When they reached the gate, one of the soldiers barked, “What’s your name and your business at Fortress Rocks?”
Aubrey began to cry.
“Hey, now, sis,” Breon said, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. These ones won’t hurt us.”
Aubrey just cried harder. She was the prettiest crier Breon had ever seen. Not like some, who got all puffy-eyed and snot-nosed.
“What’s wrong with her?” one of the soldiers said, pointing. A burly, bearded soldier with a flattened nose pulled out a handkerchief and gave it to her.
“My sister and I are from Spiritgate, down on the border,” Breon said, looking Flatnose in the eyes. “Some mudbacks came through and they—they—” He stopped and blotted away tears with his sleeve. “Our house is burnt and the rest of our family is dead. So we’re on our way to Chalk Cliffs—we’ve got family there.”
The soldiers all looked at each other. “I wonder if they’re the same bastards who came here,” one of them said.
“There were mudbacks here?” Breon looked from face to face. “When was that?”
“Back in late summer,” Flatnose said.
“I think it was around then,” Breon said. He looked at Aubrey, who nodded, sniffling.
“All we have is the clothes on our backs,” Aubrey said. “Do you think we can get work in town? We need to make some money so we can hire space in a wagon to take us to the coast.”
“There’s construction work to be had,” Flatnose said, eyeing Breon’s bony build skeptically. “They’re having to rebuild most of the town. But it won’t be easy to find a ride. With the holiday just over, there’s not much traffic on the road this time of year.”
At the end of it, the soldiers took up a collection for them before they sent them on their way.
Breon slid a look at Aubrey as they left the gate behind. She smirked back at him and whispered, “Didn’t I tell you, Bree? Didn’t I tell you we was good together?”
That warmed him up inside. Though he couldn’t help wondering if he should be worried that lying seemed to come as easily as breathing to him.
It was good they’d had the warning at the gate, because when they finally rounded the last bend and saw the town, they were stunned.
“Holy saints,” Breon whispered.
A good part of the town was in ruins, nearly everything burnt or broken, the scent of woodsmoke still lingering. The keep had been largely knocked down, only its tower left standing as a jagged tooth against the mountains behind it. Was that the fortress the town was named for?
Mourning colors were draped over railings and twined with pine roping. Rosettes were tacked to some of the doors alongside Solstice greens. As Flatnose had said, several buildings were under construction.
Along the way into town, they’d passed a newly built temple, its churchyard prickled with new remembrance stones.
If a person could overlook the damage to the town, the valley was pleasant—peppered with hot springs and geysers. It was almost balmy there, compared to the high passes they’d been through.
One of the buildings that had been repaired and restored was a place called the Cold Moon Tavern. They took a chance and booked a room there, guessing that there wouldn’t be many visitors, carrying tales from the capital. They had a decent meal, and Breon managed to score a small amount of low-quality leaf. Aubrey was friendlier and more cheerful than she’d been since the night of the street concert. Everything taken together, he was beginning to feel a bit more optimistic.
Until he began trying to find a ride to Chalk Cliffs.
It wasn’t for lack of charm—between the two of them, Breon and Aubrey could charm the skin off a dog. The problem was that few people came through town, and none of them seemed to be going their way. Either they were staying in Fortress Rocks until spring, or they were heading back west to Fellsmarch, or they had no room.
It was good the inn was cheap, because they ended up spending two weeks there. Breon wanted to try his hand at singing in the evenings and passing a hat, but Aubrey talked him out of it.
Their luck finally changed when they met up with a clan trader at the inn. At least he was dressed like a clan trader. He was also as serious as the pox, his eyes like windows into a place you didn’t want to go to. Breon thought there was something familiar about him, but the world seems to be full of people who look like other people, and fool you. Besides, Aubrey said she’d never laid eyes on him before.
The only thing that mattered was that he said he was driving a wagon all the way to Chalk Cliffs.
Traders were usually fast-talking sharpsters—always eager to make a deal—but not this one. He wanted nothing to do with them until Breon showed him some coin, and that got him interested enough to let them make their case. He finally agreed to take them, but there was a large condition attached to that.
“I’m waiting for someone,” he said. “And I can’t leave until she comes.”
“Why? Is she riding along?”
“No.” He seemed to feel no pressure to elaborate.
“When is she supposed to arrive?”
The trader shrugged. “Probably not for a few days or a week.”
So there was nothing to do but wait another week, spending their coin on bed and board, using up Breon’s supply of leaf again. If they ran out, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. He could take it or leave it, but this was, after all, a stressful situation. Not a good time to be without.
25
FORTRESS ROCKS
Jenna awoke to the sound of crunching bones and ripping flesh. She pressed her hands over her ears and cursed her dragon-sharp hearing. Resisting the temptation to stay where she was, muffled up in her bedroll, she crawled forward and stuck her head out of the tent to be met by the metallic scent of raw meat.
Flamecaster looked up from a half-eaten carcass, shreds of meat hanging from his jaws, blood smeared all around his mouth. He lay in the center of a large patch of melted snow, his scales glittering in the morning sun. He looked pleased with himself.
He lifted one foreleg, as if to judge how much was left, then peered up at Jenna. Share?
“That depends on what it is.” Jenna stood, stamping her feet in the snow to get her blood moving, rubbing her backside. She crossed to where the dragon lay just as he spit out a wad of wool.
From the looks of things, breakfast was a sheep, of the rangy, mountain kind. It had a leather tag in its ear.
“That’s some farmer’s livelihood, you know,” Jenna said, in a halfhearted scold. Better a sheep than somebody’s child.
Live-li-hood? Flamecaster looked back at the carcass. Looks like goat. He nudged a choice shoulder joint toward her. For you.
Jenna’s mouth watered. After weeks traveling with a dragon, she’d developed an appetite for rare meat. That was on a fairly long list of things she didn’t want to think about. Like Adam Wolf. And the glittering scales that kept coming and going on her skin. And the fact that shooting with a longbow is harder than it looks. Maybe she should try shooting flames out of her mouth.
“I don’t have time to roast meat, Cas,” she said, using the nickname she’d devised when “Flamecaster” seemed too formal and too awkward. She chewed on a stale chunk of waybread.
Flamecaster snorted. In his opinion, waybread did not count as food, and cooking ruined perfectly good meat. He pinned the joint of mutton with one foreleg and swept it with a gout of flame so that it was charred on the outside.
He looked up brightly. Now ruined. He nudged it toward her and smiled in the way only a dragon can smile, and Jenna’s heart melted, as it always did.
The irresistible scent of roasted meat wafted up, and Jenna took the time to rip off a fist-sized hunk and wrap it in her waybread. “I have to go to town.”
Cas’s head came up, the forest of horns on his head rattling as he laid them back.
“Don’t worry,” Jenna said. “I’m coming back.”
He cocked his head suspiciously.
Two weeks ago, in a sudden fit of conscience, she’d decided it was best to part ways with Flamecaster. She’d begun to realize that she was putting the sun dragon at risk by allowing the bond to grow between them. Those hunting her would have to kill him to get to her. She had no doubt that they would do just that.
But a dragon is not so easily dismissed. When she’d “set him free,” Cas had treated it like a joke (though an embarrassingly bad one). She’d sternly sent him away, but he kept creeping back, bringing gifts of dead rabbits and chickens and shiny stones as peace offerings, begging forgiveness for whatever he’d done to deserve banishment. She’d tried to sneak away, and he’d played it like a game of hide-and-seek. The longest she managed to evade him was half a day. By the time he found her, they were both half-crazy with misery, and she spent the whole next day promising never to do that again.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said brightly, getting to her feet.
The dragon’s head drooped, almost comically. He peered up at her with his golden eyes. Give Jenna ride?
Jenna shook her head. “They’re not used to dragons here. If anyone sees you, it will just cause trouble. Please please please stay right here. Take a nap or something, all right?”
Go hunting in town?
Jenna spent one delicious moment imagining bringing Cas the dragon to town, and introducing him to Rogan the arrogant trader.
But no. A dragon was like a big, impressive sword that she could never hope to wield.
“No. I’m buying some . . . some glitterbits for you and me. A surprise. But only if you stay here.”
That did the trick. The dragon flopped down on his belly, lifting his head enough to peer winningly through his eyelashes.
Flamecaster, she’d learned, was very fond of both glitterbits and surprises. The combination was the one reward beyond food and Jenna’s company that seemed to work with him. The dragon’s loyalty to her was unquestioned. The notion of obedience was very questioned.
“When I get back, we’ll fly to the coast,” she said. She felt the heat of his attention until she rounded a turn in the trail.
A dragon is not a dog, she kept telling herself. And he wasn’t a horse, either, and so she found herself making her way to town on foot, following a steep, icy trail out of the heights and into town.
Fortress Rocks was a strategic spot where the Firehole River roared through a deep gorge on its way to the sea. The road between Fellsmarch and Chalk Cliffs passed through here, and if a person wanted to stop an army, this would be the place. It appeared that it had once been an important military checkpoint, but now most of the man-made fortifications were in ruins.
As Jenna descended into the gorge, it became noticeably warmer. The ice disappeared, the ground grew muddy, and moss and lichen and plants she didn’t recognize clothed the rocks along the trail. As she neared the bottom of the gorge, she began to catch glimpses of the river. Plumes of steam rose where water from the hot springs discharged into the colder water flowing out of the mountains. It was like a warm oasis in a frozen world.
As she got closer, she realized that there had been trouble in the oasis. Most of the main buildings were damaged and burned, with just a few left standing or restored enough for use. The whole town smelled of blood and woodsmoke. Would the leatherworker Rogan recommended still be there? Would the trader show up at all? Had it all been a cruel joke he’d played on her?
Still, she’d come all this way, so she had to follow through. If I’ve come all this way and the trader isn’t here, Jenna swore, I’m going to track him down and make a saddle and harness out of his hide.
Any oasis draws a mix of creatures, and this one was no exception. It had been days since Jenna had seen another person, but the main street here was bustling with horses and wagons and a stew of walkers—traders and teamsters, soldiers and travelers probably waiting for a break in the weather outside the bubble of the gorge. Flowers—watered by the thick mist—spilled from baskets hanging from porches.
Fortress Rocks? The name didn’t fit, somehow. Jenna wondered how long she could hide here unnoticed. Probably not very long, with an impatient dragon waiting for her in the hills. If she didn’t get back soon, he might come looking for her.
She’d visited some temple libraries, trying to gather more information on dragons, but there was little to be found. She could find no history of dragons living in the Seven Realms. The only references she could find mentioned Carthis. It seemed dragons were relatively common in remote areas of Carthis, preying on sheep, cattle, and people, and in general making life more miserable than it already was.
There was nothing on Dealing with Dragons or like topics.
The Cold Moon Tavern wasn’t hard to find. It seemed to be the center of activity on the main street, patrons overflowing onto the porch and into the street. They were a rough lot, but that was nothing new to anyone who grew up in Delphi.
Jenna couldn’t help thinking of her father’s inn, the Lady of Grace, back in Delphi, her refuge and home for so many years. Was it still an inn, or had the northerners taken it over after the city fell? It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t be the same without her father standing behind the bar.
Inside the Cold Moon Tavern, all the tables were occupied. Jenna scanned the patrons, looking for Rogan, and didn’t see him. She took another look, this time to identify trouble that might come her way. A handful of soldiers shared a table, apparently deep in their cups though it was just after midday. They wore the browns and greens of the northern army. Which was something she would have to get used to, now that she’d crossed the border.
A clan family shared another table—dressed in furs, deerskins, feathers, and fine boots, even the lýtlings. Probably traders on the road from one camp to another.
A young couple shared a table in the back. They seemed to be arguing about something, from the hand-waving that was going on. The girl was pretty and plush, but she had a stormy expression on her face. The boy had red-gold hair that glittered in the light from the hearth, and his face was fine-planed and handsome. He was so thin, though, that Jenna wondered if he had the lung fever.
Ask for me at the Cold Moon Tavern at Fortress Rocks. So Jenna squeezed in at the bar and ordered an ale.
The tavern keeper clunked a tankard on the wood in front of her and said, “You’re new to town, aren’t you?”
Damn. It’s one of those places where they notice any newcomer.
“Just passing through,” Jenna said. “I was hoping to meet up with a trader, name of Rogan.”
For a moment, the bartender looked puzzled, then his confusion cleared. “Oh. You mean Shadow. He goes by Shadow Dancer here in the north.”
So he has an alias, Jenna thought. That doesn’t surprise me at all.
Some of that must have shown on her face, because the innkeeper added, “That’s his clan name. He doesn’t use it in the south.”
Fine. When it came to aliases, Jenna was queen of the world. “Do you know if he’s in town?”
At that, the bartender’s expression turned wary. “I don’t know. I’ll send my boy to ask after him. Who should I say is looking for him?”
“He probably won’t remember my name,” Jenna said, “but it’s Riley.”
A spot at a table opened up while she was waiting, so Jenna sat with her back to the wall.
It wasn’t long before Rogan/Shadow Dancer swept through the door. He caught her eye, but put up a finger, signaling her to wait a minute while he spoke with the couple at the next table.
“All right,” he said to them. “The person I was waiting for is here now, so I’ll be leaving for the coast tomorrow morning. You can come with me if you shut it and follow my rules.”
The girl looked like she was going to argue, but the boy nodded quickly and said, “Done. Thank you.”
Then the trader came and sat down at Jenna’s table. “Welcome to Fortress Rocks,” he said. “I’m called Shadow in the north.”
“So I hear.”
&nb
sp; “You’re here sooner than I expected.”
“Does that mean that my commission isn’t finished?” Jenna raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t say that.”
Jenna waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “So it’s ready?” she pressed.
He nodded. “It is. I told you she could get it done.”
“What would you have done if I didn’t show up?”
“I knew you would, sooner or later.”
Jenna clenched her teeth. She was peeved with the high-handed trader, but she reined herself in. She needed to do the deal and be gone.
“Could I see it, then?” she said. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Of course.” He stood. “Sparrow’s on her way into town. She’s going to meet us at the stable down the street.”
Jenna followed the trader out of the inn and down the sidewalk, wondering if she was being led into some kind of a trap.
“Is this leatherworker one of your regular suppliers?” Jenna asked.
“She is getting to be,” he said. “I worked with her sister for several years, and now Sparrow is stepping into her shoes.”
The stable seemed to be nothing more or less than what he’d claimed it was, and just a little ramshackle.
“Wait here,” Shadow said, and disappeared inside.
Jenna moved close to the window so that she could use her dragon-sharp ears to eavesdrop on the conversation.
“She’s here?” It was a female voice, quite young, a little panicky. “I thought it was going to be another week.”
“She made really good time,” the trader said. “Let me see what you’ve done.”
Jenna heard footsteps, and when the girl spoke again, it was from farther away. “I used the measurements you gave, but I kept thinking I was somehow getting it wrong.”
“Sparrow!” Shadow said, a hint of awe in his voice—something Jenna wouldn’t have expected. “This is amazing work. If I didn’t know better, I would think that Aspen—”