And so she stood heavy-eyed in the castle courtyard as the cavalry officers and courtiers mounted their horses and awaited the king and the first sola. The army waited in the wide clearing hewn out of the forest beyond the gates of the City; Aerin imagined that she could hear the stamp of hoofs, the jingle of bits, see the long shadows of the trees lying across the horses’ flanks and the men’s faces.
Hornmar emerged round the looming bulk of the castle, leading Kethtaz, who tiptoed delicately, ears hard forward and tail high. Hornmar saw her and wordlessly brought Kethtaz to her, and gave his bridle into her hand. The first sola’s equerry waited impassively, holding Dgeth. Hornmar turned away to mount his own horse, for he was riding with the army; but meanwhile he was giving the king’s daughter the honor of holding the king’s stirrup. This was not a small thing: holding the king’s stirrup conferred luck upon the holder, and often in times past the queen had demanded the honor herself. But often too the king ordered one who was considered lucky—a victorious general, or a first son, or even a first sola—to hold his stirrup for him, especially when the king rode to war, or to a tricky diplomatic campaign that might suddenly turn to war.
No one said anything, but Aerin could feel a mental chill pass across the courtyard as some of the mounted men wondered if the witchwoman’s daughter began their mission with a bad omen, and she wondered if Hornmar had done her a favor. If the army rode out expecting the worst, they were likely to find it.
Aerin held Kethtaz’s reins grimly, but Kethtaz did not like grimness, and prodded her with his nose till she smiled involuntarily and petted him. She looked up when she heard the king’s footsteps, and when she met her father’s eyes she was glad she had yielded to Tor’s request. Arlbeth kissed her forehead, and cupped her chin in his hands, and looked at her for a long moment; then he turned to Kethtaz, and Aerin grasped the stirrup and turned it for Arlbeth’s foot.
At that moment there was a small commotion at the courtyard gate, and a man on a tired horse stepped onto the glassy stone. The horse stopped, swaying on wide-spaced legs, for it was too weary to walk trustingly on the smooth surface; and the man dismounted and dropped the reins, and ran to where the king stood. Arlbeth turned, his hand still on Aerin’s shoulder, as the man came up to them.
“Majesty,” he said.
Arlbeth inclined his head as if he were in his great hall and this man only the first of a long morning’s supplicants. “Majesty,” the man said again, as if he could not remember his message, or dared not give it. The man’s gaze flicked to Aerin’s face as she stood, her hand still holding the stirrup for mounting, and she was startled to see the gleam of hope in the man’s eyes as he looked at her.
“The Black Dragon has come,” he said at last. “Maur, who has not been seen for generations, the last of the great dragons, great as a mountain. Maur has awakened.”
Sweat ran down the man’s face, and his horse gave a gasping shuddering breath that meant its wind was broken, so hard had it been ridden. “I beg you for ... help. My village even now may be no more. Other villages will soon follow.” The man’s voice rose in panic. “In a year—in a season Damar may all be black with the dragon’s breath.”
“This is mischief from across the Border,” Tor said, and Arlbeth nodded. There was silence for a long, sad, grim moment, and when Arlbeth spoke again, his voice was heavy. “As Tor says, the Black Dragon’s awakening is mischief sent us, and sent us crucially at just this moment when we dare not heed it.” The messenger’s shoulders slumped, and he put his hands over his face.
Arlbeth went on, so quietly that none but Aerin and Tor and the man might hear. “We go now to meet a trouble that may be even deadlier than dragons, for it is human and Damarian and spurred by mischief. Damar may yet face the dragon; a Damar broken to bits would be nothing, even though the dragon lay dead.” He turned to Kethtaz again, set his foot in the stirrup, and mounted. Aerin stepped back as Kethtaz pranced, for he cared nothing for dragons and much for bearing the king at the head of a procession.
“We shall return as soon as we may, and go to meet your Black Dragon. Rest, and take a fresh horse, and go back to your village. All those who wish it may come to our City and await us in its shelter.” He raised his arm, and his company rustled like leaves, waiting the order to march; and one of the sofor led the messenger’s wind-broken horse to one side, and the king’s procession passed the courtyard gate, and went down the king’s way and beyond the City walls to where the army awaited them.
Aerin had meant to climb to the top of the castle and watch the glitter of their going till it disappeared into the trees beyond the City; but instead she waited, standing beside the messenger, whose hands were still over his face. When the last sound of the king’s company’s going faded he dropped his hands, as if till then he had been hoping for some reprieve; and he sighed. “Almost I missed them entirely,” he murmured, staring into the empty air. “And it was to no purpose. Better I had missed them, and not used my poor Lmoth so ill,” and his eyes turned to the horse he had ridden.
“Lmoth will be cared for well in our stables,” said Aerin, “and I will take you now to find food and a bed for yourself.”
The man’s eyes turned slowly toward her, and again she saw the dim flicker of hope. “I must return as soon as I may, at least with the message of the king’s charity for those of my folk left homeless or fearful.”
Aerin said, “Food first. It’s a long weary way you have come.” . He nodded, but his eyes did not leave her face.
Aerin said softly: “I will come with you when you ride home; but you know that already, don’t you?”
The hopeful gleam was now reflected in a smile, but a smile so faint that she would not have seen it at all if she had not, in her turn, hoped for it.
“Thank you, Aerin-sol, Dragon-Killer,” he said.
They rode out together that afternoon. Talat was fresh, and inclined to bounce; he did not heed the dragon spears attached to his saddle because he believed he knew everything he needed to know about dragons. It was a silent journey. They went as quickly as they dared push the horses—a little less quickly than the messenger liked, but Aerin knew she and Talat had a dragon before them, and Talat was old; and if he did not wish to remember it, then it was all the more important that Aerin remember it for him.
Their course was almost due north, but the mountains were steepest in that direction, so they went out of their way to take the easier path, and moved the swifter for it. At dawn on the third day a black cloud hung before them, near the horizon that the mountains made, although the sky overhead was clear; and by afternoon they were breathing air that had an acrid edge to it. The messenger’s head had sunk between his shoulders, and he did not raise his eyes from the path after they first saw the black cloud.
Talat picked his way carefully in the other horse’s wake. He was better-mannered now than he had been when he was young and the king’s war-horse; then the idea of following any other horse would have made him fret and sulk. Aerin left it to him, for she looked only at the cloud. When the messenger turned off to the left, while the cloud still hung before them, she said, “Wait.”
The man paused and looked back. His expression was dazed, as if hearing the word “Wait” had called him back a long distance.
“The dragon lies ahead; it is his signature we see in the sky. I go that way.”
The man opened his mouth, and the dazed expression cleared a little; but he closed his mouth again without saying anything.
“Go to your people and give them the king’s message,” Aerin said gently. “I will come to you later, as I can—or not.”
The man nodded, but still he sat, turned in his saddle to look at the king’s daughter, till Aerin edged Talat past him and down the path the man had left, straight toward the cloud.