From Embers

by Pogue, Aaron

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  FROM EMBERS

  First edition. December 21, 2011.

  Copyright © 2011 Aaron Pogue.

  A Consortium Books public work. Written by Aaron Pogue.

  For copyright information concerning this book, please visit http://www.ConsortiumOKC.com/writing/copyright/

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Also by Aaron Pogue

  The World of the FirstKing

  Taming Fire

  The Dragonswarm

  The Dragonprince (coming in 2012)

  The World of Hathor

  Gods Tomorrow

  Ghost Targets: Expectation

  Ghost Targets: Restraint

  Ghost Targets: Camouflage (coming in 2012)

  Watch for more at Consortium Books!

  Table of Contents

  Also by Aaron Pogue

  From Embers

  Afterword from the Author

  Taming Fire

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  From Embers

  A soft, yellow light streamed through Elsa’s kitchen window, spilling a warm radiance into the simple room. The stone walls were still cold to the touch, and there was a chill in the air that would likely remain well into the spring, but winter was over! Elsa couldn’t help grinning, and she hummed a bit while she expertly kneaded the moist dough. She always loved this time of year, when the birds began to sing again in the thick mountain forest and all the children could get out and play.

  She chuckled at that. Every mother in the dwarven village was glad to have the kids outside after four long months of chest-deep snow and bitter winds. The house could do with some cleaning, too, but her first order of business was always the bread. Bread for the whole clan and a special honeyed loaf for her dear Wotan, if he ever came back. What had possessed him, calling a Council on the first day of spring? Shaking her head in irritation—even if she wasn’t that irritated—she began to pull off large handfuls of the dough to shape into loaves. When he got back she’d let him know what she thought! A Council on the first day of spring? Why—

  She heard laughing from the living room, and the happy noise pulled her from her idle thoughts. It sounded as though a troop of children were prancing about out there, but she heard only Michael’s voice. He was laughing, and he called out to her in delighted tones, “Mama! Mama, come see!” She wiped her hands on a wet towel nearby and found herself fighting another grin as she turned from the table.

  But when she came into the living room, her heart leaped within her chest. Fear stabbed into her stomach, sharp and cold as any winter. The door stood open, and in the middle of the room her baby boy was sitting—riding—atop a creature that made her blood run cold. It looked like a giant lizard, more than eight feet long, but a double row of long, curved teeth filled its mouth, and two immense fangs jutted from its upper jaw. Three-inch claws had scarred the wooden floor and shredded her fine Elven carpet—a trophy that Wotan’s father had brought back from the War. Michael was laughing merrily, seated atop the reptile in much the same way humans might ride horses or mules, entirely unaware of the danger.

  With utmost caution Elsa inched toward the beast. Her hands shook, and her head ached with the dreadful tension that gripped her. She moved slowly, quietly, but the monster seemed to sense her fear. Cold, dead eyes rolled toward her, and then the beast bared its teeth with a low hiss. Elsa heard the warning and imagined she saw flames dancing at the back of its throat.

  She froze.

  Michael stopped laughing.

  The boy looked into his mother’s eyes, and she saw him recognize her horror. She saw his lip tremble. She saw his whole body shake before he looked down at the beast beneath him and began to scream. The sound agitated the lizard. Its clawed feet pounded a thunderous tattoo as it tried to escape the screech. That long, snakelike neck strained around, trying to catch a glimpse of the panicked boy on its back, and the low hiss became a rumble.

  For a moment she wished Wotan had not taken his great axe with him to the Council, though she could scarce have used the weapon. Instead she retreated slowly, withdrawing a pace or two, then cautiously reached up and pulled her husband’s burnished shield from the wall. She held it awkwardly between herself and the beast. As she turned around she saw the monster shaking violently, trying to fling the screaming boy from its back.

  She forgot her fear. Elsa fixed her eyes on her child and rushed toward the beast. She made it three paces, then slipped on a fragment of the shredded rug. She fell forward, gasping in fear and surprise. A shock of impact and pain shot up her arm as the shield slammed against the lizard’s head.

  The creature dropped to the floor, stunned. It took Elsa half a heartbeat to recover her senses, too, but desperation guided her. She grabbed young Michael with one hand and retrieved the heavy shield with the other. She lurched to her feet; she turned away; she was ready to rush from the room. But something caught her attention.

  Inches above the lizard’s shoulders she saw a pair of miniature wings, covered with the nearly transparent membrane that would one day harden into thick skin. The sight of those wings, which had until then been hidden by her son’s knees, nearly crushed the desperate resolve that kept her moving.

  This was no overgrown lizard, no giant mutation from the poisonous swamps down south, but a broodling dragon, a living nightmare lying stunned on her living room floor. Elsa stood there, transfixed by a fear that ran far deeper than the shock of finding her child in danger. This was worse than a monster.

  A sound escaped her, a whimper like she hadn't made since she was Michael's age. Her chest began to ache, and she had to blink tears from her eyes. She wasn't ready for this. Her family— It couldn't be this. Another pathetic little moan escaped her, and she took a faltering step. She managed another.

  She stumbled across her own kitchen as though it were a pitch-black wilderness. Her legs weren't working right. Nothing was working right. She managed to hold a screaming, squirming Michael with one arm while she wrestled with the shield’s shoulder-strap with the other. Just as she reached the kitchen door she managed to duck into the strap and let the shield fall heavy on her shoulders. Its iron grip smashed into her back, bruising her spine, but the broad expanse of the shield wrapped cool and unyielding around her back.

  She threw open the thick wooden door with her free hand. The garden outside looked wrong. It was bright and warm. Sunlight danced on dewy leaves. A friendly breeze stirred the grass, and just down the way she heard Gertrude's three children playing at Elspaur ghosts. It sounded like a lovely spring morning, not the end of the world.

  She made it four paces, and then her sunny garden went dark. A sound like starkest terror split the beautiful morning, and she felt it stabbing at her bones. That was more like it. She couldn't catch her breath, but that seemed appropriate, too. The darkness passed, but the cold, certain fear of that hunting cry still hung in the air. She stumbled on, moving as much from the momentum of the shield driving her forward as under her own volition. The shadow plunged her into darkness again, and again it was gone a moment later. But it was wider this time. The darkness deeper.

  Michael went still against her breast. He stopped wailing, stopped thrashing, and when she glanced down she saw him mute with primal fear. Even he knew the threat in that cry. And staring into her child's eyes, Elsa found her strength again. She placed her feet more surely. She summoned strength and hefted the shield higher on her back, carrying it instead of being driven by it. She raised one arm against the reaching branches, and kept her child securely wrapped within the crook of the other one.

  She rushed into the protection of the forest, her short and ra
pid steps deftly taking her through the dense trees. Moments after she had abandoned the house she heard the piercing shriek again, close enough it seemed to whip at her clothes, her hair. She stumbled on, pressing heedlessly through knotted undergrowth and desperately clinging to the terrified form of her son.

  Behind her came the great cracking sound of a hundred-year-old house of stone and aged timber being shattered to splinters, and she felt a tremor through the ground from the force of the blow. She did not look back. She did not spare the tears that sprang to her eyes. She fixed her gaze on the forest ahead of her and pressed her child closer to her breast, and she ran.

  Her child. Her precious child. She still couldn't catch her breath. The monster had been a child, too. A young dragon, woken with the spring thaw. They were not unknown, but they were uncommon. And they were never that young.

  A sob escaped her. She ran on. A young dragon, and it was not alone. Its mother had come to protect it. Its mother who must have been sleeping for seven hundred years. Perhaps for longer. But she was awake. Her child was awake. And after so long, they must be hungry.

  She thought of her neighbor's sweet children at play in the yard. She thought of Gertrude and her crippled mother. She thought of the others in the village—she knew them all, and would call any one of them family.

  But none of them was Michael.

  She wept. Tears ran down her face. But she did not slow. She did not go back. She carried her child away and ran toward the only hope she could imagine.

  In a long, low building of rough-cut timbers and unfinished windows, the highest members of the Dauric Council sat in somber discussion around an immense table. The table, like the polished planks of the floor and the paneled interior walls, was fashioned from the wood of the beautiful and fragrant pines that grew on the mountains to the west. The fourteen throne-like chairs of the Council members, arranged in a slightly misshapen oval, had been carved from the trunks of fourteen mighty oaks and still stood rooted in the ground from which they had grown.

  A handsome wolf, the messenger that had summoned the Council members here, stood sentry by the single small door, his head tilted as though he were listening to something very far off. His coat was a deep gray, slashed here and there with creamy white. Two diamond studs, one in each ear, marked him as the Wolfhound, the pet and familiar of the Prince.

  One of the members in the far corner, Gunther, said in a huff, “Enough! You’ve all done your share of moaning and complaining! What is our purpose here? I hope I haven’t come a hundred leagues and left a deadfall sluice half-built just to hear you gripe like housewives.”

  Wotan leaned forward, and old Gunther fell still. Everyone in the room fell still. They looked to Wotan, and they waited. Some two hundred years old, Prince Wotan was so heavily built that he could easily have fought a dozen of the younger warriors. Nevertheless, he was credited more for his wisdom and forethought than his physical prowess, and not even the highest member of the Council would dare question his word. Under normal circumstances, anyway. For this very reason he seldom gave voice in a Council meeting, for he valued the wisdom of his peers. It had been more than twenty years since he had last spoken here, except for occasional mediation. Now, all heads turned toward him as he drew breath to speak.

  “Gunther,” he nodded to the angry dwarf, speaking in a slow and ceremonious baritone. “Members of the Dauric Council. My honorable brothers. I have called you here. There is trouble growing in the dwarven lands. We have all experienced much suffering these last few seasons. There have been too many setbacks. If we do not recognize the troubles upon us, they may well bury us in darkness. That is why I called you together."

  Gunther nearly answered. He had a temper like earthfire, but even he would not interrupt the Prince in Council. Still, Wotan turned to him. "No, Gunther. I understand your frustration, but it is only because this trouble has not yet reached your borders. But it shall spread southward all too soon. You have much worry yet to come. You would be better, we all would be better, if we faced these times united.”

  The Prince's words rang heavy, dismal, and for some time their shadow lay across the silent council hall. Then a muttering began, a sound of objection. It started small and built like an avalanche, and finally it was Gunther himself he rose to his feet and address the Prince directly.

  "We are united," he said. "Have we ever been divided? We are the Dauric Council. On my honor—"

  "On your honor," the Prince said, shaking his head slowly. He raised his hand in a pacifying gesture, and after a moment Gunther sank back onto his throne. The Prince nodded. "On all our honor. On all our happiness. On all our plans and all our lives. The troubles come upon us, and they will strike down deep. I feel it in my bones."

  "What are these troubles?" Gunther demanded. "I have heard of nothing but superstition and springtime shifting. Or are we to believe Gregg's tale that the earthfires are waking?"

  Wotan held Gunther's eyes for a long moment. Then the Prince hung his head. “I do not know. Perhaps it is just more superstition, but I have a feel for the earth. I have a feel for the land. And I feel that these pangs are only the beginnings. I feel Gregg's earthfires will fade in comparison to what we shall see. You have all complained of tunnels collapsing, of mines falling apart on the heads of your men, of children born frail and livestock born still. But the trial still before us feels far greater. The danger is far more serious. Far more serious…”

  The last he muttered thoughtfully, almost under his breath, but there was no uncertainty in Wotan's heart. He only hesitated out of fear. This great warrior, this unchallenged and undiminished prince, was too afraid to speak the truth he knew in his bones. For minutes his anxious breathing was the only sound in the room. Many of the councilors showed fear plainly in their eyes, merely from the Prince’s tone. All of them waited in utter stillness to hear his dreadful pronouncement. Dark imaginings stirred behind their eyes. He could see it happening. They tried to guess what troubled him so, and their hearts trembled at the possibilities.

  And yet, when he finally spoke, none in the circle was prepared for his words.

  “I believe the dragons are waking.”

  One heartbeat of silence hung in the room. Then it exploded into an uproar. All around the table dwarven chieftains shouted denial of the Prince’s claim. They slung accusations and dismissals alike that none would have dared voice in the calm of reason. But the Prince merely waited. He watched and waited. And in a little time, all the dwarven chieftains began to fall still. They took their seats again, and they were shaken. They were pale. They looked weak, and it injured Wotan to see his chieftains weak.

  In the silence that followed, Gregg spoke up. His voice shook, but he met the prince's gaze unblinking. “Perhaps you are right," he said. "Perhaps the dragonswarm is here, but I think you speak with too solemn voice. We have fought the drakes before; we can fight them again. They are only beasts. And now we have the king’s men to protect us. Now we have the wizards.”

  The others around the table nodded, more and more with each word from Gregg, and Wotan's heart bled yet more to see his chieftains hang such hope on the help of Men. Men had never been friend to their tribes, and Men would little aid them now.

  Still, Wotan almost acquiesced. He almost let his chieftains have their hope. But if the dragonswarm was coming, they could not afford to meet it unprepared. He drew a breath and met their eyes again. “This is no idle threat, my friends. We do not face a stampede of unruly cattle, or aggressive, hungry wolves. It is a new kind of terror being born, like nothing seen on earth or in its depths in over seven hundred years! Man has grown soft, and we have become slaves; neither of us are prepared to deal with the dragonswarm. Perhaps…perhaps..." and doubt reigned in his voice, but he shook his head and said once more, "perhaps the wizards shall yet save us. Someone must go and warn the king of Men.”

  A new silence answered that. One of nervous fear instead of terror. The prince frowned, confused, until Gunther fi
nally grunted, “No one will take this task.”

  The Prince gazed imperiously down the table, surprise and displeasure mixed in his eyes. “What are you saying, Councilor?”

  Gunther shrugged uncomfortably. “None of us will volunteer to go to New Chantire. We all have work to do. There are preparations to be made for the coming spring: walls to be mended, roofs repaired, and a dozen major projects in each region."

  The prince cocked his head, bewildered at this denial, then ran his gaze around the circle. Most would not meet his eyes. Even young Erik shook his head, before nodding across at Gunther. "He speaks the truth, Wotan, and you know it. We had just started work on a dam at Highford when your mutt called me here, and I am anxious to get back to it. Should I leave that work undone, to carry a message to the king of Men? Is there any chance he will believe us?"

  Wotan rocked back at the question. He hadn't considered it, but if even his own chieftains could not believe it....

  Gunther nodded sharply. "That's it," he said. "It is a pointless errand, in service of a little fear." He turned to the others, likely afraid to speak directly to his prince, but he did not shrink away. "Perhaps the spring isn’t as quiet as you’d like it. Perhaps there are troubles with your mines and some tremors in the ground. But spring work demands more attention than your idle fears.” He finished and sat for a moment, pondering. Then he nodded sharply again and climbed to his feet. "And for that very reason, I must take my leave."

  Wotan only stared. He felt thunderclouds gathering in his breast, outrage and anger piling up at Gunther's stone-headedness, but mostly he felt astonished. He had never faced such open defiance—dismissal—and he could ill afford to allow it now.

  "Gunther!" he shouted. "Take your place."