The Balance of Power (Godsland Series: Books Four, Five, and Six) (44 page)

Epilogue

In shock, Sinjin Volker walked along the corridors of Wolfhold. The news that his mother had been killed by the giant feral dragon did not seem real. He wanted to believe that somehow she would come back, that in some way, all of this was wrong and for naught, but there was a knot in his guts that would not loosen, and his mouth was dry, tasting of ashes. His uncle did not question him, and for once Kendra was silent, which left Sinjin to his own thoughts.

Behind him, men carried the accursed lodestone blanket that would conceal him from the dragons when the time came. He would wait until he had no choice but to go under the blanket before he did so. Memories of his trip to Wolfhold played through his mind; the only good part had been being so close to Kendra. Of course, that was also one of the bad parts.

Sinjin had thought the dark forces might retreat after the deaths of Thorakis and Seethe and the feral queen, but the attacks had only intensified. Wolfhold would fall. Escape seemed the only choice, and Jharmin assured them he could get them out of the hold undetected. But first, they would return to the atrium.

"What kind of diplomat would I be if I had only one spy within Ohmahold?" Jharmin had said, and Sinjin reconsidered everything he knew about politics. "I may be able to get some news from there."

When they reached the grove, Jharmin wasted no time. "Are you there?"

"Yes," came a breathy response. "I'm here, m'lord, but I don't have much time. Things are unfriendly here, and I fear discovery. But I wanted you to know that a ship named the
Dragon's Wing
was seen off the shores of Endland and can be reached by message."

"That's Benjin and Fasha's ship!" Sinjin blurted. At the same instant, he thought he heard something else as well, but whatever it was got lost in a jumble.

Jharmin just gave him a look. "Send a message that a package is on its way to them."

"Yes, sir. Is there anything else, sir? I really must go."

"I want you to be very careful. Let's make it twice the regular interval before our next meeting."

"Yes, m'lord, thank you," the breathy voice said; then she was gone.

Sinjin and the others turned to leave, but then another voice rose from the stillness.

"Sinjin, is that you?" Durin asked, and Sinjin felt tears spring to his eyes.

"Yes, it's me."

"I'm so glad to know you're alive; we've been waiting here for days. I'm sorry for eavesdropping. It was just that the lady said she was in a hurry, and it sounded important, and I didn't want to interrupt."

"It's all right," Sinjin said, “but we don't have much time. How are things under the rule of Queen Trinda?"

A long silence followed.

"I don't think he wants to answer that question right now," Trinda responded.

* * *

Halmsa of the Wind clan was a fool; he just knew it. He'd believed his dreams were real and would lead him to glory. He'd believed that following his dreams would lead him to his destiny. But here he sat, at the top of a mountain, waiting for a dragon that would probably just eat him. He'd been rained on and windblown, and he was bruised and scraped from the climb. No person in his right mind would have climbed to this spot, but it was where his gut had told him to wait. His gut, bah! He was a fool.

Wind gusts grew stronger and threatened to knock him from where he sat on this rocky plain without even the slightest cover available. Waiting for what? The wind made his fingers hurt, and he rubbed them against the chill. Fumbling in the folds of his tribal garb, he pulled out a piece of dried meat, a rare commodity these days.

When he looked back up, however, an enormous feral dragon rested on the rocky plain before him and covered most of it with its bulk. Eyes like vats of ice burned into Halmsa's soul. Part of him wanted to scream, part of him wanted to run, but a bigger part of him wanted to find his destiny, and it was that determination that kept him standing upright in the face of the most frightening creature he'd ever witnessed. This beast could consume him in a single bite with no problem, and he had to cope with that fear.

His legs trembled but he remained standing. The dragon stayed where she was for some time, her gaze never wandering far from Halmsa. There was something new there now. Was it grudging respect? It seemed too much to accept, and Halmsa needed all his concentration to wait where he was. Waves of fear washed over him, and the dragon rose to dominate his vision.

He could feel the beast's breath on his face as that gruesome head drew closer. Though he remained standing, Halmsa closed his eyes. That only made things worse. When he opened them again, the feral queen looked him level in the eye and snorted at him. The force of the air nearly sent him tumbling, and he took a step back to steady himself, but still he did not flee in the face of terror. Halmsa of the Wind clan stood his ground and earned every bit of the respect he would get. In the next instant, the feral queen launched herself into the skies, pummeling him with air and debris, but still he remained upright. Then she was gone, wheeling away and riding the air over the sea, headed somewhere Halmsa could not even imagine.

When his eyes lowered, he saw them, resting on the rocky plain: a clutch of coppery eggs whose surface was crisscrossed with patterns more beautiful than anything else he'd seen in nature. It was only then that he realized his destiny had arrived, and songs would be sung of him.

Regal

Book Three of The Balance of Power trilogy

Brian Rathbone

Chapter 1

The word of a fool is only as good as his luck.

--Brother Vaughn, Cathuran monk

* * *

Allette Kilbor didn't fit in. No matter how she tried, she stuck out like a cornstalk in a pasture. It wasn't just her complexion or accent that made her conspicuous; it was the way she moved, the clothes she wore, it was everything about her. In this place, she was an outsider, foreigner, other. That reality kept her on edge at all times, and it was exhausting. There was nowhere for her to go. No place was safe.

Only days before, she'd been swabbing decks, casting lines, and enjoying the camaraderie her father's crew had always shared. Those good people knew that helping each other was also the best way to stay alive. Each of the permanent crew had saved the life of another at some point; it was the way her father selected his crewman. The fact that their lives were often enough in danger to provide a full permanent crew spoke to her father's other side. A cold sweat broke on Allette's brow. It was that other side that had quite possibly gotten him killed, but she tried not to think about that. He'd survived things in the past that had seemed impossible, and she concentrated on saving her own skin. That was what he would have told her to do, and she did her best not to let him down.

The coming sunrise meant scrutiny, and that meant being ready to flee at any moment. There was no way for her to know exactly why her father had been taken, but the vision of him crumbling under the attacks of far larger men and being dragged into a pull cart was etched in stark and painful memory. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes, and she wiped them away with resentment. This was when the strong got stronger. Her father's words got her moving and she walked toward the shadows beneath the stone archways supporting the spiraling roadway. These places, while patrolled heavily at night, offered some modicum of safety during the daylight. Allette had already seen, though, that it was easy to become trapped here; a single guard could pen her in and call for help. Only the knowledge that she could probably fight her way past a solitary guard kept her moving toward the deepening shadows.

Anger crept out from behind her other emotions, and she wondered once again what her father had been thinking. Coming here had been a mistake, and Allette had known it from the start. She'd begged her father not to make the trip. The cost of the dragon flight alone had required a lien on the
Maker's Mark.
She stood to lose everything: her father, their ship, their crew, everything. The
Maker's Mark
was more than just a ship to Allette; it was her home, her friend, her safe place. Nothing could harm her on the deck of that ship; at least that was what she had always told herself. If only she could get back to Maiden Harbor, then she would find a way to repay the debt. Part of her wanted to think her father would reappear at any time to tell her everything would be all right, but that hope dwindled more every day in his absence.

Getting home seemed impossible. Dragon flights were no cheaper here than they were from the Midlands. Allette was no more accustomed to spending time in the Mids. She'd sailed the waters around the peninsula, but the open seas were her home. The people of the Mids were hearty, rugged people who pulled their livings from an unforgiving land. Here in the Heights, though, there was no soil, only stone. Allette had seen gardens and groves, but those were filled with rich black soil that brought a fortune at market here. Since those in the Heights believed that the soil from the Cloud Forest was cursed, Midland soil was among the most prized and expensive imports. It was one of the primary reasons for trade between the Heights and the Mids. It was heavy and cumbersome, and a dragon loaded with soil rarely carried anything else. Crossing over the Jaga took time, and every trip involved risk. Increased demand had put a strain on the limited number of dragon flights. Rumors said the dragons were being overloaded, and it was only a matter of time until some were lost to the Jaga. The place was wild, unruly, and crawling with darkness. No one with the use of their senses would venture anywhere near that deadly place.

Allette's own flight had been terrifying enough that she suppressed the memory, knowing her only route home was a return flight. She might as well be on the other side of Godsland.

With the morning came the foot traffic and pull carts; the latter seemed one way that Allette might earn her way home, but the thought of how long that might take kept her looking for other options. The fact that all the pull carts were operated by lithe, blond, young men made her wonder if she would ever get these people to accept her. When they had arrived, the looks she'd received had ranged from suspicious to downright hostile. The women here dressed in long robes or flowing skirts. Allette couldn't imagine what she would look like dressed in such frills, and she blushed at the thought. Looking down at her sturdy work clothes, which had been the only kind of clothes she'd ever worn, she thought for an instant of stealing a disguise.

Her father would not like it, but he wasn't there.

Allette wasn't sure what it said about her that almost all of the possible solutions she'd come up with involved stealing something. She was no thief, and she'd worked hard for everything she'd ever had, but here she had nothing. Her father had taken care of their costs, and she had only a single silver coin in her pocket. The problem was that she couldn't even spend that without raising suspicion. She'd tried once, but her clothes and lack of a consort had the merchant asking questions that Allette did not want to answer. Part of her had feared the woman would have the guards out looking for her after she'd run away, but the men on watch continued to look as bored as ever.

Her thoughts turning in circles, Allette came back to the idea of finding the men who had taken her father and spying on them. Perhaps she could steal back whatever it was her father had been selling. The fact that she didn't know what that was bothered her deeply, and had from the start. While others funded dragon flights with voluminous cargo, her father had boarded with no cargo at all. Whatever it was he intended to sell in the Heights, it was small enough to be carried on his person. To that day, Allette could not figure out what it could be. She could imagine nothing so small that could be worth risking everything for, nothing that could be worth her father's life . . . and hers.

Not for the first time, she wished her father had stuck with honest trade. She had no evidence that what he did here was illegal, but his silence on the matter spoke volumes. Most times he gave her more information about their endeavors than she wanted for the sake of her education; she was, after all, supposed to inherit the ship from him in his twilight years. The thought that the
Maker's Mark
might already be hers battered her will, and the fact that she might immediately lose the ship through her inability to repay the debt shamed her. How had she studied all her life and yet somehow remained ignorant? How could she have trained for so long and have no employable skill? These thoughts were not new, but she was coming to realize that it was not a lack of skill or willingness which drove her to stealing; it was prejudice and fear on the part of those within the Heights. They would give her no choice but to become what she very much did not want to be.

Once back aboard the
Maker's Mark
she would make things right.

The grumbling of her stomach reminded her that she'd not eaten in the past day. Hunger was not unfamiliar to her; she knew how to work through it, but there was food aplenty. Had food been scarce, she would not have been so tempted, but all the people here were wealthy. Even those who acted as servants ate better than any ship's captain Allette had ever known. Almost no food grew in this place, and yet it was everywhere. Well-dressed merchants sold every variety of food and spice imaginable. Allette knew what only some of them were. Aboard the
Maker's Mark,
there was little more than salted fish and bitter citrus, things Allette had always loved.

That was when she saw them, stacked to one side and drawing little attention: bitter citrus. Her mouth watering, Allette fingered the silver coin in her pocket. It was of Midland mint, but it should be accepted here, even if under slight protest. Those in the Heights literally looked down on the Mids in almost every way. They were a taller people who lived at higher elevation, and they could fly. The fact still amazed and terrified Allette, and she tried not to think about the very thing she strived for: a flight back to the Midlands. The silver in her pocket wasn't enough to even see a dragon, let alone fly aboard one across the Jaga. The place had been mostly beautiful from above, not that Allette had been able to look down for long. Parts of the place had terrified her, and she had little desire to see it again. Flying, in itself, seemed a completely unnatural thing, but what other choice did she have?

Her mind made up, Allette pulled her hair back, tied it, and tucked it within her shirt. This was something she'd always done when working, knowing that ropes and pulleys were known for grabbing long hair. She also knew that it made her look like a boy. Medrin had always teased her about it. The thought brought a flush to her cheeks, but she shrugged it off and stepped from the shadows, trying to look as if she belonged there.

"Walk as if you know exactly where you are going," her father had always said.

Allette walked with purpose, her eyes thrust downward, hoping to avoid eye contact. Anyone who didn't look at her long enough might just mistake her for a servant boy. The fruit merchant, however, looked her up and down as she approached, no matter how inconspicuous she tried to be. The woman was older and had a hard look about her, but that didn't scare Allette off. She'd known her share of hard women, and most were kind and warm to those who treated them well.

"These are the sweetest," the woman said, gesturing to a pointy orange fruit that looked like the head on Mord's mace.

At least the woman was speaking to her, Allette thought. Pointing to the red and orange citrus, she spoke in a soft voice, deeper than her usual tone, "Six of these, please."

"Those are as bitter as can be," the woman said. "Are you certain those are what you want?"

"Yes," Allette said.

"Suit yourself," the woman said. Her tone was polite enough, but her words had caught the attention of a nearby guard. The man was armed with a studded pike, as all the guards in the Heights were. Such a thing would never have been allowed in the Midlands, where people claimed to be free. Allette knew the truth: only sailors were truly free. The scrutiny of the guard reminded Allette just how tenuous her current situation really was. When she handed the woman the Midland silver, Allette couldn't keep the flush from her face.

"You're a long way from home," the woman said, her voice thick and strange. Allette wasn't certain if the woman was trying the get the guard to keep an eye on her, but the result would be the same. Allette was tempted to flee now since it was obvious the man was taking more than just a passing interest in her presence there. "Here you go. I gave you one of the sweet ones too, just so you can try it."

"Thank you," Allette said, trying to avoid eye contact with the merchant and the guard. The merchant wrapped the fruit in a square of burlap. Pulling up each of the four corners, she tied them into a secure package and handed it to Allette.

Knowing she could not move directly back into the shadows since she was being watched, Allette also didn't want to move any closer to the guard. If he intended to accost her, she wanted as much of a head start as she could get. The longer he watched her, the more convinced she became that he would make his move. That only left moving toward the upper keep, a place where she stuck out even worse. The people in the upper keep made the well-dressed merchants look beggared. Despite those dangers, Allette decided the upper keep was better than almost certain confrontation with the guard.

Trying to look unconcerned, Allette removed one of the bitter citrus from the burlap. Her hands trembled, threatening to give away her anxiety, and she nearly dropped the rest of her fruit while trying to retie the knot. The merchant gave her a dubious look, as if expecting her to complain as soon as she tasted the fruit. Not wanting the attention, Allette walked upward, hugging the inside of the spiral, avoiding the other pedestrians and pull carts.

The first taste she had of the citrus was like being home. It came to her in a refreshing rush, even the bite bringing sweet memory and tears to her eyes. She didn't fight them this time; it was too real and poignant. Somehow she knew her father was gone, the
Maker's Mark
was gone. Her crewmates were lost to her. She was alone.

"It is against the law to discard refuse in the streets," a deep, authoritative voice said from behind her.

Allette turned to find the guard watching. How he had managed to sneak up on her was something of a mystery since she was usually very aware of the space around her, but she supposed distraction had left an opportunity open. Looking down at the sculptured street, she saw a bit of peel.

"I didn't know I dropped it," Allette said, keeping her voice low and deep.

The man just grunted and looked at her as if she were a squirming bug under his thumb.

Allette wasn't going to give him the chance to squash her. Throwing the rest of the fruit at the man, she turned and ran. It gave her a only few steps' advantage over the man; he recovered quickly and used his long legs to outpace her. Only Allette's lithe movements, sudden and seemingly at random, kept the man's hands from closing around some part of her.