King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

The road looped past a knoll of trees which formed part of the eastern horizon, fields half grown with rye lying below within the broad curve of a stream that flowed toward the east and the Veser River.

“That’s where they’ll be,” said Hathui, nodding toward the knoll.

Too calmly, Liath thought.

“Ai, Lady, I’m terrified,” whispered Hanna, pressing her horse up beside Liath. She had loosed her spear from its sling and now rested it against the top of her right boot.

“Out into the fields,” said Wolfhere. “In the open, we can outrun them.”

They turned left and started out across the fields. Green rye grass bent under the hooves of their horses and sprang up behind. Liath kept looking over her shoulder toward the knoll, one hand on her reins, one gripping bow and arrow. A misting rain began to filter down, wetting her hair, but she dared not pull her hood up for fear she would not be able to see as well. At once, as the wind shifted, she caught the scent that had spooked the horses.

It had a dry taste to it, what one might taste in a heat made dry by dust and wind. It smelled like stones heated until they cracked or the musk of a cave inhabited by dragons.

“Hai!” shouted Hathui.

There! Out of the trees came three iron-gray dogs—the biggest, ugliest dogs Liath had ever seen. Five Eika loped after them. The Eika held spears and suddenly as with one thought they threw their weapons. Most skidded harmlessly over the rye, but one spear stuck, quivering, in the ground at the feet of Hanna’s horse; the animal bolted back, rearing. Hanna fell from the saddle and hit the ground hard.

Hathui was off her horse in an instant.

“Liath!” shouted Wolfhere. “Ride for the city!”

From out here, with the knoll no longer blocking their view, Liath could now see the distant tower of Gent’s cathedral, gray stone rising toward gray clouds and beyond them, eastward, ribbons of darker smoke.

Hanna scrambled to her feet, then cried out, holding her knee. Manfred had already galloped past Hathui, sword held high, heading to cut off the Eika. The creatures had halved the distance between them already. The dogs broke forward, muzzles to the wind.

I can’t go.

Liath knew it in that instant, knew that she could not leave until Hanna was safe. Without Hanna …

“Without Hanna I might as well be dead,” she said aloud. Hanna was the only person she could really trust. “My only protector,” she said, and lifted her bow and nocked the arrow and drew.

Sighted on one of the dogs. Staring so, she saw it clearly. Saliva dripped from its jaws and from its long, dangling tongue. It was truly monstrous, with great fangs, a hollow belly, and lean, long flanks.

She shot.

The dog tumbled, yipping with terrible shrieking cries. Its two companions crashed into it and to her horror began to tear into its flesh.

This altercation, slowing the Eika, gave her time to nock and draw again. She caught the Eika who ran out in front in her sight down the length of the arrow, had an instant to register the icewhite glare of its braided hair. And shot.

The Eika dropped like a stone, her arrow buried in its bronze chest. Was it armor, or skin? She stared, horrified, and could not act. Her hands groped blindly toward the quiver for another arrow. A terrible wailing rose as the Eika paused to sniff at their dead comrade, but first one, then the second and last the third leaped up again, charging for Manfred. The fourth Eika laid into the dogs and beat them back from the still-twitching corpse.

Another dozen Eika and perhaps four more dogs emerged from the knoll of the trees. Their keening, their high-pitched barking, hurt her ears, though she could not tell which sound came from which creature. They darted down the hill toward the five Eagles.

“Liath!” Wolfhere pulled up beside her. “Go!” He made a gesture with one hand, something meaningless that she did not understand. For an instant she felt the merest tugging at her heart: I should go. I am meant to ride to Gent. Then shrugged it off, found that her hands had grasped an arrow. She nocked it and drew.

This Eika, too, had that startling white hair, bleached like bone. His torso wore a garish pattern of painted colors, blue, yellow, and white, and beneath the paint she caught the suggestion of copper, as if his skin was sheeted by a thin coating of metal. She shot.

The Eika went down, arrow sunk in its chest.

The other three had reached Manfred, who thrust and slashed with his spear. Hathui shoved Hanna up onto her horse and grasped the reins of her own. Thrown spears rained in on them, and Hathui staggered back, her left thigh torn open. Wolfhere pressed forward to aid Manfred. Hanna extended her hand to Hathui, but Hathui gripped her saddle’s pommel and threw herself up over the back of her own mount.

Liath nocked an arrow and drew. There! An ax slanted toward Manfred’s back. She loosed the arrow.

An Eika staggered back and fell, ax dropping out of its limp hand. Only two were left—except for the dozen racing down on them from the hill, and the murderous dogs. A dog leaped in and nipped at the hindquarters of Manfred’s horse; the gelding lashed out, kicking hard. Manfred grabbed at his saddle’s pommel, almost losing his grip on his spear.

It was all too quick to register anything except her own fear and their utterly inhuman faces, the long lope, faster than any human man might run, the hands bristling with white claws like sharpened bone, and their strange horrible skin more like scaled metal than flesh.

Too quick to register anything except that there were too many Eika and not enough Eagles. She nocked and drew and shot, but her hands were shaking so badly the arrow went wild, skidding over the ground twenty paces from the skirmish flurrying around Manfred. There was no time; in twenty more breaths the rest would be on him.