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  The Pryten, the witch and Nykia cocked their heads and saw that the great mount dragged something behind it. What lay in the sand wouldn’t pass much for a human anymore, but it wore a purple sash, something Nykia recognized as a member of the royal house.

  Gorias crossed his swords in front of himself. “Yer luck is bad. If I hadn’t been bringing back a gift to the Queen, ya may have got away with yer treasure.”

  The Pryten gripped a bronze sword, stabbed out at Gorias. It took a swish of the legend’s swords to cut the savage’s weapon off at the hilt.

  Gorias voice dropped, full of resignation. “Some men in the Queen’s party objected to torturing that piss-ant traitor I saw tattooed with Pryten god markings. I wasn’t one of those men.”

  The Pryten scrambled back as Gorias swung. The blades missed as the savage ran past Nykia and the boat and into the surf.

  He turned to the hooded woman. Her arms free of her robe, she raised her hands and started to conjure. Gorias turned, eyed Nykia, winked and then stepped between her and the woman. She couldn’t exactly see how Gorias slew the conjuring woman, but suffice it to say, her spell remained mostly in her throat as she fell.

  Swords wiped clean on the robe of the dead woman then returned to their housings, Gorias turned to Nykia and knelt beside her. He watched the Pryten out in the surf, intent on escaping into the sea.

  “I’m Gorias…” he started to say, but she quickly reached out and touched his beard.

  “I know. You’ve come to save me.”

  A wry smile crept onto his face, as her tiny fingers gripped his beard. “I’d have been here sooner, but that Pryten spy proved stubborn.”

  “Will you take me to my mommy?”

  Gorias lifted her up and cradled the child to his armored chest. “No.”

  As they turned to the horse, Nykia wondered, “Why not?”

  He sighed a little before saying, “Because she’s dead, that’s why. You’re old enough to understand the world is a bad place, even though you grew up in such luxury. Forces have come to slay enemies of your grandmother, the Queen. Your mom is dead. Sorry I had to tell you that.”

  The reality of never seeing her mother again sank into Nykia and she started to cry.

  “Your father…” Gorias began, but she again cut him off.

  “He’s not my father, only the man who took his place when Papa died on a hunt years before.”

  La Gaul didn’t finish his words and many years passed before Nykia understood all that happened this day. She oft wondered if Gorias really would’ve confessed that he slew her stepfather when he was revealed as one conspiring with those in Albion to kill the royal family of Transalpina. Gorias killed a dozen conspirators that day, her stepfather just happened to be one of them, but the cruel reality was that this man caused the death of her real father in order to invade their home, their mother’s bed, to spy on the family.

  “I’ll take you to your grandmother, Lady Garnet Peverall, the Queen.” Gorias promised as he climbed back into the saddle.

  The girl wept for a long while as they rode back past the blazing home and into the wilderness around the estate. They stopped to navigate better through some ditches leading to a main road and she touched his face again.

  “I’m going to marry you someday.”

  Gorias couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

  “I’m flattered, young lady, but in time the princes of the continent will line up at the palace door. The Queen will see to it. She’ll watch out for ya now.”

  “I already love you, Gorias La Gaul. Why would I want another?”

  As they rode, Nykia got comfortable in the lap of the legend, her hair lost in his beard. Only after a few miles did he look down to see her drawing on her palm with a red object.

  “It’s like paint and ink but in a tube,” she explained to him and showed her palm to him. “See? That’s my profile.”

  The old warrior squinted and nodded. “Not bad. You’re an excellent artist.”

  “I can draw you,” she said with confidence. “I often do. Let me see your hand.”

  They stopped and Gorias opened his right hand. The rough, scarred palm of Gorias became her canvass and she drew a fine profile of the legend on his flesh. She then slapped her hand over it, tight.

  “Are we married now?” Gorias smiled.

  “Forever.” Her eyes gleamed.

  “That’s a long time, sweetheart.” He kicked his mount, heading them toward the distant banners of the Queen’s retreat.

  Later, she understood his words were that of an aged fighter, probably one always doled out to females…but the articulation of Gorias calling her sweetheart rang in her ears forever.

  *****

  Reality destroyed her vivid memory with only a few words.

  “Do you like that, sweetheart?”

  These words came from the husky voice of the she-pirate Noguria, the whip mistress, after the dropping of a leather lash over Nykia’s bare backside. She couldn’t move to escape the shot. More leather bound up her ankles and wrists.

  The voice persisted. “Thinking of him again, are you? Gorias La Gaul? I can live with that competition. It’s only fencing with a dream.” Again, her leathery tie fell across Nykia’s hips. “Although I envy the fighter.” Her gloved hand gripped Nykia’s. Noguria raised her head to face her. Tears rolled down her cheeks and onto Noguria’s leather-clad fingers. Noguria let her face go and licked her fingertips. “I make you cry, but he makes you cry out, doesn’t he?”

  Nykia sighed. “Isn’t this game over? You are taking a long time tonight, even for you.”

  Again, the whip fell, but Nykia hardly moved away from her place strung up on the wall.

  “Gorias and I have a few things in common. We both saved you from the Pryten savages, he when you were a little girl, me, a year ago when we raided the shrine for Tancorix. How many years had you been their prisoner?”

  “A few. Tancorix is dead and her daughter Adraste too young to make coherent choices. I blended in the crowd.”

  “Until I came,” She said, her right index finger running down the tattoos on Nykia’s left arm. “These marks are blended from what the savages gave you to make you mine.”

  “Yes, you rescued me, mistress Noguria.”

  “He’s in Albion, that La Gaul. Go ahead, think of him all you want. I don’t care.”

  Eyes closed, Nykia’s tattooed flesh quivered at the touch of Noguria and the thought of Gorias La Gaul.

  CHAPTER I

  Remembrance of Things Past

  “Gorias La Gaul will solve this riddle of the dragonfire and make my household complete,” Lady Garnet pronounced, reading the scroll held in her withered hands. She placed the parchment on a mahogany end table and stepped away from the burning lamps. Only the rustle of her gown on the tiled floor and the breathing of her young servant were audible in the vast throne room.

  “Yes, my Queen,” the young man answered as he imparted a small bow. The guards behind him didn’t move an inch. Tall women, clad in leathers and emotionless, stood rigid, ready to pounce in defense of their Queen. The other man, an aging Castellan clothed in the rich robes of a councilman, folded his hands and said nothing.

  Garnet stepped away from the raised dais of the vaulted room, her gaze focused out the yawning window. Lady Garnet soon stood by the huge shutters, took in the sky and then the grounds around the castle. Eyes focusing on the guards meandering on the second curtain wall, she said to the young man, “Orsen, Yannick has seen that La Gaul is across the channel in Albion. Only Gorias can handle this case to my complete satisfaction.”

  Orsen nodded, eyed the guard for a moment and said, “So you say, Mum. I know he supported your wishes in the past and saved princess Nykia twenty-five years ago from the Prytens before the Albion war.” He paused and clasped his hands in front of his tunic, shooting the towering women guards a steady look. “While he supposedly slew all the dragons in the world, Mum, surely La Gaul is well over seven centuries
old by now.”

  Still at the long window, she answered, “There is no supposedly about it, Orsen. It wasn’t that long ago and they did exist. Surely, you’ve seen the bones in the museums and the platelets in beer halls.”

  Orsen nodded. “Many say those are fanciful stories, Mum, and that one man couldn’t possibly kill such a great beast.”

  Garnet paused, eyes to the skies before saying, “And yet Gorias was strong enough to see all of the dragons extinct as well as my enemies.”

  His words chosen carefully, Orsen said, “That was before my birth, Mum.”

  The Queen’s right hand reached over to her left wrist. Lady Garnet’s thumb rubbed on her golden bracelet. “They were real. I was a princess, a hundred years ago, when I saw La Gaul help in the battle of the Somme.” She twirled and addressed the auburn-haired guard on Orsen’s left. “Alena’s father was there as well.”

  The tall woman bowed her head once, but said nothing.

  Orsen swallowed before saying, “I’ve heard many stories about that day, Mum. I wish I’d lived to see it.”

  Eyes closed, the Queen said in a low voice, “No, you don’t.”

  On the walls of her mind, the day so long ago played itself out again. Of course, the Princess Garnet stood nowhere near the massive battlefield dissected by the Somme River. However, from the broiling caldron of the seer Yannick, she perceived everything that happened miles distant. Through the churning waters and multicolored bubbles of his pot, Garnet saw the image of the man her father paid to fight with the army of Transalpina.

  Gorias La Gaul sat atop his great black stallion in the thick of the cavalry. Though a long cloak billowed out behind him, Garnet could see his body clearly through Yannick’s foam. Unlike the rest of the cavalry who donned chain mail shirts and metal leg guards, Gorias wore a strange covering of plated armor, dark blue in hue. Garnet understood little of protective coverings, but thought he stood out more than just due to his age and the fact he didn’t wear the insignia of Transalpina.

  The other fighters, probably aged twenty to forty years if a day, dark-haired or shaven of head, stood firm. Gorias looked carved from stone, his pronounced features unreal like something an artist dreamt up. His flowing gray hair billowed from his shoulders and framed in his somewhat craggy face. Yes, the caldron of Yannick let her get a good look at the hero from afar before the view widened out to include the entire field of battle. Garnet’s heart raced at the stern forehead scarred several times, and the arched nose protruding above high cheekbones. His beard and mustache ran white and very thick, but not brutally unkempt as some of the forward infantry of their enemies from Albion.

  Gorias’ blue eyes glimmered and he smiled at the enemy formations. From a horse that stood a few hands higher than the rest of the cavalry, Gorias nodded as the young men around him shouted and taunted the Albion forces falling into their formations.

  “They are a bunch of mutts,” a soldier on foot said to the rest of the assembled cavalry. “That pervert King of Albion has bitten off more than he can chew, crossing the channel to fight us here in our own yard.”

  Gorias’ voice thudded deep and wise to his fellow horsemen, “The distant King has gathered a Confederation of Transalpina’s enemies. By the edges of the forward infantry I see the standard of the archers of Andorra. They’ve come a long way to piss in King Peverall’s breakfast plate.”

  Laughter rippled through the lines and Garnet smiled her own self at the mention of such an act to her revered father.

  Gorias continued, “Most of his men are foreigners here to a grab a piece of the grand kingdom. Those tan-skinned footmen with short swords? They are from Atropatene, so far away.”

  A man nearly as big as Gorias stopped his horse next to him and said, “This will get ugly.” This graying man held a scope aloft and then handed it to Gorias.

  Eyes scanning the front lines of the massive Albion army, Gorias said, “General Appra, I see it. Behind their spearmen units, foot soldiers and the wave of pikemen lies something else…” Gorias squinted through a looking glass. He grinned as he lowered the viewer. “Hot damn, gentlemen, they brought wizards and wyrmling dragons instead of cavalry.”

  As trumpets sounded across the Somme, General Appra donned a chain mail headdress and said to Gorias, “Then paying you to be here is a good idea, no?”

  Gorias stowed the General’s looking glass in a saddlebag and adjusted the sheathed broadsword to the left of his saddle horn. “You have employed the Belenos Kelt tribe to be berserkers in the front lines. Those hairy bastards’ll do a great bit of damage.” Gorias then donned a helmet, made of the same blue material as his armor. Visor up, he glared at the others and reached back with both hands at his waist. He disengaged two swords from their housings on his back. Since Gorias was quite tall, the long pack held two long blades nearly a yard in length each. “So will I.”

  At the sight of these two gleaming blades, many in the cavalry shied back. As Gorias put his reins in his teeth, the whispers flooded the crowd. Though many watched the enemy advance, several still murmured about Gorias and his swords. Aside from many rumors about the weapons, the main issue was that the soldiers could see the blades weren’t made of any sort of metal.

  Gorias’ horse stayed with serried lines of cavalry, ranks of berserkers and regular infantry as bowmen in leather jerkins stepped forward, bows in their left hands, ready to strike. Pikemen secured their basinets and gripped long lances, screwing in their courage like the rest.

  Across the Somme, Albion’s squadrons of death dealers swung into formation, armed and dressed likewise.

  Though his reins were in his mouth, Gorias muttered the words, “Deliverance will come.”

  Through the morning mists across the Somme, the forces started toward each other, each army with their strength in its middle. The knights and cavalry full of grizzled veterans in the center flanked by wings of berserkers, pikemen and archers that curled around mimicking the enemy. Only the center of the Albion army possessed several dozen creatures under the control of bald men in robes. From a distance, they looked like horses, but as they approached the shallow muddy water of the Somme, their reptilian bloodline shone through. No hooves touched the ground, but clawed fingers stabbed at the earth. Though bitless bridles held these beasts in check, sparks and smoke emerged from their nostrils. Their wings, folded down, bobbed with movement as they advanced.

  One of the solders muttered, “If those are wrymlings like La Gaul’s armor, then why aren’t they blue?”

  Another grunt replied, “Maybe those are just stories about his armor. Those things out there are red and green.”

  “Blue dragons aren’t from around these parts.” Gorias said to his fellows nearby, “I doubt they can fly just yet. They’re young, easier to control and subdue.”

  “They can die if they breathe,” a loud horseman proclaimed from behind La Gaul.

  The divisions came together as the archers unleashed their volleys. Though several troopers on either side held up shields to ward off the missiles, several shafts found their targets. Bodies fell all around and a few horses howled on either side of the Somme’s banks as the center of each army met. Many a young man from Albion gaped at their wounds, stunned that such a thing could actually happen. A graying veteran, however, took a bolt to his side, looked down like he contracted an insect bite and broke it off, never ceasing in his charge.

  He may just bleed to death and fall, Gorias mused, but at least he’d fall forward. Garnet shook for she could hear Gorias’ thoughts and that unnerved her deep.

  A few arrows struck Gorias as he charged, but blunted on his armor. His swords struck fast, removing the wing of a wyrmling to his left while slicing off the arm of the bald rider to his right. Squeezing his knees, his horse ducked low. Gorias criss-crossed his blades in the open space at the oncoming creature. The young dragon’s head stayed in place for a moment, then teetered, falling from its neck.

  “They hardly bleed,” General Appra
hollered from Gorias’ right, but never slackened his advance and strikes against the wizards.

  All along the lines, the horsemen didn’t have great success against the dragons, but the Keltos berserkers did. With their great lances, they used the creature’s momentum against them. Planting the brass ball at the end of the lance on the ground, the onrush of the wyrmlings aided the strike, inadvertently pushing the weapons through their chests. In many cases, the Keltos spears went through the dragons and into the wizards that rode them. One held up his like a prize, and then trashed them to the ground. Removing the lance became a bother, so the berserker took up the curved blade of the wizard and charged again, making certain they were dead.

  Besides Gorias in the caldron, the Princess saw one such impaled foreign wizard, off his saddle by a foot, stunned that he hung up on the spear tip in his groin. La Gaul didn’t take the time to kill this confused man as he passed by. He had others to slay.

  A dragon roared at La Gaul, long neck slithering out of his sword’s slash, almost to Gorias’ face before it stopped abruptly. Though Gorias missed with his left-handed, roundhouse swipe, something on his left forearm stopped the dragon’s bite. The beast blinked and felt the dew nail on his forearm rip its throat out. Garnet absently wondered if the recognition in the dragon’s eyes saw that Gorias’ armor was made from a wyrmling’s flesh…and the dew nail on his arm spelled this monster’s death.

  Though the Somme ran shallow here, many were dragged under the muddy water after being knocked from their mounts. Frantic horses inadvertently drowned a few of the knights of Transalpina. The stunned men struggled to rise in the water and had their brains dashed out by war hammers from Albion.

  Not checking back to see if the attacking factions behind him held or not, Gorias continued on in his war against the young dragons. Over a dozen of them fell, but a few more dozen remained, easily taking out the legs of many horsemen and biting the faces from several crazed berserkers. A small company of pikemen lowered their thick weapons and skewered one dragon, but the beast refused to die. Gorias rode by, clipped off its head and moved on. The pikemen exchanged looks and continued as well.