The Dragonswarm (26 page)

"Daven, if you have half the power Lareth suggests, we could hold the town—"

"We could hold it," I said. "We could win the war. But at what price? No. I chose these men because they owe a price in blood that I will gladly spend. I cannot say the same for the people of Teelevon. And you know as well as I the king's quick temper. I will not give him reason to turn against this town."

"Very well," he said. "Nothing changes, then."

"We march for the fort and hope for time to settle in before they come to drag us out."

"We should be safe," he said. "Now get some sleep. We'll move again at dawn."

I hadn't budged when Lareth found me, still staring glumly at the distant farmhouse. I couldn't quite recall the face of the farmer who lived there. Odds were good he was old and poor and desperate. Most of them had seemed that way.

"You're looking glum," the wizard said, and I could hear the warmth of wine on his voice. "Have you at last realized you're rushing
away
from all the soft comforts of a world you could command?"

"I have no interest in soft comforts," I said. "I only wish we could rush a little more."

"Aha. Well as to that, you're on your own. I could move us all a good deal closer to a pretty little town out west—"

"No!" I growled, but he didn't seem to hear the animal anger in my voice.

"Oh, don't get me wrong. It's small, but it is fine. Good wine, good beer, and lovely little women I recall."

I didn't turn but struck him backhand hard enough knock him from his horse. "You will not speak of Teelevon."

"Of course I won't," he said, still just as merry, but there was a brittle edge to it now. "And yet, ha hah, it's as I said before. All these rolling miles of dirt mean naught to me. I couldn't even move you to that barn."

"I've been to that barn."

He shrugged and tried unsuccessfully to scramble back into his saddle. At last he gave up and just stood leaning heavily against the horse's bridle. "There you and I depart. And as I've said before, if you will only make the portals—"

I looked away, and he cut himself short. I heard him catch his breath, and after a moment he spoke with a clarity that belied his drunkenness if not his madness. "I have offered more than once to teach my lord."

"And I have tried," I said. I shuddered at the memory. Lareth had learned at the feet of Seriphenes, and Seriphenes had been the worst of all my teachers in my brief stay at the Academy. Twice now Lareth had tried to teach me, and it had taken every shred of self-restraint to stop myself destroying him before the lesson was done.

"My power is my own," I said. "Academy magic serves me little."

"But as I've said before, it shapes your purpose, lord. I cannot imagine what you might do with all your powers, if you employed the focus I could teach to you."

"And perhaps in time I will," I said. "For now, I cannot spare the energy, and you should count yourself lucky for that. It gives me reason to keep you alive."

He grinned and laughed. "You have me there. But if you want to move more swiftly than this march—"

"What about..." I began, already knowing his answer. Still, I had to ask. "What about my way?"

He shuddered, top to toe. "No! No, my lord. No. Don't you
ever
try it that way. Better far to walk."

"But it is only power," I said. "All of it is power. I can move power around. Why not move the lifeblood?"

"What is a life?" Lareth asked, with a lecturing-hall tone. "Is it your will? Is it your awareness? Is it your brain? Is it your body? Who knows what you would move?"

"But—"

"No," Lareth said, lips peeled back to show his teeth. "
Never
try it that way. Unless...."

"Yes?"

He brightened and met my eyes. "You could try it with one of the soldiers! You should have done that at Tirah. Just send them all away."

"And see what happens then?"

He nodded, eyes gleaming.

"But you still expect it would be horrible?"

"Not horrible, then. Not with
soldiers
. No, then it's merely wasteful. But interesting at least. It should be interesting to see."

I heaved a sigh. "Go away, Lareth. Go get some sleep. I order it. No more wine, no clever ideas; just get some sleep."

It took us two more days and most of a third to cross the barony, stopping only once a day and then again at sunset. I kept the men close by and directed us through rougher terrain wherever I could spare a farmer's field. Lareth and Caleb both called me foolish for it, but I wanted to impact the farmers as little as possible. I
knew
these men. I'd helped them work some of these fields. I hated the price they paid for every step along our way.

By the third day, though, the fields fell away, leaving only sun-scorched earth and broken stone and scrubby, twisted trees with cruel thorns. I pressed harder then, standing in my stirrups and begging the army for speed and straining my eyes south. But sunset came too soon, and once again we had to camp.

When the last of the daylight failed, when Caleb and Lareth both were busy with the work of rest, I slipped away. The terrain was untrustworthy here, pitching and rolling and falling away in the treacherous foothills beneath the cruel coastal mountains. I followed a little path barely recognizable across the barren land. I found it more by instinct than by sight, but the sense of familiarity dragged me on.

I rode for miles on my own, far past sunset, and finally stopped when the looming shadows before me resolved into a mountain of rubble separate from the distant range. It crouched upon the earth, just as I remembered, a pile of memories and legends and broken stone. The FirstKing's fortress. Palmagnes.

And here, where the long-forgotten road meandered near a twisted black tree, I saw the spike of earth that I had made. I stared in awe, and memory came crashing back. We had come here with plans for a future. I was supposed to hide in these ruins for a day or two, and if it took longer than that, Isabelle would come and join me. She'd wanted so much to be with me.

The sight before me dragged me from my saddle. I slipped down, moving as if in a dream, and drifted forward. We'd brought some rations, some resources for me while I camped here. I'd buried them beneath the earth and raised this spire to show me where.

But now, beneath the spire, there was a pit. Someone had dug down into the earth. Two paces deep would have made a hard day's work even in friendly soil, and this was rocks and gnarled roots. But someone had recovered the saddlebags. Not a treasure, but enough to keep a man alive while he waited for better days.

Now that I knew to look, I could see the remains of the campsite too: a circle of fist-sized stones, a bit of charcoaled wood, a broken bottle, a tattered blanket. I instantly took on the wizard's sight and stretched my gaze as far as it would go, but there was not a sign of life between this place and the wildfire light of my army miles to the north.

But I should not have worried at all. The campsite was clearly old, abandoned for months. As I looked more closely at the fire ring, I saw another stone precisely in its center. Underneath the stone, a bit of parchment. I caught it up and summoned a brilliant flame above my shoulder so I could read.

It said, "I know you can't be dead. I don't know where you are. I waited as long as I could. Come back to me. I love you. Come back to me." She hadn't signed, but I knew Isabelle's careful hand. I read it again, and my tears stained the weathered parchment.

"Come back to me," she'd said. I turned to the north and sank down in the place where she had waited for me. I wept for what I could not have. I loved her too, and that was why I would not go. But I would wage war with death itself to keep that woman safe.

It was well past midnight when I finally came in sight of the camp again. The night was still and dark, and even my horse's steps barely broke the deep silence as I rode toward the sleeping army. I felt bone weary, and my heart felt raw. I only looked ahead to one blanket on the hard, cold ground and perhaps four hours of sleep before we moved again.

A shadow stepped out of the darkness of the night, barely three paces ahead of me, and resolved into the shape of Caleb. Thunder crashed behind his eyes, and his voice was a growl. "Are you a fool, my lord?"

"I'm either a madman or a hero," I said, with acid to match his annoyance. "So I've heard. Right now I am tired."

"You have responsibilities," he barked. "You're not some brave and lonely child anymore, free to run wild in the night."

"Say your piece tomorrow," I said, and heeled my horse ahead despite him. "Right now, I need a bed."

"No. You need to think!" He grabbed my horse's halter as it passed and hauled down hard. Nothing I could do would urge the beast forward after that. The dark warrior glared up at me, anger in his eyes.

"I am your lord," I said through gritted teeth. "Is this how you'll behave?"

"Toward a lord, no. Toward a reckless child—"

"Enough," I snapped. "If you call me child again, I will be hard-pressed to ignore it."

"I've no desire to be ignored. I am your man. I have sworn my life to you and that comes with a price as well. You chafed at the price the farmers pay, but lords pay prices, too. You owe me, Daven."

"I owe you dragons' blood," I snapped. "That was the deal we made. I'll give you chance enough—"

"No. Everything has changed. This is not the arrangement we made upon the ashes of that village."

My eyes narrowed. "You would be released from your oath?"

He held my gaze for a long moment. Then he released my horse's bridle and took a long step back. "No. I won't. But everything is changed. You made yourself a king and made me a general. You lay plans for war. The path you're walking now...you cannot act alone. Two thousand lives are tied into a knot around you now. Understand? When you risk yourself, you risk us all."

"There is nothing safe in what I do, Caleb."

"And that's why we should not make it worse."

My answer died on my tongue. After a moment I looked away. "I'm sorry."

"A lord is never sorry," Caleb said. "You may chastise me for challenging you. It is within your right."

I shook my head. "You pledged your strength in my service. Among your strengths is knowledge. Training I don't have. It would be a grave betrayal then to hold your tongue."

He considered me for a moment, calculating. Then he said, "You are a mystery."

I laughed in surprise. "Why?"

"You have two faces I've learned to know well. I've seen the cruel master who brought Lareth's madness to heel. I've seen the affronted wizard prepared to strike down a farmer who would not offer a stranger some water."

I scrubbed my hands over my face at the memory. "That is not me, Caleb."

He nodded slowly. "I begin to understand that. For there are times when you are this...this kind young boy."

My jaw dropped at the comment, and he shrugged an apology. "I mean no disrespect. I swore an oath to the monster when he offered me the chance to kill some dragons. I am no different from Lareth in that. I responded to your power."

"But not like him," I objected.

"Perhaps," he said. "Perhaps not. But I would make that oath again. I would serve that monster as long as he could get me what I want."

"I'll get you what you want," I said. "I mean to fight the dragonswarm."

"And there's the boy," he said. "There's the noble hero. At times I thought it was a ploy. A clever show to win the hearts of men. But that is you."

I looked away into the night. I heaved a sigh, and Caleb took a noisy step closer. "Daven. I will serve that boy with all my life. I do not care what you offer me. If that is who you are, then that is cause enough for loyalty."

"That is who I want to be," I said. "It seems a thousand years ago, but you and I sat beside a fire beneath the stars and I told you I was afraid of becoming a monster."

"Ah," he said.

"You told me every man is half a monster."

"It is usually not so stark a distinction."

I smiled sadly at that. "Caleb, I have access to powers man was never meant to wield. I can shape reality as well as any wizard, if in different ways, but I have other options too. I can create reality. I can summon pure power to serve my will."

"Fire?" he asked, and I could see the memory in his eyes.

"Yes. Anything, really, but yes. That fire was Chaos power."

"It was strong."

"Stronger than me," I said. "I have never borrowed Chaos without losing hold of...well, of that kind young boy you mentioned. Me."

"But here you are."

I shrugged. "Perhaps. But I am not as kind as I once was. I do not see the world as bright as I once did."

"The world is not as bright as it once was," Caleb said. "And you have looked deep into the darkness. But you are not a monster."

"It's much easier when I don't borrow Chaos. And it's been days."

"Then take more days. You said you do have other powers?"

I laughed. "Caleb, I glow with power I don't even understand. But yes. I can shape whatever exists at no more cost than physical exhaustion."

He frowned at that. "That is not a minor cost."

"No, it's not," I said. Then I frowned. "But even that has not cost me much for weeks." I tried to recall the last time I'd felt weakness in my arms for crafting a blade of earth or flinging fire across a room. I remembered the staggering price I'd paid to bury those saddlebags, but I had done the same to Lareth days ago and never even blinked.

Caleb watched the confusion cloud my expression, and when I offered no answer to it he shrugged. "This sounds a question for the wizard, not for me."

"I do not trust him that far."

"You should," Caleb said. "I am not a trusting soul, but that man will do anything for you. He loves you like a puppy loves its master."

"He is dangerous and more clever than his madness makes apparent, and he need only find a more powerful master before that love will turn to hate again."

"
Is there
a more powerful master?"