The Dragonswarm

by Aaron Pogue

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  Interior design by Aaron Pogue. Cover art (original oil painting) by Courtney Cantrell. Cover design by Amy Nickerson. Editing by Jessie Sanders. Map art by Becca J. Campbell. Map detail by Daniel Lunsford.

  THE DRAGONSWARM

  First edition. December 20, 2011.

  Copyright © 2011 Aaron Pogue.

  A Consortium Books public work. Written by Aaron Pogue.

  For copyright information concerning this book, please visit http://www.ConsortiumOKC.com/writing/copyright/

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Also by Aaron Pogue

  The World of the FirstKing

  Taming Fire

  The Dragonswarm

  The Dragonprince (coming in 2012)

  The World of Hathor

  Gods Tomorrow

  Ghost Targets: Expectation

  Ghost Targets: Restraint

  Ghost Targets: Camouflage (coming in 2012)

  Watch for more at Consortium Books!

  Table of Contents

  Also by Aaron Pogue

  Dedication

  World Map

  Introduction

  1. Knight of the People

  2. Fort Palmagnes

  3. Wizard, Warrior, and King

  4. The Monster

  5. In the Dragon's Lair

  6. What Dragons Know

  7. Flight

  8. Forward and Down, into the Darkness

  9. Half a Monster

  10. The Army

  11. The Wizard

  12. All Across the Ardain

  13. The Stronghold

  14. Behind Strong Walls

  15. Unusual Approaches

  16. Enemies Engaged

  17. The Changing Tide

  18. Reunions

  19. Vengeance

  A Consortium of Worlds

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  This one's for all my the readers who made Taming Fire a success, and especially for the amazing patrons who helped fund its publication through KickStarter.

  My name is Daven Carrickson, savior of the town of Teelevon. I've been called a beggar and a murderer, an assassin and a traitor. I've been called Sir Daven in glory, and Daven Dragonprince by men and monsters. In the autumn of my eighteenth year, when I was still hiding from the memory of my terrible adventures, new adventures found me.

  1. Knight of the People

  My feet itched to flee, and my fingers itched for a sword. Sweat slicked my palms despite the chill in the air. My eyes flicked around the little stone-walled garden, taking in every detail of the terrain. My heart pounded, and my limbs tingled.

  But my adversary held no fear. This certainly wasn't an enemy I could conquer, and I wasn't willing to run. I took a slow, calming breath and turned to face my fate.

  Isabelle smiled.

  She was lovely. She wore a light cotton dress with a white knit shawl that hid her shoulders and showed off her sun-dark skin. She kicked a foot idly, at her ease on the white marble bench surrounded by winter blossoms. Her eyes followed a falcon soaring in the middle distance, and my eyes followed hers.

  Without looking my way, she swallowed once. "We need to talk, Daven."

  "Of course." My right hand twitched toward hers and then twitched back. She wasn't holding my hand today. She clasped hers together in her lap.

  She didn't seem to catch my motion, but she turned to meet my gaze at last. There was more fear in her eyes than I had thought. But she was a brave girl. She set her shoulders and gave me a weak smile. "It's about us."

  I nodded. I licked my lips. "I have loved every moment we spent together." I wasn't sure if I meant the words to stall her or to help her out. They were the truth, though. I'd known her for six short weeks, but it had been a lifetime. It was the best life I'd ever known. I opened my mouth to put that in words, but she dropped her gaze and stopped me.

  "You..." she started, and then glanced up and trailed off. A hint of red touched her cheek. "You are nothing I ever expected. You're like no one I've ever met. Certainly like no commoner." She hesitated, heard her own words, and her blush deepened.

  I found no offense in it. I was as common as they came. I touched her shoulder to reassure her. "You're like no nobleman's daughter I've ever met."

  The corner of her mouth turned up in the hint of a smile. "You've met a lot of them, have you?"

  I couldn't find an answer to that. She glanced up at my silence, saw my face, and the delight that danced in her eyes almost eased my heart.

  But she dropped her gaze to her hands again. "I just...I don't know how to say this."

  "I understand, Isabelle. I do. We're so different, it's hard to believe—"

  Her head snapped up and she nodded. "Precisely! That's just it. It's hard to believe any of this happened at all." She took a deep breath, shook her head so her long hair danced around her face, and put on a smile.

  I waited for what had to come.

  She took my hands, then, both of them in her silk-soft fingertips. Her smile flickered again. "I never imagined this would be so hard" She squeezed my hands and caught my eyes, and I saw terror in hers. "Daven Carrickson...." She trembled, but she did not break our gaze. "Daven, dear," she said.

  Her eyes shone. I cleared my throat, and she blushed. She blinked. She smiled. "Daven, will you marry me?"

  My jaw dropped. For a moment the world spun around me. Something like a laugh escaped me, and I saw a little frown stab at the corners of her eyes. I shook my head. "Isabelle...what?"

  She straightened her back and looked down her nose at me. "I am trying to propose."

  "I thought...I didn't...." I squeezed her fingertips. "I would love to marry you." I caught a cold breath and let it out. "But we can't."

  "We can," Isabelle said, confident now. "I can make it happen. All I need to know—"

  "No," I cut her off as softly as I could. "We can't, Isabelle. I have no name. I have no land. Your father is a baron." And a friend of the king's. I didn't say the words, but that relationship was the largest obstacle.

  Isabelle waved my objections away. "No, I've thought about it. He could adopt you as his heir." She made it sound a simple matter.

  "He has heir enough in Themmichus," I said. I thought of my young friend, the good-hearted boy I'd known too briefly during my stay at the Academy of Wizardry. I would have given much to see him again.

  Isabelle frowned at me. "Themm's a little boy. You are our hero. Our savior. If not for you, my whole family would be dead now or prisoners in the rebels' camp." She shuddered at the memory, and I closed my eyes in sympathy.

  After a heartbeat she pressed on. "Regardless. Father sees as much in Themmichus as you seem to. But you needn't be a baron's heir. For one, there is no law—"

  I shook my head, and she cut off again. There was a law. The children of Ardain lords had long been allowed to choose their own spouses, but none of them would be allowed to wed a fugitive from the king's justice. I was wanted for murdering a soldier of the King's Guard.

  She should have known it too. Themmichus knew, and he had written of me often. Isabelle and I had never discussed it, though. And now, staring into her blue-gray eyes, I couldn't bring myself to give it voice. Instead I hung my head. "Do we need to hurry? I would love to marry you but it will be...complicated."

  Her shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. Tears shone in her eyes. She nodded short and sharp. "I know. Of course it will be complicated. I just...I'm ready to get started. I don't want to wait."

  I did. Complicated was too kind a word. We could not make arrangements without drawing a judgment from the crown. And I knew already what that judgment w
ould be.

  My time with Isabelle was doomed. It always had been, and I had always known. My heart's desire was only to delay the inevitable, to be with her as long as possible.

  And again I could not put it into words. I held her gaze, and she leaned forward to kiss me on the lips. "You are my future, Daven." Her face blossomed into a smile. "I want to get it started. Right now."

  There was fear. There was caution and regret, all born of the reality I knew too well. They faded into the farthest corner of my mind when I saw her smile. "And I, too," I said, a little breathless. "I love you, Isabelle. Only—"

  I didn't get to voice my objection. She popped to her feet, and summer sunlight glowed in her eyes. "I love you, too. I'm so delighted. And now I have a surprise for you!"

  She bounced on her toes, and she couldn't contain her smile. Within my mind, caution and fear struggled free again. I rose slowly, eyes fixed on her, and asked, "What?"

  "You will have a name." She laughed and caught my hand. Before I could say a word she dragged me down the white gravel path toward the baron's house.

  "I have told Father my intentions," she said. A whole new terror gripped my heart, but she dispelled it an instant later. "He is thrilled. As I said, he wasn't willing to adopt you, but he found another option. He's elected to name you a Knight of the People."

  I stopped cold at that. She couldn't drag me a step farther. Her grip on my hand spun her in a little circle, and she met my eyes with a startled curiosity.

  "A knight?" I asked.

  She nodded, and the smile that crept across her face echoed in my spirit.

  "A Knight of the People." I breathed the words with a reverence. It meant honor. It meant true power. It meant a name of my own, free of my father's disgrace.

  "For what you've done," she said, stepping close. Her eyes were wide, and they did not quite meet mine. "You are a hero, to all the people of this barony. No one has ever deserved the honor more." She twined her fingers in mine and pressed closer against me. "And who would object to my marrying our own Knight of the People? You're better than a prince."

  My breath caught in my throat. My heart pounded. I felt her warmth against me, felt it pour into me. Sir Daven of Teelevon, Knight of the People....

  "Father has already set things in motion," Isabelle murmured against my chest. "He has tested the waters among the people, and they love you. He's commissioned your papers. And of course he has written the king."

  My blood went cold as a Northlands winter. Fear and sadness came crashing back. "The king?"

  "Of course," she said lightly. "And we're in luck. He's in Tirah, still, so the messenger should have arrived in a matter of days. We could have an answer as soon as tomorrow."

  Her words struck me like blows. She must have felt the tension that stretched my body like copper wire, because she unwrapped herself from me and withdrew a pace. She looked up at me, cautious and uncertain. "What's the matter?"

  "The king," I said, and the words tasted bitter. It was time we discussed these things. "Take me to your father. We need to talk."

  We found Baron Eliade in his study, where a fire blazed on the stone hearth, and heavy curtains hung over glass-paned windows. The baron himself seemed untouched by the winter chill. He wore thin cotton shirt-sleeves, his silken coat thrown carelessly across the back of an empty couch.

  He was bent forward over a mess of papers on his desk, reading reports from the pages in one pile and scribbling his own notes on a fresh page under his right hand. His brow was knit in concentration and more than a little worry. His jaw clenched so hard the muscles stood out like heavy cords, and sweat gleamed on his forehead.

  I understood his concern. Winter came kindly this far south, but still it emptied the fields. And this year had been a hard one on the barony's harvest. An army of rebels had set up in siege outside the town, stealing food and disrupting any attempts to work the land.

  I had freed the town from that siege. Six weeks ago I'd dispersed the rebel horde with the help of a bloodthirsty beast that owed me a debt. I had made myself a hero, but here before me was a man with a harder task than mine had been. He had a thousand mouths to feed and insufficient resources to do it. I understood the troubles that creased his brows, and I had worse problems to offer him.

  He didn't look up when I entered the room. He did when Isabelle followed me one step later, and in a heartbeat the fear and frustration vanished from his face. He gave Isabelle a broad smile and pushed the pages away. I saw the trouble still hiding in the corners of his eyes, in the tension across his chest, but he hid it well.

  That smile darted over me and back to his precious daughter. "Ah, you're here!" he cried. He pushed himself to his feet. "Did you tell him? You must have told him."

  "She did." My voice sounded grim to my own ears. "She told me everything, my lord."

  "Your lord. Hah! We can't have such formality," he said, but I saw his smile slipping. "Soon enough—"

  "I'm sorry, my lord, but we have trouble." I thought I would see anger in his eyes at the interruption, but I only saw confusion. Isabelle stepped to my side and laced her fingers with mine.

  Pain stabbed at my heart. I didn't want to admit what I had done. I didn't want to see the shock and disappointment in their eyes. I didn't want to feel her cool fingers pull away.

  But I could not escape it. Not now. I set my shoulders and met the baron's gaze. "I killed a man" He opened his mouth to object—he was a man of war himself—but I pressed on. "It was a soldier in the King's Guard."

  The baron's face went pale at that, and Isabelle made a tiny sound. She didn't drop my hand.

  I nodded to the baron. "It was an accident, a mistake brought on by a wizard's reckless actions. But it is a mistake for which I have not paid." I held his gaze for a long moment, then dropped my head. "I will have to pay for it now."

  Eliade said nothing. After a moment Isabelle cleared her throat. "I...I don't understand."

  The baron spoke before I could answer. "They know your name?" Without looking I could feel his gaze against me.

  I nodded. "He knows everything about me."

  The baron's breath escaped him in a great, weary sigh. I glanced up. He seemed suddenly smaller, more frail than I ever could have imagined the big man.

  He shook his head. "And I sent him a letter. I told him just where to find you. I'm sorry, Daven. Isabelle."

  My jaw fell open. "Sorry? No, my lord. How could you have known? I'm sorry I brought this trouble to your house. I'm sorry I hid it from you."

  He should have been furious. Any lord I'd ever heard of would have been. But this was the man who had raised kind-hearted Themmichus and brave, beautiful Isabelle. This was the man who had taken me in. In six short weeks he'd become more a father to me than any I'd ever known.

  And he did not fail me now. "There is still time," he said, eyes flashing with strategies and plans. "We may find a place to hide you. I can bring the king to reason."

  My heart pounded with gratitude and hope as much as fear. I turned to Isabelle and found her nodding enthusiastically.

  "The people love him," she said. "He can live with any of them. The Smiths would keep him in style. Or Thomas Wheelwright. He has space enough—"

  The baron shook his head. "No. It would be asking them to defy the crown. That is a grave offense. We cannot place this burden on them."

  He didn't mean it as an accusation, but the words struck me like a blow.

  Isabelle wasn't fazed. "Then we can keep him here. There are rooms enough in this house to lose one man."

  Eliade dismissed that idea as well. "No, Isabelle. The king's trackers are careful men. Even given his love for us, we will not easily thwart his search."

  Isabelle almost answered again, but I stopped her with a touch on the wrist. I met the baron's gaze.

  "Don't," I said.

  "Young man, you'd be hard-pressed to stop me."

  "And yet I must." Regret burned sour in my throat, but I swallowed it
along with the memory of a kind old wizard half-dead from a wound he took while trying to hide me from the king. I could not do that to this man, and certainly not to the woman at my side.

  So I dropped her hand and held his gaze. "Don't risk these things for me. You've already done more than I ever could have asked. I'll face the king—"

  "You won't," the baron said, and his word was law. "Not without some intercession. These are hard and hasty times, and too much tragedy could catch fire in his wrath."

  I met his gaze for a moment, then dropped my eyes. I had no wish to die, and that was all I could expect from the king's justice now.

  I licked my lips and nodded. "Very well, but I will not endanger you and yours. I'll run. I can survive the wilderness—"

  The baron smiled, though it was grim. "We grow our wilderness much harder here than the one you know."

  "No harder than a headsman's blade," I said, and he grunted in agreement.

  Then silence fell, resignation and regret heavy in the air between us. My hands flexed and relaxed a dozen times, and my mind raced on ahead. The earth was hard and dry out here, the mountains high and harsh. But I had never lived an easy life before I came into this house. I'd find a way.

  Isabelle interrupted my thoughts with a tiny sound. She took a half-step forward and raised her hands toward the two of us. Our eyes fixed on her, and she hesitated. But then I saw her set her jaw. I saw a fire in her eyes. She meant to argue once again, and I steeled myself to tell her no.

  But she said just one word. "Palmagnes."

  I knew the name. It was a place from legend. An enchanted fortress. A temple to power and wisdom and authority. A stronghold impervious to every power, magical or mortal.

  I cocked my head, confused. It was an old, mostly-forgotten piece of the legends of the FirstKing. It had to be a myth.

  But then behind me the baron let out his breath with an interested sound. "Hmm. Now that could work."

  "The FirstKing's fortress? The Tower of Days?" My eyes snapped back and forth between them. "It's just a story."

  "It's not," the baron said.

  "It's a pile of ruins," Isabelle said in patient explanation. "It is little more than rubble."