Prince Aymon leaned forward. “Trysten of Aerona, I saw you fly into this village today with dragons of how many hordes in tow? How many riderless dragons, and dragons with enemy riders did you bring in under your command?”
He leaned back against his chair again. “In all of my days, I have never seen a horde so large. And I have never seen anyone command a horde as you do.”
Trysten watched him as his excitement grew. She feared where this was leading.
“If an absconded horde finds an alpha that has more than twenty dragons, then that absconded horde tends to keep looking. Twenty appears to be a natural limit,” the Prince continued.
Trysten nodded. She knew that much of dragons.
“But you and Elevera...” he took a deep breath and gestured at the weyr. “I have no idea what her capacity might be. And furthermore, riderless dragons don’t take up formation. They follow the alpha around because she is the alpha, but they would never fly in formation as I saw them fly just now.”
Trysten tried to recall the other dragons, how they flew as they circled the village on her return from the battle. She remembered looking behind herself and seeing the dragons fanned out in two V formations, but it hadn’t occurred to her to think of it as anything unusual or out of the ordinary. They were just flying behind Elevera, and they were flying in the formation that would make the most sense.
“How far do your powers go?” Prince Aymon asked.
Trysten didn’t respond right away, her eyes resting on the tabletop.
“What do you mean?” she finally asked without looking up.
“Can you control all of the dragons? Can you take Elevera’s entire horde into battle?” The Prince rapped his knuckles on the table as if trying to get Trysten's attention.
Trysten’s chest fluttered at the thought. She looked up at the Prince but did not answer.
Prince Aymon stood, giving a slight grunt as he did so. He limped over to a basin in the corner, and for some reason that she couldn’t identify, it irritated Trysten that he reminded her of her father as he did so.
He took a pitcher from beneath the basin and brought it to the table. He turned around, stretched out, and snagged one of the clay cups dangling from a hook on the edge of the basin stand.
“Well?” Aymon asked. He placed the cup on the table, then filled it with water before pushing it over to Trysten.
“There aren’t enough hordesmen,” she answered.
“That is why I’m asking can you control all of the riderless dragons? Can you make them follow your orders without riders to enforce them?”
“Enforce them?” Trysten asked. She plucked the cup up off the table top.
The Prince sighed. “It's not a hard question, Trysten. You give orders. Your hordesmen relay those orders to their mounts. That is how it works. Dragons without hordesmen do nothing but flit around behind their alpha, going where she leads. I need you to direct these dragons into battle.”
Trysten took a sip of the water. It tasted of iron and sat in her mouth like a stone. She swallowed. “No archers?”
“No archers,” Prince Aymon said. “Not on the backs of dragons. Archers on the ground will light the firebreak. You then lead the entire horde in a frontal assault against the army. Firebreath is all you will need.”
“Firebreath,” Trysten said, and the word left her mouth strangely, an odd assortment of contortions of her tongue and lips.
“Are you all right?” Prince Aymon asked.
Trysten took another sip of water. She nodded. “I am. It’s...”
“All of those new dragons in your head,” Aymon offered.
Trysten looked up at him. She didn't know what to say.
Prince Aymon gave his head another slow shake. “I can’t even pretend to know what that is like. There were times when I swore I knew what Chyrvan was thinking. I could almost feel what she felt as if I knew her heart and mind as I know my own, but those moments were always fleeting, like hearing whispers down the castle corridor, only to find no one in the hall.”
“I’ve never been in a castle,” Trysten said.
Prince Aymon leaned forward. “Come with me, then.”
“No.”
“Why not? So you can stay here and test the limits of Elevera? See how many dragons she can bond with each fighting season? How soon before you begin to lose dragons to starvation? By my own estimation, hosting Muzad’s force along with the first round of absconded Western dragons has already put a severe strain on the livestock of your village. What will you do now that you have more than twice as many dragons to feed?”
Trysten shook her head.
“That is not an answer. Aerona will be out of goats in three days. You might stretch that into five with rationing, but then you must start in on the sheep, and I doubt that the weavers and spinners among your people would very much care for that. What will you do then? Feed them river hares?”
“I will send hordesmen and villagers to Carathia,” Trysten said. "The Western hordes must have had resources to feed their dragons while they've been there. We will not run out of food before the army gets here.” Trysten straightened her back. “After that, Aerona will be the stronghold of the kingdom. The King can contribute to the needs of the weyr."
A smirk played over Prince Aymon’s face before he shook his head. “Not good enough. Come with me. After we destroy the army, you and I will fly your horde back to the mother city. They will be well cared for there. You have my word,” the Prince said.
“Then what?” Trysten asked.
Prince Aymon leaned forward and placed his wrists upon the cane once more. “Whatever you want. If you wish to be my Dragoneer, then you will be my Dragoneer. I have a feeling that I will need a replacement sooner rather than later.”
His voice dropped down to a near-whisper as he leaned forward even more. “You may command the entire winged armies of the Cadwaller kingdom if that is your wish.”
Trysten sat back in her chair, amazed at his cold-blooded prediction of Muzad's fall. She blinked at him.
She swallowed hard and took a sip from the cup and then placed it on the tabletop. “Why would I want that?”
“Why wouldn’t you want that?”
Trysten’s brows furrowed and her throat grew tight with anger. “Why would I want anything more than what I have here? Here my enemies are easy to see. They do not pretend to be concerned for my well-being because it suits their purposes. I have always wanted to fly in the Aerona horde. Now I command it. I want nothing more than to stay here and protect the people I love.”
“While you watch your dragons starve?” he asked quietly.
Trysten inhaled sharply. The air was thick and musty, and it smelled like old sweat. She placed her hands upon the edge of the table and prepared to stand. She had things to do.
"If you were an honorable man, you would not use a food shortage to blackmail me into leaving with you," she said, glaring at the Prince.
“Honor?” Prince Aymon lifted an eyebrow. “I am working my hardest to protect the kingdom. It is always about the kingdom. My honor is in the survival of this kingdom and nothing more.”
“How does it serve the kingdom to mislead me?”
Prince Aymon’s gaze darted to the table, then back to her. He shrugged. “I tell you what you need to know. What if you were captured by the Originals? Would you be able to protect the information I give you?”
“So I am a security risk then?” Trysten asked with a shrug. “What is it that you know that they wouldn't be able to find out, with or without me? They are the Originals. They don't need you to share your knowledge with them.”
She stood and crossed her arms. “Don’t treat me like an idiot when I disagree with you. This isn’t about protecting information from the Originals, Aymon. This is about controlling me, and I don’t care for it.”
Prince Aymon made no move to stand. “Then you will have a weyr full of dragons dying of starvation, and not because I am trying to control you, but because you are
too self-absorbed to see that the problem is not that I won’t bring them food, but I can’t bring them food. Our ties to the kingdom have been cut. I have dispatched three of Muzad’s men to take word to my father—”
“You sent out more riders! I don't believe this!" Her hands dropped to her sides, fists clenched.
“It doesn’t matter!” Prince Aymon shouted in a hard, clipped tone as polished and honed as the edge of a royal hordesman’s sword. “This battle will not be won with riders, Trysten. It will be won with dragons. You are the only thing standing between us and annihilation. And now that we've discovered the blockade, I know with certainty that the army is not moving beyond this village regardless of whether or not we win. They are after you. They have no interest in invading the kingdom. Not yet, at least.”
Trysten straightened. The wound in her abdomen suddenly itched and prickled. She absently placed a hand over it and pressed slightly.
Prince Aymon’s gaze followed her hand to her belly, then rose back to her face. He let out a long, frustrated sigh.
"Here is all you need to know, Trysten. You are, for whatever reason, a person of incredible interest to the Originals. So much so that they have unleashed an army to come and take you. It is not hard to see what it is about you that has caught their attention. You are the Dragoneer of a horde that holds close to eighty dragons, maybe more. You are capable, apparently, of commanding entire hordes with a gesture, or possibly even a thought.”
Trysten tensed at his suggestion.
He took a hand from his cane and leveled a finger at Trysten. “You are not only a target for the Originals but when word spreads—and it will spread—of the female Dragoneer who commands hordes the size of Adalina’s famed hordes, then Aerona will become a target as well. You will be overrun by merchants and fame-seekers who are foolish enough to come here even though this corner of the kingdom comes under attack from every neighboring kingdom. You are to be feared.”
“But you do not fear me?” Trysten asked.
“I do,” Prince Aymon said without a moment of hesitation.
Trysten’s breath stalled. She hadn’t expected to hear him admit it.
“Yes,” Prince Aymon said with a slight nod as if confirming her own inner thoughts. “Only a fool would deny it. I fear you because it has been my life’s mission to be the best warrior on every field of battle I have ever stepped upon. And now, I find the warrior that would best me in a heartbeat without lifting a finger. How can I stand against you? How would I begin to mount a defense against you should you decide to take my father’s throne?”
Trysten shook her head. “I have no interest in your father’s throne. Or anyone’s throne, for that matter.”
“And I believe you. Now. This minute. But you are going to find that your days of being a dragoneer are over. Or at least being a dragoneer here, in Aerona. You wish to protect this village? Then you must leave it. The only way to save it is to abandon it. That is all you need to know. We cannot feed your dragons here, and this village will forever be the target of someone’s attack as long as you are to be found here. And once you get it through your thick head, you might find that you wish to stretch yourself. Ambition is a curious thing. You might find that the role of Dragon Lord is not worth having unless you are lord of all that you survey. That is what I fear. You will come to that conclusion. It is inevitable. That is human nature.”
“You are wrong,” Trysten replied. For a few moments, she stared at a spot on the tent's wall. She took a deep breath and continued.
"Here is all you need to know, Aymon," she said, looking directly into the Prince's eyes. "As you said, I am the only thing standing between the army and our annihilation, and from this moment on, I am in charge. Period. I do not answer to you, I do not follow your commands. You follow mine, and you see that your hordesmen do the same. If you want to live past the day the army arrives in Aerona, if you want the kingdom to survive, you never question me again. You need me. Act like it."
She held his gaze a moment longer as color rose in his cheeks, then she turned, whipped aside the tent flap and left. She had no interest in the stammering response he was starting to give.
Chapter 29
Trysten took a deep breath as she crossed the weyr yard. The weyrboys stole looks at her as they busied themselves with leading the harnessed Western dragons out of the yard to the secondary yard at the edge of the village.
Inside the weyr, Trysten stopped and listened as the breath of the dragons fell into a single, synchronous pulse. She looked up at Elevera in the stall to her left. The alpha dragon returned her gaze, waiting. She didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered by the sudden increase in her horde’s size. If she was aware of the pending food shortage, then it wasn’t on her mind. She thought only of Trysten, of what she was doing, of the look upon her face that suggested she was upset by something.
Trysten reached out for the top of the half-wall to steady herself. Her head spun with the disorientating sensation of all of the dragons in Aerona being aware of her and Elevera, echoing back her emotions like the whispers of a chorus out of tune.
Elevera lowered her head. Her forked tongue flicked out and smacked the back of Trysten’s hand like Aeronwind used to do to her father. Trysten smiled. She looked up to the great, gold dragon and held out an open palm. The dragon lowered her head enough so that Trysten could rub the scales along her muzzle.
“It’ll be all right, Lady. Whatever it takes...” And her throat locked up at what had to be said next.
A man cleared his throat.
Trysten turned to find Borsal standing behind her.
“Is there anything you want me to do, ma’am?” Borsal asked. “Vanon told me to put the Western dragons in a second yard, but is there anything else you want done?”
Trysten shook her head. “No. That’ll be fine for now. I want to talk to the new hordesmen. Do you know where they are?”
Borsal nodded at the back of the weyr, to the doorway to the dining hall.
“Thank you,” Trysten said.
She turned and walked down the aisle, toward the dining hall. As she approached the end of the aisle, Deslan, who had apparently drawn guard duty, sat up taller upon the stool outside of Maejel’s stall.
Inside, Rodden sat cross-legged on the floor, his back to Maejel. "Trysten!” he said, and it surprised her to hear him say her name, even though she knew his.
“Trysten!” he repeated and stepped to the edge of the stall. He held out his hands as he beamed from ear to ear. “Sa yalla echum tauk trai chom. Cheelum. Cheelum.” He clasped his hands together in a loud clap and shook them in a manner that appeared to indicate that he was gratified with something.
“Thank you,” Trysten said with a grin. She stepped forward and took his clasped hands in hers and gave them a slight shake. “Thank you.”
Rodden’s eyes widened in surprise. He started to step away from her but stopped. The grin returned to his face, and he relaxed. “Trysten! Tauk trai sa yalla!”
“Sa yalla,” Trysten repeated with a nod.
“Sa yalla!” He turned back to Maejel. “Sa yalla!”
Maejel stirred, then pushed herself up to her feet. She bowed her head slightly as if she understood whatever it was that Rodden had said.
Trysten released Rodden’s hands and stepped back. Rodden gave a deep bow. He began to absently stroke the scales of Maejel’s face while he continued to grin at Trysten.
“You’ve definitely made an impression on them,” Deslan said as he settled back into his slouch.
Trysten looked to the young man. “Do you know what happened when we got back? How did he get outside?”
Deslan bit his lower lip. “Yeah. Brand had guard duty at the time, on account of Belara not being ready for battle. He said that when we got back, he could hear the shouting of the Westerners as everyone landed in the yard. Rodden bolted right over the wall. Just leaped over it before Brand even knew what happened. He’s never tried to escape before. Never
wanted to leave Maejel, I guess, and so Brand went after him. When he got out to the yard, he found Rodden yelling something at a group of Western hordesmen nearby. They all turned to Rodden, and before Brand could take Rodden down, he said... Well, you might want to get the story from him too. But he told me that he saw something in their eyes. He said the fight went right out of them and they looked shocked. They even put away their bows. At that point, Brand thought that maybe Rodden was telling them to do that. Maybe he’s like a dragoneer for the Westerners, you know?”
Trysten turned her attention to Rodden. He continued to stand next to Maejel and stroke her face. He whispered something to Maejel, and Trysten could make nothing of it. The words were soothing to the dragon, something she found comforting, but try as she might, Trysten couldn’t find any meaning to attach to the sounds.
“He should be their dragoneer,” Trysten said to Deslan. “If I hadn’t taken his horde, he’d be a dragoneer. And Maejel would be the alpha.”
“Maejel,” Rodden echoed, then nodded. His hand rested on the ridge behind her eye for a heartbeat, and then he patted the dragon’s head before returning to stroking her scales.
“Yeah, but, to see the way those Westerners reacted. Maybe he’s like a... Maybe he’s the prince of dragoneers or something. I don’t know. I just think it’s strange. The whole thing. Why he came back. Why the Westerners stopped fighting as soon as they landed. It’s all just strange.”
Trysten took a deep breath. “If only we could speak to him.”
“You know,” Deslan said. He grasped his left fist in his right hand and pressed until his knuckles popped. “What if, when the army comes, we were to put him out front,” he said with a nod to Rodden. “He can tell them whatever he told the other hordesmen. Maybe the army will do the same as the hordesmen did.”
“I don’t know,” Trysten said with a shake of her head. “I’d feel a lot better if I knew what it was that he’d said to them.”
Deslan shrugged. “What could it hurt?”
“It could hurt Rodden,” she said.
Deslan didn’t say anything more as Trysten turned away and approached the door to the dining hall.
The Dragoneer Trilogy Page 69