King's Crown: Chronicles of the Dragon-Bound: Book 3, page 1
King’s Crown
Book Three of the Chronicles of the Dragon-Bound
William L. Culbertson
King’s Crown
By William L. Culbertson
http://wculbertson.com/
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2016 by William L. Culbertson
Other Books by William L. Culbertson
King’s Exile: Book 1
King’s Dragon: Book 2
Acknowledgements;
Thanks to Laura Petrella for copy editing help
and to Sherry Howard for guidance preparing the final text.
Chapter 1
Frohliem City was burning—again. Helpless, Dax watched from the tower window. Alarm bells signaled that safety wardens were on their way to the terrace district. The fire should be under control before long—but it burned. Most of the city had too much stone to burn easily, but if a fire ever got into the shanties on the east side near the harbor entrance, the losses would be terrible.
Dax needed to see what was happening for himself. He trotted down the stairs to where Narsus waited. In the six months since he had been injured battling the monstrous dragon the Tharans had brought against the city, his injuries had healed. Still, he took every chance he had to get his body back into proper condition.
“There’s a fire in the north part of the city,” he announced. “I want to see what is happening.”
Narsus nodded. “Do you want a squad of palace guards to go with you?”
Dax paused to think. “No, in spite of what Queen Layna says, taking palace guards with me would be too conspicuous. Get Atch and two others to go with us. No uniforms. I don’t want to draw attention. I just want to see what’s going on.”
A few minutes later the five set out on foot. Dressed rough with long, plain cloaks against the cold night winds, they put their hoods up to hide their faces. Dax knew the city well enough to get around. However, the others had grown up in the back streets and alleyways, and that was the route they took. Factional slogans were scrawled on walls and fences on nearly every street. Crude, whitewashed names and epithets proclaimed the kingdom’s divisions in bold letters. A wide splash of paint covered over hand-lettered proclamations along a whole section of fence, but letters carved into the wood underneath still showed. All along their route, untended flat surfaces carried names and slogans that defaced earlier epithets that covered traces of yet older slurs. Factional endorsements adorned more surfaces all the time. Most alarmingly, the tone in recent weeks was much more angry and hostile.
The dark city streets were quiet as they neared the fire, but at the scene, the crowd was huge. A squad of safety wardens had arrived, but they had not been able to get through the throng to the fire burning in a large warehouse. Mobs of people filled the street. They threw rocks and bottles back and forth at each other. Until the crowd disbursed, the wardens could not get to the fire. The mob overmatched them.
Dax and his companions watched from the shadows of an alley. Dax wanted to help, but there was nothing he could do. His group was not large enough make a difference to the outnumbered wardens trying to restore peace. Frustrated, he stood in the darkness and watched.
A squadron of lancers clattered up the street toward the rioters. They did not carry their lances, but lancers on horseback with their wooden staves dominated the unmounted and unarmed members of the crowd. Although rival gangs had been throwing rocks at each other, no one threw rocks at the lancers. The mounted men forced their way into the mob and cut it into smaller groups. With the crowd split, peace wardens broke up the smaller fights, and soon the opposing parties separated.
A mounted officer noticed Dax and his party in the shadows of the alley and rode over to investigate. “Show yourselves,” he demanded. His hand was on his sword, but he had not drawn it.
Dax stepped out of the shadows. “Good evening, Tre Handman.”
The lancer recognized Dax immediately. He stiffened in his saddle. “General, sir!” He looked back over his shoulder and called, “Lieutenant Karry, General Daxdendraig is here!”
Dax winced, but it was too late. His surreptitious reconnaissance was no longer secret. The lieutenant rode over. Dax returned his salute and started to listen to the man’s report. Before the man had said more than a few sentences, a chant interrupted him. It started low, but more voices took up the cry. “Dax! Dax! Dax!” The excited mob pressed forward against the lancers’ line, eager to catch a glimpse of the hero who had saved the city. They had forgotten their enmity of a few minutes before in their enthusiasm to see the man who had killed the dragon.
Things were getting out of hand rapidly. “Lieutenant Karry,” Dax said loudly enough to be heard over the rising chant, “mind the crowd and your mission to help get that fire under control. My men and I are leaving.” He threw the lieutenant a quick salute. “My compliments to you and the rest of the lancers.”
It was too late. The first wave of the mob pushed past Lieutenant Karry and his horse toward the mouth of the alley. Their bodies wedged together at the entrance, blocking the bulk of the throng from getting into the narrow byway. A few leaders broke loose into the alley, and they raced after Dax and his party.
Dax saw Atch go down out of the corner of his eye. He shouted to the rest, “Man down!” They turned and faced their pursuers. Atch jumped to his feet and stood at Dax’s side behind Narsus and Joddle. The men coming down the alley toward them had no weapons. They reached out, eager to get closer to Dax. The alley was dark, but there was enough light to see their sweat-slicked faces. They smiled, their faces radiant as they reached for him. They wanted to be close to him—to touch him. Dax shuddered at the worship in their eyes.
Moments counted. There was no way to tell how quickly the jam at the mouth of the alley might give way, but these were not warriors they faced. “No swords!” he called. “No killing! Hit them. Knock them down. Then we run.”
The men with Dax were warriors. In a moment they were the only ones standing in the alley. Dax and his men did not hesitate. They turned and ran. They veered into the first side street they came to. Then again. Once out of sight of the mob, they slowed to a brisk walk. For some distance yet, Dax heard the crowd chanting his name.
They had gone past two more streets, and Dax’s breathing had almost returned to normal when Narsus leaned close to Dax. “We’ve got a shadow,” he announced quietly.
“That’s interesting,” Dax replied. “Thank you.”
A shadow? Could it be an assassin? Recently there had been attempts on the lives of several powerful people within the city. Two had succeeded. The first killed had been a woman of royal blood who had been championed as East Landly’s first queen by the Tietus and Malnik houses—to whom she just happened to be related. The other had been the senior Lott of Lott’s Stone and Masonry, one of the largest construction businesses in the city.
Dax had faced an assailant himself. A week ago he had met with the leaders of the peace wardens and representatives from the dockworkers. A group of tough men had been trying to extort shakedown payments from the dockworkers by breaking arms. The meeting had not solved the problem, although the peace wardens took descriptions the attackers and promised to keep closer watch on the docks. After the meeting, a man had confronted Dax in a doorway. “Death to the tyrant of the city!” he had cried as he lunged at Dax with a knife. The man had no skill with the blade, and Dax had disarmed him easily.
The assault had been on Dax’s mind for some time. The man had babbled a series of paranoid fears about Dax, the safety wardens, the queen, and a conspiracy from Urgo. None of it made sense. The man’s mind was obviously unsound. However, the man had twenty silvers in his pocket, a suspiciously large sum for someone so weak-minded.
This night as they walked back toward the palace, their shadow seemed content to remain a shadow. Could he be in league with a team of men who might be planning an ambush? There was no sense to the idea that a band of assassins would wait in the terrace district on the off chance Dax might choose to investigate the fire in person. Could the shadow be a spy for one of the power groups in the city? He might be a freelance operator hoping someone would pay him for information about Dax’s comings and goings. He could also be waiting for a favorable location to make an attack.
Whatever his motive, Dax decided to question him. “Atch. Joddle. Next corner we’ll turn right. You hide in the shadows after we make the turn and take hold of our friend as he comes along. I’d like to talk with him.”
They rounded the corner, and Dax walked on with the other two men beside him. At the next street, they stopped and waited. Soon Atch and Joddle joined them empty-handed. The shadow had not followed them around the corner. As much as anything, that worried Dax. Their shadow had skills that made it unlikely he was just a freelancer. Someone was keeping an eye on Dax.
#
Although it was late, Dax paced his quarters back in the palace, worried about what he had seen. Just as Queen Layna feared, factional fighting not only had continued, but it had gotten more frequent and more violent. Everyone wanted the crown, or they wanted to influence who got the crown, or they wanted to keep the wrong person from getting the crown. It was one problem with dozens of irreconcilable solutions.
Dax had been so busy keeping order in the city he had not had time to give the succession problem much thought. If there had been just two groups vying f
He looked up at a knock on his door. “Come.”
Narsus stuck his head in the door. “Just thought you’d want to know. They got the fire out.”
He sighed. “That’s good. What about the mob?”
“Seems they got distracted.” He smiled. “Rumor has it that somebody seen General Dax, and in the rush to have a look, it sort of broke up the party.”
With a rap on the door, Scarlet pushed past Narsus. “If you wanted to find a party, you could have asked me,” he said with mock indignation. Scarlet tried to sound lighthearted, but Dax knew he was concerned.
Narsus turned to the man and nodded. “Major Scarlet, sir.”
Dax waved Scarlet in and pushed a chair over for his friend to sit, then found a chair for himself. “Thank you, Narsus.” Dax nodded. “You can go.”
After Narsus had closed the door, Dax said, “Yes, I was out in the city without a full squad of guards, but I wanted to get a feel for the crowd. We were standing quietly in the shadows, watching, when one of our sharp-eyed lancers spotted us.” He raised his hands helplessly. “The moment he saw me, he called to his lieutenant, and that did it.”
“Well, if you were expecting me to scold you about going out on your own, I’m not.” Scarlet smiled. “I’ll just wait for the queen to do it. She’s the expert.” Dax nodded in acknowledgment while he went on. “More importantly, did you learn anything?”
“From the location, it was probably the Demothis and Soltees houses again,” Dax said. “I noticed a few in the crowd had Demothis orange colors tied around their arms. The size of the crowd was larger than anything we’ve seen before.” Scarlet started to say something, but Dax held up a hand. “One other thing. Someone followed our group after we left the fire. We spotted him, but when we tried to grab him, he wasn’t there.”
“Not an amateur then. You were just followed? No assassination attempt this time?”
“No,” Dax replied, “no attempt, but it bothered me the man was good enough to slip away when we tried to take him.”
“It was a man then?” Scarlet asked.
Dax thought for a moment. “Not for sure. No one saw the person well enough. I just assumed it.” He looked at Scarlet and nodded. “You’re thinking of Lady Aylssandra.”
“We’ve never found anyone else on her team.”
“If she had a team,” replied Dax.
“Her handmaiden was just a simple girl from East Landly, and Aylssandra admits nothing.” Scarlet shrugged. “We haven’t found anyone else suspicious.”
“Maybe her handmaiden wasn’t so simple.”
Scarlet sighed in aggravation. “You’re almost as annoying when you poke holes in my information as you are when you come up with thirty-six new things to be suspicious about.”
“Sorry,” Dax sighed. “I’m just frustrated that we know very little for sure.”
“Well, I know the Tharans’ dragon is dead.” Scarlet thumped the table for emphasis as he stood to go.
Dax sighed and nodded. “That is one thing for certain.”
#
After Scarlet left, Dax went to the window and stared out over the city. It had been a long, cold winter since the Tharan invasion, but the politics had only gotten hotter. East Landly’s disparate groups needed to compromise on a figure to take the throne. West Landly had been able to compromise years ago after Dax had fled Mathilde’s treachery. Dax, rightfully King Darius Ambergriff X of West Landly, had been just a boy and had never had ruled in his own right. Mathilde had poisoned Dax’s father, King Darius Ambergriff IX, and eliminated other family claimants in order to put her own lover on the throne. Dax’s flight and the sacrifice of his father’s loyal friend, Orin Herne, had foiled Mathilde’s plot. With no direct successor to the throne, the two largest aristocratic houses on West Landly’s Assembly of Nobles had competed for the crown. In the end they had settled on a king who had royal blood, though distantly through the East Landly line. Most importantly, it had been a candidate from one of the lesser, nonthreatening houses of West Landly on whom all could agree.
Tonight’s reaction of the crowd to his appearance brought back the thought that had preoccupied Dax with increasing frequency these days. Should he try for the throne? He was of royal Landly blood, although through the western Ambergriff line. He had sworn revenge on Mathilde and vowed he would take back his father’s crown. But this was not his father’s crown. And he was not that same boy who had sworn vengeance. Too many bloody, inconsequential mercenary campaigns had taught him that conflicts of any kind were never easy, and that decisions had consequences. His sleep that night was troubled.
#
“Dragons are coming.” The dragon Kahshect’s thought caught him by surprise.
Dax was out of bed even though it was not yet full light. The thought from his bondmate caused him to blink his eyes and stop his morning routine of stretching and exercise. He thought in return, “Who’s coming?”
“Namkafnir, Teycuktet, Birworeth, Rynangath.”
“Their bondmates?”
“Most likely,” Kahshect replied, “but they are too far away to tell.”
“Sounds as if the conclave is over.”
“Likely. You could have gone. I can tell how badly you want to hear their news.”
Dax sighed and started his exercise routine again. His broken ribs from the fight with the drakon still ached as he pumped his arm up and down against the weight, but he had regained his strength. He conscientiously followed the stretching and exercise program Dr. Galen had prescribed to restore flexibility to his burned skin and muscles.
Dragons were coming. Conclave was over. The decision had been made. What was the verdict about the conflict between humans and the Tharan dragon? The Tharan Empire’s invasion of East Landly had caused a crisis in the relations between humankind and dragonkind. The empire’s use of a dragon as a weapon of war had violated at least a half-dozen provisions of the Great Treaty. When Dax and Kahshect had killed the dragon, they had been parties to two of the violations. As one of the dragon-bound, Dax had a responsibility to keep the treaty. What would the conclave’s judgment be?
“You were not ready to fly,” he thought to Kahshect. “What would you have done without me if I would have left for Conclave?”
“I would have gotten fat and happy.” The dragon was feeling smug. “You know the people of Frohliem City love me for helping kill the drakon. Markadamous and the Ugori enjoy my company as well.”
“You would have gotten bored with both in a week if I wasn’t around to tell them all the rude things you say.”
“True,” the dragon admitted. “It’s always more fun to listen to humans if I can aggravate them at the same time.”
“When do you think they’ll arrive? Day after tomorrow?”
The dragon thought for a moment before he replied. “Sooner, most likely. But it looks like you’ll still have to meet with Queen Layna today.” On the list of things Dax had to worry about, the Great Treaty and his standing with the dragon-bound as a protector of the treaty had just risen to the top—right below his meeting with the queen. Meanwhile, he continued his exercise routine. Sweat beaded his brow, and his muscles burned, but he met his goal. He switched to the other arm and began again.
