She reined in her horse and turned it back to watch more easily as, beside her, Carissa did the same, and the others moved by them on the trail.
When Trap had not succeeded in destroying the corridor that first night, they had both teetered on the edge of soul-wrenching grief and despair, struggling not to believe the worst, when it seemed that was the only thing they could believe. Then she’d recalled giving him the robe and comforted Carissa with that information—for she did not believe it had been random or without purpose, and just because Trap had not done what he’d set out to do did not mean he was captured or killed. It could, in fact, mean he’d run into Abramm.
As she watched the dawn light spread and the clouds shred, exultation rose in her breast. Then a small, winged form dropped out of the misty ceiling far in the distance and soared low over the battling armies on the ground, looking as if it were spraying them with fire. A dragon. It vanished behind a gout of smoke, then burst into view a moment later, circling back for another pass, bright flame engulfing the field in its wake.
At first she focused on the small white light still bright and clear in the corridor’s green. Then she realized the dragon had banked away from the city to head north. Directly toward her. Abramm had won! The dragon had been defeated! Driven off. And now the only thing left to it was to come after Abramm’s loved ones.
Sick with sudden fear, she clutched Abby closer and faced forward in the saddle, yelling, “It’s coming for us! Hurry!”
Everyone else had seen it by now, and whipped their horses up the last switchback to burst over the top of the cliff and race toward the ferry. A mass of people from the town opposite the castle crowded the bank, and Maddie wondered how they could know of the dragon when she’d just seen it herself. Then someone answered her question: The Esurhites had taken Trakas several days ago and were headed downriver toward Deveren Dol.
The mist drifted around them as they forced their horses through the crowd and onto the landing, Channon shouting for the others to “make way for the queen!” When it finally registered that the queen was indeed among them, the townspeople backed away, shocked and flustered, and she dismounted. They left the horses there on the landing and hurried aboard the flat-bottomed craft, crowding on with as many of the others as could fit. There were still far too many on the landing. “Go back!” Maddie called to them as the gate came down. “Get out of sight; take cover if you can. There’s a dragon coming!”
They looked at her with incomprehension as the gate shut and the ferry moved out into the river.
“A dragon,” she yelled back at them. “A dragon is coming. Take cover.”
The ferry lurched as the current gripped it, pulling at its guide rope, as the water urged it toward the falls. They were more than halfway across when the dragon burst over the cliff top, flying so low over the river its wingtips touched the water on the downflap. As it passed over them, it lashed down with its tail, splintering the ferry’s forward railing as if it were straw, and sparking unrestrained hysterics on both boat and shore.
Screaming in full-blown panic, people dove into the river after the ferry, while others raced back toward the town buildings. Maddie kept her eyes on the dragon as it reached the bend in the river and flapped upward into the churning, shifting mist. Those around her jibbered in terror. Some threw themselves overboard to swim ashore, forgetting the current, which promptly seized them and carried them over the falls. Ian clutched Captain Channon’s neck, his face buried in the man’s shoulder, and she thought he was crying, but it was hard to tell with all the other shrieking. Lieutenant Pipping held Simon now, the boy pale-faced but stoic, looking more like his father than ever.
They were almost to the far bank when a raft of mist obscured it completely. Other shreds sailed past them, all moving in the same direction, and as she noticed the wind had lessened and shifted, she looked around to find the dragon hovering above the bend in the river. Facing southward, it flapped its great wings in powerful, deliberate movements, holding its place as it watched her. Even from a distance, its golden eyes pierced her, and she felt its hatred, sensing some of what it meant to do to her. Fear rolled into her, and she turned her back on the beast, determined not to give in to it, and even more determined not to show the slightest quiver of distress. Eidon was with them, the Light was in them, and Abramm was coming. That was what she would focus on.
Suddenly the ferry was bumping against the opposite landing, where its gate was torn from its hinges in the people’s haste to get away. She hurried along with them, the castle’s arched entrance gate appearing out of the mist ahead of them. Carissa disappeared into it first, then Elayne and Conal, Pipping and Simon, and then she stepped beneath the stonework, Channon close on her heels. The moment she did, a deafening roar exploded above them. Channon flung her, Abby, and Ian against the wall, covering all of them with his own body, as flame enveloped the ferry and its dock, severing the ropes that worked it. Even if those on the far bank could work up the courage to try, there would be no more crossings this day.
As Channon pulled himself off her she felt his trembling, heard the quick in and out of his breath as he stood back and faced the flaming boat and dock while burning embers rained upon them. Ian lifted his head, face tearstreaked, and stared wide-eyed at the destruction. Carissa returned to gather Abby in her arms. And as Maddie watched her sister-in-law hurry through the entrance gate with her children, she touched Channon’s arm and, catching his eye, gave him a small smile.
“I’d like you to note, Captain, that its attack came only after we were safe. It really cannot touch us. Not here, anyway. Not so long as we are in the Light.”
The townspeople who had earlier made the trip across the river packed the fortress’s main keep and halls. Many were children, crying as they caught their parents’ fear, which in the last half hour had increased dramatically. Few of them had actually seen the dragon, but the rumors were as bad as the reality.
Anger welled up in her that the thing would do this, but she squelched that, too. In the dragon’s eyes, anger was almost as good as fear. It was better, knowing his strategy, simply to ignore him for the impotent threat she knew him to be. To show no fear, no concern, no complaint, but rather to wait in confidence, knowing he had already been defeated. And that soon Abramm would arrive to drive him off for good.
Eager to see what was happening on the plain below, she went up at once to one of the lookout towers, despite Channon’s plea that she stay below out of the dragon’s range. “If it’s going to flame the fortress, you’d be right in the line of fire.”
“It won’t,” she said. “It can’t.”
He didn’t believe her, but she didn’t care. She went up anyway, thinking she’d stop at the first arrow slit she came to, but the mist was thicker than ever, and even at the lowest level, her view was obscured. The winds had died almost completely, just enough to keep the Shadow mist moving past the slit. She closed her eyes and sought Eidon, praying for protection and for deliverance and for understanding. She prayed for Abramm and felt him, somehow, out there, suddenly confused and in inexplicable danger, some great force of evil pulling at him, tempting him. She prayed for him to be strengthened. . . .
The Light swelled within her; then a bright flash seemed to shoot out from the plain and wash over her. A moment later the fortress shook so hard she clutched the ledge of the slit to stay upright. And as the shivering passed away, she rejoiced, for she knew exactly what it meant: He had destroyed the corridor. Any doubt she’d had that Abramm was down there evaporated.
But to her consternation and considerable annoyance, when she went back down to tell the others, they were all screaming and weeping and holding to one another as if something terrible had happened.
“What is wrong with them?” she asked of Channon as they stood on the walled landing at the top of the stair leading down into the Great Room.
He turned to look at her in astonishment. “What is wrong with them? Madam, we have a dragon o
utside breathing fire at us, the Esurhite army fast on its way, and a massive earthquake has nearly brought the walls of our sanctuary down upon us.”
“But it didn’t,” she said. “We are safe here.”
“Well, ma’am, I’m sorry to say that you are the only one among us who believes that.”
She frowned down at the terrified throng and was just about to clap for their attention when her eyes fixed upon a tall, dark-haired man moving among them, touching now this one, now that—just a hand on the shoulder, a brush of the hand, a tap of the finger. He seemed to feel her eyes upon him, for he glanced up at her, and she saw the gold scaling flash across his cheekbones, and as his dark eyes met hers, they turned golden, the pupils elongating into draconian slits.
Outrage burned in her, and she started down the stairs to confront him, stopping only a few steps later as she realized that was precisely what he wished her to do. She’d confront him; then he would use those honeyed words, that marvelous voice, lace some truth into his lies, use his undeniable appeal to guide the people even more firmly into their fear, make her look stupid, and probably leave her confused and doubting, to boot. And he would love her outrage. To know that he had succeeded in provoking her . . . that would be his victory.
No. You had it right before, she told herself. Just ignore him. They will not change their minds even if you stand up and tell them.
So she went back up the stairs, stepped to the edge of the platform, and called the people to listen to her. “I’ve come to tell you that King Abramm has returned and that he has won. The Shadow is breaking up over the plain and soon will be blown away from Deveren Dol, as well. The beast that is outside”—and here she looked directly at Tiris where he stood among her people—“cannot harm us unless we allow it to. Its greatest weapon is the fear it seeks to build in us. But I tell you now, it is the last desperate ploy of the defeated. King Abramm has returned. Right and good have won. We are free even now.”
Tiris smiled up at her, but she sensed the ire behind it. Then his eyes flared like gold disks, and he moved among the people, who now began to speak to one another, quietly at first but with growing emphasis and ire. Snatches of their words emerged from the general incoherent rumble:
“She’s insane!”
“The strain has driven her mad.”
“Abramm’s dead! When will she finally believe that?”
“Belthre’gar is swarming up the river! Nothing can stop him. Look at all this mist.”
Finally a stout, red-faced woman stepped forth from Tiris’s side and cried angrily, “O Queen, I think you lie to us. There is no victory! Fannath Rill has fallen, or you’d not have fled. And now that it has, it’s only a matter of time before they come here. And because of you, they’ll kill us all.”
Tiris glanced casually over his shoulder and smiled at Maddie. Behind him a blond man stepped up beside the woman and took up her complaint. “Aye, why didn’t you stay there and meet your death with dignity? Why did you have to drag all the rest of us down with you?”
“No one has been dragged down,” she said. “The battle of Fannath Rill has been won. As the dragon’s presence here proves.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Tiris himself now. “Why would you think that? It seems to me the dragon’s presence proves exactly the opposite. If Abramm has won—and how you would know he was even fighting is a mystery— wouldn’t the dragon be dead?”
She stared at him and felt his laughter, for she’d fallen into exactly what she had intended to avoid—she’d started talking to him, and already he was twisting everything around. Eidon, please, get him out of here. I can ignore him, but these others cannot. I am not great enough to stand against him, but you are. So, please—
Turn and walk away, my daughter. Leave him to me . . . .
Father Eidon?
The thought did not come again, nor did she ask, she merely gave Tiris a little smile and turned away, heading for the tower stair at the back of the landing. She’d not even reached the archway when the air fluttered about her as with an upheaval in the warp and woof of reality. Behind her the room erupted, people shrieking and scrambling to get away as a burst of wind whooshed around her and something came to rest at the landing’s edge directly behind her. At her side, her guards were backed against the walls framing the archway, staring at it in abject terror. Even Captain Channon, ever so mindful of his duty, had forgotten it in his distress.
Tiris, it seemed, had shown his true form at last.
She felt his immensity in a strange displacement of space, and in the way great whooshes of foul breath washed rhythmically around her with his every exhalation, hot on the back of her neck, blowing tendrils of hair around her face. He wanted her to turn and look at him, but she would not.
“You see?” she said to Channon after a time. “If he could flame me now, he would have.”
“Do not confuse forebearance with inability, my flower!”
She ignored him. “But he can’t. We are covered by the Light, we are covered by the promises of Abramm and Eidon, and we will stay in our fortress until Abramm comes.”
“If Abramm is coming, why is the Shadow still here?” asked Channon.
She looked at her guardsman and was struck by the image of dragons hovering northeast of the castle, flapping their wings as if they were fanning a flame. Or was it the Shadow they fought to keep from slipping away?
She smiled as she realized that was exactly what they were doing. Trying to keep it here, trying to hold it here just long enough. Oh yes, he was definitely coming.
Excitement welled up within her, and she laughed aloud.
Behind her, the dragon snorted.
“Turn and face me, woman. I command it.”
She ignored him and laughed again. “You see? He cannot do a thing.”
Suddenly the beast behind her let loose a blast of hot air so fierce it sent her staggering. The ululation of its cry was deafening as it launched itself off the balcony and shot upward through the Great Room’s wooden roof, burning it away with a burst of flame as it went.
CHAPTER
38
Abramm’s headlong tumble slowed. Something pressed against his feet, and he found himself standing on another weed-grown plaza ringed by broken-off columns of stone in a grassy mountain valley that looked like Seven Peaks. The little man, having exited the corridor ahead of him, turned now to look over his shoulder. His pale eyes fixed on Abramm and widened as he turned to face him fully.
It was Gillard. As he’d been since the morwhol had taken most of his life and substance. Except for the two scars running down the left side of his face. . . . He looked at Abramm as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Then his mouth opened in a soundless wail and he fell to his knees, his face as full of grief as of fear.
The ground lurched under Abramm’s feet and the ragged columns waved like stalks of grass. Then darkness flooded around him as great blocks of stone tumbled down on every side, crashing into a massive pan of scarlet flames that appeared out of nowhere. So did the white-robed guardians running hither and thither in the chaos. Abramm’s eyes fixed on those of an old man hung on a whipping rack before him. Simon? The man and the pan did not seem to be in the same place exactly, but near each other.
The man stared back at him, eyes blank with pain. Then he blinked and frowned with recognition as above them a domed ceiling collapsed. Abramm escaped on emerald winds shot through more and more with white, until it was all white, all Light, all Eidon himself.
The light faded. Pressure bore against his soles again, and he stood once more in the ruin outside Fannath Rill. Nothing remained of the green corridor but a smoldering black spot on the uneven, grass-invaded pavement. The arcade’s remains lay flat, splayed outward across the grassy basin as if an explosion had emanated from the corridor. In every direction up the basin’s gradual slopes, pillars, wagons, tents—even men—sprawled in the same outward-pointing array. And as Abramm extended his senses outward he caught up wi
th the great wind ripping over the land, tearing away the darkness as it went. He saw the dragon, flipped head over tail, wings tangling awkwardly around it, all grip on the air lost. It was blown northward, it and all its subordinates, hurled out of the realm like autumn leaves.
He sensed his wife turning toward him, blooming with the delight of recognition. He smiled. Soon, my love . . .
“Sire?”
Trap and Rolland approached him, picking their way through the tangle of bodies, their clothing torn and stained with dirt and blood, and pocked with tiny burn holes. They still gripped their bared, blood-soaked blades, eyes startlingly white in faces darkened with soot and marred with cuts and bruises and blisters from the falling embers. As they stopped before him he saw their exhaustion and realized they had not deserted him after all, but had been covering his back as much as they could, though in the chaos he’d never seen them. He felt a surge of gratitude and affection for both of them.
“Are you all right?” Rolland asked, his eyes drawing away from Abramm to survey the bodies piled around them.
“Yes,” Abramm said. He glanced at Trap, who was staring at the darkened disk where the corridor had been. Its diameter was easily the length of a horse.
His friend’s gaze came back to his. “I thought for sure it was a trap he’d set for you.”
“It was,” Abramm said. He moved from the center of the ruin, treading carefully between the bodies across the smoking battlefield back toward the city gate, now a ragged, soot-stained hole in the wall. Behind it bright flames leaped beneath billows of black smoke. More of the dragon’s work. . . .
By then news of his presence had spread, and men came toward him from all directions—his men. The soldiers he had gathered as he’d come across the realm: exhausted, bleeding, and filthy, but glowing with triumph. A man on a bay horse picked his way among them, leading a tall gray stallion behind him. Warbanner . . . whose neck had not been slashed after all, merely stained with Belthre’gar’s blood. People emerged from the city in a weary stream to crowd around Abramm in rising jubilation.