by Rachel Ford
Squire Derel
Knight Protector, Book 1
By Rachel Ford
Chapter One – Derel
Heat. So much heat. That’s what I registered first, a blast of heat so intense I thought the skin might melt off my body.
Then the fear hit. I’d known fear before, but this was different. This was raw and blinding, a terror that froze the marrow in my bones.
The fire passed within inches of me, but when the wall of flame parted, I stared into a set of gleaming golden eyes. I could hear every thump of my heart, feel every breath in slow motion, as I stared into those eyes. Tendrils of smoke snaked up from the creature’s nostrils as it held my gaze.
What in the hell… I’d seen dragons before, of course, on feast days, when the knights would come out on parade. I’d seen them in the training yards. I’d gotten to watch the dragon riders practice flight once or twice.
But I’d never stood so close to one of these beasts, never come face-to-face with a wyvern. I’d never felt dragon fire so near.
“Ana, down,” a voice called. I recognized the speaker as Sir Ilyen, my Knight. And the familiar tones of my commanding officer’s voice drew me back to reality.
Whatever this creature was doing here, why ever it was breathing fire at us, didn’t matter as much as surviving. Instinctively, I followed my CO’s order, and dropped to the ground.
It wasn’t a moment too soon. The jaws parted, a stream of fire filling the spot I’d been standing a second earlier. My back felt like it was in flames, and the smell of singed hair hit my nostrils. I wasn’t sure if I was actually on fire, but I rolled anyway.
Meanwhile, Ilyen was yelling. “Phillip, get out of here. Monster: over here.”
Phillip Aaronsen was another squire, a few years younger than me. I didn’t know him well. He was new to Ilyen’s service, and not much more than a child. The last I’d seen him, he’d been tacking up the horses. I wasn’t sure where he was now.
I came to a stop a few full rolls away from the spot I’d dropped. I was a few feet to the dragon’s right, and it was trundling away from me, in the knight protector’s direction.
Ilyen, meanwhile, had drawn his sword, and continued to shout at the creature. Among the challenges and taunts, he said, “Ana, get the hell out of here. You and Phillip: get back to camp.”
I nodded, pulling myself onto my hands and knees. My back ached with a deep, burning pain. I’d definitely absorbed some of that fire. I glanced around our encampment, looking for Phillip. I saw our tents, now in flames. Mine was reduced to a smoking husk. The other two still burned.
I saw Ilyen, too, at the far end of our camp, his wyvern steel blade raised in front of him like a caster’s staff in the old paintings. A shiver ran up my spine, and with it, a fresh wave of pain hit my nerves. Part of me wanted to stand and watch. Wyvern steel was imbued with the ancient magic of elves. It cast an envelope of protection over the wielder, to shield them from dragon fire. I’d learned that as a child. But I’d never seen it in practice.
Part of me wanted to stay and see the ancient magic with my own eyes. But KP Ilyen had given me an order. And, there was a dragon on the prowl. Curiosity was tempered by good sense. I was a squire. I had no such enchanted sword. My back had already been barbecued. I didn’t need any further brushes with a fiery death.
So I kept looking for Phillip. In a moment, I found him. He’d ducked into a scrappy patch of shrubs between a pair of tall trees. Grimacing with pain, I crouched low and cut across the space as quickly as I could. “Phillip,” I hissed as I reached him. “Come on: you heard the KP. We need to get out of here.”
Phillip turned glassy eyes to me. He looked in the moment much less the young man I’d been training with, and more a frightened child. His round cheeks had gone pale, and a stunned expression settled onto his features. “A dragon rider,” he said. “It’s a dragon rider.”
“A rider?” I frowned, throwing my eyes back to the beast. To my surprise, he was right. I’d been too focused on the flaming jaws and smoking nostrils to see much more, but now I took in the entire wyvern. It was a great silver beast, its core as large as an elephant, but with a long, snakelike neck and tail. It had drawn its leathery wings in, so that they rested by its side, but they were massive too.
And strapped to its back was a dark saddle, upon which sat an armor-clad rider. What in the hell? It would have been strange enough to see a wild wyvern in these woods. How many years had it been since wild dragons roamed the skies? Longer than my lifetime, certainly.
But a dragon rider, attacking a KP and his squires? Dragon riders were the most elite knights and noblemen in the realm. They were men and women who had sworn fealty to the Queen and proved themselves worthy of the honor.
But this could be no knight of the North. No knight of the North would attack a brother-in-arms unprovoked. I squinted, studying the strange uniform. It was dark and nondescript, with a heavy cape and unmarked tunic.
I could see nothing to give away the rider’s identity. Deciding that this was a mystery I would not solve from my current vantage, and reminding myself that I had orders, I said again, “We need to get out of here.”
“We should help the KP.”
“He gave us an order, Phillip. We need to go, now.”
“What if he needs help?” he wondered, his voice very small.
I frowned. “Squire, on your feet, dammit. You heard the KP: move out.”
The stern tone seemed to cut through his dazed state, and he nodded. “Right. Back to base?”
“Stat.” We were about ten kilometers away from the nearest town, on what had been a fairly routine border patrol. Had been, right up until the point that a dragon showed up. Cragspoint – our base – was another twelve or fifteen kilometers further. That was too far away to radio it in, and too far for help to reach us in time anyway.
“The horses are dead,” he said. “We’ll never get away. It’ll catch us.”
I threw a glance around and saw with a measure of horror that he was right. The horses lay in a smoldering heap where Phillip had been working a few minutes ago. I wondered, now, that I’d missed the smell. The air was heavy with it: the odor of burnt flesh.
My stomach lurched, and I pushed aside the thoughts of Megara, my poor bay – now dead. “We need to stick to the tree line,” I decided. “If he can’t see us, we might be okay.”
The boy seemed to have lost himself again to his own thoughts, for he made no response. I grabbed his shoulder, pulling him to his feet. “Come on, Phillip. We need to move.”
At this, he nodded. We turned northwestward; in the direction we’d come. We’d been following the winding turns and twists of the demarcation between the North and No Man’s Land. Now, we’d cut straight through the forest, for the nearest town. Fort Terrence was a little place, with a few family farms near the river. Mostly, though, its population was trappers and loggers, some of them long term residents, and some who resided there for a season or two while they harvested the surrounding area’s ample bounty. They’d have horses, and maybe even a skimmer.
We began to run, keeping low and avoiding the open as much as possible. We’d covered perhaps half the distance between camp and the tree line, when I heard a whoosh of flame.
I froze, instinctively turning to Ilyen. Phillip did, too. I saw only flame, a great stream of red and orange. My heart leapt into my mouth, and for half a second I wondered if all the talk of wyvern steel was just fairy stories, happy lies they told children.
But then the fire dissipated, and the wyrm closed its smoking jaws. And KP Ilyen stood exactly where he had been, a little shaken, it seemed to me, but unharmed.
I loosed a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I’d known the KP going on two years now. He w
as my commanding officer, my mentor, and a good friend. You didn’t spend the majority of your waking hours with another human being without coming either to respect them or despise them. For the KP and me, it had gone the respect route.
I had my orders. I knew what I had to do: follow them. But some part of me trembled at the thought of leaving Ilyen here, not only to fight this beast, but its rider too.
Phillip must have had the same thought, because he said, “We’ve got to help, Ana.”
“The KP gave us an order.” My tone was harsh, as much for my own benefit as his. Orders were orders. You never disobeyed an order. You never disobeyed your knight. That was the squire’s code. “Let’s go.”
I moved again for the trees. But this time, Phillip didn’t follow. I had taken a step or two when I realized he was moving, but in the opposite direction: toward the dragon. Dammit. I didn’t dare call out to him, lest my shouting attract the beast’s attention.
I turned too, racing for the boy. Damned fool. I’d had my doubts when Ilyen had picked such a child. Phillip was too young for the military, much less to be a full-fledged squire. I’d been a good two years his senior when I started. I’d never have disobeyed a direct order like this.
Gritting my teeth, I pumped my legs harder, cursing the boy as I ran. For such a blocky teen, he was remarkably fast. Still, I was faster, and I was gaining on him.
That’s when I saw the gun. He had drawn his pistol and was aiming it at the beast. Now, I did shout. “Phillip, no.”
Our weapons would do nothing of consequence to a wyvern. Their scales were impervious to munitions. Everyone knew this: only blessed steel could pierce those scales.
So what in the gods’ names was this foolish child trying to do?
I wasn’t sure, but he was bound and determined to test his plan, whatever it was. He pulled the trigger, once, then twice. I was still a good three strides away. I saw the wyvern start to turn in our direction.
Hell. I moved by instinct now, covering the last few steps in a leap. I collided with Phillip, and grimaced. He might have been a child, but he was built like a bloody tank. Still, though I’d probably thrown my shoulder out in doing it, I took him down.
It wasn’t a moment too soon. Fire passed over us as we hit the earth. I rolled off Phillip, the forward motion of my leap still carrying me a few feet. The flames passed within inches of me at one point but missed.
Squire Aaronsen was not so lucky. He’d gone down and avoided the lion’s share of the blast. But he hadn’t moved, and the dragon fire had scorched a long, raw, red streak down the side of his body, from head to toe.
My anger and annoyance all vanished at the sight. Oh gods. His sandy blond hair had burned away, the flesh of his face and body were red and black. The smell was horrifying, something like the stench of our horses, but worse…so much worse. “Phillip,” I said, my eyes darting between him and the beast.
He was unresponsive, but the wyvern drew in another breath, readying for another blast. My heart skipped a beat. I had seconds to get out of the line of fire. I was too far from cover to make it. Twice, the monster missed me.
There’d be no escape this time.
I knew it. And, so, it seemed, did the rider. He’d hidden his eyes under a mask, but the flash of a toothy, satisfied grin told me all I needed to know.
Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Time itself seemed to stand still. It wasn’t time, I knew, but a heightening of my own senses. I glanced between the rider and the wyvern, its golden eyes gleaming with murderous intent.
I moved for the rifle still slung over my back. Standard munitions couldn’t pierce a dragon’s hide. But I was staring into two glimmering, unarmored entry points, straight to the creature’s brain.
This was a ridiculously easy range. And I was a damned good shot.
In a heartbeat, I’d shouldered the gun. I took a breath, stared straight into the dragon’s eye, down the barrel of my gun, and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Two – Derel
The wyvern shuddered, its great silver form twitching and spasming. It belched out a stream of flame, weak and ineffectual, in my direction. But it fell short by quite a few meters.
Then, purple leaking from the one eye socket, the other eye rolled back, and the dragon collapsed.
Part of me registered that I had just killed this thing, that I’d pulled off a once-in-a-lifetime shot. Mostly, though, my mind was on the junior squire. I ran to him. He lay unmoving, murmuring incoherently. “Phillip,” I said, “can you hear me?”
His burns were bad, looking all the worse now that I was so close. My medical pack – and, I assumed, everyone else’s – had been burned up, either with the horses or the tents. He was going to need medical attention, sooner rather than later. And we had no means of transport left, except old-fashioned walking.
I looked up, in search of Ilyen. The sooner we got underway, the better Phillip’s chances of survival would be. I shivered as the words entered my mind. Phillip’s chances of survival. Dammit. He was just a kid. What the hell had just happened, that I was contemplating his chances of survival? “KP?” I called. “KP, we have to get him to help.”
Ilyen, I supposed, was still on the other side of the downed wyvern, out of my line of sight. But since I got no response, I stood. “I’ll be right back, Aaronsen.”
I wasn’t sure if he could hear me or not. He seemed to be semi-conscious, but I wasn’t sure about that either. Still, if he could hear me, I wanted him to know he’d be alright.
I moved for where I’d last seen the KP, maintaining a wide perimeter around the wyvern. It was dead. I knew that. Still, the sight of its vast, scaly body; its teeth still peeking out from those enormous jaws; and the great, snaking tail, sent a shiver up my back.
I’d covered a few meters when I heard a shot. My heart leapt into my mouth, and my eyes darted around the clearing, trying to figure out who was shooting. I saw no one – not Ilyen, not anyone else. But my eyes rested on the rider’s saddle.
Empty. Fuck. I’d been so focused on killing the dragon, I’d forgotten about its rider.
At the same time, another shot rang out. I drew my pistol now and raced for the sound. I rounded the great heap of dragon flesh and drew up short. Ilyen stood, pistol in hand, a few meters from the downed rider.
“KP,” I said, exhaling a breath, “I was afraid…”
He turned to me, and the words caught in my throat. A stream of crimson ran down his tunic, from a hole in his lower chest.
“Oh gods. KP!” Holstering the pistol, I covered the last few yards between us at a sprint.
“You’re supposed to be gone,” Ilyen said. “You and Phillip.”
“Phillip’s burned. Badly. But you’re shot, KP.”
“I’m fine.”
He was far from fine. Even without the steady stream of blood running down him, the grayish pallor in his cheeks would have been clue enough. “We need to get you patched up.”
“Where’s Aaronsen?”
I waved a hand in the squire’s direction. “You’re losing a lot of blood, sir. We need to stop the bleeding.”
“I’ll be fine.” He stepped forward; in the direction I’d indicated. I hesitated. I wanted to offer him assistance, but I knew Ilyen well enough to know that the offer, unsolicited, would not be well-received. “Tell me about Phillip. You said he was burned?”
I nodded, starting to explain what had happened, when the KP pulled up short, drawing in a few quick breaths.
“I may…I may need a hand, Ana.”
That was all the urging I needed, and I slung his arm over my shoulder. “Lean into me, sir.”
He did. “Aaronsen: you were saying?”
“He took a passing blast of flames. He’s burnt up pretty badly. Not all over, but badly enough. And I think he passed out.”
“Maybe just as well,” Ilyen grunted. “I take it…the dragon: that was you?”
“Yessir.”
“How?”
Fr
om his vantage, I supposed the KP wouldn’t have been able to see what went down. “I shot him. In the eye.”
Ilyen was quiet for a moment, then shook his head. “Wow. That’s a hell of a shot, Derel.”
“Thank you.” I grunted, shifting his weight further onto my shoulders. I could feel his steps weakening. “KP, I need to take a look at that wound.”
“Get me to Aaronsen. Then do what you have to.”
“Got it.” We circled the dragon’s slumped carcass, until we reached Phillip. He was exactly where I’d left him. I don’t think he’d shifted so much as a millimeter.
“Fuck,” Ilyen muttered, as I lowered him beside the boy. “He did get it bad. Do we have a medkit?”
I glanced around the smoldering camp. “I don’t think so. Your pack was in your tent, right?” He nodded. “Let me see if anything survived, then.”
It was a quick survey. The tents were all wrecks now, with nothing but charred rubble where they’d once stood. Here the corner of a cot survived, there a scorched bit of fabric dangled from a scrap of tent pole. But nothing substantial – nothing useful – remained. “Sorry, KP. There’s nothing left.”
Ilyen had rolled Phillip onto his side and was examining his burns. He looked, I thought, even grayer than before. “Check the rider, Ana. And the dragon. He probably has his own supply pack.”
I shivered at the prospect of touching that beast but nodded. “Yessir.”
“And look for anything to ID him.”
“Yessir.”
I returned first to the dragon rider. Ilyen had shot him, straight through the head. I lifted his mask, avoiding the slick of blood that covered the central portion. His head lolled heavily, and his eyes stared unseeing at the sky.
I didn’t know him. That didn’t surprise me, exactly. I didn’t expect this to be a rider of the North, or someone I knew. Still, scrutinizing the man’s face, his dead, green eyes, the pale skin and unremarkable features, the realization kicked in: a stranger had nearly murdered us all. It was one thing to accept that this was no Northern knight. It was another to accept that a stranger, someone with which none of us presumably had a grudge, would want to kill us.