Squire Derel Read online

  The reasons why he wound up there were just as varied. Some people said he was on the run from tyranny. Others said he’d come to devote himself to a life of monastic piety. Sometimes it was a broken heart, sometimes a substantial bounty on his head, that drove the fabled Terrence to these parts. Some people swore he’d been on the run from elves; others that he’d been one of the last elves.

  If folks had ever known, no one did anymore. And if there was any truth left to the stories, well, time and imagination had done their best to obscure it.

  It was late morning when I reached Fort Terrance. Ten kilometers was a distance I could cover quickly enough normally. But I hadn’t been underway long before the burns started to ache, until the pain was almost unbearable. Every movement, every brush of fabric where the dragon fire had poured over my skin, was excruciating. I started to sweat and shake, and the sweating made my wounds itch. It was hell. Before I knew it, I’d drained my canteen.

  So it was on wobbly legs that I finally stumbled into Fort Terrance. I think I must have been a little delirious too, because the first person I encountered seemed to think he’d stumbled on a madwoman. I was rambling out an explanation of dragons and a surprise attack, which probably didn’t help my case.

  He was an old man, with a salt and pepper beard and mustache, and worried eyes. His efforts consisted mostly of trying to placate me while he called a gray-haired woman. “Karina, I need your help. Karina?”

  “We need to get to them. Do you have a skimmer I can borrow? We need to get back to them, before another dragon finds them. Or a bear. Phillip won’t be able to escape a bear.” For some reason, of all the threats in the forest, bears stood out to my mind as the most terrifying at the moment.

  “Of course, miss. Don’t worry about bears. There’s no bears here.”

  “But they might be there.”

  “We’ll keep you safe. Karina. Dammit, where are you?”

  Karina was a little more helpful than her summoner. At least, once she listened to me. “Dragons? There’s no dragons here. Not for a hundred kilometers.”

  “Then what burned me, and nearly roasted Phillip? I’m telling you, there’s a dragon – a dead dragon, but a dragon. And we need to get to them.”

  “To who?”

  “Ilyen.”

  “Ilyen?” The old woman’s brow creased into a frown. “You mean, Knight Protector Ilyen? From up by Shire’s End?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are you, did you say?”

  “Derel. Ana Derel.”

  A flash of recognition lit her eyes. “You’re the squire: the one in Ilyen’s service.”

  “I am.”

  “Where’s the other one, the boy?”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you,” I protested. “He’s burned, badly. Back in the forest. By the border. We need to get to him.”

  “Alright. Alright, Squire Derel. Jason, get the sheriff. And tell him to bring his skimmer. Here, Ana, you sit. I’ll get the doctor. You look like you took quite a beating yourself.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re covered in blood. And – are those burns?”

  “I told you: we killed a dragon.”

  Karina regarded me with a skeptical look but nodded. “Then you definitely need the doctor.”

  “In the skimmer,” I conceded. “He can patch me up in the skimmer. But we have to get going right away.”

  She didn’t protest, and I let her bring me water when she insisted. A minute later, an all-terrain skimmer pulled up, and a man in the dark blue tunic of an officer of the law stepped out. I started to ramble out an explanation, but Karina – bless her – took over. “There’s a knight, in distress. He’s been injured somehow.”

  “Dragon attack,” I put in.

  “Right,” she nodded, even as the sheriff’s eyebrows crept up his forehead. “Anyway, him and the other squire are hurt. We need to get to them. We need to get the doctor out there.”

  I watched with numb relief as he nodded acquiescence. “We’ll leave right away. Where are they, Squire Derel?” I gave the coordinates, as precisely as I could remember. “There’s no direct route for the skimmer. We’ll have to go cross-country until we hit the road near Terrence’s Fork, and then follow the border.”

  I barely heard him making plans. I barely heard Jason and Karina, or Doctor Kerry as they talked. I didn’t really pay attention until the doctor said, “Derel can’t come with us. She’s in rough shape. I’ll have my understudy –”

  “No. No, I have to go with you. I promised Phillip. I promised Ilyen.”

  “You’re in no state to travel, Squire.”

  “I won’t stay. I promised.” We went back and forth a few rounds, until I declared, “If you won’t take me, I’ll walk.”

  Karina placed a hand on the doctor’s arm. “Let the girl go.”

  “She’s in no state –”

  “No. But that’s her knight out there.”

  This seemed to clarify little for the physician, but eventually he relented. We piled into the skimmer with a giant bag of medical supplies, and before long we were bouncing over the rough road.

  Somewhere along the way, I passed out. I came to once or twice, and spent awhile drifting back and forth, in and out of consciousness. I heard Kerry complain that he’d been right. “Now I’ve got to try to wrap burns on the road? I told you this was a mistake.”

  “And I told you, that’s her knight out there. She had orders,” I heard Karina argue.

  I heard the sheriff wonder what might have attacked me. “Dragons, though? The girl is delusional. There haven’t been wild wyverns in these parts in two generations.”

  It wasn’t until the skimmer rolled to a stop, though, and I heard doors opening and people exiting the vehicle that I finally dragged myself back to awareness. We’re here. Ilyen. Aaronsen. We’re here. I couldn’t quite form the words, but I managed to stumble out of the vehicle.

  I saw the dragon, and I shivered violently at the sight. I was aware, now, of bandages on my back, and a hot sun burning overhead. I threw a glance around. It was midafternoon, I guessed.

  I looked for Phillip and Ilyen, and in a minute I saw them. Doctor Kerry was loading the boy onto a stretcher. The KP was still slumped on the ground. That, I supposed, was his doing. If he’d let them put him on a stretcher at all, he sure as hell wouldn’t let it happen while Phillip was lying there.

  “Good job, Aaronsen,” I said as I passed. “You listened to me.”

  He turned red, swollen eyes my way. “Ana.”

  But he was on the way to the skimmer. I’d talk to him in a minute. In the meantime, I wanted to check in with Ilyen. “KP,” I said. “I managed to take a walk without dying. Aren’t you –”

  I paused, frowning. He hadn’t moved. “KP?” I said again. “You sleeping?”

  “Derel, wait,” Karina called behind me.

  I didn’t, though. I dropped down heavily beside Ilyen, ignoring the spasm of pain the action sent through me. “Wake up, KP: we’re here to rescue you.”

  He still didn’t move, and I reached out a hand to shake him. But I froze midway. My knees had sunk into some kind of mud, and I glanced down and blinked uncomprehendingly. I was kneeling in a reddish sludge. It was the oddest mud I’d ever seen, ruddier than clay. What the…?

  “Derel, don’t.”

  I ignored Karina, though, returning my attention to Ilyen. He was still asleep. I wondered if he’d taken a syringe of the pain killer after all. “Hey,” I started, “you have to…”

  Then, though, I stopped, and a strangled cry slipped from my throat. Ilyen’s tunic was stained a deep crimson, with blood that ran from his wound to the earth below me. I understood, now, that mud: it wasn’t mud at all. It was his blood, mixed with dirt. “My gods. KP.” I shook him, gently first and then more vigorously. His head lolled from side to side, and the sight made me shriek again. “KP!”

  A set of hands took me by the shoulders. “I’m sorry, honey. He’
s dead.”

  I turned, staring into Karina’s kindly eyes but failing to comprehend her words. “Dead? He can’t be dead. He was alive.”

  “I’m so sorry. But he is.”

  Chapter Five – Callaghan

  I was seated, arms crossed, as Lidek fussed over the teapot. He was taking his time, in as deliberate a fashion as I’d ever seen. “You growing the tea leaves there, Commander?” I wondered after a space.

  He turned, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Patience, Lilia. Didn’t you ever learn the virtue of patience? That was one of my first lessons, when I was at the academy.”

  “Well, they update the curriculum every few decades. They might have dropped that lesson in the interval.”

  “Hmm.” He smiled, turning back to the pot. “And the section on respecting your elders, I see.”

  I checked a grin. I was still pissed at him, and I wasn’t going to let his charm make me forget it. “So the mayor tells me you’ve been chatting.”

  “Oh?” he asked, without turning. “Is that right?”

  “Hmm. She says you recommended me to babysit your trainees.”

  “Oh, well, she’s got it wrong then.”

  “Has she?” I wondered dryly.

  He nodded, and turned now, a steaming pot of tea in hand. “Of course. Your duties are to Shire’s End, not here. Fitzwilliam was concerned about recruits acting up outside Cragspoint, in town. Seeing as how that’s your province, I recommended you.” He filled a teacup and handed it to me. “I’d never presume to enlist you in our difficulties, though, Callaghan. You know that.”

  I scowled at him, and all his faux sincerity. “Very considerate.”

  “Of course. But I know how important your duties are to you. If there was trouble in town – and, between you and me, I think the mayor may be overreacting – I know you’d want to be apprised.”

  “What’s your point, Lidek?” He was getting at something. The studious manner in which he avoided my gaze, the careful attention to his own tea, told me that. I wasn’t entirely sure what, but I had my suspicions. He’d harangued me a few times about taking a more active role in the realm – here at Cragspoint, or putting in for a reassignment, or even taking a posting at the academy.

  You’ve got more to offer the North than overseeing your estate, Callaghan. Hire a land manager, get back in the game. You owe it to Queen Ilaria. You owe it to yourself.

  Now, though, he pretended not to know what I was talking about. “I’m sure I made it, Lilia: you are committed to serve your commission here, and here is your commission, calling.”

  “If you think you can harass me into moving back to the city, you are sadly mistaken.”

  He smiled into his teacup and took a long sip. “Now what would ever give you that idea?”

  “Come on, Kyle. I know you. And you’re not as sly as you think, you old devil. I’m happy here. It’s more than enough for me.”

  He snorted. “I’m not sure which part of that was more preposterous. You’re throwing your life away staying here. And – I’m twice as clever as you give me credit for.”

  “I’m serious,” I said, ignoring his attempt at humor. “I know you think I should be chasing some career inside the military apparatus. But I’ve no interest in being one of the brass.” I fixed him with a pointed gaze. “Which shouldn’t be too incomprehensible to a Senior Knight Protector who volunteered for a posting on the border, hundreds of kilometers from civilization proper.”

  “I train tomorrow’s warriors.”

  “Yes, yes.” I pulled a face, preempting – I hoped – another speech on the topic. “It doesn’t get more important than that. I know. But if you’re so concerned with the academy, or the brass, you could be there. Instead of hiding out here.”

  “That’s not the life for me.” I snorted, but he forged ahead anyway. “But my choices aren’t the point. I’m an old man. My best days are behind me.

  “You’re young, Callaghan. Not as young as you used to be, but young.” I frowned, and he shrugged. “Age catches up to us all. Yours is catching up to you faster than you know. One of these days, you’re going to wake up and see an old woman in the mirror.

  “And what will she have accomplished?”

  Usually, I let his barbs slide off me. But I felt irrationally challenged by the question, as if there was some need to respond, to defend myself. “I’m a Knight Protector. I am the Knight of the Shire.”

  He snorted. “You may as well call yourself a fairy, as much as it means to be Knight of the Shire.”

  I felt my cheeks flame with anger. “My family –”

  “Was great. The name of Callaghan, revered. But that was when the South was pushing our borders, and the armies of Callaghan were the first to shed their blood to keep the North safe.

  “Now the Southern king is fat and devious, more interested in politics than fighting. The armies of Callaghan are disbanded. And the Knight of the Shire sits in her ancestral keep, too lost in the past to think of either present or future. And all the while, the years roll by.”

  He shook his head, fixing me with a gaze that held none of its earlier mirth. “I knew your parents, Lilia. I knew you when you were just a little scrap of a girl. You were going to be a dragon rider. You remember? You were going to be the bravest knight in the realm. That’s what you told me, when we met. What happened to that girl? Where did she go?”

  I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat with his words. “I was a child,” I said, and my tone was harsh. “A stupid child.”

  “Lil,” he sighed. “You have to let go of the past. It’s done. The present is fleeting. The future is unpromised. You have to move on.”

  I moved, alright. I pushed to my feet, saying coldly, “Thank you for the tea, Commander. I’d better get back to town. My first patrol starts soon, after all.”

  “Lil,” he said again, “don’t go. Please, sit.”

  “I think it’s better if I don’t, Lidek. I really need to be on my way.”

  He tried, and failed, again to stop me. I left in something of a hurry. I knew what – who – he was getting at. He’d had the good sense not to say that name. But he hadn’t been exactly subtle, either.

  He thought what my father had thought, before he passed. He thought what my friends from the academy thought: it was just time to move on.

  As if it was that easy. As if there was some switch you could flip, to forget everything that had been. Everything that might have been.

  Godsdammit. It had been a long time since I dwelled on that. And now? Now I felt that sense of loss, that hole that nothing could fill, return.

  He meant well. I knew that. And maybe I was the loser he implied, the whipped dog that skulked back to her kennel. Maybe I was afraid to face the world again.

  Maybe I was. But it was too late to change that now. I am who I am. Whatever the hell that is.

  I could think about that later. At the moment, I needed to get of there before I lost my cool. I needed to clear my head before I had to deal with recruits or the mayor or anyone else.

  I had a training yard back home where I could take out my frustrations, if the ride back was insufficient. There were things I could not control – though, the gods knew I’d tried. But this? The way I was feeling, the band of anxiety that wrapped my heart and pulled tighter and tighter? I could snap it. I’d done it before. I could – would – reassert control.

  Godsdammit Lidek. I was stalking down the hall, lost to my own thoughts, when a voice called, “KP Callaghan?”

  It was a young voice, one of the new blood, I imagined. I turned a scowl to the speaker – sure enough, a fresh-faced squire, so young he was probably barely out of diapers. “What?”

  “Pardon me, KP. But I was sent to find you. The mayor needs you – you, and the Commander.”

  “What? Why?”

  “There’s been some kind of attack. A–a dragon attack. I don’t know the details. But I’ve got a skimmer, to take you back.
Both of you.”

  The boy’s name was Emmerson, and though he was obliging, I could get no more details out of him than what he’d already told me – for the simple reason that he didn’t have them. All he knew was that there had been an attack on a knight, and my and Lidek’s presence was required.

  He couldn’t say who the knight was. He couldn’t say where the attack had happened, or even really confirm that it was a dragon attack. “That’s what the mayor told me, ma’am. That’s all I know. I didn’t see it.”

  Lidek was not long in joining us, and he flashed me an almost apologetic smile. “Glad Emmerson caught you before you left, Callaghan.”

  I nodded. I was not ready to make nice. He’d crossed a line he shouldn’t have. But that would have to wait until later. “You ready, Commander?”

  The skimmer was waiting outside the base commander’s office building, and we piled in and zipped out of the walled compound.

  The ride to Shire’s End was a quick one. It was fifteen minutes walking cross-country, and about five by vehicle, since the route by road was more circuitous.

  Emmerson’s driving erred on the side of haste, however, and we were there in about three. I was pretty sure I’d suffered mild brain trauma as we bounced over a few of the potholes, and the contents of our heads were beaten against our skulls. And Lidek was a few shades paler than he was normally wont to be. “Your highspeed driving skills are to be commended,” he declared dryly, stepping out of the vehicle as he did so.

  The boy beamed, seeming to miss the sarcasm. “Thank you, sir. I’ll wait here, for you and the mayor.”

  “I assume that means we will have the pleasure of Squire Emmerson’s driving us to wherever we’re going, then,” Lidek harrumphed as we turned toward the mayor’s house.

  “And you thought life in Shire’s End was going to be boring.”

  We said no more as we entered the residence. The mayor’s house was the largest residential building in Shire’s End. Strictly speaking, my home – the Callaghan estate – just outside of town was as much a military installation as a residence. It had been built during and for war, with an old-fashioned stone keep, since plated in dragon fire-resistant metals. It was a pretty place, with a rugged charm. But it was built for function rather than form.