The Hearts of Dragons (4 page)

“Questions later,” she
yelled, “if we’re not all dead!”

The trio raced through
the streets of Orcsthia, forcing their way through flocks of sheep as they headed
back the way Iren had been escorted in.

But Iren knew what was
waiting for them this way. “The exit on this side of the city is guarded,” he
said.

Their rescuer’s pace
didn’t falter. “They’re all guarded,” she replied. “I hope you’re decent with
that katana.”

Iren stumbled and nearly
fell on his face. Humans didn’t use katanas; they were Maantec weapons. “How do
you—”

“I said ‘questions later!’”

That ended the
conversation. Up ahead, the gate guards stood at the opening of the earthen
wall. Instead of the original two, though, fifteen men now blocked the exit.

Iren drew the Muryozaki.
He slashed out and caught a soldier in the throat before the poor man could
swing his weapon. The woman took the guard’s blade before joining the battle
herself. Balear collapsed on his knees, exhausted from his near execution and
brutal rescue.

Iren ran to his friend’s
side to shield him from blows. Their new ally looked over her shoulder at them
and scowled. Spinning in a circle, she disemboweled the three men attacking her
with a single attack. She then sprinted to Iren and heaved Balear onto her
shoulders. “Let’s go!” she commanded. “I’ll take him. You hold them off.”

They rushed the gate
together. Four men tried to body-block the exit, but the sight of Iren’s katana
in his left hand made them panic. Iren, Balear, and the woman passed the gate.
Iren spun around, expecting pursuit, but the soldiers withdrew.

Relieved, Iren ran to
catch up with Balear and their surprise savior. Both had blood on them, but
Iren couldn’t tell if it was theirs or someone else’s. Balear had lost
consciousness, so Iren and the woman took turns carrying him as they fled the
city.

An hour later, a farm
appeared in the distance. “There’s our destination,” the woman said. Iren still
didn’t have a clue what was going on, but this woman’s sudden appearance and
willingness to help him peaked his curiosity. He would see this through until
he got some answers.

After another fifteen
minutes, they reached the nearest structure on the farm, a barn, and ducked
inside. Iren laid Balear on a pile of straw. After checking to make sure his
friend wasn’t injured, he faced their rescuer. “I appreciate your help,” he
said, “but now an explanation would be nice.”

The woman pointed at the
Muryozaki. “You already know the answer. I’m a Maantec too.”

In retrospect the
woman’s heritage was obvious. No human could move with the fluidity she
possessed. More telling, she held the sword she’d stolen from the gate guard in
her left fist.

“I didn’t think there
were other Maantecs in Lodia,” Iren said.

“There are more than you
might think,” the woman replied. “It isn’t hard to pose as human. You move
around now and then so people don’t wonder why you aren’t aging. Or, like my
parents, you farm in the middle of nowhere. And of course, you have to do
everything with your right hand.” She raised her right palm and eyed it with
disdain. “By the way, my name’s Hana, Hana Akiyama. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Iren said with
a smile. “I’m Iren Saitosan.”

Hana started.
“Seriously? The Iren Saitosan?”

“I didn’t know I was
famous.”

“There are wanted
posters all over Orcsthia advertising a huge reward for your capture. But they
describe a teenager, not a grown man.”

“I’ve had some
interesting times,” Iren said with a grimace. Maantecs aged only when they used
their biological magic, the energy that gave them their immortal lives.
Divinion had forced Iren to use some during the battle with Feng. It had saved
Iren’s life, but it had aged him ten years. It was one more punishment for
saving the world.

Iren pushed away the
memory. To distract himself, he focused on the woman in front of him. By all
appearances, Hana was twenty, but that only meant she hadn’t used any
biological magic. She could have been born centuries ago. Iren wondered how old
she was.

Remembering a similar
situation with Minawë, he decided not to bring it up. “Why did you rescue us?”
he asked instead. “And what is this place?”

“This was my family’s
sheep farm,” Hana replied. “We should be safe here, at least for a while. No
place in Lodia is truly safe these days. I was in Orcsthia selling the last of
our flock when I heard the commotion in the square. When I saw you fighting
alone against those guards, I decided to intervene. Lucky for you, eh?”

“I guess so,” Iren said.
He paused a moment, and a thought came to him. “You said ‘we’ a moment ago. Do
you have relatives here, other Maantecs?”

Hana’s expression
darkened, and she turned away from him. “No,” she said. Her voice caught. “My
parents lived happily on this farm for years, until six months ago.”

Iren frowned. Six months
ago wasn’t that long after Amroth’s defeat at Ziorsecth. “What happened?”

Hana started to answer,
but at that moment, Balear stirred. Iren and Hana ran to him. “Are you all
right?” Iren asked.

Balear groaned. “Where
am I?” He blinked twice and tried to sit up, but he fell back in the straw. He
clutched his head with his hand. “Everything’s spinning,” he said. “You didn’t
make me drink Kodaman brandy by any chance, did you?”

Iren recalled the
pungent odor of the maple-based liquor. “Sorry, old friend,” he said, “no such
luck.”

The soldier’s eyes
struggled to focus. “So we survived?” he asked. “I was sure I would die back
there. What happened?”

“An angel dropped out of
the heavens and rescued us,” Iren said with a flourish. “A left-handed angel by
the name of Hana.”

Hana blushed as Balear
looked at her. “It was nothing,” she stammered.

Now it was Balear’s turn
to blush. “It’s an honor,” he said, “to make the acquaintance of a woman at
once so beautiful and capable in battle.”

Iren rolled his eyes.
“If you’re well enough to flirt, you’re well enough to tell me what’s going on.
Why was Orcsthia’s mayor going to execute you?”

Balear shifted himself
into a more comfortable position on the straw. “I left Ziorsecth six months ago
to help restore peace in Lodia. You know that much.”

Iren nodded. He
remembered all too well the sad day two of his closest friends—Balear and
Rondel—had departed the forest. He’d probably made Minawë feel the same way
he’d felt back then.

He forced down a wave of
guilt. “I trust it didn’t go as planned.”

“No, it didn’t,” Balear said.
“I expected instability after Amroth’s death, but I never thought a civil war
would break out.”

“A civil war?” That
would explain why Orcsthia had constructed its earthen defense. Still, Iren had
a hard time believing Lodia would fall apart because of the death of its
lunatic king, Amroth.

“What did you expect?”
Hana asked. “If you’re General Balear Platarch, former head of the First Army
of Lodia, you must have known what would happen when the Succession Law went
into effect.”

“Succession Law?” Iren
felt like a Tacumsahen parrot, spitting back whatever someone else said. Yet he
couldn’t help but be confused. None of what Balear and Hana were saying made
sense.

“Do you know how
succession works in Lodia?” Balear asked him. “How the next king is chosen when
one dies?”

Iren knew it all right.
Last year Amroth had used that process to rise to power. “When the king dies,
his first legitimate son replaces him,” Iren said. “If the king has no
legitimate son, then his chief advisor becomes the king.”

“Right,” Balear replied.
“That’s how Amroth became king even though he wasn’t of royal birth. King
Azuluu made him his chief advisor. But what would happen if a king died without
either a legitimate son or a chief advisor?”

Iren stiffened. Amroth
hadn’t sired any children, and he never would have suffered an advisor. “I
assume there’s some process for choosing a new king.”

“There is,” Balear said.
“It’s called the Succession Law. If a king dies without a legitimate son or a
chief advisor, the mayors of Lodia’s large towns and cities gather in a
council. They then choose who among them should become the next king.”

“That sounds like a good
idea,” Iren said. “I don’t understand why a rule like that would lead to civil
war. After all, Lodia isn’t that big. It only has a handful of cities.”

“Actually, it doesn’t,”
Hana interjected. “The Succession Law was written eight hundred years ago, less
than two centuries after the Kodama-Maantec War. That war wiped out most of
Lodia’s population, and the country had yet to recover. Because the kingdom had
so few people, the Succession Law’s definition of a ‘large town’ was a lot
smaller than what we would consider it today.”

“And that definition
was?”

“A hundred residents or
more.”

Iren whistled. There
were unnamed farming villages that could meet that threshold.

“The law states that all
the mayors of all these towns have a right to attend the council and
potentially become king,” Balear said. “Unfortunately, the law’s creator never
thought there would be so many towns with more than a hundred people. He didn’t
bother laying out a framework for when, where, or how the council would take
place. He assumed the list of towns would be more like four or five, so the few
mayors could easily communicate and come to a decision. With hundreds of towns
involved, it’s become total anarchy.”

“Why wasn’t the law
changed as the population rose to keep this from happening?” Iren asked.

“Because the law’s never
been necessary until now. Most kings appoint advisors right after their
coronation. King Azuluu was an exception in that he waited twenty years before
choosing Amroth. As a result, no one ever saw a reason to change the law, even
as it became outdated.”

“Without a clear rule,”
Hana put in, “the towns turned against each other. A few have formed alliances,
but it’s pretty much every community for itself. The rural areas have suffered
the most. Raiding parties attack farms to secure food and money. They capture
anyone they think will be useful, and they kill those who put up a fight. It’s
chaos. The Succession Law has become Lodia’s downfall.”

Iren thought back to the
pair of Orcsthians who had accosted him outside Ziorsecth. They probably didn’t
see many strong young men roaming alone these days. That’s why they’d let him
come to the city. They’d known all along that once he entered, he wouldn’t be
allowed to leave unless he joined them.

This wasn’t the Lodia
Iren remembered. This wasn’t even the Lodia of Amroth. The nation had gone mad.

He wanted to help. If he
could use magic, he could side with one of the towns and give them an
advantage.

But that was pointless
speculation. He didn’t have magic. Even if he did, the last thing the people of
Lodia would want was another Dragon Knight dictating to them.

“I did what I could,”
Balear said. He sounded like he wanted to convince himself more than Iren or
Hana. “Over the past six months, I’ve traveled the country trying to get the
mayors to hold their council. No one listened. Most threw me out. A few tried
to kill me. I always escaped, but Orcsthia was too much. They’re one of the
strongest cities right now. Being so far from Haldessa, they were among the last
to receive Amroth’s conscription decree. A lot of the men ignored it. I thought
that if I could convince Orcsthia to seek a peaceful solution, the other towns
would recognize its strength and agree. Instead, the mayor declared me a
traitor and planned to execute me. He even told the soldiers who captured me
that he’d pay the bounty Amroth put on my head to show the country he was still
a loyal Lodian.”

“Strictly speaking, he
wasn’t wrong,” Iren pointed out. “You are a traitor to Lodia.”

“Not to Lodia!” Balear
retorted. “And not a traitor! Amroth betrayed Lodia, not me. When I left him
and joined the Kodamas against his army, I didn’t do it to betray Lodia. I did
it to save this kingdom from the demon that was Amroth.”

“In so doing,” Hana
said, “you released an even worse devil.”

“I know that,” Balear
spat. “That’s why I haven’t given up. I’ll keep going to towns until someone
listens. Someone besides me must hate this useless bloodshed.” He paused and
looked at Iren. “You’ll help me, won’t you? With the Holy Dragon, we can end
this war in a month.”

Iren’s eyes went to the
floor. “You saw what happened when the guards cornered us. Six months have
passed since we parted, and I still can’t use magic. I’m sorry, but I can’t
help you.”

Balear looked taken
aback. “If you didn’t come because of the civil war, why did you leave
Ziorsecth?”

“I want to visit my
parents’ farm. If I go there, I might find a clue about how to regain my
magic.”

Balear was silent for a
minute. He scratched his chin. “Suppose you could use magic again,” he said at
last. “Would you be willing to help me then?”

In truth, Iren had hoped
to return to Ziorsecth and Minawë. After seeing Orcsthia and hearing Balear’s
and Hana’s tales, though, he couldn’t refuse. “Yes,” he said, “I can’t stand by
and let this country rip itself apart.”

“In that case, I’ll go
with you to your parents’ farm and help you however I can,” Balear said. “I
could use a break from getting thrown in dungeons anyway. Do you know where the
farm is?”

Iren nodded. “When
Amroth told me about the night my parents died, he mentioned Tropos Village. I
think the farm is near there.”

“Tropos?” There was a
waver in Balear’s voice. “You’re sure that’s what he said?”

“Absolutely. Lies or
not, every word of that conversation is burned into my brain.”

Balear’s tongue flicked
in and out. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Tropos is close to Haldessa, and
that’s on the other side of the country. Crossing Lodia these days is
dangerous. We could be set upon by raiders, or outlaws, or even a city’s army.”

Iren folded his arms.
“Don’t come then. Go back to Orcsthia and let me know how they welcome you. I’m
going to Tropos. If you want me to help you restore peace in Lodia, you’ll have
to come with me.”

“When you put it that
way, I guess I can’t dissuade you,” Balear said. “So be it. As it happens, my
mother lives in Tropos, so I know where it is.”

Iren couldn’t believe
his good fortune. Helping Balear had almost killed him, but now he had a path
to his parents’ farm, even if it was hazardous. “It’s settled,” he said.

Hana threw up her hands.
“What do you mean, ‘settled?’ You think you’ll just wander on over to Tropos
without any horses or supplies? Maantec or not, you can’t cross Lodia that
way.”

“She has a point,”
Balear said. “Maybe we should go somewhere closer, like Caardit.”

“No!” Iren shouted.
“Nowhere else matters to me right now. I have to reach Tropos.”

Hana grinned. “I might
be able to help with that.”

Iren and Balear looked
at her in surprise. “What do you mean?” Iren asked.

She gave them a sly
expression. “You’ve already made one scene today. What’s the bother in causing another?”

Iren groaned. “You
aren’t suggesting we go back to Orcsthia, are you? Every soldier there will be
looking for us.”

Hana’s mysterious look
didn’t change. “We don’t have to go to Orcsthia. If I’m right, they’ll come to
us.”