Dragon Dawn Read online

Julia forced herself to smile at Kerrion while trying to think how she might steal enough Tancred to reach the dream world. “I’m sorry, father. Forgive me for doubting you.”

  Kerrion smiled. “There’s nothing to forgive. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t argue all the time.”

  Julia grinned, but this time it wasn’t false. “I hope you remember that next time!”

  Kerrion and Shelim chuckled.

  Mathius nudged Julia and she turned in time to see Mazel leading the Clan Chiefs into the tent. Mazel took his place in the centre of the cleared space while the other chiefs found places to sit. Julia watched Mazel and tried to catch his eye in hopes of learning his decision. Kerrion said it was a done deal, but one thing she had learned about the clans—they didn’t think like her. They could be unpredictable.

  “It is time for our families to return home,” Mazel said and the lesser chiefs—those that led the tribes—murmured in surprise.

  Julia glanced around trying to gauge the mood. Most of those present shared Mazel’s sentiment to some degree, but it held a lot of weight with the older warriors. To them, this war wasn’t a great adventure like some among the younger warriors seemed to think. They weren’t as eager to fight and perhaps die for glory. All they cared about were their wives and children. Their families were in danger while they remained between Navarien and his goal. As far as they could see, they had no stake in protecting Deva, except perhaps in stopping Navarien as some kind of revenge for destroying Dragon and Wolf Clans. Julia understood why they thought the way they did, but they were wrong. Mortain wanted all of Waipara not just Deva. He wouldn’t be satisfied with the three cities Navarien had conquered for him last year. Whether they wanted to believe it or not, Mortain would take their land. It was just a matter of time.

  Mazel raised a hand and the whispers died away. “Jihan of Deva has called upon us to repay our debt to him.”

  There were angry mutters and hostile looks at Julia. She smiled blandly. They knew that only a shaman could have told Jihan of the current situation, and she was an outclanner. Who else would have told him?

  “Quiet!” Evan glared at the angry chiefs. “Turn your anger toward Navarien. Julia is one of us, and Jihan is a friend to our people. We owe him a debt of honour. To deny that dishonours us all.”

  The chiefs were no less angry for Evan’s words, but at least they had the decency to look guilty. Inwardly, Julia sneered at the hypocrites and their notions of honour. If they were truly honourable, the idea of weaselling out of their debt would never have entered their heads.

  “What has the outclanner asked of us?” Petya asked.

  “Jihan knows of our plan to cross the river,” Mazel said, and this time it was his turn to glare at Julia. “He knows that Navarien will be upon him soon. He asks for warriors and shamen to help protect his people. I am told he will consider the debt paid if we will fight alongside him.”

  Mathius stood. “Jihan will supply food and weapons, plus anything else you reasonably need. He will pay any who agrees to fight.”

  “Pay?” Petya said ominously. “He thinks to buy our honour?”

  “Not at all. Jihan offers you trade.”

  “What trade?”

  “For the use of Clan magic and warrior skills in defending Deva, Jihan will pay in gold.”

  “What use is gold to us?”

  Julia grinned. “You would be surprised how useful gold can be, Petya. In Deva, you could buy steel daggers and swords for your warriors, silk for your women, wool for your blankets… lots of other things. Think back to the gatherings of your youth, think about where the merchants came from. They were good days were they not?”

  Petya nodded thoughtfully.

  “Help Jihan, and the days ahead could be as good.”

  Julia noted those who looked eager to go and those who did not. Not surprisingly, Kumar and Kornel were both of the latter disposition. Looking around, she would say that only a third or so of the chiefs would be willing to go south with her. She tried to calculate how many warriors that would add to Jihan’s cause, but it was a wasted effort. Not only did each of the chiefs command varying numbers of warriors, not all of those warriors could be expected to go—not when their families would be travelling home in the opposite direction.

  “Deva has many warriors,” Petya said. “We should send shamen, not warriors.”

  “No,” Mazel said quickly heading that idea off. “I will not send shamen alone to fight this war, our people need them. I do not trust outclanner swords to protect them.”

  There were nods of agreement throughout the tent and Kerrion smiled in amusement. Shamen didn’t need swords to protect them, they could look after themselves, but it was good that Mazel saw their value to the clans. Shamen had been despised and misunderstood for many years, it must be gratifying now that that time was over.

  “I have discussed how this is to be done,” Mazel said pinning each of the lesser chiefs with a stern look. “Each of you will choose half of your warriors to go south to aid Jihan. I will lead them. Kerrion will choose who among our shamen will go. The rest of our people will go north and back to our ranges.”

  Half the warriors. That was more than Julia had been counting on and she was pleased. She had expected a lot less to head south with her, maybe one in three. She hadn’t considered that Kerrion would send some shamen north, but she should have. He obviously didn’t want to strip the clans of all their magic. Shamen were healers as well as advisors to the chiefs. Without them, the clans would have little or no way to heal the sick. Herb lore was very basic on the plains. How many would he let go?

  “Kornel and Kumar will lead their entire clans north,” Mazel was saying. “Wolf and Bear have bled enough. Those chosen to go with them will be under their orders until safe from attack. They will take the clanless with them.”

  “No!” anonymous voices in the night howled in anger.

  A scar-faced man leapt angrily to his feet from where he had been sitting quietly among the shadows. “We are not clanless,” he spat angrily. “We are Dragon Clan! Let Bear Clan and the arse sniffing Wolves tuck their tails and run. We will not run with them!”

  That caused an angry stir among the Wolf Clan chiefs. Kornel just watched and said nothing. If Julia was any judge of expression, Kornel didn’t want to run, but he was resigned to it. Most of his warriors had died in the same fight that had killed his son and Keverin among so many others. With so many women and children to care for, it would take all the warriors he had left just to hunt the bison and feed everyone.

  Julia glanced at Lucius, *Who is scar face?*

  Lucius turned to look. *The Dragon warrior?*

  Julia nodded.

  *That’s Lynd. He says he’s Dragon Clan chief, but the other chiefs won’t recognise him.*

  *So that’s Lynd,* Julia said in surprise. *Mathius mentioned him. He’s younger than I thought he would be. Why won’t they recognise him?*

  *As far as Mazel and the other chiefs are concerned, Dragon Clan ceased to exist at the start of the war. There aren’t enough people left for even a tribe to be viable let alone a clan.*

  Julia nodded. *You mean he has too few warriors?*

  Lucius shook his head. *Too few women.* He nodded at her surprise. *Most of the survivors were adopted by relatives into other tribes and clans. Lynd leads a few hundred warriors too stubborn or angry to do that. Mazel calls them the clanless. He can hardly call them Lost Ones can he?*

  Julia nodded still watching Lynd. The Lost Ones had returned to the clans after the Hasians invaded and captured their cities. They were clan now. Clansmen recognised only two kinds of people—clan and outclan, but although Lynd’s people were undeniably of the clans, they had refused to follow tradition and be adopted. They were therefore clanless. Lynd and his followers did not see it that way. As far as they were concerned, they were Dragon Clan still.

  Lynd was a good looking man despite the angry looking scar on his face. He was wide in the shoulders and
slim hipped. Julia would judge his age at around thirty, maybe a little less. His dark shaggy hair reminded her of Keverin. The quick stab of pain that realisation caused, almost made her gasp. How could she find another man attractive when Kev hadn’t even been dead a month? How could she even think of looking at another man that way? She would never look at another man like she had Kev. Never!

  Kerrion and Shelim were whispering urgently. Shelim didn’t look happy about something, but Kerrion was determined. Before Julia could ask what it was about, Kerrion stood and interrupted the argument between Mazel and Lynd.

  “Lynd and those that follow him have a part to play in the south,” Kerrion said surveying the chiefs and a hush fell over the tent. “While Lynd lives, Dragon Clan lives. His warriors will fight in the south. I have seen it.”

  Kerrion sat next to an unhappy Shelim and looked on in silence.

  Mazel glared at Lynd then transferred it to Kerrion. “I am chief of chiefs. If I say Lynd goes north, he goes north!”

  If he sent him north… if? Julia glanced at Kerrion, but he stayed quiet. Shelim caught her staring and grimaced. Julia didn’t know why Kerrion thought they needed a few hundred extra warriors and didn’t really care. She wouldn’t turn away anyone who wanted to kill Hasians.

  “You should let him come, Mazel,” Julia said and Kerrion turned to watch her with a smug little smile on his face. She frowned; he seemed very self-satisfied about something. She waved a hand at the watching shamen. “We will need protection while we work our magic. Perhaps Lynd would agree to guard us?”

  Lynd wasn’t a stupid man; young for the title he claimed, yes, but not stupid. He knew that if Mazel insisted upon turning him and his warriors away, nothing he could do would change his mind. He claimed the title of Clan Chief, but it was an empty title when no one recognised it. He needed support. Even if that support came from a shaman who was an adopted outclanner, still he needed it.

  “My warriors will guard our shamen with their lives,” Lynd said still watching Julia.

  Julia shifted uncomfortably under his hot eyes.

  Mazel made a sound of disgust and threw up his hands. “So be it! I’ve had enough of this foolishness. Prepare to break camp!”

  With that Mazel stomped out of the tent and into the night. With a sigh, the chiefs stood and drifted away chatting together or bellowing orders to break camp. Lynd came over and stood before Julia. He studied Lucius and Mathius for a moment and dismissed them. He hesitated uneasily under Kerrion’s quiet but authoritative gaze, managed to drag his eyes away to briefly land upon Shelim where he flanked Kerrion, and then finally back to Julia.

  “Why?” Lynd said, looking down at her. He was head and shoulders taller than she. “Why help me?”

  “Because you and I are alike.” Julia smiled a crooked smile when his eyes widened. “Whether you know it or not, we are the same.”

  “You are…” Lynd caught himself before he voiced the insult. “You were an outclanner, and now you’re a shaman. We are not the same.”

  Julia led Lynd out of the tent so that the impatient clansmen waiting outside could strike it. They extinguished the fire and the tent came down almost on her heels. She waved Lynd forward to walk beside her. Mathius and Lucius whispered behind her back trying to interrogate Kerrion on this turn of events.

  “You’re wrong. I wasn’t born clan, and I’m a shaman, but neither of those things matter.” Julia stopped and looked into his eyes. “You want revenge on those who destroyed your clan. All I care about is killing Hasians. We’re a perfect match, you and I.”

  Lynd stared into her eyes and shivered at what he found there. Julia smiled and walked away. He did not follow.

  Days later, Julia stood on the bank of the River Anselm as the sun came up. “No way are we bridging that,” she said to herself. The river was so wide that the far bank was only a faint smudge in the distance.

  It took a day and a night for Mazel to agree that his plan to break contact with Navarien's forces had worked. They had broken camp in record time and rode straight south at breakneck speed to achieve it. Mazel had been determined to put as many leagues between them and the Hasians as he could that first night. He knew the sorcerers would discover their retreat as soon as there was light enough for them to use their mirrors. Julia and the others had charged recklessly into the night in an exhilarating dash, but Cavell was sure footed and strong. He had carried Keverin on his last ride into battle and had carried Julia in her battles against the Hasians since then. He hadn’t let her down. The clan way was to alternate riding their horses at the gallop with jogging beside them. In that way, Julia had stumbled tiredly into camp before the sun had reached its zenith the following day. That was yesterday and her legs still ached. Lucius and Mathius could barely move this morning. They had awoken stiff and very surly.

  Julia grinned remembering some of their complaints. The sound of footsteps approaching made her turn. “Lynd.”

  “Julia,” he said in greeting. He stopped beside her and shielded his eyes against the sun’s glare over the water as he studied the distant shore. “You haven’t slept.”

  “I don’t sleep.”

  Lynd didn’t give away what he thought of that. His other hand wandered up to the golden torque around his throat. “Ingharr was my father’s brother. Did you know that?”

  Julia shook her head.

  “After the outclanners killed him, one of the survivors took this and brought it to my father. There wasn’t time for the chiefs to gather and choose another to wear it, so he declared himself Clan Chief of Dragon Clan. He wore it for a few days before he was killed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Lynd’s lips twisted. “Don’t be, he was a fool. Did you know that Ingharr was a great warrior? He and my father were the deadliest fighters in the entire clan. No one ever bested my father, not even me. He was the one who gave me this.” He stroked his scar. “He said it was to remind me not to try him again, but even he feared to challenge Ingharr. They were both hard men and brave, but they were fools for all their skill with sword and bow. Our warriors did not honour them, they feared them. It was arrogance that killed them both and destroyed our clan. The outclanners were simply the God’s instrument.”

  Julia glanced at Lynd uncertainly. “I used to believe God loved us no matter what we do, but I don’t think like that anymore. He doesn’t care at all.”

  “Oh no,” Lynd said in surprise. “You mustn’t think that, Julia. He does care. He hates us, don’t you see?”

  “Yes…” Julia whispered feeling the rightness of it. “Yes, I see.” And she did. Lynd was as mad in his way as she was in hers, but it was a focussed madness. They were both focussed upon Navarien's destruction.

  “This thing is cursed,” Lynd said touching the torque again. “I wish Ingharr had never made it.”

  “Why wear it then?”

  “It’s a symbol. While one of us wears this, we can pretend that the clan goes on as it always has. It’s my turn now, my burden to bear.”

  Julia knew about bearing burdens. Keverin’s death was the heaviest, but there were others. “You say Ingharr made that?”

  “The old one wasn’t grand enough for him so he made this.”

  “What happened to the old one?”

  “He melted it down I think. Hundreds of years old it was, maybe thousands. Who knows? That should tell you something about him, Julia. Nothing mattered to Ingharr except Ingharr. I will not grieve for him and neither should you.”

  “I won’t then, but don’t expect me to thank the Hasians for killing him… or for anything else.”

  Lynd’s face twisted into a snarl of hatred. “Thank them? Never that. I may not have honoured my father, but that doesn’t mean I wanted him dead at outclanner hands. My mother is dead, my brothers are dead, my sister and her husband are dead, my entire family… all dead. I have nothing left but my horse and the hatred I bear for outclanners.”

  “I’m an outclanner,” Julia said. “Yo
u’ll be fighting for another one soon. Remember that.”

  “I forget nothing. I remember you fighting outclanners, I remember you killing hundreds of them. No matter what you were before, you are Clan now.”

  The silence between them stretched out for a while. Julia returned to her study of the river. With a shift of perception that was second nature now, she used her mage sight to check the river bed and far bank. The river was easily half a mile across, but although it was deep and the current almost nonexistent in the real world, it raged between its banks in the realm of power. Julia frowned. She had noted this kind of thing before. Even a simple stream had muscle in the realm of power. It wasn’t magic; she knew where that came from. It was… potential maybe? She nodded to herself. Yes, it was as if the water stored power like a flywheel stored energy. The power stored in a river, even a peaceful one like this, was vast, yet she saw absolutely no way to make use of it. With another shift of perception, she returned to the real world.

  “Can you really bridge this?” Lynd said.

  Good question!

  Julia shrugged. “Kerrion says we can.”

  “That will be something to see.”

  “You’ve seen magic before.”

  Lynd shook his head. “Not really. The outclanner shamen used fireballs… I suppose they were magic, but fire is fire no matter how it came to be.”

  “You’ve seen the wards,” Julia said making a vague gesture at the camps at their backs. She could feel them even at this distance.

  “I suppose so,” Lynd said not very impressed.

  Julia grinned. “I could show you something if you want.”

  Lynd nodded obviously hoping she would offer. Julia wondered if he had some ulterior motive, but she couldn’t think of one except curiosity. She didn’t need to grasp her magic first; she rarely let it go anymore. The magic pouring through her was comforting. Without it she felt empty. She was so used to it thrumming in her head now that she no longer thought about it. It drove the others to distraction—especially Mathius who had been trained harshly to use his magic sparingly. Lucius didn’t like it either. Sorcerers were trained to break their links to the magic as soon as a spell was complete.