Throne of Dragons

He danced between the trees, and between the blades, knowing that to stay still against so many men was to die. Not that Odd usually cared about dying, but to do so before he had delivered his message would be… unfortunate. He saw the big man with the axe again, ran forward for him, but the smaller knifeman was there instead. Odd saw that long knife flashing for his skull and swayed back, cutting up from underneath to slam his blade into his foe’s hands, taking them off at the wrist while he screamed.

That was two, maybe three if the one he’d stabbed died soon. Given that there were still six left, that was a bad thing. One against six was not a situation a man could survive, especially unarmored. That was why Odd gave ground, dodging between the trees, forcing them to come at him singly, where he could fight them.

It wasn’t like he was going to run.

He grinned as another came at him, ducked under the sweep of a blade, drove his shoulder into the man’s gut. As he fell back, Odd aimed a swipe at his throat, but there was a branch in the way. Besides, there was another man coming in from the side: the big one. Odd had been wondering where he’d gone. He parried another blow of the axe, but the big man slammed into him, knocking him sprawling.

He should have died then, because hitting and moving against so many was one thing, but knocked to the ground against them was dead, no matter how audacious you were. The big man loomed over Odd, axe raised, and it seemed to Odd that he should have been truly terrified in that moment, should have cared that his life was about to come to an end in the middle of a forest for no real reason.

He’d never been much good at meditating back at the monastery, but there was a kind of meditation in this, in watching the rise of the axe, sinking into the flow of the battle, seeing the trees overhead, seeing the head of a spear sprouting from the axe man’s chest…

Wait, that wasn’t right, was it?

A figure stepped from behind his opponent as the axe man fell, the light shining behind them so that it took Odd a moment to realize that this was a girl who couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen. She wore nearly full armor, plate over chain, in the fashion of the Knights of the Spur, and there was something set, almost hard, about her features. In that moment, she was already turning, parrying the blow of a long knife with her buckler, bringing her spear around to slash at another man.

Odd was on his feet then, rushing to her side, cutting left and right at the foes who came at him. One tried an overhead stroke and Odd didn’t even parry, just rushed inside it as he cut across the man’s stomach to bring him down. He beat aside another blow from the side, and saw the girl lance her spear into another man’s heart. Odd bounded close to one of the bandits, turned his wrists, hacked through his throat. He spun…

The forest was empty now except for him and the girl, who stood over the last of their foes, her spear wet with blood. Odd stood there, sword raised, forcing himself to breathe slowly, to work past the battle madness that insisted he should keep fighting just for the sheer joy of it. It seemed to take forever before he could lower his blade, clean it, sheathe it.

“I’m Odd,” he said, because none of the other names he had fit him anymore.

“I…” The girl frowned. “That’s a name?”

Odd nodded. “Might be someone’s idea of a description too, I suppose. This is usually the part where you tell me your name, knight.”

“What makes you think I’m a knight?” she asked.

Odd raised an eyebrow. “Well, the armor is a clue. Also, I’ve… seen them fight.” He didn’t want to tell her all of it, or they really would be fighting. “You’re a Knight of the Spur, aren’t you?”

“I…” She hesitated before she nodded, suggesting that things were more complicated, but Odd was used to complicated. “My name’s Erin.”

“Lady Erin,” Odd said. He assumed that even the Knights of the Spur wouldn’t just call a girl knight sir. “Just that, or have they given you a nickname yet?”

“Not yet,” she said. “And it’s… just Erin.”

“Give them time,” he assured her. They’d been the first ones to call him the Mad, after all. “What brings you out into the forest, just Erin? Aside from saving the likes of me?”

Maybe that was the point, though. They said that the world was kind to fools and madmen. Maybe this kind of savior was what kindness looked like.

“I’m traveling to save my sister,” the girl said.

“Save her from what?” Odd asked.

“King Ravin’s forces have taken her south, over the Slate. They say he plans to invade.”

Odd froze at those words. Could it be a coincidence that here, in the middle of nowhere, he would run into a knight who knew about the threat from King Ravin? Surely it had to be fate, or a sign? The abbot had always said that the world fit together in more complex ways than a human mind could hold. Maybe this was one.

“What are you doing out here?” Erin asked. “There can’t be many monks wandering the forest. Still fewer monks carrying swords.”

Odd thought about explaining who he was, but that would cause too many problems. Instead, he gestured to the way he’d come.

“I came here from Leveros to warn of a threat from King Ravin,” Odd said. “His men have taken the island, and I fear they plan to use it as a staging point to invade without crossing the bridges. I seek those with the power to help: the knights, or the king.”

“I could… help get your message to both,” Erin said.

“And I could help you to recover your sister,” Odd replied. It seemed strange to be promising this, when he already had a task, but there had to be a reason that he had met this girl here, like this.

She looked around, and Odd knew that she was looking over the bodies, seeing the violence he had done. Ordinarily, people looked at him with horror when they saw that, but now, Odd saw hope. This was one case when a man of violence was more use than one of prayer.

“You swear you’ll help me find her?” Erin asked.

Odd nodded. “On my oath as a…” What was he now? What had he ever been? “On my oath.”

“And I swear I’ll help you spread the word about the invasion,” Erin said.

Odd took her hand. Her grip was strangely strong for her size, but then, she was a knight. It had been a long time since Odd had ridden beside one, let alone on a mission to save a lost young woman. For a moment, just a moment, he felt like a hero.

Still, he was sure that the feeling would pass once the killing began.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

In the circle of light within the vaulted chamber, Devin worked at the forge until his arms ached with it, trying to get the star metal to respond as it should, trying to get the magic to do all that he wanted.

It was harder than he could have believed, but the most frustrating part of it all was that sometimes it did work. Sometimes, magic rippled out, so that only Master Grey’s runes, set into every surface, contained it. On those times, the metal responded to him, shifting in response to his touch, but that only served to make all the other times that much more frustrating.

How much time had he spent down here working now? How many attempts had he made? Too many attempts to truly count now, and the frustration of that was only made greater because he was not one of the men who had gone south toward the bridge, trying to get Princess Lenore back.

He wanted to be, wanted to be the one who could save her, clasp her hand in his, bring her back to safety. He wanted to know that she was well, and happy, but more than that, he wanted to be the one to do it, wanted her to look at him as a savior. It was the closest that a peasant like him would ever get to… no, he couldn’t think like that, had to focus on this.

Master Grey had told him as much; had told him that this was the crucial part he had to play. Yet Devin couldn’t see how it was crucial that he stayed here and learned to use the flickers of magic that had come to him before, how it was important that he was able to forge a sword, or that he had strange dreams.

Master Grey certainly wasn’t here to explain any of it. The sorcerer had gone, off about some task that he hadn’t even begun to explain.

If he’d gone, though, there might be an opportunity in that. It meant that his rooms would be empty. It meant that there might actually be a chance to find out more about all of the things that the sorcerer wouldn’t talk about, to find out about his birth, and why he had been given to strangers to raise…

Making a decision, Devin set down his hammer.

He walked up the steps from the basement forge, the light from torches marking out a stone-walled path for him to follow. He followed it up, the blankness of the walls finally giving way to tapestries and statues, nooks and carved posts as he came out into the body of the castle.

It seemed quiet compared to what Devin knew, but only because the times that he’d seen it before, it had been in the grip of either a wedding feast or preparations for a rescue. Now, there were servants, and a few nobles here and there, but not the crowds of guests that there had been before. He stopped one of the servants, who looked at him nervously, clearly not knowing who he was.

“Which way do I go to Master Grey’s tower from here?” he asked.

That made the servant’s eyes widen in obvious fear, and they pointed in silence. It seemed like the best that Devin was going to get. He set off in the direction they pointed, down a hall where red floor tiles were cracked with age, and the walls held pictures over which drapes had been drawn, as if to shield them from view. More secrets; why was everything close to Master Grey a secret?

Devin eventually found a stone arch, with a light wooden door set into it. The door had a star carved upon it, the center a kind of face that looked out, eyes smooth and blank, as if blind. There was no lock on the door, but as Devin pushed at it, it didn’t give. He tried again, setting his hand on that star shape to push…

Some flicker of power rose up inside him, and Devin felt the door give way. Within, there were stairs, these ones made of marble edged with pale ash, circling around an open center to the tower, so that it seemed all too possible for Devin to plunge to his death if he put a foot wrong. Looking down as he rose, he could see lines strung across from one point on the stairs to another, forming a kind of net. Except that it wasn’t a net, because Devin had seen the mystical symbols Master Grey had used in the forge. This was one of those, only much larger.