Racing With Dragons: The Mapmaker's Sons, Book 1

by V. L. Burgess

  He saw nothing, but that didn’t put him at ease. The same ominous feeling of being watched—the very feeling he’d had atop the rooftop of Lost Academy, just before he’d entered the bell tower—seemed to hang in the air around him.

  His eyes wide, he tightened his grip on Porter’s dagger as the goat cart carried them deeper into the dark night.

  Chapter Nine

  KEEGAN’S LAIR

  It was well after midnight, yet torches still burned within the great hall. A bad omen, Keegan’s sergeant-at-arms thought. A certain sign that Keegan’s mood was even more foul than usual. The sergeant’s stomach tightened as he approached his master’s chamber. He hesitated for a moment, steeled himself for the worst, then raised a fist and rapped on the heavy oak door. At the call to enter he stepped inside.

  Keegan stood with his back to the door, staring out a large window at the grounds below. Twelve members of Keegan’s personal guard—each rumored to have been hand-selected for his physical strength, sheer brutality, and unquestioning loyalty—stood at attention with their backs to the walls, their faces expressionless. Keegan’s quarters were lush and expansive, but the presence of a dozen burly men, all ready to pounce at their master’s whim, added an unmistakable element of unease. A situation not unlike a dozen hungry cats toying with a single mouse.

  As dictated by protocol, the sergeant waited in silence, not speaking until he was acknowledged. The moment stretched. At length Keegan turned, his dark eyes burning with an almost feverish intensity.

  “News?” he asked softly.

  “They’ve gone, Sire. My men and I searched everywhere. We could find no trace of them. I believe they’ve left the district.”

  “Is that right? Left the district, you say?” He drummed the talon-like fingernails of his right hand together, producing a sharp clicking noise that sounded to the sergeant like a nest of swarming beetles. “They were there, right there, in the broken down district where the horse was discovered. I saw the dark-haired one with my own eyes. Yet he and his brother escaped your entire force.”

  “But…” The sergeant’s breath caught. He blinked in confusion. “As you ordered, Sire.”

  A ghost of a smile flitted across Keegan’s face. “Indeed. Exactly as I ordered. How fortunate for me that I can rely so completely on the incompetence of you and your men. The failure to capture them must have appeared rather natural.”

  The sergeant opened his mouth, then closed it, understanding that the wrong response, perhaps any response, could prove fatal.

  Keegan strode to his desk, opened a thick ledger and began flipping through pages, drawing his long nails down the columns of numbers. “What of the forger? I assume he and his family have been dealt with.”

  “I’m afraid there was a slight problem, Sire.”

  Keegan’s hand stilled on the ledger. “Oh?”

  “Before they fled the district, the brothers destroyed the execution scaffold. In the confusion that followed, the townspeople swarmed The Watch and helped the family escape.”

  Keegan lifted his head. He regarded him for a long moment in silence. “You allowed this?” His voice remained silky soft, yet the menace contained in that single question cut as clear and sharp as a razor’s edge.

  The sergeant swallowed. He was treading a difficult path, but he’d learned that withholding information could prove just as deadly as giving too much. “The trouble isn’t only in Divino, Sire, but in all the kingdoms. Pockets of citizens have begun to fight back. They’re resisting, refusing to submit to The Watch.”

  “Find them. Punish them. Make examples of them as you’ve done in the past.”

  “There’s more to it now, Sire. There are rumors . . .”

  “Rumors?”

  “They call them the Hero Twins. The ones you allowed to flee. They say once they’ve recovered Hyster, they will put an end to your reign.”

  Keegan stared at the sergeant. Bright spots of fury tinged his cheeks. “Do you think this is news to me? Do you believe I rely on the word of a bumbling fool like you to tell me what happens in my kingdom?”

  “No, Sire.”

  Around them, Keegan’s personal guard shuffled restlessly, like dogs straining to be set loose. Seconds ticked by. Beads of perspiration trickled down the sergeant’s back.

  Finally Keegan said, “Do you not wonder why I didn’t kill the mapmaker and his son years ago? Why I allowed them to live? Why I permitted those two to escape today?”

  “I—I don’t know, Sire.”

  “Let them follow their sacred map into The Beyond. Risk their scrawny necks. When they return, I will be ready for them. They may find Hyster, but I will be the one to command her.”

  Keegan pulled open a desk drawer and reached inside. He withdrew his hand and opened his fist. Five perfect stones, round as marbles, rolled free. Though the sizes and hues varied—each orb possessed a signature color ranging in shade from rich cobalt, deep crimson, vibrant gold, alabaster white, and shocking green—each seemed to pulse with light and energy, as though it were a tiny planet all its own.

  “It took me ten years of searching to find these. Ten years. They are utterly worthless on their own. But when combined with the sword,” he paused, drew in a breath, “when combined with Salamaine’s sword, my kingdom will have no end. No man, no creature, will be able to stop me.”

  With one long, talon-like nail, Keegan sent the stones skidding across the desk, tumbling back into the drawer. He withdrew a key from his vest and locked it. Then his gaze returned to his sergeant-at-arms.

  “Prepare your men. Tell them I have new orders.”

  The sergeant waited.

  “Find the forger and his family. Arrest them, and any you suspect of having helped them escape. Use whatever means necessary to put fear back in the hearts of those villagers. Let the people see what happens to those who defy me.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “When they return, the Hero Twins will give Hyster to me. Then they will kneel before me and beg for their lives. The deed is already accomplished, they simply don’t know it yet. The deal has been struck. Hyster’s power is mine.”

  Chapter Ten

  MEETING WILLA

  The goat cart bounced through a ditch and rumbled to a stop.

  “We’re here!” Smudge called, in a voice that sounded obscenely chipper to Tom’s sleep-numbed brain. He pried open his eyes and raised his head, feeling as though he’d drifted off only minutes earlier. He probably had. Telling time by the motion of stars wasn’t something he knew how to do. If he needed to know what time it was, he used a watch, a clock, even Professor Lost’s loathsome bells. As a result, he’d overshot it. By the time he guessed his shift was over and Porter’s should begin, a rosy glow had smudged the horizon and the sound of chirping birds echoed through the trees.

  Smudge leapt from the cart, followed by Porter. Still half-asleep, Tom shoved a goat aside and did the same. His feet barely hit the ground before the cart was moving again, old Raynard humming off-key, the only good-byes issued being those of the bleating goats.

  Tom stretched, rubbed his eyes, and took a moment to get a bearing on his surroundings. His father’s map identified the place as Rupert. The dreary village looked nothing like the bustling town square of Bromley Market. He’d thought that had been bad, but this made him reconsider.

  A series of small thatched huts ringed a slightly larger structure that could have been a church, a school, or a jail. It likely functioned as all three. Scrawny chickens, pigs, and goats milled about, unrestrained by fences or pens. A well stood in the center of the town. Nearby a group of ragged men played what looked to be a game of dice. A thick haze hovered in the air. The stench of rotten eggs hit Tom’s nose. Sulfur. He recognized the seeping dampness as a sulfur haze from the swamp, rather than morning fog.

  Smudge raced away, leaving Tom and Porter to follow. They came to a stop at a crudely plowed patch of land—a vegetable garden of some sort, Tom guessed. Upon their approach an
old woman, bent in the act of uprooting a vegetable, turned toward the boy. She was broad and heavyset, her skirts drooping around her ankles, her face a mass of wrinkles. When she spoke, dark gaps appeared between her teeth.

  “Didn’t think you were coming back, boy.”

  “Not an old hag, huh?” Porter muttered beneath his breath.

  Smudge, however, didn’t stop at the old woman, but simply bid her a good morning and skirted past her, racing toward a lone figure working in a distant corner of the vegetable patch. A girl. Entirely occupied with her work, she had escaped Tom’s notice. As he and Porter moved toward her, Smudge shouted out her name.

  The girl dropped the basket she was holding and spun about. She wrapped Smudge in a tight hug, then crouched down low and held him at arm’s length as though to deliver a lecture. When her gaze caught Tom and Porter she abruptly stopped. She stood as they approached and draped one arm protectively over Smudge’s scrawny shoulders.

  Tom judged her to be roughly the same age as he and Porter. She was of average height, strong and graceful in the way some girls could be. She had curly light brown hair and honey toned skin; her hazel eyes were flecked with golds and greens. Pretty girl. Even dressed as she was in rough clothes the color of dirt, with the smell of rotten eggs hanging in the air and surrounded by a garden choked with straggly weeds.

  Smudge said, “This is Willa.”

  Porter nodded a curt greeting. “Smudge tells us you know a way through the swamp.”

  Until that moment, the girl had regarded them with an expression of mild curiosity. But at the mention of the swamp, something changed. Her gaze danced from Porter to Tom. A light flickered in her eyes. Then, like a door slamming shut, her gaze hardened and her mouth went tight.

  “The boy tells tales,” she said. “There’s no way through the swamp.”

  “You don’t understand,” Porter said. “I’ll pay whatever you—”

  “You’ve come a long way for nothing. No one enters the swamp. It’s forbidden.”

  “But, Willa—” Smudge objected.

  “But nothing,” she bit out. She picked up her basket and pushed past them, pulling Smudge along with her. “What were you thinking, leaving without a word? I’ve more than three days of chores waiting for you. You can start by stacking wood. When you finish that, there’s water to fetch, linens to clean, the floor to sweep . . .”

  She pulled Smudge with her into a small hut near the outer edge of the square.

  Tom watched her walk away. Well. So much for that. His gaze swept the village. It was mid-morning, yet there was little activity. The men who’d been playing dice were gone. He spotted a pair of fighting cats. An old man muttering to himself, rocking back and forth near a crumbling stone wall. A woman screaming at her children for spilling a bucket of water.

  “Excellent,” Porter bit out. “We’ve found paradise.” He let out a breath and tugged his hand through his hair. “Now we’ve wasted a night, as well as an entire day, and we’re farther from Hyster than we were yesterday.”

  “Not necessarily.” Tom’s eyes flicked to the swamp. “We could try it on our own.”

  “We could,” Porter agreed. He leaned against a tree trunk. A thick coating of green slime clung to his cloak. Frowning, he tried to brush it off. That just made matters worse. Strands of sticky green slime stretched from his palm to his jacket. He uttered an oath, grabbed a discarded rag from the ground and wiped the mess—most of it, anyway—off on that.

  “So we go it alone?” Tom pressed.

  “We could. Unless you’re interested in getting out alive.”

  “Doesn’t look like we have much of a choice.”

  “I don’t. But you do.”

  Their eyes met. Tom considered, briefly, what his brother was suggesting. He could journey back to Bromley Market. Find Umbrey and the passage that would take him back to the Lost Academy. Forget the map, Keegan, and a dragon named Hyster. Take the safe route and pretend he’d never discovered this other world existed. All things considered, not a bad idea.

  Then his thoughts traveled back to yesterday.

  He looked at Porter. “What about your friend Carter and his family? They escaped, but is that the end of it? Will Keegan let them go? Or will The Watch continue to hunt them?”

  “They helped us, so they’ll have to pay. They’ll be hunted until they’re caught. Punished. Along with anyone who helped them escape.”

  Punished. Only eight letters in that word. Certainly not the biggest word in Tom’s vocabulary. Yet in that context, it seemed enormous. Unbearably heavy, too. Especially since the weight of it rested on his shoulders. Tom’s stomach twisted as he considered what he’d seen in the village square. He was responsible for the forged Letters of Passage falling into the hands of Keegan’s Watch. Which made him responsible for whatever happened to Carter and his family. Impossible to leave that knowledge behind, even if he did choose the safety of retreat.

  “And you?” he said. “What would happen to you?”

  Porter hesitated, seemed to make up his mind about something. Then he drew himself up and announced firmly, “I’ll head into the swamp alone. Continue the quest by myself. You’ll only slow me down, anyway.”

  Tom ignored the dig. “Umbrey said the map only worked if we were together.”

  Irritation flashed across Porter’s face. “That won’t be a problem. We’ll read it together one last time. Locate where Hyster’s hidden. Once that’s done, I’ll go after her alone. Either I’ll either fail or I’ll succeed. Either way, no sense both of us dying.”

  Hard not to agree with that logic. For once, he and his brother were fully in sync. Except Tom had noticed something about the map. The closer they drew to Hyster, the more detail the map revealed. If they weren’t together in the swamp, Porter would have only a general idea where to look. Not good enough. Not even close. His brother might not want to need him, but he did.

  Before Tom could voice his opinion on the matter, his thoughts returned to Willa. Her expression. Before she’d turned away there had been something in her eyes, some fleeting spark. . . . Recognition. She’d recognized them.

  “C’mon,” he said, moving as he spoke.

  He strode to the hut he’d seen Willa and Smudge enter. There was no door, just a length of dirty cloth hanging over the entrance. Tom brushed it aside and entered the dwelling. Porter followed. The smell of sizzling meat greeted them. Willa stood before a fire-fed stove, one hand resting on the handle of a black skillet in which were crowded a dozen sausage links. The links Smudge had stolen from the butcher, if Tom wasn’t mistaken.

  Willa turned to look at them, her expression flat. She lifted a fork and poked the sausages. “If you’re here to see my grandfather, you’re too late. He died three months ago.”

  Hardly a welcome, but neither had she ordered them to leave. Tom scanned the interior. It didn’t take long. Two small cots by the hearth. A crude table and a pair of benches. No ceiling—at least, none that he could see. Hanging overhead was what appeared to be an upside-down garden. Bunches of dried flowers, herbs, and weeds were suspended from every rafter and beam. Glass jars, vials of powders, a mortar and pestle, scales and other assorted tools crowded the shelves, completing the makings of what appeared to be a primitive apothecary.

  “You know who we are,” Tom said.

  A grim smile touched her lips. “I know who you think you are.” She rested her hands on her hips, an expression of stormy defiance on her face. “The light and the dark. Hero Twins. On a quest to locate the fabled dragon and save us all from Keegan’s unholy reign.”

  Porter stepped closer. “So you’ve heard the prophecy?”

  “Heard it?” She gave the pan an impatient shake. “Yes, even here in Rupert that ridiculous tale reached our ears. It was all my grandfather could talk about. He said it gave people hope that one day things would change.” She removed a plate from a rough wooden shelf and set it on the table with enough force to nearly crack it. “Hope,” she
said, as though the word tasted foul on her tongue. “You’ve come a long way for nothing. A story, that’s all it was.”

  “You’re wrong,” Porter countered.

  “Really? You believe the two of you can defeat Keegan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ha. Idiots.”

  “And it won’t just be the two of us. We’ll have Hyster by our side.”

  Willa said nothing.

  Porter sighed. “Look, you don’t have to believe anything. We just need your help to get through the swamp. That’s all we’re asking.”

  “That’s all you’re asking?” Willa snorted. “Risk life and limb getting you through the swamp. Just that.”

  She plucked the sausages from the pan and stacked them on the plate. She cracked eggs into a bowl and whisked them together. Poured them into the pan and returned it to the stove. “Smudge tells me you did him a kindness. Saved him from a beating. For that I’ll give you breakfast, nothing more. Then you can be on your way.”

  Once the eggs had cooked, she filled four plates and set them on the table. Tom shot a glance at his brother, who shrugged back at him. Suddenly ravenous—it seemed like days since he’d swallowed the goat's milk and eaten the shepherd’s biscuits, rather than mere hours—they settled in to eat. The food disappeared quickly.

  The moment they finished, Willa rose and collected their plates. “My debt to you is paid. Leave now.”

  Tom stood. “We need your help.”

  “My help. The Hero Twins.” She reached for a crude wooden box, opened it and spilled the contents across the table. “Very well. My grandfather’s treasures. If you believe in that sort of foolishness, you can take them with you. A feather to turn you into a falcon so you can soar through the sky. A leaf that allows you to read the thoughts of your enemies. A brass ring for wisdom, a necklace that grants the wearer outrageous beauty, an amulet for eternal youth, a bag of bones to divine the future. Worthless, all of it. There is no magic left in this world. Keegan’s taken it all away.”