"It did my daughter's heart good, I believe," Brocke said, from over the other shoulder, "though I do not know that I like her being so close to it."
Garrin grinned. "I don't think you're going to get much choice in the matter," he turned to look at Brocke, who was sniffing that powder of his again, "Mister Ambassador." Brocke didn't answer. He just stared down, in obvious discontentment, and drank his wine.
"She could do worse, I think," said Be'Var. "They both could. Anyway," he continued, "we old men need to stay out of the affairs of the young people."
"Now, now," Garrin said, managing the beginnings of a smile, "I hope you're not lumping me in with the old men."
Brocke and Be'Var both laughed. "Have you not noticed?" Brocke said. "You are a king now. I do not care your actual age. When you take the crown of a city such as Kepren, you are immediately one of the old men."
Garrin tried to laugh at the thought, but he wasn't really in a laughing sort of mood. "They're out there, still, gentlemen," he said, picking up his goblet and gesturing northward with it. "Black Moon's gone, completely annihilated, but we knew that wasn't all they had to throw at us, that there's a lot more of them out there."
"The Summit, too, has heard these things," said Brocke, his smile vanishing with the words. "It seems they are making a base of power in Caranaar."
"Or what's left of Caranaar," Be'Var said.
"Yes," agreed Brocke.
Garrin sighed. "I was fool enough to hope we'd beaten them for good," he said, "that we'd beat their big army and the rest would just give up and slink away". He looked down into his goblet as he swirled the last of his drink around. "But it's not true, is it?"
"It isn't," Be'Var said.
"What do they want?" Garrin nearly shouted. He was surprised at just how frustrated he sounded, how much raw emotion was in his voice. Had he really been sitting on such emotion for so long? He hoped not: keeping things bottled up was something his father had done, a mistake he didn't want to repeat.
"They want this world," Be'Var said.
"Yes," Garrin said. He turned around and leaned back against the rampart, his elbow up on the stone. "But what does that actually mean? I understand that they're trying to become a part of the world somehow, that they're trying to force out the elements we know, but..." He wasn't quite sure how to express the thought.
"But, what does that have to do with attacking cities and killing people?" Be'Var asked.
Garrin pointed with his goblet. "Precisely!"
But Be'Var only shook his head. "I don't know." As the master of the Conflagration sighed and took a long drink of wine, he seemed to suddenly age a good twenty years. "There's so much I don't know yet," he said, "so many things we haven't figured out about our enemy's motivations."
Garrin pressed him. "Go on."
"Well, I mean," Be'Var said, "why are some of the soldiers more kreal than others? Have they just been exposed to some kind of krealite substance longer? If so, what are they being exposed to? We know that if you get cut with a kreal-covered blade, it just kills you. What about the insects? They aren't natural insects that have been exposed to kreal, so where do they come from? Why did they come from the North? Why did they come south? Was Kepren their end-goal, or were they just going through us to get somewhere else?" He raised his eyebrows and pointed a finger at Garrin. "And where are the other knights, the champions for the other elements? Shouldn't we have seen something of at least one of them by now?"
Garrin finally managed to smile; he supposed that had something to do with knowing somebody else was at least as frustrated as he was. Maybe Brocke was right; maybe he was one of the old men, after all.
Be'Var put the pointing finger away, then brought his goblet to his lips and looked out at the orange sky. Brocke was putting away that snuff box of his. Garrin sighed and turned to gaze at the sunset, too. Be'Var was right: there was too much they didn't know. The difference was that now he was the king and so it was his responsibility to answer the questions that Be'Var had just voiced.
A sharp sensation of cold hit his hand, and he pulled it back. "What was—"
Another hit him, this time in the face. He turned. Be'Var and Brocke both seemed to be feeling it, too. What was happening? Were they under attack?
After he heard the staccato, pattering sound around him, and then reached up to feel the wet on his face, he found himself laughing out loud.
It was raining in Kepren, for the first time in more than two years.
When he heard the cheers coming from the city below him, Garrin, the King of Kepren, felt a joy he'd never before known. He lifted his head and grinned into the cold, cold rain. He didn't know how, but with the help of the men at his side, and of the young people in the yard down below him, the people—his people—were going to survive this war.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A number of people had a hand in the creation of this book, in the telling of this story. Thanks must go to Andrew Ripley and Mark Tabler, who, from the first chapters, let me know when I was on the right track. Thanks also to Linda Nichols, Michael Wambeek, Chris Brumfitt, Alan Cook, and Sean Burdick, who helped to sand out the rough edges and really make the story shine. A big thank you must also go to Jeremy Ellis, whose imagination helped conceive of the idea of Caymus, many years ago.
And thanks, of course, to Joyce Spriggs, my mom, who always knew this book would happen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
H John Spriggs has lived in a number of places throughout the world, but has settled in a village just outside London. When not busying himself with the vocation of making things up, he spends his time teaching computers how to test each other. Making things up is more fun.
www.dragonsintheunderground.com
www.hjohnspriggs.com
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