A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) (17 page)

Leresy licked his lips and
grinned.

"Yorne," he said, "get
this camp cleaned up. I want men wearing their armor. I want guards
on patrol. I want some discipline here, damn it. Whip these
warriors into shape!"

With that, he spun on his heel,
left the men, and stomped back toward his tent.

When he stepped inside, he found
Erry sitting on the cot, hugging Scraggles and muttering curses. She
raised damp eyes and glared at him. The mark of his hand still shone
red upon her cheek.

He approached her. She hissed
and tried to rise. He shoved her down, grabbed a fistful of her
hair, and forced her to look at him.

"Dearest little urchin,"
he said. "Poor, pathetic little wench. What do you know of
pain?"

She growled. "If you
strike me again, I will slay you."

He grabbed her arms and yanked
her to her feet. She stood before him, glaring up at him, her hair
tousled. Leresy caressed her bruised cheek.

"I promised that you will
be my southern mistress," he said. "I promised you a land
of wild grass, endless summer, and lazy days of sun and starry
nights. To the Abyss with that." He placed a finger under her
chin, kissed her forehead, and twisted his lips into a grin. "I
will make you the concubine of an emperor."

 
 
VALIEN

He stood upon the breakwater,
staring out into the sea, and remembered the day he met his wife.

Boulders formed the breakwater,
their lower halves green with moss, their upper halves white with
gull droppings. The waves slammed against the stones, turning from
gray to blue and showering foam. The breakwater ended with a cairn,
and there rose Lynport's lighthouse, a tower of empty windows, craggy
bricks, and memories of better days.

Valien grumbled as he walked
across the slick boulders—this was easier when he was younger—and
placed his hand against the lighthouse. The old bricks were clammy
and mossy, but he remembered years ago when this tower was new, when
he had climbed its steps to view the sea and found her above.

The lighthouse doors had rotted
or burned years ago. Valien stepped through the archway and climbed
the stairs again, the first time he'd climbed them in twenty years.
Shattered clay jugs, an abandoned glass bottle, and an old shoe
littered the steps now. A feral cat hissed at him, bristled its fur,
then fled. But as Valien kept climbing, he barely saw the stairway's
current state. He saw himself a young man, twenty-one years old and
only knighted that summer, visiting fair Lynport to protect the sea.

He reached the lighthouse top.
He stepped into a round chamber where no more fire burned. Today
this chamber was empty but for a discarded mattress, a cracked pipe
on a windowsill, and three kittens nestled in the corner. Outside
the windows, the sea stretched into the horizon, a gray sheet
splotched with patches of green and blue where the water was shallow.
But when Valien closed his eyes, he saw this chamber twenty years
ago. A great beacon had burned here then, the fire shimmering behind
glass panes, and upon the sea a dozen southern ships had sailed,
bringing their treasures into Requiem.

"And you were here,
Marilion," he whispered. "You shone brighter than all the
beacons in the world. You guided me home."

He could almost see her again at
the window, watching the sea. She had worn a white dress that day,
its hem stained with salt and sand, and her feet were bare, but
Valien had never seen a more beautiful woman. Her hair cascaded down
her back, the color of honey, and when she turned toward him she
smiled.

"Good morning, my lord,"
she said. "I'm sorry. I've come to watch the sea."

She was a commoner, born and
raised in the south, her only jewelry a string of seashells. She was
wild and beautiful, a creature of sea and sand. Standing beside her,
Valien felt stiff and awkward in his armor, a relic of ancient
tradition, out of place here like some dusty grandfather clock in a
fairy fort.

She laughed. "Can you
speak, sir knight?"

He cleared his throat. "You
have nothing to apologize for. This is your town. I've only just
arrived here from the capital. I serve in Castellum Acta. I—"

"You talk too much,"
she said and laughed again. "Listen! Do you hear it?"

Valien listened. He heard
it—the waves whispering, the seagulls calling, and the forest
rustling. The girl returned her eyes to the sea, inhaled deeply, and
a smile touched her lips.

"I sometimes stand here
silently for hours," she whispered. "The sea speaks to
me."

They spent many days that summer
standing in the lighthouse, walking upon the shore, or ambling
between the shops along the boardwalk. During lazy days, they caught
fish and cooked them on campfires, and Marilion would play her flute
and he would sing softly. At nights, they would lie upon the sand,
watch the stars, and hold each other. In the autumn they wed in this
very lighthouse.

Valien stood in the barren
chamber, twenty years older, his hair now wild and grizzled, his
armor dented and dulled, and lowered his head.

I
took her with me to the capital,
he thought, and agony burned his throat.
She
never returned.

Valien closed his eyes and
clenched his fists. The emperor's words from last winter echoed in
his mind; they hadn't stopped echoing since.

"Marilion lives!" Frey
had shouted, cackling and bleeding. "She lives in my dungeon,
you fool!"

Valien's fists shook. His teeth
grinded. Fires burst inside him.

With a howl, he opened his eyes
and pounded the wall. Blood splattered his knuckles, but Valien felt
no pain. He panted and growled and shook.

"You lie!" he hissed.
He stormed toward the window and stared out at the sea, as if Frey
hid among the waves. "You lie, dog. She died. I saw her die!
I held her as she died."

Again the blood danced before
his eyes—Marilion lying upon the bed, Frey's sword in her chest, her
eyes glassy and still.

"I held you," Valien
whispered. Tears stung his eyes and his voice shook. "I held
you as your soul rose to the starlit halls. You've been waiting for
me there, Marilion."

And still Frey's voice echoed,
cackling madly. "She lives!"

Valien clutched the windowsill,
fingers trembling.

He
was lying. He was trying to break my mind, to drive me mad. He's
lied so many times before.

With
a shuddering breath, Valien turned from the window and left the
lighthouse.

He flew over the city, a silver
dragon, slower and wider than he used to be, his left horn broken off
years ago. Lynport stretched below him, a crescent moon of houses
and streets embracing the coast. The cliffs of Ralora rose west of
the town, while forests rolled into the north. The southern sea
whispered, a deep blue patched with green, lines of foam racing
across it. The smell of seawater filled Valien's nostrils even up
here.

He flew toward the northern
walls that separated wilderness from city. They rose a hundred feet
tall, overlooking oaks, maples, and pines, the trees golden and red
and filling the air with their scent. A dozen dragons hovered above
the walls, wings beating, holding four cannons aloft. Below upon the
battlements, men waved, cried out, and guided the cannons down into
place. Dozens of cannons already topped the battlements, pointing
north toward the capital.

We
took a hundred guns from Castra Luna,
Valien thought, gliding toward the walls.
Yet
ten thousand warriors will descend upon us, maybe more. These guns
will not hold them back for long.

He spotted Kaelyn standing in a
turret, a small guard tower that jutted out from the wall. Valien
filled his wings with air, descended, and landed outside the
structure.

Around him across the wall, men
scurried to bolt cannons down, and dragons hovered above, their wings
whipping Valien's hair. Valien knew he should walk among them,
inspect the batteries, encourage the troops, and prepare for battle.
But he only stood, staring into the guard tower, and his throat
constricted.

The turret was only large enough
for a single archer. Kaelyn stood inside, her back to Valien. She
held an arrow nocked in her bow, and she stared out an arrowslit,
watching the forest. Wind whistled through the embrasure and ruffled
her golden hair.

And suddenly she was not Kaelyn,
and she did not stand in a turret. She was a woman years ago,
standing in a lighthouse, her hair billowing in the sea breeze.
Valien stood staring and his eyes stung.

"Damn you, Kaelyn," he
whispered.

Damn
you. Why do you have to look like her? Why do you have to fill me
with those memories, with that old sweet pain? Why do I have to
fight not to hold you, not to love you, not to lose you?

She
turned around and saw him, and a smile split her face, showing white
teeth—
her
smile.

"Valien," she said.
"How are the defenses along the boardwalk?"

He entered the turret and stood
beside her. While Kaelyn was slim and barely filled the place,
Valien felt burly and clunky in here, a bear trapped in a box. He
peered out the arrowslit at the forest; it swayed like a sea in
sunset.

"The batteries of guns are
being raised, and troops are manning them," he said. "A
hundred will point to the sea, should the Legions invade from the
south. More guns rise upon the courthouse roof and upon Castellum
Acta."

Kaelyn nodded and clasped his
arm. "When the Legions arrive, we will triumph."

Valien sighed, a long sigh that
clanked his armor and bones. "We will slow them down. We will
slay a few. But our outfliers report ten thousand legionaries
already mustered in Castra Luna; they call the place Castra Sol now.
More will gather there. We have only three thousand resistors and
three thousand canyon warriors." He grumbled. "Lord Cain
left the bulk of his forces in the canyon. The man is mad, but we
will take what help he offers."

Kaelyn's eyes shone. "Our
six thousand fight for justice. One man fighting for justice is
worth ten who fight under the whips of a tyrant." Her voice
softened, and she held his arm. "Valien, I am afraid. I see
the same fear in your eyes. But know this: I fly with you today and
always. I fought with you in our long years of hiding; I will fight
with you now as we make our stand."

Valien stared at the rustling
forest, imagining the assault—an entire brigade of dragons
descending upon this city. Was he foolish to stay? Could they truly
defend this city?

"We need more men," he
whispered. "We need more guns. We need more time to train.
Damn it, Kaelyn, we've never made a stand before. We've hidden in
forests and ruins. We've attacked the Regime, then fled back into
shadow. Never have we waved our banners, raised our heads, and
invited the enemy to come."

Kaelyn nodded. "It's time
to make this stand. Relesar has risen. The banner of Aeternum flies
from our towers and walls. I feared battle in Castra Luna, and I
cautioned you against it. Yet we flew out, we faced Cadigus in open
battle, and we triumphed. I believe we will triumph here too."
She touched his cheek, and her eyes softened. "Do not lose
hope, Valien. We defeated the enemy at Luna. We will defeat them
here."

Marilion
lives! She lives in my dungeon, you fool!

The
words echoed, and Valien saw that night again: His love in his arms,
the sword in her chest, and the blood everywhere… so much blood.

He looked at Kaelyn—her young
face, her nose strewn with freckles, her hazel eyes so large and
earnest, eager for victory.

I
cannot lose you too, Kaelyn. I cannot tell you how much I love you,
how little I fear for my own life, how much I fear for yours.

He touched her cheek, his
fingers so coarse and calloused against her pale skin. She smiled
and embraced him, and her hair tickled his nostrils.

I
love you,
he thought, holding her close… not knowing if he meant a memory or
the woman in his arms.

 
 
SHARI

Dawn rose golden over the forest,
and Shari took her ward to see a man tortured.

They walked through the camp
rather than flew. Shari wanted them to walk. She wanted Tilla to
see the troops up close, see every spiral upon every breastplate,
every eye burning with rage, every sword bright under the sun.

In
battle, she will not command from above, a goddess overseeing her
slaves,
Shari thought.
She
will fight among them in the blood and fire.

And so they walked down the
lines. Thousands of troops stood at their sides, three soldiers
deep, forming palisades of metal. Their tents rose behind them,
banners streaming. They stood at attention, fists against chests,
men and women of the Legions. Every soldier wore a black helmet and
breastplate; a longsword and dagger hung from every hip.

"We caught him lurking in
the forests," Shari said as they marched down the dirt road
between the troops. "He was spying on our camp and armed with a
sword. I've broken him in, but I've left most of his flesh for you."

Tilla marched at her side, face
blank and staring ahead. She wore the fine steel of an officer now,
not merely a breastplate over a tunic like a common soldier, but full
plate armor that covered her from toes to neck. She carried her
helmet, a work of art shaped as a dragon's head, under her arm. She
had taken well to command, Shari thought; she walked with the pride
of nobility.

"I will break him,"
the young officer said, no emotion in her voice or eyes.

Shari smiled.