Dormancy Read online

  “You’re welcome, master Pendragon,” said Enid.

  “I’ll take my leave if that’s everything,” Koh offered the brownie a small bow.

  Enid tutted at him and moved to shoo him out the castle doors.

  “Come back soon, you rascal. And make sure to bring your friends along with the next time you pass through! You need a life – a social life – outside of castle servants and visiting politicians. Now get along, and stay alert out on the road.”

  Koh nodded and thanked Enid again. Before he could set off, he heard her voice once more.

  “Now, one moment,” she said, grabbing at his hand. He stopped and leaned down, brows raised in surprise. She then motioned at the side of his neck. “What is that?”

  “Oh… this, you mean?” He touched the cut there gently. “It’s nothing, really.”

  “You had better not be getting into trouble again,” she scolded. “Did you tell Eywell about it?”

  “… No,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “I didn’t want to worry him. He’s terribly stressed already by everything happening. Winter is settling in the valley and he has plenty to deal with already.”

  “He worries, you know. Now, tell me, how did you manage to get that one?”

  Koh chuckled and rubbed again at the shallow cut. It stung at his touch, but it wouldn’t pose any greater threat to him than a bit of pain.

  “I had a run-in with a woman in a bar. I don’t think she liked me very much.” He laughed at himself. Half-truths would worry Enid less, though her ears perked at the lie.

  “Hm,” the brownie huffed and narrowed her eyes, arms crossing again. “If you say so. I’ve never known you to pursue a woman, but if you absolutely insist, then what can I do?”

  She tossed her arms up in defeat and began to shoo him out once more.

  “Now get going! Don’t be late on the road. No getting caught out after dark, no speaking to peddlers without carts, no cheap inn rooms or meals. Understand?”

  “I understand,” Koh said. “I’ll see you again at the banquet?”

  “If I don’t burn the castle down before then,” she said, amused. “Now off with you, villain!”

  Koh waved her farewell as she closed the door, leaving him standing out in the snow.

  3

  Winter was a cold, dead time of year. Everything came to a standstill except the ever-moving bodies of Albion’s people. They eked out a living in the frozen months, in which the land held its breath and slept around them.

  Something comforting lurked in the winter’s stillness. Something calm and serene, tucked away in the folds of nature’s frozen veil. A rigid freeze that kept the world from turning, and under which everything remained the same, unchanged.

  He remembered the damp, warm earth under him when he awoke, bound in the woods, hidden under a rotting log. He remembered the decaying leaves giving off heat underneath him, and he remembered being afraid and alone. The air around him pressed into his lungs, hot and stifling. Summer heat suffocated uncomfortably. It invaded and pried and chased after those who tried to escape it.

  Summer nights were to be feared, when the foolish found courage in their hearts to commit atrocities. Summer nights were when lives fell to pieces in the splash of wine and the excited stamping of feet against the earth, and in the echoing of song in the air. Revelry blazed and burned down the net of safety Albion’s people built around themselves. The fanned flames consumed, burned, and devoured the lives of the people who did not dance with enough ferocity to escape them.

  He didn’t mind the cold as he walked. His hands fiddled with one another in front of his chest as he did, fingers clasping and unclasping, twining together and breaking apart again. The cold gnawed at him. It wanted him. But he wouldn’t allow it to take him quite yet.

  Several hours passed like this. Walking alone among the swirling cold, toward home. Eventually the light had entirely gone from Lyon. He pressed on along the darkened path, warm fur coat wrapped around his shoulders to protect him from the cold.

  Down the road, lights shined out the windows of the inn he’d stayed the night before at. The same place he’d met Eir, and soon after seen her end. Brunhild waited within to accompany him home. Something didn’t settle with him when he thought of Eir. A discontent gnawed at the back of his mind.

  As the wind howled outside and night swept over Ochren, Koh Pendragon dreamed of dragons.

  It hung heavy on his mind after the incident. He couldn’t get it out of his head, no matter how he tried. Instead, he found himself thinking of the ancient kings until he finally folded into the warm embrace of sleep.

  There had never been any stories of the powers of the kings resurfacing. A thousand years come and gone with no sign the kings ever existed aside from their family names being passed down through generations. Nith Fensalir and Glyn Pendragon: the first kings of Albion

  The name had come from his mother’s side. She hailed from Weyrite – the nation far in the north, obscured and protected by tall, jagged peaks and intense storms, where the Aos Si had been born.

  Koh brushed his fingertips against the rounded top of his ear as sleep took him. Aos Si ears had a slight point to them at the tip, longer than human ears. His father had been human, he found no scales growing along his skin and had no fey features otherwise. His dark skin told of Weyrite heritage, but that was the most he had received from his mother. The most, at least, aside from his name.

  She had passed when he was nineteen after battling illness for years. In the time leading up to her death, she had never told him the name had any significance. As a child, he’d told himself made-up stories of how he descended from Glyn to make himself feel important.

  He dreamed of dragons and Pendragons, and what would have been if the old stories were as real as he once believed.

  Sleep fell over him no sooner than midnight, as the fires in the inn’s hearth grew weak and untended in the cold hours of the night.

  Wind raged below and around him. It threatened to pull him from a cliff’s edge, a precipice he teetered upon, ready to fall. It cut through his furs and skin and chilled him to his bone, deeper than the winter cold ever would outside his dreams.

  Battlefields sprawled out below him, far as he could see. Mangled bodies of soldiers stacked high and spread across the fields, their remains charred or blasted apart by Dúin’s alchemical weapons. Just as many men lay dead in the golden grass, clad in the red banners of Ochren, as there were in the royal purple of Dúin.

  Koh covered his mouth as he looked over the gruesome scene, lips drawn tightly together in horror and disgust. His stomach churned at the sight of the bloodied and broken bodies littering the field before him. His heart withered in his chest, but try as he might, he could not force himself to look away.

  Smoke rose from the fields and trailed into the sky, pulled into the swirling storm clouds hanging heavily above.

  Grim cloud banks shifted and the dark mass changed shape. Two embers ignited like lightning in the storm. Ethereal claws outstretched from the dark mass, moving to grasp the cliff edge on either side of Koh. A reptilian maw stretched down on a long, regal neck. Thick, plated scales covered every inch of the cloud beast’s body as it leaned down to meet Koh. A hot plume of steam billowed across him, exhaled by the beast, and all the hair along his skin rose. Electricity crackled through his veins. The wind died. Time itself stopped as the dragon leaned down to meet him.

  A deep, rumbling voice rang out from the creature’s maw. Something ancient and gravely, like stone sliding across stone, like a mountain shattering to pieces under a storm. He heard the rain, the song, the destruction that swirled inside of the storm dragon. Its words wavered and distorted, indiscernible to him.

  He strained to listen above the din, yet not one of its words became clear.

  “What?” He cried up to it. “What is it? What are you trying to tell me?”

  His heart pounded against his ribs, struggling to free itself like a caged bird. I
t struck again and again in his chest, the beat of a drum and the rumble of thunder adding to the orchestra in his head. He couldn’t hear a word the beast spoke, its voice only a whisper among the cacophony.

  When his eyes opened, the sun had begun to filter softly in through the curtains as the sun rose over Albion. Rather than the battlefields of Stoven Keep, the sight of the same inn room he’d slept in greeted him with the sun. His bag had shifted overnight, blown over, his sketchbook and coins spilled out onto the floor. The torn letter had fallen from its place, hanging onto his sketchbook by one of its crinkled corners. The window had cracked opened just an inch or so, frost sticking to Koh’s lashes.

  Warm lines had painted down his face. As he blinked away his tiredness, a drop of moisture squeezed from the corner of his eye and ran down his cheek until it disappeared into the halo of black hair crowning his pillow. He raised a hand to wipe away the tear in confusion. Brows knit together and he pressed his lips together into a line.

  As he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, he saw Brunhild on the other across the room still fast asleep, a tangled mess of limbs in a pile of heavy blankets and pelts. He smiled at the familiar sight and allowed himself to relax, tension slipping from his muscle cords. After such a dream, her presence grounded him.

  He closed the window and drove out the cold breeze. Brun still didn’t stir, so he took his coin and made his way downstairs into the tavern.

  The smith couldn’t shake the feeling of unease settled deep in his gut. His stomach turned and voiced its displeasure as he ate, and halfway through his meal he turned away his plate, and offered to clean dishes to make up for his wastefulness. When he closed his eyes, he saw white. Snow or scale, he could not tell.

  He rubbed at the back of his head, where he’d been struck two nights before. It didn’t seem real, now that the moment had passed. Life moved on as it would have otherwise. A letter inviting him to Eywell’s banquet sat among his things, coin lined his pockets, and he was back on the road again. No one mentioned the encounter with Eir – not even Brun, as if it never happened.

  Something about that sat even worse with him. That such a thing could happen and be so quickly forgotten.

  As he finished with the dishes, Brunhild finally came downstairs, both of their things in hand. She wasn’t one to eat in the mornings, but she’d grab a piece of bread regardless and shove it between her teeth with a word of thanks to the proprietress.

  Traveling to Berdrin took three days on foot. Koh would only have two at home before having to take to the road again to return to Lyon for the banquet. Not that he minded. It was only a matter of time until Enid would let slip the fact he’d been injured, and Eywell would begin to worry. Even if he had no events to attend in the city, surely the lord would beg Koh for his company again, just to be sure he was alright. The thought amused him, that Koh would be so fretted over by a lord and his servants alike.

  They passed a couple of travelers on the way, though miles passed without sight of a single living being. Only the prints left by deer, travelers, and dogs betrayed the fact anything breathed out in the cold.

  As the winter freeze began to set in, merchants transporting goods between cities had priority, and the horses often borrowed by Koh and Brunhild were sent to aid in the transport of food and rations for Llamrei. Many travelers were forced to move on foot unless they accompanied a caravan, so few chose to travel in the final two months of the year.

  By Dormouse 44 they’d reached Berdrin. Brunhild waved farewell to him and took back to the road with a new caravan on its way to Tero-Brun.

  Berdrin sat nestled in the mountains, only a hundred or so people strong. A creek wound through the village, and from wherever one stood the sound of running water could be heard. Standing at the gate to the village, Koh could hear the cordwainer working away in his shop, his daughter speaking to a traveler who needed new shoes at the gate. He could hear the cooper up the hill, the woodcarver in her shop, and he could hear the constant ting, ting of metal striking metal from the smithy. He could hear conversation float from the door of the butcher and the constant, rhythmic clunk of the mill at the top of the village hill.

  Making his way up the road, he entered the butcher’s place, a hand on the bag of coins Eywell had given him. The smith’s son walked up to the counter, which was well and abandoned for the moment. Several slabs of meat hung from the rafters, some to be carved, some being salted, and some to be brined for the coming winter, most of it venison. Koh called out softly over the counter and heard a knife slamming into wood from the back room.

  “One second!” The voice that followed called out. A woman’s. She was older. Maybe more the age of Koh’s father, or Lord Eywell. Despite her age, and perhaps the fear her knife might slip in unsteady hands, she knew what she was doing, and she did it well.

  “I’ll be waiting, Miss Banes!”

  A short time passed before the woman in question emerged from around the corner. She’d been working in the back, likely preserving meat for Llamrei. Though Berdrin didn’t have as many mouths to feed as the neighboring towns, they still struggled through the winter every year. Living in the mountains meant little land could be used for farming. Often, the merchant caravans stopped coming in the winter and the income for the tradesmen slowed or stopped entirely.

  Miss Banes struck a rather small and unimposing figure as she entered. She stood even shorter than Koh, with a hunched back and wrinkly skin, and a silver mane of hair Koh had only ever seen pulled back into a bun, tied with the same twine she used for her meats. She wore simple linens, always stained by gristle and covered by an old, ragged apron.

  “What can I get for you?” She asked, leaning against the counter, a cigar in hand. Many of the village people liked to joke that Miss Banes smoked the meats with her cigars. Hardly anyone saw her without one.

  “Two elk steaks, please,” said Koh, pulling a coltan from his pouch.

  “You’re going to have to be more specific,” said the butcher, already turning to go to the backroom again.

  “You know I don’t know the terminology,” Koh said. “Ask me to name a cut of meat at knifepoint and I think I would die before I thought of one.”

  “Let me guess, then!” She called from the back. “Just give you what’s ‘good’, right?”

  “Right,” Koh chuckled.

  Miss Banes was gone a minute longer, before she returned with two cuts of meat in hand, each one wrapped tightly in wax paper and twine. She handed them over the counter to Koh with a smile.

  “Going to cook those up nice for you and your father?”

  “You know me too well, Miss Banes,” he said, taking them both and offering out the single coltan piece to her.

  “I’m guessing you’ve got another job from Lord Eywell, then?” She pointed to the pouch of coins on his hip. “You know I’d rather you pay me in tailings.”

  “I do,” he sighed. “I really went in over my head this time, Miss Banes.”

  “What did you do now, boy?”

  “I was only idly sketching, you see,” he said, smiling and shaking his head, both hands clasped to the steaks he’d been handed. “And before I knew it, I’d drawn dragons on his armor. I know I’m not terrible with etching patterns, but it’s certainly more than I’ve ever done.”

  “It’s a good thing he’ll never actually need the armor you make him,” said the butcher. “Show me the sketch, will you? I like your artwork.”

  He sighed again, and placed the meat on the counter. He then removed his pack to fish around for his sketch pad. For a moment he brushed past the letter, fingers running over the tears from the falcon’s claws, and his nearly lost his cheerful demeanor. Quickly deciding to ignore it for now, he tugged free his book and flipped it open to the last page.

  “By the wyrms, that’s the most decorative piece of junk you’ve sketched yet!” She feigned shock and put a hand over her heart. She left a little smudge of gristle on her apron.

  K
oh laughed again, much more forced this time, and folded his sketch pad up.

  “I hope Eywell doesn’t get it in his head that I’ll do this much work for every new piece,” he said. “And I hope I don’t disappoint with this one. He has a banquet on the first of Llamrei, and I believe he intends to display this piece. I’ve heard some of the wealthiest nobles in this part of Ochren are going to be there.”

  “Better go get working,” she said, and shooed him toward the door. “Get your fancy nonsense done on time for the poor old man, won’t you? And tell him I said hello when you visit Lyon again.”

  “I will,” he said, and nodded to her once before turning to leave.

  He breathed deeply in as he stepped outside again. He loved the air in Berdrin, so clean and clear and crisp with the mountain cold. In Lyon, it wasn’t uncommon to find fecal matter in the streets, either from horse or man, and smoke constantly poured into the skies from the fires of the working people. In Berdrin, it only ever smelled of the forest, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. It smelled of candles and pine and petrichor, and old memories that couldn’t quite be recalled of better, simpler times.

  His home stood just a bit further up the hill. The forge spanned the river, the cold, clear mountain water used to cool the metals Koh and his father worked with. Most often, they made horseshoes, nails, and common objects. Less commonly did they forge armor and swords. The mountain fortress in the north sold tools of war to the southern three nations. They had no shortage of such things, the forges deep in the belly of the mountain running day and night to make them.

  Brunhild would never speak much of Tero-Brun or the people of Weyrite. From the tales that came from travelers and the myths surrounding the great mountain bastion, they had fearsome warriors trained to ride armored bears into battle and bred giant mountain rocs to ambush their foes on the battlefield. Koh did not believe in fairy tales and myth, but he would not doubt the destructive power of the northern army. They never seemed to involve themselves, though. For all the years he had heard tell of great forces amassed in the north, they had never ridden to Stoven Keep, or aided either country much in their struggle to take back the ancient kings’ thrones.