It took the thump of Agradeleous landing beside her to break Brynn from her trance. Seeing the headless body of Yatol Bardoh lying in the sand before her was almost too much for her. The image, the reality of having finally avenged her parents, made her think back to her childhood days on the steppes of To-gai. The circumstances around her childhood had not been happy: the Behrenese conquerors were a brutal lot; and her parents, both resisting the occupation, had been almost constantly on the run.
Still, Brynn's mother and father had nurtured her and loved her, taught her the old ways. They had taught Brynn that there was something bigger than she, something bigger than all of them, and that they were a part of it, living in harmony with the soil, the plants, and the animals. They had given so much to her in the few years they had known her.
And then they were gone, taken by the wickedness of this man, Tohen Bardoh - now a headless corpse bleeding into the dirt before her.
"The battle continues," came a voice, and Brynn looked around to see Pagonel coming over the dune behind her.
Brynn moved to join him, and saw the Chezhou-lei warrior sitting in the sand, rubbing his throat. She shook her head, confused, certain that her strike should have proven fatal. But then she figured it out and looked over at her companion.
"You healed him."
"He will not fight us again," said the mystic. "Was I to allow him to die?"
"He tried to kill us."
"He protected his master, as his code of honor demanded." The mystic glanced back at Bardoh's corpse, drawing Brynn's gaze with his own. "His master needs protecting no longer."
Brynn considered the words and the logic. Ever was Pagonel tempering her fighting spirit, ever was he edging her toward mercy.
Ever was Pagonel making Brynn a better person and a better leader.
"The battle continues," Pagonel remarked, and they both looked back toward Jacintha, where the sounds of metal ringing against metal and the screams of the wounded and victor alike echoed in the air.
"Where are the emissaries?"
"Hiding," the mystic explained. "Come. Perhaps the sight of Brynn and Agradeleous will convince these warriors that nothing more is to be gained here."
Brynn turned with him and started for the dragon, but she stopped and ran to the side instead, scooping up something from the sand. Pagonel was already astride the dragon when she got there, offering her his arm to pull her up behind him.
A short run and but two flaps of Agradeleous' great leathery wings had them up into the air, flying to the east and banking to the north. Spying ships out in the harbor, Pagonel bade the dragon to stay along the coast, in full view of whoever was out there, be it friend or foe.
The sounds of battle diminished almost as soon as the great shadow of Agradeleous rolled across the battlefield. Behrenese traitor, loyalist, and Bearman alike rushed out from before the terrible splendor of Agradeleous, forgetting their own battles in the face of this much more significant danger.
And there sat Brynn astride the beast, clutching with one hand as the dragon swerved left and right and with her other hand aloft and in clear view, holding the head of Yatol Bardoh.
The Jacintha loyalists cheered.
The Behrenese followers of Peridan and Bardoh cowered and begged for mercy.
The soldiers of Honce-the-Bear filtered back, tightening ranks defensively. Unsure of this new presence, stunned by the sight of a dragon, the men of the northern kingdom continued their well-disciplined retreat right through the southern slum of Jacintha and back to the city wall.
Out in the harbor, Abbot Olin, Master Mackaront, and Duke Bretherford found themselves drawn to the rail, along with the other crewmen, to view the spectacle of the great beast. They had heard of dragons, of course - mostly in old legends - but none of them had ever actually seen one.
"The Dragon of To-gai," mumbled Mackaront. "Then she is more than a legend, more than the imaginings of frightened Jacintha soldiers."
"Our soldiers are in retreat," Abbot Olin realized. "What does this portend?"
"Wisdom?" Bretherford asked dryly.
"The cheering along the wall names the dragon as an ally," answered Master Mackaront, who was well aware of the previous agreements between Brynn of To-gai and Yatol Wadon, and who better understood the significance of this unexpected arrival. "It is Brynn Dharielle, come to the aid of Yatol Wadon."
Abbot Olin started to turn to face the man, but couldn't take his eyes from the spectacle of the beast as it swooped about the battlefield south of the city. "Send couriers to the docks," he instructed Mackaront. "Nay, go yourself! Find out what this means."
"You fear the arrival of the beast will bring trouble for you with your new friend Yatol Wadon?" Duke Bretherford asked when Mackaront walked away.
"Not so," said Abbot Olin. "It is Brynn, once a friend of Aydrian from what De'Unnero and Sadye have told me. It is possible that our new young king has just found a great ally."
If Abbot Olin could have pried his eyes from the dragon at that moment, he would have noticed that Duke Bretherford didn't seem altogether pleased by that prospect.
Agradeleous didn't join Brynn and Pagonel as they entered Jacintha later that day. There was no need to send the populace running in fear, after all, as would have undoubtedly occurred even if the dragon had gone in using his lizardman form.
The pair were greeted warmly by the soldiers at the southern gate and taken through the streets of Jacintha to the palace of Chom Deiru.
Neither missed the significance of the many soldiers in the streets that night, particularly the many soldiers of Honce-the-Bear.
"It would seem that Yatol Wadon found another ally when he learned that To-gai would not aid him," Brynn remarked.
"Long before that," Pagonel corrected. "Such an army as this could not have been pieced together so quickly. It would seem that your friend who now leads the northern kingdom had determined weeks ago that he would support Yatol Wadon."
His reference to Aydrian drew a look from Brynn. She had hardly been thinking of the young ranger these last weeks, too engrossed was she in setting up her own kingdom and, of late, in rousing Agradeleous and plotting her moves in favor of Wadon.
"Or perhaps it was Abbot Olin of Entel," Pagonel went on. "He has had a long relationship with Jacintha, by all accounts."
Brynn had no idea of the situation, for she had little knowledge of Honce-the-Bear. She had heard that Aydrian was king soon after she had forged a truce with Behren and settled into Dharyan-Dharielle, but it had been a single courier with only vague information. Was it possible that Aydrian was here in Chom Deiru waiting for her? She got her answer - that he was not - a few moments later, when she and Pagonel were escorted into a grand dining hall where a huge feast had been set out. Paroud was there, along with Pechter Dan Turk, who ran forward to greet Brynn warmly.
Pechter Dan Turk then led the pair about the long table, which bent in a semicircle about the tables piled with food. So much food! More than Brynn had ever seen! Enough to feed a To-gai-ru tribe for half the winter.
And yet, there were only about twoscore people assembled, stuffing their faces, spilling their drinks, tossing half-eaten racks of pork and lamb to the floor without regard.
Pechter Dan Turk showed Brynn and Pagonel to Yatol Wadon first, and the old Behrenese priest nearly leaped across the table to embrace Brynn.
"You have brought the head of Bardoh, yes?" asked the man beside him, Yatol De Hamman, as he looked down at the sack Brynn carried.
She lifted it and nodded. "It is given as a show of support to Yatol Wadon," she said. "Though I wished to leave it outside of this place where you are feasting."
"Your escorts insisted that we bring it in," Pagonel added.
"Of course they did!" cried the exuberant De Hamman, and indeed, it was obvious that he was thrilled to see his enemies vanquished. He motioned to a guard, who rushed over to take the satchel, and then, to Brynn's disgust, the soldier pulled forth Bardoh's head and placed it upon the table of food, in a predetermined spot, raised and central, at the end of a headless pig body.
Immediately, all of the feasting Behrenese rose up and lifted their glasses of wine in toast to the death of the traitor Bardoh, and then in another to the arrival of the Dragon of To-gai.
Brynn hid her disgust well.
At a nod from Yatol Wadon, Pechter Dan Turk led Brynn along the table, introducing the various Behrenese lords and Yatols and the Jacintha garrison commander. Then he took her to the three foreigners in attendance, Bearmen all.
"I give you Abbot Olin of Entel," Pechter Dan Turk said, and the old monk rose and extended a hand covered in bejeweled rings toward Brynn.
Not understanding that she was supposed to kiss the back of that hand, Brynn gave it a rather lame shake.
Abbot Olin only smiled at her, then turned to the two men standing on his right. "This is Master Mackaront, my emissary to Jacintha," he said, indicating another monk. "And beside him is Duke Bretherford of the Mirianic, a lord in high standing with King Aydrian Boudabras."
Brynn couldn't help but reveal her interest in that name as it was unexpectedly spoken, her light brown eyes flashing as she looked from Bretherford back to Abbot Olin.
"Do you know of my king?" Abbot Olin asked her.
"It is possible," Brynn replied. "But it was many years ago, good Abbot.
I knew an Aydrian once."
"Trained by the Touel'alfar in the Wilderlands beyond Honce-the-Bear,"
the abbot agreed, and Brynn could only stare at the man. "The son of Elbryan the Nightbird and Jilseponie Wyndon Ursal, who was queen of Honce-the-Bear before him. Yes, I suspect that it is the same Aydrian you once knew, good lady. Could there be two such extraordinary young men with the same name?"
Abbot Olin looked past Brynn, as if only then noticing Pagonel standing beside her. "You have walked a strange and unexpected road, good lady,"
he said, a bit too politely. "And find yourself in strange and unexpected company."
Pagonel didn't flinch at the obvious insult, both in words and in the smirking way that Abbot Olin was regarding him, but Brynn surely took up the defense of her friend. "Could any less be said of Aydrian?" she remarked.
Abbot Olin merely bowed and lifted his glass of wine in a salute.
Sensing the sudden tension, Pechter Dan Turk ushered the pair along to the far end of the table and their two assigned seats.
The food was wonderful and plentiful, the drink potent and brilliant, and a constant stream of entertainment - singers, musicians, and amazing dancers and acrobats - came through the dining hall, but neither Brynn nor Pagonel ever really settled in comfortably. Around them, the talk centered mostly on the appropriate punishment for Yatol Peridan and his traitors, and for those Jacintha warriors, many killed, some captured, and others fleeing across the desert, who had joined with Yatol Bardoh.
It struck Brynn as curious that Abbot Olin was participating so greatly in the discussion, and in what seemed to be more than just an advisory role.
Pagonel caught it, too. "It would seem that your friend Aydrian has forged a strong alliance here, one that goes beyond lending aid to Yatol Wadon in his time of desperation."
Brynn didn't like the tone of Pagonel's voice, one full of concern, but she wasn't really a part of the general discussion about the table, nor did she seem welcome to be. At one point, she did inquire of the man seated on her other side, a lesser Yatol, of the arrival of Abbot Olin, but he only replied cryptically that the Jacintha garrison was stronger than ever before, and that all of Behren would soon enough be put back in order.
When at last the feasting subsided, and the music went quiet, Brynn and Pagonel rose to leave. The mystic motioned Pechter Dan Turk to them, and the emissary, one of the few men in the room who had not passed out on the floor beneath the table, escorted them away.
First they went over to say their farewells to Yatol Wadon, who was standing off to the side, conversing with the trio from Honce-the-Bear.
It was Abbot Olin, though, and not Wadon, who stepped forward to greet Brynn and the Jhesta Tu, and it was obvious that the old man had indulged himself quite heavily that night. "Your action this day was that of a friend, and it will not be forgotten," the abbot said to her, his voice slurred.
Brynn accepted his handshake, but looked past him to Wadon, who was smiling, surely, but in a manner that seemed somehow strained to her.
"I wish to meet with you again, good lady of To-gai," Abbot Olin said with great enthusiasm. "I wish to learn more of your people, and of that curious mount of yours! Such a wonderful beast would be of great help to us as we secure the kingdom, no doubt."
"No doubt," Brynn replied, and she gave a polite bow and went with Pagonel out of the room, passing through the two sentries - two Honce-the- Bear sentries - posted at the door.
"Great help to us?" Brynn whispered to the mystic. "As we secure the kingdom?"
"So Aydrian looks south," Pagonel quietly replied. "With more than a passing interest. We might do well to learn more of him."
Sometime later, as Brynn slept soundly by a fire on the darkened plain west of the city, Pagonel took Agradeleous on a ride back to the east.
The pair flew past Jacintha, hugging the north to keep the dragon's telltale silhouette hidden behind the line of dark mountains. They stayed near to the mountain range to its very end, settling at last upon a rocky embankment overlooking the Mirianic. Not far from the shore, a grouping of Honce-the-Bear warships was moored, and a line of smaller boats stretched out from them, gliding between them one at a time.
Every so often, a scream echoed over the dark waters of the Mirianic.
"The water about the boats is thrashing," Agradeleous remarked.
Pagonel squinted, but his eyesight was no match for that of the dragon.
He could barely distinguish the silhouettes of the great ships, let alone the water about them.
"It churns white," the dragon explained. His sentence was punctuated by another shriek from the distant ships.
Pagonel sat on the stone and crossed his legs tightly before him. The mystic placed his hands on his thighs, palms upraised, and fell back into himself. He became aware of his mind-body connection, and consciously severed it.
His spirit stepped forth, a separation of mind and body much as the Abellicans could do with the soul stone, though to a much lesser extent.
It was enough to get Pagonel's consciousness over to those distant vessels, though, just briefly.
But long enough for him to sort it out.
The Honce-the-Bear ships had captured the force of Behrenese traitors who had not landed at the docks of Jacintha. Now the Bearmen were sorting their prisoners, likely interrogating them to find which had truly turned traitor to Yatol Wadon and Jacintha.
Many of them, their hands lashed behind their backs, were being thrown into the water between the boats.
There, the sharks feasted.