Outposts

by Vickie Knestaut

  “Certainly,” Trysten said.

  She turned to Paege. “See to these dragons and men. They may pitch camp here, on these grounds. Have the weyrboys fill the troughs.”

  With a less than welcoming glance at the Prince, Paege nodded and turned to the hordesmen to welcome them in the traditional way of Aerona.

  Prince Aymon nodded to a tall man who stood close by. “See to Kingwind,” he said, as he patted the dragon’s muzzle with a gloved hand before handing off the reins.

  “Kingwind?” Trysten asked, an eyebrow raised.

  “One of my father’s mounts,” Aymon said. He looked at the ground as if a little embarrassed by the name.

  “There’s no Princewind?” Trysten asked, grinning.

  “Have you seen any action since I left?” Aymon asked, ignoring her taunt as he started for the weyr.

  Trysten shook her head and joined him. “The skies have been quiet. We’ve seen nothing but birds and clouds.”

  “Good. I assume the Western kingdom has come to realize that they might just as well hand over any dragons they send against you. What about the soldiers?” His eyes traveled to the mass grave cradling the village.

  For some reason that Trysten wasn’t sure of, she felt a flush of embarrassment as if the grave was her fault, the result of a mistake she’d made. Though it was ridiculous to think that way. She was not the one who sent the army to attack Aerona.

  Trysten took in a deep breath to clear her thoughts. “We haven’t seen any sign of them since the battle. We keep a perimeter and hold a watch around the village. Twice a day I send a small team of dragons to patrol the range. They report seeing nothing.”

  Prince Aymon nodded.

  “Where are you headed to?” Trysten asked. “Are you patrolling the entire kingdom?”

  As they passed into the lanes of the village, a cottage blocked their view of the mass grave, and Prince Aymon turned his attention to the lane ahead. Several of the villagers who were making their way out to the secondary yard to see the spectacle stopped on sight of the Prince. They stepped out of his way, into the shadows of the cottages.

  “I don’t care to discuss it right now, out in the open,” Aymon said.

  Trysten’s brow furrowed. She had expected him to confirm her suspicion, that he was indeed flying the kingdom’s flags along the mountains, letting the escaped soldiers know that Cadwaller was still strong and ready for whatever was thrown at it next. For him to say that he wanted to tell her in private made her belly clench in knots. Whatever it was that Prince Aymon had to say, she probably wasn’t going to like it.

  As they stepped into the weyr, Trysten blinked while her eyes adjusted to the shadows. Around her, the hordesmen and weyrboys took the tack from the dragons before cleaning and stowing it away. Rodden walked down the aisle, hauling a bucket in each hand. Water sloshed over the edges with each step.

  Recognition dawned upon Rodden’s face as he stared at the Prince. He nearly stopped, but then kept moving. More water sloshed over the lip of the buckets in response to the stutter in his step. The water darkened the ground at his feet and speckled the legs of his trousers.

  “Good afternoon,” Rodden said with a nod at the Prince as he hurried on past.

  Prince Aymon stopped. “Was that your prisoner?” he asked. “What was his name?”

  “Rodden,” Trysten said.

  “Rodden. My, his language skills are coming along. Have you learned anything of value from him?”

  Trysten shook her head, and her braids shifted over the front of her riding sweater. Heat prickled against her skin. It would be nice if Aymon kept this brief so that she could change into a short-sleeved tunic before too long.

  Prince Aymon looked at her expectantly, then hitched an eyebrow.

  “No, we haven’t learned anything of value. He can only speak the most cursory words and phrases. Kaylar has been working with him. She seems to have a knack for this kind of thing.”

  “The hordesman who used to be a barmaid?” Prince Aymon asked, looking around as if searching for Kaylar.

  Trysten stiffened at the perceived slur to her friend. “Yes, the hordesman who saved your life in The Wilds,” she said, resuming their path toward the den.

  “I’m sorry,” the Prince said. “I didn’t mean to insult you or your hordesman. How much longer do you think it will be before Rodden can tell us anything of consequence?”

  Trysten shrugged. “He comes from a city named Oppelnot. He has a mother and father there. He has five brothers, two are still alive. They’re all hordesmen.”

  “He told you all of this?”

  Trysten nodded.

  “Oppelnot,” Aymon said, his voice soft as if trying the word out, feeling it across his lips. “Did he happen to say where this city is?”

  “On the sea. Oppelnot on the Oppel Sea.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Aymon said with a nod as if it confirmed something for him.

  “Why is that good to hear?” Trysten asked, glancing at him.

  “It confirms what I’ve learned of the Western kingdom. We acquired some maps from a Seelian trader. They’re navigational maps for sailing, but they indicate that the Western kingdom lies on the other side of the mountains, pinched between the peaks of the Cadwaller mountains and the shores of an ocean that the Seelians call Corbacho.”

  Trysten shook her head. “I’m still not understanding.”

  Aymon looked back over his shoulder as if to see whether or not Rodden was listening. “It means that what he has told you so far seems to be the truth. I can confirm that there is a city called Oppelnot. It is a port city that the Seelians trade with.”

  The muscles in Trysten’s back tightened. She hadn’t doubted Rodden, but confirmation from the Prince seemed to give the situation even more importance. Picturing Opplenot on a map somehow made everything more real, more urgent.

  They climbed the steps to her den. Once inside, Trysten’s hand drifted to the hilt of her sword and remained there as she stepped through the antechamber and entered the den proper. She looked about quickly, searching for a sign of the Originals, but there was nothing to find.

  “Have you seen more of the Originals?” Prince Aymon asked as he shut the door behind himself.

  She turned back to him, startled as if he had been reading her mind. She started to shake her head, then stopped. “Once. Right after you left. I watched you pass over the horizon and then I came up here to put away the decree you gave me. There was an Original waiting for me.” She nodded at her chair on the other side of the table. “A different one. A female.”

  “Female?” Prince Aymon asked as if the idea was new to him.

  Trysten nodded as she circled the table at the end of the room. “She was much friendlier than the first one I ran into. I don’t think they are working together. I got the sense that they are on opposing sides.”

  “Opposing sides?” Prince Aymon asked as he crossed the room.

  Trysten sat in her chair and looked back at the window. Sunlight streamed in through the warped glass. If she opened it now, warm air would blow in from the west.

  “The first Original wanted me to give him the pendant. The second Original gave me this.” She fished under the collar of her sweater and pulled out the pendant she wore. The dragon tooth dangled before her, nearly translucent on its chain of white-colored gold.

  Prince Aymon pointed at the pendant. “She gave that to you?”

  Trysten nodded. “She said it was her fault that the other one was broken. She said she guided the tip of an arrow into it to spare my life and she wanted me to have a new one.”

  Trysten paused, unsure of whether or not to tell him the rest. But they were sharing now. It would be against the spirit of their agreement if she kept things to herself.

  “She called it a key.”

  Prince Aymon looked up and met her eyes. “A key? Key to what?”

  Trysten shrugged. “She didn’t say. She left this on my table and then disappea
red. I looked away when someone knocked on my door. When I looked back, she was gone.”

  Prince Aymon undid the leather lashings up the side of his riding armor, and then pulled the breastplate far enough away from his chest that he could fish a pendant of his own out from underneath. It dangled from his fingers, identical in every way to hers.

  Trysten sat back in her chair. “That’s the one you took from...”

  Prince Aymon nodded. He pulled the pendant from around his neck, careful not to get the chain caught in the hair spilling over his shoulders and the length of his beard. He was starting to look the part of a hordesman, or rather, one of her own hordesmen. They had a far more rugged look to them than the more preened and polished hordesmen from the mother city.

  “Can you take a look at this one? Does it do the same thing?” Prince Aymon asked. He placed the pendant upon the table.

  She looked from the pendant to the Prince. “Why are you wearing it?”

  Prince Aymon straightened up a bit as if caught at something he ought not to be doing. “It is my prerogative. Should I be caught in a battle with an Original—”

  Trysten let out a short, curt laugh. It was more of a bark than she had meant it to be. Immediately, color flushed across the Prince’s cheeks. He looked down at his pendant.

  Trysten plucked the chain between her fingers. She began to lift it, then paused. “By all the sky, you’re not wearing this because you want to...” she paused, unsure of what to say, what to call the phenomenon that brought the Originals back to life, or into this realm, or whatever had transpired to turn nineteen fallen hordesmen into Originals.

  Prince Aymon shook his head, slowly. “No. Certainly not. I can’t risk becoming one of them. I know too much. My men have orders that if I fall while wearing the pendant, it is to be taken from me, my body burned, and my ashes scattered.”

  Trysten paused. She wanted to pull her hand away from the chain. Instead, she pinched the metal setting at the base of the tooth between her thumb and forefinger and held the pendant upright before her as her mother had shown her to do.

  The pendant became two teeth. One was the typical dagger-shaped tooth from a dragon’s jaw, while the other was sharp and curved, nearly canine in appearance. She saw both teeth at the same time, in the same space, and the sight of it made her mind curl like a slip of paper under a tongue of flame.

  She closed her eyes as she replaced the pendant on the table. It clicked against the wood louder than she had intended, sounding as if she had slammed it down. She blinked, then nodded. “It’s the same.”

  “I knew it would be,” Prince Aymon said. He reached out, hooked a finger around the chain, and tugged the pendant from underneath Trysten’s hand before returning it to its place around his neck. He allowed it to hang outside of his armor. The tip of the tooth obscured the head of the roaring dragon that formed the top of his family crest.

  Trysten looked at him. “Why do you think you have to worry about an Original? Have you seen any? Are you going after them with your eighty-dragon swell?”

  Prince Aymon drew his shoulders back. “We are delivering a retaliatory attack against the Western kingdom. We have decided that we cannot allow such a brazen—”

  “Excuse me?” Trysten asked.

  Prince Aymon cleared his throat. “We cannot allow such a brazen attack against our kingdom to go unanswered. My men and I will ride through the Gul Pass at dawn. We will seek out the closest weyr and burn it to the ground.”

  Trysten’s eyes grew wide. She sat back in her chair. “You can’t.”

  “I can’t?” Prince Aymon asked, his face caught between a look of incredulity and amusement. “I dare say that I can. And I most certainly will.”

  Trysten sat forward again. Her hand strayed to her chin where she rubbed at the skin beneath her lip. She wanted to protest his decision, felt that she needed to, but it was difficult to think in the shadow of the mass grave beyond her window.

  “To what end?” she finally said, her throat suddenly dry.

  “To let the Western kingdom know that they cannot escalate their attacks and expect their escalation to go unanswered. My father and my brothers, as well as the members of the royal court, have all agreed that the Western kingdom must answer for its crimes. The Cadwaller kingdom does not wait for another blow when unfairly struck. We will strike back.”

  Trysten placed her hands upon the edge of the table, then stood, her back straight and shoulders square. “I wish you and your men good hunting and the best of luck.”

  Prince Aymon blinked at her with an expression of shock and confusion.

  “I expected more from you,” he said.

  “More?”

  The Prince gestured at the space between them. “I expected you to protest, to tell me that I can’t do it. To tell me that we must work for peace. That’s all. I’m just... surprised.”

  Trysten moved to the window. Through the warped glass, she could easily make out the shadow of the mass grave. It was a grim, dark stain across the blackened plains beyond her window. She had hoped to find out from Rodden why his people attacked hers, but he had so far remained unable to tell her.

  “What is there to say?” Trysten asked. She turned back to Prince Aymon.

  “Yes. Well,” Prince Aymon said. He looked at the table between them, and then back at her. “That leads me to the other matter I wanted to discuss with you. My father has issued a decree that every weyr along the border is to build an outpost at the mouth of the pass closest to them and man it at all times during the fighting season. Each outpost will be equipped with enough staff to keep a constant watch, as well as two dragons, one of which will be a courier that can relay information back to the weyr should activity in the pass be noted.”

  Trysten had a difficult time following his words. She was still stuck on the news that Aymon was about to take a swell of eighty dragons through the Gul Pass with the intent of destroying the first Western weyr he found.

  It wasn’t the answer. Whatever was going on here, responding in kind to the Western kingdom wasn’t likely to solve anything or end the war. Still, to her surprise, she understood his desire for vengeance.

  “As the person in charge of your weyr, you will be responsible for seeing this outpost built,” Prince Aymon continued. “And I’d like to see a committed start in progress upon my return.”

  Trysten straightened up at his statement. “Your return?”

  “Yes, my return from my mission to the Western kingdom.”

  “When do you think that will be?”

  Prince Aymon folded his hands behind his back. “I can’t quite say. I don’t know where the nearest weyr will be or how long it will take us to find it, or what kind of resistance we will meet. But considering that we have yet to make a retaliatory attack in our history, I expect to take the Western kingdom quite by surprise. I should return in three days at the most. Four, possibly.”

  Trysten nodded. “We will start construction as soon as you leave. I will start rounding up the necessary craftsmen now.”

  “Be sure to include some of your own hordesmen, or at least a few skilled archers among those craftsmen. I expect they will have to deal with returning soldiers.”

  “The Wilds are known for being home to bandits and thieves. Building an outpost at the mouth of the pass won’t be easy, even if we never see a retreating soldier,” Trysten said.

  The Prince nodded. “I understand. But it is essential. This army was able to sneak into our kingdom because no one was watching the pass. It will not happen again.”

  “One last order of business,” Prince Aymon continued.

  Trysten tensed, not sure what to expect but fearing she would not agree with it. Dealing with the Prince always kept her on edge, despite their informal truce.

  “Your service to the kingdom has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. Now that the situation has been explained to him fully, my father sees what an incredible asset you are to his kingdom. He has ordered a carava
n of lumber, livestock, and other forms of compensation sent to Aerona to repay the villagers for their losses in the battle. The caravan is on its way as we speak and should arrive in about two weeks. You will find that it contains enough lumber for you to build two additional weyrs, and enough livestock to feed your horde and the village quite handsomely for some time. There will also be some gold that I am entrusting to the weyr for the purchase of items needed in defense of the kingdom. It is to be spent at your discretion. Craftsmen are coming as well, along with the families of a few of the hordesmen you have adopted into your horde.”

  Trysten pressed the tips of her fingers against the top of the table to steady herself. It wasn’t what she had expected. She let out a long, slow exhale.

  “Is something wrong?” Prince Aymon asked.

  Trysten looked up at him. Genuine concern marred his face.

  “Is that all?” she asked, the words more difficult to get past her throat than she had expected.

  “All? Is that not enough? Do you need something I’ve forgotten?”

  Trysten shook her head. “No. No, I mean, thank you. Thank you very much. The resources will be welcomed here. We need them, and I appreciate it. It’s just that, is there anything else you need to tell me?”

  Prince Aymon shook his head, and his face creased in concern. “Not really. I have someone I want you to meet, and I have a personal gift that I wish to give you, but beyond that, I believe our business here is concluded. Trysten, what is wrong? You look as if you are waiting for bad news.”

  Trysten sank into her chair. “I was expecting you to order me to accompany you to the Western kingdom. And, then I would have had to refuse. Honestly, I was not looking forward to the skirmish with you.”

  Prince Aymon’s face creased in confusion as if she were suddenly speaking gibberish. He shook his head. “Certainly not. Your place is here, in Aerona. You are the Dragoneer of this weyr, protector of this village, and I wouldn’t think of asking you to leave it.”

  Relief spread through Trysten. Her shoulders relaxed and a slight grin teased at the corners of her lips. “Because you can’t risk anything happening to me over there, can you?”