“Not for you. You’re just an angry old man who no one likes. But me? Oh, I’m getting my cloak, Rug. You just wait and see.”
Seats and steeds, Sir Pagaloth thought. That’s all it came down to with these men. The Bladeborn were trying to win their seats to Varin’s Table. The Lightborn were here to track down their cats and wolves after they’d run from the battle. They were selfish motivations, even in part dishonourable. Only Sa’har and I are truly driven by Lythian’s ideals, Pagaloth reflected. But it had served to keep them moving forward until now, and the peace had thus far been kept. It was a tense unity, and one built on unstable foundations, but so far they were proving that it could, theoretically, be done.
“Any more questions?” Hadros asked the group.
No one ventured anything.
“Good. Then let’s get going.” Sir Hadros brushed aside the stones and rolled up the map, stashing it back in his cloak. He stepped outside into the biting winds, the rest following. Mads Miller had guard of the door. He was another man-at-arms, another Bladeborn, though younger and much less grim and grumpy than Sir Bardol and Ruggard Wells. Miller was afflicted by some bizarre malady that made his features jerk and spasm at random. As a child the other boys had laughed at him and called him mad, but apparently that wasn’t enough. He was ‘more than mad’ they said, so they decided to use the plural form of the word, and he had been ‘Mads’ Miller ever since.
“What’s the plan, then?” Miller asked, as the leaders filed out. “Where we headed?”
“Fronnfallow,” said Sir Hadros. “Then home.”
“Fronnfallow?” Mads’ left eyelid flickered. Pagaloth could not tell if that was fear or just a part of his tick.
“Aye. Fronnfallow.” Hadros turned to the group. “Get the men ready to go. It’s a six-mile march and best we make haste while it’s still dry.” He looked up through the thin canopy. The skies were light enough to suggest no rain was imminent, but that could change quickly. The weather gods here were capricious, Pagaloth had come to see. In Agarath the weather was much more predictable. “Right. Let’s get to it.” Hadros clapped his gloved hands together with a slap of leather, and marched off to deliver his orders.
The deserters were assembled in a clearing where the trees thinned out, all standing and sitting about beneath the bleak grey skies awaiting their next instruction. There were some four hundred in total, over two hundred of them Agarathi. The rest were a mix of men of the empire - Lumarans, Piseki, Aramatians, Solapians - with some soldiers who hailed from the Islands of the Moon and the Twin Suns and the Golden Isles as well. Some thirty northern deserters had also been found, mostly Taynar soldiers from the Ironmoors who had fallen in beneath the command of Sir Bardol, who was a knight of House Kindrick, bannermen to the Taynars. Sir Hadros had given every northman a choice when they were dragged before him; to help guard the rest of the deserters, or else stay among them, as prisoners, and be brought before the king upon their return to the Point. “You know what happens to deserters,” Hadros the Homeless would always say, and that would be enough for them to swear their oaths and serve their duty.
Some of the southern deserters had been assimilated as well, taken in under the command of Sa’har or Moro or Bellio, or the paladin knight Sir Quento, who had charge of the Aramatian contingent, but they were few. The majority were watched over, day and night, and had been disarmed of their weapons to limit the threat of violence. Most of those had given themselves up willingly, though, and sought no quarrel. They had been hunted down and captured in their groups, often hiding away in old huts and barns and abandoned farmsteads, and rarely did they put up a fight when they heard the thunder of hooves arriving outside their door. As soon as they saw that it was not merely northmen on their trail, but a united host sent to bring them all together, they would see the sense in giving in. Sa’har in particular was a boon. He was a man of heroic tale to the Agarathi, widely revered, and had worked wonders in helping to usher the Agarathi deserters beneath their banners of unity.
Pagaloth walked with him now to where the two hundred Agarathi captives were waiting. The Skymaster found an old tree stump on which to stand, and climbed up, raising his hands. The men gathered around. “My friends,” Sa’har called out. “We will be travelling a little to the northeast, a two-hour march, to a place called Fronnfallow. Some of our brothers are in camp there, we are told. When they see us here united, I am sure they will want to join. After, we will return to King’s Point.” A murmur rippled through the crowd, men turning to look at one another, worried and wary. “Do not be afraid, my friends,” Sa’har said, raising his voice over the din. “The Vandarians mean you no harm. I have spoken to their king and he has assured us that all deserters and captives will be treated with honour and respect. On that you have my word.”
His word was enough to settle them down, and after that, they gathered themselves up to leave. Pagaloth stood watching for a while, scanning the men before him. After a time he shook his head. “I don’t see him,” he said to Sa’har. “The man who told us of the deserters at Fronnfallow.”
The old Skymaster had a quick look. “Ah. He is right there, Pagaloth.” He pointed to a man of middle years, with long greying hair and a kind face. He was standing with some of the others, speaking to them, his hands moving in gesticulation. They seemed enthralled.
But Pagaloth only frowned, confused. “That is…no, Skymaster, you are mistaken. That is not the man who spoke of Fronnfallow. He was younger, dark-haired.”
Sa’har Nakaan favoured him with a pleasant, teacherly smile. “I do not fast forget a face, Sir Pagaloth. Come, let us speak to him. He can tell us himself.”
They moved through the crowd. There was a lot of shouting going on in a lot of different tongues as the men of the empire were being mustered up to leave, called to action by Moro and Bellio and Quento and their own men. Pagaloth could see Hadros’s outriders trotting away into the woods on all sides, to keep watch for threats and give warning should a beast be spotted. That had happened on occasion. One rainy afternoon a fellwolf had been sighted, and Hadros and his men had gone forth to battle a grimbear once as well.
There had been some dragon sightings too, though mostly from afar. The most recent had been two days ago. Mads Miller had said the dragon had a rider on his back, but an hour later, when the same beast was spotted flying back south, Ruggard Wells had seen it and countered the younger man’s claim. It was riderless, Wells said. Hadros only shrugged and said ridden or riderless, it didn’t matter so long as the beast made no move to attack.
The grey-haired man was still talking to the group of Agarathi as they neared. There were some twenty of them, all staring at him, silent. Then suddenly the man broke off from his speech and turned, smiling. “Skymaster Nakaan. Sir Pagaloth.” He fell into a low bow. Without a word, the twenty deserters turned and stepped away, drifting off here and there into the crowd. “Is there something I can do for you?”
Pagaloth watched the men go. There was something strange about the way they dispersed in different directions like that. He looked at the grey-haired man, studying his features. “Your name is Ten’kin, is that right?”
The grey-haired man smiled. “That is correct. Ten’kin. We have spoken before, Sir Pagaloth.”
No, Pagaloth thought. It was the other man I spoke with, the younger man with the dark hair. The other man was called Ten’kin. Confusion blew through him like a cold wind.
“You look perplexed,” Sa’har noted, with that same teacherly smile. He gave a little laugh. “I do think our noble dragonknight is overworked and under-rested, Ten’kin.”
“What is the trouble?” Ten’kin asked, innocently.
“Nothing.” Pagaloth shook his head. Overworked and under-rested. Perhaps that’s all it was. “I wanted to ask of Fronnfallow. You said you came from there?”
“Yes. I did.”
“And there are men in camp there, is that right?” He waited for the man to nod. “Why did you leave?”
Ten’kin frowned and looked at Sa’har Nakaan, who said, “We have been through this already, Pagaloth. Ten’kin was sent out to find others, to bring them together. That is when we found him.”
“I…” Pagaloth rubbed his forehead, trying to remember. His sleep had been a paltry thing of late, there was truth in that, and maybe it had addled his sense of recall. He had another look at the man Ten’kin. He was old, into his fifties, much older than he had thought, and those eyes…were they kind? He thought they were kind before, but there was something strange in them as well, something empty. His lips were in a smile, but those eyes… it was like they were features of two separate faces, not in sync with one another. “My lord,” he said, turning to Sa’har. “A word in private, please.”
The Skymaster looked befuddled, but nodded and stepped away with him all the same. Ten’kin watched them go, smiling his empty smile. “I do not trust him,” Pagaloth whispered, when they had gone beyond the reach of his hearing. “There is something off about that man. How can we be sure he is who he says he is?”
“And who do you think he is, Sir Pagaloth?”
Pagaloth frowned at the question. “A common soldier, from the battle. He was…a spearman? Or…or was he a…” He could not recall. “I do not know, Sa’har.”
Sa’har smiled once again, a patient smile. “He was no soldier, Pagaloth. No man of the sword or the spear or the bow. He is Fireborn, a dragonrider, who lost his dragon as I did.”
“He…” Pagaloth shook his head. That was not how he remembered it. “No, my lord. That…that isn’t the case.”
“Now come, Pagaloth. You are beginning to vex me in this. We have spoken of this already. Two nights ago, when Ten’kin came to us. Do you not remember? I told you he was a dragonrider.”
Two nights ago… “I don’t…I don’t remember any of that, Sa’har.” His eyes moved back into the crowd of Agarathi deserters, all in their scratched and stained leather armour and robes. A few dragonknights moved among them, and here and there a fallen Fireborn dragonrider as well, in his coloured cape and fine dragonscale armour. He could not see Ten’kin anymore, and nor was that a known name. The true dragonriders of Agarath were famed all across the kingdom, rejoiced in song and tale at taverns and feast halls and palaces from Skyloft to Highport, from the Trident down to the Bloodgate. Everyone knew their names. Everyone. But not the new ones, Pagaloth thought. Not the unnatural ones, bonded by Eldur. “I don’t trust him, Sa’har. If he’s a dragonrider, why is he wearing plain garb?”
Sa’har Nakaan chuckled in bemusement. “Plain garb? You consider fine scales of dragonskin plain, Pagaloth? His soft silken cape in crimson and green? My, you must have some rich tastes.”
Pagaloth breathed out, astonished. “You are toying with me, my lord. You must be. He…he was wearing plain clothing, Sa’har. Leathers, linen.”
Sa’har Nakaan’s face went serious. “Pagaloth, my dear boy. I do not know if this is some misjudged jape on your part, but perhaps now is not the time? We have a distance to go still and I find myself in no mood for…”
“Listen to me, Sa’har.” Pagaloth grabbed him roughly by the arm, shaking. “Something is amiss here. That man...” He looked around. “Whoever he is…he is in your head. Think, really think. What was he wearing?”
