And it wasn’t here, he thought, studying the lands along the coast. He saw no lava-blood, no dead birds and floating fish, no tracts of lands scorched by the titan’s passage. He felt comfortable enough to confirm his theory that Drulgar had returned to his own lands. And given where he was, and the dragon’s direction of travel, he felt he knew where. He has returned to his Nest.
He would need to report that to his father, as well as everything else he had seen. “See what you can learn, and return. I want you back here as soon as possible,” the king had told him. No doubt he had hoped his son would return sooner, but Elyon still had much to do. East, was his next quarry.
He swung his Windblade in that direction, and made at once for Rustbridge.
It wasn’t so far. No more than a hundred and twenty or thirty miles, as the crow flies. As with Ilivar the day before, he flew higher, eyes cast forward, powered by godsteel, looking for smoke plumes and signs of damage, wondering if the city was intact. Slowly, surely, it came into view. And Elyon could breathe again.
Thank Vandar, he thought.
Rustbridge still stood.
The city sat astride the Rustriver, a surging watercourse so named for the reddish tint of its water. On the river’s western side the city proper stood, home to a bustling trade economy; to the east were grand fortifications, towers and battlements and siege weapons. Get through that, and an enemy army still needed to cross the river itself. No easy thing. The only bridge was narrow, fiercely defended, with drawbridges on both the eastern and western shores that could prove problematic for an enemy with designs to pass.
To the south, the Rustriver barrelled along angrily all the way to the sea, eighty miles away. There were no bridges, and only the occasional ferry crossing at places where the waters calmed. North it was little better. The river itself was served by several wide tributaries that came flowing down from the southern Hammersong Mountains. These tributaries themselves formed from branching webs of rivers and rills, hundreds of them that made up the great Riverlands of East Vandar. An enemy army could try to cross there if they wished, but that would require a long march north from the coast, with no hope of being resupplied, and worse, the attentions of the Riverlanders, who from humble fisherman to highborn lord were fiercely protective of their lands. The late Lord Wallis Kanabar had always been proud of that, Elyon remembered. “No enemy army’s ever marched through the Riverlands and lived to tell the bloody tale,” he had been known to say.
That left Rustbridge. The door to the west.
And it was barred shut, Elyon Daecar saw.
The banners were in full force, fluttering and flapping in the wind. They hung off poles on the battlements, and high on the towers, and outside the many tents and pavilions mounted in the great ward within the walls. On the eastern side, the fortress side, the double walls were cast in a great half moon, curving out from the river, thick with surging, triangular bastions that made the half-moon fortress look more like a star. From the air, Elyon had a unique vantage of the fortress’s unique construction. Magnificent, he thought.
Three double gates gave access to the fort; one at the river to the north, one to the south, and one at the centre between them, where the walls extended furthest from the waters, facing east across the plains. All the gates were portcullises, heavy with godsteel bars and chains, impossible for anyone but Bladeborn to lift. Between the two walls sunk a deep moat, spiked and flooded. Drawbridges linked the portcullises.
Inside the inner wall, the great ward was vast and open, a sprawling space designed to house armies come to defend the west. Those armies had come, Elyon saw.
He smiled, hope stirring.
He could see the banners of House Amadar at the heart of the great ward, see his uncle’s pavilion in its hues of pink and pale blue, the tents of his captains and commanders ringed about it. Lord Rammas was nearby, the canvas walls of his command pavilion in a sludgy grey and brown, colours common among the Lords of the Marshes. There were others, too, tents and shelters showing greyish blue and white, Oloran colours, and those of House Kanabar; silver, green, deep river-blue, with the great blade-antlered elk of their house showing on many flags. And House Payne, of Rasalan, under the command of Lady Marian. The house of the Stormwalls, grey and black and brown. And among all that were a hundred other sigils, lord and knightly, vassals of the greathouses, spreading far and wide.
My army, Elyon Daecar thought. He had been with them at Dragon’s Bane, and had fought with them when the fortress was sieged. Retreated with them to Oakpike. And found them again many days later, after he’d gone off on other errands, marching down the Mudway to defend Mudport from attack.
Folly, that had been. Mudport was already destroyed by Vargo Ven and that only left the army open to attack. Nights of raids had followed, dragons swooping from the skies, and hundreds more men had been taken in the dark by the bog lizards and marsh serpents and ghoulish swamp-dwellers.
But they made it, Elyon thought. There had been thirty thousand men left after the Battle of the Bane, thirty thousand who reassembled at Oakpike, thirty thousand who marched the Mudway. Some five thousand had been lost on the road, but no more. A strong host, Elyon reflected.
And one of several, he saw.
The Pentar banners were here too, whipping proud in silver and red, steel and blood, tens of thousands strong. They grouped to the south of the great ward, alongside a huddle of enormous stables, and would be garrisoned at the city across the river as well. The bridge that spanned the city and the fort was busy with wagons and carts and men, supplies being brought over; food and fodder, arms and armour. Preparing for war, Elyon knew.
The last army was most welcome, a third force assembled in the north of the great ward, tents and shelters packed shoulder to shoulder in the shadow of the high battlements, all in tight lines and rows with many lanes and alleys between them. Those colours showed mostly brown and green. Banners fluttered with the crossed sword and hammer of Tukor. One pavilion sat in a space of its own, grander than all the rest, multi-roomed with many poles supporting its canvas walls.
Elyon smiled. It was the largest pavilion of them all, larger than those of the Vandarian greatlords and heirs. Well, that makes sense. He is a prince, after all.
Elyon began his descent, flying lower, looking east beyond the battlements as he went. The lands outside the fortress were open and flat for half a mile, before thickening with woodland and forested hills. The trees had once come right up to the river, but those had been cut back so that no enemy could approach unseen, concealed beneath a canopy of leaf and branch. Elyon cast his eyes that way, searching the skies, and saw wings in the distance, shadows circling. Dragon scouts, he thought. He did not doubt that Vargo Ven was near.
The men upon the battlements were beginning to spot him, shouting to one another, raising their fists. He flew above them, his newly oiled blade gleaming bright beneath the sun. A cheer rang out, spreading.
Men began to emerge from their tents at the sound, stopping in their duties to look up. The cheering grew louder, erupting from the lips of the soldiers he had fought with, travelled with, the men who had been there at the Battle of the Bane. He felt a rush of pride at the sound, as they welcomed back their prince, a fluttering in his heart, and for a moment it felt like victory. Despite King’s Point, despite Varinar and Vesryn, hope remained.
Hope.
He saw his uncle step out of his pavilion, armoured, a cloak of Varin blue at his back. Waves of chestnut hair fell from his head, bright brown eyes peering up. A smile spread upon his lips. Elyon flew right down to greet him, landing in a swirling dismount, the canvas walls of tents and pavilions billowing, men shielding their eyes.
He stood from his knee, strode forward. “Uncle.”
“Nephew.”
The two men wrapped arms in a strong steel embrace, then parted.
“You got here safely,” Elyon said. “Did you suffer any further attacks after I left?”
Sir Rikkard Amadar shook his head. “Ven was good to his word.”
The word of a snake cannot be trusted, Elyon thought, though perhaps Vargo Ven had a few shreds of honour after all. He had met the dragonlord at the Burning Rock, invited to join him in parley. There, Ven had said his raids upon Elyon’s army would stop, that he would allow them to continue to Rustbridge unmolested under terms of a temporary ceasefire. Well, he didn’t lie about that. Though he did try to kill me, as soon as the parley was done…
Elyon looked around, saw many faces he knew among the men gathering nearby. They smiled at him, nodded. Elyon returned what gestures he could and turned to look back at his uncle. “How are the men?”
“Well enough. The Pentars have helped to resupply us, though we’re on strict rationing here. It’s worse for the civilians across the river. Our soldiers are being prioritised.”
Elyon understood. Their strength was needed. During the march along the Mudway, Vargo Ven’s dragons had made sure to target their baggage train and food stores, leaving the men to march on meagre nourishment. Most of the wagons transporting their tents and pavilions were left unharmed, only those containing food and fodder attacked. The dragons could smell it, Elyon thought. They knew which wagons to burn.
Rikkard put a hand on his arm. His eyes were serious. “How is it in the west?”
It was a conversation Elyon had had already. With Lord Harrow, with Artibus, with his grandfather. He turned to the tent flaps. “We should speak inside.”
Rikkard nodded, waving over a spearman in Amadar pink and blue. “Send word to the others. Convene a council in my pavilion.” He stepped inside with Elyon.
The interior was basic; bed, chest, command table, a few camp stools and chairs to sit on. An iron brazier sat to one side, unlit. There was a mannequin upon which Rikkard could mount his armour, a rack beside it for his weapons.
