Kings of the North (73 page)

By midday, Kieri knew that there had been two such fires, one halted farther away from Chaya but the nearer one, less than a day’s ride. “I must see it,” he said, over the objections of his Council. “If my magery can do anything to stop it, I need to know what it is before I can fight it.”

Orlith and two of the remaining elves in Chaya rode with him, along with four Squires and—to his surprise—both senior armsmasters.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been to battle with you,” Siger said. “Magic fires I don’t understand, but assassins in the bushes I do. And Carlion wants to see if my boasted ability to detect traps is real.”

As the winter afternoon waned under a skim of high cloud, they rode north to find what the fire had done. An acrid stench met them as the breeze blew steadily out of the winter sky. The taig roiled below and around; their mounts jigged, snorting and switching their tails. Kieri tried to comfort the taig and knew Orlith and the elves were doing the same, but the wounds were too great.

Well before they reached the actual site, they could see a gap in the forest ahead—light pouring in where trees, even in winter, had scattered it. Then the extent of the damage spread before them, a wide swath heading north. All within it was consumed to soot and ash; trees on the margin were blackened, limbs on one side burnt away. Kieri shuddered. All the horses shied and refused to go nearer.

“It’s like a great road leading north,” Siger said. “Wider than the Guild League roads, even … but why didn’t it spread to the side?”

“A weapon they could aim,” Kieri said. “And halt here, as a warning of what they could do.”

Carlion was off his horse, tossing his reins to a henchman, and walked ahead. “Sir King, there are tracks here. Two humans, both in boots, and some other marks I do not understand.”

“They launched it there to burn back north?” Kieri asked.

“Not with the wind we had last night,” Siger said. He, too, dismounted and looked at the ground. “Magical flames or not, it would move with the wind, not against it.”

“Then—how did they get ahead of it to stop it?” Kieri asked. He dismounted; he wanted to see any tracks for himself.

“Someone already in place,” Siger said. “But how they stopped it, once the flames were moving like that, I don’t know.”

“There’s an arrow,” Carlion said, pointing. He stepped forward.

“Hold!” Kieri said. Carlion stopped, looking back at him in surprise. “We don’t know if the magic is exhausted: I don’t want to risk you.”

“Better me than you, Sir King. You have another good armsmaster, and the world has more of my kind than yours.” Carlion walked out onto the ash some distance and bent to pick up something. Then he whirled to face Kieri.

“Sir King! It is a King’s Squire’s arrow! One of your Squires!” He looked around. “And there’s another—and another—”

“How did the shafts survive?” Kieri asked. “It is not possible …”

“I’ll bring them all,” Carlion called. “Garris knows their marks.”

Shortly he was back, showing the five arrow shafts. “I’d think the shafts would burn, leaving only the metal tips, at most,” Kieri said. He picked up one of the shafts—scorched, indeed, but the pattern of rings that identified the archer still faintly visible on the blackened shaft. He turned it in the dimming light, trying to see … and his heart stopped, then thumped loudly before racing.

“Garris will know,” Carlion said again.

“
I
know,” Kieri said. It was hard to breathe. “Arian … she was coming back to … to warn …” Tears burned in his eyes; he could not blink them back before they ran down his cheeks into his beard. “She died bravely, as she would,” he said, handing the shaft back to Carlion.

“My lord—” Carlion reached out, but Kieri shook his head.

“Just—let me—” He turned his face to the north wind, struggling against the white rage that he must not indulge. White rage had
brought this fire—not his, but someone’s. He had to breathe, he had to go on living, he had to be the king his people needed, and the man Arian had loved.

He looked at Orlith. “What can you tell about this fire—what is it?”

Orlith sniffed. “There’s a scent—” He too dismounted and walked forward. “Iron … stone … blood. It has been long indeed since I smelled it—I should know it, but I cannot quite …” He bent to the tracks the armsmasters had found. “Here a half-elf … but this, that wears man’s boots, does not smell like a man, nor does the taig regard it so.”

“What about these marks?” Siger asked. “I can smell something, but I don’t know what.”

Orlith bent to those and then jerked upright. “Singer’s grace! It cannot be … they never come to settled lands anymore—”

“What?” Kieri asked.

“A dragon,” Orlith said. “A dragon was here.”

“A dragon burned this? The Pargunese have a dragon on their side?”

“No! Never!” Orlith glanced at the other elves. “Dragons—adult dragons—are also creations of the First Singer, and they revere life and justice. They do not interfere in human affairs unless humans interfere in theirs, and we did not. But Pargun, it may be, did. Tell me, did you ever hear of dragons’ eggs?”

“If you mean that old folktale where a fool finds a dragon’s egg and tries to sell the jewels inside, yes. But that’s just a story—parents use it to scare their children, but everyone knows there are no dragons anymore. Camwyn got rid of them.”

“Not … quite.” The speaker, barely visible in the gloom of the undergrowth to the side of the road, stepped out into it. Kieri’s height, dressed like any winter traveler at first glance, leather cloak over leather jerkin, close-fitting shirt and trousers, tall boots. High cheekbones, long nose, slightly mottled dark skin, and surprisingly light tawny eyes gleaming from beneath the hood of his cloak.

Carlion, Siger, and two King’s Squires had drawn blades all around Kieri before he could say anything. Kieri noticed the man wore no sword, not even a dagger.

“Dragon,” Orlith said, hardly loud enough to hear.

The man tipped his head to Orlith, then looked back at Kieri. “You weep,” he said. “Do you grieve for the land?”

“Yes,” Kieri said. He did not believe the man was a dragon, though he was strange. Perhaps he was a Kuakgan. “I cannot heal this myself; I was hoping for a Kuakgan to help me.”

The man looked hard at the elves then back at Kieri. “Do you consider the consequences of your acts?”

“Yes,” Kieri said.

“And what did your Sinyi tell you about Kuakkgani?”

“They do not like them, for some quarrel I do not understand.”

“I do,” the man said.

“But the taig’s need is greater than a quarrel,” Kieri said.

“Quarrels are rarely just,” the man said. He glanced back down the road. “Those horses should be farther away.”

“Who are you?” Kieri asked.

“Who are
you
?” the man answered with a mocking smile. “Do you have authority to demand my name?”

“I am the king,” Kieri said. “If you are human, and in this realm, then yes, I do.”

“Well, king, I am not human, though I take this shape to cause less fear. My name belongs to me alone, but the Sinyin there was correct: I am a dragon. Over whom, I must inform you, you have no authority whatsoever.”

“Did you burn this?”

“No. I stopped it, but not alone.” The man tipped his head back and pulled something from his mouth—longer, impossibly longer. A blackwood bow. “The arrows you found came from this bow, and the woman who sent the arrows into the fire—”

“Died there,” Kieri said. It came out half gasp, half cry.

“No,” the man said. “She did not die.”

“She is alive? Where is she?” Kieri’s skin prickled up with a sudden chill.

“Coming,” the man said. He looked Kieri straight in the face. “She is a very brave person, but she is only half the song. Are you the other half?”

Arian alive—could it be? Arian alive! Cold vanished in a rush of joy that warmed. “Yes,” Kieri said. “I am.”

“She is wiser,” the man said. “But you are not unwise, and you
know what she does not. Perhaps you are what the land needs … come near.”

“My lord, no!” his Squires said as he took a step forward.

“I must,” Kieri said.

“I will change, and offer you what I offered her,” the man said. “But those horses—I do not wish anyone to be hurt.”

“Dismount,” Kieri said to the others, “and lead the horses back.”

“You say you care for the taig,” the man said, as the others did as commanded. “What would you give to save the taig?”

“Whatever is necessary,” Kieri said.

“Have all your deeds been just?”

“No,” Kieri said. “And though I regret those that were not, it does not change what came of my injustice.”

“Perhaps indeed you are as wise as Half-Song. Abide there: I change.”

The man’s shape dissolved and then resolidified larger, larger still, darker, the faint smell of hot metal much stronger now. Then the dragon crouched before him, dark as old bronze, each scale distinct, the long snout, the great glowing eyes, the coils of tail.

“Come, now … touch your tongue to mine. Let me taste your justice, O king, and let you taste mine.” Kieri stared a moment as a long red tongue slid out of the dragon’s mouth. The air shimmered above it; the surface looked like red-hot iron, a few flakes of ash on its surface trembling from the heat.

What would you give for the taig?
Arian, he was sure, would have risked this and more. He knelt, feeling the heat pouring off the dragon’s tongue; it took all his courage to force his tongue from behind his teeth and touch it.

To his tongue it was hard, barely warm, and tasted of iron and spices. The tongue was withdrawn; as he lifted his head, the dragon winked at him. “You are a man of justice, whom anger no longer rules. Half-Song has chosen well. You will prosper.”

Kieri had just stumbled to his feet when the dragon said, “They are come.” Kieri turned and saw the silvery light of the elvenhome kingdom moving toward them down the road, within it the Lady and many other elves. The light washed out around him; he felt its effect on the taig where he stood, like cool salve on a burn.

Kieri wanted to demand of the Lady where she had been, but the
look of grief on her face stopped him. She came and knelt to him, as she had not before. In a voice like liquid silver, she said, “Sir King, I am sorry. I should have been here, to know I was needed and be at your side. I am at your command.”

She looked up then, the beauty of her face astonishing even in that crisis; from her violet eyes a few tears spilled. Despite his anger at her absence, despite the warnings of his sister’s bones, Kieri felt pity for her, an immortal humbling herself before him. She too was a ruler; she was his elder in all things; whatever she had done, it was wrong for her to kneel like that. “Rise,” he said. She stood, graceful as ever, but her shoulders drooped just a little, like a scolded child’s.

She ignored, or did not see, the dragon still clear to Kieri’s eyes in the road. Kieri glanced at the dragon—that eye of flame seemed to mock him—or the Lady. Confusion held him for a moment—what did she mean? He looked from her to the other elves and back at her—at the other elves—before speaking again.

“You know best how to help the taig, which sorely needs your aid,” he said. “But I don’t understand why you didn’t come before.” All the times before, he meant.

“I went beyond the taig’s reach, and was trapped there,” the Lady said. “I was wrong to do so.” Was it really contrition in her voice, or a glamour? He wanted to believe her, but could such pride as he had seen her display before ever be truly humbled? “I would be there yet, ignorant of this attack, and helpless, if not for your betrothed.”

“My betrothed—”

“Unless you regret your choice,” Arian said, stepping out from between other elves. “For my flight that day—”

At the sight of her, Kieri forgot his concerns about the Lady. “Never,” he said. “I regret only the hours we were not together. When I saw your arrows—I thought you had died—” His voice caught; he did not know which of them had moved, but she stood near enough now he caught the scent of her hair.

“When the taig woke me, that night in Dorrin Verrakai’s steading—” Arian began.

“You went to
Dorrin
?”

“Time passes,” said the dragon. “And enemies are not far to seek. I have business with them, but you, Sinyi and Sorrow-King and Half-Song,
have work to do as well.” It lifted Arian’s bow with its tongue and handed it to her. “You left this behind in the elfane valley.”

“Thank you,” Arian said. “Do you need me?”

“No, Half-Song. He does—” The dragon flicked its tongue toward Kieri.

“Lord dragon,” the Lady said with another bow. She sounded more like her former self, regal and gracious. “Forgive me that I did not see you—”

The dragon cocked its head. “Seeing is not of the eyes only, Lady, as you surely know.”

An expression touched the Lady’s face that Kieri did not recognize. “Lord dragon, I accept your judgment.”

The dragon huffed out a small breath with a hint of sulfur. “I have given no judgment yet, Lady, for the deeds are not yet completed. Have you healed your quarrel with the rockbrothers?”

“Not fully, but I renounce any claim to the rock-mass, as Arian said I must. For the rest, I will meet with dasksinyi when this crisis is over.”

“Excellent. May you prosper, then, as Sinyi should prosper, in harmony and grace.” The dragon vanished; a swirl of ash blew over them all and then settled.

“My lord king,” the Lady said, “you have labored long on a task not entirely yours. I am here now, and many others: let us lift the burden, at least for a night and a day. Rest yourself, you and your betrothed.”

Only elvenhome light gave guidance now, for dark had come, and Kieri could feel the taig reacting to something he thought might be invading troops. But now the Lady spread out her power, reaching to the edge of the forest, and the elves with her joined their power to hers.

“You can see and feel our work,” the Lady said, when he hesitated. “Trust me now: I promise, when you are rested and seek me again, I will come to you, or bring you to me, as the taig needs and the Singer commands.” She looked earnest enough; the other elves nodded. Could he really trust her, changeable as she was? Orlith nodded at him from behind the Lady’s back, and he trusted Orlith now as much as he did any elf.