The Hearts of Dragons (15 page)

After more than a week
in the mountains, Minawë didn’t feel like they were getting anywhere. The
spires of Eregos rose as high as ever, and the horses had trouble negotiating
the uneven paths. Minawë had taken to walking alongside hers to spare the beast
her weight.

The trail narrowed as
Rondel and Minawë approached the next mountain pass. Sheer stone walls towered
on either side of them. Eventually the cliffs became so close together that the
pair needed to go single-file. Rondel took the lead, still on her horse.

A crack of thunder
echoed off the canyon walls. Minawë covered her ears at the reverberations. She
wanted out of this place right away, but ahead of her, Rondel stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Minawë
asked.

Rondel dismounted
without answering. Minawë slid past Rondel’s horse so she could see what was
going on.

Blocking their path was
the oddest creature Minawë had ever seen. It stood no taller than Rondel, yet
its girth surpassed its height. In one hand it held a large gourd, and in the
other it clutched a shepherd’s crook. Except for its chestnut face, the
creature’s body was covered in white, downy feathers that made it look like an
oversized baby bird. That appearance was all the more realized by the
creature’s absurdly long nose, which measured the length of Minawë’s forearm.

“What is that?” Minawë
asked, though she had a good idea of the answer.

Rondel didn’t shift her
gaze from the creature. “It’s a Tengu.”

The Tengu must have
heard them, because it cocked its head sideways. It stared at them with huge
brown eyes.

Rondel hobbled forward, by
all appearances a shuffling elder. “Please, Master Tengu, won’t you let us
pass?”

“Haruu hoo hoo,” the
Tengu grunted in what Minawë guessed was laughter. The throaty sound caused the
Tengu to shake all over. “This is a good place to pass. That’s why they call it
a pass.”

“Indeed,” Rondel said,
the patience in her voice forced, “so if you’ll step to one side, we’ll be on
our way.”

“And what way might that
be?” The Tengu looked at Minawë. “Ah, I see. Little Kodama, have you brought
your grandmother here to die? Will you leave her here with us?”

Minawë didn’t know how
to take that. She couldn’t think of a response.

Rondel could. “I’m not
her grandmother,” the old woman retorted, “and I’m not ready to die either.
We’re on a journey.”

“Granny is rude!” the
Tengu laughed. “I wasn’t talking to her.”

Rondel seethed. She
opened her mouth, but Minawë put a hand on her shoulder. “Let me,” she said.
“It seems interested in me.”

She stepped around
Rondel. “What the old hag says is true,” she told the Tengu.

A grunt sounded from
behind her. Minawë suppressed a smile. Iren used to call Rondel “old hag” to
rile her. This Tengu delighted in teasing Rondel; maybe it would appreciate
Minawë if she did the same.

“She can be forgetful,”
Minawë continued, shaking her head in mock exasperation, “but this time she was
right. We’re headed south to find a lost friend of ours. He’s in Shikari.”

The Tengu’s feathers
fluffed at that. “Nice going,” Rondel grumbled, “the Tengu hate Maantecs,
remember?”

“Haruu hoo hoo!” the
Tengu laughed. “That was mean of you to deceive me. I can’t let Maantecs
through.”

“You will let us through,”
Minawë said. She removed the Chloryoblaka from her back. “I’m no Maantec. I’m a
Kodama, and I’m the Forest Dragon Knight.”

“Forest Dragon Knight?”
The Tengu cocked its head sideways again. “If you’re a Dragon Knight, why don’t
you just fly away? You don’t need to bother with me at all.”

“Master Tengu, please, I
can’t fly. That’s why we’re walking.”

“Oh, you can’t fly! What
a pathetic Dragon Knight you are! Even sparrows can fly. If you can’t do what a
sparrow can, you must be a very stupid person!”

They were the last words
the Tengu spoke. Rondel gave no warning; Minawë felt only a rush of air as the
Maantec rushed past her. The Liryometa flashed, and Rondel drove its round
pommel into the Tengu’s skull. The creature dropped to the ground, breathing
shallowly.

Minawë ran to Rondel.
“What did you do that for?” she cried.

Rondel sheathed her
broken weapon. “I got tired of waiting.”

“That’s no reason to
knock him out!”

The old Maantec said
nothing and returned to her horse. Minawë frowned. Something was wrong. Rondel wouldn’t
attack someone just for trying her patience. There must have been another
reason.

Whatever it was, Rondel
didn’t want to discuss it. She rode up to Minawë, glared down at her, and
barked, “Hurry and get back on your horse. We don’t have much time. If there
are other Tengu around, they’ll never let us leave these mountains now.”

Minawë started to argue
that that was why Rondel shouldn’t have struck the Tengu in the first place,
but an unearthly shriek drowned out her words. She looked up and gasped. The
cliff tops on either side of them swarmed with hundreds of Tengu, each armed
with a horn bow.

Leaping onto her horse,
Minawë galloped down the narrow mountain pass. Rondel rode just ahead of her.
The Tengu screeched in challenge and then, as one, shot their bows.

There was no escape, and
Minawë knew it. She and Rondel couldn’t maneuver in the tight space, and the
arrows were so plentiful they were like a collapsing roof.

Even so, Minawë and
Rondel remained unharmed. The arrows rained down, but they passed through
horses and riders alike without injury.

Minawë grasped the
situation at once. All the Tengu had fired simultaneously. That was impossible
even for a trained militia. The Tengu were casting an illusion that made their
bowmen and arrows appear far more numerous than they actually were.

There must have been at
least a few real ones, though, because an arrow struck Rondel in the left
shoulder, and another grazed Minawë’s back. In the drowning barrage, Minawë
couldn’t tell which arrows were real and which were fake. She would have to
ride at full speed and hope to outdistance them.

She thought she had
escaped when she and Rondel reached the end of the mountain pass. The cliffs
separated from each other and put space between them and the Tengu.

But as Minawë glanced
back, her optimism died. The horde of Tengu, real or imagined, poured over the
cliffs. The creatures flapped their arms to slow their descent, like gigantic
chicks dropped from the nest. Minawë would have laughed had the swarm not been
so menacing.

The arrows continued
unabated. Then without warning, Minawë’s horse pitched forward and threw her
from the saddle.

As Minawë rolled to a
stop, she saw that her steed had caught his foot in a hole and stumbled. She
ran back toward him, but before she had covered half the distance, two real
arrows pierced him. The horse cried a long, mournful neigh and then lay silent.

Minawë stared in shock
at the dead animal, and it took an arrow scratching her arm to pull her back to
reality. She turned and ran, putting everything she had into her legs.

Soon enough, though, she
had to slow down. The ground was steeper here, and the many boulders and
crevices threatened to snap her leg just as they had done to her horse.

Eventually she caught up
to Rondel, who had abandoned her own steed and was also making her way on foot.
The old woman still had an arrow protruding from her left shoulder. Blood ran
down her arm.

“What do we do?” Minawë
asked. “We can’t run, and those Tengu aren’t slowing down.”

Rondel looked behind her
at the apparent army of foes rushing toward them. “The Tengu are built to
survive in these mountains,” she said. “They know the safe paths. If we can’t
speed up, we’ll have to slow them down.”

“And your suggestion for
that would be?”

“Well, I did come up
with one idea,” Rondel said with a grimace, “but it’ll probably get us killed.”

An arrow pinged off a
rock at Minawë’s feet. “Like we have a choice?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Rondel drew the
Liryometa as they continued their flight. The dagger shone blue in the grayness
of the overcast evening.

Thunder rumbled above
them, and Minawë realized Rondel’s plan. Dry mountain grasses and scrub pine
surrounded them. The memory of the charred valley flashed back to her.

Minawë felt pressure on
her right side, and she almost fell as Rondel shoved her. “Go that way!” the
Maantec howled. “Don’t look back!”

She obeyed, mostly.
Minawë couldn’t help but peek over her shoulder to see what Rondel was doing.
The old woman threw down her dagger. Then she leapt behind a boulder several
feet away and covered her ears as best she could with a broken hand.

The charge Rondel had
built up inside the Liryometa was too much for the storm to resist. Even with
Minawë’s lead, the lightning strike threw her to the ground.

When she recovered, all
Minawë could hear was ringing in her ears. Around the lightning’s impact site,
the forest was already aflame.

“Rondel!” Minawë shouted
in vain as the fires obscured her vision. She couldn’t believe how quickly the wind
spread the flames. It carried embers across the landscape. Soon a burning line
sprouted that separated her from the Tengu. For the first time since the
mountain pass, all the arrows, real and imaginary, ceased.

But Rondel’s plan hadn’t
saved Minawë. With the direction of the wind, the fire was coming straight for
her.

She fled, hoping Rondel
was all right. The lightning bolt itself might have killed the old Maantec, but
even if it hadn’t, she would have been in the middle of that blaze when it
ignited.

Minawë picked her way
through the woods. The flames behind her closed in. Sweat poured off her. The
heat was more intense than even what Feng had thrown off.

She couldn’t outrun the
fires. They were too fast. She’d have to fly to escape them.

Fly? The thought struck
her through the terror of the burning forest. She remembered the Tengu’s words:
“Oh, you can’t fly! What a pathetic Dragon Knight you are!”

Maybe the creature was
right. Mother or Father could have figured a way out of this mess, but not her.

She wouldn’t let herself
believe that. Rondel had said the Tengu were tricksters. The one in the pass
had seemed to be insulting her, but maybe, in its own weird way, it had meant
something good by it.

“Even sparrows can fly,”
it had said. “If you can’t do what a sparrow can, you must be a very stupid
person!”

He made it sound so
simple. Want to fly? Just be a sparrow.

That was it. It was that
simple. If she could change the form of plants using Dendryl’s magic, perhaps
she could do the same to herself.

Minawë channeled the Forest
Dragon’s energy. As she did, she focused on the shape of the sparrows in
Ziorsecth. She pictured her body changing, shrinking, and sprouting wings.

The transformation was
excruciating. Her bones crunched and popped as they rearranged themselves. Her muscles
strained as parts of her changed at different speeds. All the while, the fires
drew closer. They were behind and to either side of her now. Soon, even if her
attempt worked, she would still die.

At last her body felt
normal again. The transformation had succeeded. With a flap of her wings,
Minawë took flight. She soared above the burning mountainside. Her keen bird
eyes swept the ground as she searched for Rondel. It took her two large
circles, but she finally spotted a tiny two-legged form moving south away from
the flames.

As she swerved toward
Rondel, Minawë saw the Tengu on the other side of the fire. They had given up
the chase. They must have stopped their illusion too, because now there were
only a dozen of them.

Minawë was glad the
Tengu had let Rondel go rather than risk the forest fire. Although they had
nearly killed her, Minawë felt terrible for what had happened. The Tengu had
been guarding their home. It was no different from the way the Kodamas
protected Ziorsecth.

Tweeting a song in the
Tengu’s honor, Minawë descended to reunite with Rondel.

Dirio Cyneric, mayor of
Veliaf, trudged through the narrow, windy streets of his village. He’d just
left the office, head full and spirit leaden.

He’d thought being a
mine foreman was tough. At least back then, he’d supervised at most a dozen
men, and he could always pass the blame up or down the chain as necessary. Now
if he failed, he couldn’t fault anyone but himself.

And he had failed.
Veliaf didn’t have the manpower to defend itself. It was only a matter of time
before one of the large cities arrived with an army. When they did, Dirio would
have to surrender and join them. It wouldn’t matter whether he agreed with them
or thought they stood a chance of winning the throne. He would have no other
option, except to see his town destroyed.

Again.

As he passed through the
austere village, Dirio caught sight of a white uniform heading for the town
hospital. He smiled and called, “Doctor Raebeld!”

The doctor stopped and
looked at him. “Mayor Cyneric,” he said. The doctor was the only person in town
formal enough to use Dirio’s last name. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Dirio walked over to Raebeld.
“I was hoping to run into you. How’s our boy?”

Raebeld didn’t need to
be told who “our boy” was. “Considering all that’s happened, Balear’s doing
well,” he said, “but he’ll never heal if he doesn’t rest.”

The mayor shook his
head. He still had a difficult time processing what had happened. He was used
to injuries; Veliaf’s mine was a dangerous place. Something about Balear’s
wound, though, struck him especially hard.

Maybe it was the sheer
strangeness of it. Dirio unconsciously put his left hand on his right bicep. He
couldn’t avoid thinking about it, what it must feel like to have your arm
pierced and then frozen from the inside out. He shuddered.

“Actually, I’m not
concerned about his physical injury anymore,” Raebeld said. He opened the
hospital door and gestured to invite Dirio inside. “Thanks to whatever devil
magic that Fubuki used, the wound is clean where he lost the arm. There’s
little danger of infection as long as he keeps it bandaged until the skin grows
over it. Even so . . .” he trailed off, and his expression grew
foul.

“What’s the matter?”
Dirio asked.

The doctor sighed. “I’ve
seen miners who have lost limbs. It’s different from most injuries. It affects
the mind. Sometimes people think they still have their arm or leg, even though
it’s gone. I haven’t seen that from Balear, but still, he worries me.”

“What makes you say
that?”

“He’s a soldier. Has
been his whole life. I don’t know how he’ll recover from losing his dominant
arm. Maybe he never will. In any case, I don’t think he’ll fight again.”

“That might be for the
best,” Dirio said. “Personally, I think Lodia could do with a little less
fighting right now.”

“You don’t understand.
Fighting is all that young man has. It’s what he knows. It’s what he does. If
you take that away, what’s left?”

Dirio didn’t have an
answer for that. He and the doctor walked in silence through a hallway with
doors on both sides. When the mine was in full operation, the sick rooms on the
other sides of those doors saw a lot of use. Fortunately, Balear was the only
patient at the moment.

They reached Balear’s
door. Raebeld was about to open it when Dirio heard muffled words from the
other side.

“. . .ven,
twenty-eight, twenty-nine . . .”

The mayor frowned.
“What’s he doing in there?”

Raebeld didn’t hesitate.
He flung open the door, and Dirio blinked several times in surprise. Balear was
out of bed and lying face-down on the floor.

No, Dirio realized, not
lying. Balear was doing one-armed push-ups. He was midway through one, his body
at its lowest point. He shook, and his face resembled a ripe apple.

“Thir. . .” he
groaned. “Thir. . .”

“What on Raa are you
doing?” Raebeld cried.

The distraction was
enough. Balear collapsed on the floor. His chest heaved, and sweat poured off
his body. He gasped for every breath.

“I was . . . so
close,” he said.

Raebeld shot Dirio a
commanding look. “Help me get him into bed. Grab his ankles; I’ll take his
shoulders.”

When the pair finished
manhandling Balear into bed, Raebeld turned his harsh expression on the former
general. “Rest!” the doctor screamed. “Rest! How thick are you? It’s only one
word! It’s only one syllable!”

Balear flushed a deeper
red, something Dirio didn’t think possible. “I have to get stronger,” Balear
wheezed. “Amroth trusted me.”

“Amroth was a monster
who put Lodia in the mess it’s in,” Raebeld shot back. “I couldn’t care less
what he thought of you.”

“Raebeld . . .”
Dirio began, but the doctor’s gaze cowed him into silence.

“I’m your doctor,”
Raebeld pressed on. “Do you want to live? Then follow my orders. You’re a
soldier. You should be able to do that much.”

Balear looked at the
ceiling. His expression was distant, like he was seeing something other than
the room.

“I am a soldier,” he
said after a long time. “I’m a member of the Castle Guard, the only one left.”

“And unless you want
them to disappear forever, you’ll stop these ridiculous exercises,” Raebeld
said. “If I catch you one more time, I’ll strap you to the bed.”

Dirio expected Balear to
back down, but the young man glared at the doctor in challenge. “Try it,” he
snarled, “and I swear I’ll kill you.”

Patient and doctor
glowered for a moment before Dirio intervened. “Balear, Doctor Raebeld wants to
help you,” he said. “He has a lot of experience treating wounds. I know it’s
hard, but—”

“You don’t know,” Balear
interrupted. “You don’t understand at all. I have to get better. I have to get
stronger.”

“Why?”

“Because Rondel opened
my eyes to the truth. Amroth might have been a monster, but he still chose me
as his second-in-command. When he and I came to Veliaf last year to defeat the
Quodivar, everyone in our group was a Maantec except for me. I was the only
human. Do you get it? There’s a reason for that.”

Balear sat up and swung
his legs over the side of the bed, prompting immediate protestations from
Raebeld. The soldier looked at him with cold certainty, and the doctor fell
into silence.

Dirio was stunned. He’d
never seen Raebeld intimidated by anyone.

“That Fubuki will come
back,” Balear said. It wasn’t a guess. When Dirio heard it, he knew it was
true.

“It could come back
today,” Balear continued. “It could be out there now. I don’t have time to sit
around.”

Balear stood and walked
to the corner of the room where his gigantic sword leaned against the wall. He
picked it up. “Iren, Hana, and Rondel all left,” he said. “We can’t count on
them to protect us. I’m Lodia’s only Dragon Knight. No one else can stop that
monster.”

He brushed past Dirio
and Raebeld on his way to the door. They both had to jump to get out of the way
of the Auryozaki.

To Raebeld’s credit, the
doctor tried one last time to dissuade Balear. “Stop this,” he said, though the
strength and command had gone out of his voice. “You can’t defeat that thing
with just your left arm.”

Balear didn’t bother
turning around. “I will,” he declared, “because Amroth believed in me. He knew
what I was before I realized it myself. I’m a defender of Lodia.”

He left the room. A few
seconds later, the door to the street slammed.