The Dragon's Eye

by Sarwat Chadda

  To my girls—SC

  Eye Symbol

  Greencloak Letter

  Quote Page

  Title Page

  Map of Erdas

  Dedication

  1. AT SEA

  2. THE SUMMER PALACE

  3. EMPRESS SONG

  4. CHIEF UGO

  5. ONE HOUR

  6. FIRE

  7. SWARM

  8. FALLS

  9. THE DRAGON’S EYE

  10. SEASPRAY

  11. OLD FRIENDS

  12. ESCAPE

  13. TO THE BOAT

  14. SONG’S QUARTERS

  15. SONG’S DESCENT

  16. THE WOLF

  17. THE FALCON

  18. THE PANDA

  19. THE LEOPARD

  20. SID

  21. KANA AND CORDELIA

  22. SONG AND MEILIN

  23. PEACE

  Letter to the Fans

  About the Author

  Online Game Code

  Horizon Sneak Peek

  Spirit Animals Game

  Copyright

  ROLLAN SHIFTED IN HIS HAMMOCK, VAINLY SEARCHING for sleep. The coarse sackcloth reeked, but it was better than being on the floor, where a film of seawater layered the wood and a company of rats nibbled at bare toes or exposed ears.

  The ship’s cramped brig had only one porthole—closed and on the far side of the corridor—so there was little ventilation. The air tasted stale and stifling, laden with the stink of too many days at sea.

  The old wooden hull of the Oathbound schooner groaned against the weight of the waves. Then there were more sounds: a hiss, a crack, a scream.

  “She’s at it again,” declared Conor.

  Reluctantly, Rollan opened his eyes. He squinted until they adjusted to the permanent gloom of the cell, and then he saw his friends.

  Conor slouched up against the bars, his arms hanging through the rusty iron, head tilted to the noise above.

  He winced at the next scream.

  Rollan rolled out of the hammock and past Abeke, who’d been woken by the cries echoing from above. She gritted her teeth. “It’s Cordelia …” she said. “Cordelia the Kind.”

  Meilin joined Conor by the bars and flinched at the third cry, louder and sharper than before. “That poor man.”

  “There’ll be no one to sail this ship if she carries on like this,” said Rollan.

  “What do you think he did?” asked Abeke.

  Rollan shrugged. “He doesn’t need to have done anything.”

  He thought back to their capture at the Niloan library, Maktaba. They’d been searching for the legendary bond token, Stormspeaker. They’d teamed up with Takoda and Xanthe, only to be betrayed—and captured—once they’d succeeded in gaining the token.

  Takoda and Xanthe were chained and bundled on a ship to Greenhaven, while Rollan and his friends were headed to Zhong.

  Conor glanced over at the scratches he’d been making on the wall. There were fifteen.

  There was another hiss and cry, but now reduced to a pitiful whimper.

  Fifteen days trapped down here. Fifteen days of hearing the cruel hiss of the whip and the cries of whatever poor unfortunate Cordelia had picked to torment, if no other reason than that she could.

  Why not them? She hated Rollan and his companions, yet Cordelia never chose to vent her cruelty on any of them. But sooner or later she’d grow bored of whipping sailors.…

  Then she’d come down here and start on the prisoners.

  Maybe she wouldn’t begin with them.

  The weary weeks at sea hadn’t been spent totally alone. The Oathbound were bounty hunters, and clearly business was good.

  Hunting Greencloaks seemed to pay well. The cell next to theirs held three more. They’d been brought on board a few days ago, and the news was grim.

  Rollan knocked on the wall between them. “You awake, Kofe?”

  There was a grunt and a return knock. Then a cough. “Of course. How can anyone sleep with what’s going on up there?”

  “Where were we?” asked Rollan.

  Kofe laughed. It was a generous belly rumble and Rollan felt it through the wood. “Best meal you’ve ever had. Mine was a squirrel. Cooked on a spit, out in the woods west of Greenhaven.”

  “Doesn’t sound so special.”

  “I was real hungry, boy. Sitting out under the moon, quiet as you like. Nothing in the world but me and Sniffler.”

  Sniffler made his presence known with a squeak. Unlike everyone else here, the rat was quite at home in the hull.

  Alongside Kofe was Lady Cranston, a distant relative to the Trunswicks, and Salaman, from northern Nilo. The three Greencloaks knew of Rollan and his friends, of course, and it was reassuring to have them on board, even if they were prisoners.

  “You think they’ve caught everyone?” asked Rollan.

  “Looking to get rescued?” Kofe replied. He sighed. “Who knows? The Oathbound have been planning this for a long time. The only reason we weren’t caught sooner was because we were on a mission, far from Greenhaven. We won’t be the only ones. There’ll be Greencloaks hiding out, but with Olvan and Lenori captured, it’s not looking good. We’re on our own, boy.”

  On our own. Rollan was used to that.

  Wasn’t it supposed to be different? He was a Greencloak. The ancient order had allies everywhere, yet it had been taken down in a matter of months.

  But some things rot from within.

  Impostors had gotten themselves recruited into the Greencloaks. They’d learned its secrets, dug out its weaknesses. They’d publicly murdered the Emperor of Zhong while wearing the uniform, right as the Greencloaks were at their most vulnerable. When the blow came, the Greencloaks were swiftly blamed and imprisoned.

  Imprisoned, like now.

  There was one escape, however.

  Rollan closed his eyes. It was getting easier and easier, connecting to Essix. She hadn’t been captured with the other Greencloaks in Nilo, and was tailing the boat to see where they went.

  Soon he was there with her, following their ship. His heart jumped as he soared among the clouds. The wind roared in his ears, buffeting Essix’s sleek body. Or was it his? Now they were one and the same.

  Essix cried out as she spun downward, piercing through a flock of panicked seagulls Rollan laughed to see them break formation as they squawked in outrage. Essix merely flicked her wing tips and darted off.

  This was pure freedom. His mind knew it was a fiction—he was trapped in the smelly belly of a ship—but his heart was filled with such joy that his chest swelled to bursting.

  And pride. What animal could compare to Essix? Greatest of the Great Beasts!

  He’d struggled, back when she’d first come into his life. He’d watched with jealousy at the way Meilin commanded Jhi, and the close, instinctive bond between Conor and Briggan.

  As a street orphan he’d never owned anything valuable. Then he’d been given a Great Beast, one of the Four Fallen. Was it any wonder he’d struggled to understand such a gift?

  He’d known people back in Concorba who’d been like him and struck it lucky. Most had squandered their good fortune and ended up back where they’d started sooner than they imagined.

  Sure, he’d come close. Planning to run away from Greenhaven the first chance he’d gotten. Refusing to join until Tarik’s death.

  Sticking to his friends had taken a lot of courage, more than he’d imagined.

  He could picture Greenhaven now. The towers and the surrounding sea of grass. The woods and the stables, and the banners fluttering from the battlements.

  He’d seen it through Essix’s eyes, too. Many times, as they honed their bond together. Rollan had glided through the treetops as she accelerated toward the
castle. The trees crowded around her, him, them, but she was too swift, too cunning to be trapped among the branches and boughs.

  “Fly, boy, fly! Fly away if you can!”

  Rollan snapped his eyes open.

  “Wheeee!”

  He ran to the cell door. “Will you shut up?”

  “Ignore him,” suggested Abeke.

  “Wheee! Flap, flap, flap in the sky!”

  The Greencloaks weren’t the only prisoners down here. There was one other.

  The mad old man.

  As he was Zhongese, Meilin had tried talking to him at the beginning. The man ignored her, staring and mumbling and occasionally laughing wildly. The sailors found him amusing, but Rollan just wondered why he was here.

  Even now he was peering through the bars, whispering to himself. He caught Rollan’s gaze and then beat his arms in the air, laughing as he flapped around his small cell.

  “I’ll be like that if I don’t get out of here soon,” complained Conor.

  The hatch at the far end of the narrow corridor opened.

  A column of light lit the ladder and a small diameter at the foot of it. Rollan’s eyes watered; it was the first true sunlight he’d seen in days. Voices spoke and a couple of shadows passed at the hatch opening. One of them was a woman’s.

  Rollan clenched his fists. Maybe today was the day Cordelia came for him. He wouldn’t go without a fight. A quick glance at his companions and he saw the same defiance.

  But it wasn’t Cordelia the Kind who descended into the semidarkness of the ship’s hold.

  It was Kana.

  Once, they’d called her Anka. Rollan and the others had thought she was a Greencloak. A friend. But that had all been a lie, right from the very beginning. In reality, she was the captain of the Oathbound, the mercenaries who had relentlessly pursued them. And like all high-ranking Oathbound, she carried a title that belied her true nature: Kana the Honest.

  Unlike the others, however, Kana wore only a simple black uniform, dispensing with the usual brass collar and wrist guards.

  All the better to hide in, Rollan thought despondently.

  The traitor wrinkled her nose at the dank odors that hung in the uttermost depths of the hull. Almost daintily, she kicked aside a rat that had dared to come sniffing at her boot. Using the tip of her staff, she pushed open the porthole, and Rollan felt the sudden gust of fresh air.

  Someone from above passed a lantern down to Kana, and she raised it ahead of her. When its glow fell on them, all gathered at the cell bars. She smiled with cold satisfaction. “You’ve made yourselves at home, I see.”

  “There’s room enough for you,” said Conor. “Why don’t you come in?”

  Kana stepped closer, using her lantern to inspect their cell, but well out of reach of any sudden lunges. “Your journey is almost over. We’re near the coast of Zhong and will be coming into dock by sunset.” Kana smiled. “You have a friend who’s eager to see you.”

  Rollan frowned. “A friend like Cordelia?”

  “Cordelia can be unruly, I admit that,” the woman said with a sigh. “You should appreciate how hard it’s been to stop her from coming down here and expressing her … enthusiasm upon any of you.”

  “You didn’t stop her from torturing the sailors,” Rollan said.

  Kana’s response was a shrug. Apparently the pain of a few nameless sailors meant nothing to her.

  How had they gotten themselves into this mess?

  Rollan met Kana’s gaze. “What about Worthy? Cordelia got out. So what did you do with him?”

  Kana’s eyebrows raised a hair, though her face remained otherwise still. “You won’t be seeing him again.”

  Rollan didn’t want to believe that. He glanced over at Conor. The two boys had grown up together. Conor was once Worthy’s servant, back when the Redcloak went by Devin Trunswick. Worthy had come a long way from the obnoxious noble to become their ally and friend. Together they’d found an ancient artifact in Eura, a sword named the Wildcat’s Claw. Worthy had tried his best to prevent it from falling into the hands of Cordelia and the Oathbound by bringing down the tomb where the sword had been hidden.

  But the Oathbound had managed to retrieve the blade out of the collapsed wreckage.

  It was now in Cordelia’s hands. Rollan couldn’t think of anything worse.

  Who was he kidding? Of course he could. Easily.

  Most of the ancient Greencloak gifts were now in the possession of Kana’s mercenaries. They had the Claw, the Heart of the Land amulet, and the legendary Stormspeaker crown.

  Only the Dragon’s Eye remained …

  And there was no one left to stop them. With Rollan and his friends locked up here and the Greencloaks imprisoned in Greenhaven, the Oathbound were unstoppable.

  Rollan and the others glanced up as they heard a heavy thump from the deck. The screaming abruptly stopped.

  “Sounds like Cordelia’s had her fun.” Kana turned back toward the ladder. “The adventure is almost over, children.”

  The hatch slammed shut once she left, and Rollan heard the rattle of a bolt being shoved in place.

  Conor shook the bars. “We’ve got to do something!”

  Abeke put her hand on Conor’s shoulder. “Save your strength. We may get our chance yet.”

  “But what if we don’t?”

  The breeze from the opened porthole was feeble, but Rollan appreciated it nevertheless. Seagulls squawked somewhere outside. Rollan knew that meant they were nearing land.

  Who was waiting for them in Zhong? The Oathbound were mercenaries, but they’d long been in the employ of the various governments of Erdas. Rollan had a sinking feeling.

  The only person he could think of was Princess Song, daughter to the emperor. The last time they’d seen her was following her father’s death, shocked and heartbroken. Though once a supporter of the Greencloaks, it was ultimately Song who’d ordered their arrest.

  Rollan peered closer at the small circle of light ahead. “She left the porthole open.”

  Meilin looked up. “It’s too small, even if we could reach it.”

  Rollan smiled. “Too small for us. But not Essix. She’s been following us since Nilo.”

  “But what can Essix do for us now?” asked Conor.

  “Warn Greenhaven. The Greencloaks may be prisoners, but they’re the only allies we’ve got. Maybe she can lead someone back to us.”

  Rollan whistled, just hoping the hatch was thick enough to muffle the sound. After a long, tense moment, no Oathbound goons had come to check on them … but a shadow darkened the porthole.

  A large gyrfalcon peered inside. The falcon shook out her wings and began preening herself.

  “We don’t have time for this, Essix.” Rollan held his hand through the bars, toward the open porthole. Clutched between his fingers was a note, scratched on a scrap of leather he’d torn from his boot. “D’you think you can reach that?”

  Essix let out a small cry, then shot into the cabin. She’d snatched up the scrap of leather in a blink, landing on the floorboards just outside the cage.

  Abeke grinned. “I think that’s a yes.”

  Rollan smiled, kneeling and taking the scrap back. “Probably easier if you don’t have to carry it in your mouth while you fly.”

  He rolled the cutting around Essix’s leg, then tied it tightly with a second thin strip of leather. Rollan looked into the falcon’s bright eyes. “This will tell whoever you can find that we’re back in Zhong, and that the Oathbound have three of the relics.”

  Essix bobbed her head a few times then sprang into the air. It took a single beat, and she darted through the narrow opening.

  The image rushed unbidden and uncontrolled through Rollan’s mind.

  He felt himself soaring over the waves. Looking through Essix’s own eyes, he was startled to see her looking at him, a small face craning at the light shining through the open porthole.

  He marveled at the sharpness of her vision, the clarity with which she saw
the world. The colors were brighter, everything more defined, sharper. The dimming sunlight catching the sea spray as waves were thrown up against the glistening hull. The water droplets shone like rubies, momentarily frozen between rising and falling, then merged again with the sea.

  Rollan stumbled and Conor caught him, setting him back onto his feet. The boy looked at him quizzically. “You all right?”

  Rollan glimpsed her swooping over the waves. Then Essix tilted vertically upward and was gone.

  He turned back and was met by three expectant faces. “It’ll take a day or two to reach Greenhaven and, even if help is coming, it’ll be a while before it arrives.”

  Meilin sighed. “So we’re on our own?”

  Rollan shrugged, trying to project some confidence. “What’s new?”

  Sudden shouts drew their attention back to the ship, rather than the fleeing bird.

  Rollan’s heart quickened with dread. “You think Cordelia’s starting on another one?”

  Bare feet scurried upon the wooden boards above. The shouts weren’t cries of pain, but commands. The ship creaked as the rudder turned against the direction of the waves.

  “No,” replied Meilin. “We’re coming into port.”

  The sailors knew their business. They were clearly hurrying around the main deck, despite the presence of the terrifying Cordelia, or perhaps because of it.

  It was only minutes later that the chains of the anchors rattled free. Rollan could hear them splashing loudly into the water. Ropes hissed through the air and the ship buffeted again and again as the pilot worked to bring it against the quayside.

  The hatch opened up. This time it was Cordelia.

  Her boots were sprinkled with blood.

  Three sailors came in with her, one in manacles and the rest with swords drawn. Cordelia herself held the Wildcat’s Claw, her gloved hand constantly clenching and unclenching around its hilt.

  Rollan met her gaze. “I hope you’re taking good care of that sword. We’ll be wanting it back soon.”

  Cordelia drew it out by a few inches, just enough for the torchlight to catch its bright silvery edge. “Feel free to try and take it off me.”

  She wants an excuse to use it.

  He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. For now. But sooner or later, a chance might come up.…