Outposts

by Vickie Knestaut

  Cornyn shook his head. “One was summoned. But I was asked to make my way here right away. I want to get my business done and out of the way before the caravan arrives. I assume that once it gets here, you will be even busier than you are now.”

  “I suppose so,” Trysten said. “I saw you from the sky. You came in on horseback. Have you been to the livery stable yet?”

  “No. I came straight here. I heard that you flew a great, golden dragon, and when I saw it land on the other side of the village, I made my way here immediately. I wanted to see you first. Introduce myself.”

  He bowed again.

  Trysten drew in a deep breath, unsure of what to make of the man, but also uncertain of how to broach the questions she had for him. Here before her was a man whose very job and mission it was to know the history of the land. What could he tell her about the origin of the fighting season? About Adalina? About the Originals?

  “I’m actually excited for an opportunity to speak with a royal historian,” she eventually said. “I have a lot of questions, a lot of things I’d like to know more about.”

  Cornyn lifted his brow in a look of surprise.

  “But I’m sure you’re tired after your ride from the mother city. Surely you’d like a chance to rest and get a bite to eat. Iven here will take you to the Fire and Stone, our local inn. It doesn’t get a lot of attention, so I’m sure there will be room for you.”

  Cornyn smiled. “Your inn may not get a lot of attention now, but I assure you that things are about to change.”

  “Yes,” Trysten said with a nod. “I suppose so. Once the caravan arrives, I’m sure Sessus will have a full house.”

  “No,” Cornyn said with a shake of his head, and he appeared to barely be able to contain a chuckle at her foolishness. “It’s not just the caravan. Aerona’s name is on the lips of many in the mother city. The talk of the town is of a woman who commands a horde unequaled since the days of Adalina. There will be many coming to see this for themselves.”

  Trysten took in a deep breath. Her head threatened to swim at the idea that she was being discussed as a matter of gossip in a far-away city. For all the sky.

  “That’s why I had to come here as soon as possible,” Cornyn went on. “There will be many coming to this village seeking favor, fortune, or adventure. I wanted to record the facts and accounts of the people before they became colored with the influence of outside forces.”

  Trysten didn’t respond right away.

  Cornyn’s grin began to fade.

  “Is that so?” Trysten asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” the historian replied solemnly.

  “Yes...” Trysten said as her hands strayed up to the small of her back. “Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I hate to disappoint anyone, but there’s not a whole lot happening in this sleepy little village.”

  Cornyn barked a harsh and sudden laugh that startled Trysten. He gestured at the open door at the end of the weyr. “So says the field of ash and graves.”

  Trysten pulled her shoulders back. Her chest grew tight, her muscles tense as if Cornyn had just uncovered a secret she had been trying to keep.

  “I’m sure you must be tired. I won’t keep you. Take your time and rest up. If you need anything, you can find me here, or you can find someone here who knows where I am,” Trysten said, turning toward Elevera and hoping he’d take the hint.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Cornyn said as he spread his hands out again. “It is not my desire to interject myself. I am an observer. If I get in anyone’s way, then I’m not doing my job. And I have distracted you from yours for far too long. I appreciate your indulgence, and I see that the hospitality of Aerona is worthy of legend alone.”

  With a grin and a nod, and a tip of his brimmed hat, Cornyn turned and made his way toward the end of the weyr. After a second, Iven hurried after him.

  Trysten watched Cornyn walk away, and then her gaze darted past him, out to the ash field and the cairn. Her expression tightened, almost as if she were checking to make sure they were still there, that Cornyn wasn’t about to steal them away somehow.

  They were her burdens to bear. She wouldn’t give them up so easily.

  The following morning, Cornyn returned to the weyr and spent hours with Trysten and Mardoc as he gathered the history of Aerona weyr since the cornerstone was laid. It was a tedious day, for Trysten at least. Mardoc appeared to be quite pleased to discuss the history of the weyr and the adventures of the weyr’s dragoneers, including his own. Cornyn scribbled in a ledger he had brought up to the den along with a bottle of ink and a selection of quills. From time to time, he held up an ink-smudged finger to request a pause. He recorded everything in a clipped shorthand that Trysten couldn’t read, even when she tried to peer over his shoulder without getting caught.

  As the recounting of the weyr’s history approached her time as dragoneer, Trysten grew increasingly uneasy. Difficult questions lay ahead, and she was thankful that her father was present. Everyone in the village by this point knew that Trysten was the offspring of an illegal marriage. It was ridiculous to think that Cornyn wouldn’t hear about it. No one would hold Trysten’s parents accountable, at least not while Trysten was alive, but still, it filled her with dread to know that it would be recorded into the history books.

  A breeze blew in the open window of the den and cooled the back of her neck. It also filled the room with the odor of the cairn which had grown particularly bad with the heat. The wind came from the west, sweeping down hard and fast off the mountains. A storm was coming.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Clouds raced over the tops of the peaks. High and thin at the moment, they were the leading edge of much-needed rain and a break in the oppressive heat.

  At the mention of Elevera’s name, Trysten’s head whipped back around to Cornyn, who hovered over his ledger book and stared at her, his brow raised in expectation.

  “I’m sorry,” Trysten said as she shifted in her seat. “What was that?”

  “Yes,” Mardoc said. “That’s when Elevera was born.”

  Trysten blinked.

  “Was there anything unusual about her birth?” Cornyn asked.

  Mardoc shook his head. “Not that I recall. I was a boy at the time, you understand, but I don’t remember my father or grandfather saying anything about it. She was just another egg. Though certainly, the Windill line has produced some extraordinary dragons.”

  Cornyn sat up slightly. “Is that so? How?”

  “Well,” Mardoc said. “Just that they’ve always been great dragons. Large. Fierce in battle. Fearless. Their firebreath has been some of the hottest, far-reaching firebreath of any dragon. The line has produced many great alphas, even before Elevera. My own Aeronwind was an exceptional dragon. Why I don’t believe she ever knew fear. It didn’t exist for her. I remember one time—”

  “Elevera and Aeronwind,” Cornyn said, interrupting Mardoc. “Now, they were of the Windill line, but they were not directly related, right?” The nib of his quill traced the air back and forth between Trysten and Mardoc as if drawing a line.

  “No,” Mardoc said. “They were cousins. They shared a great grandmother. Fasliss.”

  “Fasliss? Yes.” Cornyn consulted his script. His fingertip scanned down across the pages and left a slight shadow of ink behind as it went. “Yes, yes. Fasliss. She was the daughter of Windill herself. The third egg, right?”

  Mardoc nodded.

  Cornyn looked up. “And the first two eggs were males, right?”

  Mardoc nodded again.

  “And what came of them?”

  “Couriers, of course. Fine couriers. Fastest in the kingdom, I’m sure. Summon, the first egg of Windill, flew a message to the mother city and returned with a response in less than three days. He left Aerona at the first light of dawn and returned before the sun had fallen completely behind the mountains on the third day.”

  “And were these dragons, the male dragons, allowed to sire any other eggs?”<
br />
  “Allowed?” Mardoc asked as he leaned forward slightly. “It’s been some time since I’ve been to the mother city, but out here, we live by the wisdom of dragons. The females take the males of their choosing. We have nothing to do with it, except for the care of the eggs.”

  Trysten sat upright. Something tickled at her.

  Dragons.

  She stood and whipped around. Sure enough, a lone dragon pushed through the sky. It was a fiery orange color. Ambeoda. Jurdun’s dragon.

  “Excuse me,” Trysten said, and then hurried out of the den.

  Trysten stepped out into the yard and watched as Ambeoda approached. The dragon was a bit winded. Jurdun had flown her hard across the plains as if she were a mere courier. With each beat of the wings, the knot in Trysten’s gut grew tighter. If he was bringing her news of Aymon, then it was not likely to be good. If it were good news, Jurdun would not be coming alone.

  With unrestrained relief, Ambeoda reached the weyr, spread her wings, and dropped to the yard in front of Trysten. Jurdun undid his restraints, slipped from the saddle, and landed in a crouch beside the dragon.

  “Everything all right?” Trysten asked as she stepped up to them.

  Jurdun shook his head. “Dragons. A horde of them was spotted leaving the pass this morning.”

  Trysten’s fingers went to the tip of the pendant beneath her tunic. “Aymon?”

  Jurdun shook his head again. “I regret to inform you that the Prince and his mount were not among them. The dragons seen leaving the pass were hooded in the fashion of Western dragons.”

  Trysten’s breath caught in her throat, and her heart fluttered. Poor Aymon. Aymon and all those dragons. Those men. Her gaze dropped away, to the scrubby grass growing in tufts in the yard.

  She pulled in a deep, slow breath. It was possible that Aymon still lived. Perhaps the Western horde had missed him, had come from another direction and was oblivious to his presence.

  Unlikely.

  Trysten hefted her gaze back to Jurdun. There were still matters to attend to. “What of the Western horde?” she asked, her words flat and official.

  “They flew to the south. They gave no indication that they saw our lookout or our efforts.”

  Trysten nodded. Color flushed her cheeks as a cold rage filled her belly. For all the sky, she had hoped that they could stop this senseless loss of dragons and life. But here she was again, leading her horde into battle.

  She turned toward the weyr entrance, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted to the watchtower, “Prepare for battle!”

  The man in the watchtower leaned over the rail. “Battle?”

  Trysten nodded, then made the motion of ringing the bell.

  The bell clanged in the rapid peal that sang of battle.

  Chapter 16

  The plains streaked past beneath them as Trysten and Elevera led the Aerona horde toward the mountains in search of the Western intruders. Summer flowers dotted the plains, scattered across the green and gray of heather and stone. It was quite beautiful, peaceful even, and reminded Trysten of gentle summers before she was Dragoneer of Aerona weyr. So many times she and Paege ran through the wildflowers, riding their make-believe dragons, defending their village from dangers only they could see. Now she was in Elevera’s saddle, wearing battle armor and ready to engage an enemy horde. Behind her, thirty battle dragons with riders in full battle gear fanned out in V formation.

  They flew to The Wilds but saw no sign of the Western horde. Trysten looked to the north, and there, near the horizon, she could barely make out the slight hiccup in the pattern of the peaks—the Gul Pass. To the south, the foothills of the Cadwaller mountains rolled away in their undulating fashion, green with pine and groves of aspen until they disappeared into a haze far to the south.

  No dragons anywhere besides their own. Trysten led the horde to the south, flying over the scraggly tree line where the mountains ended and the plains began.

  Not wanting to leave the village completely vulnerable, Trysten had left a dozen riders and dragons behind. Enough to offer some resistance, but she felt confident they wouldn’t be needed. If the Western horde planned to attack Aerona, they would have met them in the air long ago. Jurdun claimed that the enemy horde hadn’t noticed them. So it seemed unlikely that the Western kingdom knew of the outpost and had sent a horde to act as a decoy, pulling Aerona’s defenses away so that a second Western horde could take the village without resistance. A decoy horde would have remained visible in the sky to lure the Aerona horde as far from the weyr as possible. For now, Trysten and her horde had nothing to chase or fight.

  The Western horde had come through the pass for another reason.

  Trysten closed her eyes and opened herself up, reaching out for her dragons and any others that might be nearby. She felt the wind buffeting her face as well as the faces and wings of Elevera and all of the dragons behind her. She probed deeper, searching for dragons not on the wing. Dragons wishing for the sky, rather than enjoying their flights. If a Western horde had gone to ground nearby, she should be able to feel something.

  They flew for quite some time before Trysten felt it, a twinge and a ping in the bottom of her belly, deep in her gut. Longing. Profound longing. A pitiful, wistful longing for sky and wind and air and blue.

  She shifted in her saddle. The harness chafed and bit into her sides, her scales were raw with pain.

  Trysten’s eyes snapped open. She peered into the woods below, to her right. There was a dragon down there. Just one. And it was one of Elevera’s. She knew it. The feeling was unmistakable. Elevera’s dragons felt warm to her, their presence comforting, reassuring. Strange dragons were cooler and more distant. This dragon was bonded to Elevera. And she was hurt.

  So where in The Wilds was she? Trysten scanned the woods, the sky, the plains. There was nothing to be seen. Her attention went back to the woods. The dragon was there. Underneath the canopy. How did she get beneath the canopy? And which dragon was it? There were no dragons unaccounted for.

  She gasped. Ulbeg. It was Ulbeg, the courier dragon that Rast had taken to The Wilds in search of a translator so they could talk to Rodden. Ulbeg was down there, in the woods, beneath the canopy. And he needed help. He was weak and tied up or somehow restrained.

  Trysten urged Elevera up the slope. The tops of the trees zipped by beneath them, swaying and bending in the wake of the great alpha’s wings.

  The sense of longing grew stronger, pushing against Trysten. Her fingers curled around the lip of the saddle. Poor Ulbeg. It had been so long since he had known the sky. He was sick with it. It ached in him, his bones throbbing with the emptiness.

  Trysten peered down. She signaled for the horde to look for anything strange. They circled a wide area. In the breaks of the canopy, she caught glimpses of what might be a cottage. Again, it seemed difficult to imagine that Ulbeg would be down there, but Trysten felt it with all her being. Elevera knew it too, and her presence was driving Ulbeg to a frenzy. If he were able to leave, he’d be in the air. He’d be rushing up to join his alpha.

  Trysten swallowed a knot in her throat. By the dragon’s breath, what had happened to poor Ulbeg and Rast after she sent them out here?

  She needed to investigate.

  Trysten signaled for Paege to take the others and head south, continuing the search for the Western horde. Kaylar would accompany her as they investigated something strange.

  Paege looked concerned from the back of Sone but nodded his consent. He ordered a V formation to form behind him, and then wished Trysten luck and good hunting before taking off with the rest of the horde.

  Elevera and Verillium flew up the side of the mountain before landing in a field of scree about two-thirds of the way up to the treeline.

  “What’s up?” Kaylar asked as soon as Elevera and Verillium settled down.

  “I sense another dragon nearby. One of Elevera’s horde. I think it’s Ulbeg.”

  “Ulbeg? The little male courier?” Kaylar
held her palm out at her side, flat as if to indicate a small stature, but high on the back of Verillium, she undid the emphasis she was trying to create.

  Trysten nodded as she pulled her restraints free. “I sent Rast out to The Wilds to look for a translator. This was shortly after we captured the first horde. I told him to go on Ulbeg because he was smaller than the others,” Trysten said as she motioned at the bulk of Elevera.

  Kaylar nodded. She turned and looked behind Verillium into the woods that swept away behind them. “Do you think we’ll find Rast as well?”

  Trysten stepped down using the stirrup and set her foot upon the rocks. As she did so, she caught a flash of relief from Elevera that she wasn’t standing chest-deep in a cold pool of water.

  “You’ll get over it,” Trysten mumbled at her dragon.

  Elevera swung her head back. If she could, Trysten swore that the dragon would have scrunched her brows in a show of annoyance.

  “What was that?” Kaylar asked as she stepped down off of Verillium.

  “Nothing, just between Elevera and me, right girl?” Trysten said as she patted her dragon’s side. “I don’t know about Rast. I can’t tell. All I know is that Ulbeg is down there somewhere, and he’s trapped. He’s been trapped for some time.”

  Kaylar removed her bow from the side of Verillium’s saddle. “All right, then. Let’s go,” she said.

  Chapter 17

  Trysten and Kaylar left their dragons to rest in the heat of the sun as they descended the field of scree, then passed under the canopy of aspen. The temperature was refreshingly cooler beneath the leaves. The wind stirred the trees above them and filled the forest with the sound of thousands of voices whispering. A trunk groaned as a strong gust passed down from the peaks above and shouldered its way through the woods.

  The inability to see into the forest worried Trysten. She definitely preferred the open, uninterrupted plains to the enclosed woods that made her feel claustrophobic. Her hand went to the hilt of her sword. She could feel Elevera and Verillium behind them. They were relaxed and had spread their wings out in the sun as they settled against the stones. The two of them must have been breathtaking sights from the air.