The Dragon Heir Read online

  Because there was no way she could bring the Dragonheart back to Jessamine Longbranch.

  * * *

  Geoffrey Wylie watched as White Rose soldiers escorted the elicitor Madison Moss toward the gate, hands twitching as he fought back the impulse to incinerate them. Moments later, more of Longbranch’s wizards hustled Jason Haley off the other way, toward the middle of the White Rose camp.

  The stench of betrayal was in the air. And it centered on Haley, the girl, and the Dragonheart. He could feel power building behind the walls, like a cataclysm in the making. What would happen if they breached the wall? Would they be vaporized, annihilated in an instant?

  Longbranch was up to something, and Wylie didn’t plan on being the sacrificial lamb.

  He turned to his Red Rose captain, Bruce Hays, who stood, awaiting orders. “How many wizards do we have?”

  “For the Red Rose?” The officer considered. “About three hundred, give or take a few infiltrators and spies for the other sides.”

  Wylie smiled. Three hundred wizards was an army larger than any seen since the Wars of the Roses.

  “Here’s what we’ll do. Collect the Red Rose wizards and get them to the gate. We’re not waiting for Longbranch’s signal. The White Rose can fight the rebels while we go after the girl and the Dragonheart.”

  Longbranch’s jailers didn’t seem to consider Jason much of a threat. Though they clapped sefa manacles around his wrists, they didn’t bother to disable him or search him for heart-stones before they hustled him between the tents.

  So he figured if he was going to make a move, he’d better do it before they threw him in whatever dungeon Longbranch had contrived. He had a feeling it was the kind of place it’d be hard to get out of. But he didn’t want to tip off Longbranch before Madison was well away.

  The camp had been emptied out, most of the soldiers having deployed to the wall in preparation for the upcoming assault. Just as Jason and his guards reached a secluded spot where he thought his escape might go unnoticed, the White Rose wizards on either side of him crumpled silently to the ground and a band of Red Rose liveried wizards jerked him around and dragged him back the way they’d come.

  Jason felt like the fricking princess in a video game.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  “Wylie has some questions for you. Now shut up.” As they neared the boundary of the camp, shouts erupted behind them. The White Rose had discovered that their prisoner was being stolen.

  The Red Rose wizards let go of Jason and turned to defend themselves. As the shields went up and charms began to fly, Jason left his captors behind and charged toward the gate.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  A House Divided

  Fitch peered down through the witch’s brew of smoke and flame into no-man’s-land, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Yes. There was furtive movement at the outer gate, the shapes of several dozen figures crossing the open field.

  He wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. Was this it? The assault they’d been waiting for? It wasn’t exactly an army. But a few wizards could do a lot of damage. He squinted through his field glasses, picking out the White Rose emblem on several of the invaders.

  He turned, looking for Will, and saw that his friend had fallen asleep, leaning against the scaffolding at the end of the curtain wall. Fitch couldn’t remember the last time they’d slept, other than accidentally.

  “Hey, Will,” he said. “Wake up.”

  Will instantly came awake, pulling hastily away from the wall. “What? I was just resting my eyes.”

  “Go tell Jack. Something’s going down.” Fitch pointed off the wall with his chin.

  Will crept forward on his hands and knees and peered over the battlement, then scrambled backward like an oversize crab. Giving Fitch a thumbs-up, he picked his way along the scaffolding and disappeared into the darkness. He could be amazingly quiet for a jock.

  Fitch resumed his surveillance, feeling like a member of the INS border patrol. He fished the remote out of his pocket and clutched it in one hand. He’d laid explosive devices all along the outer wall, in a modern-day version of the method medieval sappers used to undermine a fortification.

  The first party was midway across the field when another, larger group poured through the bad-guy gate, following the first wave of White Rose wizards. From what he could see through his binoculars, this second group seemed to be Red Rose wizards.

  The White Rose advance party didn’t notice them at first. When they did, they didn’t seem happy about the reinforcements. After a moment’s jostling confusion, half the group continued on, increasing their pace, while half hung back, turning to confront the oncoming army.

  When the two groups came together, wizard flame erupted all along the line. The Roses were fighting each other!

  Fitch fingered the remote nervously. If this was the assault they’d been anticipating, it was show time. But he didn’t know what to make of the events on the ground.

  Seph had found a quiet place from which to monitor the boundary of the sanctuary in one of the many drum towers Mercedes had built into her elaborate wall. It was good to be enclosed in stone, since he tended to set things on fire otherwise.

  There he hung silently like a bat in a cave, his magical sonar lightly fingering the concentric walls of the inner fortress and the outer wizard wall, scouring the disputed space in between. He’d been on the wall for three straight days—putting out fires and creating conflagrations of his own.

  Con-fla-gra-tion. A perfect word for a perfect storm of death. His enemies vaporized like mosquitoes who’d blundered into a high power line.

  What time was it? He stood, stretching his overused muscles, massaging the base of his spine. He rubbed his grainy eyes and tried to spit out the awful taste in his mouth. Failing that, he pulled the flask from his pocket and washed it away with a long swallow of flame.

  He had no idea whether he was really addicted to the stuff or if pain and exhaustion had made it temporarily necessary. At one time that distinction would have seemed important. If Mercedes wouldn’t make it for him, there were plenty of sorcerers who would. They’d seen what he did on the wall. They knew he stood between them and hundreds of wizards, and they knew what would happen if he failed.

  The flame coursed through him, and he was okay again. Totally. In fact, he felt almost giddy. Impervious. There was another perfect word.

  The world crowded in and he welcomed it, each tiny blade of grass and leaf of tree and power-crazed wizard. Once again, he felt embedded. Connected.

  Somewhere behind him, the Dragonheart throbbed like a toothache. His own heart seemed to keep time. He was the energy that connected and destroyed.

  He sensed the intruders before he saw them, felt the raw power of hundreds of wizards exploding through the wizard wall and streaming toward the sanctuary.

  Leaving the drum tower, Seph ghosted forward until he could look over the curtain wall. The sun had not yet crested the horizon, and no glimmer of dawn had penetrated between the walls.

  I know you’re down there, Seph thought, pushing back his sleeves. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? He was primed, bristling with power. They’d be history before they ever made the wall.

  They came in two waves, the one rapidly overtaking the other.

  Flame erupted between the walls as they came together, a ragged line spewing a fume of ruddy smoke like lava hitting the cold sea. Wizards were fighting each other down below. But a handful of invaders came on, heading for the Weirgate. Too close.

  Seph lifted his hands, meaning to send flame roaring into the group charging for the gate. And stopped, sensing a familiar tear in the fabric of magic. A memory.

  Instead, he launched a rippling arc of light into the sky. It illuminated an apocalyptic scene.

  Hundreds of wizards battled each other between the walls. Most bore emblems of the Red or White Rose. Near the gate, a small group of White Rose wizards had stalled, stymied by the barricade. And, ami
d them, Seph saw someone that stopped his heart.

  Madison.

  She was at the center, carried along by the flow of bodies like a chip of wood on a flood, buffeted and jostled by the wizards around her. Her hair glittered in the wizard light, twisting in the hot winds generated by the flames. Was she a prisoner? Hostage?

  Seph vaulted over the battlement, landing halfway down an interior staircase that led to the courtyard at the bottom. Then raced down the steps, his feet touching every third or fourth one.

  “Commander! Sir! Wake up!”

  Jack surfaced from sleep, wondering who the commander was and wishing he’d respond so he could go back to sleep—until he remembered that he was the commander. He sat up, banging his head on the bunk above. It was the first time he’d actually lain down in a bed in a week, and now ...

  “Will’s here.” It was Mick. The tall Irish warrior had been assigned to be his bodyguard.

  Will Childers pushed past Mick. “Jack. They’re coming. They’re attacking. Or something. Hundreds of them. Heading for the gate.”

  Jack had yanked on his boots and was on his feet before Will finished speaking.

  “They’re ready for you, Commander,” Mick said.

  “Where’s Stephenson?”

  “She’s out there in the middle of it.”

  “What’s she doing?” Jack snatched up his baldric and strapped it in place. He pushed his way out of the tent and loped toward the gate, leaving Mick and Will to catch up as they might.

  The plan was, there’d be no heroic sorties outside the wall, where their small numbers would put them at a disadvantage. Instead, they’d line the top of the Weirwall and rain destruction down on any among the enemy brave enough to approach it.

  Ellen was the strategist. What was she thinking?

  They were waiting for him, his ghost warriors. They’d trained for months for this moment. Somewhere out there in the dark were Ellen and her hundred. Against hordes of wizards pouring into the gap. Why would she leave the relative safety of the sanctuary and wade into an unwinnable battle?

  “They’re already hard at it, sir,” Brooks said, scraping his hair into a ratty-looking queue and tying it off with a strip of leather. “It’s a melee.”

  Outside the Weirwall, Jack could hear the thud of bodies colliding and the cries of the wounded. It seemed like a lot of noise. Even given the fact that Ellen was involved.

  “Why’d she go out there?” Jack demanded. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  Brooks spat on the ground. “Have you ever tried to stop Captain Stephenson from anythin’? She was looking off the wall and she seen somethin’ out there, and went out after it. The others followed.” He paused. “We need to go after her, I reckon. She wouldn’t go out there ’athout good reason.”

  It was what Jack wanted to hear. He tried to close his mind to the possibility that he was putting his warriors in danger in order to save Ellen’s life.

  “All right, I’m going out after Captain Stephenson. If anyone wants to come with me, they’re welcome, but it looks like a bloodbath out there.”

  His warriors crowded forward. All of them.

  “Well.” Jack tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. “Um, at least half of you need to stay here and hold the walls.”

  In the end, he had to force them to count off. Brooks was selected to stay behind, but he called in a gambling debt and joined Jack in the barbicon.

  “Let’s go.” Jack and his fifty passed through the long tunnel of the gate, under Mercedes’s murder holes, and waded into chaos.

  Visually, it was a sea of bodies—some jammed so closely together it was impossible to swing a blade, let alone tell friend from foe. Other twosomes danced and dueled, as oblivious to the battle raging about them, as if they were all alone on the practice field. Wizard on wizard, warrior on wizard—but no warriors on warriors since none were fighting for the other side. Flames spiraled into the sky and roared along the ground like a seriously malfunctioning fireworks show. Some of the fighters were clearly marked with emblems of the Red or White Rose, yet they seemed to be doing their best to kill one another.

  Which was a blessing, because otherwise it would already be over.

  All around, Jack heard the meaty thwack of metal against flesh, the explosion of air as blows hit home, the polyphonic roars of his fellow warriors. Then he was engulfed by the fighting and gave himself up to it for a while, using Shadowslayer to create a path ahead. He was still looking for Ellen.

  He heard a distinctive yodeling war cry and turned to see Brooks standing alone atop a small hill, bleeding from a number of wounds, armed with shield and his trademark tomahawk, under attack by four wizards. Bodies were scattered all around his feet, and Jack wondered how many were theirs.

  Brooks was losing strength. He parried the wizards’ assaults clumsily, staggering from stance to stance as the wizards closed in, smelling blood. No doubt he would have been down already, but they wanted to take him alive.

  Jack was still a hundred yards away when a bolt of wizard flame hit home, striking Brooks in the chest, bringing him to his knees. The wizards charged, and Brooks raised his ax with both hands, spewing eighteenth-century oaths and insults, probably hoping he could goad them into killing him outright.

  Jack fished in a pouch slung across his chest and came up with a throwing star, something from Raven’s Ghyll. He had no idea what it might do. Desperately, he sidearmed it at the wizards bearing down on Brooks.

  It scissored into their midst, and two of them went down, shrieking.

  Jack parried several blasts of flame and then he was into them, sweeping his blade from side to side, driving the wizards back. Hot blood spattered his face and hands. Someone stepped, hard, on his foot, and actually muttered, “Sorry.”

  Brooks writhed on the ground, still trying to stick the wizard leaning over him. Jack heard an immobilization charm uncoiling, as if in slow motion, and he shouldered into the source, slashing blindly with his belt knife. The wizard fell.

  Jack knelt next to Brooks in one of those tiny bubbles of time that probably last a half second, but seem to go on forever. “Come on, Brooks. Up. Let’s get you to Mercedes.”

  Blood dribbled from the warrior’s mouth. “I’m done, Jack. But I took ten of the bloody bastards wi’ me, and that’s something.” He gripped Jack’s hand, as if looking for confirmation. Jack could only nod. “All the tournaments I won, all the poor warriors I put down . . . not half so . . . satisfying.”

  Jack could scarcely speak. “Up you go,” he whispered, brushing away tears with his gauntlet. “Quit malingering.”

  “Tell the girl, when you find her . . . she has talent,” Brooks gasped. “She’s a fine fighter. Always was.” And the warrior closed his eyes.

  Jack remembered a sunny morning in Cumbria, Brooks charging at him across the grass, beaded hair flying, his moccasins wet with the dew, a tomahawk in each hand. More alive than any ghost had a right to be.

  He stood, looked around. The center of the battle had moved a hundred yards off. Ellen. He had to find her. He cut a path through the mayhem, swinging his sword with deadly efficiency.

  Eventually, he extracted himself long enough to note a clutch of White Rose wizards hard by the gate, seemingly in a furious pitched battle against some Red Rose wizards. And in the midst of it all, he spotted Ellen and what was left of her patrol—maybe twenty bloodied warriors fighting for their lives.

  Ellen was her usual army of one, laying about her with Waymaker, smashing blows aside with her shield, rallying her depleted troops, making life miserable for anyone who came within her reach.

  Jack bulled his way toward them, wondering why warriors would insert themselves into a battle among enemy wizards. Then he saw someone familiar among the White Rose wizards against the wall. Her studded denim jacket splattered with blood, blue eyes wide with fright, she was secured behind a phalanx of wizards and warriors.

  Madison?

  So focused were the Re
d Rose attackers on their intended that Jack cut down a half dozen before they noticed he was there. Even when he could no longer be ignored, only a few wizards turned to deal with him while the majority continued their relentless assault against the White Rose. They cut down one of the wizard defenders and stepped through the gap, only to be driven back by Ellen’s fierce counterattack.

  They’re after Madison, Jack thought, his mind grappling sluggishly with the evidence before him. And the White Rose is defending her?

  Perhaps the Red Rose had been instructed to take her alive, or maybe they were well aware of the consequences of attacking Madison with magic. For whatever reason, they were all doing their best to kill everyone around her while leaving her untouched.

  Wizards poured onto the field in a seeming unending supply. There were wizards behind them. Wizards on all sides. Red and White Rose wizards. Unlabeled wizards. It was as if all the repressed fury of the past centuries had been unleashed in this single battle. If there hadn’t been so much confusion on the field, Jack would’ve been dead long before he ever got close to Ellen.

  One by one, the small party of White Rose wizards was eliminated, until it was just Ellen standing between the Red Rose and Madison Moss. She was already bleeding from several wounds, but she wore that familiar stubborn “Try me!” expression as she faced down a half-dozen wizards. She reached back behind and extended a dagger to Madison, hilt-first.

  Jack’s throwing star caught one of the wizards behind the left ear, and he pitched forward. Ellen’s sword took out another. Now it was four to one, even odds where Ellen was concerned.

  She looked up at Jack, scowling through the blood and dirt on her face. “Will you tell them to open up the bloody gate long enough to poke her through?”

  Jack realized that she’d been maneuvering closer to the Weirgate, and now it was just behind them. But the defenders would never open it with hundreds of wizards just outside. They’d have no idea who Madison was.

  “Mick! Go tell them to open the gate.” He jerked his head, directing the warrior that way. Then, jostling past several wizards, Jack took his place by Ellen’s left side, where his southpaw swordplay would cover her nondominant side. He could tell she was injured by the way she moved, and her tunic was stained dark with sweat or blood, he couldn’t tell.