Throne of Dragons

“I am saying that, sometimes, the conflict we think is important is the smallest of things, compared to all the world might throw our way.”

“The South stealing my daughter is not unimportant,” Godwin snapped back. “Lenore is in danger, and Ravin… he wouldn’t have done this if he didn’t plan to be waiting.”

“That is one possibility,” Master Grey agreed, or was it agreement? It was hard to tell with the man. If he hadn’t done so much to assist the kingdom over the years…

“Why didn’t you see this coming?” Godwin demanded. “You’re supposed to be the one who can unpick the future. Why didn’t you tell me that my daughter was in danger?”

The sorcerer raised his shoulders in a shrug. “My focus was… elsewhere.”

“Then bring it back to where it should be!” Godwin roared at him, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever shouted at his magus like that before. “Read your auguries, look at your stars. Do your job, while my daughter is in danger.”

If the sorcerer was perturbed by the outburst, he gave no sign of it, but then, he never gave any sign of what he was truly thinking. There were days when Godwin wondered if he was a charlatan, and others when it seemed as if the man might have more power than anyone else alive.

“Not anyone,” Master Grey murmured, and that made Godwin pause.

“What did you say?”

The sorcerer seemed to catch himself.

“You wish me to look at the future for you, my king? Very well.”

He crouched there, in the hallway, squatting the way a beggar might have in spite of his robes of pristine white and gold. He took a pouch from his belt, drawing out what seemed to be a scattering of knucklebones. To Godwin’s surprise, the sorcerer spat on them, quick and sharp. He threw them onto the floor, the rattle of it filling the space. He then took a knife, pricking at his thumb to let a single bead of blood form. Godwin hadn’t been entirely sure that Master Grey possessed blood at all. That bead fell onto the knucklebones.

The sorcerer seemed to stare at them for a long time.

“Tell me,” Godwin said. “Tell me how to find Lenore.”

“I see what I see,” Master Grey said. “And I see an ending. A king must fall, and not. He must die so that things might shift.”

“You mean me,” Godwin said. “You think I’m to die? Tell me who does it. I’ll cut him down before he gets close.”

The sorcerer smiled thinly. “The hand that wields the blade is not the hand to kill you, King Godwin. We do not always die by the hand that we think…”

Anger rose up in Godwin then. “Damn you, sorcerer,” he snapped. “You and your prophecies. I ask you for help finding my daughter, and you give me my death.”

He strode back in the direction of the courtyard, then turned to call out over his shoulder.

“Well, I’ll surprise you yet. I’ll get Lenore back. I’ll beat Ravin. And anyone who comes at me with a blade will eat my steel!”

Grey was gone, of course. Only his words remained, ringing in Godwin’s ears.

“Not by the hand you think.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Erin rode hard back toward the Spur, ignoring the pain of the knife wound in her leg. She sat tall in the saddle, chain shirt shining, short spear slung across her back. There were still traces of blood in the short darkness of her hair, because there hadn’t been time to truly clean up in the aftermath of their fight against the Quiet Men, not when they needed to carry the news back to the fort.

Sir Til and Sir Fenir rode beside her. Fenir was as quiet as always, graying and brooding beneath thick eyebrows, the clink of his half plate the only sound as he rode. It was more of a surprise that Til was just as quiet, riding forward with a fixed determination, his expression drawn and pale.

“You can’t still be angry that I charged in back at the village,” Erin said. “After everything they’d done?”

“And if they’d killed us, no one would know,” Til said. “If we didn’t make it back, there would still have been Quiet Men there, waiting to strike. Now, hurry your riding. We’ve a warning to deliver.”

Erin knew all of that, understood the consequences, but still wasn’t about to let it go. The Quiet Men had murdered an entire village’s worth of people. They deserved to die. She could no more have walked away and left them in peace than she could have knelt before them and let them cut her throat.

“Leave her be,” Fenir said. “We need to focus on getting back.”

Erin heard Sir Til sigh. “True. And you did fight well. You’re getting good with that spear. You’ll need to be.”

Erin knew why: war was coming. The Quiet Men taking a village was just the start. If they’d done that here, how many other places had they done it? How many more enemies would be coming?

It didn’t matter. They would kill them, no matter how many there were.

It was a long ride back to the black, jutting rock of the Spur. By the time it came into view, Erin could feel the ache of her muscles, the pain of her carefully bound wound growing with the effort of riding. Erin ignored it, because she was not some sensitive princess who needed to stop because of a little pain. She was a warrior, and she would be a knight.

Eventually, the fortress rose up ahead of them, sticking out on a random jutting of glassy black rock left over from the wars that had divided the continents. Gray stone stood above it, the gates open now to welcome them back.

As Erin and the others rode in, horns blared in welcome, and knights stood to either side in welcoming lines, swords raised. Erin felt like a returning hero, welcomed back into the embrace of a group of warriors out of stories, each one as powerful a fighter as any she’d met.

Beyond those ranks, she was surprised to see that the knights were starting to gather in the main yard of the fort, moving with an urgency that she didn’t normally associate with their training. Commander Harr stood at the heart of it all, gray-haired and bearish, his authority obvious as he called out commands.

“Every man is to bring rations for a month. The king might think this will be over soon, but King Ravin is a dangerous foe.”

He turned as Erin and the others approached. Erin slid down from her horse, hiding her wince of pain as her feet hit the ground.

“You’re back, good, just in time,” he said. “Tell me how your patrol went.”

Erin tensed then. Sir Til had been clear that he disapproved of how she’d handled things back at the village. What if Commander Harr agreed? What if this was all that he needed in order to send her back to be married off to whoever her parents could find for her?

“We found a group of Quiet Men holed up in a village,” Sir Til said. “They’d taken the whole thing, killing the villagers.”

“Forming a base,” Fenir added, in his usual clipped style. “Ready for invasion.”

“That’s bad,” Commander Harr said. “We don’t have the men to spare now to go and fight them.”

“It’s dealt with,” Sir Til said, in a tone that made it clear how it had been dealt with. “We were able to defeat them.”

“The three of you?” Commander Harr asked. He looked impressed. “How many?”

“A dozen,” Sir Til said.

“A dozen, and you’re all whole.” He looked over at Erin. “How did our newest recruit do?”

Erin swallowed, certain that this would be the moment when she found herself dismissed from the Spur, sent home, forced to go back to a life of sewing and dances rather than being the warrior she wanted to be.

“She fought well,” Sir Til said. “She needs to learn to listen a little more, and to hold onto her spear better, but she killed her share, and more. She saved my life in the fight.”

“Saved the life of the great Sir Til?” Commander Harr said. He looked impressed, turning to Erin. He held out his hand for her to take, clasping her wrist in his. “I’m impressed, recruit, but not surprised. I’ve seen how well you can fight. You’ll need that, and soon.”