The Dragonprince's Heir (11 page)

I held my breath as I passed among the cavalry camps, but I was working my way up the left flank, nearly half a mile from the lane we'd used that first day. Still, I watched the neatly-ordered lines of their fine, tall tents for any sign of a familiar face. I passed two rows of heavy cavalry and saw another single cavalry formation on the northwest corner of the camp, but to the east of it was a smaller camp with a very different feel.

There were no tents at all. There were no bedrolls. There were long lines of men in full armor on the open ground. The soldiers sleeping lay flat on their backs, arms at their sides, with the hilt of a naked sword waiting beneath each man's right hand and four throwing knives arrayed around the left.

But every third soldier, all the way down the line, was on one knee, eyes bright, watching the night. I stepped up to the intersection of two lanes, near one corner of the strange camp, and I stopped in my tracks at the strange sight.

I recognized the armor. I had seen it often in the last week. These were the Green Eagles, the king's personal guard. For a heartbeat I stood frozen, staring in awe, then just as some of the kneeling sentries began to turn my way, I felt a heavy hand fall on my shoulder. It knotted in the cloth of my shirt and jerked me violently back and into the lines of one of the cavalry camps.

Panic flared up hot and razor-sharp in the back of my throat, but I fought it off and reached for the lie that had served me so well. As long as it was not Pollix or the other cavalry officer who had stopped us that day—

The same violent grip that had dragged me aside spun me around, and the lie died on my lips. My jaw dropped open. I almost laughed, but Caleb clapped his massive hand over my mouth.

"Haven's name," he growled. "What are you doing here?"

I raised my eyebrows at him, and after a moment he removed his hand. I couldn't suppress the smile. "What are you wearing?"

He wore the uniform of the Green Eagles. Only, as I looked closer, I saw subtle differences. The cut was not precisely the same, the pauldrons were lighter, the greaves sharper, and his collar rose higher and spread wider. And top to toe, it was far more battered and worn than anything I'd seen in the Tower's courtyard. Still, the design was remarkably similar, and it showed the same rich greens and blacks of the elite soldiers' uniform.

He watched my eyes as I assessed his armor. As soon as I was finished he turned on his heel, fist still locked on my shoulder, and propelled me south along a line between the tents within the cavalry camp.

"I asked what you are doing," he said. "Where are your knights?"

"Resting," I said, as condescendingly as I could make it. "The poor fellows had a long day."

"Cute," he said. "And you?"

I stopped, and he allowed me to. I raised my chin. "I am going to see Mother."

"As easy as that?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I made it this far. The carriages are only just over there! I could almost see them—"

He grunted and shook his head. "Just over there. Right past seven unbroken lines of vigilant Green Eagles."

I tried to meet his stare, but after three heartbeats my chin began to drag down of its own accord. Eventually my eyes did the same, until I was staring at the tips of my boots. "I didn't know," I said. "I would have come up with something."

"You would have spent the rest of the journey in manacles," Caleb said. "Hm. Perhaps I shouldn't have stopped you."

My eyes flashed to his. I licked my lips. "Cute."

"Hah!" The laugh escaped him as a bark, and he looked angry as he suppressed it. But then he shook his head. "Wind and rain. You've wrecked my night. Come on. Got to get you back to your place."

I dug in my heels, but it hardly slowed him. He dragged me three paces before I relented and turned with him, but I didn't give up. "Wait!" I whispered urgently. "Wait. You are here. You must have a reason. You've got your...your disguise." My gaze slipped along the lines of his armor again, and I couldn't suppress the flash of curiosity. "Where did you get that?"

"From a man I used to know," he said.

He said no more, and I let it go. "It doesn't matter," I said. "It's a good disguise. It got you as far as mine did. Together—"

"Together," he said, "we can both get caught. It's foolishness. Come. We must move quickly!"

"No!" I jerked my shoulder, trying to shake him off, and then more violently when he held on. "Let me go! I'm going to my mother!"

A cold voice cut through the night before Caleb could respond. "Well, well, well."

I went still as stone, then as one Caleb and I turned our heads up the lane, to the cavalry officer waiting for us at the next intersection. Three of his own soldiers stood behind him, and with them were two armed crossbowmen and a Green Eagle with his great two-handed blade already drawn. They watched us with serious eyes, alert and ready.

Lord Pollix gave a tight little smile. "I believe I've heard that from you before."

6. Moonlight

"Wait!" I shouted, raising both hands palms out. "I can explain!"

Caleb's grip tightened on my shoulder, and I shut up. Above me, he only stared at the soldiers facing us and raised his chin.

The Green Eagle among them pressed forward past the cavalry officer. I heard a sound like the sudden rustle of a low wind off to my left, but I couldn't tear my eyes from the soldier before me. He lowered his sword in a naked threat, gaze fixed on Caleb, and demanded, "Where did you—"

He cut himself short mid-question, and his eyes fell shut. The tip of his sword buried itself in the earth before him, then he sank easily down behind it. While I gaped in astonishment, he curled into a spot on the ground, hands folded beneath his head. Beneath the heavy armor, his shoulders rose and fell with slow, easy breaths.

And six other soldiers followed him to the earth. Whatever had overcome the Green Eagle hit Pollix, too, and he closed his eyes and stretched out to sleep upon the road. It washed over them like a wave, and in a matter of moments the knot of soldiers before us was sleeping soundly.

Caleb's head whipped to the right, and only then did I notice the sound. It was the same rustle I'd heard before, and now as I turned I understood it. A sentry from the corner of the next formation over had taken two steps out into the road to watch our altercation. Another handful of men from the same camp had left their fire to stare. All of them now were sound asleep.

I looked behind us, in the direction I'd first heard the noise, and I saw not a single waking soldier anywhere in the formation. The effect had passed right over us and into the next camp.

I looked up at Caleb. "Something's come over them."

He never even glanced my way. Fist still knotted in the fabric at my shoulder, he struck out west, dragging me along beside him. I almost had to sprint to keep up with his long stride. "What's happening?" I asked. "Do you know? What happened?"

Caleb didn't answer. He moved in a straight line, the same direction the rustle had gone, cutting a little north of west and out of the camp. We stormed right into the heart of the formation there, rushing past dancing fires and bubbling pots and dozens of men sprawled in peaceful slumber wherever they had stood.

We broke free on the other side of the camp and passed between two posted sentries sound asleep. I felt my eyes widen and glanced back over my shoulder toward the king's position. "Caleb, what's happening?" I asked again, a little frantic. "Are we under attack?"

"Hush," he said.

"No, this could be a strike on the king! By wizards. There was a rebel wizard before the dragons—"

"Shut up, Taryn."

The camp had stretched as far as the open plains allowed. Beyond the sentries' careful line lay perhaps a dozen paces of level ground before the earth fell away into the wide bed of a dried-up river. Caleb threw me on ahead of him, and I nearly sprawled. I caught myself with my palms, sinking one hand wrist-deep in the thick red mud of the riverbed. The smell of it was awful.

Caleb didn't even slow. He landed lightly beside me, rapped me on the collarbone with one knuckle in an effort to spur me on, and trotted the short distance across the bed. I was barely moving again before he'd heaved himself up the far side and pressed into the low bracken that grew against a shallow hillside.

It took me three tries to climb the slippery bank, and by then I could only follow him by the clear trail he'd left in the tall grass. I scrambled up the hill, hurrying after him, but then a shadow washed over me like winter's chill. It passed in a heartbeat, and as the shadow sped up the hillside above me I followed the motion up to the sky.

A dragon hung silhouetted against the moon.

It couldn't have been a hundred paces away. It was bigger than a house and glowed the same silver-white as moonlight. But...no! There weren't any dragons. Not in this part of the world. Not for years. The thoughts sizzled in my mind, defying the reality before my eyes. A sound like a whimper escaped my throat.

It was real. There was no denying it. It was nearly within reach. And it was flashing true as an arrow in the direction Caleb had gone. Everything in my body screamed for me to turn and run, but I couldn't believe anyone in the king's sleeping camp could protect me from that monster.

I needed Caleb. I barely even faltered. I sprinted on up the hill, eyes fixed on the dragon as it banked lazily off to the left and curled back to the right. I had just time enough to worry it might turn back my way, that it might see me, as I reached the top of the hill.

I dropped my gaze for a moment and had that one moment's warning as I saw the steep drop-off. For a hundred paces to the left and right, the hill's gentle slope was torn away, leaving a ledge of dirt and dry grass some three or four paces above a nearly-hidden dell.

The hollow looked like the work of some great sinkhole, and I could see the wide, dark stain of a still pool toward the heart of the dell, but between that and the edges were a hundred paces of twisted scrub growing like a forest in this sheltered little hollow at the desert end of the world.

My left foot came down within a hand's width of the edge, and my momentum hurled me right over. I got one good glimpse out at the dell, and I thought I heard, very small in the night, the sound of my mother crying out in alarm. "Taryn!"

I saw no sign of her, though, and I had no attention to spare to look for her. It wasn't a huge fall, but panic had me. I tried to twist in the air and grab for the ledge. I succeeded enough to slam an elbow and forearm painfully against the cliff. I got a boot against the loose dirt face and kicked down to slow my fall. I still hit the ground hard. I threw myself into a roll as Caleb had always instructed, but the thorn-studded trunk of a scrubby little tree stopped me short.

For a moment I lay stunned. A rain of disturbed dirt pattered down around me while I fought to catch my breath. I heard or imagined Mother's voice again, like a faraway whisper. Then that terrible shadow passed over me, and the silver shape of the dragon ghosted silently across the sky. And now I knew without a doubt that it had seen me. It was watching me.

I wrenched my way to my feet, and before I was even fully upright my feet were churning. I scrambled away from the loose dirt wall and into the dell. There was at least some manner of cover there. Caleb was nowhere to be seen, and I didn't dare face a dragon on my own. My only hope lay among the tangling trees. They had little in the way of leaves or canopy, and they grew too low to really offer an easy path beneath their branches, but it was still better than waiting out in the open. I hurled myself against the growth like a battering ram, and forced my way in among them. Thorns caught on my clothes and scored long, shallow, stinging scratches on my face and arms.

I bulled my way ten paces into the scrub before it caught me fast. I couldn't move forward. I couldn't pull back. I was stuck, and I thrashed in place like a wolf in a trap. My clothes and my flesh ripped on the stinging thorns, while my head whipped left and right searching the sky for some sign of the pale shadow. I saw nothing.

A shiver of fear rattled me from top to toe. I had to fight it, and for the first moment since I'd spotted the monster, I stopped long enough to catch my breath. I fell still. My eyes yet scanned the sky, but my mind began to work again. I had seen dragons before, in all their terrible power. I had seen their corpses by the dozens. And I had been trained, like everyone in Father's fortress, to survive an attack.

Yet that had been in the fortress. That had been with an army of veteran dragon slayers waiting all around. That had been with the cover of paces-thick stone crafted of solid will all around me. I had never trained for
this
. My heart started to race again at the thought, and no number of calming breaths could slow it now.

But then my hand closed around the hilt of my sword. The steel thread felt shockingly cool against my fever-hot skin. I thought of my father who had made it as a gift for me. He had never trained for this, either, but he had survived. Without a fortress and without an army. How many encounters with the nightmare beasts had he survived before he ever dreamed of the Tower of Drakes?

I found courage in the thought. I pulled back from the tangling limbs, disengaged, and then sank down to my knees. For a long moment I sat as still as stone, eyes closed, lost in the silence, and all I did was breathe.

And then, for the first time, I remembered Mother's voice. I could hear it in perfect clarity. She had called to me as I fell into the dell. She had cried out in worry when the dragon went searching for me. She was here. Caleb had been going to her.

My teeth ground so hard at the thought that my jaw hurt. He was not sowing discord among the king's men. He was not finding friendly souls to stand with us in a crisis. He was meeting with Mother, every night.
He
was allowed to see her, while I was trapped with Souward's slovenly seventh.

Another tremor chased down my spine. She was here. Mother was here, where the dragon was hunting. I cast back desperately in my memory, trying to guess where the distant cry might have come from. I had caught just one glimpse of the wide hollow, and that by pale moonlight, but I searched the frail impression for some hint where Mother might be. Where she would hide with a dragon circling in the sky.