Chapter 30

It took two more days to reach the spot where the Farm Road finally merged with the Old Road, just north of a ravine which held a wide, fast-flowing river at the bottom of a steep slope. An old stone bridge spanned the distance, suspended by four wide arches set across the river. With a wide gate at the far end, it had to be the toll bridge. The third arch had collapsed, but it wasn’t the ruined bridge that made Corec stop. It was what lay beyond.

“That’s not a keep,” he said to Ellerie. She and Leena had returned from Sanvar the day before. “It’s a fortress. What did Matagor need so much protection from way out here?”

Beyond the bridge, atop a wide hill, stood a thirty-foot-tall stone wall surrounded by what remained of an abandoned village. The gatehouse was still intact, facing northeast toward the bridge, but the left side of the gate wall had collapsed, as had parts of the southeast wall. Stone blocks and boulders were strewn nearby.

On the far side of the bridge, the roads separated again. The Old Road went west, where it would split once more, with one branch leading through the south hills and then on to Fort Hightower in Larso, while the other led to Matagor. The Farm Road continued south, passing by the fortress’s east side.

It was Bobo who answered. “When Meftil fell to the plague, trade along the southern routes suffered, which made the northern routes more valuable,” he said. “Matagor had seized the ferries here even before that, but they decided to replace them with a toll bridge to take advantage of the extra traffic. They were having border troubles with Larso at the time, though, and since this spot is closer to Larso than Matagor...” He shrugged. “I suppose they felt it was necessary.”

“How are we going to get across?” Ellerie asked. “Can we ford the river?”

“I doubt it,” Bobo said. “Probably not for miles. Why build a toll bridge here if everyone could just go around?” The water looked deep, and the slopes of the ravine were too steep for the carts to make it down safely.

Corec said, “One of those miniature bridges from Tir Yadar might be big enough to set over the gap.”

“Do you think it’s safe to take the wagons over?” Ellerie said. “I’m not sure whether to be more worried about the small bridge or about what’s left of the big one.”

“Let’s leave the heavy equipment behind for now,” Corec said. “We can cross on foot and see how sturdy it is. I’ll go first and ask Ariadne to come with me. If there are any hatchlings, we should be able to hold them off until everyone else catches up.”

Shavala climbed up on top of a stone cottage for a better view, using the remains of a fallen shed to give herself a boost. The cottage’s thatched roof had fallen in, but she could walk along the top edge of the walls to peer around at the abandoned village.

Corec, Ariadne, and the knights had crossed the bridge first and circled the small town, searching for any signs of hatchlings before allowing the others to join them. Now the armsmen were checking inside each building to make sure nothing was hiding in wait.

Shavala’s perch was in the northeast part of the village, between the bridge and the fortress. All the wooden buildings in this part of town had burned down at some point, but most of the stone and brick work was still sound.

She’d already examined the closest structures with her elder senses, not finding any sign of creatures that felt similar to the dragon, so now she waited as the armsmen finished searching the nearby area and spread out to the rest of the circular village.

Growing bored with watching for nothing, she climbed down from the cottage wall and joined Corec and Kevik in front of what they’d referred to as a gatehouse—an arched stone tunnel leading into the fortress. They’d just given up trying to open the iron gate that barred the way.

“It’s barely moving,” Corec said. “I can’t tell if it’s rusted in place, too heavy to move, or locked shut.”

Kevik peered through the bars, up at the spot the gate would have slid into if it could open. “How would they have locked it after leaving?” he said. “They must have left it open, but then either the ratchet or the locking mechanism rusted through and the gate fell down.”

“Or they never left,” Corec suggested. “They could have locked it in the down position and died here when the dragon came.”

“Either way, we’ll need to get inside. We’re not going to get it open without the winch. The portcullis at the far end is closed too.”

“We’ll have to go around, then,” Corec said with a sigh. “I hate climbing in armor.”

He was referring to the remains of the fortress wall to the left of the tunnel. Although a large section had collapsed, the blocks and boulders that had made up the upper levels were strewn around in piles. The group would have to make their way up and over the debris to get past what remained of the wall.

It took another twenty minutes for the search parties to finish their task. Nedley’s group was the last to return.

“We didn’t see anything on the west side,” the young man told Corec. “There are some big buildings that look like warehouses, but they’re empty.”

Corec nodded. “Thanks, Ned,” he said. “The warehouses are for trade caravans to camp away from the weather, or to leave some of their cargo behind for another caravan to pick up.” He raised his voice so everyone could hear. “We’re going over the wall! Keep a close watch and don’t do anything stupid—we don’t know what we’ll find in there.”

Corec and Kevik started up the incline first, walking unsteadily on the rubble until they reached the first row of larger stone blocks. While they tried to find the easiest way up, Shavala scrambled past them. From up close, she could see talon marks on the fallen stone—some marks more recent, others weathered with age. Had the dragon used this spot as a perch? Perhaps the wall had collapsed bit by bit from the creature’s weight rather than all at once.

She reached top of the pile and peered inside the fortress. “I don’t see anything moving,” she announced. “It looks empty.”

“Wait for us,” Corec told her.

She winked at him and dropped down on the other side.

Stone structures of various shapes and sizes lined the inside of the wall. The largest was opposite the gatehouse on the far side of the fortress, a three-story building reaching as high as the wall itself—and higher still, with its sloped, clay-tile roofs. The building had a wide set of double doors on the first level, but one of the doors was ajar and the other had fallen to the ground, leaving the entryway open.

Between the gatehouse and the larger building was a central courtyard that hadn’t yet been grown over with grasses and weeds despite the decades of abandonment. Judging by the patterns in the dirt that overlaid the cobblestones, this was where the dragon had spent its time.

Corec and Kevik made it over the wall, followed by Ariadne and Sarette.

Corec gave Shavala a stern look. “What if there had been hatchlings in here?” he asked. He and Katrin were overly protective, sometimes treating Shavala—who was five times their age—as if she wasn’t old enough to make her own decisions.

“I would have handled it,” she said. “And if I couldn’t, I would have run back to the wall.” She kept her words unapologetic.

He looked dubious but let it go. If Katrin had been there, she would have been harder to convince.

As Nedley’s squad and the remaining knights made it past the mound of fallen stone, they joined the others who were already inside. Boktar had waited out in the village with Cenric’s squad to watch over the rest of the expedition.

“Same as before,” Corec told those who’d gathered within the fortress. “Check every building and make sure there aren’t any hatchlings or other surprises. Don’t go inside the keep yet. We’ll do that as a group once we’re sure everything else is clear.”

The others scattered. While Shavala and Corec waited, Ellerie and Leena cautiously made their way down the remains of the fallen wall and joined them.

Ellerie cast her gaze around the courtyard, focusing on a tall tower that rose from the southeast corner. “This place isn’t bad for the free lands,” she said.

“Yes, it’s not what I expected,” Corec said.

“Good walls ... for the most part. Stables, storage, a keep.” She seemed to be hinting at something.

He gave her a surprised look, then peered around the fortress once again.

There was a shout from the west. “Corec!” Nedley called out. “We found something!”

Corec reached behind his back for his sword harness. “Hatchlings?”

“Uhh, no. Not quite.”

A moment later they were staring at four yellowish-white eggs just over a foot tall, nestled together in a gap between two buildings.

Corec stared at them for a moment. “Well, I guess it’ll be easier this way. I’ll go get my hammer.”

The idea made Shavala sick to her stomach.

“Wait!” she said. “Don’t kill them. They haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

He frowned. “We can’t let them live, Shavala. You know that. They’ll be too dangerous once they hatch. They’ll take over the whole area.”

It took her a moment to come up with an answer. “Cetos!” she said. “People in Cetos live with dragons. They’d know what to do.”

“How are we supposed to get them to Cetos?” he asked. “By ship? They’ll hatch before we get there.”

Shavala looked at Leena, who shrugged.

“I’ve never been to Cetos,” the Sanvari woman said. “I can try, but what would I do once I get there?”

“I’ll find out,” Shavala promised. “Zhailai’s been there on her travels. She’s one of the druids you met at the western border. If you take me back to the forest, we can ask her.”

Leena nodded.

Corec sighed. “Fine, but we’ll only be here for a day or two to rest the mules, and we can’t leave the eggs here to hatch on their own.”

“We’ll look for Zhailai tomorrow,” Shavala promised. “If you have to leave before we figure out what to do, I’ll stay here with them.”

“If you’re serious about this, it would probably be best if we moved them out of sight, somewhere you can keep an eye on them more easily. The men might want revenge.”

Shavala nodded. Moving the eggs could possibly harm them, and without their mother they might not hatch at all, but she had to at least make an attempt to save them.

Corec stood atop the lookout tower, staring down at the activity below. They’d managed to winch the portcullises up and wedge them open so they wouldn’t fall again, then had driven the supply wagons through so they could set up camp within the bailey. It had given him time to make a more thorough inspection of the fortress.

The defensive wall was constructed of five equal-sized curtain walls arranged in a pentagon, with battlements consisting of a parapet and wall-walk lining the perimeter, offering defenders a protected position from which to attack. The lookout tower Corec had climbed was the only one still in one piece. There had once been another at the westernmost corner, but its upper levels had collapsed, leaving only the stairwell from the ground up to the battlements. The other three points of the pentagon were constructed with bastions rather than towers, protruding outward to offer better angles of attack against anyone too close to the walls.

The gatehouse, the only entrance into the fortress, consisted of a twenty-foot-long arched passageway with a portcullis at either end, though the winches to raise and lower the gates were rusted and barely working. Arrowslits lined both sides of the passage, to be used by defenders in case attacking forces breached the first portcullis.

The gate wall faced northeast, where an old path passed through the remains of the village before leading down the hill toward the road and the bridge. Inside the fortress, opposite the gate wall, stood the keep itself, a five-sided building echoing the shape of the defensive wall. Other smaller structures were dotted around the bailey, most using the curtain walls or each other as part of their own construction.

The fortress’s defenses weren’t particularly strong—there was no moat or drawbridge, only a single defensive wall, the battlements didn’t provide any platforms large enough to hold ballistae or catapults, and the towers and bastions were angled rather than rounded—but it was still well beyond anything Corec had expected to find in the free lands.

Ellerie had raised the obvious question, but he wasn’t sure how to answer. He was pondering the idea when a voice sounded from behind him.

“Hey, sailor, do you come here often?”

He spun around and grinned. “Katrin!” he said, taking her into his arms and squeezing.

Ellerie had followed her up, but held back to give them a chance to greet each other.

“Not so tight!” Katrin squeaked. “Your armor’s hard.”

“Sorry,” he said, letting her go so he could step back and look at her. “What are you doing here? How did you ... Leena?” With the dangerous part of the journey at an end, Leena had gone back to Four Roads to get the men’s bonuses. If they paid the recruits off now, some might choose to return to town on their own, which would cut down on wages and expenses during the trip back.

“She told me about taking Ellerie to Sanvar, so I asked if she could bring me back with her. Now that the dragon’s dead, I figure you’re not allowed to complain about me being here.”

He laughed. “I’m not complaining. I’ve missed you. What about Harri and Ditte, though?”

“Nallee—Treya’s friend—offered to keep an eye on them until I get back.”

Corec nodded. “Have you seen Shavala yet?”

“Just for a minute. Were those really dragon eggs?” Katrin shivered. “I hope she gets rid of them soon. I wanted to talk to her, but not while she was sitting right next to those things. I told her I’d go find you first and then come back later.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you.”

“This is the keep the dragon took over?” she asked, looking down at the structures below. “It’s bigger than I thought it would be.”

“That’s the keep,” Corec said, pointing to the appropriate building. “But yes, I didn’t realize there was anything like this out here. Bobo thinks Matagor might have called it a trade keep to make it sound less threatening to Larso ... though you’d think anyone passing by would recognize it for what it is.”

Ellerie stepped over to join the conversation. “Half the art of diplomacy is just politely pretending you don’t know what the other person is doing. If Matagor and Larso both say it’s a keep, then it’s a keep.” She gestured down at the bailey. “Speaking of which, what do you think?”

“I’m not sure. We can’t just move in, can we?”

“Why not?” Katrin asked. “No one else is using it, and we were supposed to be looking for a place we could defend.” She didn’t sound surprised—someone had apparently filled her in already.

“I was thinking of something ... smaller,” Corec said. “Easier to take care of. This is a long way from town, and the road’s in bad shape.”

“We’ll need to clear the roads anyway,” Ellerie said. “In the letter I sent to Varsin Senshall, I promised he’d be able to go back to running caravans along the Old Road, but that was before I saw it. He sent us fifty gold, so we owe it to him. We can let Senshall caravans through for free for a few years to pay him back.”

It took Corec a moment to realize what she was suggesting. “You think we should re-open the toll bridge ourselves?”