The dragon set fire to the woods atop the ridgeline. Stands of pines and groves of oak and maple burst into flame. Fire crackled not far from the wagon holding Marcus. Smoke billowed, poisoning the air.
The dragon was forced to pull up to avoid crashing into the trees. She soared back into the sky and then made a slow, looping turn, preparing to dive down for another pass.
Edward refused to flee. Angry and defiant, he made the argument that they should stand and fight, pointing out—quite logically—that there was nowhere to run that the dragon could not catch them, no cover that she could not burn to the ground. Some of his knights, who had the example of the courage of the Prince’s Own shining before them, sided with their king. They had no intention of being found dead with their backs to the foe. Others, Prince Wilhelm among them, insisted that the kingdom needed their king and its knights alive during this crisis. A heroic death benefited only the minstrels who would later make money singing of it.
The argument was interrupted by men shouting in dismay and pointing.
Another dragon appeared in the sky, flying high above Maristara. This dragon’s scales flashed red in the sunlight, which was rapidly being obscured by the smoke rising from the crackling forest fire.
A voice spoke to Marcus, calm and cold inside his head. “Get your father the hell out of here!”
Though the movement cost him agony, jarring his bones and nearly causing him to pass out, Marcus gripped his father’s arm.
“Father,” Marcus gasped. “That’s Draconas!”
“Draconas!” Edward repeated, stunned. He stared up into the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare with his hand to see.
Intent on her sport, Maristara paid no attention to anything else. She swooped down on the humans, driving them before her. She enjoyed watching the panicked little creatures skitter hither and yon in a frantic and futile effort to escape death.
Draconas dropped onto Maristara like a falcon stooping on a pigeon, his front legs extended, his wings high.
At the last moment Maristara was aware of him, warned by the dragon warriors below, who had seen him appear at about the same time as Marcus. She was flying too fast to stop her downward momentum, but she did manage to twist her body so that his sharp claws could not gain purchase. Draconas struck Maristara hard, however, catching her between her shoulder blades, knocking her off balance and forcing her to cease her chase of the humans to save herself from crashing headlong into the ground.
“This is our chance, Father!” Marcus urged. “That’s what Draconas is doing! Offering us a chance to escape.”
Edward was quick to see the logic in this, and he was not one to give up his life when there was no need. He gave the order to ride and, casting one more glance above at the astonishing sight of dragon fighting dragon, he spurred his horse. The man driving the wagon, who had been waiting impatiently for just such a command, shouted at the horses and slapped the reins on their backs. Already nervous from the fire and the dragons, the horses were only too glad to flee and took off at top speed. The wagon jolted and jounced over dirt clods and ruts in the road.
The royal party rode in orderly retreat, racing for the sheltering walls of Aston Castle. When they came upon fleeing soldiers, they called on them to join them there.
The jouncing ride in the wagon seemed to jolt Marcus apart, but he fought off the pain and clung to consciousness, watching in awe and almost unbearable tension the battle raging in the skies above him.
Like a cat twisting in midair, Maristara recovered, barely avoiding smashing into the trees. She clawed her way, snarling, wings flapping, to do battle with this new and unexpected foe.
After his missed attack, Draconas spiraled upward, regaining the heights, seeking advantage. Maristara, heavier and older, turned, lumbering, to face him.
“Stop!” Marcus cried to the driver of the wagon. “I have to watch this!”
“Do as he says,” Edward commanded. “The rest of you, ride on!”
Reining in his horse beside the wagon carrying his son, Edward looked into the sky. Some of his knights remained with him, fascinated by a sight that few humans had ever seen. The two dragons hung in the air, wings barely moving, each one’s eyes fixed on the foe, engaged in a battle that was as much mental as it was physical.
Inside the little room, Marcus opened the door a crack, peering into the minds of both. If they even noticed he was there, neither could afford to pay him any mind. Neither dared turn away from the other for even a split second.
The minds of both were gray, shifting and rolling like thick fog, so that nothing tangible could be seen. Suddenly, Maristara hurled a lance of flaring orange that sliced through the gray, fogbound mind of Draconas, boring its way into the depths of his brain. At the same moment Maristara flew at him, streaking through the air, her jaws gaping wide, her claws outstretched.
Draconas had to defend himself on two fronts simultaneously— within and without. He flung up an iron-black shield to block the mental missile and went into a steep dive.
The missile burst on the black shield. He had saved himself from death, but only barely. If the missile had found its target, it would have exploded in his brain with mind-shattering force, knocking him unconscious and causing him to plummet from the skies. As it was, he lost control of his dive for half a moment and tumbled downward, his bellowing cry of pain echoing off the ridgeline. He pulled himself out of the fall, dazed and disoriented, his mind blotchy and swirling.
Maristara dove down to finish him off.
Marcus held his breath and clamped his own brain down on the urge to shout a warning, for he could see, boiling beneath the ugly miasma on the surface, the colors of Draconas’s mind, sharp-edged and clear and cold. The dragon’s seemingly confused Sailings had, in reality, been bringing him nearer and nearer the elder dragon. Now underneath her, presumably defenseless, Draconas did a twisting roll that carried him out from under her slashing claws. Emerging, he flipped head over tail and then launched himself straight as a spear at Maristara.
The move caught the elder dragon completely by surprise. She had no time to evade his attack. Draconas lowered his head, so that the spikes of his mane became a battering ram. Like a ship ramming its foe, he struck Maristara on her flank.
The shock of the impact sent both dragons reeling. Draconas drew blood from his enemy and knocked her halfway across heaven, but he did not sink her. Maristara was tough and she was clever and she had fought her own kind before, something Draconas—a relatively young dragon—had not.
She was also hurt. He’d done damage to her, and though she wanted with all her being to continue the fight and destroy this dragon, she could not afford the luxury.
Damn that lizard Grald. If he hadn’t gotten himself killed, she could have indulged her hatred and finished off the Walker. If she died, however, there was no one to lead her forces against the humans except Anora, who had her own important task to perform. Besides, quite frankly, Maristara didn’t trust Anora. Maristara never trusted anyone.
She had sky enough left to her that she could free-fall some distance, and, keeping one eye on Draconas, she drifted back toward the river and Dragonkeep beyond. She could afford to retreat, return to the safety of Grald’s lair and heal her wounds. She might have worried about leaving her army vulnerable to attack, but she knew Draconas, knew his weakness.
Draconas was injured, more badly than he’d first realized in the heat of battle, and like Maristara, he had humans who were dependent on him, the irony of which did not escape him.
Because of humans, the dragons had to stop trying to kill each other. Because of humans, they’d started. Both dragons limped away, each knowing that the battle between them was not ended, merely postponed.
“Where is he going?” Edward cried. “Kill them, Draconas! Kill the dragon warriors. Breathe fire on them! Do to them what they did to us! Marcus, talk to him.”
Draconas let his colors go gray.
“You have to kill t
hem!” Marcus urged the dragon. “You saw what they did! You know what they can do to us!”
“The laws of dragonkind forbid me to kill humans,” Draconas replied.
“A law only you obey!” Marcus retorted.
“Maybe so. Maybe I am the only one. Maybe I will be the last. I hope not. Killing humans is too easy for us . . .”
“And the time will come when killing dragons is easy for us!” Marcus said angrily.
“That is what we fear, Marcus,” said Draconas. “Don’t you understand that yet? That is what we fear.”
35
IN THE GRAY TWILIGHT OF EARLY MORNING, THE HIGH priestess of Seth walked the path that led to the Chamber of the Watchful Eye to perform the Rite of Seeing. And though she walked the path alone—for no other except the High Priestess could perform this ritual—it seemed to her that she was being watched by the ghostly eyes of all those who had walked this path before her, and that those eyes were dark with foreboding.
Most of the others were shadowy figures, seen only in her imagination, as she’d heard stories of them from childhood on. One, however, was real to her and close—Melisande, the High Priestess who had come before her, the High Priestess who, some seventeen years before, had disgraced her calling and ran off with a male lover, leaving behind Seth and her responsibilities and duties. Anna had never been close to Melisande—the twelve-year-old girl had always been too much in awe of the High Priestess to dare to even speak to her. Melisande had spoken to her sometimes, though, and always smiled at her kindly whenever they met. Anna had admired Melisande and idolized her. Her fall had devastated Anna. She had refused to believe the terrible story, as it was told to them by Lucretta, the new Mistress of Dragons.
Anna had gone so far as to openly voice her disbelief—not to the Mistress, of course, but to the other sisters. Anna had even ventured to plead Melisande’s cause with Bellona, the commander of the warrior women who guarded the monastery and who was tasked with the assignment of tracking down Melisande and either dragging her back to stand trial or killing her. Bellona had struck the girl across the face, knocking her to the ground, and then walked off. Anna had seen the terrible pain in the eyes of the warrior woman, who had been Melisande’s lover. The girl had crept away to her cell to weep her bitter tears in solitude. After that, Anna never again spoke Melisande’s name, though she kept it in her heart.
Bellona had gone, disappearing into the night while trying to track down Melisande. Gone to be with her, the Mistress had told them disparagingly. Both of them traitors. There were stories from the other warrior women about how Bellona’s arrows fired at Melisande had always missed their mark—something strange, considering that Bellona’s arrows had never missed before. The warrior women set out to find both of them, and one day they returned with the story that they had located Bellona and Melisande and killed them.
They had not brought back the bodies, however, claiming that they did not deserve the honor of being buried in the homeland both had disgraced. Perhaps because of this or perhaps because the warrior women never spoke about that battle and always looked some other direction whenever anyone brought it up, Anna was convinced they were lying. And she made up a fancy in her heart, a fancy that Bellona and Melisande were alive and together somewhere and that they were happy.
That’s why the eyes troubled Anna so much. She felt the eyes of Melisande upon her as she walked the path that led to the Chamber. It was a feeling, not a seeing. She did not see the ghost. She felt her, felt her concern. She had never experienced this sensation before. She had been High Priestess for a year now, ever since the previous High Priestess had fallen victim to a cancerous growth. She had walked this path every morning for a year, and it was only in the last week or so that she had become aware of the ghosts.
She did not mention the ghosts to any of the other sisters. She knew what they would say—that it was all her imagination. That she was afraid because the Mistress of Dragons was gone—an event that was unprecedented in the lives of the people of Seth. The Mistress was gone, and her parting words to Anna had been more than enough to stir up any number of dread apparitions.
“I do not leave of my own choosing,” the Mistress told Anna, and her tone was one of sorrow mingled with anger. “I leave out of necessity. For the first time in many hundreds of years, our kingdom faces a threat that we cannot fight alone. I must seek the aid of an ally, our sister kingdom.”
Anna was amazed. “Sister kingdom? Mistress, forgive my ignorance, but I never knew—”
“None in Seth know of it. And none would know of it now, if events in the harsh world beyond our mountains had not forced me to seek help.”
The High Priestess was helping the Mistress pack for her journey, carefully folding the ceremonial robe, which she would not wear during her journey, for fear of spoiling it. Anna remembered the feel of the rich, soft woollen cloth beneath her hands as she pressed the garment into the leather scrip the Mistress would carry with her on horseback. The Mistress was preoccupied and little interested in the packing. She paced the room, beating the heels of her palms together in an absent manner, lost in thought. Occasionally she cast a sharp glance at Anna, as if taking her measure, but she did not speak.
When Anna finished, she turned to see the Mistress staring out the window. Anna received the impression that in spirit, the Mistress was already far away.
“The packing is complete, Mistress,” Anna said to her. “By your leave, I will go make certain that your escort is in readiness—”
“There will be no escort,” the Mistress said sharply. “I travel alone.”
Anna had never before questioned any of the Mistress’s decisions, but now she could not help it. “Mistress, do you think that is wise?”
“Are you implying I act foolishly?” the Mistress responded. She did not turn, but continued to gaze out the window.
“Forgive me, Mistress, I meant no disrespect,” Anna replied. “If, as you say, there is danger beyond our valley, then you should have an escort that is armed and prepared to defend you. Please, let me inform the guard—”
The Mistress’s tone softened. “It is I who should ask your forgiveness, Daughter. I did not mean to snap at you. I am worried, that is all. Worried and afraid. Not for myself,” she was quick to add. “But for my people. I must travel swiftly and in secret, so as not to alert the enemy to the fact that I have left Seth. An escort would only slow me down and draw unwanted attention. Besides, the fewer who know I have left, the better. Tell no one that I have gone. Keep up the pretense that I am here “
“I understand, Mistress,” Anna said, though she was troubled. She was not very good at keeping secrets, and she wondered how she would manage.
Her next question had been innocent enough, or so she had thought, but it had brought a startling response, one that had kept this conversation going round and round in Anna’s mind since that day.
“Don’t you think you should at least remove the golden locket you wear, Mistress?”
The Mistress’s hand went to her throat to where the locket rested in the hollow of her neck. She grasped hold of it possessively, almost covetously, and turned to face Anna with a suddenness that startled her.
“What do you mean by that remark?” the Mistress demanded, advancing a step toward her. “Why do you tell me to take off the locket?”
“I meant nothing, Mistress!” Anna gasped, alarmed by the woman’s intensity. “Only that thieves might see the glint of gold and be tempted—”
The Mistress stared at her for a moment more. Then, with a sigh, the Mistress waved her hand in what seemed weary dismissal.
“Go back to your duties, Daughter. Remain alert. Keep careful watch. I fear the dragons may choose this time to attack us. The fate of our kingdom rests with you. You have trained all your life for this moment, High Priestess,” the Mistress added, seeing Anna’s expression of dismay. “You and the sisters will keep the dragons at bay. I have full confidence in you.”
The Mistress must have departed shortly after that, for when Anna had occasion to return to the Mistress’s quarters, the Mistress was not there, and the scrip containing her clothes was gone.
Anna had gone about her duties as she had been ordered. The strain of protecting her people and keeping up the lie that the Mistress was still among them was starting to tell on her, though. She lay awake half the night, and when at last, exhausted, she fell asleep, she woke in terror, trembling, dreaming of dragons. Her lack of appetite caused such comment among the other sisters that she was afraid they would suspect something. She began to force herself to choke down her food, though it made little difference. She was almost always sick to her stomach afterward.
Perhaps the ghosts she saw along her path were due to lack of sleep and lack of sustenance. As she walked, treading on the flagstones in the very footsteps of Melisande and all the others who now surrounded her, Anna shivered in the predawn chill and hugged her cloak more closely about her. She had once looked forward to the morning ritual that marked her standing as High Priestess. Now, she dreaded it, for each new day might be the day she would see the dragons coming to attack her people. Perhaps that was why the ghost of Melisande and the others seemed to cluster more closely around her this day than they had others. This was the day the dragons would come.
Her stomach clenched, and Anna feared she was going to be sick. She must not desecrate the sacred stones of the path. The thought so alarmed her that she forced herself to stop thinking of ghosts. Emerging from the shadows of the fir trees that guarded the path, she realized that she was late. The stars were fading and dawn was already pink and yellow on the horizon. She quickened her pace. Rounding a coppice of pine, she could see the black marble columns of the Chamber, which stood outside the monastery walls, on a promontory overlooking the valley and the city below.
The columns were guardians to the one object inside the small temple. Anna hurried up the marble stairs and reverently approached the large, white marble bowl. Only when she reached it did she remember, stricken, that she had forgotten to remove her shoes. Swiftly she kicked off the sandals and, grabbing them up, flung them out beyond the columns.
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