King's Exile: Chronicles of the Dragon-Bound: Book 1

by William Culbertson

  Dax was cheerful now that he was working toward an actual goal. Every day was busy and hectic, but he had a sense of purpose. One day while he was sorting some of the odds and ends he needed to take, Moryn said, “Now you have to promise to write me a letter once you get settled at Iron Moor.”

  Settled at Iron Moor. Her statement brought home to him that he was going to leave Tazzelton. He stopped and looked at Moryn, who was busy stacking clothes. He was going to miss living in the small apartment with the couple. When he had left the castle, it had been necessary—Mathilde was trying to kill him. After that, the time he had spent on his own had been filled with daily peril and danger, and he had developed a feral sense of wariness. Since he had lived with Moryn and Herne, the comfortable regularity of daily life had returned. He had not stopped to think about it, but Dax once again had a home. His heart ached at the thought of leaving.

  Moryn looked up, saw the distress on his face. She seemed to understand at once. “You’ll be missing this place?” His eyes stung with emotion, and he did not trust his voice. He just nodded. She gathered him into a warm hug. “Well, we’ll miss you too. But if you are to grow into a fine young man, you have to do it on your own.” After the hug, he felt a little better, at least for the moment, but as the days progressed and their preparations continued, Dax felt more than one pang of impending loss.

  #

  Two days later, Herne arrived in the late afternoon with an announcement. “We are having company for supper this evening.” The news sent Moryn of into a tizzy of preparations.

  “I guess I’d better go dress for dinner then,” Dax said.

  “Right you are,” Herne smiled smugly. “I think I’ve found someone to escort you to Iron Moor, and you’ll meet him tonight.”

  Dax looked at Herne. “From the way you look, I know you won’t say who it is until you can surprise me.” Herne nodded solemnly. Dax sighed and went to get ready.

  Sometime later, there was a knock at the door. Herne gestured for Dax, now dressed as Lady Leith, to answer it. Dax opened the door and was startled to see Tre Lukas Trimble standing there. Dax stared for a moment longer than he should have. Trimble was out of uniform and had his long hair caught back in a fashionable clip. Finally Dax recovered. “Won’t you come in?” he said.

  Trimble strode into the room, nodded formally to Herne, then embraced Moryn. After a strong hug, she broke the embrace and held him at arm’s length. “Lukas! So good to see you again. It’s been too long, you naughty boy.”

  Trimble smiled guiltily, then turned to Dax. “So who is this young lady? Do I have another long-lost relative I need to meet?”

  Moryn smiled. “Lukas, meet Leith. Leith has been living with us lately.”

  Dax put out his hand, and Trimble took it and gave a small, proper bow. “I’m delighted to meet you, Leith. I’m looking forward to having dinner with you.”

  Dax’s ears went red. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

  After a bit of an awkward pause, Herne slapped the young man on the back. “Come, Lukas. Moryn has a place set for you. After we eat, we have business to discuss.”

  #

  Most of the conversation during the meal was between Moryn and Trimble as they caught up on family news. Thankfully Dax could sit quietly and eat. Throughout dinner, Dax’s mind was awhirl with thoughts and questions. He realized he had been ignoring his food when he saw Moryn looking at him from across the table.

  “Leith, you’ve scarcely touched your food. Did I spoil the chowder, or are you not feeling well?”

  Dax straightened up and took another bite of the fish soup Moryn had created to stretch the meal she had originally planned. “Oh, no.” He dipped a crust of bread into the bowl. “The soup, uh, chowder is fine.” He thought for another moment. “Those custards with cherry sauce I saw you making earlier will be great for dessert.”

  Moryn smiled. “Ah, Leith has a sweet tooth. I keep telling her to watch her girlish figure.”

  Trimble glanced up at Dax and smiled. “Oh, she looks just fine. In fact, I’ll have to introduce her to my youngest brother up in Bington. He’s about her age.” He gave Dax a wink. The man had not been telling the truth about wanting him to meet his brother. Dax felt his face get hot.

  At this Herne said, “Yes, and that’s something we need to talk about. Why don’t we take our custards over by the fire and talk a little business?”

  They all helped clear the table before taking a dish of custard. Dax had told the absolute truth about the custard. Moryn had made the treat before, and Dax would cheerfully have made a whole meal of custard alone if she would have let him.

  Once they were settled by the fire, Herne began the conversation with a question that startled Dax. “So, Lukas, when will your resignation from the guard take effect?”

  Moryn looked up. “Oh, no,” she said before Lukas could answer. “You’re not leaving the guard, are you? What will you do?”

  “Well, I’ve heard the great families pay sell-swords well—better than the guard does anyway. Word is the Weylyns are taking on people.”

  Herne crossed his arms over his chest and murmured, “Uh-huh?”

  Trimble flushed. “Well, and my captain was going to transfer me out to the Redbush Barrens.” He looked over at Herne’s stern frown. “Because I . . . I had a little trouble with a girl.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Plus there’s all the troubles going on in the castle these days.” With the new topic, he spoke more confidently. “I guess it would just be better for me to find work somewhere else.”

  “I see.” Moryn folded her arms over her chest, mirroring Herne’s pose. “What will your mother say?”

  “Well, she wasn’t real pleased. I couldn’t tell her everything in the note I sent, for fear of who might read it. I mean, she’d understand about Dierie”—Trimble blushed a little and smiled—“but with all the political stuff going on in the guard lately, it seems safer to be somewhere else.”

  “Safer indeed.” Herne nodded. “And being somewhere else is one of the things I wanted to talk about tonight. So . . . what do you make of all the political going on inside the castle?”

  Trimble looked at Dax, then back at Herne. “Well, I’m not sure how much I should say about all this.”

  Herne smiled grimly. “Oh, don’t worry. Leith is just as interested . . .”—he paused—“no, more interested, than any of us.”

  “All right then.” Trimble took another bite of custard and looked at Dax. His blue eyes were troubled. “So you know about the disappearance of the boy king and the push to put Castellan Keir in his place?” Dax nodded. “We were all wondering”—Trimble paused for another bite—“the guard that is, what was going on. We’ve been sent here, there, and everywhere to ask people if they had seen him. They always send one of us who had actually trained or sparred with him so there would be someone who would recognize him on sight.” Trimble fished out one of the cherries in the sauce and popped it in his mouth. “That was the first thing that really got me wondering.” He took time to swallow the cherry, and his voice got more distinct. “They said somebody had stolen him away, yet they acted as if he might have run off. Why would a king run off?”

  “He must have had a good reason,” Dax stated flatly.

  “Right,” Trimble replied gesturing emphatically with his spoon. “That’s what I’d figured. Anyway, Keir slapped those sun-blaze patches on our uniforms to show that the guard ‘will bring the light of day to all the dark places of the kingdom.’” He snorted. “That and most of the stuff since seems aimed at making Keir look important. He’s changing everything, and everything has to go through him before it gets done.”

  Herne nodded in agreement. “I see the same thing from where I sit. Except much of what Keir does is not necessarily his own idea.”

  “Mathilde?” Trimble asked.

  “Near as I can tell.”

  The young man frowned. “Well, that’s all the more reason to get out. My original enlistment was up last year, so I�
�m free to find my own way now.”

  “Unless they change that little rule too,” Herne said quietly.

  Trimble looked appalled. “They would do that?”

  Herne shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Well then, my resignation will be on Watch Commander Seith’s desk in the morning.”

  “Probably a wise move.” Herne nodded sagely. “However, unless you leave the city, you may find yourself subject to recall—even if you go to work for one of the great houses.”

  Trimble looked warily at Herne. “You mentioned a trip to Bington to see my family, and now you are trying to make me really want to go, aren’t you?”

  Moryn got up to retrieve the empty custard dishes. “Now you know the Old Bear would never try to manipulate you that way.” Her wry tone conveyed exactly the opposite meaning.

  “No, always before, he’d just give me an order.” Trimble smiled, and Moryn smiled back.

  “Guilty as charged, Lukas,” Herne admitted. “However, there really is some urgency here that I haven’t made clear yet. Leith has decided to go to Iron Moor for training and needs an escort to Bington and beyond.”

  Trimble looked at Dax, surprised. “You mentioned you wanted me to escort her to Bington, but Iron Moor?” Turning to Dax he smiled. “Well, young lady. There is more to you than I first thought. Do you have any skill with a blade?”

  Dax looked at Herne, who nodded. That was a relief because Dax could hardly have restrained himself much longer. “I don’t know for sure, but the last time we sparred, I did manage to score a hit.”

  Puzzled, Trimble stared closely at Dax for the first time, his brow furrowed. “We’ve sparred?” Suddenly his eyes widened in surprise, and he started to his feet. “Your . . . Your Majesty. You . . . I . . . ,” he stuttered and dropped to one knee.

  Moryn put her hand on Trimble’s arm and pushed him back to his seat. “Now, now. Little Leith here has been with us for a time on her own, and she’s decided to take a trip. It’s important for you to remember that.”

  Herne snorted. “That and to keep it in your britches around the ladies.”

  Trimble sat back down, but he continued to stare at Dax. “I’m so sorry if anything I’ve said offended you in any way, Your Majesty.”

  Dax shook his head. “No. I’m not ‘Your Majesty’ anymore. Mathilde has done a good job of taking care of that title. If I’m going to get to Iron Moor, you must think of me as Leith and treat me as the person I appear to be.”

  Herne helped Dax relate his story of the time since he had fled the castle. Dax deliberately left out certain parts of the narrative, like the castle’s secret passages and his discovery of being dragon-bound, but by the end of the telling, it was still well past midnight.

  When Trimble at last got up to go, he turned to Dax and spoke formally. “Your Majesty—for you will always be that to me—I will call you Leith because you are in serious danger, and there is no help for you here. Your father was a brave and honorable king of this land. I will be most honored to serve as your escort for this trip, with the hope that you might someday return to us in honor.”

  This was the most serious Dax had ever seen Trimble. Dax clasped him by the arm and looked him in the eye. “Your help will be valuable,” Dax said with conviction. “I am humbled by your service.”

  #

  Preparations for Dax’s departure intensified. Herne returned the next day with word he had booked passage on the Wings of Wind, a vessel bound for Bington and well suited for a journey by a young lady. Herne was particularly pleased because the ship’s master, Captain Lauter, was someone he knew from the guard.

  “Bale Lauter, but we called him Little Lauter in those days,” he told Dax that evening. “He was a small man who looked as if he’d have trouble standing up in a strong breeze. However, after a long day’s march when the rest of us were plodding on our last legs with our tongues hanging to our belly-bells, he’d be trotting along fresh as Dehil’s Lilly.”

  Evidently amused by a memory, Herne smiled and went on. “His size was a problem in the guard. Tough as he was, he just wasn’t big enough to match swords with the rest of us for any length of time. Give him a dirk and a dark night, and he’d lay out half a squad of the enemy before they even knew he was among them. Too bad he never went to Iron Moor. They would have made him into an assassin, and a mighty good one at that.”

  “Did you get a chance to talk with him?” Moryn asked.

  Herne smiled. “Of course I did. It cost me two pints of that ale from Butterock he favors. Lauter now knows all about your sister’s girl, Leith, and of her trip to Bington to study candle-making with your cousin’s boy.”

  “Ah. That makes it natural that Lukas would be along. No wonder you are so pleased with yourself.”

  “Yes, a fine day’s work. They leave in two days.”

  #

  With a firm deadline in sight, they started final packing. Well, stowing his wardrobe and other gear was supposed to be final. Dax lost count of the times he had to burrow down into a trunk or bag already packed and sitting by the door to retrieve, replace, or repack something.

  Herne had taken leave for the day the ship sailed to help supervise their departure. For fear of being recognized and drawing attention to the ship, Herne decided to stay at the apartment with Moryn while Trimble and Dax went to the docks.

  Shortly after lunch Trimble arrived with a pony cart, and they loaded it with Dax’s baggage. While Trimble waited in the street with the cart, Dax went back up to the apartment to say his good-byes. Back inside, Moryn told Herne they were ready. She looked at Dax, her eyes sad. She shook her head wistfully. “I will miss our little visitor.”

  Herne looked at Dax. “Yes, me too.” He embraced Dax with his arm and held him for a long minute before he released him. “Now you must see to becoming a man who will do honor to your family and West Landly.” He wiped his eyes with his hand and stood silently looking at Dax. “You are so like your father,” he finally said. “I know he would have been proud of what you will do at Iron Moor.”

  Herne paused again before he went on, but now he sounded as if he were giving a tactical briefing. “I can’t come with you on your journey, but Trimble will get you to Iron Moor. He has a bit of an eye for the ladies, so feel free to remind him of his duties.

  “Once you are at Iron Moor, concentrate on your studies. You know I will do everything I can for you here in Tazzelton.” He paused, and a dark look passed over his face. “Keir must never take the throne. That is certain. West Landly needs to have a strong king or queen. Not a puppet king with the long arm of Thara pulling strings from behind the curtain.” He gave Dax a pat on the shoulder. “Go and become a champion of Landly.”

  Dax had a lump in his throat and could not speak. He embraced them both one last time before he went down the stairs to the street. Although he did not look back, his thoughts lingered on General Herne and Moryn, two more people in his life he dared not disappoint.

  #

  The dock where Wings of Wind had moored was busy when Dax and Trimble arrived. A fair crowd had gathered among the piles of bags, baggage, and cargo on the pier alongside the weathered-plank sides of the ship. The number of people surprised Dax. From the way Herne had talked, there were not that many passengers. As he watched, he saw some order. Many of the people on the dock were workers lugging bundles up onto the ship. Two narrow gangways gave access to the ship, and traffic had sorted itself out, with one ramp being used for cargo and baggage going on and the other ramp for stevedores and others coming off. Trimble headed for the dockmaster, a burly, dark-haired man with a wooden leg who glared at them from where he half sat on a wooden crate. He invited them to state their business with a gruff “Yeah?”

  “Lukas Trimble with Leith.” Trimble handed him the boarding papers Herne had given them.

  The man thumbed a grimy list on a clipboard until he found the entry he wanted. “Yeah,” he replied with a nod.

  Trimble blinke
d twice in quiet frustration. “Sir, we have baggage and would like to find our cabins.”

  Burdened by the request for additional service, the dockmaster looked up from his clipboard. “Jak,” he said with a wave, and a well-muscled dockhand turned to look. “Cabins three and four,” he announced and with another wave gestured to their baggage.

  “Right you are then,” said Jak. He sat one of Dax’s trunks on top of the other, ran a thick strap around them both, and hoisted the load onto his back. “Come on. Follow me,” he said and set off as easily as if he carried only a small knapsack over his shoulder.

  Trimble picked up his own pack, and the two followed the man up the gangway to the deck. The cabins were in the raised stern of the Wings of Wind. Cabins three and four were the first two cabins on either side of the starboard passageway. Jak let the trunks slide to the deck in the outside cabin, then tugged his hat. “So, is there anything else you be needin’?”

  “Thank you for your help,” Trimble said and offered the man a copper. “Here’s something for your trouble, and could you tell us where we might find the captain?”

  “Well now, thank you kindly, gentlefolk. Not’s too many who appreciates old Jak’s work.” He scratched his head with the end of a callused thumb. “Captain, huh? Well, last time a seen him, he was up in the bow.”