A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) (22 page)

"We flee," Valien
said. "Simple as that. We cannot fight this."

Kaelyn and Rune leaped to their
feet so fast their chairs crashed down. Both began to protest at
once.

"But… we've dug all these
tunnels!" Rune said, face red. "We've lined the walls with
cannons. We've recruited three thousand townsfolk, armed them, given
them positions, trained them to fight—"

Valien glared at the boy.
"Three thousand townsfolk who would die when Frey arrives."

"Valien!" Kaelyn said.
She marched around the table and grabbed his arm. "We've dug
in here for two moons now, and… how we can just abandon this city?
After all the work we've done?"

The two kept protesting. Valien
ignored them. He looked past them to Lana. She still sat at the
table silently, clutching her mug of broth but not drinking. She met
his gaze.

"Valien,
why
?"
Rune demanded.

But it was Lana who answered.

"Because I saw a hundred
thousand bloodthirsty beasts," the lady of the canyon answered.
"Because I saw the cruelest army that's flown since the great
wars. We've mustered fighters here, yes. We have three thousand
resistors. We have three thousand townsfolk who've taken arms. We
have three thousand of my own men, warriors of the canyon." She
shook her head and blew out her breath. "We are outnumbered.
We are outnumbered more than ten to one. We expected one brigade to
fly against us, maybe two. Not this." She lowered her head.
"Not this."

Rune spun toward her, glaring,
and pounded the table.

"One man fighting for his
home is worth ten dragons!" he said. "One resistor
fighting for justice is worth ten more." He drew his sword. "I
bear Amerath, the Amber Sword of Aeternum. This sword stands for
light, for truth, for courage. How can I bear it and run from
battle?"

Valien looked at the boy, and
sadness welled up inside him.

He
is like me,
he thought.
Rune
is like me when I was his age. Brass. More brave than wise. So
often, youth speak of justice and righteousness as if they alone can
win wars.

Rune had grown in the past year;
Valien had seen it. The boy had come to him green, frightened, and
soft. He stood in armor now. His face was gaunt, his grip strong.
Ash and stubble covered his cheeks. He was a warrior now, yet he was
not wise. Not yet. Not here.

"We've been running and
hiding for almost twenty years," Valien said. "We are the
Resistance. We are those who strike from shadow. We are those who
leap and kill in darkness. We are the demon always in the corner of
the legionary's eye. This is how we've always fought."

Rune snarled at him across the
tabletop. "Yet now we're here. We've chosen to take this city.
We've chosen to raise our banner in the sunlight. We've chosen to
defend this place. I say we stay and defend it! Yes, we expected
ten thousand to fly against us. A hundred thousand? Let them come.
More for us to kill."

Valien roared, a sound that
echoed, hoarse and torn, in the hall.

"You crave killing, boy?"
He pounded the table so hard it cracked. "Have I taught you
nothing? Are you but a mindless, bloodthirsty beast? You speak of
death. You speak of blood. You have seen these horrors. Would you
be ready to kill your friend, the girl who saved Shari, if she meets
in you battle?" When Rune paled, Valien snorted. "I
thought not. You speak folly."

"I speak," Rune said,
eyes burning, "like you taught me."

Valien howled again. He tossed
a chair aside; it smashed against a wall.

"I taught you none of
this!"

Rune stood, chest heaving and
eyes still blazing. He walked around the cracked table. He clutched
Valien's arm and stared at him, teeth bared.

"You taught me justice,
Valien," he said. "You taught me to stand tall and fight.
Before I met you, I hid in shadows, a brewer, afraid." His
voice shook. "You gave me courage. Do not let that courage
abandon you." He swept his arm around the hall. "Look at
the sea outside the arrowslits. Look at the forest. Look at the
city and its people who stand tall, ready to fight, ready to die.
This is my city. This is Lynport. I will not abandon it. Not if
every last legionary flies against us."

Valien's eyes narrowed. "Not
even if you die? Not even if we all die?"

Kaelyn had watched the exchange
silently, hands on the hilts of her sword and dagger. Finally she
spoke.

"We
can still win this," she said. "We will do as we planned.
Nothing changes. We will fight house to house, tunnel to tunnel,
alley to alley. The town is stocked with gunpowder; every door,
every window, every alleyway is rigged to slay them. We have maps.
We can scurry, hide, and fire arrows while they burn." She
nodded and gripped his arm, her eyes large and eager. "We can
win
,
Valien."

And
if I lose you?
he thought, gazing upon her, and his chest tightened.
If
I lose you like I lost her?

She
looked up at him. Large, hazel eyes.
Her
eyes.

What
would you have me do, Marilion?
Valien thought, fists tight at his sides, and his eyes burned.
Would
you want me to run, or would you stay here and fight?

He turned aside. He looked out
the hall's southern arrowslit. A mile away, the breakwater thrust
into the sea, and the lighthouse rose. The waves crashed against it,
a heartbeat, an eternal whisper of the day he'd met her.

You
stood barefoot in a homespun dress, and you wore seashells around
your neck. And he killed you. He thrust a sword into you, and I
couldn't save you. I had to save him, Marilion. I had to. I had to
save the boy.

He spun back to the hall. He
stared at Rune. His wife was dead, but that babe was still here. He
stood before Valien now as a man, clad in armor, Aeternum's sword in
his hand, ready to fight—ready to do what Valien had saved him to
do.

I
saved him for Requiem, Marilion,
he thought.
I
saved him for this day, so we can save our kingdom. Your death will
not have been in vain.

"For Requiem," Rune
whispered.

For
Marilion
,
Valien thought.

He marched across the hall, his
throat still aching. He turned toward the northern arrowslit. He
pointed at the walls that guarded the forest.

"Rune, take your men and
guard the northern walls. When the enemy arrives, fire all our guns
into their ranks. Slay as many as you can before rushing into our
tunnels."

Rune pounded the table. "Yes."

Valien turned toward Kaelyn and
fixed her with a hard stare. "Kaelyn, when they fly across the
city—and they will fly past the walls, even with all our
cannons—you will lead our men through the tunnels. You know them
best. You will emerge from every window, hole, roof, and gutter to
slay them with arrows, then retreat into shadow."

She nodded, teeth bared, and
drew her sword. "Yes!"

Finally Valien turned to Lady
Lana.

He paused.

Iciness filled him, and he
approached her slowly. She was still seated, and he knelt before her
and took her hand.

"Lana, you know your task."

She nodded, face pale, and said
nothing.

Valien squeezed her hand. "Lead
them to safety, Lana. Tens of thousands live in this city, but they
are not warriors. They are mothers, children, and elders. You must
defend them. You must lead them out now—at once. Take them into
your canyon. Hide them in your father's halls." He rose back
to his feet. "This city will be a bloodbath."

Lana stood up too. She gave him
a silent stare, then pulled him into a crushing embrace. She was a
slender woman, but she gripped him with the might of a burly
blacksmith.

"Be strong, warrior of
Requiem," she whispered into his ear, then—surprising
him—kissed his cheek. "Remember always, Lord Valien Eleison,
knight of the realm—you are the light of stars."

With that she spun around.
Gripping her saber, she marched toward the fortress doors, stepped
outside, and shifted into a dragon. She glided across the city,
roaring her call.

"People of Lynport—the
time has come! We evacuate! All those who are not fighters—shift
and fly. Follow me to safety!"

Valien turned from the doors,
clanked up the stairs of Acta's tower, and emerged onto the
battlements. He stood and watched the city. Rune and Kaelyn came to
stand beside him, the wind whipping their hair.

"People of Lynport!"
Lana cried, flying over the roofs. "We evacuate!"

Valien gripped a merlon,
struggling to calm the tremble in his fingers. Thousands of people
were emerging from their homes below. They shifted into dragons like
they had drilled a dozen times; Valien himself had drilled them.
They took flight.

Myriads rose into the air, a
tapestry of scales of every color, shimmering and streaming across
the city. Wings beat. Smoke rose in plumes.

They wobbled as they flew.
Before Lynport's liberation only two moons ago, the Regime had
outlawed shifting into dragons. Many elders had not flown in
eighteen years. Many youngsters had never shifted at all until
winning their freedom that autumn. Others had broken the laws of
Cadigus, shifting at night over the sea, but most still flew as
hesitantly as baby birds.

"Fly, people of Lynport!"
Lana cried. "Fly with the magic of Requiem."

They flew northwest.

They flew toward the canyon, to
safety underground.

Below them, the
warriors—resistors, men of the canyon, and those townsfolk brave
enough to raise a weapon—manned the walls.

"It is here," Valien
whispered. "The great battle of our uprising. The Battle for
Lynport."

He looked north. In the
distance, leagues away, a shadow fell.

 
 
TILLA

They swarmed over the wilderness.

They covered the sky, a hundred
thousand strong. They flew in perfect formation—ten chevrons, one
after the other, ten brigades howling for blood. The beat of wings
scattered the clouds and bent the forests below. Eyes blazed and
scales clattered in a storm. Fire rose between fangs, shining
against spiked armor. The sky burned.

War,
Tilla thought, flapping her wings and staring forward with grim
intent.
Blood.
The great battle to end the Resistance.

And it would be fought at her
home.

She peered ahead, trying to see
Cadport. She thought she glimpsed the sea, a narrow thread of blue
ahead. The city was but a speck.

He's
waiting there
.
Tilla let flames crackle in her mouth.
Rune.
The man I loved. The man who turned against me. The man I must
capture and convert to glory… with words or with pain.

"You
will fight well tonight, lanse," said Shari. "You will
make me proud."

The blue dragon flew beside her,
leading the foremost chevron of dragons. She was clad in glory. Her
black armor shone with golden dragon motifs and spirals. Blades
topped her helm. Her breastplate, large as a boat, shone with
rubies.

"I will fight for you,
Commander," Tilla answered, flying to her right, her head only
several feet farther back. "We will crush them. And we will
catch him."

Please,
Rune,
she thought as she flew.
Do
not force us to hurt you. Because we will. We will.

She looked behind her. Her
phalanx, the Sea Cannons, flew there; they would lead the charge.
The hundred dragons were snarling, smoke streaming from between their
fangs. Tilla had been training them for two moons now, and she
trusted each dragon; they were the finest warriors she knew. Behind
them rolled the rest of the army. It spread into the horizon, a sea
of scale, claw, and tooth.

"Does the emperor not fly
with us, Commander?" Tilla asked her princess. "Nor the
Axehand Order?"

Shari turned her head and stared
at her, eyes shrewd, and flames sparked between her teeth.

"Emperor Frey has his own
battles to fight," she said. "Do not question his wisdom.
I will lead the battle today, and you will fight at my side."

Tilla nodded. She stared ahead
again, squinting. The speck grew to a dot.

Cadport. Home.

As the forest rustled below,
Tilla imagined the sound of waves. As dragonfire rose, she felt the
warmth of the Old Wheel's hearth. As she flew to battle, she
remembered flying with Rune over the sea in darkness, a dance of
starlight.

Home. Her old shop. Her
father. Scraggles leaping onto her. A young ropemaker with
calloused, thin fingers. Weaving, dreaming, hiding.

It was her home, it was her
youth, it was her family and the man she loved.

The
Resistance took all that from me,
Tilla thought, and flames swirled in her belly.
I
will save my home. And I will save you, Rune.

She roared a battle cry and blew
fire. Behind her, a hundred thousand dragons answered her call. The
might of the Legions stormed south.

 
 
KAELYN

They stood on the walls, silent.

They stared into the north.

Nine thousand men and
women—resistors, warriors of the canyon, and townsfolk armed with
axes and sickles. Nine thousand. Still. Watching. Awaiting the
night.

The sun dipped into the west,
spreading red tendrils across the sky. Clouds thickened overhead.
It would be a night of no stars. A night of dragonfire.

"Whatever happens, I fly by
your side," Kaelyn whispered to Valien; he stood to her right
upon the wall. "Always, Valien. Always."

She reached out and held his
hand, a great paw, calloused and warm and enveloping.