Dragonoak (59 page)

“Akela,
explain what happened,” Kidira said as Akela made herself
comfortable.

I put a
hand on the arm of my chair, considered pulling myself into it, but
ultimately headed over to the doors in order to keep an eye out for
Sen and Claire. Akela hadn't encountered any problems on her way up
the mountain, but I hadn't been so lucky; the soldiers wouldn't
have stopped looking for me just because I'd jumped, and all within
the Felheimish army would've recognised Claire from her burns
alone, had they not known her in her past life.

“Ightham, she is receiving word that the Felheimish, they are
targeting another city. One of the cities that is not being touched
by the dragons, not yet. This is happening quite often, yes?
Orinhal is being built up and up because Ightham, she is sending
troops and they are liberating the cities and the people, and where
they are wanting to go, that is up to them.

“Three hundred of us are heading straight into a trap. We are
not losing many soldiers, of course, but we are losing time. We are
back in Orinhal, and already it is almost too late. There is
a
dragon
outside,
and Prince Rylan, like a gutless weasel, he is writhing through the
streets, spreading his lies, saying that Orinhal, it is safe, if
Claire is surrendering.

“And so
we are running. We are coming here.”

“Lies?”
Zentha asked. “And what of the dragon?”

“Yes, yes, lies. Rylan, he is saying that Ightham, she is
wrong. The Felheimish are not controlling the dragons, they are not
sending them to fight. Rather, they are
taming
the dragons, they are
stopping them from spreading more fire, more chaos. And that it is
Ightham who is opposing this, who is wanting Kastelir to suffer
longer, so that Felheim is punished. Because she is a traitor,”
Akela said, teeth grinding together. “I am not knowing what is
becoming of the dragon. I am thinking it is subdued. Shackled,
perhaps.”

I pushed
myself up on tiptoes and gripped the side of the door, but there
was no sign of Sen and Claire in the crowd. Kouris would've started
making her way down the mountain, by now. If there was trouble,
she'd dispatch of it in a way Sen never could.

“I'm
truly sorry for what's happened and outraged by Felheim's continued
mistreatment of the dragons, but I don't know what you expect of
me, Kidira,” Zentha said. “Claire is welcome to stay here for as
long as she needs to, of course. You all are. But beyond that, I
cannot aid you.”

“What I
want is to know that the pane are willing to defend themselves,
should the Felheimish march on Kyrindval,” Kidira said. “I know you
will never fight, and I will not ask you to. But if enough pane
gather, a growl alone will be enough to send most soldiers
running.”

Zentha
shook their head slowly, and I saw time slip back decades; I saw
Kouris pleading her case to Zentha, begging them to help stop the
slaughter of pane all across Asar.

“We are
not inclined to war, to violence,” Zentha reminded her. “I
understand that Kouris was your introduction to the pane, but
Kouris was our introduction to humanity; none here could bring
themselves to act as savage beasts living high up in the mountains,
no matter what your people may believe.”

Kidira
brought a fist down on the table but made no reply.

At the
very end of the street, a shock of red hair flickered into view.
The pane going about their business stepped to the side, letting
Claire and Sen pass. I hurried to meet her halfway, but Claire
didn't turn towards me. She kept her gaze fixed forward, bringing
her cane down as though she intended to split Bosma in
two.

“Are you
both alright?” I asked. “Akela told me as much as she
could.”

“I do
not believe we were followed into the mountains,” Claire said,
stepping far too heavily on her bad leg. “But that is not to say
they will not think to look for me here.”

Sen
shared my concern, but there was no telling Claire to slow down.
They had only made it up the mountain because Sen had carried her,
and we needed to let her walk the rest of her way for her own sake,
no matter how she suffered for it.

Sen had
brought what she could from Orinhal with her. Three bags were slung
over one of her shoulders – the one I'd brought Claire's things in
amongst them – and when I put a hand on her arm, it took all her
willpower not to lean against me.

Kidira
greeted Claire at the entrance of the lodge, and I closed the door
behind me, lingering there for a moment.

Claire
and Kidira were already deep in conversation, speaking purely of
what had happened, not needing to voice concern or sympathy for one
another. Sen placed the bags on the floor and pulled out a chair
for Claire. As I watched them gather around, I saw the way things
had been for a long time; I saw the bonds that had been forged in
the two years I'd been away.

I hadn't
wanted to leave Claire, hadn't wanted to be away from her again,
but I didn't want to see her again at such a cost.

She'd
poured all she had left into Orinhal and she'd been driven out in a
matter of hours. Her people had even turned against her.

“Claire.
I'm sorry to meet you again under such circumstances,” Zentha said,
and I quietly stepped forward, taking a seat behind the group.
Kidira had resigned herself to sitting along with the others, and
she glanced back at me, holding my gaze for a second longer than I
could bear without shuffling in my seat. “If you weren't aware that
you were always welcome here, you wouldn't have come. I've already
explained to Kidira that the pane aren't likely to change their way
of life overnight, but nobody wants the dragons freed more than we
do.”

“I
should never ask such a thing of you, Zentha. I assure you, I shall
move on at the first sign of trouble,” Claire told them, and Akela
looked to me, brow furrowed, confused by all the Svargan suddenly
being thrown around. “If nothing else, we know the Felheimish will
not bring their dragons here, for fear of retaliation from those
that remain free.”

Zentha
rested their chin on their fist, sighing. For all that had just
unfolded, they didn't seem particularly troubled; to them this
must've been nothing but a human squabble that was bound to resolve
itself, eventually. Even if that meant ending in the way most human
squabbles did: with a sword through someone's gut and no lessons
learnt.

“If
you'd excuse me, I believe I would rather stay out of your
schemes,” Zentha said, rising to their feet. “Should you need me,
you know where I'll be.”

Zentha
was twice my height, but as they moved across the great lodge, they
didn't diminish the size of it. Akela discovered the biscuits as we
waited for the door to thud closed behind Zentha, and Claire ran a
hand through her hair, staring blankly ahead.

“What
are we to do about this? Orinhal was mine one moment, and now...
now my brother has claimed it,” Claire said, left leg
trembling.

“The
fact that we held Orinhal for as long as we did was more than any
of us expected. It grew too large; any number of people within the
city could have been working for Rylan,” Kidira said. “What became
of Atthis and my daughter? Are they still within
Orinhal?”

Akela
and Claire couldn't help but glance my way.

“I
believe so,” Claire said slowly, assuming that Kidira must know far
too little about Katja. “We could attempt to extract them, but to
what end? For now, they are safe enough. Ash, Galal and the other
soldiers are still there. We have plenty of undoubtedly loyal to us
in Orinhal. If we are to attempt anything, we must plan and
coordinate properly.”

Agreement came in the form of flat hums, and Claire leant
forward, face buried in her hands.

“How could I let this happen?” she asked, and the heel of her
boot clipped noisily against the floorboards as her leg shook and
shook. “I sent my soldiers into an obvious
trap
, and I fled, once
more...”

Fingers
curling against my palm, I moved to the edge of my seat, but Sen's
hand was already sprawled across Claire's back.

“I-it's
not your fault, Marshal. Prince Rylan, he's b-been trying to take
Orinhal for... for longer than you've been there,” Sen said gently.
“This doesn't mean it's over. We'll just... we have to work from
Kyrindval, now.”

“Yes,
yes. You are listening to Sen, Ightham. Now that our vacation in
Canth is ending, Northwood and I, we are helping set this all
right,” Akela declared. “It is taking months – it is taking years –
and still, it is not a problem! There are obstacles, and still, we
are setting this right.”

Even
Kidira had words of comfort for Claire.

“It
isn't all bad news,” she said dryly, and turned to me, having
already put far too much effort into soothing her. “Rowan...
?”

I
gripped the arms of the chair and sat up straight. I'd yet to come
to terms with what had happened in the Bloodless Lands, and though
I knew keeping it locked within me, making a secret out of it,
would do nothing to help me process the events, I had to fight back
the urge to fuse my jaw shut.

“We went
to the Bloodless Lands,” I said, getting it all out at once.
Disbelief flashed across Claire, Akela and Sen's faces in the same
instant, and now that I was talking, I didn't want to stop. “Me,
Kouris, Kidira, and Oak. The, um. Dragon. His name is Oak. We went
into the Bloodless Lands to stop the Felheimish from doing whatever
they were doing to dragons, and you were right, Claire. They were
using necromancers.

“A
necromancer. Iseul. They were
using him to... I'm not sure, exactly. He was pushing his memories
into dragons killed for that very reason and controlling them in
that way, maybe? It's like... as soon as they're risen again, all
they can think about is what the Felheimish want them to do, where
they want them to go. But they'd had him locked up for decades. I
don't think he even understood who he was, by the time we got
there. And if he was the only one, that means they're going to have
to stop using dragons, sooner or later.”

The
flood of questions I'd been expecting didn't come. The others
simply stared and stared at me, not having the faintest idea of
where to start. Had this news come a week before, when Orinhal was
still ours, it would've been a sign that we were pushing forward,
that we were winning; now it barely took the edge off what had
happened.

“What
happened to the necromancer?” Claire eventually asked. “To
Iseul?”

“I... I
don't know. Not really,” I said, frowning. “But he's gone.
Dead.”

That put
a halt to any more questions rushing out of anyone.

They continued to keep their eyes on me, missing the part
where I'd said that Kidira had been with me, and Akela rubbed her
chin, saying, “
So—
” only to be abruptly interrupted by the doors swinging
open.

We
looked up, saw only clear skies and the tops of cabins, and
adjusted our sights. The young pane who'd been playing with the
goat came charging in, skidding to a halt and trying to hide behind
one another when they realised that Sen was the only pane amongst
our numbers.

“Zentha
recently left,” Claire said, before the pane could escape. “What is
it?”

It took
them a few seconds to gather the courage to open their mouths, and
a few more to find the right words.

“There
are... more little friends outside the tribe!” one of them
declared. “I think they're soldiers.”

Akela
didn't need to speak Svargan to understand that there was trouble.
Had the chair she was sat in been any smaller or lighter it
would've been knocked over with the force with which she rushed to
her feet, but she was still exhausted from the journey to
Kyrindval, and I managed to overtake her in the streets.

The pane
watched us rush by, supposing it was just a human thing they didn't
understand. The soldiers, by some luck, were too far from the tribe
for any within it to have spotted them, hidden by a curve of a hill
at the edge of the plateau that led down to the path.

The sun
glinted along the blade of Akela's forgotten axe, but she didn't
need to pick it up to ensure the situation turned in our favour.
There were six soldiers in all, brandishing spears, tips pointed in
Kouris' direction. She'd risen to her full height, pushed herself
up on the very tips of her clawed toes, towering over them like a
wave about to break.

The
soldiers took two steps back for every one she took forward,
growling all the while, deep enough to send rocks tumbling from the
mountains around. There was the Queen Kouris the stories had always
spoken of, lies kindled to life by a hint of truth. One slash of
her claws and they'd be gut like fish; one snap of her teeth and
she'd swallow them whole.

“Look!”
one of the soldiers called, spear doing all it could to leapt out
of his hands. “Humans! Get over here, would you? Can't you control
this one?”

Akela
and I glanced at each other, losing all momentum. Arms folded
across my chest, I walked towards the soldiers, placing myself at
Kouris' side as Akela propped herself on a rock behind.