Dragon Heart (22 page)

He could not do what his brother did, his hero brother. He could not stir these people. The memory of Luka overwhelmed him again and he dug his fingernails into his palms and curled forward, forcing the grief back inside, raw, like something he could neither swallow nor throw up. He let himself hate these people who had failed him. He knew they were watching him. He could feel the pressure of their eyes. But they would not help him. He saw he would have to do this by himself. But first, he had to find some way to stay alive.

 

11

At sundown Amillee went up the path to the top of the cliff and along that way to the castle. She had a basket of bread, as her excuse to go in, and she took that down to the kitchen. The place seemed empty. A few soldiers sat around in the gate yard, but nobody challenged her. She went inside the big gate, where she had been only a few times before.

She saw none of the family. A guard dozed against the wall by the door into the great hall, and she slipped in past him, unseen.

The late sunlight washed in over the terrace, turning the air golden, the whole room full of shadows. The tide was out, the sea slumbering. On the table, Luka lay, his eyes shut and his hands on his chest. She went up to him, feeling as if she wended her way through a crowd, intending to kiss him, but she could not make herself touch him.

She went off to a corner, and sat down with her arms around her knees. She wept again, and wiped her eyes with her hair. There was no hope for her anymore. She would never be happy again.

Nobody came into the room. The night deepened. The dark stirred and moved, and she thought she heard whispers, but it was only the wind. She grew cold; there were no fires.

She could not sleep for the cold, for the constant murmurings around her. In the middle of the night, then, she saw Luka rise up.

He sat up on the table, and swung his legs over the side. She stood, her heart pounding. He got to his feet and turned toward her—toward the wall. She stretched out her arms to him.

“Please. I love you. Take me with you.”

He came up toward her, but not to her, to the wall. At the wall, he turned his head to her. Even in the dark she could see his face. The words came slowly from him, as if he were forgetting how to speak. He said, “Go home, Amillee. There is no place for you here.” He went into the wall and was gone.

*   *   *

Tirza lay bundled in the covers in the big bed, but Mervaly stood in the center of the room; she had not slept, she had not moved, all the night through. Her grief had swallowed up everything else and she had not sensed the time passing, so when the window paled she was surprised.

Casea came in, and walking up to Mervaly put an arm around her. “Luka—” Her voice stopped abruptly. She swallowed. “Is gone.”

Mervaly heaved up a sigh. “Peace to him. Where is Jeon?”

“I don't know. Wandering around somewhere. Poor Jeon.” Casea turned toward the bed where Tirza lay, cradled in blankets. “Mervaly, you should sleep.”

“Don't tell me what I have to do.”

Some edge in her voice caught Casea's attention, and she stepped away to look straight at her sister, wide-eyed. The dawn light through the window shone on half her face. Casea said, “What do you mean?”

“Just leave me alone, Casea.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“I told you, leave that to me.”

Casea said, “You said to leave it to Luka, remember? When will you learn?”

Mervaly frowned at her. “What have you learned? What would you do? Papa gone, Mama, now Luka—”

“So you would make it worse?”

“Before they kill us all!” Mervaly cocked up her arm. “I won't let you get in my way, Casea!”

Tirza had wakened, and now came in between them. With one hand she caught Mervaly by the arm, and with the other pushed Casea away. Mervaly took a step backward, suddenly cool. Tears spilled from her. She put her arms out and drew her little sister into her embrace, and in a moment Casea was throwing her arms around them both. They stood and wept, all together, Tirza clinging tight to Mervaly, and Casea whispering, “It's all right. It's all right.”

*   *   *

At midday Dawd led his patrol finally into Castle Ocean. His men were all worn to shades of themselves and he let them settle into the gate yard and went to find them food. The kitchen steps led him down into the long room. It was almost empty, all of the servants gone, no cooks, no scullions, only a few soldiers taking bread from a tray on the table. He took the rest of the bread back up the stair to the gate yard to feed his men.

He had half-expected someone to come down to meet him before this, but no one did. With his men camped, he went up the stairs from the gate yard, through the round room beyond, and into the great hall, before he even saw an officer.

This was Broga Erdhartsson, sitting on the carved stone seat behind the table. Startled, Dawd almost stopped in his tracks. Luka should have been there, oversprawling the seat as always. The sergeant was already edgy; he knew something was going wrong. Before the Imperial Prince he bowed.

“Glory to the Empire.”

“Glory.” Broga sat perched on the rim of the seat. The chessboard lay on the table before him. He said, “You were gone longer than I expected. What took you so long? Did you find trouble?”

Tired, and sick with this, Dawd fumbled over the words. “My lord, usually we only have to go half as far—we meet a patrol from the new fort, exchange messages, and then we come back.” He drew in a deep breath. “This time no one met us. So we kept going east, three more days. I kept thinking—any moment—we would meet them—”

Broga snapped, “Get to the point.”

But his head rose, looking toward the door. Dawd glanced around, and stepped aside. Oto was coming in, walking on his own feet, but supported by a man on either side. He was wrapped in blankets, and his face looked like a rack of meat.

The coiling worry in Dawd's belly turned into a full churn. He looked from one to the other, wondering where Luka was.

Oto hobbled up around the end of the table to the high seat; as he came Broga held his ground a moment and Oto's grim face writhed. Broga rose and moved aside and Oto sat down on the high seat.

“God's breath. Bring me cushions. What a hard place to sit.”

Dawd gave a little shiver. He knew at once that Luka was dead. The Archduke's eyes turned toward him. “You've come back, at last.”

Broga said, “Yes. Now. What's going on at the new fort? Why were you gone so long?”

“My lord, it's destroyed. The fort. It's been thrown down. There's nobody left.”

Oto blinked at him; Broga's jaw dropped. Dawd looked from one to the other. “There were … remains. Burnt. The whole place—” His gorge rose again, as he remembered the stale reek of blood. The flocks of vultures sitting on the overhanging limbs of the trees on the cliff.

Broga said, “Burnt? What could have happened? How many men were there?” He turned to Oto.

The elder brother said, “We had over fifty men there.” He put one hand on the table, his eyes blinking rapidly. “That was most of our army. They had the fort to protect them.” He shook his head. “It can't be so. There isn't a force anywhere around here big enough to threaten an Imperial outpost.”

He glared at Dawd as if he had done it all himself. “What happened? Who attacked them?” His voice rose. “There must be some indication! What brought them? Ships? Overland?”

Dawd licked his lips. “My lord, all I know is what I've told you. We buried those we found.”

“Go.” Oto thrust a hand at him. “Go; you're dismissed.” Dawd went hastily out; at the door, looking back, he saw the brothers staring at each other, silent.

In the antechamber, he came on the corporal Marwin, at the foot of the stairs up to the new tower.

“What has happened?”

Marwin spread his lips in a smirk. “You're back. You missed the excitement. Come on; I'm supposed to be standing guard up here.”

Dawd followed him up the steps. “What excitement?”

“Well, the boys went on a pig hunt, and poor Master Luka got himself killed.”

Dawd had expected something like this. They had reached the landing; he turned, frowning. “He was killed by a pig?”

Marwin shrugged, his eyes narrow, the grin still on his face. “He was killed, anyway.” Marwin leaned up against the wall beside the door there, all at ease, his pike beside him.

Dawd muttered under his breath. “What happened?”

“They brought him back ripped up and dead, and now King Oto sits on the high seat.” Marwin settled his back against the wall by the door. “Never get in the way of golden blood and its ambitions, right?”

Dawd was silent. His mind went to the Princess Casea and a surge of guilty fear washed over him. She would hate him now. He swayed, turning away from Marwin, his insides tortured. “He was a good man.”

“He was in the way,” Marwin said. “Oto was too clever for him.”

Dawd held himself still, fighting the urge to hit Marwin in the face. He swallowed. These were bad thoughts. Marwin was right; the golden blood was supreme. They were soldiers of the Empire. It wasn't up to him to decide who was right. He looked beyond Marwin, trying to gather himself, into the little lamplit room beyond.

“What's that?”

“The Lord Broga's chapel. Someone keeps going in and trashing it. Probably the boy, what's his name, Joon.”

“Jeon,” Dawd said, and went into the room.

He signed himself as he went in, because it was a chapel and there on the wall the emblem hung, the inverted sword, gleaming in the light of lamps. A massy black rock half-filled the room. “What's this?”

“It's supposed to be an altar.” Marwin spoke from the doorway, his voice grating. “Come out of there. It's…”

“It doesn't look like an altar to me.” The rock was an uneven lump. At either end a lamp rested precariously on the rough surface.

“The boy keeps messing it up. Nobody knows how. It's getting bigger. That's why I'm on guard, to see what's happening. Come on; let's get out of there.”

Dawd went out again to the landing. Marwin was watching him, the smirk gone. “You went to the new fort? Look—” He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a murmur. “Get us transferred up there. This is … strange. Kind of.”

“I can't,” Dawd said. Perversely this made him glad. “There's nothing left up there. Something came in and wiped it out.”

Marwin, for once, was silent; his lips parted. In the room behind them there was a sudden crash.

Dawd swung around, looking in through the door; one of the lamps had fallen from the altar and broken on the floor. He turned and went on down the stairs, eager to get out of the castle.

*   *   *

There were no servants anywhere. Once again they would have to use soldiers to do the work of the castle. Oto sent the men who had brought him down to the hall to fetch a mass of pillows and blankets, and when they had stacked them on the high seat hunched himself carefully down among them. His hurts were fading. He could walk better now. He thought he could sit upright for the whole afternoon. He gave Broga a hard look, in the place beside him; Broga was glowering off toward the terrace.

“We have to build a wall there,” Broga said. “I thought that had been done.”

“I am King here, I will decide what to do,” Oto said. He remembered ordering the wall built and he even remembered seeing it there, but certainly it was gone now. He would have to straighten that out. But not now. Now this other thing.

“You must go to the new fort,” he said. “We've been attacked. We need to take back that ground.”

“We haven't got the men to hold it,” Broga said between his teeth. Still not looking at Oto. “If fifty men couldn't hold it the first time.”

“I am King,” Oto said, “and you will—”

“My lords,” said a new voice. “Glory to the Empire.”

Oto veered around, startled. Prince Jeon came across the room toward them, bowed to him, bowed to Broga.

“Yes,” Oto said. “What do you want?”

“I have heard about the … problem up the coast. I will go up to scout that for you. I know that area well.”

Surprised, Oto stared at him. This sudden humility was of course utterly false. But perhaps his brother's fate had taught Jeon something. And Prince Jeon could be useful. The boy met Oto's gaze, patient.

Broga said, harsh, “Do you actually trust him?”

Oto smiled at that. Prince Jeon's eyes flicked sideways toward Broga and back to Oto on the high seat. “My lord,” he said, “I shall go if you will or not; this is my kingdom.”

“Well, then,” Oto said. “I see no reason to stop you.” He glanced at his brother beside him, cocked up on the edge of his seat, as if he would leap on Jeon. That might yet come. Oto smiled at both of them. “Go on, then.”

“Glory to the Empire,” said Jeon.

*   *   *

The groom was bringing the big grey horse down from the stable on the cliff. Tirza held on to Jeon's arm; she did not want him to leave. She shook her head at her brother, who kissed her and pushed her gently away.

“Let me go, Tirza. I have to think. And we should find out what happened up there, shouldn't we? Something went on up there, bad or good.” He gathered up his reins, and leading the horse started off along the beach; the tide was out and the way open below the castle. She went along beside him, frowning.

He turned again to her, purposeful. “Spy on them. You can do this. Nobody heeds you. Find out what they know.”

She gave him a sharp look from beneath her brows; it was true nobody noticed her, certainly not the Erdhartsson brothers. He said, “Spy on the soldiers then.”

She took the bridle while he swung up into his saddle. Her face tipped toward his, her eyebrows knotted, and she said a stream of gibberish.