Dreamwielder (2 page)

Caile commanded his mount forward with a yell, and his men spurred their horses behind him. It soon became apparent to all of them that Caile was correct; a group of mounted warriors was approaching, a score of them at least—too many to defeat if it came down to a fight. Caile did not hesitate, however, even though he knew Lorentz would lecture him later about charging an unidentified force.

The group of horsemen in the distance halted upon seeing Caile approach and raised a banner displaying the red and gold stripes of Pyrthinia. Still, Caile charged onward, sword in hand, ready for trouble. He could be reckless at times, he knew, but he was wary and paid more heed to Lorentz's advice than he let on. The Pyrthinian banner meant nothing; the armed horsemen could just as easily be highwaymen under guise as they could be official Pyrthinian troops. Only when Caile saw a face he recognized did he slow his mount and return his sword to its scabbard—and the face he saw brought a smile to his own.

“Well, little brother,” his sister, Taera, remarked when he and his men finally came to a halt, “are you in such a hurry to be home that you meant to charge through a whole score of Pyrthinia's finest soldiers and your own sister to get there?”

Caile dismounted and said nothing as he walked over to her and pulled her from her saddle in a bear hug. Taera squealed, thinking the both of them would topple over, but her brother was no longer the skinny boy she remembered last seeing. He lowered her to the ground with ease, and the two of them held each other in a warm embrace.

“You shrunk,” Caile said.

“Or you've grown. Five years and I hardly recognize you. Is that the beginnings of a beard I see? Have you started shaving, Caile?”

Lorentz cleared his throat. “Once a month, whether he needs it or not, Your Highness.”

Caile shot Lorentz a dark expression, but Taera laughed and spoke before Caile could come up with a retort. “Captain Lorentz, it's a pleasure to see you again,” she said.

“The pleasure is all mine, Your Highness. You've grown more beautiful by the day, I can well see.”

Taera brushed her blond hair away from her face and smiled. “And you've grown more charming.”

Caile groaned. “More disagreeable is closer to the truth. Let's be off. We can talk as we ride. I'd like to reach Kal Pyrthin while it's still light. It's been so long, I barely remember what my own home looks like.”

“Indeed,” Lorentz agreed, and the entire procession, now nearly thirty strong, made off to the east along the high road toward the greenbelt of trees skirting the River Kylep in the distance.

Lorentz joined the captain of Taera's honor guard at the forefront of the troops, and Caile and Taera settled in midway between the two groups of soldiers. “It's good to see you, Caile,” Taera said. “I can't tell you how happy I am to finally have you back.”

“You say happy, and yet sadness is plainly written on your face. What's going on, Taera? I was supposed to stay in Valaróz for two years still. Why has Father summoned me back?”

Taera dropped her eyes away from him to stare blankly at her saddle horn. She had insisted that she be the one to accompany the honor guard from Kal Pyrthin to greet Caile, but now that she was here, her courage seemed to abandon her.

“What's happened?” Caile asked again.

“It's Cargan. He's dead.”

Caile took the news silently though his mind raced with a myriad of conflicting thoughts and emotions. He did not feel a pang of loss or grief, for his brother was older even than Taera, and Caile had hardly known him as a child. Rather, it was a dread that pervaded him as all the ramifications of his brother's death surfaced in his mind.

“What happened?” Caile asked after a long moment of silence.

“We don't know entirely. A messenger raven came from Col Sargoth. All the message said was that he'd been drunk and gotten in a fight and died.”

Caile snorted, and Taera nodded silently in agreement; their brother had a well-known reputation for shunning drink, among other things, and he was not one to get into a brawl with drunkards—certainly not one to lose in a fight against drunkards.

“Did the message say anything else?” Caile asked.

“You know as well as I do what else it said. Emperor Guderian demands Father send a new ward to Col Sargoth.”

Caile pounded a fist into his saddle, though his horse walked on unperturbed. “Ward? Hostage is more like it. How stupid does he think we are?”

Several of Caile's men took notice of his outburst, but Caile paid them little heed.

“I don't believe he cares how stupid or intelligent we are,” Taera said, looking past her brother toward the first traces of Kal Pyrthin peaking over the horizon. “As long as we're scared and do as he says, that's all that's important—that we're frightened into obedience.”

The tone of Taera's voice cut through Caile's anger and he realized he had completely neglected to consider how scared she must be. “Blast it all, Taera! Father can't seriously be contemplating sending you to Col Sargoth?”

“What choice does he have?”

“But after all the”—Caile caught himself near shouting and lowered his voice and leaned in closer to his sister so no one would overhear—“after all the visions? Have you had any more? Since Cargan died?”

Taera squeezed her eyes shut and flinched.

Caile instinctively reached out to grab her but realized what he had done and let her be. She clearly still did not like to talk or think about the strange images that came to her. When she had been younger, before Caile was sent to Valaróz, she had been told by their father to ignore the visions, to pretend they didn't happen so that they would go away. In a sense, it worked—as long as Taera chose to actively ignore and push away the images, they did not come to her—but Caile had a knack for reminding her, and on more than one occasion as children, he had triggered her visions and gotten them both berated.

“I'm sorry,” Caile muttered, but Taera was lost in the images flashing through her mind.

“Fire,” she whispered. “Everywhere. Pyrthinian soldiers dead. The red and yellow Pyrthin banner turned black… Ash. A woman…”

“Let it go,” Caile said, grabbing her shoulder. “It won't happen. I won't let Father send you to Col Sargoth.”

Taera opened her eyes and turned to him, more alarmed than frightened. “No, not in Col Sargoth. Here. Now.”

“What?”

“Someone is coming, Caile! A firewielder.”

“Lorentz!” Caile shouted, drawing his sword and surveying their surroundings. They had drawn nearer the River Kylep, and a new-growth forest bordered the road to their left, not tall or particularly foreboding, but thick with green foliage and undergrowth—perfect for an ambush.

“What is it?” Lorentz asked, at Caile's side almost immediately.

“Someone is in the forest.”

Lorentz nodded. “We'll have the honor guard take Taera off the road, into the safety of the fields, and then take care of it.”

Caile eyed the amber grasses to their right. “No, we'll all have to stay to the road.”

Lorentz raised one eyebrow quizzically.

“We're dealing with fire, Lorentz. Those fields could go up in flames.”

“Fire,” Lorentz repeated flatly, considering Caile's words for a brief moment, and then he was issuing orders for the soldiers to take up their shields and don their helmets. Within seconds, the troops were gathered in tight formation around Taera, and Lorentz met Caile and the captain of Taera's honor guard at the front of the procession to start plodding warily forward. Unlike Caile and the rest of the soldiers, Lorentz had not taken up his shield and helmet. He held only a handful of arrows and a stout, short bow, which he strained and grunted to string.

“You know the drill,” Lorentz said. “I'll hide in the grass, then sneak along behind you.”

“I don't want to kill anyone,” Caile replied. “Let me try to reason with them and await my signal.”

“I'll await your signal or the moment you start getting showered in flames, whichever comes first.”

“Just await my signal,” Caile repeated. “I've spent the last five years in Valaróz—I can take the heat.”

Lorentz snorted in reply then slid from his saddle and rolled to lay hidden in the tall grass alongside the road while the procession continued forward without him.

As much as Caile wanted to turn and glare at him, he kept his head forward and his eyes on the forest through the eye slits in his helmet. Lorentz still treated him like a child at times, and though Caile knew Lorentz was merely trying to keep him safe, it still aggravated Caile to no end. He was a prince of Pyrthinia, after all—the crown prince now that Cargan was dead, assuming they were to follow Sargothian law. Caile swallowed back the lump that rose in his throat at the thought.
I'm not a child any longer,
he repeated to himself.

They plodded onward, and the minutes dragged by with no sign of anything in the forest to their left. Caile began to wonder if his sister had perhaps misinterpreted her vision. She was distraught after all, with their brother dying and the prospect of being sent to Col Sargoth. Caile shook the idea aside. Taera didn't lack courage, that he was certain of, and he steeled himself to the task at hand—to focusing all his attention on whomever stepped foot from that forest.

Even prepared for it, they were all shocked by the sudden gout of flames that bellowed out from the trees. It swept over them in a flash, curling around shields, singeing horsehair, and setting the field behind them aflame. One soldier lost control of his panicked horse and was carried toward the forest just as a woman careened from the shadows like a feral animal. She flailed her hands above her head and brought them crashing down with an unintelligible shout, and horse and rider were enveloped in flames.

“Stay your position!” Caile yelled at the soldiers, as he struggled to calm his own horse well enough to dismount. He managed to jump clear of his horse just as the firewielder sent another gout of flames at them. He tucked himself behind his shield and could feel the intense heat curl around him. When the flames passed, he raised his free hand in sign of peace, palm up, showing he held no weapon.

“Stay your hand, firewielder,” Caile hollered in the calmest, most authoritative tone he could muster. “We mean you no harm. We are your friends.”

“Firewielders have no friends,” the woman yelled. “Kill me or be killed.”

“No, I beg you,” Caile said, holding his shield away from his body and removing his helmet so she could see his face. “I am Prince Caile Delios. I promise you safe harbor. Please, just listen to me. I put myself at your mercy.”

Caile dropped his shield and helmet to the ground and held both hands up. The woman glared at him and glanced warily at the soldiers behind him, but she stayed her hand. She was not as old as Caile had surmised at first glance—no more than twenty, at most—but she was filthy, covered in feculent rags, her hair clumped in muddy knots, and her face was lined with worry, her eyes wild with the burden of living a life of constant terror alone in the forest.

“I'm your friend,” Caile said again, keeping his eyes squarely on her face and trying not to think about the burned soldier and horse smoldering nearby. “Come with me,” Caile continued. “My father, the King, can protect you. You will have to stay under lock and key, but you will be well fed and treated kindly, that I can promise you.” He reached his hand out toward her. “Please.”

She smiled, and for a moment Caile thought he had reached her, but then the wildness repossessed her eyes. “Your father can't help me. No one can. It's too late. We're all doomed.”

“No wait,” Caile tried to plead with her, but she flung her hands above her head, drawing her power around her. Caile stood paralyzed, staring into her wild eyes, realizing he was about to die. Sparks danced at her fingertips, and her lips parted as she began to scream the command that would unleash his fiery death. His body tensed in anticipation, but then the young woman gasped in surprise and collapsed to her knees, the tip of an arrow protruding from one of her eyes. She crumpled face first to the ground, and Lorentz emerged from the forest behind her, another arrow notched and ready. He and Caile exchanged a look, not a look of victory but rather of sorrow and understanding. Lorentz returned to the troops, and Caile stood gazing upon the slain firewielder until Taera came and pulled him away by the hand.

“You tried, Caile,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

Caile let out a weary sigh as he plopped down into a chair in his father's study, high in the upper reaches of Castle Pyrthin. King Casstian Delios, too, breathed heavily as he sat and stared into the flames of the fireplace before them. It had already been late by the time Caile, Taera, and their procession reached Kal Pyrthin, and then there was the formal reception with the well-rehearsed greetings and the state dinner in the dining hall where nothing but pleasantries could be uttered for fear of being overheard. That was all thankfully over now, and it was well past midnight. The two of them—king and son—sat silently for a long time, staring into the fire.

“Taera told me of Cargan,” Caile said eventually. “I'm sorry.”

“As are we all,” his father replied, not looking up from the fire. “He was a fine man. He would have made a fine king.”

“Have you learned any more of what happened? You can't believe this nonsense about him dying in a drunken brawl?”

“So was the word from Col Sargoth, so it was.”

“Father,” Caile said, leaning forward in his chair, “you know as well as I do that Cargan was a better man than that.”

“A better man than you, for sure, but what can I do? Shall I call the Emperor a liar and bring his wrath down upon Pyrthinia? Is that what you want?”