Legacy of Steel

18

The squires straggled into Neraka during the afternoon of the fourth day. Squall flew in first to alert Sara, then the other dragons arrived. They, Cobalt, and Sara stood outside the main gates and watched the talon come in.

Sara breathed a silent prayer of gratitude. All eight of the squires were there, walking slowly across the flat plain in a ragged imitation of a patrol. Derrick had the point, and although he limped and had to lean his weight on a walking staff, he steadfastly led his group on the path for home. Saunder and Treb walked the flanks, and Kelena brought up the rear. The rest filled in the gaps, their bows slung over their shoulders.

Sara didn't say a word until the talon was lined up before her. She noted with pleasure that they stood shoulder to shoulder as a group, not as two factions. She doubted that friendship would grow among all eight of them, but they seemed to have found some respect for each other. That was all she asked. "Well done," she said proudly.

As exhausted as they were, every man and woman threw back his or her shoulders and stood a little taller before her-simple accolade.

Sara stood aside. "There is soup, hot wine, and roast meat waiting for you at the camp. You are dismissed."

Irrepressible Jacson whooped his delight and sprinted toward the Red Quarter. Argathon dashed close on his heels. The others followed more wearily. They all looked as hungry as wolves and pale with patches of windburn on their faces.

Derrick gave Sara a twisted grin as he fell in beside her "That was a nasty trick."

She returned his smile with one of her own. "True. Was it successful?"

"Eventually. Argathon is not so bad once he gets to know you, and if it wasn't for Kazar, we wouldn't be here He has an uncanny ability to judge snow. But Treb has ambition and little tolerance. Kelena had to knock her into a snowbank before she would listen to anyone." He scratched some ice from the four day's growth of beard on his jaw. "I never thought I'd be glad to see this place," he muttered.

Sara glanced quickly at him, but his face was unreadable. "What did you learn?"

"Not to trust talon leaders," he chuckled. "Or dragons, We saw them following us once or twice, but they wouldn't come near us. Traitorous wyrms."

She pointed a finger at his limp. "How did you hurt your leg?" she asked.

He grimaced. "I twisted my knee falling down a hill."

Sara sensed there was more to it than that but did not press him. Instead, she merely said, "I'm glad you're back safely."

He leaned into his walking staff and said thoughtfully, "It wasn't so bad, really. We divided our food. There was plenty of firewood and ice to melt for water. The hard part was avoiding frostbite." His crooked grin shone on his dirty face. "We learned a great deal about one another huddled together through those bitterly cold nights. Did you know that Saunder has a dreadful snore, and Treb talks in her sleep, and Kelena hates to be crowded? All terribly useless information."

"That depends on how you use it," Sara said mildly. "If you were the leader of a talon, would you assign Saunder to night guard or day guard? Would you trust Treb with vital information if you knew she could reveal it to others in her sleep? Would you send Kelena to a busy city or into the country to gather information? By knowing the people in your command, you can make better decisions that will ultimately be advantageous for all of you. Success improves your reputation. And that," she said, gently poking his arm, "is a good principle to follow wherever you go."

Derrick looked at the squires plodding ahead of him. "Point taken," he said.

They finished the rest of the walk in companionable silence. As soon as they reached the camp, Sara made certain every squire had his or her fill of hot food and drink. She listened to their reports and their conversation and was pleased to see that her earlier assessment was correct. The trek home had been long, miserable, and difficult, but it had forged a bond of mutual experience and a measure of respect among them all-even Treb. They knew now they could face difficult situations and work through them together.

Argathon was the first to hear the crunch of booted feet on the frozen ground. He glanced past the line of tents to see who was coming and hurriedly jumped to his feet. The others were just looking around when a tall, cloaked officer trod with slow deliberation into their midst. His hands were gloved, and his face was shadowed by a cloth hood.

Sara couldn't guess what would bring this particular knight out to their camp. She rose to her feet and saluted. "Good evening, Lord Knight Cadrel. Would you care to join us for a meal?"

The afflicted knight declined. "I came to see for myself that your talon returned intact. That is good. In two days' time, we are sending a new wing out for a training assignment south of here. Your talon has been ordered to accompany it."

Sara tried to hide her misgivings; Treb made no such effort. "but I am to take my test in two days," the Nerakan cried angrily.

Cadrel turned his hooded face toward her. His dark eyes caught the flicker of firelight, then vanished again in shadow. "Wait. You will be tested soon," he said in his gravelly voice.

Treb dropped her gaze from the hood that hid the ravaged face of the knight and was silent.

"You will all be tested soon," he continued. "Our order has to few knights. For a few years, we must speed up the progression in order to fill our ranks. You will finish your training on the fields of battle."

"Lord Ariakan would not approve," Sara said softly.

Cadrel clenched his maimed hand on his sword grip, "I am aware of that, Conby. But he is dead and we are nearly so. The knighthood must be adaptable to survive these dark days."

"By needlessly risking the lives of its recruits?" she demanded.

"If need be," he grated. "Be at the fields beside the Blue Quarter with your dragons at dawn on Soldai. This will not be a drill." He turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving behind a mingling of confusion and excitement.

As soon as he disappeared from view, the squires began talking at once.

"Where do you think we're going?" Marika asked everyone.

"Somewhere warm, I hope," Jacson threw in.

Treb snorted. "If we take the dragons, it will be very warm for someone."

Sara sat down on her stool and let them talk. She did not know whether to be relieved that the date for the squires' tests had been postponed or worried about what the lord knights were sending them into. It could not be pleasant.

She found out two mornings later.

A day of rest and the natural resilience of youth had brought the squires' vitality surging back. They came out of their tents at dawn joking and talking among themselves. They wore simple battle armor and carried their helms and a full complement of weapons. The black armor of the Knights of the Lily would not be theirs until their knighting.

Sara envied them for their enthusiasm and energy. She was still trying to recover from her concussion and her injuries from the duel with Massard. Thirty years ago, she too, would have bounced back to normal after only a day or two, but five decades had taken their toll on her resiliency.

She was not excited about this day either. She had spent a long night dreading the coming of dawn and an assignment that could not bode well. Then, to rub salt into the wounds of her anxiety, she had to don the hated black armor Governor-General Abrena had sent to her.

Feeling irritable, she led the talon to their practice fields, summoned the dragons, and took them around the perimeter of the ring to the Blue Quarter on the south side of the city.

Five talons had gathered in the open fields, forty-five knights and about twenty dragons, mostly blues. Sara realized their talon was the only one made up entirely of squires.

She was puzzling over that when an officer broke away from a group and strode to meet her. It was Knight Officer Targonne, looking fresh-faced and pleased about the morning. His armor, adorned with jewels and over-lapping layers of dragon scales, gleamed with iridescent hues in the dawn's pale light. He greeted Sara cordially.

"Conby, come this way. Subcommander Torceth is briefing us now."

She walked with him and forced a smile for his benefit. "I did not have a chance to thank you for the sword you sent."

He waved it off. "It was a spare. I secretly hoped you would blood it on Massard. I was glad to see him go. He was unfit to be a Knight of Takhisis."

A shiver ran down Sara's back at the cold disregard in the young man's tone. Charming he could be, but Sara also sensed a calculating cruelty lurking just beneath the urbane surface of this well-dressed young man. She guesses that he had probably pulled her out of the ruin on a whim, not for any eagerness to help.

They reached the group of talon leaders clustered around Subcommander Torceth. The others nodded to her, and Torceth shot a glance at her. "Ah, the squires. Lord Knight Cadrel told me to expect your talon. You're late." Of medium height and barrel build, Torceth made an imposing figure in his armor. He was a swarthy man with a heavy beard, thick lips, and a tendency to scowl.

Sara said nothing. She watched Torceth unroll a map and begin to explain their objective, punctuating his instructions with short jabs of his finger. Her heart sank, It was what she feared the most, a surprise attack on a strategic position that just happened to be at the site of an innocent village.

"The junction is south of here, about fifty miles along the Kortal Road," Torceth was saying. "There is a small troop of mercenaries stationed there by the Galiard family They will be of little consequence. We will take the village and set up our own command post. We are to hold the area until further notice. Our wing will encircle the village from here and here."

He turned to Sara. "Conby, you will take your talon to this point on the road and hold it to protect our flank. I do not want to be surprised by a patrol from Kortal or a raiding party from the Galiards. Other than that, watch and learn. Is that understood?"

Sara could only nod. She returned to Cobalt and climbed to a seat in the two-rider saddle in front of Marika. Jacson clung to the back of the wooden frame.

The dragon craned his neck around to look at her mute face. "Well?" he demanded. "Where do we go?"

"Follow the talons. We are to stay to the rear," Sara answered shortly.

"So what are we going to do?" Jacson insisted on an answer.

Sara refused to turn around. She watched the wing dragons leap into the air one after another. "We are going to attack a small band of mercenaries and a village that has the misfortune to sit at the junction of the trails from Neraka, Kortal, and Sanction."

Jacson looked quizzically at the wing that was now aloft. "They need all those knights just for that?"

"They seem to think they do," Sara said between clenched teeth.

Squall, Howl, and Tumult quickly followed the other dragons. Only Cobalt was left on the ground. Sara instinctively tightened her thigh muscles and wrapped her hands around the leather-wrapped pommel.

The dragon bunched his powerful leg muscles and sprang into the wind, the rush of his leap forcing his riders deep into their seats. The rising breeze caught his wing vanes and lifted him higher into the morning sky. He stretched out his neck and trumpeted his delight, huffing his breath out in great clouds of steam. He flew low over the windswept ground, then flapped his wings and rose to a higher altitude to join the Wing.

In a tight group, the heavily laden dragons turned south toward the mountains. Guided by an experienced scout, they found the trail leading through the snow-clad barren peaks. A volcano steamed gently to their right as they left the valley, its brown flanks the only bare rock in the vast panorama of snow and ice. The trail had been snowed over for more than a month now and, due to the danger of avalanches, had been closed to foot travel. Snowslides were certainly not an inconvenience for dragons, but keeping track of the narrow path through the mountainous wasteland wasn't easy.

Thin clouds obscured the sky and turned the day dull and spiritless. The air above the mountains was frigid and laden with plumes of tiny ice crystals.

The riders huddled close together for warmth. No one spoke. They wore their helms to keep their heads warm and wrapped wool mufflers around their faces to protect their skin from frostbite. Sara kept her gloved hands tucked under her heavy cloak.

Fortunately fifty miles, level as the dragon flies, does not take long on dragonback. Before the winter sun reached its zenith in the southern sky, the wing of dragons reached a particular humpbacked mountain that was a recognizable landmark along the Kortal trail.

Subcommander Torceth, on his blue, signaled to the six talons to split off and take their positions in preparation for the attack.

In groups of four or five, the great creatures separated and spread out along both sides of the trail. They tipped their wings and glided quietly upward, closer to the ice-bound mountain summits where they would be more difficult to see.

Sara glanced down. The trail had dropped down into a rocky valley dotted with pines and a few leafless groves of aspen. It curved in a broad sweep to the southeast between high walls of weathering granite. The dragons did not need their guide now to follow the trail. It lay below them like a long, unbroken white ribbon delineated by cliffs of gray stone and copses of gray-green evergreens.

All too soon the trail dropped down from the high mountains to the lower flanks, where the snow did not lie as deep and signs of civilization began to intrude. Small cottages could be seen here and there among the high pastures. A few goats grazed on a wind-scoured hill. The trail showed some evidence of use where someone had recently shoveled through a high drift.

Several dragons close to Sara's talon began to drift downward.

Sara's heart started to pound harder. Her hands turned clammy inside her gloves. She wanted to stop this, to warn the village ahead, but unless she was ready to sacrifice herself and probably Cobalt, Jacson, and Marika, too, she could do nothing but wait and watch.

Below, a high ridge thrust out from the side of a mountain, forcing the trail to rise several hundred feet before it leveled out along the crest, then dropped down into another valley. This second valley was broader and less rocky and scattered with wide, open areas that the summer were meadows of rich grass. At the base of the ridge, the trail continued a short distance toward a grove of large pines, where Sara noticed columns of smoke rising above the trees.

The first two talons landed their dragons on the ridge trail just behind the summit. The other groups continued on.

Sara told Cobalt to follow the southernmost group. Up and over the ridge they glided, as noiselessly as possible, in a wide arch that would bring them around behind the village on the eastern and southern side.

Sara saw the second path that forked off the Kortal trail. It went south through the heart the Khalkist range to Sanction, the port city on Sanction Bay. Another talon dropped down to guard that road. A moment later she spotted their objective, the eastern end of the Kortal trail, where it appeared again on the far side of the pine woods.

She pointed it out to Cobalt, and he led Squall, Tumult, and Howl in a quiet glide down to the ground. The last talon followed. The dragons landed heavily in a meadow out of sight of the village and immediately slid into the trees, where they could see the trail and the first few clusters of cottages. Sara and her squires took cover behind a deadfall covered with vines and brambles. Their four dragons hunkered down behind them in a thicker copse of pine.

The village had its origins in a single inn that had stood at the junction of the two trails for several generations. In time, people built a few houses, a livery stable, some storehouses, and a tavern that formed the nucleus of a thriving little village. More houses, shops, and a blacksmithy grew up around it. Beyond the limits of the huts and cottages were farms scattered along the valley, where farmers eked out a passable existence in terraced fields and small orchards. For most of the year, travelers passed through on their way to Neraka, Kortal, or Sanction, and shepherds from the lower regions around Kortal came in the summer, bringing their flocks to graze in the high meadows. It was a quiet, unassuming village that had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sara looked around almost frantically for guards. Someone should have seen the great blue dragons landing. They weren't exactly silent. But she heard no horns of warning, no shouts or cries of fear. The village sat peacefully in its sheltering trees, unaware of the horror about to descend on it. A few people were out among the buildings, but most seemed to be indoors, where the warmth of a fire and a hot meal were more pleasurable than the cold, drear day outside.

The knights in the talon with Sara's slid off their dragons and unsheathed their swords. They waited impatiently, intent on listening for the signal. When it came, a thundering boom echoed through the valley.

"That's it!" shouted the talon leader, and he charged up the trail toward the village with his knights close on his heels. Their three dragons roared their excitement. A stroke of lightning erupted from one of the beasts and exploded into the side of a cottage. The building collapsed, its wreckage already smoking. Flames licked at the dry wood and thatch, and in moments the ruin was overwhelmed with rushing, crackling fire.

That's when the screams began.

Several humans crawled dazedly out of the burning home.

The three dragons leapt forward through the trees. Their powerful legs toppled smaller trees and crushed the undergrowth. Their heavy bodies toppled the stone walls of several houses and demolished the wooden outbuildings.

Sara stared, appalled, as one dragon sank his claws into the struggling villagers and tore them to bloody shreds. The second smashed a stable and ripped a horse to pieces. It swallowed the animal, then grabbed a woman that came staggering out of the wreckage. Her terrified shriek died in a sudden burbling cough. The dragon shook her body fiercely and tossed her aside. Gleefully the three rushed on, their roars reverberating through the woods.

"Why did they do that?" Derrick shouted at her, his comely face rigid with shock.

Sara shook her head fiercely. "I don't know! They're supposed to capture the village, not raze it!"

Beside her, Treb licked her lips and watched everything with a wide-eyed stare. Her dragon, Tumult, squirmed impatiently.

From the buildings in the trees came more explosions and the sounds of terror. Cracks of lightning ripped through the chilly air, followed by thunderous crashes and the growing roar of fire. The columns of smoke Sara had noticed earlier changed to a dense, acrid pall. Tendrils drifted out through the tree trunks like ghostly tatters.

The squires could not see much of the village through the trees and the smoke, but it didn't take much imagination to understand what was happening. What they could see and hear was ghastly.

The knights were supposed to attack the village from three directions while their dragons stayed at the perimeter. Sadly, the knights and dragons alike, goaded by excitement and the lust for blood, rampaged into the village, destroying houses and slaughtering everyone the caught. House by house, the knights forced out the inhabitants and inexorably drove them toward the center of the village. Most of the people were too over-come with dragonfear to resist. Only a few courageous people tried to make a stand and fight off their attackers, and they were quickly cut down with sword or axe. Nearly every building was on fire, and most of the outlying homes were smoking ruins.

Where were the reported mercenaries? Sara thought furiously. Wasn't there anyone to defend this place?

Through a gap in the trees, she saw a small knot of six men and women slip through the flattened undergrowth where a dragon had already passed. They crept forward slowly, cowering with fear but determined to reach the trail and escape. They did not yet see Cobalt and the others.

Tumult started to edge after them.

"Hold him!" Sara snapped to Treb.

Treb rounded on her, her eyes strangely bright. "Why? Aren't we supposed to keep them from getting out?"

"We were only ordered to protect the flank from attack," Sara said fiercely. "Keep him under control."

Derrick's hands clenched into fists. "It doesn't matter now," he rasped.

Sara turned her head to see five knights charge after the villagers. Laughing with pleasure, they grabbed the unarmed men and hacked them down in front of the screaming women. Then their bloody swords slashed into the terrified faces of the women, and the screams were silenced.

Sara heard the sounds of someone being sick close by, but she couldn't turn to see who it was. Horrified and sickened, she watched the knights, their arms and faces splattered with blood, clean their blades on the dresses of the dead women and turn back to the burning village to find more victims.

From the center of the village rose a cacophony of shrieks and shouts and cries of agony. Dragons continued to roar through the trees and sear the remaining huts with their lightning breath.

"A knight must not engage in combat with an unarmed opponent," Sara hissed under her breath.

"What?" Kelena asked, her voice trembling.

Sara repeated the line from the Code for them all to hear. Then she yelled it with all her pent-up anger and frustration.

Tumult abruptly loosed a thundering roar and pounced out of his hiding place. He was a young dragon, and the smell of blood and the killing roar of other dragons was too much for him. In a frenzy, he bolted into the smoke toward the center of the village.

Sara spat a curse. She grabbed Treb's arm. "Come on! We have to bring him back! He has no business in there!" and she pulled the young woman out of their cover. Treb stood for a moment, looking confused, then she hefted her sword and started up the trail.

"You shouldn't go alone," Argathon cried. "Let us go with you."

Sara refused with a peremptory jerk of her hand. "Stay in position. Watch the road. I'll take Cobalt."

A sudden noise from the path made Sara whirl around. A large party of heavily armed men dashed up the road from the direction of Kortal. Their crossbows were already drawn, and even as Sara recognized their intent, they raised the stocks to their shoulders and fired their first volley at the squires and the dragons.

A tremendous wave of noise rolled over Sara: shouts and bellows of angry dragons, and the sizzling crackle of dragon lightning. Through it all, she heard one clear voice yell, "Sara, look out!" Then something crashed into her and knocked her to the ground. Her head, still healing from the attack days before, hit a tree root, and for a moment the sky seemed to fall in on her, and then all turned sickeningly black.