Throne of Dragons

“I have her,” Rodry yelled out to the others there. “With me!”

His remaining friends formed up around him, as tight as any group of true knights could have been, and Rodry had never been prouder of them than he was in that moment. They fought their way to the door, then out into the sunlight.

A battle was raging around them.

The sergeant and Vars’s guards were holding a rough crescent around the door, Rodry and the others’ horses within it, waiting. The men there were surrounded by King Ravin’s troops, who were limited only by the ditches, which meant that they could only come forward a few at a time, fighting and falling, the screams of the dying horrible to hear.

“We need a way out of this,” Rodry said to the sergeant. “We need to get my sister to safety.”

“We still have the horses, your highness,” the man said. “But there’s no path for them. The most my men can do is hold this line, draw their strength. To escape… you’d have to cut your way through. We could distract them with a charge, but then…”

Rodry knew without being told how difficult that would be. There were deep ranks of the enemy now, easily enough to bring down horses. To get his sister through all of it seemed impossible. Yet what was the alternative? Surrender? Give her back to King Ravin’s men to do with as they wished? He turned to Lenore.

“Can you ride?” he asked.

She hesitated, then nodded. Rodry picked out the strongest of the mounts there, his own, helping Lenore into the saddle. He took Seris’s horse, swinging up beside her. Around him, his friends mounted up, while the sergeant’s men continued to hold the regiment around the lodge at bay.

“Men!” Rodry called out. “I wish I could say that I was sorry for leading you into this, but the truth is that I would do it a hundred more times if it would save my sister.”

“And we’d follow!” Kay called back. He had blood at his side, but he sat straight in the saddle.

“We need to cut our way clear. I’ll not lie, it will be far from easy. But we must try! We must be the warriors I know you all to be!”

He’d never been prouder of his friends than as they started to ready lances, sitting tall in the saddle. They formed up in a wedge around Lenore’s horse, even though they must all know how dangerous that was.

“We shield the princess,” he told them. “We get her to safety. Whatever the cost!”

He turned back to his sister.

“Remember, keep riding, no matter what happens.”

“Rodry…”

“I love you, sister,” he said.

“I love you too.”

“Then keep riding,” he insisted. “Get to the bridge. Get to safety.”

He turned back to the battle before him. “Sergeant, when you’re ready.”

The other man nodded. “Men, to me! Charge!”

The guardsmen moved as one, plunging into the enemy, a fist punching into their ranks. Men died in the first rush of that charge, but they cut into the ranks of Ravin’s men, slicing so deep into them that for a moment Rodry thought they might scatter them completely.

Then the ranks of King Ravin’s soldiers closed around them like a tightening hand, cutting them off. Rodry’s instincts were to ride in, to save his men, but he knew that this was the only chance they would get. He saw the ranks of King Ravin’s men thinning on the right as they all charged in to take on the guardsmen’s attack, and that was an opportunity they could not miss.

“There,” Rodry called out, pointing with his sword. “Forward!”

He kicked his horse into a gallop, riding down the first row of the enemy. Beside him, his friends punched into their ranks, lances plunging through foes, swords hacking them down. The sun shone from their armor, and they looked as heroic as any knights out of legend as they fought their way forward.

They cut their way through the ranks of their foes, the goal not to defeat them, but simply to fight their way clear. Rodry cut left and right with his sword, clearing a path almost the way he would have if hacking his way through a forest. It was important not to stop, not to slow. Only getting Lenore to safety mattered now.

The first of his friends fell, Hult, the son of an earl, caught by a spear coming up under his armor. Rodry couldn’t even turn and cut down his attacker, had to just keep riding. Greenfell, who was always quick with a joke, went down next, his horse toppling and crushing men even as more poured in to hack at him.

One by one, his friends died, and Rodry felt the ache in his heart of having led them to their deaths, even as he felt pride at what they were doing, at the ground they were making. They shouldn’t have been able to cut their way through so many men, even with the distraction of the guards, and yet they were, slicing their way forward step by step, stride by stride, until it seemed that they were just a few yards from freedom.

Looking around, Rodry saw that it was just him, Kay, and Lenore now. He kept going, cutting into the throat of a soldier who got too close, battering away a spear. A sword struck his leg and he ignored it, keeping going, keeping fighting.

Kay charged forward past him, striking a rank of soldiers, riding them down. One grabbed him as he passed, dragging him from his horse. He rose briefly, cutting left and right, opening a path. Then a sword tip seemed to rise up from his chest as a soldier plunged it into his back.

Rodry didn’t hesitate, but threw his horse into that last gap, trying to widen it. For a moment, there was a space, and he held that space, turning his horse in place, lashing out at all who got close. He struck down at one soldier, then another. He felt a pain in his side and looked down to see an arrow sticking from it, but he didn’t slow, kept fighting.

Lenore was there, level with him now.

Rodry turned to join her, and his horse reared. He saw the spear that plunged into its neck, felt the moment when it went down. Its weight was crushing, but Rodry somehow rolled clear, coming up with his sword already in his hand. He sliced through one soldier’s throat, then hacked off the arm of another. He saw Lenore staring at him.

“Go!” he yelled. “Go!”

Pain lanced through him, but Rodry ignored it, cutting down a man who, it turned out, had just stabbed him. Another was there then, and Rodry could feel the weight of his sword now, barely able to lift it as he cut down another foe. He could see Kay on the ground, eyes staring up, mouth moving in silent words as blood poured from him. That distraction cost Rodry as another sword struck him, plunging into his hip. He killed another foe, stumbled and tried to stand.

A dozen men stood around him, spears poised. Rodry didn’t care. He rested on one knee for a moment, but didn’t stay there. He wouldn’t be a prisoner here, wouldn’t stop now, when he could buy his sister another few seconds before they started to chase her. He hefted his sword…

He saw the spear that plunged into his chest before it hit him, but he was too weak by then to dodge, too slow. Amazingly, it didn’t even hurt. It was just that one moment he was on his feet, and the next, he was on his back, pinned to the mud like an iron moth trapped by a tack. Another spearman stood over him, the weapon aimed at his head.

The last thing Rodry saw was Lenore, riding away, clear of the grasp of those who would hurt her. He’d won. He’d…

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Nerra did her best to settle into life in the refuge. Under Kleos’s watchful eyes, she fit in with groups of others like her, helping to prepare food in the kitchens, and chop wood, and clean the compound. She had never been afraid of work.

The others around her seemed to have come from all over the known world. Several were from spots that meant they spoke no language Nerra understood. More had come on boats from the Northern Kingdom, and when they found out who Nerra was, they looked at her strangely.

She could feel the weight of those gazes as she worked at a well, drawing water. A girl stood beside her, twining strands of wool into cord.

“They’re just wondering how a disease like this can affect a princess,” the girl said. “And how a king would send his daughter to a place like this.”

She was probably Nerra’s age, a little shorter but broader and stronger, with round, almost heart-shaped features. The scale sickness, dragon sickness, Nerra corrected herself, had been particularly cruel with her, not in what it had done, but in what it had left alone. On her left side, this girl was a vision of perfect loveliness, untouched by the marks of the illness. Dark hair fell in waves past her shoulder, while a one-sided smile quirked across her features.

On the other, the black lines of the sickness spread everywhere, leaving only scarred skin on that side of her head, while half of her face was twisted and almost inhuman.

“He didn’t send me,” Nerra said, thinking of all the things that her father had done to try to save her. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to order her death, the way the law, and his nobles, demanded. “I left myself, and then… a dragon brought me here.”

“A dragon?”

Nerra would have expected most people to scoff at that, or to call her a liar, but most people didn’t have the circling forms in the far distance, over the continent.

“I’m Lina,” the girl said.