Authors: R.A. Salvatore
That answer brought a smile to Pagonel’s lips. “You are wondering how you will be viewed long from now, when you are dust.”
“I wish to ensure that the To-gai-ru are not noted as savage barbarians.”
“And once again, you show why you are a great leader, my friend,” the mystic replied. “There is more at stake here than the immediate freeing of your people. There comes with your actions a reputation that will follow the To-gai-ru for centuries.”
“Then let them know us as fierce enemies,” Brynn said grimly. “But let them know us as decent and honest warriors.”
“Which side of that description does the hanging of Yatol Grysh fall upon?”
The question stung, but Brynn steeled herself against those black wings of guilt. “We will treat the Behrenese civilians with fairness—as much as is possible,” she quickly added, seeing Pagonel’s frown, for indeed, the reports of rape and murder had followed the army through Dharyan and into Pruda. Brynn and those about her were working hard to minimize the cost to the civilians, but this was a tricky road to walk. Her warriors were out there, miles and miles from home, in fierce combat and likely to die, and most of them, like Brynn, had watched family members slaughtered by the invading Behrenese.
The conversation was interrupted then, as a small and wiry Behrenese man, dressed in the flowing white robes of a library scholar, came rushing out of the building, waggling a long and crooked finger at the pair. “You leave it alone!” he cried, rushing forward to stand right before Brynn. “Fight your battles as you will, but the Library of Pruda does not belong to you, or to any man … er, woman! This is a place of the ages, and for the ages, and—”
“Enough,” Brynn interrupted. “Your library will stand.”
“Well, good enough then!” the fiery little scholar yelled back at her. “Then just be on your way.” He ended by waving them off with his hands, but neither Brynn
nor Pagonel budged.
The mystic turned to Brynn, as did the scholar, looking to her to lead the way.
She stood there for a long while, chewing her lip, considering her options and weighing them carefully, then began to nod slowly. “In conquering Pruda, I became the keeper of this library,” she explained to Pagonel.
The little scholar scoffed. “Chezru Chieftain Douan will have it back soon enough!” he declared.
Brynn called to some of her men nearby, motioning for them to join her. “Empty the library,” she instructed when they arrived. “Clear it to its stone, and take everything from the city.”
“What?” the scholar cried, hopping up and down frantically. “You cannot! I will not have it!”
He finished abruptly, as Brynn’s sword flashed out and thrust ahead, coming to a stop with its tip firmly against the man’s throat.
“Be well aware that the hand you force holds a sword to your throat,” she warned. “Take care as to which direction you force it.”
The scholar blanched and fell back a step, but Brynn paced him, keeping the sword tight against his throat. “You will go and tell your fellows that they are to stay out of our way, and beware, any who hoard even a single parchment will suffer my wrath!”
“Barbarian!” the man squealed.
“Never forget that!” Brynn shouted back at him, her eyes going wide and wild, and with a yelp, the little scholar ran off.
Brynn sheathed her sword and turned back to Pagonel.
“I do believe that you would have killed him,” the mystic remarked.
Brynn only smiled and shrugged.
“I must enter the library before your warriors commence their work in full. Our friend over there”—he nodded toward Merwan Ma, who was off to the side, sitting and with a pair of soldiers closely guarding him—“has hinted that there is something unusual going on in Jacintha, though I have not yet discerned what it might be.”
“You think that you will find some answers to the present state of Behren in there?”
“I think that I will understand better that which is unusual if I have a better grasp of what is usual,” Pagonel answered.
Brynn nodded, not about to argue, and quite certain that her mystic friend was doing her a great service with his information gathering. Knowing one’s enemies was vital—her understanding of Yatol Grysh and the Behrenese mindset had allowed her to turn their weaknesses back against them at both Dharyan and Pruda, and now had a great Behrenese army of nearly fifteen thousand warriors wandering the steppes to the west in search of her.
She knew that Pagonel would not disappoint her.
He started up the long flight of steps, but paused and turned back. “There is one
other problem you must attend. I stopped by to look in on Juraviel, Cazzira, and Agradeleous before entering Pruda this day. They are right where you left them, and ordered them to remain—but Agradeleous is not pleased. The beast does not wish to be left out of the fighting.”
Brynn took a long and steadying breath. She was thrilled, of course, that she had taken Pruda without the dragon’s aid, and without much loss of To-gai-ru life at all. In fact, the number of To-gai-ru slaves within the city of the elite scholars was so large that Brynn’s army had actually grown by several hundred after the battle. And she was glad that she had not been forced to loose the terrible dragon upon the people of the city, as she had done in Dharyan. She could still hear the screams of the civilians scrambling futilely along the lanes as Agradeleous had approached, and it was not a sound that she wished to replicate.
But she understood the mystic’s grave tone, and wholeheartedly agreed with it. Agradeleous was a creature of action—destructive action. Such a beast as the dragon would not be ignored throughout the war.
“H
ow many days were we to linger out here while you led your pitiful humans to battle?” the dragon’s angry voice greeted Brynn as she trotted Runtly to the camp of Juraviel and Cazzira.
“Do you think it wise that we reveal our strongest and greatest weapons when they are not needed?” Brynn asked, both innocently and incredulously.
“Do not play me for the fool!” Agradeleous roared back at her.
Brynn looked to the elves, and neither wore a reassuring expression.
“Our friend has not enjoyed watching from afar,” Juraviel remarked.
“That is not why I left the comfort of my home!” Agradeleous added.
“You agreed that you would serve me in this matter,” Brynn bluntly replied. “That means that you will defer to my judgment.”
“My patience is not without end.”
Brynn slid down from Runtly and walked to stand right before the dragon. “I will use you as I need you, and nothing more than that,” she said. “Our enemies suspect the truth of Agradeleous, and that is a dangerous thing. You saw the great engines of war they dragged along with them down the road from Jacintha.”
The dragon snorted. “The toys of children!”
“Dangerous toys,” Brynn argued. “Toys that could bring Agradeleous from the sky.” The dragon started to argue, but Brynn wouldn’t allow the interruption, shouting over him until he quieted and listened.
“You are not a spectator here, but a valuable tool—perhaps my most valuable tool,” she explained. “I’ll not risk you when there is no need. A lucky shot from the Behrenese could spell disaster for me, while you are needed for far more than sacking a barely defended city like Pruda!”
That last statement seemed to pique the dragon’s curiosity, for he tilted his head to the side and—more importantly—stopped arguing.
“There is a great force canvassing the steppes of Behren unchecked,” Brynn
explained.
“You would send me against them?” the dragon asked, obviously hopefully.
“I will use your speed as I used it in the
Autumnal Nomaduc
,” Brynn answered. “I must keep a watch over that army, and use your speed to ensure that my forces within To-gai are apprised of their movements.”
“I am a scout?” the horrified dragon asked. “I could sack a city without you! I could—”
“And so you shall!” Brynn promised. “When there is need. For now, this night, I need your speed. Fly me to To-gai, great Agradeleous. Let us find Shauntil’s army.”
Agradeleous stood quiet for a moment, staring at her. Then he nodded, seeming somewhat appeased, for the time being at least.
Soon after dark, Brynn felt the wind on her face as she and the dragon soared high and fast over the plateau divide and into To-gai, across a distance and terrain that would have taken her army a week or two to traverse.
The dragon went up high in the sky, and the fires of many villages could be seen dotting the landscape.
And the fires of a great encampment, a huge glow, showed far in the north.
Brynn urged the dragon that way, and Agradeleous soared off at tremendous speed, the ground rolling along below them. The glow grew and grew as they neared, and only then, from that high vantage point, did Brynn truly appreciate the might that had been assembled against To-gai. And from the way the dragon slowed suddenly, and then went up even higher, she knew that Agradeleous, too, had come to understand.
The dragon’s head snaked around, his face moving close to Brynn. “You wish to attack?” he asked, and she sensed, for the first time, a bit of a tremor in Agradeleous’ great voice.
Brynn shook her head, not even trying to shout loudly enough for the dragon to hear her in that deafening wind.
She spotted a second glow, then, farther to the north, and she prodded Agradeleous, and when he looked back, she pointed it out.
Brynn knew what the second encampment was before the dragon even flew past it. It was a band of To-gai-ru, likely a sizable chunk of the army she had left in the country. It all sorted out for Brynn at that moment. The Behrenese were in pursuit of the To-gai-ru, were hot on a trail they would not forsake.
Brynn scanned all the dark steppes, looking for some answers.
She got an idea from a third set of lights that she marked, not the fires of an encampment, but the smaller glows typical of a settlement. She banked Agradeleous down to that area, a few miles south and west of the Behrenese army, and did a low fly-over.
An outposter settlement, she recognized. Perhaps her army had been heading for it before the arrival of the Behrenese warriors.
On Brynn’s urging, the dragon set down some distance away, and the woman slipped from his back and stood staring at the lights of the outposter settlement.
She understood well the choices here before her, and didn’t have to glance back at the mighty dragon to understand the horrors of those choices.
But she could not let her army be caught and destroyed, not if there was anything that she could possibly do to prevent it.
“You were angered that you were not involved in the last battle,” she remarked.
Agradeleous’ long neck snaked his head around, to come up right beside her, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
“The village,” Brynn explained. “Destroy it. Let the flames fly high so that the Behrenese army can see them.” The woman found her breath coming in short gasps as she finished, for she could hardly believe the command—no, not the command, but the permission—she had just given to this most terrible of weapons.
The dragon’s great head swiveled about to regard the settlement, and he issued a low, horrible growl.
“You will ride?”
“I will stay here,” the woman replied, and she felt as if she was acting the part of a coward. But what good would come of her accompanying Agradeleous on his rampage? Would she be able to save a single outposter? Would she wish to?
Any contemplation at that time was moot, anyway, for the dragon hadn’t waited a second. He leaped up and his great wings beat the air, launching him away.
Within a couple of minutes, Brynn watched Agradeleous’ first pass over the sleepy outposter settlement, a low strafing run, his fiery breath running a line of destruction the length of the settlement.
He did a series of stoops and fire-breathing runs, and the cries of the terrified, doomed outposters filled the night air. And then the dragon fell upon the village, dropping down, all claws and teeth, beating wings and smashing tail.
Brynn looked away and lowered her gaze, second-guessing herself with every heartbeat.
It went on and on, and then the sounds began to quiet, as more and more voices were forever stilled, and then Brynn noted another sound, that of running horses.
She turned around to see Agradeleous gliding down beside her. Past the dragon, the woman saw the high fires, burning bright—brightly enough so that the Behrenese army would have to take notice. Those horses were likely the typical trailing scout cavalry of the main army, a small and mobile force.
Brynn motioned for the dragon to lower his head so that she could climb atop him. “I believe that some of the soldiers have come to investigate,” she explained as she scrambled on. “I do not wish them to report that the town is destroyed.”
Agradeleous loosed another of those low and angry growls, and leaped away once more, and in no time, Brynn was above the burning, ravaged city. To the north, in the glow of those flames, the flyers saw the forms of the Behrenese cavalry.
Brynn lifted her sword and sent forth its fiery blaze, and Agradeleous swooped down from on high. Some of the stunned Behrenese soldiers shrieked in horror, others even managed to wheel their mounts about and start away.
But it didn’t matter. There were only twoscore of them, and not a one had a bow in his hand.
Agradeleous destroyed them.
Back up in the night sky, Brynn and the dragon saw much commotion about the distant Behrenese camp and knew that the invaders were already trying to break down their bivouac and prepare for battle.
“Fly past them, high and to the side,” she instructed the dragon.
“Let us fall upon them!”
“No!” Brynn screamed. “No! They are ready for us, for you. Past them, I say, and put me down to the side of the To-gai-ru force.”
The dragon growled, and Brynn could feel him stiffening with frustration as they flew past the Behrenese army. But Agradeleous, somewhat sated by the destruction he had wrought that dark evening, obeyed her command.
Less than twenty minutes later, Brynn, flanked by the sentries she had met at the perimeter of the To-gai-ru encampment, walked in to speak with their commanders. How pleased she was to find old Barachuk among them!