Dragonoak: The Complete History of Kastelir

by Sam Farren

  “It's better that you don't know,” she said quietly. “Safer, for the both of us.”

  Her answer did nothing to quell my curiosity.

  “But that man in the inn was a Knight, too. Why would you run from another Knight?”

  Sir Ightham clasped her pendant tightly and raised her voice.

  Rán didn't stir.

  “A Knight? You're certain there was a Knight there?” she asked, and I cringed, cursing myself for not thinking to tell her earlier. It was just that we'd been in such a hurry and... Sir Ightham didn't care for my excuses. “What did he look like?”

  “Only Knights get dragon-bone armour, don't they? So he had to be a Knight. And he was older than you. Forty, I think. White, with red hair. I didn't really see more than that.”

  But what more did she need to hear, when there were only twelve other Knights to choose from?

  Sir Ightham clicked her tongue.

  “Sir Luxon,” she said, and she said it in such a way that made an insult of the title. “At least it wasn't one of the Mansels.”

  I thought that would be it. She'd got all the information she needed from me, had already said that she wouldn't tell me what was happening for my own good, and once more, I waited to be told to go back to sleep. But Sir Ightham moved from her tree trunk, took a few soft steps towards me, and sat cross-legged in the dirt.

  “Your ancestors were from Myros, by the look of you. Mine were from Mesomia. A very long time ago, after the War, they all worked together to create what would one day become Felheim,” Sir Ightham said, and for once, she sounded hesitant. She toyed with the pendant between her fingers, and I quickly realised that she wanted to explain herself. She wanted me to listen. “But Felheim is not merely the ground beneath us, or even the cities we've founded. If you were to be given a choice between the dirt and stone of our Kingdom and the people themselves, which would you choose?”

  I paused. The people of Felheim had only ever been kind to me when I was useful to them and had been quick to discarded me because of what I was, but in my mind, my brother stood taller than any tower, my father was worth more than a tree, more than an entire forest.

  “The people, of course,” I said, a little bemused. It hardly felt like a choice at all.

  Sir Ightham nodded and said no more, but I felt ashamed for casting her as a murderer, a thief, simply because I didn't understand what was happening. She clearly had no desire to discuss the matter any further and I wouldn't push my luck by prying, but she didn't move away from me.

  I thought she might want company while she kept watch, refuge from her own thoughts, and so I reached out, gesturing towards the pendant in her hand.

  I don't think she realised she'd been fiddling with it. It took a moment, but Sir Ightham placed it in my open palm.

  It was a weighty thing, and I tilted it this way and that, letting the moonlight hit the surface, running my thumbs across it to take in the texture of the metal. It was a beautiful piece, there was no denying it – the craftsmanship itself was worth more than my entire village – but there was a phoenix encased within a ring of gold. I frowned. It was just like her knife.

  “Is it your family's sigil?” I asked. Only the elders in my village had sigils worth speaking of, though Michael was determined to trace back our ancestry until he discovered a crest we could call our own.

  “No. That was too obvious, too recognisable; I thought it might give me an unfair advantage,” Sir Ightham said. “This is of my own choosing.”

  “Oh,” I said, biting the inside of my mouth. I handed it back to her, but told myself that it didn't mean anything. Phoenixes were just phoenixes, there were a thousand reasons why a person would take one for their sigil. “... my brother said they were already making preparations for the Phoenix Festival, before you arrived. It's not until Paren, two months away, but it was all anyone was talking about at market.”

  I was rambling, and Sir Ightham responded cautiously, saying, “It's to be expected. This year marks the fifteen hundredth year since the exodus.”

  Fifteen hundred years since the Bloodless Lands were formed, since the end of the War. The festival wouldn't be any different. Bigger and louder, perhaps, but nothing about it would change: everyone would gather together over food and drink, talking about the fall of the necromancers, about Kondo-Kana, who'd been chased across the land and drowned in the sea.

  “It doesn't have to mean what you think it does. I—” Sir Ightham started, and then paused. I wanted her to continue, wanted her to tell me that she didn't bear the sigil of the phoenix because they'd burnt away the necromancers, but she only shook her head. “Come now. We're about to wake Rán, and you ought to sleep.”

  My elbows were sore, and because her voice wasn't hard, I did as she said. She hadn't turned me away because of my necromancy yet, and maybe there really was another explanation for the phoenix engraved on her knife, cast in gold and silver on her pendant. I'd ask her at a better time, when we weren't running from Knights, or the mere thought of them.

  I awoke unable to tell when I'd closed my eyes. Rán was crouched by my head, grinning toothily as she leant over me. She must've seen me stirring and decided to give me a fright. It worked, but I would've started at the sight of Sir Ightham standing over me, too.

  “Morning, yrval,” she said, holding out a hand.

  I took it, clinging to two fingers with my fist, and she helped me to my feet without having to stand. She remained crouched as I stretched out, eyeing the food left out atop one of Sir Ightham's bags.

  I snatched the bread, deciding it must be for me. It wasn't recently deceased enough for Rán's liking.

  “Where's Sir Ightham?” I asked through a mouthful of bread as I made my rounds, saying good morning to Charley and Calais. Charley grunted, turning his head from me for fear I'd try feeding him more bitterwillow.

  “Down by the river, I reckon,” she said as she stood, rising up and up. “You might want to be taking a trip down there yourself, yrval. We've got a long trek ahead of us and you'd be wise to be making the most of this lull while it lasts. Who knows when the dragon-slayer's gonna go charging off again?”

  I saw Sir Ightham in the distance the moment the words were out of Rán's throat, and hurried off to meet her halfway. It couldn't have been any later than six and once again, I hadn't slept for very long, but it was that quiet, timeless part of the morning that seemed to promise peace, in spite of what the day might actually hold.

  How long had I been away from home? A handful of days. In my place, Michael would've spun stories out of those armfuls of hours for the rest of his life, and I couldn't help but feel the weight of them, with all that had happened. In that way, I imagined time must've been stretched out in my village, too. My father and brother felt every second of my absence, and yet there I was, allowing myself to be blindly led anywhere but home.

  “Good morning,” Sir Ightham said, once I was close enough to see that her hair was almost brown with the weight of water.

  “Morning, Sir,” I said with a nod, peering over her shoulder. There was a wall of trees behind her, so I pointed in the direction she'd come from and asked, “Straight ahead for the river?”

  “Don't take long,” she said, nodding. “Ten minutes at most.”

  We carried on our separate ways, but I didn't get far. I came to a halt, turning and saying, “Sir—?” before I realised what I was doing. I would've shaken my head and said it was nothing, if not for the fact that she'd actually stopped and looked around at me. “At the next town we come to, do you think you could... help me write a letter?”

  I should've asked Rán, but I still couldn't imagine her forming words small enough to fit on a piece of parchment. Sir Ightham didn't scoff, didn't give me any reason to cringe at my own shortcomings.

  She only said, “If we have time to spare,” and inclined her head towards the river.

  I ran the rest of the way. The river was a shallow one, barely reaching my knees, surrounded on
all sides by trees and shrubs. I stripped off quickly, placing my clothing on the safety of a large rock, and hurried to rinse myself, face plunged under the surface.

  I shook off as much of the water as I could, used my shirt to wipe myself dry, and hoped that the sun would make enough of an effort to keep me warm. My short hair was soaked, sticking out every which way, and I sprinted back to camp, not giving my body the chance to succumb to damp clothing.

  “Off to Benkor, then,” Rán said.

  Sir Ightham and I were on horseback, leaving Rán saddled with the bags.

  “Benkor?” I asked, but Rán was gone.

  She pushed off on strong legs, launching herself in wide strides, while I matched Sir Ightham's pace. She was by no means going slowly, but we weren't tearing across the country as we'd done so for the past two days. I was glad of it. The scenery was no more interesting for having the time to take all the details in, but I appreciated the fact that my bones weren't being rattled around like the thoughts in my head.

  “Wouldn't Calais take any bitterwillow?” I asked, smiling down at him.

  “It wouldn't matter if he did. It won't have any effect for another few days,” Sir Ightham said, and I thought that if only bitterwillow always worked and worked and the body never needed a rest from it, the world wouldn't need healers and I wouldn't be in this mess.

  “Right,” I said. I knew that. Of course I did; I'd spent seven years in an apothecary’s and could prepare the plants in my sleep. “What Rán said—are we really going to Benkor, Sir?”

  “We are.”

  Sir Ightham wasn't as talkative as she'd been last night. The dark circles under her eyes told me that Rán might not have taken over the watch after all, but I kept trying.

  “But that's basically Kastelir, isn't it?” I asked. She looked to me, waiting for more of an explanation. “We had some traders come from there, a couple of times. Everyone said that they probably weren't Felheimish—they were probably Kastelirians who'd come in through Benkor. Anyway, the elders decided they had to be up to no good, because they're always trying to bring the wall down, right?”

  “Are they?” Sir Ightham asked, and I thought they must have a higher class of rumour in Thule, because everyone in my village knew all about Benkor. Soldiers and mercenaries alike had slipped through Benkor to sell themselves to the highest bidder, back when the territories were still warring, and a handful of decades wasn't long enough to forge the fragmented pieces of centuries of strife into a real country. “Yesterday morning, you were certain a pane would eat you. Do try thinking for yourself.”

  “But—”

  But the King and Queen do their best to keep us divided, I'd meant to argue, but Sir Ightham tugged on Calais' reins, and the pair of them sped off towards Rán.

  I frowned. I'd been wrong about the pane – or about one of them, at the very least – but there was always word reaching the village about Kastelir's latest misfortune. A food shortage, a revolt, rebels trying to rend the country back into its former territories; monarchs being assassinated, or nearly assassinated.

  Maybe she was right about one thing. Benkor was still within Felheim, and it couldn't be blamed for the Kastelirians who slipped through its streets.

  We travelled for hours at a stretch, and Rán never seemed to tire. She'd stop to let us catch up, and though she charged ahead, she wasn't leading us.

  “Can't say I know much of Felheim,” she'd admitted, letting Sir Ightham's compass do all the work.

  As we went along, winding around scattered villages and hamlets, I decided that the monotony of riding was far better than the monotony of my old life. If I wasn't there, then I'd be sat at the same table, eating the same thing I did every morning, about to tend to the same chores I undertook every day; all in all, the fear of Knights coupled with the fear of the unknown was less unsettling than the fear of my village finally getting the courage to lynch me.

  “Ah! Look at that, the town of Doevon, looking as strong as it's always been,” Rán would say whenever a mass of buildings barely came into sight, using a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “What say we take a little break there?”

  “That's Eltson.” Sir Ightham always corrected Rán, who'd turn to me and wink. I think Sir Ightham knew that Rán was making a mess of geography to rile her up, but still, she took the bait with an exasperated sigh every time. “—no breaks until sundown,” she always added.

  By the time the light finally started to fade, Rán was the only one of us who wasn't exhausted. We barely had to tug on the horses' reins to get them to stop. Sir Ightham rubbed her gloved fingers against her eyes, as if trying to make bruises out of the dark shadows beneath them.

  We'd come to a rugged, hilly area, with sudden, rocky drops almost as tall as Rán was. It made for decent cover, along with a littering of trees, and Sir Ightham spent a few minutes consulting her map.

  “There's a lake, a quarter of a mile off. I'll fetch water and fish,” she said. There was a note of finality in her words; she didn't want help refilling the waterskins, nor did she want anyone pointing out that we had food enough to last us another day. As she left, she said, “Go gather firewood,” and didn't wait for me to reply.

  “That one always bossing you around, is she?” Rán asked, for a moment seeming smaller, now that the ground had claimed our bags.

  “I want to be useful!” I said, but huffed out a hint of a laugh. I'd spent most of the day trying not to smile whenever Rán teased Sir Ightham, and it was easier to relax when it was just the two of us.

  “Come on, then,” she said, crouching down. “I best be helping you out.”

  “You mean... ?”

  Rán reached over her shoulder, patting between her shoulder blades.

  Her intent was clear, but I still hesitated. I held my hands out, stepping towards her slowly, waiting for her to howl with laughter, because I'd really tried to clamber up on her back. She grinned down at me, saying, “Hurry up—don't wanna keep that dragon-slayer waiting, do we?” and I bundled my fingers around the orange cloth swathed around her shoulders.

  Rán hooked an arm under one of my knees, hoisting me up high enough to wrap my arms around her trunk of a neck. When it came to standing, she gave me no warning; she rushed to her full height quickly enough to make my head spin, and I felt her throat rumble with fond laughter against my arms.

  “Grab onto my horns if I go too fast,” Rán said, and I clung onto them immediately.

  There was a strange texture to them. They were unlike bark or bone, stronger than a ram's horns; I could feel grooves and scrapes under the pads of my thumbs, could see faint traces of patterns that had once been carved into them, but had grown out with age.

  Rán set off at a sprint, and I was almost knocked back by the force of it. I clung to her horns and didn't let go, even when I was confident I wouldn't be thrown back, peeking over the top of her head as she charged through the trees. When she said she'd help, she meant that she'd do all the work; Rán grabbed low hanging branches as she bolted along, tearing them off trees, ducking down to scoop up any that had already fallen.

  I laughed until it hurt, heart pounding with the speed of it all, almost slamming my jaw against the back of Rán's head as she ground to a halt. “Reckon that's more than enough,” she said, jostling the wood in her arms. She didn't gesture for me to get down, so I wrapped my arms loosely around her neck, leaning into her as she wandered back to camp.

  “I guess you can't tell me what you and Sir Ightham are up to, can you... ?” I asked, inexplicably hopeful, thinking Rán might've scrounged together enough of a reason to trust me.

  “You guess right, yrval,” Rán said, flicking one of the sticks back and thwacking my forehead. “As much as I'd like to tell you, I'd like it even more if there was nothing to tell.”

  Disappointed though I was, I was glad of it, in a way. I didn't want Sir Ightham knowing I'd gone behind her back, not after what she'd said last night.

  Still, as we approache
d the camp, I couldn't help but ask, “Have you fought one before?”

  “Fought what?” she asked, not missing a beat.

  “A dragon,” I said. She'd called Sir Ightham dragon-slayer so many times that it ought to have been obvious.

  “Dragon?” she said with a short, sharp laugh. “Who said anything about dragons?”

  We were back at the camp before I could express any bemusement. Sir Ightham returned as we did, greeting us with a sceptical look that soon became a frown. She had a few fish roped together and held tightly in a fist, and had been expecting the fire to be roaring by the time she returned. Rán knelt, lowering me to the ground, and I got used to my own feet as Rán set the sticks down and Sir Ightham set about bundling them together.

  Without warning, she threw the largest fish in Rán's direction. Rán caught it in one hand and began tearing into it without any regard for the small bones. I watched out of the corner of my eye, more intrigued than disgusted. I'd slaughtered animals on our farm since I could wield a knife, but it was unsettling to see a creature go from something to nothing in a matter of moments.

  I stood over Sir Ightham as she pushed the remaining fish onto spits, and it occurred to me that she'd never said anything about dragons. I'd come to those conclusions, and she'd merely hummed along with them. I folded my arms across my chest and turned from the fish she was cooking.

  “... you're really used to doing all of this?” I asked, because it was better than accusing her of—something. Of letting me believe one thing and telling Rán a different tale altogether. “Cooking, I mean. Don't Knights have servants for everything?”

  “I'm perfectly capable of preparing my own meals,” she said, moving to sit cross-legged in the dark. “Besides, it would hardly do to travel with a band of servants.”

  “Well,” I said, settling down closer to Rán than to her. “I'm more of a servant than a squire, really.”

  Rán laughed at the cost of almost choking on her fish, and though Sir Ightham's eyes were fixed firmly on the fire, I did what I could not to smile. It was true, for all it mattered, and I didn't mind. Running errands and carrying things was better suited to my current skill set.