They were free. The man must’ve been controlling them, and now he was dead, his magic broken.
Lurching to her feet, Kate called for Firedancer. She leaped into the saddle, and they raced through the passageway back to the main pass. The drakes surged behind them, their screeching wails loud as rolling thunder.
Kate still had the revolver, two bullets left in the cylinder, but it wouldn’t matter against fifty drakes. She pulled a handful of flash stones out of the pouch on her saddle and flung them behind her, slowing down the first wave of drakes, but the second kept coming. They would be on them soon. Firedancer was galloping, hooves slipping on the loose rocks, but they couldn’t slow down. Kate needed to warn the others.
Reaching out with her magic, she searched for Raith but couldn’t distinguish him among so many, not over such a distance. It didn’t matter though. Their thoughts buzzed with alarm, and she guessed they’d heard the gunfire. Wanting to be sure, Kate raised the pistol overhead and fired off the last two shots. Then she holstered the gun and pulled out the shield stone, activating it with a single word.
She saw the shimmer of magic spread around her, but doubted it would hold against so many drakes. She had to find a way to slow them down before they overtook her. If she could reach the caravan, she would be safe behind the ward. Then the answer came to her—one so simple she’d overlooked it. Her magic. If that other wilder could hold them, so could she. Somehow. But there were so many. More than she had ever tried to control before.
Shoving the doubt away, she focused on the drakes nearest. If she could get them to slow, there might be a ripple effect. She could clog the pass with drakes piling up on one another, maybe even force them to start attacking each other. Grasping hold of those oily, multiple minds, she sent out the command.
Something strange happened. The drakes obeyed her will, but it wasn’t only the ones she touched. She sensed her command echoing over and over again, spreading through the minds of the other drakes like an infection. Stunned, she realized she didn’t have to control them all. If she could reach one, the rest would follow, their will bound together.
A thrill of victory went through Kate. She could end the threat right here, with a single thought. But then the complication of the situation struck her. She couldn’t do that and still keep her secret.
Seeing no other choice, Kate decided to make a ruse of it, a performance with the daydrakes as the actors. She formed the behavior she wanted from them in her mind and sent it out as a command. The drakes sensed and obeyed, the pack racing after her but not attacking, just flashing their fangs and claws, screaming their wails. Their poor, dumb collective minds couldn’t sense the trap waiting for them, didn’t know that the force guiding them was leading them to their deaths.
But the moment Kate charged to safety past the waiting caravan, Corwin and the others opened fire, and one by one the daydrakes fell, unwilling sacrifices on the altar.
27
Corwin
CORWIN SURVEYED THE CARNAGE. FIFTY dead drakes. He should’ve been pleased, but disappointment plagued him. The drakes were dead, not a hint of them anywhere else in the pass. Their handler was dead as well, leaving few clues about who he had been and no hints at all about his service to the Rising.
“You’re sure he was from Penlocke?” Corwin asked Kate when she led them to the strange, circular gorge where the daydrakes had been caged.
“Yes,” she said, arms wrapped around her waist. Although dirty and bloodstained, she appeared otherwise unharmed.
Even now, Corwin could barely contain his relief. When he first heard those gunshots, he felt his heart seize in his chest, fearing the worst. He’d lain awake all last night, regretting the things that had come between them. That he’d let come between them. And wishing for some way to make it right. There had to be one, even though he still couldn’t see it. But at least she lived and there would be time. He clung to that hope.
Raith was stooped over the man, searching his body for distinguishing marks. They’d stripped him naked but found nothing so far. Not so much as a scar or an unusual mole. It seemed impossible that they would ever find out who he was among the vast citizenship of Penlocke.
A moment later though, Raith stood up, nodding. “This man has been treated by the green robes for an illness sometime within the last year.”
Corwin frowned. “How can you tell?”
Stooping over the body again, Raith motioned for Corwin to join him. “Do you see these fine white lines?”
Corwin focused his gaze where Raith pointed, but it took him a while to make out the blemishes on the man’s skin, as fine as a spider’s webbing. “Barely. What are they?”
“The result of a drawing spell, the kind used to purge the body of poison and certain diseases.”
“Interesting, I suppose, but I don’t see how it will help us.” Corwin stood again, hands on hips.
Raith rose as well. “The greens keep records of everyone they treat. It’s possible I might learn his name from them. Once we are done with our business at Thornewall, I will travel to Penlocke to find out more.”
Corwin thought about the golds’ denial of ever having caught Ralph Marcel. Perhaps Raith would have better luck with the greens. “Please leave as soon as you’re ready. We have more than enough magists with us now that the daydrakes are dead.”
“Thank you, your highness.” Raith glanced at Kate, and Corwin braced for him to say Kate would be coming with him. Corwin had accepted that there was nothing romantic between them, but there was still something between them. But Raith only said, “I will leave tomorrow, once you’ve settled at Thornewall.”
Beneath a gray, twilight-dim sky, they at last arrived at Thornewall Castle. To Corwin’s eyes, however, it was more of a fortress. Like the one at Andreas, the wall here was built into the surrounding cliffs. The stone edifice loomed high above them, impregnable and unwelcoming, while its lower surface bore the scars of claw marks. Several bodies of dead, decaying daydrakes surrounded it, those the freeholding had managed to fell from atop the wall.
The moment the guards on the bailey saw the royal banner, the people inside burst to life, welcoming them in with great pomp and excitement. Baron Thorne greeted Corwin with fumbling relief. He kept bowing and thanking him for their rescue, all the while ignoring his youngest son. Worse still was the way the baron hardly even reacted to the news that his second-youngest son had perished.
Seeing for himself that the rumors about Dal’s sordid family were true made Corwin feel ill. These people were undeserving of Dal, unworthy of his love and the risk he’d taken coming here to save them. Still, as distasteful as Dal’s parents turned out to be—his mother not much better, although she at least wept at the news of her son’s death—the rest of the people who lived at Thornewall mattered more. Their relief and joy at being rescued made the risk and all the expense worth it.
I should defy the high council more often. It was a dangerous thought, very much like one the Corwin who had once been a captain in the Shieldhawks would’ve had, and yet he couldn’t help smiling to himself.