King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

But it was a stupid question. She knew the answer before Sanglant said the words, although he said them anyway.

“My Dragons need me. We will hold them as long as we are able.” He lifted a hand and touched her cheek with his mailed hand—as she had touched his, in the silence of the crypt.

Then he hefted his shield, raised his sword, and was out the door before she could say anything more. She started after him, back to the wall-walk, only to see him descending an outside ladder. Then he was gone, running into the chaos that raged around the gates as the battle moved steadily outward, farther into the streets of Gent. A cry went up, a piercing shout, his name called over and over. Before the militia man grabbed her, she saw the overwhelmed Dragons rallying, fighting on horse or by foot toward the lone figure of their prince who seemed to be intent on running alone full into the force of the Eika assault.

A hand clapped onto her shoulder and dragged her back away from the door just as an arrow thunked into it. A burning arrow. Smoke made her eyes sting. It guttered against the wood; the bearded man slammed the door shut, but she heard more arrows thud into it, an echo of the drums that pounded relentlessly in the Eika camp.

lthough they slowed down, they still moved inexorably forward, howling and keening like wild beasts.

On the eastern shore, swathes of fog concealed patches of field. A shadow lay over the land, wreathed with mist, there on the far shore.

Neither fog nor mist. Something about it: a pattern, a shifting, the way her eye wanted to slide away from it. It was an enchantment. She forced herself to look hard at it, to not believe it was shadow and fog but rather concealment.

It dissolved, or not dissolved as much as faded from her sight and resolved into four figures. Two of them were Eika warriors painted and outfitted like the rest of their kind, red serpent round shields resting casually against their legs, two-bladed axes cradled like infants in the crooks of their arms. Between the two warriors stood an Eika remarkable for his scrawny stature and his apparent nakedness: He wore only a ragged loincloth and a gold belt. In his hands, he held a small wooden chest. A leather pouch hung from the belt.

But beside these three stood one other, one unlike the rest by stature alone, by some indefinable quality Liath could not name, yet recognized. She could not tear her gaze away; he was a huge Eika whose face and arms and chest had the scaly sheen of a creature clothed in living bronze. He had no tunic, nothing covering his chest—not even the garish painted patterns sported by his warriors—only layers of necklaces, beads, shells, and bones strung together and mixed in with chains of gold and what looked like gold and silver coins, holes drilled in their centers and strung on thin ropes of metal. His stiff trousers were sewn of cloth dyed a brilliant blue, belted by a mesh of gleaming gold that draped in delicate folds to his knees. He wore gold armbands, like twining serpents, around each thick arm. His hair glinted bone-white in the sunlight, braided into a single braid that hung to his knees.

Beside her, Sanglant sucked his breath in between his teeth.

“There!” said Liath. “Do you see him?”

“I see him.” He shook his head as if to shake away an annoying insect. “He is the one whom I felt all along. His is the power.”

“He is the enchanter.” She felt the power, just as Sanglant did.

Sanglant leaned forward into the embrasure, suddenly intent, staring hard toward the distant Eika. His lips parted. “Tell me your name,” he whispered.

The Eika enchanter shifted, head turning so abruptly that Liath shuddered. It was as if he had heard. He looked around and focused that fast, looking toward them although certainly he could not see them, concealed as they were by the timbered walls and the narrow confines of the lookout post. Certainly he could not know the prince watched him from there.

And yet, why not, if he was truly so powerful an enchanter?

She thought, then, that he spoke a word in reply, but she could not see him clearly to guess at the syllables he spoke, and she certainly could not hear above the clash of battle raging in the city beyond.

“Bloodheart,” said Sanglant in a low voice, staring out as if the two of them watched each other, tested each other. “We will meet, you and I.”

Beyond, on the shore of the river, the Eika tide swelled. The knot shoving forward on the bridge broke loose and Liath tore her gaze away from the Eika enchanter to see the gates shoved open and more Eika flood into Gent.

Jerking back from the embrasure, Sanglant turned to Liath. “Go to the cathedral. Save those you can.” The militia man waited, nervous, taut, at the trapdoor.

“Where are you going?”

But it was a stupid question. She knew the answer before Sanglant said the words, although he said them anyway.

“My Dragons need me. We will hold them as long as we are able.” He lifted a hand and touched her cheek with his mailed hand—as she had touched his, in the silence of the crypt.

Then he hefted his shield, raised his sword, and was out the door before she could say anything more. She started after him, back to the wall-walk, only to see him descending an outside ladder. Then he was gone, running into the chaos that raged around the gates as the battle moved steadily outward, farther into the streets of Gent. A cry went up, a piercing shout, his name called over and over. Before the militia man grabbed her, she saw the overwhelmed Dragons rallying, fighting on horse or by foot toward the lone figure of their prince who seemed to be intent on running alone full into the force of the Eika assault.

A hand clapped onto her shoulder and dragged her back away from the door just as an arrow thunked into it. A burning arrow. Smoke made her eyes sting. It guttered against the wood; the bearded man slammed the door shut, but she heard more arrows thud into it, an echo of the drums that pounded relentlessly in the Eika camp.

“This way!” he said urgently. “Down two levels to a tunnel beneath. It runs all the way from this lookout post to the mayor’s palace. You will meet up with a larger tunnel, which runs straight. Take no side tunnels, they only lead to other posts. I pray that the Eika have not yet taken the other posts and gotten into the tunnels.”

She descended the ladder, not looking back. The man did not follow. The first ladder gave out on dirt, a tiny space within the wall, banks of sod and timber, so tight she could hardly breathe. She found the other ladder and climbed still farther down, twelve rungs, to a tunnel lined with fired bricks. The space was barely wider than her shoulders. She hesitated, touched her bow, then drew her short sword instead. Her fingers brushed the words graven in the hilt: “This good sword is the friend of Lucian.”

“I pray you,” she whispered, “be my good friend as well.”

She walked cautiously, for it was dark and she could hear the distorted echoing noises of battle not far above her, crossing and crossing back like a complicated tapestry being woven. Pray God that this tapestry was not to be the fall of the city of Gent.

The narrow side tunnel debouched into a larger passageway, one that might support two men walking abreast but not more. Behind, where she judged the wall stood, she caught the flickering glare of fire and smelled the stinging scent of smoke. Her eyes had already adjusted to the dark. Ahead, it was darker and more silent.