The Hearts of Dragons (11 page)

“You can come in now,”
Doctor Raebeld said, “but only for a few minutes. He’s still weak.”

Veliaf’s doctor ushered
Iren, Hana, and Dirio from the hallway of the town hospital into the stark sick
room. As Iren crossed the threshold, his heart caught in his throat. Balear lay
on a bed with bandages wrapped around his torso. Nothing remained of his right
arm; it was gone all the way to the shoulder.

“I did everything I
could,” Raebeld said, running a hand through his thinning gray hair, “but I
couldn’t save it. The tissue was dead before you brought him here.”

Iren’s body felt tight.
“This is terrible.”

Raebeld shook his head.
“Actually, he was lucky. The ice had only spread through his arm, so nothing
vital was damaged. If it had gone into his torso, you wouldn’t be seeing him,
unless it was at his funeral.”

Iren tried to appreciate
the optimism, but he couldn’t. This was his fault. If he could have used magic,
the Fubuki wouldn’t have posed a threat. Intimidating as it had been, its
abilities didn’t match the Fire Dragon’s. A single beam of light would have
killed it, and if it had somehow still managed to wound Balear, Iren could have
healed him.

Hana put a hand on
Balear’s forehead. “He doesn’t have a fever,” she said. “That’s good.”

“When you brought him
back two days ago, I wasn’t sure I could save him,” Doctor Raebeld admitted.
“All things considered, he’s making a remarkable recovery. He has a strong will
to live.”

As if in answer, Balear
groaned and tried to sit up, but without his right arm, he couldn’t do it.
Raebeld frowned. “Yes, a strong will to live, and a stronger will in general.
Do I have to tie you down? I told you to rest.”

Balear glared at the
doctor, but Iren ignored the exchange. He was busy eyeing Hana. His fists
clenched. In truth, it wasn’t entirely his fault that Balear was in this
condition. The blame fell on Hana too. She was the Stone Dragon Knight! When
the Fubuki appeared, she could have defeated it easily, yet she’d played the
part of a damsel in distress and fled. Only when Iren and Balear were on the
verge of death had she intervened.

“All right now, that’s
enough,” Raebeld said in a tone that forbade argument. “Let the man sleep.
Balear, I’ll check back later, and I swear, if you’ve budged an inch, I’ll haul
blocks of stone from the mine and set them on your chest.”

Hana gave the doctor an
innocent smile. “Sir, if you want to make sure he doesn’t move, I can stay with
him. I promise to let him rest.”

Raebeld didn’t look
happy about it, but he said, “Very well. Balear defies all my orders anyway. At
least this way there’s someone to yell at him when he does.” He shooed Iren and
Dirio out of the room, then hustled down the hospital hall. Dirio followed him.

When they’d gone, Iren
stole back into the room and shut the door. Inside, Hana stroked Balear’s nose
with her thumb. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” A tear dripped from
her cheek and landed on the bed next to him. Balear reached up with his left
hand and wiped away the trail it left on her face.

Iren’s cheeks flushed,
but he had come too far to leave. “So what happened out there?” he demanded.

Hana sniffed. She kept
her gaze on Balear as she said, “My master taught me that advertising yourself
as a Dragon Knight attracts those who want the power for themselves. I wanted to
tell you, but I couldn’t. Now I realize that was a mistake. If I’d attacked
right away, none of this would have happened.”

Though Iren scowled, he
understood Hana’s reason. Rondel had once given him the same advice.

Balear stirred. “I don’t
blame you, Hana,” he said. “You came back. That’s what matters. We would have
died without your help.”

Another tear fell from
her face.

Balear shook his head.
“No more of that. What concerns me now isn’t what happened, but why. The Fubuki
only live in the frozen lands of Charda, farther north even than Akaku. What
was this one doing so close to Veliaf?”

The door opened a crack.
A voice from the other side of it said, “I might be able to shed light on that
subject.”

Dirio entered the room.
“I had a feeling everyone would be in here, despite Doctor Raebeld’s orders.”

He sat on the floor
against a wall. He looked old. “I’m beginning to think removing the Yokai from
Akaku Forest was the worst decision Amroth made for Lodia’s security,” he said.
“Well, maybe not the worst, but it ranks right up there.”

“What do you mean?” Iren
asked. He and Dirio knew firsthand how brutal the Yokai could be.

“I suspect the Yokai
created a balance of power in the north. They lacked the numbers to invade
Lodia, yet neither was Lodia in a position to attack them. At the same time,
they had enough strength to keep out the Fubuki.”

“So what you’re saying,”
Hana cut in, “is that without the Yokai, the Fubuki are moving south and taking
Akaku for themselves.”

Dirio nodded. “We’ve
lost a few patrols in the woods, but I always thought it was remnant Yokai. The
events of two days ago changed my mind. There may be a few Yokai left, but I
think they’re being overrun. The Fubuki saw their chance and seized it.”

“Forgive me for saying
it, but that sounds speculative,” Balear said from his bed. “We saw one Fubuki.
That doesn’t prove they’re invading.”

“True, and had you run
into any other Fubuki, I’d dismiss it as a random event. But because you fought
a Dragon Knight, I believe that changes the situation.”

“Why?” Iren asked.

“Children in Veliaf grow
up hearing stories about Fubuki,” Dirio explained. “According to those tales, they
can’t survive warm temperatures. Normally that would mean we’d have nothing to
fear from them. Based on your account, though, this Ice Dragon Knight can
change the weather. Do you see where I’m going?”

Iren put a hand to his
forehead. “With that Dragon Knight as their vanguard, the Fubuki aren’t limited
to cold climates. They can invade not only Akaku, but Lodia at any time of
year. With the civil war going on, Lodia’s in no shape to stop them. There’s no
way they wouldn’t take advantage of a situation like that.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

A knock at the door
interrupted their conversation. “Mayor Dirio? Sir, are you in there?”

Dirio stood, care-heavy
wrinkles on his not yet fifty-year-old face. “Yes, what is it?” he asked as he
opened the door.

A guard stood on the
other side. “We’ve apprehended two newcomers at the gate,” he said. “One of
them claims to know you. I thought you’d want to know.”

“I’ll be right there,”
Dirio replied. He looked around the room. “You three show up, and within days I
have a Fubuki Dragon Knight breathing down my town’s neck. I wonder what these
guests will bring.” With that, he left.

Iren leaned against the
wall. “Insane,” he said. “It’s insane. What are we supposed to do?” He wanted
to help Veliaf, to help Lodia, to help Balear, yet he could do none of those
things. Without magic, he couldn’t defeat even a normal Fubuki. If they did
invade, he would be useless against them.

He slammed his fist into
the wall. “If only I could use magic!”

Hana eyed him for a long
moment. Then her face lit up. “Iren, I may have thought of a way to help you.”

He started. “How?”

“It occurred to me just
now as I was thinking about my teacher. He’s one of the oldest Maantecs alive,
and he knows more about magic than anyone I’ve ever met. If you talk to him,
maybe he’ll be familiar with your affliction. He might even know a way to cure
it.”

It wasn’t much to go on.
Seeing Balear on that bed, though, with flat bandages where his arm should be,
convinced him. “Where does your teacher live?”

“In Shikari,” Hana said,
“far away at the southernmost tip of Raa. You could travel on foot for months
and still not reach it.”

Iren’s head dropped to
his chest. He didn’t have months to cross the continent on a “maybe,” and he
let Hana know it.

Instead of looking upset
or even surprised by Iren’s reaction, Hana smiled. “It would take months if we
had to travel on foot, but who said we had to go that way?”

Placing her hand on the
floor, Hana slowly raised her palm. As she did, the war hammer she’d held when
she’d defeated the Fubuki appeared and rose up with it. Grasping the hammer,
Hana sunk halfway into the floor.

“This is the Stone
Dragon Hammer, the Enryokiri,” she said as Iren gazed in astonishment at the
half-woman before him. “It follows me underground no matter where I go. With
its magic, we can travel through the rock faster than we can run. If we leave
now, we can reach Shikari in two days.”

Iren leapt to the door.
“I’ll get my things.”

*   *   *

Balear lay alone,
forgotten by everyone. The room where Doctor Raebeld had put him was
utilitarian, like all of Veliaf. His bed was a straw mattress laid over
intertwined ropes tied to a wooden frame. A single chair gave the doctor a
place to sit. That was it for furniture.

The only other object in
the room leaned upright on the far wall. Balear couldn’t stop looking at it,
yet he desperately wished it would go away.

It was the Sky Dragon
Sword.

According to Raebeld,
Hana had brought it for him on a floating bed of earth. He could still feel the
touch of her thumb on his nose. His remaining hand was wet with her tears. They
made him furious. How could she come in here and give such an emotional
display, and then dash off with Iren to the other side of the continent?

It was because they were
Maantecs, and because they were Dragon Knights. Balear was neither. Ariok had
given him a chance to be a Dragon Knight, but the Fubuki had taken that away.
He would never fight again.

Footsteps approached
Balear’s room. Outside the door Doctor Raebeld yelled, “No! My patient needs to
rest. I was lenient with you before, but I will not exhaust him with all these
people!”

“I understand how you
feel,” Dirio’s voice replied, “but these two have come a long way.”

Balear wondered who
would bother to visit a disgraced former general like him. He got his answer
when a familiar high-pitched female voice said, “That’s right, doc. Do you know
how many times I nearly broke a hip walking here? And look what happened to my
hand along the way! Honestly, if you want to stop me from seeing him, it’s
going to take more than you’ve got.”

Balear smiled despite
himself. The speaker had to be that crazy old Maantec, Rondel. Only she could
pretend to be so frail yet finish with an undertone of threat.

“Please, I must insist—”
the doctor began, but then Rondel opened the door and strode inside.

“Well look, doc!” she
called. “Balear’s wide awake and looking fine to me. I think we’ll be all right
without you for a few minutes.”

She was the same as
Balear remembered her, five feet tall and with a broad, stupid grin that he
knew was false. Behind that expression, Rondel’s emerald eyes scanned the room
with poorly veiled wrath.

Those eyes concerned
Balear, but more disconcerting was seeing Rondel’s left arm in a sling. He
couldn’t imagine anyone wounding her that badly.

The most surprising part
of the old woman’s arrival, though, was not Rondel herself. It was the person
who walked in behind her. Dressed in leather with a long cap that covered her
hair, the woman might have passed for a young Beranian. Her rich tan
complexion, green eyebrows, and longbow covered in living vines, however, all
gave her away.

“Minawë,” Balear said,
doing his best to sound cheerful, “I never expected to see you in Lodia.
Welcome.”

Rondel looked hurt. “Oh
sure, ignore me. Typical male, notice the outwardly attractive lady while
missing the real beauty in the room.”

Balear couldn’t help but
smile a second time. The cagey old woman usually grated on his nerves, but
something about seeing her again made him happy.

“Now,” Rondel said, an
edge in her voice, “I think you two should leave us alone. We’ve come far, and
we’d like to catch up with our old comrade.”

Doctor Raebeld opened
his mouth to protest, but Dirio silenced him with a look. “You don’t want to
argue with that one,” the mayor said. “They won’t stay long.”

Raebeld huffed and
complained, but Dirio shoved the doctor out of the room. He then left as well,
shutting the door behind him.

“Well, Balear,” Rondel
said, “it looks like you’ve seen better days.”

Balear touched the
bandaged empty socket of his right shoulder. “How much did Dirio tell you?”

Rondel’s grin vanished.
“Enough. I wish we’d been faster catching up to you. I didn’t expect you to
fight the Ice Dragon Knight, and I never thought that if you did, that it would
be a Fubuki on top of it. You’re lucky you survived.” She glanced at the
gigantic sword leaning against the wall. “I see you have the Auryozaki to thank
for that. I should have realized last year that Zuberi had it. It didn’t seem
possible to me, though, so I assumed it was another big sword. Zuberi was a
giant himself, after all. I’m impressed it chose you.”

Balear shrugged as best
he could considering he only had one arm and was lying on a bed. “It once
belonged to my father,” he said.

“I see.” Rondel walked
to the blade and stroked it with her wrinkled hand.

Balear shifted his
attention to Minawë. She seemed tense. “Iren’s not here,” he said, “if that’s
what you’re wondering.”

Rondel’s hand continued
to probe the Auryozaki as though Balear had never spoken. Minawë, however,
dropped her eyes to the floor. Her shoulders slumped. “Dirio told us we’d find
him talking to you,” she said. “Did he step out to let you rest?”

“I wish,” Balear said. “I
don’t think he’s in Veliaf anymore. He left after you two arrived.” He told
them about his journey across Lodia with Iren and Hana.