Reawakening (2 page)

There had been a full garrison here when he had collapsed into sleep. His energy had been drained by the battle with the Shadow, the immortal king of the dark lords who froze men’s hearts and devoured all that was joyful and precious in the world. He had been the last of his kindred left standing, lingering long enough to be assured that the tearing of the earth would not wipe out the men who had followed them into war.

The human captain of his hoard had promised to keep watch over him, despite his orders to leave. He had known he would not wake for generations, and Killan deserved better than to live out a mortal life watching him sleep.

But Killan had kissed him, whilst he still had the strength of will to hold to his human form, and murmured, “I have fought enough wars, lord. Let me rest awhile with you, and I will be content.”

He could not enter the old human garrison in this form, so he summoned his will and reshaped himself, remembering the body he had worn of old. The world was too thin and fragile for dragons and demons to war in their own dread forms. It was the one law that flame and shadow had agreed upon: in battle, they wore the forms of men so they would not tear the world asunder. Even that law had been broken by the Shadow, before the end.

The cold winter air struck his human flesh like a scythe, molding the still battle-damp rags he wore to his cold bones. Ripping them off, he saw ancient bloodstains suddenly dry and turn black under the bite of the wind. He drew in a quick breath, raising a flame to flicker over the corded muscles of this form. He had modeled himself on one of his first followers, a man whose name even he could barely remember. He had been one of the hill lords of the north—tall, long limbed, and ferocious, with white-gold hair that had fallen in snaky twists to his elbows, and eyes that had been wide and sad and blue, as if he knew he had been born too soon for all the things he wished to learn about the makings and workings of the world.

Naked, the dragon walked into the caves below the mountains, pressing his feet into the moss that had grown up over the polished marble steps. He would need clothing before he made his way back to the warmth of the desert, and an excuse to be traveling that would let him slide over the border before the fierce little spirit noticed he was back.

The great hall was dark, the high stone sconces empty. His flame sent shadows flickering across the vast arched roof, making the corners seem darker. It had been their place of celebration once, the home to which they returned when the snow blocked the passes and the campaign stopped for the winter.

He could no longer hear even the echo of their wassailing. Walking forward, he felt the wind sigh past him, keening its way into the mountain and making his flames flare forward like tattered ribbons, the only brightness in the dim shade.

Something turned under his foot, small, hard, and painful. He picked it up and rubbed the moss off its dulled edges. It was a chess piece, a polished bone king, with goggling eyes and his hands wrapped fiercely around both ends of his sword. The dragon had played against Killan with a set like this, on evenings when there was a lull in the battle and they could sit in his tent with furs across their laps, Killan’s feet curled against his thigh and their cheeks close.

He took it with him, following the steps down into the lower halls. His fires had kept the whole mountain warm once, through the long winters. Children had run laughing through these caves, and pretty round-cheeked girls had giggled at the sight of him and ducked away, whispering to their friends behind their hands. He had known them all by name once, every warrior and healer, every child and crone, the cooks, the smiths, the farriers, every man and woman of his host.

Now cold water dripped off the roof above him, and bats went rushing ahead at the light of his fires. There was no one left to smile and bow and return his greeting.

He came to one of the treasure chambers next. This part of his hoard endured, gold gleaming against gold, stack upon stack of torcs and crowns, busts and gilded armor, captured standards, and all that remained of polished lyres and harps, their strings rotted into dust.

Once, he would have lingered here for hours, touching the precious things with eager hands, breathing in the pride of their creators and the love their owners had felt for them.

They were just metal and gems now, and everything else he had collected so zealously was dust—the paintings, rolls of poetry, roughly hewn toys put away when boys came of age and went to war, painstakingly embroidered baby’s gowns, and little cloth bags of milk teeth and locks of hair, kept by old mothers until the day they died and then cast aside by their grown children, who had treasures of their own.

Everyone who had loved these things was gone, and without love, they had no meaning. They would not succor him.

His footsteps slowed before he reached the lowest halls, but he forced himself on.

The catacombs were full, though they had been half-empty when he had gone to sleep. On every shelf and in every alcove, bones were stacked in intricate patterns, overhung with silver flares of lichen and green moss. He tried to calculate the generations by their number—how many had lived here after the war?

He could not make sense of it, though, could not fit together the scattered pieces into whole bodies. Were they part of his hoard, or later generations gathered here in the shadows of their forefathers?

The corridor led him at last to the open air, to what had once been the great, smooth landing platform of his citadel. Its edges were rough now, cracked and heaped with fallen stones, and remnants of snow gathered over it in slushy late-winter smears.

At the center of the platform stood a great cairn, flat topped and crowned with snow. Its stones were wind worn and ancient, and had not been here when he had last walked into the mountain from this place. As he stepped toward it, his foot caught on a low plinth, and he hissed in annoyance as his stubbed toe throbbed.

He kicked the snow off the plinth out of irritation first and then saw the tracery of letters etched into the stone under a brown web of dead vines. Once he had cleared it off, he could only read one of the alphabets carved into the rock.

That was enough, and he knelt before the cairn with burning eyes.

Here rests Killan, first of kings,

Best of men, battle lord,

Dear to his people, the dragon’s shield.

“Dearer still to me,” the dragon promised him and rose. There was nothing more for him here.

He was not ready to travel in his human form, however, not yet. He had not lived so long to be brought low by cold and hunger, not when he was already so weak from the loss of his hoard.

The citadel had been abandoned long enough that nothing edible remained in the kitchens. Instead, he returned to his larger form and reminded the yellow deer why their ancestors had learned to run from great shadows in the air. His appetite sated, he switched to his human form and scavenged his way through the caves.

Someone had built a watchtower, around the mountain from Killan’s cairn, and he found clothes in a witch-sealed chest there. They were strange to him, dyed with bolder colors than he remembered from human craft. The cloth was soft, though, and he let his hands linger in its folds, enjoying the sensation. The long-sleeved tunic was warm, and he gathered it in with a studded belt, his fingertips stroking the places where a previous owner had worn the leather down. No memory of the man remained, but the dragon was content that it had been prized once. That would do, for the moment.

The knitted hose were welcome in this weather, though the bright-blue hue baffled him, but the boots almost stymied him with their complex laces and buckles.

It felt odd to walk through the watchtower in this garb, as if he was costumed for a mummer’s play, but he had seen human fashion change before. No doubt it would again.

On the top floor of the tower, he found a study, locked and warded. The watch spell was easy to snap, and inside he discovered the citadel’s archives.

The earliest volumes were clearly copies of older documents still, but he could read the alphabet and follow the language. With his belly full and no wish to sleep further, he settled to read his way through history. The first volumes were easy, full of familiar names and conflicts, though it saddened him to see some of the great alliances collapse without his kind to enforce the treaties between their allies.

The language changed slowly for the most part, and he had all his kind’s instinct for words and riddles to help him. Twice, the change was so great and sudden that he was forced to seek out reference books from the shelves, but it merely slowed his reading a little.

It took over a sennight to absorb it all, broken by quick naps and more deer to snack on, and he eventually sat back with centuries of human loss and learning swilling in his head. There had been so many setbacks, plagues, wars, and civilizations collapsing under the weight of their own greatness. Humankind had made so many great leaps forward as well, in the way they had spread across the world, the ideas they had wrestled with, the alliances they had formed, and the inventions that had changed them beyond all imagining. The books spoke of the age of dragons as a Golden Age, but if just half of what he had read were true, the world he had helped rule had been austere and simple in comparison to what had come in later centuries.

This place had been abandoned long enough that no roads led to its doors, and no ghosts lingered to flavor the air with human memories. It had been a natural decline, from what the chronicles said, as civilization reformed around bustling trade cities in warmer climes, and more and more children left the citadel to seek out a bolder, brighter life.

He would do the same, the dragon resolved, and not just for the sake of claiming the desert. There was nothing left for him here, and everything he had read made him crave a new hoard more than ever before. It was time to leave the mountains and begin again in another, livelier place.

The armory was full of swords. He knew all their names and how the gifting of them had once been a mark of great honor. Now, thinking only that there was always work for a human spellsword, he chose one whose weight he had always liked and whose blade he had once tempered in his own flames.

Its scabbard, he was pleased to see, had survived the centuries. He appreciated good spellwork and sought out mail by the same makers before he slung the sword over his back and hooked a light shield over it. He set out at a steady pace, forcing his way through the forest where there had once been a road.

He did not look back until the sun began to fade. When he glanced back at the citadel, all that showed was the lonely tower and Killan’s cairn, gilded by the sunset.

For a moment he stood, listening to the wind ripple across the forest and watching the birds curl overhead, following the wind south for the winter.

Then he turned his back on his ancient home and began his walk toward the desert.

Chapter 3: Helping

T
WO
MONTHS
later, he arrived in the trade city of Hirah, where the spring-bright fields began to fade into the hot, dry hills of the south. It had been a long journey, and a strange one, lurking around the edge of human settlements until he had observed enough of modern habits to join the odd travelers’ campfire and dice for change in half-timbered inns.

He could follow the quick pattering speech of this new age now, though he still wondered what the rush was. His own slow accent, he had discovered, marked him as a backcountry bumpkin, right until he met a mendicant priest who goggled at the purity with which he accented ancient words.

That had been fun, and he had considered cajoling the priest into turning toward the desert with him, not least because the man had river-green eyes, a sarcastic tongue, and a heart that blazed with generosity.

The priest had also had a family, of whom he spoke with quiet, honest longing, so the dragon hadn’t claimed him. He didn’t want that kind of melancholy to tinge his new hoard. With the careless generosity with facts and ideas that was the mark of a true scholar, the priest had shared his knowledge. He had even sketched out a quick map and jabbed at the little dot that represented Hirah, right where the road south crossed the broad River Rasha. “There, a true den of iniquity and blithe sinners.” He had darted a glance at the dragon from under his heavy brows, his lips quirking up. “Which is to say, a trade city. If you’re seeking work, there are rich men needing shields, wicked men who want fists, and lawmen who want honest swords.”

“I go farther south,” the dragon told him, shrugging.

“The caravans start in the trade ring in Hirah. If you’re a traveling man, the caravan masters will be looking to hire guards. There’s a hiring fair each third of the month.”

The dragon hadn’t seen the point then. He’d always lived off the land and gathered followers to provide for any greater need.

As he traveled farther into populated lands, however, he began to change his mind. All this land, which had been quiet and shadowy forests in his day, was shorn of trees and fenced apart now. He had been roused out of his sleep by dogs and angry landowners twice, and seen the crowds gather to watch a thief swing from a town square gallows for rustling sheep.

Wealth clearly mattered more than skill or loyalty, and it was a lowering thought. He had passed through enough towns to see the hungry-eyed beggars skulking in the shade. Who was there for them to petition for mercy and succor? Where were the lords who should rule and protect their people?

His world had failed many of the weak and lonely. Life had been too short, and there had been none of the miracles of healing that were freely offered on the street corners now. But there had been a code of honor and an expectation that a clan protected its own. There seemed to be no more clans in these cobbled towns, though there were rich men aplenty.

When he crested the hill above Hirah, he stopped, appalled. The city filled the valley below in a brown and seething mass. Ancient halls were surrounded by tile-roofed terraces of narrow houses, which gave way to rough brown shanties, spilling up the hillsides in flaking layers. The river ran through it, slow and brown and slurried—the very river that came singing out of his mountains in blue and silver tumbles.