Outposts

by Vickie Knestaut

  “Do I have time to change into dry clothes?” Trysten asked.

  Kaylar shook her head. “No. You have to talk to him right away.”

  “What’s wrong?” Trysten asked as she studied her friend’s concerned face.

  “I think you should hear it from him.”

  “Hear what?” Trysten asked, confused.

  “Come on,” Kaylar said as she motioned for Trysten to follow. “Come hear this for yourself.”

  Trysten looked past Kaylar, to the back of the weyr. Rodden stood in front of Maejel’s stall, his face creased with worry.

  As they walked down the aisle side by side, Kaylar studied Trysten. “What happened to you? How did you get wet? You couldn’t have flown through a rainstorm. There’s hardly a cloud in the sky.”

  Trysten smiled. “I’ll explain later.”

  Kaylar’s eyes widened. “You didn’t fly through the pass did you?”

  “No,” Trysten said, shaking her head. “I escorted Aymon and his hordesmen to the pass, but that was as far as we went. Elevera got wet when she landed in a pool in The Wilds while I was scouting a potential site for the outpost.”

  Kaylar smirked. “I bet she loved that.”

  Trysten grinned. “She’ll dry. But we found a location for the outpost. That’s what matters.”

  “Did you see any soldiers?” Kaylar asked.

  “No sign, except an old campfire that could have been made by anyone. It was cold and had been dead for many days. Now, what’s going on here?”

  “Well, everyone in the weyr, and probably the whole village, watched Prince Aymon leave. It was quite a display. Breathtaking, actually. The sky full of dragons, nothing like I’ve ever seen. We just stood in here and watched you all go.” Kaylar motioned to the westward-facing end of the long, narrow building. “Rodden was there, too, of course. And he knew it was Aymon. And they were heading west, you know?”

  “What of it?” Trysten asked.

  The two of them stepped up to Rodden. The man nodded, bowing at the neck to Trysten. “Sa yalla.”

  “Trysten,” she corrected him.

  “Tell her,” Kaylar said to Rodden, with a motion toward Trysten. “Tell her what you told me.”

  Rodden looked back and forth between the two, panic visible in his eyes. “Sa yalla,” he said again.

  “He wanted to know where Prince Aymon was going. If they were going to attack home,” Kaylar explained, prodding Rodden to jump in.

  Trysten drew in a tight breath. Rodden nodded. “Prince Aymon take dragons. He take riders. They tack at Opplenot.”

  “Tack?” Trysten asked. “You mean attack, right?”

  Rodden nodded. He lifted a fist and drove it into his open palm. “Take yallim and attack Opplenot.” He laid his hand upon his chest. He appeared to be suggesting that Opplenot was his name.

  Trysten’s jaw tightened, her expression cold as river water and hard as the stones beneath it. She nodded. “Yes. Prince Aymon is attacking the Western kingdom because the army attacked us.” She waved a hand toward the long berm of stones visible from the weyr.

  Rodden let out a slight grunt. His lips pulled back from his clenched teeth as he turned away, toward the west.

  “We can’t keep doing this, Rodden,” Trysten said. “Your people can’t keep attacking us. We have to stop this. If you could help me—”

  Rodden erupted into a hot stream of Western language. The words left his tongue and lips like a boiling soup of invectives and blame and agitation.

  “Whoa.” Kaylar held her hands up, palms out. “In our language, Rodden. Tell her what you told me. Why do your people come to the East?”

  Rodden stopped. His gaze shifted from Trysten to Kaylar, and then back to Trysten. He took a deep breath. “You attack us.”

  Trysten nodded. “Yes. We have to show your people that they can’t do this anymore. They have to stop attacking us.”

  “That is no!” Rodden shouted. Many of the hordesmen and weyrboys stopped what they were doing to glance at him. Several hordesmen moved closer, looking from Rodden to Trysten, waiting for a signal to intervene.

  “No no no!” Rodden said, and it wouldn’t have surprised Trysten if he had he stomped his foot like an upset child. “You attack us.” He placed his hand over his heart again. “Your yallim. Your hordesmen. Dragons from mandana come to Opplenot.”

  “Mandana means East,” Kaylar interjected. “That’s what they call us. Mandana.”

  Rodden looked to her and nodded. “East. You are east. Mandana. Dragons from east attack us. We attack back.”

  Trysten’s shoulders tightened. She turned to Kaylar, who looked pale and stricken. Something was missing here. She turned back to Rodden. “I don’t understand.”

  Rodden grunted again, clearly frustrated. He turned to Maejel as if to consult with her for a second, and then back to Trysten. “You.” Rodden pointed at her with both index fingers. “You!” He swept his hand around the weyr. “You come. You yallim chesset—”

  “Our language,” Kaylar interrupted.

  Rodden stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He appeared to be thinking something through.

  “You fly dragons from dawn. Come to Opplenot. Attack. We attack Mandana.”

  “First,” Kaylar whispered.

  “First!” Rodden said. His eyes widened, his expression agitated. “You are attack first! First! Then we are attack. You come first!” He jabbed his index finger in Trysten’s direction. “Mandana are attack Opplenot.” He turned his finger back to himself. “Rodden are attack Mandana.” He then gestured at the west. “Prince Aymon are attack Oppelnot.”

  Trysten blinked. The pieces tried to come together, but she couldn’t quite get them to fit. She looked at Kaylar. “We attacked them?”

  Kaylar nodded. “First.”

  Trysten’s brow furrowed. She shook her head. “No. That’s not right. We’re not understanding him correctly. We don’t attack the Western kingdom.”

  “Except that we just did,” Kaylar said quietly.

  Trysten’s breath caught in her chest and her pulse thundered in her head as she looked back to Rodden. She had gotten so used to his face looking frightened or sad or pleased that she had forgotten this face, the expression of the man she first met when he was being held in a cottage with nine other captured riders. This was the face of her enemy, the man who came to the Cadwaller kingdom seeking blood.

  “How long?” Trysten asked. “How long have we—” She shook her head again. “No, we don’t attack your kingdom. Not until today. You come here first. You and your countrymen invade our kingdom.”

  Rodden shook his head and folded his arms over his chest. The subject was apparently not up for debate.

  “Dawns,” Rodden said. “Are dawns and dawns and dawns and dawns. Mandana attack Opplenot.” He gestured at himself, thumped his palm against his chest, then held it flat before himself, palm down, and slowly lowered it to his knees. “Rodden,” he said, then shook his palm. “Meen Rodden.” He looked around and pointed to one of the younger weyrboys. “Meen. Meen Rodden, Mandana attack.”

  “Since you were a boy?” Trysten asked.

  “Boy?” Rodden pointed at the weyrboy again, who looked at them with wide eyes, as if he were about to be called into trouble.

  “Boy,” Kaylar said with a nod, then pointed to Vanon, who stood nearby and watched silently, his arms folded over his chest. “Man. Boy, man,” she said, pointing between the weyrboy and the hordesman.

  “Meen,” Rodden said with a nod. “Meen Rodden, Mandana are attack, dawns and dawns and dawns and dawns. Mandana attack.”

  “You see why I wanted you to hear this?” Kaylar asked.

  Trysten shook her head again. “This can’t be right. We’re not understanding. We’re missing something. We don’t attack them. We just don’t.”

  Kaylar opened her mouth.

  “Except for today, yes, I get that,” Trysten interrupted. “But not before.”

  Kayl
ar shrugged. “This is what you wanted to know, right? This answers your question. Now you know why they attack us.”

  A chill ran over Trysten as she looked back to Rodden. He’d relaxed some as if he’d done his job of conveying what he wanted to say.

  Trysten reached up and rubbed the tips of her fingers over her brow. “This can’t be right. What a fine day for Prince Aymon to be gone. Surely he wouldn’t have kept this from me if it were true. We can’t be attacking them.”

  Kaylar shrugged. “Maybe we’re not. Maybe one of the weyrs to the south or the north is.”

  Trysten peered hard at Rodden. She stepped up to the wall and gripped it. “Why was the army coming here?” She pointed at the burial mound outside the weyr doors. “What were they going to do after they destroyed Aerona? What was their mission? Their objective? Tell me.”

  Rodden swallowed. He met Trysten’s eyes and a crease formed across his brow. Crow’s feet emerged from the corners of his eyes, and for a second, Trysten could imagine him on the back of Maejel, riding into the wind, squinting at the approaching horde of Aerona dragons.

  Her breath ceased.

  “Army?” Rodden asked. “Army are attacking Aerona.”

  “Yes. Yes, the army attacked Aerona. Why?” She released the wall and made a motion of grasping something out of the air and pulling it toward herself. “Why? Tell me. Give me the answer.”

  Rodden’s shoulders rose slightly with a deep breath. He looked out to the end of the weyr, then on to Kaylar.

  “Was it me?” Trysten asked. “Was the army coming for me, for the Dragon Lord?”

  Rodden looked back to Trysten. Confusion clouded his face. “Dragon Lord?”

  “Sa Yalla,” Trysten said. “Was the army coming for Sa Yalla? Did they want to take Sa Yalla”

  Rodden’s brow managed to furrow into an even deeper look of confusion. He shook his head. “That is no. The army not being attack Sa Yalla.”

  “Then why? What did they want?”

  Rodden looked at Kaylar again, then back to Trysten. “Here. Army are wanting here.” He pointed to the ground.

  “Here?” Trysten shook her head in confusion. “What about here? The weyr?”

  “That makes sense,” Kaylar said. “If they think that we’re attacking them, then I can see why they would want to destroy the weyr.”

  Rodden shook his head lightly, as if unsure more than anything. He pointed to the ground again. “Here. Army are wanting here. Army are wanting army from here.”

  “Army from here?” Kaylar asked. “That doesn’t make any sense. There’s no army here.”

  “There aren’t Cadwaller hordes attacking their kingdom either, but that doesn’t stop them from sending hordes here,” Trysten said. She sighed with frustration.

  “That is no,” Rodden said, his head shaking a little more confidently. “Army are wanting from here.” He shook his finger at the ground again.

  “Wanting what from here?” Trysten asked.

  The creases deepened briefly across Rodden’s face. His jaw shifted as if grinding his teeth for a second. He glanced down the aisle, then back to Trysten. “Here. Here.” He jabbed a finger at the ground again. “Aerona is being here.”

  It was Trysten’s turn to furrow her brow in confusion.

  Rodden sighed. He regarded Trysten with heavy brows as if it was frustrating to try and explain things in a manner simple enough for her to understand.

  He crouched and examined the ground in front of him. He plucked up one of the sturdier pieces of straw, then swept the rest away until he exposed a wide patch of dirt. With the piece of straw as a stylus, he drew stick figure upon stick figure, forming rows of them. They brandished crude bows and swords, held shields.

  “Army.” Rodden looked up at Trysten.

  “Army,” Trysten repeated.

  Rodden etched triangles behind the figures. “Mountains.”

  Trysten pointed to the mountains beyond the open doors at the end of the aisle.

  Rodden nodded.

  In front of the army, he drew a long rectangle that faced the army and the mountains. On either side of it, he drew a dragon wing so that it looked like a board with wings.

  “Aerona weyr,” he said, then looked up to Trysten in a nearly pleading manner, as if he hoped she’d be able to understand this at least.

  “Home,” Trysten said with a nod, putting her hand over her heart.

  “Home,” Rodden echoed. He then drew another rectangle on the other side of the mountains. This one faced north and south instead of east and west. He gave it a set of wings. “Opplenot.”

  Trysten nodded.

  Rodden placed the tip of the makeshift stylus before Opplenot weyr. “Army fly.”

  “Fly, or walk?” Trysten asked.

  Rodden looked up at her.

  Trysten stood and made the exaggerated motions of walking. “Walk. I walk from one place to another.” She stopped and flapped her arms in the motion of dragons. “Yallum fly.”

  She pointed at the pictographs. “Walk or fly?”

  “Walk?” Rodden said as if guessing. He tapped the tip of the stylus in the dirt. “Army are walk. Army are walk from mountains.” He drew the tip of his stylus through the triangles.

  “Army are walk to Mandana.” He drew the tip through the crowd of stick figures, severing arms and legs, splitting shields and heads.

  “Army are walk home.” Rodden drew a circle around Aerona weyr. “Army stay home then army are from mandana.” He tapped the center of the rectangle inside the circle.

  Trysten’s pulse pounded in her temples. She struggled to draw in a breath as she looked up at Rodden. “Home,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. She pointed to the ground between them. “The army wants to make Aerona their home?”

  Rodden tapped the winged weyr again. “Home. Army are walk home. Army are walk Aerona weyr.”

  Trysten tugged at one of her braids. She looked to Kaylar and hoped to hear that she was wrong, that she misunderstood.

  Kaylar pointed to the pictograph. “Why? Why are they making this place home?”

  Rodden peered up at her from his crouched position. He considered her a moment and then tapped the ground before him several times. He drew several lines from Aerona weyr that arced around the stick figure army. He drew a circle around the ends of the lines, where they stopped just before the triangles of the mountains.

  “Yallum Aeronanot.”

  “The horde?” Trysten asked.

  Rodden nodded. “Aerona horde.” He tapped at the circle again, then drew quick, ragged lines across the triangles of mountains as if trying to scratch them out, erase them. “Army are being home. Army are...” Rodden snapped his fingers several times, searching for the right word. “Stop! Army stop Aerona horde. Are being not attack Opplenot.”

  Trysten opened the gate to the stall and stepped inside as if being closer to the pictograph would change it, make its implication different. It did not.

  “They, the army, was coming here, to Aerona, to stay. To stop us from attacking Opplenot?” she asked.

  Rodden looked to Kaylar and appeared to be checking with her. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and then he turned back to Trysten and nodded. He dropped the piece of straw to the ground, then stood. A hint of a grin curled his lips and then fell away. “Army stop attack. Army...” Rodden drove his fist into his palm. “Stop...” He motioned at the mountains, drawing his hand down and up again, forming a ditch. A divot. The pass between the peaks. He wiggled his fingers up and down in the air, then wrapped his arms around himself and pretended to shiver.

  Fish and birds! The wild army planned to stay in Aerona all year, Trysten realized. They wanted to be on the east side of the mountains when snow closed the Gul Pass. They meant to occupy Aerona permanently, make it an outpost of the Western kingdom.

  She looked at Rodden and tried to think of a way to ask her question so he would understand.

  “The army,” she pointed to the Aero
na weyr in Rodden’s drawing. “They would stay here for dawns and dawns and dawns and dawns?”

  Rodden nodded.

  “Where is the army now?” Trysten asked. She used the stylus to draw circles around the soldiers in the back of Rodden’s drawing, then drew lines through the pass, back to Opplenot. “Where? Back to Opplenot?”

  Rodden shook his head. “That is no. Not Opplenot.”

  “Where?” Trysten insisted. “Show me where, Rodden.”

  Rodden studied her, a look of obstinance on his face. He appeared reluctant to answer her.

  “I am Sa Yalla. Show me!” she commanded, jabbing the stylus at the crude map.

  Rodden watched her for a moment longer. He seemed to be considering something, making a decision. Finally, using his finger, he drew a line from the army figures Trysten had circled back into The Wilds and away from the Gul Pass.

  “Not here?” Trysten circled the Gul Pass. She had to be sure. “This is no?”

  Rodden shook his head. “Not here,” he said, pointing to the Gul Pass. “Here!” he jammed his finger into the area of his map that would indicate deep in The Wilds, away from the pass.

  For all the sky. No wonder the surveillance parties had found no signs of retreating soldiers. They were focused on the path to the Gul Pass. The soldiers had not returned that way. Had they even come that way to begin with?

  She pointed to the spot Rodden had indicated in The Wilds. “Why here, Rodden?” she asked. “Why no Opplenot?”

  Rodden leaned over and pointed to the spot again, his finger next to hers in the dirt. “Army is home here.” He sat up and brushed the dirt from his hands. He looked relieved as if he had answered all of her questions.

  Trysten shook her head. This was craziness. One question had been answered — the Western army had never been after her. They wanted Aerona. Not the people, but the village. Apparently, they planned to make an outpost of her home to stop the hordes of Cadwaller from invading Opplenot. Another question answered, but answered with a mystery. Cadwaller was not invading Opplenot, so who was? And, would Prince Aymon come across them?

  She peered off to the west. The sun was sinking to the dark and sharp peaks of the mountains as if to shatter itself into thousands of shards scattered among the stones and wood.