Servant of the Crown

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  “Perfectly, thank you,” Ashanya said. “I’m listening to the song of my kind, and learning from it.”

  “The song of your kind? Other dragons are talking to you?” Solène could barely remember hearing something she’d have described as a song when she became enlightened, although she couldn’t understand any of it. The memory felt so distant now that she had to search it out.

  Ashanya shook her head, an odd, jerky movement with none of the natural rhythm of a real person. “No, not directly to me; their song is carried on the Fount. I can hear it now.”

  “What does it say?” Solène said, genuinely intrigued.

  “All sorts of things. Stories of my kind, lessons they learned. It is a comfort.”

  She looked at Solène, who noticed that despite her human form, Ashanya’s eyes had returned to a piercing crystal blue.

  “It worries me that I might always be alone,” Ashanya said.

  Solène gave her a sad smile. What could she say? There were no assurances she could make; there was no comfort she could give. She had no idea if there were any more slumbering dragons or hidden clutches of eggs, waiting for the right moment to hatch. Part of her hoped there were.

  “The song says there might be others, but not when they will come into the world. If they emerge, will you help me? The song says it takes a Cup, or two of the enlightened, to bring another dragon into the light. There are no more Cups, just you and I. Will you help?”

  “Of course,” Solène said. “I promise that I will always answer your call, if I can.” It felt odd that she had made more promises to dragons than she ever had to other humans. “What will you do now? Where will you go?”

  Ashanya looked toward the mountains. “Back there. Home. I will call you if I find others.”

  “I’ve heard the song too,” Solène said. “Will I ever come to understand it?”

  Ashanya shook her head. “Not that of dragonkind. Are many of yours enlightened?” She shook her head again, and forced an expression that looked like sympathy. “No,” she said, answering her own question. “The song says only one other. Not enough to be able to hear their voice on the Fount.”

  Solène realised Ashanya must be talking about Amatus. It was incredible to imagine that one day she might be able to hear his thoughts and experiences, to learn from them.

  They walked in silence away from the road until there was no chance of being seen, even at that late hour. Ashanya had started to revert back to her normal form before Solène noticed. She had to step back a few paces to get away from the dragon’s rapidly increasing size. Solène wondered how Ashanya was able to change twice in such a short period of time, but reckoned that the Cup must have imbued the young dragon with a massive amount of energy, which was clearly not yet depleted.

  Ashanya gave Solène a nod and stretched her wings. With a rush of air and dust, she was in the air. Solène shielded her eyes for a moment, then watched as Ashanya flew higher and higher, until she was no more than a speck, glinting in the moonlight like a dream.

  When she could see no more trace of the young dragon, Solène began to wonder where she should go, what she should do next. If she went back to the king, he would expect her to fight for him, and even now, she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She couldn’t use her magic to kill. Once that dam was broken, there was no going back, and she knew the only thing easier than doing it the second time would be the third, then the fourth. There would always be a good reason to kill someone. The only way to resist was to say never and refuse to budge.

  Her new power would enable her to be a healer the like of which the world had not seen since Imperial times—an idea she felt strongly drawn to. Surely the king would be satisfied with that? Still, if she was patching men up so they could rush straight back into the carnage, how different was that from doing the killing herself?

  Was she powerful enough to prevent the coming war altogether? Could she force the king and the Prince Bishop to come to terms, or use magic to prevent them from fighting at all? That, though, was the first step to tyranny; it was no different from what the Prince Bishop was doing. She swore. Enlightenment was supposed to be a gift, but it felt more like a curse. She was rapidly coming to understand why Amatus had supposedly removed himself entirely from Imperial politics. She felt like removing herself from society completely. Where would she draw the lines? How would she recognise when she was about to cross one?

  Perhaps a little time would help her find a role. Maybe a small bakery somewhere quiet and out of the way was an idea she could make herself excited about again. It was a good, honest life, and she smiled at the thought that her bread and cakes would be unrivalled. Still, there was something about it that rang of defeat, of giving up, of wasting the potential enlightenment brought. Was she being unreasonable? Too hard on herself? She started to walk again, still with no idea of where she was going to go.

  CHAPTER

  45

  There was little time for reflection once the task of stripping the mercenary camp was complete. Gill oversaw the acquisition of the baggage train, which was, happily, a far easier task than he had expected. As they were still on the march, the mercenaries had left all but what they had needed for the night on the wagons that followed the company. Luckier still, most of the draft oxen had survived the attack—certainly enough for them to get what they needed moving.

  Gill had never been a logistician or a member of a quartermaster’s corps, so other than gathering up everything that looked good and getting it moving in the right direction, he really didn’t know what was expected of him. The goods probably needed to be catalogued, but he had no intention of doing that himself, nor did he intend to be responsible for issuing it all to the troops. His talents lay elsewhere, and if the king didn’t know how to use them properly, what point was there in sticking around?

  He was concerned about the attitude he saw amongst the cavalry. Morale was high, which was good, but to hear the men talk, one would have thought they had won a great victory, not slaughtered men by the hundreds before they were able to get out of their tents. As a strategic victory, it was a great one, but for any man to consider himself a blooded warrior after that was dangerous. They still had not been truly tested in battle.

  As they rode, Gill realised he had turned into that wary old warrior who saw doom around every corner, the man who had escaped death many times whilst seeing friends and comrades drop like flies. To him, the inevitability of death seemed certain. Someone had to be the voice of caution, but Gill didn’t want the job.

  * * *

  The infantry force that had marched directly to Mirabay from Castandres was already camped within view of the city’s walls by the time Gill and the cavalry got there. Unlike the mercenary commanders, whoever the king had put in charge of his infantry had done a proper job of setting up and securing the camp. Of course, there was a good chance they’d be spending quite a bit of time here—not just one night.

  A ditch and embankment had been created, and men were working on constructing a palisade along the top. Gill was impressed—whoever it was had clearly paid attention during the relevant classes at the Academy, unlike Gill during Logistics.

  As they grew closer, Gill saw something that came as quite a surprise. Not only were there far more men around the camp than he had expected, many of them wore the various liveries of the permanent regiments, all of whom Gill had expected to be facing on the battlefield.

  There was a serious problem in the city if that many troops had sneaked out. The thought brought a smile to his face. Anything that vexed Amaury was all right in Gill’s book, and this could be the thing that tipped the balance in their favour.

  Once his ox wagons passed within the camp’s perimeter, Gill headed for the central axis, where he expected the command tent to be, given the organised, textbook placement of everything else. Sure enough, it was there, and the king was poring over maps on a campaign table, surrounded by his staff.

  Several personal banners
fluttered from spears driven into the ground by the tent, but Gill didn’t recognise any of the sigils. That meant that none of these men were from the major noble families, so they all had a great deal to win by fighting on the king’s side.

  He thought of having his flown with the others, but realised he didn’t care. For so many years, seeing his banner flown, bearing his family’s sigil, had been a great source of pride. Now it seemed like another one of the pointless diversions people clung to so as to separate themselves from those farther down the ladder. A banner didn’t do you any good when you were facedown in the mud, bleeding to death. All it was good for then was a souvenir for your mother, wife, or children. Or perhaps a trophy for the man who’d killed you.

  Gill’s arrival attracted one or two glances, but went largely unnoticed. Walking closer, he saw that the maps being reviewed were plans of the city. The king and his staff were discussing potential weak points in the walls and considering ways past them, such as using the river, or the sewers, to enter the city. All these things had been considered before, however, not least by those who had designed the defences. In the best of times, Mirabay was a near-impossible nut to crack. It would take months of siege, or an assault by many times more men than they had.

  Now that Amaury had used the Cup, the situation had changed. Gill had no idea how the Prince Bishop’s magic might be used to draw out the siege. If he could conjure up food and clean water, the city might be able to hold out forever. He wondered how long it would take for the collection of boys-playing-soldiers gathered around the table to realise that.

  The thought of magic made him wonder how Solène had fared. He reckoned the disappearance of the dragon would have been pretty big news in the city—from which so many of the soldiers in camp had come. He decided to walk around the camp and see if he could learn anything. It would be some time before the younglings at the table looked for advice from more experienced heads, and Gill suspected that was why the king’s cousin, Savin, was not present.

  As Gill walked along the lanes, between tents and livestock pens, it struck him that he was preparing to lay siege to Mirabay. He’d never imagined doing anything like that—the closest he’d ever gotten was a dream of tearing the city down, brick by brick, after his arrest.

  A standard military camp was laid out in a pattern of small “town squares”; each square was formed by a specific unit’s tents and centred around their cook fire. Several squares constituted each regiment’s section of the camp. Gill stopped at one fire where the men wore the blue tunics of the Royal Guard.

  “Have you lads just come from the city?” he asked.

  Though all looked up, only one spoke. “We have. What of it?”

  “Just wondering how things are there, is all,” Gill said. “I hear the Prince Bishop caught a dragon.”

  “All the dragons in the world couldn’t make me raise a sword for him,” the man said, a sour expression on his face.

  “Things are bad?”

  “They are. Hopefully not for much longer, if we can get our hands on the great Lord Protector. After what he’s done, I’d like some time with him myself.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Magic.” The man spat the word out. “Killed thousands in Balcony Square. One word, and thousands dead. Even more hurt. After that, me and the lads cleared out. We weren’t the only ones, as you can see.” He waved a hand, gesturing at the whole camp.

  Gill grimaced. He didn’t think much of Amaury, but it was hard to believe he’d killed thousands of people in cold blood. Was it a sign that the man wasn’t able to control his magic? Considering how worried Solène had always been about that, it seemed a likely explanation. Still, thousands of people? There was no way back from that. No matter what happened in the coming battle, Amaury would never be accepted as ruler of Mirabay. It might take a year, it might take ten, but one day, he’d get a dagger in the back. Until then, neither the city nor the country would be at peace.

  “And the dragon? Did you see it?”

  “Nah, a few of the lads did, though. They were on duty guarding it. Said it just lay there asleep the whole time. Then it went missing. I mean, how in three hells does a dragon in a cage go missing?”

  Gill smiled and nodded. “Yeah, strange, that. Good talking to you.”

  He walked away, smiling. The dragon’s disappearance meant Solène had most likely succeeded—and gotten away without trouble. He wondered where she was now, and what she was doing. He’d have felt a lot happier going into what lay ahead with her power at their side, but he could understand why she might stay away. There was no way she could get through the battle without blood on her hands. The only way to avoid that was to stay away. That was the right choice for her.

  His mood had been greatly improved by the news that things weren’t going well for Amaury, even though the thought that he was letting his magic off the leash and killing people was worrisome. Guillot wondered if that news had reached the king.

  Boudain could not afford a lengthy siege if Amaury was slaughtering his citizens. Then again, a long siege was never really a good prospect—it was always worst on the innocent inhabitants on the inside, and Boudain would not be welcomed back into the city if he had spent months starving it.

  As Gill headed back toward the command tent, it occurred to him that someone should tally the soldiers who had come to the camp from the standing regiments. Every one of them was one man fewer for Amaury. If enough had defected, that might make those still with him think twice when it came time to fight. Even so, Amaury had been buying mercenaries for months, and destroying the big company didn’t mean he would be short of troops.

  Once again, Gill was glad he wasn’t the one making the decisions.

  CHAPTER

  46

  Amaury glanced over the anatomical diagram one last time. He was so familiar with it by this point that he reckoned he could draw it himself. There was no one in the Order with the power to do what he sought to do, and no one he trusted enough to anyway.

  He had already run his final few queries past both a surgeon and a professor of anatomy at the university. There was nothing to be gained by delaying any longer. Amaury focussed his thought and directed the Fount to his hip and the injury that Gill had left him with, all those years before. The injury that set him on course to his current predicament.

  Power flowed through him. His skin tingled as though touched by a cooling breeze; he felt a sense of incredible wellness, such as he’d never felt before. Amaury held his focus for a moment, then was overcome by a sense of panic. He was flooded by memories of what had happened on the balcony, how he had created magic that he had not intended. Shutting his mind to the Fount, he scrabbled at his clothes as he jumped to his feet.

  He pulled his britches down far enough to expose the scar. There was nothing there. Not even a blemish. His mind caught up and he realised that he should have already known it had worked—there had been no pain or tightness when he’d leaped out of his seat. The discomfort was such an old companion that most of the time he barely noticed it, but now it was entirely absent. Unable to contain himself, Amaury pulled his britches back up and jogged across the room. His hip felt loose and strong—as good as it had when he was a young man. Laughing, he jogged the short distance back to his desk.

  There was a knock, and the office door creaked open. His secretary peered in and gave Amaury a quizzical look.

  “Lord Protector?”

  “I, uh, I was just testing something,” Amaury said. “What is it?”

  His secretary took a deep breath. That expression of doom, again, Amaury thought. He sat down and braced himself.

  “An army has been sighted a short distance from the city,” his secretary said.

  Amaury shrugged. “That was to be expected. Now that they’re here, we can get on with things.” Not so bad, after all, Amaury thought.

  “That’s not all, Lord Protector. The mercenary company on the way to the city was attacked and dispersed. The
y won’t be coming.”

  At that, Amaury’s heart sank. All the joy of finally healing his hip was sucked from his body. “Get out,” he said.

  When the door closed behind his secretary, Amaury cradled his head in his hands. He wanted to scream. After he managed to get his anger under control, he began to think of next steps. He needed to scout the enemy force, find out how many he had to deal with and the composition of the king’s army.

  Where is Solène? he wondered. Was she another weapon that would be brought to bear against him? It was a concern, but he reckoned he had the measure of her—after all, he had drunk from the Cup and she had not. He could deal with her.

  He reached forward and rang the bell on his desk. It was time to get to work.

  * * *

  Solène had walked through the night and into the next day. She’d noticed that since she’d become enlightened, her need for food had diminished, as though the Fount itself was providing her with sustenance.

  She was still in open countryside, having avoided one or two villages along the way. She had no desire for human company. Her sense of being a pariah was as strong as it had ever been. She had magical power that almost no other person had ever had. Even before she’d become enlightened, she’d been running away from her magic, hoping that one day she would wake up and it would be gone. Instead, her choices had somehow led her to a point where it was stronger than she had ever imagined.

  How could she hope for a normal life now? How could she be satisfied by being the best baker she could be when all she had to do was close her eyes and think to create hundreds of perfect loaves? Cakes, pastries, whatever fancies and delicacies she chose, no matter how complicated. There would never again be the reward that came from honest toil and effort—she could have whatever she wanted with only a thought.

  Yet she couldn’t think of a single thing she wanted, other than to be rid of this curse once and for all.