Dragonjacks: Book 1 - The Shepherd: A Dragons of Cadwaller Novel

by Vickie Knestaut

  “What if we agreed to let them go?” Tyber asked. “They hand over their dragons, and we look away like they did for Ehner. They wouldn’t be dragonjacks then.”

  “They’ve defied the King’s law. They must be punished—”

  “Yes, I know that,” Tyber said, wiping away Ander’s argument with his palm. “I agree completely. But not the dragons. We don’t punish dragons, and we can’t let them suffer more than they already have. They don’t deserve to die. How else are we—”

  Rius shifted, swishing her tail away from Ander and Tyber. Halton stumbled forward from behind the dragon, his arms out to catch his balance.

  He stared at the two of them as Ander spun around.

  “Halton,” Tyber said. He wasn’t sure where to go after that.

  The dragonjack looked between the two of them. His face collapsed into anger. He lifted a finger, but it hovered between Ander and Tyber as if he couldn’t decide who to accuse first.

  “You,” Halton said. “You lied to us.”

  “Halton,” Ander said, holding up his palms. “Let me explain.”

  Halton’s attention swung to Tyber. “I knew it! I should have known it. I should have known it the first second I laid eyes on you.”

  Tyber stepped forward slowly. “Hold on, listen.”

  “No!” Halton said with a shake of his head as he stepped back, then glanced over his shoulder, to Rius’ tail curved along the hard dirt.

  That should have been when Tyber raced forward, tackled the man in the gut and dropped him. Instead, he asked, “Have you heard of the dragon queen of Aerona?”

  “You lied to us. We trusted you, and you lied to us.”

  Halton looked to the weyr and sucked in a deep breath, ready to scream.

  Ander did what Tyber hadn’t. The two men flew backwards. Rius shuffled around, turning her broadside quickly to the weyr as she watched Ander rise to his knees, grip Halton’s wrist, twist it up and around and pin it behind Halton’s back as he coughed and rasped into the dust.

  “Don’t make a noise,” Ander said, then glanced over his shoulder. “Tyber, hold him.”

  “What are you… going… to do?” Halton rasped beneath Ander. “Kill me? Kill us all?”

  Tyber crouched and took Halton’s arm, keeping it pinned behind his back. He felt the push of Halton’s chest as he struggled to catch the breath Ander had knocked from him.

  “I want to save Gurvi,” Tyber said as Ander stood. “I want to save them all.”

  “Like you saved Pendro?”

  “I know the dragon queen. I’ve met her. She saw us off before we came here. I can take Gurvi and the others back to Aerona where she can look after them. And if she can’t find out what’s wrong with them, there are dragon healers there. Real dragon healers.”

  “Men!” Ander cried out. “Get out here. I have something to tell you.”

  “You said you would do anything to save Gurvi,” Tyber said. “I heard you. So do it now. Listen. If you care about Gurvi, if you want to save her life, then this is it. This is the only chance you will get. Your last chance. Her last chance. Listen.”

  “Men, there’s something we need to discuss,” Ander said, his voice loud and clear, ringing across the yard. It was the proctor’s voice, the hordesman commanding his recruits. It amplified just how often they’d been speaking in low, hushed tones among themselves. And Tyber found he actually missed it, that steel and command.

  “And what is that?” Brath asked. “What do you think we need to discuss?”

  “We are all dead men,” Ander said.

  Tyber glanced over his shoulder, but Rius’ bulk still hid Halton and Tyber from the others.

  “What?” Taffer asked. “What do you mean we are dead men? That raid went flawlessly. We got every goat that Storbin had. And there weren’t a thing of value otherwise in that hole he keeps his family in.”

  “The raid went well enough,” Ander said. “But that’s not our problem. It’s the dragons that are the problem. The illness is only getting worse. What would The Shepherd have done to Ehner if he hadn’t run off?”

  Halton pushed against Tyber’s grip, straining and twisting his sweat-slicked wrist, but Tyber pushed it further up his back until Halton gasped and grew still. Tyber released some of the pressure.

  “The lesions are getting worse,” Ander continued. “The dragons can barely hold a formation. If we ran across a horde of actual hordesmen, they would run over us without even slowing down. We couldn’t put up a fight in the air if our lives depended on it. And our lives do depend on it.”

  “And so what do you suggest we do about it?” Brath’s deep voice asked. “We saw what happened when Tyber tried to cure it.”

  “We know some people who might be able to help,” Ander said.

  “You know some people?” Taffer asked. “Butchers, I bet.”

  No one laughed.

  “We cannot stay here,” Ander said. “To stay here means we die.”

  Halton closed his eyes. Much of the fight fell from his body even as his breathing returned to normal.

  “What?” Taffer asked.

  “You’re suggesting that we leave?” Brath asked. “Are you mad? The Shepherd will cut us all down. He has men all over the countryside. I guarantee you that Ehner didn’t get five miles from where he landed.”

  “We will take The Shepherd with us,” Ander said.

  An odd silence filled the weyr yard. Tyber released Halton’s wrist. The young man drew his arm to his side, but made no move to stand.

  Tyber stood over him. His shadow fell across Halton, blocking the glare of the sun. Halton looked completely deflated.

  “We will capture The Shepherd,” Ander finally said. “We will take him into our custody. We will then leave on dragonback. Head west. Out of The Shepherd’s influence.”

  “There are other hordes!” Taffer cried. “They’ll cut us down. For all the sky, man, you’ve just killed us all now. Sure as the gods look down on us, The Shepherd will have us all killed just for talking about this.”

  “You’re dead already,” Ander said. “How much longer does Keppin have? How much longer before those lesions find their way to her wings? And if The Shepherd had access to hordes, to stronger hordes, would he just let them lie in wait around Iangan?”

  “It’s how he keeps the hordesmen out,” Brath said. “The strongest hordes are guarding us, holding the perimeter.”

  “They are not,” Tyber cried. He stepped away from Halton, and as he approached Ander, Rius began to turn as well, watching her rider.

  “How do you know?” Taffer asked.

  “We didn’t see any when we flew in. We were never challenged. We flew straight to Iangan and never saw another dragon until you came to us.”

  “And what about Shella and Suven and the children?” Samsen said, pointing toward the house. “We can’t just leave them. They’ll be killed as soon as we go.”

  “We’ll take them,” Ander said.

  “Take them?” Samsen pressed. “Where? Where would we go? What would we do with the dragons? We can’t just have them out in the open all day.”

  “Take them to Aerona,” Tyber said, stepping forward. “There’s a dragon queen there. You’ve heard of her, right? I know her. And they have dragon healers there. They can look after the dragons—”

  “We’ll lose our heads!” Taffer cried. “Are you mad? They’ll pull us off our dragons and remove our heads right there. And that’s if they don’t fill the dragons full of arrows first. You heard Ander! We wouldn’t last five minutes in a battle with hordesmen.”

  “They are hordesmen,” Halton cried. “I overheard them talking just now.”

  He rounded the other side of Rius, rubbing his shoulder.

  The other dragonjacks looked from him to Ander and Tyber.

  “We’re not after you,” Ander began.

  Halton approached the other dragonjacks while glaring at Tyber. “The King sent them here to capture The Shepherd. They’ve b
een using us. Tyber killed Pendro so that we’d be forced to work with them.”

  “That’s not true.” Tyber shook his head. “I didn’t kill Pendro. It was an accident. She was really sick to begin with. She would have died whether—”

  “Wait!” Brath called, lifting his palm up. “That’s not true? The bit about killing Pendro? But the part about being hordesmen is true?”

  “We’re after The Shepherd,” Ander said. “Help us catch him, and the rest of you may walk away. He is the only one we are interested in.”

  Taffer stalked forward quickly, his back straight, fists tight at his side. His face was hard and red as he went for Ander.

  “I want to save your dragons!” Tyber pleaded. “They’re too sick to get better. They are going to die if you do nothing. I’m not lying.”

  He turned to Halton. “That’s where I got the dragon salve. The horde healers. Why do you think we had so much?”

  “You dirty…” Taffer began, then raised a fist and took a swing at Ander.

  Ander dodged the blow. A quick flurry of movement sent Taffer spinning through the air. He landed hard on his back, Ander over him, his fists held before him.

  “If you care about your dragons, if you want to save them, this is your only choice,” Tyber went on. “Your only hope.”

  “It’s your only hope, too,” Ren called from the shadows of the weyr. “What else are you going to do? You kill us, the horde absconds. And when The Shepherd comes back, he’ll find he has no use for any of you. Is that what you want?”

  Ren stepped into the sunlight, a notched arrow and a bowstring in his hand. He gave the dragonjacks a wide berth, keeping an eye on them as he made his way over to Tyber and Ander.

  Samsen looked at the house. His hand slipped from the hilt of his knife and fell to his side.

  “Put the bow down, Ren,” Ander said.

  Ren looked at him, his eyes squinting against the sun, his face displeased with the order. But he eased the bowstring forward, took the arrow into his right hand, and let the bow fall limp against his left thigh.

  “What are you going to do?” Brath asked them.

  Ander held a hand out to Taffer, but the man ignored it. He rolled away, then stood.

  “I give you my word as a hordesman in service to the King of Cadwaller. If you help us apprehend The Shepherd, I will look the other way. You will be free to go. And if you choose to go with us, you will fly under my protection until we approach Aerona. You are free to go at any time until I spot Aerona. If you are still with us at that time, I am duty bound to take you into custody as a dragonjack.”

  “If you give us your dragons, though,” Tyber said. “We promise you that we will take them to the dragon queen and the royal healers. They will be examined and cared for by the best people the kingdom has to offer. If anyone can find a cure, it is them.”

  “And if Shella and Suven and the children decide to stay with us, they will be looked after in Aerona,” Ander said. “They have broken no laws that I have seen. They will be protected as subjects of the King.”

  Brath took a deep breath and looked out across the other dragonjacks. He shook his head and looked back to Ander. “I knew you were trouble when I laid eyes on you.”

  “The Shepherd has some serious crimes to answer for. If not us, then someone else would have been sent to apprehend him.”

  “Please,” Tyber said, stepping forward. He approached Myler. “You can’t even ride Cetteth. And that boil on her shoulder is only getting worse. How much longer do either of you have?”

  Myler’s jaw tightened. He glanced at Brath.

  “Ehner tried to run,” Tyber said, looking across the dragonjacks. “He knew it was hopeless, but he tried anyway. Are you going to at least try and save your own necks? Even the goats tried to run. Or are you going to just stand here and wait to be slaughtered? To be walked behind the weyr like Sirvon and slaughtered without even the fuss of a farm animal?”

  Samsen looked at the ground, then to Brath.

  “How can we trust you?” Brath asked. “You’ve been lying to us since we met you.”

  “You can trust The Shepherd,” Ander said. “You know without a doubt what he will do.”

  Brath nodded to Ander, acknowledging the point.

  Halton turned to Tyber. “So your secret is out. Can you be honest with us now?”

  Tyber nodded.

  “Tell us the truth, then. What happened to Pendro?”

  “I don’t know. They teach us about some of these things in the academy, but they don’t teach us how to mix up any of the preparations. Just that they exist, and these are the things that dragon healers do to help the dragons. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “Do you really know the dragon queen?” Halton asked. “Because if you’re lying…” He reached for his knife.

  “We are royal hordesmen,” Ander said. “And Trysten, the dragon queen, is the King’s wing master. I assure you that we do know her. She is who I answer to, as all dragoneers do. We conferred with her before embarking on this mission.”

  “And can she help Gurvi?” Halton pressed.

  Tyber’s lips parted. He considered what to say, then settled on, “If Gurvi can be helped, she’s the one who can make it happen. If she can’t do it herself, then she can command the people who can. She’s the wing master. All who are involved with dragons answer to her. Only the King is above her in these matters.”

  “Would you swear on your dragon’s heart?” Halton asked.

  “Without hesitation,” Tyber said. “I swear on the heart of Rius that if there is anyone in this kingdom who can help Gurvi, it is the wing master. And I swear that I will take Gurvi to her and ask for her help.”

  “Why would she help Gurvi?” Taffer asked. “These are rogue dragons. Rogue dragons are to be killed on sight. What does it matter to her if they rot away?”

  “Her concern is with all dragons—” Ander began.

  “I will tell her it was the price we agreed to,” Tyber interjected. “That the only way we could get The Shepherd was to agree to the condition that these dragons get the best treatment possible. If there is a cure for the rot, she will find it and give it to your dragons. That is the deal. That is what she must pay in exchange for The Shepherd.”

  “Why is he so important to her?” Brath asked.

  “Make it the price,” Halton said. “I will help you with whatever you need if you swear on your dragon’s heart that the price is exactly that. You take Gurvi to the dragon queen and have her save Gurvi.”

  “And then what?” Taffer asked. “Do you think she’ll just let you have Gurvi back?”

  Halton held his head up as he looked at his dragon. “I would give her up if it meant saving her.”

  He turned to Brath. “Because keeping her means her death. It means the death of us all.”

  Brath looked at Ander, then shook his head. “It doesn’t seem like we have much of a choice.”

  “Fighting for your life is never much of a choice,” Ander said. “Help us, and we will fight for your lives as well as our own.”

  Chapter 26

  A lantern’s heat pressed against the side of Tyber’s face. He squinted at the wound on Cetteth’s shoulder. The exposed flesh had turned blotchy and white. Several more scales had fallen from the edges of the wound, and that morning, an angry red boil had begun to rise from the center.

  “My father had boils,” Myler was saying. “And my mother always lanced them. They went away after a week or so.”

  “You saw what happened to Pendro,” Halton said.

  “It’s not the same,” Tyber said. “The compound I made threw her humors out of balance. Toward heat. She couldn’t handle the shock.”

  “Now you’re an expert in dragon healing?” Myler asked.

  Tyber shook his head. “It’s just a guess. But that stuff burned. It left my hand swollen and red. And my flesh radiated heat.”

  “It’s a tricky balance,” Ander offered from behind
them. “The dragons have to be able to harness far more heat and fire in order to give it breath. Fire and heat that would long since kill a man with fever.”

  “There’s too much water in them,” Myler said, drawing the lantern back as if it might be harmful to his dragon. “That’s pretty evident. With the weeping flesh and such. That’s why I think we should lance the boil. Let it drain. Keep her from the water trough. Let her dry up.”

  “I’ll bring that up to the healers,” Tyber said as he continued to examine the lesion in what light remained. He sniffed the air. The fetid odor of Pendro was there in the wound. Barely, but it was there.

  “Healers,” Myler said. “It’s been three days. How much longer do we wait for The Shepherd to come back?”

  Waiting for The Shepherd had started to wear on everyone. Even the children were on edge, fighting and crying more than usual. Ander paced. A lot. And Ren had grown surly, his usual laughter missing from the weyr. Tyber felt like he’d been holding his breath since Halton discovered they were hordesmen. He was never one to wish for a battle, but it felt like time was running out for these dragons.

  “Brath!” A weyrboy called as he raced into the weyr. Strands of his dark blonde hair were plastered to his brow with sweat. He pointed toward the road. “The Shepherd!”

  “Good boy,” Brath said from the darkness. “Go to the house. Tell everyone to get over here, now. Not a second to lose!”

  The boy raced away.

  “All right, men!” Ander cried as he stepped to the center of the weyr. “The Shepherd is approaching. We’ve practiced this. You all know what to do.”

  In the dusk of the weyr, shadows raced about as dragonjacks plucked up bows and slung quivers over their shoulders. They took positions near the weyr entrance.

  Tyber crossed the weyr to Rius. She lifted herself to her feet and watched as he hefted her saddle and stumbled back to her side.

  “Ty!” Ren called. “What are you doing? You can just pick up your bow and quiver. You don’t have to place them on her saddle before you arm yourself.”