The Dragonswarm

by Aaron Pogue

"Thanks to you and the shadow there. Strangest fight I've ever seen. He comes in screaming, and the dragon spins around to attack him. It rears up. It opens its maw and I thought for sure he was a dead man."

  "It looked that way," Caleb said, utterly unconcerned.

  "But then the monster just froze. It looked confused. Silliest damn thing I've ever seen."

  "Haven's name," Caleb grumbled. "Who is this?"

  "Jake," the figure said. "Finest turnips west of Whitefalls. And mighty obliged to you both. How did you do it?"

  "Three paces of steel, judiciously applied," Caleb said. "It's easy when they don't fight back."

  "I confounded it," I said, catching at Caleb's sleeve. "Just give me a moment next time."

  "Oh, but thank you for your haste this first time," Jake said. "Otherwise I'd be broiled dry."

  "Jake is strange," Caleb said from the other side of the wagon. "And now you should ask him why he called for help."

  It seemed a senseless question, but instead of laughing, Jake suddenly went pale. He threw a nervous glance out into the night. He scanned the darkness for a moment, then turned back to me. "I was attacked."

  Caleb said, "By men." It was not a question. He came around the wagon carrying a heavy crossbow bolt. He tossed it to me, then turned to Jake. "How many? Did they seem organized?"

  Jake shook his head, "I wish I could say, but I didn't see a one of them. All I know is they were over that way." He pointed out over the fields to the west. "One o' them bolts smashed into the seat right next to me, and I screamed and jumped down on the other side o' the wagon. Then I hear a noise right above me, and I look up, and the whole world goes hot and yellow. Then along comes the heroes."

  Caleb nodded, but his eyes were distant. After a moment he noticed I was watching him and nodded toward the wagon. "Go look at the other side." I did, and Jake followed one step behind me.

  The wall of the wagon was a pincushion of dozens of heavy bolts. The driver's seat was just as heavily hit. There was no sign of the horse, though most of the harness lay in a mangled heap in the middle of the road.

  Jake let out a low whistle. "Wind and rain."

  Caleb grunted. "Has there been much activity around here?"

  "Oh, aye!" Jake nodded vigorously. "They're always out at night, but not this close to town. I didn't expect anything, I can tell you that." He looked out over the fields again, wariness in his eyes. "You think they're still out there?"

  Caleb looked to me for an answer, but I was still out of my depth. I glanced sideways at Jake, then gave a little shrug and asked, "Who?"

  "Bandits!" Jake said.

  "Organized," Caleb said. "The old rebels. They're building a power base along the marginal trade routes."

  I thought of the long-ago attack on Tirah, and of Vechernyvetr's words as he offered to help me end the rebel siege around Teelevon. I thought of all the things I'd learned in his lair. "The dragons chafe at our organization," I said. "If there's any kind of power base forming, the dragons will assault it. I suspect that was this one's real goal."

  Jake blinked. "It was trying to save me?"

  "No," Caleb and I said at the same time. I nodded. "The dragons will kill everyone. They just kill the powerful first."

  Jake paled. "Aha." He brushed absently at his shirtfront and looked around. "I uh...I seem to have lost the services of my cart and horse. And the night is full of surprises."

  "We are headed to town. Would you like to travel with us?"

  "As it happens, yes," Jake said seriously. Then he went to the bed of his wagon and began rustling through it in the dark. "And I'm sure you wouldn't mind shouldering a little load?"

  Caleb grumbled something sarcastic, but I shot him a dark look to shut him up. "We would not mind at all," I said.

  Jake tossed me a heavy burlap sack stuffed full, and it nearly took me off my feet. After a moment's effort I slung it over my shoulder, in time to see Caleb easily managing a sack in each hand. Jake dragged one in the dirt behind him, too.

  I sent the little magic flame drifting down the road ahead of us, lighting our way, and wove another thin fabric of air to hide us from above. Then I glanced over to see Caleb frowning at one of the sacks he carried. "These must be valuable goods you're transporting to have drawn so much attention from the rebels."

  "Oh, aye," Jake said. "Precious indeed. I should've known better than to travel at night."

  Caleb tested his grip on the sack, prodding it as he tried to guess at the contents. "What is it? Leather armor? Some kind of flask? Heavy for that."

  "Not even close," Jake said. "Your friend here knows."

  He jerked a thumb at me, and I blinked in surprise. And then I laughed out loud.

  "What?" Caleb asked. He started clawing at the knots at the top of one of his bags, but I shook my head and stopped him.

  "Turnips," I said. "Jake is famous for them."

  "Even a bandit's got to eat," Jake said proudly. "They'd have feasted for a week on these fine beauties."

  Caleb frowned at him for three paces, then frowned at me for four. "Why are we bringing him?" he said.

  "So I won't have to conquer this town," I said. "And so you can sleep on a feather bed. Is that reason enough?"

  "That seems a fair reward!" Jake laughed. "They don't like strangers most of the time. But they'll let you in with me."

  "I don't like strangers much either," Caleb grunted.

  I glanced at Jake, but he didn't seem to take offense. He shrugged his shoulders and turned down the corners of his mouth good-naturedly, then trudged along. I met Caleb's eye. "He gets us in," I said. "That's what really matters."

  Dawn was already touching the sky by the time we hauled Jake's harvest to the rough-cut gates of the next town, but the guards standing duty there nodded a familiar greeting to the old farmer and let us pass without a hint of challenge.

  As we moved through the streets, the few townsfolk up and about seemed far more curious about us than concerned. Even the fearsome Caleb would have been a hard man to tremble at as he lumbered down the packed dirt road under two heavy sacks of turnips. By the time we dropped them in the town square, Caleb and I were the talk of the town. Strangers armed and bloodied as we were would always draw attention, but this time it set rumors flying instead of broken bricks.

  And Jake was true to his word. He led us straight to the big inn's kitchen door and knocked one time before the innkeeper himself let us in. The common room wasn't yet open, but a big cook fire was already blazing, and the innkeeper put together breakfast for us while Jake rolled out a handsomely embellished version of the night's events. The tale was enough to earn us room and board for a night, and Jake promised to see us on down the road with a pack full of turnips at half the market price.

  A serving girl showed us up to a pair of empty rooms just as the rest of the place seemed to be coming awake. I doubt Caleb slept. He never seemed to need it. But after the hearty meal and a full flagon of spiced wine for breakfast, I scrubbed my face and hands and feet, then slept the sleep of the dead. Caleb woke me just at dusk.

  When we came down, the common room was set for dinner, and with the winter market on in town the common room was crowded tonight. A dozen sturdy wooden tables stood scattered across the floor, each surrounded by five or six wooden chairs, and the walls were lined with deep booths, all illuminated by glowing candles. A great fire blazed in the hearth at the south end of the room, and the innkeeper bustled out from behind the bar to lead us directly to a long table next to the fireplace.

  "Best table in the house, this is, and it's only fitting we offer it to our heroes. Now take a seat, take a seat."

  Warm mead and plates piled high with food appeared with surprising speed. I was just slicing into a pork cutlet when Caleb caught my eye across the table. "Watch yourself," he said under his breath. "Everyone else is."

  I leaned back and looked around. A soft bed and a few warm drinks had knocked some of the edge off my suspicion, and it had certainly t
empered the animal fury I'd felt before. I saw a few curious faces among the inn's patrons, but nothing menacing. I gave Caleb a frown.

  "Nobody seems to be paying us much attention."

  He grunted. "And they're spending a great a deal of effort doing it."

  Before I could answer, a stranger stepped out of nowhere and clapped me on the shoulder. He was short—he would barely have come up to my shoulder if I'd been standing—but he was dressed in finery compared with the other people of the town.

  I saw Caleb start, as surprised as I by the short man's sudden appearance, but the newcomer gave no notice to the sudden potential for violence that flashed across my companion's face. Instead, he gripped my shoulder like an old friend and spoke as if in answer to Caleb's last quiet comment.

  "Pay no mind. They're just excited. News of last night's adventure is the talk of the town."

  Caleb eased himself back into his seat, eyes narrowed to slits. "Who are you?"

  The newcomer sank down in a chair next to me and threw Caleb a big grin. "Stephen Dehl! I'm mayor of this town, and the way I hear it I owe you two a great deal of gratitude."

  "We saved a farmer," Caleb growled, like it was no more significant than squashing a bug.

  "We killed a dragon," I added, anxious to keep the good will we'd earned in this town.

  "A dragon. Hah! Yes. So I've heard!" The mayor chuckled and shook his head. "But you certainly saved our Jake from a bandit raid, and he's a well-liked man in this town. You two made friends here."

  "Friends we could use," I said. "More than anything else, we need news."

  He seemed surprised. "News? How do you mean?"

  "Are you familiar with the land west of here? I need to know what has happened to the town of Teelevon."

  He looked back and stared theatrically up at the ceiling, silently mouthing the name Teelevon, then shrugged, "I'll beg your pardon, friend, but I don't know the place. Perhaps you could tell me the general vicinity?"

  "It's outside Tirah. Five days' ride to the south, along the King's Road—"

  The mayor brightened. "Then you have nothing to fear! The monsters won't go anywhere near that area. Tirah they avoid, and they know better than to strike along the road."

  "Are you sure?" I asked.

  He nodded. Across the table, Caleb raised a finger as though to interject but then sat back again.

  I frowned at both of them, then turned all my attention to the mayor. "How do you know so much about them?"

  "Ah, they've been a mighty nuisance for months now. We've had chance to learn much of their ways, more's the pity." He held up a hand and ticked off points as he came to them, "They always strike at night, and in large numbers. They take one man at a time when they can, but the smaller villages have been attacked outright. They kill for fun, but their real goal is to plunder anything of value."

  "That's...not quite right," I said. "But it's very close."

  The mayor frowned at me, but before he could argue Caleb sat forward. "Anything of value?" he asked. "Even turnips?"

  "Of course, you'd know that!" the mayor said, his grin returning briefly. Then he shook his head with a sigh. "They're getting more dangerous as they get hungry. Winter's going to be rough."

  I looked across at Caleb, utterly confused. He rolled his eyes. "There people aren't afraid of dragons."

  "Dragons?" The mayor asked, his voice going shrill. "Not really dragons? I mean...I'd heard, but I thought they were rumors the bandits spread."

  "The dragonswarm is here," I told him, keeping my voice level. "And it is very real."

  Caleb nodded into his beer. "They're still not much on the plains, but give it a couple months and they'll burn this town to the ground."

  The mayor looked back and forth between us, and at last the showman's color seemed to drain from his face. He shrank in on himself and stared glumly down at the table. "There's not much left to burn," he said after a while. "The brigands have taken everything already. A little gruesome fire might be better than the long, slow starve." He waved to one of the maids.

  "These are the same brigands who attacked farmer Jake?" I asked. The mayor and Caleb both nodded, but something Caleb had mentioned the night before only then struck home. "The old rebels?" I asked, shocked.

  The mayor frowned at me. Caleb tilted his head, calculating, and said, "You do know about the rebellion, right?"

  "It was months, Caleb, not years. But the rebellion was put down."

  Caleb shrugged. "It ended, anyway."

  "Not even that," the mayor growled. "It only changed its focus. Instead of robbing and warring with the king, they rob and war with the little villages now."

  Caleb nodded. "They've been a problem for a long time. On the plains, they're the bigger threat."

  "A bigger threat than the dragonswarm?"

  Caleb sighed. "You do seem to know a little bit about the rebellion." I nodded, and he nodded. "Do you know about the army Brant raised in the process?"

  I had spent a day tracking them through rough country, and another day a prisoner in their camp. And I had put a whole army of them to flight with the help of one dragon. I knew them well.

  "Ruffians," I said. "They were just rabble, right, and he trained them up to fight for him?"

  "Exactly. Thousands of murderous men, and he taught them to live off the land. To hide among the population. They strike at night, unseen, against their opponents' weaknesses. He made a pretty impressive force of them." The mayor huffed at that, but he didn't contradict the soldier.

  Caleb went on. "The king sent an army to put down the rebellion, and they should have been sufficient to wipe out Brant's men in spite of their tactics, but it never happened."

  "It did," I said. "The king came in person and took Tirah with barely a fight."

  Caleb's eyes narrowed again, and he hesitated before he went on. "Without a fight at all, in fact. Because they were not there."

  "Well, no. They were...well, they were in Teelevon with the wizard Lareth. Staging for a strike. But they were scattered before they could attack."

  "Were they?" he asked, and I realized for the first time that the truth of that night might never have reached outside Teelevon. I had carried word to the king's highest officers, but they had not deigned to listen.

  And then I understood what the mayor had been saying, what Caleb had meant about the old rebels building up a power base—not scattered groups of deserters banding together, but an army meant to win a rebellion.

  My jaw dropped at the thought. "The army still stands?" I started to my feet. "They never tracked them down? They never ended it?"

  Caleb shook his head. "When Brant was dealt with, the rebellion hardly mattered anymore. His men returned to the lives of crime from which he had summoned them, and likely the king's officers believed local law would eventually see them all in shackles or nooses."

  The mayor slammed a tiny fist down on the solid oak table hard enough to set the dishes rattling. "Oh, yes, they became brigands and highwaymen again. Hah! But with the training and organization that Brant had been giving them for years."

  "And the equipment they'd plundered from guards and garrisons," Caleb added.

  The mayor nodded solemnly. "They began to terrorize us all, and now we didn't even have the duke to call for help. No one could restrain them."

  Caleb said, "The king's army made Tirah secure, but he had not brought enough to track a thousand little bands across the whole of the Ardain. Wherever they heard of a force gathering near a major town, the Guard would ride out and drive them off."

  "Aye," the mayor said, "They drove 'em right off into the plains. So instead of fighting king's men they're fighting farmers and shepherds out among the wheat. These days the bastards kill whenever they can just for practice, and they rob anyone they meet of anything worth anything. These are the renegades that you know nothing about."

  As they told the story, I could only stare at them, unbelieving. When they finished I felt numb. "All that
has happened?" They both nodded, grave. "This is what has become of the world? This is what mankind does when faced with destruction? The dragons don't even have to come. We will destroy ourselves!"

  Caleb nodded, grim. "Something should have been done, but now it's too late. They are scattered."

  I shook my head. I still felt numb. "Dragons fly to kill us all, and an army of deserters and criminals roams unchallenged to prey on the towns of the Ardain." I thought of Teelevon, strangled by the siege, and a king unwilling to send them any aid. I turned to the mayor. "Has anyone faced them?"

  The mayor held his palms up, helpless, "Brant took all our fighting men years ago. We have only shepherds and seamstresses now. What are we going to do against them?"

  I rounded on Caleb, but his eyes were on the table. Still he answered my silent question. "The king's army is just a show of force, now. They hold Tirah and grant refuge to anyone who asks it there. The wizards, the Green Eagles, and all the regiments hide behind the city walls while Timmon once again secures his power."

  "And we are left to die," the mayor said sadly, as though from a long way off.

  Caleb looked up at him, grief in his eyes, but I interrupted. "This will not continue. Caleb, let's go."

  He looked up at me in astonishment, "What? Where?"

  Gone was the gentle warmth of comfort and good nourishment I had felt before. Animal fury burned in my heart again. But now I did little to restrain it. I focused the pounding anger, I shaped it in my mind. I began to design a new reality and looked for ways to make it from my rage.

  "I need an army to fight my war. Perhaps I cannot ask good men to die for me," I said. "But I would gladly put these rebels to the task."

  I was already at the door, bristling with energy. Caleb covered the floor in two long steps and turned me to face him. "You want to take control of the rebels? Are you mad?"

  "It's simple," I said. "We'll find this army—we know they're not far off—and I will do what I must to tame them."

  The mayor jumped up, his eyes cautious. "But...but...you're going to join the rebels?"

  "No," Caleb answered him without taking his eyes from mine. "No, he means to conquer them. He means to make a weapon of them."