King's Dragon

Sanglant knelt beside the grave. Liath ventured forward, following the saint, who descended the stairs. Her light receded away from them and was lost around a bend in the catacomb. Liath set foot on the first stair.



“Go no farther,” said Sanglant abruptly. “The air smells fresh here, and it carries the scent of oats.”



She halted, looking back over her shoulder. Already the unearthly light dimmed, as a candle gutters.



He added, impatiently: “The soil in the river valley and east of Gent is rich enough to grow wheat and rye. Only in the western hills do the folk hereabouts grow oats. This tunnel must lead miles from the city.”



“But she called to us—”



Voices sounded from above, accompanied by the ring of mail and the stamp of heavy feet. Torchlight streamed into the chamber, sending streaks of light glaring over stone and tomb and earth. Liath shaded her eyes.



“My lord! Prince Sanglant!”



He rose and turned as the first of his Dragons found him.



“My lord Sanglant!” It was the scarred-face woman. She looked first at him, then at Liath, who still stood half in the sinkhole, then back at the prince.



He said quickly and loudly, as the others crowded in, “We have followed a vision of St. Kristine. This is where it brought us.”



A few drew the circle at their breasts. None seemed inclined to laugh or make jokes, even finding the prince alone in such a place with an attractive and young woman.



“The fog has lifted from the eastern shore, my lord,” continued the woman. She, too, wore armor and, with her exceptional height and broad shoulders, looked as ready for hard battle as any of her comrades. “The watch has spotted Count Hildegard’s banner among a mob of horsemen. They are fleeing just ahead of an Eika horde. They are coming to Gent.”



Sanglant looked once, and sharply, toward Liath. He was not a man who betrayed emotion easily through the expression of his face; she could read nothing there now. But he lifted a hand and touched his cheek with a finger, an unconscious echo of the moment she had touched him so. Realizing what he was about, he jerked his hands down. Then he swept out at the head of his Dragons. Their heavy steps and the weight and clink of their mail rang through the crypt like thunder, hurting her ears. None waited for her.



She waited, but the light died, torchlight and the pale fluorescence of saint’s light, both together, leaving her in a gloom relieved only by that faint trail of plain good sunlight filtered through dust and darkness. Air touched her face, as soft as a feather, rising softly from the catacomb at her feet. She smelled fresh earth and growing things, although she could not have sorted oats out from that distant aroma of earth and hills and open air.



The saint had vanished down the stair into the black mystery beyond. Liath dared not follow her, however desperately she wished to. Perhaps, for a moment, she understood Sanglant. Down that road I dare not walk. But that did not lessen the ache.



She shook herself and stepped out of the sinkhole. Groping, she made her way back to the large vault, found the obsidian slab and the little flask tucked forlorn and forgotten up against Biscop Caesaria’s tombstone. Liath unstoppered the flask and took a draught. It was bitter enough to make her eyes sting, but bracing. Thus fortified, she climbed back to the living world above.



Like Sanglant, she did not doubt that St. Kristine of the Knives had appeared to them. But she could not answer the most pressing question: Why to them? And why now?



She reached the steps of the cathedral in time to see Sanglant mount his horse. He received his helmet from the woman, but before he settled it over his head, he glanced up toward the open doors. Their gazes met across the mob that had gathered. The noise in the streets was that of people hysterical with fear and hope.



He did not smile at her, only looked. Then someone spoke, and his attention was pulled away. He settled his helmet on his head and by that means was transformed; he was Prince Sanglant no longer, but captain of the King’s Dragons.



Their gold tabards were as bright as sunlight and his most of all, the black dragon sigil stitched onto gold cloth with veins of silver thread. They looked, indeed, as terrible as their reputation, fierce and unforgiving in iron helms faced with brass; that his helm with its delicate gold dragon was also beautiful only made the contrast between the fine ornamentation and the grandeur of their stark and forbidding strength the more striking.



The prince hefted his teardrop shield on an arm, touched his sword’s hilt, and led the way. The rest clattered behind him, over one hundred, headed down the main avenue to the eastern gate where they would meet the rest of their fellows, those who were already on duty and those still arming.