Rise of the Dragons (18 page)

Her father’s men fought so well, they
caught the Lord’s Men off guard, who clearly had not expected an organized
resistance. The Lord’s Men fought for their Governor, who had already left
them—while her father’s men fought for their home, their families and their
very lives.

Kyra took up her staff in these close
quarters, and she raised two hands overhead as one of the Lord’s Men came down
at her with a long sword—hoping Brot’s steel held. To her relief, the sword
clanged off the staff as it would against a shield.

Kyra then spun her staff around and
smashed the soldier in the side of the head. He stumbled back, and she then
kicked him, sending him tumbling backwards, shrieking, into the moat.

Another soldier charged her from the
side, swinging a flail, and she realized she wouldn’t be able to react in time.
But Leo rushed forward and pounced on his chest, pinning him down on all fours.

Another soldier came at her with an ax, swinging
sideways at her; she barely had time to react, as she spun and used her staff
to block it. She held her staff vertically, barely able to keep back the
soldier’s strength, as the ax came closer to her. She gained a valuable lesson,
realizing she should not try to meet these men head on. She could not overpower
them; she had to fight to her strength, not to theirs.

Kyra realized she would have to take
action and, remembering Brot’s contraption, she quickly twisted the staff. It
split into two pieces, and she stepped back as the ax came whizzing past,
missing her. The soldier was stunned, clearly not expecting it, and in the same
motion, Kyra raised the two halves of the staff and plunged the blades into the
soldier’s chest, killing him.

There came a shout, a rallying cry from
behind her—and Kyra was surprised to hear that it did not come from the Lord’s
Men’s side. She turned to see a mob of village folk—farmers, masons,
blacksmiths, armorers, butchers—all of them wielding weapons—sickles, hatchets,
anything and everything they had—and racing for the bridge. Within moments they
joined her father’s men, all of them fed up, all of them ready to take a stand.

She watched as Thomak the butcher used a
cleaver to sever a man’s arm, and as Brine the mason smashed a soldier with a
hammer, felling him. The village folk encircled them, and as clumsy as they
were, they caught them off guard. Kyra could see them releasing so many years
of pent-up anger and frustration at their servitude, at being treated like second-class
citizens. Now, finally, they had a chance to stand up for themselves—a chance
for vengeance.

Their momentum pushed back the Lord’s
Men, as they hacked their way through with brute force, felling men—and their
horses—left and right. But hardly had a few minutes of intense fighting passed
when these amateur warriors began to fall, the air filled with their cries as
the better armed and better trained soldiers cut them down. The Lord’s Men
pushed back, and the momentum swung back the other way.

The bridge became more crowded as more
and more of the Lord’s Men charged onto it, seeming to have an endless supply
of soldiers. Her father’s men were slipping and sliding in the snow, and she
could see they were tiring. The tide of battle was beginning to turn against
them. Kyra knew she had to do something, as more soldiers poured forth.

Kyra burst into action, jumped up on the
stone rail at the edge of the bridge, gaining the vantage point she needed,
several feet above the others, exposing herself but not caring. She was the
only one of them nimble enough to leap all the way up here. She drew her bow,
took aim, and fired again and again.

With her superior angle above all the
men, she was able to take out one soldier after another. She took aim at one of
the Lord’s Men bringing a hatchet down for her unsuspecting father’s back, and
fired, hitting him in the side of his neck and felling him right before he put
his blade in her father’s back. She then fired at a soldier swinging a flail,
hitting him in the ribs right before he could impact Anvin’s head, sending him
stumbling to the ground at Anvin’s feet.

Kyra felled a dozen men—until she was
finally spotted. She felt a breeze as an arrowed whizzed by her face, and
looked out to see the Lord’s Men firing at her. Before she could react, she
gasped in horrific pain as an arrow grazed her arm, drawing blood.

Kyra reacted, jumping down from the rail
and into the fray. She rolled and got to her hands and knees, and as she did,
she knelt there, breathing hard, her arm killing her, and looked up and saw
more and more reinforcements arriving for the Lord’s Men. She saw her people
getting driven back on the bridge, and she watched as one of them, right beside
her, a man she had known and loved, was stabbed in the gut and tumbled over the
landing in the moat, dead.

As she knelt there, a fierce soldier
raised his ax high overhead and brought it down for her; she could not block it
in time, and she braced herself—when suddenly Leo lunged forward and sunk his
fangs into his stomach, felling him.

But then Kyra sensed motion out of the
corner of her eye and she turned to see a soldier raise his halberd and bring
it down for the back of her neck. She couldn’t react in time, and she braced
herself as the blow came, expecting to die.

There came a clang, and she looked up to
see the blade hovering right before her head—stopped by a sword. She looked
over and saw her father wielded the sword, had saved her from the deadly blow.
He spun his sword around, twisting the halberd out of the way, then stabbed the
soldier in the heart.

The move, though, left her father
defenseless, and Kyra watched, horrified, as another soldier stepped forward
and stabbed her father in the arm; he cried out and went stumbling back as the
soldier bore down on him.

As Kyra knelt there, a feeling started
to overcome her; it was a warmth, beginning in her solar plexus and radiating
out from there. It was an unfamiliar feeling, yet one she embraced immediately,
as she felt it giving her infinite strength, spreading through her body, one
limb at a time, coursing through her veins. More than that, it gave her focus;
she looked around and time was slowed, and she felt as if she were the only one
moving on the battlefield. In a single glance, she took in all the enemy soldiers,
saw all their vulnerabilities, saw how to kill each and every one.

She did not know what was happening to
her, and she did not care. She embraced the new power that took over her body,
allowed herself to succumb to its sweet rage and do with her as it willed.

Kyra stood, feeling invincible, as
everyone else moved in slow motion around her, and she raised her staff and
pounced into the crowd.

What happened next was a flash, a
blinding blur that she could barely process and barely remember. She felt the
power overtake her arms, teach her who to strike, where to strike, where to
move, and she found herself striking enemy soldiers at various weak points as
she cut through the crowd. She smashed one in the side of the head, then
reached back and jabbed one in the throat; then leapt high and with two hands
brought her staff straight down on two soldiers’ heads.

She twisted and spun her staff end over
end as she cut through the mob like a whirlwind, felling soldiers left and
right, leaving a trail in her wake. No one could catch her—and no one could
stop her. The clang of her metal staff hitting armor echoed in the air like a
thousand pings, all happening impossibly fast. For the first time in her life,
she felt at one with the universe; she felt as if she were no longer trying to
control—but allowing herself to be controlled. She felt as if she were outside
of herself. She did not understand this new power, and it terrified and
exhilarated her at the same time.

Within moments she had cleared all the
soldiers off the bridge and found herself standing on the far side and jabbing
one last soldier between the eyes, felling him. She stood there, breathing
hard, and suddenly time became fast again. She looked around and saw the
carnage, and she was more shocked than anyone else.

The dozen or so soldiers who remained of
the Lord’s Men looked out at her and, panic in their eyes, turned and ran,
slipping in the snow. There came a shout, and Kyra’s father led the charge as
his men pursued them. They hacked them down, left and right, until finally
there were no survivors.

A horn sounded as all the villagers, all
her father’s men, all of them realized they had achieved the impossible: the
battle was over.

Yet, oddly, there wasn’t the jubilant
outcry that normally would follow such a battle, the cheering and embracing of
men, the shouts of victory. Instead, the air was strangely silent, the mood
somber; they had lost many good brothers on this day, their bodies scattered
before them, and perhaps that caused men to pause.

But it was more than that, Kyra knew.
That wasn’t what caused the silence. It wasn’t what caused all of those around
her, every eye on the battlefield, to turn and look at Kyra. Even Leo looked up
at her, fear in his eyes, as if he didn’t recognize her.

Kyra stood there, still breathing hard,
her cheeks flushed, and she could feel them all staring at her. They all looked
at her in awe, and perhaps suspicion. They looked at her as if she were a
stranger in their midst. All of them, she knew, were asking themselves the same
question. It was a question which she herself wanted answered, and one that
terrified her more than anything:

Who was she?

Alec drifted in and out of sleep,
dreaming fast, troubled dreams as he stood, leaning into the mass of boys,
jammed into the cart. More and more stops were made and more boys were crammed
in as the cart jolted along its way, all day long for a second day, up and down
hills, weaving in and out of the woods. Alec was on his feet ever since the
confrontation, feeling it was safer to stand, and his back was killing him, but
he longer cared. He found it easier to doze off while standing, especially
while next to Marco where he was less likely to attacked, even though the boys
who had attacked him had retreated to the far side of the carriage.

The jolting of the cart had become a
part of Alec’s consciousness; he felt as if he were on a ship, and forgot what
it was like to stand on steady ground. He thought of his brother, Ashton, and
took solace in the fact that at least
he
didn’t have to be standing here
right now. It gave him the courage to be strong, to go on, to bear whatever
life gave him.

As the day grew long, the shadows
longer, it felt like a journey to the end of the world, a journey that would
never end. Alec began to lose hope, to feel as if they would never reach The
Flames.

After more time passed, and he dozed off
several more times, he felt a nudge in his ribs. He opened his eyes to see it
was Marco, gesturing with his head. Alec looked out, disoriented, and saw they
had rounded yet another bend. He sensed a motion rippling through the crowd of
boys, and this time he sensed something was different. It was a wave of
excitement.

All the boys suddenly perked up as they
began to turn as one and look through the iron bars. Alec, wondering, turned,
but could not see through the thick crowd of bodies.

“You’ve got to see this,” Marco said,
looking through the bars beside him.

Marco shifted out of the way just enough
for Alec to be able to lean in and peek through. As he did, he saw a sight
which he would never forget:

The Flames.

Alec had heard about them his entire
life, but he had somehow never believed they could really be true. It was one
of those things that was so hard to imagine that, try as he did, he just could
not picture how it could be possible. How could flames really reach the sky?
How could they burn forever?

Now, as he laid eyes upon it for the
first time, he realized it was all true. It took his breath away. There, on the
horizon, sat The Flames, rising, as legend had it, to the clouds, so thick he
could not see where they ended. He could hear the crackling of it, feel the
heat of it, even from here. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying at once.

Up and down The Flames, Alec saw
stationed hundreds of soldiers, boys, criminals—a mix—patrolling, spread out
every hundred feet or so. And on the horizon, at the end of the road they took,
he spied a tall, black, stone tower, around which sat several outbuildings and
a hub of activity.

“Looks like our new home,” Marco
observed.

Alec saw the rows of squalid barracks,
packed with boys, wearing savage looks, covered in soot. He felt a pit in his
stomach, realizing it was a sorry glimpse of his future, of hell, and of his
awful life to come.

*

Alec braced himself as he was yanked off
the cart by Pandesian handlers and went tumbling down, with a mass of boys,
into the hard ground below. Boys landed on top of him, and as he struggled to
breathe, it shocked him how hard the ground was, covered in snow. He wasn’t
used to this northeastern weather, and he realized immediately that his
clothes, too thin, would be useless here. Back in Soli, though it was but a few
days’ ride south, the ground was soft, covered in green moss, lush; it never
snowed there and the air smelled of flowers. Here it was cold and hard, bland,
lifeless—and the air smelled only of fire.

As Alec disentangled himself from the
mass of bodies, he had barely gained his feet when he was shoved in the back.
He stumbled forward and turned to see a handler behind him, shoving him,
herding all the boys like cattle across the open field and toward the barracks.

Alec looked around, getting his
bearings, and saw several dozen boys emerging from his cart; more than one fell
out limply, dead. Alec marveled that he’d managed to survive the journey, so
crammed in. He ached in every bone in his body, his joints stiff, and as he
marched, he had never felt more weary. He felt as though he hadn’t slept in
months, and as he marched in this cold, harsh place, he felt as if he’d arrived
at the end of the world.

The crackling noise filled the air, and
Alec looked up and saw in the distance, perhaps a hundred yards away, The
Flames; he walked right toward them, and they loomed larger and larger. They
were awe-inspiring in person, up close with an unimpeded view, and he
appreciated their heat, growing warmer with each step he took. Yet he feared
how hot it would be when he got up close, like the others on patrol who stood
hardly twenty yards away from it. He saw they wore unusual protective armor,
and even with that, some of them outright collapsed.

“See those flames, boy?” came a sinister
voice.

Alec turned to see the boy he’d had the
confrontation with in the carriage, along with his friend, coming up beside
him, sneering.

“When I take your face to them no one’s
gonna recognize you—not even your mama. I’m gonna burn your hands off in them
until they’re nothing but stumps. So appreciate what you got now before you
lose it.”

He laughed, a dark, mean noise sounding
like a cough.

Alec stared back with defiance, Marco
now beside him.

“Try whatever you want,” Alec replied.
“You couldn’t beat me in the carriage, and you won’t beat me now.”

The boy snickered.

“This ain’t no carriage, boy,” he said.
“You’ll be sleeping with me tonight. Those barracks are all of ours. One night,
one roof. It’s you and me. And I’ve got all the time in the world. It might be
tonight or it might be tomorrow—but one of these nights, when you least expect
it, you’ll be sleeping and we’ll get you. You’ll wake up to find your face in
those flames. Sleep tight,” he concluded with a laugh.

“If you’re so tough,” Marco said, beside
him, “what are you waiting for? Here we are. Try something.”

The two boys looked at each other, and
Alec saw hesitation in their eyes as they glanced over at the Pandesian
handlers.

“Don’t worry,” one said. “We will.”

They slinked away into the crowd.

“Don’t worry,” Marco said. “You’ll sleep
when I wake, and I’ll do the same for you. If that scum come near us, they’ll
wish they hadn’t.”

Alec nodded in agreement, grateful, as
he looked out at the barracks before them and wondered if they would be an
improvement from the carriage. A few feet from the packed entrance, Alec could
already smell the body odor coming out of the building, mixed with urine. He
recoiled as he was shoved forward into the building, the barracks dark, lit
only by the weak light coming through the few windows.

Alec stepped onto the dirt floor and
realized immediately that, somehow, standing in that carriage was better than
this. He saw rows of suspicious, hostile faces, only the whites of their eyes
visible, staring back, judging him up. They started to hoot and holler, clearly
trying to intimidate them, the newbies, and to stake out their territory, and
the barracks became filled with loud voices.

“Fresh meat!” called one.

“More fodder for The Flames,” cried
another.

“There’s not room enough in here for all
of us,” called out another. “Tonight, we’ll clear it out.”

Alec felt a deepening sense of
apprehension as they were all shoved deeper and deeper into the one big room.
He finally stopped, Marco beside him, before an open patch of straw on the
ground—only to be immediately shoved from behind.

“That’s my spot, boy.”

Alec turned to see an older recruit,
unshaven, glaring at him, holding a dagger.

“Best get away from here,” he warned,
“before I cut your throat.”

Marco stepped forward.

“You can have your hay,” he said. “It
stinks anyway.”

The two of them turned and continued
deeper into the barracks, until, in a far corner, Alec found a small patch of
hay deep in the shadows. He saw no one nearby, and he and Marco sat a few feet
away from each other, their backs against the wall.

Alec immediately breathed a sigh of
relief; it felt so good to rest his aching legs, to not be in motion. He felt
secure with his back to the wall, in a corner, where he could not get easily
ambushed—and from where he was afforded a view of the room. He saw hundreds of
recruits milling about, all in some state of argument, and dozens more pouring
in by the second. He also saw several being dragged out by their ankles, dead.
This place was a vision of hell.

“Don’t worry, it gets worse,” said a
voice beside him.

Alec turned to see a recruit lying in
the shadows a few feet away, a boy he hadn’t noticed before, on his back, hands
behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. He had a deep, jaded voice.

“Hunger will probably kill you—it kills
about half the boys that come through here,” he said. “Disease kills most
others. And if that doesn’t get you, another boy will. Maybe you’ll be fighting
over a piece of bread—or maybe for no reason at all. Maybe they won’t like the
way you walk, or the way you look. Maybe you remind them of someone. Or maybe
it’s just pure hate for no reason; there’s a lot of that going around here.”

He sighed.

“And if all that doesn’t get you,” he
added, “those flames will. Maybe not on your first patrol, or your second or
your third. Trolls break through every now and again, usually on fire, always
looking to kill something. They’re got nothing to lose and they come out of
nowhere. I saw one the other night, sank its teeth in a boy’s throat before the
others killed it.”

Alec exchanged a look with Marco, both
of them dejected, wondering what kind of life they had signed up for.

“Nope,” the boy added, “I haven’t seen
any boy survive more than one moon of duty.”

“You’re still here,” Marco observed.

The boy grinned, chewing on a piece of
straw, still looking up.

“Because I learned how to survive. I’m
the longest here.”

“How long have you been here?” Alec
asked.

“Two moons.”

Alec gasped, shocked. Two moons, the
oldest survivor. This really was a factory of death.

Alec started to wonder if he had made a
mistake coming here; maybe he should have just fought the Pandesians as they’d
arrived and died a quick, clean death back at home. Now that he was here, and
his brother was safe, Alec found his thoughts turning to escape.

Alec found himself searching the walls,
checking the windows and doors, counting the guards, wondering if there was a
way.

“That’s good,” the boy said, still
staring at the ceiling yet somehow observing him. “Think of escape. Think of
anything but this place. That’s how you survive.”

Alec flushed, embarrassed the boy was
reading his mind, and amazed he could do it without even looking directly at
him.

“But don’t really try it,” the boy said.
“Can’t tell you how many of us die each night, trying. Better to be killed than
to die that way.”

“What way?” Marco asked. “Do they
torture you?”

The boy shook his head.

“Worse,” he replied. “They let you go.”

Alec stared back, confused.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“They chose this spot well,” he
explained. “Those woods are filled with death. Boars, beasts, bats,
trolls—everything you can imagine. No boy ever survives.”

The boy grinned, looked at them for the
first time, and reached out a hand.

“Welcome, my friends,” he said, “to The
Flames.”