The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) (50 page)

“Huh—oh, yes.
Funny. I don’t think so,” Brodie said distractedly as he continued on.

Ian frowned, but in following Brodie
, his eyes inadvertently wandered across where Maddy was sitting and looking back at him. That in and of itself was new, but her expression that was so full of gathering resolution was what Ian knew spelled trouble.

She calmly but deliberately set her reader down and walked
toward him, her eyes not quite as direct toward him.

Setting his own chores aside,
Ian made a couple quick decisions about all the previous two days of debates, and he stood up to meet her.

“Good morning, milady,” he said carefully.

“Good morning, Private Kanters,” she answered. “The—”

“Excuse me, milady,” Ian said, “but
before you say anything, I would like to apologize about the last time we talked.” He paused again, trying to thread the thin line between honesty and politeness that he had in his mind. “I was—wrong to act how I did. I’m sorry.”

She looked over his expression, things moving behind her eyes that he could only see bits of. “I see. Thank you, Private
Kanters, I accept your apology. I also want you to know that I meant what I said—I did not intend any discourtesy or slight against you or your family,” she said very formally.

Ian nodded. He glan
ced around the rest of the camp at the minor flurry going on, wishing that talking with Maddy was less nervous, like talking to Elizabeth.

“I will be free this evening,” Maddy went on, “if you would still like to try to
practice with the wyverns. It’s your choice.”

Ian noted that there wasn’t exactly a question involved in that question, and he couldn’t help but wonder if her father had inquired into their recent pause in lessons.

“Yes, of course,” Ian nodded, trying not to analyze just how honest that was or wasn’t.

“Very well,” Maddy said.
“I will see you tonight.”

Ian murmured something in answer as she turned and left. He sat back down, amazed at
how inconclusive that had been. At this point, he almost didn’t care which way all of this went, so long as it did go one way. Away sounded like a nice direction though.

Turning through his last few morning chores,
Ian skipped reading his Bible, though that only somewhat lessened the echoes about forgiveness in his mind.

Evidently
, this issue amounted to a noteworthy distraction, because he was fairly surprised when his yeoman picked up a companywide message. It was the basic, two-before-one jump-click they all knew—a man was missing.

Corporal Wesshire was missing.

*
              *              *              *

The rest of their day was spent in some disquiet, with the majority of their resources devoted to searching the surrounding areas. Corporal Wesshire was confirmed as having completed the first watch the previous night, but nothing more definite was known after that. The camp had a few conflicting reports of the corporal following that timeframe, but Ian was able to dismiss them as mistaken from the little he caught of them. The captain and lieutenant were both visibly shaken, as the first assumption was that some sort of wildlife attack had occurred. The lack of evidence from the rest of the camp and Corporal Wesshire’s well-known competence began to work against this initial theory, however, and whispers of possible desertion steadily began to be heard.

For Ian
, the day amounted to a lot of running around the surrounding area with one of the search parties and of hard considering of whether he should inform Captain Marsden of his previous conversation with Corporal Wesshire. While Ian felt sure that it had to be connected with the corporal’s present absence, he could find no conclusive logic that it was. And though Ian felt duty bound, he also suspected that anything of the sort that he told the captain would be dismissed out of hand, and even at best wouldn’t be any more help for finding the corporal. In the end, Ian decided to wait, but if asked directly about the corporal, Ian would tell what had happened. Army protocol dictated that their superiors were to start asking for more detailed information about any man missing past the preliminary search period, which would probably start tomorrow.

The corporal’s gear was
also missing, and no remaining clues were present that could be linked to him. At one point, the captain did have an inventory done of their food to ascertain whether any of it was missing. However, any difference that there might have been was too negligible to be accountable.

By evening
, Ian was fairly tired, as he’d run more miles both physically and mentally to no result than he may have ever had. He had found some time for mulling over his impending wyvern lesson, however, and after a late supper with his dispirited company, he found his long apprehensions found in Maddy’s inquiring glance.

Nodding back at her, he did his best to secure his remaining chores and to gather the riding equipment as quickly as possible for
the sake of their dwindling evening. Maddy only took Cuppy with them, much to Hitchie’s dismay.

“Is that everything, milady?”
Ian asked as they started off to get a little outside of camp.

“I think so,” she said, not having said much else prior to this. There was some silence while they walked. “I can’t believe that Corporal Wesshire is missing.”

“Neither can I.”

“No one knows anything more about what might have happened?” Maddy asked him.

“Not that I’ve heard,” Ian said. He looked over, trying to figure out what she was thinking, but her expression only belied troubled feelings. “Would you happen to know anything about where he went, milady?”

Maddy shook her head. “No. I know that no accident could have happened to him, but I don’t know why he would leave.”

Ian frowned to himself but said nothing.

“Let’s go to that hill,” Maddy pointed.

Having exhausted that topic, Ian very pointedly felt the silence again and Maddy next to him. Nothing more was said though, as they reached the hill and started to get Cuppy ready. This process was taking less and less time, and Ian felt that he was already able to ready it much faster than the Wester servants.

As
Ian fitted the saddle, he abruptly looked over at her. When she looked back, he could find no edifying reason to scorn what he should do any further.

“Milady, I really do want to apologize,” Ian said.

“Why? You already have.”

“Not—really,”
Ian admitted, looking at his hands. “I understand that you didn’t mean anything about my family. I knew it then, too. The problem is—I suppose, that I still have a lot of hard feelings about home. Apart from my family, there wasn’t all that much pleasant about it. But that doesn’t excuse my—behavior. I shouldn’t have said all of that. I really am sorry, milady.”

When he looked, he saw that she was listening, but not as warmly as he found that he hoped she would be. He actually discovered that he hoped that
having said that would fix everything. And it felt like it should, for how hard it was.

Maddy nodded. “
There’s nothing left to be sorry for. Thank you for your apology, Private Kanters, but—we do need to hurry. There’s not a lot of time left.”

“Of course,” he nodded and helped her finish readying the wyvern’s gear.

Stiff as all of that was, the tension eased, and the focus of getting Ian prepared to fly was a great distraction from whatever else remained.

“Just ease him forward a little,” Maddy said when he got ready, instructing
Ian with verbal white knuckles, “make sure to get enough speed before you pull him up. He knows what to do, just make sure to let him do it. Then just circle—”

“Circle once
, then land back on the hill, right,” Ian said. Getting a tighter grip on the reins and repositioning himself, Ian tried to hold his smile in any sort of civilized check, but it was hard when his heart was beating so fast. “Got it. I’m ready.”

Despite all of the apprehensions running across her expression, Maddy was checked a little when he looked back at her, and for a moment they held that, grinning
and feeling the air pushing back against them, Cuppy shifting impatiently underneath him.

Somewhere in that, in trying to remember all of the dozens of things he’d been told about
how to keep from dying while riding a wyvern, he thought about how much he thought about touching her hair.

“All right,”
she said, her cheeks flushed, “—go!”

And with that he leaned forward a bit,
gently bouncing his heels into Cuppy, who immediately raised himself. Adjusting in the saddle as Ian was tilted back with the rest of the wyvern, he rode along top of Cuppy. The wyvern stepped with his powerful hind legs alternately, but now things were much faster, not nearly so restrained. Cuppy quickly worked them up to a steady trot down the slight decline of their hill. Ian could feel the ground’s hold grower fainter and later with each successive step, and as his stomach began to mount up with them, Ian slowly pulled his left leg up and in a little.

Cuppy immediately responded
, and the two huge wings around and behind Ian were completely unfurled above for a small moment. They were then shoved down at the ground, creating a torrent of moving air all around them. This wasn’t quite lined up with the last step, serving only to slightly lighten it. But before Ian could react at all, Cuppy repeated the motion while pushing off—

And then they were free of the ground,
Ian’s breath catching in his lungs as he saw the grass falling away beneath them. His leg was frozen in the position demanding for more height, and Cuppy complied fast enough that it was all Ian could do to press himself back up against the force bearing him down into the saddle.

He let out a breath that was supposed to be a laugh, letting his left leg drop and allowing Cuppy to even out.

“That’s a boy!” Ian called out, leaning forward to look down over the wyvern’s shoulders to the ground flashing by beneath them. Patting the wyvern’s on the neck, he eased the reins one way a little and then back the other, feeling Cuppy turn each way in response.

Laughing for real this time,
Ian pulled them in a gradual turn until they were all the around, facing where Maddy was joyfully waving back at them.

“I have many regrets and past failings, but they do not frighten me nearly as much as the regrets I still have yet to commit.”

—General Benjamin Matters

The next morning shone far less certainly than even the last one had. No additional information about Corporal Wesshire’s whereabouts had been discovered. Their company was left in a sluggish state as they waited for the decisions to be given by their superiors about how to proceed.

It was a late breakfast, with shaving and cleaning
done later than usual down in one of the small brooks that flowed from the nearby mountains. Ian and Rory had helped with breakfast. Ian had also volunteered to help Will put away the cooking supplies with some limited direction from Lieutenant Taylor.

“Are there any
animals that live in these mountains?” Ian asked, this being only the latest in the long series of questions about the Quacu Mountains that he’d asked Will since they had started approaching them. He couldn’t get over how immense they were, and while he had seen a greater sum of manmade buildings in Wilome, it amazed him that something so deep and natural had existed for countless years.

Will thought for a moment as he reached down from the
brisa saddle to take the cookware Ian handed him. “Not really. Not the kind that you think of.”

“That I think of?” Ian asked. “What kind
do I think of?”

“There are some birds that hunt other birds and small creatures. Crawling lizards that eat insects …”

“Oh,” Ian said. “You’re right. But don’t any—”

Their
brisa gave a sharp huff, tossing its head a bit and nearly moving enough that Will had to grab fast for support.

“Whoa, easy there,” Ian said, patting at
its quivering leg, but not to much avail. “It’s all right. Nothing’s wrong.”

Will turned around and went to pet at the
brisa’s head. Ian lost sight of him for a moment, but Will quickly whirled back when the wyverns behind them lit up with startled cries.

Ian was in the process of looking back at them, with notions of deciding that something might
indeed be wrong when there was a shrill, nearly deafening screech that hit their camp from opposite of the wyverns.

Their party’
s startled shouts could barely be heard. Ian instinctively pressed harder against the brisa, but the animal lost all restraint and was lurching forward.

Ian
waited a heartbeat before rushing in the opposite direction of the brisa, as it was very much blocking whatever was making that sound. He had just cleared the back legs of the animal when a long mass of gray flew over a significant patch of the blue sky just above their camp. Ian barely had time to register that the flying thing had large wings, something of a head region, and a long tail that looked to be a complicated construction of shard-like plates.

He
ran at his sleeping area for his rifle, trying to twist his head around to follow the creature as it swung around their camp—not entirely unlike the wyverns, though much larger and having four equal legs—but Ian nearly tripped and fell. Turning his eyes back to his gear, Ian dove after it just as a few of his company mates in his peripheral awareness were rushing the other way.

Grasping his rifle,
Ian loaded and cocked it as he turned around on his knee. Two shots were fired off from their men, but the distance was off, and the shots fell harmlessly behind the creature. The third shot was held until just as the flying creature finished its turn to face their way, and it was brought down just enough just in time to clip the creature’s back just above its wing.

It let out another cry that
slammed over them and echoed back from several different directions. It was impossible for Ian to tell if there was any pain in the cry—he could see no reaction or deviation as it propelled itself back after them.

He opened his
Allen rifle’s focusing bays all the way, holding his shot for—

The creature—dragon—suddenly jerked up with its wings and simultaneously snap
ped its tail underneath itself harder and faster than Ian’s eyes could follow. He was barely able to see the bits of black shoot out from it, down and to his left. As he looked that way, he saw the ground leading up to one of their brisa explode from the impact of the projectiles and the brisa’s hind legs get struck backwards, bringing the large animal down with a scream.

Not having much time to register that, the dragon soared fast
between them and the brisa. Taking in a breath, Ian brought his rifle around and fired, watching it strike the animal’s rear leg.

“Form up—
form up, men!” Ian heard the various cries of his superiors. He saw Will and another Chax running for the reins of the other brisa. Heard shouting from the margrave—

Ian tried to reload while looking up to see the captain pulling Lord Wester away to the side, saw Elizabeth standing not far away.

Ian cursed as the cartridge slipped from fingers. Pulling another out, he glanced straight ahead and saw Maddy some long ways off, by the rocks that were near the streams.

Standing
, Ian started running that way, awkwardly thinking to message Rory with what little accuracy he could muster from his left hand while holding a cartridge. But he caught sight of his second not too far off to his right, starting to follow after Ian toward Maddy.

Stuffing the cartridge back in a pocket, Ian dashed at
her. She was also running his way. Looking back to their left, he saw the dragon wheeling around tighter for them—they were near the vector of the fleeing brisa—

“Maddy!” he cried, trying to run and shout and motion with
his hands—“Get down!”

He saw Rory stopping and firing straight on at the dragon as soon as it started to come back at them.
There was a slightly varied screech, and it twisted a little in the air as it came.

Ian closed the last handful of yards to Maddy and forcefully carried her down the rest of the way to the ground. Fortunately
, he felt and heard the dragon pass overhead. Lifting himself back up and aiming his rifle, he snapped off a more focused shot that brushed over its spine, to no apparent effect. However, as Ian watched, the dragon continued after the brisa, pressing itself up with its wings again and raising its tail behind it, but just then their party shot a concentrated volley. Some missed, but the force of it was enough to knock the dragon off of its bearings. The subsequent whip of its tail wasn’t nearly as concise as before, sending a cluster of black shards over the top of their company.

“Father!”
Maddy cried out, getting up to run that way.

“No!” Ian grabbed her by the wrist—the creature was targeting the
brisa—pulling her back away from the rest of the camp. “No—this way!”

He took Maddy running off
toward the mountain’s feet, the margrave’s daughter half-running while looking back.

“Come on, faster!”
Ian said, also glancing back—thinking that if he could get her somewhere safe he could run back to help the others—but no, he couldn’t leave her—

The dragon was rolling away from the rest of
the camp, unfortunately in the same direction where Rory was. Ian’s second had just finished reloading and put another smart shot into the dragon’s chest. It gave an incensed screech and turned after him.

To his credit, Rory lost no time in losing his footing. He kept to the ground
, and the dragon dove down at him with first its mouth, then its claws. It hit the ground and covered the area in front of Rory, but whether it was able to drop fast enough to hit Rory, Ian couldn’t see.

“Rory—” Ian
couldn’t hear if he had said it out loud, the din was so—

Oh no,
Ian prayed as the dragon continued back up past a still Rory and in their direction. Its eyes immediately locked on them.

They were some distance away, but not enough—he pulled harder at Maddy’s hand and looked back at the mountain front. There were no rocks large enough—but there were many caves and crags cut out a
ll along it. Knowing they couldn’t afford any delay, Ian dropped his rifle and half-pulled, half-helped Maddy over the uneven gravel and larger stones they began to hit. The larger hole that he had been aiming for was too far away, he steered them toward a closer one that wasn’t as tall.

They weren’t far away, fifty feet—the dragon let out a screech behind them, closing the gap.

Oh God,
Ian thought, if the dragon threw—twenty feet—anything at them now it wouldn’t matter—

They burst over the
built-up threshold just in front of the cave and then mostly ducked, partially fell into the opening.

The
sudden sound of a metallic material on rock exploded behind them, and tiny bits of something he couldn’t see in the shadows cut into his neck and the back of his head.

He tripped and fell over some rock, nearly bringing Maddy down with him. But he surged forward, deeper into the cave as he flailed about in the sudden gloom for cover—

But then there was a multi-layered collision well behind them, a rattling impact—the dragon hitting the entrance, Ian thought—that resounded down through the cave in front of them.

“Go
—” he was calling, even as they went farther, and there was a shuddering crash behind them. And then more, succeeding crashing came of rock on rock on rock and the sunlight being crushed in cascading segments.

Mad
dy tripped as well, but he half-carried her farther, even as he felt a falling rock cut sharp just behind his shoulder, smaller stones dropping all around them, and the dust falling in sheets.

Finally
, the remaining of their momentum ran into some boulder that was low but wide. Stopping, having to stop, they sat huddled against it. Their gasps became discernible again as the tide of moving stone slowly stopped above them and where they had entered, leaving them in utter darkness.