The Dragonswarm (2 page)

He was bent forward over a mess of papers on his desk, reading reports from the pages in one pile and scribbling his own notes on a fresh page under his right hand. His brow was knit in concentration and more than a little worry. His jaw clenched so hard the muscles stood out like heavy cords, and sweat gleamed on his forehead.

I understood his concern. Winter came kindly this far south, but still it emptied the fields. And this year had been a hard one on the barony's harvest. An army of rebels had set up in siege outside the town, stealing food and disrupting any attempts to work the land.

I had freed the town from that siege. Six weeks ago I'd dispersed the rebel horde with the help of a bloodthirsty beast that owed me a debt. I had made myself a hero, but here before me was a man with a harder task than mine had been. He had a thousand mouths to feed and insufficient resources to do it. I understood the troubles that creased his brows, and I had worse problems to offer him.

He didn't look up when I entered the room. He did when Isabelle followed me one step later, and in a heartbeat the fear and frustration vanished from his face. He gave Isabelle a broad smile and pushed the pages away. I saw the trouble still hiding in the corners of his eyes, in the tension across his chest, but he hid it well.

That smile darted over me and back to his precious daughter. "Ah, you're here!" he cried. He pushed himself to his feet. "Did you tell him? You must have told him."

"She did." My voice sounded grim to my own ears. "She told me everything, my lord."

"Your lord. Hah! We can't have such formality," he said, but I saw his smile slipping. "Soon enough—"

"I'm sorry, my lord, but we have trouble." I thought I would see anger in his eyes at the interruption, but I only saw confusion. Isabelle stepped to my side and laced her fingers with mine.

Pain stabbed at my heart. I didn't want to admit what I had done. I didn't want to see the shock and disappointment in their eyes. I didn't want to feel her cool fingers pull away.

But I could not escape it. Not now. I set my shoulders and met the baron's gaze. "I killed a man" He opened his mouth to object—he was a man of war himself—but I pressed on. "It was a soldier in the King's Guard."

The baron's face went pale at that, and Isabelle made a tiny sound. She didn't drop my hand.

I nodded to the baron. "It was an accident, a mistake brought on by a wizard's reckless actions. But it is a mistake for which I have not paid." I held his gaze for a long moment, then dropped my head. "I will have to pay for it now."

Eliade said nothing. After a moment Isabelle cleared her throat. "I...I don't understand."

The baron spoke before I could answer. "They know your name?" Without looking I could feel his gaze against me.

I nodded. "He knows everything about me."

The baron's breath escaped him in a great, weary sigh. I glanced up. He seemed suddenly smaller, more frail than I ever could have imagined the big man.

He shook his head. "And I sent him a letter. I told him just where to find you. I'm sorry, Daven. Isabelle."

My jaw fell open. "Sorry? No, my lord. How could you have known? I'm sorry I brought this trouble to your house. I'm sorry I hid it from you."

He should have been furious. Any lord I'd ever heard of would have been. But this was the man who had raised kind-hearted Themmichus and brave, beautiful Isabelle. This was the man who had taken me in. In six short weeks he'd become more a father to me than any I'd ever known.

And he did not fail me now. "There is still time," he said, eyes flashing with strategies and plans. "We may find a place to hide you. I can bring the king to reason."

My heart pounded with gratitude and hope as much as fear. I turned to Isabelle and found her nodding enthusiastically.

"The people love him," she said. "He can live with any of them. The Smiths would keep him in style. Or Thomas Wheelwright. He has space enough—"

The baron shook his head. "No. It would be asking them to defy the crown. That is a grave offense. We cannot place this burden on them."

He didn't mean it as an accusation, but the words struck me like a blow.

Isabelle wasn't fazed. "Then we can keep him here. There are rooms enough in this house to lose one man."

Eliade dismissed that idea as well. "No, Isabelle. The king's trackers are careful men. Even given his love for us, we will not easily thwart his search."

Isabelle almost answered again, but I stopped her with a touch on the wrist. I met the baron's gaze.

"Don't," I said.

"Young man, you'd be hard-pressed to stop me."

"And yet I must." Regret burned sour in my throat, but I swallowed it along with the memory of a kind old wizard half-dead from a wound he took while trying to hide me from the king. I could not do that to this man, and certainly not to the woman at my side.

So I dropped her hand and held his gaze. "Don't risk these things for me. You've already done more than I ever could have asked. I'll face the king—"

"You won't," the baron said, and his word was law. "Not without some intercession. These are hard and hasty times, and too much tragedy could catch fire in his wrath."

I met his gaze for a moment, then dropped my eyes. I had no wish to die, and that was all I could expect from the king's justice now.

I licked my lips and nodded. "Very well, but I will not endanger you and yours. I'll run. I can survive the wilderness—"

The baron smiled, though it was grim. "We grow our wilderness much harder here than the one you know."

"No harder than a headsman's blade," I said, and he grunted in agreement.

Then silence fell, resignation and regret heavy in the air between us. My hands flexed and relaxed a dozen times, and my mind raced on ahead. The earth was hard and dry out here, the mountains high and harsh. But I had never lived an easy life before I came into this house. I'd find a way.

Isabelle interrupted my thoughts with a tiny sound. She took a half-step forward and raised her hands toward the two of us. Our eyes fixed on her, and she hesitated. But then I saw her set her jaw. I saw a fire in her eyes. She meant to argue once again, and I steeled myself to tell her no.

But she said just one word. "Palmagnes."

I knew the name. It was a place from legend. An enchanted fortress. A temple to power and wisdom and authority. A stronghold impervious to every power, magical or mortal.

I cocked my head, confused. It was an old, mostly-forgotten piece of the legends of the FirstKing. It had to be a myth.

But then behind me the baron let out his breath with an interested sound. "Hmm. Now that could work."

"The FirstKing's fortress? The Tower of Days?" My eyes snapped back and forth between them. "It's just a story."

"It's not," the baron said.

"It's a pile of ruins," Isabelle said in patient explanation. "It is little more than rubble."

The baron nodded. "Yes but there would be some shelter there. And no one enters those lands. No one would find you."

I took a step back. "You really mean it?"

The baron nodded solemnly.

Isabelle gave me an excited smile. "It's half a day's ride, I understand." She threw her father an acid look, but he ignored her.

She went on, sliding closer to me again. "We should go scout it out. Make sure you know the way, in case you have to go in a hurry."

The baron's eyes snapped to Isabelle, and I saw them narrow. After a moment he sighed. "That
is
a good idea. And if I were to go—or worse, send an escort—it would draw too much notice. But the two of you going out for a ride...."

He trailed off, and Isabelle beamed. She caught my hand again and bounced a shoulder against my arm. When I looked down she grinned. "We're going to Palmagnes."

Despite everything hanging over us, I smiled. I couldn't help it. I leaned closer to her. "That's exciting, is it?"

She bobbed her head and answered in a whisper. "Father has never let me go."

He cut through our quiet conference with the heavy boom of his voice. "That's right. Because it is dangerous."

Isabelle rolled her eyes. "They say restless spirits and soulless ghouls wander among the ruins."

The baron grunted. "I'm far more concerned with biting asps and feral dogs." He leveled a threatening finger at me. "You watch out for her, wizard. Return her to me whole."

"Of course," I said. "With all my care."

He nodded. "Well enough. Go. Send for the horses and some food. Might as well take some gear now too, so you can travel light when the time comes."

I nodded. "Will there be water?"

"Last I checked the well still ran clean, but that's been most of a decade now. You'll have to check on that while you're there."

I tried to think what else to take, what other preparations I could make, but there were too many unknowns. Still, if there was clean water, I could get by.

Isabelle was anxious to go. She darted out to arm's length and tugged on my arm, but I lingered to consider the plan one more time, trying to think of anything else I needed to ask of the baron. I found nothing. But I saw him frowning, clearly calculating, and he looked up to see his daughter trying to drag me from the room.

He opened his mouth. A moment later he said, "Go. Make your preparations. But before you leave, come find me again. We have another matter of business yet to settle."

Then he dismissed me with a wave, and I followed Isabelle into the wide stone corridors of the sprawling house. We went a dozen paces before she led me around a corner and down another long hall. I had to hurry to keep on her heels, and I felt my smile creeping back. "You really can't wait to see these ruins."

She stopped, startling me, and turned on me with more anger than joy in her eyes. "How could you keep this from me?"

Her voice was a hiss, and she stepped very close to me. It was not a tender gesture.

I licked my lips. "I was afraid. I did not want you to know that part of my past."

"I could have done so much to protect you, Daven. I could have made this go away. And now instead we must run and hide."

"I'm sorry, Isabelle."

"You should be!" she snapped, but then her face softened. "Come on." She nodded down the hall, then started walking again. "Palmagnes is not a friendly place, and we must make our preparations. It will not be easy to convince my father to let me stay there with you."

My heart faltered. "Stay with me? No. Resolving this mess will take some time—"

"And I would not be without you for so long." She never turned, never slowed. "But Father will not understand. We'll save that fight for later."

I followed after her in a daze. She wanted to be with me. She was prepared to face the discomfort and dangers of a harsh wilderness with me. She was prepared to fight her father, and with her father to fight the king for me. She was prepared to marry me. She'd asked, hadn't she?

While I was thinking, she was searching for a steward she could trust. Now she found him and rattled off her orders with a brisk authority. I watched him nodding quickly, trying to memorize all the many things she wanted. Then she sent him scurrying off and dragged me down another hall.

It was too soon to talk of marriage. Of course it was. But I wasn't at all surprised by her initiative. She was the bravest soul I'd ever met. Injured but unscarred, informed but unafraid. I wanted that. I wanted her, and far more for the spirit, for the perspective, than for the comfort and the kindness she could offer.

She led me to the stables and requested two riding horses and two pack animals to lead. The stable master sent boys scurrying to fetch the horses even as servants began arriving in ones and twos with gear for our journey. Isabelle watched it all with an air of satisfaction, and I just stood watching her. A man could build a life around a woman like that.

But first there was the king. And then the dragons, too. Six weeks in Teelevon, and we must have heard sixty new rumors from the north. Mighty serpents swarmed the quiet seas, they said, and ships weren't safe to sail. Dragons flew the skies at night, they said, and whole cities were burned to ash by dawn. We heard a hundred different versions of Tirah's burning or the capitol's. Of the King's Guard defeated or the wizards at the Academy. Of the world overwhelmed by dragon hordes.

They sounded nothing like truth, but I knew there was some core to it. I'd met a dragon firsthand, and I'd seen half a dozen more with my own eyes. Tirah
had
been attacked, and the King's Guard with it. And those who knew of such things had assured me worse was coming. The dragons were waking.

I swallowed hard and kept my eyes fixed on the woman before me. It would be no easy task to build a life we two could share. But she turned to say, "That should do quite well. We'll be on the road within the hour." When she caught me staring, she gave me a curious little smile, and I knew I had to try. I would find a way.

It started with keeping her safe. If the baron was right, that meant keeping her away from the ruins of Palmagnes. As she led me back to her father's study, I fought not to think how much gentler my exile would be with her at my side.

We stepped into the study, and it all fled my mind at the sight of the sword in her father's hands. Cold steel, burnished with age but carrying an edge that shone from constant care. The baron stood in the center of the room, sword's tip grounded between him and us, hands crossed easily on its pommel. His stance was relaxed, but I recognized danger in it. Readiness. His expression was grave.

Three men stood behind him, all just as serious. One was the chief steward of the baron's household. Another was Thomas Wheelwright, a friend of the Eliades and an esteemed name in the community. And there on the end was the barony's Kind Father, dressed in the rich formal robes of the Benevolent Priests. All among them met my gaze with level, measuring looks. None among them gave me any confidence.

For one long, dreadful moment I stood staring at the blade and remembering my every crime. Then Isabelle squeezed my hand and whispered in my ear, "Step forward, Sir Knight."