Shadebound, page 38
part #1 of The Last King Series
He could not say if they were dragon-kin, but there was an intelligence there, a depth of emotion the native beasts lacked. Something down from the steppes. Bloodied and hungering for more. Not a full-blooded dragon, not by any stretch. Two running free down here in one lifetime would have pushed even his credulity past its limit.
All night, as the soft men settled to drink and chatter among themselves about the fire, Kagan sat in watch. They had looked askance to him as they made their campfire, wondering if he meant to snatch even this comfort from them, but he did not object. There were plenty of things in the woods that feared flame and plenty more he could not see without some light brighter than the crescent of the moon. Things he did not want to come upon him in the night.
Though Kagan had set a watch, he did not trust in human eyes, so he kept company with whichever hunter had drawn the short straw. Some attempted to speak with him in soft whispers, others kept entirely to their duties. Neither drew much response from him. One particularly foppish stalker whose name Kagan still could not recall began regaling him with the stories of his time poaching in the Cerva lands. The bright plumage of the birds there and what they’d fetch from the hatmakers of Covotana. Kagan could scarcely believe any man, even one born in so degenerate a place as Espher, would so readily admit to such treasonous acts as stealing game from the crown’s lands, yet this man wore his crimes like a badge of pride. Even bragging that he’d never have been brought into the king’s service if not for his talent with a snare and a spate of bad luck.
On and on his stories went, grating at Kagan’s nerves until with a start he realized this fool was trying to ingratiate himself. These were the bragging stories that had won this man his friends, and he was trying to win Kagan over. Just that realization was enough to shake the Arazi for a moment. How long had it been since anyone felt the need to ingratiate themselves to him, since he had political power enough for it to be worthwhile? It was distraction enough that he did not see the motion by the tree line until it was already too late to call out.
His own armament had vanished somewhere in the depths of the dungeons of Covotana, and there was no craftsman in Espher’s capital who made spears balanced for throwing. Given time, he could have made his own again, but they had not been near a forest in all their journey, nor a smithy.
What he had was a recurve bow. It had been so long since he’d used one that it sat clumsy in his hands, and the tension of the string on his finger almost hurt. But when his elbow rose behind his head, the tail-feathers came level to his eye, and the wood began to hum with tension, he remembered.
The first shot hit the wyvern low, under the eye, at the side of its jaw. It must have hurt, but it didn’t slow the beast a step. The second hit off the beak, doing no harm. It was only when the third arrow struck it in the eye that the wild charge from the shadows became a stumble and tumble to a halt.
His previously vociferous companion only just managed to mumble out, “I didn’t even see it.”
Kagan was already stalking forward, a fresh arrow drawn in case of twitching. “That’s why I waited up.”
The supposed hunter did not move forward with him as he should have, to secure the prey. Instead, he stayed safe and distant with his back to the fire. Raising his voice to be heard over the distance. “I didn’t know they moved that fast.”
Some of the others began to stir at the raised voices, but Kagan had eyes only for the wyvern. Arrow point still leveled at it, steps slow and careful. There was no sign of movement, no sign of breath being drawn. Still he did not loosen his draw, turning instead to cover the tree line while he crouched by the beast’s side and took it in.
There was such beauty in this fallen monster that it caught in Kagan’s throat. Feathers and scales blended seamlessly in a rich deep blue that made it almost invisible in the moonlight. Behind the beak, two solid plates of bone extended beneath the bared scales, protection for the brain from the gruesome impacts that a strike with the beak would unleash. Where wings should have sprouted from its shoulders, there were vestigial humps the wyvern could have drawn back along its ribs to pass through tight spaces or speed its course, or expanded out from its body to appear larger and startle off predators. It was full-grown, despite standing only a little taller than Kagan at the shoulders, one of the lesser breeds that his people had not even troubled to tame for the most part. Even flightless wyvern were rare this far south. Kagan had seen only a handful since he’d come down to these lowlands, and even those had been the wounded and the dying, fleeing from predation by the healthy and hungry, in desperate search of respite. Between this and the aslinda-dragon he’d crossed paths with the previous year, it was becoming abundantly clear that something was truly awry on the steppes. The only dragon-kin found there were the outcasts and the ferals, and to see even those few stragglers driven off, it made Kagan wonder what could be disrupting things so badly.
Little in the way of sleep followed for the rest of that night, so Kagan and his merry band set about stripping the feathers and scales they could carry. By rights the kill was his, but it was good practice to have the men at your back holding sharp objects indebted to you, so he shared the prize. The meat they strung out to dry, but Kagan doubted they’d pass back this way to claim it before another predator found its way up to the ropes strung from branch to branch.
With dawn, they set off north once more. His instruction from on high had been to skirt the steppes, seeking out signs of any troublesome beasts. In essence, he was set to tour the essentially abandoned border territories and report if they’d been overrun by wolves in the absence of governance. It seemed a good use of his talents, so he had obeyed.
Yet as the Selvaggia spread wilder and wilder and the ground beneath the horses’ hooves became ever more rocky, there seemed to be no intent among his companions of turning aside. On they went to the north, until plateaus began to jut up and they found themselves passing through shallow valleys between them. Shade covered them until midday had the sun peering straight down at them out of the strip of blue sky overhead, and only then did their pace begin to slow. Kagan was looking around for a natural ramp, having no desire to abandon the horses down here for a hard climb. “We need to get higher if we want to see anything.”
“Ah well, that would also allow us to be seen, would it not?” the fop piped up.
Kagan gave him a blank stare. “Do you fear the beasts of the steppes so much you don’t even dare to look at them? Is this the courage of the men of Espher?”
Another spoke up. “It’s a hot day, maybe we go up when the sun’s down to take a peek, eh?”
“Perhaps we’ll find a better spot, farther in,” said another, one who’d stayed blessedly silent until now. It seemed the full dozen men at Kagan’s side had an opinion on where they should be going next. Almost like they’d already discussed it without him.
“What’s going on?” He eased his hand away from his weapons as he turned to face them, letting all his fingers show on the reins.
“Whatever do you mean, sir?” Fop was sweating. Kagan hadn’t expected a liar like that to be so easily rattled. “We’re just making suggestions for an easier passage.”
Kagan drew up his horse entirely and turned it crosswise to the path. If it came to fighting, it would make a solid shield against their first volley. “Look, I’m here now, I’ll do whatever we need to do, just tell me what is going on. I’m not like you, I’ve no patience for secrets.”
Looks were exchanged among the men, and gradually, as he watched, the fops and fools who’d been flouncing around Covotana seemed to fade into seasoned men of the land. Their prim upright seating became a slouch, ready to drop low. The fop became the poacher he’d bragged of being right before Kagan’s eyes. All pretentions melted.
“We’re scouting for an army coming south. Dragon-lords. Weren’t sure how you’d take that.”
Kagan let out a sigh. “Wish you’d the sense to tell me sooner.”
“So you could have turned tail?” Eyes were narrowed all about him.
“So we could have done this right.”
That was enough to knock the wind out of their wings. “What?”
“You don’t bring animals to hunt dragons. You don’t move in packs. You check which way the wind is flowing. You… If they’re within ten miles, we’re already fucked.”
Their arrogance may have been a mask over their true nature as scouts for the Espher army, but there was a seed of truth in it. One of the quiet ones was rolling his eyes. “What are you—”
“What is the point of bringing me if you aren’t going to listen? We need to pull back. We need to find someplace secure for the horses, then we need to talk about how dragons hunt and how Arazi can sense you from miles off, even if you don’t make a sound or come in sight.” Kagan could not help himself now that he knew what was happening. His eyes kept turning up to the blue strip of sky above them, just waiting for a shadow to pass, and a flame to follow. “Turn us around. Now.”
“You’re just trying to get us away before we spot them,” one of the quiet ones called back to his fellows. “This is all a farce.”
“I’m an exile, you half-wit. Wherever a dragon’s shadow is cast, the land belongs to the Arazi. They could have claimed all the steppes by now. The worst they’ll do is kill you. If they catch me on Arazi land, it will make your little dungeon back in Covotana look like a country estate orgy. We need to move.”
For a long languorous moment, none of them did. Nobody spoke and nobody moved, until the poacher reared his horse up to spin her in the tight confines of the gully. “If he wanted us gone, he could have let the wyvern eat us. Let’s go.”
There seemed to be no ranks among them, no hierarchy at all, yet when the poacher spoke, they listened. Even the ones who’d been decrying him as their nemesis a moment before had changed their tune now.
All the day’s slow and steady progress was abandoned, and they took off at a trot, as fast as they dared in these tight corridors of risen sandstone. It was enough to make the broad-shouldered Kagan snarl with irritation. This passage was cut wide enough for Arazi to ride three abreast, but these fools had such little control over their mounts they had to leave a margin for error wide enough to be all their graves. He had no such impediment.
Letting his emotions loose, he fed his fear down into the beast below him, threaded it through with his desire to be away. He blinkered the horse with his own focus. They needed out. They needed out into the open where they could run free. A horse understood that terror, that need not to be penned in. Beneath the tortures Espher had used to break them and make them obedient, their natures still persisted, and both mount and rider, they needed space about them to feel alive.
Kagan burst past the others as they trotted along, first at a canter then a full-on gallop as they rounded a bend and into a straight-run passage back towards the green land beyond the steppes. Still he could not stop himself from twisting around, looking back, looking up, and it seemed those who rode in his wake had been afflicted with the same habits. Every one of them rode like a true hunter now, but all were so distracted by their own impending doom that the marked improvement in their skills was unnoticeable.
When at last they burst out from amidst the high walls into the steppes’ foothills, there was a palpable relief. They slowed their pace, spared their horses the spurs, and wondered for a moment that Kagan had not. How could he, when he felt that itching presence at the back of his mind, warning him, as it would be warning the Arazi in flight, that another of his kind was nearby?
At first it was just the faintest brush of the empathic sense over them, the emotions of the riders and horses both burning bright enough to catch on the periphery as they stretched in search of prey, then a tighter focus as they were felt. As they were recognized.
The only thing Kagan could offer to his followers in the way of protection was a bellow back. “Faster! They’re coming!”
Huntsmen or scouts, it mattered little, they spun in circles on their horses, trying to sight something that was still over the horizon. Looking for their doom instead of fleeing it. If they saw a dragon in the sky, it was already too late for them all.
The Selvaggia had been Kagan’s sanctuary for decades, and now he rode hard for it once more. Lather slicking the sides of his horse as it staggered on. There was life enough there to confuse Arazi senses, a density of beasts and the dull ache of slow-moving emotion from the woods themselves. He could feel his mount’s exhaustion, feel it weakening and breaking, he felt that pain as though it were his own, but still he pushed it on. He could almost justify it to himself because he was feeling the horse’s pain. He could pretend he was driving the both of them to the edge of death. There was the perfect justification in the logical human parts of his mind; they would both die if they were caught out here in the dragon’s sight. Yet how could a horse understand that? Instead he fed it fear, snippets from his own memories, of being stalked, of being chased. It ran and ran until the legs beneath it broke, and even then it would have tried to go on if Kagan hadn’t leapt clear.
In a broken heap it lay squealing and bucking, still trying to move, still trying to flee. He could not spare the moment to put it out of its misery, but neither could he run on still feeling its pain. His bow was crushed beneath its bulk, but there was ever a knife at his belt, and with a wash of calming feelings, Kagan stilled the beast long enough to drive the tip of the blade home behind its jaw. He felt the blood spilling, the sharp pain at his throat, the heat rushing over his hand. He felt it, and then he closed himself off to it so the waiting darkness could not swallow him down too.
With his empathy snapped shut, he could not feel the scouts racing to him or the dragon and rider. Only his eyes and ears availed him, and compared with the usual cornucopia of senses at his disposal, it was like looking at the world through the eye of a needle. At least blinkered so, he could concentrate on the path ahead of him.
Tucking his head down and letting the weight of his broad body rock forward, he ran.
The hoofbeats of his scouts drew closer, but he fled them as though they were the enemy. All energy directed forward. If the dragon-lord saw them, the forest could not save them. Under the cover of the woods and the many tangled emotions of the beasts within, there was a hope that the soaring scout might consider their empathy was confused, but with any glimpse of these men, death was sure to follow. What protection was a forest canopy from a creature that could breathe fire?
Was it hoof drumming or distant wingbeats? Would they live, or would they die? Kagan could not say, and he dared not slow, even as his lungs burned and his saddle-sore legs ached. The horsemen rode on right by him, and he would have knocked them away if they’d tried to hoist him up into their saddles. He was so intent on his desperate sprint, he didn’t even notice when the blue sky gave way to filtered green light and the open plain narrowed down to twisting forest paths. Bursting into a lightning-struck clearing, he found the men scrambling down off their horses, gasping as though they’d been the ones to run.
“Strip them, swiftly. If we set them loose on the plain the rider might mistake them for the sign that drew him south.”
“Abandon the horses?” The one Kagan judged to be youngest finally found his voice.
“They won’t outrun a dragon in flight, but they might spare us.” The men went on staring at him blankly before he barked. “Move.”
Whatever else these scouts or spies may have been, at some time they were soldiers. They could feel the pressure of an order, and when they had no thoughts of their own, their bodies moved to obey. Every trace of civilization was cut from the horses, their supplies, their tack, only the shoes on their feet were left, and Kagan could only hope they were dulled enough that from the sky they wouldn’t be seen.
For a moment he let his empathy leap out of his skull once more, feeling everything all around him, feeling the terror just lurking beneath the careful training of the horses. He poured his own heart-pounding dread in, and the banked fear overran them. They took off for the open air, where they might run free, every one following the one ahead as herd instinct took hold and they followed the leader.
Kagan turned to the men, low-laden with their own gear and looking much worse for wear. “Now spread out, arm yourselves, and think happy thoughts.”
Poacher piped up. “You’re joking.”
Kagan ignored him as best he could. “Meet me back here in an hour if you’re still alive. You’ve all had enough training to find your way about the woods?”
Again the poacher tried to interrupt. “Yes, but…”
“If you’ve got gods, pray to them. If you’ve a woman, think of her. Whatever you can do to still your minds and calm your feelings. They’ll be how the Arazi find us.”
The young one spoke softly still, despite how raggedly his breath came. “What happens if we can’t?”
“The forest burns, we all die, you learn an important lesson about telling me things before it is too late.” There was no point in coating the truth in sugar. Chances were they were already dead. At least if he burned to death down here they wouldn’t take him alive.
At least some of the men had a hint of practicality to them. “How far do we spread?”
“Far as you can go and make it back in time. Avoid the beasts you can. Climb trees, most of the creatures out here cannot climb.”
They broke apart, dumping what gear they could afford to lose and shifting what they couldn’t into their bags as they went. The only one who still wanted to hang around for a chat was the poacher, who Kagan finally turned to face. The little fop asked, “Most?”
“Yes, most. Now do you need me to hold your hand? Wipe your arse for you?” Kagan growled. “Run.”
