Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon)

by Appleton, Scott

  “Is there no other way to convince the council to change policies?” Ilfedo lifted a thin volume from the top of the stack and read Dresdyn Law: An Overview. “They are the leaders of this city. I am but a stranger.”

  Elhandra glided from behind a pile of books. “I thought you said the sword was a gift from a prophet.”

  Ilfedo nodded, wondering what she was leading up to. He found her ready with sharp, quick answers at all times. It intrigued him.

  The woman laughed. “Everett told me that he thinks your sword spoke the words directly out of Hemran’s Lament.”

  He looked at the worn old volume and said, “It did.”

  “Do you not find that a bit strange? The first time you heard those words was when I quoted part of the prophecy.” She stepped in front of the desk and leaned forward, the palms of her hands on its surface as her gray eyes gleamed at him. “There is a purpose for everything. The Creator guides us each to fulfill his will. We can ignore it and miss out on his blessings, or embrace his path and live it out in faith. Right now you need to take the prophecy in faith. Only you can bring about an exodus from this place. Only you can lead us out of here to where we can become a part of the larger world. Don’t you see? You are the key that unlocks our destiny. Unless you embrace us as your people, unless you accept the role of Lord Warrior, we will fall into darkness.”

  Everett held up his arms. “Whoa! Hold it. You believe this time—”

  Her beautiful eyes gazed heavenward. “One Lord Warrior has come; one Lord Warrior must rise, to test the hearts and minds of this people and prove them before their exodus. Rise now, oh people of Dresdyn. Rise now or thy children will forever walk in darkness, until the generations dwindle and your names are forgotten.”

  Ilfedo and Everett glanced at each other. Everett shrugged his shoulders, and Ilfedo opened the book. Elhandra was a puzzle, yet what she said rang true in his heart. He must lead these people to the Hemmed Land. Their lives down here were hardly lives at all, and unless he took charge nothing would ever change for them. He would do it for the children and mothers in the factory, and the fathers stuck following tunnels into the deeper places of the world, places no human should ever have to go.

  Ilfedo had met with the city council, a group of men of pomp with, as he saw it, little honor. They groaned when he told them how he’d shut down the factory.

  “You should have consulted us, stranger,” one councilor objected. “This action will earn you great disfavor among the people.”

  “The opposite has proved true.” Ilfedo thudded his fist on the long table at which the councilors sat. “I have found allies among your people. Allies whom in these past few days I have come to regard as true friends.”

  A large man with a roundish face rose from his seat. “You have somehow gained the loyalty of the riffraff in our city. But they hold no power, and neither do you. And, I promise, I will leverage my position to see that your power is not validated.” Several councilors glanced at him, and he coughed into his hand. “We are, however, not denying your miraculous and seemingly timely arrival. We are deeply grateful to you for ridding us of the demons, or beastly creatures, that haunted the northeast corner of our city.” He sat down as another man rose.

  “We had high hopes that you would fulfill a prophecy concerning our people,” said the councilor. “Yet your actions defied the rule of our law, and a new Lord Warrior must work within the rule of law.”

  “Work within the rule of law?” A giant of a man loomed in the dining room doorway. “Councilors, perhaps you forget that the rule of law is dictated by the Lord Warrior. He is the supreme authority in a nation.”

  “Captain of the guard?” The large man with the roundish face leaned toward the figure cast in shadow as if to see him with greater clarity.

  Bromstead loomed into the lamplight and folded his arms across his chest. “You called me ‘riffraff,’ Councilor.”

  The large man shook his head. “I would never. Always you have served us with distinction.”

  “Then,” Bromstead said, “perhaps you were not aware that Lord Ilfedo has gained not only the support of the lower-class citizens of our great city but also of myself, the city guards themselves, Elhandra the prophetess, and a number of monks. When the soldiers in the tunnels hear of him, they will follow him as well.”

  “It is an uncomfortable and sad situation,” another councilor interjected. “We are unsure whether to banish this stranger or to reward his selflessness.”

  Bromstead lowered his arms to his sides. “The choice is simpler than you think. Simply listen to the word of the people on the streets, look at their faces, and judge where you want to be a year from now.” He glanced down at Ilfedo. “I trust this man. I believe he will lead us out of this city to a new home under the sun. I have always wanted that. I have always wanted to leave the darkness and live in the light. Every child among us, every child that sits at this table today . . .” He smiled and the councilors laughed. “Noble lords”—Bromstead looked into each of their faces—“the time has come for change. Give up the authority you hold before the people tear our city in two. They have been depressed, and, regretfully, you have allowed some to be oppressed. They will make you pay for that if you do not execute a wise course of action today.”

  Ilfedo watched as the men relaxed. They gazed up at him with sudden respect. Whether this was caused by Bromstead’s endorsement of him, or because they let the child in their hearts out to view the sliver of hope his presence offered, he did not know. He felt elevated in their eyes. They shifted from lording their will over their people, and their eyes betrayed their hopes that he would rise and guide them. Power had shifted. He felt it settle into his hands as Dresdyn’s leaders slid their chairs aside and knelt in front of him. Bromstead loomed beside him. This side journey in his quest for the key of Living Fire had handed him a powerful ally.

  13

  AN EMPTY GRAVE

  Four days Oganna had been here. She stepped out of her command tent into warm morning sunlight and gazed at Fort Gabel’s foundations. Masons heaved chiseled stones into beds of mortar. Their taut faces and sober expressions eased as they glanced up out of their pits and saw her. She smiled upon them all and walked along the edge of the foundation, every step light and full of life. The workmen knelt back to their tasks.

  More than five hundred men worked in the pits, forming square stone foundations that rose out of the rich soil. From these foundations the heart of the fortress would be birthed. From the forests, a line of men carried wooden beams on their shoulders. They carried them into the pits, laying some on wet blocks of mortar and standing others in holes. Masons gathered around the poles held upright in the holes and poured mortar in around them. As the holes filled, the masons propped other beams against the poles to hold them in place. When the mortar hardened, this foundation would be solid indeed.

  The process brought a smile to her lips as she regarded the tents of workmen and artisans that peppered the fields surrounding the site. The tents, clean and white, could have passed for bits of fluffy clouds that had fallen from the sky.

  “Princess.” Saybor, the master artisan, strode out of a nearby tent; his smooth face and wild long hair blustered as a breeze caught it. His hair was as blond as her own. He stood in front of her and bowed with a thin humorous smile twitching his mustache. “Your input has been most valuable to us, and I would like to thank you. Remarkably, although you’ve had no prior experience and certainly no training, we, the artisans of Gwensin, preferred your design for this fortress, preferred it over the designs proposed by two of our master artisans. Eighty out of the one hundred artisans present voted to work along the designs you laid out for us. And the dissenters offered no good reasons for their objection.”

  She frowned. “You are sure the majority did not agree just to please me?” His smile and chuckle told her all she needed to hear. She took the rolled paper in his hand and walked into his tent. The ceiling was high and the tent obl
ong.

  At a high wood table she unrolled the paper, fastening the corners to the tabletop with tacks to keep it open. A castle-like structure had been drawn upon the paper. She had drawn it herself. A trench would be dug from the Sea of Serpents, and it would surround the castle. Sea water would fill the moat, ensureing that it never dried up, and a drawbridge wide enough for ten men to walk abreast would span it. The courtyard walled in a stable, smithy, several homes, and shops. The walls were twelve feet thick, something several artisans had protested required too much valuable building time, but if the fort ever served as a point of defense, she knew the walls would be strong. She traced the entrance to the central keep. Its cylindrical tower would rise a hundred feet above the guard towers along the fort’s outer walls.

  Withdrawing her hand from the plans, she sighed. Yes, this would be a monument of which her people could be proud. A place that even Gabel would have admired.

  Saybor bowed to her from across the table. “If you are satisfied with the designs, I do believe the Maiden Voyage is ready for you. The sailors hereabouts have been waiting with eager and high expectation to display the fruits of their ship building. They say the Maiden Voyage is quite a lady on the water.”

  She glanced out the open walls of the tent at the Sea of Serpents. A low wall of fog rolled off the shore like a thick blanket uncovering the crowd gathering by the wharfs. The fog receded away from the shoreline, out to sea, and a line of sailors, dressed in white and blue, marched toward her. She smiled at Saybor, thanked him, and walked toward the sea.

  “May the Creator bless your voyage and your journey into the west, my lady,” he called after her.

  The hull of the Maiden Voyage cut the sea waves with hardly a tremble in her thick beams. Oganna held on to the rail as she stood on the prow and looked at the water rushing past. Seagulls cried as they landed on the ship’s bowsprit. She heard the giant sail snap before the wind struck her back.

  “She is a forty-foot from stem to stern, my lady,” said the captain as he stood behind the ship’s wheel. “We plan to build more just like her: fast, steady sailing ships. They are excellent for fishing, far better than the little boats we’ve been working with since before you were born.”

  She turned and faced him, then grabbed hold of the railing as the boat pitched.

  The captain laughed and spun the wheel by its polished knobs. He cupped his hand around his mouth and called to the sailors hanging onto the rigging high above, “Bring in the sail!”

  “Ho! Roll! Ho! Roll!” Ten men hauled on the sail, rolling it, and then tying it to the yard.

  The Maiden Voyage curved to the shoreline, where a crowd had gathered at the end of a long pier. As the vessel slowed for the end of its tour, Oganna looked at the shoreline. Where not long ago only fishermen’s boats had lain on the shore, today several piers jutted over the water. Several long and tall buildings stood along the shore, and beyond them lay the town. But what brought a smile to her face were the beams and stonework rising out of the fields north of them. Fort Gabel—or Castle Gabel, as some were calling it. When finished it would be the mightiest structure in the land. For now only a foundation of stone and the beginnings of a wall had been completed, but atop the foundation stood scaffolding a hundred feet high.

  The sailors lashed the Maiden Voyage to the pier, and she rocked to a stop. The captain lowered a plank to the pier and preceded Oganna. He stood on the pier and bowed, proffering his hand. Eager for solid footing, she grasped it and stepped out. She staggered, and her head grew dizzy, then she recovered and curtsied to the man. “It seems to be a very worthy vessel, Captain. I look forward to seeing other ships like this one sailing over the sea for exploration and profit. Perhaps we will meet again.”

  “You do me much honor, my lady,” he said.

  She touched her sword’s pommel as she walked down the long pier and stepped on the sandy shore. The sword’s mysterious power shot across her body. The crowd stood back as the sword adorned her in a silver dress. Gwensin’s artisans marched toward her, their faces radiant. Saybor was among them as they thanked her for her contributions and support for the glorious structure they would complete.

  “My contributions?” She gave a soft laugh. “I have little knowledge of these things. I found the process of designing the castle quite invigorating, but I’m afraid the real contributions were those that you, the experts, have made. This project would not go ahead without your knowledge and advice.”

  “Do not undercut your importance in this matter,” said one artisan. He smiled up at her and kissed her hand. “Though I realize you know little of these things, you do have a natural gift toward structure design and masonry. Someday the world will know you for this Gabel Castle and others like it.”

  Oganna returned his smile with one of her own and said her farewells to the artisans. “I will check on your progress upon my return.”

  “Be safe, our lady!” the artisans replied, bowing out of her path.

  The crowds parted, and everyone knelt before her as she made her way to the three Evenshadows whinnying in the road beyond. Ombre and Caritha had already mounted their horses. A swordsman darted toward her and knelt beside Avernardi, cupping his hands a foot off the ground. She glanced at his handsome young face and gently placed her foot in his hand. He beamed as he lifted her effortlessly up to the saddle. Their gazes locked for one strange moment. He seemed desirous of saying something else, but bowed and stepped back to the crowd’s edge. His hair was black and his eyes brown. No wedding band graced his finger. For the first time in her life she wondered what possibilities existed for her as a woman. She could doubtless have the pick of any of these fine unmarried and upstanding men. Maybe someone such as this could complete her, or someone like Saybor.

  She turned the Evenshadow’s head away from the crowd and rode west across the fields of corn and into the forest.

  “At last!” Ombre raced his horse around both hers and Caritha’s. He raised his fist toward the sky. “Western Wood, here we come. Good-bye familiar and hello to unexplored lands.”

  Oganna laughed as she watched him slow his mount to a trot, a smile still beaming from his face.

  “You are awfully excited,” Caritha said. “What do you think this is? Some kind of vacation?”

  Ombre frowned. “We have a lot of work ahead of us. But I hardly call escorting two beautiful women through unknown lands a heavy chore.” He winked at Oganna, and she laughed again.

  She was so glad he was coming along. Especially with Father gone she needed—they needed—a man to fill that gap. Oh, where was Father now?

  Ombre’s upbeat manner, so long as it remained, would be an encouragement to her wherever she found herself. Under heaven she could not think of another man she would rather take this journey with.

  They would pick up provisions at home before proceeding to the Western Wood. After all, it was on the path they were taking. She also wanted to bring along a change of clothes, and Neneila would want to come. The creature might be harsh, but no one could ask for a more devoted guardian.

  At that moment she released her connection to Avenger. As the silver dress vanished, her trousers and plain shirt became visible again. She swung her leg over Avernardi’s back, straddling him. Yes, that was far more comfortable.

  They rode through the afternoon, talking and laughing together.

  Oganna hauled on the reins, holding her Evenshadow in check long enough for Ombre and Caritha to catch up to her. She patted the stallion’s neck and cooed softly in his ear as his rapid breathing slowed. “Take it easy, Avernardi. Our journey has only begun.”

  The horse shook his head, whipping his silvery mane in all directions. This handsome creature had been given to her by Ombre when she had returned from Burloi. “Avernardi is a little spirited at times,” he had told her, “but he is also the best of his breed. Take good care of him, and he will take good care of you.” Now, as she soothed the eager animal, she admired its aristocratic poise and ton
ed body.

  She steered the horse to the side and looked over her left shoulder as Ombre’s Evenshadow carried him around a large oak tree. Caritha’s horse followed. They were taking this trip far more relaxed than she had anticipated, especially after Ombre had voiced such enthusiasm for seeing new lands. Here they were, still in the Western Wood, and her aunt and uncle seemed not to care.

  As his horse wove toward her through the trees to avoid the underbrush and low-hanging branches, Ombre shook his head at her. “You will wear down your mount long before the day is out if you continue to let him dictate your speed.”

  She smiled. It wasn’t her fault that Avernardi was feeling playful. As a matter of fact, she enjoyed him most when he was a handful. “I’ll see you farther on,” she said. “Avernardi needs the exercise.” Then she galloped off, leaving Ombre with no opportunity to protest.

  The weather, as it had been the day before, was warm with a clear blue sky. Rays of sunlight penetrated the trees, creating shafts of light that shot to the leaf-strewn floor of the forest and highlighted the green shoots of grass underneath.

  Leaning into her mount, Oganna urged him on, guiding the stallion through the trees without receiving so much as a scratch. Faster and faster she went until the trees whizzed by at a fearful rate. A stream ahead of them obstructed their path. She could feel Avernardi’s muscles tense in preparation for the jump.

  “Psst! Slow down. No!” the viper, Neneila said as it constricted around Oganna’s arm. It closed its eyes as the horse leaped into the air.

  The stream was too wide for Avernardi to carry her across, so she grabbed a hanging vine, and he slid from under her to jump. Her momentum carried her forward until she’d swung over the stream. Then, releasing her hold on the vine, she flipped in midair and landed softly on Avernardi’s back.