James Wyatt: Dragon war

"Of course." She couldn't meet his intense gaze.

"I'm worried about you," he said.

She looked into his eyes then, surprised. "Worried? Why?"

"You spend half of every day staring over this railing. You're wearing a rut in the deck from your pacing. I'm not sure this ship can support the weight on your shoulders much longer." A hint of his warm smile danced at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes remained serious.

Jordhan's hands fell from her shoulders as he turned away. "You're mocking me."

"No, I'm not. I know you have a lot on your mind. I'd like to help you, if I can. If you'll let me."

"Help me how?"

"What do you need? What can I do for you? There's no one else who can help you, not until we find Gaven, or he finds us. Please let me help."

Rienne stared down at the Eldeen fields passing beneath them like a patchwork of greens. What did she need? She wasn't sure she knew. And she wasn't sure she wanted help. "My whole life, I've depended on everyone-on my family and my noble name, on Gaven, on Maelstrom, on you. I need to figure out who I am."

Jordhan touched her elbow. "I've never known anyone more sure of herself."

"No, that's not it. My training is all about emptying myself, seeing myself and everyone around me as a part of a network, a web of being and motion. Without that web, at rest, I don't know…" She shook her head. "I don't know what I mean, I can't expect you to."

"It'll be all right, Ree." Jordhan's arms encircled her and his warmth surrounded her.

She closed her eyes and for a moment imagined it was Gaven calling her Ree, and his strong arms around her. But Jordhan was far leaner, and he smelled wrong-like the sea, like the citrus fruit he'd just eaten, like her friend. She pulled away from his embrace. "Jordhan-"

"I know," he said. "I'll leave you alone."

Rienne watched him slouch back to the helm, and she felt the weight on her shoulders grow heavier.

A day's journey past Varna, the airship approached the edge of the Towering Wood. The ordered lines of tended fields came to an abrupt end, and the forest rose like a wall dividing the agricultural east from the lands of the druids and rangers. But it was a wall that would give the eastern farms no shelter from the barbarians, whose approach was heralded by a smear of gray smoke on the western horizon.

Jordhan pointed the airship's prow at the smoke, and they floated over miles of forest green, autumn red and gold scattered among the branches. The smoke grew into a cloud like a raging storm, the fires beneath it painting splashes of scarlet across the darkened sky. As the sun's light drained away, the conflagration came into view. Flames leaped into the sky, pouring smoke into the air. Trees burned like torches as the fire consumed them and moved on, leaving them broken, blackened skeletons. The fires formed a long, curving line like a ripple spreading out from the Shadowcrags beyond. And thousands of campfires burned among the smoldering bones of the trees, glittering on the dark ground below like distant stars.

"Sovereigns help us," Rienne breathed. Images from her dream in Rav Magar stormed into her mind again-the tumult of the field of battle, barbarian soldiers falling before the fury of Maelstrom, the bone-white banners of the Blasphemer. And the words of the Prophecy: Dragons fly before the Blasphemer's legions…

"Jordhan, get us out of here!" she cried. They were high out of bowshot, but if there were dragons-if the dragons spotted them they'd be vulnerable to attack, all too easy to bring to ground.

The airship jerked as Jordhan urged the elemental bound within her to greater speed.

Rienne leaned over the bulwarks to peer down at the shadowed ground. The campfires illuminated clumps of people, but she didn't see any of the dragons mentioned in the Prophecy.

"What is it?" Jordhan called. "What do you see?"

Rienne turned back from the bulwarks to see Jordhan, eyes wide and knuckles white as he clenched the tiller. "We're flying over the horde now," she said. "And there are supposed to be dragons with them."

"More dragons." The constant threat of dragon attack had driven Jordhan and his crew half mad on their journey to Argonnessen.

"I don't see any, though…" As she spoke, Rienne turned back to look over the bulwarks-just in time to see a winged shadow pass before the fires that raged in the forest. "Oh no."

"How many?" Jordhan asked.

"I think I saw one. Hard to be sure-it's dark down there."

"Well, I've always wondered whether a little airship like this could outpace a dragon. Shall we find out?"

Rienne saw it clearly for just a moment, leathery wings spread wide as it rode the updraft over the flames. "Fly like the wind!" she cried. "It's coming!"

Aunn stood outside Kelas's tent and drew a slow breath. For a moment he imagined that he was about to have another meeting with the man who had been his mentor, his superior officer, and the closest thing to a father that he had ever known. But that man lay dead at the edge of the canyon, dead by Aunn's own hand, and Aunn was wearing his face. Aunn would never again have a face-to-face meeting with Kelas ir'Darren.

Letting the breath out, Aunn pulled back the flap of the tent. There could be no doubt that the ordered, austere tent belonged to Kelas-it was almost a replica of his study in the Royal Eyes' offices in Fairhaven, with the addition of a simple bedroll in the back corner. A plain table had been erected to serve as a desk, and it was as bare as Kelas's desk always was, a single sheaf of papers neatly stacked on one side. The chair behind the desk was plain wood. A low bookcase held a few favorite books, two other stacks of paper, and a small glass orb on a plain tripod. A small chest near the bedroll was the only other furnishing.

Still half-expecting Kelas's voice to accost him, Aunn swept around the room, stuffing papers into his backpack. The chest's lock only slowed him for the seconds it took him to slide a pick from the pouch at his belt and find the right catches inside. A few clean clothes followed the paper into his pack, and a handful of gold and silver coins went into his belt pouch. Less than a minute after he entered, he stood at the flaps of the tent and cast his eyes around the inside of the tent again. He scanned the books on the shelves-he was familiar with them all, from the classic treatise on tactics in war and politics, The Chimera of War, to the worn collection of the plays of Thardakhan, an ancient hobgoblin playwright Kelas revered. Nothing essential. He turned to leave, but dashed back and snatched the glass globe from the shelf, sliding it into the pouch with his wands. He wouldn't know until he took more time examining it whether it was anything more than decoration, but if nothing else it was a pretty trophy.

He hurried out of the tent and into the deserted camp. The battle with the dragon king, and Gaven's fierce storm, had strewn debris over the whole end of the canyon-a twisted metal beam ripped from the Dragon Forge impaled the tent nearest Kelas's, and wooden flinders littered the sandy ground. Aunn made his way up the ridge to the circle they would use to teleport back to Fairhaven. Cart and Ashara, still gathering supplies somewhere in the camp, weren't there yet, so Aunn was alone with Kelas's corpse. He froze with a sudden rage.

"You bastard!" Aunn shouted.

The surge of fury in his chest surprised him. He had expected, he realized, that killing Kelas would calm the storm of emotion he'd been caught in since he set out for the Demon Wastes.

He couldn't look at the dead man's face, though he was wearing it as his own. Falling to his knees beside the body, he undressed it, careful not to let his eyes meet the dead man's glassy stare. He made a quick scan of the corpse to make sure he hadn't missed any details in copying Kelas's appearance, but his memory had served him well. He took off his own clothes and armor, which Farren had secured for him before he left Maruk Dar, and replaced them with Kelas's garb. The contents of his belt pouches, including Kelas's glass orb, he transferred into the pouches Kelas had worn, and he took a quick inventory of Kelas's gear. Finally he lifted the sword from the ground beside Kelas's dead hand and slid it into its sheath at his belt, praying he'd never have to draw it.