The Dragoneer Trilogy

by Vickie Knestaut

  Steel scraped against the hordesmen’s scabbards. The guard’s fingers clasped the hilt of his sword as his eyes grew wide and his face reddened.

  Trysten drew her own sword and held it before herself, the point aimed at the eaves above the guard’s head. “You are in our way.”

  “You cannot arrest a hordesman of the Prince’s own horde!” the guard complained.

  The Aerona hordesmen stepped around Trysten and leveled the points of their swords at the guard. “Your sword, please,” Vanon said.

  The guard’s eyes darted from the sword point on his left to the point on his right. “You will pay for this. You cannot get away with this!”

  “I believe you were asked for your sword,” Trysten said, her voice hard and level.

  The guard stood a few heartbeats more, then slowly lifted his hand away from the hilt of his sword. Rather than reach for the buckle of his belt, however, he stepped to the side, away from the door.

  “A wise decision,” Trysten said.

  “You are sealing your own fate,” the guard sneered. “You will be taken back in irons along with the animals inside.”

  “Watch him,” Trysten said with a nod to Vanon, and then she and the remaining hordesmen entered the cottage.

  The cottage was small like most in Aerona, so when she stepped inside she shouldn’t have been surprised to see the prisoners crammed together. Most of them sat on the floor, crowded into the two rooms. They were being kept as if they were livestock.

  Trysten’s breath stalled in her throat.

  A prisoner in the back of the room stood. It was the man she had interacted with the day she had accompanied Galelin to one of his language sessions. The man crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chin in defiance.

  “Cos dotta breck ashee. Seum choot.”

  “Come with me,” Trysten said, then slipped her sword into her scabbard. She motioned for the man to approach.

  The man glanced back and forth between the two Aerona hordesmen and their drawn swords.

  “Come,” Trysten said again. She motioned for the man.

  Still, he stood his ground.

  Trysten extended her arms to either side of her. She flapped them up and down several times in the fluid motion of dragon wings, then pointed her finger at the weyr.

  The man’s eyes grew wide. Whispers broke among the prisoners.

  “Nauch creanna? Yallum?”

  Trysten’s brows furrowed. “Yallum?”

  “Yallum.” The prisoner mimicked her motion with flapping arms. “Yallum.”

  Trysten nodded and motioned for the man again. “Yallum. You go see yallum.”

  The prisoner looked at his comrades a moment and then nodded. He weaved his way through and around the men on the floor. As he did so, shame crept up Trysten’s neck in a warm flush. How had she not addressed this before? It was undignified to keep these men, all seventeen of them, cramped up in a single cottage like animals. They were men — men who rode dragons into battle. They were recognized by the wisdom of dragons as men, and to treat them as livestock was to dishonor the dragons.

  As the prisoner approached, the hordesmen leveled the points of their swords at him.

  “Put them away,” she instructed.

  “Trysten?”

  “Put the swords away. Keep your hands on them, but put them away.”

  “What if he tries to escape?” one of the hordesmen asked.

  The prisoner glanced to the door behind them. His face had grown pale and worried. This was a man who was afraid that something had happened to his dragon. She knew that look. She felt it.

  “He will not try to run. But keep your hands upon your weapons in case I am wrong.”

  The hordesmen obeyed. As their blades were returned to their scabbards, half a dozen of the prisoners leaped to their feet.

  “Shatisist!” the chosen prisoner barked as he held out an open palm to the men.

  Trysten tensed. The men who had stood glanced back and forth between her and the prisoner next to her.

  “To breck sa yallum.”

  The men nodded. Slowly, they returned to their seated positions on the floor.

  The prisoner straightened his shoulders, ran his hands through this hair, then wiped them down over his face. He then reached down and tugged at the hem of his tunic as if he were a man who knew he was ill-prepared to meet a person of dignity and fame.

  He gave a final, curt nod to Trysten as if to signify that he was ready.

  They filed out of the cottage, past the guard and Vanon, who still held his sword at the ready. Trysten motioned for the prisoner to walk by her side. He glanced about nervously but walked beside her with occasional glimpses over his shoulder to the hordesmen behind him.

  When they turned a corner and came into sight of the weyr and the dragons in the yard, the prisoner’s breath caught in his throat. His step quickened, and Trysten matched it.

  As they entered the yard, the flap of Prince Aymon’s tent flew open, and the Prince barreled outside. Upon sight of the prisoner, his hand dropped to the hilt of his sword as he called for the other hordesmen in the next tent.

  “What is he doing here?” Prince Aymon asked.

  “He is out here as my guest. I need his assistance with the dragons.”

  Prince Aymon looked at her slyly. His hand remained around the hilt of his sword. “What help do you need from him?”

  Trysten ignored him and swept an arm at the dragons, then looked to the prisoner. “Which one is yours?”

  The man glanced from Trysten to the dragons. His eyes were hardly still. They settled for a brief heartbeat, and then a heavy curtain of wool fell over his expression. He turned his face to the sky, then spun around, his arms crossed over his chest and his back to the dragons.

  Trysten looked out across the Western dragons. It was the brown beta. The dragon stared at the prisoner with an intense stare of the greatest longing. He was her rider. He was the one that took her to the sky. Her wings lurched open and quivered with the anticipation of a flight long denied to her.

  The eyes of the Western commander grew moist as he stood stock still, his face to the sky, a small artery throbbing in his temple.

  “What is he doing?” one of the hordesmen asked.

  Trysten watched him for a second. Beyond, Prince Aymon’s hordesmen filed out into the yard. Though the Prince merely left his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword, his hordesmen had all drawn their own blades.

  “He’s afraid to let us know which dragon is his,” Trysten said. “He’s afraid we’ll hurt her if we know.”

  “That’s…” one of the hordesmen said.

  “Barbaric. Like cramming all of the prisoners into a single cottage as if they are animals. We don’t even treat our goats that way.” Trysten leveled a glare at Prince Aymon.

  For once, the Prince knew to keep his mouth shut. His eyes fell to Trysten’s feet.

  Trysten laid a hand upon the commander’s shoulder. He flinched, then looked to her with a gaze that spoke of panic.

  “It’s all right,” Trysten said. “I want you to see her.” She applied gentle pressure to the man’s shoulder until he turned around. She then led him up to the brown beta dragon. The dragon lowered her head as he approached much in the same manner that Elevera lowered hers for Trysten.

  “Maejel,” the man said, then after a quick glance at Trysten, he held out his arms and approached the dragon. He reached up and took the dragon’s jaw into his own hands and leaned forward until he rested his brow against her brown muzzle. “Ah, Maejel,” the man said as he patted her jaw.

  A sob heaved from the man. His hands clenched at the dragon’s jaws. A bubbling stream of babbled erupted from him as he patted the dragon’s muzzle. Occasionally, he looked up at the dragon, met her eyes, and the sobs would begin anew.

  Trysten closed her eyes. She drew in a deep breath and opened herself up to the dragon. She listened with her heart and mind more than her ears. The prisoner continued
to chatter in his strange language between sobs. Trysten gritted her teeth and swallowed as a sob of her own welled up inside her. Great waves of sorrow threatened to overwhelm her along with a distant sense of fear. The fear had been eroded away by resignation, but it was coming back now. It was coming back because the Aeronians had changed their tactics. They were doing something different, something the prisoner hadn’t expected.

  Trysten’s teeth and fists clenched. She swayed a few heartbeats and forced herself to listen, to hone in on the man’s words. She needed to know what emotions, which images went with his words. She saw mountains and rocks. Great walls of stone and snow that rose high above the ground.

  “…shassit…”

  A low, wide building with a thatch roof. It was a weyr. Pine trees towered around it and the scent of sap permeated the air. A noise she had never heard before. A thousand whispers. Millions of mothers shushing fussy infants.

  A grimace of longing wrung her face.

  “Shassit bet gaogh’tum. Gaogh’tum lais.”

  Water stretched out as far as Trysten could see.

  Madness.

  The world ended in water and madness.

  Trysten gasped.

  Her eyes flew open as the prisoner sank to his knees. His hands clutched at the dragon’s muzzle. She lowered her head slowly as if setting her former rider down. His hands fell away like giant tears, and he dropped to the ground in a huddle.

  “I’ve seen enough,” Prince Aymon said quietly, his eyes never leaving Trysten’s face.

  The royal hordesmen began to approach.

  “Keep your place!” Trysten spat.

  She drew her sword. The Aeronian hordesmen drew theirs as well.

  The royal hordesmen stopped. Muzad’s face reddened.

  The prisoner lifted his head and looked at Trysten with a sense of resignation that advertised his readiness, his willingness to die. But she would not take his life or the life of his dragon any more than she would take hers or Elevera’s.

  “Until a sheriff takes custody of these prisoners, they are mine. They are dragon riders, and they will be treated as such. I want these men split back up into the two cottages again,” Trysten ordered

  “And shall we bring them mutton and warm tea?” Muzad asked.

  “That will be enough, Muzad,” Prince Aymon snapped.

  Muzad’s eyes widened as he glanced over his shoulder. The man appeared to be genuinely surprised by the Prince’s rebuke.

  Prince Aymon replaced his sword in his scabbard. “Muzad, you will do as our hostess asks. But you will retain the responsibility of guarding both sets of prisoners. No offense, Trysten, but you have presented these prisoners to me, I have accepted them, and I have called for the sheriff, and so ultimately the responsibility resides with me. That is the law.”

  Trysten lowered her sword, then replaced it in her scabbard. The men behind her did the same.

  “I will accept that. But let it be understood that these men, while in Aerona, will not be treated like animals. They are—”

  “Yes, yes, they are men who rode dragons,” Prince Aymon said with a bob of his head. “They are also men who would slit your throat in the dark of the night and leave you like a slaughtered lamb. But they will not be mistreated as per your command.”

  Trysten looked back to the fallen commander, still lying on the ground, his former mount’s head hovering over him. It wasn’t a protective posture, like what Elevera had done the night she claimed Trysten as her own. This dragon brimmed with sorrow, unable to choose her former rider over her Dragoneer.

  “Take this man back to the cottage,” Trysten said to her hordesmen. “See that the prisoners are split up among the two cottages again. No one is to be harmed.”

  The men nodded. Two of them stepped forward and reached down for the prisoner who did nothing to resist.

  “I’m sorry,” Trysten whispered to Maejel. The brown beta looked up, and Trysten felt the sadness and conflict tearing at the dragon. She was bonded to Elevera, but it was a prison.

  Because Maejel wanted nothing more than to take her rider to the sky, to the expanse full of whispers, to the water that drowned the world’s end.

  Chapter 30

  A knock at the door interrupted Trysten’s evening meal. She looked up from her bowl at her mother and father, but both of them seemed as curious as she was.

  “Excuse me,” Trysten said as she pushed herself away from the table and went to the door. She opened it and cringed to find Prince Aymon standing in the dusk. A breeze off the mountains stirred the fur edging of his cape.

  “I wish to speak to you,” he said.

  Trysten’s brow lowered. “I’m eating.”

  Prince Aymon nodded but continued anyway. “What did you learn from the prisoner and his dragon this afternoon?”

  Trysten inhaled deeply, making no attempt to hide her irritation.

  “Would you like to come to my tent to discuss this?” the Prince asked.

  Trysten moved back, away from the door. Prince Aymon stepped inside and bowed his head to Trysten’s mother and father. “Fallen. Ma’am.”

  To Trysten’s chagrin, her father stood, as was customary. He gave no sign at all that standing was difficult for him. “Your Highness.”

  Caron remained seated. She reached over and gripped Mardoc’s hand.

  “I do not wish to keep you or to allow your meal to grow cold,” Prince Aymon said as he turned back to Trysten. “I just want to know what you learned today.”

  Images from her attempt to bridge the language barrier with the former beta dragon flashed through her mind and threatened to overwhelm her. Each image was not an image alone but came bundled with odors, sounds, emotions, sensations for body parts she did not have. Her brain stuttered to try and sort it all out, to make sense of it in a way that she could understand.

  She shook her head. “I know only that the prisoner is sad. He is homesick.”

  “Anyone with eyes could observe that.”

  “Then you know all that I do,” Trysten said.

  Prince Aymon shook his head. “No. While others watched the prisoner, I watched you. I saw the effects of the encounter written upon your face. You are lying or withholding information.”

  Mardoc cleared his throat.

  “I cannot tell you anything more. That is the truth. I simply don’t have the words to express what I… I just don’t have the words.” Trysten shrugged.

  “Your experiment is a failure, then,” the Prince mumbled. It was an observation, not a question.

  Trysten lifted her chin a tiny bit. “It depends on whether or not you consider a reminder of one’s humanity to be a failure.”

  A twitch of a grin teased at the edges of the Prince’s lips. “Perhaps. Speak to me of humanity when the Western horde is in the sky again. Speak to me of humanity when they rain arrows upon your riders. Sing its praises alongside the dirge the next time you carry your fallen to the burial grounds.”

  “Do you see yourself as immune then? Not affected by the trappings of humanity?” Trysten asked.

  Prince Aymon’s eyebrow lifted. “I have to be. I am Prince Aymon, fifth son of King Cadwaller the Fourth. I was born into this position, and I have had to earn it every day since. I will gladly trade in my humanity, my conscience, and everything I must to protect this kingdom. That is what makes me noble; not that I do not burden myself with humanity, but that I will give it and everything else, including my life, to secure the future and prosperity of this kingdom. Humanity is a luxury for people who do not have to defend their homeland. For those of us who battle, it is but a dangerous burden.”

  Trysten met his eyes. The man believed what he said. For a moment, she felt sad for him.

  “You have been taught to believe that,” she said. “I have been taught differently. That alone should not make us enemies.”

  Aymon tilted his head and examined her. “Interesting theory,” he said quietly.

  Trysten cleared her throat. “W
ell, I have nothing more to tell you. The dragons are anxious to return to the sky, and the prisoners are homesick and melancholy. That is all I learned from trying to bridge the dragon. I want to finish my dinner now.”

  Prince Aymon glanced at Trysten’s parents. His eyes shifted back and forth as if assessing them, and then he returned his attention to Trysten. “If you think of anything else, I will consider it a great show of support and camaraderie if you share it with me, and me first.”

  Trysten gripped the door handle and pulled it open. “If I think of anything, I will let you know.”

  Prince Aymon turned and bowed his head. “My gratitude for allowing me to visit your home.” His cape billowed out behind him as he quickly walked away.

  “Trying to bridge the dragon?” Caron asked as soon as the door clicked close.

  A chair creaked as Mardoc sat down.

  Trysten took a deep breath and shook her head. “It’s a long story.”

  She returned to the table. As she sat, her father placed his elbows upon the table and leaned forward. “He is wrong.”

  Trysten tilted her head and lifted an eyebrow.

  “What he said about humanity, he is wrong. If we who battle to protect our people do not see our enemies as humans, if we decide they have no value, then we can, and will, devalue anyone. A dragoneer finds the value in all. You see how the Western dragons are now part of Elevera’s horde. They are treated no better and no worse than the dragons she has spent her life with. That is the wisdom of dragons, a wisdom that serves us well to remember.”

  Mardoc paused, looked down at his hands, then up to Trysten’s eyes. “I am proud of you, Little Heart. Proud like I was of Aeronwind. I see in you the wisdom of dragons.”

  Caron gripped Mardoc’s hand again, and Trysten wished she wasn’t on the other side of the table. She nodded, a lump in her throat, then picked up her spoon.

  Chapter 31

  The next morning, after another fitful night of sleep, Trysten received word that Prince Aymon had dispatched an additional hordesman to the east overnight. For a man who insisted that his horde would protect Aerona, he was certainly willing to send his riders elsewhere.