I doubted very much that my father had even noticed where I was, until it had seemed that the Prince Vincent could use me as a hostage, I thought to myself. My father had a history of not being there as far as I was concerned. He was always out on some campaign or another, or involved in high-level committees, or else trying to entertain either his official wife Odette or his ‘mountain wife’ (our mother) Galetta. Wurgan had been lucky enough to share in my father’s passion for warring and soldiering, and thus also shared his life that way – but me? I was a woman, and therefore, even though it was the northern custom that women could be soldiers and just as proficient as men, my father still thought best that I be married off, schooled just enough to garner such a profitable union for the kingdom.
In other words, my father has always seen me as a liability, I thought sullenly as Wurgan laughed and waved at his fellow captains and henchmen that they had achieved a great victory, in ‘rescuing’ his sister from ‘the clutches of the evil monastery.’
Maybe he was right, I sighed, thinking about the Abbot and Monk Olan back there. They were certainly evil, I thought dismally.
“Daughter!” my father said in his clipped and exact way, just as always. He hadn’t changed, not seeming to even age, I saw as I greeted him and the audience of his assembled counsellors with a bow.
“Father,” I said guardedly.
My father was a tall man. Apart from my other uncle, the prince of the Southern realm Prince Griffith, the sons of Queen Delia had that thin, rangy sort of build to them. Although that was where the similarity between them stopped dead, I thought. My father was a contained and restrained man, but whereas Vincent had jet black hair with a shock of white, my father had short hair, clipped close to the skull. He was the older of the three brothers, and yet he was not the successor to the throne. That was because old Queen Delia – in her apparent wisdom – had chosen to separate the realm into the three kingdoms to save the brothers from murdering each other.
And by the look of the two warbands camped on either side of Faldin’s Bridge, it doesn’t seem to have worked at all! I had never met her, the old queen – who was also my grandmother.
He wore, like my brother Wurgan, simple woven leather armor, still with his sword at his side and gloves on his hands. My father was never awake without a weapon to hand, as he had spent long years fighting the more dangerous mountain folk, or else protecting the north from the wild mountain dragons. His counsellors greeted me with cheers and smiles, and I nodded at them; all warriors or ex-fighters from one mountain tower or another.
“Come,” my father beckoned me over to the nearest tall iron-work fire holder, where he ordered a clay goblet of mulled wine pushed into my hands. He watched me, his eyes glittering as a hawk as I drank. Ever the strategist, hey father? I bit my lip, trying to stop the rising feeling of despair in my heart. Why did he always make me feel so useless, like I was just a ‘foolish girl’?
“I should say how glad we all are to have you back, safe, from that place,” my father breathed, keeping his voice low and soft so that the other counsellors wouldn’t hear over their own feasting and loud reveling. Behind us in the tent there were other warriors and messengers moving back and forth, loudly singing the favorite sagas or songs of the north.
Liar, I thought. If you were really happy to see me, you would have hugged me.
“Thank you,” I said all the same anyway. “But it wasn’t so bad, really.” I hesitated. How much could I tell him about Paxala?
“Perhaps. But we have heard reports. The attack by the Sons of Torvald last season?” my father said lightly.
“It was dealt with,” I said.
My father nodded, not saying anything for a moment, before he cleared his throat. “These are strange times, daughter. We stand not a league away from my brother, and yet we cannot even share a cup of mead together. Our armies are at each other’s throats, and every month there is another attack by the bandits of Prince Vincent on my territory.”
“You know this?” I asked sharply. It was no doubt that there was no love lost between north and middle kingdoms, but to directly accuse them of civil war…?
“These bandits were trained. They operated in units, they knew how to use pikes and bows, and fight my cavalry. Always attacking a town, burning the gates and the storehouses, and then retreating. It is no question.” My father gritted his teeth. “That is part of the reason why I needed you here, safe with me….and your dragon…” he added the last part delicately, watching me as he said it.
“She’s not mine,” I said quickly. “The dragon, Paxala…”
“Paxala,” my father repeated, tapping his shaved chin as he stored the name for future machinations. “Yes. Your brother said that the dragon came when you called. I was hoping even, that you might bring her with you when you came.”
Oh damn! I thought in annoyance, remembering how Feodor had told me not to share a dragon’s name. But he was my father, wasn’t he – surely he would have our own best interest at heart…
But maybe not, I considered as I saw my father’s calculating gaze as I was sure he must be thinking about Paxala and me. My heart lurched. I thought you wanted me, safe, just for myself. “I cannot command her,” I said finally. “I’m not even the one who got her to carry a rider, it was Neill…”
“Ah, yes, the Torvald boy. The lesser son of Malos Torvald, correct?” my father said.
I nodded.
“And the dragon would obey him?” My father looked into the flame.
I felt a wave of exasperation surge through me, almost making me want to cry. How could he be so callous with me? Could he not even pretend to be a normal father? “No,” I said heavily. “Dragon’s don’t obey anyone. They barely even listen to anyone. If you were hoping to start your own dragon monastery, then I can’t help you I’m afraid, father…”
“Not a monastery, no,” my father said, frowning just slightly. “I have no time for mumbling Draconis Order monks and priests, talking about universal oneness or inner flames or whatever that fool Abbot Ansall says. You know me, daughter, I believe in cold, hard steel. I believe in soldiers. I believe in strength, and looking after your own. That is why you are here, because now we can look after you, and you can help look after your kingdom,” my father said finally. “And I don’t much like your tone of voice when you speak to me, young madam.”
And who will be left to look after the dragons then, if I do not return to the monastery? I thought in dismay, as my father nodded to Wurgan.
“See that she gets a tent, food, and a guard on her door,” he called, and my brother nodded, motioning for two of his most trusted warriors to escort me out. As they did so, my father leaned in to say to me in a low voice.
“I am glad you are back, my daughter. But from now on, things will change. Starting with tomorrow, when we will decide who you will be marrying.”
What. Marriage was the last thing on my mind. And I couldn’t believe it was on my father’s mind, with Prince Vincent staring at him across the river. Unless…
“You just brought me here to trade my virginity for an alliance? Is that it, father?”
My father blinked rapidly. “Of course not, Char. But we have to consider these things, especially as the times are so dangerous right now.”
Wouldn’t that be a good reason not to have a marriage ceremony? I thought as my blood started to boil. I knew what he was doing. He was seeking to forge some sort of alliance with my hand in marriage. It made me feel sick.
“No, father, I won’t do it.” I said resolutely.
“You will, Char,” he glowered, settling his shoulders and crossing his arms in that way Wurgan had learned from him. I knew that he would be immovable when he was like this. But then again, so was I.
“I won’t. There’s nothing that you can do to make me,” I said tartly. “And besides, I have to go back to the monastery!” I blurted out as the warriors indicated that I follow them. I ignored them. “I have my dragon still there
, and I need to be the one to look after her. How could I ever bring her here if I was miles and leagues away?” I didn’t—couldn’t—tell father the rest, that I had to get the old queen’s crown and deliver it to Zaxx, or else everyone I cared about—I realized the truth of it with a start, that those I loved most were not my father or even my brother or my clan—would die.
My father’s eyes narrowed, and I could see that he was considering my idea that I could get a dragon to bring to the north. That would be a powerful tool in his arsenal.
My father made up his mind, however. “There is no reason you cannot return to the monastery at the head of a guard escort, as a wife of one of my clan chiefs, and demand that this dragon of yours be handed over, is there?”
“Well, apart from the fact that Vincent would never let a northern armed escort across his lands—” I started to say, before there was a short, sharp clap from my father, effectively ending the discussion. His warriors stepped forward to either side of me. “Enough of this nonsense, Char. You’re staying in the North, now.” My father clapped his hands and turned back to the other counsellors and war captains, and I was dismissed. If it hadn’t been for these two guards standing right there beside me, I would have run there and then. Not that I wanted to train how to be a Dragon Monk, but I wanted to see my friends Paxala, Neill, and the others. This was a mistake. I realized. Paxala had been right, I should never have come. I was making all of the wrong decisions, I thought miserably. If I hadn’t agreed to come, then I wouldn’t have tried to sneak into the crater, I wouldn’t have been cornered by Zaxx, I wouldn’t have his ridiculous threat hanging over my head…
But there was nothing that I could do about that now, I thought. I was trapped here. My father just wanted to use me in his strategies and wars. I felt gutted. Tomorrow, I promised myself, even as my hands shook. I’ll make father see sense tomorrow. That he had to let me go. He had to let me return to my friends and to the monastery.
CHAPTER 11
NEILL, GROUNDED
It should have been easy. That was what I kept telling myself, over and over again for the last two days. I mean, I could ride a horse, and I could ride the little mountain ponies they have on Dragon Mountain – how difficult was riding a dragon going to be? Especially since I’d done it before, without even really meaning to.
Very difficult, it turns out.
“Skreap-pip!” Paxala chirruped once again at me, standing over me as I groaned by the side of the meadow where we had stopped. In fact, where I had begged her to stop. The problem wasn’t so much the flying (as all I really did was hold on for dear life), it was more the ‘getting Paxala to do anything other than what she wanted’ part of it. So far she had flown straight towards Char and the monks several times, but each time I had begged her to at least try and stay hidden. Just for now, just until we had a chance to speak to Char on her own. If we could ever get her alone, my innermost self grumbled. So far, there had never yet been even a moment when Char wasn’t accompanied by one of the monks, or now, her father’s guards.
I was certain that Char was going to know that we were there. But somehow, despite all the odds, we never saw her little band stop on the road, or look up at the skies. I wondered if Paxala was keeping herself quiet in her mind as part of her strategy to stay hidden, or if maybe the dragon was just too scared to attempt communicating with Char.
“We’ll talk to her tonight, I promise,” I gasped, my knees feeling like sea-foam as I lurched to my feet, still rubbing the cold water over my face. It was night time, and I reckoned we were only a few hills away from Faldin’s Bridge. We had watched from on high as the troops had approached, converging on the river town from afar and looking as though a battle was certain. Paxala had seemed jittery around them, bold and brash, flaring her wings and puffing her neck muscles as though she could challenge them all.
“We have to be quiet, secret,” I said again to Paxala, who just cocked her head and looked at me in amazement as if I had gone totally mad. Maybe this was a stupid idea. I rolled my shoulders, trying to loosen the stiffness throughout my body. “We’re going to have to develop saddles, or harnesses or something if we’re going to do this,” I said out loud as the dragon preened her leathery wings.
I wasn’t even quite sure what ‘this’ was that we were going to do at all. Char told me to get the others ready to bond with dragons, I remembered our last words, and that she was going, but would be coming back as soon as she could. Paxala had been distraught of course, and I had been getting out of the monastery grounds before the crack of dawn and after lessons and had even spent a couple nights with the Crimson Red, sleeping curled up against her warm-as-coals belly to try and let her know that Char being gone wasn’t the end of the world.
“Srrip?” the young Red raised her snout and pointed in the direction of the village, on the other side of the trees. We had landed as close as I dared, but now I thought we were too close, and I still didn’t quite know what we were going to do when we arrived. Challenge her father for Char? Take Char back to the Draconis Order? I didn’t know Prince Lander, but I’d heard from my father that he was a tough man. My father admired him, in a way of traditional enemies.
‘We would have been friends, I think,’ he had told me once, in his gruff and steady growl. ‘He is a strong man, and he looks after his people. The sort of king that the Middle Kingdom deserves.’
But he didn’t seem to me to be the sort that would give up his daughter easily to me, a warlord’s son, and even to a dragon, no matter how important it is, I thought with a sigh. Char had told me about Zaxx’s request, that the bull Gold dragon had wanted the old queen’s crown for some reason, and if Char could return with it, she would. Were the legends true then, that the dragon had a hoard down there in the middle of Mount Hammal? That Zaxx the Mighty slept on a bed of gold so vast that it could buy the entire Southern Kingdom, every house, ship, and strip of cloth on every person’s back who lived there?
“Then why would he need the old crown as well?” I sighed, shaking my head as I sorted through my things. A few scrolls and some journals Dorf had found for me about the old queen’s crown, some food Nan Barrow had packed for me, the short sword, leather cap, and heavy black cloak that marked me as a trainee Draconis Monk. I put the cap and cloak on, vaguely thinking that the plan I’d been certain would materialize on the journey here, never had. The best I could come up with was that I could sneak into Faldin’s Bridge, pretending to be some kind of messenger. I picked up one of Dorf’s scrolls after I had dressed, reminding myself of how important this quest had to be.
“After her husband’s death, the Great Queen Delia decreed that a new crown should be made, a joining of her husband’s warlike crown with her own circlet, and that it should be set with mighty gemstones of rare beauty and power, and that her best alchemists, silver and goldsmiths, and seers should all work to make it. The crown took a year and a day to make, with rare gemstones being found from deep in the earth and sought for throughout the lands. Later folktales say that the Grand Crown gave the queen the power to command the elements and to always rule wisely, such were the powers that it was said to have been blessed by…”
“Well. At least we know what it looks like, huh?” I murmured at Paxala, who was urging me to go and find Char.
The next scroll was even less illuminating.
“Upon her death, the Great Queen Delia’s will distributed twenty-seven mansions to her favorite courtiers, her personal flagship was sailed to the Southern Kingdom, where it remained anchored off of Knife Bay for a further ten years, and her dresses were sold, and the monies raised spent on the benefit of the poor of the land. Such was the depth of sadness at her death, that no advisor, seer, or priest could bear to look upon the Great Crown that was the symbol of her wisdom and power, and there are different accounts of what happened to it. Belvedere the Unsteady claims that it was cast into the sea, whereas Athanasius the Small writes that it was stolen by one of her sons, and hidden away until
such a time as the kingdoms were unified once more. Although the mystery surrounding the exact whereabouts of the Great Crown of the Great Queen has never been solved, it has perplexed scholars throughout the generations…”
“So, in short it could be anywhere, too,” I said out loud. “And Zaxx expects us to find it and bring it back to him, otherwise…”
“Sssskrech!” At the mention of the tyrannical bull dragon’s name, Pax suddenly reared and spat a tiny plume of soot.
“Okay, girl, okay. I won’t talk about him again. Let’s not think about it, shall we?” I patted her side, glad for the interruption to be honest. The other option was to think about what Zaxx had told Char – that he would kill someone, one of us students, or a young dragon, or Pax herself.
Which is why I had to get Pax out of there, and off of the mountain, I thought, feeling the large Crimson Red’s breath start to slow as she calmed herself down.
There was a crunching sound from the very edge of the clearing, out there, in the trees. My heart hammered, even as Paxala swiveled her head and took a deep snuff of the night air. Oh no, we’ve been discovered, I thought, looking up at the skies above. It was a starry night, which meant that we couldn’t escape into the clouds with any ease. We would be seen, and then shot down.
Paxala was making small, shaking movements, her body quivering in anxiety of excitement. I put my hand to my short sword, wondering if I was good enough to face a grown, fully trained knight of the realm – and then I saw it – a dark shape out there, moving through the trees, swathed in heavy clothes. Were we being spied on?
“Srip-ip!” Paxala chirruped at the figure.
“Shhh – we cannot let them know you are here,” I urged her, not that she paid any attention to me.
At the mere sound of the mighty dragon, the figure froze in the dark, and then, very slowly, started to trudge straight towards us, and then started to jog, and then run…
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