Dragonsbane

by Shae Ford

  “Well, I wish you’d patch yourself up,” she growled.

  “I will … but first, I need to talk to you. And it isn’t going to be pleasant, and you’re going to be furious —”

  “You want to teach the craftsmen how to whisper themselves into dragonscale armor.”

  She wasn’t glaring, but she wasn’t exactly smiling, either. Kael swallowed hard. “And weapons. Though I … I may have already, sort of, showed them Harbinger. A bit.”

  She gave him an amused look. “How’s that, exactly?”

  “They only think of him as a tool for chopping up trees.”

  “Well, don’t let him hear that. He’ll be highly offended.”

  Kael stiffened when she sat down beside him. He was certain the storm was going to break; the rage was going to come. He just wasn’t sure when she would finally decide to throttle him.

  But to his great surprise, she spoke gently: “You’re a strange creature, Kael. Few men would’ve wrung the magic from a piece of dragonsbane, and even fewer would’ve tossed the gold aside. No man would’ve done the things you’ve done and asked for nothing in return — believe me. I’ve seen every type of man there is.

  “You’ve got the rarest of hearts. And I hope you’ll take this the best way possible, but sometimes I don’t believe you’re human,” she added with a wry smile. “Perhaps I didn’t exactly know what I was doing when I made you those gauntlets. But there’s one thing I know for certain: I trust you.”

  Her words burned him. He wasn’t like that at all — in fact, he felt impossibly small standing next to the Kael she’d built. For some reason, her praise broke him even more thoroughly than a scolding. “I don’t have a rare heart.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “Well, what if I don’t want you to trust me like that?”

  “You haven’t got a choice, have you? It’s my trust, and I’ll put it where I please,” she retorted. “But before you go off and get the craftsmen suited up … I want you to know why I asked you to keep it a secret for so long.”

  Kyleigh took a deep breath, and Kael forgot about being angry with her. He knew by how her face was twisted that she was about to tell him something important.

  “During the Whispering War, the rebels were led by a very powerful whisperer,” she began quietly. “He knew the minds of the warriors, the craftsmen and healers. He knew how to guide their powers. He was even able to awaken them — but he wasn’t a true Wright.”

  “The Falsewright,” Kael breathed, remembering what Baird had told him before … what Baird had told him. Mercy’s sake. “That beggar-bard isn’t nearly as mad as he lets on, is he?”

  “Oh, he’s mad,” Kyleigh assured him. Then she pursed her lips. “He just has a long memory.”

  The question practically burst from Kael’s mouth: “So was what he said about you true, then? Did you really kill the Falsewright?” His heart thudded furiously when she nodded.

  “The rebels knew all of the King’s tactics, they knew every detail of his army — even down to the material of their weapons and armor. With the rebels’ knowledge combined, the Falsewright knew everything. His army could defend against any of our attacks, break any of our shields —”

  “But he didn’t know about dragonscales,” Kael guessed.

  She smirked. “Setheran told me to keep my powers a secret from everyone, even from the King. Oh, word got out eventually,” she admitted. “But not in time to save the Falsewright. Setheran said that if I would be patient, if I would wait until the last possible moment, he would give me the chance I needed to end the war.

  “We spent months trying to lure the Falsewright out. And when he finally showed his head, I sent it rolling. Not even the whisperers were prepared to do battle with a dragon,” she said, smiling at the memory. Then her face went serious. “Keeping my scales out of their reach prevented the rebels from stopping me. If a whisperer doesn’t know how something feels …”

  “He can’t break it. Just like what Titus and his steel did to the wildmen.” Kael thought for a moment. “I don’t think we have to worry about the wildmen ever trying to take the throne.”

  “Neither do I,” she said dryly. “I supposed this is just the end of another era … I’ll have to give up one of my greatest secrets.”

  She patted him on the knee before she stood, but he hardly felt it. He was too busy combing through everything he knew about the Whispering War. Then he measured it against everything Kyleigh had just told him.

  For some reason, an eerie feeling twisted in his gut when he thought of the Falsewright. There was a loose thread at its end — something a dusty corner of his mind had already put together, but that he was still trying to draw into the light.

  All at once, Baird’s voice rose inside his head:

  I knew too much. They planned to turn me over to the Falsewright — and he would’ve got it out of me. Oh yes, he had his ways. I had no choice … he tricked them … he ripped their secrets out! He pulled them away strand by strand until he knew them all … a strange name, a secret name. Most people in the Kingdom didn’t know it …

  But you do.

  Kael couldn’t feel his legs. The earth had fallen out from under him and the sky had peeled away — leaving him floating, helpless, snared inside a horrible, gut-twisting realization. His tongue was too swollen to move. He shouldn’t have been able to form the words, but he somehow forced them out:

  “Kyleigh … did the Falsewright have another name?”

  “Only the name the rebels gave him.”

  “What was it?”

  She shrugged, as if it was merely a line scrawled in history and nothing more: “Deathtreader.”

  Chapter 33

  No Other Choice

  They left Tinnark in the early hours of the morning.

  Kael was more surprised than anybody at how difficult it was to leave the wildmen. They’d spent their last evening feasting in the Hall. The wildmen had eaten and caddocked as if nothing exciting was going on — as if they preferred to spend their final night together as normally as possible.

  The warriors Gwen had chosen to stay behind and watch the village were none-too-pleased about their duties. They’d been even less pleased when they realized that a horde of craftsmen was marching up the mountains in their place.

  But fortunately, Griffith had known just what to say to silence their arguments. “The lives of our people are the most important things — more important than our castle or our lands. Fate had to club me over the head a few times, but I can finally see it.” He’d waved a hand around at the tiny, pointed houses and said: “We don’t need a castle to be a people. As long as we stay together, the wildmen will have a home wherever we settle. I’m honored to take on such an important task.”

  Kael had watched in amazement as the warriors calmed. They’d nodded stiffly and gone on about their business, their backs a little straighter than they’d been before. “That was well done, Griff.”

  He’d shrugged. “It was the truth. They knew it — they just needed me to smack them with it. Here.”

  Kael held out his hand, and Griffith had pressed a fistful of curled roots into his palm. “What are these for?”

  “We call them night-fingers. They’re sweet like berries, but you can eat them raw. They only grow at the summit — I had some in my pocket when Titus sacked us. I’ve been rationing them, but I’m running low. Will you bring some back for me? I’d ask Gwen, but they probably wouldn’t make it down the mountain in her pack.”

  “All right.”

  “I knew I could count on you,” Griffith had said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Keep these with you so you’ll know what they look like. Oh, and you should pack them somewhere they won’t get squished.” He’d grinned widely — revealing the purple splotches that covered his teeth and the arches of his gums. “They stain.”

  Kael wasn’t certain that he’d have any better luck getting the night-fingers down the mountains, but he promised he would t
ry.

  Though he was impatient to reach the summit, the morning still seemed to come all too quickly. He’d risen long before the sun and had gone back to the office, hoping to spend a few moments talking with Baird.

  The beggar-bard was already waiting for him. He sat at the desk, all of Kael’s belongings spread out between his hands. “Whispers swirl around the village. Kael the Wright is leaving us today. I hear you mean to join him,” he said as Kael entered. “You’re one of a small company that follows the Wright up the mountain, their spirits bent on reclaiming its top.”

  “I can’t hide anything from you, Baird,” Kael said as he stepped up to the desk. “What are you doing with my things?”

  Baird clasped his knobby fingers around the rough-spun garments and boots. “A woodsman’s garb, a traveler’s soles — loved for so long, and now they lie unused. You’ve wandered from where you began,” he said as he passed them over.

  Kael couldn’t help but smile.

  Baird’s hands wandered until they came across the bow. His fingers traced the strange, swirling lines that had been carved into the grayed wood. “Whispercraft,” he said. “The whisperer who carved this bow meant it to be as smooth and supple as the breeze. A shot fired from this string will never be knocked aside by the wind — as long as the archer’s hands are steady and his sight is firm, the arrow will always fly true.”

  Kael was speechless. He’d known that the bow was special: it had bent so easily the first time he’d wielded it. The arrows followed the line of his eyes without question. The few times he’d missed, it hadn’t been because of the bow — it’d just been bad luck.

  “Such whispercraft requires nothing short of absolute concentration,” Baird murmured, as if he could sense the question forming on Kael’s lips. “He must allow his mind to be consumed in the thought he desires and push it out through his craft, weaving it along the path of his hands in a single, focused thread. If his mind wanders for even a moment,” Baird slapped his palms together, “the thread will be broken. Such a skill requires years to master.

  “But even the greatest bow is useless without its arrows,” he went on as he reached for Kael’s quiver. “You remember that, young man.”

  He promised he would.

  Baird had gone through each of his things one by one, spouting of their virtues and warning of their weaknesses. At last, there were only two items left on the table: Kael’s hunting dagger, and the Atlas.

  Baird took one in either hand. “A blade and a book … hmm, more like a lock and a key.”

  “What do you —? Wait!” Kael grabbed Baird’s wrist before the dagger’s point could reach the Atlas. “You’re going to ruin it.”

  “No, you’re going to ruin it. He needs to learn to keep his mouth shut and listen,” Baird mumbled at the ceiling. “Surely he knows by now that I would never harm a book.”

  Kael supposed he had a point. He let go of Baird’s wrist and kept his fists clenched tightly as the dagger advanced on the Atlas.

  “An old trick,” Baird said. “There’s always a little space in the spine — just enough for a note …”

  Baird’s mouth parted slightly as he worked. His knobby fingers traced the Atlas’s worn leather spine. They felt inside the narrow U between the pages and the binding. His brows scrunched over his bandages as he stuck the tip of the blade inside.

  He pried the dagger upwards, and something that looked like a tiny brass fingernail appeared over the top of the spine. It must’ve been some sort of latch: at Baird’s slight urging, the whole spine slid out of the U like a panel — revealing a folded bit of parchment that’d been tucked inside.

  Baird tilted the Atlas, and the note fell out. “Well, what does it say?”

  Though the ink was faded brown, he could still read the careful words scrawled across its front: “For Kael.”

  Baird’s head tilted to the side. “Which Kael?”

  “Kael the Wright,” he said without thinking, even though there had been no mention of a Wright. The note was clearly and simply addressed to Kael.

  “Well, then you ought to make sure he gets it,” Baird said. His knobby fingers found the note and pushed it across the desk. “Safe travels to you, young man.”

  Kael thanked him absently. He stared at the note for several long moments before he finally tucked it inside his pocket.

  As he left Tinnark for a second time, he kept his eyes on the backs of the wildmen in front of him and tried to keep his mind turned to other things. But the note still sat heavily inside his pocket.

  *******

  Gwen made a frustrated sound. “Why do they travel so slowly?” she growled from up ahead.

  “They’re craftsmen — not warriors,” Kael said back. “If you’d stuck to the road, things would’ve been a lot easier.”

  They’d gone no more than a few miles and the wildmen had already managed to make a mess of things. Though a good deal of their force was made up of craftsmen, the warriors spoke loudly.

  “The road curves around here,” Gwen had said, gazing down the path. She wore a fitted breastplate over her fur tunic, and her gauntlets were capped in iron. The steel axe that hung from her belt looked even more menacing than dragonsbane: the sunlight glinted dangerously off its twin edges.

  There was a rounded, wooden shield strapped across her back. The iron cap in its middle had been molded into a thick spike, and she’d insisted that the ring around shield’s edge be ground sharp.

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Kael had said, glancing back at the craftsmen.

  While the warriors were all dressed like Gwen, the craftsmen didn’t have the strength to carry heavy armor. The first time Kyleigh had tried to fit one of them with a breastplate, his skinny legs had collapsed beneath the weight. So they’d had to settle for boiled leather and furs.

  Kael knew how perilous the raw mountain could be, and he’d doubted very seriously if the craftsmen could survive a jaunt through the thicket. But Gwen wouldn’t budge.

  “You wanted to bring them along, mutt. See to it that they keep my pace,” she’d barked as she clomped into the brush. “This cut will save us at least two hours.”

  But instead of trimming two hours off their journey, it’d wound up tacking at least two on.

  Kael learned quickly why Gwen had thought the craftsmen were useless: away from their work, they were frail, stumbling things. They panted heavily and complained often. If they took their eyes off the ground for even a moment, they’d trip over their own feet.

  One of them slipped and broke his arm at the first boulder. Kael had to spend several minutes setting it back. “How could you have possibly outrun Titus’s army with this lot?” he said to Gwen.

  She looked at him as if he was stupid. “We were going downhill, mutt. Save your breath for climbing.”

  By midday, it became obvious that they weren’t going to make up any time. In fact, they seemed to be losing it at an alarming rate. Kael’s companions weren’t any help: Kyleigh and Silas had disappeared into the woods almost the moment they set out, and the warriors did nothing but laugh at the craftsmen.

  Gwen’s only solution seemed to involve a good amount of yelling. She yelled for the wildmen to move faster, yelled at the rocks and trees in their path, yelled at Kael for bringing the craftsmen along in the first place. If she stopped hollering for more than a minute, he’d begin to hope that perhaps she’d fallen off a cliff — only to have his hopes dashed when her squawking started up again.

  Kael groaned aloud when the narrow trail they’d been following suddenly ended at a steep, jutting wall of the mountain. It was twice the height of the Hall and covered in jagged stones. The warriors scampered up its side without a problem. But the craftsmen struggled magnificently.

  Kael lifted the first man onto the rocks and held him up for as long as he could reach. But as soon as he was forced to rely on his own strength, the craftsman toppled straight off the edge. Kael knew there was no chance they could make it u
p on their own. Something had to be done.

  He called the craftsmen, and they gathered at his side. “Look — if you can’t find a good place to hold on, then do exactly what you did with the houses.” Kael pressed the wall’s skin in and down, forming a step. “Make them close enough, and it’ll be no more difficult than walking upstairs.”

  The craftsmen gave it a try, and things seemed to be going well enough that Kael thought he had a few moments to heal a man who’d gotten a nasty cut on his knee.

  He was wrong. By the time Kael turned back, the craftsmen had already gotten themselves into very serious peril.

  The man in the lead had obviously never done any climbing. He’d molded the steps up in a straight line, leading them directly to a dead end. He was stuck, frozen beneath a jutting edge of the cliff.

  To make matters worse, the craftsmen below hadn’t waited for him to reach the top. Now there were hands and feet packed into every hold, forming a straight line of craftsmen from the bottom to the top. And they were all completely stuck.

  “Oh, for mercy’s sake,” Kael growled when he saw them.

  “Help!” the craftsman at the top cried. “My — my arms are shaking!”

  “At least you can feel them shaking. Mine have already gone numb!”

  “My hands are all sweaty!”

  “What’s going on up there? Why have we stopped?”

  While the craftsmen clung to the wall for their lives, the warriors howled with laughter. They grinned down at the desperate line beneath them — and inexplicably, the craftsmen grinned back.

  Gwen wedged her feet against a rock and swung her upper half over the lip, hanging cross-armed like a bat. “How long do you think you’ll be able to hold?” she said to the craftsman at the top of the line.

  “Go away!”

  “But we’re taking bets.”

  “I don’t care,” the craftsman gasped. “Stop making those faces! You’re going to …” He pressed his face against the wall and started laughing.