by R. D. Henham
“It was the only way to get the dragon.” Baron Camiel sank back in his chair, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, they were glassy and flat.
Get the dragon? So he knew and he was trying to get up to where the dragon construct was housed. Camiel knew about the construct, and he’d been trying to steal it from Sandon’s mother. Sandon was infuriated. “You cruel, horrible man. Is that all you could think about? The dragon? Not anyone else in the kingdom? Not even me?”
“Sandon, please. I can’t discuss this with you.” The baron passed a hand in front of his eyes. “Not now.”
“Not now? Then when? After you’ve turned the valley and everyone in it over to Lazuli?”
“Vilfrand!” The baron rose to his feet, calling for his brother. The baron’s voice rang out, the timbre shaking with emotion. Camiel rose to his feet as the captain pushed the door to the throne room open with a hearty shove as he returned.
“Coward,” Sandon spat, snarling.
“Perhaps I am, Sandon.” Baron Camiel regarded his son soberly. “But I can die with that on my conscience so long as you are safe and alive.” He raised his voice and addressed Captain Vilfrand. “Remove Sandon from my presence. Take him to his room, and this time, lock the door. I don’t want him to be involved in the meeting tonight, so take pains to make sure he can’t get out.”
Vilfrand saluted nervously as he drew near. He turned away from the baron and gestured gently to the angry youth. “Sandon, come with me.”
Sandon stepped away from the thrones, kicking away the hem of the cloak that covered his mother’s chair. “Fine. I was done here anyway.”
He stomped across the room, past the bookshelves and wall hangings, turning his back on his father, the thrones, and the ancient horn that hung above them. Vilfrand was hard-pressed to keep up, trotting along at the boy’s heels as he’d been ordered. When Sandon reached the door, he spun on one heel and stared back at his father. The baron had sunk back into his throne, head in his hands, looking for all the world like a child too small for his high chair. For a moment, Sandon wanted to run back to him, take his father’s hand in his, and ask for forgiveness. He wanted to forget what he knew, ignore everything that the baron had confessed, and just go back to being father and son. His heart ached and tears welled up in his eyes, and without realizing it, Sandon took a half step back into the room.
“Sandon,” Vilfrand cautioned.
Steeling his heart, Sandon turned away again, pushing through the throne room’s doorway and marching toward his room.
ong after the key had turned in the lock, Sandon sat in the chair by the door, head bowed, thoughts exploding in his mind so fast that he couldn’t keep track of them. The one thing he couldn’t reconcile was his father’s tribute. Now that he knew Sandon was aware of his plan, would the baron still go through with this charade?
Was it a charade?
“Gah!” Sandon pounded his fist on the little reading table beside the chair. “Why do I keep going over this? It’s obvious that my father is guilty! He admitted it!” But for all of that, Sandon couldn’t keep his mind from reliving the last few hours again and again.
The sun was only an hour from the horizon, and time was running out. If Sandon was going to do anything, he’d better do it now. He stood up and reached for the sword belt that he’d left hanging from his bedpost and buckled the weapon around his waist. This morning, he’d been stuck in his depression, unwilling to believe the worst, hiding from danger. If Vilfrand had locked the door then, on that Sandon, he might have been content to stay in his room and hope that his father, Kine, or some other hero would save them all.
Now he knew that if the barony was going to be saved, he’d have to be the one to do it.
The very thought lightened his heart. Sandon wondered if this was how his mother felt the first time she took flight in her wonderful golden contraption—light as a feather and strong, in charge of his own destiny.
Sandon rose and propped the back of the oak chair under the door handle, making sure it caught sturdily beneath the soft bronze of the knob. He climbed onto his bed, steadying himself against the bedpost. If I’m going to be killed by a big blue dragon, I’m going to live the last hours of my life feeling the same way my mother did when she flew that machine.
Free.
Sandon leaped and landed as hard as he could on the seat of the chair. There was a horrible wrenching sound and a ringing crack, followed by the doorknob hurtling up toward the ceiling and the chair crashing to all fours, dumping Sandon unceremoniously to the ground. The lock shattered under the blow and fell out of the door. He grinned triumphantly as the door swung lightly open, the other half of the knob rolling in crazy circles on the hallway floor.
Clapping his hand over the hilt of his sword, Sandon burst out of the room and strode down the hallway, glaring left and right, daring anyone to stop him. Of course, there were no guards in the hallway to witness his ferocity—a pity—but even if there had been, he’d have stared them down. He was pretty sure of it. Everyone was downstairs or in the front courtyard, drilling and preparing for the blue dragon’s arrival. There would be no pulling of bell cords this time.
I’m the baron now. Regardless of the dragon and the tribute, the moment my father killed my mother, he gave up his right to the throne.
Sandon reached the door to the dungeon and threw it open, tromping down the stone stairs purposefully. He heard a guard at the bottom of the stairs rise and stepped toward the passageway. As Sandon walked into the small watch room, the boy smiled in relief. Two would have been a problem.
“Is there something I can do for you, Sandon?” Jonas stood at the bottom of the stairs, a half smile on his long face. He was wearing his chain mail shirt, but his polearm was leaned against the wall behind the small card table. On the table was a small eating dagger, along with a bowl of snacks. Behind the table, Sandon could see Kine sitting in his cell. He looked half-asleep again, hands folded and feet kicked up against the bars, but the prisoner perked up when Sandon marched into the room.
“Let him out.” Sandon didn’t let his voice shake or show any sign of the nervousness he felt. “The prisoner. I want him released.” Jonas wasn’t that much older, having joined the guard only this year. Still, the young guard had the advantage of two inches of height and about twenty-five pounds of muscle. All Sandon had on his side was surprise and a really good bluff.
Jonas let out a whistling breath. “Your father—”
“I’m the baron now, Jonas. Do as I say.”
The guard hesitated, unconvinced. “Shouldn’t Vilfrand be here? I mean, wasn’t he going to be regent … until you’re eighteen?”
Sandon took a cue from his belligerent uncle and stepped right up to Jonas, shoving his nose in the young man’s face. He wasn’t as tall as the guard, but the movement was unexpected, and Jonas was taken off guard. “Are you disobeying a direct order from the baronial lineage?” Sandon kept his hands down, afraid that the guard would see the sweat gathering on his palms. “I’m not asking you a favor. I’m giving you a command.”
Jonas fumbled backward, eyes widening. “I … I can’t! Not without Vilfrand’s order.”
“He outranks me?”
“Regent, sir! He was very explicit … you’re not to give orders, sir, unless he backs them. You’re to be respected, but we’re to check everything you do through him.” Jonas wavered, hand twisting on the key ring at his belt.
“What else did he tell you?”
“That you were to be kept locked in your room today. And … probably tomorrow too. Also, that … the prisoner …”—Jonas’s voice failed, and he cleared his throat nervously—“is to be executed tonight, after the baron is taken by the dragon. Killed without honor, sir, as painfully as possible—on the back grounds of the keep.”
“Swords afire! You will not!” Kine sprang forward, lunging through the bars. Jonas cried out in surprise and fell back against the cell’s bars. Kine managed to wedge his forear
m through the bars and hooked it around Jonas’s neck until he was choking the guard in the crook of his elbow. “Sandon!” Kine gasped. “Get … key!”
Shaking himself out of his amazement, Sandon jumped to pull the keys from Jonas’s belt and flipped through them quickly to find the one that would unlock Kine’s cell. All of his bravado failed when he saw Jonas’s eyes rolling back into his head, his hand flapping about Kine’s elbow with weaker and weaker motions. “Don’t kill him!” Kine didn’t answer. Jonas had started thrashing, throwing his entire weight against the soldier’s arm in a last, desperate attempt to break free.
Sandon shoved the key into the prison lock, twisting it heavily until he heard the lock snap. He jerked the door open with one hand, while the other fell to his sword. “Let him go! If you hurt him, Kine, I’ll run you through!”
The soldier turned to look at Sandon and raised an eyebrow. He lifted his hands slowly. Jonas, unconscious, slid through the soldier’s arms and fell to the ground with a little sigh. Kine kept his hands up and faced Sandon. “Seriously, Sandon,” he said, shaking his head. “What kind of person do you think I am?”
Sandon let go of his sword hilt. “Sorry.”
“You come all the way down here, bully the guard, demand my freedom, and then threaten my life. I have to give it to you, kid. You don’t do anything by halves.” Kine lowered his hands, chuckling. “What are you doing here?”
“I need your help. My father admitted his guilt to me. He poisoned my mother.”
“He told you—” Kine gaped.
Sandon had no time to dwell on it further. “I confronted him about the poison. He said that he had to do it in order to ‘get the dragon.’”
“Well, he did give some pretty reprehensible orders where I’m concerned.” Kine snorted, stepping over the slumped guard. The soldier started rummaging around the room, making a pleased noise when he found a second scabbard. He drew it out from under a pile of baronial tabards and slid the weapon free of the sheath. “My sword!” He chuckled. “Glad to find that. I was afraid I’d have to use one of your gigantic baronial polearms.”
“Dad’s going out into the courtyard with the ancestral horn—the one that summons the dragon. He’s going to blow the horn when the sun sets, and Lazuli will enter the valley. I don’t know what Dad’s plan is, but if we can’t stop him from blowing that horn, the blue dragon will never leave the valley again, that’s for sure.” He knelt down and checked Jonas, just to be sure. The guard was unconscious, but breathing easily, his strong pulse beating in the veins just below the surface of his neck. Sandon balled up one of the spare tabards and tucked it beneath the fallen man’s head. “Sorry, Jonas,” he muttered lamely. “I’ll make it up to you tomorrow—if there is a tomorrow.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about it, and something bothers me.” Kine strapped the sword around his waist. “Why the dragon?” He scratched his grizzly chin and shrugged. “If he wants the treasure for himself, and he’s gone through so much trouble to get it, why would he let the dragon get involved? Lazuli’s just going to take the treasure for himself. Blue dragons are the greediest, nastiest, and most self-absorbed dragons in the world—but they’re also among the smartest. If the baron’s made a deal with him and he’s holding back, Lazuli’s going to find out. When that happens, no deal’s going to keep that dragon from killing him along with everyone else.”
“So? He won’t break it.”
“Then what does he have to gain? Lazuli isn’t stupid. There’s nothing in this valley for him. The dragon’s a soldier of Takhisis, he wants to continue the war. There aren’t enough soldiers here to interest him, and the valley has no real resources to be tapped—no mines, no forges, no leather tanneries. Gems and steel are what the dragon wants, and nothing else.”
“Are you saying that anyone working with him has to be paying him in money? What about the tribute that my dad’s been paying? That’s money enough,” Sandon reminded the soldier.
“It ends when the barony gives up. And if I know anything about little farming valleys, it was never much to begin with. So, if Lazuli hasn’t gained much through the tribute, and he isn’t interested in the valley itself, he has to be here for the original dragon’s hoard, the one that belonged to your mother’s friend, the gold dragon. We’re back where we started.
“Except that this means, from what you said, whoever killed your mother was trying to get the password from her. She was killed by mistake.” Kine looked grim. He picked up the eating dagger from the table and pushed it into his boot.
The soldier headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Sandon had to rush to follow, holding the length of his sword to keep it from banging against the wall. Kine kept talking, calling back to Sandon, “Your father’s about to blow the horn. We’ve got to hurry.”
“Right. “Sandon ran to catch up.
Kine pushed open the door and stepped into the hallway just as the evening bells began to ring. Sunset was close. “Where are they now?”
“In the courtyard. But … Kine!” Kine stopped in the hallway, and Sandon reached out to grab his arm. “I want to make something clear.”
Kine frowned. “What?”
“Regardless of my father’s guilt or innocence, saving the barony has to be our first concern—no matter what happens.” He frowned. “We’ll find a way to deal with the dragon. I’ll drive him out, I swear it. But our first priority today has to be the barony—not Lazuli.”
Surprised, Kine stared down at Sandon with a strange half smile. Slowly, he drew the sword at his belt. With a nod, the grizzled soldier lowered himself to one knee and laid the sword on the ground at Sandon’s feet. Kine took the youth’s hand in his and said, “Spoken like a true baron of Hartfall. Your mother would be proud.
“Lead on, my liege. I will follow.”
he outer courtyard was darkened by long dark pillars of shadow, echoes of the high towers of the keep. Sandon didn’t see many of the barony’s guards. One held a position at the castle gate, and another was a shadow on the roof of the second of the three towers. The baron and Captain Vilfrand stood together at the top of the central, highest tower of the keep. Behind them was Yattak, whimpering and moaning under his breath, his red robes stretched taut around his panting chest. Umar huddled beside his master, trying to hide behind the older wizard’s bulk.
This was the place where the ancestral horn had been sounded in the past, and was the only place in the main keep that was large enough for a dragon to land. The tower top had a small garden on it. Green bushes and arches of ivy marked the edges of a circular plaza. The stones of the plaza were unlike those anywhere else in the barony. Rather than the grays and blacks of the surrounding granite hills, these were lightly colored sandstone in bright reds, yellows, and oranges. They ran along the plaza in intersecting bands in an intricate pattern like brilliant sunshine rays spreading out from a small central circle of purest white.
Late-blooming flowers speckled the quarter-circle gardens that ringed the edge of the pattern. They peeked out from beneath the hedges, sprinkling a touch of color like ripples on the water of the roof. The flowers, blue and green like the valley that spread out below them, thrived despite years of neglect, turning into a veritable carpet of tangled vines and jutting stalks. They waved in the evening wind, turning their blooms to catch the last honeyed rays of the autumn sun.
Sandon and Kine crept out of the trapdoor that led to the roof and hid behind a thick ridge of bushes. Sandon parted the branches to peer between them and catch a glimpse of the small crowd gathered in the center of the plaza. They were looking to the north, shading their eyes from the western glare to focus on a ridge of mountains far away, at the lip of the valley on the other side of the woods. A small dot approached, dark against the clouds.
“We’re too late!” Sandon groaned.
Kine gripped his arm and shushed him. “No, we aren’t. That’s too small to be a dragon, even at this distance.” He squinted and tried to make it o
ut. “Draconian.”
“Malaise.” There was only one creature Lazuli would send to oversee his tribute—his flight marshal. The dot grew larger and larger against the white clouds, shimmering wings reflecting burnt orange sunlight in glittering rainbows as it came closer and closer still. The draconian drew near the edge of the tower, slowing as her shadow slid over the stone. She hung in the air for a moment, and then floated lower, like a jessed hawk landing at last on its favorite perch.
Malaise landed gracefully a few feet from the baron, her clawed hands wrapped around the hilts of two daggers hanging from the front of her belt. She wore thick leathers padded at the knee and elbow and wrapped tightly with layers of leather thongs down to her wrists and ankles. She wore no shoes, allowing her clawed feet to scrape lightly against the sandstone, and her fingers were overly long, nails sharp like talons, clicking against the weapons she held close. Stiffening to her full height of more than eight feet, she towered head and shoulders above Baron Camiel and Vilfrand.
Her long tongue flickered out, lightly scenting the air. Malaise took in the two guards who stood behind their master with their hands clenched around their halberds. Instead of looking concerned, the draconian smiled and stepped forward lithely, her eyes sparkling with feral delight. “Good evening, Your Excsssellency. A pleasssure to see you again.”
The baron didn’t respond to her taunts. He stared her down, face tight and eyes narrowed. “The sun has not yet set, Malaise.”
The tall sivak draconian lifted her head toward the horizon, looking at the thick disk of the sun balanced on its edge. “Sssoon enough, Baron. You have the horn?”
Baron Camiel reached beneath his long blue cloak, drawing out the horn that had graced the wall behind the baronial thrones. The curved length was heavy in his hands, far larger than any normal hunting horn. The coppery yellow had small streaks of brighter metallic color where the baron’s hands had brushed away the dust. Baron Camiel held it close, avoiding Malaise’s greedy claws. “I do.”