“Tell me first, and I’ll cut you free.”
His face was grave for a moment more, but not long after, a smile shone. “For countless years the problem of crossing Dragon’s Bed in the summer has not been resolved. You know of the dragon, Leviathan, that restricts the trade ships from sailing in the warmer months and haunts the thoughts of any bold enough to try their luck in the summer.”
“Heavens,” Lyla scoffed. “If you think I can put Leviathan to sleep you’re far madder than I thought.”
“Not sleep,” Zar replied, “I don’t believe sleep is necessary. Before I made my first journey across the blue—and in the middle of the summer—I was told by my shipwright friend that the dragon only attacks when it is hungry or angry. His words proved true as Leviathan showed itself to us while we sailed, raising its head from the waves and staring at our ship. But it didn’t attack us. It was only after causing quite a ruckus, I must say, even releasing two bleeding corpses into the water—that’s when it attacked us. Only then.”
Lyla considered every word. “I think you’re finally getting to your point.”
“Calm the dragon, Lyla. I think you can calm the dragon and allow ships to pass unharmed.”
It’s not a bad idea, Lyla thought. But can I really do it?
“You’d have more gold than you could spend in your life. But more than that, you’ll be known, famous from Krii to Serradiia.”
Zar gave her a look when he spoke that last part, some sparkle in his eye that said he just knew that would appeal to her, as if he were the charmer and she were the charmed.
“They will call you the Dragontamer. You’ll be the queen of the coasts, I daresay.”
Lyla’s blood simmered, and all at once there were myriad feelings swarming within her, some she’d been aware of all along, and others that were just now awakening. “How do I do it?”
“I know the most well-known shipwright in Tiran,” said Zar. “All you need to do is perfect your craft. Practice.” The man’s brows jumped and he lifted his bound hands in front of him again. “Well?”
Lyla slid off her mare’s back, crawled over the wagon bench, and cut Zar free. The man hopped out the wagon and stretched out, shaking his arms and legs as if he hadn’t used them in weeks.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a sword, would you? I may have an enemy or two—”
His words were cut short by something like a cough, or a quick gasp of air, or a sigh or a wheeze. He stumbled forward like someone had pushed him, an arrow tip sticking through his shoulder, its steel point flashing under a ray of sun that crept down through the woods. A half-second later, another arrow struck him in the thigh, and Zar fell as a woman appeared between the trees. She was tall and slim, bronze-skinned and covered in leather. And she looked so mean.
6
Shahla swore she had a tail the way the scout trailed behind her.
It had started as a logical pairing, Daro being a Cyanan scout and Shahla knowing the land far better than he. She volunteered to go with him their first few times setting out, but she didn’t realize that meant they’d be inseparable each time they set out from then on. But it was more than her knowing the land. The man’s eyes had come to linger on her longer than they should, and he’d shown her a smile that she didn’t want to see from any man except for Zar.
Shahla wasn’t flattered by the attention as she imagined most women would be. She knew she was attractive, and that didn’t matter, for she also knew there were men who would show interest whether she was or not. Especially an army that had ridden for weeks with no female company. To swoon at the man’s flirts would be silly, for while she had been blessed with beauty, she was smart enough to know that what most men wanted had nothing to do with her face. So she had simply chuckled with a sort of scorn, as if she’d never be so simple or gullible to fall to the common advances that most silly girls would.
They wove through the hills that bordered Red Valley to the south, the Cyanan scout following on a camel which looked bare compared to the mounts of the other Cyanans. No horned chamfrain to cover its head, no caparison over its back, just golden fur under a modest saddle. It was also quite smaller than the other camels. The animal was suited for maneuverability and not for a charge.
Daro fell to Shahla’s side, his camel a few feet to the right of her mare.
“Where are we going?” he asked, eyes squinting under the sun. “King Dandil wants a report on the state of the castle—who holds it—and with how many men.”
It was funny and cute to Shahla how some people looked like their animals. She had seen girls who looked like their ponies, men who looked like their horses, and boys who looked like their dogs. This man, Daro, also shared a comical yet endearing resemblance to his camel—a golden tone, long jaw, and big, dark eyes.
“Do you have a seeing glass?” she asked him.
“Aye.”
Shahla looked up to the mountain ridges that hung above them, trying to decide which one was the spot she used to go alone to look over at the castle—and how to get there.
“I know a mount that will provide a good view.”
Daro smiled and motioned his hand toward the way ahead. “After you.”
Coming down one hill and into another, Shahla saw her trail ahead. It was at the base of a rocky mount, a cleft in the hill that split the bluff into two cliffs, a narrow trail winding through the rift. The two rode through.
Shadows stretched from wall to wall, the fissure as dim and beautiful as twilight. The sky glowed above them, and looking up from between the stone walls, all one saw was a bright blue aperture. Shahla glanced back at Daro to find him looking up between the rift at the pale blue sky. He looked back down and met Shahla’s eyes. He grinned at her.
It wasn’t one of his usual flirts, where he held eyes with her for only a second before letting them fall over the rest of her form, giving her some sort of look. It was genuine, Shahla thought, an appreciation of the moment and the beauty of the surrounding landscape. So she returned a smile.
The fissure opened at the base of a mount, and Shahla remembered the place, looking up at the mountain peak like it was an old friend she hadn’t seen in ages.
“This way!” she called to Daro, giving Dalya a quick nudge of her heel. The two started up the mountain, Dalya, the bay colored mare carrying Shahla, and Daro following on his camel.
It took nearly an hour to make it to the top, and the breeze had cooled to a brisk wind, that crisp, refreshing cold of the high places. Other peaks loomed in the distance, some close and vivid, others blurring in the far away air like apparitions. Most importantly, Snowstone Castle appeared to the north, the hill it was built on standing lower than the peak they looked from, providing a vantage down inside the walls. The octagonal curtain walls looked like fences of twigs, one encompassing the other with countless moving specks dancing within the inner one. The hill ran down to the outer courtyard, level ground surrounded by a single wall, square in shape, an assortment of buildings arranged within.
Daro had his seeing glass out before Shahla could ask him for it.
“More men than Tuskin said there’d be,” the scout said. “Far more. They’ve an army.”
Shahla jumped without moving. Her thoughts danced, her heart quickened a touch. Daro kept looking through the glass. Shahla saw little specks moving up the hill to the castle. She could see them stop in front of the outer gate. Before she could ask about it, Daro was talking.
“Someone approaches: a woman and two captives. They’re opening the gate.”
“Let me see.”
Daro handed her the telescope.
Shahla wanted to shout, but she didn’t make a sound. Everything was wrong. The castle was supposed to be manned by a much smaller force, the remainder of either Snowstone’s or the Condor’s victory. They had relied on the fact that the numbers of whoever won the siege would be so thinned out by the battle that Dandil’s force would be more than enough. But behind the walls of Snowstone was an arm
y—one that could equal the numbers of Dandil’s men by the looks of it. This wasn’t what the Cyanans had agreed to.
But worse still, walking through the outer gates, was some woman, a Condor probably, leading behind her two bound prisoners. It was some girl who, oddly enough, looked like a Cyanan. And Zar.
Shahla said nothing about Zar. It was obvious things hadn’t gone as they had planned, and she didn’t want to let Daro know there were even more things out of place that they hadn’t expected. It was bad enough that he would tell his king about the army at Snowstone.
Will Dandil still want to take the castle after he hears this news? Shahla hated that she’d asked herself this, because the answer followed behind it.
“This wasn’t what we were told,” said Daro. “This will be a fight to the last man.”
The man’s voice was void of the carefreeness he had shown before. He flashed his eyes, little brown globes of graveness, before turning his mount downhill. “The king will need to hear.”
If Dandil doesn’t take the castle, we’ll never save Zar. Shahla’s heart sunk so deep it may have left her chest altogether. But only for a moment. Then she turned her horse to follow Daro, pulled an arrow from her quiver, drew it back in her bow and launched it.
Daro toppled off his camel with a shaft splintered through his neck. There was no yelling, only a hissing of breath, gargling from choking on the blood in his throat.
The dream was painful, a burning sting in his right shoulder and left thigh that wrested Zar from the depths of sleep into a consciousness that was just as agonizing. The wounds were real, it only took him a second to realize, and his hands were bound again. Well, this time, chained.
Zar looked around, pain searing through his shoulder and thigh with every movement. He was in a tiny cell, probably in Snowstone’s gatehouse, and he examined the wounds that Yari Thorn had gifted him to find them both sealed, the cauterization of burned flesh the only indication there had ever been holes there. Against his back was an oblong boulder, the most uncomfortable looking seat he’d ever seen. The Cyana girl was there, chained too, sitting on the stone bench.
Zar looked at her, and Lyla looked back with icy eyes.
“They pulled out the arrows and sealed your wounds,” she said. “They want you alive. Why do they want you alive?”
“They?” Zar muttered.
“The woman who took us,” Lyla explained, spewing out the words like venom. “And the other woman, the queen, Anza. Heaven knows what I’ve gotten into, fooling with the likes of you!”
Zar managed a chuckle. “Lesson number one: don’t kidnap people.”
“More like if you kidnap someone, don’t let them go!” Lyla spat. “They somehow think I’m in league with you!”
“Are we not in league?”
“No! And as soon as I get them to understand that, I’ll be on my way. That archer—”
“Yari Thorn is her name,” said Zar.
“I don’t care what her name is—she said she saw some girl riding around Snowstone after they took the place—probably scouting—thinks it was me—looking for you to help you escape.”
Zar smiled, realizing who it was. He hadn’t meant to say her name out loud, but his voice rang anyway. “Shahla.”
“Whatever,” said Lyla. “You’re going to tell them I’m not Shahla. You’re going to tell them we don’t know each other, you understand?”
Zar shifted to face her, his right shoulder leaning against the bench, feeling on fire as it pressed against the stone. “They won’t believe it, Lyla. I’ve told them so many lies they’ll certainly think it’s a trick.”
“Cursed,” said Lyla. “By the gods above and demons below.”
“Maybe,” said Zar, stretching out his leg through crippling pain. He lowered his voice. “How many guards do they have on us?”
“I’ve only seen one,” said Lyla, a bit of hope, perhaps, softening the lines in her brow. “I think he waits outside the door.” She motioned to the solid wood barricade of a door several feet away from their cell. “Sometimes he comes in.”
“I’ve already escaped Snowstone once this week. I daresay I can do it again.”
Lyla looked at him like he was the most interesting man in the world. “Who are you? What’s your place in all this?”
Zar blew out a sigh. “It can all be as I said before. I truly believe you’re the key to safe passage over Dragon’s Bed. But first we have to get out of here, and I suppose I’ll have to fill you in on what’s going on up here in the mainreach.”
Zar told the girl everything.
They talked the day away, until the light that shone through the barred window in the corner of their cell dimmed to an ashen gray. A guard came in and tossed two pieces of moldy bread into their cell, and as he turned to walk away, Lyla began to sing:
The wind blows over the dragon’s blue, look the waves are rolling,
Think not what beneath them moves, that old beast is snoring,
Rest your eyes like Leviathan’s wings, calm and still and tired,
Make no splash or ripple in the sea, or you’ll feel the fire,
O’er the blue, through the wind, as deep as Or, as warm as Brim,
Find a place to lay your head, if dragons sleep then so must men,
If dragons sleep then so must men.
“Quiet!” the guard ordered, marching back to the cell’s gate. He wore a confused face, stumbling into the gate, blinking too many times like a person trying to fight away sleepiness. Lyla kept singing and he dozed off and fell forward into the gate, then forced his eyes open, looking panicked, breathing like a person half-strangled. He gripped the cell’s bars, looking to be holding himself up with everything he had. Then, he turned around and made for the door.
He fell halfway between the cell and the door and didn’t move another inch.
Zar unplugged his ears. “Ahh! No good! You were supposed to make him fall closer to the gate!”
Lyla crossed her arms and stared at the guard. “I can’t control where he falls! I told you that!”
Zar eyed the sleeper, a large, brutish looking fellow clad in simple hide. He lay face down on the floor, a ring of keys showing on his belt. They were far out of reach, and Zar knew they had no way of getting them. He wondered when the man would wake up and what would happen when he did.
7
Yari bit her tongue. She wanted to say so much but knew while Anza spoke she’d say nothing at all.
“Hiding your ram was as silly as it was dishonest,” said the queen.
Anza had summoned her to the throne room early that morning, and Yari had arrived in the great hall without any inkling she’d been called down to be chastised. Anza had never berated her before, nor had she needed to, for Yari had never disobeyed her. But this was different. It was Ivy—her Ivy—that Anza wanted her to send to the butcher like a pig or chicken. She wouldn’t have it.
“My lady,” Yari started.
“Queen,” Anza corrected.
“Of course, my queen,” said Yari, dipping her head. “My apologies.”
“None required,” said Anza with a smile. “An honest mistake.”
She rose from her throne, boar-hair, sparkling gray, coating the seat like a blanket of silver. She walked down from the dais and took Yari’s cheek in her hand affectionately, or, perhaps, admonishingly, Yari couldn’t tell.
“I know much has changed,” she said, “and there are many more changes to come. It is a difficult time for us all, and that’s why I need you with me.”
It seemed like months since Anza had touched her. Between the acquisition of Snowstone and the news of Stroan’s betrayal which Anza obviously hadn’t taken well, they had rarely been alone. And now she had spoken those words—words that she needed to hear, face inches away from her own and eyes so intent they almost looked pleading. If nothing else, Anza knew how to inspire. Who didn’t want to be needed? Who didn’t need that sense of purpose and inclusion?
Suddenly, Ya
ri wanted to take the world for her queen, even though she had just stood on uncertain ground regarding Anza’s new role due to her recent commands. But now, moments later, she was Anza’s again, and all it took was a touch of her hand, a look in her eyes, and a few well measured words. There was only one issue: Yari felt like she didn’t quite know the woman anymore.
Back in the Clouds she’d have sworn on her life that anything Anza said to her was sincere and from the heart, but she couldn’t be sure anymore. Yari had seen her say things to the great hunters, things she knew Anza said simply to inspire morale, and she had always fancied that she could tell the difference between those words and the way Anza had confided in her and Stroan. All she knew now was that Anza had just spoken to inspire her, but whether she said those things because she truly meant them or because she knew that’s what Yari needed to hear, the archer could no longer tell.
Anza marched back up the dais and sat on her throne. “Minkus and Maza had to do away with their rams as well,” she said. “If I let you spare yours, the word will not pass well. See the ram to the butcher.”
Anza said nothing else, for she didn’t need to. The queen had made her decision. She had given a command.
Yari left Anza and headed down to the outer courtyard. The stable boy was there and he perked up when he saw her, swimming in his oversized tunic. “Have you come for your ram, my lady? I’ve been feeding him hay and apples. Seems to like it just fine.”
“You told the queen about the ram,” Yari spewed, setting a stare on the boy that likely chilled him to the bone.
“No, my lady,” the boy insisted. “The queen came of her own accord. I told no one. Like you said, my lady.”
“Bring him out.”
Yari took Ivy and left. It’s not that she trusted the boy; she trusted no one. But it didn’t matter who had told Anza or how she had found out. She shouldn’t have been hiding anything from Anza, anyway.
She was just outside the butcher’s shop, and she wondered who would be inside. A fellow Condor from the Clouds, or a resident of Snowstone that Anza had let keep their job in an attempt to continue castle life order, to reform them from base cliff folk to Snowstone royals. She thought about Gargo the ram keeper again, how there was no place for him in their new realm. She wondered if there was a place for her, either.
Songs for the Sacred and the Soulless Page 6