Seventeen

In which Dawncaster is leading the resistance and gets some help

A/N: I may give out cliffhangers, but I don't like leaving people hanging forever.  Thank you so much for sticking with me through November! Dragonhatched is panning out to be larger than I expected, so in this chapter, you'll see summaries of scenes that I will write later when I go back and edit. If all goes well, there will be a few more updates on this blog as a bring the novel to some kind of conclusion before I start revision.

[Bess and Jonathan return to Ebon Reach without Daystar and Emberlace. Dawncaster is shocked. They do not take the contract to Ravenglen.

Stage invasion the next day. Bandits reveal themselves to be part of a larger army unit. Ebon Reach unable to resist for lack of military forces in most of their baronies. Lord Baron of Northmarch a traitor. Dawncaster cuts the wires to the energy cubes and lets the rest of the energy drain out before anyone can get to the transmitting floor.

Leader of invasion wants information on the Drageklek. Bess and Jonathan realize it is the same person who kidnapped them. Dawncaster begins destroying information or hiding it.

With Nighthawk, they begin to organize a resistance.]

The halls of Ebon Reach were darker without energy lights. The torches threw sooty light over the stone as nobles and servants passed each other in silence. Dawncaster kept her head down, walking quickly, but not too quickly.

Too quickly might be seen as suspicious. Her hands twisted on her skirt again, and she purposefully relaxed them, trying not to let her tension seep into her posture. She’d been certain the dragons would not take Daystar. But Jonathan, Bess, and the young guard had returned to Ebon Reach alone, with a roll of parchment.

Daystar’s last gift to them, now nearly useless. The invasion had struck a mere day later, the roving bands of criminals across the kingdom suddenly coalescing into a single unit. The Lord Baron of Northmarch revealed himself as a traitor who had long turned a blind eye to the forces creeping across his border. Dawncaster had cut the wires and drained the energy cubes that night before hiding the contract Daystar negotiated with the dragons.

Better to keep their occupying enemy crippled.

Ravenglen still held the throne, now a frightened puppet of the Lord Baron of Northmarch, who got his orders from who knew where.

Whoever it was, they had planned this invasion for a long time and executed it perfectly. Ebon Reach had fallen in hours.

Dawncaster lifted her chin slightly, trying to shake off her despair. It had fallen one way quickly, certainly it could fall the other way. Whoever was controlling the barons was powerful, but absent, and therefore confident in his authority.

Confidence could be a weakness. Dawncaster glanced back at Bess, who smiled at her slightly. She’d kept the two sellswords near her, and they proved her most trusted allies. Jonathan was away drumming up resistance with Nighthawk, and Bess stayed here in guise as Dawncaster’s personal maid. Together, they were slowly draining the library of every shred of information on the Drageklek and hiding or destroying it. Today completed their work - nothing was left but a few useless myths, and the last of Daystar’s confiscated writersplates were tucked securely in Dawncaster’s pocket.

The doors of Far Haven tower closed behind them, and Dawncaster let herself relax a little.

“I should never have asked Daystar to go,” she whispered, looking down at the little rectangle of glass and silver in her hands. “If I could have kept him alive a little longer…”

“Then the Lord Baron of Northmarch might have killed him as soon as the invasion started. Or after it ended,” Bess finished briskly.

“He wouldn’t be dead.”

“Just as good as.” Bess’s voice was blunt. “You did what you thought to be best at the time, Dawncaster. There’s naught for us to do but sit quiet until the opportune time comes.”

“How was Jonathan when he left?”

“Excited. They’re gaining support with the people. Common folks are libel to live quiet unless someone won’t let them. Push ‘em too far and they start biting.”

Dawncaster nodded. Conditions in Upper Vale were worse than anyone could remember in a long time. The peasants only worked for the nobles now, gave everything they grew to them and received starving rations back. The guilds were locked under the control of the crown, their contracts negotiated by the crown, their earnings going directly to the royal treasury. And if Ravenglen proudly said the crown supported the guilds by paying entirely for their upkeep, the fact remained that it didn’t pay much, and the craftsmen, once revered for their skill, were little more than slaves.

This former middle class was their best recruiting ground. The people knew what it was to live free and govern their own affairs, and they disliked their guilds being confined by the ever more controlling King Ravenglen. Their fervor filtered down into the peasants below them, and from Jonathan’s reports, the people were ready to resist.

Jonathan and Nighthawk were waiting for them in Dawncaster’s study, expressions grim.

“What is it?” Dawncaster asked as Bess hugged Jonathan.

“We’ve received a message from someone who wants to help,” Jonathan explained carefully, showing her a piece of paper.

Dawncaster.

I’m sorry I haven’t contacted you before now, but there were extenuating circumstances. I’ve heard of what has happened in Upper Vale and want to help you reclaim the kingdom from Ravenglen and those controlling him. Come and meet me at the tower on the Cinderstrand Road, where we can plan without fear of being overheard.

Dawncaster stared at the note before turning it over to see if there was a signature and finding nothing.

“Who did it come from?”

Nighthawk shook his head. “We’ve no idea,” he rumbled “I almost fear it could be a trap for you.”

“Trap or no, we do need help,” Dawncaster admitted. “Nighthawk,” she said, coming quickly to a decision and keeping to it, “You remain here. If I do not return, the rebellion will be yours to lead as you wish. I will go and meet the sender of this note. Bess and Jonathan will come with me, if they will do so?”

The sell swords nodded.

[Dawncaster organizes her people; disagreement from Nighthawk, basic argument. Dawncaster leaves for the Cinderstrand with Bess and Jonathan; they travel undercover until…]

Dawncaster reined in her horse, tugging her cloak tightly around her against the bitingly cold air. Snow had been falling all day, and their horses struggled in the thick snow, stamping and blowing whenever they stopped.

Ahead, amid the thickly falling snowflakes, she could see a tower in the valley next to the frozen river. Lights glowed in the windows, beckoning. Her mount danced lightly on its hooves for a moment before Dawncaster pressed forward, trying to forget her nervousness. Humans didn’t live in the Cinderstrand. Who could be calling her here, and how would they know about Upper Vale’s plight? Her horse’s hooves clopped on the ice of the frozen river, and the animal heaved and slid a little as it fought its way up the steep slope to the tower.

She, Bess, and Jonathan left their horses in a sheltering stand of trees near the tower and turned cautiously to knock on the door. Dawncaster clenched her fists nervously as she waited for the thick wooden portal to open.

The door creaked back, and she stared in total shock.

“Daystar?”

He looked older, and inexplicably more like himself. He wore simple woolen clothes and fur boots wrapped with strips of leather.

“You came,” he said, relieved, pulling the door wider and drawing them into the room.

“But…how…?” Dawncaster spluttered, clumsily reaching out to touch Daystar’s face with her cold fingers.

“Long story,” Daystar replied, clasping her shoulder and looking past her to greet Bess and Jonathan. The sellswords were stiffly polite out of sheer shock, and Daystar brushed a hand through his hair before directing them to the other side of the room where a fire burned.

“You might as well warm up while I explain.” He leaned away from them as they moved towards the fire and yelled through a door and up another staircase. “Emberlace! They’re here!”

Emberlace joined them a moment later, beaming widely, and Bess emerged from her shocked stupor long enough to hug the princess back before sinking onto the couch, gripping at her waist.

“Daystar,” Dawncaster finally managed, laying her cloak back and letting the heat of the fire seep into her bones. “We were certain you were dead.”

“So was I, for a moment,” Daystar replied.

“Couldn’t you have contacted us sooner?”

“Our hatch-parents wouldn’t allow it; I only recently learned of the invasion and sent a message as soon as I knew there was resistance.”

Dawncaster stared at the two royals, her stunned companions, then into the fire. “Perhaps you should explain?”

----

Blackness edged its way slowly from Daystar’s vision as he shifted, disoriented. The last thing he could remember was long streams of fire engulfing him and Emberlace, then darkness. He lay on something lumpy but comfortable, the dark scent of pine in his nostrils.

Opening his eyes slowly, he saw that he lay in the middle of a stone bowl lined carefully with smooth river rocks. Beyond the edges of the bowl were the walls and pillars of a vast cave, only dimly lit by warm yellow and blue lights above him. The bottom of the bowl where he lay was cushioned by small pine branches and dry grass that crackled as he sat up.

He wasn’t dead. Daystar was fairly certain of that, at least, though he didn’t know where he was, and he was wearing different clothes - a long woolen tunic tied with a strip of leather. He pinched himself, wondering if he were dreaming, and blinked slowly, opening them to the same strange scene.

“Emberlace?” he called, his voice echoing around the large cavern.

“She’s not here.”

Daystar started and turned towards the voice, and saw a dragon on the edge of the stone bowl. This was his first chance to see one of the creatures close up, and he saw easily why they were so feared. The dragon had powerful legs, a strong green-brown scaled body, and a sweeping tail. A long neck arched up to its head, a long snout with a powerful jaw and intelligent eyes with slit pupils. Two horns wound with copper rope twisted up on either side of the dragon’s head, and a long line of ridges traveled down its neck all the way to the end its tail. The wings were folded tightly by its side, though they flared as the dragon jumped lightly into the bowl with him. Daystar froze at the sight of the long talons on its feet and shrunk away fearfully.

The dragon’s face softened, and it cocked its head to look at him as it settled around the bowl, laying down and trailing its long tail around the rim. “You’ve nothing to fear from me,” the dragon told him in an unmistakably feminine voice.

“But the contract,” Daystar ventured nervously. “I put myself at the - at your mercy.”

“You humans are always so pessimistic,” the dragon sighed, lowering her head to look at him with a great hazel eye. “Must you always assume that putting yourself at someone else’s mercy means you will be hurt?”

“That’s what usually happens.”

The dragon sorted, and two columns of smoke rose from her nostrils. “No one here has any intention of hurting you, Daystar.”

“And Emberlace?”

“She is safe. But you may not see her yet.”

Daystar started to demand why before remembering his obligations and remaining silent. To his surprise, the dragon seemed amused by his reaction.

“You young mates, always loath to be separated from each other. All in good time.”

The dragon’s eyes became suddenly sorrowful, and she rested her head down on the pine next to him so that her snout was pressed up against his back. Daystar started at the unfamiliar touch, but to his own surprise, he didn’t feel the need to scramble away, even this close to the dragon’s maw.

“Tell me, what do you know of the Dragonhatched?” she asked.

“Very little,” Daystar replied. “Only that they were liaisons between the humans and the dragons.”

“You were told nothing else?”

“I could find nothing else. No one ever told me anything. Please,” he shifted a little to look into the dragon’s friendly, hazel eyes, “what is a Dragonhatched?”

“You are.”

Daystar stared at her, and the dragon laughed a little, a warm sound that comforted his tension.

“Something you should know about dragon eggs: not all of them have a hatchling inside. Those that do not are filled with nothing more than raw magical energy, and they do not hatch, they explode. Many long centuries ago, a use was discovered for these empty eggs. The energy within them is specifically sustaining and growing energy, and we found that we could teleport a human hatchling from its mother’s womb, into the egg, and into another womb.

“The egg could not only spare the life of both a child and a mother, the child would also siphon off the energy until the egg was weak enough to be disposed of without causing serious damage. And the humans gained yet another benefit - a child who came into contact with the sustaining energy inside a dragon’s egg could internalize and direct magical energy as they became an adult, something normally fatal for a human.

“From time to time, however, rather than transfer the child from the mother into another woman, or into the world itself, we would leave the child in the egg to hatch from it.”

“A Dragonhatched,” Daystar whispered.

The dragon nodded, her voice growing melancholy. “You were so tiny when your mother bore you. Far too tiny, your birth premature. Your poor father was beside himself; my mate had to wrap him up in his tail to keep him from flinging himself about the cottage in his distress. We were the closest dragons with an empty egg, and your parents were desperate. We barely made it in time to transfer you.” She lifted her head and nudged him gently. “Your parents wrapped up your egg and kept it warm and safe, and we left them with instructions of how to hatch you when the time came. But the Sickness came first, and when I returned to gather your egg, it was gone.”

“The Sickness? But that was nearly a century ago.”

The dragon nodded. “You were in suspended animation for a long time. How you got to Felstar I have no idea, but he must have hidden the circumstances of your birth very well. Imagine my surprise when you walked into that cave. I thought you lost for a terrible long count of years.”

“You’re saying I was hatched. From a dragon’s egg.”

“Yes.”

“Your dragon’s egg.” Daystar shook his head. “That’s impossible.”

“You stood the force of dragon’s fire,” the dragon replied placidly. At Daystar’s disbelieving look, she shook her head and plucked him up by the scruff of his neck, dropping him to sit on the edge of the bowl. “Now, dragon fire is deadly to a human, is it not?”

“Yes.”

The dragon nodded, then wheeled her head towards him, breathing a long stream of fire. It engulfed his body, the heat ruffling his hair, but he felt nothing besides a little extra warmth. The dragon shut off the stream, and Daystar stared at himself. A small singe along the edge of his tunic was the only damage.

“Your clothes didn’t manage it so well, I’m afraid, but we found some spares.”

Daystar blinked, his brain unequal to the task of grasping this information.

“You also instinctively understand the dragon language.”

“I do?”

“Listen to me, to yourself,” the dragon laughed. “Are we speaking any human language? Listen to my voice, really listen.”

His mouth dropped as he realized she was speaking in rumbles and low growls. “How is-” he cut himself off as he realized he was responding not in words, but with a distraught hiss. The sound was unnatural to his ears, but not to his tongue. “How do I know it?” he asked, listening in shock to his own troubled growl.

“You were Dragonhatched. The knowledge was already in you.”

“That’s why you would only speak with a Dragonhatched,” he realized out loud. “Because they were the only ones who could understand you.”

The dragon inclined her head. “Some of my people learn the tongues of humans, but the words are difficult for us to get our mouths around.”

----

“King Felstar was not your father, then?” Dawncaster demanded, interrupting.

“No.” Daystar glanced down into the fire. “Not by blood, at least. My parents were simple folk, farmers from Grimstone, though their rank went up when it was found they would have a Dragonhatched child.”

“What is a Dragonhatched, exactly, then?”

“It took me a long time to get used to the idea,” Daystar admitted, glancing at Emberlace, who smiled ruefully. “As near as I can tell, we’re human, but the time in the dragon egg and the release of extra energy while we were hatching made some sort of alteration to our…” he trailed off, gesturing weakly.

“We have no word for it in our language,” Emberlace explained.

“Core-of-the-creature?” Daystar finally suggested.

“Baseplan-of-the-creature would be a better translation,” Emberlace replied. “There are…things inside us, like little plans, that make up who we are, how we grow, what color our hair is. Each species Baseplans are different, and even in a species, each being’s Baseplan is different, if only by a little bit. It is the structure of a human’s plan that prevents them from internalizing magical energy and using it. From what I understand from my hatch-parents, time inside of a dragon’s egg changes a humans Baseplan, just slightly, so that they will accept magical energy. If they hatch from the egg, all the spare energy goes inside of them, and over time, it…” she trailed off, looking at Daystar, suddenly uncomfortable.

“It grows.”

“You have magical energy.”

Daystar nodded.

“Inside you.”

“It’s how I was able to command the clockwork guard,” Daystar explained. “Because it’s inside of me, I can sense external concentrations of it and manipulate them to my will. It’s why we weren’t allowed to contact you earlier. Normally a Dragonhatched would spend a great deal of time being fostered by their hatch-parents, learning about how to control and manipulate magical energy. Emberlace and I never had that opportunity, and the dragons refused to let us go anywhere until we had begun accessing and controlling our own powers.”

“Wait, Emberlace is hatched too?” Bess demanded.

“I am,” Emberlace replied, breaking into a smile. “I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to know that Ravenglen is not really my father.”

“Does he know you’re hatched?” Dawncaster asked.

Emberlace shrugged. “If he does, he doesn’t know what it means.”

Daystar watched Dawncaster sit back into her chair, amazement and disbelief in her face.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” he apologized.

The noblewoman held up hand and turned to him. “Do something.” Her fingers were shaking. “Something that you wouldn’t be able to do if you weren’t a Dragonhatched.”

Daystar took a deep breath, then pushed the energy inside him out to wrap around the table on the other side of the room. He felt the tendrils of it trail underneath the tabletop and directed them up until the table hovered almost near the ceiling. He moved it over a few feet and set it back down again.

“Do you believe me now?”

Their three visitors nodded mutely.

“There’s no reason to be afraid,” Emberlace admonished. “We want to help you.”