The Dragonswarm (37 page)

"For violence and blood," I said. "Very well. But first I must get some sleep."

At dawn we met in council around my sickbed and made plans for the real war. Without the promise of that vast, unguarded hoard, Lareth lacked the confidence to open portals from within our walls, but we found an answer to that. I sat aching in my room within the tower and shoved him with my will to the edge of my domain, high in the rugged mountains west of the fortress and well beyond the sight of the king's men.

There we built an outpost. I sent carpenters and masons up to make a meager shelter, and Lareth hung his strange green fire in the air. Then I brought my workmen back and sent up hunters. Twenty-two of those I'd led were still alive, and every man among them volunteered to go back out. They'd brought recruits, as well—another forty soldiers they'd hand-picked and a crowd of other anxious volunteers.

In the end I sent my veterans, and Caleb chose thirty more from among their best selection. We'd trained for thirty hunters to a pack, and there was not yet enough experience to make up more than two. I sent them to Lareth, and from his high place he opened portals to the north. Then the hunters scoured the hills to find their prey.

Two parties went out on their own, and when sunset called them back to the places they'd arranged, one group claimed four dragons dead and the other six. Then Lareth opened portals to the outpost, and I brought them home. Thirty-nine hunters made it back. One of the new recruits was torn apart in the final den, gored and swallowed as he kept the beast from killing his brother.

The rest had watched in horror then swarmed the dragon, pulling it out of the air with powerful thrusts and dragging it down in their fury. They tore the thing apart until its scales glossed black with blood. Then they returned with heavy hearts, but they brought back eight teeth as well. They took the fangs from every one they killed, and wore them around their necks like talismans. That night a thousand mugs were raised in honor of the one who fell, and at dawn we had another hundred volunteers.

There was something about the dragonhunt that could not compare with any other sensation in the world. Every blow they struck fell with the full weight of humanity behind it, and every time my men fell back, it seemed as though all mankind lost ground with them. That duty burned like fire within the heart of every hunter, and echoes of it hung throughout the tower. Those who stayed behind began to gather every night, so sixty tired hunters came back to find five thousand men and women anxious for the day's report.

Because they fought for all mankind, they struck without mercy and marched without fear, and they used every trick they knew to pull the serpents down. They hunted in the daylight, then stayed up hours more to train, then grabbed some sleep, and left again before the dawn.

It was only with a deep regret that I'd sent them out without me, and when they came home with casualties I'd nearly called it off. I'd nearly decided we should wait until I could train them more. Lareth gave no arguments, and Caleb conceded it might be for the best, but Garrett Dain raised a fierce objection. One man had fallen, a new recruit, while their two teams combined had killed ten dragons. They were learning. They were getting better, and now that the walls were done they spent time training others, too. Before my leg was healed, he said, they could have ten parties hunting. Maybe more. And every day we waited meant more dragons to destroy.

So the next day we sent three hunting parties and kept six of my Captains home to train up more. When the rest returned at sunset, they once again brought back the long, curved fangs from every dragon killed, and when the teeth were counted we had thirty-eight dragons in one night. It was a glorious victory, but it carried with it the sad total of twelve men killed in combat, twelve soldiers lost to the dragons. We had a ceremony in the courtyard to honor them, and at the dawn we had more men than ever before volunteering for the fight.

Caleb made the arrangements after that, and the hunters came to me only to send them out and bring them home. By that time there were eighteen of the original thirty, and each of them a legend throughout the camp. The soldiers guarding the walls and working in the tower vied for the honor of accompanying the Captains on the hunt, even though many never came back.

As we carried the fight to the dragons, brought in more and more trophies, we lost more men as well. But the volunteers kept pouring in until even the civilians begged to help in the fight. Then Caleb named another thirty men Captains of the Hunt and gave them men as well. Every morning with the dawn I sent them scouring the hills.

Soon we didn't need the outpost thanks to all the spoils they'd taken. My territory swelled until I could cast a man at will as far as Teelevon, or anywhere among the coastal ranges for miles north and south. The treasure rolled in, concealed in a magical vault beneath the floor of the tower. Metalsmiths worked with iron and steel to fashion specialized weapons for the hunt, and Lareth and I together spent hours every day binding energies into their armor to protect and conceal them. When iron ran out, I gave them the gold and silver that came from the dragons' hoards in such abundance.

I laughed the first time I saw a child eating barley soup with a spoon of solid gold, but we had more of gold than steel in those days, and soon the sight became commonplace within the walls of Palmagnes. Outside the walls, the king and all his army shivered in their tents and waited for us to starve. They brought up ladders in the dark of night to lean against my walls, and they were massive, heavy things meant to survive the desperate efforts of my defenders. But I felt them coming from a mile away. I waited 'til they set the ladders in place, then opened up the earth and swallowed them.

The king sent sappers digging underground. They tried to make a secret tunnel beneath my walls, but every swing of the pickaxe nudged at the back of my mind. I let them waste a week, and they got right up to the walls, then I opened the earth above them, raised them up as I'd done Lareth long before, and left them standing dazed in sudden sunlight. The defenders on my walls jeered down at them, and I sent another round of hunters out to fight the dragons.

That is how the days progressed, filled constantly with the thrill of little victories, the grief of men lost, the tension of battle and the anguish of preparation. Whenever the hunt went out, I met the Captains afterward and demanded of them every detail. We became a council, striving to learn everything we could of the enemy, working to put any knowledge to our advantage. We refined the training, refined techniques, and the men came daily to learn what we had to teach. The training became more intense as we learned more clearly how to fight this new battle and as the soldiers faced daily the dangers we were preparing them for.

Sometimes we would go three or four days without a casualty, and then we would lose a whole party in one night. The dragons learned quickly, and information spread among them like a disease. As our techniques changed so did their behavior. But we won many more than we lost. By the end of the month we were sending out twenty parties a day, and bringing down sometimes twenty dragons, sometimes two hundred.

Of course there were days when my Captains came in to report a staggering loss, but they were always somehow balanced by the constant flow of volunteers from within my forces. And then one afternoon Garrett Dain led his thirty men over a hill and found a band of untrained villagers dressed out in arms. When he approached, they asked if he'd come from Palmagnes. He told them he had, and they cheered, because they'd been looking for him for days. Somehow rumors had spread of what we did, and now throughout the whole Ardain brave bands of men were searching for my hunting parties in the hopes of joining us. Dain brought that first group back to the meeting place at dusk, and when he told me who they were, I brought them in.

Once we knew about them, we found more. Three weeks after the first came in, I couldn't send two parties out without one of them bringing back volunteers. I began to look for them, stretching my awareness out across the plains, and Caleb gave me recruiters to send out and invite them back. I'd pluck them from the rolling hills, or from their village squares. Soon I could reach almost to Tirah, and anyone who wanted to could join in the fight. The more men died, the more flocked to my side.

For more than a month it went on like this, and the Royal Guard sat camped outside the walls of my fortress and wondered how long the siege would last. Lareth loved to laugh at them waiting patiently in their tight formations while we traveled free as thought right through their trap. Then one morning I was standing in the courtyard and staring up at the tower, now almost finished with the seventh floor, when I was drawn from my thoughts by excited shouts from the men in the archers' towers.

Anxious for some change in the dark monotony that had settled over the place, I flung myself to the top of the wall, stepping out of empty air a moment before Caleb appeared sprinting up the stairs. For a moment the guard only looked at me in astonishment, but Caleb barked a command and he proceeded with his report.

"General. Lord Daven. A man approaches from the king's forces."

Caleb scowled. "Shoot him!"

I rounded on Caleb, rebuke on my tongue, but the crossbowman was already nodding. "Yes sir. I know sir. We did fire. All of us. It did no good."

Eyes narrowed, Caleb looked the soldier up and down. "How long have you been with us?"

I stopped Caleb with a hand on his arm. "Your men know what they're about."

The stronghold showed my wizard's sense the man approaching our great gates. I stared at him and wondered. For the first time since Seriphenes's disappearance, another wizard had come forward.

They had tried for weeks to find some gap in our defenses, to twist their spells against the manifest power of my fortress, but their tricks were no more effective than Othin's. I could feel the wizards' attention the moment they began to focus on my lair. It buzzed like a gnat around my ear, and I could swat it with significantly less effort. Every time I did, I thought of the time I'd crushed Lareth's traveling outside Tirah, and how he'd flinched. It must have hurt, because in time they'd stopped.

But now a wizard came to try diplomacy again. I couldn't sense his true intentions; no matter how much treasure the hunters had brought to my tower, that part of my stronghold's senses would not extend beyond my sworn followers. I couldn't feel the emotions of the men in the king's camp, though I could see their lifeblood fires plain as day. And even here upon my threshold, I could feel nothing more from this wizard than his power.

Still, it impressed me much that he came quietly. And looking on his power—no doubt the mighty glow of a full Master of the Academy—I had no fear of him. Here, in the heart of my stronghold, I could obliterate his will. So I acted on a whim. I wrapped myself in power, all of it ready to lash out, then nodded once to Caleb and stepped outside my walls.

And then I blinked in stunned surprise. The king's envoy was Claighan, who had found me as a shepherd. Who had recruited me to fight the dragonswarm. Who had led me to the ambush that set the king against me. The last time I'd set eyes on him, he'd been nearly dead, but years and wars and whole lifetimes had passed since then.

He must have noticed my arrival, but for some time he did not turn to meet my eyes. Instead he stood in silent contemplation, examining the magical construction of my gates with a slow nod of grudging admiration. I watched his eyes carefully as he took in my mighty stronghold—the build of the gate and the seamless walls; the void beyond that even his wizard's sight could not penetrate; the long, high bands of air that shielded us from above.

I watched, waiting for a smile, as his gaze at last fell on me. I waited for a greeting, for some praise, perhaps even for a hug from the sentimental old man. But when his eyes met mine, they burned with rage.

"I meant to make you a hero, boy. What have you become?"

"I guess the stories are all true," he said, distaste bitter in his voice, "and you're a wizard king. This is quite an impressive show, Daven Carrickson." He said it harsh as a backhand to the face. "Quite a show."

I took a slow step back, then forced careful respect into my voice. "I've never called myself a king. And this is far more than a show."

"You're right in that," he said. "This is more than a mere nuisance, too. You place the whole nation at risk."

Anger, hot and sharp, flared up in my heart. I pushed it down and met the wizard's eyes. "Ah. You haven't come for a reunion, then?"

"No, Daven, this is no reunion. I am here as envoy of the king. I've come to ask that you desist."

I shook my head, incredulous. "He has you, now? Even you will serve that rabid dog?"

"He is the king," Claighan said. He sounded tired. "And even so...no. I do not serve him, and he wastes no favor on me. But I serve this land. I serve mankind."

I smiled, lips pressed tight. "As do I, Master Claighan. As do I."

He frowned past his eyebrows at me, as though I'd made a joke in poor taste. "I can't imagine what has become of you, boy, but whatever it is, I recognize I must bear some portion of the blame. I have come here out of that sense of responsibility to ask you to set aside this mad rebellion."

I scrubbed my hands over my eyes and took a deep breath. "Rebellion. No. You have it wrong."

"You have how many rebels in those walls?" the wizard asked. "Some rumors have your numbers at a thousand, but the Green Eagle says it can't be more than half that number."

"Are they so blind?" I asked. "I have them
all
, and more. Two thousand under arms, and twice again in loyal followers."

"Six thousand men beneath your banner, in a walled city and in defiance of the king," Claighan said, his eyes fixed on mine. "Hardly a rebellion at all."

"I never claimed a thing—"

He paid my words no heed, nodding past me at the walls. "I see the glow of the traitor Lareth's strange green fire. And we have found the traces of his travelings. Has he served you well?"