Dragon Rise (The Dragonwalker Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  But it might not be safe for Fes to return. If the emperor did have a thousand gold coins on his head, and with the Dragon Guard after him, it wasn’t entirely safe to operate in the city. Staying here, and putting himself at risk, would only lead to his capture. With as many people as would be interested in the price on him, it would only be a matter of time before he was captured. If it weren’t Carter, then it would be someone else.

  And as hard as it was for him to admit, the price was high enough that even Tracen might be swayed.

  “I hope it’s not,” he said.

  “If it is, take this to keep me in your thoughts.” Tracen grabbed something off his table, and Fes saw that it was the same thing that he’d been working on. It was sculpted, a figurine that reminded him of the kinds that Indra made, though the one that Tracen made had even more detail than what he had seen from Indra.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s a totem.”

  “I see that,” Fes said. “But why do you make totems?” In all the time that he had known Tracen, the man had focused on weapons, but had also made more practical items, things like pots and silverware and horseshoes.

  Tracen shrugged. “They’ve become popular in the city. Most of them are made out of wood, though a few are made out of stone. I thought that breaking into the market with metal totems might separate me. Why?” He looked at the totem Fes held, biting his lip. “Isn’t it good?”

  Fes shook his head. The totem was shaped something like a horse, with the head of a man. It was different than many of the ones that he had seen from Indra and her father, but similar enough that he could see the technique that they both shared. The totems Indra and her father had both made were more manlike. They were often strange, and some of them were only partially formed, but none of them were a mixture of creatures the way that Tracen had done.

  “It’s amazing, Tracen. When did they start becoming popular?”

  Tracen shrugged. “It’s been a few months. They started cropping up. A few here and then a few there, and then the others began to appear. The first ones were stone, I think, but later on, the woodcarvers took it as something of their own and began to copy. You know how they can be.”

  Fes smiled. “No. I don’t know how they can be.”

  “Well, the woodcarvers don’t have much originality. Most of them take what others are doing and simply copy it.”

  “Isn’t that what you did?”

  Tracen glared at him. “I took what others were doing and added to it. My totem is different than anything else you’ll find in the city.”

  “I don’t want to take your totem, especially not if it’s the only one that you have.”

  Tracen shook his head. “No. I’ve been making them for a while. It takes a little bit to get the technique down. It’s quite a bit different than my normal work, but there’s something very satisfying in making them. When the totems appear out of the metal, the pattern becoming clear, it’s soothing.” He shrugged, looking down at the table as if avoiding Fes’s eyes. “It’s hard to explain. As someone who doesn’t create things, you probably can’t understand.”

  “Maybe more than you realize,” Fes said.

  “Keep that. I hope this isn’t the last time I see you, but if it is, I want you to have something of mine. You’ve never been fond of my knives—”

  Fes patted his sheathed dagger. “I prefer daggers,” Fes said.

  “Daggers. Knives. They’re pretty similar, you realize. And I’ve been telling you all along that you would be better suited to using a sword.”

  Fes shifted his cloak, not wanting to reveal that he had not one but two swords strapped to his back. How would Tracen react if he learned that?

  “Maybe better. And it’s not anything about your work. It’s that my daggers are—”

  “I know that your daggers were your parents’. And I know that they are important to you. I just figured you might want something with more of a flare to it.”

  Fes glanced down to his sheathed dagger. “These don’t have flare?”

  “They’re so… simple. Whoever made them didn’t have much creativity to them.”

  Fes smiled at Tracen. “I guess not everybody can have your creative ability. That’s why you are going to do well.” Fes squeezed the totem, holding on to it before slipping it into his pocket. “Besides, I doubt this is the last time we’ll see each other.”

  “You have some way of getting rid of the price on your head?”

  “Not yet, but I’m hoping that in time, I can figure something out.”

  He clasped Tracen on the shoulder, and when he turned away, leaving the shop, he wondered if it weren’t the last time he would see his friend.

  Chapter Eleven

  Reaching Horus’s section of the city took longer than Fes would have liked. He was limited, forced to take side streets and remain in the shadows, careful not to move too openly. Doing so posed more than a few risks, especially now that he knew how valuable he was. As he headed this way, he tried to think about all of the people who might come after him. There were plenty of mercenaries in the city, though not all of them were organized the way that Carter was. Most operated independently, and Fes didn’t worry about them. There were others, though, the mercenaries who were more like Carter, mercenaries who ran teams, that he did need to be concerned about. Most of them cared very little for Fes. He had taken jobs away from them over the years, and he hadn’t felt bad in doing so. He’d never feared an attack before, but he’d never had a price quite like this over his head.

  As he meandered through the streets, the palace always seemed to remain in view. It seemed to call to him, beckoning him, practically demanding his attention, pulling on him like the Calling.

  Would Azithan be inside? If he was, would he even be able to help Fes? He didn’t know how much pull Azithan even had. The way it had seemed before, Azithan had been manipulated so that he was marginalized, though that had been when Elizabeth had been in the palace. She was gone, and any influence she might have should be gone with her.

  Tearing his attention from the palace, he focused on what was in front of him. The city. This section. The people he passed. All of it needed his focus.

  And yet, all he could think about was how the streets stunk today.

  It was not uncommon for the streets to have a stench to them, of filth that seemed to carry, but there was something even more prominent to it than usual. He saw no signs of piles of refuse, something that he would have expected to explain it. Maybe it was merely the lack of rain. Enough rain would wash away the stench, but in the days that Fes had been traveling toward the city, there had been no rain and nothing that would have tamped down the odors within the city.

  The street remained devoid of any sign of mercenaries.

  It wasn’t that the streets were empty. Far from it. Plenty of people made their way along the street, most of them dressed as merchants or commoners, heading to and from errands. Maybe they were heading toward the Great Market. Maybe they were leaving the city. But none had the look of mercenaries.

  Fes headed out along the street, looking for the intersection that he needed to take. When he rounded a corner, he came face to face with a smaller man wearing a jacket and pants.

  They bumped into each other, and the man bounced back, looking up at Fes angrily, before his expression softened. “You’re him,” he said.

  “Him?”

  The man pulled out a belt knife and pointed it at Fes. “We get money if we report you.”

  Fes glared at the man. It would be a simple matter to attack him, but this wasn’t the kind of person he felt comfortable attacking. This was a man who had been drawn into something that was beyond him. This was a man who wanted nothing more than a chance at wealth. That was something Fes understood all too well.

  “Move out of the way,” he said.

  The man pointed the knife at Fes, his hand shaking. “No. You’re going to stay here until I call members of the Dragon Guard.”
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  Fes grabbed for his unsheathed daggers and swept them out, crossing them over the knife, splitting the blade clean off. The man’s eyes went wide.

  “Go before something bad happens,” Fes said.

  The man yelped and scurried off.

  Fes sighed and hurried along the street. If even commoners like this man recognized him, then he was in more trouble than he realized. It was bad enough when he had to worry about mercenaries confronting him, but what would happen if he came face to face with an entire family of simple folk who wanted nothing more than to earn a quick coin? They appreciated money as much as Fes had, and he wouldn’t put it past them to circle him, unmindful of risking danger, and he would have to decide what he was going to do at that point. Would he harm them? It wasn’t something that he wanted to do. He didn’t want to hurt regular people. Hell, he didn’t like the idea of hurting many of the mercenaries. It was those like Carter, people like her who wanted to use and manipulate others, that he didn’t worry about getting caught in the middle of the fray.

  Fes kept his head down as he made his way along the street. He rarely drew much attention, but so far he had been recognized by several people. Why would that be?

  When he turned a corner, he suddenly understood.

  Plastered on the side of the building was a drawing of him. It was exquisitely done, almost an artistic rendering, and there would be no mistaking his distinct features. Fes had a square jaw and a slightly large nose, large enough that it lent him a characteristic appearance. His hair was a little longer than in the picture, mostly because he had let it grow while traveling with Jayell, but even he could see the similarities.

  Written below his face was a single number. Two thousand gold coins.

  It was even more than Tracen had told him.

  Had he known, would he have allowed Fes to leave?

  He had to stop thinking like that. Tracen wouldn’t betray him. He was his friend. He had to stop believing that people would betray him, but then, hadn’t Fes done that? Hadn’t he betrayed others when it suited his purpose? Hadn’t he turned against Alison, not even recently, but before, when they had both operated in the city? That betrayal was the reason they still struggled to get along.

  But there were those he hadn’t betrayed. He would never betray people he cared about, and he cared about Tracen. He was his friend, and he hoped that Tracen felt the same way.

  When he turned a corner, four men were making their way along the street. Fes kept his head low, watching them out of the periphery of his vision, and changed direction when they started coming his way.

  He turned a corner and backed up against the building, waiting. Fes hoped that they weren’t looking for him and that it was only chance that they would find him on the street.

  “It was him. I swear it was.”

  “Can you imagine? If we bring him in, that’s five hundred gold each!”

  “That’s if all of us survive.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Anyone worth two thousand gold isn’t going to come in quietly,” one of the men said.

  They froze, seemingly seeing Fes, and he breathed out a sigh. “Trust me. You don’t want to do this.”

  The men looked over at each other, and they reached for swords that Fes was surprised to see them carrying. They were simple blades, nothing fancy, certainly not the kind of weapon that many of the mercenaries had even carried, but a weapon was a weapon. Even a lucky blow could hurt. An especially lucky one could kill.

  “You said it yourself. Anyone worth two thousand gold isn’t going to come in quietly,” he added.

  The lead man, a burly looking person with broad shoulders and a sword that looked hands longer than the others, smiled at Fes. “We’ve all served in the army. We’re not afraid.”

  “Like I said, you’re not going to like how this ends.”

  The man twitched, and Fes grabbed his daggers, always going toward them first. In a small space like this, the daggers would be easier to use, and more familiar. Against magic, it might make more sense to break out the dragonglass swords, but up against common soldiers—even those who weren’t soldiers anymore—he didn’t need anything more than his daggers.

  He twisted, the flat of the blade slicing through the air where Fes had been, and brought his elbow down as his dagger came unsheathed, slamming it into the man’s backside. It was a painful blow and the man hunched over, protecting it. Fes stomped down, catching the toes, and brought his other heel up, swinging his boot into the man’s midsection.

  The next one risked himself, separating from the others. Fes spun, connecting with the back of his neck, and he crumpled. It left two men, and he punched, ducking beneath one of the men’s swords as he brought his fist out, jabbing one in the jaw while the other one took a shot to the chest.

  Both were painful blows, and enough that neither man posed a threat.

  Fes started to turn when something caught him on the shoulder. Pain blasted through him, and he looked down to see a blade poking through his shoulder.

  He swore under his breath as he dragged himself off the blade.

  Three others had appeared.

  Two of them carried knives like the shaky man he had confronted before, and the third had a sword, though the blade was nicked and obviously hadn’t been used in some time.

  “This is a mistake,” Fes said, anger rising up within him.

  The street began to fill. Before long, there would be more than he could manage. Unless he decided not to worry about hurting these men. It was one thing to try to bring them down with a straightforward blow; it was quite another to catch them with the sharp end of the dagger. He could end the fight faster that way, and even faster if he allowed himself to succumb to the Deshazl anger.

  As he debated, twenty or more people filled the street.

  He backed up and nearly tripped over one of the men he had already knocked down. It was the larger man, the one who had led the first four. He had gotten to his hands and knees and looked up at Fes, hatred glittering in his eyes.

  Fes kicked, connecting with his jaw, and he went rolling over.

  “If this is what you want,” he said.

  He took a deep breath, steeling himself as he allowed the power within him to surge.

  With it flowed strength and speed, and he quickly analyzed the easiest way to get out of the street. He would have to find a way to hide, and he couldn’t do that here, which meant that he would need to get to Horus faster than he had intended. Maybe even more directly than he had intended.

  But would Horus take him in?

  He probably would, but there would be a price to it.

  Was it a price that Fes would be willing to pay?

  Already he had planned to be indebted to Horus, knowing that he would need his help to reach the rebellion, so what was a little more debt when it meant that he managed to escape relatively unscathed?

  His shoulder throbbed where the sword or the knife had stabbed him.

  Fes attacked. There was a ferocity, almost an animal-like rage, that flowed out of him. He roared, and the sound practically filled the street, echoing off the buildings rising up on either side of him, blackening the sky. Heat boiled within him, whether that was anger or the Deshazl magic or something else, Fes no longer cared.

  He spun, slicing and stabbing, carving his way through these men.

  More and more people appeared on the street.

  Fes jumped, slamming his daggers into their sheaths and pulling one of the swords free. When he came down, he spun the sword around in a circle, clearing space before him. He raced forward, and the men in front of him were wise enough to back away, wanting nothing to do with his blade. Where it met steel, the other swords cracked and shattered, and Fes was left facing men essentially unarmed. The end of the street was near, close enough that he could feel it practically beckoning to him.

  In front of him were a dozen, maybe twice that, men who never should have tried to confront him
, but they left Fes with no choice. He spun around the sword, slicing and cutting, carving his way through. Blood sprayed, some of it warm against his hand.

  Distantly, he knew that there would be no way to hide his presence in the city.

  Maybe there would never have been a way to hide his presence. With Carter having realized that he had returned, he had always been in danger of pursuit.

  Regardless, he would get free. He would not be brought to the palace, dragged down by simple people. He had the same power of the dragons.

  He was Deshazl.

  And then he reached the end of the street. From here, it was empty. He turned and noticed the bodies littering the ground. Men had fallen, and many clutched wounds that were likely fatal. Others bled, a dazed look on their eyes, almost as if they couldn’t believe what they had done.

  Fes raced off, wanting to put distance between him and what he had done. He managed to slip the sword back into its sheath, shifting his cloak into place to conceal it, and slow down as he came to a busier street.

  People shied away from him, and he realized that he must be covered in blood.

  He looked around, needing to find the safest way to reach Horus, but from here, there wasn’t any safe way. It would involve crossing another dozen or so busy streets.

  Someone bumped into him, and he spun, reaching for his dagger, when he saw a familiar face.

  “Alison?”

  She looked up and down his cloak and peeled the one she wore off her shoulders, draping it over him. “Come on, you idiot. We need to get you out of the street before someone manages to stick a knife into you.”

  “Someone already has sunk a knife into me.”

  “Then we need to get you out of here before someone else does it.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “It’s not as if you have been all that secretive, Fes.”

  “Alison?” he asked, taking a step back. He kept one hand on his dagger, ready to attack if it were necessary, but not wanting to. Not with Alison. Their relationship was complicated, and even though she had used him, and he had betrayed her, he still cared about her. He didn’t want harm to fall upon her.