“Ask a colorblind man what color it is,” Paege said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Are you saying she’s color blind?” Deslan asked.
Paege shook his head in frustration. “No, I’m saying that the color of the scale doesn’t matter. I think we’re getting caught up in the details here. I mean, what’s more important here: the color of the scale, or the fact that it was given to her by an Original?”
Vanon and Deslan muttered their agreement.
“The fact of the matter is that we are being targeted,” Paege went on. “If the army wasn’t enough to make one think so, then this should surely be all the evidence anybody needs.”
“But what does he want?” Vanon asked. “The Original, that is?”
“Do you think he sent the army?” Deslan wondered.
Trysten opened her mouth to remind them all of what was most important, but the bell did it for her, its rapid peal signaling approaching danger.
"Let's go!" Trysten ordered.
Chapter 12
The four of them raced out of the den and hammered down the stairs as Borsal ran forward from the base of the watchtower ladder. “Dragons in the west!”
Each hordesman craned his head to the west as he stepped into the aisle. Just above the horizon, a line of approaching dragons lay dark against the dull gray of the distant mountains. Trysten thought it had to be the horde they encountered in The Wilds; the one that had led Zandell and the other fallen royal hordesmen to their deaths. Was it mere coincidence that they showed up right after she refused the Original’s request?
Surely not.
At the other end of the weyr, Rodden stood at the head of Maejel's stall. His eyes were wide and alert. His hands gripped the top edge of the half-wall. Beside him stood his guard at attention, staring back at Trysten.
As one of the weyrboys hurried past, Trysten called out to him. “Prepare Elevera for battle. I’ll be right back.”
The boy’s mouth dropped open. Before he could respond, Trysten took off at a run for the exit. She sprinted out of the weyr, to her cottage, and inside where her mother expressed her concern and surprise as she stepped away from the front window where she had stopped to watch the skies.
“Not now,” Trysten panted as she dashed into her room, yanked the box out from under her bed, lifted the dragonslayer sword and hastily buckled it to her waist. She could take no chances anymore.
“No more village sword?” Caron asked as Trysten hurried past, shaking her head.
The dragons were being led into the yard as Trysten made it back to the weyr. At the same time, Tuse hurried along with the village sword on a pillow.
“Trysten?” Tuse asked. His face condensed into a mild look of confusion as he took in the curved sword strapped to Trysten’s side.
She rushed over and grasped the village sword. “I accept your lives, and I will defend them as my own,” Trysten blurted, as she hurried through her part of the ritual.
Tuse opened his mouth but said nothing more as Trysten turned away and ran, the dragonslayer sword bouncing off her left hip, the village sword clutched in her right hand, and the pendant tapping against her breastbone.
Iven presented Trysten with her riding armor as she reached Elevera.
“Do you think these riders are related to the Original?” Paege asked from the back of Sone.
Trysten glanced over her shoulder quickly as she secured the village sword to Elevera’s saddle. Honestly, this ritual with the village sword was probably something they could live without. Sometimes tradition had to change with the times.
“I don’t know, but it's hard to believe they're not,” Trysten said as she finished off the knot, then snatched the leather bodice from Iven’s hands. She shimmied into it, then began to tighten the laces at her left side as Iven wordlessly secured the laces on her right.
“I think we will find they are the same horde that we encountered the other day,” Trysten said.
“I don’t know,” Paege said. “It doesn’t make sense. If the Original sent them, then surely he knows about your abilities. Surely he knows he’s just handing us more dragons.”
With a shout echoed by his men, Muzad’s horde leaped into the sky in a flurry of wings. Trysten gritted her teeth at the idea that Muzad would beat her to the fight.
“You’ll take their dragons, right?” Iven asked in a quiet voice tinged with awe. “That’s what Dragon Lords do, don’t they? Like you took Maejel and the others?”
“I’ll try,” Trysten said as she gave a cursory exam to Iven’s handiwork. He had laced up the sides of her bodice flawlessly, of course. “But my duty is to the village. I protect the village first. That is what a dragoneer does.”
She turned to Elevera and pulled herself up into the saddle and fastened the leather riding straps around her waist. She drew the village sword from its scabbard and lifted it up to the western sky as her father had done so many times before. But unlike him, she certainly hoped to take the enemy horde.
With a sweep of the sword, the Aerona horde charged into the sky and raced to catch the royal horde and keep as much distance as possible between the attackers and Aerona. Trysten huddled behind Elevera, her arms wrapped around the dragon's neck to encourage her to fly faster. She watched the ground as it slid past. As ridiculous as it was, she nearly expected to see the Original below, standing in the heather, his face turned to the sky as he waited for the collision of dragons he had orchestrated.
The Original had to be behind this attack. At the least, he had to know it was coming. There was no way that the timing could be a coincidence.
And how would he have turned the army back had she agreed to his demand? The Originals must be the ones driving the attacks. But why? Why would they throw an army against Aerona and then expect Trysten to trust them? Surely any being that would do such a thing couldn’t be trusted to keep his word. They would have to know she would think that. But he had said something about her not remembering. Did he know her? Did he expect her to blindly follow him in a desperate bid to save the village? Maybe they didn’t need to gather Trysten’s trust and would be content with breaking her spirit, driving her to agree to their demand in desperation.
“Then they’re going to be sorely disappointed, won’t they?” Trysten seethed into the wind.
Elevera let out a low growl as if in answer.
Chapter 13
Ahead, Muzad commanded his horde to ready their bows. A pang of regret flashed through Trysten. The injury to his shoulder didn’t allow him to draw back a bowstring in an effective manner and they needed every available archer right now.
Trysten hunched lower against Elevera’s neck. To the wilds with Muzad. His injury and his inability to draw his bow was the result of his own pigheadedness, as was the reduced size of his horde, which he now pitted against a larger horde of nineteen dragons just to keep Trysten from leading the attack.
Muzad brought his arm down in a chopping motion. Fourteen arrows flew from the hands of the hordesmen and drew together in the air, seeking out the enemy rider flying at point.
Trysten held her breath. Muzad was trying to hand the horde to her. He knew what would happen if the Western Dragoneer or alpha fell in battle. It would increase the number of dragons in her horde by at least eighteen. The arrows fell around the Western Dragoneer. Two of them pierced the wing membranes of the alpha but did little more. Muzad was still too far away.
The Western Dragoneer lifted both of his arms and began to give a series of strange orders. Trysten squinted at the man, at his dragon, and tried to read the enemy horde to determine their attack plan. She sat up slightly as her eyes widened. The Dragoneer was not there. He was not among the nineteen dragons approaching.
For all the wild sky, they knew! The Western horde knew about her and her abilities. They knew that if the Dragoneer and the alpha were not part of the attack force, she could not take the horde. At best, they could take out the Commander or the beta. Then the horde would break and
return to the alpha, as the royal horde had done when Zandell and his dragon were brought down by the spear launchers.
Trysten began to lift her arm, then paused. The point dragon was not the beta. She scanned the line of approaching dragons as the riders took up their own bows, fitted the strings with arrows, and drew them back.
The rider at point released his arrow, followed by the other riders. Instead of concentrating their fire on Muzad, they aimed at least one arrow at each of the royal hordesmen.
Muzad’s men ducked behind the necks of their dragons as the arrows slipped past. Trysten’s jaw flinched as one arrow skipped off the side of a dragon, perhaps cracking a scale.
In a flash, it occurred to Trysten that she still wore the pendant. If she were to die upon the back of Elevera, would she come back as one of the Originals? The thought filled her with cold dread. Her hand flew to the side of her bodice, and her fingers plunged into the knotted leather cord that bound her armor to her. But it was too late. Muzad’s men unleashed another volley of arrows, once again aiming for the point rider, and then the two hordes were upon each other.
Trysten’s left hand dropped from her laces to the bow secured to the saddle. Her right hand went up and signaled for the rest of the horde to take up their own bows and notch their arrows. She would just have to survive this round, and if she didn’t, she’d have to hope that Paege or her mother would think enough to remove the pendant from her neck before burying her.
The point rider in the Western horde twisted and jerked in his saddle as he was struck with an arrow. He disappeared behind a flurry of dragon wings and bouts of fire as Muzad’s horde dropped onto the one rider, all of the royal dragons focusing fire, claws, and arrows on the single target.
“He’s not the one!” Trysten called uselessly into the wind.
She swept up an arrow from the quiver on the saddle, notched it, then let it go without taking a delicate aim. She merely wanted to distract the rest of the Western horde, to keep them from doing exactly what they had planned.
Her arrow was immediately joined by the two dozen arrows of her horde. But they were too far away and their arrows fell uselessly to the heather below.
The Western horde drew their arrows as the dragons closest to point slowed. The dragons on the flank of the V formation quickly swung around like the arms of a trap snapping shut.
The Dragoneer decoy and his mount fell from the sky, broken and smoldering, leaking a smudge of smoke in the aftermath of the firebreath from Muzad’s dragons. As he did so, the remaining Western riders loosed their arrows upon the concentrated mass of the Royal horde.
Trysten grunted and flinched in her saddle as claws scraped against dragon flesh and arrows punched through scales at close range.
As the trap drew shut, Trysten let her next arrow fly. The rest of her horde responded in kind. The sensation of their own arrows slipping through the wing membranes of the Western horde hardly registered with Trysten when contrasted against the greater pain of torn flesh and arrows buried deep in the muscles of Muzad's dragons.
The chaotic knot of dragons ahead broke open with Western dragons in their strange, black leather hoods sweeping out and around to keep Muzad’s horde surrounded. In the middle of the confusion, the Royal horde tried to fan out while dropping down, gaining speed while escaping the trap. One of the royal dragons couldn’t bring her wing all the way down. Every time she tried, a fresh wave of burning pain seared through Trysten’s side. She gasped, held her breath, and tried to block out the sensations pouring through her. Unable to flap her wings fully, the royal dragon quickly settled for keeping them still and straight, letting the wind fill the remainder of her wing membranes so that she might coast to the ground. The rider on her back valiantly took up aim at the circling bellies of the Western hordesmen above.
In addition to the dragon with a wounded wing, another dropped low, trailing to the ground with a dead rider slumped upon her back. Above those two, a royal dragon banked hard, and the rider upon her back took aim at the attacking horde while an arrow protruded from his thigh.
It wouldn’t do for Trysten to shut out the pain of the dragons. If she were to stop this, she’d have to find the beta dragon, and find her quick.
Chapter 14
Trysten took a deep breath and opened herself back up to the dragons in time to feel the arrows sliding into the bellies of the Western dragons. Muzad banked hard. Avice, the royal alpha, pulled with her wings to gain altitude to reach the nearest aggressor.
Trysten slipped another arrow from her quiver and took aim. She let it fly, aiming for the riders on the edge of the fray, farthest from Muzad and his men. By the wilds, the royal horde was in her way!
Muzad appeared to realize it as well. He waved frantically and ordered his men to fall in behind him. He prodded Avice to let her prey go and take up a position to the south of the Western horde. The Western riders took advantage of the chaotic royal hordesmen scattered beneath them. Ignoring the arrows from the Aerona horde, the enemy focused their attack on Muzad's nearby dragons and riders.
To Trysten's surprise, Elevera threw her wings up and out, open wide, and then thrust them down and let out a great roar. Her head thrashed from side to side, and a gout of fire escaped her jaws. Immediately, Trysten looked for Avice and expected to see Muzad dead upon her back. Instead, Muzad clung to his mount’s saddle as he waved his men on and stared wide-eyed at Elevera.
Every dragon in the sky looked to Elevera. Trysten felt it. Even the dragon with the wounded wing looked back as she continued to struggle with keeping her wing fixed and steady.
Trysten’s own attention flashed to a burgundy dragon with yellow scales down its back. It did not take Elevera's bait, but it felt the pull strongly, and her rider had to struggle to restrain her. She was the Western beta, and she was afraid and frustrated that the alpha was not here to answer Elevera's challenge.
“Good girl,” Trysten called to Elevera as she whipped her arm up into the air. She signaled for a focused attack and pointed at the burgundy beta.
The Aerona horde shifted in the air, right before colliding with the whirling mass of dragons and wings. Trysten and her hordesmen drew arrows and took aim.
The Western Commander looked up from the back of his dragon, and it required no telepathy at all to read his thoughts.
The man nearly dropped his bow in a scramble to grab the lip of his saddle, twist and lean to the left. He dug a heel into his dragon’s shoulder to try and get out of the way.
Trysten released her bowstring, and the rest of the horde followed suit. The Western beta rolled to her left in time to take nearly two dozen arrows. Trysten lurched and nearly folded over in her saddle as pain exploded through her chest and belly, and along the right wing that she did not have, but felt acutely all the same. She gasped, clenched her arm against her side, and concentrated on keeping her head up, her eyes on the dragons, her bow grasped in her left hand. Then Elevera pulled up, using her greater wingspan to lift her and Trysten over the fray as Trysten collected herself, forced in a breath, and tried to imagine the dragons as far away, off in the sky.
The pain subsided to a dull thud.
She took in a shuddering breath and then urged Elevera to let her peer over the side. The golden dragon banked slightly to her right, and Trysten leaned over to see the battle below. Arrows and occasional bouts of firebreath were exchanged as the beta dragon fell away, her wings flapping weakly as she slipped into the stony grip of gravity. The rider on her back lifted his face to the sky, to the battle above. Thankfully, Trysten could not see the expression on his face as he fell to his fate.
As Trysten selected a target and urged Elevera to prepare for a dive, the Western dragons broke. Their loose, chaotic swirl collapsed as they all, at once, took off for the west.
A quick scan of the riders below revealed several injuries. Muzad’s men had taken the worst of it, but one of her own riders clutched an arrow protruding from his shoulder. Elevera spiraled down t
o their level, and Trysten ordered the injured back to the weyr. Muzad ordered his remaining men to pursue, and Trysten echoed his command. They would find the alpha and have her horde yet.
The Western horde poured on speed. Still, their dragons were a little winded, indicating that they had flown a fair distance to get within sight of Aerona. Perhaps they had flown from the mountains, from some base of operations up on the slopes?
While Muzad held his horde level with the Western horde and ordered more speed, Trysten ordered her own horde higher into the air, above the other two, even though it allowed the Western horde to put more distance between them. She was not interested in a running battle in the air, and the last time she chased this horde across the plains, they had led her into a trap. It would be enough at the moment to learn where they were retreating to. Where would they find their alpha?
As they raced across the plains, Muzad’s men got off a few more arrows. The Western riders responded in kind, but neither side was in a position to deliver much damage to the other. The royal horde and its arrows were flying against the wind. The Western horde was trying to take aim while twisted around on a saddle. Each side quickly grew tired of wasting arrows, and it became a chase.
About a third of the way to the mountains, Trysten looked over the side of Elevera, off to her right, where a collection of villagers had stopped their work and stared at the sight of dragons streaming overhead.
Fish and birds! The Western horde had to have seen the villagers. The waters of Quiet Creek were already over their banks just ahead of where the creek emptied into the River Gul even though the stone dam wasn’t yet complete. But now that the Western riders knew of the plan, the villagers working on the dam were no longer safe. The Quiet Creek project would have to be abandoned and the villagers brought back home as soon as possible.
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