“Then again,” Raith continued, seemingly unconcerned about how much money he stood to lose, “in these uneasy times it’s difficult to be certain of anything. Nothing has been the same since your lord father was wounded. It’s your wager, highness, shall you call or fold?”
“I never fold.” Upending his own purse, Corwin kept his eyes fixed on the magist. “How have things changed?”
Giving the bid a passing glance, Raith replied, “Well, the Inquisition, for one thing. Some blame its inception for the Rising. And there was also the year of the drought, followed by two years of flooding. Disease in the north felling livestock in record numbers. And of course the increasing number of nightdrakes.”
“Increase?” Corwin frowned. He’d heard the other rumors before, superstitions among the people that the king’s ailment affected the very land itself, but the drakes were news to him.
“Why yes. Surely you’re aware the League keeps count.” Raith shifted the cards in his hand, and Corwin caught the faint smell of rain in the air—it seemed the magist held a fair amount of jars. “Grand Master Storr presents the numbers to the high council regularly, I believe.”
Corwin sat back in his chair, sensing the rebuke in the man’s words clearly. It wasn’t that he wasn’t aware of his own ignorance; it was that normally he could avoid situations where it was pointed out to him.
“That’s very interesting,” Corwin said drily. “I wonder how you magists can tell them apart well enough to keep an accurate count. Who’s to say you aren’t just counting the same packs over and over again?”
“We have our ways.” Raith raised his hand, palm up and fingers splayed in the universal sign of magic.
Corwin smirked—magic was a magist’s answer to everything. “Well, have no fear, Master Raith. I’m sure my brother is already concocting new and clever ways to deal with all these troubles.”
“Ah, so it’s true then,” Raith said, nodding to himself.
Corwin narrowed his eyes. “What’s true?”
“That you’ve decided not to challenge your brother for the throne.”
The words hit Corwin like a slap. The impertinence of it, the presumption. “There’s been no sign of uror,” he said, knowing full well that this magist must be aware of it already. Hardly a week went by when some newspaper didn’t speculate on its absence. In Norgard, the right to rule did not pass from father to eldest son, but from father to the son most worthy to succeed. Determining that worthiness was done through the trials of uror, but only once the sign appeared. It should’ve appeared the year Corwin came of age at sixteen. Only it hadn’t. And here he was, four years later, and still not worthy enough for the gods to initiate uror.
“Oh, my apologies then.” Raith touched a hand to his left breast. “I am not from Norgard. I can’t say I fully understand how this uror works.”
That’s because it doesn’t work at all unless both heirs are judged to be equal, Corwin thought. He forced his jaw to relax, feeling an ache in his teeth.
“Yes, that’s a common enough difficulty. Few outsiders truly understand it.” Uror was a belief peculiar to his people, although some born of Norgard struggled with the concept as well, those too young to have lived through the last uror, when Corwin’s father, Orwin, earned the right to sit on the Mirror Throne over his twin brother, Owen. The word itself meant both “fate” and “self-determination,” two forces that seemed fundamentally opposed.
Corwin cleared his throat. “It’s your play, Master Raith.” He was ready for the game—and this conversation—to end.
“Yes, of course.” Raith laid down his remaining cards. “But what happens once your father moves onto the next life if there never is an uror sign?”
Corwin stared at the play before him, his lips pressed in disbelief at the five jar cards and two shades—a nearly unbeatable hand. Sighing, he conceded the game. “Nicely played, Master Raith. But—” He broke off as a strange sound echoed in the distance, raising the hairs on his arms and neck.
Wordlessly, he and the magist stood and approached the wardstone barrier as the loud keening sounded once more, closer now. Just beyond, a pack of nightdrakes swept down the side of the hill toward them like a gray tide. Moonlight glinted off bared fangs and set dozens of beaded eyes ablaze. Drawn by the smell of live meat, the drakes raced toward the camp, their clawed feet tearing up the earth with each stride.
Corwin laid one palm against his sword hilt and the other against his pistol, instinct urging him to pull them free.
“Do not fear, your highness,” Raith said from beside Corwin. “The barrier will hold.”
Corwin didn’t respond. The truth of that claim would be determined soon enough.
Seconds later, the leader of the pack reached them. The size of a bear, the nightdrake was covered in corpse-gray scales from its reptilian head to its long, spiked tail. It leaped toward Corwin and Raith, spreading out its stunted wings to soar the short distance. Corwin held his breath, knuckles flexed over his weapons. If the barrier failed, the beast would be on him in a second.
The nightdrake struck the invisible wall with a sound like a thunderclap, and the magic flung it backward into the rest of the arriving pack. Several more hurled themselves at the barrier only to be repelled as well. Soon catching on, the pack began to swarm around the perimeter in a frenzy of snapping jaws, beating wings, and writhing bodies. Over and over again, they tested the barrier, as if probing for a weakness. It was always the largest that attacked, the ones as big as horses and oxen, while the scouts and other small ones kept making that awful keening sound.
The other people in camp had arrived by now, drawn by the noise. “Look!” one of the guards shouted. “There’re more.”
Corwin glanced where the man had pointed, lifting his gaze from the pack out into the distance, where a second pack was moving in, easily another dozen drakes. Then came a third, charging down at them from the opposite direction.
“What would you have us do, your highness?” Captain Morris asked.
“Kill them,” Corwin replied. That should help thin the numbers.
“We’ll run through all our enchanted arrows doing that.” Captain Morris glanced at Raith. “Will your blue robes be able to provide more on this trip?”
“To be sure,” Raith replied. “I doubt Prince Corwin’s purse will cover it, but we can settle with the crown when we arrive back in Norgard.”
Corwin sighed. Edwin would not be pleased at the added expense. Then again, this tour had been his idea from the start. Let him deal with the consequences.
“Make it so,” he said, and moments later the twang of bowstrings filled the air, followed by the cries of wounded drakes.
With his stomach twisting at the sound and the gore, Corwin turned to Raith, who still stood beside him. “To answer your question, Master Raith: when my father dies, Edwin will rule after him.”
Raith arched a single eyebrow, the mark of the Shade Born on his face a striking contrast to his white skin. “You mean only if there is no sign of uror before the high king’s death?”
There won’t be, Corwin thought. The last few years he’d spent away from Rime had shown him that beyond doubt.
Turning away from the magist, he spoke the assertion again, one he reminded himself of daily: “Edwin will rule.”
The next day dawned bright and bloody, the stench of burning drake corpses on the air. Corwin had passed the night in fitful sleep, spending most of it in that halfway place between waking and dreaming. His resulting fatigue made the slow pace even more unbearable. Before long he began to formulate a speech about why he and a few of the men would be striking out ahead of the caravan. We must get to Andreas soon, Corwin reasoned. These troubling events cannot wait. The speech sounded good in his mind—believable and, most importantly, inarguable. But just as he was about to approach Master Barrett, doubt set in. As usual, it came in Edwin’s voice. So irresponsible, Corwin. Always thinking of yourself first and never of your duty.
&
nbsp; Corwin groaned inwardly, hating the debate and the way it paralyzed him. Trying to appease the divided parts of his nature, he decided to wait until after they’d crossed the Redrush.
Again, the hours slowly ticked by. But today, unlike yesterday, Corwin managed to hold a tighter rein on his thoughts, keeping them away from Kate and focused on more important matters. That was, until he spotted a Relay tower standing on top of a hill in the distance, far from the main road. It was a small one, narrow but still two stories high. He wondered if Kate ever stayed there. He doubted it, given the weathered, ill-used look of the tower. The stone blocks that formed the walls had been windswept smooth, except for the places where they were beginning to crumble.
Still, the idea of it—of her alone, locked inside that forlorn place with prowling nightdrakes just outside—consumed his thoughts. The danger she placed herself in, and the reasons for doing so. If only Hale hadn’t been responsible. He and his family had led a good life in Norgard. They didn’t want for anything.
Then why did he try to kill my father?
The question haunted Corwin. Hale’s actions made no sense—both during the attack and afterward, when he refused to offer any explanation for it. But neither did he deny it. Maybe if he had explained, Corwin could’ve done something about Kate’s pleas for the mercy of exile.
Damn the man, Corwin thought, teeth clenched. He—
The thought died in his head as a strange movement caught his eye. He turned toward it, back twisting in the saddle. Although his eyes saw clearly, his mind couldn’t make sense of the black-bodied creatures spilling over the hill that lay in between the road and the larger hill occupied by the Relay tower.
“What is that?” someone shouted from behind Corwin.
“Nightdrakes!” someone else answered.
No, it can’t be—it’s daylight. And yet they most certainly were drakes, Corwin realized with a jolt of shock. They didn’t look exactly like the nightdrakes he was familiar with; instead of pale gray, these were black as tar. But they bore the same dragonish heads, the same fangs and claws, and sinuous bodies with flightless wings fanned out behind them. And that same awful keening.
Stormdancer snorted and started to shy, tossing his head in the instinct to flee, but he stood no chance outrunning them at this distance. Reining the warhorse under control, all further thought fled Corwin’s mind, and his own instinct took over. He yanked the pistol from its holster and fired. The shot struck one of the scouts, and it went down. With the pistol’s usefulness expended, Corwin stowed it and reached for his sword.
A moment later the pack was upon them. Storm jumped sideways as one of the black creatures leaped. Bringing his sword arm in range, Corwin reined the horse hard to the left. He swung, but the blow glanced off the nightdrake’s toughened hide. Still, the hit was strong enough to deflect the beast momentarily. It fell to the ground but circled and came again. Moving impossibly fast, it became a dark blur before Corwin’s eyes. Before he could raise his sword, the beast struck him full force, knocking him from the saddle.
Corwin landed hard on his back, starbursts arcing across his vision. He’d managed to keep hold of his sword, but it didn’t matter. The nightdrake was on top of him, jaws spreading wide. It closed its fangs around his left shoulder, and Corwin cried out, the sound lost in the commotion around him. Chaos had erupted over the caravan, men and horses screaming.
The pain paralyzed Corwin, stealing from him the will to fight, to survive. But only for a moment. Then he lifted his right hand, sword still clutched in his fingers, and brought the hilt down on the creature’s head, smashing its eye like a grape. The drake’s jaws loosened, and it let out a howl of pain.
Summoning his strength, even as he felt its poison burning through his veins, Corwin raised the sword again and thrust it into the beast’s opened mouth and out through the back of its head.
Corwin lay there, panting for several long seconds. Then he pushed the heavy weight of the drake corpse off him and struggled to his feet. A few feet away, he saw Storm sprawled on the blood-soaked ground, the stillness of death already lying like a shroud over the warhorse. A wrench went through his chest at the sight. He and the horse had been through so much together, survived so many trials and threats. This is the end for both of us, my friend, Corwin thought, his vision blurred from poison and the fire burning inside his wounded shoulder.
For a second, the will to fight almost went out of him again. No. He pulled his eyes away from the dead horse. There were others still alive. He would do what he could to protect them for as long as breath remained in his body. Raising his sword once more, he charged the nearest drake. If I’m to die today, I will die fighting.
6
Kate
SOMEONE DIED HERE.
The thought slid through Kate’s mind unbidden, and for a moment she wasn’t even sure where it had come from. Ahead the hard-packed road looked undisturbed, tranquil almost. No dust from hooves or wagon wheels clouded the air. To either side of the road, the grass grew long and wild, strewn with everweeps. It was beautiful, a welcome sight after her long argument with the ferrymen of the Redrush. They’d delayed her for hours on her return journey from Andreas, enough that she would have no choice but to stay in the abandoned Relay tower tonight.
So where did that thought come from?
The smell on the air—but not one she could detect. Rather it was Darby smelling it, reacting enough that Kate sensed it with her magic without meaning to. She reached toward the horse with her power and soon saw a distorted image of a nightdrake. To his equine mind, the dragonish creature was more monstrous than in real life. He made it the size of a wagon, with fangs as long as daggers, claws like scimitars.
Kate frowned, trying to process the image. It made no sense. The sun shone too brightly for a nightdrake to survive it, dusk an hour away at least, and there were no shadows for them to hide beneath. There must’ve been an attack last night, Kate reasoned. She sent reassurance through the link, convincing the horse there was no threat.
Kate urged Darby onward, and soon they crested the hill. In the valley below, the ruin of a caravan lay sprawled across the road. Overturned wagons, the long, rounded bodies of dead horses, and the thinner, frailer bodies of dead men were easily distinguishable even from a distance. Those poor people and horses, she thought, mouth hanging open in dismay.
She steered Darby away from it, meaning to bypass the scene altogether and head on to the Relay tower. This was not her business or responsibility. The reek of death was strong enough now that she could smell it, too; Darby pranced beneath her, anxious to move away. Kate was just about to let him have his head when movement drew her eye to a flag fluttering atop the only remaining upright wagon. The sight of the familiar white horses in a rearing pose on a dark-blue background made her stomach clench. The royal sigil of Norgard . . . House Tormane . . .
Corwin.
She wheeled the horse about and pressed her heels to his sides, sending him forward. Darby protested, each step short and choppy, until Kate took hold of his mind and bent his will. There is no danger, she insisted. The drakes can’t survive the sun. Only, even as she pressed this truth onto Darby, doubt rose inside her. Something wasn’t right. The caravan hadn’t been encamped when the attack happened, and the destruction felt fresh, as if it had occurred only hours before instead of last night. And why did the drakes leave so much meat behind? They never did that, but as she drew nearer, she saw that one of the men was still alive.
He lay flat on his back in the middle of the wreckage, not far from the upright wagon, and was struggling against the weight of some creature lying on top of him. At first Kate thought it was a nightdrake—it had the right shape—but the color was wrong, black instead of pale gray.
As Kate scanned the area, steering Darby forward with her legs, she saw several of these black creatures and no recognizable nightdrakes at all. A surge of alarm went through her, heightening all her senses.
She turned her g
aze back to the man struggling to free himself. Her breath caught as she realized it was Corwin. Smears of blood and dirt marred his face, but still she recognized him. In a sudden panic, she heeled Darby forward. Corwin’s eyes turned to the sound of pounding hooves, and she saw the delirium on his face. He’d been wounded, that was certain, but she couldn’t tell how badly.
How am I going to get him out from under that thing? The strange creature was close to horse size and probably twice as heavy. At least it was dead, the tip of a sword protruding from the juncture where its neck met its shoulder.
Corwin peered up at her. “Kate,” he said in a voice weak as a kitten’s mewling.
She started to dismount, but stopped as movement off to her right caught her eye. She turned to see a black beast, about a hundred yards away, charging toward her at full speed. In an instant she knew it was a drake, despite the color. Its movement was unmistakable, powerful like a charging bull, but also sinuous like a cat. Even more unmistakable was the sound that issued out of its opened, snarling mouth. Impossibly, the daylight did not affect it, as if those black scales were sun-block armor shielding the nightdrake beneath.
Nightdrakes who do not fear the sun.
Daydrakes.
A shudder passed through Kate’s body even as panic seized Darby’s mind. The horse reared back on its haunches, ready to spin and flee. Kate wrestled for control, forcing Darby to remain still. Then she dropped the reins and grabbed her bow off the saddle. Reaching for an enchanted arrow from the quiver on her back, she quickly nocked it, the magical tip dazzling her eyes.
She inhaled deep, willing her nerves to calm, her focus to center. Then she exhaled and released the bowstring. There was a sharp twang as the arrow launched forward, the tail wavering for a second before straightening out. Her aim was a little off, as it always was on the first shot. Still, the arrow struck the daydrake in the shoulder, the enchanted tip penetrating the hardened scales and sinking deep. At least these new beasts weren’t immune to magic, as they appeared to be to the sun.
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