by Lucinda Hare
Tangnost nodded grimly. Eager for victory, the city had gone wild; bonfires and fireworks had cracked and blazed till dawn.
‘A triumphal parade is being organized by the Guild, but our Lord Protector is already turning his attention to other matters. Since he heard the tales that Quenelda ‘died’ with her dragon, the Lord Protector has become most concerned for the child’s health. Already he has expressed his wish to care for her. He is to formally seek guardianship from the Queen’s Council in three days’ time. He claims the Earl wished it. Given their lifelong friendship, it seems a natural enough request. Because the young Earl Darcy supports him, the Council are bound to agree.’
‘You can’t let that happen!’ Root leaped forward to stand in front of Quenelda as if she were about to be dragged away.
‘Hush, lad,’ Tangnost admonished.
‘But the Queen! She—’
‘The Queen is powerless.’ The Constable balled his fist in frustration. ‘She rules in name only. The Council gives Hugo whatever he asks; they are utterly under his spell and cannot see their own danger. Who knows – they may even defy her wishes … We cannot take that risk. Many of her servants have been quietly replaced – few can be trusted any more; and the palace is guarded by the Lord Hugo’s troops.’
Root was on the verge of tears. ‘You can’t let him have her – he’s a warlock! If he finds out she truly is a Dragon Whisperer …!’
‘Do not fear, lad,’ Sir Gharad said, laying a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘We are not entirely helpless. The SDS may be diminished, but Dragon Isle still wields great power at the heart of the kingdom, and she will be safer there. Commander DeBessert attends the Queen at this very moment, and stays for the evening banquet in honour of the Lord Protector. While the Lord Hugo is being feted, we make our move. Two cloaked Imperials from the Commander’s escort will put down at the Hour of the Howling Wolf. The Queen will say that SDS battle apothecaries wish to see if they can cure the Earl’s daughter, and even the Lord Hugo and her Council will be unable to find fault with that. To protest would be to raise suspicion, and anyway, our Lord Protector is a busy man these days, and caring for a child should be the least of his concerns. You must prepare to leave at a moment’s notice, perhaps for ever.’ He glanced at Tangnost, who nodded grimly in understanding.
‘For ever?’ Root paused. He shook his head in confusion. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I fear the Lord Protector will not forgive those who defy him. He cannot touch the SDS, nor are they answerable to any save the Queen. But you – you may never be able to return: your life may be forfeit.’
Suddenly the Queen’s Constable looked like nothing more than a very old man; a man who had lost his king, and now his protégé, a man he had loved like a son – the Earl Rufus. Unless they acted soon, Quenelda too would be gone. In spite of his fear, Root’s heart went out to him.
Sir Gharad felt a small hand take his, and looked down to find dark compassionate eyes that also had known the pain of loss. He blinked back tears. You found friendship in the most unexpected of places. He squeezed Root’s fingers gratefully.
‘Best get ready, lad,’ he said, voice cracking hoarsely. ‘And be careful; let none know our plans. All our lives would be in danger were we caught.’
Shocked to the core, Root nodded wordlessly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Flight to Dragon Isle
Tangnost carried Quenelda, bundled in furs, onto the landing gantry at Dragonsdome’s east wing, where two great Imperials waited, black as the night, their hot breath steaming in the cold air. As they and Root reached the upper pad, Tangnost heard wing-beats, saw silhouettes of dragons against the rising moons as they came swiftly from the city.
‘Into the shadow, boy – quick!’
The Imperials on the pads shimmered and were gone. Root ducked down, pulling his saddlebags behind him. Over the past few hours he had been gathering his meagre possessions together and saying goodbye to Quester. His friend had chosen to stay at Dragonsdome to try to protect the stable of dragons from further harm, and to let Tangnost know by homing eagle, what was happening in their absence. The parting was a difficult one.
‘Someone must care for the few dragons left, friend Root’ – Quester had smiled bravely – ‘now that Bearhugger is leaving. With their menfolk slain on the Westering Isle, most of Dragonsdome’s esquires have returned home to fight for their families; there are few left to help the roostmasters and roostmistresses here. I’ll wait for you, Root. I’ll keep watch and wait until you all come home. Until the Earl returns to take back what is his.’
They had clasped each other tightly, reluctant to part.
‘Go safely,’ Quester said softly as the gnome left the Esquire’s Hall. Eyes blurred with tears, he didn’t see a figure detach itself from the shadows.
Felix DeLancy could not believe his luck as he headed for the Great Hall of Dragonsdome. A chance! A chance to finally show the young Earl that he was a good man to have in his service, and to take revenge on that jumped-up esquire at the same time. Things were changing at Dragonsdome, and Felix wanted to be a part of it. And now the Earl’s Dragonmaster and Root were planning to sneak away in the night with the Earl’s daughter! The young Earl would surely reward him for this news; he would be esquire to one of the most powerful men in the Seven Sea Kingdoms, and that was only the start!
Moving swiftly, Tangnost carried Quenelda up the cloaked Imperial’s wing just as a mailed fist hammered on the great doors below.
‘Open up, in the name of the Lord Protector.’ The voice carried thinly through the silent night.
‘Mount up, boy,’ Tangnost told Root with great urgency.
‘But what about Chasing the Stars?’ Root looked distraught. ‘I must fetch her first—’
‘I’m sorry, lad.’ Tangnost’s tone brooked no argument. ‘We must leave her. Mount up – now!’
The pad creaked as the cloaked Imperial sprang into the air and disappeared into the night.
The state banquet celebrating the Lord Protector’s victorious inauguration had only reached the tenth course when a tall thin man entered the Palace, his dark attire in sharp contrast to the jewelled brilliance of the Court. Hugging the shadows, he moved softly between pillars, threading his way amongst servants and footmen, around behind the high table to where the Lord Hugo Mandrake spoke with the Queen. He stood silently until the Lord Protector motioned him forward. Bending, Knuckle Quarnack murmured something in the Lord Protector’s ear. His master stiffened. They had been too late. Darcy had failed to post guards and the girl had slipped through their fingers and was no doubt already on Dragon Isle. Someone had forewarned the SDS of his intent, and they needed no one’s permission save the Queen’s.
‘Lord Hugo?’ The Queen laid a hand lightly on his arm. ‘My lord? Is anything the matter?’
‘Nothing, Majesty,’ The Lord Protector swallowed down his bile and unknotted his fist. ‘Mere military matters that could have waited.’ He could hardly reveal he knew of the child’s departure without also betraying that his men had gone to Dragonsdome without the permission of the Queen’s Council. Well, if Darcy was right, the Earl’s daughter was at death’s door and it would not matter; but still … doubt niggled away at him. When he had cornered her in the castle after the Winter Joust he had been unable to touch her mind; his power had been rebuffed somehow. Or was it that simply there was nothing there? Why would the SDS spirit her away so suddenly? Merely because she was their old Commander’s daughter? Perhaps … He would have to wait until after the banquet to find out.
He glanced upwards to find Jakart DeBessert’s cool grey eyes studying him. The Dragon Lord raised his goblet and then he turned back to his conversation, leaving the Lord Protector to speculate.
Well, he controlled the army, the Guild and the palace. What possible threat could a dying child and the weakened SDS pose? The Lord Protector turned back to the night’s celebrations and reached for his goblet of win
e.
Eighteen leagues away on Dragon Isle, Quenelda was settled in her father’s old quarters, attended by the SDS’s remaining apothecaries and physicians.
‘Now what?’ Root was shaking from cold and tension, his courage fraying. ‘What happens now, Tangnost?’
The Earl was gone. Dragonsdome as a place of refuge was gone. Chasing the Stars had been left behind: he didn’t know whether he’d ever see her again. And Quenelda – no one knew if she would ever wake up. Root had heard soldiers’ stories of the injured whose bodies clung onto life when their souls had long since departed. He was so very afraid for his friend.
‘I don’t know, lad,’ the dwarf answered truthfully. ‘We keep watch and wait. Perhaps now that she is here on Dragon Isle, she may wake. Perhaps the apothecaries here will work their magic.’ This was where the Earl’s daughter belonged.
‘I feel so helpless,’ said Root, sniffing.
‘I know, lad. So do I.’ Tangnost hugged the boy to him. ‘But we have each other, and we must believe that Quenelda will come back to us. We mustn’t let her drift away, Root. She must know she’s not alone. She still has both of us. Come now …’ He led the boy out. ‘Let’s get some hot food in you and then a bed. You’re almost asleep on your feet.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Heartrock
Homesick for Dragonsdome, lonely, and frightened that Quenelda was slipping further and further away from them, Root had begun to explore Dragon Isle; he wanted to take his mind off what was happening in the outside world. Most of the original dragoncombs were now flight decks, hangars and roosts, barracks and mess halls. There were some passageways, tunnels and combs that he was not permitted to explore, where stern-faced cadets in oversized armour blocked his path, but mostly he found he could now wander around unimpeded. The SDS were too busy fighting for their very survival to worry about one lost and lonely gnome.
Trying to fill his empty days, Root took out his charcoal and his birch-bark rolls and began to draw the battledragons, attempting to capture the unique character of each individual, bringing them vividly to life. Soon the quiet youth became a familiar sight in the hangar caverns and roosts. Every evening he would talk to Quenelda about them; tell her their names and those of their flight crews. What he never told her was how many never came home to their roosts, leaving only his drawings to mark their passing.
One day Root went into Quenelda’s chamber, and coaxed the fire back to life before adding some more peat. He then lit a branch of candles. Drawing a chair up to the bed, he made himself comfortable, wriggling into the cushions. He had been talking to Quenelda every evening and was losing heart. Sometimes he would tell her what Tangnost had taught him of wind studies, cloud formation or navigation; at other times he would describe where in the great island fortress he had been that day and what he had found, hoping she would hear him and suddenly wake up, curious to know more.
‘Quenelda, I’ve found this old book … Quenelda?’ He stared as if his eyes had deceived him. The book fell unnoticed to the floor, and he leaped to his feet and threw back the quilt and blankets, as if she could be hiding unseen beneath their folds. Then he looked under the bed. Knocking his head in his haste to re-emerge, he ran out of the room in panic.
‘Tangnost? Commander?’ Root eventually arrived, breathless, at the battleroosts, bent over with a stitch. ‘She’s gone. I can’t find her anywhere!’ He anxiously hopped from toe to toe. ‘The flight hangars, pads, the roosts, armour pits, the harbour, forges …’
‘So she’s disappeared …’ Tangnost said thoughtfully. ‘And you’ve looked everywhere for her? Everywhere but one place …?’
‘The Heartrock?’ Jakart DeBessert suggested, swiftly understanding the Dragonmaster.
Nodding, Tangnost was suddenly certain. ‘The Heartrock.’ Where else would she go? She’s come home …
‘None have set foot within the Heartrock in over two thousand years,’ the Commander said gravely. ‘If it is so, then we should bear witness. Come,’ he ordered his officers.
Root was running to match the dwarf’s urgent stride as they stepped away from the porting stone. ‘What’s the Heartrock?’
‘As its name suggests, it lies at the heart of Dragon Isle. You must have seen the great causeways …’
Root nodded. They were impossible to miss – slender black viaducts arcing above a deep pit leading into a core of darkness. The guards wore frightening helmets with long snouts and teeth that hid their faces, and intricate black armour that swept back from their shoulders like folded wings. They truly looked half dragon, half man.
‘The guards wouldn’t let me past …’
‘With good reason,’ DeBessert assured him. ‘There are deadly wards woven about the Heartrock, the very rock is imbued with ancient magics.’
‘It is where the first Dragon Whisperer was fostered with his six brothers,’ Tangnost explained. ‘Where Son of the Morning Star was nursed by an Imperial with her brood, so that he grew to become half dragon, half man. None save a Dragon Whisperer has ever unlocked its secrets.’
Root’s eyes widened. ‘But why should she be there? I don’t understand.’
‘Only the SDS and the royal line even know of its existence. The lost Dragonsdome Chronicles apparently record its secrets. All that we know of the Heartrock was recorded there. Legend says that only a Dragon Whisperer may unlock the Heartrock’s secrets. It is death to any others who try.’
‘What?’ Root was horrified. What if we’re wrong? he wanted to ask. What if she isn’t a Dragon Whisperer?
Tangnost squeezed his shoulder as if he had read the boy’s mind. ‘Have faith,’ he said softly. ‘She will come to no harm.’
They turned a corridor and descended widening stairs that opened into a spacious sloping passageway. The glassy black symmetrical tunnel was so flawless that Root knew without being told that this was one of the ancient Imperial combs. Flickering movement caught the edge of his vision. When he looked closer, he realized that the rock face was alive with runes of liquid gold, constantly shaping, merging and re-forming, which travelled beside them, bathing them in a soft glow. The place was alive with the breath of antiquity. Although he knew no magic, the power of it made Root’s skin tingle.
‘Dragonrunes,’ Tangnost said, seeing the boy’s wide-eyed glance. ‘The lost language of the Elders. None now know their meaning.’
Up ahead of them, the Commander and his officers had come to a halt. Soon Root could see why. Instead of standing to attention guarding the bridge, the blackarmoured guards were turned inwards, kneeling, heads bowed, facing towards the Heartrock. The wings on their shoulders and helmets were fully spread, and the eyes of their helmets were burning bright gold. Their swords were unsheathed, the tips resting on the ground as if in homage.
DeBessert shook his head. ‘They won’t respond. It’s as if they are frozen in place.’
They all looked across the stone bridge to where light flickered up ahead. A sheer wall rose in front of them, soaring up into the darkness. Quenelda was standing motionless in front of it, a burning brand raised above her. Finally daring to believe, Root started forward, his joy at seeing his friend alive overwhelming him.
‘Quenelda! You—’
Tangnost firmly held him back, a finger to his lips for silence, but the young girl did not appear to have heard their arrival. She continued her quiet scrutiny of the rock face. Puzzled by her silence, Root looked at what she was studying.
The ancient frieze, carved into the rock thousands of years before, was of an Imperial with her brood. The unfolding story written in stone depicted six fledglings and a tiny child within the mother’s coils. Then the child became a young man, dwarfed by the six dragons about him.
As Root’s eyes followed the narrative illuminated by Quenelda’s flickering brand, he became aware of light footfalls and the murmur of many voices as cadets, sentries and officers congregated quietly behind them. Word of what was happening was passing from mouth to mouth like
wildfire.
Quenelda moved on to where the young man stood, arms spread, on a high cliff. Then, as he raised his arms and stepped into the void, his arms lengthened and became wings; scales armoured him from snout to spiked tail and he became a mighty Imperial dragon. His six brothers joined him as they flew skyward.
Stepping backwards, replacing the brand, Quenelda spread her arms. The lamps set on the walls died down. A golden nimbus flickered about the Earl’s daughter, suggesting the fluid outline of a dragon. Then the lamps flared brightly again. There was a collective gasp. The wall was gone, and a vast darkness was revealed. A wash of biting cold air rolled over them. A whisper of amazement echoed around the combs, and then those watching held their breath as Quenelda stepped forward.
Tangnost stopped breathing. He had waited for this moment since the day Quenelda was born.
Pinpricks of light blossomed. As all eyes were drawn upwards, stars winked into existence until the dome blazed with their light, and the secrets of the Heartrock were revealed. The entire paved floor below radiated out in circles, until its far reaches were lost in shadows; and at its centre stood the legendary dragonbone throne. The aged bones of that first female Imperial were lustrous ivory, polished gold by age. The sorcery trapped within them and in the great ivory fangs, was potent, an almost visible aura. Drawn by its song, the Battle Mages moved quietly forward through the crowd. Even Root felt the underlying hum that raised goose bumps on his arms.
Ringing the throne were six dragons carved of black granite, gazing outwards like sentinels. Each one seemed perfectly rendered, but as Tangnost watched Quenelda approach the dragonbone throne, something subtle changed, and the statues became more than simply stone. Energy radiated from them. There was a sense, he realized, that the statues were merely sleeping, hibernating in the cold depths of timeless winter as Quenelda herself had done; awaiting the arrival of spring with the promise of rebirth.
Awaiting a summons …