Dragonheart (5 page)

The boy flung the torch down to the brute, shouting, “Burn that insolence out of his eyes!”

Grinning, Brok picked up the torch. And as the flame came near his eyes Riagon, pale but proud, looked to the trees . . . to the giant oak that towered on the village outskirts . . . to Kara . . . and his eyes ordered her to stay.

Kara disobeyed.

“No!” came her sobbed scream, and she leapt down from the oak. But Kara’s scream was not heard. Another cry fractured the gray morning and drowned it out.

Bowen rode in like a whirlwind, shouting wildly. Brok barely saw the sword blade sweep past his face before it had struck the torch from his hand and came shattering down on the neck stock of the three prisoners, splintering it.

“Run,” Bowen yelled as the redbeard and the others broke free. But they needed no encouragement and were already scattering for the woods. Bowen’s daring had confounded and momentarily paralyzed Einon’s men. Finally one snapped from his stupor and spurred his horse toward the redbeard, who had suddenly stopped in his flight, stunned by the sight of a young girl with hair as red as his own rushing out of the foliage toward him.

“Kara! Quickly!” the rebel shouted, and wheeled to confront the man charging at him. But Bowen sped between them and cut the man out of the saddle, grabbing the reins of the downed man’s steed.

“Take the horse!” he snapped at the giant . . . and then recognized the flame-haired girl at his side. He was not the only one to do so.

“I want those red devils, Bowen!” Einon galloped toward them, his sword slithering from his scabbard. “Stop them or I’ll have your head!”

Bowen flung the reins of the horse at the peasant. “Get gone!”

Redbeard mounted and pulled his daughter up behind him, whipping the horse toward the forest as Bowen stood his ground, waiting for Einon and for what he dreaded and did not want to believe.

He had awoken early this morning and had gone to the royal chambers to check on Einon’s condition. Einon was gone. Bowen’s search for the boy had led him to the stables, and there he had learned of this expedition from a groom who had overheard Brok and others talking. It had been the groom’s understanding that the new king would lead the raid, but Bowen figured the churl had gotten it wrong. He had come to stop Brok, not to seek Einon. He knew his charge would not be here, would not be party to this. Even now, as Einon bore down on him, the knight knew it wasn’t, couldn’t be, true. It was a mad dream and he would wake from it as soon as the swords clashed.

But they clashed and Bowen found himself already awake and the nightmare real and the only escape from it was to defend himself.

“How dare you defy me!” the enraged boy screeched, and rained down a mad sally of blows.

“Einon! You’re unwell!” Bowen reluctantly but skillfully defended himself, pleading, “You’ve been bewitched! Don’t do this! Remember the code!”

“The king is above the code!” Einon growled.

Dismayed by the declaration, Bowen dropped his guard for an instant and Einon unseated him with a stab in the shoulder. The knight toppled between the skittish horses. Einon rode over him, whirling triumphantly to acknowledge the cheers of his men. A mistake . . . for a muddy hand reached up and yanked Einon’s leg from the stirrup, shoving it out and up, heaving the boy off his horse. Einon reeled over the right flank of his horse, flopping to the ground. He pushed his oversized crown back from his eyes to find Bowen grimly grinning at him through the legs of the horse.

“Dullard! Only expose your back to a corpse!” Bowen, bleeding from his shoulder and his head, braced himself on his blade and tried to stagger up. Einon angrily leapt to his feet and, whipping his horse away, struck at the still-kneeling Bowen. But even kneeling, Bowen deflected Einon’s wild charge.

“Control, little warrior!” Bowen countered Einon’s undisciplined sallies, critiquing the boy’s technique as he did so. “Purpose, not passion!”

He slashed Einon’s scabbard. It slid down his legs, tripping him up. Bowen savagely lunged atop the tottering king, forcing him down, poising his blade against the boy’s chest. He glared Brok and the others back, sword arm tensing.

“Should have been a better fight. I was a better teacher! But I thought you were a better student,” Bowen barked in bitter disappointment. His eyes smoldered with pained hurt. His blade pressed into Einon’s chest, which heaved with panic.

“How many times?” Bowen harshly queried. “Fight with your head, not your heart!”

The heart. Bowen watched Einon’s dragon crest rise and fall along with his blade in chaotic rhythm with the boy’s racing heart. The dragon’s heart. The dragon. It was almost as though he could hear the cursed thing beating.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Pulsing with treacherous life.

“No one is above the code,” Bowen rasped in choked emotion, staring at the petrified youth with sorrow-filled eyes. “Least of all the king!”

He leaned down and kissed the stunned boy.

Tears welled in the knight’s eyes as he whirled and sharply whistled. As Bowen’s steed galloped up, Einon scrambled away, grasping his cheek where the knight had kissed him. His confused fear quickly turned to anger once more as Bowen mounted and spurred off into the forest.

“Seize him! Bring him down!” Einon shrilly bellowed the command and straightened the cockeyed crown upon his head.

Aislinn had been alone all day, with only the rumors of her servants to keep her company. Uncertain, confused whispers about reprisals for Freyne’s death. And certain, clear lies that Einon had been at the head of his father’s knights when they rode out before sunup. It was true that the knights and Einon were gone. But not for bloodletting. Not after the miracle of last night. Not with Bowen gone too. She would talk with Bowen. The king should still be resting from his ordeal. It was unconscionable of the knight to allow him up and out. It was irresponsible of him not to keep her informed. Where had he taken the king? Why hadn’t he told her? Where were Brok and the others? What were they doing that had taken the full measure of the day? Where was Bowen?

A clatter of hoofbeats and rough laughter sent her rushing to her chamber window. Freyne’s knights galloped into the courtyard below her window. Einon was in the lead. He leapt from the saddle, scowling, and slapped the reins of his horse into the hands of a groom.

“Not a bad day, milord,” Brok said, trying to cheer the king. “Sixty men for the quarry. And the redbeard and the wench can’t escape us for long.”

Aislinn saw Einon wither Brok with his stare. “And what about our friend Sir Bowen?”

But Aislinn could detect no friendship in Einon’s voice, and again she wondered where Bowen was. She could not know that at that very moment he was close. Nor could she know that she would never see him again.

“We’ll find Bowen too, Your Majesty,” assured Brok, dismounting.

Einon snorted a sharp laugh. “In a pig’s eye, you will . . . Ah, let him go. He’s served his turn. I don’t need him anymore.”

Aislinn’s son caught sight of her in the window. She did not like the truculent way he shoved the heavy crown back off his forehead. Suddenly he winced and pulled his right hand off the chaplet, clenching it in his left. Brok hurried to his side.

“Something wrong, milord?”

“A cramp in my hand, that’s all.” Einon flexed his fingers and looked at the scab on the back of his hand where Redbeard’s scythe had bitten it. “Probably where the rebel dog sliced it.” As he shook the pain out a tortured trilling came tumbling down the hills into the courtyard.

Einon and his minions listened to the low, ominous keening, glancing curiously about them, as it bounced from crag to crag, obscuring its origin. But Brok knew where it came from and he shivered at the sound.

Aislinn also knew and her sad eyes scanned the towering mountain beyond the ancient ruins. The sinking sun impaled itself on the high peaks and its purple-red blood oozed out across the horizon as the strange, wailing dragon cry echoed across the darkening sky.

The dragon clutched his claw to his scaly breast. His shimmering color dimmed as his shadowy form sagged against the rock wall. He slid his talons underneath the plates and felt his chest, felt the fresh sore scar . . . felt the emptiness inside. Moaning, he tore the claw back from his chest, glaring at the maimed middle talon and, with a shuddering trill, resumed banging it against the jagged cavern stones . . . relentlessly pounding in agonized fury until it was shredded and swollen. Crimson light seeped from tattered flesh and his half-severed talon cracked and broke off, clattering down the rocky ledge to the cave floor.

But the dragon was suddenly aware of something more than the echoing bounce of the talon. He ceased his groaning lament, and even as he sensed the intruder’s approach, his skin shed its natural color and blended into the multishaded rock, becoming one with the cave. His inner eyelids shuttered down, their gauzy membranes masking his eyes, yet still allowing him to observe the uninvited visitor undetected.

Waning rays of daylight drifted in from the open mouth of the cave and captured the interloper’s long shadow as he cautiously entered, his unsheathed sword gripped in readiness. He edged past the burbling mud pits, twisted around a stalagmite. His eyes focused on the ledge where the dragon lurked and watched, quiet and invisible.

It was the knight of the Old Code . . .

Five

A DREAM AND DESTINY

“Not my betrayal.”

Bowen crept toward the cave ledge, ever on guard. His eyes furtively searched the shadow-darkened recesses for some hint of movement. There was none, but he knew the dragon was here. His boot struck something then and a faint flash of red rolled across the ground. Bowen jumped back into a crouch, his blade flickering up like a snake’s tongue.

But nothing came at him and the red glow stopped, growing dimmer. Bowen inched toward the iridescence and, reaching down, snared it in his free hand. It was the dragon’s broken talon. The red glint emanated from its ripped base. But even as Bowen turned it curiously in his hand, the glimmering light dulled and seemed to fade into the viscous bloodlike liquid that dripped from the torn talon. Closing his fist around it, the knight rose.

“I know you’re here, dragon!” Bowen called out. “I heard your dark song. It was still echoing off the walls as I entered. Come forth!” Bowen’s own shout rang throughout the cave. “My oath will not save you! All bonds are broke with your betrayal!”

“Not my betrayal,” the dragon droned bitterly. Bowen swerved to the sound of the voice, glaring up at the ledge.

“Lying hellspawn!” Bowen peered into the shadows above. For a moment it seemed as if the rocks rippled vaguely—a trick of the fading sunlight, no doubt. There was nothing there, but the voice had sounded as though it came from that direction. Bowen clenched his sword and wished he had not come here at day’s end. He had ridden all day, eluding Einon’s men, and his shoulder still stung where the boy had pricked him.

“Show yourself!” he demanded tensely.

And the dragon complied . . . in a swooshing glittering flash, the color flowing back into his scales as he swooped off the ledge, over the startled knight, and out of the cave.

Bowen tore from the cave to see the dragon lunge past his rearing horse and out into the twilight clouds. The frightened horse whinnied as Bowen frustratedly clanged his sword against a rock, shouting after the sun-speckled shape, “No matter where you fly, dragon, no matter where you hide, I will find you! I make a new vow! I will undo your treachery! . . . Even if I must spend the rest of my life hunting you down!”

The echoing oath was answered by a mournful trill. Every mountain seemed to reverberate with the haunting song as Bowen watched the dragon drown into the fiery flood of the sinking sun.

He felt the heat of its light upon his face, was deafened by the intense crackle of its blaze and . . .

. . . woke up!

He had dozed off. Well, it had been a long day. But a profitable one. He looked out across the lagoon by which he camped. The water shimmered in the firelight. The flame’s gleam sparkled hotly over the thick scarlet liquid that dripped from the gashes of the burning dragon carcass and pooled into the green water like crimson lily pads.

The blaze burned furiously over the huge mountain of flesh, half-submerged under the placid pond. Bowen had used a fire arrow to cremate the kill, piercing one of the flopped wings. The fire had devoured the thin membrane rapidly and soon the entire carcass was engulfed in flame. Dragons always burned swiftly . . . and brightly, shooting off strange, almost supernatural sparks of light. Perhaps their foul blood caused the phenomenon; whenever a wound was inflicted, it flowed out as glowing light before liquefying into a dull, oozing gore. Whatever the cause, it made a glorious pyre. It meant one less dragon.

Bowen picked up the talon he had severed from this kill—the middle right talon—and affixed it to the shield in his lap; the task he had been about before he dozed off. This would make eleven. He didn’t need to count the other talons already mounted on the shield. He knew how many there were. Eleven. Knew where he had killed them. When. How. Eleven. Eleven in three years. Einon would be eighteen now. A man. His reputation as king was already made. He had built a magnificent castle upon the Roman ruins of the mountain, it was said. And the borders of his realm stretched far beyond those of his father’s domain. He was a great and powerful king. And a hated and feared one. Yes, his reputation was made. Carved in blood and brutality.