by Aaron Pogue
Later I recalled it all, but through a smoky haze. But in the grips of the fever, I only tossed and turned and moaned. I made no plans, and I spoke no words of comfort to the many worried faces. I watched them come and go and wondered idly if I would survive. The only thing I felt at all was fire.
And then there came relief. I felt it like a summer shower, starting gently and drifting lightly down. A coolness poured across my mind, if not my body, and it awoke a part of me that had shut down. I blinked up at Isabelle and saw her eyes go wide. She began to smile. "Have you come back?"
I couldn't speak to answer. I couldn't quite focus on her. My body ached, but somewhere in my senses was the promise of relief. I closed my eyes again and retreated to the place of gentle cool. It came from my awareness of the stronghold. I looked closer, cast about, and found it came from outside my tower. From the courtyard, from the outer walls, from the tower's high, unfinished floors.
It shone like silver in my soul. Moonlight. My breath escaped me at the thought, but I remembered what Vechernyvetr had told me long before: A dragon heals by moonlight. Any damage short of death can be healed between dusk and dawn. I'd never experienced that before, but I could feel it now. I could feel the moonlight like a salve against my soul.
I found the strength to whisper, 'The window." She frowned, and I flapped a hand in an ineffectual gesture. "Help me to the window." She called for Caleb instead, and gave me water while I waited, but the distant feel of moonlight on the stone was maddening. I had to fight the urge to drag my broken body across the stone.
At last he came, and he carried me more than supported me across the wide floor of my chosen chambers. There was a window in the outer wall, tall enough to stand in and a full pace deep, like all the tower's walls. I nodded to it, and at last he set me on the empty window's sill.
My breath caught at the sharp, sweet sting of moonlight sleeting down. It drove at me like a waterfall, it tugged against my skin and poured over me. I closed my eyes and sighed, and felt the fever's fires slowly die.
When the fever broke, I felt it go. The wild, cold wash of moonlight dredged it away, but still my leg screamed with pain. Still my body trembled, weak and worn. I waited, but the moon did nothing more for me. I was only half a monster after all. The human had to heal the best it could. I thought of everything I had hoped to do today. I thought of all my brave dragon hunters and how much they needed me.
Frustration flared and I bruised my fist against the solid stone, but there was nothing in my power to heal the injured leg. I heaved a sigh and pushed myself weakly up to meet their eyes.
"I am alive," I said, and my voice sounded strong. "The worst is past. We should let them know."
Isabelle came to me and pressed her fingers to my forehead, then my neck. "The fever's gone," she said. "I wasn't sure—"
"I know," I said. "It helped to have you there."
She smiled with tired eyes. I squeezed her hand. "Can you spread the word? Everyone expects the worst. They're losing sleep."
She glanced to Caleb, back to me, then dipped her head. "I'll go. But when I'm back you need to rest."
I waited until she was gone before I met Caleb's eyes. "I will not walk again for weeks."
He grunted. "Call it days. It's deep but mostly clean. I've seen ordinary men heal worse than that."
"I don't have days. We need to press the attack. We need to gather what we've won."
He shook his head.
I frowned. "What?"
"They told us of the gold," he said.
"It's more than gold, Caleb. It's power. It gives me...reach. I can't explain, but we have to get those hoards."
He shook his head again, and I fell silent. I could see it in his eyes. "What?" I asked.
"They told us of the gold, and the wizard seemed to understand whatever it is you can't explain. He couldn't, either, but he had seen when you came back with those bags."
An ominous premonition settled over me, and I searched my senses, but I found Lareth waiting in his room. He hadn't run.
"What happened?"
"He took them out. When you fell ill. Everyone wanted to find some way to help. He found his."
"Took them? How?"
Caleb frowned. "They dumped the bags they'd brought, then Lareth made a portal past the walls."
"No. No." I swallowed hard. "He wouldn't take that risk."
Caleb shrugged one shoulder. "He traveled south. And then from there he went out east, and then came back. He doesn't think the king's wizards will find the trail."
I nodded slowly, pushing down my panic. Caleb didn't seem afraid, and Lareth knew more of the wizards' tricks than I could guess at. "Perhaps it was worth the risk," I said. "To get that much wealth...."
Even as I said it, I wrinkled my nose. I couldn't feel the wealth, couldn't feel new power from my hoard. I met Caleb's gaze.
For a moment he said nothing. Then he sighed. "We are not alone."
I thought of the sensation of that hoard, the bright, distracting glimmer of the gold, and thought of all the many dragons in these hills. I said, "Oh. It was already gone."
He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. "It was there. Lareth took two hundred men to bring it back, based on the hunters' tales. They were attacked."
My jaw dropped at that. And then my heart. "How many lived?"
"Most of them had never trained. Many were not even soldiers. He only had ten of your hunters in all."
"How many lived?"
"Just nine."
I flinched as though he'd hit me, then scrubbed my hands over my face. "We lost two hundred men today? And one of them a dragon hunter?"
"Eight of them were Captains of the Hunt. They fought it so the rest could get away."
I shook my head. "Nothing to hide them from its eyes. No one to distract it. They didn't stand a chance."
"They died heroes," Caleb said. "And Lareth brought the rest away. I had to drag him through the portal by his sleeve, or he'd have gone back, too, to fight the beast."
"Haven's name," I breathed. "I thought we'd won a victory today."
"We have," he said. "Nine monsters are dead. The bags your hunters brought back could ransom all our lives. And every man inside these walls now knows bone-deep why we're here."
"And they're afraid," I said, but Caleb shook his head.
"They were afraid. They thought we'd lost you, too. By dawn, they'll know better, then they will cry for blood. You'll have your war against the dragons. There's not a man among them still thinking of the king."
I leaned my head against the wall and sighed. He spoke the truth. I could feel it through the stone. Word was spreading now that I'd survive, and it replaced their nervous fear with thirst for vengeance—among the soldiers and civilians alike. I shivered at the huge, diffuse echo of that deep and animal malice. I knew it well.
"For violence and blood," I said. "Very well. But first I must get some sleep."
At dawn we met in council around my sickbed and made plans for the real war. Without the promise of that vast, unguarded hoard, Lareth lacked the confidence to open portals from within our walls, but we found an answer to that. I sat aching in my room within the tower and shoved him with my will to the edge of my domain, high in the rugged mountains west of the fortress and well beyond the sight of the king's men.
There we built an outpost. I sent carpenters and masons up to make a meager shelter, and Lareth hung his strange green fire in the air. Then I brought my workmen back and sent up hunters. Twenty-two of those I'd led were still alive, and every man among them volunteered to go back out. They'd brought recruits, as well—another forty soldiers they'd hand-picked and a crowd of other anxious volunteers.
In the end I sent my veterans, and Caleb chose thirty more from among their best selection. We'd trained for thirty hunters to a pack, and there was not yet enough experience to make up more than two. I sent them to Lareth, and from his high place he opened portals to the north. Then the hunters scoured th
e hills to find their prey.
Two parties went out on their own, and when sunset called them back to the places they'd arranged, one group claimed four dragons dead and the other six. Then Lareth opened portals to the outpost, and I brought them home. Thirty-nine hunters made it back. One of the new recruits was torn apart in the final den, gored and swallowed as he kept the beast from killing his brother.
The rest had watched in horror then swarmed the dragon, pulling it out of the air with powerful thrusts and dragging it down in their fury. They tore the thing apart until its scales glossed black with blood. Then they returned with heavy hearts, but they brought back eight teeth as well. They took the fangs from every one they killed, and wore them around their necks like talismans. That night a thousand mugs were raised in honor of the one who fell, and at dawn we had another hundred volunteers.
There was something about the dragonhunt that could not compare with any other sensation in the world. Every blow they struck fell with the full weight of humanity behind it, and every time my men fell back, it seemed as though all mankind lost ground with them. That duty burned like fire within the heart of every hunter, and echoes of it hung throughout the tower. Those who stayed behind began to gather every night, so sixty tired hunters came back to find five thousand men and women anxious for the day's report.
Because they fought for all mankind, they struck without mercy and marched without fear, and they used every trick they knew to pull the serpents down. They hunted in the daylight, then stayed up hours more to train, then grabbed some sleep, and left again before the dawn.
It was only with a deep regret that I'd sent them out without me, and when they came home with casualties I'd nearly called it off. I'd nearly decided we should wait until I could train them more. Lareth gave no arguments, and Caleb conceded it might be for the best, but Garrett Dain raised a fierce objection. One man had fallen, a new recruit, while their two teams combined had killed ten dragons. They were learning. They were getting better, and now that the walls were done they spent time training others, too. Before my leg was healed, he said, they could have ten parties hunting. Maybe more. And every day we waited meant more dragons to destroy.
So the next day we sent three hunting parties and kept six of my Captains home to train up more. When the rest returned at sunset, they once again brought back the long, curved fangs from every dragon killed, and when the teeth were counted we had thirty-eight dragons in one night. It was a glorious victory, but it carried with it the sad total of twelve men killed in combat, twelve soldiers lost to the dragons. We had a ceremony in the courtyard to honor them, and at the dawn we had more men than ever before volunteering for the fight.
Caleb made the arrangements after that, and the hunters came to me only to send them out and bring them home. By that time there were eighteen of the original thirty, and each of them a legend throughout the camp. The soldiers guarding the walls and working in the tower vied for the honor of accompanying the Captains on the hunt, even though many never came back.
As we carried the fight to the dragons, brought in more and more trophies, we lost more men as well. But the volunteers kept pouring in until even the civilians begged to help in the fight. Then Caleb named another thirty men Captains of the Hunt and gave them men as well. Every morning with the dawn I sent them scouring the hills.
Soon we didn't need the outpost thanks to all the spoils they'd taken. My territory swelled until I could cast a man at will as far as Teelevon, or anywhere among the coastal ranges for miles north and south. The treasure rolled in, concealed in a magical vault beneath the floor of the tower. Metalsmiths worked with iron and steel to fashion specialized weapons for the hunt, and Lareth and I together spent hours every day binding energies into their armor to protect and conceal them. When iron ran out, I gave them the gold and silver that came from the dragons' hoards in such abundance.
I laughed the first time I saw a child eating barley soup with a spoon of solid gold, but we had more of gold than steel in those days, and soon the sight became commonplace within the walls of Palmagnes. Outside the walls, the king and all his army shivered in their tents and waited for us to starve. They brought up ladders in the dark of night to lean against my walls, and they were massive, heavy things meant to survive the desperate efforts of my defenders. But I felt them coming from a mile away. I waited 'til they set the ladders in place, then opened up the earth and swallowed them.
The king sent sappers digging underground. They tried to make a secret tunnel beneath my walls, but every swing of the pickaxe nudged at the back of my mind. I let them waste a week, and they got right up to the walls, then I opened the earth above them, raised them up as I'd done Lareth long before, and left them standing dazed in sudden sunlight. The defenders on my walls jeered down at them, and I sent another round of hunters out to fight the dragons.
That is how the days progressed, filled constantly with the thrill of little victories, the grief of men lost, the tension of battle and the anguish of preparation. Whenever the hunt went out, I met the Captains afterward and demanded of them every detail. We became a council, striving to learn everything we could of the enemy, working to put any knowledge to our advantage. We refined the training, refined techniques, and the men came daily to learn what we had to teach. The training became more intense as we learned more clearly how to fight this new battle and as the soldiers faced daily the dangers we were preparing them for.
Sometimes we would go three or four days without a casualty, and then we would lose a whole party in one night. The dragons learned quickly, and information spread among them like a disease. As our techniques changed so did their behavior. But we won many more than we lost. By the end of the month we were sending out twenty parties a day, and bringing down sometimes twenty dragons, sometimes two hundred.
Of course there were days when my Captains came in to report a staggering loss, but they were always somehow balanced by the constant flow of volunteers from within my forces. And then one afternoon Garrett Dain led his thirty men over a hill and found a band of untrained villagers dressed out in arms. When he approached, they asked if he'd come from Palmagnes. He told them he had, and they cheered, because they'd been looking for him for days. Somehow rumors had spread of what we did, and now throughout the whole Ardain brave bands of men were searching for my hunting parties in the hopes of joining us. Dain brought that first group back to the meeting place at dusk, and when he told me who they were, I brought them in.
Once we knew about them, we found more. Three weeks after the first came in, I couldn't send two parties out without one of them bringing back volunteers. I began to look for them, stretching my awareness out across the plains, and Caleb gave me recruiters to send out and invite them back. I'd pluck them from the rolling hills, or from their village squares. Soon I could reach almost to Tirah, and anyone who wanted to could join in the fight. The more men died, the more flocked to my side.
For more than a month it went on like this, and the Royal Guard sat camped outside the walls of my fortress and wondered how long the siege would last. Lareth loved to laugh at them waiting patiently in their tight formations while we traveled free as thought right through their trap. Then one morning I was standing in the courtyard and staring up at the tower, now almost finished with the seventh floor, when I was drawn from my thoughts by excited shouts from the men in the archers' towers.
Anxious for some change in the dark monotony that had settled over the place, I flung myself to the top of the wall, stepping out of empty air a moment before Caleb appeared sprinting up the stairs. For a moment the guard only looked at me in astonishment, but Caleb barked a command and he proceeded with his report.
"General. Lord Daven. A man approaches from the king's forces."
Caleb scowled. "Shoot him!"
I rounded on Caleb, rebuke on my tongue, but the crossbowman was already nodding. "Yes sir. I know sir. We did fire. All of us. It did no good."
Eyes narrowed, Caleb
looked the soldier up and down. "How long have you been with us?"
I stopped Caleb with a hand on his arm. "Your men know what they're about."
The stronghold showed my wizard's sense the man approaching our great gates. I stared at him and wondered. For the first time since Seriphenes's disappearance, another wizard had come forward.
They had tried for weeks to find some gap in our defenses, to twist their spells against the manifest power of my fortress, but their tricks were no more effective than Othin's. I could feel the wizards' attention the moment they began to focus on my lair. It buzzed like a gnat around my ear, and I could swat it with significantly less effort. Every time I did, I thought of the time I'd crushed Lareth's traveling outside Tirah, and how he'd flinched. It must have hurt, because in time they'd stopped.
But now a wizard came to try diplomacy again. I couldn't sense his true intentions; no matter how much treasure the hunters had brought to my tower, that part of my stronghold's senses would not extend beyond my sworn followers. I couldn't feel the emotions of the men in the king's camp, though I could see their lifeblood fires plain as day. And even here upon my threshold, I could feel nothing more from this wizard than his power.
Still, it impressed me much that he came quietly. And looking on his power—no doubt the mighty glow of a full Master of the Academy—I had no fear of him. Here, in the heart of my stronghold, I could obliterate his will. So I acted on a whim. I wrapped myself in power, all of it ready to lash out, then nodded once to Caleb and stepped outside my walls.
And then I blinked in stunned surprise. The king's envoy was Claighan, who had found me as a shepherd. Who had recruited me to fight the dragonswarm. Who had led me to the ambush that set the king against me. The last time I'd set eyes on him, he'd been nearly dead, but years and wars and whole lifetimes had passed since then.
