Rise of the Dragons

As they neared the gate, a dozen of her father’s men charged out on their horses, the masses parting for them as they rode out for the training ground, a wide, circular embankment in the fields outside the fort ringed by a low, stone wall. Kyra turned and watched them go, her heart quickening. The training grounds were her favorite place. She would go there and watch them spar for hours, studying every move they made, the way they rode their horses, the way they drew their swords, hurled spears, swung flails. These men rode out to train despite the coming dark and falling snow, even on the eve of a holiday feast, because they wanted to train, to better themselves, because they would all rather be on a battlefield than feasting indoors – like her. These, she felt, were her true people.

Another group of her father’s men came out, these on foot, and as Kyra approached the gate with her brothers, these men stepped aside, with the masses, making room for Brandon and Braxton as they approached with the boar. They whistled in admiration and gathered around, large, muscle-bound men, standing a foot taller than even her brothers who were not small, most of them wearing beards peppered with gray, all hardened men in their thirties and forties who had seen too many battles, who had served the old King and had suffered the indignity of his surrender. Men who would have never surrendered on their own. These were men who had seen it all and who were not impressed by much – but they did seem taken with the boar.

“Kill that on your own, did you?” one of them asked Brandon, coming close and examining it.

The crowd thickened and Brandon and Braxton finally stopped, taking in the praise and admiration of these great men, trying not to show how hard they were breathing.

“We did!” Braxton called out proudly.

“A Black-Horned,” exclaimed another warrior, coming up close, running his hand along the back of it. “Haven’t seen one since I was a boy. Helped kill one myself, once – but I was with a party of men – and two of them lost fingers.”

“Well, we lost nothing,” Braxton called out boldly. “Just a spear head.”

Kyra burned as the men all laughed, clearly admiring the kill, while another warrior, their leader, Anvin, stepped forward and examined the kill closely. The men parted for him, giving him a wide berth of respect.

Her father’s commander, Anvin was Kyra’s favorite of all the men, answering only to her father, presiding over these fine warriors. Anvin had been like a second father to her, and she had known him as long as she could remember. He loved her dearly, she knew, and he looked out for her; more importantly to her, he always took time for her, showing her the techniques of sparring and weaponry when others would not. He had even let her train with the men on more than one occasion, and she had relished each and every one. He was the toughest of them all, yet he also had the kindest heart – for those he liked. But for those he didn’t, Kyra feared for them.

Anvin had little tolerance for lies, though; he was the sort of man who always had to get to the absolute truth of everything, however gray it was. He had a meticulous eye, and as he stepped forward and examined the boar closely, Kyra watched him stop and examine its two arrow wounds. He had an eye for detail, and if anyone would recognize the truth, it would be him.

Anvin examined the two wounds, inspecting the small arrowheads still lodged inside, the fragments of wood where her brothers had broken off her arrows. They had snapped it close to the tip, so no one would see what had really felled it. But Anvin was not just anyone.

Kyra watched Anvin study the wounds, saw his eyes narrow, and she knew he had summed up the truth in a glance. He reached down, removed his glove, reached into the eye, and extracted one of the arrowheads. He held it up, bloody, then slowly turned to her brothers with a skeptical look.

“A spear point, was it?” he asked, disapproving.

A tense silence fell over the group as Brandon and Braxton looked nervous for the first time. They shifted in place.

Anvin turned to Kyra.

“Or an arrowhead?” he added, and Kyra could see the wheels turning in his head, see him coming to his own conclusions.

Anvin walked over to Kyra, drew an arrow from her quiver, and held it up beside the arrowhead. It was a perfect match, for all to see. He gave Kyra a proud, meaningful look, and Kyra felt all eyes turn to her.

“Your shot, was it?” he asked her. It was more a statement than a question.

She nodded back.

“It was,” she replied flatly, loving Anvin for giving her recognition, and finally feeling vindicated.

“And the shot that felled it,” he concluded. It was an observation, not a question, his voice hard, final, as he studied the boar.

“I see no other wounds besides these two,” he added, running his hand along it – then stopping at the ear. He examined it, then turned and looked at Brandon and Braxton disdainfully. “Unless you call this grazing of a spearhead here a wound.”

He held up the boar’s ear, and Brandon and Braxton reddened while the group of warriors laughed.

Another of her father’s famed warriors stepped forward – Vidar, close friend to Anvin, a thin, short man in his thirties with a gaunt face and a scar across his nose. With his small frame, he did not look the part, but Kyra knew better: Vidar was as hard as stone, famed for his hand-to-hand combat. He was one of the hardest men Kyra had ever met, known to wrestle down two men twice his size. Too many men, because of his diminutive size, had made the mistake of provoking him – only to learn their lesson the hard way. He, too, had taken Kyra under his wing, always protective of her.

“Looks like they missed,” Vidar concluded, “and the girl saved them. Who taught you two to throw?”

Brandon and Braxton looked increasingly nervous, clearly caught in a lie, and neither said a word.

“It’s a grievous thing to lie about a kill,” Anvin said darkly, turning to her brothers. “Out with it now. Your father would want you to tell the truth.”

Brandon and Braxton stood there, shifting, clearly uncomfortable, looking at each other as if debating what to say. For the first time she could remember, Kyra saw them tongue-tied.

Just as they were about to open their mouths, suddenly a foreign voice cut through the crowd.

“Doesn’t matter who killed it,” came the voice. “It’s ours now.”

Kyra turned with all the others, startled at the rough, unfamiliar voice – and her stomach dropped as she saw a group of the Lord’s Men, distinctive in their scarlet armor, step forward through the crowd, the villagers parting for them. They approached the boar, eyeing it greedily, and Kyra saw that they wanted this trophy kill – not because they needed it, but as a way to humiliate her people, to snatch away from them this point of pride. Beside her, Leo snarled, and she laid a reassuring hand on his neck, holding him back.

“In the name of your Lord Governor,” said the Lord’s Man, a portly soldier with a low brow, thick eyebrows, a large belly, and a face bunched up in stupidity, “we claim this boar. He thanks you in advance for your present on this holiday festival.”

He gestured to his men and they stepped toward the boar, as if to grab it.

As they did, Anvin suddenly stepped forward, Vidar by his side, and blocked their way.

An astonished silence fell over the crowd – no one ever confronted the Lord’s Men; it was an unwritten rule. No one wanted to incite the wrath of Pandesia.

“No one’s offered you a present, as far as I can tell,” he said, his voice steel, “or your Lord Governor.”

The crowd thickened, hundreds of villagers gathering to watch the tense standoff, sensing a confrontation. At the same time, others backed away, creating space around the two men, as the tension in the air grew more intense.

Kyra felt her heart pounding. She unconsciously tightened her grip on her bow, knowing this was escalating. As much as she wanted a fight, wanted her freedom, she also knew that her people could not afford to incite the wrath of the Lord Governor; even if by some miracle they defeated them, the Pandesian Empire stood behind them. They could summon divisions of men as vast as the sea.

Yet, at the same time, Kyra was so proud of Anvin for standing up to them. Finally, somebody had.

The soldier glowered, staring Anvin down.

“Do you dare defy your Lord Governor?” he asked.

Anvin held his ground.

“That boar is ours – no one’s giving it to you,” Anvin said.

“It was yours,” the soldier corrected, “and now it belongs to us.” He turned to his men. “Take the boar,” he commanded.

The Lord’s Men approached and as they did, a dozen of her father’s men stepped forward, backing up Anvin and Vidar, blocking the Lord’s Men’s way, hands on their weapons.

The tension grew so thick, Kyra squeezed her bow until her knuckles turned white, and as she stood there she felt awful, felt as if somehow she were responsible for all this, given that she had killed the boar. She sensed something very bad was about to happen, and she cursed her brothers for bringing this bad omen into their village, especially on Winter Moon. Strange things always happened on the holidays, mystical times when the dead were said to be able to cross from one world to the other. Why had her brothers had to provoke the spirits in this way?

As the men faced off, her father’s men preparing to draw their swords, all of them so close to bloodshed, a voice of authority suddenly cut through the air, booming through the silence.

“The kill is the girl’s!” came the voice.

It was a loud voice, filled with confidence, a voice that commanded attention, a voice that Kyra admired and respected more than any in the world: her father’s. Commander Duncan.

All eyes turned as her father approached, the crowd parting ways for him, giving him a wide berth of respect. There he stood, a mountain of a man, twice as tall as the others, with shoulders twice as wide, an untamed brown beard and longish brown hair both streaked with gray, wearing furs over his shoulders and bearing two long swords on his belt and a spear across his back. His armor, the black of Volis, had a dragon carved into its breastplate, the sign of their house. His weapons bore nicks and scrapes from one too many battle and he projected experience. He was a man to be feared, a man to be admired, a man who all new to be just and fair. A man loved and, above all, respected.