SIX DUCHIES TROOPS poured into Blue Lake and took ship for the farther side and the Mountain Kingdom on the very days that the Red-Ships were beating their way up the Vin River to Tradeford. Tradeford had never been a fortified city. Although word of the ships' coming preceded them by fast messenger, the news was greeted with general disdain. What menace were twelve ships of barbarians to such a great city as Tradeford? The City Guard was alerted, and some of the dockside merchants took steps to remove their goods from warehouses close to the water, but the general attitude was that if they did manage to get as far up the river as Tradeford, archers would easily pick off the Raiders before they could do any real damage. The general consensus was that the ships must be bringing some offer of treaty to the King of the Six Duchies. There was much discussion as to how much of the Coastal Duchies they would ask ceded to them, and the possible value of reopening trade with the OutIslands themselves, not to mention restoring the trade flow down the Buck River.
This is but one more example of the errors that can be made when one thinks one knows what the enemy desires, and acts upon it. The folk of Tradeford ascribed to the Red-Ships the same desire for prosperity and plenty that they themselves felt. To base their estimation of the Red-Ships on that motive was a grievous mistake.
I don't think Kettricken had accepted the idea that Verity must die for the dragon to quicken until the actual moment he kissed her goodbye. He kissed her so carefully, his hands and arms held wide of her, his head cocked so that no silver smear would touch her face. For all that, it was a tender kiss, a hungry and lingering one. A moment longer she clung to him. Then he said something softly to her. She immediately put her hands to her lower belly. "How can you be so sure?" she asked him, even as the tears began to course down her cheeks.
"I know," he said firmly. "And so my first task must be to return you to Jhaampe. You must be kept safe this time."
"My place is in Buckkeep Castle," she protested.
I had thought he would argue. But, "You are right. It is. And thither I shall bear you. Farewell, my love."
Kettricken did not reply. She stood watching him walk away from her, an intense look of incomprehension on her face.
For all the days we had spent striving for this very thing, at the end it seemed rushed and untidy. Kettle paced stiffly by the dragon. She had bid us all farewell with a distracted air. Now she hovered beside the dragon, breathing as if she had just run a race. At every moment, she was touching the dragon, a fingertip caress, a dragging hand. Color rippled in the wake of her touch and lingered, fading slowly.
Verity took more care with his goodbyes. To Starling, he admonished, "Care for my lady. Sing your songs well and true, and let no man ever doubt the child she carries is mine. With that truth I charge you, minstrel."
"I shall do my best, my king," Starling replied gravely. She went to stand beside Kettricken. She was to accompany the queen on the dragon's broad back. She kept wiping her damp palms down the front of her tunic and checking to make sure the pack that carried her harp was secure to her back. She gave me a nervous smile. Neither of us needed more farewell than that.
There had been some furor about my decision to stay. "Regal's troops draw nearer with every passing moment," Verity reminded me yet again.
"Then you should hurry, so I will not be in this quarry when they arrive," I reminded him.
He frowned at that. "If I see any of Regal's troops upon the road, I shall see they do not get this far," he offered me.
"Take no risks with my queen," I reminded him.
Nighteyes was my excuse to stay. He had no wish to ride upon a dragon. I would not leave him. I am sure Verity knew the real reasons. I did not think I should return to Buck. I had already made Starling promise me that there would be no mention of me in song. It had not been an easy promise to wring from a minstrel. But I had insisted. I never wanted either Burrich or Molly to know that I yet lived. "In this, dear friend, you have been Sacrifice," Kettricken had told me quietly. She could offer me no greater compliment. I knew no word of me would ever pass her lips.
The Fool was the one who was being difficult. All of us urged him to go with the Queen and the minstrel. He consistently refused. "The White Prophet will stay with the Catalyst," was all he would say. I privately believed it was more a case of the Fool staying with Girl-on-a-Dragon. He had become obsessed with her and it frightened me. He would have to leave her before Regal's troops arrived at the quarry. I had privately told him that, and he had nodded easily, but with a distracted look. I doubted not that he had plans of his own. We had run out of time to argue with him.
There came a time when there was no reason left for Verity to linger. We had said little to one another, but I felt there was little we could say. Everything that had happened now seemed inevitable to me. It was as the Fool said. Looking back, I could see where his prophecies had long ago swept us into this channel. No one could be blamed. No one could be blameless.
He gave me a nod, before he turned and walked toward the dragon. Then he halted suddenly. As he turned back, he was unbuckling his battered sword belt. He came toward me, wrapping the belt loosely about the sheath as he came. "Take my sword," he said abruptly. "I won't need it. And you seem to have lost the last one I gave you." He halted suddenly in midstride, as if reconsidering. He hastily drew the sword from the sheath. One last time he ran a silver hand down the blade, leaving it gleaming behind his touch. His voice was gruff as he said, "It would be a poor courtesy to Hod's skill to pass this on with a blunted blade. Take better care of it than I did, Fitz." He resheathed it and handed it to me. His eyes met mine as I took it. "And better care of yourself than I did. I did love you, you know," he said brusquely. "Despite all I've done to you, I loved you."
At first I could think of no answer to that. Then, as he reached his dragon and placed his hands on its brow, I told him, I never doubted it. Never doubt I loved you.
I don't think I shall ever forget that final smile over his shoulder. His eyes went a last time to his queen. He pressed his hands firmly to the dragon's chiseled head. He watched her as he went. For an instant, I could smell Kettricken's skin, recall the taste of her mouth on mine, the smooth warmth of her bare shoulders gripped in my hands. Then the faint memory was gone and Verity was gone and Kettle was gone. To my Wit and my Skill they disappeared as completely as if they had been Forged. For an unnerving instant, I saw Verity's empty body. Then he flowed into the dragon. Kettle had been leaning on the statue's shoulder. She was gone faster than Verity, spreading out across the scales as turquoise and silver. Color flooded the creature and suffused him. No one breathed, save that Nighteyes keened softly. A great stillness held under the summer sun. I heard Kettricken give a single, choked sob.
Then, like a sudden wind, the great scaled body drew air into its lungs. His eyes, when he opened them, were black and shining, the eyes of a Farseer, and I knew Verity looked out of them. He lifted his great head upon his sinuous neck. He stretched like a cat, bowing and rolling reptilian shoulders and spreading claws. As he drew his clawed feet back, his talons scored the black stone deeply. Suddenly, like a sail catching the wind, his immense wings unfurled. He rattled them, a hawk settling his plumage, and refolded them sleek to his body. His tail gave a single lash, stirring rock dust and grit into the air. The great head turned, his eyes demanding we be as pleased with this new self as he was.
Verity-as-Dragon strode forward to present himself to his queen. The head he bent to her dwarfed her. I saw her whole reflection in one gleaming black eye. Then he dipped a shoulder to her, bidding her mount.
For one instant, grief controlled her face. Then Kettricken drew a breath and became Queen. Fearlessly she strode forward. She placed her hand on Verity's shining blue shoulder. His scales were slick and she slipped a trifle as she clambered to his back and then crawled forward to where she could straddle his neck. Starling gave me a look, of terror and amazement, and followed the Queen more slowly. I saw her take her place behind Kettricken, and check once more that her harp-pack was secured to her back.
Kettricken lifted an arm in farewell to us. She shouted something, but the words were lost to me in the wind of the dragon's opening wings. Once, twice, thrice he flapped them, as if getting the feel of them. Rock dust and grit flew stingingly against my face and Nighteyes pressed close against my leg. The dragon crouched as he gathered his great legs under him. The wide turquoise wings beat again and he sprang up suddenly. It was not a graceful launch, and he wobbled a bit as he took flight. I saw Starling clutch desperately at Kettricken, but Kettricken leaned forward against his neck, shouting her encouragement. In four beats, his wings carried him half the length of the quarry. He lifted, circling over the hills and trees that surrounded the quarry. I saw him dip his wings and turn to inspect the Skill road that led to the quarry. Then his wings began to beat steadily, carrying him higher and higher. His belly was a bluish white, like a lizard's. I squinted to see him against the summer sky. Then, like a blue and silver arrow, he was gone, speeding toward Buck. Long after he was gone from sight, I stared after him.
I let out my breath finally. I was trembling. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and turned. toward the Fool. Who was gone.
"Nighteyes! Where is the Fool?"
We both know where he is gone. There is no need to shout.
I knew he was right. Yet I could not deny the urgency I felt. I ran down the ramp of stone, leaving the empty dais behind me. "Fool?" I cried as I reached the tent. I even paused to look inside, hoping that he might be packing up what we'd need to take with us. I don't know why I indulged such a foolish hope.
Nighteyes had not waited. When I reached Girl-on-a-Dragon, he was already there. He was sitting patiently, tail neatly coiled about his feet, looking up at the Fool. I slowed when I saw him. My premonition of danger faded. He was sitting on the edge of the dais, feet dangling, head leaned back against the dragon's leg. The surface of the dais was littered with fresh chips from this day's efforts. I walked toward him. His eyes were lifted to the sky and the expression on his face was wistful. Contrasted against the dragon's rich green hide, the Fool was white no longer, but the palest of golds. There was even a tawny edge to his silky fine hair. The eyes he turned to me were pale topaz. He very slowly shook his head at me, but be did not speak until I leaned against her pedestal.
"I had been hoping. I could not help hoping. But I have seen today what must be put into a dragon so it can fly." He shook his head more forcefully. "And even if I had the Skill to give it, I do not have it to give. Even were she to consume all of me, it would not be enough."
I did not say that I knew that. I did not even say that I had suspected it all along. I had finally learned something from Starling Birdsong. I let him have a silence for a time. Then I said, "Nighteyes and I are going to go get two jeppas. When I come back, we had better pack swiftly and be gone. I did not see Verity give chase to anything. Perhaps that means Regal's troops are still far away. But I don't want to take any chances."
He drew a deep breath. "That is wise. It is time for this Fool to be wise. When you come back, I shall help you pack."
I realized then I was still gripping Verity's sword in its sheath. I took off the plain shortsword and replaced it with the blade Hod had made for Verity. It weighed strangely against me. I offered the shortsword to the Fool. "Want this?"
He glanced at me, a puzzled look. "What for? I'm a Fool, not a killer. I've never even learned to use one."
I left him there, to say his farewells. As we wended our way out of the quarry and toward the woods where we had been pasturing the jeppas, the wolf lifted his nose and snuffed.
Nothing left of Carrod but a bad smell, he noted as we passed the vicinity of the body.
"I suppose I should have buried him," I said as much to myself as him.
No sense in burying meat that is already rotten, he noted with puzzlement.
I passed the black pillar, but not without a small shudder. I found our straying jeppas on a hillside meadow. They were more reluctant to be caught than I had expected. Nighteyes enjoyed rounding them up considerably more than they or I did. I chose the lead jeppa and one other, but as I led them away, the others decided to trail along after us as well. I should have expected it. I had rather hoped the rest would stay and go wild. I did not relish the idea of six jeppas at my heels all the way back to Jhaampe. A new thought came to me as I led them past the pillar and into the quarry.
I did not have to return to Jhaampe.
The hunting here is as good as any we've found.
We've the Fool to think of, as well as ourselves.
I would not let him go hungry!
And when winter comes?
When winter comes, then … He is attacked!
Nighteyes did not wait for me. He streaked past me, gray and low, claws scratching against the black stone of the quarry floor as he ran. I let go of my jeppas and ran after him. The wolf's nose told me of human scent in the air. An instant later, he had identified Burl, even as he hurtled toward them.
The Fool had not left Girl-on-a-Dragon. That was where Burl had found him. He must have come quietly, for the Fool was never easy to take unawares. Perhaps his obsession had betrayed him. Whatever the case, Burl had got the first cut in. Blood ran down the Fool's arm and dripped from his fingertips. He had left smears of it all up the dragon as he climbed her. Now he clung, feet braced against the girl's shoulders and one hand gripping the dragon's gaping lower jaw. In his free hand he gripped his knife. He stared down at Burl balefully, waiting. Skill boiled from Burl, angry and frustrated.
Burl had climbed up onto the dais and was seeking to clamber up the dragon itself now as he strove to reach up and impose a Skill-touch on the Fool. The smoothly scaled hide was defying him. Only one as agile as the Fool could have shinnied up to the perch where he clung just out of Burl's reach. Burl drew his sword in frustration and swung it at the Fool's braced feet. Its tip missed, but not by much, and its blade rang against the girl's back. The Fool cried out as loudly as if the blade had bit truly, and sought to scrabble higher. I saw his hand slip where his own blood had greased the dragon's hide. Then he was sliding down, scrabbling frantically as he came down hard right behind the girl's seat on the dragon's back. I saw his head bounce glancingly against her shoulder. He looked half stunned, and clung where he was.
Burl lifted his sword for a second swing, one that could easily separate the Fool's leg from his body. Instead, soundless as hate could be, the wolf surged up onto the dais and took Burl from behind. I was still running toward them as I saw Nighteyes' impact drive Burl forward to smack against Girl-on-a-Dragon. He sank to his knees against the statue. His sword blow missed the Fool and rang again against the dragon's gleaming green hide. Ripples of color raced away from that clash of metal against stone, like the ripples made when one tosses a pebble in a still pond.
I reached the dais as Nighteyes darted his head in. His jaws closed, gripping Burl from behind, between his shoulder and neck. Burl screamed, his voice going amazingly shrill. He dropped his sword and lifted his hands to clutch at the wolf's ravening jaws. Nighteyes worried him like a rabbit. Then the wolf braced his front feet on Burl's wide back and made more sure of his grip.
Some things happen too swiftly to tell well. I felt Will behind me at the same moment that the wild spattering of Burl's blood became a sudden gushing. Nighteyes had severed the great vein in his throat, and Burl's life was pumping out in jumping gouts of scarlet. For you, my brother! Nighteyes told the Fool. This kill for you! Nighteyes still did not let go, but shook him again. The blood leaped like a fountain as Burl struggled, not knowing he was already dead. The blood struck the dragon's gleaming hide and ran down it, to puddle in the chiseled troughs the Fool had made attempting to free his feet and tail. And there the blood bubbled and steamed, eating into the stone as scalding water would have eaten into a chunk of ice. The scales and claws of the dragon's hind feet were unveiled, the detail of the whiplike tail exposed. And as Nighteyes finally flung down Burl's lifeless body, the dragon's wings opened.
Girl-on-a-Dragon soared up into the sky as she had strained to do for so long. It seemed an effortless lifting, almost as if she floated away. The Fool was borne away with her. I saw him lean forward, clutching instinctively at the supple waist of the girl before him. His face was turned away from me. I glimpsed the bland eyes and still mouth of the girl's face. Perhaps her eyes saw, but she was no more separate from the dragon than its tail or wing; merely another appendage, one to which the Fool clung as they rose higher and higher.
I saw all these things, but not because I stood and stared. I saw them in glimpses, and through the wolf's eyes. My own gaze I turned on Will as he ran up behind me. He carried a bared blade in his hand and ran easily. I drew Verity's sword as I turned, and found it took longer coming out of its sheath than the shortsword I had become accustomed to.
The strength of Will's Skill hit me in a buffeting wave just as the tip of Verity's blade came free of the scabbard. I staggered back a step and threw up my walls against him. He knew me well. That first wave had been compounded not just of fear, but of specific pains. They had been prepared especially for me. I knew again the shock of my broken nose, I felt the burn of my split face even if it did not stream hot blood down my chest as it once had. For a frozen heartbeat, all I could do was hold my walls against that crippling pain. The sword I gripped seemed suddenly made of lead. It sagged in my hand, its tip drooping toward the earth.
Burl's death saved me. In the moment that Nighteyes flung his lifeless body down, I saw that death lap against Will. His eyes sagged almost shut with the impact of it. The last member of his coterie was gone. I felt Will diminish abruptly, not just as Burl's Skill no longer supplemented his own, but as grief washed over him. I found in my mind an image of Carrod's rotting body and flung that at him for good measure. He staggered back.
"You've failed, Will!" I spat the words. "Verity's dragon has already risen. Even now it wings toward Buck. His queen rides with him, and she bears within her his heir. The rightful king will reclaim his throne and crown, he will scourge his coasts of Red-Ships and scour Regal's troops from the Mountains. No matter what you do here now, you are defeated." A strange smile twisted my mouth. "I win." Snarling, Nighteyes advanced to stand at my side.
Then Will's face changed. Regal looked at me out of his eyes. He was as unmoved by Burl's death as he would be by Will's. I sensed no grief, only anger at a lessening of his power. "Perhaps," he said with Will's voice, "perhaps then, all I should care for is killing you, Bastard. At whatever the cost." He smiled at me, the smile of a man who knows how the tumbling dice will fall before they land. I knew a moment of uncertainty and fear. I flung my walls up tighter against Will's insidious tactics.
"Do you really think a one-eyed swordsman has a fighting chance against my blade and my wolf, Regal? Or do you plan to throw his life away as casually as you have the rest of the coterie?" I flung the question in a faint hope of stirring discord between them.
"Why not?" Regal asked me calmly with Will's voice. "Or did you think I was truly as stupid as my brother, to be content with only one coterie?"
A wave of Skill struck me with the force of a wall of water. I staggered back before it, then regained myself and charged at Will. I'd have to kill him quickly. Regal had control of Will's Skill. He little cared what it would do to Will, how it might scorch him if he killed me with a Skillblast. I could feel him drawing up Skill power into himself. Yet even as I put all my heart into killing Will, Regal's words ate at me. Another coterie?
One-eyed or not, Will was fast. His blade was a part of him as he met my first thrust and turned it. I wished for an instant for the familiarity of my battered shortsword. Then I threw such thoughts aside as useless and thought only of breaking past his guard. The wolf moved swiftly past me, belly low, as he sought to close on Regal from Will's blind side.
"Three new coteries!" Will's voice gasped with effort as he parried my blade again. I slipped away from his thrust and tried to wrap his blade. He was too fast for that.
"Young, strong Skill users. To carve dragons of my own." A swiping slash whose breeze I felt. "Dragons at my beck, loyal to me. Dragons to bring down Verity, in blood and scales." He spun and darted a thrust at Nighteyes. The wolf leapt wildly away. I sprang in, but his blade was already back to meet mine. He fought with incredible speed. Another use of the Skill? Or a Skill-illusion he forced on me?
"Then they shall clear the Red-Ships. For me. And open the Mountain passes. The Mountains will be mine as well. I shall be a hero. No one will oppose me then." His blade struck mine hard, a jolt I felt in my shoulder. His words jolted me as well. They rang with truth and determination. Skill-imbued, they pounded against me with the solid force of hopelessness. "I shall master the Skill road. The ancient city will be my new capital. All my Skill users shall be drenched in the river's magic."
Another swipe at Nighteyes. It shaved a wisp of hair from his shoulder. And again that opening passed too swiftly for my own clumsy blade. I felt I stood shoulder-deep in water and fought a man whose blade was light as a straw. "Stupid Bastard! Did you truly think I cared about one pregnant whore, one dragon a-wing? The quarry itself is the true prize, the one you have left unguarded for me. The stuff from which a score, no, a hundred dragons shall rise! "
How had we been so stupid? How had we not seen what Regal truly sought? We had thought with our hearts, of Six Duchies folk, of farmers and fishermen who needed their king's arm to defend them. But Regal? He had thought only of what the Skill could win for him. I knew his next words before he flung them. "In Bingtown and Chalced they will bend their knees to me. And in the OutIslands, they will cower at my name."
Others come! And above us!
Nighteyes' warning nearly killed me. For in the instant I lifted my eyes, Will sprang at me. I gave ground, all but running backward to avoid his blade. Far behind him, from the mouth of the quarry, a dozen men ran toward us, brandishing blades. They moved not in step but with a oneness to them far more cohesive than any mere troops could have mastered. A coterie. I sensed their Skill as they approached like the stormwinds that precede a squall. Will suddenly halted his advance. My wolf raced to meet them, teeth bared, snarling.
Nighteyes! Stop! You cannot fight twelve blades wielded by one mind!
Will lowered his blade, then casually sheathed it. He called to the coterie over his shoulder. "Don't bother with them. Let the archers finish them."
A glance at the towering walls of the quarry showed me this was no bluff: Gold-and-brown-clad soldiers were coming into position. I grasped this was what the troops were about. Not to defeat Verity, but to take and hold this quarry. Another wave of humiliation and despair washed over me. Then I lifted my blade and charged at Will. Him, at least, I would kill.
An arrow clattered across the stone where I had stood, an other skittered right between Nighteyes' legs. A scream rose from the walls of the quarry to the west of us. Girl-on-a-Dragon swept low over me, the Fool on her back, a gold-and-brown archer writhing in the dragon's jaws.. The man was gone suddenly, a puff of smoke or steam swept away by the wind of her passage. She banked her wings, came in low again, snatching up another archer and sending one leaping into the quarry to avoid her. Another puff of smoke.
On the floor of the quarry, all of us were frozen, gaping up. Will recovered more quickly than I did. An angry shout to his archers, ringing with Skill. "Fire upon her! Bring her down!"
Almost instantly a phalanx of arrows went singing toward her. Some arched and fell before they even reached her. The rest she deflected with a single powerful beat of her wings. The arrows suddenly wobbled in the gust of her wind, and fell tumbling like straws to shatter on the quarry floor. Girl-on-a-Dragon abruptly stooped and came diving directly at Will.
He fled. I believe Regal abandoned him for at least as long as it took him to make that decision. He ran, and for an instant it appeared that he chased the wolf who had nearly closed the distance between him and the coterie. Save at the moment the coterie realized that Will was fleeing toward them with a dragon sheering through the air behind them, the coterie turned on their heels and fled as well. I caught a brief flash of Nighteyes' delighted triumph that twelve swordsmen would not stand to meet his charge. Then he cowered to the earth as Girl-on-a-Dragon swept low over all of us.
It was not only the harsh wind of her passage that I felt, but also a dizzying sweep of Skill, that in an instant snatched from my mind every thought I had been holding. As if the world had been plunged briefly into absolute darkness and then handed back to me in full brightness it was. I stumbled as I ran, and for an instant could not recall why I carried a bared sword or who I chased. Ahead of me Will faltered as her shadow swept him, and then the coterie staggered in their turn.
Her claws snatched fruitlessly at Will as she passed. The scattered blocks of black stone were his salvation, for such was her wingspan that he could elude her in the narrowness of their maze. She shrieked her frustration, the high wild cry of a hawk thwarted. She rose and banked to make a second sweep at him. I gasped as she flew right into a singing flight of arrows. They rattled uselessly off her hide as if the archers had targeted the black stone of the quarry itself. Only the Fool cowered away from them. Girl-on-a-Dragon changed course abruptly, to fly low over the archers and snatch another from their midst and consume him in an instant.
Again her shadow swept over me, and again a moment of my life was snatched from me. I opened my eyes to find Will gone. Then I caught a brief glimpse of him, veering as he ran dodging between the standing blocks of stone much as a hare breaks his trail as he flees from a hawk. I could no longer see the coterie, but suddenly Nighteyes sprang from the shadow of a stone block to race by my side.
Oh, my brother, the Scentless One hunts well! he exulted. We were wise to take him into our pack!
Will is my kill! I declared to him.
Your kill is my kill, he pointed out, quite seriously. That is pack. And he shall be no one's kill unless we spread out to find him.
He was right. Ahead of us, I heard shouts and occasionally saw a gold-and-brown flash as a man dashed across a wide space between the blocks of stone. But most of them had rapidly understood that the way to remain sheltered from the dragon was to cling closely to the edges of the immense stone blocks.
They are running for the pillar. If we get to where we can see it, we can wait for him there.
It seemed logical. To flee through the pillar would be the only way they could hope to escape the dragon for any length of time. I still heard the occasional clatter as arrows rained down in the dragon's wake, but a good portion of the archers who had ringed the quarry walls had retreated to the shelter of the surrounding forest.
Nighteyes and I abandoned all efforts to find Will and simply went directly to the pillar. I had to admire the discipline of some of Regal's archers. Despite all else, if the wolf and I broke cover for more than a few strides, we would hear a cry of "There they are!" and moments later arrows would be hailing down where we had been.
We reached the pillar in time to see two of Regal's new coterie dash across the open, hands reaching, to plunge into the dark pillar itself the moment they touched it. The rune for the stone garden was the one they chose, but perhaps it was only because it was the side of the pillar closest to cover. We did not move from the angle of a great block that sheltered us from arrows.
Did he go through already?
Perhaps. Wait.
Several eternities passed. I became certain that Will had eluded us. Above us Girl-on-a-Dragon swept her shadow over the quarry walls. The cries of her victims were less frequent. The archers were using the cover of trees to hide themselves. Briefly I watched her rise, circling high above the quarry. She hung shining green high against the blue sky, rocking on her wings. I wondered what it was like for the Fool to ride so. At least he had the girl part of the dragon to cling to. Abruptly Girl-on-a-Dragon tipped, side slipped in the sky, and then folded her wings, plummeting down toward us. At the moment she did, Will broke cover and ran for the pillar.
Nighteyes and I leaped after him. We were agonizingly close behind him. I ran fast, but the wolf ran faster, and Will fled the fastest of all. At the moment when his reaching fingertips brushed the pillar, the wolf made a final spring. His front paws slammed into Will's back, sending him head first toward the pillar. As I saw him melting into it, I cried out a warning to Nighteyes and gripped his fur to drag him back. He seized one of Will's calves as Will was snatched away from us. At the moment that his jaws closed on Will's flesh, the dragon's shadow swept over us. I lost my grip on the world and fell into blackness.
Tales abound of heroes who have wrestled dark foes in the underworld. There are a few told of those who have willingly entered the dark unknown to rescue friends or lovers. In a timeless moment, I was offered quite clearly a choice. I could seize Will and choke the life out of him. Or clasp Nighteyes to me and hold him together against all the forces that tore at his wolf's mind and being. It was, really, no decision at all.
We emerged into cool shade and trampled grass. One moment there was only darkness and passage; in the next we breathed, and felt again. And feared. I scrabbled to my feet, amazed to find I still gripped Verity's sword. Nighteyes heaved himself up, staggered two steps and fell over. Sick. Poisoned. The whole world sways.
Lie still and breathe. I stood before him and lifted my eyes to glare around us. My gaze was returned, not only by Will but by most of Regal's new coterie. Most of them were still breathing hard, and one gave a shout of alarm at the sight of us. When Will shouted, a number of Farrow guards came running as well. They fanned out to surround us.
We must go back through the pillar. It's our only chance.
I cannot. You go. Nighteyes' head drooped toward his paws and his eyes closed.
That is not pack! I told him sternly. I lifted Verity's sword. So this was how I was going to die. I was glad the Fool had not told me. I probably would have killed myself first.
"Just kill him," Will ordered them. "We've wasted enough time on him. Kill him and the wolf. And then find me an archer who can shoot a man off a dragon's back for me." Regal turned Will's back to me and strode away, still issuing orders. "You, Third Coterie. You told me a finished dragon could not be wakened and made to serve. Well, I have just seen an un-Skilled Fool do that very thing. You will find out how it was done. You will begin now. Let the Bastard test his Skill against swords."
I lifted my sword and Nighteyes pulled himself to his feet. His queasiness lapped against my fear as the circle of soldiers closed around us. Well, if I must die now, there was no more to fear. Perhaps I would try my Skill against their swords. I discarded my walls, flinging them aside disdainfully. The Skill was a river that raged all around me, a river that in this place was always in flood. As easily as drawing a breath it was to fill myself with it. A second breath banished my body's weariness and pains. I reached out with strength to my wolf. Beside me, Nighteyes gave himself a shake. The rising of his hackles and the baring of his teeth made him twice as large. My eyes circled the swords that surrounded us. Then we no longer waited, but sprang to meet them. As swords lifted to meet mine, Nighteyes raced forward and under them, then spun to slash a man's leg from behind.
Nighteyes became a creature of speed, teeth, and fur. He did not try to bite and hold. Instead he used his weight to knock men off balance, sending them stumbling into one another, hamstringing them when he could, slashing with his teeth rather than biting. For me the challenge became not to strike at him as he dashed thither and yon. He never tried to challenge their swords. The moment a man turned to him and advanced, he fled, to shoulder past the legs of those who sought to confront me.
As for me I wielded Verity's sword with a grace and a skill I had never before known with such a weapon. Hod's lessons and Hod's work finally came together for me, and if such a thing were possible, I would say that the spirit of the swordmaster was in the weapon and that she sang to me as I wielded it. I could not break out of the circle they pinned me in, but neither could they get past my guard to do more than minor damage.
In that first flurry of battle, we fought well and did well, but the odds were impossible. I could force men back from my sword and step toward them, but in the next moment I must turn to fight those who had closed behind me. I could move the circle of battle, but not escape it. Still, I blessed the greater reach of Verity's sword that kept me alive. Other men were coming at a run to the din and shouts of fighting. Those who came drove a wedge between Nighteyes and me, forcing him ever farther away.
Get clear of them all and run. Run. Live, my brother.
For answer he raced away from them all, then suddenly came looping back, charging right through their midst. Regal's men hacked at each other in a futile effort to stop him. They were not used to an opponent less than half the height of a man and with twice the speed of one. Most aimed chopping blows at him that did no more than cleave the earth in his wake. In an instant, he was past them and had vanished once more into the lush forest. Men glared about wildly, wondering where next he would come from.
But even at the hottest of the fight, I knew the hopelessness of what we did. Regal would win. Even were I to kill every man here, Will included, Regal would win. Had already won for all that matter. And had I not known he always would? Had not I known, from the very beginning, that Regal was destined to rule?
I took a sudden step forward, took off a man's arm at the elbow, and used the momentum of that blow to call the sword's blade back in an arc that took the tip across the face of another man. As the two fell, tangling together, there was a tiny opening in the circle. I took a step into the brief space; focused my Skill and seized Will's insidious grip upon my mind. I felt a blade lick against my left shoulder as I did so. I spun to engage my attacker's sword, then bade my body think for itself for a moment and made good my grip on Will. Wound through Will's consciousness I found Regal, twisted into him like a drill-worm in a deer's heart. Will could not have broken free of him even if he had been able to think of doing it. And it seemed to me that there was not enough left of Will to even form a thought for himself. Will was a body, a vessel of meat and blood, holding Skill for Regal to wield. Bereft of the coterie that had strengthened him, he was not all that formidable a weapon anymore. Less valuable. One that might be used and cast aside with little remorse.
I could not fight in both directions at once. I kept my grip on Will's mind, forced his thoughts away from mine, and strove to direct my body as well. In the next instant, I took two cuts, one to my left calf and one to my right forearm. I knew I could not sustain it. I could not see Nighteyes. He at least had a chance. Get clear of this, Nighteyes. It's all over.
It but begins! he contradicted me. He surged through me like a flash of heat. From some other part of the camp, I heard a cry in Will's voice. Somewhere, a Wit-wolf ravaged his body. I could sense Regal trying to unwind his mind from Will's. I clamped my hold tighter on them both. Stay and face it, Regal!
The point of a sword found my hip. I jerked away from it and stumbled against stone, leaving a bloody handprint as I pushed myself upright again. It was Realder's dragon; I had dragged the battle that far. I put my back to him thankfully and turned to face my attackers. Nighteyes and Will still fought; plainly Regal had learned something from his tortures of Witted ones. He was not as vulnerable to the wolf as he once would have been. He could not hurt the wolf with Skill, but he could wrap him with layer upon layer of fear. Nighteyes' heart was suddenly thundering in my ears. I opened myself once more to the Skill, filled myself and did that I had never attempted before. I fed Skill strength as Wit to Nighteyes. For you, my brother. I felt Nighteyes repel at Will, breaking free of him for an instant. Will used that instant to flee us both. I longed to give chase, but behind me, I felt an answering stir of the Wit in Realder's dragon. In a brief stench, my bloody handprint on his hide smoked away. He stirred. He was awakening. And he was hungry.
There was a sudden crackling of branches and a storm of torn leaves as a great wind broke into the still heart of the forest. Girl-on-a-Dragon landed abruptly in the small cleared space by the pillar. Her lashing tail cleared the area around her of men. "Over there!" the Fool shouted to her, and in a moment her head snaked out, to seize one of my attackers in her fearsome jaws. He vanished in a puff of smoke, and I felt her Skill swell with the life she had consumed.
Behind me, a wedge-shaped reptilian head lifted suddenly. For a moment all was blackness as that shadow passed over me. Then the head darted out, swifter than a striking snake, to seize the man nearest us. He vanished, the steam of what he had been stinking briefly past me. The roar the dragon gave near deafened me.
My brother?
I live, Nighteyes.
As do I, brother.
AS DO I, BROTHER. AND I HUNGER!
The Wit-voice of a very large carnivore. Old Blood indeed.
The strength of it shivered through my bones. Nighteyes had the wit to reply.
Feed, then, large brother. Make our kill yours, and welcome. That is pack.
Realder's dragon did not have to be invited twice. Whoever Realder had been, he had put a healthy appetite into his dragon. Great clawed feet tore clear of the moss and earth; a tail lashed free, felling a small tree as it passed. I was barely able to scramble out of his path as he lunged to engulf another Farrowman in his jaws.
Blood and the Wit! That is what it takes. Blood and the Wit. We can wake the dragons.
Blood and the Wit? At the moment, we are drenched in both.
He understood me instantly.
In the midst of slaughter, Nighteyes, and I played an insane child's game. It was almost a contest to see who could wake the most, a contest the wolf easily won. He would dart to a dragon, shake blood from his coat onto it, then bid it, Wake, brother, and feed. We have brought you meat. And as each great body smoked with wolf-blood and then stirred, he would remind it, We are pack!
I found King Wisdom. His was the antlered dragon, and he roused from his sleep shouting, Buck! For Buckkeep! Eda and El, but I am hungry!
There are Red-Ships aplenty off the coast of Buck, my lord. They but await your jaws, I told him. For all his words, there was little human left about him. Stone and souls had merged, to become dragons in truth. We understood one another as carnivores do. They had hunted as a pack before, and that they recalled well. Most of the other dragons had nothing at all human about them. They had been shaped by Elderlings, not men, and we understood little more of one another than that we were brothers and had brought them meat. Those who had been formed by coteries had dim recollections of Buck and Farseer kings. It was not those memories that bound them to me, but my promise of food. I counted it as the greatest blessing that I could imprint that much on those strange minds.
There came a time when I could find no more dragons in the underbrush. Behind me, where Regal's soldiers had camped, I heard the cries of hunted men and the roaring of dragons as they competed for not meat, but life. Trees gave way before their charges and their lashing tails sliced brush as a scythe cuts grain stalks. I had paused to breathe, one hand braced on my knee, the other still gripping Verity's sword. Breath came harsh and dry to me. Pain was beginning to break through the Skill I had imposed on my body. Blood was dripping from my fingers. Lacking a dragon to give it to, I wiped my hand down my jerkin.
"Fitz?"
I turned as the Fool ran up to me. He caught me in his arms, hugged me hard.
"You still live! Thank all gods everywhere. She flies like the wind itself, and she knew where to find you. Somehow she felt this battle, from all that distance." He paused for breath, and added, "Her hunger is insatiable. Fitz, you must come with me, now. They are running out of prey. You must mount her with me, and lead them to where they can feed, or I do not know what they will do."
Nighteyes joined us. This is a large and hungry pack. It will take much game to fill them.
Shall we go with them, to their hunting?
Nighteyes hesitated. On the back of one? Through the air?
That is how they hunt.
That is not this wolf's way. But if you must leave me, I will understand.
I do not leave you, my brother. I do not leave you.
I think the Fool sensed something of what passed between us, for he was already shaking his head before I spoke. "You must lead them. On Girl-on-a-Dragon. Take them back to Buck and Verity. They will hearken to you, for you are pack with us. It is something they understand."
"Fitz, I cannot. I was not made for this, this slaughter! This taking of life is not why I came. I have never seen this, not in any dream, nor read of it in any scroll. I fear I may lead time awry."
"No. This is right. I feel it. I am the Catalyst, and I came to change all things. Prophets become warriors, dragons hunt as wolves." I hardly knew my own voice as I spoke. I had no idea where such words came from. I met the Fool's unbelieving eyes. "It is as it must be. Go."
"Fitz, I … " Girl-on-a-Dragon came lumbering toward us. On the ground, her airy grace deserted her. Instead she walked with power, as a hulking bear or a great horned bull does. The green of her scales shone like dark emeralds in sunlight. The girl on her back was a breathtaking beauty, for all her empty expression. The dragon head lifted and she opened her mouth and darted her tongue out to taste the air. More?
"Hurry," I bid him.
He embraced me almost convulsively, and shocked me when he kissed my mouth. He spun and ran toward Girl-on-a-Dragon. The girl part of her leaned down, to offer him a hand as she drew him up to sit behind her. The expression on her face never changed. Just another part of the dragon.
"To me!" he cried to the dragons that were already gathering around us. The last look he gave me was a mocking smile.
Follow the Scentless One! Nighteyes commanded them before I could think. He is a mighty hunter and will lead you to much meat. Hearken to him, for he is pack with us.
Girl-on-a-Dragon leaped up, her wings opened, and with powerful beats they carried her steadily upward. The Fool clung behind her. He lifted a hand in farewell, then quickly put it back to clutch at her waist. It was my last sight of him. The others followed, giving cry in a way that reminded me of hounds on a trail, save they sounded more like the shrilling of raptor birds. Even the winged boar rose, ungainly as was his leap into the air. The beating of their wings was such that I covered my ears and Nighteyes shrank belly-down to the earth beside me. Trees swayed in that great passage of dragons, and dropped branches both dead and green. For a time the sky was filled with jeweled creatures, green and red and blue and yellow. Whenever the shadow of one passed over me, I knew a blackness, but my eyes were opened and watching as Realder's dragon lifted, last of them all, to follow that great pack into the sky. In a short time, the canopy of the trees hid them from my view. Gradually their cries faded.
"Your dragons are coming, Verity," I told the man I had once known. "The Elderlings have risen to Buck's defense. Just as you said they would."