Realm of Dragons

He set off through the monastery’s gates, the others trailing in his wake.

Brother Odd continued to kneel, his thoughts racing in a way no monk’s should have. Maybe the abbot was right. Maybe he did need to slow himself, contemplate, not react the way the old him would have. Maybe the abbot going to the docks was the best move, peacefully welcoming those who came, trying diplomacy because the island had no swords to offer.

Instinctively, though, Brother Odd knew it was the wrong move. He knew what the men coming to the island would do. He’d been those men, and he knew how they thought. Men like the abbot were normally blessed that they had never known thoughts like that, but here… here it was a curse. They didn’t know what it was like to be a man who would see innocent people as an enemy to be crushed, who would kill for the least provocation. They couldn’t see the true danger coming for them.

Yet what could he do? The abbot’s instructions to him had been clear. Breaking them wasn’t something a monk could do, and Brother Odd was a monk, not the man he had been.

I am not that man, he thought.

But are you a man who lets his friends, good men, be slaughtered? another part demanded.

I am Brother Odd, a loyal monk, he insisted.

But that was not always your name.

Brother Odd wrestled with it, fought with it, but he already knew what the answer was. With limbs already cramping from the kneeling, he stood, lifting the rake and considering it.

“It will have to do,” he said, and set off in the direction of the docks.

***

The run down from the monastery to the docks was a short one, but by the time he got there, Brother Odd could feel his breath coming shorter. He was out of condition, not used to this.

You’re not supposed to be used to this, he reminded himself.

Ahead, he could see the spot where one of the ships had docked next to the island, a gangplank down to let down a cluster of soldiers who looked like beetles in their steel and leather compared to the monks. There weren’t many on the shore yet, but it was already too many, especially when they made no pretense of keeping their weapons sheathed.

As he got closer, Brother Odd could hear the abbot talking with their leader, a man with the design of a leopard on his shield.

“And I say to you that we are a holy place, Captain. We must not be used for war, lest it anger the gods.”

“It is King Ravin’s anger you need to worry about,” the man said, in the thick accent of the southerners.

“Kings swear to uphold Leveros’s neutrality when they are crowned,” the abbot pointed out. All the time, Brother Odd was making his way forward, hoping he would make it there in time. Hope that he wouldn’t be needed at all were long gone by now. “As many of our monks come from the south as from the north.”

“Then they will have told you that a king’s power is absolute,” the captain said. “Merely by refusing, you are traitors, and will suffer a traitor’s end.” He turned to the others with him. “Kill them all!”

He raised his sword to strike, but Brother Odd was already in motion. He caught the blow with the head of the rake, twisted, and sent the weapon spinning from the man’s hand. Turning, he swept his opponent’s feet from under him, sending him to the floor in a clatter of armor.

“No, there will be no violence here!” the abbot shouted, but it was too late for that. The spark had already fallen in the forest, and all they could do was hope to survive the conflagration of violence that followed.

Brother Odd certainly didn’t stop. Instead, he charged at the next of the soldiers there, and maybe the man still hadn’t realized quite what his opponent was, because he brought his sword up lazily. Brother Odd swept round the parry and slammed the end of the rake into his throat, hearing the crack and gurgle of it before the soldier started to topple. Odd dropped his rake, caught the sword, and turned to the other monks there.

“Run!” he bellowed, in the voice he’d long used to command men in the field. Some obeyed immediately. Others hesitated, looking to the abbot. Those were the first to die. The soldiers on the dock were already hacking down with blades, lashing out at any target they could see without a care over who they hit. They were expecting pleas and peaceful protestations… Odd gave them violence instead.

He charged a pair of them, slicing out low then high with his newly captured blade. He was still getting used to the weight of it, and the first man was able to parry, while the second thrust at Odd’s flank. He twisted away from the blow, but still felt the steel slicing into his flesh.

That triggered the old fury, bringing out the side of himself that didn’t stop, didn’t hold back, didn’t care. He roared like a wounded animal, hacked down on the soldier’s arm hard enough to cut it off at the wrist, kicked the first one back.

“Back, damn you!” he bellowed to the monks, and now even the slowest of them on the uptake were trying to run. Odd moved between them and the soldiers, giving ground slowly even though the battle rage in him wanted to charge at them. He maneuvered around crates and boxes, lining it up so that the men there could only come at him one at a time, could only die one at a time.

Oh, how they died.

The first went down in a fountain of blood, charging forward too carelessly and all but running onto Odd’s sword. The second came in more cautiously, with the mechanical sword work of the badly trained. Odd parried two blows to get the measure of him, took a slicing cut on his arm, then took the man’s head off in one sweep of the blade.

He gave ground, step by careful step. There was a problem with that, of course, because once he got to the open ground beyond the slender dock, they would be able to surround him. Only one plan occurred to Odd then: he charged.

He leapt at them like the man he had once been, not Odd, but Oderick. Sir Oderick. Oderick the Mad, Oderick who would ride down foes just because he could. Oderick, who had known the truth of battle: that it wasn’t about men’s flesh, but their hearts. The next man gave ground as he charged, and that was all it took to send the rest of them back toward their ship, waiting for the rest of their men to unload before they dared to take him on.

That was when Oderick ran, catching the others up as they made their way up the short path to the monastery.

“Run faster, damn you!” he ordered them, and it worked in a way that an order from Brother Odd would not have. They all ran faster, even the librarian, who never moved quicker than he needed to get from his shelves to the refectory and back. Oderick threw his arm around a wounded brother, helping him to make the journey, determined that they would lose no more.

“There!” he said, pointing to the gates. They ran for them, and behind, he could hear the sounds of pursuit now. Glancing back, he could see men marching in formation, more disciplined now after the shock of his attack. He wouldn’t catch them like that again. A few men lifted bows, and arrows sang out. One caught the librarian in the back, and he fell, dead before he hit the ground.

“Inside, inside!” Oderick called as he dove through. “Now close the gates!”

It said something for the tone in which he ordered it that they obeyed without question. The gates swung shut ponderously, the thick wood and iron clanging. Only when the bars were in place did Oderick relax, the battle rage fading. That was when the full enormity of everything that had happened struck him.

His sword clattered from bloody hands. He’d saved people today, but he’d also killed, time and again. He’d put aside the calm of the monastery for the fury within. He’d reveled in the violence. Oderick looked down at the blood covering him, only some of it his.

“What have I done?”

There was no time to think about that though, because Oderick knew that men would soon be coming to try to batter those gates down. They needed to prepare for the defense.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

All along the ride back to Royalsport, Devin could feel the eyes of Rodry and the others on him. They might not know for sure what he was, but they had seen a glimpse of what he could do now, and there was awe there, maybe even a bit of fear. Devin didn’t know whether to be flattered by the hint of respect in those gazes, or worried about people’s reactions once more found out about him.

Magic wasn’t something for the likes of him, after all. It was something for strange men and women who walked out of the wild places, for herbalists and seers, and for men like Master Grey. None of that sounded like Devin to his ears.

Eventually, the city came into sight. Devin was grateful that it gave him the chance to get back home, or at least to the House of Weapons. He understood steel in a way that he could never understand what had happened out there in Clearwater Deep.

“Do you have any clothes other than those?” Rodry asked, out of nowhere, as they got close to the city.

“Other clothes?” Devin said. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, you can’t come to the feast looking like that, can you?” Rodry said. “Halfin, you’re about the same size as him, maybe you could lend him something.”

“Wait,” Devin said. “You want me to come to the feast? The feast for your sister’s wedding?”

“Of course,” Rodry said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “You’ve fought beside me, you’ve done more to help than either of my brothers could have, and you’re going to make the most perfect gift for me to give to my sister. It’s only right that you should come. Don’t think that I abandon my friends, Devin!”

He seemed to have declared them friends just like that. Devin had to admit that he liked Rodry, admired his bravery and his strength. He felt honored that a prince would think of him as a friend, even if it was as sudden and impulsive a decision as everything else he did.

“I would be honored to attend,” Devin said. “The outer feast is—”

“Not the outer feast,” Rodry said. “You’d have been able to walk into that anyway. You’re coming to the inner feasting, and that’s an end to it.”