Dragonsbane

by Shae Ford

  “What a strange fellow,” Baird said cheerily. “Sometimes I think I hear two footsteps, and other times I swear there’s four!”

  Kael sighed. “Come on.”

  Once he’d made certain that Baird was latched onto his pack, they slipped between the rocks. At its thickest, the crack might’ve been as wide as a man was tall. But it was filled so tightly with grasping nettles that they had to turn sideways just to squeeze through.

  The nettles grew up the walls like vines. They jutted out on both sides and scraped the tops of their heads. Though Kyleigh cleared a path with her sword, there still wasn’t much room to squirm.

  Baird pulled back suddenly, choking Kael with the strap of his quiver. “Gah! Oh dear, oh me! Some grasping villain has snagged my pack. Hands off, thief! Back — back I say!”

  The beggar-bard’s skirmish with the nettles very nearly got Kael strangled by his strap. “Just leave it, will you? We’ve got plenty of supplies to go around.”

  Baird snorted. “Leave it? Listen to him, will you? I can’t just leave it, young man. Do you have any idea the sort of treasures I’ve got stashed in here?”

  “No, but it can’t be anything too valuable. Otherwise you wouldn’t have to be a beggar.”

  At that exact moment, Baird managed to rip his pack free. He also managed to slam one of his knobby elbows into the small of Kael’s back. “Did it ever occur to you that I might’ve been a beggar because I wanted to be?”

  An exasperated sigh came from up ahead. “Why didn’t we think of that? It makes complete sense,” Kyleigh said.

  Kael hoped she was joking.

  Baird shook a finger in the direction of her voice. “It wasn’t the most glorious of tasks, but I was chosen for it! Fate never uses the obvious things.”

  He went to sling his pack over his shoulders in a dramatic arc … and wound up getting it snared in the nettles above him.

  The straps were so fantastically tangled that Kael had to spend several minutes cutting them free. The thorny leaves seemed to protest his every swipe: no sooner did he manage to cut through one of the wiry branches than it would pop up and scrape his fingers in revolt. He was grateful when the crack finally ended.

  They clambered out of the nettles and into the rocky land on the other side. Here, the air was much sharper; the pines grew tall. A steely gray sky leered above them, and Kael realized — with no small amount of shock — that they’d made it into the Unforgivable Mountains.

  “We didn’t have to go through the Valley at all,” he said.

  Kyleigh clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s generally what a better way does — it takes you where you need to be in less time and with less hassle.”

  He didn’t think anything could’ve been more of a hassle than battling through that thorny crack, but he was too excited to argue.

  Kael took deep breaths as they walked. He hadn’t realized how heavy the air in the lowlands had been until the mountain breeze slid easily into his chest. There wasn’t any sun to burn him, no dampness to settle into his clothes. The constant noise he’d had to endure for the past several seasons made the muffled voice of the spiny forest ring all the sweeter. The scent of pine filled the gaps between the trees. It settled in his nose and made his head feel lighter than the fumes of any pipe.

  He’d been amazed by the power of the seas and the bounty of the plains, captivated by the leafy towers of the forest. He could find words to describe how he’d felt in every corner of the Kingdom. But there was no feeling quite like coming home.

  “We’re here! Oh Fate, we’re finally here,” Baird said, shaking Kael’s rucksack excitedly. Then all at once, he went quiet. “Ah … where to now?”

  Kyleigh gave him an amused look. “You didn’t have a plan?”

  “No — goodness, no. A bard never plans. He prefers to take his journey one stride at a time, turning where the road bends. I’ve longed to come to the mountains for years. And now that I’m here,” his smile parted wide beneath his bandages, “I plan to enjoy myself.”

  Kael knew that if they weren’t careful, their trip could wind up being rather un-enjoyable. “We should keep moving upwards.” He peeled Baird off his pack and attached him to Kyleigh’s. Then he chose a slope that didn’t have too many jagged rocks around it and started to climb. “Hold on a moment — let me get my bearings. It shouldn’t take too…”

  He stopped. The slope in front of him had suddenly ended. It’d dropped away and flattened out, leaving something that looked like a dry riverbed dug into the mountain.

  The bed was shallow, but wide enough for carts and horses. It cleft the slopes and crushed the rock. Everything in its path was either pressed down or shoved away — churning the wild earth aside like a footprint in the sand.

  There was no end to it. The path cut back and forth across the mountains, climbing until it finally disappeared among the clouds. From a distance, it looked as if some great serpent had wrapped its coils around the jagged peaks — strangling with such force that it’d left a gaping scar behind.

  Kael’s chest felt empty as he traced the jagged line that had been carved through the mountains’ face. The happy chattering of his companions struck him and washed down, like waves crashing against rock.

  “Blazes …”

  “What? What is it?” Baird slung his shaggy head about. “Is it bandits? Trolls?”

  “It’s a road,” Kyleigh said as she stepped in beside Kael. “The rumors were true, then. Titus has conquered the mountains.”

  Baird snorted. “Impossible. The mountains are the heart of the Wildlands — the one patch of Kingdom that still thrives in unblemished beauty. They’ve got their own spirit about them, the mountains. There’s a danger here that can’t be tamed. I shudder to think of how many souls haunt these peaks. There must be legions of glowing ghosts …”

  Baird prattled on, but Kael couldn’t hear him. He was lost somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. He hoped that if he shut his eyes tightly, he would wake to realize it’d all been a dream … but he didn’t.

  The relief he’d felt just moments before was gone, replaced by a pit so deep he couldn’t feel where it ended. He forced his legs to rise and fall even though he couldn’t feel them. He forced himself to walk the mountains’ scar.

  How long would it be before towns sprouted up along this road? How long before the sharp sides were blasted out and its veins were gutted for metals? How long before merchants packed the mountains, gazing unknowingly upon sights meant only for the woodsman’s eyes?

  The burning and the raiding had only marked the beginning of Titus’s war: the road would finish it.

  Things bubbled inside Kael’s chest, growing and bursting with little blasts of flame. Titus had done this. Those toppled trees, the boulders split into two and the steep slopes completely flattened out — they were the Earl’s footprints. His road had plowed through all the danger and the wonder of the mountains, leaving a scar in its place.

  When they came around the next bend, the molten steel inside Kael’s chest suddenly hissed and went out. They’d come across the ruins of a village … and Titus’s road ran straight through the middle of it.

  This village was smaller than Tinnark had been: no more than a handful of tiny houses perched upon the slopes. Their doorways were dark and empty — holes that gaped unseeing. The roofs were gone and the tops of the houses were completely open to the skies, burned black around the edges.

  Heavy spring rains had filled the cracks that winter had left along their sagging walls. Now in the middle of summer, the houses were warped and wilted. They sagged against their beams, leaning with the weight of the brambles that had grown up along their skin. Their marrow burst with thick veins of mold.

  Charred ruins lined the path; the door was gone from a small storehouse and all its contents pillaged. Kael’s tongue stuck to the back of his throat as he walked past one sunken ruin after the next. He was standing in the middle of the village when he came across a sight that st
opped his heart.

  A mass of skeletons lay in the road. Some were intact, but most had been torn apart by animals. One had an arrow hanging from the socket of its skull. Several were pinned to the ground by spears. A few were small … far too small.

  Roland had always said that to try to carve any sort of life from the mountains was like the man who lived inside a pond: he could only survive for so long before he ran out of breath.

  “It’s a waste of time to ask if a man will die in the mountains,” Roland had said. “You’d be better off asking when.”

  Kael knew this. And had these villagers been left to live, the perils would’ve claimed them eventually. Death was just a part of life in the mountains. But this was different. This was … it was …

  Sickness gripped him. Kael fell on his knees as his breakfast rushed up. Even after his stomach had nothing left, he choked and gagged.

  Baird’s shuffling steps stopped beside him. His hand grasped until he found Kael’s face. His fingers marked his chin and then with the other hand, he pressed a canteen against his lips. “Careful, young man. The body always tries to purge that which it cannot stand. Ill winds, disease, infection … hmm, but this is different,” he murmured as Kael drank. “Unless I’m much mistaken, this is the plague of Vindicus.”

  Kael had read the story of Vindicus the Broken more times than he could count, and there’d never once been any mention of a plague. When he said as much, Baird gripped his chin.

  “Ah, there’s where you’re quite wrong. You think of scourge and pestilence. I think of a far more fatal plague — a hate that burned so fiercely it consumed the man from within.”

  Kael’s next drink of water went down slowly.

  He hadn’t thought about it before, but his story was a lot like that of Vindicus: both of their homes had been destroyed, both set out to avenge them. Vindicus had marched to the gates of his enemies alone. Legend said he’d fought for years without food or drink or sleep, hacking tirelessly through the flesh of his foes — letting the rage of the battle fuel him.

  He fought for so many years on end that his hand melded to the hilt of his sword, and the blade became known as his Arm. Only after the last of his enemies fell was Vindicus defeated: without the battle’s rage, his body gave out — crumbling like dust until all that remained was his Arm.

  That was where the story ended. It’d never said why Vindicus had crumbled and died. Kael had always assumed that his body had simply worn out. But now …

  “Hate was the plague of Vindicus,” Baird said quietly. “He let it bubble, let it brew. And so his hatred grew — it filled his veins, filled his heart. Ah, but Hate is a hungry beast: he must always eat. He shrinks quickly with naught to devour, withers more with every hour. As his battle raged on, Vindicus became Hate. And so when the last of his enemies had fallen, he ceased to be. Now I hear the ominous rumblings of that wicked beast inside your chest, young man,” Baird said, thrusting a finger at him. “You must rise against it. You must never let Hate reach your heart.”

  The molten iron inside Kael’s chest bubbled up in warning as he stared at the bodies. It would be easier to let the fires consume him — to allow his rage to dry all the horrible little wet things that squirmed behind his eyes. Anger was a familiar face, a monster he understood. Yes, it would be easier to give in as Vindicus had.

  But at the last moment, Kael rose against it.

  Something strong crept from his middle and snuffed the fires out. It held him up, like hope had held the giants. He focused on it as Lysander had focused on the steely gray sky. This feeling was an armor he wore beneath his skin. And for now, it would keep the fires trapped.

  Kael decided to bury the bodies in a circle, in the exact order he’d found them. He figured that if they’d chosen to die beside each other, then that was how they ought to sleep.

  He dug the graves with his bare hands, willing his fingers through the unforgiving layers of rocky earth. His mind was so consumed with his task that he hardly noticed when stones crumbled beneath his hands.

  Kyleigh lowered the bones into the graves and Baird arranged them the best he could. His knobby fingers traced surely down the cracks and rifts, memorizing their shapes. His lips moved wordlessly as he pieced them back together. Then at each grave, just before he covered them, he’d lay a stone beneath their feet.

  “In case they come up one short,” he explained. “Our lives are all about balance — no one can be purely evil or good. Men who get sent to the river so suddenly don’t always have a chance to right their ways. But if they lived just decently enough, this’ll be the step that helps them cross.”

  For some reason, his words gave Kael a strange feeling. His spirit cringed against a biting cold — a cold his heart seemed to recognize, but his body couldn’t remember.

  They made their camp among the ruins that night. As Kael was drifting off to sleep, he thought he might’ve heard a soft whisper on the wind: a voiceless murmur, a wordless thanks …

  The relieved sighs of the dead.

  Chapter 13

  A Stomp of Giants

  Not long ago, Captain Lysander had been cramped at his desk in Gravy Bay, watching the days creep by through the window. Now his stormy eyes gazed upon a completely different view.

  Thick trees and a long stretch of sandy beach dressed the land in front of him. Behind the ring of sand was a large gathering of houses. Merchants scurried all about them, hoisting their wares into the waiting lofts. Their voices rose and fell as the haggling grew heated.

  Lysander paced down the length of Anchorgloam, hands clasped smartly behind his back. The ships anchored beside them bobbed and creaked beneath the waves, speaking to each other about their journeys. He arched his neck to glare at the sun. Then his chin turned south, to where a dark gray line was beginning to fester on the horizon. With a huff, he spun back to glare at the squabbling crowd.

  “We should’ve done this weeks ago, Captain,” Morris called from the helm. “I knew that lad was up to something — I can always tell when he’s been scheming.”

  “Good of you to keep it to yourself,” Lysander muttered. His stormy eyes flicked to the skies above the village.

  “We should leave without them,” Nadine called from the bow. “Every moment we waste is one our friends might be in danger. It would be better to sail to them now than waste time waiting for the giants.”

  “Believe me, lass — you don’t want to go charging up the mountains with anything less than a horde of giants. And even with all that, our innards could still wind up dressing the castle walls.” Morris’s eyes narrowed in their pouches. “Titus is a monster.”

  At Lysander’s order, a thick pair of boots had replaced Nadine’s customary sandals. Now her feet thudded clumsily as she marched towards the helm. “He will not take my insides. The mots have defended themselves against far more fearsome —” She tripped over her boots and nearly fell. Strange words flew from her mouth in a heated string as she kicked the nearest railing. “Why must I wear these?”

  Lysander raised his brows. “They’re for your protection.”

  “They are for your amusement,” Nadine countered with a glare.

  He gripped his chest. “My dear lady — you wound me. I think only of the journey ahead. Where we’re going, your toes could very well freeze if they aren’t properly covered.”

  “Aye, and then there’ll be nothing left to do but pop them off one at a time,” Morris added with a gap-toothed grin, “like barnacles.”

  “You are both liars! Toes do not — oof!”

  She’d tried to stomp over to them but wound up tripping, instead. With another fiery string of words, she flopped to the ground. She tore at the laces and buckles for several moments before finally giving up.

  “Better than any lock or key,” Lysander muttered as he passed by the helm.

  “Aye, Captain,” Morris said with a wink.

  The sun had slipped beyond noon when Jake finally called: “I see Eveningwing!”<
br />
  Lysander had been glaring at the ever-widening gray line to the south. But at Jake’s cry, he spun around. Eveningwing screeched as he fluttered into the crow’s nest. A moment later, his head appeared over its top.

  “They’re two miles from the village!” he said excitedly.

  “How many are there?” Lysander called.

  “Thirty-seven!”

  “They’ve cheated us,” Morris growled. “Blast — I knew it! Never trust a giant. They always try to find some way out of their promises.”

  “Once again, thank you for keeping it to yourself,” Lysander muttered. Then he spun to his men. “We’re going to have company aboard this vessel, dogs. Lower the ramp and make ready!”

  The pirates flew to their work with a barking chorus of ayes.

  It turned out that Eveningwing’s announcement hadn’t exactly been necessary. The noise of the village shrank back as a rhythmic thumping sound filled the air. The louder the thumping became, the quieter the merchants fell. Soon they’d stopped their bickering altogether and parted — stumbling back from the road to let a horde of towering men tromp through.

  The giants’ thick chests were plated in armor and helmets capped their massive heads. The collective thumping of their steps drowned out all other sound.

  “Eh, thirty-seven might just be enough,” Morris said.

  Lysander slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, good Gravy. They’ve got the whole village staring at them. I told Declan to be subtle!”

  Morris laughed. “I’m sure they’re doing their best, Captain. How subtle could you expect a stomp of giants in broad daylight to be?”

  The giants’ march slowed considerably when they reached the docks. Planks groaned and buckled beneath their weight, sagging in dangerous arcs. The giant at the front of the pack was quite a bit smaller than the rest — hardly any taller than a man. When the dock’s groaning reached a dangerous pitch, he hollered back:

  “Step lightly now, you clodders. Lightly!”

  The giants spent the next several moments painstakingly shuffling their way down the docks. With the merchants standing hushed on the shoreline, the shrilling of the wood filled the air at such a pitch that even the gulls stopped to listen.