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Throne of Dragons
CHAPTER FIVE
Prince Greave was not used to ships in anything but the theoretical sense. Oh, he had read parts of Samir’s On Navigation and Hussard’s Around the Coasts in preparation for the voyage, but neither of them had prepared him for the reality of a violently bucking sea, a crew of sailors who more or less ignored him, and a sky that seemed just one step short of a storm.
The Serpentine was a large, three-masted ship, high sided and curved so that it was like a sword cutting through the waves. Small boats sat at the side, lashed up against railings. The sailors were tough-looking men in loose, rough clothes that let them move smoothly around the ship’s rigging. They were tough and weathered, nothing like Greave, and they looked at his smooth skin and almost feminine looks with contempt.
Only the thought of Nerra, and what they were going to do to help her, made any of this worthwhile. This was the fastest way to Astare and the great library that lay there. It was the only way to get to a place where he might find a cure for the scale sickness quickly enough. Even then… even then, Greave was worried that he might be too late.
“Is this… normal?” Aurelle asked beside him.
“Starting to wish that you hadn’t come?” Greave asked.
She shook her head. “You are here, and so I will be here.”
She made it seem utterly natural, yet Greave couldn’t imagine another woman following him here, onto the rough seas that had claimed so many lives, on a boat that could be torn apart if it strayed too close to the tearing currents near the banks of the Slate. No other woman had wanted to, but Aurelle was more than just another woman.
“You look queasy,” Aurelle said.
Greave dreaded to think how he must look then. Ordinarily, he was slender, with almost feminine features, hair falling in soft waves, features locked in an expression that might have seemed like an artist’s perfect inspiration for sadness. Now, his hair was matted with sea salt, and he had the first beginnings of a dark beard dotting his chin. His wasn’t a face that could take a beard, even when he wasn’t half green with seasickness.
As for Aurelle… she was perfect.
It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, although she was, her skin alabaster, her cheekbones and lips merely the brightest stars among a constellation of perfect features. Her body… Greave could write poems about her, especially since she was no longer dressed in a courtly gown, but in traveling clothes of gray and silver tunic, corset and britches.
None of that was as important as the fact that she was here, with him, on the best route they could find to Astare’s great library. She’d come with him on this hunt to find a cure for the scale sickness when no one else would have, searching to help Nerra, getting on the boat with him willingly, if not entirely happily.
“We couldn’t have ridden there?” she asked.
“It’s about as far north and east as you can go in the Northern Kingdom without hitting the volcanic lands,” Greave said. “To get there riding would be difficult, even dangerous, if it were just the two of us.”
“And this isn’t?” Aurelle asked, with a gesture toward the sea around them.
There was no sign of land from here; the ships had to travel wide to avoid the risk of dangerous currents near the coast. It was unnerving, when Greave had spent most of his life in the confines of libraries, but at the same time he could feel something in him expanding at the sight of all this. This was what the writers he admired had seen, the world in all its glory.
“Greave,” Aurelle said, pointing. “Look, a whale.”
Greave looked and saw a broad gray shape rising from the water, but the maw at the front was too long and too full of spiked teeth for any whale. Its body was as large as any whale’s, but it ran with fronds of flesh that might be mistaken at a distance for seaweed. Greave found his memory flickering back to Lolland’s Creatures of the Deep, and fear rose inside him.
“That’s no whale,” he said. “Hold onto something, Aurelle.” Louder, he called out so that the crew could hear. “Darkmaw!”
The crew looked round at that, and it took them a second longer to respond than they should have simply because it was him bellowing it rather than one of their own. Greave knew what they must be thinking in that moment: that this was a soft, cosseted prince who wouldn’t know a darkmaw from a shoal of herring. Even so, a second later, they saw it for themselves, and they ran for the ship’s stock of harpoons.
By that point, the creature was already diving.
Greave watched its shadow through the water, his eyes picking it out as he clung to one of the ropes of the ship. Around him, sailors watched warily, several still scrambling for weapons.
Then the creature struck.
It slammed against the side of the boat, but the boson was already turning the ship away from it, so that it didn’t bear the full brunt of the attack. Even so, it was enough to make the ship rock violently, listing to the side strongly enough that only Greave’s grip on the rope kept him upright.
Aurelle wasn’t so lucky. She cried out as she fell, sliding down toward the edge of the ship. The darkmaw was already rising up, its great mouth open to take its prey while those great fronds clung to the ship, holding it at its tilted angle.
Greave leapt forward on instinct, grabbing for Aurelle, even though it meant letting go of his own safe hold. He felt his fingers fasten onto her wrist, but even as he did so, he could feel his own footing giving way.
Ahead of him, Greave could see harpoons starting to sprout from the creature’s flesh, but they didn’t seem to make any difference to it. He was sliding closer now, and he could see great, unblinking eyes on him, looking at him with a malevolence that was terrifying.
“Your highness!” one of the sailors yelled, and Greave looked over his way just in time to see the man throw a harpoon to him. The weapon hung in the air for a second before slamming into Greave’s palm as he caught it.
“Greave!” Aurelle cried out. She was almost to the edge of the boat now, slowed by Greave’s grip on her wrist, but only just. Greave held the harpoon, regretting that he hadn’t spent more time training with weapons, knowing that he would have to be close to that great eye before…
He threw the harpoon, and it flew truer than Greave could have hoped. It slammed into the open orb of the darkmaw’s eye, plunging deep so that the creature let out a scream that seemed to shake the world. Its bulk reared away from the ship as the vessel started to right itself, the splash as it reentered the water sending a wave over the ship that threatened to swamp it.
Greave clung to Aurelle throughout, determined not to let her go. He pulled her up, holding her to him so that there would be no danger of her falling into the water, but also because he wanted to prove to himself that she was still real, still there, still safe.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” he said.
“You saved me,” she replied. “I… I don’t know what to say…”
“I do,” Greave said. He kissed her then, gently. “I love you.”
“I… I love you too.”
***
Aurelle said the words automatically, because in the House of Sighs, they had taught her well that such things were a tool to be used, just one more way to control the feelings of those who heard them. For those whose only role was to give themselves to others, they were words that could take away an edge of harshness or win more coin. For those like her, they could be a weapon as sharp as any knife.
She could have stabbed Prince Greave in that moment. He was close enough, and maybe in the aftermath of the chaos, the sailors there would assume that the beast had done him some harm.
Maybe they wouldn’t, though. Maybe they would see what she had done, and kill her for it. Maybe they would assume that the wound was from the creature, but that would still leave her as a woman alone on a boat full of sailors, with no way home beyond their grace.
No, a boat was not the best place to kill the prince, even if her patron would probably tell her to do it now, whatever the risk. Aurelle found herself thinking of Duke Viris and the things he had her do. There was no reason to think that he had any concern for her. His time with her in the House of Sighs had proved that.
Aurelle told herself that she was only being practical, yet there was more to it than that. Greave was a gentle, kind, thoughtful man, who was nothing like most of those Aurelle had met. He had leapt to save her without a moment’s thought, throwing himself into danger when he could have just clung to his line and waited for the sailors to drive off the darkmaw. She couldn’t imagine Duke Viris doing that.
His mission for her remained: Aurelle was meant to prevent Greave from finding any way to help his sister. She was to distract him, control him, and, if necessary, kill him. Now, Aurelle found herself dreading that necessity, because she didn’t know what she would do. She couldn’t imagine herself killing Greave, couldn’t imagine herself hurting him.
It occurred to her then that not being able to help his sister would hurt him almost as much. Could she really do that? Should she do that? Common sense said that she must; that Duke Viris was not just her employer, but the one whose side was likely to be ascendant after all of this. Aurelle had felt what it meant to be at the mercy of powerful men; she had no wish to have one of the most powerful of all angry with her.
And yet… she still clung to Greave, still held this strange, beautiful man who would travel the length of a kingdom to help his sister, who valued books more than violence.
“I love you,” she repeated, and reflected that sometimes a dagger could have two edges, and it was as easy to cut oneself with it as an enemy.
They would make land soon enough, and after that… after that she would have to choose.
CHAPTER SIX
Prince Vars rode at the head of his men, trying to stay upright in the saddle and look every inch the royalty he was. He’d always been good at that. He wasn’t quite as muscled as Rodry, didn’t have the almost feminine beauty of Greave, but he was still young, still handsome, still noble looking in his armor and finery as he rode.
He knew that the guards with him were watching, waiting for his orders. He considered the inn where they’d stayed the night, wrung dry of ale, and meat, and women. Vars had paid for his share of all three, and now the temptation was to just dive back in there.
“Your highness,” the men’s sergeant said. “Shouldn’t we be making time if we’re to catch up with the princess on her wedding harvest?”
“I give the commands, Sergeant,” Vars reminded him, but the irritating thing was that the man had a point. Slacking off for a night had done no harm, and would serve to remind everyone that he was the important one. Even so, he knew how angry his father would be if he found out that Vars wasn’t there, and Vars had no wish to truly risk his father’s wrath.
“Very well,” he said. “We march!”
They set off, the sun just getting higher, the warmth pleasant rather than oppressive. They spent the morning making their way back to the crossroads where Vars had chosen for them to go the other way. They rode through open farmland, where fields of wheat and whatever other crops peasants were meant to grow stood on either side. The roads out here were dirt things, with dry stone walls to either side and occasional trees: apple and cedar, oak and pear. A few sheep flocked in one of the fields nearby, stupid as people often seemed to be.
His men, at least, were sensible: when they reached the spot where the fallen crossroads sign lay, they didn’t say a word about having been there before. Vars led the way down the other fork; it shouldn’t be more than about an hour’s ride from there to reach the inn where Lenore was supposed to be spending the night.
After that time alone, just afraid enough of the dangers of the road, she would greet Vars the way she always greeted their hero brother, Rodry. Of course, Vars would still need to spend another few days with her on this journey, trudging around the backwaters of the kingdom to collect tribute, but maybe that didn’t have to be so bad now. Maybe some of that tribute could find its way into his coffers along the way…
That pleasant thought kept Vars going while his troops marched in step, heading along the road to the inn. He could see it there in the distance, the buildings visible now through the trees. Vars heeled his horse forward. They would arrive as a single, shining cohort, with Vars at their head…
Something was wrong. There should have been smoke from cooking fires there, should have been a dozen other signs of life. Instead, it was quiet. A part of Vars screamed at him to turn back, to stay away. He knew, though, that doing so would make him look weak, would get back to his father…
So instead he hung back just enough to let the others arrive in the inn before him. From behind the wall of his men, Vars saw the spot where Lenore’s carriage had been left, and that made hope rise in him. Then he saw the bodies, and hope fell away again, replaced by a crushing fear.
They lay where they had fallen, or been dragged. Vars recognized the uniforms of the few guards Lenore had taken with her, covered in blood. There were maidservants, too, killed with at least as much savagery, although perhaps not so much speed. Vars’s practiced eye knew marks made with careful violence all too well.
Fear filled him then. Some of it was fear for his half-sister, because in spite of what some people thought, Vars was not a monster. Admittedly, more of it was fear for himself, and how their father would react if he found out that Vars had lost Lenore, but that wasn’t the point.
The point… the point was that this had happened and Vars hadn’t been here.
His first thought was relief, because being here would have meant senseless danger, maybe even death, looking at the ease with which it seemed that they’d slaughtered the few guards that had gone with Lenore.
His next thought was that he was meant to be there, and that everyone would know it. They would look at him like he was nothing, less than nothing, even though he was a prince of the realm.
“Find my sister!” Vars commanded. “Find out what happened here!”
He sat there atop his horse while his men spread out, watching as they moved from building to building. Vars sat with his hand on the hilt of his sword, not knowing what he would do if attackers were to leap from the buildings around. Would he strike out at them, or sit there frozen, or flee? Certainly, he wasn’t going to go into the buildings first, seeking out danger.
A part of Vars hated himself for that.
“There’s someone here!” the sergeant called out from over by the inn’s stables. “She’s alive, barely!”
That was enough to send Vars down from his horse, hoping against hope that it was Lenore. If she was dead among all of this…
He burst into the stables and found the sergeant helping a young woman to her feet. She wasn’t Lenore, didn’t even look like one of her maids. Instead, she wore simple clothes that marked her out as a peasant of some sort, perhaps a servant at the inn. Vars strode up to her.
“What happened here?” he demanded. “Where is my sister?”
The young woman cried out at the violence of his tone, and only the sergeant’s soothing grip on her stopped her from pulling away completely. Vars had no time for that. He needed to know what had happened here, needed to know just how much trouble he was in.
“What happened here?” he demanded. “Where is Princess Lenore?”
“Gone,” the servant said. “The Quiet Men… they took her…”
“Quiet Men?” Vars said, unwilling to believe it. He’d heard the stories. King Ravin’s trained killers, taught to cross the bridges to do his bidding.
“They… they killed most of us,” the woman said. “They took over the inn, kept only a few of us for… for…”
Another man might have said something soothing in that moment. Vars just watched her.
“Where is my sister?” he repeated.
“They took her,” the servant said. “They waited until she came into the inn with her men, and they killed the men, and… they captured her; her and her maids. They kept her here, hurt her, and now they’re riding for the South.”
“And they left you alive to tell us this?” Vars asked, not entirely believing it. When one did evil things, it was better to do them in secret, away from prying eyes. He knew that as well as anyone.
“They wanted people to know,” the young woman said. “They killed some of the maids, but others… they sent them out with the news. They left me here. They want people to know what they did, that they could get to the princess even here. That they have her.”
Vars let out a shout that was pure frustration and anger. Those around must have taken it for anger that his sister had been captured like that, that she was in danger. It was more than that, though, so much more. It was the fact that others knew what had happened here, thanks to those the Quiet Men had let go. It was the frustration that others would, inevitably, know about his failure.
It was the understanding of what he would need to do next.
“How many of them are there?” he demanded.
“A… maybe a dozen,” the woman said.
A dozen had done all of this? Still, at least there was one advantage to that: they outnumbered them. Vars liked it when he outnumbered his opponents.
“Gather the men,” Vars snapped.
“What about this one?” the sergeant asked, with a nod to the woman who’d been left.
“My sister’s the one who matters!”
She was the one whose safety would count to their father. Come back with her, and Vars could make up any story he wanted about being delayed on the road, then still be counted as a hero. Come back without…
It wouldn’t come to that; Vars wouldn’t allow it.
He went to his horse, vaulting into the saddle like some hero out of a song. The irony of it wasn’t lost on him as his men gathered, forming up together as precisely as if they’d been commanded by a real leader.
Vars drew his sword, which was more than he usually did in a fight. He looked out over the men.
“You, see if there are any horses left in the stables. The rest of you, get ready to march, double time.” There were a few murmurs from within the ranks, but Vars silenced them with a glare. “My sister, your princess, is in danger! King Ravin’s men are taking her back to the Southern Kingdom, and that means crossing the bridges. If we reach them first, we can still stop them, still save her! Every man here can be a hero!”
They all could, but he would be the biggest hero of all. Save his sister, and men would tell stories of how brave Prince Vars had fought the best that King Ravin could offer. Fail… fail and his father would probably have his head.
Kill a dozen men to stop that? Vars would do that and more.
“Forward!” he yelled, and heeled his horse onward. “We need to get to the bridge in time!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The first surprise for Nerra was that she woke at all. Her eyes flickered open, and she could breathe, her body not threatening to consume her. She sat, and the second surprise was the bed that she sat on. It was a thing of stone, covered in blankets, in what appeared to be a long dormitory of similar beds.
On each of those beds, a figure lay, most of them moaning, many of them so still that it looked as though they were only breaths away from death. Nerra could smell sweat, and a kind of heat that seemed to be bone deep. The figures wore a variety of clothes, as if they’d been brought here from all corners of the world, but here and there Nerra could see a patch of bare skin, marred by black, scale-like lines…
They were like her.
Nerra looked round sharply, trying to make sense of this. When she had passed out, there had been only the forest, and the dragon…
“You’re awake.”
The man who stood near the door was the third surprise. He had a long, curling beard, into which he seemed to have woven shells, each painted with a different sign. His graying hair was also long, falling to his shoulders. He wore a tunic and britches, frayed here and there through overuse. He was tall and broad shouldered, with features that seemed weatherworn and lined by care.
“Who… who are you?” Nerra asked, standing. “Where am I?”
“You are where you need to be, in the last refuge for those with the dragon sickness,” the man said. Nerra frowned at that; in the Northern Kingdom, they called it the scale sickness. Did that mean she wasn’t in the Northern Kingdom anymore?
“I… I feel…” Nerra began. “I was dying.”
“You were,” the man agreed, in a voice that seemed too calm for the words. “But we have ways of stabilizing the sickness, for a time.”
“But that’s incredible,” Nerra said. “If people knew… my father is—”
“I know who you are, Princess Nerra,” the man said. “I know that you were cast out for what you are, but you are safe here. This is a place where all of those with the sickness can live out the days of humanity they have left. Where we do what we can to extend those days a little.”
Nerra frowned at that. “You still haven’t told me who you are.”
“I am Kleos,” the man said. “I am the keeper of this place. I saw your arrival; it is rare for one to be brought directly by a dragon.”
Rare, but apparently not so rare as to bring out shock in the man there.
“You’re talking as if you’ve seen dragons before,” Nerra said. “Where is this?”
“Come,” he said. “It is better if you see for yourself.”
He led the way out of the dormitory, into a large open space that seemed to be almost like a village. People worked there, tilling small plots of vegetables or carrying water. Each and every one seemed to have the scale mark somewhere on their body.
The land around the village was rocky, rising on slopes that led up to the lip of what looked like a volcano. Other rock formations lay scattered around in basalt, dark and angular, as if grown from the volcano’s fire. There were trees on some sections of the slope, growing out of the dark soil, while in the distance, the ground fell away toward the surrounding sea, making the whole place into an island. A jetty down below suggested how most people reached there.
It was what lay beyond that caught Nerra’s eye most, though. So far off that it was barely visible on the horizon, she saw a shoreline far larger than that of the island, volcanoes rising up from the landscape to give it a jagged, toothed appearance. Above the volcanoes, here and there, she saw circling dots. It took a moment to realize just how huge they would be, and it was only then that she realized what they had to be: dragons.
“That’s Sarras,” Nerra said in shock. She had never seen the third continent, but there was only one place that it could be. If true though, it meant that her dragon had carried her halfway across an ocean. “I’m on Sarras.”
“Not quite,” Kleos said, gesturing to the small community around them. “This is Haven. Our island sits quite apart from the horrors of… that place.”
“What horrors?” Nerra asked.
Kleos shook his head. “This is not a place for that. This is a place of peace, where those with the sickness can live out their days, and find a graceful death.”
“A…” Nerra shook her head at that thought. She was supposed to just sit here and wait for death? “What is this place? A prison? Am I supposed to be a captive here?”
“This is a place of refuge,” Kleos said. “Where those with the dragon sickness can be safe from the world around them, and the world can be safe from them.”
“That’s the second time that you’ve called it that,” Nerra pointed out. “Is it just because of the scales?”
“It is because of what people with the sickness become,” Kleos said. He paused for a moment. “I… I could show you, but it might be better not to. There might be more peace in not knowing what awaits.”
Nerra didn’t hesitate. “Show me.”
No one else had been able to truly show her where her disease was going to lead. The physicker had told her, but that wasn’t the same, not even close. Nerra needed to see it for herself. She followed as Kleos led the way to a different part of the community, to a stone building whose door seemed solider than the rest. He took out a key, unlocking it.
“We must be careful within,” he warned. “The ones here… they have little humanity left.”
“But you said that there were ways to help,” Nerra said.
“There are,” Kleos agreed. “But do not let that lure you into false hope, Princess. There is no cure. Eventually, even with all I do, it leads to this.”
He stepped back to let Nerra inside, so that she could see. Inside the building it was shadowy, the darkness cut through by the whimpering and moaning of those within. There was nothing human about this sound, though.
There was certainly nothing human about the creature that rose up in front of her. It was larger than a man, with scaled, clawed hands, teeth that looked as though they could bite straight through flesh, and features that had been distorted into a kind of lizard-like snout. Its body was bulky and misshapen, muscles seeming to grow under the skin in ways that made no sense. Its eyes were human, but there was no humanity left in them, only rage, and pain, and hunger. It was a thing that was no longer human, but wasn’t quite a dragon, either, caught somewhere between, unfinished, twisted out of one form but not quite into the next.
It lunged forward at Nerra, and she was too slow to dodge in that moment. The bulk of the creature was on her then, knocking her to the ground and looming over her. Its claws rose up, ready to strike, and Nerra was sure then that Kleos had only brought her there to die at its hands for reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom.
Then Kleos was there. He had a wavy blade in his hands that seemed to have been made of some dark metal, the knife as long as Nerra’s forearm. He thrust with it, catching the creature in the chest so that it shrieked out in an animal cry. It fell back, claws up as if to ward off more cuts, but Kleos was already advancing.
“I’m sorry,” he said, as Nerra started to stand. “When I brought you here I did not know that this one would be quite so far along. It… it is time for him.”
“That used to be a person?” Nerra asked. She couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it, because… that would mean that she would end up like that. “Isn’t there anything you can do to help?”
“Only one thing now,” Kleos said, and stepped forward after the creature. His expression was filled with pity, but even so, it didn’t stop him from stepping inside the circle of the dragon-thing’s claws. He thrust sharply with the blade he held, this time up under its jaw, up into its brain. Nerra heard the creature give a gasp that seemed part shock, part relief, then Kleos dragged his blade clear, letting the beast slump back to the floor.
He stood there over it for several seconds. From deeper in the building, Nerra could hear growling that suggested more of these things… these people, were there.
“Help me to carry him outside,” Kleos said. “He has found peace now, and we will treat his body with honor.”
Nerra didn’t know what to do, so she got a hold of the creature’s legs, helping while Kleos lifted.
“Will that…” she began. “Will I…”
“Will you end up like Matteus here?” Kleos asked. He bowed his head. “Some do not live so long. The dragon sickness tears them apart. But yes, you might.”
“And when I do, you’ll kill me?” Nerra said.
Kleos nodded. “I will give you peace, when there is nothing left in you that knows it.”
Nerra felt sick then. Her dragon had brought her here, had saved her, yet now… now it looked as though the only thing it had saved her for was death.
