The Dragoneer Trilogy

by Vickie Knestaut

  Paege nodded, then started to walk to the weyr. He stopped, took his prisoner by the elbow, and then led him away.

  Trysten turned to Alea. “Clear the other dragons out of here. I want them out of the yard. I don’t care where they go. Put them in the lanes, take them to the edge of the village, but I want nothing in the yard except the Western dragons we just captured and five of our own, including Elevera, Sone, your dragon, and get Kaylar and Deslan as well.”

  Alea nodded, then disappeared among the dragons.

  Trysten turned to the prisoner nearest her. She looked from him to a green dragon that stood nearby and watched him.

  “You belong to her?” Trysten asked, then pointed at the green dragon.

  The man’s eyes widened, and his face drained of color. He began to babble something, then lowered his head.

  “Oh, for all the sky!” Trysten said. She walked over, took the man by his elbow, and lifted him to his feet.

  “Trysten?” Tuse asked as he emerged into the small clearing. “What’s going on here?”

  She worked to keep from rolling her eyes at the village overseer. “I’m going to get these prisoners out of here in a few minutes,” she said. “But the dragons are ours.”

  “The dragons? How many? I see royal dragons, but these other ones aren’t wearing hoods. Are they Western?”

  Trysten took a deep breath as she led the prisoner over to the green dragon. “All of them are Elevera's now, except for what's left of Avice's horde.”

  “All of them?” Tuse asked, looking around.

  She nodded. “Yes. All of them except the ones that belong to Muzad.”

  Tuse let out a low whistle. “My word. There must be... I must have seen sixty dragons in the sky at least. There were so many that I just couldn’t count all of them. How many are there?”

  Trysten unfastened the quiver of arrows from the green dragon’s saddle and allowed it to drop to the ground. She opened a saddle bag and peered inside. It contained water skins and pouches that smelled of bread. She cast it aside as well and motioned for the prisoner to climb up.

  He looked from her to the saddle, then to the sword. Fear eclipsed his face.

  “Trysten?” Tuse asked.

  “Not now!” she barked over her shoulder. She grabbed the prisoner by the elbow and tried to push and motion for him to climb up.

  “What are we going to do with all these dragons? The royal ones, too? You captured the reinforcements?”

  Trysten sucked in a tight breath, realizing that the reinforcements belonged to Elevera now as well. She had new hordesmen in her ranks. New hordesmen that would have to get used to taking orders from her. The men from Hollin hadn’t been that much trouble, but they weren't royal. If she had to integrate another horde of men like Muzad... It was enough to make her head buzz, and Tuse wasn't helping.

  “It’ll take more than two weyrs to house all of these dragons. And how did you get the ones in the yard—”

  “Not now, Tuse!” Trysten barked over her shoulder.

  Tuse’s head shifted back on his neck in surprise.

  “Come on,” Trysten said, then motioned for the rider to get back on his dragon.

  Seeming confused, he slowly climbed into the saddle. As soon as he sat, his eyes went to the sword at her side.

  Sometimes she questioned whether to keep wearing the weapon based on the impact it had on people, but she wanted to be prepared if the Originals showed up again. And for all she knew, things would have gone much differently in the last few minutes if she hadn’t been wearing it.

  “What are you going to do with the prisoners?” Tuse asked.

  “I’m taking care of them,” Trysten said, her voice sharp. The truth was that she wasn’t quite sure that she was taking care of them, but what else could she do?

  Shouts went up in the yard. Paege and Vanon called for attention. They ordered everyone who had a dragon and could understand them to take the dragon to the other side of the weyr.

  The dragons began to shuffle in the yard, bumping into each other and getting nowhere. Trysten sighed, then closed her eyes and pictured the Aeronian dragons familiar to her rising into the sky and sailing over the village in a swirling cloud of scales and wings.

  The air shook with gusts and breezes as dragons all around her lifted into the air. Elevera led her horde up and around the village again, but only the dragons of Aerona and the former Hollin and Western dragons captured weeks ago. The newly bonded royal dragons and Western dragons all remained in the yard, their faces turned up to their new alpha and filled with such longing that it nearly brought Trysten to her knees.

  “I have never...” Tuse mumbled from behind her.

  Around the yard, everyone looked from the dragons to Trysten. She motioned at the prisoner on the back of his green dragon.

  “Everyone up. All prisoners on their dragons now. Go.”

  The Aeronian hordesmen scrambled to escort the prisoners back up onto their dragons. Once they were seated, Trysten called Elevera and the other dragons she needed to land in the yard. The rest remained in the sky.

  “We’re heading north,” Trysten called out to the hordesmen who would accompany her. “You’re in charge until we return, Vanon. Make sure our new hordesmen are fed and have a place to rest.”

  Vanon nodded, his face blank and eyes wide in awe. He looked up to the vortex of dragons circling overhead.

  “They’ll be down in a minute,” Trysten said, and then ordered the rest of the horde to be off.

  As Elevera leaped into the sky, the captured Western dragons followed. The prisoners on their backs cried out.

  Chapter 27

  They had flown for many hours when Trysten ordered Elevera to take the ground. The golden dragon landed in a flourish of wings, and the Western dragons dropped around her. As they did, the prisoners shouted to each other but made no move to dismount.

  “Off,” Trysten called out to them. She slid out of her saddle and motioned for the prisoners to get down also, but the men remained on their dragons, exchanging worried looks.

  Paege and the other hordesmen landed around Trysten. The prisoners grew increasingly excited, and they chattered nervously.

  “Off!” Trysten shouted. She approached the nearest dragon, grabbed the rider by his ankle, and tugged sharply.

  The man yanked his ankle back in surprise, seeming confused, but held his position. His fingers curled around the lip of his saddle. Trysten began to undo the straps at his waist. Finally understanding, the rider took over, undid the straps and slid to the ground. He dropped to his knees in front of Trysten. Trysten caught him by the elbow and pulled him to his feet.

  The other prisoners followed suit, and soon all of the Western hordesmen were on the ground, gathered loosely around Trysten. She walked to Elevera, motioning for the prisoners to stay put.

  “Are we ready?” Trysten asked her hordesmen as she climbed into her saddle and secured the straps around her waist.

  “Are you sure you want to leave them without supplies? No food or water at all?” Paege asked.

  Trysten looked at him, surprised by his sudden concern for the prisoners. She nodded. She looked up to the sun, then out to the mountains. “There are enough of them to keep wolves at bay. And I want them to have to focus on survival more than returning to the village. Come on. Let’s get back.”

  The Aerona hordesmen mounted their dragons. Trysten hitched her heels across Elevera’s shoulders and yanked up on the lip of the saddle. The dragon leaped into the air.

  As the Western dragons began to follow Trysten and their new alpha into the air, a few of the prisoners ran for their former mounts, shouting, grasping at tails and claws that quickly lifted beyond their reach.

  The horde circled once, and Trysten gazed down at the men she had deliberately marooned on the plains. She thought about how the worst thing that could be done to them was what she had just done. The prisoners stood, knee-deep in the heather, several shouting, one on his knees
seeming to plead or pray, as they watched her fly away with their dragons.

  Her dragons.

  Trysten's hand went to Elevera's neck. The tips of her fingers trailed down the scales. She felt each little bump as her touch dropped from one scale to the next, and underneath the scales, she felt the surge of muscle and might that came with each push of Elevera's strong wings. She pressed her palm against the dragon's neck and swallowed against the tightness in her own throat.

  Nothing could be worse than taking her dragon away from her. Death might well be preferable to life without Elevera. She understood what the prisoners felt about their dragons. She only wished she could understand what it was they felt about her. Their apparent reverence for her was curious, although uncomfortable. And was it her they responded to or the sword at her hip? She thought of the army and realized she may never know.

  She tore her gaze away from the Western hordesmen, and with a hard look at the south to make sure that the army couldn’t be seen on the horizon, Trysten straightened out Elevera’s course and pointed her toward Aerona.

  As the heather gave way to the grasses that crowded the Gul River, Trysten gave a set of commands to Elevera. The dragon banked to her right, then to her left and began to circle the village once again. Trysten looked over her shoulder to see the rest of the horde falling in, thirty riderless dragons with her hordesmen in the rear.

  Below, people emerged from cottages or stopped their work to once again watch the large dragons soar through the sky, the air gusting from their wings. The villagers cried out and waved to Trysten. She waved back and smiled, but the smile faded as she looked over the weyr yard. Vanon had set up a makeshift second weyr yard just beyond the edge of the village. All of the Western dragons, both old and new, stood out among the heather and stone, staked to the ground around several troughs.

  In the yard, where the previously captured Western dragons had been, the recently absconded royal dragons stood in their place, their faces turned up to Trysten and Elevera as they circled.

  Trysten sighed. Her shoulders slumped with the full scope of things. She tried to count off the number of dragons, but her mind shut down at eighty. She wanted to know how many dragons were in Elevera’s horde, but she was stopped by the math of how many goats and sheep it would take to feed all of those beasts.

  More than the village had, that's how many.

  What would she do? She couldn’t keep this up. She couldn’t keep taking every horde she went up against. She was now dragoneer to a royal horde, a situation that was sure to rankle the feathers of the hordesmen who found themselves suddenly stationed at a garrison on the edge of the kingdom’s border. Royal hordesmen were accustomed to serving in the heart of the kingdom, in the very city that represented the royal family’s power. They would not be happy.

  As the horde began to circle around the eastern edge of the village, Trysten looked out to the mountains again. The army was still too far away to be seen, and that was good. She turned to the east and squinted at the horizon. Prince Aymon said he had requested two hordes to deal with Trysten. Surely there was another one coming.

  She sat up straighter in her saddle. Were there more enemy hordes in the east? She had not considered the possibility until just now.

  Trysten sighed. Weariness settled over her.

  If her father had been with her, up in the air and at her side, he’d have told her not to dwell on such things. Fight the enemy before you, the one that can be seen, he'd say. He was right.

  She returned her attention to the village, then banked Elevera into the yard, pressing on the saddle’s lip until the dragon began to descend with gulping swoops of her golden wings.

  Weyrboys ran out to greet Trysten. A few hordesmen accompanied them. Vanon trotted up to Trysten as she slid off of her saddle.

  “I had the Western dragons taken to the edge of the village. We set up a temporary yard. I didn’t know what else to do with them,” he said, sounding apologetic.

  Trysten nodded. She didn’t know what else to do with them, either. She handed Elevera's reins to a weyrboy.

  “Take the new ones to the other yard,” Vanon called after the boy, who gave a short nod as he hurried off, Elevera loping behind him.

  “What of the new hordesmen?” Trysten asked.

  “Well...” Vanon said as he slipped his hands into the small of his back, “I didn’t think it seemed right to put them out in the other yard as well.”

  "What?" Trysten blinked in confusion.

  Vanon grinned. “I’m kidding. A joke. They’re inside.” He inclined his head toward the weyr.

  “Do they know about me?” she asked, not sure which answer she hoped for.

  “How would we keep that a secret?” Vanon grinned through his salt-and-pepper beard. "Fish and birds, you called a horde of riderless dragons to save the village right in front of them."

  “How did they take it?” she asked.

  Vanon shrugged. “I’ll be honest with you. Had anyone else taken their horde like you did, then I’m sure they’d be sore, kind of like how some of the Hollin boys were when they first met us. But these guys...” Vanon shook his head. “They just can’t believe what they saw today. They're in kind of a stupor about it. That was quite a show. Fifty riderless dragons plus their own all following Elevera without any input from them?”

  He let out a low whistle. “They really don’t know what to make of it. I'm not sure I do either, and I've seen you do it before, although on a much smaller scale.”

  Trysten nodded. “I understand. To be honest, it startles me too at times.”

  She turned slowly to look over the Western dragons as they milled about in the yard watching Elevera and the royal dragons which were now their new sisters even though their riders had been trying to kill each other just hours before.

  She took a deep breath. “Well, I guess I better go and formally introduce myself.”

  Chapter 28

  As Trysten and Vanon started toward the weyr, Prince Aymon called to her from his tent.

  “I need to see you a moment,” he said.

  Trysten looked back to the Prince. “I have to see to the new hordesmen.”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Aymon said, then retreated into his tent as if he knew Trysten would follow.

  “Go on,” she said to Vanon. “I’ll be along shortly.”

  Trysten crossed the weyr yard to the Prince’s tent. She pushed aside the flap and entered. Prince Aymon sat in his chair at the table, his wrists resting on the handle of his cane. Even though the light in the tent was dim, he appeared to have recovered some. He looked stronger, not so wrung out.

  “I have to go introduce myself to the new hordesmen,” Trysten said.

  “What did you do with the prisoners?” Prince Aymon asked.

  “What I said I would do. I dropped them off many miles to the north of here. Far enough away that neither the army nor the village can be seen from the horizon. And I left them without supplies or tools. They will have their hands too full with survival to make their way back here.”

  “I spoke to Karno, the most senior of the new royal hordesmen. He is the one who would be—”

  “I understand,” Trysten said. She shifted her weight and was surprised at how impatient she felt.

  Prince Aymon hung his head, then looked up at Trysten. “He informed me that none of my couriers made it to the mother city.”

  Trysten's legs turned to wet dough. She reached out and gripped the back of the chair in front of her.

  “When my father didn't hear from me, he grew concerned," Aymon continued. "He sent a horde to Aerona to investigate, as the last word he received from me was a courier I sent from Hollin telling him I was headed to Aerona.”

  Trysten drew in a shaky breath. Her throat locked up, dry and full of sand. She looked at the Prince, dreading what was coming next.

  “No royal reinforcements are coming from the mother city. The royal horde you took today was the horde
of twenty riders my father sent to find out what happened to me. They encountered two enemy hordes after flying over an immense valley.”

  “Carathia,” Trysten said.

  “Excuse me?” Prince Aymon asked.

  “Carathia. The valley. It's popular with couriers. They usually stop there for rest on their way to and from the mother city.”

  “It seems that it was also a popular place for a Western horde or two to lay in ambush,” Aymon said, rubbing his forehead.

  Trysten pulled the chair away from the table and sank into it. “No reinforcements?"

  Prince Aymon shook his head in a slow, careful motion. “Our enemy has outfoxed us. Whatever their objective is, they have expended a staggering amount of resources to achieve it. I suspected the army was the vanguard of an invading force that would try and push its way into the heart of the kingdom. I see now that they are after something much closer.”

  “Me," Trysten said, her voice low.

  Prince Aymon nodded once.

  “Why?”

  “That’s a good question, but I have no answer other than to say that you are quite a threat to them. You have captured over fifty of their dragons, which you can apparently control without riders on their backs. To be quite honest, if you flew for the mother city, you would be considered a terror along the kingdom's border. What enemy horde is going to stand against you?”

  “The one smart enough to keep its dragoneer hidden inside the army,” Trysten said, burying her face in her hands.

  “If it takes an entire army to escort a single horde to your village, I dare say that invading our kingdom will become a prohibitively costly adventure,” the Prince responded.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked, looking up to Prince Aymon’s dark eyes.

  “We are going to do what the soldiers of King Cadwaller always do. We will fight, and we will fight to the death. Preferably the death of the enemy,” Aymon held her gaze.

  “Without the reinforcements...”