Chapter 351: The Names We Called

Eryth woke when the wagon stopped.

By then, the light had gone from the road and Orselle’s lamps were visible beyond the fields.

She tried to raise her head.

Vaelith moved closer at once.

“We have stopped to change the horses.”

Eryth looked past her at the figures approaching with lanterns.

Her breathing quickened.

“Who are they?”

“Healers.”

Ilyra came forward slowly enough that the young dragon could watch her.

“My name is Ilyra. Sovan is with me. Aurethar asked us to come.”

She waited beside the wagon instead of immediately touching the injured wing.

Eryth looked toward Vaelith.

“They aren’t taking me somewhere else?”

“We are going to a quiet place beyond the city,” Vaelith said. “Arvek is there.”

Eryth’s head lifted a little farther.

“The copper one?”

“Yes.”

For the first time since we had pulled her from the ditch, something other than fear moved across her face.

“He got out?”

Ilyra rested one hand against the wagon rail.

“He did. Now let us see what this journey has done to your wing.”

We reached the coastal quarry late that night.

Arvek was awake.

He stood when he saw the wagon, then stopped at a warning glance from Ilyra.

His own injuries were still healing.

“I remember her,” he told Aurethar quietly.

Eryth heard him anyway.

She turned her head toward his voice.

“They said you had died.”

Arvek looked at her for a long moment.

Then lowered himself beside the place the healers had prepared.

“They said many things.”

We helped Ilyra and Sovan move Eryth from the wagon. There was no graceful way to do it. It required padded supports, careful lifting, and several stops when she told us something hurt.

When it was done, Arvek stayed where she could see him.

Vaelith finally stepped back.

Her hands shook when she took human form.

I offered her a cup of water.

She drank half before remembering to speak.

“Kaerun,” she said.

I looked at her.

“My brother’s name. You should know it before we go back.”

On June second, Eryth told us what she could.

Ilyra allowed only a short conversation. We sat where Eryth would not have to turn her head to see everyone.

Kaerun had been held in the upper enclosure. He had spoken to her through the dividing wall during the nights when the guards were farther away.

There had been another dragon below, a red female whom Eryth had never seen clearly.

The screened yard contained the fitting frame.

“They take you there when they want to change something,” Eryth said.

Her gaze fixed on the stone beyond us.

Ilyra moved into her line of sight.

“You are here.”

Eryth swallowed.

Then looked at Vaelith.

“He told me about the scar on your wing.”

Vaelith went very still.

“He said you would be angry if he died without returning something.”

“A carving,” Vaelith said.

Her voice barely carried.

“He borrowed it. Years ago.”

Eryth’s eyes closed.

“He said you would remember.”

Vaelith bent her head.

Ilyra ended the conversation there.

The missing transport would warn Bell Quarry that something had gone wrong.

We could not spend another week studying the same approaches.

We also could not rush in simply because Vaelith finally had a name to put beside hope.

Thor gathered the commanders at Orselle that afternoon.

The returning scouts had seen more guards on the road, but the prisoners remained in the valley. Work crews were repairing a damaged section of the causeway beside the reservoir.

“Their supply wagons have to slow here,” Merova said, touching the map. “If we block the road beyond the yard, reinforcements must dismount or go around the water.”

“And our way out?” I asked.

“The northern path. Widened enough for litters where we can manage it. No heavy wagons.”

Aurethar looked at the two enclosures.

“If they cannot fly, that will be a problem.”

“Then we find out before committing everyone,” Thor said. “The first team reaches the upper wall. The second reaches the mortal prisoners. We begin together.”

Caldris laid out the tools prepared for the collar patterns we knew.

Thesra would come with him this time.

We had recovered enough equipment to work at two collars.

We still needed the dragons to let us close.

Lexander came through the gate before the meeting ended.

He had brought fresh troops to replace those Baldr would send with us, and confirmation that Greykeep’s defenses were settled under Eliza and Rauth.

“I will hold Orselle with Baldr,” he told me. “Neither of you needs to watch the coast over your shoulder.”

He looked at Thor.

“Bring them back.”

“That is the intention.”

Vaelith stood beside the doorway, listening to every word.

When we finished, she approached Thor.

“If he cannot fly, I will stay with him.”

Thor met her gaze.

“Then we need to plan for that possibility now. You tell Merova what he may need. You do not make that decision alone after the fighting starts.”

For a moment, I thought Vaelith would argue.

Instead, she pulled a chair toward the table.

“He is smaller than Aurethar,” she began.

I returned to Greykeep long enough to change, eat, and see my family.

Evelyn knew from my expression that the next departure was already decided.

She asked about the healers before she asked about me.

Adriana asked who was staying to guard Orselle.

I answered both.

Then I sat between them and let the room be quiet.

On the table, Julian’s tray held three cups and a folded letter from Tobin.

“He has invited Julian to help plant beans,” Adriana said after a while.

“A dangerous use of royal labor.”

Evelyn smiled.

“Garrick says he may survive it.”

I picked up my cup.

For several minutes, we spoke about the garden, the children’s latest argument, and a song Mirelle had been teaching Helena.

When I rose, Adriana caught my sleeve.

“Tell Vaelith we are thinking of her.”

“I will.”

Evelyn kissed me, then rested her forehead against mine.

“And remember that everyone in your plan includes you.”

Rain began before we reached the valley on June third.

Some of it was mine.

Enough to blur the watch platforms and soften the sound of boots. Not enough to turn the northern path into mud no one could climb.

I could feel how much attention that balance required.

Thor noticed.

“You can let it go when we start.”

“I know.”

Our scouts guided us through the trees above the reservoir. Varda’s volunteers had marked the worst footing with low cords visible only from the path.

Beyond the water, lamps burned in the workshops.

Then I heard metal strike stone.

Once.

Again.

Aurethar, waiting in human form beside me, stopped breathing for a moment.

“A chain,” he whispered.

The first teams reached their positions without raising an alarm.

That was the last easy part.

A guard on the upper platform turned as one of our scouts crossed the bare ground below him.

He shouted.

Thor was moving before the second shout.

Lightning struck the platform’s bell bracket, throwing the bell sideways into its frame.

The sound it made was ugly and brief.

Then the valley woke.

I raised ice across the road beyond the gate while Merova’s soldiers entered the lower yard.

Aurethar and Vaelith climbed the ridge in human form, then changed above the enclosures.

Their shadows passed through the rain.

From behind the upper wall came a roar that ended in pain.

Vaelith answered with her brother’s name.

Kaerun lay beneath an overhang with a chain running from his collar to a stone anchorage.

He was a dark slate color, his scales dulled by dirt. One wing hung awkwardly, but when he saw Vaelith, he pulled it close and tried to stand.

The collar flashed.

He struck the ground hard enough to crack the paving.

“No,” he said.

Vaelith landed outside the reach of the chain.

“It’s me.”

“I can see you.”

His voice broke.

“You need to go.”

Caldris and Thesra were already coming through the broken side gate with the tools.

I followed, shielding them from arrows fired from the workshop roof.

“We brought help,” Vaelith said.

Kaerun looked toward us.

Then toward the gate through which the handlers were running.

“They have the master instrument.”

Thor reached the handlers first.

One went down beneath her hammer’s haft. Another dropped the rod he carried and raised both hands.

The third ran into the workshop.

Thor followed with two soldiers.

Inside, something rang against metal.

The collars in both enclosures brightened at once.

Aurethar shouted from the lower yard.

The red dragon rose against her chain, fire spilling across the top of the wall.

I threw cover over our people and felt the heat tear at it.

“Caldris!”

“We are working!”

Kaerun slammed his jaw into the ground.

Blood darkened the rainwater beneath him.

Vaelith made a sound I had never heard from her before.

“Look at me,” she said fiercely. “Kaerun. Here.”

His eye found hers.

She kept speaking while Caldris climbed close to his throat.

I could not help at the fastening.

I could keep the roof archers from reaching it.

I drove a ridge of ice up the workshop wall, forcing them back from the edge. A bolt struck my shoulder and glanced away from the armor beneath my coat.

Below, Merova’s horn sounded from the prisoners’ yard.

The first group was moving.

A man carrying a child stumbled at the gate. One of Varda’s soldiers caught them both and pushed them toward the northern path.

Then the gate at the road shook.

Reinforcements.

Our ice barrier would not hold forever.

I strengthened its base and looked back at Kaerun.

Caldris had reached the working housing.

Thesra braced the boundary plate against the collar.

Vaelith was telling her brother about a carving he had borrowed and failed to return.

He laughed once.

It sounded like it hurt.

The light went out.

Caldris opened the fastening.

Kaerun lifted his head too quickly, dragging the loose collar against the anchoring chain.

Vaelith caught the weight before it struck him.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then he pressed his forehead against hers.

I saw her eyes close.

Only a moment.

That was all the valley gave them.

“Can you stand?” she asked.

Kaerun drew his feet beneath him.

This time, his body obeyed.

The lower enclosure was worse.

The red dragon’s collar had been fixed to a rigid frame that held her head at an unnatural angle.

Aurethar was keeping her from injuring herself against it while Sovan, who had volunteered to accompany the rescue as a healer, checked the strain on her neck.

Caldris took one look and called for Thesra’s second tool.

Thor emerged from the workshop carrying a metal rod wrapped in her torn cloak.

Behind her, the soldiers dragged a bound man who kept insisting they did not understand what they were interrupting.

“I understood enough,” Thor said.

She handed the rod to Caldris without touching its exposed markings.

He looked from it to the collar.

“Keep him alive. I have questions.”

“So do I.”

The road barrier broke while they worked.

I heard the cracking before the first section fell.

Enemy soldiers pushed through the gap behind a shielded cart.

Thor met them at the inner gate with our rearguard.

I joined her.

For several minutes, I saw nothing of the dragons.

There was a shield against my arm. A blade sliding across ice. A soldier whose foot caught beneath him as he fell, and another trying to reach him through the press.

I forced space between the lines with a burst of frozen ground.

Thor hauled our wounded man back.

“Merova?” she shouted.

The answer came by horn.

The prisoners were clear of the lower yard.

Then Aurethar called from behind us.

The red dragon was free.

She could fly.

Not far, Sovan warned us. Not quickly. But enough to leave the valley and reach the sheltered ground beyond the northern ridge.

Kaerun could manage the same.

Aurethar went first to clear the way. Sovan followed with the red dragon. Vaelith stayed beside her brother.

I watched them rise only long enough to know they had cleared the walls.

Then we withdrew.

We took the prisoners who had surrendered, the captured instrument, and the papers our soldiers had gathered from the workshop entrance.

We left most of the equipment behind.

There was no time to destroy it safely.

At the northern path, Thor counted the last soldiers past her while I held the narrow approach.

When she touched my shoulder, I stepped back with her.

The rain followed us out of the valley.

Forty-three mortal prisoners reached the first sheltered camp.

So did both dragons.

We had lost two soldiers. Eleven were wounded, three badly enough that the healers worked on them before anyone ate.

Merova checked the names against the people in front of her.

We knew there might have been others hidden beyond the places our scouts had seen.

The captured guards would be questioned. The drawings would be marked with everything we had reached and everything we had not.

For now, blankets were passed down the line.

Water was heated.

A woman who had carried a sleeping boy the entire way finally let a healer take him and sat down as though her legs had forgotten their purpose.

I crouched beside her and handed her a cup.

She held it against her chest until her hands stopped shaking.

Vaelith and Kaerun rested beneath the trees above the camp.

Neither had changed shape.

I approached only after Sovan beckoned me closer.

Kaerun raised his head.

“You are Uriah.”

“Yes.”

“She has been telling me things.”

Vaelith looked away with an expression I could not quite read.

“Mostly accurate things, I hope.”

His mouth shifted faintly.

Then he looked down at the people gathered around the small fires.

“You came for them too.”

“Yes.”

He was quiet for a while.

“Good.”

Vaelith rested her head against his.

I left them without asking another question.

We did not reach Orselle that night.

The wounded set the pace, and there were people among the rescued who could walk only a short distance before needing help.

Thor sent the report ahead.

I added a brief note for Evelyn and Adriana.

Alive. Coming home with the others. Both dragons are free.

Then I sat beneath a tree while the camp settled around me.

Across the clearing, Kaerun said something too quietly for me to hear.

Vaelith answered.

He spoke again.

This time, she laughed.

I leaned back against the trunk and closed my eyes for a moment.

The guards were taking their positions. The healers were still working. In the valley behind us, Surtr’s soldiers would already be deciding what to do next.

But beyond the nearest fire, a sister was listening to her brother complain about an old carving.

I stayed awake long enough to hear her tell him he still owed it back.