Chapter 14 #3
Maybe we’re now inextricably linked because of our growing feelings for each other, Vorik mused to Agrevlari.
With nowhere to perch, the dragon had flown back to Harvest Island, but the distance wasn’t so great that they couldn’t communicate. Are you speaking of the queen you attempted to kidnap? Do you not believe her feelings might be on the wane?
Probably not because of that. She might be irked that I tried to blow up her weapons platform.
On behalf of all dragons, I regret that you did not succeed.
Me too.
I long to link with and share growing feelings with Wreylith, but with Wingleader Saleetha yelling into my mind and roaring at me, I was forced to attack her.
I saw that, Vorik said. You even drew blood.
That was because she attacked back, and my instincts took over. I am relieved she escaped the confrontation though she battled superior numbers. She remains magnificent.
But unwilling to speak with you?
A faint clink reached Vorik’s ears, distracting him from Agrevlari’s response.
With troops marching about, there were many noises in the city, but that had come from the ground nearby, a narrow cobblestone alley beside the building he perched upon.
He hadn’t thought anyone was in it and crept to the edge of the roof to peek down, half-expecting to find a stray dog nosing at garbage bins.
But the alley was devoid of animals. Aside from a few scraps of rubbish, nothing occupied it except a metal grate over an opening that stormwater presumably ran into to be diverted to the river.
Since his people didn’t build permanent towns, Vorik knew little of such infrastructure, but stormer spies sometimes moved about Kingdom cities via the underground passageways.
Might there be tunnels leading to that palace?
Maybe he could reach Syla more easily using a subterranean route.
Agrevlari’s words about his actions possibly making her feelings wane made Vorik hesitate to check out the grate.
He worried there was truth to them. How many times could he impede Syla or outright act against her and expect that she would continue to care for him?
When their gazes had met, her initial expression of delight had warmed his heart, but it had quickly faded to suspicion and wariness.
Another clink sounded, followed by a scrape-clunk. The grate moved aside, and a man stuck his head out.
Vorik blinked. That was Yevlor from Moonhunt Tribe. And he waved to someone back down in the darkness. Gavartash from Vorik’s tribe, from his own wing, rose up and peered out. Had they been sent in as part of the incursion team that had lit fires and destroyed buildings? What were they up to now?
They ducked back into the darkness below the cobblestones, but they didn’t replace the grate.
Vorik made sure no guards were tramping through the street out front, then hopped down into the alley.
“Hello?” he called softly through the opening, not wanting to startle armed men and capable warriors.
“Hello?” came a curious reply. It sounded like Yevlor.
“Is it a soldier?” Gavartash whispered.
“They don’t call down hello before they attack us,” Yevlor whispered back.
“Your faces don’t inspire cozy warmth in people the way mine does,” Vorik said.
After a long pause, Gavartash asked, “Captain Vorik?”
Vorik grabbed the edge and swung down into a dark tunnel, landing with a splash in six inches of water.
The air was close, dark, and dank, with the only light coming through the opening above.
It provided enough illumination for Vorik to make out the two men, and did he hear more mutterings farther back in the tunnel?
Around a bend that he spotted? Yes, and he even sensed someone with magic back there. Someone familiar.
He sighed. Captain Lesva hadn’t yet lost any power from the death of her dragon. She might retain it for months. If another dragon deigned to link with her—after all, dragons liked ruthless ambition, and she had plenty of that—she might never lose her power.
“My mother likes my face all right.” Gavartash looked Vorik up and down, his expression more wary than inviting, and there wasn’t any humor in his eyes.
His gaze shifted toward the opening, as if he expected someone else to follow Vorik down. Who else would be with him? Syla?
Not yet…
“I’m alone,” Vorik said, “with only my mission to keep me warm.”
“What mission is that, sir?” Gavartash rested a hand on the sword in a scabbard hanging from his belt. “You attacked Captain Lesva in front of everyone, and she was trying to destroy that terrible weapon.”
“She was trying to kill Queen Syla. Since I have orders to kidnap her, I had to stop Lesva.” Vorik glanced toward the dark bend, but the sounds from that direction had quieted, and Lesva, though he still sensed her, hadn’t come forward.
“We needed to sink that ship, sir,” Gavartash said. “Destroy that weapon. The queen… Storm god’s wrath, we can’t kidnap her. She’s dangerous. Remember what Devron said? She almost choked him to death. Just by touching him.”
Vorik grimaced at the reminder that Syla had the power to hurt—to kill.
She’d done more than constrict the airway of the assassin who’d tried to slay her in the wheelhouse of that whaling ship.
The man had been dead at her feet. It was hard for Vorik to imagine sweet Syla the healer hurting anyone, but she could.
Abruptly, he felt presumptuous about saying, when they’d been in bed, that she had been his captive instead of the other way around.
She hadn’t minded, but he couldn’t pretend that was true, that he had the upper hand with her.
“The queen should be killed and that ship sunk,” Gavartash said when Vorik didn’t answer right away. “That’s what Captain Lesva wants to do.”
“I have orders to kidnap the queen. She has a moon-mark and knows where the shielders are.” Yes, those were the reasons Vorik had given to change his brother’s mind on what to do with Syla…
“Others have moon-marks. She’s too dangerous.”
“I didn’t ask your opinion, Gavartash. Take me to Lesva, and I’ll discuss it with her.” With his sword drawn, most likely. Vorik braced himself to face her.
But Gavartash didn’t walk off. Instead, his hand strayed again to his sword. “She doesn’t want to see you, sir. Earlier, she was suggesting that your wing should have a new leader.”
“Are you going to challenge me for command of it?” Vorik wondered if Lesva had put Gavartash up to this confrontation.
The kid had only been a rider for two years and wasn’t bonded with a dragon.
He was a talented fighter, but he hadn’t previously said or done anything to suggest he wanted to challenge Vorik.
“We don’t think you’re making good decisions for the tribe or our people.” Gavartash looked at Yevlor.
“Don’t include me in this,” Yevlor whispered. “Lesva wasn’t rubbing my shoulder and getting me excited and ambitious.”
“It wasn’t my shoulder that she rubbed.” Gavartash stepped back and drew his sword.
Despite saying he didn’t want to be involved, Yevlor also drew his sword and faced Vorik.
“You’re not offering a duel or a proper challenge?” Vorik rolled onto the balls of his feet, prepared for a fight, though he didn’t want it and didn’t yet draw his blades. “By the code, only one man may challenge another at a time.”
“We’d be foolish to challenge you solo,” Gavartash said. “And this isn’t about the code. It’s about doing what’s right for our people.”
“And satisfying the woman who’s rubbing something of yours?
” Vorik didn’t want to fight his own men, and it bothered him that their concern about his leadership wasn’t unfounded.
But he hadn’t yet gone against Jhiton, and that was who they should be looking to for guidance, not Lesva.
Lesva should have come forward to challenge Vorik personally if she wanted to get rid of him.
“I’m doing this for our people,” Gavartash said firmly.
Yevlor rolled his eyes but didn’t correct his comrade. He was the first to move, flicking his sword in a feint toward the side of Vorik’s neck.
Mindful of the tight confines of the tunnel and a wall behind him, Vorik leaped sideways, the water splashing under his feet, and drew his sword and dagger. He recognized the feint for what it was and didn’t bother deflecting it, suspecting that Gavartash was the main threat.
Yes, the man lunged in while his comrade sent a second feint toward Vorik’s hip.
Vorik deflected both attacks, his eyes sharp enough to see the blades in the dim lighting.
Further, after so many battles in his life, he sensed and anticipated the men’s attacks.
It helped that they were his own people, fighting with familiar combinations and patterns of stabs and slashes, attacks that Vorik had helped ingrain in them.
Weapons clashed, echoing loudly in the enclosed space.
Not wanting the noise to draw the city’s guards, and aware of others around the bend, Vorik summoned his magic to give him greater speed so that he could end the confrontation quickly.
With a sweep of his dagger, he deflected an attack from Yevlor, then stabbed him in the back of the hand.
The man cried out, dropping his sword into the water.
Gavartash tried to take advantage of the distraction, but Vorik parried his combination of thrusts and slashes without taking his eyes from the man’s face. Movement in his peripheral vision warned Vorik of others coming, and he launched a rapid series of attacks of his own.