When Dragons Rage

35

Too much had been going right. Will growled as the small group came to Meredo’s north gate. The day had dawned bright but cold, with a clear sky and small sun that promised no warmth. It was not the best weather in which to start a trip, but not that bad, considering the time of the year. Pushing the horses, they could make the trip in a week to a week and a half.

And the things that had gone right had been considerable. Kerrigan had returned looking a bit worn, with a hideous, half-naked green creature trailing after him. The innkeeper would have protested but for the fact that Vilwanese sorcerers had been looking for him, and the innkeeper had no desire to be turned into a frog or, worse yet, whatever it was the young master had following him.

Kerrigan didn’t say much about his absence, other than to say he’d met a powerful sorcerer who was going to help him with a mission that was critical to stopping Chytrine. Bok, the malachite urZrethi male, was a servant on loan, and would accompany them on their travels. His master would catch up with them later.

The magicker did cast some spells to repair Will’s blacked eye, then checked over his throat. He listened very intently to the story of Lady Snowflake. He thought for a long time, then gave Will a serious look.

“I don’t know who she was or what she did, but it was powerful magick. You’re healed, I can tell that. The spells I cast show there is nothing wrong with you, nothing at all.”

Will had arched an eyebrow. “That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

Kerrigan nodded, then reached out and lifted Will’s chin. He turned his head left and right, then frowned. “The only thing wrong is this: those scars should have given me some sense of something wrong. Same with the feeling of cold troubling you. It’s not a big problem, after all, since you can get warm, and the scars are not bad, and I sense no magick that would prevent you from being healed, but it is odd.”

“Have you ever seen anything like it before?”

“No, and that is what is odd. When I checked Crow and worked on his broken leg, I also could see all the other injuries he’d had, including just getting old. Same thing with Orla. When I healed her from injuries, I repaired some other things. I cleaned up some bits of wear from age, so she wouldn’t have those aches and pains. When I cast a diagnostic spell after that, there was less wrong with her than before.”

Will nodded. “That makes sense. It would be like your spell comparing the injured person against who they would be in top shape and you fixing the differences.”

“Exactly. In your case, though, the magick says that even cold and even with those scars, you are the best you can be.”

“Could you fix the scars?”

The bed in Kerrigan’s room groaned as he shifted his weight. “I could, if I could find them. I can see them, of course, but as far as magick is concerned, they don’t exist. For me to set things to rights, there has to be a sense of wrongness, and there isn’t here. Maybe if the spells that healed you interfered with each other, you could get this sort of mix-up. Maybe. I’m guessing.”

Will smiled. “You, guessing?”

“Well, yes.”

“And admitting it?”

Kerrigan’s expression soured. “I see you’ve not changed in my absence.”

The thief shifted his shoulders uneasily. “Only a little.”

The two of them had left Kerrigan’s room to join Princess Sayce and Dranae near the fire. There Sayce and Dranae recounted the exchange at the palace for the mage. Though they kept their voices low, Will knew the story would be flying through the streets of Meredo faster than the snow. While he knew that might not be a good thing, Will had put it out of his mind.

Until now.

A company of horsemen waited in the courtyard near the gate. They’d clearly been there for a while and, what was odder yet, each of them had a bare face. Their masks had been tied to their upper right arms, as was Will’s.

One man brought his horse forward to bar their path. He had sharp features and dark eyes, which were accentuated by the fact that the flesh which his mask had hidden was noticeably paler. He looked straight at Will, ignoring Crow and Alexia. “You’re the Norrington?”

Will nodded wearily and urged his horse forward, leaving Princess Sayce’s side. “I am.”

“You called the king a coward and said he wasn’t worthy of the sort of stouthearted folk we have here?”

“Something like that.”

“And in the Rampant Panther you said that we all need to be heroes to fight the Nor’witch?”

Will caught something odd in the man’s voice. “Yes, I guess I did.”

The man smiled. “Well, then, we’re your men. Our ancestors, they took to wearing masks to hide who they were. But that’s not serving us too well right now, so we’ll be wearing our masks as you do, and we’re adopting new names. We’re the Oriosan Freeman Company, pleased if you’d be leading us to Caledo.I’m Wheatly.”

The thief blinked and didn’t know what to say. When he’d seen them, he had anticipated trouble. But before Will could get past his surprise, the Murosan Princess rode forward. “In the name of King Bowmar of Murosa, I welcome you, Captain Wheatly, and your men. Please, join us.”

“Gladly. Thank you, Princess.” Wheatly waved his arm and his group started to thread their way back through the Lancers to make up the rear of the column. Most of the riders gave him a nod, but two bringing up the rear refused to meet his eyes.

“Wait a minute. Stop.” Will frowned. “Do I know you?”

The first man, whose soft shoulders mirrored his soft chin, shook his head. The second, looking young enough to be the first man’s son, smiled confidently. Though a large man, and quite powerfully put together, his voice squeaked with tightness. “My brother doesn’t speak much, Lord Norrington.”

Will caught the voice and glanced at the man’s hands to confirm his identity, but his thick mittens thwarted him. “Your name?”

“I’m known as North, my lord, and this is Lync…”

The other man looked up. “Lindenmere.”

A shiver ran down the thief’s spine. Kenleigh and Linchmere, what are you thinking? “You two should go home.”

Lindenmere’s voice shrank into a croak. “I have no home.” The mask on his upper arm had a second orphan notch cut into it. “I was born to the mask. I want the chance to earn it.”

“And you… uh, North?”

“As long as Chytrine is out there, no one is safe. Sooner we kill her, the less time I spend fearing for my family.”

Will thought for a moment, then nodded. “As the princess said, welcome.”

“Obliged, my lord.”

Will reined his horse about and fell in with Princess Sayce as she led the way out of Meredo. Not many folks were out, given the chill. Those few who were stopped and stared as the company rode past. Will couldn’t help but smile, given that the troupe had to be as odd a sight as had been seen since the last time a Harvest Festival had been held there.

Glancing back over his shoulder as a squad of Lancers rode out and along the road as foreguard, Will took a good look at the group. Alexia, Crow, and Resolute came next, followed by Dranae and Kerrigan. Lombo loped through the snow, looking as if he was having fun, and Qwc looped and swirled through the clouds of snowflakes that the Panqui would toss into the air. Bok loped along on impossibly slender stork legs, bearing a big wooden chest strapped to his back.

After him came a series of five wagons the princess had hired in Meredo, which had been fitted with runners for the snow. A big, boxy wagon led them and Peri rode in it. While she could easily fly in the cold, the air did get even colder higher up, and sometimes vicious winds blew. No one wanted her wings to get frostbitten, so they’d fashioned a rather cozy nest for her in the wagon. She had protested, but everyone countered that she was their secret weapon and she let that fiction mollify her.

After the wagons came a squad of the Lancers, all bright in their scarlet riding leathers. The Freemen company, which swelled to just over forty as other riders caught up, came next, and then the rear guard of lancers. The column stretched out over nearly three hundred yards and looked quite formidable.

Princess Sayce caught Will’s eye and smiled as he turned to face forward. “I have to thank you for having your men join us.”

“My men?”

She nodded and frosty breath trailed back as she spoke. “The Freemen.”

“They’re not mine.”

Sayce looked at him hard, then white teeth scraped over a full lower lip. “You have no understanding of what happened at the gate, do you?”

Will frowned. “Princess, I may be the Norrington, but I was raised in the slums of Yslin. I’m a thief. King Scrainwood gave me a mask and a pat on the head and expected me to be his puppet. What happened at the gate was that a bunch of men who have decided they want to die have joined us.”

Her blue eyes glittered for a moment, then she looked ahead. “In Muroso, Oriosa, and Alosa, for a man to bare his face before another is… Well, you only show your face to your family and closest friends. To show it to a stranger and to speak to you as Wheatly did… By removing his mask he was renouncing his former allegiances. He was, in effect, asking you to accept him as a vassal.

“They were, to a man, inspired by your words and your actions. Their masks used to define who they were. Now they want to be identified as your people. When you think they are worthy, they will expect you to mark their masks and let them don them again.“

“Oh.” Will took a deep breath and the cool air burned the back of his throat, making him cough. “Did I do it badly, then?”

She laughed. “No, not at all. That is why I was surprised you didn’t know what you were doing.”

“What about my telling Linchmere and Kenleigh to go home?”

Sayce looked over at him. “You must never call them by those names. Those are the names they had when they wore their masks. It’s the same as it was with Crow. When he had a mask, he was Tarrant Hawkins. He lost his mask, he became Crow. They are now Lindenmere and North.”

“And what did they think when I told them to go home?”

She pursed her lips for a moment. “You told them, in essence, they would have to work hard to prove themselves worthy of your mark on their masks. It wasn’t a bad thing to tell them. North will watch out for Lindenmere, you know.”

“I gathered, yes.”

Will breathed in deeply, but more carefully, then raised his scarf to cover his mouth and nose. So much had changed. He’d gone from being a gutter-skulker to someone Crow and Resolute believed might be the solution to a prophecy. Then portions of the larger world began to see him as the solution to the troubles Chytrine was making. And now people looked at him with hope in their eyes, when a year earlier they’d have looked at him with contempt or fear.

And now I have people who want to fight and die for me. He shifted his shoulders awkwardly. In the time he had come to know Crow, Resolute, and Alexia—and the rest of the company—he had come to trust them. He would fight for them and with them. Their adventures had welded them together.

But the Freemen, they were entirely different. They weren’t there because he was the Norrington. These men had heard his words and had heard of his deeds, and based on that alone had wanted to join with him. He’d have thought that maybe some of them were just out for adventure, but for an Oriosan to remove a mask was not an easy thing. As the princess had said, that was more than a spur of the moment decision.

Will looked over at the flame-haired Murosan. “Highness, I am now responsible for those men?”

She nodded. “Yes, you are. What they do is done in your name. You will pay for them, discipline them, and reward them.”

“Pay for them?” Will looked back. “If I’d stolen the crown jewels, I couldn’t pay for them.”

“Lord Norrington…”

“Will, please.”

“Will, you are required to pay those bills presented to you. Wheatly and Lindenmere, North and some others are not without means. You can tell that by their horses and their clothes. You will find that they will take care of themselves.” She held a hand up to forestall a comment. “And, despite what you said before King Scrainwood, you will find the crown of Muroso will amply reward you for your efforts on our behalf.”

Sayce stripped the mitten off her left hand, then worked a small ring from her index finger. She held it out to Will and he took it. It contained a small cameo mounted on a simple gold band.

He made to hand it back to her, but she shook her head. “You want me to have this?”

“I would be honored.”

“Well, it is beautiful, but I doubt I could get enough for it to feed my men for a night.”

Sayce laughed aloud and Will liked the throaty sound. Her eyes flashed brightly and almost as intensely as they had when she first found him. He remembered that, and her taking his hand. Heat flushed his cheeks.

“Will, that ring was from my father’s mother. It represents an estate in western Muroso, near Lake Eori. The income from it, even in a poor year, will keep a dozen times that number of men.”

“I can’t take this!”

“But you must. You gave your lands away so you could come help my nation.” Sayce smiled at him. “Now it is your nation, too. I don’t expect that will make you fight any harder against Chytrine, just make the results of victory that much sweeter.”

Will smiled, suddenly taken with having a new nation as his home. He removed his right glove. He slipped the ring on his index finger. “Thank you.”

“The right hand. Your sword hand. Good.”

“What?”

“It means you’ll fight.” The princess raised her own scarf to hide the lower part of her face. “Come, Lord Norrington, north to your new home. And death to our enemies.”