Dragon Fire

by Pedro L. Alvarez

  He looked at Sandrion and waited. Sandrion nodded. He then looked at Aria with a stern gaze.

  “I know it,” she said, just as sternly.

  “Your Highness, it is imperative that you are not found implicated in this; your connection to the Cave Dwellers must not be discovered. If your identity is found out, the rebels would lose their leader.”

  “Sir Wildon, I know what I must do.” Aria stood before the knight in a uniform that was too large, her fingers barely visible at the ends of the sleeves. “And that is to risk all to save Delcan. I love him.”

  Wildon shook his head slowly. He glanced at Sandrion and sighed. “Very well, princess,” he said.

  The word struck Aria. Wildon meant no ill intent in the word but at once Aria felt as if the use of it—the reference of her as a princess—served as a reminder that she was still only a young woman who had no business in the middle of a dungeon rescue and an impending war. It lit a fire within her and at the same time set her mind on the reality that even though she had an army who would follow her, it would likely retreat were they to find out she was nothing more than a princess in disguise. She had so much to prove; and so much to lose.

  Wildon put a heavy hand on Aria’s shoulder and said, “I urge you to act only if you have no other alternative.” Aria nodded.

  “We shall take Delcan out to the courtyard,” Wildon continued as he hid a dagger inside his shirt. “There, we part. Sandrion, you and I shall take Delcan out of the castle through the stable. On the rear wall behind the largest bails of hay is a set of double doors. They lead outside the castle. We shall escape through there. Aria, you return to the tower.”

  He closed the weapons compartment and tied the longsword scabbard to his hip.

  “Now, let us get Delcan.”

  The entrance at the end of the corridor was locked and Sir Wildon had the key. He opened the door and grabbed a torch that hung on the wall.

  Before them stretched a stone staircase leading down into an engulfing gloom.

  “This leads to the dungeon?” Sandrion asked.

  “It does,” Wildon said as he began descending the steps. “This is one of two entrances—the other is a hidden door at the rear of the barracks that can be opened from the outside. That will be our exit.”

  Sandrion closed the door behind them and followed Wildon’s illuminating lead.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  By the time they arrived at the dungeon’s guarded door, the rain had stopped and the sun had begun to make its way above the mountains.

  Two men stood at the doorway that led into the dungeon and torture chamber. One was short with a thick moustache and untamed hair that poured out through the bottom of his helmet. The other was tall, his face round and hairless. His right eye was bloodshot. Sandrion supposed the red tint had come from the guard vigorously rubbing his eye after a long night of little sleep. He wondered if either of these men was aware of the day’s passing hours.

  As Wildon approached the door, the guards recognized his rank and suddenly stood rigidly at their post. They saluted.

  “Sir,” the short guard asked, “May I ask the reason for your visit?”

  “These guards are to be trained in dungeon duty.” Wildon pointed at Aria and

  Sandrion, who stood a few feet behind him, their heads down, their faces hidden. “I am to usher them inside, introduce them to their tasks.”

  The short guard nodded and the tall one opened door. Wildon stepped into the dungeon, the squire and the princess followed.

  As the seemingly heavy door closed behind them Sandrion looked up from under his hood. He looked around him and found the dungeon as he had seen it in his dream. The walls were old, ancient, and cracking; the ceiling hung over them like a storm cloud made of stone. Torture devices sat in the center of the chamber. Across from them, on both sides, some of the prisoners stood with their hands wrapped around the iron bars, watching them as they passed; others sat on the cell floors with their heads down. The men behind the bars were all thin and nearly unclothed —their bones pushed against their skins as if they too were being held prisoner and were struggling to escape.

  Three guards stood around one of the machines. At the far end of the room, beyond a narrow archway, Sandrion saw another guard walking about in a circular chamber.

  “Stay close,” Wildon whispered as they approached the guards. He stopped suddenly and Sandrion rose on the ball of his feet to look over the knight’s shoulder. In the apparatus around which the guards stood conversing, Delcan lay with his arms stretched far over his head, his wrists bound; a leather strap was wrapped across his forehead, keeping his head immobile.

  Wildon turned to Sandrion and Aria and looked upon them sternly. “Stay here,” he urged. “Come forth only when I say.”

  Sandrion looked at Aria and was relieved when he realized she could not see Delcan from where she stood. She had not seen him strapped to the torture chair.

  Aria opened her mouth to protest, wanting to follow Wildon forward, and he silenced her with the rise of his hand and a hard look. Regardless of her stance as Branis, leader of the Cave Dwellers, this was Wildon’s operation and only he was in charge. Sir Wildon turned and sighed in mental preparation before walking toward the guards.

  “Good day,” he said. His voice carried a deep tenor within the walls of the dungeon. The three men ceased their chatter and saluted.

  “Sir.”

  “The interrogation,” Wildon nodded toward Delcan. “How is it progressing?” Delcan looked up at him. His face was bloodied; his breath slow and shallow.

  “This is the second session,” responded the guard standing closest to Delcan. His helmet was cradled under one arm. “He thinks himself unbreakable. The King himself was here not long ago and the boy resisted but he won’t for much longer.”

  “Good.”

  Wildon looked away from Delcan and turned to his left where a prisoner watched him intently. Sandrion saw recognition in that look and wondered if the prisoner was one of the rebels who had been captured. The man, whose eyes appeared more alive than did the rest of his body, grasped the cell bars tightly. Anger, not fear, had settled on that grim face.

  “He is your squire.” The guard, whose features resembled the short man who stood at the entrance, said.

  Wildon turned away from the prisoner’s glare. “He was,” he corrected the guard.

  Listening to the exchange, Sandrion was suddenly disheartened at Wildon having been recognized by the guards. Wildon had made the implications of their actions clear to him and Aria but up to this moment their impact on the knight’s own life had not yet settled in Sandrion’s mind. After this night, it would be impossible for Wildon to remain in the castle. His life-long service to the King was now over.

  “Do I know you?” Wildon asked of the guard.

  “I do not believe so, sir; but I am aware of your position in the King’s court, and your relation to the prisoner. My name is Ensil.”

  “Well, Ensil, where are the rest of you?”

  “Here are the three of us and Goel at the pit. That is all.”

  Wildon glanced behind him. Aria raised her head but Delcan was still out of her line of sight, and that was good. “These two guards are to report here,” he said gesturing toward Sandrion and Aria. “Come forth and greet them.”

  The three men nodded and followed Wildon to where Sandrion and Aria stood.

  They had not discussed how this moment would go. Wildon had only said that they would know the right time to strike—that the air in the chamber would change and they must respond to it with decisive action. This moment would change the rest of their lives.

  Sandrion’s hand rested on the hilt of his arming sword. Aria’s hand hung at her side with her finger wrapped around the crossbow’s trigger.

  Wildon stood before Aria and placed his hand on her shoulder. The three guards stood behind him with the one named Ensil directly behind his right shoulder. Wildon reached across his body with
his right hand and grasped the handle of his longsword.

  “Young man…” he said to Aria in a loud, almost ceremonial voice as he began to draw the sword from its sheath, his broad shoulders partly hiding his action. “…prepare to serve your duty.”

  As he uttered the last word, Wildon spun to his right quickly, finishing the draw of the sword. He struck Ensil with his elbow on the chest, knocking him backward onto the smoothed-stone floor. He gripped the sword with both hands and placed his boot firmly on the fallen man’s throat.

  Aria threw open her cloak and raised the crossbow, aiming it at the guard who stood to the left of Wildon with a dumb-struck look on his face. With her vision partially obstructed, she pushed the hood off her head, revealing her shoulder-length hair and her identity. The guard, whose eyes were a deep brown, froze in place with his sword half drawn. “Your Highness,” he whispered. Sandrion could see on his face that he knew not whether to bow or charge at her.

  The third guard had not had time to even reach for his weapon. He only stood glaring into Sandrion’s eyes as the squire pointed at him with the blade of the arming sword.

  “I encourage you strongly to make that spot a permanent one and to not move,” Wildon said looking at the two standing guards with a sweeping glance.

  The prisoners were now all on their feet, standing against the bars, suddenly full of life.

  “What is this you are doing?” Ensil asked hoarsely as Wildon released some of the pressure his foot had on the guard’s throat. “You are a knight in His Majesty’s service. You will hang for this.”

  “Perhaps,” Wildon said, pointing at the empty cell on his left. “But you will not live to see it if you do not open that cell for me.”

  The guard squinted as if shooting from his eyes darts of hatred at Wildon. “I would rather die fighting against this treason.”

  Wildon sighed and raised his sword, stepping away from the man on the floor.

  Goel, the guard who had been standing near the pit had apparently taken notice of the disturbance in the main chamber and ran to them, drawing his sword. When he reached the others he stood confused, looking about at the knight, the young guard, and the princess, not knowing how to react.

  “Your numbers have dwindled,” Ensil said standing. “Charge them,” he told the other guards, drawing his sword and swinging it at Wildon. The knight parried the blow to his head and then another aimed at his ribs.

  When the brown-eyed guard rushed at Wildon, Aria fired an arrow from the crossbow, stopping him from driving his blade into Wildon’s side. The guard fell back, clutching at his chest.

  The battle’s sequence of events transpired very quickly and yet Aria would remember every detail for years to come as if it had occurred at a snail’s pace.

  When she had pulled the crossbow’s trigger lever it had been such an easy thing to do. The weapon had offered no resistance, as if it had been waiting anxiously to perform its duty.

  The arrow drove deep into the guard’s chest and he fell almost instantly. Aria stood transfixed by the fallen body, by the blood that spilled out of the place where the arrow protruded.

  She had just killed a man. She had just ended his life—a man who had only come to the dungeon to perform his assigned obligation.

  Her shoulders suddenly ached as an enormous, invisible weight settled slowly upon them. Her eyes welled with tears. Her fingers loosened their grip on the crossbow. The weapon had begun to slide out of her hand when an approaching growl awoke her from her daze.

  She turned to her left and saw the guard Goel charging at her with sword in hand. With hands moving as quickly as her nerves would allow them, she pulled another arrow from the quiver that rested against her back. As she struggled to reload the weapon, Goel struck her on the chin and she stumbled back. He lunged at her again and Aria swung the crossbow across his face, scarring his cheek, drawing blood. Goel stopped for an instant then stepped forward again.

  She reached beneath her cloak and drew the arming sword. She readied herself and when Goel approached, swinging his sword, she shuffled to the side and drove her blade into his stomach, releasing it as he staggered back with a moan.

  Aria picked up Goel’s sword from the floor with both hands, her arms tightening at its weight. Her heart raced with adrenalin and she whirled around looking for another attacker, but there was none.

  At the other side of the chamber, Sandrion stood above a bloodied guard, breathing hard. His cloak was torn; the hood had come off his head.

  The guard facing Sandrion did not react when Ensil gave the order. He stood with his hand upon his sword not yet drawn, his eyes on the squire as if waiting for him to blink. Sandrion held his sword steady as he pointed it at the guard.

  To his right, Sandrion saw Wildon engaged in an exchange of blade songs with Ensil, each clash of the swords striking a metallic note. He could not see Aria.

  He hesitated at first then took a step forward. As he moved, the guard drew his own sword and struck with a wide arching swing that pushed it to the side; the strike nearly knocked the blade out of Sandrion’s hand. The guard kicked him hard with a flat foot upon his chest, shoving him down to the stone.

  Sandrion sat and raised the sword in front of him, in a way hoping that the blade itself would protect him from an attack as he tried to stand. He staggered back as he stood and was suddenly faced with the end of the guard’s sword lunging at his chest, approaching fast. He parried the move with a fast, downward swing that he quickly reversed to bring the steel down over the guard’s head. The guard blocked the blow and Sandrion lunged. The guard took a large step back and Sandrion lunged again, pushing the man’s back against the cells lining the dungeon’s northern wall. Reaching through the space between the bars, a prisoner took hold of the guard’s shirt collar with one hand while trying to get at the guard’s sword with the other.

  The guard pulled free and came at Sandrion with a series of swings. The squire parried each move, some of them barely as he simply placed his sword in the path of the flashing steel. When one of the swings got through Sandrion’s defenses, it ripped his cloak and scraped his stomach. He looked down and glimpsed red through a tear on his shirt.

  Sandrion took hold of the arming sword with two hands and advanced with a flurry of short attacks. On the third he struck the guard in the stomach. The guard lunged forward, not relenting, and Sandrion struck again, this time dealing a deadly blow as he drove the blade forward. The guard fell, face down, with his sword beneath him.

  Sandrion stood above the guard, his eyes fixed on the blood that pooled around the dying man’s body.

  So much in his life had changed since the morning he and Delcan left Berest; so much of the world. He stood in awe at what he had just done. Not in horror at having slain a man, but more in shock at not feeling remorse, or fear, or anything other than relief.

  The guard had meant to kill him. He knew that was the case the moment the guard saw Wildon put his own life at risk by confronting Ensil. The guard had meant to kill him and Sandrion had done what he was trained to do. So he had no remorse—only a sense of relief at having survived the event. But as he stood over the dead man a fog of sorrow swept slowly over him; sorrow at no longer being the same, jovial Sandrion he had been only hours before. He was different. Changed. There was less in the world at which to laugh; less to mock. There was darkness in his heart now—darkness that would never fade and with which he must learn to live.

  Sandrion looked about him and saw the fighting had stopped. The dungeon was suddenly quiet and even more so like it had been in his dream. He released the arming sword and it clattered on the stone floor. The clatter brought with it other sounds around him and the world came back into focus. He saw Aria looking at him and the two shared a silent recognition of the things that had changed about them. To each of them, the other was now different. It was not a welcomed transformation; yet it was not all bad either. They each appeared stronger, taller; more part of this dirty world and more char
ged with wanting to make it better.

  Wildon rushed past Aria and the fallen guards to the side of the nearest torture machine. Aria watched him undo a set of straps that held down a prisoner who had been lying upon it. She walked to Wildon’s side and saw Delcan’s bloodied face for the first time.

  “Delcan,” she cried and threw herself upon him.

  Delcan grimaced and groaned in pain as she embraced him and whispered, “Aria, what are you…?” He looked at Wildon. “And you?”

  “Help me undo the binds on his wrists,” Wildon said with urgency. “We must hurry.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Delcan was disoriented. He had been in the throes of pain only a few moments ago and now before him he saw Wildon and Sandrion pulling on his arms to help him sit. And Aria. Aria stood beside them. His head pounded louder as confusion spun within it. He thought perhaps he was in a dream state brought about by the torture.

  Sandrion got him on his feet and as Delcan lowered his head to his knees, taking long, full breaths, reality took shape and focus.

  “How did you find me?” he asked. As confusion faded swirling questions took its place.

  “We have much to tell you,” Sandrion said. “The princess, here, is more of a rebel than we had thought.”

  “There is no time,” Wildon urged. “It will have to wait. Delcan, can you walk?”

  “Yes. I am fine,” Delcan lied with a groan. As Sandrion released his arm Delcan’s knees buckled and he half fell into Aria’s arms.

  “What have they done to you?” Aria asked

  “I am fine,” Delcan repeated and straightened up. “If we must go, then let us go.” He took two steps and for a moment it seemed as if he would fall forward but did not.

  “Here.” Wildon handed Delcan a short sword. “Take this.” Delcan tied the scabbard around his waist. “We are to lead you from here and take you to the caves.” Wildon threw Delcan’s arm over his shoulder and gripped him by the waist. Sandrion did the same on the other side.