The Call of the Crown (Book 1) (18 page)

“So, my young friend, you’re thinking of joining the
guards, too?” Olam directed his question at Gialyn.

Gialyn looked surprised to be included in the conversation. “Right now, I’m half-naked, sat in a wood, surround by five half-naked men! All being said, I’d rather be at home.”

And Grady fell over again.

Olam straightened his back and raised his chin. “If a man be capable of great deeds, then for greatness he must strive. For what would become of us if such men sat idle?”

The travellers around the fire shared a moment of quiet reflection upon hearing Olam’s word, until a sound from behind the hanging blanket broke the silence.

“You mean women as well, surely!” shouted Elspeth.

Again, they laughed. Daric spat out the wine he was drinking. “Trust you to spoil a rare moment of solidarity,” he said playfully.

Olam smiled, shaking his head. “Sorry. And great women!” He conceded to Elspeth’s point.

“Thank you,” Elspeth answered.

Daric leaned back and felt the clothes hanging behind him. All but the thick blankets were dry. He stood and dressed himself. Once set, he took the blanket and spread it fully across the branches. The others followed suit. Before too long, the blankets themselves were dry and the travellers settled themselves to sleep. Elspeth had rejoined them by now, and all were back to normality after their drenching ordeal.

*  *  *

With the dawn came the clear skies they were hoping for. Daric and Grady were up first. Both were at the forest’s edge, making talk of the chances of clearing the marsh in a day’s march. The shrouded vale of early dawn still lay on the close horizon. Not much of the state of things could be rendered at that time of the day, and what could be seen was of little encouragement. Where there was grass, now nothing but mud lay. The pools, swollen by the storm, seemed linked in ever-larger numbers, cutting their choice of path to but a few. Indeed, the prospects of exiting the marsh before nightfall seemed grim.

Daric and Grady returned to the camp to find all were awake and busy: food was made ready, supplies organized, and fire stoked.

“What of it, my friends? Are we in for a good day?” Olam asked.

“It will be a hard day, no mistake in that!” Daric said. “Maybe we’ll just make it to Am’cherc. I doubt we’ll see an end to Am’bieth before night.”

“We c
an go south, along the Ulsgaed Ridge,” Olam said tentatively. He would be the first to admit his idea was risky, but in the circumstances, it was as good a bet as any, maybe better.

“That’s wolf country, Olam. We should avoid that if at all possible.” Daric seemed to dismiss the idea offhand, but Grady had other thoughts.

“I say we try! We have no idea if we can get through the north pass. We may struggle for two days just to be forced back. You know well and good the northern pass is the most likely to flood.” Grady scratched his chin and looked towards the southeast. “I have no wish to stay in this marsh an hour longer than necessary.”

“It’s too dangerous. The wolves are fiercely territorial.” Daric was stern in his reply.

Olam appeared as though wanting to speak but pondered his words, as if he were betraying a secret. “I—I know the wolves. It will be safe,” he said and then stood waiting for, and expecting, a questioning response.

“What do you mean?” Daric said. “No man ever goes through Illeas’cu, not that I’ve ever heard, at any rate.” Daric stood, hands on hip
s. Clearly, he had come to trust Olam but must have wondered if this was a step too far. “How do you know the wolves?” he asked.

“I have had dealings with them in the past. Indeed, they are territorial, but they have their customs. Safe passage can be arranged, if the proper respect is given.”

Daric looked a little puzzled as to what his wise friend meant by “customs,” but after a few moments… “As you say, Olam. Yet again, we go your way.” Daric closed the gap between Olam and he and whispered in his ear. “Are you sure about this?”

Olam took Daric by the shoulder. “It’s been a long time, but I have kin who know of them, who know of the Rukin. I’m sure they are still in Illeas.”

“Very well, we’ll be off as soon as all are ready.” Daric took a final glance at Olam. It appeared to him as though the older man was far from certain. But there seemed little choice but to chance the southern route.

The travellers left the safety and comfort of the woods via a southern passage and once again turned out into the damp, unwelcoming mud of the
Am’bieth. The hearts that were so lightened only a few short hours earlier suddenly stooped again, as memories of yesterday’s ordeal came flooding back to haunt them. Once again, they travelled in pairs. Thankfully, enough of the path was exposed to the night air; the going was far better than the previous evening. It was slow and tiresome, but by noon, they had passed beyond the halfway point—so Olam thought, at least.

Nobody bothered to speak much at all during their lunch of leftover fish and what remained of the flatbread Grady had brought. The eating of the last of their supply did nothing to brighten their dark mood. After lunch, they set off again in the manner to which they were accustomed, paying attention only to the few feet of damp earth in front of them, with little time spent taking in the view. Not that there was much to see. The marsh was still dank and grey following the onslaught of yesterday’s storm. No flower bloomed; no grass stood proudly waving in the wind—nothing but mist and endless repetition. If they didn’t know better, they would swear they were going in circles
.

By early evening, they had reached its end. An ever-increasing covering of short grass and a sense of firmness underfoot heralded the end of the
Am’bieth and the beginning of Illeas’cu—the home of the wolves.

CHAPTER 13

The dragon’s inner den lay at the end of a short climb up a wide tunnel. The path was dark, slippery, and quite steep towards the end. Eventually, it opened into what Brea knew was a large cavern; though, at that moment, it could just as well have been a broom cupboard—it was
very
dark!

“Hello, anybody there?” Brea cringed at the sound of her own echo. It wasn’t quite a bellow at the top of her lungs, but it was close enough. But then
, it was a big cavern. The inhabitants could well be in one of the higher tunnels that threaded through the upper caves—or even out on the cliffs overlooking the Bren’alor Valley, though that was unlikely. It was still light outside. There was little point whispering.

A voice reverberated, deep and low, from the far side of the cavern. “Yes, we are all here, child.” Tor’gan’s reply was all encompassing, as if it came from everywhere at once. Brea was constantly surprised by it, even now, after five years of visiting her dragon friends—well, two years to
this
cave. She wasn’t allowed past the table until she was sixteen. She still didn’t know why.
I will have to remember to ask someone one of these days.

Brea squinted towards where she thought Tor’gan must be. “Some light would be helpful, please,” she said.

A thin flow of fire lit the cavern with a blue-green light, as Tor breathed life into the six-foot wide, round fire pit. It was a good twenty feet from where the dragon lay, but Tor lit it as casually as she might strike a Tup-stick. The dead wood and thicket quickly caught ablaze, sending warm illumination across the walls and high ceiling and casting deep shadows behind the large rocks and stones that held the fire in place.

Brea blinked as her eyes became accustomed to the light. Of course, she could have brought her own lamp, but she knew it wouldn’t be of much use in here, though it would have made the climb up the tunnel easier
. But why light a lamp just to blow it out two minutes later? “Ah, that’s better. Thank you, Tor.”

The fire cast light up onto the raised shelf to the left of the cavern. She stood on tiptoe and craned her neck
. Rek was probably up there—with his mother—sleeping. In fact, it seemed they were always asleep whenever she came visiting. Despite her efforts, she couldn’t see over the rim and onto the shelf, and she wasn’t about to jump up and down. The rumbling sounds of muffled snoring were easy enough to hear, though.
Lazy dragons.
Sighing, she slumped back on her heels. Rek would come when he heard them talking, she hoped. “Did you want to see me, Tor? I heard the call,” she asked.

Tor—Rek’s father and leader of the
Gan Dragons
—lay on a bed of leaf and hay that stretched along the back wall of the cavern. It was his responsibility, as the father, to stay by the entrance so his family could sleep safely. Brea liked that, even if it was hardly necessary; no one knew they were there. Tor raised his head and swung his long neck in Brea’s direction. The fire reflected a thousand times within his glassy black scales. His deep-green eyes blinked at the flame as the slit pupils tightened to mere lines. He stood a while, stretching and yawning, before slowly lumbering his fifty-foot body past the fire and up to the other side of the cavern, where Rek was just now waking.

Brea saw the young dragon’s head bobbing in and out of view as he ran towards her. The impatient “little” dragon all but slid down the roughly hewn stair from the sleeping area to the ground floor—so to speak. With an effort, he stopped a few feet short of her and bowed his head so she could kiss it—as was their custom.

“Hello, Rek. Are you feeling better?” Brea stroked his cheek with one hand and tested for a temperature with the other. “Good, the fever has gone at least. You must be getting well.” Rek lifted his head and blew two small plumes of fire from his now-clear nostrils. “Good boy!” she said. “You are my special boy. Yes, you are!” Rek drummed his back foot in time with Brea’s chin scratching.

Tor cleared his throat and sat, impatience written on his face. He could be a real grump sometimes—in truth, more often than not. “Enough with the play
. We have business to tend to. Tell us of your latest vision, child.”

Brea sighed.
This again. The same question every day. Doesn’t he know I’ll tell him if anything changes?
“There’s been nothing new since they left Albergeddy, Tor.”

Tor huffed and stamped his foot. Thrashing his tail, he almost destroyed the rock circle surrounding the fire. “We need more than this, Brea
. This is intolerable.”

Brea knew Tor would never hurt her, but she stood back a pace anyway. It would only take one of those boulders to be kicked in her direction
. “I can only say what I’ve seen, Tor. The Lier’sinn will only work when something important has crossed the powers. You told me that!”

Tor growled. “Don’t put words in my—”

“That is enough, Tor!” Rek’s mother, Tiama, strode slowly to the edge of the rock shelf. “No good comes from tantrums,
Tor’gan
. Stop stomping about like some thirty-year-old.”

Tor sighed
. He wasn’t about to argue with Tiama. She always got the better of him. Shaking his head, he settled and sat down opposite the fire. He picked up a small rock—small for him, at least—and began toying with it, circling the rock around his huge talons. He did that when he was thinking, which didn’t seem nearly often enough for Brea’s liking.

It often surprised Brea just how good
Gan Dragons were with their hands—if you could call them hands; they had four fingers and a thumb, but most of it was sharp talons—no good enough to write or work on fine objects, but plenty adequate to perform many a task, such as collecting firewood, throwing rocks, organizing bedding, or even using a weapon, should the need arise. She’d seen Lyduk, one of the Drin’gan, throwing a spear once. It was probably a sharpened branch, but he seemed quite good at it.

Tor cast the rock aside, flipping it with his thumb, like one might toss a coin. Raising his head high, he looked vacantly up at the ceiling and then slowly closed his eyes. A thick, rumbling sigh came from deep in his throat
. Brea could feel it vibrating through her feet. Wafts of thin, grey smoke rose as blue-green balls of flame spluttered and crackled from his nostrils. “A hundred years wasted away in this valley.” He spoke in a low, lamentable tone. “A hundred years of waiting and wondering. We should be long gone, back beyond Toi’ifael and home! How long can we sit here guessing whether the powers have risen in the east, and if so, is it her? That
witch
has been in my life too long!”

He picked up another rock and flicked it hard against the back wall. It made a bang and smashed into dust. An air of determination crept into his voice. “Plans must be made, old alliances settled, and new ones drawn. We should not just sit here waiting for this…
Cinnè’arth
, or
Dre Kel’mai
—or whatever they are calling him in this century—to show up and save the day.” Tor dropped heavily to the floor, resting his head on a pile of leaves. “I’m tired of this, tired of being fed goats and only venturing out at night, and then only within the valley. We must act. I will not be caught napping in this… prison!”

Rek hid his head behind Brea’s skirts, pe
eking from behind with a nervous eye. He moaned low at his father’s rant.

Anger rose in Brea’s gut
. Nobody upset her Rek, not even Tor’gan. “Calm down!” Brea told him. “If there are indeed things to do, they should not be conceived in anger or impatience!”

“Unbelievable,” Tor mumbled, flicking another stone away with his talon. “A thousand years old and a human
child
is telling me what to do.”

“And she is making sense.” Tiama leaned over the edge of the platform and gave Tor a long sideways stare. “Tor, my love, we have known for an age that an end will come one day. For five hundred years and more, we have watched, waited, and listened for the signs. Even the first war was no surprise, knowing, as we do, the way of men and their greed. The only surprise is that it does not happen more often. And if the end
is
to be now, then we will learn of it soon enough. But whatever we do,
peace
should be our goal! Peace is the only true end. Anything else will see us waiting another hundred years, until the next battle, the next enemy. It will never end. This must be done right.”

Tor raised his head quickly. “We need our allies,” he said. “We cannot seek help while the wrath of
Eiras is knocking at the door. I must go to the Crenach’coi and speak with Kirin’thar. He must be warned to expect the Cinnè’arth. Then maybe he can find a way to lead him to us, not just blindly hope, as we are doing, that he might stumble upon our doorstep.”

“And just how do you propose to do that?” Tiama asked.

“If he has passed this town, as Brea said, and is indeed travelling east, then he must pass Crenach’coi. Kirin’thar would have no trouble finding him. He is wise enough—for a man. He could speed him to us before the month’s end, and then we will see if he is indeed of
The Kin
. And if not, at least we won’t be wasting any more time.” Tor nodded in agreement at his own plan. “Nothing can be done until then.”

Brea was busy cleaning Rek’s ears when a thought occurred to her. She stood
, biting her fingernails, as she was none too sure if she wanted to bring it up.

“Can I just…?” she spluttered, raising her hand like a shy schoolchild.

“Yes, Brea.” Tor folded his arms and waited.

“If he comes here, won’t he try to kill you? Isn’t that his curse?” Brea resumed biting her fingernails.

“Well, my dear Brea. That is where you come in.”

“Me!” Brea’s eyes widened. She pointed to herself in incredulity.

“Yes, you,” Tor grunted. “Brea Loian; holder of the Lier’sinn, the Guardian of
The Blood
and
The Power
, the
Soul Guardian
of the
Gan
spirit, the fifteenth daughter of the Aldriegan Lineage. Need I go on?” Tor looked sternly towards Brea. “Or did you think your only duty was to wipe Rek’s nose?” Tor shook his head. “And while we’re on this subject, his name is
Ulrekan
. Gods, Rek is a girl’s name.”

Brea looked at Rek—
Ulrekan
. He gave a little gulp and stuck out his bottom lip in consolation.

Brea laughed. “You’re not an
Ulrekan,
are you, my little one? No.” She straightened herself, tidied her shirt, and turned back to face Tor.

“So… what am I to do?” she asked.

“You must read the lore, child, find a solution.”

Tor was enjoying this; that much was plain to see.

Brea both bit her fingernails and scratched her head. “Not the books. I never know where to start, and they are so dusty, never mind the spiders.” She shuddered.

“Don’t worry, child,” Tiama said. “There will be a way. There always is. And I will help you if I can.”

“As you say. We’ll start tomorrow.” Brea bowed deeply to Tiama and stuck her tongue out at Tor—when he wasn’t looking.