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42

CHARLIE

B irds chirped furiously in the flowering trees around us, morning dew still sparkled on the cobblestones of the courtyard, and the sky was a clear azure, a perfect day for flying. It was a fine morning to die.

I wasn’t sure what was worse: that the entire court was assembled, filling the courtyard to watch me fight—or that I was expected to read the article I’d written first. All eyes were upon me, some nobles watching with curiosity, others openly sneering as I took my place before the queen’s high chair and bowed low, as I’d been coached to do.

“You may begin reading,” the queen said.

I straightened up, shuffling the papers in my hands. “Ah… I don’t suppose I could do it after my duel, Your Majesty?”

Some quiet laughs and whispers made their way through the assembly. I was keenly aware of the joke, of course. They all assumed there would be no after the duel —not for me.

“In Maethalia, it is expected that a queen asks the questions,” Synaeda said, her words cold but not without a touch of amusement. “Indeed, there have been quite a few unorthodox activities you have taken part in these last few weeks. Helping my daughter train for her challenge. Attending balls. Getting challenged to a duel.”

“I am a man of many interests, Your Majesty,” I said, eliciting more smiles of amusement from the crowd.

I spotted Essa, then, off to the queen’s left. She was shaking her head at me, but the faintest smile touched her lips. She looked pale. Nervous.

“I regret to point out,” the Queen said, “This may well be court’s last chat with you. And we don’t want to miss out on the chance to hear the article you’ve been working on direct from the lips of the author. I expect it will be quite the opus since you’ve had so long to work on it.”

I gave a nod and glanced down at the papers. My hands were shaking, which was absurd. How was I more nervous to read what I’d written than to fight to the death?

There were different kinds of terror, I supposed. I’d been in hundreds of dogfights, and the battle-fear gave me power. But this… this was another sort of fear altogether.

I cleared my throat. “Essa always calls me a poet, but… Princess Essaphine, I mean…”

I gave the papers a shake, straightening them, and began reading.

“Three and a half weeks ago, I was sent on assignment to the land of the enemy. Maethalia. I expected to find a land of hostile people. A land of superstition and false magic. A land of evil and… uh… badness,” I glanced up to see a lot of frowning faces. “But I learned a lot. The economy of Maethalia is thirty-five percent agricultural. Twenty-five percent of the economy consists of what we would refer to as light industrial—the forging of weapons and tools, weaving of baskets, coopering of barrels, et cetera. Five percent, I was surprised to find out, consists of nothing but magic, the sale of spells, potions, and scrying, which is a sort of long-distance viewing magic Maethalian people use…”

I looked up again to find the nobles glancing at one another in open irritation.

“I just got most of those facts from a book…” I muttered, shuffling to a different page.

“Um… let me see…. Maethalia contains at last five of diverse races of people.”

I shuffled papers again, then spied what I was looking for.

“Ah! Dragons. We Admites think of dragons with fear and worry, but really, in Maethalia they’re no different than cars or steam engines or airplanes. Except imagine a steam engine that could speak to the conductor in his mind. Feed me more coal! it would probably say.” I looked up from my paper hoping to see laughter, but there was not so much as a grin on the face of any of the nobles. I cleared my throat. “In truth, I imagine most Admites would find dragons charming, as long as they were not being eaten by one.”

I glanced up again to find the queen scowling at me. I shuffled papers again.

“Um. Let’s see. The palace is very nice. It’s extremely large, and?—”

“You mean to tell me,” the Queen interrupted in a booming voice. “That you, the foremost bard of your people, have been here for weeks, have enjoyed our hospitality, have toured every corner of our capital, have witnessed the wonders of our magic and the majesty our dragons, and this is the best you can do?”

I glanced over to find Essa watching me with concern. Then I forced myself to meet the queen’s royal glare and took a deep, steadying breath.

“I do have one more…” I said, shuffling the papers once again. When I found the right page, I cleared my throat and read:

“I began as her captive

She bound both my hands

And carried me home

To the strangest of lands

By oath I’d have killed her

By duty, made war

But I felt with her

Things I’d never before

How to describe her?

Like mist after rain?

Like mirth after sorrow?

Like joy after pain?

She can be cruel as winter

And gentle as spring

Brighter than summer

I’m falling, I think.

She showed me sky

And drank me the wind

The fire of dragons

The rightness of sin

They say she is broken

That she’ll fall in defeat

But I know her power

She makes me complete.

Perhaps she will slay me

Perhaps let me die

Some days she hates me

And soon I must fly

But though soul and body

May soon pass away

With Essa forever

My heart shall remain.”

The silence dropped in the wake of my words like a hammer on an anvil. Tears stood in Essa’s eyes. Her lower lip trembled and I longed to kiss it with all my being. The queen stood pale and stiff as a marble effigy.

“Well,” she said, her commanding voice now breathless. “It seems you have been busy after all.”

She looked to her head guard, Trag, and nodded.

“Let us begin our next order of business.”

The trumpet sounded. All eyes turned toward the gates. Down from the battlements Braimar came, swooping in on his dragon. The beast looked lopsided now, its left head intact, the shoulder area where its right head would have been a bandaged lump. Laynine was with him, her dragon coming to rest beside Braimar’s. Both riders sprang down from their mounts and strode into the center of the courtyard to bow before the Queen.

I had to admit, it was a pretty impressive entrance.

“So,” the queen said. “Braimar, you have challenged our royal guest Kit Rowley to a duel, is that right?”

“It is, your majesty.”

“And what is the reason for your quarrel?”

“He attacked me with a necromancer weapon,” Braimar said.

Whispers and muttering ran through the court.

“Um, for the record, I didn’t attack him,” I said. “I threatened him. Because he was trying to?—”

The queen held up a hand. “Silence. You are in our nation, you will follow our customs. In Maethalia, the challenger explains the grievance.”

Her sharp eyes went back to Braimar. “And it is a mortal challenge.”

Braimar gave a single nod.

“Would you reconsider? This man is a guest in our court. Although the use of necromantic weapons is a grave offense, I would not willingly breach our duty of hospitality by sending him home a corpse.”

“With respect, my queen, it is my right to challenge him, and it must be a mortal challenge,” Braimar said.

The queen took a long slow breath, then exhaled. “Very well. And who is your second?”

“Laynine,” he said, and she stepped up beside him.

“And who is your second?” the Queen asked me.

“I have none,” I said, giving the answer Clua had coached me to give. A second was expected to vouch for the honor of the first in a duel, and to fight and avenge him if he were killed due to trickery. No Maethalian could be expected to do that for me.

“Very well, then—” the queen went on, but a voice called from the crowd.

“I am his second.”

Essa stepped out from among the nobles looking, to me, like an avenging goddess. She wore her flight armor, and there was wind in her hair and fire in her eyes.

“Essaphine—” the Queen scolded in a low voice. But the look from her daughter squelched whatever objection she was about to make. She scowled, nodding. “Very well. Take your places. And may the Star Father grant victory to the righteous.”

A gust of air whooshed across the courtyard, ruffling dresses and causing guards to stumble as Braimar and Laynine’s dragons departed—for as Ollie had explained to me, Skrathan were not permitted to have their dragons present at a duel.

Guards were now pushing the courtiers back and creating a square arena bounded by a red ribbon. Braimar and Laynine retreated to the far corner while Essa grabbed my arm and tugged me into a corner of our own.

“Thank you,” I said. “You didn’t have to?—”

“Of course I had to, idiot. You’re here because you defended me—when I should have defended myself.”

We reached the corner and she turned me around, looking me up and down like a mother about to send her child off to school. I wore a suit of armor Clua had provided. It was not dragon skin like the armor of the Skrathan—only riders were allowed to wear dragon skin armor— but it was of thick boiled leather reinforced in places with steel plates and swaths of chainmail, made by Clua herself. She’d said it would be light and easy to move in and would turn aside most attacks—though not nearly as well as Braimar’s armor would. Essa frowned as she looked at it, though.

“His armor is better than yours,” she said. “This should able to repel most slashes, but beware of thrusts.”

“Sure,” I said. “Easy.”

Her eyes narrowed as if my flippant attitude displeased her.

“And listen. I don’t know if Clua and Ollie talked to you about dragon stones?”

I shook my head.

She reached up to her neck and took out the necklace I’d tried to touch during our tour of the city. A gray-blue, teardrop-shaped gem hung on a chain of silver. “Once they’ve bonded, dragons sometimes give their riders stones. It allows them to channel their dragon’s power. If Braimar feels threatened, he may use his. It would manifest in the form of fire coming from his hands.”

“So I don’t just have to worry about Braimar’s superior sword skills, I also have to avoid being roasted by dragon magick?” I said. “Perfect.”

She slapped me on the chest. “Be serious.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were worried for me,” I teased. “You look a bit pale.”

She glared at me, adjusting my armor at my neck. “If you must know, I didn’t sleep well. I sent Rohree on an errand for me last night. She didn’t come back.”

The sudden feeling of unease in my gut betrayed how much I’d come to care for the sprite. “Do you think she’s okay? Should I help you look for her?”

Essa rolled her eyes. “First things first, don’t you think? Show me your sword.”

I drew the weapon Clua had given me. I didn’t know much about swords, but it seemed like a good one.

“Clua said it’s a century-folded steel blade with a dwarf iron hilt, made by her mentor,” I said.

Essa took the weapon and gave it a test swing.

“It’s a nice sword, but…” she dropped it and drew her own weapon. “Here. Use mine.”

She put the sword into my hand. It was a gorgeous weapon, with a long, graceful broadsword blade and a silver hilt that branched like a stag’s horns. The guard was encrusted with gems of a sort I’d never seen before. They were like diamonds, but every facet seemed to have a different color. It must have weighed half of what the other sword did, and there was something else about it, too. It seemed to sing in my hand, giving off a vibration that made my whole arm tingle.

“That is the Oodantan. The heir sword of Maethalia, made by the daughters of the Star Father when the world was new,” she said, with a satisfied nod.

I looked with wonder at the blade. “Essa… I can’t…”

“What chance would a poet have against a Skrathan without a magick sword?” she teased.

“I told you, I’m no poet,” I said. “I think I just proved that in front of everyone.”

“On the contrary. I think you’ve been a poet all along,” she said. “Perhaps you just didn’t know it yet.”

I laughed, but it gave way to a feeling of deep longing and melancholy as I looked at her face. How I wanted to touch her cheek. To feel my lips brush against hers, even here, with everyone watching. I might never get the chance again. But the way she looked at me wasn’t the same as it had been in the room above the ballroom. Her smile looked as if it were filled with the same ache I felt.

As we spoke, we’d been unconsciously moving closer to one another. Now, I found that my forehead was nearly against hers. She exhaled and I felt her breath on my lips, sending a shiver of want through me.

“Essa… after this is over, I have something to tell you,” I said. “It may change how you feel about me.”

Her eyes met mine. They reminded me of the gems in her sword—so changeable, so bright.

“Nothing will change how I feel about you,” she said. Her hand closed on the front of my armor and she pulled me to her, our lips meeting in a breathless clash.

Gasps and murmurs rustled around us, but the world fell away as I shut my eyes and surrendered to the kiss. Her scent, her lips, her tongue, her breath. It was like heaven. Like falling into a dream.

A blast of trumpets cut through the morning stillness, and Essa and I parted like two swimmers coming up for air.

“Essa—” I began to speak, but she put a finger to my lips.

“Stay alive so you can tell me after.”

I love you. The words roiled inside me, ready to boil over. But I didn’t say them aloud. Instead, I let their fire fill me, a fever in my mind, an inferno in my veins. And I turned, ready to face death, ready to kill and ready to live—for Essa.

* * *

A deep hush fell over the assembly as Braimar and I made my way to the center of the courtyard. The only sounds were the thudding of my own heart, the flapping of the banners atop the palace walls, and the thumps of our boots on the flagstones as we strode inexorably toward one another. Crows already circled above, like they knew there would soon be a corpse to feast on.

My thoughts suddenly went to the boys from my squadron. I imagined the taunts they’d be hurling at Braimar and the bets they’d be making with one another if they were here now. They’d never believe ol’ Charlie was about to get into a sword fight…

What a surreal world I’d fallen into. What a heaven. What a nightmare. And soon, for better or worse, it would come to an end.

Braimar stopped perhaps thirty yards away from me and spun his sword with an impressive flourish, watching me with eyes as electric as the green of his hair. There was madness in those eyes. And hunger, the bloodlust of a dragon. Strike me down, and he’d probably take a bite out of me. And he might very well strike me down…

In the next few minutes, one of us would be dying—that was certain. The thought should have been terrifying, but the high of adrenaline that had filled my veins a moment before was ebbing now, fading into the steel-cold resolve that took over whenever I was in a dogfight. The world slowed. Seconds became minutes. My attention sharpened. Every detail around me stood out with incredible clarity. I could have memorized the pattern of the scales on Braimar’s dragon up on the parapet, or counted the queen’s eyelashes. But this was no magick. No supernatural gift. I’d always been a man who didn’t give a shit if I lived or died. That had been my superpower. Now, I had Essa to live for. To kill for. And I refused to let her down.

I brought the blade up in front of my face in salute as Ollie and Clua had taught me, but Braimar didn’t repeat the gesture. He just shouted a battle cry and charged, coming at me with a barrage of overhead strikes so forceful they nearly knocked me to my knees.

In an instant the crowd came alive, screaming and whistling and shouting Braimar’s name. Somehow, I managed to block those first few blows and disengage, circling to my right.

“I’ve already decided what I’m going to do when I kill you,” Braimar said as we orbited one another. “I’m going to cut off your head and bury it inside Zamar’s mouth. A head for a head. One last piece of Admar flesh for my dragon boy to feast on.” He gave a mad laugh.

I levelled a probing slash at his face, but he dodged it without even bringing up his sword.

“After Laynine kills Essa, perhaps I’ll bury her head there, too,” he snarled. “A shame, though. It is a pretty head. And such delicious lips...”

I lunged in with an attack. Thrust, left, right, overhead, circling, now a swipe at Braimar’s leg. The Skrathan met every motion of my blade smoothly and effortlessly. When I stepped back to catch my breath, he nodded approvingly.

“I see you’ve done some training. That’s good, poet. It’s good form to put on a bit of a show for the court before the blood gets spilt.”

He feigned low then slashed high. His blade raked across my chest, sending links of chainmail tinkling across the cobblestones.

I glanced down to see a tear in my armor and a crimson glint of blood.

“Oh, that armor won’t stop my sword,” Braimar said. “This is an ancient blade, in my family for fifteen generations. Steel from the bones of the original Star Children. It’s imbued with magick and luck beyond reckoning.”

He swooped in, slashing for my throat. I brought my blade up fast, blocking his strike and circling away.

“You move well for a poet,” Braimar said. “You’re sure you haven’t fought before?”

I could have told him about the hours I’d spent at the window above this courtyard, watching the young knights and Skrathan train when I had nothing else to do. I could have told him of the strategic parallels I’d noticed between swordplay and dogfighting. The feigns and attacks. The approaches and retreats. The two arts had a surprising amount in common... But instead, I decided to show him.

While circling right, I suddenly shuffled left then lunged in, slapping his blade aside and catching him with the tip of my sword in the meat of his hip. Essa’s blade bit through the armor, and Braimar’s mouth fell open in a silent cry of pain and shock before he stumbled backwards, his sword raised defensively.

A few cheers went up and I glanced over to find Lure, Pocha and Dagar jumping up and down. The rest of the crowd had gone ominously silent.

Braimar was circling me now, limping slightly, his mocking grin replaced with a rictus of pain and fury.

“You’re no poet,” he snarled. “Who are you?”

I shook my head. “Nobody noteworthy.”

“Liar!” Braimar shouted. “My dragon can smell your lie.”

At the mention of dragon, I felt Parthar in my mind. Careful. He’s crazy!

Go to sleep, Parthar. Don’t distract me.

I help you.

Braimar shot in and swung his sword upward at an awkward angle, clipping my left elbow. Pain shot through my arm and I stumbled backwards, trying to keep space between Braimar and me. It was the advantage he’d been waiting for. His blade seemed to come at me from all directions, a barrage of slashes and stabs and feigns that showed me just how much he’d been holding back so far. His speed and power were overwhelming; I was no match for them. It was like a Sackman Comet versus a mail plane.

I blocked, blocked, blocked, then my heel hit a cobblestone and I fell. With a mighty clash of blades Braimar dashed the sword from my hands. I rolled right and started to stand, but before I could get upright his blade thumped into the muscle between my shoulder and my neck. Pain sent a veil of black across my vision and I fell again, landing on my belly and rolling to get clear of him. He was too fast. His thrust glanced off my armor—and perhaps one of my ribs—and I cried out.

I thought I heard Essa shouting for me, but I didn’t want to look at her. Not while I was losing, letting her down.

The blade’s tip slipped past me and into a crack between two flagstones. And with all Braimar’s force behind it, it stuck there. He yanked, trying to free it, and I seized the moment, windmilling a kick upward. It caught him in the elbow and I heard a crack.

He growled in pain, staggering away with his injured arm held to his side. In a second, I was back on my feet, scanning the ground for Essa’s sword. I spotted it perhaps ten yards away and dashed for it, but Braimar caught me first, hitting me from behind with a tackle that sent us both sprawling.

He came up on top, his uninjured elbow grinding my cheek, pinning me down.

All decorum had left the court now; their shouts and shrieks and jeers were as loud as those of a drunken crowd at the Ironberg Forum during a heavyweight title fight. They were eager for Braimar to finish me, but neither of us had a sword now, and I knew how to fight hand-to-hand. Braimar landed a couple of short hooks to my head, but before he could land a third I kicked up with my legs and caught his head in the crook of my knee. I straightening my body, pushing him off me, then rolled onto my belly and scrambled to get on top of him.

I almost flopped right onto his knife blade. He’d pulled the weapon from somewhere and had it ready, and I saw it at the last second. Only by catching his wrist and reeling back was I able to avoid being skewered. For a moment we were frozen in an arm-wrestling stalemate, the knife blade trembling between us as I tried to force it down towards him and he tried to force it up into me. He may have been stronger, but I had gravity on my side. Slowly, the blade began inching downward, toward his left eye.

I watched him, grunting, snarling, red-faced and trembling, as the knife blade came closer and closer to ending the fight. The screams of the crowd were deafening. Then, something changed. I smelled hot metal and saw that the knife blade was beginning to smoke and glow red. Then it burst into flame, along with Braimar’s entire hand.

The dragon stone power.

The flames scalded my hands, forcing me to let go of his wrist. Quick as a snake strike, Braimar punched the knife up toward my neck. I rolled in time to avoid being stabbed in the throat, but the blade caught my upper chest, sending a bright flash of pain through me as I rolled away.

I didn’t get far.

Braimar was on me again in a second. He grabbed my armor with burning hands as I writhed to get away. The stink of searing leather filled my nostrils and pain washed over me.

Through my burning and panic I somehow heard Parthar’s voice in my mind.

I help you, Charlie.

The thing that struck me most was that the little dragon knew my name. I’d never told it to him. I’d never told it to anyone here. And yet he knew me.

Perhaps that realization caused some psychic wall inside me to come down, for in that moment I felt a power fill me. My vision seemed to grow suddenly sharper. Strength flooded my limbs. And my hands suddenly felt hot. Not flaming like Braimar’s, but hot enough to scald.

Without another thought, I shoved my hand up and clapped it to Braimar’s face. It sizzled. As my forefinger and thumb pressed against his eyelids he screamed and tried to roll off me, but I rolled with him, coming up on top and pinning him to the ground. Smoke rose from his burning face as he screamed.

Shouts came from the crowd around me.

“Treachery!”

“What is this?”

“A foreigner—doing magick!”

“Stop him!”

I glanced at the queen and saw her watching me, stone-faced.

Essa stood near her, her shoulders raised with tension, watching with hands cupped over her mouth.

Then a great wind buffeted me, and I looked in the other direction to see Zaman swooping down from the battlements to alight before me.

The rules of single-combat prevented a dragon from interfering in the duel—but judging from the outraged shouts, everyone seemed to think I’d cheated. And now, cries of eat him rang out from all around.

The beast’s jaws opened, a cavern ringed with jagged white teeth. The sound of its roar almost knocked me sideways as it swung its head toward me. I threw up my hands defensively and fell backward—as if that could protect me from the jaws of this monster.

It loomed closer, saliva dripping, teeth ready to stab the life out of me.

But an instant before those deadly jaws closed on me forever, something red streaked down from above—something with sprawled wings and scrabbling claws. It hit the massive dragon’s left eye.

Zamar roared in pain and shook his head, dislodging the attacker.

The small red dragon tumbled to a stop just in front of me and wheeled to face the much larger dragon, snarling like a protective dog.

“Parthar,” I whispered, glancing up at the window of my room high, high above.

Told you. I protect you, Charlie, Parthar said in my mind.

I felt an unaccountable swell of emotion. I’d resigned myself to die. For years I’d been ready for it at any moment. On any mission. In any dogflight. But the idea that this little creature would fight for me. That Essa would care for me… tears could almost have blinded me, but I set my jaw. Essaphine’s sword lay at my feet and I stooped and picked it up, its steel ringing off the flasgstones as I rose.

Braimar, too, was back on his feet. He’d retrieved his sword and was striding toward me, a demonic glint in his eyes. His face looked grotesque, a handprint of bloody red and singed black. Behind him, Zamar reared up, wings spread, fanged mouth gaping, body so huge it eclipsed the sun.

“Let’s carve these bastards up,” I told Parthar, raising my sword, and I strode forward to finish the fight.

“Halt!” the queen shouted.

The command in her voice was enough to make even Zamar freeze. All turned to face her as she stepped carefully off her dais and came toward Parthar and me. As deafening as the crowd had been a moments ago, it was terribly silent now as the queen approached us and stopped.

“What is this?” she demanded, her gaze ranging from me to Parthar and back again.

It took a moment to catch my breath before I could speak.

“It’s a baby dragon, Your Majesty.”

“I can see that,” the queen said. “How is it here?”

I gave a wary glance at Essa, who shook her head at me, eyes wide, as if to ask what the hell?

I grasped for a plausible lie to tell, but I was too weary to think of one. And in any case, it was time to face the truth. I was no spy. I was a fighter.

“I took an egg from the hatchery,” I said. “Just to have a closer look at it. It was to be destroyed anyway. I didn’t think it would do any harm. But while it was in my room, it hatched.”

A ripple of murmurs passed through the court.

For the first time, I saw Prelate Kortoi among the onlookers. He watched me with narrowed eyes, looking decidedly displeased.

“A dragon egg from the hatchery… hatched?” the queen asked.

I nodded.

She looked away, clearly thinking hard. The rest of the court seemed to be doing the same calculus. It was a question I’d been wrestling with for weeks. The eggs of the hatchery were all infected with fungus. How was it that the one I rescued had hatched?

Though I could see her struggling with this question, the queen didn’t ask it aloud. Instead, she turned back to me, a regal coldness in her eyes.

“We will get to the bottom of this situation,” she said. “But for the moment, there is a question of justice to decide. Taking a dragon egg from the hatchery is forbidden. And for a foreigner to bond with a dragon…”

Just the words made the queen go so pale she looked as if she might vomit.

“Your majesty, let us finish the duel,” Braimar said. “I will serve this foreigner the justice he deserves.”

“Silence,” Synaeda snapped. “The duel was ended when your dragon interfered. You have dishonored yourself.”

Zamar hung his massive head, chastened, but Braimar only looked more furious than ever.

One of the elder nobles came forward, a man in a crimson cloak with a long, black beard streaked with silver. “Your majesty, speaking for the nobles, the law here is clear. No one except the Skrathan or the Gray Brothers may attempt to rear a dragon, certainly not a foreigner. He must be executed immediately.”

A clamor of agreement went up from the court. The queen lifted her hand and they went quiet.

“Your advice is noted, Lord Natath. But I will remind you, it is still the queen’s purview to dole out justice, not that of the Noble Council.”

“Then do it!” the noble said, to a cheer from the crowd.

The queen looked as if she might draw her dagger and carve up this Lord Natath herself, but before she could respond, Essa came to her mother’s side.

“Mother. This man may be a deceitful trickster, an enemy, a liar... he may be repugnant in every way…” She shot me a look like a flaming arrow. “But you are merciful. Exile him. Send him back to his people. I can take him?—”

“Silence, Essaphine,” the queen hissed. “Your lack of judgement is pitifully obvious. I will not be taking council from you.”

The queen’s steely gaze ranged over the entire courtyard. “There are many in this court who will have to account for the events that have unfolded today.” She gave a sharp look to Prelate Kortoi, then to Essa. Finally, her stare zeroed in on me. “But as for the question before me, there can be only one verdict. I sentence the Admite, Kit Rowley, to death.”