Page 176 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 175

Did Queen Inara regret destroying the dragon town? I’d never thought to wonder at that until now, because whatever devilry rode me during the fight, it was all gone now. Ged hadn’t lied. We all returned to what remained of Castle Fast, the rest of the Royal Riders having caught up in the meantime, and each of our beasts looked out onto a field of destruction.

What was once a castle was now just rubble, and while I was glad to see those damn ballista in pieces, everything else? I felt cold, empty, and wrung out as I walked forward.

“Don’t go in there.”

Soren was at my side, a gentle hand on my arm, and to everyone else I’m sure he looked like a solicitous officer dealing with his queen, but I saw it. He gazed down at me with real love, real concern, and that made for a strange combination.

“Why not?” I asked that too sharply, imperious as a queen. “Why shouldn’t I see this?”

“Pippin—”

“We did this, so why shouldn’t I look upon my own handiwork?”

But I knew why as soon as I got closer. As always in a fight between powerful men, it wasn’t just them who got hurt. Everyone else, the common people, they were the pawns so easily expended in the early days of the fight. I saw evidence of this in the rubble. Men picked through the carcass of the castle, cheering when they found a cache of fruit and vegetables under some fallen stone, but I knew that had to have been someone’s market stall. The flutter of a length of fabric told me that the land I walked over may have once been a dressmaker’s or a weaver’s workshop, but it was something far simpler that drew me forward. Glimmer walked alongside me, suddenly very quiet as I stopped in front of a single shoe.

A woman’s boot, that I knew, from the heel and the slenderness of the ankle. I picked it up, saw the marks of use in the scuffs on the leather, noted that one of the loops the buttons were pushed through was long broken. Someone had worn this boot over and over.

But who?

Where was she? What had happened to her when Draven dropped the vial? What had happened to all the people of this keep? Not just the soldiers who decided to turn their hand at attacking dragons, but the farmers, the maids, the artisans.

The children?

I moved far more carefully now, wondering at what I tread upon. Bodies? People trapped beneath rubble? Graves? My head whipped around at the sound of a ragged cheer. The riders clustered around Draven seemed to be telling tales of his feats in battle, completely unaware of the cost.

But I wasn’t.

Glimmer—

Here.

She was like a hound, clawing at the dirt, flicking great plumes of it away. I fell down on my knees beside her and started digging as well. My nails raked against stone fairly quickly, the sensation sending shivers down my spine, but right as I went to trace the outline of one brick and then pull it free, a massive presence appeared by my side.

Wraith.

Anyone else who looked over their shoulder and found a massive purple dragon there would no doubt have screamed, but I didn’t. Those golden eyes stared into mine, right before his claw reached out.

I will do it.

His mind touched mine right as he grabbed that brick and another, tossing it over his shoulder. I heard the men starting to mumble as a result, but it wasn’t them I was focussed on. Glimmer gave up digging, leaping onto Wraith’s shoulders and peering down his neck, peppering him with feedback until we found them.

A soldier, if his armour was anything to go by, but more than that. A man, a woman I assumed was his wife or relative as he held her close. Two children, they were all clustered around, trying to hide them from our sight and why not? We were the ones who had caused this devastation. I saw bruises and spots of blood and a whole lot of dirt, but that’s not what had me moving forward. The way the women and children cringed back, the way the soldier reached for his weapon and found his scabbard empty, broke my heart each time in turn.

“Take my hand.” I leaned forward and held it out, but they just stared. “I’m Pippin. We’re here to help get you out of there.”

There was a moment of indecision, but their position was hardened by the sight of Wraith. People didn’t cower before dragons in Nevermere, but these did right now. Wraith sniffed at the air, considered the situation and then said again, I will do it . His claws reached in and he plucked each person out, despite their thoughts about it, then placed them on the ground before us until the hole was empty. The soldier took us all in with a series of quick glances, then turned and sprinted off. The general barked an order, jerking a finger at some of his men, right as the woman and her family tried to do the same. A yelp of pain was what stopped her, stopped them.

“Mumma!” one of the children cried, a war being fought inside her.

She wanted to get the hell away from the creatures that had destroyed her home, but she would never do that, not without her mother. A terrible expression came over her face and she stepped forward. Her father shook his head, as if dispelling a daze, then pushed her behind him. A small belt knife was produced and he held it with a shaking hand, which produced a roar of laughter from the riders.

Well, some of them.

Ged and Soren came rushing over, hands going to the hilts of their swords, but that stopped when they took in the situation. They held them up, palm out now, as if to ward the man off.

“We’re here to help,” Ged told him, and I wanted to whirl around and snap at him, why would they believe that? We were the ones who destroyed their home in the first place. Miraculously, the man dropped his knife down, his hand hanging limply as the other one was tucked tightly around his wife’s waist. That’s what she was to him. I could see that now, that fear, that love, it was the only thing it could be. “Your wife is hurt?”

The woman let out the tiniest of cries, her eyes going to the children, her concern for them plain.

“We need to help them.” I ordered Ged and Soren, not asked. “A field hospital, we need to set one up.” My eyes were everywhere at once. “There must be more survivors. We need to dig them out, get them medical attention immediately!”

“What are you doing?” Rex had strolled forward, taking in everything with a jaundiced eye. “What are those dragons…?” He sighed as he saw several come to land on the wasteland and start pawing through the rubble. “My queen, if I could have a word?”

“Queen?”

The woman stared at me, her expression shifting from fear to horror and why not? After all of this was done, I was supposed to sit my arse down on a golden throne and rule Nevermere at Draven’s side, for the good of all.

“Anything you need to say can be said here, Rex,” I replied.

The general’s eyes narrowed at the fact I had neglected to use his title.

“We need to be moving on. We hadn’t thought the traitorous Duke of Harlston had managed to move troops this far yet, let alone war engines like ballista. The win at Castle Fast was decisive and?—”

“Was it?” I wanted to blame him, to put all this destruction on his shoulders, but the burden was mine. My eyes flicked sideways to see a very still, very pale Soren and Ged. Ours. We did this, and the one thing I remembered from childhood was that I needed to take responsibility for any mess I made. “Was this what we intended?” I saw more people pulled from the rubble, but by the limp fall of some of the bodies, not all of them were survivors. “We needed to break the ballista, stop the soldiers from using it against our dragons. We needed to neutralise the threat.”

The general nodded like he was a teacher and I was a particularly slow student, only just understanding the point of the lesson.

“But were these people part of that threat?” That seemed hard to believe when the family shrank in around each other. The woman was fighting to stay upright, her leg obviously paining her, and yet still she strove to put herself between us and her children. “Were they?”

My voice rang out across the ruins and that drew them forward. Brom cut off the person he was talking to in an instant, moving towards us, Draven nodding to his companion and pulling away as well.

“Were they?”

I was demanding an answer now, and yet I knew I wouldn’t like the answer. That weary sigh, that slight roll of his eyes told me everything I needed to know. Just like a tutor, Rex would pat me on the head and tell me I didn’t, couldn’t, understand, because this was why women were not brought into battle. Men were raised to be hardened against this kind of collateral damage.

And I had to wonder if that was a good thing.

I’d never felt like a queen. It was a title people kept thrusting upon me and yet now what was a burden integrated somehow, becoming a part of me. I didn’t have to ask the general of our army for permission or approval or anything.

“A field hospital,” I announced to all that could hear me. “We need to set one up and treat the injured.”

“And waste the medical supplies we have on traitors?” Rex scoffed.

“Every person we find, soldier or citizen, will be treated for their wounds,” I continued, the faint waver in my voice the only acknowledgement of the habitual fear I felt at speaking over an older man with more authority than I had.

Or did he?

“Majesty.” Rex wasn’t even bothering to engage with me. He focussed on Draven now. “We need to press our advantage. The traitor on his dragon got away, and no doubt reported our presence to the Duke. If we’re to rely on the element of surprise, we must push ahead. What has happened here has shown just what dragonfire is capable of.” Gods, when I saw his smile my whole body went cold. “If we prioritise the shipment of dragonfire to where we are, we will have all of Harlston back under the throne’s control within the week.”

“Within the week…” I barely whispered that as my back snapped straight. The muscles there hurt, as if unused to such a rigid posture. Glimmer came towards me, standing by my side and eyeing each and every one of them in turn. “You intend…?”

Why was I asking this question? I knew the answer. I’d worked with the women at the workshop to assist dragons in dropping these explosives far more effectively. We’d sat there and talked about their fears for their loved ones.

Forgetting that the Harlstonians had families too.

Brom’s family for one. I refused to believe that they supported the duke, and if they didn’t, then so did many others.

“General.” A rider ran over and sketched a salute, something Rex acknowledged with a nod. “We’ve found Lord Fast.”

“His remains?” Rex asked, suddenly one hundred percent more interested in the conversation.

“No, sir, he’s alive. Battered and needing medical attention, but alive.”

“More’s the pity.” Rex moved into action completely independently of us. “Well, have him brought to my tent. I’ll interrogate the bastard and find out how the hell they got the ballista here so fast and why he thought it a good idea to launch missiles at my riders.”

“Am I queen or not?” I shouldn’t have asked that question, I saw that, as they all turned to face me. Back down, that was silently communicated in all of their gazes, all but my men. “I gave you an order. The people here aren’t Harlstonian or Skanian, they are citizens of Nevermere and will be treated as such. A field hospital will be constructed now. Medical supplies will be pooled and used to help the injured. All riders.” I stared Rex down, catching the moment his eyes narrowed. “Will help with the rescue efforts. We will dig down to the dungeons of this castle and retrieve every single person that still lives.” My focus shifted to the line of limp bodies that were growing by the minute. “And a proper burial will be provided for those that did not survive.”

Rex sucked in a breath to protest, but Draven cut him off immediately.

“You heard your queen. Everyone has their orders. Report to me directly if you don’t understand them.” He turned to the rider who had reported the discovery of Lord Fast. “Bring his lordship to the tent and have one of our healers look him over, see if he’s healthy enough to answer some questions.”

Rex scoffed at that, but I watched the muscle in his jaw twitch as he fought the customary chain of command. He expected all beneath him to obey him without question, and that same principle applied to him when he received direct orders from the crown.

“You heard His Majesty,” Rex snapped. “Move!”

“We’ll make sure your wife, your mother, gets help,” I told the wide-eyed family we’d rescued. “Everything will get better, I promise.”

“You know I’m going to hear about this at length from Rex later,” Draven muttered as the six of us walked towards the tent. Glimmer was at my side for every step. “There will be lectures, so many lectures, about bringing a woman onto a battlefield.”

“Males protect,” I said, shooting my dragon a sidelong look. “Queens let them, but sometimes…” Did I imagine a gleam in her eyes? “Sometimes males need some direction on how to best protect our territory.”