “You should follow the crowds,” Cassandra told them. “There will be food. Here,” she added, tossing them the oat biscuits from her ration pouch. The children descended greedily upon them. Within seconds the biscuits had been devoured.

  “There,” one of them pointed through the camp to the south-east. “A white-haired man. He doesn’t run so fast when the food comes.”

  “And he stumbles in the dark,” said the other. Then they scampered off. Cassandra looked to the sky and waved her arms around. Kymethra eventually saw her and she descended, blowing a rush of air over Cassandra’s head before landing in front of her.

  “Try the south-east portion,” Cassandra said. “If those children
were right there is at least one human there.” Kymethra cocked her head at her. “What? We don’t have many other leads.” The witch snapped her beak and took off again.

  Cassandra wove her way towards where Kymethra was flying. Already there were dragons returning from the rally, looking disgruntled, perhaps at a failure to secure more food or let down that the announcement was not for ships to take them home. She didn’t think Balack would have finished so soon but neither could he keep them all interested for long.

  Come on Kymethra. Find him.

  As though hearing her plea, Kymethra let loose a shrill squawk and dove downwards. Cassandra’s brisk pace turned into a jog and then a sprint as Kymethra’s cries grew louder. She covered herself in wet mud and splashed through dirty pools. She leapt over tent pegs and cookpots, over ash grey dead fires and bedrolls exposed to the elements. Kymethra rose out of the sea of mismatched cloth and hovered over one spot. Breathing hard, Cassandra arrived beside Kymethra, now in her human form.

  “I got a bit overexcited,” the witch said. “He got a fright and ran inside.” The tent before them looked thoroughly dishevelled. It was greyed with time, patched and no longer taut; the very worst of the old ruined stock the hunters were handing out.

  “I’m certain it was a human,” Kymethra said. “He was slow and weighed down carrying a sack, as though his whole life was inside it.”

  “Might well be,” Cassandra said, puffing slightly, “if it is him, of course. That or you’ve just scared some poor old dragon half to death.”

  “Shall we?” Kymethra said.

  “You keep watch,” Cassandra said. We don’t need a repeat of last time. Kymethra nodded slowly and did not protest. “If anyone seems to be heading this way give three sharp screeches,” Cassandra added. Kymethra morphed back into the eagle and took flight.

  Carefully, Cassandra approached the tent at a crouch, then lay down at the edge of the material. She gently lifted a section of the tent wall. It was empty save for the brown sack near the back. Boreac might be a smart man, but he can’t have been used to anything physical like this, not least because she was sure she could hear his panicked breathing from the corner to her left.