Outposts

by Vickie Knestaut

  “Crushed?” Kaylar asked.

  Brand nodded. “I think by the weight of snow and ice, you know. It looks like it’s been here a long time.”

  Trysten looked down the pass. A brisk wind blew through from the west and felt strange on her skin. It was fast and sudden, but didn’t have the kind of heft and push that a similar wind would have down on the plains.

  “Do you see any evidence at all that anyone has ever passed through here?” Trysten called up.

  Brand stood. He made a show of surveying the pass up and down. He looked back to her, then shook his head.

  “Imagine that,” Trysten said to them both. “An army passed through here. Thousands of men carrying tools and supplies. They brought the beasts of burden with them, and you saw how big those things were. Larger than courier dragons and there were a hundred of them. Thousands of arrows. Shields. Bows. All of that had to be carried from their kingdom over to ours.”

  Trysten motioned at the area around them. “Do you see a single sign that any of that happened? There is no path through the stone. There are no discarded water skins, boots, a dropped flint, remains of a campfire. There is no sign at all that anyone has ever passed through here.”

  Brand and Kaylar both looked up and down the pass again.

  “You’re right,” Kaylar said quietly.

  Brand crouched again. “Well then, if the army didn’t come through here...”

  “Where did they enter Cadwaller?” Kaylar asked.

  A chill coursed through Trysten, despite the heat of the sun. She looked around again, across the barren slopes that rose up around them. She would not have been surprised to see the male Original sitting on a boulder and laughing at them.

  “That’s a good question,” Trysten said. “We will ask Rodden when we get back.”

  Trysten turned back to Brand. “Unless you’re looking to collect souvenirs up there, I think we should get back to the dragons.”

  Brand stood and peered down the pass, toward the Cadwaller side. He then looked back at Trysten. “Can’t you just call the dragons up here, to us?”

  Trysten arched an eyebrow at him. “I want to look for signs of the army on the way back down. We have to be certain about this.”

  Brand shrugged, then began to pick his way down to the floor of the pass.

  Trysten looked over her shoulder into the Western kingdom. The pass and the space beyond it were absurdly empty. No signs of civilization at all.

  She looked back to the Cadwaller side. Their dragons continued to stare at them, waiting and wondering. Above, a vulture swirled in slow, lazy circles, drifting on the thermals growing with the heat of the day.

  Trysten turned to look at the Western side of the pass again. There were no dragons to be seen, no birds in the sky, no animal life at all. Nothing but the rolling forest and granite peaks marching into a distant, dark blue-gray plain at the very edge of her field of vision.

  Something was very wrong. But the answers weren’t here. Here, there were only more questions.

  Brand leaped the last few feet and landed with a flourish before Trysten and Kaylar.

  “Remember to keep your eyes peeled,” Trysten said. “Look for anything we might have missed while climbing up here.”

  To no one’s surprise, the walk back to Elevera, Verillium, and Belara revealed nothing. They mounted their dragons, rejoined the horde, and with the last of the passengers and cargo dropped off, Trysten led the dragons back to the weyr.

  Chapter 12

  At the weyr, Trysten and Kaylar found Rodden inside his stall with Maejel. He sat atop a stool and strummed a lute, humming and singing haunting songs to his dragon.

  “Rodden,” Trysten called as she and Kaylar approached.

  The man stood, placed the lute atop his stool, then approached the stall door. “Sa yalla.” He nodded.

  “The army,” Trysten said as she stepped up to the stall. “Where did the army come from?”

  Rodden looked from Trysten to Kaylar and back, his head tilted to one side. He appeared to be confused.

  “You know what army means,” Trysten said. She pointed to the massive cairn out to the west.

  “Army,” Rodden said with a nod.

  “Where did it come from?”

  Rodden looked between the two women. “Ta bock?”

  “The pass,” Trysten continued. “Did the army come through the pass?”

  Rodden muttered something to Kaylar in his language.

  “The dragons came through Gul Pass,” Kaylar said. She pointed to the west. “Rodden came through Gul Pass.”

  Rodden nodded. “Yes. Rodden and Maejel are fly Gul Pass.”

  “The army,” Trysten snapped. “Did the army come through Gul Pass? Tell me.”

  Rodden peered out the main doors, and it looked as if he were searching for the army, or looking for something to help their questions make sense.

  “Come on,” Trysten said, motioning to Rodden. “Let’s go up to the den.”

  Rodden nodded and let himself out of the stall. Together, the three of them climbed the stairs to the den. They crossed the antechamber and entered the den proper, making plenty of noise to scare off any Original unfortunate enough to get in Trysten’s way.

  Trysten walked to a map on the wall and motioned for Rodden and Kaylar to join her. An X and the flowing script of a great, great grandfather pointed out the position of Aerona in the center of the map.

  She pointed to the X, then turned to Rodden and said, “This is Aerona. Understand?”

  “Aerona,” Rodden said, nodding.

  “Gul Pass,” Trysten said as she pointed to the left side of the map at a break in the cluster of inverted V’s that represented the Cadwaller mountain range. A sliver of ink emerged from the break and flowed down to Aerona. The script Gul River flowed along with it.

  “Gul Pass,” Rodden said with a nod as if he was confirming that Trysten was indeed correct.

  “You and Maejel flew through Gul Pass, right?” Trysten motioned back and forth across the vacant bit of parchment.

  Rodden nodded. “Maejel and Rodden. Yes. Maejel and Rodden are fly pass.” He pointed at it as well.

  “The army. Did the army come through the pass as well?”

  Trysten dabbed her finger at the chart just to the left of the X, then traced her finger along a rough approximation of their path and ended about where they had first discovered the army.

  “The army. Where did they come from? How did they get here?” Trysten opened her palm as if to receive something and then gestured at the chart.

  Rodden looked back and forth between the chart and Trysten. “Opplenot?” he asked.

  Trysten sighed. She planted her hands upon her hips and stared at the chart for a second.

  “Yes or no,” Trysten said. “You understand yes and no, right?”

  Rodden nodded. “I learn yes and no. Kaylar are tell me yes and no.”

  “Yes. Yes, you understand it, right?” Trysten said with a nod.

  “Yes. Yes, I understand. Yes and no.”

  “All right,” Trysten said and waved her hand before as if to cut off that line of conversation before it got out of hand. “Yes or no. The army came from Opplenot?”

  Rodden looked at the chart as if the answer might be there. He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good. Now, did the army come through Gul Pass?” She pointed at the pass on the map again.

  Rodden leaned forward slightly and studied the map. He then stood upright and looked back at Trysten. “No.”

  “No? The army did not come through this pass?” She wiggled her finger at the pass again.

  Rodden shook his head. “No.”

  “We thought as much,” Kaylar said, then leaned forward slightly to study the map herself.

  “Where did it come from, then?” Trysten asked.

  Rodden’s brow furrowed slightly. “No?” he asked.

  “Enough of the yes or no. How did the army get here? What route did it take?”
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  Rodden studied the map again, then turned to Trysten and shrugged.

  “You don’t know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, you don’t know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Trysten,” Kaylar said, a hint of caution in her voice. “Slow down. He doesn’t understand. You’re leading him in circles.”

  Trysten took a deep breath, then glanced out the window. Where in The Wilds would the army come from then, if it didn’t come through the pass? Even if Rodden didn’t understand completely what they were saying, her own eyes suggested that no army ever came through that pass. Furthermore, if it weren’t for the campfire at the base of the cliff, it would look like no one returned through it either. Something was missing.

  She pointed at another map, one that showed the entire kingdom. “Rodden, can you show me where the army passed over the mountains.”

  “No.”

  “No, you can’t show me?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “No, the army are no fly over Gul Pass.”

  “Where?” Trysten gestured at the larger map. “Show me.”

  Rodden turned his attention to the other map. He studied it as he stroked absently at the scruff on his jaw. He eventually stood and motioned his hand over a stretch of mountains to the south.

  “There? The army came from there?” Trysten asked.

  “The army are fly over. No! Army are walk, right?” Rodden pantomimed walking in place.

  “There’s no pass there at all,” Kaylar said. She leaned in as if she might have missed it in the cascade of inverted V’s drawn along the left edge of the map.

  Trysten reached up and rubbed her brow with the tips of her fingers. “All right. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  “Sa yalla?” Rodden asked.

  Trysten looked up at him.

  “The army are walk.” His fingers made a walking motion through a rugged part of the mountains, down into The Wilds, up along the mountain range to the Gul River, and then over to Aerona. He tapped the map to the left of the X of the village. Then, from Aerona back into The Wilds, where his fingers stopped. “The army not are walk. Army stay.” He then pointed at the window.

  “I think he means...” Kaylar began. “Oh, I don’t know what he means.”

  Trysten peered at the map again. “I don’t know. There’s no pass there. It’s rugged mountain terrain between our territory and Hollin’s.”

  “Well,” Kaylar said as she stood up to her full height, “it seems to me that if you want to know where the army came from, it’d be a simple matter. We saw that horrible road they left between here and The Wilds. We follow it back to find where it starts.”

  Trysten took another deep breath as she considered it and then shook her head to dismiss the idea. “We can’t risk it. We can’t send a whole team of people to trace their starting point.”

  “I’d do it,” Kaylar said. “I’d go with a few others. Just a handful.”

  Trysten thought of the sight of the slain cutting party from the air and shuddered.

  “No,” she said. “Besides. I sent a man into The Wilds shortly after we captured Rodden and his friends. Rast. You remember him?”

  Kaylar nodded.

  Trysten sighed, then looked back to the window for a second before turning back to Kaylar. “I shouldn’t have sent him alone. I won’t make that mistake again. We’ll just have to wait until Rodden is a little better with our language before we find the answer.”

  Rodden nodded as if he understood.

  “We’ll get it figured out,” Kaylar said.

  “I have no doubt,” Trysten said. “You are doing a tremendous job with him.”

  Kaylar beamed. “It’s no big deal. Spending half my life serving drunkards in my father’s pub made me good at understanding men who can hardly string two words together.”

  Trysten chuckled, then rubbed her palms over her face. “All right then. Let’s see the next team off, and maybe you can make some more progress with Rodden.”

  “Will do,” Kaylar said, and tapped Rodden on the shoulder. He grinned at her and a faint flush tinged his cheeks. She motioned for him to follow, and he trailed her out of the room with all the devotion of a puppy.

  As soon as Rodden shut the door of the den, Trysten let out a deep breath and crossed her arms over her chest. She turned to the charts on the wall, looking over the names and symbols as if there was something there she might have missed despite studying these same charts since she was a little girl.

  It didn’t make sense. If the army didn’t come over the Gul Pass, how did it get over the mountains?

  She smiled at the ridiculousness of the situation. According to Rodden, the Western kingdom was attacked by dragons from the Cadwaller kingdom, but no Cadwaller dragons had ever flown into the West until Aymon. Now, Aerona had been attacked by a Western army that never came through the pass between Aerona and the Western kingdom.

  Rodden had traced his finger over the mountains to the south, however. Perhaps he meant the Sonjah Pass that the Hollin weyr used to guard?

  That was an awfully long way for an army to march. But if they had been in the kingdom for over a year, then they certainly would have had more than enough time to march from the Sonjah Pass to Aerona.

  Trysten rubbed at her brow again. The mystery would still be there for her to worry over later.

  Perhaps she would go home and look through the books Aymon had left her. Maybe she would find some answers in them. If nothing else, it would give her something different to think about for awhile.

  Chapter 13

  The cottage door opened, and Caron stepped in holding several river hares on a line.

  “Oh,” she said, closing the door behind her. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  Trysten reached for a cup of water on the table beside her. She held it in her hands, then put it down, afraid of spilling it on the book spread open in front of her.

  “I wanted to read some,” she said. “I’ll get out of your way.” She set the cup aside, closed the book, and moved to one of the chairs in the center of the room, near the fireplace.

  “Thank you,” Caron said as she crossed the room. She placed the hares on the table, then hung up her bow and quiver.

  “How’s the book?” she asked.

  Trysten shrugged as she folded her legs up under her and opened the book. “Dry. I was actually hoping to read more about Adalina, but it’s not what I was expecting. I don’t know where Aymon got all of this stuff, but it’s largely a collection of oral accounts and shipping manifests and decrees and things. I don’t know. It just seems odd that after how many centuries, these are the things that survived?” Trysten said as she placed her hand upon the page.

  “I don’t know,” Caron said as she returned to the table. “It makes a certain amount of sense. It’s the stuff that tends to get forgotten. I suppose someone put all that stuff somewhere and forgot about it. Lost to history until Prince Aymon or whoever found it.”

  “I guess so. But I was just kind of hoping for...” Trysten shrugged, as if unsure how to go on.

  “More action?” Caron asked.

  Trysten shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “In a word?” Caron asked as she selected a knife from a block on the table.

  Trysten looked to the cold ashes and embers in the fireplace. She had never cared for the summer. In the winter, the fire always burned, and home felt safe and warm. Secure. It was the time of peace. Those days were over.

  “Don’t think about it. Just say it. Blurt it out, Little Heart. The first word that comes to you. What were you hoping for?”

  “Advice.” The answer didn’t sit right with her. She looked at her mother to watch her reaction.

  “Advice?” Caron asked as she separated the hares and selected one of them to begin cleaning.

  Trysten shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s...” She sighed. “Ever since the battle, I’ve felt kind of... ad
rift, you know?”

  “Adrift?” Caron asked as she glanced up from the hare.

  Trysten looked back at the dark hearth. She wanted to build a fire, pull a blanket close, and curl up in it, despite the heat that clung to her in the late afternoon. “I don’t know who to talk to about any of this. I mean, today, Father was suggesting that we build spear launchers of our own. That we position them outside the village.”

  Caron didn’t respond.

  “And I agree with him,” Trysten said, her breath exasperated. “I can’t believe it, but I agree with him.”

  “Your father is a wise man.”

  Trysten shook her head. “I know. But, I agree with him even while I can still feel the spears sliding through the skin of the dragons. I felt...” She clutched her fist over her chest. “Every blow. Every dragon that died...” She swallowed, shook her head quietly, and then looked back to her mother. Trysten had shed so many tears in the weeks since the battle, that she didn’t have any left. Besides, teardrops would smear the pages of the book just as much as spilled water. The time for crying was over. It was done. Now was the time for action, for spear launchers outside the village.

  “Those dragons,” Trysten said. “I ordered them all to their deaths. Every one that fell, fell because it wanted to please me.”

  “It’s not your fault, Little Heart,” Caron said, tears welling up in her eyes as well.

  “I know that. I’m not blaming myself. It’s just that it staggers me when I stop to think about how much power I have over these creatures. The dragons fly into battle because their alpha orders it. But the dragons trust their riders to do what is best. They trust that the riders have a sense of self-preservation. That the riders want to live. The riderless dragons that fell did it only to please me.”

  “And Elevera,” Caron said quietly.

  Trysten looked down at the book. Her fingertips rested on a row of figures, an accounting of eggs laid by a dragon named Kivalynn. There was no explanation as to how this related to Adalina or why it was in the book.

  “It’s a matter of trust,” Trysten said to the register, and then looked up to her mother. “The dragons obey Elevera, and she obeys me because she trusts me to preserve my own life. The riderless dragons laid down their lives because they knew that I wanted it. I needed them to. The village and the weyr and the horde itself would be destroyed if they didn’t.”