Prologue
The tent smelled of tallow and smoke and blood. Mortal men said they got used to the reek after war had gone on long enough. Erik doubted he ever would.
At least the blood was mostly old by now. Dragons weren’t carrion-eaters: the inhuman part of him stayed quiet. It was the human side that wanted to howl with fury, a longing that had become familiar in the days since Balliol’s treachery and only intensified now, with the moans of dying men only a few paces outside.
In the face of Erik’s rage, Artair MacAlasdair’s calm stillness would have been offensive had Erik expected any other reaction. He’d rarely seen his uncle roused to any emotion, and never to passion. In Erik’s youth, it had been a joke between him and Artair’s younger children that the MacAlasdair patriarch wouldn’t have done more than lift his eyebrows if someone had cut off his head.
Now Artair sat in Erik’s tent, drinking bad wine and picking weevils out of bread with the same air he’d used when presiding over holiday feasts in his own castle. He’d seen as much fighting and death that day as Erik, but his white hair and beard were neat, his blue eyes as impassive as the glaciers they echoed in color. Under their scrutiny, Erik could give voice to but a bare fraction of what he felt.
“I’d thought,” he said, his own wine cup neglected, “that we’ddonewith this. Years ago. Will they not stop until the Day of Judgment itself?”
“Likely not,” said Artair. “I don’t know that stopping’s in their nature.”
The devil of it was that Erik didn’t know if the older man meant Englishmen or mortals. Like Artair’s daughter Moiread—now married to a Welshman and unable to take an active part in the war, lest other lands be drawn into the conflict—Erik would have ardently voiced the former view. Artair himself had argued for the latter on more than one occasion.
We’ve never tried to take London, Douglas, the MacAlasdair heir, had said once.
Artair had tilted his head, dragon-like, and peered at his son.Because we wouldn’t, or because we can’t?
There’d been no good answer then, there wasn’t one now, and it mattered little. Four years of fighting already, nearly twenty before the treaty the English had broken, and many days it seemed as though the wars would go on until there was no man left able to lift a sword—or until the vindictive bastard who’d taken the crown at Westminster felt his father’s honor satisfied, whenever that would be.
“Your eyes changed,” Artair observed with neither fear nor admonition. “Maintaining your form becomes harder?”
Not wanting to voice the words, Erik nodded, once. For the most part, the MacAlasdairs kept firm control over their shapes once they’d passed through the trials of youth. Dire sickness or wounds could make the matter more difficult, though, as could great strain on the mind or heart. Spending the days killing didn’t help either.
Artair finished his wine. “I’m sending you away from the front. Douglas and I can take command for a time—and after this, there’s likely to be a lull, for the winter if no longer.”
“My lord—”
“Soon you’ll begin to see them all as prey.” The single sentence, delivered with only fact and no feeling, cut Erik’s voice off entirely. Artair crossed the room and put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Be at ease. It comes to us all in time, and you’ve not failed me. Indeed, I need you for another duty just now.”
Erik bent his head in acquiescence. “I’m at your service, my lord.”
“I’ve had a message from Cathal’s wife,” said Artair. “You wished a way to make the invasions end? She may have found one.”
One
Bordeaux was far emptier than it had ever been in Erik’s long life. In the past two centuries, he’d been accustomed to seeing the cities of men grow greater and more crowded, pushing out their borders every time he visited and building new houses almost atop the old.
Now many of the houses sat empty, their windows black as the empty eyes of a skull. The noises of the street were almost a whisper compared to what they had been. Sellers of fruit and fish, meat and leather still plied their trades in the markets, but there were far fewer, and their voices sounded muted, afraid. The rumbling of carts easily drowned them out, and while most of those carts held goods for the market, still there were many with a cargo of the dead, open eyes oft staring up to an unseeing heaven.
Man was a fragile creature. Never had Erik seen that more clearly than in the last ten years.
He walked without fear down the pitted cobblestone streets. The dragon-blooded took no harm from mortal plagues, save perhaps to their mind and soul. That horseman might ride after him and the other MacAlasdairs in vain—or perhaps simply leave the duty to his brothers. Certainly they were War’s creatures often enough.
War was the root of Erik’s mission, after all.
Although far fewer ships sat in the harbor, there were yet enough that their masts made a bare-branched forest against the blue summer sky. Men crossed the docks with their burdens: barrels of goods, pails of tar, even the occasional horse or cow. Other men stood or sat in mere idleness, fishing off the docks or talking over mugs of ale.
Some such idlers stopped Erik, as men in their position always had done with a well-dressed man who carried a nobleman’s arms. They asked him to join them in drinking—and doubtless stand them a round later—which he declined; asked if he’d found himself lodging and care for his horse, which he had; and asked if he’d need of fresh fish, which he didn’t. He did accept one offer from a young towheaded man for directions.
“I look to hire a ship,” Erik said. “And men. I wish to make a voyage westward.”
“Hmm,” said the young man, and put his head to one side like a spaniel seeking a bone. He had great brown eyes that only heightened the impression. Those eyes scanned the ships in the harbor with alertness, though, and he gave answer promptly enough. “TheHawkmight do it, m’lord. She’s small, but she’s been known to take human bundles from time to time, and she’s not beholden so far as I know.”
It sounded promising. “And where might I find her captain?”
“Aboard, most likely. They made port but two days ago. She’ll be looking at every board, if the past’s any measure.”
