Chapter 350: Beyond the Broken Road

The valley had three names.

Arvek remembered the name dragons used for it. Neris knew the designation written on delivery records. The provincial surveyor Mary brought into the council room recognized neither.

Then he saw the drawing.

“Bell Quarry,” he said.

Eliza looked up.

“You know it?”

“My father hauled stone from there. The old road split beside a shrine with a cracked bell.”

He turned Arvek’s sketch toward the window.

“They stopped quarrying after the lower workings flooded. There should be a reservoir beyond this ridge.”

Neris had marked a narrow line across the same place.

“The deliveries crossed water,” she said. “The drivers charged for repairs to a causeway.”

Three names became one place.

Eliza drew a circle on the map.

We did not put a strike marker inside it yet.

The valley lay beyond the contested roads east of Orselle. An army could reach it only by fighting through positions we had not fully mapped.

A small party might get closer.

Getting prisoners back out would be another matter.

“How many dragons?” Thor asked.

“Arvek cannot say,” I replied. “He heard at least two others while he was there. That was before they moved him to the coast.”

Vaelith stood beside Aurethar near the open courtyard doors.

She had remained after my birthday, waiting for the two healers from the enclave.

Her expression did not change.

Her hands did.

She had chosen a human shape for the meeting, and her fingers tightened slowly against the edge of the table.

Caldris moved the drawing closer.

“There may be facilities for fitting collars. There may also be instruments we have not seen.”

“Then we need eyes there,” Eliza said.

The provincial surveyor cleared his throat.

“The old quarry road is not the only approach.”

Everyone turned toward him.

He pointed to the flooded workings.

“People used to fish the reservoir. There is a path from the northern farms.”

By midday on May twenty-ninth, the first reconnaissance party had been chosen.

Two scouts who knew the district would lead. Varda supplied a volunteer experienced with old workings. One of the elven scouts brought by the new delegation would travel with them.

No dragons overhead.

No divine display to warn the valley that someone had found it.

Vaelith listened to the plan without interrupting.

Afterward, she found me in the courtyard.

“I could reach it before nightfall.”

“Yes.”

“If my brother is there—”

She stopped.

I waited.

For the first time since I had met her, she looked less like someone choosing her words than someone struggling to contain them.

“I know what you will say.”

“Do you?”

“That I could bring the whole place down on him.”

I leaned against the low wall.

“I was going to ask whether you would help us understand the ground before the scouts leave.”

She looked at me.

“The drawing came from Arvek. There may be things obvious to a dragon that our scouts won’t recognize.”

For a few breaths, she said nothing.

Then she nodded.

“Bring the drawing.”

The two healers arrived that afternoon.

One was a slender white dragon whose scales had yellowed along the edges with age. The other, smaller and dark green, carried bundles secured in a harness that made Eleanor forget the conversation she was having.

She watched them land.

Then looked at Dorevan’s latest harness drawing beneath her arm.

“Perrin.”

“Yes?”

“Bring the measuring cord.”

The older healer introduced herself as Ilyra. Her companion was her pupil, Sovan.

They had come to treat Arvek and examine what the collars did to their kind.

They had not come to join a battle.

Aurethar welcomed them, then explained how to reach the coastal quarry.

Ilyra listened until he finished.

“And the one who removed the collar?”

“Caldris.”

“I would speak to him before we leave.”

When Caldris arrived, she lowered her head to inspect the tools he brought.

Their discussion continued long after the rest of us had stepped back.

The next difficulty came from our own side of the river.

A provincial officer had requisitioned four grain wagons intended for another district.

His soldiers were hungry. The villages he was supposed to supply had already taken in refugees.

The other district was in the same position.

Both had written to Greykeep expecting us to tell the other one to be reasonable.

Mary placed the letters in front of me.

“This is why joining a kingdom requires more than a flag.”

We brought their representatives together with the people who actually kept the storehouse accounts.

Adriana asked them to begin with the mouths they needed to feed.

Not their usual quotas.

Not the amounts they thought the other side was hiding.

People. Animals. Grain on hand. Grain on the road.

The answers took time.

By the end, one of the four wagons could continue to its original destination immediately. Two would supply the refugee villages. The last would remain at a guarded storehouse until replacement grain arrived from Concordia.

The officer would receive written authority for what his men were entitled to collect.

He would also be told to stop seizing wagons beyond it.

When the room emptied, Adriana leaned back and closed her eyes.

“That was exhausting.”

Mary gathered the pages.

“It will save several days of angry letters.”

“Only several?”

“I am trying to be encouraging.”

Evelyn found us afterward and insisted we eat.

Adriana objected until a plate was placed in front of her.

Then she discovered she was hungry.

I chose not to mention it.

We used Julian’s tray again.

He saw it when he came to collect the younger children and stopped in the doorway.

“You really are using it.”

“Every cup remains upright,” I said. “A considerable success.”

He came closer to inspect the surface.

“Grandfather said the finish would protect the paint.”

“It appears he knew what he was doing.”

Julian smiled.

Carol tugged at his sleeve, impatient to reach the garden.

Before leaving, he looked at the papers beside my chair.

“Are those from the new provinces?”

“Yes.”

“Do they have enough food?”

“We are arranging where the next wagons go.”

He thought about that.

“Will Grandfather teach me accounts after measuring?”

Adriana laughed softly.

“Be careful. Mary will hear you.”

From the corridor, Mary said, “I already did.”

Julian looked alarmed.

Then Garrick Valewood appeared behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Accounts tomorrow. Garden today.”

The children approved that decision unanimously.

On May thirtieth, Rennick’s troops recovered the western mill at Slateford.

It stood on our side of the river, but enemy archers had made the approach too dangerous to use.

Istren’s people cleared the firing positions along the opposite bank while the engineers raised cover beside the millrace.

By evening, the millers could reach the machinery again.

It was not a great victory on a map.

It meant flour.

It meant fewer wagons forced to travel the longer inland route.

It meant the provincial officer with the hungry soldiers could expect something better than another letter.

I signed the allocation and sent it back before supper.

The scouts returned the following night.

They came through Orselle’s gate in pairs, muddy, scratched, and carrying a drawing protected beneath a waxed cover.

There were dragons in the valley.

Two they had seen clearly.

Possibly another beyond the screened yard.

There were also mortal prisoners working around the reservoir and workshops.

The outer guard was larger than expected.

The northern path remained open, but the last approach crossed bare ground beneath a watch platform.

Thor listened without moving.

“Could you reach the prisoners?”

“Some,” the lead scout answered. “Not all. Not without being seen.”

He unfolded the drawing.

“There is a wagon scheduled to leave the yard tomorrow. We watched them prepare the harness and bedding.”

“For a dragon?” Aurethar asked.

The scout nodded.

“A small one. It cannot walk properly.”

Vaelith went very still.

“Describe it,” she said.

The scout looked toward Aurethar, who nodded for him to continue.

“Grey scales. Darker along the back. One pale mark near the base of the left horn.”

Vaelith closed her eyes.

“No,” she said quietly. “My brother has no mark there.”

The scout waited.

She opened her eyes again.

“But someone will be looking for that one.”

Thor drew the road map closer.

The wagon would travel west from the valley before turning toward a fortified station. For part of the journey, it would be beyond the valley’s immediate support.

A shorter operation.

A smaller rescue.

Something we could reach with the people available.

Caldris studied the scout’s sketch of the collar.

“I need a better look before promising I can remove it.”

“You may get one,” Thor said. “First we need to stop the wagon.”

We left well before dawn on June first.

Thor had been cleared for field duty, though Evelyn had made her promise to report any weakness in the arm.

I went with her, Caldris, Merova, and a force small enough to move quickly.

Aurethar would watch the road from beyond the ridge. Vaelith joined him.

Lexander held the home reserve. Baldr remained at Orselle. Neither Sareth nor Dorevan left the coast.

There would be no assault on the valley today.

We were going to take one captive out of its hands.

The wagon appeared just after midday.

It moved slowly behind six horses, its wheels reinforced with iron. A canvas cover hid most of the load.

Guards rode ahead and behind.

Two handlers walked beside it carrying long instruments that made Caldris’s mouth tighten.

“Those,” he whispered.

Thor nodded to the archers.

We waited until the wagon entered the narrow stretch between the wooded bank and the dry ditch.

Then a fallen tree came down across the road ahead of it.

The horses stopped.

Merova’s people closed the rear.

“Weapons down!” Thor shouted.

One rider obeyed immediately.

Another drew his sword.

The nearer handler raised his instrument toward the wagon.

An arrow struck his forearm.

The instrument fell into the ditch.

The canvas erupted from within.

I heard the dragon before I saw it.

A high, ragged cry.

Then a grey head rose above the wagon rail, eyes wide and unfocused.

Fire struck the road.

I drove ice between the flame and the frightened horses while Thor’s soldiers pulled the drivers clear.

One wheel dropped into the ditch.

The wagon tilted.

I braced its underside with a rising block of ice before it could overturn.

The dragon tried to spread its wings.

Ropes snapped tight across them.

It screamed again.

“Do not cut those yet!” Caldris shouted. “They are holding the injured wing in place!”

I stopped a soldier’s knife with my hand.

Above us, wings darkened the road.

Aurethar and Vaelith had arrived.

The guards still fighting lost their courage when Vaelith landed behind them.

Three fled into the trees.

Merova let them go and secured the men who dropped their weapons.

Thor went straight to the second handler, who was trying to reach something beneath his coat.

She caught his wrist.

There was a brief struggle.

Then he was on his knees with both hands visible.

I scarcely watched.

The young dragon was staring at me over the broken canvas.

Light pulsed beneath its jaw.

Its head jerked sideways as though someone had pulled a chain I could not see.

Vaelith lowered herself beside the wagon.

“Look at me,” she said.

The dragon’s eye moved toward her.

“There you are. Stay with my voice.”

Caldris climbed onto the wagon behind the protection Aurethar’s body offered.

The collar was an older pattern.

He recognized it at once.

That did not make the work quick.

The dragon could not keep its head steady, and one side of the fastening lay pressed against swollen scales.

Vaelith kept talking.

She told it where it was. Who was touching it. What the next movement would be.

I held the wagon level while our soldiers steadied the horses and began repairing the damaged trace.

At last, Caldris asked everyone near the collar to stop moving.

The light narrowed.

Went out.

He eased the fastening open.

The dragon gasped, then sagged against the padded side of the wagon.

Vaelith rested her head near its own.

“You are still here,” she said. “And we have you.”

Her name was Eryth.

She told Vaelith while we prepared the wagon to move.

Her injured wing had been bound badly. We would not attempt flight, and none of us intended to improvise carrying her through the sky.

The road to Orselle was longer than we wanted.

It was also the route along which help could reach us.

Aurethar went ahead to bring Ilyra and Sovan. Vaelith remained beside the wagon.

Eryth watched her with exhausted concentration.

Then she said a name too softly for me to hear.

Vaelith stopped moving.

I looked up from the wheel I was helping lift out of the ditch.

“What is it?”

She did not answer immediately.

Eryth spoke again.

This time, Vaelith lowered her head until their brows nearly touched.

“You heard him say that?”

A small nod.

Vaelith closed her eyes.

When she looked at me, something in her face had changed.

“My brother,” she said. “She spoke with him in the valley.”

He had been alive three days earlier.

That was what Eryth could tell us before exhaustion took her.

Vaelith wanted more.

I could see every question gathering behind her eyes.

Instead, she asked for another blanket to place beneath Eryth’s injured wing.

I helped bring it.

For a moment, we worked without speaking.

Then she said, “Three days.”

“Yes.”

“That is not a promise.”

“No.”

She looked toward the eastern hills.

Then back at the sleeping dragon on the wagon.

“It is more than I had.”

We started west before the shadows reached the center of the road.

Thor sent a warning ahead to Orselle and a separate report through its gate to Greykeep.

Two of our soldiers had been wounded. Both could travel.

Four enemy guards were dead. The surviving prisoners walked under escort, including both handlers.

Eryth slept through the first mile.

Vaelith walked beside her, adjusting her pace to the creaking wheels.

I thought of the valley behind us, the two dragons still seen there, and the screened yard beyond them.

We had a place now.

We had a witness.

And someone waiting beside our wagon had heard, at last, that the person she loved might still be reached.

I put my shoulder against the wagon as it climbed the next rise.

There would be another plan.

First, we had to get Eryth home.