The Dragonswarm

by Aaron Pogue

  He stared back at me with eyes more sane than I had expected, and not a trace of defiance in them. Instead I saw hope. And admiration. Not for a superior opponent, I realized, but for a more deadly one. That was his only measure of power. He had understood every nuance of the darkly-gleaming necklace I had hung around his throat, and it had won me his respect.

  I did not let my shiver show. I took one long step toward him, with all the army watching behind me, and I said, "Lareth Undinane, I call you conquered. I offer you the chance I gave your men."

  Before I could say more, he slid his hands palms down along the floor of his narrow pillar until his forehead nearly touched the earth, and he cried out with a voice surprisingly strong, "Daven Carrickson, I yield my life to you, my only lord. All that I may have, all that I may do, all that I may be I give to you. I am your bonded slave. Spare my life if it pleases you, and it is yours to use."

  I had one heartbeat to gape at him, and then the force of his oath crashed into me. I fell back a step, as fever heat seared on my lips and in my ears and at my fingertips. The wizard saw it happen. His eyes narrowed, his lips parted, and then he must have looked with his wizard's sight because he dropped his jaw.

  And then he laughed. He laughed and laughed with the sort of boundless glee I had only ever heard from a child. He laughed until it became a roar and then at last subsided into hacking coughs. And still his shoulders shook, still his good eye shone.

  I raised a hand, ready to strike with a dozen different kinds of force, but he shook his head and dropped his eyes and wheezed. "You're even more than I had guessed," he said. "I barely began to dream that I could serve a sorcerer, but you are something else altogether. You've nothing left to fear from me at all." He slipped his hands out and kissed the ground before me once again, then met my eyes with a ferocious hunger in his. "I will do anything to follow you."

  I had to fight down another shudder of disgust, but I could not doubt his sincerity. He trembled with excitement at the power he had seen. "I do not trust you," I said, pitching my voice for him alone. I could never trust him. But in this moment, I needed him.

  "You can," he said, with another little chuckle. "Smoke and shadows, I'd slit my mother's throat if you asked it of me."

  I growled at him. "You should think more of your own throat."

  It took him a moment, then his eyes widened and a hand drifted up to touch one of the Chaos shards almost reverently. "I remember an orphan boy who only wanted to save the world." He smiled. "My, my, how you have grown."

  I opened my mouth to snap at him, but it would have done no good. Instead I gestured to the west and said, "The king is coming. With wizards and warriors enough to wipe us out."

  "Not you," he said.

  "Perhaps," I said. "But I have use for all these men. I need you to open portals to get us safely away. Can you do that?"

  "Of course" He licked his lips, thinking for a moment, then asked, "How many do you want? Just these, or all of them?"

  "All of them?" I asked.

  "Oh, you don't know!" He shoved himself up until he sat bouncing on his heels and grinning like a child. "My lord, my lord, my lord," he cackled. "You are going to like this."

  12. All Across the Ardain

  The wizard's last motion had broken even Caleb's calm reserve. He darted up to stand by my side, and I noticed the hand on his hilt, but I sighed and shook my head.

  "He's harmless, Caleb." The wizard's one good eyebrow arched at me, and I sighed again. "To me. He is harmless to me."

  Caleb only grunted, unconvinced. I turned my attention back to the wizard. "What are you so excited to tell me?"

  "Tell you? No. I'll show you." He raised a hand, and that was enough. Caleb's sword flashed from its scabbard, its sharp edge pressing lightly against Lareth's throat without seeming to pass through the space between.

  The wizard didn't even blink. He began to chant instead, but his other hand rose almost dreamily to touch one of the shards I'd made, and Caleb noticed them for the first time.

  "What in Haven's name?" he breathed, as rattled as I had ever heard him. He pulled his own blade away and stood staring.

  "A threat as sharp as yours," I said.

  "A gift from my new lord," the wizard said, his chanting done. "I cherish the reminder."

  "You're mad," my general said.

  "I'm done," Lareth said. When Caleb and I both looked blank, the wizard nodded past us. "Behold."

  We turned to find a green flame hanging in the air. I recognized it well, and as I glanced back to Lareth, he shrugged. "I thought you might wish to study the working, or I would have opened the portal directly."

  I could find no answer. It was a fine suggestion. I turned back to the eerie green flame and looked with my wizard's sight. The thing I saw was twisted and wrong. Not the flame itself, the hallmark of Lareth's strangely delayed magic, but the working underneath. Energy was there, the glowing threads of ordinary reality, and I could see the soft glow of Lareth's will overlaid upon it.

  But his will was not tied to one energy, to one thread of wind or one blast of fire. Instead it lay spread out across the scattered sum of powers that made up this place, this little bit of Ardain, and wherever his will lay the energies themselves were...vague. Distorted. They seemed to shimmer like a heat haze even in the stark reality of the wizard's sight, and after a time I understood.

  It was another place. That was the traveling. This place and another place overlaid until they nearly were the same. It was not just a matter of stretching or tearing or opening, it was a matter of matching realities. Not an imaginary scene, not just the shape or earth of the bite in the air, but all of it. All the thousand little energies trapped, contained, coerced. I saw it, and I understood, and I knew with a deep certainty I could never do such a thing.

  The realization left me feeling very small. I shifted my attention to reveal the dazzling bonfire of forces that blazed around me, the thunderous power at my disposal, but it comforted me little. I could obliterate Lareth's delicate working with nothing more than a thought, but for all my power I could not begin to replicate it.

  The sight faded as quickly as I could blink, but his green flame burned in quiet reminder. I turned my face away and growled to him, "I have seen enough. Show me what you will."

  From the corner of my eye I saw the motion as the flame unfolded into a doorway. I heard the distant sound of chatter, laughter, and closer there was the riffle of shuffling cards. A curious glance showed me another camp much like this one, though in the flatter lands out west, and the men in that camp seemed much more comfortable than my own.

  Less than a pace from the new gateway was a soldier in cavalry plate that looked almost new. Caleb brought up the sword he'd turned against Lareth, but I stopped it short on unyielding threads of air.

  "It's not an ambush," I said quietly, focusing on the soldiers sprawled on the grass around a game of cards.

  "Not for us," Lareth said with a wicked twist to his mangled lips.

  The soldier in question stood no more than three paces from us—though he might have been a hundred miles away—yet he showed no reaction to anything we'd said, nor even to the sword Caleb still held on a hard cut toward his neck.

  The soldier only snapped a smart salute. "Master Lareth!"

  Lareth nodded at him, then waved me over to stand beside him. "Well met, Garrett Dain. Your men are ready?"

  The soldier nodded, "Always, Master. You have news?"

  Lareth smiled, "Very good news indeed. We have a new protector greater by far than the failed duke."

  Garrett Dain's eyes snapped to Caleb for two slow beats, then flicked to me and away. "Fine, sir."

  Lareth cackled for a moment then cut it off abruptly. "Inform your men. We'll likely come to gather you by dawn."

  "We stand ready."

  "They all do," Lareth said, as an aside, then he held a hand toward me. "This is Lord Daven. Your oath is now to him."

  The soldier looked confu
sed for a only a moment, but then he turned to me. "It will be an honor to serve you, Lord Daven. Direct me, and my men will follow."

  And just like that, I felt the force of new power. As much again and more as I had gained from all the oaths of the men in this camp, delivered at once with a word from the other army's leader—and that at Lareth's direction.

  I swayed in place as the power washed over me, and behind me the wizard made a sound that was very nearly a purr. Caleb dropped a heavy hand on my shoulder to steady me.

  "What's going on?" he asked.

  "Power," Lareth crooned. "I've never seen it manifest. It's beautiful."

  "Daven?" Caleb sounded unsettled. "What happened there?"

  "I gained another army," I said, fighting for my breath. "Halfway across Ardain, I just gained another army. Like this one."

  "Not an army," Lareth said. "A detachment, I liked to call them. Large enough to raid a good-sized town, small enough that we could afford to lose one to the King's Guard without ending all our goals."

  Garrett Dain nodded calmly, and Lareth chuckled. "Although we'd certainly miss Mister Dain. Yes?"

  "Another like this?" Caleb asked, turning between Lareth and me. He finally lowered his sword and stood looking thunderstruck. "This is one of your detachments?" He waved beyond the portal to the neat formations he had brought, still waiting, still watching.

  "Of course," Lareth said.

  Caleb shook his head. To me, he said, "They've been talking about detachments all day. All across the Ardain, they say. I pictured raiding parties of ten to twenty."

  "Oh! Ha hah!" Lareth barked. "No, no, no, no. This is one of the smaller detachments. I was only here to speak with the prisoner." He frowned. "You do still have my prisoner?"

  "We sent him back to his masters," I said sternly.

  "I'm sure that you know best. Of course. But yes. But no. Mister Dain's detachment is nearly six hundred strong."

  "Battalions," Caleb said, almost under his breath. "We would call them battalions in the Guard."

  "Is that...is that bad?" I asked, trying to read his expression.

  He met my eyes, as much afraid of power as Lareth seemed to lust for it. "It gives Lareth something close to two thousand men."

  "Not Lareth," the wizard said, his voice cracking with glee. "You. This is your army now. Two thousand, eight hundred, and fifty-seven at last count, but more coming every day. The poor little Guards do not enjoy a fight on our terms."

  "Cut-throats and deserters," Caleb said, but without a touch of contempt. I met his eyes, and he nodded toward Lareth, "Can he get them all?"

  "To a man," Lareth said. "Ohhhh, yes. We can have you on the throne in Tirah before another sunset."

  I shook my head. "Close the portal, Lareth."

  "But—"

  "Close it. Now. We'll see you shortly, Mister Dain." I'd barely said his name before the portal folded back into the sickly flame, then I turned my attention to Lareth. "We will not march on Tirah."

  "Oh, but we can take them."

  Caleb scoffed. "I interviewed the prisoner, wizard. They have seven men for every one of yours, and the fortified position."

  "And still we would defeat them," Lareth said. "We have the advantage in tactics."

  "In the open, perhaps—"

  "Enough," I said.

  "Oh! Of course." The wizard nodded to me as though ceding a point in some debate. "It's moot now, isn't it? Daven alone could burn the city to the ground."

  Caleb frowned over at me. "Could you really?"

  I opened my mouth to deny it, then stopped. I thought of the bonfire blaze of my collected powers. I thought of the Chaos energy I'd nearly unleashed from within a web of flame, and that had been before six hundred men and a ruthless battle wizard tied their lives to mine. "With two thousand more drakes beneath my wing?" I asked after a moment, and gave a slow nod. "I think perhaps I could."

  "Drakes?" Caleb asked.

  Behind me, Lareth laughed and laughed.

  Caleb had been right about the wizard's usefulness. The men had watched me already with a quiet, obedient fear, but now that I had the support of this madman, they one and all looked at me with adoration and excitement. I saw that same malevolent hunger, dimly reflected in every man's expression. They were here to wage a war. They were here for blood and glory.

  They were like little drakes, prowling across the floor while dragons on the wing soared overhead, and all of them alike just waiting for another shot at violence and blood. Dominion.

  We walked among them now while they scurried to finish packing up the camp. Where we went they stopped to watch us, awestruck, until Caleb snapped them back to work. Lareth only shook his head.

  "These are not your soft-sided noblemen's sons, ground to obedience beneath the king's heel. These are another breed of warrior."

  "Undisciplined is not a breed," Caleb said. "It is a liability. I will correct it."

  Lareth turned his argument to me. "We won't defeat the soldiers at Tirah if we agree to meet them on their terms."

  "We won't," I said. "But that is not my goal."

  "It's not Tirah?" Lareth asked, surprised. Then he hung his head. "I'm shamed to say I cannot take us farther than the coast. It would be a fine thing indeed to put the City to the sword—"

  "We won't," I said more sharply still, "because we do not go to war with men."

  Lareth frowned. "Then whom?"

  "The dragonswarm," I said. "As many there as all the king's forces in Tirah, and every one is worth an army in itself. How is that for a challenge?"

  Lareth threw his hands up in the air, "I do not want a challenge," he whined. "I want more power."

  It was my turn to laugh, if darkly. "You have seen some part of it," I said. "Somehow you understand what even I don't. But there are other ways to grow my power."

  "Greater ways than killing a king?" he asked. "Greater rewards than all the power in Tirah?"

  I thought silently of Pazyarev, the elder legend who had bent a thousand dragons of his own against me. I recalled the time I'd spent within his lair and saw it with different eyes now, with different understanding. I recognized the markers of his power—his brood, his lair, his hoard, and all the things that he had killed.

  And then I gave the frail wizard a grin as twisted as his soul. "Far greater things to kill than kings," I said, imagining the power that would come from cutting that one down. "Far greater power than all the riches in Tirah."

  "Among the dragons?" Lareth asked, doubtful, but he seemed to take some assurance from my expression.

  "In just one lair," I said. "Kingdoms rise and fall, and dragons barely notice."

  "And you would fight them?" Lareth asked. He looked to Caleb. "And you? You're just a man."

  Caleb raised two fingers, "I got a brace of them already, not even counting the little worms. I hope to get a dozen before I die."

  "I'll give you a thousand," I said. It was more than I had ever promised when Caleb and I had spoken before, but everything had changed. Everything. Two thousand men? A wizard hungry to kill anything I would let him, and an officer like Caleb to make an army of this rabble? I could do more than protect Teelevon with power like that. I could storm Pazyarev's lair and pull the dragonswarm from the sky. I took a deep breath and felt the maelstrom of power surging forever all around me. It billowed and whorled and blazed with living powers ready to serve me.

  "We'll kill them all," I promised Caleb. "And we will be so much more than kings," I promised Lareth. I could feel their satisfaction as they pondered it. Everything they wanted, and I had no doubt I could make it real. With power like this? I could have faced a hundred dragonswarms.

  But even as my two lieutenants played bloody daydreams in their heads, I felt my gaze dragged west. Teelevon. I had not forgotten it since Caleb asked me two days before. With this army at my back, I could give Caleb and Lareth precisely what they wanted.

  And, in a sense, me too. I had to keep Isabelle safe. To protect T
eelevon from Pazyarev. And after that, a thousand other little towns from a thousand other broodlords. For home. Not just for the home I'd briefly had, but for all the wretched lives that would never know a safe and happy hearth at all if the dragons were not stopped.

  I could give them that. I could not go back to Isabelle, not with these for my allies. Not at the head of the army that had once laid siege to her father's land. But I could hardly make a different choice. Caleb had told me precisely why I had to ally with Lareth, and for reasons just as strong I had to have this army. It would cost me what I wanted most, but it would allow me to do exactly what I had to do.

  I shook myself and scrubbed both hands across my face, then turned back to Caleb and Lareth. They were chatting now like old colleagues, talking strategy and plans. They were united, so quickly, by the promise of blood.

  "I hate to interrupt," I said softly, "but there are first concerns before we can begin our pleasant work."

  Caleb nodded. "The king's forces."

  "Ah, yes," Lareth said. "But killing them should not take—"

  "We kill no men at all," I said. "My word is law. Our only war is with the dragonswarm."

  Lareth showed his teeth in a teasing smile. "But...will...do you really expect the king to bide that law?"

  Caleb grunted. "He has a point."

  "It is not an easy task, but that's the price of killing dragons," I said. "I will not give you one without the other. Find some way to keep us out of war, gather your battalions quickly, and get us to the tower. I will do the rest."

  "The tower?" Lareth asked.

  Caleb barked a laugh. "Oh, you don't know!"

  "He'll find out soon enough," I said. "Come. We have two thousand men to snatch before the King's Guard finds them. We should probably move swiftly."

  We did, and even with Lareth's portals and Caleb's efficient authority, we worked all night to fetch just two. They were ready, one and all, prepared to strike against Tirah at no more than a moment's notice. But I did not intend a rapid strike. I meant to take them away, and for that we needed their rations and resources. It took time to break such extensive camps.