Chapter 341: Wings Above the Road

The dragons arrived on the morning of May tenth.

We had warning this time.

The Castellan passed the message to the watch, Mary sent runners to the receiving yards, and somebody remembered to move the horses away from the eastern field.

Bruni helped with the last task.

The horses appeared uncertain whether this improved matters.

I waited beside Thor as three shapes emerged above the hills.

Aurethar flew first.

Behind him came a dark bronze dragon with a broad, heavy chest and another whose pale green scales caught the morning light along her wings.

They circled once before landing where the signal flags directed them.

The ground shook beneath my boots.

Thor folded her arms.

“Good. They can follow flags.”

“You make that sound like a rare accomplishment.”

She glanced at me.

I decided to let it pass.

Aurethar assumed his human shape after the others settled.

He looked tired.

I had learned that this meant rather more when he allowed it to show.

“Welcome home,” I said.

He clasped my forearm.

“It is good to hear that.”

The bronze dragon lowered his head.

“He called this place home throughout the journey.”

“I imagine you found that tiresome,” Aurethar said.

“Only when you began describing the plumbing.”

Thor laughed.

Aurethar introduced him as Dorevan. The green dragon was Sareth.

Both had agreed to come in their own right. Neither spoke for the whole enclave, and neither intended to remain merely because its elders had permitted the journey.

Sareth looked toward the city.

“Vaelith said you would let us see the work before asking for promises.”

“We have people leaving for that work today,” Thor replied. “You can hear the briefing.”

Dorevan shifted one enormous forefoot.

“Here?”

Mary approached with two attendants carrying a board between them.

On it was a map large enough to read from several paces away.

“Here,” she said.

The evacuation from Harun’s hill fort was ready to begin.

Two hundred and sixteen people had asked to leave in the first group. More would follow if the road remained open and they chose to go.

Westmere could receive eighty immediately.

Concordia had prepared space for ninety-six.

The remaining forty would come to Havenreach, where relatives were already waiting for most of them.

The numbers had taken Mary and Steward Edric two days to settle.

“Families remain together,” Mary said, pointing to the separate lists. “These are agreed destinations. If something changes on the road, tell us before separating anyone to make the arithmetic easier.”

Merova nodded.

She would lead the escort with mortal soldiers from both kingdoms. Istren would accompany the forward scouts. Harun’s guides would choose the final approach through the gullies.

Thor would remain at Greykeep with Baldr available in Concordia.

This time, I was going.

I glanced at her as she placed my marker beside the escort.

“Any instructions?”

“Several.”

She gave them to me.

Sareth listened without interrupting.

When Thor finished, the dragon bent closer to the map.

“You cannot see this ridge from the road.”

“No,” Merova said. “Our scouts will climb it before the wagons enter the bend.”

“I could see it without climbing.”

Thor looked up.

“Are you offering?”

“For this journey.”

“Then we need to agree what you do if you find the enemy.”

Sareth’s gaze moved between the little markers.

“Warn you.”

“And after that?”

“That appears to depend on what I find.”

Thor smiled slightly.

“It does.”

We spent another hour settling signals.

Dorevan watched the discussion with increasing interest but made no offer to join the flight.

He wanted to inspect the receiving fields and talk to Eleanor about clear approaches for dragons landing with injured passengers.

“We are not wagons,” he told her when she arrived.

“I had noticed,” Eleanor said. “Wagons fit through more doors.”

Aurethar covered a smile with one hand.

Sareth could fly ahead of us, but she could not pass through the Westmere gate in her present shape. She would follow the surface route Aurethar marked for her and meet us beyond the hold.

We gave her a strip of blue cloth to carry where ground scouts could see it.

She examined the little thing between two claws.

Mary looked at the attendant who had brought it.

“A larger strip.”

Before leaving, I went to find Evelyn and Adriana.

They were with Mirelle in our rooms, deciding which family keepsakes could be worn at the wedding without requiring half the royal treasury to be fastened to Adriana’s dress.

“Four days,” Adriana said when she saw my coat.

“I know.”

Evelyn stood and adjusted the fastening beneath my throat.

“Listen to Merova.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that.”

“You are very loved,” she said.

Adriana rose more carefully than she would have a week earlier.

I met her halfway.

She kissed me, then rested her forehead against mine.

“Bring them home.”

“I will do everything I can.”

She nodded and let me go.

Mirelle caught my sleeve as I passed.

“And yourself.”

“Yes.”

Outside, Julian waited beside Garrick Valewood with a folded note in his hand.

“For Tobin,” he said. “If you see him.”

Garrick raised an eyebrow.

Julian sighed.

“Or for the steward to give him.”

I tucked it inside my coat.

“That I can promise.”

We reached the meeting place beyond Westmere before Sareth.

When her shadow crossed the road, one of the wagon drivers ducked instinctively.

He was not the only one.

She saw it.

Instead of landing beside us, she came down in a field well away from the teams and waited while Merova rode over.

They spoke for several minutes.

Then Sareth rose again and moved ahead, high enough that the horses settled.

Harun watched her disappear over the ridge.

“One burned the south storehouse,” he said.

I looked at him.

“At the fort?”

“Before we withdrew there. In the village.”

He tightened his hold on the reins.

“I know that one is not this one.”

His horse shifted beneath him.

“My stomach has not agreed yet.”

“Mine sometimes takes a while too,” I said.

He gave a short nod.

We rode on.

The first families met us near a dry streambed.

They had begun walking before dawn.

Harun dismounted as soon as he saw them.

A small girl ran to him carrying one shoe.

He lifted her, listened to something whispered fiercely into his ear, and handed her to a woman who looked too tired to cry.

The wagons filled slowly.

People needed help climbing. Bundles had to be shifted. A grandfather refused to leave his daughter’s grain sack until she opened it to show him that it held blankets now.

I took the sack from him and put it where he could see it.

He kept one hand on it for the first mile.

Above us, Sareth circled.

Then she turned sharply west.

Istren saw it before I did.

“Signal.”

Merova raised her hand.

The wagons stopped.

Sareth landed beyond the bend, folded her wings, and lowered her head close enough to speak quietly.

“Mounted soldiers. More than twenty. Coming across the upper track.”

“Banners?” Merova asked.

“Surtr’s colors.”

“How long?”

“They will see your dust when they reach the next rise.”

Merova studied the ground.

Harun pointed east.

“There is a lower lane. Narrow, but the wagons can pass if they take it one at a time.”

“Where does it join the road?”

He showed her.

Merova sent riders to check the entrance, then began moving the first wagons.

“Uriah. With me.”

I drew my hammer.

Sareth watched the families disappear between the trees.

“I can burn the upper track.”

I looked toward the dry grass along the slope.

Merova shook her head.

“The wind would carry it toward us.”

Sareth lifted her head and tested the air.

“Yes.”

There was no argument.

“Can you make them stop long enough to look at you?” Merova asked.

The dragon’s mouth opened slightly.

“I believe so.”

The enemy reached the rise to find Sareth standing across the track.

She spread her wings.

Their horses stopped considerably faster than their riders intended.

I waited below with Merova’s rearguard while Istren and two archers took positions among the rocks.

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then an officer shouted an order, and several riders began working their way down a side trail.

Toward us.

Merova waited until the final wagon cleared the narrow entrance behind our position.

“Now.”

I drove my hammer into the earth.

Frost spread through the bare ground ahead of us. A wall of ice rose across the side trail, joining rock to rock.

Not tall enough to hold an army.

Tall enough to stop horses.

The first rider hauled back on his reins. Another loosed a bolt that struck the ice near my shoulder.

Istren answered.

The man’s weapon fell from his hands.

“Back,” Merova ordered.

We withdrew toward the lower lane.

Behind us came the scrape of claws and a sound so deep I felt it through my ribs.

Sareth had leaned toward the enemy.

Whatever they saw in her face persuaded them to give her more room.

She remained there until we reached the bend.

Then she launched herself from the ridge and followed.

They did not pursue us far.

Their scouts shadowed the upper road for a while, but Istren kept sight of them and Sareth returned whenever they drew close.

There was no glorious charge.

There was a broken harness strap, a wheel that stuck in a rut, and half an hour during which I carried a child who had fallen asleep before deciding whether to be frightened of my hair.

We counted everyone at the next stopping place.

Two hundred and sixteen.

Merova counted again against the family lists.

Two hundred and sixteen.

Only then did Harun sit down.

Sareth landed farther away and folded her wings.

I walked over while the horses drank.

“Thank you.”

She looked past me at the wagons.

“They are still afraid.”

“Some of them.”

“I did not burn anything.”

“I know.”

Her claws pressed into the soil.

“Vaelith warned me that would not be enough.”

I stood beside her for a while.

Eventually, Harun approached carrying a bucket from the stream.

He looked at it, then up at her.

“This is smaller than I intended.”

Sareth lowered her head.

“I appreciate the attempt.”

He placed it on a stone within reach.

Neither of them said anything more.

The last wagons reached Westmere after dark.

Steward Edric had lanterns along the receiving lane and people waiting with blankets.

We moved the injured first, then the families continuing through the gate.

Nobody was asked to make another long walk that night.

Sareth stayed outside the hold. A messenger went ahead to tell Greykeep she would return by air after resting.

I found the steward between two wagons and handed him Julian’s note.

He looked at the careful writing on the outside.

“Urgent?”

“Possibly a matter of sporting law.”

“Then I shall give it the attention it deserves.”

When I finally stepped through to Greykeep, Evelyn was waiting on the other side.

She looked me over.

“Everyone?”

“Everyone who set out with us.”

Her eyes closed briefly.

Then she took my hand and led me away from the gate so the next family could come through.

Melody’s message was waiting in Mary’s office.

The dwarven council had agreed to receive an escort for the injured children. Their own guides would bring the group to a road our forces could reach from Westmere.

The journey would take several days.

Melody was staying with them until the handover.

Mary stood by the desk while Thor read the letter.

“She may miss the wedding,” Mary said.

Thor’s expression softened.

“She will try not to.”

“I know.”

I took the chair opposite them.

“Send what they need. We will keep a place for her.”

Mary nodded and reached for fresh paper.

Then she stopped.

“You need to eat.”

“I was about to leave.”

“And sleep.”

“That too.”

Thor glanced at my muddy boots.

“Possibly wash first.”

Adriana had fallen asleep waiting for me.

A book rested open in her lap, one finger still holding the page.

Evelyn lifted it away while I removed my coat.

The little cloth flower had survived the journey.

There was dust along one petal.

I brushed it clean as carefully as I could.

Adriana stirred when I sat beside her.

“You’re home.”

“Yes.”

“Did it go well?”

“We brought them all back.”

She smiled without quite opening her eyes.

“Good.”

Evelyn sat on her other side.

For a little while, we let her sleep between us.

Four days remained until the wedding.

There would be more letters in the morning. More roads to study. Somewhere, Sareth was resting beneath unfamiliar stars after spending her first day with us protecting people who had flinched at the sight of her.

I placed the flower on the table beside the other two.

Then I leaned back, took Evelyn’s hand, and stayed where Adriana could find me when she woke.