The D'Karon Apprentice

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “You aren’t going in there, are you?” called one of the soldiers in awe.

  “I am.”

  He marched toward the door of the stable. Even with the horses moved to the shade of a tower for the time being, there was room for little else but Myn within its walls. As he drew nearer, her gaze flicked to Grustim and her muscles tensed. She pivoted her head to him and flared her nostrils, peeling back her lips to reveal a glint of teeth. The rumbling grew sharper, higher in pitch and more aggressive.

  Grustim didn’t falter. He simply ducked below her craned head to slip inside. Once there, Myn shifted herself, pulling her head inside and turning her body. The move achieved a number of things. First and foremost, it allowed the dragon, huddled as she was under the low roof, to look him in the eye again. It also blocked the door behind her and blotted out most of the light from the doorway.

  Her growling was loud enough to shake dust from the rafters, but he simply stared at her evenly, arms crossed.

  “Enough. You are being a child,” Grustim said, adopting the Northern tongue again. “These men believe you to be mindless. I know better. So do not think that your posturing and grumbling can intimidate me. Myranda trusts you, and you trust her. This relationship the two of you have could not exist otherwise. It is because you trust her that I’ve given the woman what leeway I have. And it is because she trusts you that I believe her judgment is sound. But right now, this damage you are willfully causing is just foolish.”

  Myn’s growling trailed off, but her expression remained hard.

  “There are a number of things you must do, and you must do quickly if you are to have any hope of salvaging this mission for Myranda. First, you must stop this foolishness and allow yourself to be detained.”

  The dragon pulled her lips back again.

  “You and I both know the stronghold could scarcely contain you, let alone this flimsy shack, but your very presence in this courtyard is pushing the soldiers to their wits end, so you must allow them at least the illusion of control. When humans do not feel in control of a situation, they begin to act rashly.”

  Myn shifted her head, glancing toward the wall in the direction of Garr and grunted again.

  “Garr is the mount of a Dragon Rider. Most of the soldiers believe I have some supernatural control over him, and I have no reason to correct them,” he said. “And on the subject of Garr, stop taunting.”

  She pulled her head back slightly and darted her eyes briefly aside.

  “I can read your tone and posture as well as he can. You made a terrible mistake earlier. Garr has never been knocked down in fair sparring. To be grounded by a wild-caught, even a female, must burn at him terribly.”

  Myn drew in a breath and puffed her chest slightly.

  “Don’t be so cocky. You’d each been commanded to end the battle. He’d assumed you would fight with the same discipline as he. Instead you took advantage of him. He gave you more credit than you deserved. Don’t expect so easy a time if the two of you come to blows again.”

  The dragon tilted her head doubtfully.

  “Believe what you will, but Garr has been trained in combat and you have not. Challenge him at your peril. Or better, do not challenge him at all.”

  Grustim looked to the door behind Myn, then turned and paced toward the corner of the stable, mind deep in thought. Turned as he was, and with his eyes finally adjusted to the light, he found that in their haste to clear the stable for Myn the soldiers had forgotten two creatures. A pair of falcons, hooded and clearly flustered by the scent and sound of the massive predator sharing the stable, stood on perches in a large cage to one side.

  The Dragon Rider stepped forward and looked between the bars. If they were still hooded, they’d been handled recently. He observed their legs. In Tressor, colored bands were used to indicate to and from what locations each falcon was meant to fly. There were roosts for only two falcons, and each bore a band indicating a destination of their sister stronghold in Malaar.

  “Two falcons…” Grustim murmured. He turned to Myn. “I want you to answer some questions about Myranda.”

  Myn looked aside and huffed a breath.

  “Now is no time to be stubborn, Myn. The man who holds power in this keep is not one for mercy. Hatred for the north drips from him, perhaps enough to blind him of his duty and his dedication to the truth. Honesty will help her. Anything less and I cannot promise there is anything that I can do.”

  She turned her gaze back to him.

  “She treats you well? Listens to you, speaks to you?”

  The expression this question earned carried the clear threat that any suggestion to the contrary would have swift and fiery results.

  “And the madness your woman just willfully performed, risking her life and the ire of the entire stronghold for a pair of ailing soldiers. Was that genuine? It was not manipulation?”

  Myn closed her eyes and nodded once.

  “She would truly commit what in the eyes of the commanding officer is nothing less than an act of aggression to heal a pair of injured men, even if they were not her countrymen? Even if they were strangers who only weeks ago might have been clashing swords with her own people?”

  Again, a simple nod was all Myn had to offer. Grustim cast his eyes down and wrung his hands.

  “It pains me to suggest it… I do believe there has been treachery here… but in this instance the Alliance may be the least of the evils.” He looked up. “Step aside.”

  She lightly scraped her claws into the floorboards of the stable, splintering one of them.

  “What have I just said? The more you disobey, the more difficult it will be to convince anyone that Myranda and Deacon should be allowed to leave. You are only making things worse for them. Now would you please step aside?”

  Myn tipped her head, smacked her tongue twice, as though these words were more acceptable to her, then carefully adjusted herself to clear the door. When she turned to face the exit again, she jerked her head back with a start.

  Garr loomed in the doorway, eyes intently focused on hers. He lifted a foreclaw to allow Grustim to step from inside, then stepped down again when the Rider was clear, clawing at the ground as he did.

  Grustim released a scolding command. Garr lingered for a moment longer before stepping back. The Dragon Rider looked at Myn again.

  “I do not appreciate the bad influence you’ve been on Garr,” he said to her. “He’s never been this much trouble.” He grumbled a new command, and Garr spread his wings, thrusting himself into the air.

  “Where is it going?” asked one of the footmen, startled first by the suddenness of the departure, then by the realization that the one dragon remaining in the fort was the property of the enemy.

  “I’ve sent Garr to hunt. I must speak to the dragon’s keeper. Do not close the door to the stable,” Grustim instructed.

  “But we were ordered to secure the beast.”

  “And you have illustrated that you are not able. Leave the door open and there will be no further trouble.” He turned to Myn and repeated the phrase in Varden. “No further trouble.”

  Myn grumbled something that likely would have been unrepeatable had it been in a human tongue, but folded her claws in front of her and laid her head on the ground to soak up some sun.

  Grustim turned back to the soldiers. From their expressions, they were more than a little awed by his capacity to, from their point of view, coax dragons into following his commands through sheer force of will. Again, it was a useful misapprehension, and he wasn’t eager to disabuse them of it.

  “I need to speak to the dragon’s owners,” Grustim said.

  The footman who had fetched him looked uncertain. “I believe the commander would prefer to deal with the prisoners personally.”

  “I respect the commander’s wishes, but it is a matter that if left unattended, could make the dragon more difficult to control.”

  As he spoke the final words, he gave Myn a meaningful glance. The dragon,
mischievously recognizing the need for a bit of emphasis, huffed a curling streamer of fiery breath from her nostrils. It was a gentle breath, doing little more than producing a flare of heat and light, but even a gentle flame bursting from a living creature was quite enough to make a firm impression upon those who had never seen it before.

  “Right this way, Rider.”

  #

  The damage to the stronghold was such that most of the hallways connecting the left and right sides were impassible. Only the entryway had been cleared, and only leading to the last two fully intact banks of cells. As the soldier led Grustim forward, then downward, he heard a voice speaking impeccable Tresson echoing through the row of cells.

  “You are taking me to the duke?” Grustim asked.

  “Of course. You said you needed to speak to the owner of the dragon,” the soldier replied.

  Grustim nodded. It was natural, he supposed, for the soldiers to assume that Deacon was the master. In Tressor a dragon, at least one owned by a human, was effectively a weapon of war. War in this kingdom was an exclusively male pursuit. In all of his interactions with the duke and duchess, however, it was abundantly clear that she was the one with whom matters of any real importance should be discussed. It was not until this moment that Grustim realized how natural and obvious that had become for him in their brief travels together.

  As they drew closer, a few things became clear. The first was that Deacon either hadn’t grasped the severity of the sentence he was facing, or else greatly misunderstood the nature of incarceration. He was chatting amicably with his jailer, or at least attempting to do so, with no indication that he was displeased or concerned about his imprisonment. Coincidentally, but not surprisingly, the subject was precisely the one Grustim had briefly been ruminating on.

  “Really?” Deacon said, fascinated. “Not a single woman in your entire army?”

  “There may be one or two female healers…” the jailer said. There was a weariness in his tone that suggested, despite the rather brief time he had been in charge of Deacon, the assignment had already begun to try his patience.

  “But no one in battle? Why?” Deacon said.

  “Because our army is made up of only the finest warriors.”

  “I apologize, but I fail to see how that answers my question.”

  “Men are clearly superior to women in matters of war. We are physically superior, more mentally capable, and overall better suited to matters of both combat and strategy.”

  Grustim was near enough now to see Deacon standing just inside the bars of his cell, head cocked to the side and listening intently.

  “That has not been my observation. Certainly there are certain physical differences, which might broadly make men and women better suited to certain tasks, but in almost all cases I’ve found men and women quite capable of aspiring to a stunning level of competence in their chosen tasks, regardless of what those tasks may be. Have women routinely failed to satisfy the requirements of your army?”

  “We do not recruit or conscript women, nor do we allow them to enlist.”

  “Then upon what do you base your—”

  “Duke, I do not mean to interrupt, but there are a few matters that require your attention,” Grustim said.

  “Ah, Grustim!” Deacon said far more brightly than was suitable for a prisoner of war. “I was just discussing some very interesting topics with Footman Turill.”

  “No doubt. But I must ask some questions,” Grustim said. He turned to the man who had escorted him. “You may return to the entryway and await me there. When I am through with the duke, I will need to speak to the duchess.”

  The escorting soldier nodded and departed. Grustim turned back to Deacon. When he continued, he was speaking Varden. “In your own language, I feel, it would be more appropriate.”

  “We can certainly do so if you wish, but the footman doesn’t speak Varden, so he would not be able to contribute to the conversation,” Deacon replied.

  “That is ideal.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have some questions. I appreciate you will be inclined to answer at length, but please be brief.”

  He nodded. “Not an uncommon request.”

  “First, you seemed certain we would find damage here. Why?”

  “I was able to sense the casting of the spell, and the nature of this D’Karon spell is such that it unleashes a portion of its unconsumed energy upon completion.”

  “Is it a willful attack?”

  “No. The burst of energy is a consequence of the D’Karon tendency to forgo counterspells or other means to complete a spell without expending the energy poured into it. If they had sought destruction, it would have been far more complete.”

  “So you would have me believe that what was done here was done by accident?”

  “Perhaps not by accident, but the destruction was at best secondary to the purpose of the spell, which was to travel great distances quickly.”

  “Mmm… Is it safe to say if this agent of the D’Karon had wished to destroy the stronghold, she would have done so?”

  “I cannot speak with certainty, as I do not know anything of the person responsible, but if the opening of portals is any indication of the knowledge and tactics available to her, then it is quite likely the destruction of an undermanned stronghold would be well within her capabilities.”

  “Then why would she not?”

  “I cannot venture a guess.”

  Grustim nodded. “At the very least it would seem wholesale destruction is not the aim.”

  “I concur. May I ask, have you had much headway in your discussions with the commander? Does he seem a reasonable man?”

  “We’ve not had much to say to one another, but I am not confident he will be inclined to offer you leniency, or even fairness, regardless of what we find to be the truth. You are, in his eyes, still the enemy, and having captured you he won’t likely give you up unless forced. This far from a command, an official proclamation requiring it is unlikely to reach him anytime soon, and it would be quite simple for him to ignore it or deny he had received it.”

  “That is… most disheartening.”

  “I’ve been offered this opportunity to discuss matters with you because of the disobedience of your dragon.”

  “Myn hasn’t done anything regrettable, has she?”

  “She has been willful. In light of her age, the circumstances, and her lack of formal training, I would say she has been showing remarkable restraint.”

  Grustim glanced at the jailer. While he was not showing any sign of understanding, he was beginning to appear impatient, with the beginnings of suspicion showing in his gaze.

  “I believe the time has come for me to move on to discuss matters with Myranda. You’ve been stripped of your equipment, correct?”

  “I have.”

  “Am I correct in assuming that despite this, both you and the duchess are more than capable of escape?”

  “We are quite skilled in unfocused casting, but we will not escape. We have surrendered. To escape after surrendering would jeopardize the lives of any Northerners who might surrender in the future. The precedent of Alliance members surrendering only to later escape would encourage Tresson soldiers to kill surrendering Alliance troops from that point forward. The circumstances would have to be truly dire for either of us to even entertain the possibility of escape.”

  “A wise view. Let us hope that we can all recognize dire enough circumstances should they present themselves. A final question. Your pad. The one through which you’ve communicated with the others to the north. Are there any tricks to its operation?”

  “Simply open it and read it. If you wish to send a message, simply address it to the intended recipient with a double underline and write it with the stylus.”

  “And would you oppose my fetching it and reading its contents?”

  “By all means, do so, if you feel the need or believe it will help. In fact, I’d been so distracted with the prospect of what w
e might find here and how to plan for it, I’d not thought to check if there were any new messages since after we took to the air again.”

  “Then perhaps the time has come to investigate once more.”

  Grustim nodded to the jailer and paced back toward the entryway. The soldiers who locked up Myranda and Deacon had wisely chosen to separate them as much as possible, thus putting them on either side of the impassible portion of the keep, roughly in the same cell on opposite sides. Unlike Deacon, who had taken the opportunity to indulge his rampant curiosity, Myranda was sitting quietly in her cell. Her jailer was similarly silent, though his eyes were locked on Myranda, mindful of what she’d managed in the courtyard and wary of what might happen if she chose to put such arcane powers to work again.

  “Esteemed Rider,” said the jailer, standing and thumping his fist to his chest.

  “Footman. I need to speak to the duchess. Tell me, do you speak Varden?”

  “I do, a bit.”

  “And do you read it?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you know where the duke and duchess’s things are being kept?”

  “I do.”

  “If you would be good enough, go and fetch them for me. Their dragon has been misbehaving, and I believe there may be some indication of how best to properly deal with her disobedience among the duke’s things. In his pack you will find a small booklet affixed with a bell. Bring it to me please. I will look after the duchess until you return.”

  “As you wish, Rider.”

  His escort and the jailer went on their way, leaving Grustim alone with Myranda.

  “I’ll make this brief, Duchess. I’ve spoken only briefly with Commander Brustuum, but I am not pleased with what I’ve heard. There is little doubt that a great deal of lies has been spoken about the woman responsible for this devastation and the circumstances surrounding her escape. Much as it pains me, I am quite certain the commander has told more than his share of them.”

  “Why would he lie about anything that’s happened here?”

  “I do not know. It is my intention to confront him with those things I know to be false.”