Sir Miles Hewitt gave answer. “Sir Hank. He is doing what he can to rally the remaining soldiers, but they’re almost all Taynar men. Doesn’t have the clout to command them, with Sir Bomfrey gone.”
“He’s dead?”
“Aye, as far as I know. Or missing. We’ve been doing what we can to gather information, but much of what we hear is unconfirmed and unreliable.”
“There have been reports of soldiers leaving, Elyon,” Artibus added, voice low. “Taynar men, returning north to the Ironmoors, rushing back to protect their families. Some are staying, but not enough to keep the peace, and in the aftermath of any battle, crime becomes rife. It has been a plague across the Lowers even since the people heard that Eldur has arisen, and now it’ll grow even worse. We need soldiers. We need leaders, to restore order. If King’s Point is truly in ruin, I would beseech your father to return.”
Elyon nodded, and took a grip of the old man’s arm. “I will tell him you said so, Artibus. He has always listened to your counsel.”
“Listened, yes, if not always agreed. But I pray that in this case…” He cut himself off, eyes turning sharply away. A woman nearby was calling for help; a young man appeared to be convulsing, white spittle frothing from his lips. “I must go,” Artibus said at once. “They need me.” He was already stepping away, moving through the crowds. “I hope to see you return soon, Elyon,” he called back. “Please, speak with your father. Impress upon him our need. And if you learn anything of Amara, and Lillia…”
“I’ll be sure to tell you, Artibus,” Elyon said, as the old man sped away to his duties. He understood that a physician’s first priority was his patients. He turned to Sir Miles. “How many men do you command?”
“Score or so, from the keep. And a few knights.”
“Bladeborn?”
“Aye.”
“And they’re here now?”
“Some. Left Sir Bismark back at the castle with a half dozen men to ward off looters. They’ll be scurrying all over the city, that sort, taking advantage. Pillaging, murdering, raping, all sorts. The old man’s not wrong, my lord. We need more soldiers here.”
“You’ll have them,” Elyon said. He could not be sure if his father would leave the coast just yet, but one way or another, he would see Varinar reinforced. “In the meantime, do what you can. And send word to Sir Hank that help is coming.”
“Aye. I’ll do that, my lord.”
Elyon nodded, turned, and began stepping away through the crowd. He needed to give himself room to take flight, and the people were pressed hard about him.
“Make way,” he said. “Please, I need space.”
Many eyes were on him, many lips opening and closing with questions about the dragons, and the Dread, and King’s Point, and the king. Merchants and wealthy artisans, lesser lords and ladies and old rich knights who dwelled here in their fine hillside homes and grand apartments near the harbour. Elyon recognised some of them, nobles he had rubbed shoulders with at balls and banquets. He saw Lord Meleforth, a shrunken old thing, who’d once been treasurer to King Horris Reynar, decades ago. And Lord Lancelyn, a rich shipwright, who had built half the boats in the harbour. Elyon had bedded both of their granddaughters once upon a time. Them, and more, he thought. A different time. A different life…
He kept on walking, giving what answers he could to the trail of desperation pursuing him. “The king will return,” he was saying. “My father…he will set things right. You don’t need to worry about the dragons anymore. They have done what they came for. They won’t be coming back.”
A hand grabbed his arm, clinging to his steel gauntlet. “Please, don’t go,” a girl’s voice begged. “We need you…we need you here.”
Others agreed, huddling about him. A hundred voices shouted for him to stay. “Sir Hank Rothwell remains in charge of the defences,” Elyon called, pulling himself away. “He is working to restore order, but more soldiers will come, I promise you. Now stand back…please, stand back. I have commands to follow from the king.”
He had to push at them now to make room. Gently, of course, though forcefully enough to make them see he was serious. “Stand back,” he said again, more firmly. “Stand back, for your own good. Or you may get hurt. Stand back!”
He stirred the winds, causing the ash to billow, skirts and robes to rise up. Suddenly the great chorus of shouts and voices was drowned by the blowing of the breeze. It was enough to get them stepping away from him, at least, all but the same girl as before, who reached out, weeping, clinging onto his leg. “Please, please, please,” she screamed. “Stay with us! What if they return!” Some others came to prise her off him. “You said you loved me, Elyon! You said that! Don’t you remember? If you love me, you’ll stay!”
He frowned, looking down at her. It only hit him then that he knew her, though for the life of him he couldn’t place her name. Nor what he might have said to get her into bed. A past life, he thought once more. A different time, a different man.
“Please, my lady, let go,” he said, as others wrestled her free. “I will come back, I promise. But in the meantime you must do what you can to help. You’re strong. I remember that. There are many here who need you. Help them. I will be back soon.”
If those words gave her any solace…if she would heed them…he didn’t know. As soon as she was dragged away, he thrust the Windblade skyward and took flight, leaving the grasping hands and pleading voices and desperate horde behind.
In the east, the sun was climbing, its glow dancing on the waters of the lake. The lands were scorched and blackened in patches, signalling the path of the Drulgar and his dreaded flock. A flock greatly reduced, Elyon thought, if the count of dead dragons had been anything to go by. Varinar might have been beaten, but it wasn’t broken, and Drulgar had paid for that in blood. His vendetta against Varin and his ancient city had not come without its cost. To his followers, and to him, Elyon knew, as he saw the heaps and blackened lumps of dried blood across the plains. It was the molten blood of Drulgar, he knew, searing the earth where it landed. And from what he could see, there was a great deal of it.
Elyon Daecar had caught a whiff of his prey. He flew after the trail, in pursuit.
4
The report was not as she’d hoped. “Nothing,” said the Butcher, shaking his large, bald, brown head, dappled with beads of sweat from the sweltering heat outside. “The snake has slithered away, I am sure of it. He escaped the city during the fighting.”
“Sure?” Saska repeated. “How sure?”
“Sure enough,” answered the Baker, seated behind a desk with his feet resting on the wood. The man had an apple pierced on the edge of a knife. He took a bite, chewed, and said, “There is a possibility - a small one - that the sunlord remains in the city, hidden in some den. There are hundreds of them here in Aram, these dens and little lairs, and new ones are made every day. Any house, any home, could conceivably be concealing him. Though that is looking less likely, the more we search. My brother is probably right. Most likely he is gone.”
“I am right.” The Butcher thumped his scarred chest. “My little big brother hates to admit this. But it’s true. I am always right.”
Little big brother. The Baker wasn’t exactly little, though compared to the Butcher he wasn’t large either. He was also the elder of the two, though imagining them as being born of the same mother or sired of the same father took some effort. She’d grown used to the gruesome sight of the Butcher, with the scores of scars that latticed his chest and arms and face and head, but his brother the Baker was newly introduced to her, and much different of appearance. A shorter man, he had unusually large, knuckly hands, thick forearms forested in tufts of hair, a broad, squashed nose, deeply furrowed forehead, dark, spirited eyes and missing right ear. The golden spectacles he wore rested unevenly upon those features, lending him an almost teacherly air, and he had bizarrely white teeth as well that shone unnaturally when catching the light.
They made an odd pairing, to be sure.
“How long will it take to smoke out these dens?” Sir Ralston Whaleheart asked them, in his booming voice.
The Baker gave a shrug. “How long does a man live? How long does a battle last? Questions without answers.” He pushed his spectacles up his nose. They seemed to fall down regularly, owing to that missing ear. “As I say. These dens breed like the feral little creatures that live in them. One is smoked out, another is born. Lord Krator has many friends in the city.”
“We killed his friends,” the Wall said to that. “Antapar and Konollio and their men…”
“Were but a few. He has more. Some are known to us; we have gone to them first, and of course, most of them have gone missing as well. Others are not known. Friends of friends who can be bribed and intimidated into concealing Lord Krator from our sight. These men are without count.” He took another bite of his apple, crunching. “But the foreign allies are just as numerous. If my brother is right, and the sunny snake has slithered away, then most likely he will have gone west, into Pisek. But of course, we will continue to search to make sure. I very much want to see the sunlord swing as well. Alive, he remains dangerous…and he will not forget the men who betrayed him.”
The Butcher laughed and shook the scabbard of his godsteel longsword, rattling the blade within. “The snake has been defanged. I have no fear of him.”
