Knightswrath (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 2) (4 page)

Jalist scoffed. “Trusting a Shel’ai is like trusting a tiger just because it purrs. If you had half a brain, you’d have learned that by now.”

Rowen smiled faintly. “Well, I never was very bright.”

“Or willing to back down from a fight. That’s your weakness. You’re as hotheaded as your idiot brother.”

Rowen winced, and his hand moved of its own accord, touching his sword. His fingertips traced Knightswrath’s dragonbone hilt. He remembered his sword quivering when he drove it through his brother’s neck. He remembered his own name bubbling from his brother’s lips before he fell as a single exhalation of blood and gratitude.

“Kayden was your friend. He died on my sword. You know that. Don’t talk about him like—”

“Not all killing is murder. Some deaths are a kindness. From what I hear, Kayden’s was one of them. Or would you rather he live on like he was?”

Cursed, crazed, forced to murder on behalf of the Shel’ai like some kind of trained hound…
“The Shel’ai
made
him that way. It wasn’t his fault. They tortured him—”

“Yes, they did.”

Rowen sighed. “
Some
of them, I mean. Silwren and El’rash’lin didn’t have any part of that. And I think some of the others objected, too.”

“But they still went through with it.” Jalist waved him off before he could reply. “Point is, Locke, they did what they did. No sense denying it. I’m not one to defend those bastards, but if you want to assign blame for Kayden, save half for your brother. He
let
them make him their thrall. So he gets half the blame, and the Shel’ai get the other half. You get what’s left.” Jalist uncorked his wineskin and took a drink. “Who knows? Maybe there’s even something to what she said about the Light.”

“About it guiding our actions?” Rowen snorted derisively. “If the Light fated me to be reunited with my own brother only so that I could set him free by killing him”—he turned away, stung by his own words—“then maybe I’m on the wrong side.”

Jalist stretched out on the ground. “Stop your gods-damned brooding! You’re finally an Isle Knight. Aren’t you supposed to be a pillar of moral certainty now?”

Rowen scoffed. “I used to think that’s how the Knights were. Then I spent some time with them.”

“Yet you wear their tabard.”

Rowen glanced down at his armor again. He shrugged.

Jalist laughed quietly. “Exactly how far is this Wytchforest, anyway?”

“A week. That’s what Silwren says, anyway.” The Wytchforest was one of the few realms of Ruun that he’d never visited, though he’d had little choice. Some people, like the Dwarrs or the nomadic horsemen of Quesh, could be unfriendly to foreigners. Others, like the Dhargots, tried to convince them to join their empire and partake in one of their bloodthirsty campaigns. Then there were the Sylvs. In the Wytchforest, foreigners were simply peppered with arrows and left to rot in the sun.

Rowen hoped his group would fare better than that. True, he had Knightswrath, but he would have little chance to invoke the Oath of Kin if the Sylvs killed him on sight. “We’ll have to stop somewhere along the way and resupply. Hesod isn’t far. Wasn’t there a blond boy you fancied there a few years back?”

Jalist laughed. “Cornflower hair, skin as soft as a woman’s. If I remember right, you had your eye on some pretty, big-rumped lass you tried to talk out of joining the Iron Sisters.” He glanced around at the storm. “Maybe they’re even still alive.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

Jalist shrugged. “Fadarah never went that far south. But the Dhargots might have. If so, what those bastards will do to the Iron Sisters…”

“It’s a long ways from Dhargoth to Hesod. The Dhargots might just be focusing on the northern cities for now.”

“How about Atheion?”

Jalist opened his mouth, but another massive clap of thunder rolled over them, punctuated by a vehement splash of lightning. Rowen jumped, reaching out to catch Snowdark’s reins and soothe the animal before it could run off. Jalist did the same with his mount, cursing all the while. Both men gazed up at Silwren’s umbrella of wytchfire. Rowen figured they were wondering the same thing: would a bolt of lightning pierce it and kill them? “If we
do
run into the Dhargots, it’ll be good to have Silwren with us.”

“Maybe. Troubles follow that woman like they follow you. Gods, Kayden used to say that you drew disasters like shit draws flies!”

Kayden again.
“Then maybe you should be rid of us. You might live longer.”

Jalist snorted. “Between bandits and my bad luck, I’d never make it all the way back to Tarator—even if they’d have me, which they won’t. So I may as well see where this goes.”

The storm was worsening, almost completely veiling the midday sun behind bruise-colored clouds. He glanced westward, in the direction Silwren had walked. He thought he saw her statue-still form: a faint shadow cloaked in rain. He could not tell if she was facing them. He shuddered, realizing that no matter how far away she was, she might very well be able to hear their every word.

They set out again as soon as the storm cleared. The smell of rain filled the air, along with a faint mist that made the plains appear to be steaming in the afternoon sun. Rowen’s spirits rose. But they did not ride far before he was forced to call a halt. Already, something else had replaced the fresh smell of rain. He scowled at the western sky, noting a dark smear on the horizon. He turned to Jalist. “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you mean the dark chariots of Fohl, come to carry off our enemies, probably not.” Jalist touched the shaft of his long axe. “If you mean smoke, yes.”

Rowen turned to Silwren, remembering stories about the famed sight and hearing of Sylvs. “I don’t have a spyglass, and your eyes are better than ours. What do you see?”

Silwren was quiet for a moment. Instead of leaning forward in the saddle as Rowen and Jalist had done, she closed her eyes. When she opened them a moment later, she stared straight ahead. “A city, burning.”

Jalist swore. “Hesod?”

“If that’s what you call it.”

“Is it under siege?” Rowen touched his sword hilt, resisting the urge to ask if and how she would be able to answer his question.

“The siege is finished. I see smoke pouring over the walls. In front of the city, I see… hundreds of people stripped naked, mostly women, impaled on spears.” Despite her dispassionate tone, Silwren trembled.

Rowen and Jalist exchanged worried looks.

Jalist said, “Sounds like our old friends from the north, all right.”

Rowen stared at the horizon for a moment. “We’ll have to go southwest,” he said finally. “We’ll avoid the Dhargots then reach the Wytchforest by skirting the Noshan Valley. Won’t delay us more than a few days.”

Jalist’s dark eyes narrowed. “Unless we get our skulls axed in! Nosh isn’t the friendliest place on Ruun, you know.”

Rowen scratched his beard. Even though he’d never been to Nosh—including Atheion, its famous City-on-the-Sea—he’d heard a little about it during his travels. “Noshans are sailors and goatherds. They won’t trouble us.”

“I’m not talking about the Noshans who live around Atheion. I’m talking about those damn wildmen who live in the mountains. Supposed to be as mad as dragonpriests and as cruel as Dhargots.”

Rowen scratched at his beard. “A few thousand Dhargots or a few hundred barbarians…”
And behind us, Shel’ai and Isle Knights! Gods, how did I get so many enemies?

“Welcome to Ruun,” Jalist snorted.

“I can get us past the Dhargots,” Silwren offered.

Jalist tapped the shaft of his long axe. “How’s that?”

Silwren faced Rowen. “I can blind them to our passage. We can ride right past the city, and they’ll never see us.” She trembled faintly as she spoke.

Silwren’s new unsettling eagerness to use her magic sent a chill down Rowen’s spine. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. If something goes wrong—”

“El’rash’lin gave his life, Knight. He died for you, as much as anyone. It’s time I did my part. If I say I can get you past the city unharmed, then I can.” Silwren’s violet eyes flared as she spoke.

Rowen resisted the urge to reach for Knightswrath. “Something will go wrong. Something
always
goes wrong.” He relaxed his voice. “I trust you. I do. But you dying right now to keep me alive just means I’ll die a little later. I need your help, not your sacrifice.”

Silwren smiled faintly but said nothing.

“We go south.” Rowen turned his horse.

The others fell in behind him. As he rode, Rowen thought of the hundreds of Hesodi dragged in front of the city, stripped naked, then impaled and left to endure a slow, agonizing death in the baking sun. He’d seen such things before. For a moment, he imagined himself riding to the victims’ rescue, Knightswrath gleaming in the sunlight, an army of Knights at his back. He pushed the thought from his mind.

Chapter Two

Captain of the Shal’tiar

E
ven from halfway across Brai’yl Run, the stark grassy swath that separated the Ash’bana Plains from the looming Wytchforest beyond, Essidel could smell the reek. At least, he thought he could. He reminded himself that the distance was too far even for Sylvan senses, but he had been fighting Olgrym three fourths of his life, long enough to be all too familiar with their grisly ritual of painting themselves with blood and dung before battles.

He felt his pulse quicken and that familiar knot of fear. Even from such a distance, they looked like giants…

Giant as trees before the axe,
he told himself, reciting the ancient phrase often intoned by the Shal’tiar before battle. He steadied himself and counted.

Counting Olgrym was not easy—they moved in a broad, heaving tide of malice and muscle—but he estimated at least a hundred of them. The main host was still farther east, clashing with General Seravin and trying to muscle past the stronghold of Que’ahl. The horde before him was just an upstart party sent to test Sylvan
mettle.

They should know better
. Then again, he doubted the Olgrym were acting under Doomsayer’s orders. The chieftain who had somehow united all the Olgish clans had a rare and wholly uncharacteristic appreciation for cunning and strategy. That made him dangerous. But the group probably consisted of renegades from one of the other clans—the Ash-Hands or the Skullshards—out to distinguish themselves.

That was fine by him. He would have preferred sneaking up on the Olgrym that night to cut their throats or doing battle behind the strong walls of Que’ahl, but every Olg they killed right away was one they would not have to fight later. He signaled.

A squad of Sylvan footmen in black leather brigandines and blackened mail took up positions on either side of him. They formed a long row of grizzled fighters armed with longbows and curved shortswords. None flinched. Most had been fighting Olgrym nearly as long as he had. But he caught other small indications of fear: fingers tightening around weapons, a restless step, and a deepening frown.

Essidel cast a critical eye over their defenses again. His men had taken up position in a shallow trench. One side was piled with earth and bristling with sharpened stakes angled to face the charging Olgrym. The Olgrym could simply have wheeled east or west and tried to flank them, but for a suicidal war-band such as the Olgrym’s, the only honorable attack was one delivered straight at the enemy’s throat.

All the better for us
. Essidel issued no orders. None were needed. Each Shal’tiar
warrior took a firm stance behind the heaped earth and sharpened stakes. They loosened their blades and nocked arrows to their longbows. The tips were poisoned with burgundy smears of quickdeath, a deadly mixture of crushed felberries and wytchwood sap—the strongest poison the Sylvs had. But against Olgrym, a killing shot to the throat, the eyes, or the liver was better than relying on poison. They were just too big.

Essidel loosened both his curved shortswords, withdrawing them a finger span from their well-oiled scabbards of tooled leather. Then he picked up his longbow. Like his clothing, it was black. He reached for the quiver at his belt. It contained a variety of footed arrows: broadheads, bodkins, and even flint-tipped arrows designed to break apart once they entered the body. He chose a broadhead because it would make a larger wound. He fit the slender arrow to the string, sighted down the shaft, and waited.

Sunlight glinted off the arrow’s tip, shimmering off the thin sheen of quickdeath. The taunts and bloodcurdling shouts of the enemy grew more intense, as did the reek wafting off their bodies. The Olgrym were almost within longbow range, provided the Sylvs aimed high. Another force might have decided against firing right away. Despite their great size, Olgrym could sprint nearly twice as fast as any man. Some would think the best tactic was to wait, aim, and make the shot count.

But as fast as Olgrym could run, Sylvs were even faster at nocking arrows. Essidel raised his bow to a forty-five degree angle and let the bowstring slip from his fingers. The other Shal’tiar
warriors followed suit. A dark cloud of poisoned arrows rose into the air with an ominous
snap.
After rising higher and higher, they fell, their steel tips glinting in the sun. Metal sought flesh, sank through gray muscle, and bit bone. A dozen Olgrym were struck—some in the neck or face, others in the chest and shoulders—but even the mortally wounded pressed on, taking a few more steps before they stumbled and crashed to the plains.

Essidel reached for another arrow, nocked it, and aimed, all in one smooth motion. The other Sylv followed his lead. They fired a second volley, reduced their arc, and fired a third. The Olgrym were less than fifty yards away. Their feet pounded the earth, shaking the ground.

Essidel swallowed his fear and counted. A third of the Olgrym were dead already, but he knew that was not enough to stop them. He drew out three arrows at once and nocked them all. He pulled the string back, steadying the bow despite the unusual weight. The other Shal’tiar
did likewise. The tide of Olgrym rolled closer. Essidel waited, waited, then fired.

A thick mass of arrows leapt from the Sylvan line, nearly parallel to the ground, and shredded the foremost Olgrym. Some still pressed on, blood crazed, half a dozen arrows in their bodies. Essidel cursed. He tossed his bow over his shoulder, drew both his shortswords, and braced himself.

The Olgrym must have seen the sharpened stakes, but they did not slow. Instead, they hurled their bodies at the Sylvs’ position, impaling themselves, howling and thrashing like rabid greatwolves in their efforts to move forward. Essidel kept from flinching as Olg blood splattered his face.

Each wooden stake, as wide as a man’s arm, sank three feet in the earth, but the wood buckled and snapped under the weight of Olgrym bodies. Howling, those in the rear shoved their mortally wounded comrades on, inadvertently using them as shields. Essidel stepped back. The other Sylv did the same. The bodies of Olgrym fell like a leaden rain where they had just been standing. Fresh Olgrym clawed and shoved past.

Then the real fighting started.

Minutes later, after what felt like a lifetime, the battle was over. Essidel wiped the sweat from his forehead then wiped the blood from his shortswords using the corpse of the Olg at his feet. He counted again. All the Olgrym were dead… as were half his men. He maintained a stoic expression.

No tears in victory,
he thought, echoing another Shal’tiar
motto, though he had never really cared for that one. He studied his surviving fighters
and chose one who appeared unhurt and the least winded. “Briel, take word to the general. Tell him the Olgrym—”

The crisp blare of a trumpet shattered what he had been about to say. Essidel tensed. He thought for a moment that a fresh host of Olgrym was bearing down on them. Olgrym wrought their booming war horns from the bones of dead dragons, but that horn blast had been crisp and metallic.

He turned in time to see a thick mass of armored figures gathering on a distant rise. They spread out, forming a long line of men and horses. Essidel stared. The men wore flashing mail, gleaming half helms, and brilliant-azure tabards. He wondered for a moment if he had lost his mind.

Briel cleared his throat. “Captain, should we—”

Essidel sheathed his blades. “No, go report to Seravin. The rest of you, at ease. Humans or no, these are Knights…
allies
from the days of the Shattering War. Wait here. Tend the wounded. I’ll go and see what—”

The Knights’ trumpet sounded again. Essidel turned in time to see the glinting formation explode into action, rolling down the hill like a ribbon of azure and steel. Essidel thought for one wild moment that the Knights had spotted a second force of Olgrym bearing down on them and were spurring to intercept them. He looked around. Aside from the Sylvs, the corpses of the Olgrym, and the wave of Knights thundering toward them, Brai’yl Run was empty.

Even then, Essidel could not believe it.
Humans… Isle Knights… attacking Sylvs?
He grabbed Briel, who was just finished cleaning his blades and was turning to go. “Forget the Olgrym. Tell the general we’re being attacked by Isle Knights!”

Briel’s eyes widened. Stunned, he stood for a moment then ran. Essidel glanced back at Sylvos. Sylvs were quick runners, nearly as fleet-footed as Olgrym. He and the rest of his fighters could make it to shelter, even on foot, but they had to cover Briel. Essidel started to draw his swords but changed his mind and retrieved a longbow. “Aim for their horses. The Knights will be thrown from their saddles. Don’t bother trying to cut through their armor. Nothing can cut through kingsteel. Just stab their necks below the helmet or right through their visors.”

He glanced at his men’s faces again, noting both their weariness and their confusion. Still, they sprang to action. They retrieved their longbows and formed up in staggered lines, using the corpses of slain Olgrym as a barrier between them and the onrushing Knights. Those Shal’tiar
who were too wounded to stand nocked arrows, willing to fight as long as they had breath in their bodies. Luckily, Shal’tiar
trained to fire their bows even when kneeling or lying down, to fight even when in agony.

Essidel nocked an arrow. If they could get the poison around the Knights’ famously impenetrable armor, the men would die almost instantly.
If…
He drew back the arrow until the feathers touched his cheek. He held his breath, cursing whatever new trick the Known Gods seemed to be playing. Then he let the bowstring slip from his fingers.