Kale pulled to the side, ready to leap forward on the charger. A moment too late, he saw a dark form swooping out of the sky. An attacker had launched himself from the top of a wagon. The assailant struck Kale with his full weight.
The charger reared as Kale pulled the reins. The machine’s rear legs buckled and its sharp hooves drove into the ice. It fought to regain its balance, but the weight of the attack was too great. The horse tumbled sideways, spilling Kale out of the saddle as his attacker bore him to the ground. They hit the hard icy earth together.
Kale twisted, shoving his attacker away. The dark figure rolled to his feet and leapt back, safely out of reach. Behind them, the charger thrashed. Its inner gears made loud whining noises, and the spring-powered hooves kicked wildly. This was one thing from which a mechanical charger could not recover. It would take half a dozen men to get the machine upright.
Back on his feet, Kale turned in a slow circle as his attackers drew their weapons. The man before him brandished a sword, and the attacker to his left produced a dagger. The third carried a pair of short swords. He recognized them as the type with ejectable blades that could be shot like an arrow, or driven into the guts of an enemy. The fourth carried a spear, also mechanical. These latter weapons Kale had to keep an eye out for. Those blades were lightning fast, and could shoot several yards.
Kale lowered his stance and eyed the men warily, waiting for the first to attack. When they didn’t rush him, the warrior knew something was amiss. What were they waiting for? They had the upper hand. They outnumbered him four to one, and he wasn’t even armed. He heard the click of boot heels, and a fifth man appeared behind them.
This man wore royal robes, and a heavy fur cloak. He was heavyset, with a plump, feminine mouth, narrow, beady eyes, and was mostly bald except for the tufts of gray hair puffing out over his ears.
“Lydian,” Kale said through clenched teeth.
The queen’s advisor gave him a sneering smile. “It seems you’ve wandered too far from home,” Lydian said. “These are dangerous times to go out alone at night.”
The fog parted, letting in enough starlight for Kale to recognize the others. They were all men of Dragonwall; men who had never accepted his authority as First Knight, and were clearly determined that he would never be king, either. He didn’t know them by name and didn’t care to. But there was one thing he was curious about:
“Are these the men who attacked Shayla?” he said, glaring at Lydian.
The advisor’s smile widened. “What my men do in their spare time is not of my concern.”
Kale drew his gaze to the others, meeting their looks. They were confident, cocky. One of them, a husky, brown-eyed man in raggedy clothing, raised his hand. “You got us,” he said. “We did it. So what are you gonna do about it?”
The others chuckled. Kale narrowed his eyes, focusing on the man. “Did you rape her?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know? You jealous?”
“No,” Kale said in deep monotone. “I just want to know what to tell people when they ask why I killed you.”
The man’s grin faltered. He glanced at the others for support.
“That’s enough,” Lydian said. “We don’t have much time. Kill him. Take his body to the river when you’re done. I don’t want any witnesses.”
Lydian vanished into the shadows. The others stepped closer, brandishing their weapons. Kale turned left and right, trying to keep them all in sight as they surrounded him. The man with the spear lunged, and Kale danced aside. A second attacker slashed at him with his dagger. Kale sidestepped the attack and brought the back of his fist up into the man’s face. His attacker howled, dropping the knife as blood sprayed from his broken nose.
Sensing movement behind him, Kale spun. The short swords came at him, blindingly fast, moving in a blur. There was no reasonable defense against such an attack. Kale twisted, dropping into a crouch as he tried to sweep the man’s legs. The swordsman stepped back, and Kale swung around in a three-sixty as he rose back to his feet.
The spear lunged at him again. Kale twisted to the side, and the blade pierced his jacket. His right hand closed around the shaft, dragging it free of his clothing in a gush of down feathers.
A flash of steel overhead. Kale twisted, forcing the spear shaft up in a defensive block. This move successfully parried the attack while simultaneously pulling the spearman forward and off balance. Kale took advantage by throwing his elbow into the man’s face. As his attacker’s grip loosened, Kale pulled on the spear shaft, taking control of the weapon.
The swordsman brought his sword around in a smooth arc meant to decapitate Kale. The warrior responded by throwing himself backwards, leaning away from the attack. As the blade whooshed past his throat, Kale twisted the spear shaft to release the projectile. There was a loud click! and a slight burst of energy as the shaft recoiled in his hands. The blade shot out, striking his opponent in the chest. The man’s eyes widened as the icy steel penetrated his clothing and tore open his sternum, driving into his heart.
While Kale was distracted, the disarmed spearman attacked from behind. He raised his leg and drove his boot heel into Kale’s back. The kidney blow knocked the wind out of him, and Kale dropped to all fours. Before he could recover, the pommel of a sword came down with a crack! across the back of his head. Spots swam through his vision. Icy frost crystals bit into his palms. He dropped forward onto the ground, blinking as he found himself eye to eye with the dead swordsman.
Kale rolled onto his side, sucking in a wheezing breath. His attackers loomed over him, grinning. One brought the tip of his sword down to Kale’s face. “That’s a nasty scar,” he said, grazing the point across Kale’s cheek. “Where’d you get it?”
“Shaving accident,” Kale grumbled.
The men laughed. “You’re about to have another one.”
He lifted the blade. Kale’s vision went in and out of focus. He raised an arm to defend himself, knowing it was futile, but lacking the strength to do anything more. Kale closed his eyes, waiting for the final stroke.
There was a grunting noise, followed by a hoarse, wailing shriek. The blade came down, striking a glancing blow across the side of his head. Kale fell back, darkness closing in around the edges of his vision. As he lost consciousness, he caught a glimpse of his attacker being lifted into the air by a pair of massive white horns. There was another scream, followed by the thunder of hooves, and Kale blacked out.
Chapter 5
Micah had an apprehensive feeling gnawing at his gut as he climbed back onto the roof of the steamscout. He extended a hand to help Morgane, but kept an eye on the shadows in the jungle surrounding them. What had become of the Ana-nuit, he had to wonder. Were the ghouls out there somewhere, hunting down the survivors?
His thoughts went to Socrates and River. He hoped against all hope that they were still alive, but if they were, he worried for them. It had become clear that the Legion didn’t just have vast numbers and terrifying monsters; they also had advanced technology. They had airships, bombs, and heaven only knew what else, and they had already demonstrated a pathological readiness to use these resources indiscriminately. Life had no value to them. They thought only in terms of what resources they could take and use. This meant humans for slaves, and when necessary, to supplement their numbers and swell their ranks. It meant the harvest -the starfall-imbued grapes that kept them alive- and of course, starfall itself.
It always came down to starfall.
Once they were on board, Thane wasted no time activating the steamscout. Within minutes of leaving the village, they were on the move. Micah settled cross-legged on the roof with his sketchpad on his lap. The vine-smothered jungle loomed over him and the shadows deepened as the sky took on a rosy hue. The pages of his sketchpad shivered in the wind, and the persistent thump, thump, thump of the steamscout’s engine reverberated through his body like a drum. Morgane sat next to him, facing the tracks behind the scout, a look of deep contemplation on her face. Fo
r a long while, no one spoke.
As night fell, the blank paper on Micah’s lap remained untouched. He finally packed it back into his satchel and helped Morgane sort through their travel supplies to piece together a meal. They layered herbs, cheese, and preserved venison on slabs of bread, and filled their cups from a skin of elderberry wine. They spoke very little while they ate. Thane continued to operate the scout while eating with one hand, though it was debatable as to whether this was an act of discipline or of fear. No one would rest until they were free of the crater.
After dinner, Micah offered to give Thane a break. The bard said that he was fine, and would prefer to continue driving. They all agreed that it would be better to keep moving all night than to stop inside the crater.
“You two get some rest,” Thane advised. “If I need a relief driver, I’ll wake you.”
This seemed reasonable, and the bard received no argument from his weary companions. The two travelers settled back on the roof with travel packs under their heads as pillows, and cloaks wrapped around them for warmth. It was a cool, clear night and the temperature dropped steadily as they made the climb out of the crater. It wasn’t long before Morgane had snuggled close to Micah for warmth, combining the two cloaks over them like blankets. Had he been awake, the halfling would likely have been somewhat embarrassed by this unfamiliar intimacy. Fortunately -or unfortunately, as the case may be- he knew nothing of it until he woke the next morning under a layer of frost and realized that they were now barreling across the lava flows towards Dragonwall.
His face had been half-buried under the covers for warmth, and the icy cold wind on his face was a shock that woke him straight away. Micah started to move, and only then realized that Morgane had her head resting against his shoulder, and her warm body pressed up tight against him. He twisted, glancing down through the grating at Thane. Sensing his movement, the bard looked up and gave him a sly smile. Micah’s face went flush. Suddenly, the cold wind didn’t feel so cold or unwelcome.
Micah shifted the cloaks to cover Morgane as he sat up. In the distance, still a good thirty or forty miles off, he saw the encampments of the refugees outside Stormwatch, and the columns of smoke rising from their campfires. It was impossible to estimate their numbers, but as the distance closed, he realized that there must be thousands of them. Possibly even tens of thousands.
“Where did they all come from?” he asked Thane over the drumming of the steam engine.
The bard didn’t have a direct answer. “Looks like the entire population of South Bronwyr, or even Avenston. Are there any cities between here and the Firelands?”
Micah admitted that he did not know. The sound of their voices roused Morgane, who spent a minute getting situated, donning her cloak, and handing Micah’s back to him. During this process, Micah pointed the camps out to her, and asked her opinion.
“I was afraid this might happen,” Morgane said, gazing across the flows. “When I saw what happened at the pyramids, I realized that everyone in the Legion’s path would flee to the north. Where else could they go?”
“Will they be safe here?” the halfling asked.
“I think not. Look at the number of them. They’ll never fit in the mountain, and Stormwatch was already overflowing before they arrived. The dragons have hunted the land clean for miles, and the ocean as well. There is no way a handful of knights can feed and protect all these people.”
Micah exchanged a glance with Thane. The bard wore a dark expression. He had seen war before, and knew all too well that this was just the beginning.
The steamscout made it halfway through the encampment before they had to stop. Several groups had erected their tents right on top of the tracks, and there was no point arguing for them to move. It was only a mile or so to hike up to the mountain. Thane locked the brakes and released the boiler pressure. The refugees stared at them as the group climbed down and shouldered their packs.
“I’m Micah,” the halfling said to a dirty, unshaven peasant man who had been glaring at him. The man didn’t answer. He pressed his lips together, narrowed his eyes and drew his gaze away. Micah frowned. He glanced at the others in the vicinity, and they all reacted similarly, either giving him unwelcoming looks or avoiding his gaze altogether.
“Friendly bunch,” he grumbled.
“Don’t judge too quickly,” Morgane advised. “You don’t know what they’ve been through.”
“They don’t know what I’ve been through,” Micah snorted.
They left the steamscout there, and began the hike up to Dragonwall. Along they way, they tried to question the refugees, but very few would respond to them. Not many of those who did respond could speak in the common tongue of Astatia, Danaise, and the surrounding lands. Even then, their variant dialects made it impossible even for Morgane to understand all they said. She did manage to piece together a few things.
“Most of these people are from the western border lands, and some are from the grasslands beyond the mountains,” she explained to her companions.
“What about the banners?” Micah said, nodding at the decorations hanging from the battlements along the front of the mountain. “What do those mean?”
“It appears we’ve arrived just in time for a wedding,” Morgane said.
“A wedding? At a time like this?”
Morgane paused to question a group of people waiting in line for food at the base of the mountain. She spoke to them in a mixture of broken common tongue and their home language. As they conferred, her eyebrows narrowed, and she threw glances up the road to the mountain.
“What’s wrong?” Micah said when she finally returned to them. “Is it a wedding, or a funeral?”
“Oh, it’s definitely a wedding,” said Morgane. “The queen has chosen a new king to replace Dane.”
“A new king? Who will it be?”
She locked eyes with the halfling. “It’s your friend, Kale.”
Micah’s jaw dropped.
Chapter 6
At that very moment , Kale was in the throne room inside Dragonwall, contemplating his own future.
The throne room was a solitary, quiet place. Lonely, in fact. The only windows were a row of narrow rectangular openings high on one wall, and a thick layer of dust coated the furnishings and once-polished suits of armor that lined the court. Threadbare tapestries hung from the walls, and the great fireplace sat unused and filled with ashes at least a decade old.
It was from here that many of the early kings of Dragonwall had ruled over their lands. They held court, signed treaties and accords, and plotted out strategies to rid the kingdom of dragons once and for all. It was a room, Kale had learned, that his recently deceased predecessor had never used. It hadn’t been Dane’s way to surround himself with knights and nobles and hand out decrees from afar. When Dane dealt out judgment, it was on the field, face to face with his subjects. When Dane’s men went to war, he had led them to the field and rode before them into battle.
Kale sat on the throne, reclined to one side with his chin resting on his fist as he gazed across the shadowy hall. Motes of dust floated through the narrow slits of light, flashing here and there like tiny fireworks. The suits of armor and portraits of ancient kings seemed to leer down at him, doubting, judging. He felt an ache in his bones that was more than just the bruising he’d received the night before. It was the pain of loss and grief and of a long, hard life, and finally, of letting that life go. Kale was not a child anymore. He’d clung to it long enough, and it was time now to accept the past as gone. It was time to move on.
The memories still haunted him: the death of his parents, the destruction of his family’s farm, the loss of Tinker and eventually, even River. It seemed Kale had been destined from the beginning to lose everyone he’d ever cared about. No matter how hard he struggled against it, no matter how he clung to his youth and tried to lock away that broken part of himself, his fate always eventually overtook him. It always would, until he learned to accept it. Somehow, he would make
the best of it.
The room darkened as the clouds rolled in. He heard the wind against the windows, the low rumble of machinery in the heart of the mountain, but still did not move for some time. He sat in quiet contemplation, examining his thoughts, turning them over and dissecting them until he had none left. Slowly, like the memories of the past, his concerns began to blur and fade until they became nothing, and at last he began to see a way forward.
A heavy snow was falling when Kale went to the queen’s chambers that afternoon. He found Aileen with the children, practicing their sewing skills. She rose from the couch and hurried over to embrace him.
“Are you well?” she said, gazing up into his stormy blue eyes. “There is a darkness about you today.”
Kale ignored the question: “Any word on Lydian?”
“He is still missing. The knights and the guards have orders to kill him on sight. I’m sure it won’t be long.”
“I should go find him myself,” Kale said. “I don’t want him interrupting the ceremony.”
He started to pull away, but she caught him by the arm. “Don’t. The knights can handle it. Besides, we don’t have enough time. The ceremony begins in an hour. You need to get dressed.”
It seemed like a mere blink from that moment, standing with Aileen in her chambers, to the pavilion on the plateau outside Dragonwall. This was where Kale suddenly seemed to find himself. He stood before the podium with Gavin at his side while a band played the somber procession music that always accompanied a royal wedding. Kale watched for a minute as the pipes led the melody before fading into the march of drums and the moan of the strings.
A hush fell over the crowd, and Kale heard a gasp somewhere near the back. He turned to see Aileen at the entrance. She was accompanied by her uncle. Her father had died years earlier, battling a dragon. She stood tall and radiant next to him, her auburn locks glowing in the halo of light that surrounded her. She wore the dress of silky silver material and emerald green embroidery that made her eyes glimmer like emeralds. Her silver crown rested on her head, and a jeweled sword hung at her side.
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