Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone - Chapter 104: The King’s Innocence (2)

Aaron demonstrated walking through the new forest, and how easy it was, with the trees so widely spaced. A fellow would have to be trying to break a branch on one.

The nobles looked between Aaron and the forest’s leshy, the both of them standing just inside the treeline, and decided to build a wooden ramp along the cliffside instead. So that’s what they were doing when the reinforcements arrived from Salt’s Mane.

The selkies, as it turned out, had started a relay down the shoreline, passing the call for aid from pod to pod. The dragons had been only the first reached; every messenger outpost along the coastal road had received the call, and every town, until Salt’s Mane itself had been reached. The guards there had been quite perplexed to find a seal waddling up to bark at their door. The selkie had been left working her way through an entire pot of clam stew on the beach as Salt’s Mane had gone into lockdown, bringing north everyone they could spare. But it had been assumed—correctly—that the battle would have been lost or won by the time the message had been received. So those forces had been mostly left behind on the road, fortifying every outpost behind them. It was only a small party that came to the forest’s edge, peering through the new trees towards the fort. There were enough planks in place by then for Orin and a small party of their own to skirt their way around the forest’s edge to greet them.

Aaron had already been there, chatting. Because he’d walked through the forest. The very easily walked through forest. Though it was starting to grow in new underground, at a rate that would have been startling to anyone who’d not seen the trees themselves grow.

“King Orin,” Duchess Morgan of Salt’s Mane said, half like a question. Because it was the question: even if the man she’d sent north had been human—and she’d not have received definitive word on that—this latest attack might have left the fort hollowed out, with its so-called survivors only playing at humanity. It wasn’t as if her party could see the activity around the fort, not through the new trees and the half-charred town wall beyond; they couldn’t see for themselves how few had been lost in the attack, and how very unlikely it was for them all to have gotten doppeled.

“Duchess,” Orin said, like a man who’d grown used to ignoring such questions of his humanity. “Thank you for coming. You’re welcome to enter, though the ramp isn’t strong enough for horses yet.”

The Duchess’ crutches were strapped to one side of her saddlebags; an enclave bow to the other, aged but well cared for. There was a strap on her saddle for her stump to slip through instead of a stirrup. She looked at her king, with his questionable humanity and his ramp of boards set high over open ocean, and declined on behalf of her party.

“You didn’t come ready to fight,” Orin observed.

She’d brought four other riders besides herself, and no mobile ballistae. It wasn’t a party meant for fighting. But with her inclusion, as the leader of the nearest duchy… well. They could have had another purpose, if Orin had been a dragon.

“How many of my people should I have brought, to die retaking a fort we don’t need?” she asked, and perhaps there was another reason she wanted to have this conversation here, with four of her people still mounted and her king on foot and very, very far from any human aid that wasn’t hers. “My people aren’t the One King’s shield, Orin O’Shea.”

His Majesty stiffened a moment, before he forced himself to relax. “Would you rather be speaking with a dragon, Angharad Morgan?”

“It’s time to discuss reforging the pact, Your Majesty.”

“…I am open to discussing it,” Orin replied. “On the road.”

“Good,” said the duchess, with a thin smile.

Her people camped on the road, their single campfire visible through the bare trees.

* * *

The griffins had their own fire that night; a pyre for those recovered from the town, and for those whose injuries had caught up with them; for those who’d died before their people were free, and those who’d lived to see it. And for a white-spotted cloak, which the battlesmith lay down with the rest. It was old, and well-kept with oil, and gone to ash long before the others.

* * *

A third fire burned down on the beaches, well below the effective angle of the fort’s remaining ballistae. It smelled of dragon tar, at first, until enough driftwood had been piled on to cover it. Then it just smelled like roasting fish.

It sounded like the barking of seals, and the laughter of children, as they stole sticks half-cooked from the flames and went racing off into the night. A yellow dragon lay on the beach with them, tending fire and fish both.

The selkies had been promised fish—cooked fish—and fish they got.

Aaron could see all three fires from the fort’s newly overgrown roof. Rose sat beside him, offering up the last of his shriveled winter apples to the Spring Lord on a flat palm.

* * *

“You never brought back that crossbow you borrowed,” the battlesmith said.

“I did not,” Aaron agreed. And offered, very considerately, “Shall I bring it next time?”

Her exasperation showed no appreciation for the offer. “Give us a season, at least, before you have a next time anywhere near here.”

No appreciation at all. “You promised talks,” he reminded her, early and often.

“And you’ll have them. But give us time to figure ourselves out, first. It’s… been a long time, since we’ve been one people. When we’re ready to add yourpolitics into our mess, I’ll send word through the foresters.”

The foresters, who’d bent the knee to the O’Shea’s before they’d been made to, and so weren’t forced into the enclaves with their northern cousins. It would be interesting to see just how bent their knees stayed.

“I’ll be waiting,” Aaron said.

* * *

It was a foggy morning when they left. The new path wasn’t wide enough for wagons, and half the horses were still missing after their escape from the fiery barn. So the militia left the Held Lands, taking only what they could carry on their backs. The enclavers evidenced little sympathy.

The griffin chicks took turns pouncing the empty planks behind them. It collapsed into the sea in a great tottering whole, leaving the pair beating their wings and shrieking with laughter. The seals barked reprovingly from the beach below. The Spring Lord was gone; had left sometime that morning, unconcerned with goodbyes. Aaron raised a hand, and waved to the leshy, instead. It did not return the gesture.

Orin’s new sword caught the sunrise, flashing red at his hip as they rode away. Back towards Salt’s Mane and the capital beyond. He was going home.

So was Aaron.

* * *

The last of the white leaves had fallen, covering over what had once been a road. New buds dotted the branches, taking their time.

* * *

Those first days on the road were the most vulnerable: with more than half their party on foot, with no fort to protect them, and no more allies forthcoming. Things got better as they went south. Each messenger station was another set of horses to commandeer; another place to feel safe for the night, no matter how tight of a squeeze that safety was with one’s neighbors. By day, the dragon doppels took turns flying escort far out over the ocean, a handful of them spread like the arrowheads in which geese flew.

The first walled town came into sight; the dragons turned back north.

King Orin and Duchess Morgan talked, all along the road. And the king watched those dragons, thoughtful.

* * *

There were a great deal of seals waiting on the beach at Salt’s Mane. They’d been considerate enough to bring in their own fish, and waited only on the cooking.

“What is that thing?” Aaron asked, staring at the black and white beast a few especially proud creatures were dragging in with the tide.

“A killer whale,” the Lady replied. “They’ve a bit of a grudge.”

Its mouth gaped in death, its teeth a row of white butcher’s hooks in its mouth. She didn’t specify if it was selkies or whales that did the grudge-keeping.

“Ha,” Aaron said, and stayed well clear of the thing, even dead.

There was a fish fry out on the beach that evening. When morning came, the selkies were still there laying about on the sand, blissfully round.

* * *

There were no further reports of dragon attacks. Or sightings, beyond the doppels in the north. It seemed the selkies were teaching them to fish out the black whales, too; there was little enough game for a growing dragon on land, and none for them beneath the Lord of Seasons’ canopy. Aaron wished them all the best.

Orin ordered the doppels left alone for the time being; Duchess Morgan agreed. Her salters were not among the dissenters. Another spring was done, and they’d their homes to rebuild. Again.

* * *

The end of the spring fighting made for the biggest caravan of the year. It wasn’t just those returning home; for anyone wishing to travel in relative safety, this was their chance. And so there were a great deal of people Aaron didn’t recognize riding with them.

And one he did. The dragon doppel he’d spoken to up at the enclaves—the only one who’d been able or willing to turn back human—acted very firmly as if she’d never met him. Aaron returned the favor.

Orin rode with Jeshinkra, mostly. The two were… not subtle. But then, Orin was a young king in need of heirs, and Jeshinkra was a recently divorced woman. Neither of those being Aaron’s problem, he stuck mostly by Lochlann’s side, as Lochlann stayed close to an increasingly stiff-backed Rose. There were very few salters among the caravan. Which meant they were back to the days of offerings being left out for her to find, whenever they stopped for the night. She was not enthused by this treatment. Nor by the new distance between her and her brother: Orin didn’t seem to know quite what to do with her, now that he wasn’t on his deathbed. It was like they were back to the days before His Majesty was comfortable enough to tease Rose over war stories.

“He’s realized I’m his problem again, now that he’s not dying,” she said, and Aaron really couldn’t disagree. So he listened, and starwatched with her from the roof of a merchant’s wagon, and kept a list in his head of the things he should squirrel into the old ways in case he and Lochlann had to get her out of the castle fast. Orin had caved to his own poisoning; it wasn’t a far thought, that he might agree to test his sister as a changeling. Aaron would not be leaving her alone much when they got back to court. Not until the king made his thoughts on the issue clear, one way or the other.

“You’re not dying anymore,” Aaron said, riding up next to the man.

“You have an incredible way of saying hello,” His Majesty replied.

“You’re not dying anymore,” Aaron repeated, “so you’ve got time to get to know her properly. Connor, too. Maybe don’t wait until you’re dying again to regret it.”

His Majesty started inviting his sister to ride with him. Good choice.

* * *

Aaron’s own sister continued to hound him with sword practice, every morning as the camp readied itself. Sometimes in the evenings, if he’d managed to run off scouting before she could catch him.

“You’re getting better,” she managed to say, even over kirin’s bone. “Again; more arm and less wrist, this time.”

Aaron was capable of taking his own advice. It just would have been nice, if conversations with his own sister involved more talking.

* * *

Back in the first forester town he’d ever set foot in, the bear twins were just beginning to roll. One of the goats they’d brought had kidded. Goat kids being more nimble than their human counterparts, the pair bleated from a roof above as the twins flailed chubby limbs on a blanket below. Strawberries were out of season, and apples were yet barely budded fruit, but he was able to buy some early carrots for the horses. And for himself, of course.

He visited the dead homestead under his stag cloak, staring at it from the treeline, his ears twitching. There was new growth in the ashes of the house: by next year, it would all be one big field, with only a weathered chicken hut to mark the place.

A branch cracked. Aaron darted away, as deer do.

“Please stop being a stag around so many people with bows,” Lochlann said, like avoiding the militia and their weapons was a new thing for Aaron.

Adelaide, ever practical, draped a cloak over him. The argent and red streamed quite nicely as he bounded along, if he did say so himself.

“It’s not like you’re going to stop him,” his sister said. Lochlann did not concede the point.

Rose demanded that he teach her how to braid. Then she made a very lovely flower crown for his antlers, which didn’t even fall apart too badly if he bounded slightly less. He made a rather smaller one for her, which she wore with her chin high and a minimum of blushing as she rode next to her brother. Her crown was easier to spot from a distance than Orin’s; dandelions made for a wonderful gold.

* * *

“Please control your horse,” Lochlann asked him.

Aaron snorted, and shook a few flowers off on him. Seventh Down, her saddle empty and her reigns her own, continued nipping at the man’s much aggrieved mount.

* * *

“Come to Three Havens this summer,” Adelaide said. “I’ll have you back to the capital before the passes close. But it would be good, to have you meet your people.”

“I’ll think about it,” Aaron said, and did not comment on exactly who his people were.

…He’d not had a sister when spring started. Maybe he’d room for others, too.

* * *

They crested a road between hills, and there it was: the plateau of One King, cradled between its ring of mountains. The fields around it were green. The forest, when they rode past it, was just a forest. Aaron touched wood anyway, but if there were two tails hiding somewhere inside, it didn’t care to greet him. He walked on his own two feet up the switchbacks to the western gates; the wagons ahead certainly moved slow enough for him to keep up. But within the city proper, he rode. Because he was wearing a coat given to him by the king, and a cloak from a future duchess; because the Spring Lord had left a white streak in his hair, and he had one last flower from Rose tucked into the tie of his hair.

Orin made a point of entering through the castle gates first: their king, returning. He’d asked Rose to ride at his side. Lochlann followed his ward, as Jeshinkra did hers, with the Lady not far behind.

Aaron stayed at the back with Adelaide, sitting the rear guard as all the rest entered before them. A quaint old custom, in a city at peace.