The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 2.1

Two

In the evening Arden walked down to the water’s edge, where the sun’s last rays met the small waves rolling in from the east. It was, as always, a fine moment. The heat was just off the day. The cool of the sea was rising on the air. The sand and foam glowed with the rich hues of sunset. At his back drifted the west wind, laden with promises of heart’s ease and all the sleep a tired soul could want.

Down by the sea he pulled off his boots and waded into the water up to his knees. Standing there with it swirling around him, Arden listened to the sounds it made, breaking upon itself, washing the shore, bubbling and hissing as it slipped back again. And he breathed, breathed the salt air deep into his lungs and sighed it out again. This world filled his soul and senses up entirely. In a place like this, he could take a year just breathing. In a place like this, doubts and fears almost vanished. It was his home. It was where he belonged. It was where he wished to be. In a place like this, he knew there was a god, and that god cared. Here it could not be otherwise.

Within minutes the sun slipped beneath the horizon behind him, and the golden red of sunset gave way to the violet ghost of the day. Arden returned to the shore to sit and wait as the night came in over the sea. Each year of his life since the Fall he had come here for just this one night, always arriving just before sundown and departing with the dawn. He would gladly have stayed forever. In all, this place and time was his one escape from the starless dark in which his heart dwelt. From the moment he left he was counting the days until he could return again. So he sat watching the dusk merge with the blue of the evening sea, and waited for night to fall. Each year it was just so.

“But this year is different. This year there is hope,” Arden said quietly to the sea. “Even if not for me.”

For with the unexpected appearance of Evénn that night last fall at the burning farm, the world had changed. Evénn had brought the sword of adamant, the slayer of darkness. He had revealed that the bow called by the Rangers the bow of Mahar was in truth the bow of the Tree of Life which Telkar had wrought centuries ago to slay the spirit dragons. Together now, with these weapons in hand, they at last had a chance to rid the world of the dragons and their servants.

One indeed had already fallen, the red dragon who ruled from the City of Narinen, and all across this wide land the people had risen up in joy and anger to strike at his servants. But in the hour of their first victory, in the City itself, as the people celebrated their deliverance, the silver dragon had arrived in haste from across the sea. Two days later the golden dragon came, and three more sufficed to bring the black from the far side of the world. On their wings came death and vengeance.

For weeks thereafter the three dragons had punished the City with fire, might, and enchantments until, it was said, nothing that could burn remained unburnt, until no stone was still set upon another. The City of Narinen was dust and ashes scattered on the wind. Only the eastern tower of the Hall of Kings had defeated them, now as thirty years before. It stood proud of the bones and the ruins, battered and blackened by flame, but whole.

Yet none could say who told this tale. None could say how many survived of those who had fought that day to take back what was theirs. Some few had escaped to speak of the coming of the dragons. So Arden had heard, but in the four months since then he had not met any. Neither he nor any of his companions had spoken to anyone else for many weeks now. What they knew they overheard from around corners or behind hedges. The story of Narinen’s destruction had been passed from mouth to mouth, league upon league through the towns and mountains and hills of Narinen, and with every mile rumor changed it, shaping it into a legend of courage and terror.

Arden looked up from his thoughts. It was almost fully dark now, and she would be here soon. He resisted the urge to turn and look for her. Why it took longer for her to arrive when he looked, he did not know. He did not ask. The long years had taught him patience at least. He had learned simply to let her come. One moment he would be alone with his thoughts and the sea. The next he would hear a footstep in the sand behind him and feel her hand upon his shoulder. For that sound, that touch he waited all year. His heart now quickened its beat. He stopped thinking, no longer heard the sea nor felt the breeze.

Then came her footstep, her hand upon his shoulder. Sorrow knelt down behind him and wrapped him in her arms. Long she held him and wordlessly, nestling her head upon his shoulder. Arden reached up and she took his hand in hers.

“Arden,” she said in a small, hushed voice, barely a whisper of the breeze.

Sorrow held him more closely then until the darkness of the night was complete and the stars shone upon them there beside the sea. When she released him at last, he turned to look at her. Though the years could not touch her and she appeared to him every bit the girl of seventeen he had known in his youth, yet her beauty had grown with time, as if somehow – in his eyes only perhaps – she was now both that young girl and the woman of beauty and grace she would now be if she lived still in the world. Her eyes were as bright even in the darkness, her smile as radiant, the tilt of her head as charming as ever they could have been.

“Sorrow,” he said finally.

“Arden,” she replied, “call me by my name.”

“I cannot,” he answered. “I have forgotten it.”

“No, you haven’t,” she smiled at him. “Please, Arden.”

He leaned towards her and rose up on one knee. Putting his cheek beside hers, he whispered her name in her ear. For a long moment he lingered, feeling how close they were and reveling in the scent of her skin and hair, wanting more, nearly drunk with it all. But he knew they were farther apart than they seemed, even here. He sat back, relinquishing the moment.

Arden sighed, wishing he could conceal it from her, but she had always understood his heart too well despite the words he had never spoken. She took his face between her hands, and, pulling him close, kissed him three times, softly, so gently, but with the unspoken love and passion of a lifetime. With her fingertips she brushed the tears from his face and looked at him amazed. Then she wiped away her own and pressed her fingers first to his lips, then his to her own.

“You’re crying,” she said. “You’ve never done that before.”

“It’s a new skill I’ve picked up,” Arden said in jest, though he choked upon his words.

“I’m glad. It’s one you’ve needed,” she said, smiling at him and stroking his hair, while he looked at her, desperately.

“I wait all year for this one night,” he said.

“So do I,” she answered. “So do I.”

“Every day I regret the choice that cost me you. Every day I look at what the dragons have done to our land and our people. But, but none of that means anything to me compared to you.”

“Arden, that’s not true, you have fought all your life for our people. You and Evénn slew the red dragon.”

“But all I have is one night a year, one night in which all is as it should have been, one night when all my dreams come true. Then you return to the other side and I am left alone here and empty-handed. You cannot come with me nor I with you. And when you are here, I can’t even touch you unless you touch me first. So even now when we are together, you are out of my reach. Even here, you are a ghost. I love you, Sorrow, and all this is very hard to bear.”

And saying that he looked into her eyes as he had never looked before in all the years he came here, because he had been afraid of saying those words he had never spoken and he had been afraid of her eyes: that if he dared let himself speak and look, he would be lost forever; that having to leave her then and be left by her, as must be, would wound his soul more than any strength of will could master; or that, if he dared to speak and look as he wished without being able to have her as he wished, he would be unable to go on with his life in the world, bitter as it was. Yet he would not unsay the words, nor look away again.

And Sorrow looked back at him, looked as she had been looking for all the years, while she waited for the night when he would no longer turn his face away from her. She smiled at him then in the dark beneath the stars, and to him the stars seemed to be reflected in her eyes. It made him think of when they had been young together and sat beside the living sea in the living world, not this dream world of shades and shadows which was all that remained to them.

“I love you, Arden,” she said.

Briefly Arden was happy. It had been so long since he had felt truly happy that he had forgotten the power of this feeling and it took him off guard. Impulsively he reached out to caress her cheek, but his hand passed through it as through the air itself. Happy as the moment was, he could not touch her of his own will. She did not belong to him, but to death, or god, or the world of spirits. Which it was he did not know and did not care. The dead could reach the living, but not the living the dead. The distance between them was too great for the powers of the living to span. Even in a place like this, there was only so far he could go.

But Sorrow reached out, and, taking his hand as it grasped at the empty air, pressed it to her cheek. Still she smiled at him. Still she looked.

“I do love you, and if I could choose to be with you I would,” she said.

“I know.”

“You’re different this time,” she said after a long moment’s reflection. “You never spoke before, and you looked at me. I feared you never would.”

“This quest, the dragon, being with these people, it’s changing me.”

“But you must want to change, or you never would.”

“Since you’ve been gone, Sorrow, I’ve been alone, with nothing of that world to take comfort in. All I have known has been my duty, my hatred of the dragon, and the pain of losing you. But there is no solace in duty for duty’s sake when all that you love is gone. Slaying the dragon for justice did not bring you back, and as vengeance it was just as empty. For you are still gone.

“These people, though, Evénn and Jalonn, Agarwen and Niall, make me think sometimes that I want more than I have known. In them I see what is possible instead of only the impossible, and what can perhaps be found when all seems lost. I have been praying and meditating to try to find at least some peace and maybe to see what they can see. And it has helped. But it is hard to lay aside the anger and hatred, the grief and fear of a lifetime, when I can never give all of myself to life. Because my heart is with you, here and in your garden.”

“But, my love,” she said, “there is so much you can give. I know. And I have so little to offer you, now.”

“How could I give a divided heart to someone? For if I tried to love another, that is what I would be doing. There isn’t enough left for anyone else. It would not be right or fair to try to love someone like that. I would be to denying my own heart, and that could only lead to grief for everyone. Once I knew a man, another Ranger like me, who had also lost everything in the war, and more. For he had a wife whom he loved, and she was killed. He tried to go on, and after a time he seemed to have found another he loved. And he did love her, but too much of his heart was with the wife he had lost, and their marriage never prospered. For me, it would be impossible to do that. All I would do is cause misery for us both, no matter how much she loved me, because I could never be wholly hers. And she would know that in her heart if nowhere else. So would I. It is impossible. It is wrong.” 

They fell silent then, thinking about all they had never said before tonight, and all that could never be. Both understood the divide that would keep them apart for as long as Arden lived. To speak and hear their hearts spoken after so many years of silence was a release of burdens, a joy itself unspeakable, but to know they remained divided for all that gave as much of grief. After some minutes Sorrow touched his cheek again and kissed him.

"I remember once after a day by the sea," she said, as if far off in a dream of her own, "we sat on the steps of your porch with a cool drinks of water you’d drawn from the well.  The sun was going down, and the shadows of the trees stretched out east across the beach.  I remember how those shadows moved with the breeze, and how the air smelled of salt and flowers, of honeysuckle and sycamore. You took my hand, so gently, and I thought all things were possible.”

"I remember, too," Arden replied.  "My hand remembers the softness of yours.  And all the rest.  But that was before."

"It wasn't my choice."

"I know. I'm not blaming you."

She looked at him and smiled, her eyes shining with starlight, like stars themselves.  He smiled back.

"You shouldn't blame yourself either."

"I don't."

"You can't lie to me," she said, half laughing.

"Not for that I don't.  It wasn't your fault or mine or Niall's."

"But you do blame yourself. You think that if you had impressed my father more, he would have made the arrangements with your father instead of Niall’s.”

"What I think is that I should have chosen to stay with you instead of going into a doomed city."

"You would have died, too."

"That doesn't sound so bad sometimes."

"Don't say that,” she said. “You don't know what you’re talking about."

"Forgive me."

She reached out and placed her hand over his.  To him it felt as warm and soft as it had that one evening long before.  They watched the stars wheel slowly above them, and listened to the waves lap gently at the sands.  Sometimes a wave spent its last strength hissing up the shore to touch their feet.

"I wish I could understand why you can touch me, but I can't touch you,” said Arden.  “This is my dream."

"Is it?"

With that they again fell silent for a time, and when they began to speak once more, it was of small things and memories, of their families and friends, of things that Arden had seen in the wide Land of Narinen. They spoke long and quietly. They walked up and down the beach, hand in hand, and bathed their feet in the cool of the sea. They laughed much as the night wore on towards dawn. At last their time together was nearly done, and from the sea rose the morning star, for this night at least the sun’s cruel messenger. As every year, Sorrow told him she must go soon. He nodded and wondered why she must go, why they could not simply rest here in each other’s arms, but he did not ask her why. Instead he told her again of the love for her that he had guarded in his heart for thirty years and could leave unsaid no longer. For he had reached the end of his strength. She held him close and once more he whispered her name to her. With a brief kiss, she rose and was gone. Then it was day.

Arden stood up and walked again down to the sea. Bending over he splashed its waters on his face and licked the salt from his hands. But as he bent once more to pick up his boots, he thought for an instant that he felt somewhere a displeasure and frustration not his own. It was strange, as if someone else were present and watching him. He looked up and down the shore, following its crescent from headland to headland. He allowed his eyes to rest on the tower that rose at the head of the bay. Until today he had never paid much attention to it. His business here was not with the tower, but with her. Now he studied it.

Two arched entrances he could see, one on the east facing the ocean, another on the south side, his side. Through this door a light shone, as from a crystal lamp that caught the radiance of the morning sun pouring through the eastern archway. Arden let his eyes travel up the tower’s white walls. At regular intervals above the doors were large windows, but he could see no one looking out of them. Nor was anyone to be seen on the roof, which Arden deemed to be three hundred feet above the sands. From what he could tell there was no one here but him, and when he searched his heart for some echo of that momentary presence, he found none. He picked up his boots and walked away.

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The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 1.3

Three days later Hansarad led a ragged column of Rangers clad in black towards the Mountain Gate. By his side rode Baran, bearing the black and scarlet banner of the red dragon. Behind them marched seventy Rangers looking for all the world like the remnants of the two companies which had left Prisca two days earlier. But this was no ruse to gain entrance to the City. Without the passwords, he knew they could never get past the Captain of the Gate. If they tried to do so, they would reveal themselves for who they truly were beneath the cloaks of so many dead soldiers. Nor were they enough to storm the gate. A generation ago, thousands of the dragon’s men had succeeded only because their masters had broken the way open before them.

This morning all they needed was for their raiment to allow them near enough for the Captain of the Gate to come out to meet them and ask for the password. As soon as he did, the rebels would attack the enemy from behind, and the Rangers would rush the gates from without. To this end a dozen Rangers accompanied by Garalf, who was younger and more fit than Imlan, had scaled the walls last night, so Garalf could bring word of this plan to the leaders of the rebellion. Two of Berandan’s best had watched them go up and over the battlements. Almost at once they had heard the sounds of a brief combat, then nothing. Some minutes later the alarm was raised, but by then Garalf and the Rangers with him were gone from the walls. When Hansarad and the other captains heard the report of Berandan’s Rangers, it was clear that now all depended on whether the leaders of the rebellion were still alive. Imlan had no doubt they would be. Hansarad hoped he was right.

Yet even as his horse slowly paced off the distance to the Gate and as his Rangers marched in order behind him, Hansarad’s heart ached within him. It was not only that yesterday’s victory at the crossroads had come at a cost. For Hansarad had long been aware that some Rangers never came home again. It was a lesson he first learned as a boy, on the day word came to the Valley that the camp at Skia, where his father was second in command, had been overrun. Weeks dragged by before it was possible to begin to sort out who had survived. For him they were weeks of terror. Every report that arrived, every inquiry his mother made of the Masters, affirmed that his father was one of those who stayed behind to defend the camp, so that the rest could escape.

But even when he learned that his father and Jalonn had managed to cut their way out, still there were so many others, Rangers he knew by face or by name, who never came back.

In the years since then Hansarad had become accustomed to saying farewell to the dead and the lost. As a simple Ranger he had found it difficult enough. Once he became a captain, whose every order sent Rangers into peril, he soon decided that the honor was not equal to the burden. Friends and comrades, commanders and those under his command – he had spoken over their graves, jested in their memory, brought loathsome word to their families.

But yesterday at the crossroads – As Baran had warned, the dragon had bowmen of his own, and the last of them shot Elénna from her saddle when she was so nearly out of bowshot. Friends since childhood, lovers since youth, many long years beloved, she and Hansarad had never married. No child would bear her name and likeness as he had hoped. To his shame he had to force himself to think of the other Rangers who fell, but for him her loss had no equal. No words could voice it. For all the years of their love he had trembled to think of this day. Now that it had come the pain of it was beyond his every fear.

He urged his horse onward. There was nothing else to do. Elénna would have done the same.

The Gate was close now. He could see the faces of the troopers looking down from the battlements above. It had been many years since so many Rangers had approached the City, and never in their long history had they done so with hostile intent. When they were twenty five yards away, a commanding voice rang out from the walls, bidding them halt. Hansarad raised his hand and nodded to Baran. The column stopped and Baran lowered the standard in respect to the Captain of the Gate.

At first nothing happened. The silence from the walls began to worry him. They were being assessed, he knew, by the officers up there who gave long consideration to the sight before them: a ragged, muddy band not half the size of what they had been expecting. Without turning, Hansarad signaled the men directly behind him to set down the half dozen litters they were carrying on which rested those feigning serious wounds. The urge to glance at Baran beside him was strong. This was a show of patience he did not feel.

At length a series of commands were barked down from the tower, as one soldier after another passed the word for the gates to be opened. The ironbound timbers which barred the gates were drawn noisily back, and after a pause of a few heartbeats the doors pivoted smoothly towards him, each of them pushed by three troopers who took up positions on either side of the gateway as soon as they were done.

Out of the tunnel came a party of five horsemen, the captain, the standard bearer, and three others. They stopped halfway between them and the gates, so the standard bearer could dip his standard in return for the respect shown his captain. Beyond them Hansarad could see through the tunnel, across the bailey and into the street beyond. As the Captain of the Gate and his standard bearer nudged their horses forward again, Hansarad saw armed men begin streaming around the corners of the first cross street beyond the bailey. At the head of each line, hugging the walls as they ran, were Rangers in gray or green. It would take only seconds for them to begin their assault.

He and Baran needed to hold the attention of the captain and his men only a little longer. They advanced to meet them. In Hansarad’s hand were the orders he had taken from the body of the officer commanding the two companies summoned back from Prisca. He held it out to the Captain of the Gate, who nodded and thanked him. As he did so, Hansarad could see the man searching his memory for his face.

“You don’t know me, sir,” Hansarad said quickly and respectfully, laying one hand on his chest and bowing his head. “Sergeant Raynall, sir. The officers are dead.”

The captain was about to reply when hundreds of voices suddenly cried aloud behind him. He spun around to stare back down the tunnel and into the street beyond. A glance told almost everything. Hundreds of men were pouring into the bailey. The guards stationed at the entrance to the street had been overwhelmed, and the sounds of combat atop the walls and tower were already beginning. The Mountain Gate, his gate, was being taken from within. He swung back to glare at Hansarad, who did not move when the arrow hummed past his head and took the captain in the throat. Other bows sang. The rest of the captain’s party and the men posted outside the gates fell dead.

Led by Hansarad and Baran, who hurled down the dragon’s standard, the Rangers charged towards the Mountain Gate. In an instant they were there, within the tunnel, casting off their black cloaks and drawing their swords as they ran for the bailey. Suddenly, with a clatter of chains over spinning gears the portcullis plummeted downwards. Baran and Hansarad cried out in frustration, to come so close and be denied. Then just as suddenly it stopped not three feet above the pavement. Leaping from their horses, they dove beneath the portcullis and jumped up again, inside the City. The Rangers swarmed through behind them, splitting at once into smaller bands, some to rush into the tower, some to climb up to the walls to aid the rebels fighting there, some to cross into the street beyond and await the response that would surely come from Machlor.

After fifteen minutes of hard fighting the Mountain Gate belonged to the rebels. Unskilled in war, they had hurled themselves upon the dragon’s men with a ferocity that even six days into the rebellion astonished their enemy. On every floor of the tower, in every room and corridor, the evidence was plain to see. Rebels had died by the score, and there were no prisoners. Blood painted the walls, blood dripped from the ceiling, here where it had sprayed from a severed limb, there where the mortally wounded had lurched back into a wall and sunk inch by inch to the floor. Crimson tracks crossed and re-crossed the pools which mingled the gore of both sides. And everywhere the rebels stalked the halls, wild eyed with the lust of death.

At the threshold of the chamber which housed the machinery of the portcullis Hansarad had to step high to cross over the bodies. Alone in the center of the room sat Dara, with a sword resting on her knees. Her face was a mask of red. Her broken spear was jammed deep into the gears of the mechanism.

“You owe me a new spear, captain,” she said when their eyes met.

“Are you unhurt, Dara?” he asked.

“Yes, captain.”

“Hansarad, Dara. Call me Hansarad. You are a captain now yourself.”

She nodded quickly, regretting the death that had made a place for her.

“Hansarad, then” she said decisively and stood up, wiping her blade on a dead man’s cloak. “You owe me a new spear.”

“You shall have the finest in the armory, Dara,” he smiled in spite of himself, “but first we must move out before more dragon’s men arrive and pin us down here. How many of them were here, do you think?”

“A company or a little more,” she replied as they left the room and headed for the stairs.

“So, about a company at each gate. That leaves two or three others held in reserve somewhere, probably near the square.”

“Yes, the rebel leaders told me as much last night.”

“Good to know. Some of those troops will be coming to try to retake the Gate.”

“Well, captain,” she said out of long habit, “there’s more to be told about that. You see, the rebels are going to attack the other Gates as well, to draw off some of those reinforcements, or immobilize them completely.”

“They have enough men for that?”

“Yes, to start with,” Dara said as she stepped over a tangle of bodies near the top of the stairs. “Machlor’s reprisals have been so severe that they have only driven more people to rise up against him. The people fear him, it’s true. He is cold and cruel and pitiless. But he is not the dragon, and neither are his men.

“And almost all of Machlor’s watchmen have been killed already. The few who haven’t been caught yet had better hope they’re not. Last night I saw two of them hunted through the streets like animals, then stoned to death when they were brought to bay. It’s as if the people’s hunger for their blood grows with every taste they get of it.”

She stopped and thought for a moment, looking at the slaughter all around them, then a Hansarad.

“So,” she went on, “it’s only the regular troops we have to contend with, and they hold only the square and the other gates securely. Whenever they try to go anywhere else, they have to go in force. Even then they are pelted from the upper windows and rooftops with stones and roof tiles, with buckets of hot water or night soil. Quite a few of them have been killed or wounded that way. It’s been pretty grim in here the last week.”

As they stepped back out into the sunlit bailey Hansarad gazed around him at further proof of her words.

“How many rebels will attack the other gates?” he asked a moment later.

“More than have done so here,” Dara answered. “And their leaders believe that many others will take the risk of joining them once they see what’s going on. That’s what’s been happening here so far, they tell me. Now they are hoping, what with the attacks on the Gates and the knowledge that the Rangers have come – news they have been whispering about since this morning by the way – that the rising will become general.”

“Imlan said they were organized,” Hansarad said.

“Again he spoke the truth.”

Outside in the courtyard, the Rangers and rebels were preparing to move again now that the Mountain Gate was theirs. Half of the rebels would stay to hold the Gate against any attempt to retake it. Someone was winching the portcullis slowly upward again. Presently Baran appeared from the tunnel with their horses. As Hansarad mounted, a loud roar came across the City. He looked to Imlan and Garalf who stood nearby.

“The attacks on the other Gates have begun,” Garalf said.

Hansarad nodded and gave the signal for them all to advance. As before, Baran rode with him. Berandan walked beside the middle of the column and Dara followed in the rear. Rangers were already scouting ahead of them. With a wave of their hands indicated that the first street they had to cross was clear. At each street along the route to the square, they found no sign of the dragon’s men, but the farther they went the more people of the City they saw. The scouts on the streets parallel to theirs reported that hundreds of men and women, armed with knives or rusty swords, hammers, bows, and staffs, were spilling from their houses onto the streets and moving along with the Rangers into the heart of the City.

At times in the distance several streets ahead they saw small groups of troopers watching them approach, but they always fell back before the Rangers and the rain of missiles from the houses and buildings around them. Hansarad ordered some of the scouts to the rooftops, to look across the City and make sure that Machlor had not concealed bowmen there to shoot down at them from above. Each time they reported that no soldiers were in sight. Along the way they could still hear the echo of the battles being fought at the other Gates, but as they neared the center of the City, the voices of the people flooding towards the square drowned out every other sound. They were shouting out their hatred and defiance or singing hymns of victory they had learned as children.

When at last they came to the square, Hansarad gazed around him in awe, not at the vast expanse of the space, but at the thousands of people filling it from end to end. In all his life Hansarad had never seen so many people gathered in one place, though he had been taught by the Masters about the magnificent assemblies and festivals once held here. And his father had told him that at such times a man could feel the emotions of the crowd flowing around him like the current of a river, that the very air seemed to vibrate with life. Hansarad learned now that all they had taught him was true and more than true. The recognition left him stunned.

But as he paused there upon his horse with Baran, Baran who breathed in the vibrancy of the many and threw back his head and laughed, the crowd saw him there beneath the arch. A hum began to run through the crowd as their heads turned towards him, and the light of the afternoon sun shone on their faces. Then he realized that they were calling his name – which the rebels had told them – and as it spread from mouth to mouth it became clearer and louder. Then they were shouting it, as if he were their deliverer. He looked over at Baran, who was beaming, his red hair and beard like flame and his eyes glittering. He glanced over his shoulder at Garalf with displeasure. The man grinned a bit and shrugged an insincere apology.

“They probably think you’re your father,” Baran said, choking on his mirth. “They probably didn’t tell them that.”

“Aye,” was all Hansarad could get out.

“Well, let’s not disappoint them, captain,” said Baran.

“Aye,” Hansarad replied and spurred his horse forward. Across the square to his left, he finally saw the dragon’s men. In the open space before the Hall of Kings they stood drawn up in square. There looked to be about three companies of them. In the center of their square was the dragon’s standard and beneath it clustered a small group of horsemen. Machlor would be among them.

Hansarad turned his horse that way and the column moved behind him. Before him the crowd parted to allow them through, first watching them closely as they came, then reaching out their hands to them, then gazing after them when they had passed. But Hansarad and Baran never took their eyes from the troopers who awaited them at the Hall of Kings. For their part, despite the raging of the crowd, the soldiers did not move or waver. As Hansarad studied them, he never saw one look to either side or shift his feet nervously. Clearly Machlor had kept the best of his men here.

“They know all is lost,” Baran said to him as they halted some distance away, “and they mean to die like soldiers. This is their last stand.”

“Surely no better fate awaits them, not at their hands,” Hansarad said, nodding toward the crowd, “not after all these years of terror.”

With that Hansarad drew his sword and advanced. The Rangers and rebels spread out to either side of him and Baran. At his command a volley of arrows struck the enemy, then a second and a third. As the third was loosed, Hansarad cried aloud and they charged. The crowd surged forward with them, passing them by with a deafening roar. It struck the front ranks of the enemy, and swarmed against their two exposed flanks. For a few seconds the troopers held their ground, but the next moment the weight of the people’s wrath swept them away completely.

Hansarad and Baran burst through the disintegrating line of soldiers and sped towards the officers beneath the standard. One rode out to meet Hansarad, unsheathing his sword as he came. He sat upon his gray horse, tall and straight, a lean, elegant man who held his head high amidst this the downfall of all his ambitions. It was Machlor. Hansarad knew him from his description.

They met, swords clashing, passed each other and wheeled about to meet again. In the midst of the swirling, howling mob, they fought as if all alone. After a few passes Hansarad knew that his opponent was a worthy swordsman. They traded blows, and once only by suddenly jerking his head back and to one side did Hansarad survive a thrust which cut his cheek to the bone. But Hansarad had learned the sword from his father and Raynall and Jalonn, and his experience of single combat was more recent. In a few more passes the point of his sword slipped beneath Machlor’s guard, deeply piercing his ribs. The crowd rushed in from all sides. Dozens of hands reached up to seize him and pull him from his horse. Hansarad’s sword was nearly dragged from his grasp before he could pull it free.

The battle was over. For a time at least Narinen was theirs once again. The people in the square shifted and roared like the sea in a storm. Hansarad rode his horse up the marble steps of the Hall of Kings and turned to survey the thousands who stood before him, now cheering, now shouting their joy on this day long in coming. For a while he sat there and took in this vision of triumph after suffering. From the sea of people before him emerged Baran laughing, and Dara, and Berandan, then Imlan and Garalf, and so many of the rebels and Rangers with whom he had fought this day. They, too, mounted the palace steps and stood around him. In time the people grew quiet as they all looked at each other and knew they were free.

From the crowd stepped a young man, his hands and arms bloody to the elbows, his old clothing dirty and torn, but his eyes were bright with passion. In his hands he carried the banner of the dragon, equally torn, equally bloody. He climbed the steps to face Hansarad and held out the banner to him as a token of victory, but Hansarad would not accept it. He bade the young man turn and face the people. He told him to raise the standard above his head, and as he did so, Hansarad pointed to the banner and then to the people, to tell them that this victory was theirs, that the banner and the battle had been won by them.

In response several nearby cried out his name. The cry spread through the square until it seemed that everyone was calling his name again, shouting it as loud as they could. All the square echoed it back. Hansarad was abashed, and feeling his mood, his horse moved nervously beneath him. Not in all the centuries since Stochas, the last king, had summoned the people here to tell them that the days of the kings had ended and the days of the Republic had begun, had anyone stood in this place and heard thousands cry out his name. This knowledge and this tribute overwhelmed him. In his eyes he felt the sting of tears.

A dark shape passed between earth and sun.

next

The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 1.2

That evening about sunset two troopers, black cloaked and black helmed, stood on guard on the platform above the fortress’ gates. All day they had stood there in the rain, staring off at the mountains, and they were soaked through to the skin. Their woolen cloaks were sodden and heavy, as were their boots. Cold, wet and tired, they longed for the warmth of a fire, their supper, and their beds at last.

“How much longer?” the first one said, his weariness of this day clear in his young voice.

“About an hour, Li,” Aran, the second guard, answered, “same as two minutes ago.”

“Well, I’m sick of this.”

“I’m sick of it, too, Li. Quit complaining, will you? You’re only making it worse.”

“But I’ve been here longer, Aran. So, I’m more sick of this than you are.”

“What? We walked here from the barracks together this morning.”

“No, here at the fort,” Li replied. “I’ve been here six months longer than you have.”

“You sound like my sister. Always complaining,” Aran said, annoyed, and pushed his ill-fitting helmet back up out his eyes once again. After a moment it slid back down.

“Shut up,” Li said. “I don’t want to hear about your sister.”

“What’s wrong with my sister?” Aran asked.

“Nothing,” Li muttered.

“No, I want an answer. Every time I mention my sister, you tell me to shut up, and I want to know why.”

Li glared at him, the rain running off his helmet and down his smooth cheeks. But to Aran it looked as if his eyes were moist as well. Li walked to the top of the steps, peered over the edge of the platform, and glanced carefully around. He turned back to Aran.

“Did you join or were you pressed?” he asked.

“Why? What’s that got to do with my sister?

“Did you join or were you pressed?”

“I joined. Why?”

“Why did you join?”

“Well, for the money mostly. My family needed the money.”

“Well, I was pressed. I didn’t want to be here. My father didn’t want me to be here either. And we didn’t use to be poor, not before, do you see? In the old days my father and grandfather made fine carriages for all the finest and wealthiest people in Narinen. They did excellent work and did very well because of that. Now my father makes wagons and wheelbarrows.”

“So you used to be rich, so what?” Aran said. “What does that have to do with my sister?”

“We weren’t rich.”

“Compared to us you were.”

“Yes, well,” Li said and paused.

“Li, what is it? Tell me. I don’t understand”

“No, I shouldn’t. The corporal will be here soon. We’ll get caught talking on duty.”

“Then come back over here, away from the edge, and we’ll pretend to keep watch. Just like we do every day. It’s not like there’s anything to see out there anyway.”

Li hesitated a moment, then came over to the wall.

“Come on, Li, tell me what it is.”

“Did they press men where you lived?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ve seen the gangs of men that come every year and demand people’s sons and brothers and fathers?”

Aran nodded.

“My family did have some money. My grandfather and father hid it away when the dragon came. His men killed my grandfather and burned his shop because he wouldn’t admit he had any money or tell them where it was hidden. Years later my father began bribing the local governor – a man he’d known since they were children – to leave us alone and keep the press gangs away from us. Every spring my father gave him gold so they would pass us by. For year or two they did.”

“Then what?”

“Then they came, in my eighteenth summer, last year, and gave my father a choice: they could either take me for a soldier, or my sister for a –”

“I get it,” Aran cut him off. “Your father gave them you.”

“Yes.”

“But, Li, you saved your sister.”

“No, I didn’t,” Li shook his head.

“No?” Aran answered, flinching inside, thinking of his own sister.

“No. Three months later they came back and took her anyway. My father wrote me.”

“He put that in a letter?”

“No, he just said she had gone away.”

“Maybe she just got married,” Aran said, offering hope he did not possess.

“No. That he could have written down.”

“I’m sorry, Li,” he said after it had rained on them for a minute more.

“I hate them. I hate the dragon. I’m glad they killed him.”

“Shut up, Li, or you’ll get us both killed.”

Li did not reply, and Aran could find nothing more to say now that the story was told. All he could think to do was stand close by him in silence. Maybe that was enough. They stared off into the growing darkness, darker and more obscure because of the rain. In a few minutes they heard the quick beat of the corporal trotting up the stairs.

“Report,” he said in an official tone as he walked across the platform. He was scarcely older that Li and Aran.

“Nothing, sir,” Aran replied quickly, though Li was his senior. “Not even a bird since the column left.”

The corporal shot him a quick glance, curious and suspicious, then looked over at Li, who kept staring off into the dusk, his face grim and angry.

“What is it, soldier? Speak up now.”

Li did not answer with more than a glare.

“I told you to speak up. That’s an order.”

Again Li did not respond.

“Corporal,” Aran said.

“Not now, Aran,” the corporal answered.

“But corporal.”

“I said not now. What do I have to do –”

“Corporal, someone is coming through the gap.”

Even Li turned to look. Through the dusk and murk of the rain they saw six men, clad in black and mounted, emerging from the shadow of the hills and coming down the Road at a dead run. For a moment they were alone, then another group of riders, a dozen strong, burst from the gap behind them in headlong pursuit of the first group. All were racing for the dirt road that led from the Great Road to the fortress. Two of the foremost pursuers rose in their stirrups to loose arrows at their prey. One of the black cloaked riders fell from his mount.

“It’s our scouts,” Aran exclaimed. “They’ve come back at last!”

“No,” the corporal said thoughtfully as he considered the scene before him.

“Are the others –,” Aran began.

“Rangers,” Li said all in a hush.

“Rangers, yes,” the corporal said, then spun on his heel and hurried to the edge of the platform. “You there, trooper,” he shouted down to a soldier crossing the middle of the grounds. “Yes, Thorn, you. Go get the lieutenant and the sergeant. Now, trooper. We’ve got Rangers coming.”

“Corporal, they’re almost to the turn,” Aran called.

Back at the wall, the corporal saw that another of the scouts had fallen before the Rangers’ bows. Four remained, but the turn from the pavement of the Great Road to the mud of the road to the fort was sharp and dangerous in the best of weather for horses moving as swiftly as these. From the platform they could hear the horses neighing as they slid sideways and struggled to keep their feet under them in the slippery muck. Then the last of the scouts lost his horse from beneath him, and both man and beast fell and went rolling off the road into a ditch. Now the other three pushed their horses’ hearts to bursting, shouting and spurring and lashing them to a final effort. Now the Rangers made the turn, one pausing only slightly to shoot down into the ditch at the fallen scout as he tried to climb back onto the road. Now only four hundred yards lay between the scouts and the gates.

“We must open the gates for them,” Aran cried.

“No,” the corporal answered firmly.

“But they’re our men!”

“No, our men have been gone too long. They’re dead already.”

“But look, that’s Caras in front. Look at his horse’s blaze and four white socks.”

“It’s a trick. They’re all Rangers.”

“But the horse....We must open the gates.”

“Aran,” barked the corporal. “Do you remember the commander’s last words before he left? Didn’t you hear him tell the lieutenant not to open the gates?”

Aran shut his mouth in frustration. Together they watched the horsemen speed closer and closer. The horses’ heads stretched forward on their long necks, the riders bending low over them. Through the rush of the downpour and the drum of the hoof beats, the riders’ voices could just be heard crying desperately for them to open the gates. Aran turned to the corporal.

“But what if – ”

The back of the corporal’s hand struck him down. Aran looked up in surprise, his hand to his mouth.

“Don’t question me again,” the corporal growled, and turned back to the outer wall.

Then they heard the sound of the great bar in the gate being raised. The corporal spun around, his eyes wide, and started for the stairs. He stopped suddenly and looked about him.

“Where’s Li?” he demanded of Aran, who was still sitting on the platform holding his jaw. Now the sound of the hooves and the cries of the riders were loud in their ears. Now came the sound of the hinges creaking as the gates began to open.

“Come on,” cried the corporal, rushing down the stairs and drawing his sword, Aran scrambling to his feet behind him. As they reached the bottom and swung towards the gateway, they could see the sergeant and lieutenant also running towards the gates, their cloaks flapping behind them. The sergeant was waving his arms and shouting.

“No, no, no!”

But the gates were already wide open. The two gatekeepers stood looking dumbly at the sergeant, a puzzled expression on their faces. In the middle of the gateway stood Li.

“Shut the gates, damn you,” the corporal screamed at the gatekeepers. “Shut them.”

“But Li told us you said –” the nearer one said in surprise.

“Shut them!” the corporal shouted and threw his shoulder into the nearer gate.

The gate began to swing, but it was too late. The three Rangers disguised as scouts were too close to keep out. Li, sword in hand, glanced over his shoulder at the corporal, and smiled a smile of vengeance. As he did so, the first Ranger through the gates cut him down, followed by one of the gatekeepers. Now all three of them were inside and quickly slew all nearby. Behind them came the dozen Rangers who had pursued them. With bow, sword, and spear they hunted down and slew the dragon’s men. Within five minutes the fortress was theirs. They shut and barred the gates behind them. The dead were dragged aside.

Baran, the leader of the pursuers, reined in his horse outside the commander’s quarters and dismounted. He handed the reins to Rachor, who stood with Dara, two of Hansarad’s Rangers, at the foot of the steps leading up to the porch. Dara leaned on her spear, surveying the muddy grounds between herself and the gates, and watching the other Rangers moving from building to building in search of food, supplies, and any hidden survivors whom they could not allow to escape. On the other side of the steps, Baran saw Dara’s horse, Faraway, and the chestnut of the unfortunate Caras hitched to the rail.

“He’s inside?” Baran asked her.

“Yes, captain. He’s waiting for you.”

“Thank you. Dara, go make sure the others see to their horses before they get cold. That was a hard ride.”

“Yes, captain.”

“And find out how Falas, Nerun, and Elan are faring. Those falls they took on the ride were almost too convincing. I saw Nerun limping rather badly when she came in the gate. Report to us here.”

“I will, captain,” Dara said and strode off with her spear over her shoulder.

Inside Baran found Hansarad sitting behind the commander’s desk leafing through a stock of papers by candlelight. Hansarad looked up as he entered. The light from the hearth cast Baran’s shadow up the wall behind him and onto the low ceiling, making him look heroically tall and menacing, though he was already a head and shoulders taller than the tallest of the Rangers with them. Hansarad gave him a tired smile, and Baran cocked a bushy red eyebrow at him.

“I’m glad I’m not the commander here with you coming in the door,” Hansarad said quietly.

“You do look good behind that desk,” Baran replied.

“Is that a compliment?”

“No. Have you found anything?

“Nothing yet, really, but I’ve only just sat down. Here is the order summoning most of the garrison back to the City, signed and sealed by Machlor himself,” Hansarad said, proffering the document to Baran, who took and perused it.

“Not much to it, is there?” Baran said. “As if Machlor feared to say more than ‘return immediately.’ I didn’t think anything scared him.”

“That’s what I thought. It’s so terse it makes him sound on edge.”

“Good. It’s nice to see them on their heels for once.”

“Agreed.”

Just then a knock came and Dara appeared in the doorway. Next to Baran she looked almost a child.

“The horses are being tended to as you ordered, captain Baran,” she said. “Elan, Falas, and Nerun are just a bit bruised and sore. Nothing’s broken, though Nerun is quite a sight. With all the mud on her, all you can see is her eyes.”

“Well, there’s plenty enough rain to wash that off,” said Hansarad.

“Anything else, sir?” Dara asked.

“Yes,” Hansarad replied. “I want you and Rachor to go through these papers and everything else in these quarters carefully. See if you can find anything useful.”

He looked at Baran, who nodded.

“Baran and I need to get back outside and see if we’ve have discovered anything. They should have searched the gatehouse and the bodies by now.”

“I’ll help Rachor finish up with the horses and we’ll get right to work in here, captain.”

“Thank you, Dara,” Hansarad said as he rose from the commander’s chair. “And, Dara?”

“Yes, captain?”

“You did well tonight. Everyone did. See to it they know that.”

Baran grunted his approval.

“Thank you, captain. I’ll pass the word,” she said and disappeared from the doorway.

Hansarad and Baran left the building and crossed the compound, the mud sucking at their boots all the way to the gates, where they found the bodies of the slain troopers laid out in two long lines. Some appeared to be sinking into the soft mud, as if the earth were already claiming them for her own. The Rangers who searched the bodies reported that they had found nothing of importance. One of them carried a torch to light the captains’ way as they inspected the bodies themselves. Its flickering light at times made the dead faces seem to move or change expression. Baran and Hansarad were near the end of the first row when they heard one of the new guards at the gates shout for them to be opened.

A minute later three more Rangers rode in and were pointed in the direction of Baran and Hansarad. One trotted over and dismounted.

“What is it, Telor?” Baran asked.

“Our scouts have spotted two men – definitely not soldiers – walking westward across the fields north of the Road. They seem to be in quite a hurry.”

“Where are they?”

“About four miles east of here and maybe two hundred yards north of the Road.”

“Fleeing the City?” Baran said.

“That’s what the scouts think.”

“And you?” Hansarad asked.

“I agree. It makes sense.”

“We’ll have to have a talk with them then,” Hansarad said.

“I understand, captain,” Telor responded.

“Yes, if they’ve escaped from the City, no doubt there’s much they can tell us,” Baran added.

“Shall we bring them in, sir?” Telor asked.

“No, let them come to us. If they’re seeking to escape, they’ll be heading for the mountains. Baran and I will join you shortly back by the gap.”

“Yes, captain,” Telor said with a nod and remounted his horse. With the others he rode back through the gates, which closed behind them.

Taking the torch from the Ranger beside him, Baran told him that he and Hansarad would need two fresh horses from the fort’s stables. The Ranger went off to fetch them.

When Baran turned back to Hansarad, he saw him crouched between the last two bodies at the end of the first row. Baran held out the torch to provide more light.

“Find something?” Baran asked.

“No,” Hansarad replied sadly.

“What is it, then?”

“Some of them are so young, Baran. These two here are scarcely more than boys.”

Baran knelt down beside him.

“Thinking like that will get you killed, Hansarad, or worse, your men. Young as they were, they served the dragon. That makes them our enemy. You and I have both seen many young men and women die on both sides. We’ve killed them, too, and we’ll kill more before it’s done.”

Hansarad shook his head in disgust, not disagreement.

“I know,” he said, and gestured at the dead boy he was crouched over. “This one here, with the peculiar smile on his face, was standing right in the gateway as I rode up. Just as I raised my sword to strike him, he looked back over his shoulder – at what or whom I don’t know. I almost hit him with the flat of my blade instead of the edge.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. As you say, he was my enemy.”

“But seeing him now,” Baran said, “you think that a boy like this shouldn’t be anybody’s enemy?”

“Yes. I’ve never hesitated in combat. It’s thinking about it before and afterwards that I find difficult.”

“What else could war be?”

“True,” he said and stood up.

The Ranger now returned with their fresh horses. They mounted. Looking at the bodies of the two young men one last time, Baran mused for a moment.

“What do you think he was smiling at?” he asked Hansarad.

“I’m not sure I want to know. Let’s go. Those men the scouts spotted should be getting closer and I want to get to the gap well before they do.”

“Agreed,” Baran said and shouted for the gates to be opened.

It was near midnight by the time the Rangers returned with Imlan and Garalf, who were overjoyed to find them in possession of the fortress. They stared eagerly around them as they walked through the gates. They saw two rows of dead troopers with their cloaks cast over their faces, and the proud banner of the dragon – sable with a dragon in flight, embroidered in red silk, his wings spread from corner to corner – trodden into the mire outside the commander’s quarters.

The Rangers led them directly to the commander’s kitchen where they discovered a hot meal waiting, which charmed Imlan and Garalf almost as much as the sight of the corpses and the banner. The two had not eaten at all since leaving the City two days earlier. But no sooner did they sit down at the table than Dara entered with a document in her hand.

“Captain, you should see this,” she said as she walked over to hand it to him. It was a copy of an order from General Machlor which had been enclosed with the order recalling the garrison from the fortress. It directed the troops at Prisca also to return at once to Narinen. Hansarad passed it to Baran, who read it and handed it on to Elénna and Berandan, the captains of the other two bands of Rangers which had met at the Great Road.

“Where did you find this, Dara?” Hansarad asked.

“Rachor is the one who found it, captain. It was on the floor beneath the desk. It must have fallen or been dropped there.”

“Was there anything else of interest?”

“Not so far. We’re still sifting it, but it’s pretty dry stuff, mostly, manifests of goods, weapons, and other supplies for the fort here.”

“Thank you, Dara. Good work.” Hansarad said and turned back to the other captains. “Now we know that the garrison at Prisca will also be on its way to the City. How shall we deal with them?”

“How much is left of that garrison after what happened there?” asked Elénna, captain of the Rangers who watched the Great Road from the south. She was uncertain how else to refer to the events at Prisca. As were they all. For, although two of Baran’s Rangers had risked entering Prisca the day after the battle, they could do little but describe what they had found – three companies of dragon’s men slain, most without a single wound, still ordered by rank and file, as if they had just lain down and died where they stood. Of Evénn and his companions there was no sign. Only they could have told the whole story, but no one knew where they were.

“About two companies,” Hansarad replied. “Baran and I harried them without mercy on their way back to Prisca afterwards. By the time they got the gates shut behind them, they had lost nearly an entire company’s worth of men, but a week later they were reinforced from the City. So they are almost up to strength again.”

“Let Berandan and me go with our Rangers,” said Elénna. It’s over fifty miles from Prisca to the Great Road, and fifteen more from there to the City. Once they come down into the plains, they’ll have nowhere to hide from us.”

Hansarad thought about this until Baran spoke.

“It’s worth considering, Hansarad. The fewer of them get to the City, the better off we’ll be. At best the messenger sent to summon them won’t arrive until tomorrow morning.”

“Yes,” said Berandan, “if we start now we can ride across country and easily intercept them long before they’re halfway to the meeting of the roads.”

“Besides,” Elénna added, “we shall be mounted. Except for their officers, the dragon’s men will be on foot. If they keep together on the road, we’ll be able to ride within bowshot, pick a few of them off, and ride away. And if they leave the road to chase us, they’ll be even more vulnerable.”

“They have bowmen, too, you know,” Baran said. Though in favor of the attack, he disliked how easy Elénna and Berandan seemed to be making it sound. “You’ll all be on open ground, with little or no cover, and they’ll be able to see you coming. It won’t be like it was in the gap.”

“Name one thing we do, Baran,” Elénna replied, “that is without risk. I don’t take the lives of my men lightly.”

“Nor do I,” said Berandan.

“What worries me most,” Hansarad said, holding up his hand to stop their arguing, “is the idea of dividing our forces and putting so much distance between us. We’ll be too far apart to aid each other. And we don’t know yet what Machlor’s plans are, or how many men he has.”

“Then it’s time we asked them, Hansarad,” Elénna said, gesturing at Imlan and Garalf.

“Very well, what can you tell us of the City,” Hansarad said, turning politely to them.

Imlan and Garalf glanced at each other, as if wondering which of them should begin and where. Then Imlan took a deep breath and exhaled heavily.

“Masters,” he began.

“We are not the Masters,” Elénna said sharply. “Only captains. Address us as such.”

“I beg your pardon, captain,” Imlan said, “but Garalf and I are unused to such company. As for the City, I can tell you this. General Machlor’s hand is not as strong as you may think. There are not that many real soldiers in Narinen, and we are keeping them very busy.”

“And how would you know that?” Baran asked. “You’re a cooper.”

“Actually, captain, Garalf is the cooper. I am a joiner and a very good one, too. It’s a craft requiring close attention to detail, and an understanding of how things fit together. Over the years my work has often taken me into the homes and headquarters of the dragon’s highest officers, including the General. Because I’m there all the time, they hardly notice me. They speak as they shouldn’t when I am in the room. So I hear many things. That’s why the others sent me to you, because I could tell you things you would want to know. And I can tell you that the City’s garrison of real soldiers is not what you fear.”

The captains looked at each other, intrigued now and a fresh hunger began to glow in their eyes.

“Please, tell us more, Imlan,” Hansarad said, who knew of joinery himself from his youth in the Valley. With a smile he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap, ready to listen. The kitchen grew very quiet, as even the Rangers tending to the pots on the stove stopped to hear Imlan’s words.

“The regular complement of the garrison of the City is four companies,” Imlan stated.

“Four!” shouted Baran in disbelief. “No, no, there’s got to be more than that.”

“Four companies of regular troops,” Imlan repeated calmly, with Garalf nodding beside him. “One for each gate. But as captain Hansarad just said, nearly a full company of them was sent to Prisca some weeks ago. There are also six companies of watchmen, but they are mostly bullies and thugs, who rely on the terror of the dragon far more than on courage or discipline. And the dragon is dead now. Many of them, too, we killed on the first day, and many others have gone to ground or have fled the City, as we did. But not for the same reason. They are not a force to be reckoned with. They ran as soon as we stood up to them. They will run at the very rumor of you. This is why Machlor sent for the garrisons.”

“This is all very hard to believe,” muttered Berandan.

“Aye, it is,” Baran muttered. “It’s too good to be true.”

“Let me ask you then,” Imlan went on, bristling at their doubts, “if you think you know better, how often you have been in the City.”

“Once, as a boy,” Baran answered.

“Never,” said Berandan.

Hansarad said nothing, but smiled the shadow of a smile at Elénna, who smiled back and inclined her head.

“Then why,” Imlan asked them, “do you think you know the City better than I do? I was born there. I was there before the dragon came, and I am there now that he is gone. For years men like myself and Garalf have been waiting, watching, counting the days and the numbers of the enemy. You know as little of what it is like in there as I know of what it is like out here. Those who guard the gates let few in and fewer out. This is the first time I have been able to get out of the City since the day before it fell. What else have I to do but watch the enemy?

“How many of you Rangers have gotten inside, then out again alive to tell what you have learned? A hundred Rangers is not an army, you say? Perhaps not, but we are not asking you to fight for us. We are asking you to fight with us. But we will fight without you if need be. We do so even now. The enemy’s grip is slipping, captains, and if we push together, they will lose control entirely. Help us fight them.”

With such conviction did Imlan speak that none of them could say anything for quite some time. In their years of outlawry under the dragons, the Rangers had become estranged from the people they lived to protect. So accustomed had they grown to being hunted and betrayed, to being shunned for fear – not of themselves, but of the punishments the dragon’s men inflicted on all caught aiding or welcoming Rangers – that their dealings with them were few and secret. Though the Rangers would fight and die for these people, they did not know them as men and women. And they never expected to hear one speak as boldly as Imlan had done.

“All the more reason,” Elénna finally said, “for us to stop the column from Prisca. It is too late to do anything about the garrison from here, which alone will double the number of regular troops in Narinen –”

“More than double, captain,” Imlan said politely. “A quarter of the regular troops went off to Prisca, and we have killed more than a few.”

“More than double, then,” Elénna said, graciously accepting the correction. “We cannot allow more troops into the City.”

“I agree,” Hansarad said, and looking to Baran and Berandan he could see support in their eyes. “Elénna, Berandan, take your Rangers and intercept that column. Harry them, whittle them down, but do not engage them in force at close quarters. Use your bows and horses and wits. Give them no rest, but drive them forward. And Baran and I will be waiting for you at the meeting of the roads in two days’ time. There we will finish them.”

Without hesitation Berandan and Elénna rose and left the table. Their boots could be heard echoing down the hallway to the front door, as could the orders they began calling out to their Rangers the instant they left the building. When they were nearly ready to leave, Elénna looked up to find Hansarad approaching. She smiled at him and he grinned back in the way that had charmed her since they were children at play in the Valley. Standing close enough so that no one could see, he took her by the hand.  Discretion kept those nearby at the tasks Elénna had assigned them.

"You'll be careful, Elénna," he whispered.

"To do my duty, yes, captain,"  she replied, still smiling and grateful for the cover of night.

"Very well, then,"  he said in a voice more official, but still scarcely above a whisper.  Then he paused and said even more quietly, "just come back."

"I will."

Elénna pressed his hand and let it go, then mounted. She called out to her lieutenant, some yards away, to ask if they were ready.  Once he answered that they were, she turned back to Hansarad, but he was already gone, climbing the steps to the commander's quarters and crossing the porch.  She knew he would not look back.  Back over by the gate, her Rangers and Berandan's were waiting in a column of twos. She joined him at their head and they rode out to begin their journey across country for the Prisca Road.

Back in the kitchen, Hansarad rejoined the others. It was now well after midnight and those who remained decided that rest was what they most needed. They would give thought to their next steps in the morning, but Hansarad stayed in his chair long after the others had gone, watching the Rangers come and go, as they enjoyed their first hot meal in many days.

About what was to come he thought deeply. They had been fortunate so far. The skill and training of the Rangers had won out. They had lost no one and suffered only minor wounds. Surprise had been their ally, but surprise would be difficult to maintain. The dragon’s senior officers in the City and General Machlor in particular would be harder to take unawares, especially if the garrison from Prisca never arrived. That in itself would tell them the Rangers were near, and sometime the next morning the four companies from the fortress would enter the City, swelling the number of regular troops there to as much as seven companies. Not many for a city of that size, but more than enough to hold the gates against a simple assault by a hundred men, even a hundred Rangers.

Much would depend on how effective the rebels in the City had been against Machlor’s troops so far, on how many of his men had been killed or rendered unfit for combat, and on how Machlor saw fit to use them. Would he put them all at the gates? Would he hold some in reserve to reinforce the point upon which the attack fell? Or would he disperse them evenly around Narinen?

The most important question of all, though, was when the other dragons would arrive. It was a thousand leagues and more across the sea to Talor, and it would take time even for a dragon to fly that far. But how long? Perhaps Evénn could say, but Hansarad knew neither where Evénn and the others were nor how to find them. And would the dragon in Talor – the silver dragon was there, Evénn had told him – wait for the other two who were farther away, or was he even now speeding through the darkness alone? If they did not take the City before any of the dragons arrived, there would be no hope of taking it at all. And even if they defeated the dragon’s men, what then? The coming wrath of the dragons would surpass anything Hansarad could imagine, however fresh and bloody in his mind were the tales he had heard of this endless war’s early days. He knew he could not yet comprehend such suffering himself, nor, he was sure, could the rebels who declared they would rather die free than live as slaves a day longer.

“They’ll probably get their wish,” Hansarad muttered to himself ruefully as he tried to rub exhaustion from his eyes. “We will very probably all get their wish.”

“Sir?”

It was Dara’s voice. He looked up at her.

“Nothing, Dara. I was just thinking aloud. Have you found something else?”

“Yes, sir, and I knew you would want to see it. It confirms everything Imlan has told us about the troops in the City.”

He took the document from her hand and studied it. The date on it was three weeks earlier, the seal and signature above it General Machlor’s. It detailed the transfer of a full company of soldiers from the City to reinforce the garrison at Prisca, which had lost nearly four fifths of its strength to a large and well-coordinated attack by outlaw Rangers. Hansarad smiled at Machlor’s weak essay in deception and wondered if the fortress’ commander had also smiled when he saw it. He looked back up at Dara. After thanking her once more, he told her that she and Rachor had earned their rest for the night. They could resume their task in the morning. As she walked out of the kitchen, he heard her calling Rachor to tell him that their day was finally done.

With proof now that Imlan’s account was reliable, a great relief came over Hansarad, and he was finally able to quiet his racing mind. Although he had believed Imlan almost from the first and knew that Elénna did so, too, it had been clear that Baran and Berandan were not so sure, even after Imlan had silenced them. With this information all that would change. Tomorrow they could go forward with greater confidence in what Imlan and Garalf had to say about the rising.

Hansarad rose from his chair and left the kitchen. For a few minutes he stood outside on the porch, breathing in the scent of the rain and feeling the breeze that hinted of the sea. All was quiet in the fortress. Going back inside, Hansarad wandered through several dark rooms. In each burned a small oil lamp that shed only enough light to suggest the room and its furnishings. In a corner between two tall windows he could make out a chair, whose outlines made it look well stuffed and comfortable. And so it was, as comfortable as sleep itself. Hansarad sank into it, pulled off his boots, and let sleep take him. His last thought was of the two boy soldiers lying dead by the gate, one of them wearing an inexplicable smile.

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