Tyber leaned closer. “Well, I want it to look terrifying before I draw it, don’t I?”
The blacksmith appeared to think about it for a second, and then lifted an eyebrow. He nodded to concede Tyber’s point.
“Can you do it?” Tyber asked.
The blacksmith reached up and rubbed at his chin. A permanently dirty fingernail rimmed his calloused thumb. The rubbing motion drew a path of lighter colored skin through the grime of ash and smoke that caked his sweaty face. Tyber’s jaw tightened with guilt. This man was just trying to make a living, and here Tyber was wasting his time because he’d been dumb enough to get caught up in Nather’s activities. He glanced at the alley to make sure it was clear of guards and dragon shadows.
“A sword. One ell in length. You want a grinning skull as a pommel?”
Tyber took a deep breath, then snatched the coin purse off of the top of the anvil. The supple leather was soft and warm to the touch, nearly like fevered flesh. The flushed face of his youngest brother came to mind, his brow glistening with sweat as he lay beneath a pile of blankets shortly before he died.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Tyber said with a slight shake of his head. “But I think I’m changing my mind. It’s really quite a terrible idea.”
The blacksmith’s gaze widened slightly with surprise. “No! Not at all. I think it’s a great idea. You want a sword people will be afraid of.”
“Yes, not right now, though,” Tyber said. “But when I’m ready, I know exactly where to look, right?”
The blacksmith nodded, his jowl bulging out from the sides of his thick neck. “Name’s Rerret.” He held out the slab of his paw, then nodded at the building behind Tyber. “My shop.”
“Thanks,” Tyber said. He pumped the man’s hand once, then pulled loose the leather thong holding the purse shut. He slid his fingers inside and fished out a thin slip of metal. He opened his hand, then caught himself from showing surprise as he looked down at the slightly curved sliver of silver resting in his palm.
“For your troubles,” Tyber said.
Rerret grinned, then plucked the slip of silver from Tyber. He weighed it in his hand as if judging its value. His grin widened more, and then he dropped the slip into a pocket of his apron. “If you need anything else, anything at all, you call on Rerret, right?”
“Right,” Tyber said with a nod, then stashed the purse back in his pouch as he jogged out into the alley and made his way back to the courtyard he last exited. From there, he could find his way to the Old Gate in the western wall.
As he hurried down the alley, his hand snaked into the pouch and felt the comforting presence of the coin purse, still warm with the heat siphoned from the smith’s iron and anvil. Silver. If the purse was full of silver, or even a mix of silver and copper, Tyber’s family would have food to last them until Father’s next payday. He smiled, picturing the looks on the faces of his youngest brothers and sisters as he came through the door, his arms full of vegetables and cheeses.
He emerged into the courtyard, then halted. Something was wrong. The people in the courtyard stood in a semicircle around the mouth of the alley. A number of them looked up.
Tyber looked to the ground, and the last of his smile dropped away. Instead of finding the shadow of a dragon passing overhead, he saw the shadow of what could only be a dragon with its wings spread wide, drawing closer by the second.
His ears rang with the telltale snap of leathery wings taking wind as the dragon dropped to the ground.
Tyber turned to race back into the alley, but not before a flash of a large tail covered in brilliant red scales struck him in the ribs and swept him off his feet.
Fish and birds! He really didn’t like dragons.
Chapter 3
Tyber struck the wall of the building behind him. His head cracked off the stone, and he crumpled to the ground as the world was wrapped in red and the light gray of granite. He struggled to push himself up to sitting. Fists grabbed him by the collar of his jerkin and yanked him to his feet, then slammed him back against the wall. Tyber grasped bare forearms, and then looked up to find himself staring into a familiar face beneath the leather helmet of the royal hordesman.
“Ander?” Tyber croaked.
“Tyber,” Ander said. “I am very disappointed to find you here. Are you going to turn it over, or do you want me to have Listico hold you while I search you?”
He nodded back at his red dragon. Listico lowered her head and extended her neck, then sniffed the air as if trying to decide whether Tyber would make a worthy meal.
Tyber shook his head. “It’s not me. I didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t do what?” Ander said and lifted an eyebrow. He looked quite smug as if he’d sprung a trap that Tyber didn’t see coming.
Tyber’s hands fell away from Ander’s forearms. “I thought you had been killed in the West.”
Ander’s face hardened and grew as cold as the bottom of the Gul River. He released Tyber’s collar, and Listico stepped forward and spread her wings as if to banish any thought of escape. Her tongue flicked out between pointed teeth, and a chill crossed Tyber’s skin.
“Fortunately for you, Tyber, I was not assigned to Gerig’s swell,” Ander growled.
“How is that fortunate for me?” Tyber snorted. A crowd of onlookers had gathered to watch the drama unfolding. He was done for. His father would hear about this before Tyber even made it home.
“It’s your lucky day,” Ander said. “Lucky for you, I’m still around to keep you from throwing your life away.”
Tyber turned back to Ander. His eyes widened.
“Don’t turn me in, Ander,” Tyber said, shaking his head. “Please. You can’t hand me over to the guards. Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t steal it. It just got handed off to me. I was only going to get a fraction of it, anyway. But it would be enough to help keep my family fed, man. My father works all the time. You know him. He works hard. But it’s just not enough! My family needs me. I have to do what I can, you know? They need me, man! Please, don’t turn me in.”
Ander leaned forward and placed his forearm across the top of Tyber’s chest, near his throat. His face hovered so near that Tyber could smell the pungent tea from the hordesman’s breakfast.
“They need you?” Ander asked.
Tyber nodded.
Ander backed off. “Then why would you do this to them? Why would you risk imprisonment over a handful of coins?”
Anger prickled Tyber’s skin with heat. “What am I supposed to do? My father works dawn to dusk, and it’s not enough! Should I watch my sisters and brothers starve and do nothing? Watch their bellies fold in, and their faces grow gaunt? No!” Tyber shook his head, trembling with rage. He reached into the pouch at his belt, ripped out the purse and tossed it at Ander’s feet. “You can have it back! There. But my brothers and sisters are going to go hungry.”
Ander released Tyber. “Why don’t you do something about it, then?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“What?” Tyber gestured at the purse between them. “What do you think this is? The man this was stolen from doesn’t need it. He doesn’t do a thing but collect the money made by all those who toil for him. Yet those of us who do the work get to starve. What is the point of honest work if you can’t make an honest living from it?”
A murmur of agreement fluttered through the growing crowd behind Ander and Listico. The dragon ignored it, but Ander stiffened slightly. The hordesman could feel the crowd behind him coming together, joining in a common complaint. A crowd quickly became an animal, hungry and toothy, claws swiping at anyone dumb enough to try and contain it.
Tyber saw the hordesman’s unease and suppressed a grin. He wasn’t foolish enough to try and whip the crowd into a mob of support. He couldn’t control it, and they would tear apart a thief long before they went after a hordesman of even an unpopular king.
Still, if the crowd was restless, and it made Ander a little nervous, there might yet be room for Tyber to get
out of this alive.
Ander took a step back, and Tyber suddenly had room to run. He could dodge around the corner of the building and get a few steps ahead of the royal hordesman. Ander was probably stiff-legged too from a day in the saddle, hanging in the air like the eyes of the gods themselves.
“First, you don’t know who that money was stolen from or anything about him. Robbing the rich is no less a crime than stealing from any of these people.” Ander gestured to the onlookers. “You want to make an honest living instead of taking what doesn’t belong to you? You want to make enough to provide for your family?”
Tyber took a tense breath and hung his head. The truth was he agreed with Ander. He hadn’t taken Nather up on his offers of a partnership before, but things were harder since Tyber’s grandfather had come to live with them. Fafa would kill him when he heard about this. His grandfather was a proud man who would never resort to theft. Broken feathers, this day was going from bad to worse.
Wherever Ander was going with his offer, Tyber was sure he wouldn’t like it. He stood straight, pulling his back away from the support of the granite wall.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tyber said. “Even if there was work to be had, it wouldn’t pay enough. The King levies such high taxes that there’s hardly any left for bread, let alone clothing or anything else his subjects might need.”
The murmurs behind Ander grew in volume. Clothing and sandals and boots rustled with the nervous movement of the crowd as they huddled together, exchanging whispers and assuring themselves of their numbers. The crowd grew.
Ander’s shoulders tightened a bit more in response. He dared not look back at the restless gathering. The way his gaze bore into Tyber spoke of his resolve to not let the crowd see the hordesman’s eyes.
“Well then,” Ander said. “You’ll be pleased to hear that I know of a good job. An honest job with good pay. Something I think would actually suit you quite well, Tyber.”
“Oh?” Tyber asked, and then immediately felt like a fool for not coming up with something better, something more cutting.
Ander nodded. “The King is need of royal hordesmen.”
The murmurs grew in intensity, stoked by the rumors rampant in the street. Tyber heard snatches of conversation regarding the kingdom’s recent and devastating losses in a war that had been going on since before Tyber was born.
Tyber snorted. “Royal hordesman? Me? No thanks.” He shook his head. “I prefer my head attached to my body if it’s all the same to you.”
Ander cleared his throat. “In order to fill vacancies in the ranks of the royal hordesmen as quickly as possible, the King is offering a bonus to the families of young men who enroll in His Majesty’s Royal Academy of Dragon Riders. The bonus is to be paid upon completion of the first trial.”
“What? No. No, thanks,” Tyber said with a dismissive wave of his palm. “I’m not going to sign up for a job like that. I can’t pass any trial. I don’t even like dragons. No offense,” he said with a nod to Listico.
Ander shrugged. “The bonus is to be paid upon completion. Successful or otherwise. If you can manage to show up for classes, your family gets the bonus. After the first trial, you are free to walk away.”
Ander turned around on a swift heel. The onlookers hushed immediately.
“This offer is being made to all young men between sixteen and twenty-two years,” he called out in a loud voice that carried well through the courtyard. “The bonus is thirteen strips of silver.”
Several low whistles in the crowd cooled the murmurs of discontent like water on a fire. Tyber’s back tightened a bit. By the wilds, Ander had managed to grab the crowd’s attention.
“All right. Thirteen strips. But so what?” Tyber asked. “Paymaster hands out a sack of strips at the end of the final, and then the tax-man lifts it right back up.”
The crowd agreed.
Ander shook his head. “No taxes. The stipend to recruits is free of taxes. And should you go on to actually graduate and know a life of honor and service to the people of the kingdom, then you would pay no taxes ever. The men who offer their lives to the King in service are not taxed. You would also get a further stipend for each trial you pass. And the stipends grow with your commitment to the kingdom. If you want to help your siblings, Tyber, then do something with your life. A position of honor with a good, honest paycheck will do far more for your family than forcing them to hand over a visitation fee just to see your sorry corpse rot behind bars.”
“Right. So I can follow Yaris into the Western Kingdom and end up dead like the men of Gerig’s swell?” Tyber shook his head. “I don’t see how dying in battle is going to help my family. Throwing away my life for the King won’t feed them.”
Ander placed his hands on his hips. “I’ve known you since you were a boy, Tyber. I’ve always found you to be quick and too smart for your own good. I remember a time you thought I was unfair to Erik.”
A blush colored Tyber’s face. He once threatened to beat in Ander’s skull if he didn’t stop picking on his little brother.
“I never forgot that,” Ander said with a shake of his head. “That look on your face. I was twice your size then, and you wouldn’t back away because you were protecting your friend. You are no longer a boy, but you still wear that look when you speak of your family. Be the man your family needs. Be the man all of these people need.”
Ander swept his hand across the crowd. “The kingdom needs good men on sturdy dragons now more than ever. You can do that, Tyber. Why settle for being a hero to your brothers and sisters when you can be a hero to every man, woman, and child in the Cadwaller kingdom?”
Tyber ground his teeth and his face burned as red as Listico. “I don’t need to be anyone’s hero. I need to look after my family, because no one else will, and certainly no tax-happy king will. No, thank you.”
Tyber turned away and started for the edge of the building. He put on enough speed to be quick, but not enough for an all-out dash. Still, his knees were swept out from under him. He fell backward in surprise, then gasped as his left arm was wrenched up behind his shoulder, and then he was slammed sideways into the wall. His cheek pressed against the rough, sun-warmed stone as his neck twisted at an uncomfortable angle.
“Let me put it this way, then,” Ander whispered into his ear. “When I release you, you will go down to the royal weyr, and you will enroll in the trial that starts in two days. You will show up at the appointed time. You will complete the trial, collect your bonus, and then pray to the gods at night that you never cross my path again. Otherwise, I am going to tear your arm from your shoulder, and then drag you to the dungeon and toss a petty thief into a cell to be forgotten. Do you understand?”
Tyber trembled with a mix of fear and rage. He tried to wrench himself free, only to gasp as Ander pulled his arm up tighter.
“Remember,” Ander added. “I know where you live. I know where to find you should you fail to show up.”
“Why?” Tyber gasped.
“Because you were Erik’s best friend as a boy. And I know my brother wouldn’t want me to stand by and watch you throw your life away.”
“I’ll fail,” Tyber said. “I don’t like dragons, and I don’t want to fight the Western Kingdom. I don’t want to do anything but keep my family safe.”
Ander moved in closer until his breath tickled Tyber’s ear. “Then fail. That is your choice. But I am giving you that choice, so you will never be able to say that you weren’t given a chance to be something better than the young man groveling at my feet right now.”
“I’m not grov—Ow!” Tyber gasped and leaned forward to keep his arm from popping out of his shoulder socket.
“What’s it going to be, Ty? Life as a hero, or life as a criminal?”
“That’s not much of a choice,” Tyber grumbled.
Ander let go.
Tyber fell forward and caught himself with his right hand. He pulled his left hand up to his chest and cradled his throbbing shoulder.
/> Ander’s footsteps moved away. Tyber focused on his breathing. He looked up at the sound of metal bits clinking in a purse. It swung from Ander’s hand.
“I will speak to the clerk in enrollment at the end of the day. If your name has not crossed his desk by then, it will be given to the clerk at the dungeon.”
Tyber nodded. His dark hair had fallen around his face like a curtain and hid the crowd from him. He grimaced in pain and frustration and rage. What an idiot he had been!
Leather creaked as Ander settled into Listico’s saddle.
“I’ll see you later, Ty. Say hello to Theola and the little ones for me.”
Listico’s wings snapped open and thrust the air down around her. Bits of straw and a scrap of fabric danced across Tyber’s field of vision. His hair wavered before his face, and then the sound of a dragon’s wings beating the air began to subside.
A pair of feet appeared at the edge of Tyber’s field of vision. They were wrapped in strips of dirty, ragged cloth. The toes stuck out, several were blackened from frostbite and missing nails.
“What’s it going to be?” a man asked.
Tyber sat back on his heels, tucked his hair behind his ears, and looked up at a ragged, dirty man with a long beard and a face lined with wrinkles.
“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Tyber asked.
The man extended his hand to Tyber. Tyber took it and allowed the man to pull him to his feet despite the pain in his shoulder.
“You always have choices,” the man said. “You choose to get out of bed every morning. You’ll find when you’re old like me that getting out of bed really does become a choice and a hard decision to make. But when I was your age, if someone came along and asked me to enroll in the academy?” The man shook his head in a show of mild disbelief.
“Why didn’t you?” Tyber asked as he glanced around furtively. The crowd had begun to disperse. A pair of royal guards walked past, clutching their pikes. They glared at Tyber.
“When I was your age, they didn’t want men like me in the academy. Men like me were expected to be foot soldiers. If you were a good shot, they gave you a bow and sent you to the battlefield. Only the men of wealthy families got to ride dragons. Now…”
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