“Yes.” Eustace Fairside nodded, his moustache waving like a fan. A stumpy finger gestured out across the Red Sea, moving from east to west. “The ships have been given orders to disperse, as you asked. Kite will fly west, to bring news of Green Harbour, the Twinfort, and elsewhere. Swift will make straight for the Trident, and get as close as she dares. The crew are brave, the captain braver. If the enemy armada has returned home to lick their wounds, there is no better boat to spot them, and get back to us in one piece. Sparrow will report upon the Tidelands. I would not expect her back for some time. Tern will sail for the Claws, and see what she sees along the way, and lastly Thrush…she’ll sail the space in-between all that and search the Wooded Isles. It’s possible some enemy ships limped there, or they may even have taken it as a short-term harbour. My birds will find out.”

Birds, yes. He is fond of them, by those names. Amron had a direct question on his tongue. “Do you expect any of them to return?” He knew that Lady Brockenhurst had stopped sending out scouting ships, as they simply stopped coming back. “Answer truthfully, Commodore.”

“I have hope,” is all Commodore Fairside said. “But if a dragon spots them…”

He needn’t say anymore. “Keep me informed.”

Amron left him there, Lythian still at his side, Rogen his heel, and returned back down to the River Gate. Great stacks of arms were being gathered in the square - swords, short and long and broad, axes, spears, pikes and halberds, bows and sheafs of arrows, crossbows, shields, and armour. Most were steel and iron and wood, though there was a stack of godsteel weapons too, taken from the dead. Sir Torus Stoutman had been put in charge of taking inventory of them; a job that would keep his mind from the deaths of his sons, Amron hoped.

“We won’t want for weapons,” Lythian noted. They had taken many weapons from the dead southerners too; Agarathi dragonsteel swords and spears, fine curved khopesh blades and scimitars from Aramatia, brutal maces and morning stars from Pisek, Lumaran longbows and throwing knives and many more. “I wonder if some of the men might be willing to bear dragonsteel. It may not be as potent as godsteel, but its more lethal than our own castle-forged weapons. Our best non-Bladeborn swordsmen would become more deadly with dragonsteel in their grasp.”

“Marginally,” Amron said. “Don’t oversell the properties of dragonsteel, Lythian. And I doubt too many proud Vandarians would be willing to make the switch.” It was common enough for lords and wealthy merchants to hang dragonsteel weapons on their walls as trophies, but soldiers bearing them in battle…that was another matter. “If this plan of yours works, perhaps we’ll be united enough to share what we have. But that remains a big ‘if’ at this point. Most of our men will never stop seeing the Agarathi as their enemy. I trust you understand that?”

“I trust a man’s ability to look beyond his resentments. To fight together for a common cause. We have one; our very existence. That is a reality we all must face.”

Amron nodded, though gave no other reply, and passed through the gate. The man was too idealistic and it would come back to haunt him, he feared. Beneath the darkening skies, men worked tirelessly to collect the dead, pilfer them of their possessions and prizes, heap them and burn them. Many of the prisoners had now been recruited to tend to their own, mustered by the hedge knight Sir Hadros. By now a dozen great fires were pouring smoke into the air.

The host was assembled east of the prisoner camp, beside the broad stone bridge that spanned the Steelrun River a short way up the coast. Lythian had put Sir Hadros the Homeless in charge of the northern contingent, including several Bladeborn men-at-arms, a household knight or two, and a score of stout swordsmen, spearmen, and shieldmen who had plenty of experience in war. On the southern side, Sa’har Nakaan was to take charge, with some dozen of his own Agarathi, a pair of dragonknights included, and three Lightborn to represent the Empire; a Lumaran Starrider, Piseki Sunrider, and an Aramatian paladin knight. In total some fifty or so men were assembled, a strong host and one quite unlike any Amron Daecar had ever seen.

“So this is your vision of the future, is it Lythian?” he said, as he marched toward them.

The Knight of the Vale nodded. “One I hope others will come to share.”

Hope will only get you so far, Amron thought. This isn’t a vision for everyone, my friend.

That was clear by the faces of the Vandarian soldiers watching on from nearby. Many were glaring, frowning, muttering, some even making their disapproval known with shakes of the head and snorts of objection.

Walter Selleck and Sir Pagaloth Kadosk were standing together at the edge of the host. It appeared that Walter was bending the dragonknight’s ear, interrogating him over the identities of the southern men of the company, digging for detail for his book. “…have only just met them, I fear to tell you,” Amron heard Sir Pagaloth say, as he neared. “I know little more than you do, at this point, Master Selleck.”

“Call me Walter, please.”

“Call him an irritation and ask him to leave,” Amron said, stepping in. He gave Walter a reprimanding look; the man was far too eager to pester and poke his nose in, and often where it wasn’t wanted. “I hope he is not bothering you, Sir Pagaloth.”

“No one ever accused me of being a bother, my lord,” Walter said to that. Whitebeard’s audible sigh said otherwise. “I’m a writer. It’s my right to ask questions.”

“And it’s his right to ignore them. Sir Pagaloth has more important things to be doing than furnishing your tale.”

Walter Selleck closed his book with a thump. “Then I’ll be on my way.”

“Don’t go far. I want a word with you after.”

“Regarding?”

“After.” Amron turned his back on the man. There was a certain bustle of energy among the host, though the dividing lines were clear. Northmen stood with northmen; southerners with southerners, and even in those ranks, the Agarathi and men of the Empire kept themselves apart. “You have a job on your hands, Sir Pagaloth. Convincing all these men to work together.”

“Skymaster Nakaan has chosen wisely. His men are all willing to cooperate.”

Of course they are. They fear the axe if they don’t. Amron looked at the Lightborn, the Sunrider and Starrider in particular. Both had looks of fixed grief on their faces. “What happened to their mounts? Were they killed during the battle?”

“They ran,” the dragonknight said. “Sunrider Moro says his sunwolf abandoned him when the Dread came. Starrider Bellio says the same of his starcat. Both fled for the woods, they claim.”

Then neither can be trusted, Amron thought. They’ve only joined this mission to find them. He did not voice the concern. He sensed a man like Sir Pagaloth would have considered that already, and if not he, Skymaster Nakaan certainly would have. The Fireborn was in discussion with the hedge knight Sir Hadros, the pair standing in the middle of the host, going over plans. “Rogen, bring them over.” The ranger saw to it. A moment later, Skymaster Sa’har Nakaan and Hadros the Homeless were standing before him, the former old and wizened, the latter broad and stout.

“Your Majesty,” Sir Hadros said, bowing at his thick waist. “A pleasure to see you again. We’ve met before, once or twice. Perhaps you don’t remember?”

“I remember.” Or rather, Lythian had been on hand to remind him. “You’re doing this for a Varin cloak, I hear.”

“Aye, won’t deny it. That and unity, as Captain Lythian says.” He gave a flashy grin. The man had a cocksure way about him. “Few more of us of the same mind too. Joining the order, that is. Sir Bardol, he’s a knight of House Kindrick. Wants it as much as I do, that one. Then there’s Ruggard Wells and Mads Miller…men-at-arms those. Know Ruggard from days gone by. Good man, better swordsman. Give him a blue cloak and he’ll not let you down.”

Open the order to anyone with a drop of Bladeborn blood, you mean. Amron was not about to tarnish the noble Knights of Varin by permitting that. All the same, he would not close the doors either. “Fight well, act admirably, and your cases will be considered. But I want no heroes, Sir Hadros. Do not seek out personal triumph in order to better improve your claim. You are to serve the whole. Is that understood?”

“Loud and clear.”

Amron moved his eyes to Sa’har Nakaan. “Skymaster Nakaan. Well met,” he said, inclining his black-bearded chin.

Nakaan returned the gesture, though his beard was thin and white and dangled from his bone of a jaw. The rest of him was a skeleton in red and brown robes, white-haired and hollow-eyed. Amron towered above him. “An honour to meet you at last, Lord Daecar. Or king, I should say. I hear you have accepted the crown.”

“I serve my people. It is what they wanted.”

The Skymaster smiled politely. “You have been king for twenty years. Even in Agarath we knew that you were the true power, not Ellis Reynar.”

“I was steward,” Amron said. “I steered the course of the kingdom, with my brother.”

“My condolences for him.”

“Thank you, Skymaster.”

“And for your father. I am sure you know…I was wingrider to Lord Marak, once upon a time. We flew together at the Burning Rock. I was there, when your father died.”

“I am aware. And I bear no grudge against you for that. My father was your enemy and he died with his blade in his grasp. It was a good death, by the natural order of things. Every warrior wishes to perish on the field of battle.”

“Not all,” came in Sir Hadros. “I’d sooner die in a nice warm bed with a nubile young lady nuzzling at my nethers.”

Amron ignored him. “I hope you give my son the same courtesy, Skymaster Nakaan, if and when you meet. It was he who slew Ezukar.”

The Skymaster nodded to show he knew. “And I have no ill will toward him for it. It is Eldur I blame for that, not your son.”

“Good. Then we are of the same mind.” Amron had a good long look into the Skymaster’s eyes. “Lythian tells me you’re free of his grip. Tell me, is the same true of Lord Marak? When I spoke to him during the battle, I could sense the conflict in him. Might he abandon the Fire Father as well?”

The man considered it, pulling at his wispy beard. “I could not say for certain,” he said. “But yes, it is possible. It is a dream from which many of us are waking. But until I see him again…”

“Then you know where he is?” Amron searched his eyes once more. “I have heard differing reports, Skymaster. One man told me he saw Garlath bear Marak to the southeast. Another said they went northeast. A third claims he saw Garlath the Grand fly away weakened and bleeding from many wounds scarring his scales, barely able to stay airborne. He says he saw Lord Marak fall from the saddle, with the Fireblade in his grasp, and into the deep waters of the river. I took that claim seriously enough to have men search for him, but they found nothing. So, what do you say?”

“I say no more than what I saw.”

“And what is that?”

“Little and less. The smoke, the fire, the chaos…it blinded me. I was fighting to control Bagrahar, my dragon, a fight I did not win. The Dread took him. And I was sent to the soil, humbled. That is why I am here, and free. But of Ulrik’s whereabouts, I do not know.”