The Sword and the Dragon

by M. R. Mathias

Harren, mussed his hair as if he were still a little boy. Then Uncle Mahr, the clan’s spirit leader, said a prayer to the White Lady, their patron goddess. All of the Elders, and most of the women, would be watching him compete later. What little bit of pressure his father had lifted earlier had now been replaced tenfold.

  Outside the crowded tent, where they were gathered, the younger clansmen waited patiently to add to it, all of them, except Gerard. This fact gnawed at Hyden more deeply with each passing hour.

  After he spoke with his father, Hyden jogged past the shining black spire, down the southern Way to where Gerard had said Shaella and her party were encamped. The day was as perfect as a day could be. The sun was bright, and the sky was blue and clear, save for a few puffy white clouds drifting lazily. There was a cool and steady breeze coming from the west, carrying the fresh smell of the river’s swell, and the blooming foliage along its shoreline.

  The people he passed, though, were visibly on edge. Untrusting eyes darted here and there suspiciously. Everyone was traveling in groups and they were all armed with some sort of weapon. All of the clumps of people moving about, were from the same families or kingdoms, and they tended to stick together, as if a stray would be swept away by some unseen magical stream.

  The cheer and mirth of the previous day was gone. It was like a rain storm had washed away the joy and left a sticky film of worry and fear over everything. Some of the people seemed oblivious to the foul mood. Others scurried from shop, to cart, to tent, buying up things, as if it were the last day of the world. Hyden saw a few groups that were packing up their belongings to leave. Horses were hitched to waiting wagons, and pavilions were being rolled and stored for travel.

  Hyden felt the tension hanging in the air, like the slow, sizzling sound of a knot in a fire log. Sooner or later, it would pop and send a shower of sparks swirling out of the pit. The embers might just burn themselves out, but something as simple as a breeze could cause them just as easily to flare into flame and burn a whole forest to the ground.

  As he had expected, the Dakaneese woman’s camp was empty. Nothing but trampled grass and a few rock-ringed fire pits remained. The trail they left led southward. The nearest camp was far enough away that he didn’t even bother asking about the sudden departure of Shaella’s party as he passed it on his way back. Gerard was gone, chasing after his dreams. Hyden had to respect his brother’s determination, even if he didn’t like the fact that he had gone.

  When he returned to the Skyler Clan’s area, he was ushered in before the Elders. The competition would be starting soon, and they too wanted to heap piles of pressure on his shoulders.

  Hyden eventually left the crowded tent and emerged into another pack of his clansmen. They patted his back, wished him well, and offered little tidbits of advice and support. These were mostly tinged with the opinions of their parents and the older clansmen. Comments like: “Beat the skinny forest freaks,” or “Show those yellow-eyed devils what it’s about!”

  Hyden knew that not one of the younger men, or boys, had been as close to an elf as he was yesterday at the Culling, yet they hated them just because the Elders did. They couldn’t have formed their opinions of their own accord. They were only repeating the things they had heard others say. It didn’t matter, Hyden decided. He smiled at them and thanked them, but his head and his heart were somewhere else. Hyden was trying not to let his worry over Gerard, or the pressure from his people, get the better of him. This day was too perfect of a day, and either win or lose, he was going to try and enjoy it.

  Little Condlin parted the group and handed Hyden his bow. To everyone’s delight, Talon awkwardly flew from the boy’s shoulder to Hyden’s. He had to help the struggling little chick land, and get a grip on his shoulder, but once Talon was settled he puffed out his chest proudly and let loose a squeaking caw.

  A few minutes later, Hyden was walking towards the tournament grounds with Little Condlin a few paces behind him, while Talon was flapping and struggling to maintain his balance beside his ear.

  The archer from Westland looked angry and distracted, like he hadn’t slept in a while. He was sharply attired though, in a crisp white doublet, sporting the golden lion of his kingdom on the front and back of it. From fifty yards away, he put three arrows into the Wizard’s Eye and two just outside it in the King’s Ring. Loud boos and jeers came from the crowd gathered behind Hyden, but they were quickly drowned out by the cheers that erupted from the other side of the shooting lanes.

  Hyden saw that the bleacher scaffolds from last night’s Brawl had been rebuilt along the length of the archery tournament grounds. They weren’t nearly as tall now. Hyden guessed that it was more because the field was long and narrow, than for any sort of safety concern. Unlike the night before, where crowds had been happy to be mingled hodgepodge together, today, the kingdom folk were segregated into factions bearing their kingdom’s colors, and sitting separate from the other kingdom folk who were in attendance.

  The Redwolf soldiers of Wildermont were present in abundance, and had wisely seated the Seawardsmen on one side of the range, and the Westlanders on the other. This left them facing each other, which created an opening for some colorful gestures and crude threats to be thrown across the field, but the arrangement otherwise kept them from getting too close to each other. Hyden also noticed that there were plenty of Valleyans and Dakaneese in attendance. They had chosen to sit on the same side as the Seawardsmen, but stayed amongst themselves just the same.

  “A true representation of the politics of fools,” the elven contender said, from a few feet away.

  His two companions chuckled beside him and directed their wild, yellow eyes at Hyden.

  “See,” The elf continued, as he pointed toward the people who were booing from behind them. Hyden looked, and saw his clansmen, and the womenfolk, filing in and taking seats together, yet separate from the people of the kingdoms.

  “The weaker kingdoms fight among themselves enough to warrant the slight separation between them, yet they all take the same side against the west.” The elven archer looked directly into Hyden’s eyes then. “The rest of the pathetic humans just hide in the mountains.”

  Talon let out a loud shriek from Hyden’s shoulder. The sound drew the feral gaze of all six yellow elven eyes to him.

  “And some people are so afraid, that they only crawl out of the forest once a year to the one place where we humans are sworn not to fight,” Hyden returned hotly.

  He wanted to say more, but held his tongue and fought down his anger. If the elf had been trying to unsettle him, the trick had worked.

  The elves kept their eyes on Talon, but Hyden’s sharp words caused all three of them to narrow their brows, and the elves were colored with rage. The elven archer gave Hyden the slightest of looks, then pulled his bow from its leather case and began to string it.

  The crowd around the tournament field quieted as the Valleyan archer took the line. He looked resplendent, in his ringed leather armor, sporting the yellow and red checked Valleyan shield patch on his breast, and a similar shield shaped symbol of his kingdom’s honor guard on his shoulder in shining silver. It had been rumored, and in fact was true, that the man’s mother had been born in Dakahn, so a sort of alliance had formed within the crowd. The part of the story where the Valleyan horse trader had bought the Dakaneese woman from a slaver, for an old mare and some sacks of meal, had been conveniently left out.

  Hyden watched with respectful understanding as the young man took several deep breaths and squeezed his eyes shut for a quick prayer. No doubt someone had piled up a wagonload of pressure on his shoulders too. The myriad distractions that seemed to come from everywhere were probably weighing on him. Only the glittery haired, alien looking elf seemed oblivious to the tension that was humming through the air.

  The Valleyan man took his time and shot well. He repeated the Westland archer’s results, to the boos of the greater kingdom’s overwhelming numbers.

  A large Valleyan man wearing
ringed leather armor, probably the archer’s father, bolted across the field hurling curses and insults at the whole of the Westlanders’ bleachers. Before the Redwolf soldiers could get to him, a pair of green and gold clad men, rushed out to rebuke the man’s words, and a fight erupted. There was an explosion of screaming and yelling between the two sides across the archery field, and Hyden was a little concerned that the whole place would turn into a battleground. Finally, the skirmish ended when the three men involved in the actual fight were put in chains and marched slowly across the field for all to see. Needless to say, the crowd settled down. The place was at a near hush when the combatants were placed in a wagon cage, near where the targets were, and hauled away.

  As soon as the Wildermont soldiers motioned for the event to continue, the elf stole away all of the kingdom men’s hope for victory. He loosed five arrows at his target in rapid succession, as smoothly and calmly as if he were merely sipping wine from a cup. All five arrows appeared to be sprouting from the Wizard’s Eye, but Hyden could see plainly when he looked down at the target that only four were completely in the center mark. He would have to match the score or the event was over. Either way, the crowd had been silenced completely. Neither of the kingdom men could win now. It took a few minutes for this to sink into the minds of the spectators, and when it did, they all seemed to lose interest, and started to filter away from the stands.

  Hyden took his place at the line, and then urged Talon from his shoulder onto his finger. He traded Little Condlin the bird for his bow with, and then took a deep breath.

  It occurred to him that it was more of a distraction to see all those people leaving from out of the corner of his eye, than it would have been if they stayed and had made some noise. He forced it all out of his mind, took another deep breath, and sought out a place inside him that was both calm and serene. From there, he began to focus.

  His eyes seemed to zoom in on the Wizard’s Eye, and before he knew it, he had loosed an arrow. Seeing the shaft sprouting out of the dead center of the target helped keep the world around him at bay. In a daze-like state of concentration, that had him seeing the coin sized Wizard’s Eye as if it were the size of an apple, he pulled back on another arrow and let it fly. Twice more his arrows struck the Wizard’s Eye true. As he put his fourth arrow to the bow string, he distantly wondered what Shaella and her company were doing at that very moment. It took a moment for him to find the space in the target’s center for the fourth arrow, but he saw it between the first three, just a tiny triangle of black that grew in his eyes, like a rabbit did from the sky. He loosed the arrow at it, and knew before the arrow had even struck the target that he had hit his mark. He reached for his fifth arrow, if he could fit it into the crowded Wizard’s Eye somehow, he could end the tournament right here, but, it would be next to impossible to make that happen. Already the target’s center was full.

  Somewhere, outside the world of his focus, he heard the trio of the elves gasping and grumbling. He let the satisfaction that the sound gave him fade, and studied the Wizard’s Eye. Even if he put his fifth arrow in the center, it would force the edge of one of his previous shafts out into the King’s Ring. It was worth a try though, so he raised his bow, drew back on it, and took aim at the center of the target yet again. A flicker of movement, that he thought was far beyond the target, caught his eye, and then disappeared again. Maybe it was an insect up close that had distracted him. He wasn’t sure. No, he could still see it. It was moving through the air, too uniformly to be a bug. Finally, he realized that it was an arrow arcing towards them from a great distance. A glance at where it would’ve been loosed from, revealed a small group of mounted men. A banner wavered in the light breeze among them. It was a white rectangle, with a black sword emblazoned on it horizontally. It was the Blacksword of Highwander, Willa the Witch Queen’s men.

  Hyden almost loosed his arrow astray when he saw the face of a woman that greatly resembled Shaella peeking out from under a hood amongst them. Was it her? He looked again, but they were too far away for him to tell.

  The arrow was coming down towards him now, and it was fast. Hyden could tell that it would miss him, but it would be close. He followed its trajectory with his eyes. It was coming down right at the elven archer. There was no time left to think. He turned swiftly and loosed his arrow at the incoming missile. It was a one in a million shot, but, he somehow found his mark only a few feet before the shaft pierced through the elf.

  All three of the elves shrieked in startled pain, as they were showered with wooden splinters. Thinking instinctually that Hyden had attacked, one of them drew out a dagger and charged.

  “HOLD!” the elven archer screamed out, so loudly that it startled Hyden out of the strange, trance-like state he had fallen into. The knife bearing elf froze in his tracks. The elven archer was looking up at the sky with his hand held at his brow to shade his eyes from the sun’s glare. Several trickles of blood ran down his cheeks like tears. For some reason, Hyden was reminded of the tear drop scar on Shaella’s otherwise perfect face. Then the sound of fat heavy rain drops, and the screams of people from several different directions, filled his ears.

  The elf was screaming something that Hyden couldn’t understand, and then Little Condlin made a wheezing, muffled grunt behind him. Hyden whirled around, to find that the boy had an arrow sticking up out of his shoulder. His cousin was trying to scream, but for some reason couldn’t manage it. It wasn’t raindrops he was hearing, Hyden realized as tears filled his eyes. He dove to catch the boy, as he staggered to his knees. Talon somehow got pinned between them, and was shrieking and flapping madly. Blood dribbled down Little Condlin’s chin from his mouth. Arrows were raining down on them, and Hyden had no clue as to why it was happening, or what he could do about it.

  Without any regard for his own safety, he hovered over Little Condlin and Talon, shielding them with his body, while shouts and screams, and the sound of ringing steel filled the air around them. A perfect Summer’s Day had just turned into an incomprehensible bloody nightmare.

  Chapter 13

  Skinning the huge barkskin lizard would’ve been an easy task if Mikahl hadn’t felt like a one-eyed sack of broken bones.

  Upon waking, he found that one cheek had swollen his eye closed, and that his body ached and burned in places that he never even knew existed. Loudin, the hunter, seemed to be in a hurry, but he didn’t push Mikahl too hard. Mikahl was glad of it because it took most of the morning just to get all his parts moving properly. After that, besides the pain, he was able to help get things done in a reasonably expedient fashion.

  Once the lizard skin was sliced away from the beast and rolled up like a castle carpet, Mikahl washed the gore from himself in the pond. The cold water eased the pain and swelling in his face. This, in turn, eased the anger he felt when he found out that his old sword had been badly bent during the creature’s death throes. All of that was forgotten though, as a flood of embarrassment washed over him. Loudin had found his abandoned bow and was laughing at his shame.

  Loudin rigged the surprisingly lightweight roll of skin between their two horses in a way that allowed him and Mikahl to still ride them. Windfoot had to walk directly behind Loudin’s roan, and Mikahl had to keep the distance between them from stretching or shrinking too much. The amount of attention this required kept his mind off of his pain as they traveled. The whole situation was awkward. Having the long, bulky tube of rolled skin tethered alongside the horses caused Mikahl and Loudin both to have to sit with one leg cocked wide and thrown over the roll. Today was right leg day, Loudin had explained. Tomorrow, he would rig the roll on the other side of the saddles, so that their left side would suffer the uncomfortable position. Mikahl didn’t complain. In his battered condition, walking would have been far worse than riding.

  Most of the Reyhall Forest was openly spaced and easy to traverse, with little undergrowth and plenty of shade, but a few places were extremely dense. The going seemed slow. More than once, they had to di
smount and cut a path through the underbrush, or maneuver the horses around closely spaced obstacles so that the skin didn’t get snagged, or torn, or pulled out of its bindings. For the most part though, the spaces between the old tree trunks were wide enough that a small wagon could’ve probably made it through. But only if the driver didn’t mind his tracks looking like a snake trail.

  Considering that they hadn’t gotten underway until early afternoon, they had traveled a great distance by nightfall. When they stopped for the night, it was nearly full dark. Mikahl built a small fire, while Loudin unrigged the lizard skin from the saddles, and hoisted it up off the ground with ropes he’d thrown over some tree limbs. He explained as he worked that keeping the roll off the ground would keep insects and varmints out of it, but Mikahl was softly snoring before the old hunter had finished speaking.

  Mikahl wasn’t sure how long he had slept. It was still dark, and the fire was nothing more than a pile of glowing embers when he woke. Above the natural and chaotic chorus of insects and other nocturnal creatures of the forest, the rhythmic, snorting growl of Loudin’s snoring filled the night.

  Mikahl’s aching body protested as he sat up. He almost cried out from the pain caused by the movement, but he managed to bite it back. As he caught his breath, the faint outline of Windfoot and Loudin’s roan jostling on their picket lines caught his eye and startled him.

  He spent a few minutes rolling and rubbing his neck and shoulders, and then craned his head back. He searched the underside of the forest’s thick canopy for any sign of the sky. He wanted to see the moon, or at least a few stars. He found neither. He harrumphed with frustration, went to his saddle bags, and rummaged for some food. Ironspike was there; safe in its leather sleeve, and the sight of it caused his curiosity to take a hold of him.

  He checked to make sure that Loudin was sleeping deeply; by the sound of the snoring, Mikahl was confident that he wouldn’t wake anytime soon. Dawn was still a few hours away, so this was about as much privacy as he could expect to ever have. He took a deep breath, shoved the hunk of cheese he was eating into his mouth, and held it between his teeth. With his hands now free, he unstrapped the leather bag that protected, and concealed the sword, and carried it back to his bedroll.