“I noticed poles outside, Uncle,” Elyon said. “Something I should know about?”
He had seen them when flying over, scores of enormous great posts that rose at intervals throughout the ward, like the masts of ships, surging skyward, much higher than even the tallest pavilions. They seemed to be wrapped in lengths of tarp, so far as Elyon could tell, glistening under the rising sun.
“A new defensive system,” his uncle told him. “Each post is rigged with sails of fire-proof canvas. They can be raised up to create a roof above the ward.”
“The entire ward?” Elyon asked, surprised. It was common enough for fire-proof shelters to be raised in open squares, to defend from dragonfire, but those were typically individual structures, beneath which only a certain number of people could take shelter. This was on an altogether larger scale.
“That’s the theory. I’m told they have tested the system, and when all the sails are raised, they fit together almost seamlessly. The process is very quick, apparently. The engineers here are very proud of themselves.”
Elyon pursed his lips. “So if a thunder of dragons should be sighted…”
“We will not need to go running for cover beneath the battlements. They might try to rip at the roof with their claws, but they are very smooth, hard to grip. And to get that close would make them vulnerable to the ballistas and scorpions. It’s a good system. Wine?”
Elyon frowned. “It’s only morning. And wartime.”
Rikkard shrugged. “Life cannot stop entirely. Perhaps you have been away too long. You know how the men of East Vandar are. Half of them fight better when they’re drunk.”
Elyon smiled, even let out a huff of laughter. It soured at once as he thought of what he needed to say. “Uncle…I have bad news. You remember what Ven told me. About Drulgar. How he said he had awakened.” Elyon had gone straight to Rikkard and Rammas and Lady Marian after that, warning them, then flown to Varinar to warn them too. It had made no difference, in the end. Varinar had fallen all the same.
Rikkard was watching him with a knitted brow, a jug of wine in one hand, a goblet in the other. He stopped, mid-pour. “It’s true,” he said.
Elyon frowned. The way he said it… “You knew already?”
“There were sightings, some days ago. Most of the men here scarcely believed it at first, but more and more have come forward telling versions of the same tale. He was seen flying west, to the north of here. There was a fear he was making for Redhelm, but he flew right past the city, we’ve heard. We have sent out crows and riders to find out where he went, but…now that you’re here.” He stopped, to let Elyon speak.
“Pour your wine, Uncle,” Elyon said. “I fear you’re going to need it.”
He told him of King’s Point, of Vesryn’s death, and that of Dalton Taynar. He spoke of Varinar, and the desperate state of the city. And Ilivar, blessedly untouched. “Your father is well, Rikkard. I saw something in him…some fire returning to his belly. He is sending soldiers to relieve Varinar as we speak.”
Rikkard nodded, digesting what he’d heard. “And the Dread has fled back across the Red Sea, you say?”
“The trail led to the coast. Most likely he has returned to the Nest.”
There was a knock, a man rapping steel knuckles against a support post outside. “Come,” Rikkard called out.
The same spearman stepped in. “My lord,” he said. “The council members are arriving. I wanted to check with you first before I let them in.”
“Good man.” He clearly suspected Rikkard might want a few moments with his nephew first. Rikkard turned to Elyon. “Are you happy to share, Elyon? All of it?”
You don’t know all of it yet, Uncle, Elyon thought. He had made no mention of the Eye of Rasalan, and saw no great urgency to do so. He nodded and looked at the spearman. “Send them in,” he said.
Rammas was the first to enter, stamping muscularly into the pavilion, all blocky shoulders and square jaw with a tight crop of hair on his head. “Prince Elyon.” He gave a curt nod. The Lord of the Marshes had always been a man of few words. He wore his dull-coloured cloak, fastened at the neck with a brooch denoting his rank of Warden of the East, a simple golden circle split by a sword with its tip pointing to his right, denoting east.
“Lord Rammas,” Elyon said. “Good to see you.”
Lady Marian Payne followed right after, tall and graceful in her fine, smoky-grey armour, short dark hair slicked back, intelligent blue eyes taking him in. “I smell foul news in the air.”
Insightful as ever. “My lady.” Elyon gave her a courteous dip of the chin. “You look well.”
“I would love to say the same about you, Elyon.” She stepped up to him, regarding the scorch marks on his breastplate, the godsteel distorted and melted, the deep cut that split his right eyebrow. It had been sewn up, but would leave a scar. “I hope that is the worst of your wounds?”
He nodded to confirm.
“It makes you look more like your father,” Rikkard said.
“It does,” Marian agreed. “No bad thing. Though his scar is bigger. How did you come by it?”
Eldur, Elyon thought. It wasn’t time for that yet. “I sustained it in battle.”
“And these marks on your armour? Dragonfire?”
A blast from the Bondstone. He didn’t say that either. He only nodded, in a sort of diversionary way, and looked back at the flaps as another man entered. To his great surprise, it was Sir Killian Oloran.
“Kill,” he said, smile quickening on his lips. “I hadn’t expected to see you here.”
“I arrived overnight.” Sir Killian’s voice was a whisper, soft as a spider’s step. He looked awful. As though he had just been awoken, for this meeting, by the look of those black bags beneath his eyes. He hadn’t washed in weeks, either, to judge the stink that came with him, and his once-luscious locks of long wavy hair were more brown than blond, now, owing to the mud and grime. A pair of thin lips pulled into a weary smile. “How are you, Elyon? I’ve heard great tales of your valour.”
“And I yours,” Elyon said. He gripped Killian’s arm, smiling broadly. “You’ve been putting the fear into the enemy. Just as you said you would.”
Sir Killian had gone out from Oakpike with several dozen warriors, one of three separate companies with the single directive of harrying and harassing the enemy wherever possible, killing as many as they could, as brutally as they could, to put the fear of Vandar into them. Killian had hoped it would give them time, at least, to regather their own forces after the humbling defeat at Dragon’s Bane. In that he had succeeded. But at what cost? Elyon wondered.
“How many of your men survived, Kill?”
“Too few,” said the heir of Oloran. “Though each made the enemy pay twenty times over.”
Elyon nodded, not doubting it. “And the other two squads?” He glanced over at Rikkard. “Has Sir Gereon returned? Elmtree?” Sir Solomon Elmtree was Killian’s man, a senior knight and commander among his Oloran forces. He had led the third squad. Barnibus had gone with him. “Have any of them returned?”
He saw shared looks, doubts. “We haven’t heard of Sir Gereon’s company, not for a while,” Rikkard said.
