The Wings of Dragons: Book One of the Dragoon Saga (10 page)

Iren’s head spun with all he had learned,
but he nevertheless jumped to his feet. “Come on!” he cried. “Let’s
hurry and tell Amroth! With Divinion, we can defeat the Quodivar
easily.”

Rondel downed the last drops from her flask.
“Don’t you listen to anything I say? Do you not realize that I
could have told you all of this at any time while we rode? Amroth
can’t know about Divinion.”

“
Why not? We’re all in this
mission together.”

The old hag said derisively, “You really
think so? Take care, little boy. That man you admire so much means
to send you to your death.”

“
Amroth saved me from
execution, you drunken windbag! He gave me my chance for revenge!
He’s only acted kindly to me, unlike you.”

“
Acting is indeed the right
word for it,” Rondel countered. When Iren folded his arms and
scowled, she waved her hand dismissively. “Fine, fine, don’t listen
to me. But whether you trust Amroth or not, know this. There’s more
to this mission than simply defeating the Quodivar. Far
more.”

On the fourth day since departing Haldessa,
the village of Veliaf finally came into view. All day, Iren and the
others had watched as the boreal forest Akaku grew on the horizon,
spreading from east to west in a blanket of conifer spires. Iren
had considered the tiny wood where Rondel told him about the
dragons impressive, but Akaku put that to shame. Its giant trees
must have been at least twice the size of any in that thicket, and
they grew so close together that almost no light could penetrate
them. Iren could understand why Lodians feared it so strongly.

Veliaf didn’t look much more welcoming. A
high stone wall encircled it, so as they approached, Iren could see
nothing of the village itself. The only entrance appeared to be a
solid metal gate, which faced the road.

“
When we reach the gate,
let me handle it. Don’t say anything.” Amroth turned in his saddle
and glowered at Rondel. “Especially you.”

Iren gave the captain a sideways glance.
Even if he didn’t believe her, Rondel’s warning about Amroth
unsettled him.

Then again, considering the way Rondel could
change her personality on a whim, she seemed the more likely
actress. Immediately after reentering camp the other day, she had
assumed her typical idiotic self and proceeded to grate on
everyone’s nerves, Iren’s included, all the way to Veliaf. At the
moment, she was complaining about the road conditions and how her
horse kept stepping in every pothole. The useless beast of burden,
she whined, would surely cause her to fall and break her arm. She
waved an empty bottle in the air as she bellowed, having finished
the last of her alcohol an hour ago.

The crone gave an impressive performance;
Iren had to give her that. She didn’t look like someone who could
speak seriously about Maantecs, dragons, and events that happened
thousands of years ago. Nor did she look like the kind of person
who could kill six Quodivar without breaking a sweat. If anyone in
their group was disguising their true motives, Iren considered
Rondel the most likely suspect.

Maybe instead of Amroth, he really needed to
watch out for her.

“
Amroth!” Rondel piped up,
“My eyes have withered with age and no longer see what you young
folk easily spot. From back here, I don’t see any watchmen on the
wall. Can you?”

The captain fixed his gaze on the
fortification, as did Iren. The annoying hag was right. Coming from
this direction, they should easily see Veliaf’s guards silhouetted
against the clear blue sky.

Amroth suddenly snapped, “Weapons ready, all
of you.”

The group approached warily. Arriving at the
gate, they found it nearly torn from its hinges. As they passed
through it and entered Veliaf, Iren glanced around with disgust.
Admittedly, he’d only ever known the manicured grounds and passages
of Haldessa Castle, but surely villages should not look like this.
Not a soul walked the cobble streets, even though it was barely
midafternoon. All of the windows in every building were smashed,
and many of the structures lacked doors as well.

Iren shuddered. Even in pristine condition,
he would have considered the town intimidating. He couldn’t spot a
single tree or blade of grass. Instead of individual houses,
identical stone two-story row homes lined both sides of the roads.
As a cold wind howled through the narrow corridor of the street,
Iren felt claustrophobic. He clutched his arms around his
chest.

Amroth’s eyes narrowed as he swiveled his
head to take in the village from as many angles as possible.
“Veliaf thrived when I came here on my last mission. What could
have happened in such a short time?”

Dismounting, the group searched nearly a
dozen houses and shops near the village entrance but found nothing
of consequence. The town was devoid of life.

“
I don’t even see any
bodies,” Balear said when they reconvened back at their horses. “If
someone attacked the village, shouldn’t we see corpses, at the very
least?”

“
I didn’t notice any
valuables while examining the houses either,” Amroth added.
“Someone has completely looted this place.”

“
Quodivar?” Balear
suggested, but while Amroth nodded curtly, Rondel did something
unexpected. Adopting a broad grin, she started heading down a side
street away from the others.

“
This is all much too
depressing,” she said innocently when Amroth asked where she was
heading. “I’m going to find a drink.”

The captain raised a hand in warning, but
she disappeared around a corner before he could say anything. He
sighed. “I guess we’d better go after her before she gets herself
killed. Leave the horses here; that alley’s too narrow for them
anyway.”

After tying up their mounts, the trio
pursued Rondel. The narrow lane twisted and turned several times
before reaching the open ground of the village square. Arriving
there, they found not only Rondel but a terrible sight.

The bodies of men, twenty or thirty of them,
lay heaped and rotting in the square’s center. Dried blood caked
nearly all of the square’s cobblestones. Four pikes surrounded the
corpse pile, each topped with a decapitated head.

Iren and Balear both vomited at the smell;
the people had died days ago. Even Amroth had a hard time keeping
his composure. Rondel, however, appeared oblivious to the sensory
overload. She stared lividly at the square, her body vibrating.

As Iren wiped his mouth, he realized he had
overlooked a crucial element of the scene. He’d found the stacked
carcasses so overpowering that he had missed a group of a dozen men
about two hundred feet away on the far side of the square. The men
jeered and kicked at something they surrounded. Through their
taunts, Iren could barely discern muffled cries. Someone remained
alive in the center of all that violence, though likely not for
long. For the moment, the men contented themselves with just
kicking the person, but each of them carried arms fit for war. All
had bows and well-stocked quivers, as well as either a sword, axe,
or spear. With an involuntary glance at his leg, Iren guessed that
they likely had more than a few knives and daggers hidden away
too.

Amroth gestured to Iren and Balear to take
shelter in a nearby building. With Balear’s bow their only
long-distance weapon, they had no chance of stopping those brutes.
They would all be shot long before they could get within sword
range. The captain tapped Rondel on the shoulder to get her to come
also, but she refused. Giving up on her, Amroth joined Iren and
Balear.

Rondel marched slowly into the square. As
she did, Iren got a brief look at her face. He gasped. Sparks
jumped in a crisscrossing pattern that filled her irises. Three
nights ago, Iren had felt confident he’d only imagined the odd
bolts in the hag’s eyes. Now those malicious sparks cowed him with
fear.

Because this time, he knew they were no
illusion.

“
Excuse me!” Rondel barked,
her voice low and with an edge keener than any blade’s. “What are
you all doing there?”

The men stopped their kicking and faced her.
One of the brutes, bigger than the rest, stepped to the front and
said, “What’s it to ya, ya decrepit buzzard?”

In spite of the situation, Iren couldn’t
help but smirk. Decrepit buzzard . . . he’d
have to remember that one if they lived through this.

Rondel, however, ignored the man’s question.
She gestured with her chin to the pile of bodies. “Who killed those
people?”

The brute sneered, “They dared to resist the
Quodivar and Lord Zuberi.”

“
In other words, you did it
as a warning.”

“
All who defy Lord Zuberi
must die.”

Rondel’s cold voice sounded almost sadistic
as she replied, “You know, I haven’t been in a great mood these
past few days. Killing you all would help that tremendously.”

The big Quodivar spat at the threat. Before
his spittle reached the ground, the man next to him drew his bow
and fired an arrow straight at Rondel’s face. Iren cried out in
grief. Maantec or not, the crone couldn’t dodge a speeding arrow.
He buried his head in his hands as he saw the projectile sail past,
cleanly through her head.

Amroth forced Iren to look back into the
square. Rondel still stood, apparently unchanged. Iren paled,
knowing that in a few seconds he would have to watch Rondel’s limp
body fall gracelessly to the ground. He clenched his eyes shut,
unwilling to view the dreaded moment.

“
How rude of you; I wasn’t
finished speaking.”

Iren’s eyes snapped open. Rondel still stood
there uninjured. Somehow she’d dodged the arrow.

“
If I were a kind woman, I
might tell you to lay down your weapons and surrender if you don’t
want to die.” Iren had thought Rondel’s voice couldn’t get colder
or more frightening, but he’d been wrong. “However, I am not a kind
woman.” She drew her dagger with her left hand. Sparks jumped over
the blade just as they did on her eyes. “I follow Okthora’s Law:
evil must be annihilated.”

The bandits all drew their bows and began
firing rapidly. Rondel had nowhere to run, trapped between the tall
townhouses lining either side of the street at the edge of the
square. Iren cried out again, but this time, determined to see the
tragedy through, he kept watching as arrows bombarded her location.
At first he didn’t follow what was happening. Then his jaw
dropped.

Rondel was dodging the arrows, her body
blurring as she did so. The arrows aimed for all parts of her, yet
she easily avoided every one. Her ancient body swayed with
precision and balance so fluid, she made King Azuluu’s finest
dancers look clumsy by comparison. Iren couldn’t believe it. Rondel
had said that Maantecs’ speed and strength surpassed those of
humans, but surely not by this much. He considered it highly
unlikely that he could dodge all those shots if he and Rondel
traded places. He could barely see most of them, and he had an even
harder time tracking Rondel’s movements.

The barrage kept up until every bandit fired
every last arrow he possessed. When they saw that Rondel remained
unharmed, three of the Quodivar threw down their weapons and fled.
As soon as they did, Rondel dropped into a run, her body blurring
across the distance. She crossed the square in under a second. Her
dagger flashed, dropping all three thieves at the same time. The
other bandits, probably hoping to catch her off-guard, drew their
close-range weapons and charged as one. The hag simply looked up,
her eyes still sparking, and ran forward to meet them at a blinding
pace. Several flashes ensued as Rondel’s blade danced, and then she
emerged uninjured on the far side of the Quodivar. All but one of
her enemies collapsed. The lone survivor, the man who had jeered at
her so confidently mere moments ago, knelt before her with panicked
tears in his eyes.

“
Wait!” he called out. “I
didn’t mean it! Zuberi said he would kill me if I didn’t take over
Veliaf! I had no choice. Please, you believe in mercy,
right?”

Rondel’s sparking eyes stared unfeelingly
down at him. “No.”

The dagger swung hard and fast.

As the thief hit the ground, Rondel stepped
around him without looking back. She wiped her blade clean and
sheathed it. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes. When they
opened again, they had returned to their normal green. The sparks
had vanished without a trace.

Amroth, Iren, and Balear all stared into the
village square, stupefied. When they recovered their wits enough to
move from their hiding place, they ran to Rondel. Iren and Balear
immediately bombarded her with questions. The old hag remained
silent, her gaze fixed on Amroth. The captain calmly walked from
bandit to bandit, checking each one’s pulse. When he finished, he
faced Rondel with a passive expression. In a calm, level voice, he
said, “I had no idea Lefts were so capable in battle.”

Rondel’s stupid grin sprouted on her face,
but now Iren perceived what he had previously missed. A deep
cunning hid in the narrow eyes behind the smile. “So you think I’m
a Left too, just like Iren,” she replied, shaking her head and
acting exasperated. “Always underestimating old people. You both
really should learn to respect your elders.”

Amroth was not dissuaded. “I do respect my
elders, and I know that no human, of any age, can move like
that.”

The crone sighed but didn’t drop her grin.
“I guess you have me. You really should stop calling us ‘Lefts,’
though. As I explained to Iren, the proper name for our species is
‘Maantecs.’”

Balear turned red. “So, so Rondel is one of
them too? Great, Captain, just great.” He loosed a long string of
curses.