Master of Dragons (37 page)

Marcus lay in the
wagon, helpless, unable to move without shards of pain splintering his body. He
had dislocated his left shoulder in his fall, and he was fairly certain, by the
sharp pain and horrible grinding sounds, that he had several broken bones.
There was no way to tell how severe were the wounds he’d suffered until they
could get him out of his armor, and it was so dented and mangled that it would
probably take a blacksmith and his tools to pry it off him.

A whirlwind of
confusion fed by terror swirled around him. Knights and officers were either
jumping onto their horses to make good their own escape or they were standing
practically on top of the king, shouting into his face, so that Edward must
have been hard-pressed to hear himself think. Marcus could not take his eyes
from the dragon, from the terrible, deadly beauty of Maristara.

The dragon set
fire to the woods atop the ridgeline. Stands of pines and groves of oak and
maple burst into flame. Fire crackled not far from the wagon holding Marcus.
Smoke billowed, poisoning the air.

The dragon was
forced to pull up to avoid crashing into the trees. She soared back into the
sky and then made a slow, looping turn, preparing to dive down for another
pass.

Edward refused to
flee. Angry and defiant, he made the argument that they should stand and fight,
pointing out—quite logically—that there was nowhere to run that the dragon
could not catch them, no cover that she could not burn to the ground. Some of
his knights, who had the example of the courage of the Prince’s Own shining
before them, sided with their king. They had no intention of being found dead
with their backs to the foe. Others, Prince Wilhelm among them, insisted that
the kingdom needed their king and its knights alive during this crisis. A
heroic death benefited only the minstrels who would later make money singing of
it.

The argument was
interrupted by men shouting in dismay and pointing.

Another dragon
appeared in the sky, flying high above Maristara. This dragon’s scales flashed
red in the sunlight, which was rapidly being obscured by the smoke rising from
the crackling forest fire.

A voice spoke to
Marcus, calm and cold inside his head. “Get your father the hell out of here!”

Though the
movement cost him agony, jarring his bones and nearly causing him to pass out,
Marcus gripped his father’s arm.

“Father,” Marcus
gasped. “That’s Draconas!”

“Draconas!” Edward
repeated, stunned. He stared up into the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun’s
glare with his hand to see.

Intent on her
sport, Maristara paid no attention to anything else. She swooped down on the
humans, driving them before her. She enjoyed watching the panicked little
creatures skitter hither and yon in a frantic and futile effort to escape
death.

Draconas dropped
onto Maristara like a falcon stooping on a pigeon, his front legs extended, his
wings high.

At the last moment
Maristara was aware of him, warned by the dragon warriors below, who had seen
him appear at about the same time as Marcus. She was flying too fast to stop
her downward momentum, but she did manage to twist her body so that his sharp
claws could not gain purchase. Draconas struck Maristara hard, however,
catching her between her shoulder blades, knocking her off balance and forcing
her to cease her chase of the humans to save herself from crashing headlong
into the ground.

“This is our
chance, Father!” Marcus urged. “That’s what Draconas is doing! Offering us a
chance to escape.”

Edward was quick
to see the logic in this, and he was not one to give up his life when there was
no need. He gave the order to ride and, casting one more glance above at the
astonishing sight of dragon fighting dragon, he spurred his horse. The man
driving the wagon, who had been waiting impatiently for just such a command,
shouted at the horses and slapped the reins on their backs. Already nervous
from the fire and the dragons, the horses were only too glad to flee and took
off at top speed. The wagon jolted and jounced over dirt clods and ruts in the
road.

The royal party
rode in orderly retreat, racing for the sheltering walls of Aston Castle. When
they came upon fleeing soldiers, they called on them to join them there.

The jouncing ride
in the wagon seemed to jolt Marcus apart, but he fought off the pain and clung
to consciousness, watching in awe and almost unbearable tension the battle
raging in the skies above him.

Like a cat
twisting in midair, Maristara recovered, barely avoiding smashing into the
trees. She clawed her way, snarling, wings flapping, to do battle with this new
and unexpected foe.

After his missed
attack, Draconas spiraled upward, regaining the heights, seeking advantage.
Maristara, heavier and older, turned, lumbering, to face him.

“Stop!” Marcus
cried to the driver of the wagon. “I have to watch this!”

“Do as he says,”
Edward commanded. “The rest of you, ride on!”

Reining in his
horse beside the wagon carrying his son, Edward looked into the sky. Some of
his knights remained with him, fascinated by a sight that few humans had ever
seen. The two dragons hung in the air, wings barely moving, each one’s eyes
fixed on the foe, engaged in a battle that was as much mental as it was
physical.

Inside the little
room, Marcus opened the door a crack, peering into the minds of both. If they
even noticed he was there, neither could afford to pay him any mind. Neither
dared turn away from the other for even a split second.

The minds of both
were gray, shifting and rolling like thick fog, so that nothing tangible could
be seen. Suddenly, Maristara hurled a lance of flaring orange that sliced
through the gray, fogbound mind of Draconas, boring its way into the depths of
his brain. At the same moment Maristara flew at him, streaking through the air,
her jaws gaping wide, her claws outstretched.

Draconas had to
defend himself on two fronts simultaneously— within and without. He flung up an
iron-black shield to block the mental missile and went into a steep dive.

The missile burst
on the black shield. He had saved himself from death, but only barely. If the missile
had found its target, it would have exploded in his brain with mind-shattering
force, knocking him unconscious and causing him to plummet from the skies. As
it was, he lost control of his dive for half a moment and tumbled downward, his
bellowing cry of pain echoing off the ridgeline. He pulled himself out of the
fall, dazed and disoriented, his mind blotchy and swirling.

Maristara dove
down to finish him off.

Marcus held his
breath and clamped his own brain down on the urge to shout a warning, for he
could see, boiling beneath the ugly miasma on the surface, the colors of
Draconas’s mind, sharp-edged and clear and cold. The dragon’s seemingly
confused Sailings had, in reality, been bringing him nearer and nearer the
elder dragon. Now underneath her, presumably defenseless, Draconas did a
twisting roll that carried him out from under her slashing claws. Emerging, he
flipped head over tail and then launched himself straight as a spear at
Maristara.

The move caught
the elder dragon completely by surprise. She had no time to evade his attack.
Draconas lowered his head, so that the spikes of his mane became a battering
ram. Like a ship ramming its foe, he struck Maristara on her flank.

The shock of the
impact sent both dragons reeling. Draconas drew blood from his enemy and
knocked her halfway across heaven, but he did not sink her. Maristara was tough
and she was clever and she had fought her own kind before, something Draconas—a
relatively young dragon—had not.

She was also hurt.
He’d done damage to her, and though she wanted with all her being to continue
the fight and destroy this dragon, she could not afford the luxury.

Damn that
lizard Grald.
If he hadn’t gotten himself killed, she could have indulged
her hatred and finished off the Walker. If she died, however, there was no one
to lead her forces against the humans except Anora, who had her own important
task to perform. Besides, quite frankly, Maristara didn’t trust Anora.
Maristara never trusted anyone.

She had sky enough
left to her that she could free-fall some distance, and, keeping one eye on
Draconas, she drifted back toward the river and Dragonkeep beyond. She could
afford to retreat, return to the safety of Grald’s lair and heal her wounds.
She might have worried about leaving her army vulnerable to attack, but she
knew Draconas, knew his weakness.

Draconas was
injured, more badly than he’d first realized in the heat of battle, and like
Maristara, he had humans who were dependent on him, the irony of which did not
escape him.

Because of humans,
the dragons had to stop trying to kill each other. Because of humans, they’d
started. Both dragons limped away, each knowing that the battle between them
was not ended, merely postponed.

“Where is he
going?” Edward cried. “Kill them, Draconas! Kill the dragon warriors. Breathe
fire on them! Do to them what they did to us! Marcus, talk to him.”

Draconas let his
colors go gray.

“You have to kill
them!” Marcus urged the dragon. “You saw what they did! You know what they can
do to us!”

“The laws of
dragonkind forbid me to kill humans,” Draconas replied.

“A law only you
obey!” Marcus retorted.

“Maybe so. Maybe I
am the only one. Maybe I will be the last. I hope not. Killing humans is too
easy for us . . .”

“And the time will
come when killing dragons is easy for us!” Marcus said angrily.

“That is what we
fear, Marcus,” said Draconas. “Don’t you understand that yet? That is what we
fear.”

IN THE GRAY
TWILIGHT OF EARLY MORNING, THE HIGH priestess of Seth walked the path that led
to the Chamber of the Watchful Eye to perform the Rite of Seeing. And though
she walked the path alone—for no other except the High Priestess could perform
this ritual—it seemed to her that she was being watched by the ghostly eyes of
all those who had walked this path before her, and that those eyes were dark
with foreboding.

Most of the others
were shadowy figures, seen only in her imagination, as she’d heard stories of
them from childhood on. One, however, was real to her and close—Melisande, the
High Priestess who had come before her, the High Priestess who, some seventeen
years before, had disgraced her calling and ran off with a male lover, leaving
behind Seth and her responsibilities and duties. Anna had never been close to
Melisande—the twelve-year-old girl had always been too much in awe of the High
Priestess to dare to even speak to her. Melisande had spoken to her sometimes,
though, and always smiled at her kindly whenever they met. Anna had admired
Melisande and idolized her. Her fall had devastated Anna. She had refused to
believe the terrible story, as it was told to them by Lucretta, the new
Mistress of Dragons.

Anna had gone so
far as to openly voice her disbelief—not to the Mistress, of course, but to the
other sisters. Anna had even ventured to plead Melisande’s cause with Bellona,
the commander of the warrior women who guarded the monastery and who was tasked
with the assignment of tracking down Melisande and either dragging her back to
stand trial or killing her. Bellona had struck the girl across the face,
knocking her to the ground, and then walked off. Anna had seen the terrible
pain in the eyes of the warrior woman, who had been Melisande’s lover. The girl
had crept away to her cell to weep her bitter tears in solitude. After that,
Anna never again spoke Melisande’s name, though she kept it in her heart.

Bellona had gone,
disappearing into the night while trying to track down Melisande. Gone to be
with her, the Mistress had told them disparagingly. Both of them traitors.
There were stories from the other warrior women about how Bellona’s arrows
fired at Melisande had always missed their mark—something strange, considering
that Bellona’s arrows had never missed before. The warrior women set out to
find both of them, and one day they returned with the story that they had located
Bellona and Melisande and killed them.

They had not
brought back the bodies, however, claiming that they did not deserve the honor
of being buried in the homeland both had disgraced. Perhaps because of this or
perhaps because the warrior women never spoke about that battle and always
looked some other direction whenever anyone brought it up, Anna was convinced
they were lying. And she made up a fancy in her heart, a fancy that Bellona and
Melisande were alive and together somewhere and that they were happy.

That’s why the
eyes troubled Anna so much. She felt the eyes of Melisande upon her as she
walked the path that led to the Chamber. It was a feeling, not a seeing. She
did not see the ghost. She felt her, felt her concern. She had never
experienced this sensation before. She had been High Priestess for a year now,
ever since the previous High Priestess had fallen victim to a cancerous growth.
She had walked this path every morning for a year, and it was only in the last
week or so that she had become aware of the ghosts.

She did not
mention the ghosts to any of the other sisters. She knew what they would
say—that it was all her imagination. That she was afraid because the Mistress
of Dragons was gone—an event that was unprecedented in the lives of the people
of Seth. The Mistress was gone, and her parting words to Anna had been more
than enough to stir up any number of dread apparitions.

“I do not leave of
my own choosing,” the Mistress told Anna, and her tone was one of sorrow
mingled with anger. “I leave out of necessity. For the first time in many
hundreds of years, our kingdom faces a threat that we cannot fight alone. I
must seek the aid of an ally, our sister kingdom.”