Traitor (13 page)

Words failed me. What could I say to something like that? I felt pity for him. But I also felt a touch of pride that he thought I was worthy. That’s when I realized why he had told me this; he was trying to reassure me. I could handle this. He wouldn’t have brought me here, to fight by his side, if he hadn’t been absolutely sure that I could handle it.

“Let’s do it, then.” I extended a hand toward him.

He grasped it firmly. “Just don’t do anything stupid. War heroes often die too young.”

Jace and I left our room dressed from head to toe in gleaming battle armor with our fur-collared blue cloaks sweeping the ground at our heels. My heart was still hammering in my chest, but I refused to let my thoughts waver back toward the fear churning in my gut. I let one hand rest on the hilt of my blade, my helmet tucked under my other arm.

As we strode down the hall, other riders fully outfitted for war began emerging to join us in our final march to the dragon stables. I spotted Felix through the crowd once, though only for a moment. He and Prax were standing together, looking like a mirrored reflection of the same person in their armor. It was a bittersweet sight.

I stepped into Mavrik’s stall and immediately got to work preparing his saddle. He craned his huge head to watch as I checked over all the buckles and straps, the same way I had since the beginning of training. It wasn’t anything new to me. I probably could have done it blindfolded. But right then I was still a nervous wreck.

Mavrik chirped at me anxiously, stirring in his bed of hay as I slung the saddle over his back.

“We knew this day was coming, right?” I muttered to him as he craned his neck and started sniffing at my hair. “Are you ready?”

He snorted, sending a blast of his hot breath across my face. That usually meant, “yes.”

With his saddle in place and all my gear strapped down and set, I stood outside the stall to wait. I knew what was coming next only because I’d seen it already a few days prior. All around me stood my dragonrider brothers, the proud warriors of Blue Squadron. No one spoke. No one looked around. Straight ahead and several stalls down, I could see Jace’s back. He was standing at the ready, too. Once we were airborne, I knew I had to find him again so we could keep to our formation.

Colonel Bragg came out to give us his briefing. When he began to speak, the atmosphere in the room grew heavy and intense. This wasn’t going to be good news, and I think we all knew that. If we were getting called up in addition to Gold Squadron, then something must have gone horribly wrong.

“By now you all know about the situation in Barrowton. The city is occupied by a large number of enemy forces. They are keeping the villagers there as hostages, but have not welcomed any form of negotiation.” Bragg’s voice carried down the corridor. “Two legions of infantry have been lost trying to retake the city without any further civilian casualties. Those campaigns have failed. Your brothers in Gold Squadron were deployed to coax a response, to hopefully force our enemy into a new course of action. News arrived earlier today that half the squadron has already fallen. They encountered resistance unlike anything we have ever faced before. We are the cavalry, gentleman. Our enemy is fierce and desperate. Do not hold back. We cannot lose this city.”

I was starting to get a bad feeling. I remembered what Beckah had said about Dayrise, and how it had fallen just like this. It was nothing but ruins now. There hadn’t been any survivors in that situation. That meant my chances of ever seeing Roland again were slim to none. In all likelihood, he was already dead.

And I was about to join him.

“We have been given permission straight from the throne that if the citizens cannot be evacuated, and if the enemy cannot be overthrown by any other means, then we are to raze the city with fire until there is nothing left,” Bragg continued. It was clear in the way he looked at us and by the tone of his voice that he sincerely didn’t want that. Who would?

“If that order comes down, I expect you all to respond accordingly. I pray whatever gods may be watching this will have pity on us.” Colonel Bragg bowed his head. We were dismissed, and we all filed back into our dragons’ stalls to mount up.

I hoisted myself into Mavrik’s saddle, fitting my boots down into the sheaths on either side and double-checking my safety straps. I put on my helmet and riding gauntlets, then leaned down to pat Mavrik’s neck a few times. I’m sure he could tell I was nervous. Likewise, I could feel his unease. His big nostrils were puffing as he breathed in deeply, and his muscles were flexed and taut under his scaly hide. The pupils of his eyes narrowed to hair-thin slits as he crawled out of his stall, snapping anxiously at any of the other dragons that got too close.

In a noisy stir, we all lined up in the narrow corridor that led out onto the platform. The gates were rolled open, and one by one the dragonriders of Blue Squadron took to the air. The line moved slowly, at first. It gave me far too much time to begin thinking again. My stomach was tangled up in horrible knots, and I couldn’t keep myself from gasping for breath. My thoughts were a swirling torrent of pure panic. Terror welled up in me like I was drowning.

And then it was my turn.

Mavrik crawled through the gates and out onto the platform. The air was cold, but the storm had long passed. It was still very dark outside, and yet a thick fog had settled over the city. Far below, I could barely see its lights winking in the night. A drop of fifty stories made my stomach churn and my head feel dizzy. But Mavrik didn’t give me long to contemplate it.

We leapt into the air as one, wings stretched out to catch the northern winds. I felt weightless for a second or two, and then Mavrik’s powerful wing beats carried us higher and higher. As we spiraled around the tower, I saw the host of other dragonriders circling overhead like a column of roaring black bats.

I let my eyes fall closed and reached out with my thoughts. I could feel the other dragons, their voices like whispers scurrying across my brain. It was strangely comforting, giving me a sense of control.

Mavrik and I joined up with Jace and his dragon, Ghost, as soon as we found them. I hung close at his side, flying in tight formation as we circled the tower and waited for all the dragonriders to take flight. When we saw the gates roll closed and the torches go out, I knew it was time to go.

Barrowton was waiting.

Jace began relaying our battle plan to me as soon as we were on our way. Using our complex code of hand signals, he advised me to hang back with him near the rear of the group. Our speed was our greatest strength, so we had to conserve as much strength and energy as we could until we arrived on scene at the battle.

“
We should hit Barrowton at dawn
,” Jace signaled. “
We’ll go high, use the light of the rising sun to hide our approach, and make our first sweep toward the greatest threat point. Stay close
.”

I gave him an affirmative gesture and followed as he ducked under the immense formation of dragonriders, slowing his pace and falling toward the back of the group. We stayed back there, biding our time and conserving our speed, until Barrowton was finally in sight.

I was busy going over battle tactics in my head, things I had learned through all my time training at Blybrig, when I first saw it. An all-too-familiar plume of black smoke was rising out of a charred mass of buildings. The city sat uncomfortably close to Luntharda, which had probably been a good thing when our kingdoms weren’t at war and the city was used as a trade stop. Now, it just put the inhabitants of Barrowton on the enemy’s doorstep.

From a distance, it looked like someone had kicked open a hornet nest. The glistening shapes of shrikes zipped through the air faster than I could count, battling dragonriders. Columns of dragon flame burst into the air spontaneously. On the ground, infantry forces were trying to breach the city from all sides, but had been outflanked by gray elf legions who rained down heavy fire with bows and arrows.

As we got closer, I was able to see more and more detail. And what I saw made me absolutely sick with fear.

The gray elves were using beasts from their jungle home as war beasts. Creatures I had no names for roamed the battlefield, charging like mad into the Maldobarian lines. Some looked like giant boars with long barbed tusks, and others like big reptilian monsters with scaly hides and long, lashing tails.

The war beasts were cutting through the infantry lines over and over, and it looked like the soldiers weren’t able to do anything to stop them. Even the cavalry horses bucked and panicked when threatened by a boar’s jagged tusks or the bellowing charge of those apelike creatures.

“
What the hell are those things?
” Jace was signing frantically.

I had no idea. But it looked like they were most likely the reason we were about to lose the battle for Barrowton.

I watched as the ranks struggled to scramble fast enough to reassemble formation before they were charged again. They couldn’t do it. Each pass from one of those creatures sent bodies flying in all directions. Some men just dropped their weapons and fled. Meanwhile, the gray elves were firing volley after volley of their poison-tipped arrows.

A blind fury boiled in my veins and I leaned down against Mavrik’s back. Roland might still be down there. And somewhere else in this fray, the woman I loved and my best friend were fighting, too.

I wanted a crack at some of those monsters.

If I could get close enough, then maybe I could use my power to drive them away. Or at least I might be able to confuse them long enough for someone else to kill them. Either way, Jace had said we were going for the greatest threat point. So I waited for him to choose our first target and set my focus there.

Jace led our aerial assault at blitzing speed. His dragon, Ghost, snapped his wings in close and dropped into a steep dive while Mavrik and I hung close at his side. Shrikes blurred past us like tongues of mirrored lightning. When gray elves began training their bows upon us, we spiraled to avoid the shots. I felt the air humming off the arrows that zipped past my helmet.

I tried to reach out with my thoughts, to reach the creatures that were running amuck through the infantry lines, but it was a mess. The battle raging all around us formed a confusing chorus of whispers in my mind. It made it nearly impossible to focus. Shrikes, dragons, and horses were all familiar sounds to my mind’s ear. The gray elves had their own war mounts and monsters, and their voices were all foreign to me. I couldn’t make sense of them.

My brain seemed to swell with the overload of battle. I heard the cries of the wounded; dying pleas resounded all around me. Desperately, I tried to push it all away and focus on our first target. Jace was zeroing in on one of the giant boars, and he gave me the signal to strike with him. I stretched my thoughts toward the beast, calling for it to acknowledge me.

It wasn’t clear to me if whatever madness was infecting the wild things of the world was also afflicting these creatures, but when I got no response I began to suspect that might be the case. I tried calling to it again, all of them this time, asking for them to depart and leave us in peace.

The creatures answered me with a reply like a tolling bell in my thoughts. It was so loud it made my teeth rattle—there could be no peace. Their rage for having been summoned from their jungle was wholly justified, and not so easily appeased.

We were seconds from contact.

I felt Mavrik’s sides swell as he took in a breath, preparing to shower his burning venom upon our enemy. I tried one more time to will the beasts away from our infantry. I poured as much will into my command as I could, which seemed like a great idea at the time.

I guess I had forgotten what happened when I let myself go like that.

Burning heat surged through me, roaring through my body like an inferno. The noise of the war suddenly seemed to grow faint. I heard only the voices I chose to hear. My vision sharpened. My instincts came alive.

I was losing control again.

My body moved without my permission. I couldn’t stop it. I was guided by those primal urges that welled up from deep within. I steered Mavrik with my thoughts and brought myself closer to the ground, skimming over the battlefield.

Jace started giving me angry hand signals to get back in formation. I wanted to obey. But I couldn’t. He couldn’t see what was happening to me—that my eyes were glowing and my canine teeth had become pointed fangs—because I had my helmet on. He’d witnessed me go into this state more than once now, and I think he understood that there wasn’t anything I could do to control it.

A sense of authority swept over me. I felt like a king among commoners. I could sense the aura of power that rolled off my body like a rippling heat. Standing up in the saddle, I walked down the length of Mavrik’s back while he glided over the battlefield, just out of reach of sword or spear. I bade him duck lower at the first opening he saw, and when he did, I leapt into the air.

My feet hit the ground and I kicked instantly into a roll to absorb the force of the impact. As I stood, I pulled my scimitar from its resting place. It was all one fluid motion, perfect and effortless. Around me, infantrymen looked at me with awe. They probably couldn’t believe I had just willingly dismounted my dragon. The gray elves looked equally confused, like they weren’t sure what my angle was.