Rise of the Dragons (3 page)

Kyra walked behind her brothers as they
all hiked the road back to the fort, watching them struggle under the weight of
the boar, Aidan beside her and Leo at her heels, having returned from chasing
his game. Brandon and Braxton labored as they carried the dead beast between
them, tied to their two spears and draped across their shoulders. Their grim
mood had changed drastically since they had emerged from the wood and back into
open sky, especially now with their father’s fort in sight. With each passing
step, Brandon and Braxton became more confident, nearly back to their arrogant
selves, now at the point of laughing, heckling each other as they boasted of
their
kill.

“It was
my
spear that grazed it,”
Brandon said to Braxton.

“But,” countered Braxton, “it was my
spear that incited it to veer for Kyra’s arrow.”

Kyra listened, her face reddening at
their lies; her pig-headed brothers were already convincing themselves of their
own story, and now they seemed to actually believe it. She already anticipated
their boasting back in their father’s hall, telling everyone of
their
kill.

It was maddening. Yet she felt it was
beneath her to correct them. She believed firmly in the wheels of justice, and
she knew that, eventually, the truth always came out.

“You’re liars,” Aidan said, walking
beside her, clearly still shaken from the event. “You know Kyra killed the
boar.”

Brandon glanced over his shoulder
derisively, as if Aidan were an insect.

“What would
you
know?” he asked
Aidan. “You were too busy pissing your pants.”

They both laughed, as if hardening their
story with each passing step.

“And you weren’t running scared?” Kyra
asked, sticking up for Aidan, unable to stand it a second longer.

With that, they both fell silent. Kyra
could have really let them have it—but she did not need to raise her voice. She
walked happily, feeling good about herself, knowing within herself that she had
saved her brother’s life; that was all the satisfaction she needed.

Kyra felt a small hand on her shoulder,
and she looked over to see Aidan, smiling, consoling her, clearly grateful to
be alive and in one piece. Kyra wondered if her older brothers also appreciated
what she had done for them; after all, if she hadn’t appeared when she had they
would have been killed, too.

Kyra watched the boar bounce before her
with each step, and she grimaced; she wished her brothers had let it remain in
the clearing, where it belonged. It was a cursed animal, not of Volis, and it
didn’t belong here. It was a bad omen, especially coming from the Wood of
Thorns, and especially on the eve of the Winter Moon. She recalled an old adage
she had read:
do not boast after being spared from death
. Her brothers,
she felt, were tempting the fates, bringing darkness back into their home. She
could not help but feel it would herald bad things to come.

They crested a hill and as they did, the
stronghold spread out before them, along with a sweeping view of the landscape.
Despite the gust of wind and increasing snow, Kyra felt a great sense of relief
at being home. Smoke rose from the chimneys that dotted the countryside and her
father’s fort emitted a soft, cozy glow, all lit with fires, fending off the
coming twilight. The road widened, better maintained as they neared the bridge,
and they all increased their pace and walked briskly down the final stretch.
The road was bustling with people, eager for the festival despite the weather
and falling night.

Kyra was hardly surprised. The festival
of the Winter Moon was one of the most important holidays of the year, and all
were busy preparing for the feast to come. A great throng of people pressed
over the drawbridge, rushing to get their wares from vendors, to join the
fort’s feast—while an equal number of people rushed out of the gate, hurrying
to get back to their homes to celebrate with their families. Oxen pulled carts
and carried wares in both directions, while masons banged and chipped away at
yet another new wall being built to ring the fort, the sound of their hammers
steady in the air, punctuating the din of livestock and dogs. Kyra wondered how
they always worked in this weather, how they kept their hands from going numb.

As they entered the bridge, merging with
the masses, Kyra looked up ahead and her stomach tightened as she saw, standing
near the gate, several of the Lord’s Men, soldiers for the local Lord Governor
appointed by Pandesia, wearing their distinctive scarlet chain mail armor. She felt
a flash of indignation at the sight, sharing the same resentment as all of her
people. The presence of the Lord’s Men was oppressive at any time—but on the
Winter Moon it was especially so, when they could surely only be here to demand
whatever gleanings they could from her people. They were scavengers, in her
mind, bullies and scavengers for the despicable aristocrats that had lodged
themselves in power ever since the Pandesian invasion.

The weakness of their former King was to
blame, having surrendered them all—but that did them little good now. Now, to
their disgrace, they had to defer to these men. It filled Kyra with fury. It
made her father and his great warriors—and all of her people—nothing better
than elevated serfs; she desperately wanted them all to rise up, to fight for
their freedom, to fight the war their former King had been afraid to. Yet she
also knew that, if they were to rise up now, they would face the wrath of the
Pandesian army. Perhaps they could have held them back if they had never let
them in; but now that they were entrenched, they had few options.

They reached the bridge, merging with
the mob, and as they passed, people stopped, stared, and pointed at the boar.
Kyra took a small satisfaction in seeing that her brothers were sweating under
the burden of it, huffing and puffing. As they went, heads turned and people
gaped, commoners and warriors alike, all impressed by the massive beast. She
also spotted a few superstitious looks, some of the people wondering, as she,
if this were a bad omen.

All eyes, though, looked to her brothers
with pride.

“A fine catch for the festival!” a
farmer called out, leading his ox as he merged onto the street with them.

Brandon and Braxton beamed proudly.

“It shall feed half your father’s
court!” called out a butcher.

“How did you manage it?” asked a
saddler.

The two brothers exchanged a look, and
Brandon finally grinned back at the man.

“A fine throw and a lack of fear,” he
replied boldly.

“If you don’t venture to the wood,”
Braxton added, “you don’t know what you’ll find.”

A few men cheered and clapped them on
the back. Kyra, despite herself, held her tongue. She did not need these
people’s approval; she knew what she had done.

“They did not kill the boar!” Aidan
called out, indignant.

“You shut up,” Brandon turned and
hissed. “Any more of that and I will tell them all that you pissed your pants
when it charged.”

“But I did not!” Aidan protested.

“And they will believe you?” Braxton
added.

Brandon and Braxton laughed, and Aidan
looked to Kyra, as if wanting to know what to do.

She shook her head.

“Don’t waste your effort,” she said to
him. “The truth always prevails.”

The throngs thickened as they crossed
over the bridge, soon shoulder to shoulder with the masses as they passed over
the moat. Kyra could feel the excitement in the air as twilight fell, torches
lit up and down the bridge, the snowfall quickening. She looked up before her
and her heart quickened, as always, to see the huge, arched stone gate to the
fort, guarded by a dozen of her father’s men. At its top were the spikes of an
iron portcullis, now raised, its sharpened points and thick bars strong enough
to keep out any foe, ready to be closed at the mere sound of a horn. The gate
rose thirty feet high, and at its top was a broad platform, spreading across
the entire fort, wide stone battlements manned with lookouts, always keeping a
vigilant eye. Volis was a fine stronghold, Kyra had always thought, taking
pride in it. What gave her even more pride were the men inside it, her father’s
men, many of Escalon’s finest warriors, slowly regrouping in Volis after being
dispersed since the surrender of their King, drawn like a magnet to her father.
More than once she had urged her father to declare himself the new King, as all
his people wanted him to—but he would always merely shake his head and say that
was not his way.

As they neared the gate, a dozen of her
father’s men charged out on their horses, the masses parting for them as they
rode out for the training ground, a wide, circular embankment in the fields
outside the fort ringed by a low, stone wall. Kyra turned and watched them go,
her heart quickening. The training grounds were her favorite place. She would
go there and watch them spar for hours, studying every move they made, the way
they rode their horses, the way they drew their swords, hurled spears, swung
flails. These men rode out to train despite the coming dark and falling snow,
even on the eve of a holiday feast, because they
wanted
to train, to
better themselves, because they would all rather be on a battlefield than
feasting indoors—like her. These, she felt, were her true people.

Another group of her father’s men came
out, these on foot, and as Kyra approached the gate with her brothers, these
men stepped aside, with the masses, making room for Brandon and Braxton as they
approached with the boar. They whistled in admiration and gathered around,
large, muscle-bound men, standing a foot taller than even her brothers who were
not small, most of them wearing beards peppered with gray, all hardened men in
their thirties and forties who had seen too many battles, who had served the
old King and had suffered the indignity of his surrender. Men who would have
never surrendered on their own. These were men who had seen it all and who were
not impressed by much—but they did seem taken with the boar.

“Kill that on your own, did you?” one of
them asked Brandon, coming close and examining it.

The crowd thickened and Brandon and
Braxton finally stopped, taking in the praise and admiration of these great
men, trying not to show how hard they were breathing.

“We did!” Braxton called out proudly.

“A Black-Horned,” exclaimed another
warrior, coming up close, running his hand along the back of it. “Haven’t seen
one since I was a boy. Helped kill one myself, once—but I was with a party of
men—and two of them lost fingers.”

“Well, we lost nothing,” Braxton called
out boldly. “Just a spear head.”

Kyra burned as the men all laughed,
clearly admiring the kill, while another warrior, their leader, Anvin, stepped
forward and examined the kill closely. The men parted for him, giving him a
wide berth of respect.

Her father’s commander, Anvin was Kyra’s
favorite of all the men, answering only to her father, presiding over these
fine warriors. Anvin had been like a second father to her, and she had known
him as long as she could remember. He loved her dearly, she knew, and he looked
out for her; more importantly to her, he always took time for her, showing her
the techniques of sparring and weaponry when others would not. He had even let
her train with the men on more than one occasion, and she had relished each and
every one. He was the toughest of them all, yet he also had the kindest
heart—for those he liked. But for those he didn’t, Kyra feared for them.

Anvin had little tolerance for lies,
though; he was the sort of man who always had to get to the absolute truth of
everything, however gray it was. He had a meticulous eye, and as he stepped
forward and examined the boar closely, Kyra watched him stop and examine its
two arrow wounds. He had an eye for detail, and if anyone would recognize the
truth, it would be him.

Anvin examined the two wounds,
inspecting the small arrowheads still lodged inside, the fragments of wood
where her brothers had broken off her arrows. They had snapped it close to the
tip, so no one would see what had really felled it. But Anvin was not just
anyone.

Kyra watched Anvin study the wounds, saw
his eyes narrow, and she knew he had summed up the truth in a glance. He
reached down, removed his glove, reached into the eye, and extracted one of the
arrowheads. He held it up, bloody, then slowly turned to her brothers with a
skeptical look.

“A spear point, was it?” he asked,
disapproving.

A tense silence fell over the group as
Brandon and Braxton looked nervous for the first time. They shifted in place.

Anvin turned to Kyra.

“Or an arrowhead?” he added, and Kyra
could see the wheels turning in his head, see him coming to his own
conclusions.

Anvin walked over to Kyra, drew an arrow
from her quiver, and held it up beside the arrowhead. It was a perfect match,
for all to see. He gave Kyra a proud, meaningful look, and Kyra felt all eyes
turn to her.

“Your shot, was it?” he asked her. It
was more a statement than a question.