Prince Vincent scowled, his mouth a thin line of fury as he digested our words. He wasn’t used to being denied this way, and took his anger out on the monk at his side.
“I have been clearly misinformed about the needs of the academy,” he said haughtily as he regarded Berlip. “You are stripped of your titles, and I have no need for your services.”
Berlip opened and closed his mouth in panic and fear as the realization dawned on him that he had now made enemies with a prince, a dragon, and the majority of the Dragon Academy.
“Best if you leave, Berlip,” Char said with deep satisfaction. “You and any who want to go with you.” There was an awkward, flapping moment from the older monk, before he hissed like an angry cat and turned and ran, out into the crowd which parted around from him like he was an infected man. A few other of the older monks, the ones who had been as cantankerous as he was, and had jockeyed for position under the prince, slipped quietly from the edges of the crowd as well.
Well, that makes things certainly a lot simpler.
“So, you will help me defeat the rebel army?” Prince Vincent demanded of me. Char bristled at the prince’s tone, but I let it slide. I had spent a lot of time when I was younger learning how to work around obstinate and short-sighted men.
“We will stop the rebel army from hurting the people of this land,” I offered, and Char nodded at my side.
“Good.” The prince motioned to Sir Rathon and his men. “Pack up our things. We will move my personal retinue to the army, and there, we will prepare to meet the foe.”
Sir Rathon shot me a dangerous look, and I was sure that if I were ever to encounter him alone, without witnesses, then I would be sure to face consequences for daring to make his master look weak. I stood still, with my friends at my side, watching as the prince and his forces hurriedly packed their things, and left the confines of our academy.
When it was finally done Char turned to me and set a hand on the side of my forearm. “You did it, Neill. You did it.”
“I didn’t do anything. You had the guts to start taking down his tent and kicking out his men.” I shrugged with a laugh. “I could never have done that!”
“No, you found the way through,” Char insisted, as Jodreth, Dorf, Lila and Sigrid and Maxal all stood around us. “You found a way to keep the Dragon Academy safe, without starting a war. You are a true leader, Neill.”
“Your father’s son,” Jodreth murmured as the others were loudly congratulating me, but when I looked to catch his eye, he didn’t say anything.
Chapter 20
Neill, Front and Foremost
The rebel armies of my brothers and the Abbot Ansall would have been crazy to give up such an easily defensible position as the town of Rampart and so, unsurprisingly, our scouts told us that they hadn’t.
I had been musing on this as we flew back north-eastwards, catching the high and cold northern current of air that came down from the tops of the northern mountains and shivering in our waxed cloaks. Behind me flew Morax the Sinuous Blue, Socolia the Stocky Green, as well as a handful of other dragons that we could find riders for: Veserpal, Jhokar, Haxar, Zhukis, Varo, Tchakka and Siuella. Ten dragons, I thought, fear rising in my chest. Surely, we would need more if we were going to fight the biggest army ever to walk across the Middle Kingdom!
And Zaxx, the thought crossed my mind like a shadow.
But I had been assured again and again by Char (relaying Paxala’s own counsel) that the other riderless dragons would follow and come to our aid if need be, and that they would do so under the watchful eye of the young White called Zenema. I still hadn’t really met the young White yet, but I had seen her strong and lithe form staying defensively around the nesting caves. She may have been young, but the Great White dragon was already larger than even Paxala and any of the other dragons of her own age.
What a strange bunch we make, I thought, looking over my shoulder at Terence and his fellow rider Lila on Morax, and Sigrid and Dorf on Socolia. Sigrid had been having troubles working with the large Green all by herself, and she had been overwhelmed by the dragon’s emotions – but Socolia had apparently taken a shine to Master Lesser, and so we had hurriedly schooled him on the use of the dragon harness and the saddle, and now Socolia and her two Dragon Riders appeared to be flying much smoother than before.
As with all of the other riders, it had been the dragons that had chosen which human they would like to be friends with–if any–after Char had been slowly encouraging the students to go down into the dragon crater under the watchful eye of Paxala or herself, and there seeking to offer the younger dragons strips of meat or, if they were really lucky, fish!
“Skrech!” Paxala underneath us made an anguished chirruping sound, which I took to mean that she had picked up on my memory of her last delicious morsel.
“So soon after lunch, Paxala? After the battle, we’ll all feast like never before, I promise you,” I said, not raising my voice as I knew that the Crimson Red would easily hear my words anyway.
“What did you say? Did you spot trouble?” Char was calling as I shook my head, pointing down at the scales below us to indicate that I had been talking to the dragon, not her.
“I see!” Char gave me a mock grimace as if jealous, before breaking into a wide grin. Even though she was very protective over Pax, she wasn’t covetous of her company or the dragon’s affections at all. In fact, she encouraged Pax to try and share her mind with me, perhaps eager to share with another human what she experienced every day.
I studied my friend for a moment longer, her pale hair bouncing on her back in a tight and severe warrior’s tail. She was peering ahead of her in determination, even though we were so high as to see nothing but the dark and indistinct haze of landscape far below us. She came alive when she was flying. I saw her eyes bright, her smile quick – even when we were flying straight into danger!
Neither of us had talked about the possibility of encountering Zaxx. The inevitability, I corrected. On the parchment paper Maxal, Dorf, and I had briefly sketched out tactics and strategies. It had certainly appeared as though ten youthful dragons should be enough to defeat even the giant Zaxx, but I knew that when it came to the golden bull, all bets would be off.
Who knew what strange powers he could have? I allowed myself to worry for the moment. That book Char and Maxal obsessed over, Versi’s Voyage, seemed to claim that the older a dragon got, the stranger abilities it could display – not just the ability to breathe fire but to command fire, or to create ice, to read thoughts, to control thoughts…
Was that why Pax couldn’t sense Zaxx’s presence earlier in Rampart? It had to be, surely? And it was also the most worrying part of our mission, a topic Char had brushed aside as if it were of no importance when I’d tried to raise it with her.
“We are ten dragons, and twenty riders,” Char had reassured me. “Ten voices of dragon-flame. Over forty throwing spears!” I looked down at my side to the short javelin-like spears that all the riders now had, one on each side of their saddle. It was longer than my sword, but about half of my body length, made from strong and straight ash wood, with long metal points fashioned by one of Nan Barrow’s brothers. To me, the weapons looked flimsy and thin when compared to the imagined bulk of the golden monster that was Zaxx.
Ahead of me, Char rested her gloved hand on the edge of her saddle, and I wondered if I were imagining things or if it was trembling just a little. I told myself it was the cold because I didn’t want to believe that it was the effect of the Magewort that Jodreth had dosed her with, or—worse—fear. Char certainly was optimistic, I thought, before once again feeling cautious. She was still injured, really, and I worried the Magewort was giving her a false sense of strength. I resolved to find a way to keep Char out of the direct combat if I could.
BWAR-BWAR! The distant and tinny sound of the dragon pipes rose in the air beneath us to catch even my stubborn ears, but Paxala was already wheeling down, leading the diamond-like flight of dragon
s in a vast turning circle like a flock of seabirds.
Far below us was the source of the sound, and I could just make out the dark column of riders that was Prince Vincent’s advance guard. This was the agreed sign that we had between us before we would start our last swoop to Rampart itself. As Paxala let herself plummet down, the land rose up to us in dizzying speed, making the wind tear at my clothes and my eyes tear. Her speed was phenomenal, and the strength and power that she had in her wings and arms to catch her plummeting flight and swing over the mounted knights was incredible, giving me a little hope that maybe we could defeat the monster Zaxx.
Beneath us, the double line of mounted knights stretched back almost as far as my human eyes could make out. What had the prince said, seven, eight hundred mounted knights? We were still outnumbered easily ten to one in that case by the rebel warriors alone, but the prince also had a larger force of infantry soldiers following.
Our combined role was simple, if somewhat difficult to execute: the mounted troops and the dragons were to harass and draw out the enemy from Rampart with lightning-fast raids and strafing air attacks, testing and holding the much greater rebel force as we awaited the arrival of Prince Vincent’s large infantry force.
But we also had Zaxx to contend with, I thought, searching the skies overhead. If he showed himself, then I had given orders that the most experienced half of the dragons would split to challenge him directly (Pax, Socolia, Morax, Veserpal and Jhokar) while the other five would do what they could to call to the dragons of Mount Hammal. We were a long way away, far out of earshot of any normal creature, but once again, Paxala assured me that Zenema would hear of it if they came under attack.
I just hoped that she was right.
“Torvald!” barked Sir Rathon, at the head of the mounted column. He looked in his element, surrounded by his largest knights, and caparisoned in full plate armor. Assured of his superiority, I thought – although his fellow knights appeared somewhat less sure of the ten dragons landing in the meadows around the roadside. There was a river a little farther away, and Char nodded toward it.
“I’ll let the dragons drink their fill, before…” she stated, and I agreed gravely.
“But Char…. How do you feel? Your shoulder?”
Char gave me reckless smile. “Jodreth gave me more of that Magewort, so I don’t feel a thing!”
“Still, please be careful,” I said. “I, I don’t think I could stand it you were hurt again…” I whispered.
“Neill.” Char’s grin faded, momentarily serious. “Thank you. But what we’re doing, where we’re going and who we’re facing…”
There was no need to finish the sentence. We all knew what was coming. There were no guarantees that any of us would make it.
“Go on, dismount and see what that oaf Rathon wants,” Char said in a lighter tone, pushing me on the shoulder. “We both know that it’s going to be you who gets hurt before me, anyway,” she said with a grin. With a burst of air and force, Pax and the others leapt into the air to fly-hop the short distance to the river, there to submerge themselves almost to their wings, throwing water up into the air and over their beak-snouts.
“At least they don’t seem skittish,” the general said heavily, but I ignored the intended jibe.
“Are you all prepared, Sir Rathon?” I said. Remember that you are equal in this, I counselled myself. Even if I didn’t want to be, I was the representative of the Dragon Academy, and I wouldn’t be cowed by this man and his legion of knights.
“Of course,” the general scowled. “Are you?”
“Aye,” I nodded.
“And the dragons? Do they, erm, do they have their fire ready? This will be a difficult fight, you understand. And you riders are so young,” the general said.
“You do not need to be afraid for us,” I said. “Some of us have had not a little experience at this.”
“Hmph.” The general’s frown deepened, shaking his head as if to discard the niceties of the conversation. “Anyway. This road leads us to the north-westerly approach to Rampart.”
“The side that the armies are on.” No one wanted to get bogged down on the other, river-village side of half-broken buildings.
“I want you to strafe them first,” Sir Rathon mimicked the dragons swooping down low over the armies. “Soften them up, and then we’ll make a direct charge. But we’ll get one good frontal attack, and then the rebels will see that they have more numbers. It’s impossible for them not to.”
“We have the dragons; we can keep them occupied,” I said.
“Well, you’d better – because after that, I intend to lead my men back down this road, giving time for the infantrymen behind us…” Rathon glowered at me. I could sense that there was something more going on here under the surface. Maybe it was just the man’s way before battle, of course, or maybe it was just the fact that he didn’t want to fight alongside someone he deemed ‘inferior.’ I couldn’t be sure.
“And the prince?” I asked. “He is leading the infantry, is he not?”
“Of course!” Sir Rathon said. “He is safer surrounded by them, and they will be pleased that their great prince is with them as they march into battle.” But Sir Rathon looked askance for a moment, as if worried. Was he worried for the prince? Was that what this was? I thought, before deciding that the hour was too late for me to do anything about the general’s anxieties.
“You do your job, general, and I promise that the Dragon Riders will do ours,” I said.
The general made the same harrumphing sound once again. “You’d better,” he muttered, before turning and stalking back to his own steed. “My lance and shield!” he shouted. “Sound the horns! We ride! We ride for the Middle Kingdom!”
I stepped down off the roadway to let the column pass as the war horns of the prince’s knights blared harshly around me. As they rode, I saw the loyalty and the grim determination that Sir Rathon inspired. Is this what you have to be, to lead the hearts of men? I thought. I didn’t want to turn into a Sir Rathon. Why, if I were ever a general or even a ruler, I would never sit at the back, surrounded by thousands of soldiers like the prince does! I thought. I would ride at the front as Sir Rathon does. Because, I suppose that was one thing to be said for the general. At least he led his people into battle. What sort of prince hides at the back?
The war horns sounded again as I turned to start jogging to the river, where the ten dragons of the academy were starting to climb up out of the river and shake themselves off, their scales making many clattering sounds like a forest of dead branches in the winter storms.
What ridiculous thoughts I am having, I thought. I will never be a general, and I will never be a prince!
Even though we waited for Sir Rathon’s mounted cavalry to pass us, cantering up the last stretch of road before the bend in the hills that led to Rampart, we still easily outpaced them as soon as we were in the air.
“We go high!” I counselled Char, raising my hands up to the layer of clouds above us. “We go high like an arrow, and then…” I mimed bringing my hands down in a deadly swoop. I knew that the dragons would love that maneuver, but I also wanted to keep them out of the way of the rebel’s arrows and catapults and whatever else they might have to counter us.
Because I didn’t dare forget that Ansall and my brothers, at least, would have some tactic to try and counter the dragons of Mount Hamal.
“Neill? These clouds… They’re odd…” Char said as we rose, higher and higher. Around us spread the flight of dragons in a large V formation, with Paxala, Char, and I at their very apex.
She was right. The clouds were heavy and thick clouds, a dark curtain of a deep freezing cold storm grey. I had tried to keep sight of the land below us, and the column of knights turning toward the long, elongated bowl of hills. There, at the other end of the valley was the line of the fortified Rampart wall, standing head and shoulders over a deep pocket of mist, the glimmers of what must have been the armies’ cook fires barely visible.
It was going to be murky down there between the hills, but I tried to tell myself that it was all for the better, that the rebel army would be just as disoriented as we were.
“Just stick to the plan!” I shouted to Char, wishing I had brought some sort of war horn like Sir Rathon had below, or something to be able to signal to the other Dragon Riders, presumably still following our lead but unable to see us, just as it was impossible for me to see anything other than Pax and Char. As soon as we’d flown into the thick slate grey clouds, we had been plunged into a weird, muffled quiet, where the sounds of the other dragons and the armies far, far below us appeared out of sync with reality.
“Srech!” A dragon on my right chirruped in a concerned fashion, but I couldn’t be sure if they were closer than they should be, or farther away. Somewhere, too, came the jangle of harnesses and the stamp of the warhorses.
“We must be near our descent now, surely?” I called to Char, who had doubled over Paxala’s neck, out of the cold.
It wasn’t the cold though, as she turned around to me and said in anguish, “Neill! Something is wrong! Paxala cannot sense the other dragons. She cannot sense Rathon’s knights below, she cannot sense the rebel army.”
“What?” I said with a frown. “Is she mistaken? Maybe she’s frightened of the battle—”
“She’s a Crimson Red dragon! She doesn’t get frightened, Neill.” Char shook her head and once again turned to put her hands on the sides of Pax’s broad and strong neck muscles. “No, there’s nothing, she says. She doesn’t know where the other dragons are at all— and it happened as soon as we went into these accursed clouds.”
“Ansall,” I snarled. It had to be. Only he and his other treacherous Draconis Order had the sorts of magical power able to do this. “Dive. We dive, now,” I said. “Ask Paxala to light the way.”
Dragon Mage (The First Dragon Rider Book 3) Page 19