“A crow got out of Varinar during the attack. From your uncle, Sir Quinn. He scribbled a note, telling of the titan, towers falling, walls tumbling. Wings in the skies, blotting out the sun. The very fire of hell itself pouring from the Lowers. The note was taken to the nearest rookery and by chance the crow managed to make it to Crosswater. When Lord Harrow received it, he despatched a rider here at once.”
“He’s dead, then,” Sir Quinn said, digesting that for a moment. “My uncle.”
“We don’t know that.” Sir Bomfrey Sharp had been put in charge of the defence of the capital, along with Sir Hank Rothwell and Sir Winslow Bryant. All three were household knights of middling standing, the best of what was left with so many senior knights and lords away. In all likelihood, all three were dead. Along with tens of thousands of others. Hundreds, even. The thought was a knife in his heart. A cold knife, twisting.
Sir Taegon Cargill gave out a heavy grunt. “So your uncle’s dead, what of it? We’ve all lost people, Sharp.” He swung a mighty arm toward Sir Torus Stoutman, standing beside him, cloaked in sorrow. “Torus lost his three sons. Sons, Sharp. Sons. No one cares about your bloody uncle.”
“This isn’t a competition, Sir Taegon,” Amron said. “We do not battle over grief.”
“I have two sons as well,” Sir Quinn retorted to the giant. “Young boys, up in the Ironmoors. They might be dead as well, so far as I know…”
“Speculation will not serve us,” Lythian came in. “We deal with what we know, Sir Quinn.”
“Easy for you to say. You have no children of your own.”
The Knight of the Vale nodded. “A curse, it has always been said, to have no sons and heirs. Perhaps now it is more a blessing? I do not pretend to understand your fear, Sir Quinn, but…”
“My fear? My fear is enough to drive me home, sir. Return to my wife and sons and…”
“Desert?” boomed the Giant of Hammerhall. “We’ve got enough of those cravens already.” He snorted and spat out a name. “Stone. If I see Sir Ramsey again, I’ll pull his scrawny little head off. Don’t make me do the same to you, Sharp.”
Sir Quinn raised his chin. “I’m no deserter, Taegon.” He looked at Amron. “I’m not, my lord. I hope you know that.”
“I do.” Amron had a good sense of his men. Or at least he thought he did. Once before he could sniff out a coward a mile off, but in these darkening days those margins were starting to thin. He did not begrudge a man the urge to return home to defend his family. Yet if we all do that, what then? Their only hope was to keep on fighting. If they splintered now, all would be lost.
Elyon took a step forward from the side, an urging look in his eye. “I have to go, Father,” he said. “Varinar. I should have gone already.”
“You’ve been bedridden, Elyon. This isn’t your fault. There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I could have tracked him. Drulgar. Maybe even drawn him off.” He clenched his jaw in self-rebuke, but there was only so much Elyon could do. “I’ll go now. Tonight. We have to know the truth.”
“We know the truth,” Lord Gavron Grave rumbled. He heaved to his feet, a heavyset man of sixty-two, stamping down on his godsteel leg. “We all saw what he did to us here, and we all heard Sir Bomfrey’s words. Towers falling, walls tumbling. Wings blotting out the sun. A hellish inferno. That doesn’t paint a good enough picture for you, boy?”
“One man’s words. One man’s eyes. I can look upon Varinar from a different vantage, my lord.”
Sir Storos Pentar agreed. “Varinar is ten times as large as King’s Point. With ten times as many towers and ten times as many ballistas. Perhaps only a part of it was destroyed. The rest…”
“Is rubble,” the Ironfoot broke in. “Same as here. Ten times the size…ten times the prize. The Dread has always wanted to see Varinar burn. There’s no stopping that monster.”
“I disagree.” Amron would not allow this sort of thinking to infect his men. The Ironfoot was as staunch as a man could be, famous for having his own leg cut off after he broke it during a hunting accident, and replacing it with godsteel. If he could be allowed to wilt like this, then others would be sure to follow. I’ll not let this pessimism become a plague, spreading from man to man. “The Dread can be defeated, Lord Grave, never think otherwise,” he said. His tone brooked no rejection. I must hammer this message home. “As soon as we start thinking we are lost, then we are, and there is no coming back from it. My brother drew blood from the dragon. So did my son. And there were gashes on his face and neck when he arrived. He can be cut, wounded, weakened. Perhaps his assault on Varinar has proven his folly. A few well-placed ballista bolts would have even Drulgar reeling. It only takes one, my lord. As a man can die from an arrow to the eye, so the Dread can die from a bolt.”
Lord Gavron gave a grunt, nodded, and sat again, taking the weight off his godsteel leg. “Didn’t mean to sound defeatist, Amron. You’re right. Anything living can be killed. I’m just saying, it won’t be easy.”
“Killing a dragon is never easy. Less so a giant one.”
Elyon gripped the Windblade, as though trying to muster his strength. “We have to know for certain. If I leave now, I can get to Varinar and back within hours.”
“No, Elyon. You’re not strong enough yet.”
“I am. I will be.” He drew the blade out a few inches, and let a gust of wind blow off it, stirring cloaks and canvas both. Some vitality returned to his cheeks. “Varinar. Elinar. Ilivar. If Drulgar attacked the capital, he may have flown elsewhere as well. We need to know.” He took a step closer. “Father, Lillia…”
“I know.” Amron couldn’t let personal concerns drive his course. Lillia had been in Ilivar the last they knew, under the care of her grandfather Lord Brydon. According to Elyon, Amara had left Varinar in a bid to bring her home. It was possible she had done so, that they were back in the city when it was attacked. Or in Ilivar. Or on the road, which carried great perils of its own. In such times, he had to accept the possibility that his daughter was already dead. Accept it, and not dwell on it. Yet all the same…
He looked his son in the eye. “You know the importance of the blade you carry, Elyon. You know they may be our only chance. If you should encounter Drulgar again, or another dragon…if you should fall, and lose the blade…”
“I won’t. I’m rested, Father. I’m ready.”
Several other men gave assenting nods, murmuring agreement. Sir Ralf of Rotting Bridge offered counsel. “Learning the true fate of Varinar is essential. It could be as you say, my lord, and the Dread was driven away. If so there may be a chance to salvage and rebuild, regather our strength behind whatever is left of its walls.”
“And abandon the coast?” asked Sir Adam, aghast. “If we leave King’s Point, the Agarathi will be able to land on our shores unhindered. If they return…”
“They ran,” thundered Sir Taegon Cargill. “They saw the dragon and ran. They won’t be coming back.”
“They expected him no more than we did,” Sir Adam retorted. “They fled to their ships by instinct, in terror, but when their commanders get a grip of them, they’ll be back. They will swarm us, take this city, and continue upriver to finish the job the dragons have started. The Fire Father will make sure of it. He’ll destroy us all.”
Chaos and calamity and the ending of the world, Amron thought.
“The Agarathi are slaves, in thrall to Eldur’s rule,” said Lythian. “We must work to break those chains, free them, and work with them. Our very survival depends on it.”
“Work…work with them?” baulked Sir Gerald Strand, in a disbelieving huff. “These men came here to kill us. And now what? We’re to just kiss and make up? No. I say we hang them, open their necks, throw them in the Red Sea and make it redder. Tie them to the masts of whatever ships they left behind and sink them. Send every last one of those bastards down to Daarl’s Domain.”
“No,” Lythian said at once. “That is not how we treat prisoners of war here, Sir Gerald.”
“Ignore him, Captain Lythian,” Rodmond Taynar said darkly, staring into Sir Gerald’s piggish little eyes. “We all know how Gerald treats his friends. It’s no wonder he’d advocate such cruelty toward his enemies.”
The doughy knight fronted up to that, swinging his soft bulk in Rodmond’s direction. “And just what do you mean by that?”
“You know what I mean.”
