Redheart (Leland Dragon Series) (20 page)

Chapter Forty

“My fellow dragons,” blared Blackclaw’s voice above the buzzing swarm of murmurs in the arena. “You have all heard the rumors of the senseless murder of one of our own at the hands of a human dragon hunter.”

“We have heard!” sounded a rasping shout from the crowd. “Tell us the truth!”

A dramatic pause urged the murmurs to complete silence. A breeze swept through the fir trees at the arena opening, rattling the soft needles. Orman’s hand gripped Kallon’s shoulder tightly, and they shared a nudge of alarm from where they’d paused, hiding behind the arena wall, to listen.

“It is true,” Blackclaw finally said. “Delt Bluecrest, the council’s own appointed recorder, was found dead this dawn.”

The arena erupted in frenzied ramblings and shouts. Orman spoke, but Kallon couldn’t understand his words beneath the crushing volume spilling over the arena walls.

“Your anger is acknowledged, good dragons! As is mine,” spoke Blackclaw again. “The murderers will not go unpunished!”

“Did he say ‘murderers’?” Orman asked, eyes narrowing.

Kallon stared back at Orman, his mouth gone dry as Fell Lake. His mind skipped through the words...human dragon hunter…dead this dawn…murderers. It couldn’t possibly mean what his brain was trying to puzzle together. It couldn’t possibly be.

“Dragon Council! Dragon Representatives!” Blackclaw’s shout brought the crowd to attention, and the voices dulled. “We are a reasonable Kind. We do not seek revenge for the sake of anger, but justice for the sake of righteousness. I will present the criminals to you, and we will hear them!”

Kallon managed to hear the rattle of chains above the shouts. Orman rushed forward to peer around the wall, but Kallon was held in place by a fist of fear. He didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to know. Orman gasped, and turned wide eyes to Kallon. “It’s the girl.”

Kallon pressed clawed digits to his eyes. He was suddenly dizzied by the sensation that this was all some freakish joke; he would peer around the arena wall with Orman, and find Riza and Blackclaw and the others smiling and waiting to shout, “Got you!” Breath held, he lurched forward. Slowly, his snout rounded the wall, and his eyes found the platform at the front of the stadium.

Jastin Armitage, shirtless and scarred, jerked violently against his chains. He ranted. He stomped his feet. But the din of the raging crowd gulped up his threats, and dragon fists pumped the air before him. Beside him stood Riza, her hands bound behind herself, her black tunic fluttering like ghostly feathers against her legs. She lifted her chin. Her eyes met the gale force of dragon fury without wavering. She was a dignified queen, facing down her unruly subjects with gentle benevolence. His heart clenched.

“Look at her, Orman. She’s beautiful.”

“She is.”

“I haven’t really known her until now, have I?”

He felt Orman’s hand against his chest. “If you don’t do something to stop this nonsense, you’ll lose her.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

Orman swatted his throat. “Get in there and tell them who you are.”

“State your name for the record, and tell us why you are here.” Kallon blinked. Fane Whitetail waved his paw toward Armitage.

“I am Kallon Redheart!” Kallon’s own voiced startled him. Pairs of eyes darted to him. Then others followed, nudged dragon by dragon. Each new set of eyes stung him like nettles. His throat burned. “My mother was Sera Redheart, my father was Bren Redheart. They both died in honor and service to you all!”

“Well, well,” Blackclaw said as he rocked back and crossed his forelegs. “The rumors are true, then. The Red has returned.” Voices began to rise again, but Blackclaw swept out a paw to halt them. “Tell us, great and honorable Redheart, where you have been all these years. Why did you choose to abandon your responsibilities at a time when your Kind needed you most? And why have you chosen this time to come forward from your silence?”

Within the multitude of hovering eyes, a pair of green prisms, wet with tears, pled silently. Riza’s eyes. He focused on these, and the clammy grip of fear around his throat loosened. “I have come for the woman. She is innocent.”

Dragon faces swung to regard Blackclaw. “Do you have some sort of proof that this is so?” he asked.

“Do you have proof she is not?”

Blackclaw turned to address the dragons. “She was in the company of the dragon slayer. The dragon slayer was found with Bluecrest’s blood on his sword!” Dragons roared in response, waving their tails.

Armitage shouted, “The girl is innocent, Blackclaw! What is she to you?” He struggled against his chains again, but his outburst was lost in the tide of dragon cries.

Blackclaw continued, waving his forelegs toward the crowd. “We have one innocent here, and that is Bluecrest! If the girl did not swing the blade to murder Bluecrest herself, did she raise a hand to prevent it? It is by her lack of action that she is responsible!”

The dragon horde swelled toward the platform, squeezing in against the granite steps on either side, scaled fists pummeling the air. “Execute her!”

“Kill them!”

“They cannot get away with this!”

“They will be examples to all humans!” Blackclaw swung a fist toward the sky. “We dragons have lived quietly for too long! We have been disrespected, feared, and systematically murdered. We have had our lands stolen. We have dwindled to handfuls of proud, but powerless, tribes. Is this the legacy for which our leaders fought and died? Are we weaklings? Or are we warriors?”

A rumble shook the ground as dragon heads lifted and scaly mouths parted. Words broke loose and poured from their tongues in deafening unison, “WARRIORS! WARRIORS!”

Blackclaw raised both fists and pumped the crowd into a chant. “Warriors. Warriors. Warriors.” When the voices softened to a hum, he spoke again. “We are warriors. Humans were once our cause. We befriended them. They betrayed us.” He surged to the edge of the platform like a shifting thundercloud. “It is time for a new cause!” His fists opened to splay wide, powerful digits. “Supremacy!”

Shouting again buffeted the air. Kallon had to cover his ears to prevent his brain from shriveling. A new chant took over. Dragons growled, “War! War! War! War!”

Kallon could only stare as dragon eyes reddened and dragon mouths foamed. Were these the peace-loving creatures his father once led? Were these the companions and mentors he remembered as a child? The faces he looked upon twisted grotesquely, puffed and disfigured by rage. A haze of sulfuric breath filled the arena, stippling the scene in an opaque nightmare.

He glanced at Orman, who was staring in shock at Kallon above two fingers pinching his nose. Kallon looked for Riza on the platform. She’d gone pale and listless, staring off toward the far wall of the stadium. For a moment, Kallon thought she’d lost consciousness on her feet, until Armitage moved beside her to touch her shoulder, and she jabbed her elbow at his stomach.

Kallon tried to find the end of the chains binding Riza’s wrists. If she wasn’t attached to anything, he might be able to swoop over the distracted council members on the platform and escape with her and Orman to safety. Once done, would the council bother to send chasers after them? With more important tasks to concern themselves with now, such as war, Kallon would be a speck of a problem. A nuisance. He could continue to live quietly in another province. One that had long since lost their dragons. A place where neither he nor Riza were known or noticed.

His fellow Kind roared on. Blackclaw hollered loudest. But within, Kallon heard a still, small voice. His eyes darted to Orman. Orman seemed to have heard it, too, for he lowered his hand from his nose and smiled. Kallon almost fought it. He wanted to fight it. He wanted to drown it out with shouts of his own, but again the voice came, not from outside his ears, but from between them. Right inside his own brain. It said, “no.”

“No,” he repeated aloud. Softly.

“Again, Kallon,” said Orman. “Tell them.”

“No.” Something broke loose inside him. It broke loose from somewhere deep where he carried his unshed tears and forgotten emotions. He felt a crack, as real as the peal of breaking stone. He threw himself at the throng of dragons blocking passage to the platform and shouted, “No!”

Startled, one Green clamped his mouth shut to stare. Kallon wedged his way through, squeezing between scaled shoulders and ribs, heaving this way and that to force openings. “No! No! You are wrong! Our leaders would not want this! My father would never want this!”

A Gray moved aside to let him reach the platform steps. He climbed them. Whitetail appeared from behind the council members to wave them forward and block his path, but he shouted again. “I have the right to speak!” That captured Blackclaw’s attention, because he swung his gaze over. Council members of green, brown, blue, and ginger exchanged looks. Kallon repeated, “I have the right to speak! I am Kallon Redheart, son of Bren Redheart, grandson of Arin Redheart!”

Blackclaw glared, gesturing for Whitetail to stop him. When Whitetail pressed forward with an outstretched palm, Council Member Brownwing reached out his own paw to Whitetail’s chest. “He is Kallon Redheart. He has the right to speak.” Whitetail peered pitifully over his shoulder to his leader.

Kallon realized the crowd had ceased shouting. All eyes were on him once more. He faltered back a step, feeling the weight of those eyes as an oncoming boulder. A rattle of chains roused him, and he turned to find not a boulder, but an oncoming Riza. Her young face was tight, her eyes dark with shadows. With arms pinned behind her back, she ran to him, but was stopped violently short by the wooden post to which she’d been fixed. She nearly toppled over.

He lunged toward her and caught her in his claws. He steadied her with one paw on each shoulder and lowered his gaze to find her eyes. “Be strong. I’ll fight this.”

“You see?” said Blackclaw in his now-familiar, rumbling voice. “Before all as witnesses, he consorts with the prisoner! This one who claims the right to speak is a spineless traitor who keeps murderers as friends.” Blackclaw pointed a menacing claw at Orman, who lingered at the side opening of the arena. “And spies as company!”

Gasps broke out, but Kallon turned from Riza to speak again. “Fellow dragons, I urge you to think. Many of you know Orman Thistleby as a wizard and friend. My own father trusted and protected him, even died in service to him. What purpose would he serve to gather secrets from us?”

“Bah! I already know all your carnsarned secrets anyway, you fools,” Orman said. He crossed his arms and scowled.

“You use the word ‘us’ as though you belong here, Redheart,” snorted Blackclaw. “One claim to heritage does not a leader make.”

Kallon found Armitage’s eyes on him, and for a moment, he was so filled with outrage he nearly forgot himself. He managed to peel his gaze from the man to respond. “I am only here to remind you of the hopes of our leaders. They believed their purpose, our purpose, is to serve, protect, and above all else, honor the ways of peace between Mankind and Dragon.”

“A sentimental and outdated view!” Blackclaw addressed the crowd once more. “This was a respectful purpose at a time when both sides honored and valued the agreement, but it has long since lost its meaning. Humans do not want our friendship! They want our land, our crystals! They want our extinction!”

“So we retaliate by causing theirs?” Kallon faced the dragons as well. “Is this what our leaders would have wanted?”

Blackclaw turned to Kallon, his upper lip snarling. A tuft of blackened smoke escaped across the tip of his tongue and slithered upward. “There is that word ‘we’ again, Red. You are not a part of this community any longer. It was your choice to abandon it. It was I who stepped in to fill the responsibility.” His dusky eyes turned to his citizens. “The Red forgets that I am your leader now! I say we have bowed to tradition for so long that it has broken our backs!” Up went a clenched fist again. “I say no longer! I say our time has come!”

“Our time has come!” echoed scattered voices.

“I want my territory back!”

“I want their territory!”

Kallon’s chest fluttered in panic. He searched for Orman over the crowd; the wizard only stared back with steady eyes. He looked for Riza, who had drifted to her knees on the platform. Armitage’s chained wrists reached for her, and this time she didn’t even flinch. He looked over his shoulder to Kallon, and slowly drew her in against his bare chest. His chains groaned as he stroked her hair.

“No!” Kallon cried before he was even conscious of it. “It cannot happen!”

“It can happen, and it will!” Blackclaw lumbered toward Kallon. “You have had your chance to speak, now go back to your hiding place and stop blundering in things that do not concern you.”

“No,” Kallon murmured, falling back from the approaching Blackclaw. “Not right. This is not right.” He searched again for Orman, but failed to find him. Armitage kissed Riza’s forehead, and she quietly wept. Blackclaw’s face loomed ever closer, joined by Whitetail’s, and even Brownwing’s. They closed in to run him off the platform. He’d failed again!

“Kallon.” Kallon looked down to find that Orman had managed to squeeze through the throng and now stood near his feet. Their eyes met, and in that instant, Kallon’s mind was filled with ancient words. In desperation, he shouted them. “Fordon Blackclaw! Your ways of leadership are not commensurate with the long-held beliefs of your citizens. Your aspirations for their future are counterfeit, and your ambitions are self-seeking. I challenge your post!”