by Kris Schnee
A guard warmed his hands by a brazier, and looked up to see the dragon-riders. He dashed to a sally-port door and pounded on it, shouting a warning. Petrov raised one hand and called out, "Peace! We're here to see the Count."
Petrov rode on and repeated himself. The guard flattened himself against the wall, with an axe trembling in his hands. When Alexi caught up, Petrov muttered, "A mouse for a guard." Then, louder: "We mean you no harm. We're on business from the Tsar himself."
The sally-port door flew open and three armed men sprang out. They too, froze at the sight of the dragons. "Well?" said Petrov. "Take us inside to speak with your lord."
* * *
The Count's ermine robe lay lopsided across his shoulders as he staggered downstairs. "What's all this? Two children blathering about the Tsar and monsters?"
"I'm the Count of Iron Crag," said Petrov, "And I've --"
The Count laughed. "You're the boy with all those rumors swirling about you."
One of the guards said, "Not just rumors, my lord. The beasts are outside our gate!" The Count's showed fear for only a moment.
Petrov said, "By order of the Tsar, you are relieved of your fief, and I am the new Count of this land. Baron in all."
Alexi trembled, but there was nothing she could do. Petrov was in charge.
The Count said, "Doubly preposterous. The Tsar has issued no such insult to me, and as you may not know, boy, a baron rules over counts but is not a count himself."
Petrov took a scroll from his vest and said, "I have my orders. Have you seen our dragons, by the way? Cinder, come!" He raised an arm, and with a whoosh of heat that rustled Alexi's clothes, Petrov's dragon appeared. A chair splintered as its iron tail smacked the floor. Firelight shined from within its body between red-black scales. The guards shouted and raised their axes.
The Count's face was pale in the firelight, and he had a dragon's head within reach of his own. He stood his ground. "The devil's sorcery," he said. "You say you have the right to my land? Show me."
"I did," said Petrov, looking startled at the Count's reaction.
"You waved a scroll at me. Let me read it."
Petrov hesitated, then shoved it at the Count, who held it taut to steady his hands. The Count looked it over, then said, "The Tsar's red ink is made from blood, usually from cattle. This is not. Nor did you get the seal right."
Petrov said, "Are you calling me a liar?"
Alexi froze. Petrov had bragged about the Tsar's letter, but she hadn't read it.
The Count faced the dragon's toothy smile, then locked eyes with Petrov. "You're a liar, a fraud and a usurper. The fact that you have a big lizard changes nothing."
Petrov laughed at him. "How about two lizards? Sister, summon yours."
Alexi faltered. "There's hardly room."
"Do it!" Petrov hissed.
Alexi didn't know what else to do, with the angry Count and his men around them, so she did as told. She raised her am and called out to Washer. In a rush of mist her hazy grey dragon appeared, close against Cinder's flank and looking bewildered. She patted its neck to reassure herself.
The Count gaped at seeing both dragons now. He stammered, "Impressive! Very impressive! What's your point?"
Petrov said, "The points are the tips of my dragon's teeth, and two more on my belt. You're relieved as Count of this land."
"No." The Count seemed emboldened by the echo of his own word. He stepped towards Petrov, saying, "No. Force and fraud won't make you lord of the land. You have power but not authority. Now leave, boy."
Petrov jabbed a finger towards Cinder and Washer, his face darkening. "Are you blind? I told you how things are. Don't make this hard."
"Or what? By God, I'll not lift a hand against a child who hasn't yet drawn a weapon on me. You've used nothing but words so far to disgrace yourself. Is the girl part of your dishonor too? Did you ask her to help you murder me?"
Alexi blushed. Petrov had -- well, he hadn't lied to her, had he? Maybe the Count was wrong about the ink being fake. "Petrov, the letter..."
"It doesn't matter," said Petrov.
"But what's the truth here?"
Petrov glared at the Count. "Enough talk. Kneel."
The Count clenched his fists at his sides. "No."
Alexi said, "Petrov, let's leave." There was a moment when Alexi felt she should say more, but the decision was in Petrov's hands.
Petrov drew his swords and said, "Cinder, attack!" Then he gasped, clutching his arm, and dropped the shining sword he'd taken from the Count of Iron Crag. A crossbow bolt jutted redly from his shirt. The shooter was not one of the guards, but a chambermaid who now fled, as the guards closed in and dragons screeched. Alexi got knocked back by Washer's tail, scooped up in a cradle of its neck and onto its back. Petrov swung wildly with his good arm, but a guard's axe bit him and left him staggering, bleeding. The Count leaped at him with a dagger, saying, "May God make you burn in Hell!"
It was the Count who burned, when Cinder's flame slammed him to the floor. His robe ignited and he screamed, eyes aflame, trying to stab Petrov. Cinder turned and knocked aside the guards attacking Petrov, blowing fire at one and raking another neck-to-belly with claws.
Alexi couldn't breathe. She wanted to undo this moment and be back to just talking, but it was too late. Washer reared back his head. She flinched, fearing he'd bite someone in half. Washer hesitated too, looking sidelong at her.
"Put him out!" she said. The Count was flailing and his clothes burning, so that he was like a demon striking at Petrov's swords, driving Petrov back. Washer breathed a torrent of water at the whole group, sweeping them to the ground. Cinder faced her and roared to shake the hall. Alexi quailed, pressed down against Washer, wishing for the trouble to end.
It did. Petrov was the only one who stood up from the smoldering heap of bodies in the flooded chamber. He staggered through water, fumbling along the floor until he retrieved his wave-bladed sword. "We did it." His face held more pain than joy.
"All dead..." said Alexi, feeling she would slump from her dragon's back.
Petrov glared up at her, past the twisting neck of Cinder. "I took a few cuts myself," he said with a cough. His arm bled freely and dark blood dripped from his chest.
She looked vaguely around the walls, past the carnage. "A doctor, somewhere."
"No! Not here. Need to go home." Petrov swayed on his feet. "You stay here. Guard the place. I'll return."
"Here?" She couldn't stay in such a place alone! But her thoughts were interrupted by a splash and a wet crunch. Cinder was eating the bodies. Her toes curled in her boots at the sight of a gleaming red eye and iron-dark scales lit with inner flame and spattered with gore.
Petrov hauled himself onto Cinder's back with a grunt of pain. Alexi heard faint heaving hiccups from herself and forced her gaze away.
"I feel stronger," said Petrov. "I... I'm going. Stay and wait."
Alexi turned to nod mutely to Petrov, as Cinder wheeled and burst through the great hall's doors into freezing wind. She sat transfixed, because when she had looked, she didn't seem to see Petrov at all.
* * *
For hours she shivered and paced the hall, praying that no one would ambush her too with a crossbow. She called out from time to time, "Stay away if you value your life!" The murky water sloshed around her boots until she retreated to a ledge and sat on soggy carpet, resting her head on her hands. No one dared bother her.
Washer nudged her arm with his muzzle. Irrationally she shuddered from the warm touch and both of them drew back. Alexi said, "Why? Why did you dragons come to us?" Washer only regarded her with soft eyes like a horse's. She felt too weak to stand, or even to look at the mess below; she thought of the cleaning that the hall would need.
Washer looked down at what remained of the bodies, then at her again. "No!" said Alexi. "Only monsters eat people." Petrov had been trying to grow, to make his dragon stronger and expand their territory. He'd lied to do that, but then he'd say that it did
n't matter so long as the result was worthwhile. He'd also say it didn't matter that he'd become a master smith by holding a sword to Bogatyr's throat. So Petrov was a baron now, even if he'd had to -- to --
Alexi couldn't continue the thought. If she could wait and do what she was told, she'd be helping people, helping Petrov improve things. The hall stood empty. Whatever servants lived and worked here were afraid to look at her.
Sergei, the guard from home who'd been the most reasonable, arrived and slipped his wool cloak over her, saying, "Let's go home." There were other guards from Iron Crag here now to seize the local Count's hall and consolidate Baron Petrov's rule. Alexi kept her head down, ashamed to look at them. Even Washer kept quiet.
When they reached her town again, forge-smoke or fog clouded the river and she couldn't find her house.
Sergei saw her looking around in confusion. He said, "Your things are in the mansion now." She blinked at him and he said, "He didn't tell you?" Through a break in the smoke she could see the spot where she'd knelt washing clothes for years, now torn up and under construction as another forge.
"Petrov destroyed my home while I was away helping him?"
Sergei stammered, "I'm sure the Count -- Baron -- whatever -- didn't mean any harm. It was just in the way. You can live in the mansion."
"The new hospital, you mean?"
Sergei stared at his boots. "Of course, my lady. You're working there anyway, right?"
"I am not!" Alexi said, startled by her own voice. Washer lifted its head from where it had been dozing, and was suddenly alert. "I'm just a washerwoman. What's Petrov doing giving orders so soon after coming back hurt?"
"Hurt? He was bloodied but fine. He returned pounding on the barracks door, demanding troops to occupy his new province."
Alexi glared at Sergei. "And you're his favorite?" she snapped. "I'm told he needs Counts under him to be a Baron; is that the job you're after?"
"My lady, that's not fair."
"Neither is how he's treated me, or the Counts! I'm going to -- to --" She stifled a yawn. The cold and hunger and exhaustion had caught up with her. "I'll give him an earful tomorrow."
* * *
She woke in darkness, feeling lethargic. Something cold rested on her forehead. She brushed it aside, murmuring, "Washer, no nose," but then came a clang of metal on the wooden floor. Sleepily she looked past the bed to see what had fallen. It was a dagger tied with a scarlet ribbon.
Alexi scooted away from it, getting tangled up in her sheets. Washer slept by the door. Who would sneak into her room, slip past a dragon, and place a knife on her forehead? Someone whose anger had almost but not quite fully risen.
Alexi stood, shivering. "Washer, wake up!" The dragon opened one eye and gave a yawn full of molars. "How did you sleep through that?"
So had she. The dragon was no worse than her, and no better. A simple laundry-gon, not to be blamed for sleeping through danger. Petrov's was much like himself, too, a creature of fire and iron. A monster, though: a beast eager to feast on the charred corpses of its enemies. Petrov wasn't like that! She shivered, thinking of the first Count's death, Master Bogatyr's neck, the false letter, and the other Count striking like a rattlesnake only after invoking God and warning Petrov against lies, robbery, and murder. That night in the other town, when Petrov rode away without her to get help, Alexi had imagined that she'd seen only his dragon. An ever-hungry, ever-growing beast with bloody fangs and covetous eyes.
Someone had left her the knife not as a threat, but as a request.
Alexi threw on a dress and cloak and shoved the dagger into one pocket. Petrov had to see the thing and understand that the Tsar, and maybe even his own people, were more dangerous than a fire-breathing lizard. She got Washer to uncurl, stretch, and follow her out to a cold drizzling sunset. Townsfolk stared at her as she rode, and pulled their children aside. Alexi glared at the old Count's mansion and at the ruins of her house. Rain soaked her. She headed for the mountains, where she could hear the boom of a dragon smashing stones. There, leathery wings thrashed the air and her brother was carving himself a castle with hot steel claws.
Alexi froze. Petrov, or the dragon, or whatever they had become, reared up on powerful hindlegs and crushed a boulder. There was no Cinder, only one being that was as large as her old cottage. She stared up into a fanged muzzle that was like an echo of her brother's face.
The dragon fixed its -- his -- eyes on her and paused, then looked down at his massive scaly hands as though he hadn't noticed them. "What...?" he said, and raindrops caught the steam drifting from his muzzle. "So it's happened again."
"What happened?" Alexi said. Washer slid protectively in front of her, but she still felt about to collapse with fright.
"I'm stronger. More and more often, Cinder's magic doesn't seem to need a separate body to exist." He spent long seconds admiring his muscular torso, his long tail like a mass of iron congealed from chains and spears, and the way volcanic light shined between his black scales whenever he moved. He tilted his head and aimed one flame-red eye at her. "I've embraced my dragon's nature. Why didn't you?"
Alexi's voice trembled. "You didn't transform because of Cinder's nature. It was the other way around. These dragons were like a divine test, an invitation to see what we would make of them. This has to stop!"
"What does? Growing, changing, being a hero?"
"A hero?" Alexi screamed the word. "I didn't imagine it, then, that you'd become the same creature for a moment. You -- you were becoming Cinder already when -- it was you who ate those people!"
Petrov said, "I was badly wounded. I needed some way to recover. Cinder sensed my needs, and the next thing I knew, I was healing. It seemed natural." The dragon waved a hand dismissively. "And so what? I needed something and they provided it. This way there's nothing to bury or mourn."
Alexi stared up at him with rain plastering hair to her face. "The Tsar is bound to find out what you've done, and there was --"
She bit back her plan to warn him about the knife and the threat it represented. Its weight still rested in her pocket. At this point it felt pathetically small compared to what her brother had become.
"There was what?" said Petrov.
"We're all in danger."
"Join me, then," the dragon said, offering one huge hand as if inviting her to dance. "You'll stand with me as we use the forges to build an army. We'll free the kingdom from tyranny. We'll kill the Tsar and his ministers, and rule over everything."
The blood drained from Alexi's face as she looked toward Washer. Why hadn't the same thing happened to her, making her a beautiful, gleaming white dragon to match this, this monster? Petrov was a forthright man who fought for what he wanted. She herself said she wanted a peaceful life, yet she went along with whatever Petrov wanted, even if it was wrong. Maybe that difference was the key. Even now, Washer stood alert. It was small and wingless, still a runt compared to "Cinder", but waiting on her command for whatever she did.
"Let me tell a story," Alexi said. "Imagine that a mad wizard in another land made dragons as mirrors. He scattered the eggs, wanting to see what their finders' hearts made of them."
Petrov's smile was a slice of Hell. "In that case, you have a cute little spirit." He reached down to pat Washer -- who recoiled and screeched.
"Stop!" Alexi said, feeling the knife beside her. "You may not touch Washer, and you can't spend your life murdering your way to greatness!" In that moment her teeth felt sharp, her eyes were clear and bright, and she imagined the phantom weight of a scaly tail thrashing the stony ground behind her.
The dragon of flame and iron brought his muzzle close to her and caressed the underside of her chin with the smooth edge of a scalding metal claw. "In the name of everything you love, never again dare to tell me that there are things I may not do."
She retched and quivered, torn between a sick love for such unbridled ambition, and some angelic aspect of herself begging her to plunge the knife into the monster's brain. Now! Plea
se!
"Please," she said with a sob, standing on the new foundation of a massive black castle. "Just let me alone!"
Petrov smiled, stretching high into the night sky and burning raindrops with his steaming maw. "Of course!" he bellowed. "Good that you would ask so nicely. Everyone ought to ask that. Everyone belongs to me. I will leave you alone, until I need something from you."
Alexi said nothing, just as she had been silent before. How could she hope to change his mind, when she was so weak? What did she love that was worth more than her brother? In the face of blade-teeth and a beast that seethed like a volcano, she could think nothing of love. Nor was it kindness that fueled Petrov's quest. There was only his desire to stamp and beat and burn the world into whatever shape he wanted.
Petrov loomed over her and said with a cloud of vapor, "Let's be clear, then. You're mine. Kneel."
Washer, soaked and miserable, coiled around Alexi, butting his head against her. He was a creature of potential might and magic, far better than she deserved, and to betray Petrov was a mad dream. She pushed Washer away. On the dark stone, in the rain, she knelt and acknowledged the devil's dragon as her master.
So began the reign of Petrov the Dragonlord, the Searing Glory, the Winged Damnation. None stood against him, for a time.
Griffin Rider Venn
Venn had seen combat only once and might not live to see it again. He was running now, hunted by men on dragons. Trees hid him but he could hear the Imperials overhead, so that every rustle of leaves made him look up and stumble. If the rumors were true, the dragons would burn the forest to find him. Venn's feet throbbed inside his boots and his shield kept jabbing his back. Keeping it had been instinct, not pride, not that the swords and shields had saved the rest of his squad. They couldn't all be dead, they couldn't!
A stone caught Venn's foot and he crashed headfirst into the dirt, stifling the urge to yelp in pain. He looked up in fear that the enemy had heard him anyway. Nothing. But he did see something else.
