The garb gave him away. The rich armour, beautifully detailed. The fine cape that waved at his back in dark gold and shimmering black. On his head was a helm with a sunwolf roaring from its crest, wolf claws holding his cape at the shoulders. Beneath the dark leather saddle on which he sat charged an enormous sunwolf, thick-shouldered and powerful in the chest, with a bright golden mane flowing out from its armour. Blood covered the beast’s maw and stained the fur around its face. It was the wolf Gragaro, ridden by the Sunlord Avar Avam.

Emeric’s eyes narrowed upon them.

“Form up! Form up!” shouted Sir Ernold. He swung his cloak over his shoulder and stepped forward, holding his longsword in two hands.

Emeric glanced at Raynald. The boy prince was held down by two men as he fought to stand and fight. Brave boy, Emeric thought. He turned his back and faced the enemy, eyes trained on Avam as they came again. Spears flew and blades met, steel clanging and kissing. Another two of their own were killed, and Sir Ernold cut a paladin down, but Emeric’s thrust at the sunlord missed its mark and the company went charging by.

“We have to move!” someone shouted, one of the men huddled over the prince. “They’re picking us off. We have to run!”

“We can’t,” Sir Ernold shouted back. “They’ll charge us down. Our only chance is to…”

A dragon bellowed. Emeric swung about and saw the air shifting as the beast crashed down to land before them, the earth shuddering underfoot. The Fireborn in its saddle wore bright green and muddy brown, a mockery of the colours of Tukor to match his leathern steed.

“He’s back,” cried a voice. “He’s found us again.”

“He’s mine.” Prince Raynald battled the men away and pulled the sword from his hip. The blood had darkened and spread across his bandage. “You,” he tried to shout. “Fireborn. Finish the job if you dare. I challenge you to a duel, an honour-duel, just me and…and…” And he fell forward, passing out into the mud.

The dragonrider gave a cruel laugh. “Boy,” he sneered in a brutal attempt at their northern tongue. “Sick boy. Dead boy.” Emeric did not know him. The dragon he rode was large and fearsome, thick and muscular, a brute. There were some cuts to his shoulder and neck, leaking blood. Emeric wondered if the prince had inflicted them before the tail ripped his belly open.

The exile went out to meet him, striding forth alone. The dragonrider laughed again as he saw him stepping near. Smoke swirled and snorted from the dragon’s nostrils, fire burning deep and hot in its chest. Emeric could hear the sunlord and his company racing back across the field to his right, snapping and snarling. Sir Ernold was shouting for them to brace, to protect the prince, but they were outmatched and outnumbered, and would shortly be overwhelmed.

Emeric stood to face this new foe. His feet shifted into Glideform, quickest of the stances, best to avoid attacks. The dragon reared in response; it was larger than the one he’d slain. Its rider stood in the saddle, tore his blade from its sheath and raised it. This is it, Emeric thought. This is where it ends.

A new roar filled the world.

A deep thunder thick with rage, trembling the very air.

The dragon’s great head swung north toward the sound, its body tensing, lowering. It stood bulky as a warship, claws digging into the earth, a tongue hissing and quivering from its open mouth.

The smoke ahead of it moved, eddying. The ground shook, boom doom, boom doom, like a drumbeat. Boom doom, boom doom, it came, boom doom, boom doom, it neared, growing louder and stronger, and then suddenly he was there.

Tathranor, monstrous in white, his fur hardened to a thousand savage crystal spikes. Between the great moonbear’s shoulders stood Timor Ballantris, armoured in glittering scalemail in silver and blue and black. Down his back draped his cloak of lion fur, striped black and blue and white at the collar. Tall he stood, and grand and peerless. He raised his own gleaming sword aloft and shouted, “Jah Kavosh!” at the dragonrider, as Tathranor thundered on.

The dragon coiled its bulk, tearing great ruts in the earth as he sprung forward. Tathranor met it upon an open stretch of field, lifting his enormous forepaws from the earth to grapple and tackle the dragon to the ground. Emeric watched in awe as they crashed down into the earth. The sounds they made. The way the world shook. Great clods of dirt flew and rained about them, fire gushing, smoke swirling thick and black. The moonbear roared and the dragon screeched as they wrestled amid the burning shroud.

Emeric tore his eyes away and turned. He could not watch, nor could he help. Behind him, Avam’s Lightborn host was charging through Raynald’s guard. Emeric saw Sir Ernold knocked aside by a massive camel, but the Emerald Guard landed in a graceful roll and sprung right back to his feet, hurling a spear he found in the mud to catch the paladin knight in the back. Two other men were engaging a Sunrider. Another knelt with the unconscious prince, trying to revive him. A starcat was racing in behind him, preparing to leap, but Emeric tore his dagger from its sheath and threw in a single motion, catching the cat in the shoulder. It stumbled and fell, gouging a rut in the earth, the Starrider caught in the stirrups as he tried to crawl free. Emeric got their first. Cat and rider both fell to the edge of his blade as he cut them down with two quick swings.

The rest of the host were coming back around. Some were dead, others fled, the animals bolting at the sight of the moonbear. But not the sunlord. He charged low in the saddle, shrieking some Piseki battlecry as he made for the dying prince, the rest fanning out to face the others. No, Emeric Manfrey thought. He’ll not die today.

He stepped ahead of Raynald Lukar and put himself into Blockform, blade held vertically before him, feet set, stance wide. “Sunlord Avam,” he called out. “Do you remember who I am?”

The man did not give answer.

I will remind you, Emeric thought.

He shifted stance in a blink, feet switching to Strikeform and forward he flew. His enemy did not expect it. In a blur Emeric was on him, skidding low to the ground to cut at Gragaro’s legs. The wolf saw him coming, leapt up, but Emeric expected it, following up with his steel. He cut the beast’s hindquarters, slicing hard through armour and fur and flesh to part the meat of his trailing leg. The sunwolf howled and tumbled. Avar Avam was thrown forward, crashing into the body of a dead camel. Dazed, he tried to climb to his feet, tripped and fell. Emeric pressed on Gragaro, the wolf rising, limping, bleeding. Savage fangs flashed against firelight, snarling, red with the blood of the dead.

He sprung forward, Emeric swished sideward, and his eagle-blade flashed down. Blood soaked out through the sunwolf’s mane as he fell, whimpering, to die.

The exile strode up to the sunlord. “Do you remember who I am?”

The man was still dazed from his fall.

“I asked you a question.” Emeric reached out to pick him up by the throat and tore away his helm. The face behind stirred an old recollection of the one and only time they’d met. “Do you remember me, Avar?”

The man blinked. His nose was bloody, lip split. He had the tan skin of the Piseki, the thick black hair and brows, the dark eyes. He did not look fearsome, not like this. He is afraid, Emeric thought.

“You…I do not know you…”

Emeric lifted his visor. “And now?”

The man’s brow furrowed. “I…I don’t…who…”

Emeric threw him back down to the ground. The man was nothing without his sunwolf and no threat to him anymore. He turned around to check the battlefield. The last of Avam’s company were running away through fire and smoke and Emeric saw why. Ahead, not far from where the prince lay, Tathranor stood upon the field, his immense forepaws dripping blood, ragged strips of dragon flesh trailing from between his claws. The points of his spiked crystal armour gleamed red with blood and between his mighty jaws hung the head of his foe, tongue lolling, eyes rolling, faint wisps of smoke curling up from between its teeth.

Timor Ballantris stood triumphant in his saddle. He looked at Emeric, and nodded salute. Then with a thunderous roar, the moonbear swung about and charged away, flinging the dragon’s head aside as it went.

Emeric watched them fade into the shroud. But only for a moment. Much remained to be done, and there was a prince nearby who needed saving. But first…

He turned to look down upon Avar Avam, squirming at his feet. He did not need the man to acknowledge him. He only needed him to die.

His blade cut easily into the sunlord’s throat.

“For Brewilla,” Emeric said, as he twisted.

54

Lythian almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “Rope or blade?” he asked. “I’ll be kind and give you the choice.”

“My lord…please…please, I’m too young to die.”

Lythian disagreed. “I lost a son on the birthing table, Sir Fitz. That was too young to die. You’re five and twenty, and a knight. Now grow up and die like a man.” He did not care to soften his words, not with a lickspittle like this. “So let me ask you again. Rope or blade? Choose now or I’ll make the choice for you.”

“B-b-blade, my…my lord.”

“The right answer.” Lythian waved a hand. “Get him on his feet.” Sir Storos and Sir Oswin did the honours, hauling Fitz Colloway up. The knight groaned in pain from the wound he’d taken to the ankle. “Take him out into the main square with the others. Have them gagged and bagged. I want to get this done quickly.”

The man was dragged away, kicking and screaming and pleading for his life, but Lythian did not hear him. He had made his decree that any man caught deserting would die, and that counted double for knights.

It was raining outside the stone undercroft where Sir Fitz was being kept, a strong fall from grey skies cut with thicker bands of black. Away to the south, the Red Sea was raging wildly, and east the swollen Steelrun River ran furiously into the sea, carrying with it fallen trees and branches and broken boats, even corpses sometimes as well, all swept from the woods and the waterlogged coastlands.

Sir Ralf of Rotting Bridge was waiting outside the building, his grey hair soaked to the scalp. “Another dour day for another dour duty,” he said in a solemn voice. “Is it just me, or does the rain seem to fall with more purpose on these occasions?”

“The rain is always falling,” Lythian said. And men are always deserting. Decree death upon them as he did, that had not stopped the tide. Every night at least thirty or forty men still crept from the city, escaping through whatever breach they could find, and only one or two in every twenty were ever caught and captured.

Sir Fitz had been one of the unlucky ones. An archer had spotted him slipping away with his men and fired, catching Colloway in the ankle, and that had set his fate. A few of his more loyal soldiers had stayed back to help carry him as the others ran off, but Sir Adam’s men had caught up to them quickly and dragged them all back to the city. Well, there was some honour in what those men did, Lythian supposed, trying to save their captain, but it would not be enough to save them. They were deserters too and would pay the headsman’s price.