Reclaimer

by J. C. Staudt

  “I don’t want to play with them. I want to be with you. And help you.” Bosco’s enthusiasm was fading into self-doubt.

  “I don’t play no more. I’m too old for that. And you’re not helping. All you’re doing is mucking things up and giving me headaches.”

  “I won’t muck it up again,” Bosco promised. “Not this time. Can I stay?”

  Marsh raged. “No you can’t stay, you little bungler. I’m done with you. Get out of here.”

  From somewhere deep inside Ristocule’s mind, Sir Jalleth edged forward. He nipped Marsh on the nose, drawing blood, then launched himself off the boy’s arm, fluttering across the short distance to land on Bosco’s.

  Bosco reeled in surprise, but regained his footing this time. His wounded expression eased, and a smile dawned in its place. “Master Whitefeather is fond of me.”

  “It’s just a stupid bird,” said Marsh, holding his nose, eyes watering. “It don’t know no better.”

  “He does. He came to me because he’s fond of me.”

  Marsh’s eyes flashed with anger. “That’s a fool notion if I ever heard one. Give it here. Throw it back.”

  “He doesn’t like you. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bited you. You ought to stop being so cruel to him.”

  “Throw it back, I said.”

  “I won’t,” said Bosco. “I won’t.”

  “It’s my bird, and when I says throw it back you’d better throw it back, or I’ll pummel you.”

  “He doesn’t want to go back. Do you, Master Whitefeather?”

  Master Whitefeather did a shuffle-step, but stayed put.

  “See?” said Bosco. “I told you.”

  Marsh staggered forward, forgetting his nose and the hand slick with blood. “You shut up. You shut your bloody mouth.”

  “Sorry. Sorry,” said Bosco, “I’m sorry. Here, have him. You can have him. Don’t—”

  Bosco stumbled away, but Marsh was on him in an instant. Ristocule left the younger boy’s arm and landed beside the iron spike holding his leash.

  There was a shallow thump when Marsh’s first blow landed across Bosco’s face. The older boy followed with a second. That was all it took.

  Bosco dropped as if his knees had turned to butter, sprawling sidelong into the mud. Marsh fell on top of him and continued the assault, slapping and punching and driving Bosco’s head backward while the younger boy struggled to shield himself.

  “Sorry,” Bosco kept saying, even as Marsh drove fists into his back and stomach. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “You’ll be sorry when I’m done,” Marsh yelled, his attacks relentless.

  Ristocule was working at the tent spike, pecking and biting at the ends of the braided leather where his leash was attached. With a man’s strength, he might’ve yanked the spike from the mud, but right now it would’ve been too heavy to fly away with. To his delight, the leather at this end of the leash was aged, the strands of the braid growing frail.

  Marsh was still beating on poor Bosco, who seemed less and less able to defend himself. Then Bosco stopped struggling altogether. His hands fell limp.

  Marsh hit him a few more times for good measure. “There. That’ll serve you. What’s the matter, lost your will?”

  “Sorry,” Bosco said, lying still, his mouth barely moving. “Sorry.”

  Marsh got to his feet. “Shut up. On your feet and get going.” He nudged Bosco with the heel of his shoe, then backed a step and waited. “Get going, I said. Out of here.”

  Bosco didn’t move. “Sorry,” he said.

  “I don’t care if you was born sorry,” said Marsh. “I want you to go.” He planted a foot on Bosco’s hip and rolled him onto his back.

  When Bosco’s head came round, the tip of a sharp stone was sticking out from the imprint his head had left in the mud. Blood trickled from his eyebrow, coursing down the side of his face to soak his hairline. It was a fresh trickle, bright red and profuse.

  Marsh frowned. “Get up.”

  He waited.

  Bosco didn’t.

  “Get up, damn you.” Marsh collared Bosco and dragged him up.

  Bosco’s legs flopped beneath him like those of a newborn foal, feeble and powerless.

  Marsh couldn’t keep him on his feet and was forced to let him back down. “Come on, you. Out of it, now,” he demanded, slapping his cheek.

  Bosco stared into the gray sky.

  “Bosco. Bosco, don’t play at this. I told you we’re too old for playing. You want to help me, don’t you? You can. We can train Master Whitefeather. Do it together. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Get up. Just get up.”

  Bosco gave a slow shiver. “Sorry.”

  Marsh glanced back to where Ristocule was working to free the final strands of his braided leash. The little man’s face was blank, and stayed that way, as if he didn’t see the bird at all. Pools gathered on his eyelashes.

  “Sorry,” Bosco whispered. “I’m s…”

  Marsh took the younger boy in his arms and lifted him, mud and blood and all, into his lap. “Don’t be,” he said. “Don’t be sorry. Stop being sorry. Get up. Come back.”

  Bosco’s lips moved.

  The last of the leather strands came free, and the braided leash fell from the iron spike. Ristocule looked at the two boys, sons of the littlefolk of the Dailfeld, who had wanted only to feed their family in these hard times. Perhaps too, they had wanted a companion. Bosco had, at least. But these were hard times for all, and the man inside the bird was no more a house pet than the wildest of creatures in all the world.

  Bosco mouthed a single word.

  Ristocule flapped his wings and left the ground, dragging loops of the long braided leash behind him. He was sorry, too.

  Chapter 18

  Caidrannothar woke after a short time, opening his eyes slowly to survey his surroundings. He spread his jaws to take a breath, then lifted his head to stare at Darion and Jeebo. He frowned. “What have you… done to me?”

  “I’ve suspended your cooking talents for a time,” Darion said. “Also, you’re poisoned.”

  “I’m what?” The dragon labored to its feet.

  “You’re going to die, Caidrannothar. You may eat me raw if you wish, but you’ll die all the same.”

  “You tricked me,” the dragon tried to roar, but the words came out in a fit of coughing.

  “I disarmed you,” Darion corrected. “And in doing so, I spared your life.”

  “Spared my life with poison?”

  “A light prick on the roof of your mouth was all it took. We can die together, if you wish. Or you can accept my offer of this horn, and fly Jeebo and me to Briarcrest. Deliver us safely, and I shall remove the hex I placed on you.”

  “And you’ll give me the horn.”

  “And I’ll give you the horn.”

  Caidrannothar attempted his deep hum of deliberation, but succeeded only in a wheezing cough. “Have I the option to refuse?”

  “We’re past that now,” Darion said. “I gave you that option when you arrived.”

  “How long will the poison take?”

  “Not long. Best fly soon, since you’ll have us on your back.”

  “In my claws,” the dragon said.

  “On your back.”

  The dragon cast him a steely gaze. “To Briarcrest, was it?”

  Darion smiled. “Shall we mount?”

  Caidrannothar knelt his front elbow to bring his scaled spine into reach. Darion removed the saddlebags and hoisted them onto his shoulders, then climbed onto the dragon’s back.

  Jeebo spoke a blessing over the horses in the name of Faranion before setting them free. Then he took Hyrana in hand and removed the bird’s hood. “It is time for you to fly, my friend. And for the first time in my life, I will fly with you. You have found me once before. Should it be in Faranion’s will for you to join me again on the far end of this journey, I pray we find each other well. Now go.” The falconer thrust his arm to send the bird flapping into a low arc acro
ss the fields. Then, with apprehension, he climbed onto Caidrannothar’s back behind Darion.

  “Go easy,” Darion said to the dragon. “The poison will have weakened you. It will continue to do so until you are cured.”

  Jeebo tensed when Caidrannothar rose to a stand. “How long will it take to fly from here to Briarcrest?”

  “I will have you there by evenfall,” Caidrannothar promised.

  When the great wyrm flapped its wings, Darion leaned forward and gripped the sides of its neck. He could feel in his thighs each time the breath piped through the dragon’s lungs. Jeebo gave a sharp cry as they left the ground and rose by fits and starts, falling a short distance between each flap of wings. There was the exhilarating—and slightly alarming—sensation of weightlessness during these momentary descents, but Darion had experienced this before, and his old flight winds came back to him in a hurry. He looked back to find Jeebo hugging the dragon tight, his face pressed to a smooth patch of scales, his eyes clamped shut.

  “Don’t hold on too tight, or you’re apt to put an eye out on those spikes,” Darion called back.

  “That might not be so bad,” Jeebo panted. “It would stop me looking down.”

  They rose ever higher until the farms and fields of Orothwain became patches on a green quilt, the distant Breakspires like wrinkles on the face of the world. Hours passed; the sun traipsed across the sky, settling behind the graceful curve of the Tetheri wilds where the Hightrade River ran south, wide and brave and sparkling in the dusk. Darion could scarce believe he was doing this again. He’d thought his days of dragon-wrangling and beast-riding were long behind him. Then again, he’d thought the same about his days of war and adventure and travel.

  Villagers scattered and fled for their lives as the dragon touched down in Briarcrest square. Darion would’ve preferred to remain outside town so as not to garner so much attention, but Caidrannothar would not hear of it. He was weakening by the hour; Darion could feel it in the coarseness of his breath and the slowing of his wings.

  Caidrannothar lowered his shoulder to let Darion and Jeebo dismount. The falconer was all too ecstatic to have his feet on hard ground again. Darion was tired from the long trip, and the dragon appeared just as sapped; it stood with its shoulders slumped and its head hung low at the end of its long neck. Most dragons could fly for days without tiring, but the poison was doing its work.

  “You have taken what you wanted from me,” Caidrannothar said, speaking slowly. “Remove these restraints. Set me free.”

  “As promised,” Darion said, and began to cast. When he took the awakened mage-song in his hand, a spear of pure white shot from either end of his closed fist, lighting the night. “Open your mouth.”

  Caidrannothar slid his head to rest on the ground and unhinged his jaw.

  Darion set the spear between the dragon’s teeth and stepped away. The dragon tried to close its mouth, but couldn’t. It began to struggle, eyes widening. Then its jaws snapped shut, and the spear disintegrated in a plume of white dust.

  “Now you will live,” Darion said, “though I warn you, you may feel the poison’s effects as they wear off. Otherwise, you are free to go.”

  “Are you not forgetting something?” asked the dragon.

  “Ah, yes.” Darion pulled the horn strap over his head and held it out.

  “That is not what I was referring to.”

  Darion gave the dragon a questioning look.

  “My fire,” said Caidrannothar.

  “What about it?”

  “You’ve taken it. I want it back.”

  “And so you shall have it. The effects of the spell will wear off in short order.”

  “How short?”

  “Preferably when you’re no longer standing close enough to breathe on me. A few hours, at most. Now take the horn, Caidrannothar. Your begrudging cooperation has been appreciated.”

  “Throw it here.”

  Darion tossed it at the dragon’s feet.

  The beast hooked its claws around the strap, then raised up on its hind legs. “You have bested me, Darion Ulther. Do not presume you will outlive my grudge.”

  “Until next time, then.”

  “I will bake you inside that armor,” Caidrannothar said.

  “Looking forward to it.”

  The dragon narrowed its eyes at the Warcaster, then took off in a blast of wind that shook the trees and ruffled the village’s thatched roofs.

  “I could’ve killed him, and still he threatens me,” Darion said when the dragon was gone.

  “I believe that was why he threatened you,” said Jeebo. “Given my limited experience with dragons, I can safely say they do not enjoy being outdone.”

  “Who does? We got where we were going, anyhow. I’ll worry about him later. How did you enjoy the ride?”

  “Little.”

  Darion chuckled. “You did well, for all that.”

  “Perhaps the reason I am so drawn to birds is that I admire their bravery of flight. I myself have none.”

  “We can’t all be good at everything.”

  “Of this I am certain,” said Jeebo.

  Darion turned his attention to the center of the village square, where a drapery of snaking roots coalesced into a thick silban stump. He moved toward it, the chair with regal steps and backrest carven in the shapes of natural things, a living monument to ancient times. “The Pauper’s Throne,” he said, running his hands over the armrest’s oil-smoothed wood. “I haven’t seen it in an age. Last time I was here, I was with Sir Jalleth. I remember him sitting in it; remarking on how uncomfortable it was. Then he said, ‘Perhaps someday I will be worthy to sit here.’ I asked him what he meant by that. He said, ‘Men of our like, who do great deeds and have grand adventures, seldom get the chance to live among those we’ve saved and truly feel as one of them.’ It does not surprise me he chose Briarcrest as Alynor’s hiding place. Though I doubt there is anywhere else in the world Sir Jalleth would’ve felt less like himself.”

  “He was here not long ago,” Jeebo said.

  Darion turned. “How do you know that?”

  “Call it a feeling. In my mind’s eye I can see him sitting in this chair with an audience before him.”

  “And what of Kestrel and Triolyn?”

  “They all left the Greenkeep together.”

  “When Lord Mirrowell turned them away.”

  “Yes. Sir Jalleth thought it best we all part ways, so as to remain inconspicuous. Kestrel and Triolyn insisted on escorting them to Briarcrest. Well, more Kestrel than Triolyn, really. I don’t know what became of those two afterward.”

  “Alynor and Sir Jalleth would’ve had to stay together. I gave Alynor the scroll.”

  “Which scroll? The one that brings Sir Jalleth back to his human form?”

  “Yes, and one-fourth of the ritual that would destroy the mage-song.”

  “Oh yes. That scroll. Forgive me; it has been some years since I saw Lady Alynor use it.”

  “You do remember her having it, don’t you?”

  Jeebo nodded.

  “If the Pathfinders have taken her, there’s a chance they captured Sir Jalleth as well. Yet if he was in Ristocule’s body at the time, he may have escaped. Which means he could still be around here somewhere. Whether the Pathfinders got their hands on the scroll or not is what we must determine. Do you know where they were living?”

  “Outside the village,” Jeebo said, “on a small plot near the river.”

  “Can you take me to it?”

  “I… have only seen it from above,” Jeebo said.

  “We’ll ask someone, then.”

  The villagers began to emerge from their hiding places, staring in wonderment at the two men who had arrived on the back of a dragon, and who were now standing beside the Pauper’s Throne as if to claim it like some long-forgotten birthright. Darion waited until the boldest among them approached to a safe distance, then called out to him.

  “You there. Come here.”

&nb
sp; The man, a blond-bearded thresher in liripipe and tunic who was carrying a bundle of wheat over one shoulder, froze.

  “I mean you no harm,” Darion said. “I only wish to ask you a question.”

  “Ask it,” said the peasant.

  “I’m looking for the home of Stoya Lyrent. Do you know where she lives?”

  The man turned and pointed down the road behind him. “Take that path across the footbridge. The Lyrent parcel is first on the road out. Don’t think you’ll find ‘em there, though. They been chased off by Dathiri soldiers, last I heard. Haven’t seen a trace of ‘em in a week or more.”

  “Thank you,” Darion said, and started toward him.

  The man stepped aside to let them pass.

  It was a short walk through the darkness to the humble dwelling beyond the bridge over one of the Hightrade’s modest tributaries. The hut was not only deserted; looters had ransacked it. The windows lay unshuttered. The door hung off its hinges, a stream of trampled refuse trailing from the doorway like dried vomit.

  It creaked when Darion pushed it open, then caught on something halfway through its arc. He went inside; Jeebo followed.

  Darion spoke a light spell, and the tiny hut brightened like a summer day. Hard shadows swung across the walls as Darion picked his way through broken furniture, disgorged mattresses, dented pots, and shattered crockery. “Those damnable Pathfinders destroyed everything.”

  “I do not believe this is the work of Dathiri Pathfinders,” said Jeebo, bending to inspect something on the floor. “More likely a group of villagers.” He picked up a small object and held it in the light. A scrap of thin brown cloth, torn on a jagged furniture leg. Part of a tunic or leggings, perhaps.

  “Good eye,” said Darion, using his light to search every nook and corner of the room. “Whoever they were, they seem to have made a thorough search of the place.”

  “Do you suppose they were looking for something? The scroll, perhaps?”

  “It’s possible. Though I don’t see what good a scroll would do a group of villagers, or even how they might’ve known of it in the first place, unless the Pathfinders put them up to it. If the scroll isn’t here, we’d best assume it’s in wicked hands.”