Authors: R.A. Salvatore
“Not even with my dragon friend,” Brynn admitted.
“Have you resurrected the spirit of Yatol Bardoh, then?” the Yatol spat. “Do you think to pit Behrenese against Behrenese?”
“An imperialistic king makes many enemies,” was all that Brynn would say. She held her expression sly and walked Runtly away.
Leaving a flustered De Hamman sputtering on his ugly yellow nag.
“T
hose few who managed to return …” Yatol Wadon stammered, hardly able to get the words out. Not that he needed to say them, in any case, for his audience—Abbot Olin, new Yatol Paroud, and Master Mackaront just returned from Entel—understood the message quite clearly. De Hamman had been routed outside of Dharyan-Dharielle. Brynn had pulled yet another trick on them, and the Behrenese
force, already so tentative about doing battle with the infamous Dragon of To-gai, had broken ranks and fled, and were still fleeing, by all accounts, in ever-shrinking numbers.
Yatol Wadon’s inability to express his outrage was certainly understandable.
“Your losses were not so great, by every report,” Abbot Olin replied, seeming unperturbed by it all.
“Not so great?” Wadon yelled at him. “Hundreds, perhaps thousands, have been slaughtered, and worse, the remaining thousands are scattering to the four winds. You cannot begin to understand the depth of this; Behren is not like Honce-the-Bear.”
“The victory has lured Brynn Dharielle out of her hole,” Abbot Olin calmly replied.
“The To-gai-ru are more dangerous on the open sands,” Yatol Paroud dared to interject.
“Not against Abellicans,” said Abbot Olin.
“A shrinking number,” Paroud dryly reminded, and Olin shot him a hateful look.
“Enough!” demanded Yatol Wadon.
“Where will Brynn carry the fight?” Abbot Olin said. “Will she run across the desert, striking haphazardly against the smaller towns? Will she attack Jacintha? Surely that would be the purest folly.”
“In the open desert, then,” reasoned Yatol Wadon.
“To what gain?” Abbot Olin asked, and he rose from his seat and moved about the room, more animated than any had seen him in a long while. “Time does not work in favor of Brynn Dharielle. She has few resources, and the toll on her army will be great. She cannot defeat us, so likely she will sate her warriors’ hunger for revenge and then retreat into her hole. All we need do is regroup our forces and wait her out.”
Yatol Wadon glared at the man.
“So we do not reunite Behren at this time,” the abbot went on. “Dharyan will have to wait until King Aydrian can fully turn his attention to Behren. It will not be long.”
“Even when reinforcements from Honce-the-Bear arrive, Brynn will be within her secure walls, and with her dragon beside her,” Yatol Wadon argued. “That is no minor thing!”
“In the face of King Aydrian, it is indeed,” said Abbot Olin. “If the dragon arrives on the field before the king of Honce-the-Bear, he will destroy it, and with ease. You see the fight at Dharyan as a disaster, my friend, but you are not scrutinizing the details well enough, I fear.”
Yatol Wadon’s glare softened just a bit, showing some intrigue.
“My monks stung the dragon profoundly,” Abbot Olin explained. “Their lightning knocked it from the sky, and yet all of their bolts combined are minuscule compared to the power of Aydrian.”
“All of your monks are dead,” Yatol Wadon reminded.
“They were minor brothers, I assure you, and easily replaced. We must hold strong and pick our fights with this impudent wench of To-gai carefully until King Aydrian can come more fully to our side. Brynn may gain victories over small towns, but she will lose warriors with each win, and those will not easily be replaced. The strain on To-gai will prove too much, and she will turn for home, then we will send out a second army to ensure that Behren is secured, and then, when King Aydrian arrives, we will destroy the woman and her pitiful forces.”
Yatol Paroud was nodding, his eyes verily glowing as he listened to the promises of ultimate victory. But Mado Wadon was a long way from sharing that enthusiasm. Did Abbot Olin not even care that thousands of Behrenese citizens were surely to be slaughtered? Did he not appreciate the divisive power of the various Behrenese factions, ancient tribes, and bloodlines, that demanded allegiance to traditions that went beyond the kingdom or even beyond Chezru itself? For hundreds of years, Behren had been united as a kingdom in theory, but even in the last days of Yakim Douan, the political structure had often been more tribal in nature.
“The last reports put Brynn Dharielle near to Dahdah Oasis,” Yatol Wadon offered. “And moving eastward, toward Jacintha.”
“With how many warriors?”
“Perhaps a thousand,” Yatol Wadon answered honestly, and in truth, when he spoke the words aloud, they seemed almost laughable. It would take an army many times that size to have any chance at all of overpowering present Jacintha, with nearly ten thousand Honce-the-Bear warriors supporting their ranks. “And she has her dragon.”
“Then let her come on,” said Abbot Olin. “Let her grow too confident with that beast of hers and charge our walls. Master Mackaront brought a score more brothers on his return, all of them armed with graphite and serpentine, the stone of lightning and a shield that will defeat even dragon fire. Her confidence, if she approaches as you believe, will be her undoing, and horribly so. How tall will Yatol Wadon stand in the eyes of his countrymen when he emerges from Jacintha victorious over the Dragon of To-gai?”
Yatol Wadon considered the words, then nodded slowly.
“Our only vulnerability here is my fleet, and thus I have ordered Duke Bretherford to put out farther from shore and to the north, out of sight of Jacintha harbor. If Brynn and her beast pursue him into Honce-the-Bear waters, she will invoke the immediate wrath of King Aydrian, and not a flight of a hundred dragons could save her then.
“Fear not,” Abbot Olin finished as he headed for the room’s door, Master Mackaront in tow, “for Brynn Dharielle’s moment of opportunity is fast slipping away, and she knows it. She will run for home if she is wise, but she knows, as do we, that she cannot win in the end.”
“Whatever the cost?”
Abbot Olin turned as he reached the exit, showing Yatol Wadon his smirk. “Of
course.”
“She cannot take Jacintha, master,” Yatol Paroud remarked.
“She can create great dissension,” Yatol Wadon warned. “She already has. It may take us months to regroup the remnants of Yatol De Hamman’s force, and without them …”
“We are even more dependent on Abbot Olin,” Yatol Paroud finished, and the words seemed to surprise the man even as he spoke them, as if a great revelation just then came over him. “My Yatol, you do not believe—” he stammered.
“That this is proceeding exactly as Abbot Olin had hoped?” Yatol Wadon interrupted. “No, I do not think this to be his design. I believe that he laments the defeat at Dharyan-Dharielle—he would have liked nothing more than to report to his king that the city had been taken.”
“Our spies were set in place behind the bookcase when returned Master Mackaront met with Abbot Olin,” Yatol Paroud reasoned. “They heard the edict of King Aydrian that the Bearmen were not to do battle against Brynn. Their inference from the tone and wording was that King Aydrian meant to strike an alliance with Brynn.”
Yatol Wado Madon turned to the window overlooking Jacintha harbor, his lips growing very tight. He tried hard not to believe Paroud’s suspicions, but he found it hard to make a logical argument.
“My master, is it possible that Abbot Olin came here to oversee the destruction of Behren?” Paroud asked, and Yatol Wadon winced. “Is it possible that he helped us in our fight with Yatol Bardoh only because he perceived Yatol Bardoh to be more of an obstacle standing before his King Aydrian?”
Again Yatol Wadon had no answer for the man. He knew that Behren was in serious trouble—more so than Abbot Olin seemed to believe. Yatol De Hamman’s army had very likely split apart into its tribal factions, and those bands of warriors were running free across the countryside, afraid and angry. It was possible that while he sat here in secure Jacintha, Behren was already beginning to tear itself apart across the desert sands.
And if the country fell into complete turmoil, particularly with Brynn Dharielle and her dragon running free about the land, Yatol Wadon would be powerless to put it back together—without the dominating assistance of Abbot Olin and his eager young King Aydrian.
Yatol Wadon continued to stare out at the harbor, where the Honce-the-Bear warships were still anchored. He almost hoped that Brynn and her dragon would swoop across his field of vision then, and lay waste to that fleet.
That foreign fleet.
W
ithin the hour, Duke Bretherford’s warships unfurled their sails and pulled up their anchors. The half dozen Honce-the-Bear ships sailed northeast, going out from the coast and back toward the safety of Honce-the-Bear waters, while Maisha Darou’s pirate fleet headed out along the coast to the south, cut free of their duties
for the time being. With bags of precious gems in hand, Darou set his course, as instructed, for the safety of the pirate shoals, and the promise of a well-deserved rest.
For Duke Bretherford, departing Jacintha was no hardship. The man had heard the reports of the disaster at Dharyan-Dharielle, and while the vast majority of that routed force had been Behrenese and not Bearman, some of the reports filtering in from the retreating forces spoke of retribution against the northerners by the fleeing Behrenese.
Duke Bretherford couldn’t care less for Behren; he was more concerned with the turmoil in his own land. He planned to stop at the island of Freeport to resupply, then to put into Entel for news of King Aydrian and Prince Midalis.
Early the next morning, just east of the easternmost peaks of the Belt-and-Buckle, word came to the duke in his cabin that a second fleet was sailing south to intercept. With news that these were caravels, Bretherford wondered if Aydrian was sailing to Abbot Olin’s aid. As soon as he arrived at the prow of
Rontlemore’s Dream
, though, the duke understood differently.
For this approaching armada sailed under the bear rampant of the Ursals.
“Battle sails!” Duke Bretherford called, and the message was relayed across the decks to the other warships.
The duke continued to stare out as more and more ships became visible.
“What are those?” asked the sailor at Duke Bretherford’s side.
“Alpinadoran longboats,” the old seaman replied. “The prince has brought some friends.”
The approaching warships similarly dropped to battle sail, except for one, a sleek schooner that Duke Bretherford recognized as
Saudi Jacintha
, the pride of Palmaris’ merchant fleet. “Captain Al’u’met,” he muttered, for he knew of the man, and knew him to be an old and dear friend to Queen Jilseponie.
Saudi Jacintha
ran a white flag of truce up her guide line and continued her approach until she was within a hundred yards of
Rontlemore’s Dream
. There, she banked low in a sharp turn and tacked against the sea breeze, holding her position.
“Signal for them to approach under agreed truce,” Duke Bretherford told his signalman.
“We would expect nothing less from honorable Duke Bretherford,” came a voice from behind them, and the duke nearly leaped out of his boots and overboard. He swung about, as did everyone else in the area, to see three people—a diminutive Touel’alfar, Queen Jilseponie, and Prince Midalis—simply step as if out of nowhere onto the deck. All three held hands, and all were covered with a bluish white glow.
The crew stumbled all over themselves, going for their weapons; from the back of the deck, several archers leveled their bows.
Pony held a ruby for Bretherford to see. “I could put your ship to the flame,” she said quietly. “Do not make me do that, I beg.”
“The flag of truce holds,” Prince Midalis added. “We are here to parley.”
Staring at the ruby, Duke Bretherford hardly heard the prince. He was not ignorant
of Jilseponie’s prowess with the magical gemstones, and he well understood the devastation her fireball would wreak. He motioned for his archers to put up their bows, and for the rest of the crew to stand down.
“My cabin,” he said, motioning to the door across the deck.
“Right here,” Prince Midalis corrected. The prince looked at Pony, then stepped away from her, releasing her hand, and immediately emerged from the serpentine fire shield.
“I am Prince Midalis, brother of King Danube Brock Ursal,” he began powerfully, and he paced about so that he could look into the eyes of each man on deck. “You know me. You served my brother well. And you know, too, that this young man who has seized the throne of Honce-the-Bear is not your rightful king. I claim the throne as my own, and demand fealty!” Astonished looks came back at him, and more than a few doubtful whispers. From the front, Duke Bretherford heard the name of King Aydrian whispered more than once.
“Aydrian is king, by your brother’s own words,” the duke argued.
“Those words were twisted, and errantly spoken, and you know the truth of it,” Pony retorted.
The duke merely shrugged. To him, the point was moot.
“I will have your fealty, or I will have your surrender, Duke Bretherford,” Prince Midalis remarked, and when Bretherford squared his shoulders defiantly, he added, “I have fifty warships at my disposal, as well as Queen Jilseponie and her gemstones, Andacanavar, the ranger of Alpinador and his mighty warriors, and …” He paused and pointed to Juraviel. “And other allies whose powers you cannot begin to understand. Do not make me kill my misled countrymen, I beg of you.”
“Aydrian has claimed the throne,” Duke Bretherford replied. “The entire southland of Honce-the-Bear is his, and you cannot hope—”
“What I hope and do not hope is of no consequence to you, Duke Bretherford,” Prince Midalis cut him short. “As you were friend to Jilseponie and Danube, I offer you this opportunity to put aright your ill-chosen course.”
“He has Kalas and all the Allhearts, and all the Kingsmen, and a mercenary army that at least equals their size,” Duke Bretherford replied. “Do you believe that you have any chance at all of defeating him?”