I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. If you would like something written especially for you, please consider sponsoring me.
Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.
Enjoy.
Heart of a Dragon
For Michael Eisenstein. Thank you for your friendship and support.
I was nearly out of the barracks when I heard my name, and turned as the boy stumbled to a halt before me. He was pale and panting; our training gear is deliberately heavy and hard to run in. He overbalanced, and for a moment I was sure he’d tumble into a heap of wood and metal and untoughened youth. I didn’t comment, and I didn’t offer help, and I would have kicked him in the face if he’d gone down. They need to learn. Better a broken nose from me than the sword edge of an enemy, or the teeth of a dragon.
He saved us both some unpleasantness by righting himself and gasping, “Captain Sora, the king sends for you in the audience hall.”
That’s never good. “Is Lieutenant Rane still on the training grounds?”
He nodded. His jaw had the set look of a man trying not to throw up on his superior’s feet.
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s Jery, yes?”
“Yes, Captain. Thank you, Captain.” He looked at me the way many of them do, as if the world turns on the wave of my hand. They are in what someday they’ll remember as the simpler times, when life is reduced to what you can or cannot make your body do, and it’s clear where the kicks are coming from.
“Return to training,” I said, and stepped past him to begin a fast walk to the barracks and the inner keep beyond. Behind me, I heard him take two weary steps. I looked back and said, “Run, soldier. And I’d best find you there before me heaving your guts up, or I’ll know you didn’t commit.”
His face grew paler still. “Yes, Captain,” he managed, and began to make his body do more than it could.
#
I stopped on the grounds long enough to rinse the dust from my face and hands, and confer with Rane. In a corner, Jery was leaving his morning porridge in a pile of straw.
“I see you’re breaking the spirit of the young again,” Rane said.
“The job of the old,” I said. He smiled with his eyes. We are Sora and Rane, and we are so far beyond lovers or friends that most can’t understand what we are. But we are it.
“So,” he said,” the king.”
“I don’t know.” The king is not always predictable. He gets notions, and sometimes they’re unpleasant. We like to be prepared. But one can’t always be ready for these things. Sometimes the only thing that saves a person’s life is being able to run your guts out.
“I’ll go see what he wants,” I said. On my way past, I clapped Jery’s shoulder. “Good,” I said, and he looked up with a stained mouth and eyes like a kicked dog. “Do that every day for a month and no one will ever outrun you in armor.”
He looked confused. The young assume that we never run, which is all very well if the goal is to die young and be sung about by bleaty bards in alehouses. Me, I’d rather have the ale.
“Not an order. Just a suggestion,” I said. The boy was willing; time to find out what kind of brain drove the body. I looked once more at Rane. We nodded in a way that could do for Back in a minute or Goodbye, and I went on.
#
The king was leaning back in the great wooden chair he used as a throne, booted ankles crossed, arms folded on his chest, eyes fixed on the doorway. He was lean and graceful and gone gray long ago. I had not yet parsed whether it was age itself, or bitterness about it, that drove William these days. But I was glad not to be young in his service.
He wasn’t alone. Many of his inner circle were already present, the ministers and advisors. And, surprisingly, his daughter at the back of the room, staring out a window.
I bowed. “Your Majesty. Lady Catrin.” A general nod to the rest.
“Captain Sora,” the king said, without moving. He had a useful gift for stillness that I’ve tried to learn over the years. I practiced it now, and waited in silence while everyone except the girl tried their best to look as though they weren’t actually there. There was so much not being said in that room that I could hear clearly the world outside the window: the thunk of wooden swords on the training grounds, the noise of tradesmen and market customers, horses and pigs, faraway laughter. Then the girl prince turned, and I saw that she was angry and not hiding it well; it made her look younger than seventeen, and put me even more on alert.
She said, “Father–” and he straightened and turned his head like a hawk, and raised a hand to stop her speaking. He was quick enough, but anyone with an eye could see that once he had been very fast indeed, so much that he would perhaps now feel slow by comparison.
He returned his attention to me, and settled back into his chair.
“Captain Sora,” the king said again. “My advisors tell me that I have become old.” He steepled his hands; behind them, his eyes glittered at me like an old canny bird’s.
I said, “We’re all older than we were, sire. Including your advisors.”
He smiled. “My advisors worry that age weakens a ruler.”
In that case, I was surprised his advisors still had their heads. It certainly explained the tension in the room.
“Your Majesty is not weak,” I said, and it was true. One day old age or old enemies would kill him, but he would never be weak.
“Hmm,” he said. “Still, it appears new strength is needed on the throne.”
I carefully did not look at Lady Catrin as I said, “We find our strength in our children, sire.”
He waved a dismissive hand back toward the window. He didn’t even look at her. He simply said, “I have no sons.”
It appeared that stillness was a family trait: his daughter might have been made of stone. I said, “Do you not think to find strength in women? You have women in your council. You have women in your guard.”
“Yes, Jane, I do,” he said with some asperity. “You may be surprised to hear that I’ve observed my Captain of the Guard is a woman. You are strong. You fight….” And then he did surprise me, by saying, “You fight with the most beautiful, precise brutality I’ve ever seen, and I respect it. But fighting is not ruling, and my daughters do not even fight.”
Something cracked behind the girl’s stony eyes. Some glittered there, very like her father.
The king said, “And so I must find a different source of strength.”
Gods, he means to marry her off and put some docile dickless boy on the throne, I thought, and rule from behind. Here comes a war.
He smiled, and surprised me once again. “Captain Sora,” he said, “you will please ride out immediately and find me the heart of a dragon.”