---Chapter 8

Shuffle, shuffle, through the leaves, who is this that comes? Why, it is a reaper dressed in black with scythe upon his back.

Shuffle, shuffle in the soil, what is this he does? Bury those whose time has come and he carries in a sack. --

A strange children’s rhyme of Frizzeen

Anna’s swift departure left both Shyven and I feeling puzzled and uneasy. Who she was and what she wanted, she had told us, but the picture of her comings and goings was still incomplete. She could still betray us in vengeance for my refusal, if nothing else.

The only thing we could do was walk faster and push harder for our goal. Both of us wished we had taken the time to ask Anton if he had seen the Ebony Queen pass through. Shyven had been intending, but Anna had burst in and upset his plans. I had not even thought of it.

Still traveling mostly north with a touch of east, we came upon more signs of human activity and the forest slowly became more open, lighter and better traveled. Paths ran at divergent angles through the trees, huge old stumps dotted the landscape, and clumps of grass grew in between trunks. Though mostly level, the land was full of small hillocks and dips that led gradually upwards. And looking up, we could see glimpses of the Creemonte mountains showing through tree branches at intervals. Cobalt blue running up to jagged peaks still covered in snow, the Creemontes marked the northern border of Shardland.

“She could not have gone much further and still be in this country,” Shyven pointed out, “so unless they conveyed the queen into the mountains, we should find word of her soon.”

“I think there is a city up this way, just inside the border...” I pondered for a moment, trying to recall the lay of the land in this area. “And there is the Great Foothill Highway at the base of the mountain, running east to west.”

“Yes,” my companion agreed, “over a hundred miles of it, which she could have turned left or right on. We’ll have to hope for word in towns to find the right direction. But at least we’re leaving the thick woods behind.”

“We were safer there than in any city.”

“It depends on what you fear the most.”

That night, we chose to make our camp near the crossroads of two dirt tracks. I was uncomfortable with the openness between the trees and the small amount of brush that filled it, but Shyven seemed truly cheered by the signs of civilization. He asked to play my Vhoe again while we sat around the fire, then told me a comical story about an assassin who was trying to murder his old master, but kept falling into the ridiculous traps that had been set for him instead. It did not make me laugh much, though he seemed to find it unusually hilarious. Afterwards, I played the Vhoe a little myself and we banked the fire before going to sleep.

Sometime late in the night, or early in the morning if you prefer, my senses jerked me suddenly out of unconsciousness. I did not know why, but my eyes sprang open and I sat up. My instincts told me that something was amiss, even before I heard the sound of leaves crackling under a footstep. Eyes focussing in the dark, I saw that Shyven was still laying wrapped in his cloak near the fire, unconscious of the disturbance. But something was moving in our direction through the trees...multiple somethings.

The next moment I was on my feet, whipping my knife from its sheath with a warning cry. I heard Shyven untangling himself as a handful of figures dashed out of the shadows all around the camp, closing in on us.

It was a crazy moment. I could not see enough to tell who they were or how many, just that they were attacking us. Weapons gleamed in their hands in the dark as they charged in at me. Ducking the first man’s blow, I swung for his wrist with my blade and heard his pained cry as the knife met resistance.

A hand grasped me by the hair and I struck out blindly, knocking the owner away. Shyven’s blade rasped out beside me and he joined the fray, a dark shape moving on the edge of my vision among our enemies.

A spear haft bounced off of my shoulder, knocking me down and to the side. With a grunt, I sprang up and wrested the weapon from its owner, swiping it back at him until I heard a cry and something fall. Twirling the spear around, I stabbed at the next approaching shape. But someone grabbed me from behind before I could make contact and a struggle began for the spear. Others were still attacking from the front. This gang was better trained than the Newfound Army and rather more desperate. Theirs had been the first move, allowing them to claim the element of surprise.

I kicked, struck out with my knife and fought the best I could, but at some point a pair of strong men got ahold of the spear and slammed its haft to my throat, choking me with it until darkness swirled on the edge of my vision.

I still fought as best as I could. But with all the advantages on their side, the attackers managed to subdue both Shyven and I in a short time.

A torch was lit, and I saw my friend laying on the ground, two men with spears threatening him from above. I was on my knees, trying to get rid of the spear handle at my throat and keep the men in front of me from taking my knife.

A commanding voice rang out then. “You had better cease struggling if you want your companion to live.”

A man dressed in a brown cape and bright green leggings strode into the open, carrying another torch. He was not masked this time, and I could see that his face was both haughty and ugly at once. A crooked, long nose, small blue eyes and an expression of disdain for everything around him was marked on it strongly.

“Melleus! You traitor,” Shyven gasped from his position on the ground, moving as if to kick the assassin. But his captors blocked him and kicked him in the side instead, making him curl up with a gasp.

Despite my strongest efforts, I began to see red.

There were more than four men with Melleus now. He had gathered about six around him, though there were a few more on the ground, either injured or dead. He stood in the middle, holding his whippy rod in one hand and the torch in the other. Striding forward, he stopped just in front of me.

“So,” he said with a smug leer, “mistress river jilted you despite my best efforts at matchmaking, did she? We’ll have to see what father blade says about that! I’m not about to give up the bounty laid on you by the Newfound Army just because you have a thick skull.”

He held out his hand to the side, and one of his men laid a knife in it. My own knife, recently taken from me.

“Melleus, no,” Shyven growled, “he’s not to be touched. I command it!”

The assassin smiled like a snake. “I’m done following your orders, Shyster. I’m going to strike out on my own.”

With the last word, he made a sign to his followers and they each grabbed one of my wrists, letting go of the spear so that it dropped away from my throat. Melleus took a fistful of the hair at the top of my head and forced it back, holding the knife as if for a slashing blow.

The night seemed to be lit up by a crazed red glow. His arm moved forward in slow motion, though it was actually a fast strike aimed at my throat. With a growl of fury, I threw all of my strength against the men’s grip on my arms. Caught off balance, I flung both men together against Melleus’ left arm. Their heads collided with a thunk and one of them shrieked as the knife buried itself in his shoulder. Melleus let out a shout and tried to jump back, but in that moment I had got my arms free.

Gripping the men by the shoulders, I shoved them down while pushing myself up in a leap, smashing their faces to the ground jumping over them. In a stride I was on Melleus, who had dropped his stick to take the knife and was now groping for the rod.

Rage coursed through me like a molten river of power. Caught deep in Furandrahz, I caught him about the legs and threw the strength of my shoulders into a wide swing.

“Graahhh!”

He through the air, while I held his legs at the knees with his hands flailing out at the other end. The swirling body hit a few of his own men and knocked them over. I stepped forward and smashed him against a tree with his own impetus. He hit with a wet thump and I staggered back, turning towards the others with an inhuman growl. They had frozen in fear and began to back away, fumbling with their weapons.

“Oh no, you’re mine,” I purred, the night still caught in a haze like blood. With a bound I was among them.

A few minutes later, only smashed and pierced bodies littered the ground. Shyven was sitting up, feeling his side, in the middle of them. He stared at me with a mixture of wonder and awe, before looking down at the corpses in a daze.

I stared at him for a long moment as the red night began to fade to black. Looking down, I found my knife at my feet and picked it carefully up by the tip of the handle, wiping it off on my pants leg. With a jerk, it was in its sheath and I turned away, marching to the edge of the forest. Gripping the rough bark of a tree in one hand, I leaned my forehead against it and closed my eyes, waiting for my heart to stop pounding with the Furandrahz. A dragon’s fury.

Hoofbeats sounded in the forest. I did not turn until they were almost upon us. Then, feeling as gray as burnt paper, I turned to see who it was. A swayback plough horse panted into view and a lithe figure dropped down from it. Anna, wearing a cape and hood of rich wool, looked around her with a pale face.

“I was too late...”

“What, to help your friends with the butchery?” I gave a low snarl like a beast’s laughter. “Yes, too late indeed. But I doubt you could have helped them.”

Without waiting for a reply, I walked away into the woods, hearing Shyven’s voice speaking to the girl behind me. “Wait, don’t go after him. He--”

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“Got a little angry?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

Their voices faded away as I faded into the dark.

Late the next morning, I walked back into camp and sat down on a stump near where Shyven had started a new campfire, at some distance from the place we had been sleeping. That spot was too befouled to stay near.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? Saving both of our lives?” Shyven looked up from his cookery. “There’s no shame in that.”

“I lost my temper.”

“It was certainly a handy thing to do.”

“I’m not supposed to do that anymore. Dragons might kill humans with as little compunction as you would a deer, but we shouldn’t destroy each other that way. Not so...violently.”

Shyven gave me a crooked smile. “So you’re saying now that you are human, it is more wrong because we look and act alike?”

“Not exactly.” I looked away with a sigh. “I know what humans are now. Before, I thought that they were just barely sentient...perhaps like an intelligent dog. Even killing a dog needlessly would be a shame, but you know what I mean. Now I know how alive humans can be. Are. Always.”

My friend gave me a long, thoughtful look. “Then perhaps you have learned more of compassion as an outsider, than some who have been human all of their lives. I would have destroyed Melleus without a thought if I could.”

I shrugged and changed the subject. “Is Anna still here?”

Shyven nodded at her horse tied to a branch nearby. “Yes. She’s just bringing in firewood now. A strange girl...very strange. But I don’t think that she helped Melleus to find us.”

“No? Perhaps you’re right. There is not much she would gain from it. Unless it was pure spite to see me dead. But then, she said she was ‘too late’. Maybe she meant to warn us.”

The girl came trotting back, carrying an armload of dried wood. She dumped it on the other side of the fire and gave me a wary glance.

“Anna.” I looked up to meet her gaze. “Did you tell Melleus where we were last night?”

“No.” Her face was pale with indignation now rather than fear. “I had ridden away in anger, before coming across his tracks and learning that he had found some bandits to join him. I was riding to warn you, but came too late.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

She relaxed visibly. “You believe me?”

“You sound honest.”

A sparkle swept through her eyes. “Ah, but that is not always enough. I told you, I am a good actor.”

And she skipped cheerfully away to find more wood. It seemed that I had placated her with my three simple words. I only wondered what her reply had been meant to indicate.

I looked down at my hands and clothes. They were both stained with the night’s work. “Shyven, is there a stream nearby?”

He nodded me towards the sound of running water and I left to wash before breakfast. The cool water felt refreshing running over my hands as I dunked them into the stream. I wiggled all ten fingers and watched the rippled move over them before finishing my impromptu bath.

Anna sat near me while we ate, though not close enough to give offence or even show full trust. When we were done, Shyven asked her if she would be accompanying us further.

“Yes, for now.” She nodded before adding hastily, “if you will allow. But before long, I must leave again. I’ve promised my parents that I would contact them once a week, so they know that I’m safe. It’s part of the bargain we made when they adopted me.”

“I did not know that bargains were made by children being adopted.”

Anna looked away from him and did not answer. Instead she turned to me and said, “I did not see any sign of the masked men still following you. Perhaps the two groups met and one killed the other.”

“Or the masked ones simply avoided them and are waiting to see what becomes of us. I did not expect this many enemies when we first set out.” I shifted my gaze to Shyven, who simply shrugged.

“The king has many enemies within his land. The Newfound Army is only the most blatant of them, perhaps not the most dangerous.”

But whether the masked men were watching us or not, we ate in peace and packed the things on Anna’s horse before setting out once again. She seemed particularly shy of Shyven and when he was striding ahead for his usual scouting, I asked her, “do you not like my companion?”

She frowned. “He’s a killer.”

I could not help my eyebrows from shooting skyward. “So am I. Rather more of one, lately.”

“That’s not what I mean. You’re just trying to stay alive. He’s...different.” She shook her head and would not explain further. I was only glad she was not pressing me about becoming a dragon.

We saw a darkly clothed figure returning through the woods and Shyven rejoined us, riding boots crunching in the duff. Anna was silent for the rest of the day, though I found her eyes on me a few times and knew what she was thinking. I was a doorway, a doorway to Dragonhood.

---

A few days later, we came out on the borders of the woods, where they transitioned into the lower ridges of the Creemonte mountains. The range ramped up in front of us, green and gray slanting into distant blue and sparkling white. Ridges, gullies and knobs of rock reached towards the sky. Just in front of us was a low, long depression hollowed out by the Creel river. Green, level grass and shrubby bushes grew on either side of the sparkling waters. At our feet was a section of the Great Foothill highway, wide and smooth, tiled in slabs of granite mined long ago from the Creemontes. It gleamed pale gray under the early summer sun, sparkling in the distance with heatwaves. Nearby, a set of dusty tracks ran down the center.

A breath of fresh, cool air came off of the mountains to soothe our hot faces. Anne swung up onto her horse and looked down at me.

“Well, the time has come for me to go. If you go that way--” she pointed towards the east, “you will come to the city of Shadowhill in about two day’s solid travel. I’m heading west.”

“Thank you.” I remembered the name of Shadowhill from my travels before. It was the city on the edge of the border I had been trying to recall earlier on. “Good luck on your way.”

She leaned down to look me in the eye. “Will you help me now? Please?”

I shook my head and the light went out of her gaze. “Then goodbye, for now.”

“Farewell, Anna,” Shyven inserted with a nod of his head.

She gave him a slight nod in return and rode away.

Shyven gave me a sideways look of surprise. “I don’t think she likes me.”

I shook my head. “She’s fairly independent. The only reason Anna talks to me is that she thinks I have something she wants.”

After making sure that no one else (especially men in black masks) were on the road, we stepped out onto it, traveling eastwards. We passed a few post horses and riders as we went, as well as wagons of farm supplies and a small group of gypsy wagons much like mine. But these were painted in brighter colors, owned by real gypsies.

No one stopped us or questioned us on our way. Shyven was in an even brighter mood at having a road to travel, laying one hand on his sword’s sheath while the other waved in time with a tune whistled between his teeth. I felt oppressed by the openness all around us. The mountains had brush and canyons to hide in, but it was on the other side of the river. Our road was warm, open and you could see clearly along it for hundreds of yards at a time. The only option we had was to fight, if we were attacked, as there was nowhere to run to that would afford any safety. There were still bits of wooded area on our right, of course, but they were so open and thinned by now that they offered little more safety than the road.

When evening fell, we camped off on the right-hand side among a group of trees, going across the road and down into the river valley to get water.

That night we took turns at standing watch, but no one came to disturb us and we left again while the sky was still gray with dawn.

The morning of the third day we came in sight of Shadowhill, the traffic on the road having thickened considerably. Looking up past the wagons and travelers, we saw a place where the river valley widened out into a vast meadow, with buildings and streets covering most of it. Shadowhill was a blending of new and old architecture. Ancient arches and pillars, built by the Fehoan according to Shyven, lined some streets or still functioned as columns in front of buildings. The tiles of the streets were also old, as could be seen by the ruts worn into the solid stone. A fountain played water on one edge, built so long ago that the stone was a mass of moss and ferns. But many of the buildings gleamed with newness, the timber pale and the stone showing the dusty marks of chisels. There were also many buildings washed with a sort of bright paint, most of the colors being crimson, orange or yellow.

Flowers grew in boxes outside of the houses, the people wore nice clothes and there was a small open-air market going on down one side-street. It was a bustling place, full of tradesmen and crafting guilds that worked hard to keep their crafts the best in northern Shardland. There was also a smaller dirt road heading over the mountain into Frizzeen. It forked at one point to lead into Creel. Because of this, the city was a crossroads, an important one.

“When I first became a man,” I said quietly to Shyven, remembering, “I was ordered to leave my people’s land. I crossed into Frizzeen first, because they have an awe of dragons and will not harm one, even if he is bound. But they also fear us and when they discovered what I was, their ruler offered me any gift if I would leave. I chose Dee from his own royal stock. Then I went on to Creel for a time...”

While I was speaking, I waved my hand over the mountains in the directions I was speaking of. “But when I ran into trouble, there, I left and crossed the mountains into a city on this side. It was a little over a year ago and I did not stay long, but I think it was Shadowhill.”

“It would be a hard place to forget.” Shyven gazed admiringly at a marble statue standing beside the street, with a maiden almost as pale laying flowers at its base. She was dressed in a brown robe with short sleeves, belted with a crimson sash at the waist. Part of a cult operating in this region, the Sisterhood of Ambrose.

“I was not yet in my right mind,” I told Shyven with a shrug, “though I had learned to play the Vhoe while in Creel.”

“Well, I hope we can find word of the Ebony Queen here,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth, “or else we’ll have to search other towns all along the highway until we do.”

I nodded, looking up and around at the many buildings the city contained. So many people and establishments that the idea of trying to get an answer out of them was enough to make my head spin. Even beyond the edge of the town, vineyards, country estates, and miniature castles dotted the ridges across the river. One castle, the largest of them, though still not a true fortress, was made of dark stone unlike the rest and sported a black flag with an orange diamond on it. It struck me then as an odd and even portentous symbol, though at the time I said nothing and it quickly passed from my mind.

“We should find an inn first,” Shyven explained, “then look for clues. But be careful...we might still be followed. Though the Assassin’s Guild does not have any outposts here, the masked men might.”

I nodded agreement and let him lead the way. We passed by the shoddy inns on the outskirts of town, but did not head for the rich, fancy ones in the center of Shadowhill. Instead, Shyven found a respectably modest place with two stories, the second having a wide balcony supported by the old white pillars underneath. A sign depicting a budding rose hung over the door, with the words, ‘The Rose Bud’ painted in gilt scrollwork underneath.

“Sounds nice and quiet.” Shyven nodded at it. “Let’s find rooms.”

I had my purse with me still. I paid for the rooms, while Shyven stealthily ‘pumped’ the innkeeper for all he was worth. We did not learn much of value, except for that many people passed through Shadowhill each day, that there were at least three different religious factions represented strongly here and the men in black could have belonged to any of them. Two groups, in fact, were known to have black as their clerical color, though the innkeeper knew for sure that one wore full, hooded cloaks all the time and not masks. The third group, the Undertakers of Sin, he knew almost nothing about except for their chosen color.

Shyven and I went up to the room we had engaged and made sure that it was to our liking, before leaving our luggage and once more entering the street.