Hordesmen: The Wisdom of Dragons #4

by Vickie Knestaut

  “I won’t forget him,” Quall said. “I asked him to tell me something that he wouldn’t tell anyone else. And he did. And now that’s my secret, too. It’s a part of him that I will carry around with myself always.”

  He looked back to Tyber. “I will never forget him.”

  Tyber reached out to roll the stone closer.

  Quall planted his boot on it.

  “What did he tell you?” Tyber asked as he looked up.

  “His name.”

  “What? He told you why we called him Fang?”

  Quall shook his head. “No. He told me his real name.”

  He squatted and grasped the stone, his face inches from Tyber’s.

  “And now I know something about you,” Tyber said. “I know that Fang trusted you enough to tell you something he wouldn’t tell the rest of us. I will always remember that about you.”

  Quall pulled the stone toward himself, tightened his jaw, then stood slowly, his knees trembling slightly. He gasped once he was upright, then looked at Tyber. A tear slid down the side of his nose.

  Tyber stood and reached for the end of the rock closest to him. Together they took their final gift to Fang.

  Epilogue

  Master Groal stood before the horde, his hands behind his back and beneath the folds of his black cape. He looked them up and down.

  “On behalf of the mother city, I express my appreciation and gratitude for what you men have accomplished.”

  Tyber looked away, the words sitting uncomfortably in his ears. He looked out over the faces in the plaza. He tried to pick out a familiar face, someone he might know, but he couldn’t focus. He lifted his gaze to the sky, to the puffy, white clouds that rolled in from the south as if they, too, had come to see the recruits inducted.

  “You each embody the spirit of this kingdom. We, as a people, have taken blow after blow. While many would have laid down with bruised spirits and trampled souls, you young men stood up. You answered the call of your kingdom and rose to show that our city is the home of honor, integrity, and bravery.”

  Tyber inhaled deeply. His nose itched. By the eyes of the gods, he missed the clean scent of the plain. The simplicity. Even though the mother city smelled a thousand times better in the winter than it did in the summer, it was never a pleasure to behold.

  Master Groal turned and strolled to the end of the platform they stood upon. His cape bounced behind him, teasing and playing with the breeze.

  “Standing up when called is one thing,” Master Groal said to the crowd. “It is another thing entirely to turn the words I will into I did. These men did.”

  Applause rippled across the crowd. The city wall stood almost a mile behind the people. Even at that distance, it felt too close. Too confining.

  Tyber inhaled deeply.

  Give me the sky.

  “These men, when called upon by our king, put theory to practice, education to action. They boldly departed the safety of our city and flew to a foreign border to escort one of the largest caravans ever sent by the kingdom of Seelia. And though it wasn’t easy, though it required sacrifice and valor, they saw the caravan to our gate. To our markets. The goods to our homes. The food to our bellies.”

  Tyber looked back to the faces of the people. Master Groal was going on far longer than necessary.

  “We cannot ask anything more of these young men than what they have already given us. And so I say it is our turn to give to them.”

  The crowd erupted in applause. Cheers and shouts rose and filled the plaza.

  Tyber drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes. He tried to picture Fang, to recall the way he looked as he walked away from the wagon, his hood down despite the cold, a great grin over his reddened cheeks. Tyber would not forget him. None of them would.

  “Kneel, recruits,” Master Groal shouted.

  His eyes still closed, Tyber lowered himself to his knees, his hands clasped behind his back. He heard the words, the recitation, and counted off the names of his hordesmates as the Prince made his way down the line. Finally, the press of a blade landed on Tyber’s shoulder.

  He looked up into the face of a man with dark hair and a beard, a strong nose and high cheekbones. A ruggedly handsome man who looked very much like his brother. Behind and to either side of him stood two of the silent weyrboys in their scarlet robes. One held a bundle of braided tassels.

  “Tyber, is it?” the man asked.

  Tyber nodded.

  “Do you swear upon your heart and dreams, upon the heart and wings of the bonded dragons of our king, that you will rise, and by his will, defend the skies and all that is in and under it? Do you swear to the King to take your name from yourself and hand it over to the horde, willfully and joyously?”

  Tyber nodded, trying not to think of what the words actually meant. “For Rius, I do.”

  A quick smile passed over the Prince’s face before he buried it beneath his officious demeanor. For a moment, the man seemed almost human.

  “Then I, Prince Winsom of Cadwaller, brother of the King, hereby in his name and with his blessing, recognize you as one with his dragons.”

  The Prince lifted the blade and touched it to Tyber’s other shoulder.

  “Tyber of Cadwaller, you are our king’s hands upon the saddle, you are the will that guides the wings.”

  Tyber bowed his head as the weyrboys stepped forward. One placed a tassel on Tyber’s shoulder and the other used a pin to secure it as Prince Winsom moved on, repeating the same lines to Ren. On they went, until finishing up with Herminion.

  “Now,” Prince Winsom called out, his voice rising over the crowd, “I say to you with my own words as much as my brother’s, on your feet, Hordesmen!”

  Shouts and applause lifted from the crowd as the young men stood.

  “Now, prepare yourselves to receive your last order from the headmaster of His Majesty’s Academy of Royal Hordesmen,” Master Groal called as he strolled back across the stage. “Dismissed!”

  The cheering rose another level, and Tyber turned around to Rius. He lifted his hand and the dragon bent forward. Her tongue slapped his palm, and then she straightened up, her attention darting around at all the noise and commotion.

  Tyber took a deep breath, then spotted Master Groal, standing at the end of the platform chatting with Dragoneer Chanson.

  “Be right back,” Tyber said to Rius. He repeated the same to Ren, then strolled after Master Groal just as the headmaster was about to follow Dragoneer Chanson down several steps to the plaza grounds.

  “Master Groal!” Tyber called.

  The headmaster turned back to Tyber, then excused himself to Chanson. “Yes, hordesman?”

  Tyber stopped and looked about quickly. There weren’t many prying ears, and the chatter of the crowd would drown out anything he said.

  He looked at the headmaster, his dark eyes and large nose, the long face that put Tyber in mind of a dragon.

  “I have a question,” Tyber said.

  Master Groal grinned. “That is good to hear. Education shouldn’t stop just because one has graduated.”

  “The night True Gate burned, you saved me. You saved me and another woman. And I carried her grandmother, but she didn’t make it.”

  The grin dropped from Master Groal’s face. He nodded. “I remember.”

  Tyber leaned in slightly. “You folded wings around us. That’s how you protected us. You covered us with your wings.”

  Tyber searched the headmaster’s eyes. And saw nothing.

  “You had a question,” Master Groal finally said.

  Tyber rocked back on his heels, a little stunned by the response.

  “What… What magic do you possess? How did you do it? Are you a…” His voice trailed off as he realized the craziness of his words.

  Master Groal glanced over Tyber’s head briefly, peering at something, and then he met Tyber’s eyes again.

  “I have had the honor of watching many, many hundreds of students pass through my academy. T
hey always leave one of two ways. And the ones who are escorted to Dragon Lane by the weyrboys and the ones who leave via this stage are separated by only one thing. Courage. You, Tyber, have demonstrated a faith that is necessary in all of our hordesmen. You have faith in your commanders. Our leaders. Our people. More than that, you have a faith in yourself that few in this city can ever call their own.”

  As his words stopped, Tyber felt as if he had been pinned on the spot, anchored and chained to the platform as a demonstration.

  He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I have heard about the battle you and the others fought. You in particular displayed remarkable skill upon the back of your dragon. I hear you dispatched two dragonjacks with nothing more than your mount.”

  Tyber swallowed, blinking slowly. His neck felt too tight to nod, but he did.

  “How did you tell Rius to do that? What specific commands did you give her?”

  Tyber shook his head. “I didn’t,” he said, and his words came out as a whisper.

  “As Prince Winsom suggested, you are the will that guides the wings, young man. You may not understand how you did it, but you did it all the same. Does it matter how you did it?”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Yet it was done,” Master Groal said with a shrug.

  Tyber had no response to that.

  “Faith, hordesman, is believing in that which you need to be, even when you can’t see it, can’t feel it, or can’t articulate it when your former headmaster asks you about it. It is at the heart of the bond with our dragons. It is their wisdom.”

  Tyber swayed slightly on his feet.

  “Tyber!” a voice called. A woman’s voice.

  “Faith is what you have when you see things your eyes could never see,” Master Groal said, then turned away and trotted down the stairs, his cape fluttering behind him.

  “What?” Tyber asked the headmaster’s back.

  “Tyber!” the woman cried again.

  Recognition hit Tyber like a club.

  He whirled around as Theola rushed across the platform.

  “Theola!” he cried. He raced forward and crushed her in an embrace, lifting her and spinning her around before dropping her back to her feet. “You’re alive!”

  “Of course I’m alive! Why wouldn’t I be? How could I come back here and see this if I was dead?”

  “But the war with the…”

  A shadow passed over Theola’s face, and in her expression, he found himself looking deeply into things he’d been trying not to think of since he turned away from Fang’s cairn for the last time.

  “It’s a long story,” Theola said, then brushed her braided hair over her shoulder. “I’m so proud of you!” She clenched her hand into a fist and pounded it lightly against his shoulder.

  He winced, his teeth gritting.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I hurt you?”

  “It’s nothing,” Tyber said, rubbing briefly at his shoulder where the arrow had struck. “Father? Fafa? The little ones?”

  “They’re fine. They’re all doing so well. Oh, Ty!” Theola cocked her head and her eyes glittered with a sudden rush of emotion. “You should see them. They’re doing great! Aerona is more wonderful than you can imagine. Father has more work than he can handle. He’s working with stone masons building cottages everywhere. They’re going to start a bridge! And even Fafa is selling his little carvings in the market. People can’t get enough! And with my wages—I’m a hordesman, too!”

  “What?”

  Theola nodded, and the shadow came back, then fled again. “We eat plenty, Tyber, and the little ones are doing so much better than ever. And Father and Fafa…” She shook her head. “If we had you, everything would be perfect.”

  A tightness clenched Tyber about the chest. He grasped Theola around the shoulders, and for a brief second, he wondered what it would be like to never let go, never release her. Let her drag him back to Aerona with her.

  But his place was here. This was his city, his duty to look after it.

  Tyber took a deep breath, then shook his head. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  Theola nodded at Prince Winsom, standing at the other end of the platform, chatting with Ander and Olsid. “We were chosen to escort him back here for the ceremony.” She waved a hand back at the newest hordesmen and their dragons.

  “How long are you staying?”

  Theola shrugged. “Until he wants to return, I guess.”

  A smile grew on Tyber’s face. “That’s great!”

  “Great?”

  “Yeah! When is he going to want to go back? I mean, he’s home, so he’s probably not going to want to leave any time soon. We can catch up.”

  Tyber’s smile faded away. “I have so much I want to tell you.”

  Theola nodded. “I know. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I might,” Tyber said.

  “No,” Theola said with a slow shake of her head. “I’m telling you. You won’t.”

  Tyber’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”

  “Hordesmen,” Ander called as he approached. He snapped his fingers at Ren, then motioned for him to join them as well.

  “Theola,” Ander said with a smile and nod. “It’s been a long time. I hope you are doing well.”

  She smiled. “I’m good. Thank you.”

  “If you will please excuse us, I have some business with your brother. I’m sure you two will have a chance to catch up soon enough.”

  “You’re in the royal weyr now, right?” Theola asked.

  Tyber nodded.

  “Me too. I’ll come find you later.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then hurried off.

  “What do I have to do to get me one of those?” Ren asked.

  “Try it. She’s a royal hordesman now, too,” Tyber said.

  “What?” Ren asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  Ander clamped his hands on their shoulders. “I want the two of you to pack your belongings and get ready to leave. I can’t say when, but soon.”

  “How soon?” Ren asked.

  “As soon as Prince Winsom is ready to go,” Ander said as he jerked his head in the Prince’s direction.

  The bottom fell out of Tyber’s stomach. He’d become a hordesman to protect the people, and here he was being tagged already to babysit a royal.

  “It’ll probably be tomorrow morning at the earliest, knowing him, but don’t count on it,” Ander added.

  “Where are we escorting him off to?” Ren asked.

  “Aerona,” Ander said.

  Tyber gaped at the proctor.

  “Wait,” Ren said, holding up his palm. “He flies here with a wing of hordesmen ladies, and you want us to escort him back. He’s leaving the ladies here?”

  “No,” Ander said with a shake of his head. “They’re going back. And you’re going with them. The two of you. And me. The King has a special assignment for us.”

  “Oh, no,” Ren said with a shake of his head. “No, no, no. I am not volunteering for this.”

  “You are,” Ander said with a nod. His grip tightened on their shoulders. “You want to. I assure you.”

  “Why?” Tyber asked. “What for?”

  “For Fang,” Ander said.

  Tyber’s mouth went dry.

  “When do we leave?” Ren asked.

  “Soon as the Prince is ready,” Ander replied.

  “Tell him,” Tyber said, “Tell him to put a move on.”

  Further Adventures with Tyber and Rius

  Tyber, Rius, Ren, and Ander return in June of 2021 in the first installment of the Dragonjacks series.

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  Where It All Began...

  An Excerpt from The Dragoneer: Book 1 - The Bonding

  Chapter 1

  Ulbeg flicked his tail and caught Trysten across
the shins, knocking her and the two buckets she carried off balance. Water sloshed across the stall floor. Trysten sighed and straightened herself, then emptied what was left of the water into the dragon’s trough. She turned and patted his flank. “It’s okay. I feel it too. No need to apologize.”

  The emerald green dragon dipped his head, brushing his muzzle against her sleeve as if to say thank you.

  She moved on down the center aisle of the weyr, stopping to pick up more water buckets on the way. The dragons watched from their stalls as she passed. Ahead, a deep red female flicked her wings out, then drew them back. Straw skittered across the weyr in her wake. The dragons were unsettled. They knew Trysten’s father was coming, paying a visit for the first time since the accident.

  In the middle of the weyr, she stopped before a gold dragon. The dragon lowered her head to meet Trysten’s outstretched palm.

  “He’s coming, Elevera,” she whispered to the dragon. Her palm touched the small scales along the dragon’s muzzle. The entire length of Elevera’s head was longer than Trysten’s arm. Despite the tension in the weyr, Trysten smiled when Elevera nuzzled her palm. Not that it wasn’t a happy day. Ignoring protests from herself, her mother, and Galelin, the village healer, her father had decided he’d had enough of his bed and was going to the weyr. He was still dragoneer of Aerona weyr, and Aeronwind needed to see him, to know that he could stand once again.

  Trysten closed her eyes and listened. The soft hush of a brush against leather whispered through the dim shadows. Her breath slowed. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears, but around it, the whispered song of the dragons rose like smoke up to the vaulted roof. The quiet, rushing breath, the shift of leathery skin, a quick click of a jaw, a flick of wings all added to a shifting, whirring song, a whispered chorus as the dragons spoke with each other in quiet and subtle cues that few ever noticed, let alone understood as Trysten did.

  Her fingers curled a bit beneath Elevera’s golden muzzle as she picked out the individual notes and rhythms of the song. The dragons were excited, pleased to know that Mardoc was coming back. But woven through their song a deep, barely audible rumble rolled, a noise that Trysten imagined the heart of a mountain might make. Expressions of concern, of sadness deepening into sorrow. The sorrow was new.