Throne of Dragons

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Odd was slowly falling out of his battle rage. Oh, he tried to maintain it, tried to froth and shout and throw himself blindly at the enemy, but his heart wasn’t in it in quite the same way that it used to be. That didn’t stop him from battering aside a shield, hacking the top of a skull from the rest, but even so, he could feel the fire within him dimming.

Part of it had to do with the many small wounds he’d sustained so far in the battle on the bridge. You could say what you liked about plate armor, but at least it stopped scratches like the one that ran all the way down his forearm now.

Part of it seemed to have to do with the presence of the girl by his side. She fought with her own kind of anger, which seemed more focused, but less completely trained than his. Odd found himself moving across to protect her from sword blows when they came at her, interposing steel in a way he usually didn’t. Normally, his battle madness left him little sense that anyone was on his side, let alone the urge to protect them. With Erin, it seemed to be different, and not just because Odd had worked out exactly who this girl had to be when the king came running for her and her sister.

Part of it, though, was that there was something deeper there, something that felt almost peaceful, in a way nothing had a right to be in the middle of a battle like this. Beside him, a guardsman had his ribs shattered by a hammer, a knight fell into the waters where his armor would only drag him down. Instead of his usual furious laughter, though, Odd smiled beatifically. It all fit. It all made sense, and in doing so, it felt beautiful.

That didn’t stop him from punching his sword through an enemy’s gorget, or smashing the pommel into another’s skull. Those things were as much a part of the meditation as the rest of it. Odd kept fighting, and around him on the bridge, the world turned into the most beautiful hell he had ever seen.

***

Erin forced herself to stay in the heart of the battle, refusing to pull back even though she was sure that half of those there would have liked to see her safe back behind the lines. She thrust with her spear, spun it in a distraction, used it to trip a man’s legs from under him. Here at the edge of the bridge, everything was chaos, with no neat lines now, no sense of which direction the next sword blow might come from. Anyone might be a friend or a—

“Look out!”

Erin ducked on instinct, and a sword blow went flashing above her head. She thrust backward with her spear, feeling the crunch as it entered flesh, then let the soldier she’d just stabbed fall.

She looked round to see Commander Harr standing in the midst of the battle, swinging a great sword with ease. Erin had seen him on the practice field, but this was something different, something deadlier. He frowned at her presence in a way that said that there would be consequences for running out ahead the way she had, but right then there was no time for Erin to think about any of that, only to parry and thrust, throwing herself back into the action…

***

Commander Harr was feeling his age. Around him, he could see men he’d served with for decades in the Knights of the Spur throwing themselves into the fray like young men, but he was anything but young these days. He had to fight carefully instead, conserving his energy, measuring each swing of his blade the way a carpenter might have measured prior to a cut.

He shortened one foe by a head in a single sweep, moved back to avoid a blow, then felt the pain of a dagger finding one of the seams of his armor. Commander Harr bellowed at that, because even a decade ago, no one would have gotten close enough to inflict such a wound. He lashed out in reply, all but cutting the foe who had closed with him in two, then ripped the dagger clear with a grunt of effort.

His eyes found Erin. She fought as he had thought that she might from the training grounds, with speed and skill, but also with a dangerous touch of recklessness. Three times now, he’d seen the man beside her parry blows aimed at her, his monk’s robes flowing as he did it.

Of course, Commander Harr knew that was no monk. There were some faces that even time could not erase, from memory, some sights that were too heavily etched to be unseen. The way this “monk” danced through the fight even within the horrific press of the bridge was a kind of signature in itself, yet there was something different about it too.

There was no time to consider that though, because the battle was still washing back and forth on the bridge, the press of it too great. Worse, Commander Harr could see still more troops pouring in from the Southern Kingdom’s side. How many could there be? More importantly, how could even the Knights of the Spur hope to hold against so many? Even as he watched, men tumbled from the bridge, one man hanging from another’s grasp on the very edge.

Commander Harr shook away that thought. It didn’t matter how many there were; only that they kept fighting. He plunged back toward the fight.

***

“We’re getting too old for this!” Sir Halfin yelled up, as he hung over the edge of the bridge, held only by Sir Ursus’s grasp.

“You’re getting too fat for it!” Ursus yelled back, and that was probably a good sign. The big man wouldn’t be making jokes about it if he didn’t feel certain that he could pull Halfin back onto the bridge. At least, he hoped not.

“Just pull me up!” Halfin called out. Hanging above the Slate was not where he wanted to be, not with the river raging below him, and the drop enough in itself that it might kill someone.

How had he gotten into this spot? He’d been charging forward, throwing himself through the fight, and then a man had come at him and… and he hadn’t been fast enough to dodge.

He, Halfin the Swift, hadn’t been fast enough. That was a humbling thought, a reminder that all of those who had served the king loyally for so long, were getting older. There were some younger knights, Prince Rodry foremost among them, but the truth was that Halfin and Ursus and the rest were getting past their best. He just had to hope that this wouldn’t be a battle too far for them.

Then Sir Ursus gave a roar of pain, and the head of a spear appeared, thrust through his shoulder from the rear. He bellowed like a wounded bull, and for a moment, Halfin was sure that he was going to drop. Instead though, Sir Ursus roared again, this time with effort, and Halfin found himself being lifted as easily as the other knight had always been able to lift him, throwing him back onto the bridge. Sir Halfin landed lightly as an acrobat, thrusting with his sword as he landed, bringing down the man who had wounded his friend.

He moved to prop up Sir Ursus, the weight of the larger knight almost enough to squash him. In spite of that, Sir Halfin was still able to cut out again, bringing down another of the enemy.

Maybe they weren’t quite done yet.

***

At the heart of it all on the bank, Lenore sat atop her horse, forcing herself to be brave, to not move. She fought to contain the skittishness of the creature, because if it bolted now, there was a good chance that it might plunge her down into the waters between the kingdom.

Around her, men died, blood spraying, the world filled with the clash of steel and the screams of the dying. To her side, the horrendous drop down to the Slate stood, the banks crumbling a little under the weight of so many men stomping and fighting, pushing and pulling at the edge of it. She saw a man’s leg hacked off a few feet away, saw another shoved off the edge of the cliff down into the river. A part of her longed to run, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that, not when her sister was still out there on the bridge, fighting to hold back the tide of enemies.

What would happen if she died here? With so much violence on every side, how could she hope to survive? Fear wormed through her there. What if she’d gone through all of this, if Rodry had sacrificed himself, and Erin had journeyed to the south, just so that she could die in the chaos of the battle that followed?

Only the fact that she was obviously not a soldier seemed to be keeping Lenore safe right then; that, and the presence of so many of her father’s men around her, shielding her with their efforts, killing those who came too close. Her father was there too, huge and armored, and he seemed the comforting presence that he had always been, strong and safe, impossible to defeat.

Yet one look at the bridge told Lenore how fragile that illusion was. She could see it swaying under the weight of so many men, could hear the creaking of it even above the sounds of the dying. She had felt for herself that no one was truly safe, that men of violence could always find a way to hurt, to kill, to do worse…

There were more men on the bridge than she could count, more still approaching it, mere dots in the distance, given the Slate’s width. Even on this bank, there were dozens of pockets of them, spread out and fighting, attacking her father’s men from all sides. How could even her father hope to hold against all that? How could any of them? The battle kept going, but in that moment, Lenore couldn’t see how they could hope to win it.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

King Godwin stood at the heart of the battle, holding onto his daughter’s horse and trying to make sense of it all. That was the most important skill for a war leader; not the ability to wade into the fight, not the ability to inspire men, although both mattered. The ability to step back for a second and just look counted for more than the rest of it put together.

“Are you safe?” he bellowed to Lenore, even over the sounds of the battle.

“I…” She nodded, but there was something about the way that she did it that spoke of pains that she couldn’t voice, not there.

A man came at Godwin in that moment, and for a second, everything was the violence. He smashed the man back, fought his way back to Lenore’s skittish horse, managed to catch hold of it again.

“And what about your brother?” he asked. “Have you seen Rodry?”

This look said almost as much as the last one, and it hurt just as sharply.

“He… he came to save me,” she said. “They killed him, Father. Rodry is dead.”

If he’d been anywhere but a battle, King Godwin would have collapsed to the ground in grief at the news. Even so, the hurt of it burned through him, making him roar out his grief, lash out at the first enemy to come near.

“My son!” he bellowed, as he struck down a man. “You killed my son!”

He killed then, one man after another. His knights formed around him, but even like that, it was hard for them to keep up as he thrust his sword through one man, then hacked down the next.

Step back, he told himself, the voice of his reason trying to cut through his grief, step back.

He did it then, shoving back the nearest of his enemies and standing in the clear space that the movement left, staring out over the battle through tear-clouded eyes. He would be strong, had to be strong. He would look at this like a commander, and a king, because to look like a father was to lose everything. Godwin stood there, his heart breaking, and around him, the rhythms of the battle kept on.

He saw the fight on the bridge continuing, the press of men there shoving back and forth to no avail. It wasn’t that King Ravin’s forces were pushing them back yet, although if numbers continued to pour in from their side, the sheer weight of them might force his army back onto the Northern Kingdom’s lands, might leave them running or dying. The parts that worried Godwin more…

There were two. One was that he and his men simply couldn’t win this fight. Even if they somehow fought their way to the far side of the bridge, the Southern Kingdom’s forces could hold his army as easily as he could hold theirs. The best that they could hope for was to fight to a standstill.

The worse fear was for his daughters. He’d lost so much in such a short time, with Nerra gone, Lenore taken, Rodry… Godwin let out a cry of anguish, cast his sword down, and smashed a man aside with his shield instead. No more. He would allow no more of his children to suffer.

“Sound the withdrawal,” he ordered, yelling it out over the battle. “Pull back and hold our side. Not a foot on the bridge!”

His men started to pull back, and Godwin turned to the knights around him. He found Twell, found Bolis.

“Help me collapse the bridge,” he commanded. “We left it standing to get my daughter back. Now… I want it down!”

“Yes, your majesty,” the men chorused, and fought their way forward, through the press. Godwin went with them, snatching up a war hammer from a fallen foe. He struck with it at a man’s helm, parried a blow on his shield, continued to fight his way on.

Out on the bridge, his forces started to pull back. The ordinary men ran for safety, but the Knights of the Spur fought while backing away, giving ground but never exposing their backs. It meant that, where another force might have been cut down in a rout, they were able to withdraw in good order. Godwin saw his daughter and the strange monk among them, leapfrogging one another as they pulled back again to the very edge of the bridge.

Ahead of him, he saw Twell and Bolis fighting to get to the wooden pegs that held the bridge in place. Godwin saw Bolis duck under a blow, only to trip as a body caught his foot. He fell, and a sword came down, too quick to stop. Godwin killed the attacker himself, bringing the war hammer around in a wicked arc that ended in a crunch of bone.

Twell was there, staring down at his fallen comrade. Godwin strode to him, shaking him by the shoulders.

“How do we do this?” Godwin demanded of the knight who was still standing. “You know these things. Where do we strike, Planner?”

He knew what it was like to feel the shock of someone being taken away. He could feel it running through his blood now at the thought that his son was gone. The only way to stop that from consuming everything though was to keep going, to win this fight.

“Where?” he demanded, and Twell pointed. Godwin saw the holding pegs then, smaller than he would have thought they might be to hold so much. Now that the knight had pointed it out though, he could see the way the structure held together, one part holding another, the whole linking together in one interconnected tangle of wood and iron.

He ran to the spot, using his shield to barge a man into the Slate below. He stood there for a moment, watching his troops pull back from the bridge. He saw Commander Harr step from it, saw the strange monk slide away, saw Erin…

A soldier grabbed her, hanging onto her as if he might pull her back onto the bridge. Godwin took a step, as if he might go to fetch her himself, but he didn’t need to. The man in the monk’s robes was there, pulling her away from her foe and cutting him down. Together, they leapt from the bridge.

Godwin struck, hammer slamming down on the peg once, then again. He felt it give, felt it shift. Beside him, Twell cut down a man who came at him to try to stop him. Godwin struck a third blow, hard enough to ring out above the battle.

The peg gave way, tumbling into the water below.

For a moment, Godwin thought that nothing had happened; that Twell the Planner had misjudged it, age catching up with his cunning as it had others’ strength or speed. Then he saw the bridge shift, and twist, and start to tumble.

It came apart like the fall of leaves from an autumn tree, except that every leaf was a span of wood larger than a man. There were men too, in that fall, each one screaming as they tumbled, the red of Ravin’s colors filling the sky as they fell to the enveloping gray waters of the Slate. There was blue among them too, because some men had been so deep on the bridge that there was no chance for them. Godwin stared at those specks, thinking of his son, and all the other fathers who would know the pain he was feeling now.

Around him, the battle continued, but it was a losing thing now for those of Ravin’s men who were on this side of the bridge. There were too few of them to hope to achieve victory, too few to do anything but fall to his knights, or offer themselves in surrender.

One man came at him, charging with a blade ready in his hand. Godwin stepped in to meet him, shield raised…

And that was when a second man, dressed in scraps of armor that had obviously been stolen from dead men, stepped in close, jabbing a knife into Godwin’s side.

“King Ravin thought you would come for your daughter,” he whispered. “So he told me to be ready.”

Godwin didn’t answer, but turned, lifting the man bodily. The king hauled him over his head, and then flung him, over the edge, into the river with the others. Even as he was doing it, Twell cut down the one who had come from the front. Godwin turned to congratulate the knight, then found himself falling, caught only because Sir Twell was there to interpose himself.

Godwin felt something throbbing in his side, the world closing in around him. He couldn’t move then, couldn’t speak, couldn’t blink. The knife… there had been something on the knife…

“The king!” Sir Twell called out. “The king has fallen!”

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Greave had never been more grateful than when the Serpentine finally drew to a halt outside Astare, the ship bumping up against a narrow quay a little way from the city. Only a few other boats sat in the harbor, mostly fishing vessels and an occasional small merchant cog. The Northern Kingdom was not a place that valued the sea; having seen its dangers, Greave was starting to understand why.

“We’re here,” Aurelle breathed beside him. “We’re actually here.”

She sounded worried by that, as if certain that things wouldn’t be so easy, or as if some other problem was about to loom. Greave couldn’t blame her for that, after everything that had happened. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Everything will be all right,” he promised her.

“Because you will stand and protect me against whatever dangers this part of your father’s kingdom holds?” Aurelle asked.

“I would,” Greave said. “In a heartbeat.”

The briefest look of surprise crossed Aurelle’s face, there and gone again in a flash. She must have known after the attack by the darkmaw that he would risk himself for her, but then, this was a cruel world. Maybe it was hard to believe that someone like Greave could stand against danger. He was hardly his brother Rodry, to kill any who threatened his love.

His love… when had he started thinking of Aurelle as that? Long enough ago that Greave couldn’t even remember when he’d started.

“I am so grateful that you came with me,” he said, holding onto Aurelle tightly. “It means more than I can say that you would choose to be by my side.”

“Where else would I be?” Aurelle asked. “This… this is where I’m meant to be.”

Again, Greave felt his heart swell with love he hadn’t known was possible until he met her. He looked up at the city, which sat at the top of a path from this small harbor, reached by flights of steps that wound their way up, moving back and forth. From here, he could see gray granite walls around some of the city, the spires of towers poking up above like the fingers of some gigantic stone hand. One of them would be the library.

“We need to hurry,” Greave said. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can find a cure for Nerra.”

He had to believe that there was such a thing hidden away there; that his sister could be helped. He grabbed his belongings and stepped down from the ship. Instantly, the world seemed to sway. Aurelle tumbled against him, but seemed to catch herself with perfect grace.

“What is this?” she asked.

“The writer Yarrin suggests that our bodies become accustomed to the movement of ships,” Greave said, “so that on land again, it seems to be moving for several minutes. He posits the idea of a fluid filled sac in the inner ear that…” It occurred to him that he was lecturing her. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to stop,” Aurelle said. “Being interested in the world is part of what makes you who you are.”

They set off together, arm in arm only partly for the stability it provided, making their way up the long staircase that led to the city. Eventually, Astare stood before them. Some of it had sprawled beyond its walls, in the way of cities, low wooden houses spread out in a scattering along the sides of roads leading south and east, shops and workshops spread out among them so that the exterior of the walls seemed busier than the interior. There was only so far that the outer city could spread though, because hills stood around it in a second kind of wall, cut through by passes.

Greave’s attention was on the inner city and its towers, though. They stretched up into the heavens, built from gray stone and capped with red terracotta roofs. Each seemed so elegant, so finely constructed, clearly belonging to a scholar of the House of Scholars, or to those who employed them. One would be the great library, it had to be.

He strode to the gate between the outer city and the inner. It was open, but the difference between the two was clear. Outside, the roads were dirt, the houses low and mud stained. Inside, every road was cobbled, every house constructed as if to some master plan that had been set out for the whole, fitting together in neat grids and squares clustered around open, green spaces. It was beautiful and orderly at once, a contrast to the river cut chaos of Royalsport.

“Move along,” a guard at the gate said.

“This is your prince, Prince Greave,” Aurelle replied.

The guard looked at Greave, paused, and then laughed. “Of course he is. And I’m the king himself.”

It occurred to Greave that after his time at sea, he probably didn’t look as refined as he had. His clothes were salt stained, and his hair disheveled. Aurelle looked as though she might argue with the guard, but Greave put a hand on her arm.

“It’s all right,” he said. “We don’t want them barring us from entry.”

For a second, Greave thought that she might argue anyway, but she seemed to catch his worried expression and relent.

“Which way to the Great Library?” Greave asked.

The guard laughed again. “Your servants didn’t tell you, ‘your highness’? Just go to the main square. The tower is right at the center of the city.”

Greave hurried into the city as the guard stepped back. Aurelle caught his arm.

“Can we at least find an inn first?” she asked. “If even the guards think that you’re some vagrant, what will the House of Scholars do?”

“I…” Greave wanted to act, wanted to save his sister from her illness now, but he knew Aurelle was right. It was late afternoon, and they’d just gotten off the boat. They needed to rest.

They took a room at a small inn that seemed to be almost perfectly round and made of dark stone, constructed as if as a technical exercise by architects of the House of Scholars. The innkeeper looked at them as if they might rob the place until Greave put money down on the bar for a room, food, a bath. Aurelle led him up the stairs of the place laughing, and if she stumbled against him this time as they reached their room, it had nothing to do with her sea legs.

***

In the morning, Greave made himself as presentable as he could, digging out a fresh shirt, tunic, and hose of dark silk and velvet, shaving with a borrowed razor and tying back hair that had by now become too long. Aurelle looked as perfect as always, picking out a dress of burgundy and pale cotton that seemed like a dark reflection of her hair. That, she wore in a caul today, while her hands were covered in gloves of red kid leather.

“We need to go find the library,” Greave said when they were ready. “It has to be here.”

“If it’s just a matter of going to the square, we could wait a little longer,” Aurelle said.

Greave shook his head. “There’s no time to waste, not when Nerra is…”

The worst part was that he didn’t know what Nerra was now. With the scale sickness, she could be just as he had last seen her, or twisted into an inhuman form by now in a sudden change. She could be dead. No, Greave wouldn’t think like that. He would be strong. He would solve this problem.

They set out for the city’s main square, hope filling Greave with images of what it would be like. There would be a tower rising over all of it, precisely at the heart of the city. There would be scholars in dark robes going back and forth, debating the latest knowledge. There would be people looking on in awe…

There wasn’t any of that. What he saw instead made Greave want to shout in frustration.

A tower did indeed stand at the heart of the city’s main square, but it was no taller than his waist. It was perfectly carved, even down to tiny windows of stained glass that sat in its dark stone walls. It stood in the middle of a circle of stone a dozen feet across, perhaps a little more. In that circle was a miniature representation of each of the buildings of the inner city, marked with their purpose. The sphere of the inn they had stayed in was there, as were the other towers. The central tower had “Library of Astare” on it, along with another legend below, in runes Greave recognized as belonging to the time of dragons. More symbols stood around the city, the words for knowledge in a dozen languages, spaced out by dividers that looked like the progress of the sun and moon.

He stood there, and he stared. Then he fell to his knees, tears falling from his eyes in a way he was sure they never would have from either of his brothers’.

Aurelle held him. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s just a cruel joke.”

“It’s not all right,” Greave said. “I came here to save my sister, and now all I have to show for it is this.” He swept a hand at it all, wishing that he could break it all apart. He walked away, his head in his hands, feeling tricked, feeling broken.

None of this made sense.

Unless that was the point. Greave stopped there, standing. He couldn’t give up, when Nerra’s life was on the line. He had to think.

He knew that there was a library. The books had been clear on that, and the House of Scholars alluded to it, even if they would not allow the unworthy entrance. If there were only this joke, it would be common knowledge by now. So this… this had to be more. It had to be some kind of test.

“There’s a trick to this,” Greave said. “There has to be.”

He tried to recall what he’d learned of old languages. The runes on the tower had to be the first step. He stared at them, trying to translate them.

“Greave, don’t torment yourself,” Aurelle said, clearly trying to protect him.

Greave knew there was something to it, though. “‘All is made known in the fullest light of knowledge.’” It sounded like a motto of the House of Scholars, but Greave had not heard it. More than that, why would it be the fullest light? The poet in him insisted that didn’t quite fit. He stared at the model again, at the dividers that spaced out the symbols for knowledge.

The answer eluded him, and he walked around the model, sure that there had to be an answer in there, but unable to see it. Light glinted from the model, making Greave blink, but also making him think about light, and its properties. Was it something to do with reflection, refraction, the different colors of light?

When was the fullest light?

Greave froze again as the possibility of an answer came to him. Could it be that? Truly?

Greave stood there, no longer pacing, just waiting now.

“What are you doing, Greave?” Aurelle asked. She wrapped her arms around him. “Come on, we should go.”

“Trust me,” Greave said. “Please, just trust me.”

He continued to stand there as the sun rose, trying to judge the moment when it reached its zenith. There would be only seconds now.

“What are we waiting for?” Aurelle asked, standing by his side.

“For noon,” Greave said.

Even as he said it, the sun reached the right angle, shining in through the windows that had been so cleverly cut into the model. There had to be some arrangement of mirrors to amplify things just so, and even then the effect was subtle enough that no one would have spotted it, or understood it, if they didn’t know what they were looking for.

The symbol of the House of Scholars shone out in the bright colors of stained glass, striking a spot on the floor of the model city. It seemed to be in the middle of one of the open squares of houses, in one of the green spaces that filled it. There was a stone built arch there, perfect in miniature. Greave had no doubt about what would lie beyond it.

“You did it,” Aurelle said, staring at Greave with surprise, but also respect. “You’ve found the library!”