by Kyle West
They could fly dragons, too?
But as the Askaleen neared, I saw that it was the only one. I urged Flame back to intercept the rider. This was something I could work with.
Chapter 39
The man flying the dragon dropped his elevation, so that he would be slightly above the mounted warriors. If we pursued him that low, we’d only be prey for the riders’ arrows. Was he trying to draw us in to be killed?
“What now?” Shara asked.
I knew exactly what came next. I reached for the Xenofold and found its power easily enough. It was a simple matter of tethering the rider’s dragon to me; as I suspected, he was Mindless. I let the Xenofold flow from my mind into his, allowing him to awaken for the first time in his life.
Just a moment later, the dragon was fully Elekai.
Elekim, his voice said, entering my mind.
Fly toward us, I said. Make sure your rider doesn’t fall.
As the dragon obeyed, its rider desperately tried to regain control of it by shouting. But it was futile. The men below were now calling for the man to come back down, but of course, he was powerless to do anything. The dragon was loyal to me, now, and to the Xenofold.
As the dragon drew closer, the man hefted his bow, quickly knocking an arrow.
Jolt him a bit, I said. Make him stop.
The Askaleen shook its body enough to jar the man, but not so much as to make him fall. The man’s bow dropped in the confusion, and he clung, terrified, to the dragon. The horsemen below were screaming their dismay.
Still not to be deterred, the man reached for a knife at his side, just as the dragon stopped shaking him. The dragon gave another jolt as the man threw the knife at us. It came close but ended up whistling by my head a few feet away. If he managed that kind of accuracy under duress, then I didn’t doubt he had the skill to hit me in better conditions.
They weren’t kidding about them, I thought, feeling doubt for the first time.
The man, it seemed, had no more weapons. He stared balefully at us, even crossing his arms.
Pull up alongside us, I told the dragon.
Within the minute, three dragons were flying side-by-side, with the man in the center of Shara and me. He stared at either of us, his face a mixture of anger and fear. It seemed as if he was strongly considering trying to jump the distance between us, but of course, such an action would be suicidal on his part.
Whether he liked it or not, he would be forced to hear us out.
“Don’t bother trying to jump,” I said, in English. “You won’t make it.”
The words seemed to surprise him, but he gave no response.
“I’ll talk first,” I said. “Are you in command of this army?”
The man was silent for a very long time. It was a full two minutes before I decided to speak again. I needed to try a different tack.
“How long can you really fly in this weather with no shirt?” I asked.
“I won’t freeze,” the man said, stubbornly.
The response was something, and something about his proud bearing told me he was the one I wanted to talk to.
“You seem to be very tough. I do wonder how you are going to get me to go away if you don’t say at least something.”
The man looked at me, seeming unsure of whether to respond. In the end, though, he did.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here because I want to help you. My name is Shanti Roshar, Elekim to the Elekai and Annara Reborn.”
Surprisingly, both titles didn’t seem to pique his curiosity. Instead, he answered simply.
“I’m First Man to the Plains People.”
I ignored the fact that he hadn’t told me his name. I didn’t want to antagonize him too much. Hopefully, Shara would not goad him, as she was sometimes inclined to do. I was grateful she didn’t know how to speak English, and hoped the First Man didn’t understand Espan.
“You have quite a large force of men down there,” I said.
The First Man looked down at his army, but didn’t otherwise react to my observation.
“We only want to talk,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could avoid hostilities, and perhaps even to work together?”
“Impossible,” Victor said, staring at me balefully. “In the past, we’ve talked, but here we still are, on the plains. We have learned since the days of my grandfather’s grandfather to never trust an Elekai. Now, the Settled to us are nothing more than practice for our aim.”
The Settled must have been their name for anyone who didn’t live their lives from the back of a horse.
We flew on in silence for some time. The horsemen below were now far behind us. Their horses would tire long before our dragons.
To my surprise, it was the man who broke the silence. “How did you turn my beast? It was you, wasn’t it?”
He was interested in something, at least.
“I’m Elekim,” I said. “I’m the leader of all the Elekai. Including the dragons.”
The man gave me a dark look, perhaps thinking my words were a joke or in poor taste. His expression changed, however, when he saw I was serious. “Elekim,” he said. “I thought he died a long time ago.” He laughed at the idea.
“I’m not him,” I said. “But his title is now passed on to me. I have the authority to speak on behalf of all the Elekai.”
“We are not Elekai,” the man said. “We will not follow you. That’s all you Settled ever want.”
“I’m not asking you to follow me,” I said.
“What do you want, then? Have you come to beg for mercy, for our people to disband? They will not. Not until Mongar is a heap of ruins, not until every stone is carried away and cast onto the plains!”
I was surprised by his vitriol, even if I had been warned about it.
“What do you hope to accomplish by attacking Mongar?” I asked.
The man looked at me disgustedly, as if the answer to that should be obvious. “Your monsters are attacking us from the south. We had no choice but to flee here. We are attacking because we are dead otherwise.”
They thought the Radaskim were the same as us. Finally, I had something to work with. “They are our enemies, too. We’re running from them right now. They are led by a large black dragon named Odium. They are not Elekai, but Radaskim.”
“But they have dragons, as you do,” the man protested.
“You have a dragon, too,” I said. “Does that make you Radaskim?”
The man didn’t have an answer for that.
“How far south are they?” I asked.
The man shrugged. “Fifty miles, maybe. And they are coming further north every day.” He nodded his head toward the mountains and the city, not visible beyond the pass. “We thought we might break through here. We’ve lost thousands of people already.” His face darkened. “I even lost my wife.”
So, there was a second Radaskim swarm. It looked even worse than I had thought.
“If you attack Mongar, you would be targeting the wrong people,” I said. “Odium is the true enemy. He’s the one killing your people, not us. We’re fighting against him. If you attack us, you’re only serving him.”
The man looked at me, obviously suspecting that I was trying to trick him. Please believe me, I thought. I didn’t know how to convince him that I was telling him the truth.
“Everything you’re saying is different from what I know,” he finally said. “You’re saying those monsters aren’t yours? They are something else?”
I nodded. “Mongar will fall even without you speeding it along, because the Radaskim are besieging it from the western side. And you and your people will die when he attacks you from the south.”
Odium obviously sought to surround us on all fronts. That would make it impossible to withdraw to Ragnarok Crater and protect it from the Radaskim. The Crater was getting close, now. From this very spot, it was little over a hundred miles away.
“If we fight each other, then all of us will die,” I said. “
If there’s to be hope, we must work together. Despite the bad blood between our people.”
We flew on a few minutes longer, the man needing to mull things over. After a while, he turned to look at me.
“Turn us back,” he said. “I have to talk to my men and tell them what you’ve told me. I might lose my position for my failure to kill you. They might string me up for a traitor. But . . . if there’s even a chance you’re right . . .”
“We are right,” Shara said, fumbling with her English words. Where had she learned that? Had she understood all our conversation?
I shot her a glance to silence her, and then turned my attention back to Victor to smooth things over. “Your dragon will carry you back and won’t harm you. But he will never be the same now that he’s awake.”
“I don’t like this,” he said.
“If anything, he’ll fight harder,” I said. “But you will no longer be his master. He wants to join me in the fight against Odium. I hope you’ll come to the same conclusion.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “I have to talk to my people. Come back later. This evening.”
With that, he urged his dragon to turn, and finding that the creature obeyed him, headed back toward the tents spread across the plain. It wasn’t long before his dragon caught up with the horsemen that had been following us.
“Let’s hope you’ve done enough to convince him,” Shara said.
“Let’s get back to Mongar and give them the news.”
* * *
When we returned to Mongar, the War Council met once again, with the Syndic and his council adding to our number. The main topic of debate was whether Shara and I should accept the First Mans’s invitation to return that evening.
“It’s surely a trap,” Lord Percy said.
“We don’t know that for a certainty,” Elder Arminius said. “And it may be our one chance to win over the Plains People.”
“Such a thing has never happened in all of our history,” the Syndic said. “I have no idea what you said to him, Elekim, but it seems to have worked.”
“Nothing is sure, yet,” I said, “but I have no doubt about my decision. I intend to meet with him again. I’m only here for advice on how to do that.”
“I’ve given my counsel,” Lord Percy said. “I have nothing more to say on the subject. But if you’re set on this course, I can only recommend that you have an escape plan ready.”
Even if I didn’t agree with the Mongarian war advisor, I had to admit an escape plan was a sensible plan. “What would you suggest?”
“Other than don’t meet with him?” He shrugged. “Never stray far from your dragons. Even that might not be enough.”
I knew that likely wasn’t going to happen. “I don’t see any other option. If I sit here and do nothing, the Radaskim will hit us at the Red Gate while the Plains People will block our escape. And with the second Radaskim force coming up the plains, we will only weaken ourselves on each other before getting wiped out.”
“Our city has never fallen,” the Syndic said, stroking his blonde beard. “I don’t intend to start that soon.”
“You’ve never faced an enemy like the Radaskim,” I said. “The city will hold them back for a time. But if the Plains People are left to the east, then our situation becomes perilous.”
“If you are truly set on this course, then I won’t dissuade you,” Syndic Salas said. “You spoke with this man, and I admit, that isn’t nothing. It’s more than anyone has done in living memory.”
“They have been behaving rather strangely of late,” Lord Percy said.
“How so?” I asked.
“Until recently, they operated in small tribes, under the control of a single chief,” he said. “This . . . horde . . . of theirs is a recent development. Before, they could cobble together one or two thousand men, but were usually too busy fighting each other to bother us.”
“They are doing it because of the Radaskim,” I said. “People will set aside differences when a bigger enemy comes along.”
And that was what these mountain men were simply not seeing, in my view, though I kept that thought to myself.
“Maybe I can help with this,” Isa said. Young as she was, people still listened as she spoke. “A history lesson, probably known by most of you here, but hasn’t been said out loud yet as a way of reminder.” I nodded for her to continue. “Many of the Plains People used to live in the Red Wild, back before the time of the Exile. As the Elekai population was forced into the Wild after the fall of the First Covenant, they were competing with the numerous tribes that already existed here. It took a few generations, but the Exiles were successful in pushing out what would become the Plains People past the Red Mountains.”
“That history is debatable,” Lord Percy said, gruffly.
“Perhaps,” Isa said. “But if the Plains People believed it happened . . . well, I think it goes a long way toward explaining their hostility.”
Lord Percy was silent on that point.
“The man I talked to today said they weren’t Elekai, though,” I said.
“I might be speaking out of my depth,” Isa said, “but wouldn’t that make sense? If they’re nursing an old grudge against us, they might want to disassociate themselves. It’s hard to imagine them living in the Red Wild without being Elekai themselves. Or at least, without some of them being Elekai. After all these years, I’m sure there’s been a lot of mixing and intermarrying, but surely there are still a few of them with the old blood.” She then looked at me. “You said that man was riding a dragon, right?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“The Colonian Dragonguard are the only non-Elekai that have been known to train dragons,” Isa said. “And even still, they take advantage of how Elekai can bond to each other. For the members of the Dragonguard need at least some small potential of innate ability, coupled with Aether, to be able to control their beasts.”
Captain Dailyn, who was sitting at the table, lent his support. “That much is true.”
The Syndic listened with interest. “What are you suggesting? Miss Arnor, was it?”
“Yes,” she said, primly. “Isa Arnor. I’m suggesting that, perhaps, the Plains People remember old slights, and that they might think of the Red Wild in the same way that many Elekai remember Colonia. The Red Wild could be their rightful heritage.”
“Miss Arnor,” Lord Percy said, “You are describing events that happened generations ago, older than the time of even Hyperborea. The past is too murky to be making such suppositions.”
Isa faced him matter-of-factly, as if he weren’t a man several decades her senior. “Does time change the way many Elekai view Colonia, or the Covenant? Some things are so terrible, so tragic, that they will never be forgotten. Not for hundreds of years. In fact, if an insult or injustice is bad enough, it can be nursed for generations until it becomes the basis of an entire people’s identity. They hate us, not because of our cities or our wealth. They hate us because they see the Red Wild as their rightful inheritance. It’s possible, if they were the first ones here, that they have a lot in common with the Wilders, who were pushed to periphery in their own way as the Three Kingdoms were formed. If they were the first ones here, then it’s not a huge leap to say that they were the ones the Xenofold originally chose to be the Red Wild’s gardeners, along with the dragons.”
“A myth,” the Syndic said, skeptically.
“She’s right,” I said. “Maybe a lot of that Elekai blood has diluted over the years, but even in a place like Colonia, where it’s actively erased, it still crops up after a generation or two. I have no doubt that many of the Plains People are like us.”
“Just to think of all that lost lore,” Isaru said, quietly. “It’s an interesting theory that needs further investigation.”
“Of course,” Judge Lian said, “the only way we’ll truly find out is by speaking to them.”
That was a fair observation that even the Syndic and Lord Percy couldn’t find fault with.
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“You’ve made your choice,” Syndic Salas said. “Perhaps we’re wrong to be so skeptical of it. It’s not as if we have a better idea.”
With that pronouncement, the mood in the chamber shifted.
“Whatever you need,” the Syndic said, “we’ll provide.”
“All I need is Shara, myself, and our dragons. I think we could lose trust with them if we showed up with more men.”
“I think you’re right,” Elder Arminius said. “But I also think the Syndic is wise to urge caution. If what Isa said is true about these old grievances, then you must be very careful.” He smiled grimly. “What better way to get revenge on the Elekai than to kill the one they call Elekim?”
It was a fair point, and one I hadn’t thought of before. I would have to be very careful.
But at the same time, where the Syndic and Elder Arminius were urging caution, I could only see opportunity. There were probably Elekai among the Plains People. That was something I could work with.
Whatever the case, the decision was settled in my mind, even more than it had been before. “The First Man wanted us to come back by evening. I suggest we break here. Eat, rest a bit, and make sure our people are fed. I’m not sure when we’ll be back, but I’m optimistic.”
Lord Percy and several of the Mongarian council members seemed skeptical. But even if some of that skepticism was healthy, it was not what we needed right now.
This was our only shot.
Chapter 40
A gathering of about a hundred people saw us off the eastern wall, where we decided to fly off on our dragons. Word had spread fast that Elekim was going to negotiate with the Plains People, and that I had even managed to speak with their leader.
They shouted encouragement and well-wishes as we set off across the forested, snowy pass. Their cheers faded quickly as the cold wind took over. I leaned against Flame’s body for warmth, while Shara did the same for Red Tail.
We didn’t speak on our way, as the sun behind us set over the mountains, leaving the land covered in shadow. The temperature was plummeting and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We passed the Shen air fleet, moored on the mountain to Mongar’s south, not too far from the dragons’ caves.