Outposts

by Vickie Knestaut

  “How so?” Paege asked.

  Trysten shook her head. “For the first time since this fighting season began, we have what we need, and it’s tempting to feel like things are turning around. You know, my father is convincing Tuse to use some of the lumber and rope to build more catapults and even some spear launchers. He wants them stationed behind the cairn, in case we should get another visit from the West.”

  Paege nodded as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Sensible plan.”

  Trysten turned to Paege. “I’m glad you agree. Although I still believe the fighting has to stop, I’m starting to think that there is not a single, simple answer. I think we have to use a variety of tactics. It might take a demonstration or two to show that any time the Western kingdom attacks us, it makes us stronger. We will turn their own weapons against them.”

  Paege glanced up at the pass. “And the Originals?”

  Trysten shrugged. As she mulled over what their motives might be, she watched the bustle of the workers emptying Leewind’s bags. With a hitch of his heels, Leewind’s rider sent the pearl-colored dragon back to the sky. The workers moved over to Belara’s bags while Karno ordered another dragon to land in Leewind’s place.

  “You know,” Trysten said, “I asked around the members of the caravan, or at least the ones who’d know such things, and no one has heard of Cornyn.” She looked back at Paege in time to see his brow furrow slightly.

  “Should they have?” Paege asked.

  Trysten turned back to the bustle around Belara. Already, it seemed that the steps of the workers had grown lighter, more carefree as Brand explained everything that had arrived in the caravan.

  “I don’t know,” Trysten said. “They know that there are historians, but none of them know of Cornyn personally, or that any historian was sent to Aerona. Don’t you think it’s a little weird?”

  Paege shook his head. “It’s not hard for me to believe that the people in the caravan know nothing of the royal historians. They don’t move in the same circles. And, I’m sure the people who came with the caravan have been mostly occupied with getting everything together for the trip, and probably aren’t aware of who the King sent ahead of them.”

  Trysten looked back to Paege. “You’re probably right. I asked around the village to see what Cornyn has been asking about. Turns out he hasn’t talked to many villagers. He has only spoken to people who are familiar with Elevera. He has lots of questions about her lineage, and I don’t like it. He’s up to something, I just don’t know what. What do you think?”

  Paege stared over Trysten’s shoulder for a few moments. Finally, he looked at her, and she noticed the concern on his face. “Is it possible,” he asked, “that you are surrounded by so many mysteries that you have begun to see them where they don’t exist?”

  At first, Trysten was surprised by his question and his lack of support, but maybe he was right. One thing was certain, he didn’t have time to worry about Cornyn. Paege had his hands full with the outpost. She would keep her concerns about Cornyn and plans with Kaylar to herself. She turned away and studied Elevera staring at her from the pool, then turned back to Paege.

  “You may be right,” she said. “You usually are. Do you know where my mother is? I’d like to see her before I leave.”

  Paege nodded. “She’s out with the hunting party finding us some dinner.”

  “Well, dinners shouldn’t be a problem anymore,” Trysten said, motioning toward the next dragon landing with supplies.

  Paege smiled at her. “That is good news,” he said. “Less hunting means more volunteers working on the outpost. Your mother and the rest of us should be home before long.”

  “Good,” Trysten said. “Although he’d never admit it, Father misses her a lot. I’m happy the caravan arrived so he can return to work on the second weyr. He follows me around like Yallit does.”

  Paege pointed to the sky above them. “Speaking of which, your shadow is here.”

  Trysten sighed as she looked up and saw Yallit appear from behind the tops of the trees. He swayed through the air as he came down and crashed into a bough of pine before finding a perch on the bobbing branch.

  “Well, I guess that means it’s time for me to get going,” Trysten said. “Please tell Mother I’ll see her the next trip, and I miss her.”

  “I’ll do that. I know she misses you, and I find that I do, too,” Paege said, dropping his eyes to Trysten’s boots. He raised his eyes back to hers, nodded once, then turned to help unload the nearest dragon.

  Trysten watched him walk away, his shoulders squared. For all the sky, she missed him as well. Not just the boy who had been her friend all her life, but also the man he had become. She would be glad when this outpost was built, and the weyr could return to normal. It wasn’t right having her horde and village split apart.

  She turned and started for the pool with a sigh. She was as tired of wading through water as Elevera was of standing in it.

  Chapter 39

  The stairs creaked beneath Trysten’s boots and sounded incredibly loud to her ears. She paused, her teeth gritted.

  Kaylar stopped near the top of the stairs and looked over her shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

  “These stairs,” Trysten whispered as she pointed to the steps beneath her.

  “What about them?”

  “They’re so loud. They’ll draw attention,” Trysten whispered.

  Kaylar shook her head as if surprised and slightly disappointed by the comment. “So act like you’re trying to sneak around. That will keep anyone from noticing you.”

  Trysten looked down the stairs. The bustle of the crowd below hadn’t changed at all. The Fire and Stone was packed from wall to wall with patrons, most of which were caravan members.

  “Come on,” Kaylar said as she motioned for Trysten to follow her. “It’s my father’s inn. No one is going to think twice about seeing me up here.”

  Trysten glanced over her shoulder again. Shadows fell through the doorway from the tavern and moved across the bottom of the steps as people milled about.

  “Trysten!” Kaylar snapped.

  Trysten walked up the steps, trying to look as casual as possible while gritting her teeth tighter against each creak of the stairs.

  Kaylar shook her head. “I was starting to think that was going to take all night. Come on.”

  They passed halfway down the short hall and stopped before Cornyn’s door. Kaylar reached for the latch, then looked back at Trysten. “Are you sure about this?”

  Trysten glanced down the hall again. The bustle from the tavern below promised to drown out the sound of someone coming up the steps. Especially if that person was Cornyn, even though he was currently speaking with Vanon in the weyr.

  She nodded.

  Kaylar’s hand inched closer to the latch. “What do we do if we find nothing?”

  “What do you mean, if we find nothing?” Trysten asked.

  “I mean just that. What if we walk in here and find nothing at all? What if, even worse than that, we go in and find that he’s telling the truth?”

  “He’s not,” Trysten said with a shake of her head. She looked up from Kaylar’s hand to her eyes. “He’s up to something. He’s no historian. And if we want to prove it, we have to act now. When the courier I sent to the King returns, Cornyn might run, and we’ll never know what he was doing.”

  “Then why don’t you wait? If the courier brings back word that Cornyn wasn’t sent by the King, then you have what you need to run him out of town, right?”

  Trysten looked back to the latch. “But I won’t know what he’s up to, will I?” She nodded. “This is what we have to do. For the village.”

  Kaylar took a deep breath, then grabbed the latch. “By your orders.”

  Trysten placed a hand upon Kaylar’s arm to still her. “Not by my orders. You are not here as a hordesman, and me as the Dragoneer.”

  Kaylar grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

  The door opened wi
th a squeal that set Trysten’s teeth on edge. She looked down the hall as if the sound alone was enough to send Cornyn vaulting across the village and storming up the steps in mere seconds.

  Nothing.

  “Come on,” Kaylar said with a slight tug on Trysten’s shoulder. “Before anyone sees us.”

  They slipped inside the room, and Kaylar shut the door behind them. “We should have done this a little earlier in the day. It’s hard to see in here.”

  Trysten blinked at the dusk in the only window in the room. “Vanon wasn’t free until just a bit ago.”

  “You’re the Dragoneer. You could have made him stay here instead of ferrying caravan goods and volunteers out to the outpost.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have been here,” Trysten said as she looked back at Kaylar.

  “I guess. But it doesn’t matter, does it? We’re here. What are we looking for?” Kaylar asked.

  Trysten glanced about the room, then moved toward the desk. “Anything out of place. Anything strange.”

  Trysten paused before the desk. The desktop was marred with time and use, knicked with gouges, stained with ink. A dark spot ringed in brown spoke of prolonged contact with something very hot. Hot enough that it had drawn smoke from the wood desk. She laid her fingers upon it, soft and tentatively as if she expected it to still be warm, perhaps even hot.

  She crouched and opened a cabinet door built into the desk. Emptiness stared back at her.

  “That’s a bit odd,” Trysten said as she stood.

  “Congratulations,” Kaylar said. “You found it.”

  “What?” Trysten asked as she turned around.

  “Oddness,” Kaylar said with a nod to the cabinet. “Isn’t that what you were looking for? Now let’s go.”

  Trysten looked back and waved a hand at the desk. “There’s no ink well on the desk. There aren’t any blank books or scrolls or anything in the cabinet.”

  “He went to talk to Vanon. He probably took his ink and books with him.”

  “Maybe,” Trysten said. “Probably. I guess he could get by with one ink well in that lap desk of his I’ve seen, but I would think he would have more paper with him. More things to write on.”

  She looked back to Kaylar. “It’s not like he can go down to Aerona’s market and buy paper. My logs come from merchants. We just don’t have paper here. Where is his, if he’s here to take a history of the village?”

  Kaylar shrugged as she surveyed the room. “He might have it on him.”

  Trysten shook her head. “I don’t know. Something about it doesn’t seem right.” She moved from the desk to a trunk at the foot of the bed. She lifted the lid and found the customary collection of quilts and woolen blankets.

  “Here,” Trysten said as she lifted them out of the trunk. “Hold these.” She passed the blankets to Kaylar until she found herself staring at the wooden bottom of the chest.

  “Nothing?” Kaylar asked.

  “Nothing,” Trysten said as she took the blankets and replaced them.

  “Well,” Kaylar said as she surveyed the rest of the sparsely furnished room, “unless you plan to pull apart that chair, I don’t know what else there is to see.”

  Trysten lowered herself to her hands and knees and peered beneath the bed. “Ah-hah!”

  She moved forward some, stuck her hand underneath, and fished out a leather satchel. “Found it!” she said as she raised herself up to her knees.

  “Under the bed,” Kaylar said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Rather than ask whether or not she was being sarcastic, Trysten undid the leather strap holding the satchel closed. She flipped back the flap and peered inside. A change of clothes rested inside, folded neatly between the leather of the satchel, and the leather of a thin book.

  Trysten fished the book out and laid it upon the bed while still on her knees.

  A shadow covered the last of the evening’s dwindling light. Trysten’s heart jumped into her throat as she snapped her head up.

  Yallit’s wings fluttered against the glass of the window. He let out a small screech as he scratched at the glass.

  “Yallit!” Trysten snapped “Go away!” She motioned for the dragon to leave, to move aside.

  “Quiet!” Kaylar cautioned.

  “Fish and birds!” Trysten spat as she returned her attention to the book. As Kaylar moved around the bed and toward the window, Trysten pulled the cover back.

  “For all the sky!” Trysten spat. She turned several more pages. “I can’t read this! I can’t read—”

  She stopped at a chart. Strange words were scrawled down the margins. Trysten recognized the letters, but most of the words were strange. She had thought it to be some kind of shorthand when she saw Cornyn write it at the weyr, but upon closer inspection, it appeared to be another language entirely. What she recognized, however, were names. Windill. Fasliss. Namlook. Aeronwind. Elevera. All of them were connected by lines that went up to a set of parallel lines near the top. On the top line, a perpendicular line rose up to the name Kivalynn.

  “Shoo!” Kaylar spat.

  “Quick,” Trysten said. “Run downstairs and grab some paper and ink. I need to make a copy of this.”

  Kaylar looked over her shoulder as she waved her hands at Yallit. The little wild dragon clung to the window sill outside. He’d begin to slide down, then flap his wings and pull himself back up. His tongue flicked at the glass.

  “We should really be getting out of here,” Kaylar said. “Your dragon is going—”

  “He’s not my dragon,” Trysten said.

  “You tell him that!”

  “Kaylar!” Trysten sighed, then looked down at the page.

  “Tear it out,” Kaylar said. “He won’t notice it’s gone and if he does, well, then what can he do about it?”

  Trysten sucked in a breath between her teeth as she scanned the cryptic script down the margin. What did it all mean? And who was Kivalynn? The name was familiar. It stirred something in her. She ought to know it, had seen it before. But where? She knew the dragons of Aerona by heart. Surely she hadn’t forgotten one.

  She shook her head. What was she doing? This was his job, he said. He was collecting the information requested by the Master of History, so why shouldn’t he have this information. It was what he had asked her and her father about, wasn’t it?

  Her eyes went down the script. It wasn’t Cadwaller or shorthand, it was the language of another kingdom.

  Trysten lifted the page up and gripped the corner between thumb and forefinger.

  Yallit let out another screech. The sound grew muffled.

  “That’s it!” Kaylar said. “And stay away!”

  Trysten looked up to the window as Kaylar looked back at her. Yallit flew straight at the window, then spread his wings and his body at the last second.

  Trysten gasped as the wild dragon collided with the window with a thud. Kaylar jumped. Yallit scratched at the glass as his wings beat wildly.

  “We have to go!” Kaylar said. Her eyes darted to the doorway behind Trysten. “Someone is going to check out the commotion any minute.”

  Trysten looked down to the page. It trembled in her grasp. Her heart thudded in her head as her eyes honed in on the sharp, angular script of Cornyn hand. Elevera.

  Trysten gripped the paper and tore.

  “Oh by the breath,” Kaylar whispered. “I didn’t think you were actually going to do it.”

  Trysten dropped the page to the bed as she flipped the book shut, then crammed it back into the satchel. Her fingers fumbled slightly as she redid the buckle, then shoved the satchel back under the bed. As she stood up, she reached for the page, but Kaylar was already tucking it into the bust of her tunic.

  “Let’s go,” she mouthed.

  They exited the room. Trysten’s heart nearly exploded upon sight of a man in the hallway, at the top of the stairs, his face hidden by the light washing up from the tavern below.

  “Everything all right?” Sessus asked
.

  Trysten let out a sigh.

  “Yes, Father,” Kaylar said. “We were just checking on that noise.”

  “And?”

  “That wild dragon of Trysten’s.”

  “He’s not my dragon,” Trysten snapped over her shoulder. “He’s wild.”

  “He’s wild all right. He’s apparently upset that we won’t let him in. He’s throwing himself against the windows.”

  Sessus shook his head. “You shouldn’t be going into the rooms of guests, Dear. Someone might misunderstand. And with all the...” Sessus motioned to the stairs beneath him. “There are a lot of strangers in town. It’s easy for misunderstandings to arise.”

  “You’re right, Father,” Kaylar said. “We’re sorry. We’re just leaving now. Going back to the weyr and taking the dragon with us.”

  Sessus turned halfway around, then stopped. He looked back to Trysten and Kaylar. “If you’re not too busy tonight, Dear, your mother and I could certainly use another hand.”

  “Uhm, of course.” Kaylar said. She glanced to Trysten, then back to her father. “But let me go to the weyr first. I have to check something with Verillium first, then I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  “Of course,” Sessus said with a nod. “The dragons come first. I understand. Your father, second.”

  As he turned away again, Trysten caught a glimpse of his wide grin. He was kidding his daughter.

  As he retreated down the stairs, Trysten’s shoulders finally relaxed.

  “Here,” Kaylar said as she reached into the front of her tunic. “Take this and get out of here.” She slapped the folded page into Trysten’s hand.

  “Thank you, Kaylar. I owe you one.”

  “I’m not keeping score, but I hope you don’t make a habit of this.”

  Trysten folded the page once more, tucked it into her boot, and left for Galelin’s cottage.

  Chapter 40

  The windows of Galelin’s cottage were uncharacteristically dark. Trysten knocked on his door, then turned her head to the side to listen. Her gaze drifted up to the mountains and the last bit of blue remaining in the sky. Beyond and above, the eyes of the gods winked down upon the village, watching, waiting to see the dreams of their children.