Dragon Dawn

by Mark E. Cooper

  “I’m trying, Captain, but he’s scared some by all the goings on. I don’t think he’s right in the head.”

  Brian glared up at the book. This was not over until he had it in his hands. “Boy! Boy, listen to me!” Nothing. “Drop the book, boy!”

  The lad floated unaware of anything but the smouldering corpse of the sorcerer. He seemed mesmerised by it. He bobbed up and down as if he wanted to go higher, but the stone above him prevented it. He clutched the book as if it could save him from some unnamed fate.

  “Someone get a ladder!” Brian roared angrily. He would have the book… he would have it no matter what he had to do. “And fetch me a bow and a quiver full of shafts.”

  Travus gasped, “You can’t kill him! He’s just a little lad!”

  Brian rounded on Travus. “You’re out of line. Keep shut or—”

  “Just what is going on here?” Lady Jessica said, imperiously entering the hall like a whirlwind. She was wearing her nightdress in public, yet she wore it like it was her best court dress. “Captain Brian…” she said not quite betraying her shock at seeing him alive, “…what is that awful smell, and what’s this about a boy?”

  “Lady, it’s not safe here,” Brian said. “Please return to your rooms and I will visit you there to explain.”

  “Explain now, Captain,” Jessica said in a voice as sharp as a steel sword. This time there was no doubt that her words were an order.

  “There’s not time to explain all, Lady, but the smell is that of a charcoaled sorcerer lying there,” Brian nodded to the smouldering heap. “And the boy above your head is another. Now please Lady, leave this to us. I will have him down in moments.”

  Jessica looked up in wonder. “Oh…” she whispered.

  “Lady?” Travus said, ignoring Brian’s glare. “The captain is going to shoot him full of arrows!”

  Jessica gaped. “Of course he isn’t! Whatever gave you such a foolish notion?”

  This time Brian’s glare held Travus’ tongue. “He has the book—Darius’ book!”

  Jessica’s face hardened. “That we cannot allow. Did I hear mention of a ladder?” Brian nodded toward the men just then entering the hall. “Ah good! Bring it here and steady it for me.”

  Brian would have argued, but Jessica was almost as stubborn as her son. The Lord was renowned for it, as was the Lady. Only the God knew what Julia’s children would be like, but surely not worse… surely?

  Jessica raised her nightgown above her ankles and told the guardsmen holding the ladder not to look. “…or I’ll have the Captain post you on stable duties.”

  “Aye lady,” they both said with a grin. “We’ll not look at nothing, lady.”

  “Humph! See that you don’t,” she said and began climbing unsteadily. “A hand here, Captain,” she said and Brian followed her up a little way—just enough to prevent a fall, but not enough to come near the boy and make him flee. “My, you are a little thing,” Jessica said to the boy as if she had such conversations at the top of a ladder everyday. “I have… had a son just like you.”

  The boy was oblivious, he stared at nothing. Brian could have kicked himself when he remembered what he was staring at. He turned and quietly ordered the stinking corpse taken away.

  “What’s your name?” Jessica coaxed. “Mine is Jessica.”

  “Cenon,” the boy croaked. He blinked and turned toward her. “He’s dead.”

  Cenon spoke with a strange but cultured accent. Brian remembered where else she had heard it. Lucius, once a sorcerer, had the same twang to his words. He was the son of an artisan—a painter of fine portraits. He was not a peasant, and neither was this child.

  “A fine name and strong,” Jessica said with a smile. “The sorcerer is dead because he did something bad. He stole from us. You do know that stealing is wrong?”

  Cenon nodded.

  “That book is very precious. Your friend—”

  “Ravelyn was not my friend!” Cenon said hotly and Brian tensed. “He took me from the castle and made me carry him over Julia’s Gap! We nearly fell!”

  “That must have been frightful!” Jessica said.

  Cenon nodded. “My Lord Mortain, may he live forever, says I’m very strong for my age. He says I’m the only one who can fly,” he said proudly. “He’s my friend.”

  “I’m sure he must be right then. Can we have our book now?”

  For his answer, Cenon handed the heavy book to her.

  Jessica struggled not to drop it and handed it down to Brian who breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Thank you. Would you help me down? I’m afraid I’ll fall.”

  Cenon reached out and took Jessica’s hand. He floated carefully down beside her ready to catch her should she fall. Brian watched this, unsure what he should do about the lad. He was a sorcerer—at least he would be when he grew. He could not be left to run around loose.

  Jessica took matters into her own hands without a glance at Brian for approval. She had been Lady of Athione long before Brian was born. She wanted, nor did she need, his approval. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving!” Cenon gasped. “Ravelyn wouldn’t stop because the others might catch him.”

  Jessica stiffened. “Others? There are other sorcerers here?”

  “No Lady. They chased Ravelyn because he took me out of the castle, but he is… was a strong sorcerer. He put up walls of magic in the pass to stop them.”

  “I see,” Jessica said and nodded at Brian meaningfully. “Come along with me. I’ll have food brought and new clothes…”

  Brian gathered up his men and ran to check the west wall for intruders in the pass. He didn’t remember until later that he still clutched the book in his arms.

  * * *

  14 ~ Redbridge

  Sergeant Burke stumbled and cursed. “I’m telling the truth, curse you all!”

  The villagers laughed and prodded Burke and his men forward roughly. How by the God had he fallen in with these putrid idiots? That was easy. He had stupidly led his men straight into it! He was angry with himself for being so foolish. Of course the villagers would be suspicious, of course they wouldn’t believe a dirty group of rough looking men were anything but brigands, but he had needed help and horses. He needed to return to Lady Julia as quickly as he could. Young Lorcan must have reached her long since.

  “Listen to me—”

  “I think we’ve heard enough!” a big man with the arms of a blacksmith said gruffly. “I say we hang you right now.”

  “Damn straight!” another man agreed.

  “…my girls to think of…”

  “…and my wife says…”

  There was a good deal of agreement, and Burke’s men looked at him uneasily. This was looking worse and worse. He cast about for anyone resembling a lord or someone in authority, but all he saw was a mob. When a man produced a rope as if by magic, he panicked and began shouting for all he was worth.

  “A judgement!” he yelled. “A judgement! I demand a hearing of the lord!”

  Burke’s men took it up. “A judgement!”

  “I’m innocent! A Judgement!”

  “We’re all innocent!” Burke shouted. “I want my judgement with your lord!”

  The big man cuffed him around the ear, but Burke would not be silenced. The crowd began mumbling uneasily amongst themselves. Burke and his men quieted as they tried to make sense of what they heard.

  “…can’t do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, just because! They ain’t one of us. They ain’t even Devan!”

  “I am too a Devan!” Alvin protested.

  “Shadaaap!” the burly man said, and clipped Alvin around the ear. “We should take them to Rakin. He’ll know what’s right.”

  “Yes, Rakin will know!”

  “Who by the God is Rakin?” Burke asked, but received nothing but a glare. They shoved him and his men roughly along another lane between rows of small thatched houses.

  “You don’t think they’ll hang us
do you, Sergeant?” Alvin asked, staring uneasily at the rope one man still carried.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Burke grumbled, still glaring at the blacksmith. He relented at the woeful look on Alvin’s face. “Brace up lad. Rakin will sort this out.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He almost has to be the headman, so he’ll know our rights.”

  Alvin seemed reassured.

  He prayed he wasn’t lying to the boy and wished there were someone to reassure him about that, but he was the senior man among his men. He had to put up a brave front for them. He was a good sergeant, but he shuddered at the thought of ever gaining a captain’s sash. Leading men could be hard, how much harder must it be for a captain who led so many more than he?

  Rakin was indeed the headman, but far from the old gaffer of Burke’s imaginings, he was a man in his prime. Together with his wife and young son, he had made his fortune serving travellers good food and wine in the inn his widowed father had died to build. Burke learned all this later from his captors, but his first meeting with Rakin taught him enough to make him wary. Here was a man who held Burke’s men’s lives in his hands. A man accustomed to the villager’s respect, and well aware of the power he held over their opinions.

  Burke had lived within Athione for many years, met the high and mighty of the realm, and rubbed shoulders with mages with the power to level mountains. None had scared him the way Rakin did that day. Tall and no older than thirty if that, he had a way of looking at a man that sent shivers down his spine. His grey eyes held Burke’s for a long moment before doing the same with each of his men. Burke swallowed dryly. A word or gesture from this man would see all of them dangling from a rope, and none in the village would question it.

  Rakin met them on the steps of his inn, and listened patiently to the blacksmith’s report of events, saying nothing. When the blacksmith finished, he pursed his lips and nodded at some decision he had made.

  “Your name is Burke?”

  Burke nodded and stood straighter. “Sergeant Burke of Athione. My men are also of Athione.” He ignored the snickers of derision his claim produced, already well aware that none believed his story. “We come from the fighting north of here—”

  “There’s nothing north but the clans!” someone shouted, and greeted by loud agreement.

  Rakin raised a hand, and the crowd quieted. “Shil has a point, Sergeant, if that’s who you really are. What do you say to him?”

  “My Lord Keverin led us there to find Lady Julia. We did, but she wouldn’t leave without paying her debt to the clan that helped her. We fought the Hasian legion not far from Denpasser, and were captured along with our lord.”

  The crowd murmured in surprise, and Rakin let the noise build a little before raising a hand for quiet once again. “You say you were captured with Lord Keverin?”

  Burke and his men nodded, aware of the sudden silence around them.

  “All know Lord Keverin died in the north.”

  “That’s a lie!” Alvin spat, trying to shake off the men holding his arms.

  “Alvin!” Burke snapped, and Alvin stiffened to attention. “Leave this to me.”

  “But, Sergeant, they’re lying!”

  “I said I’ll handle it.”

  Alvin sighed and relaxed. “Aye, Sergeant.”

  Rakin watched the brief exchange with interest. He turned to the man holding Burke. “Brande, your cellar I think. You have nothing dangerous down there?”

  The blacksmith shook his head.

  “Put them there for now. Have your apprentices stand guard outside it with their biggest hammers.” He raised his voice over the mutters of the villagers, “I’m calling the council to meet with me inside to decide the right of this. If Lord Keverin is really alive, our Lord Purcell and the King will want to know. Brande, take them away.”

  Brande jerked Burke roughly out of the line. Those holding Alvin and the others followed. Talk of Lord Purcell’s wishes heartened him. He felt reasonably confident that Rakin would defer judgement now that doubt over their identities had entered his mind.

  Burke and his men fretted the rest of the day away in Brande’s cellar. Time dragged slowly past, but news finally came in the form of two women bearing platters of food. The blacksmith and his huge apprentices came along with them, but they need not have worried. Burke was only too happy to stay away from them when he heard the news.

  “Here, you must be hungry. Rakin says we gotta feed you,” one woman said as she placed the food upon the ground and stepped back.

  “Thank him for me,” Burke said, waving Alvin forward to take the food. “What has he decided?”

  “The council is split. All know you for the brigands you are, but they don’t want to be the ones to hang you. Some say we should just do it and bury you proper in the woods. Rakin says he wants to think about it a bit more before deciding, but I think he’ll agree. You deserve a proper burial. They have a nice spot all picked out.”

  Burke’s heart sank. They were all dead men. He wished he had stayed with Lorcan. This was his fault. If he had simply stayed on the other side of the river, none of this would be happening. Was Lord Keverin well? He pushed that worry firmly to the back of his mind as his stomach rumbled. He went in search of food, ignoring the bang of the trapdoor closing overhead.

  He growled when he found the trays bare. “Oy you greedy bastards, where’s mine?” His men chuckled as Alvin revealed his share hidden from sight. He shook his head. “Only you lot would fool around at a time like this.”

  He settled himself in the corner to eat his meal and plan an escape. There must be some way to get out of this and he would find it.

  * * *

  Had Keverin known that men of Athione were close by, he would have been greatly heartened by the news. As it was, he tried not to dwell on his uselessness. Lorcan had to do nearly everything for him. The thought was a bitter one. What good was a one-handed man to anyone? Lorcan had to be the one to ask for work, for if Keverin did, they smiled at him pityingly and gave him a copper or two as if he were a beggar, not a man asking for a decent wage for work. No, Lorcan had to be the one to ask, and the one that did the chores they gave him, and the one to feed and clothe them both, and… Sometimes Keverin felt like screaming at them to look at him and see a Lord of the realm, not some crippled beggar. That’s what they saw when they looked at him, if they looked at all. Most didn’t even do that, for fear his lameness was in some manner contagious.

  Keverin and Lorcan approached Redbridge from the west. Had they been travelling in the opposite direction, as Keverin dearly wished to, the road would have led him to Malcor and Julia. When he considered that every step took him that much further from Julia, he had to force himself not to turn back.

  “Have we money enough for a place at the inn, Lorcan?” Keverin said as they crossed the brightly painted wooden span that lent Redbridge its name. “I would love a bath and a proper bed, even if for only one night.”

  Lorcan shook his head. “Maybe, if you don’t want to eat tomorrow, m’lord.”

  Keverin grinned at the boy’s sour tone. “I’ve been thinking about the torque again.”

  “I thought we had agreed not to use it.”

  They had, but it was beginning to feel like sentimental foolishness to him. The torque Julia had made for him was solid gold. He didn’t know exactly how much gold, but by its weight, it should be enough to buy a good horse, or perhaps two nags. The problem with the torque was threefold. One, Julia had made it with magic, and non-mages had no business messing with magic. Two, anyone that saw it would assume he had stolen it from some rich nobleman; a very real possibility considering they were dressed like peasants now. And three... Julia had made it. It was all he had of her.

  “True, lad, but I think we might take the chance by selling the clasp. Just the clasp. What do you think?”

  “I think I’d prefer asking for work at the stables than ruining something the Lady made.”

  Kever
in smiled. Lorcan worshiped Julia; it wasn’t surprising he thought that way. “She wouldn’t want us to starve, Lorcan. It’s only gold. She can fix it, or make another.”

  “It’s not that, m’lord. I can see the magic in it. There’s a lot of it... a lot. I don’t think we can break it, and even if we could, we shouldn’t. It might be dangerous. Mathius taught me a little about warding, I know what can go wrong. Didn’t a ward destroy Athione’s west wall?”

  “Yes, but that was the sorcerer’s doing.”

  Lorcan shook his head. “Mathius said a lot of the damage was caused by the magic in the wards being released all at once. Really, m’lord, I would feel better if we left it alone.”

  Keverin sighed. “All right, if you think it’s that dangerous. We’ll ask for work, but not in the stables. The inn must need someone to wash dishes.”

  “I hope so, m’lord.”

  “Cheer up. It’s not so bad working for a meal now and then.”

  Lorcan scowled, glancing at the houses they passed. “If this place were just a bit bigger, I could take to the rooftops tonight and we would have all we need.”

  Keverin laughed. “Well its not. Any of your mischief will be traced straight to us—we’re strangers in town.”

  Lorcan sighed. “I know, I know.”

  They found the inn easy enough. It was in the middle of town fronted by the green. Trees dotted the green where children ran and played in the shade. It had been a long time since he had seen the like. Clan children didn’t so much play as train to fight. Oh, they called it play right enough, and seemed to enjoy it, but there was no doubt in any watcher’s mind that what they were witnessing were the seeds from which warriors grew. Wrestling they called it. Even a girl of fifteen would give a veteran Devan guardsman pause. Keverin had seen it happen. He glanced at Lorcan and found him staring in fascination as the children chased each other, or played catch, laughing and shouting. Perhaps Lorcan remembered his own good times, few though they be.

  Keverin clasped the boy’s shoulder and shook him gently. “Come, Lorcan, I’ve found the inn.”