Andrew followed his brother’s gaze along with Captain Yamada. He could just make out the seven square sails on the horizon. Captain Yamada got to his feet. “Can Jarnvaror tell us what the ships look like? What are their mastheads?”

  Peter asked the dragon, who replied a moment later in a low growl. “There’s a few different ones,” Peter translated. “Dragons, women, a skeleton. What does that mean?”

  “That they are the Nordarins,” Captain Yamada said. He turned to Lee. “Get the troops ready,” he ordered. “We will meet them on the beach.”

  “I guess your plan is working,” Peter said.

  “Yes, faster than I anticipated,” the captain said. “You three should stay back. This isn’t your fight.”

  “Woah, wait,” Peter said. “We can help!”

  Andrew grabbed Peter by the arm. “The captain is right,” he said. “This isn’t our fight.”

  Peter pulled his arm free as he looked back at his brother. “What makes you say that?” he asked. “We’re here to get Captain Yamada. He needs help before we head out is all. With Jarn, we could go out and stop the fighting before it even begins!”

  Yamada paused. “I wouldn’t say no to such aid,” he muttered. “Are you sure?”

  “Do you really think they don’t have a mage with them?” Andrew asked. “There’s no reason for us to take this risk.”

  “Decide for yourselves” the captain said. “But hurry. This is no time for a long debate.”

  Andrew nodded, then looked back at Peter. “We don’t need to risk our lives every time something happens,” he said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the Wisps, so we shouldn’t be fighting.”

  Peter frowned. “But they’re our friends,” he said. “We can’t just do nothing.”

  “Pretty sure we can,” Andrew said. “This is their trap, after all. It’s going according to plan.”

  “I think Peter’s right,” Anna said.

  “What?” Andrew said, turning to her.

  “We don’t have time to wait for this battle to resolve itself,” she said. “If Ryukyuu will join the council at Borac at all, Captain Yamada needs to be free for it. He can’t do that if he’s bogged down during a battle.”

  “Sure but—”

  “Oh!” Peter burst, interrupting his brother. “We can’t leave until after the battle, anyway. We have to let the king and queen know what the Ryukyuujin answer was. Do you wanna just say ‘well their king said he can’t because they’re at war, and our captain friend was locked in the middle of a siege when we left, so we don’t know.’”

  Andrew paused thinking about that. His stomach churned at the thought of giving the royals such a vague answer. “That doesn’t mean we have to fight,” Andrew said.

  Peter shrugged. “We’re going to be here for it anyway. Might as well help out. Shorten the time.”

  “We might save lives, too,” Anna pointed out.

  “By fighting,” Andrew muttered, though there wasn’t much feeling in it. Finally, he sighed. “Fine. Let’s go to the captain and see where we’d be the most useful.”

  “Great!” Peter said. The three followed after Captain Yamada.

  They found him with his group of Vice Captains, preparing with the other soldiers. “Have you decided to fight with us, then?” he asked.

  Andrew nodded. “Yeah. If this is a trap, though, we don’t want to mess it up. What’s your plan.”

  “A simple one,” the captain said. “Our main force will be on the palisade, defending the town proper. I was going to have two groups of calvary cut off their retreat to the boats. Crush them, and hopefully capture alive their commander, or some other ranking officer.”

  “A hammer and anvil, then,” Andrew said.

  “Yes,” the captain agreed. “A burning hammer would be useful. It’s too late to change the core of my strategy, but if you and the dragon could sabotage their ships while the calvary charges, that would do wonders for moral.”

  “A boost to ours, and crushing theirs,” Lee commented. “I wish we could keep the dragon.”

  “What if they have mages?” Anna asked.

  “Battle mages are unlikely,” the captain said. “At least, in my experience. But keep an eye out for that. I assume the three of you will stay together.”

  Andrew nodded. “I think that would be best.”

  Captain Yamada returned Andrew’s nod. “Then wait here. You should hear the calvary charge begin. Let that be your signal to fly out.”

  “Understood,” Andrew said.

  “This should be interesting,” Peter said as the captain led his lieutenants away. “Do you think the Nordarins already saw Jarn?”

  “I hope not,” Andrew said. He turned to Anna. “Do you think you’d be able to spot a mage if there is one?”

  Anna shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll focus on sensing magic. Hopefully that will give us some warning. But I have no way of knowing what sort of spells they might use.”

  “What about your enchantment from Selasem?” Andrew asked. “Will that stop the mage?”

  Anna made an uncertain gesture. “If they try and affect us directly, then sure. But if they hurl rocks at us like in Nuidia, then…” she didn’t finish the statement, but Andrew didn’t like the expression on her face.

  “Can you do anything about that?” Andrew asked.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “I don’t think there’s time,” Anna said. “Even if I could, unless we had more crystals we’d just be exchanging one weakness for another.”

  “Hopefully Jarnvaror will throw them off their game,” Andrew said. “I might be able to target them from the saddle.”

  Peter grinned. “You’re a great sharpshooter,” he insisted. “We’ve got this.”

  The three got in the saddle and waited. Jarnvaror seemed to still have questions about what was going on, so Peter explained the details to him while Andrew and Anna sat in silence. Andrew looked in the direction of the beach, trying to imagine what was happening on the other side of he buildings. He could just hear the tide. Was that the ships landing? The cavalry moving? Neither of the others reacted at all to the sounds.

  It occurred to Andrew that Yamada might have been wrong about them being able to hear the charge. He had an image of the Ryukyuujin moving in, expecting the dragon to rise out of the city and fall onto the enemy ships, only for nothing to happen because none of the Wisp Seekers could hear or see the charge taking place. The idea of missing it, now that they’d decided to stay and fight, was almost worse than the decision to go in in the first place.

  Then there was a horn blast, and the ground began to thunder. “That’d be the cavalry,” Peter said. Andrew braced himself as the dragon lifted himself into the air. In an instant, the beach was visible. A crowd of Nordarin warriors huddled together on the beach. On either side, the horsemen had begun their charge. Mounted archers fired one or two volleys of arrows onto the waiting raiders, who caught most of them on gigantic shields.

  A ripple ran through the group as Jarnvaror appeared over the city. The dragon dived for the ships, passing low over the enemy army. Screams rose up from the raiders, followed by a commander shouting, “Hold your ground!” Andrew felt Anna tense in front of him. She must have sensed a mage, he thought. He readied his bow, waiting for her to point it out for him.

  Before she could, they were at the ships, where Jarnvaror spat fire across the mast and sail of one. Even over the dragon’s beating wings, Andrew heard the cry of horror rise up from the Nordarins, followed by triumph from the Ryukyuujin. A few of the raiders broke formation, dashing for the ships, only to be cut down by a third volley of arrows.

  Then the charge reached the raiders. The whole thing devolved into chaos. Chargers and defenders both went down as the sides met. The men fell back before the horses, stumbling into one another as they bumped into those being pressed from the other side.

  Andrew felt the wind around them change as Anna cast a spell. The noise of the battle was louder than the wind now, and so was the breathing of the two sitting next to him.

  “Yamada’s plan is going well,” Peter said. “Barely even needs us.”

  “We don’t know about their mage yet,” Andrew said. “Anna, you sensed one, right? Where is he?”

  Anna didn’t answer right away. Beads of sweat rolled down her face, and she seemed unable to look away from the battlefield. Andrew noticed Halcyon trying to calm her down. He put a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to watch,” he said.

  “That’s… that’s not like any of the fights I’ve seen before,” Anna said, her eyes still fixed on the fighting.

  Andrew shrugged. “Yeah… I didn’t think Yamada would have been so well prepared.”

  “They’re going to kill them all,” Anna said.

  “Isn’t that just how wars go?” Peter asked.

  “They’ll surrender before then,” Andrew said. “They’ll realize it’s hopeless.”

  Anna shook her head. “No! No they won’t! I think they’re being goaded!”

  “Their mage?” Andrew asked.

  “A Wisp!” Anna said.

  Andrew felt his spine turn to ice. “A Wisp? Where?”

  “It was in the center of the line,” Anna said. “Halcyon sensed it.”

  “Great,” Peter said. “So after Yamada captures them, we interrogate them about Wisps as well. Lucky we were here.”

  Andrew watched the battle field. The Nordar had been very outnumbered in the beginning. Now it was hard to tell, with the dust kicked up all around them and men mixing about as they fought. It was worse, he realized. So long as they were being goaded, there was a chance these raiders might still win.

  “Change of plan,” he said to the other two. “Fly in. Have Jarn rip up their center. Hopefully that will distract them for the warriors. Anna, do you think you could identify the Wisp User while he does that?”

  “Maybe,” Anna said.

  Andrew nodded. He gripped his bow. “Right. Let’s go!”

  Peter repeated the commands to Jarnvaror. The dragon whirled, and roared as he dove into the fray. He didn’t use as much fire as Andrew had expected, perhaps because he’d used so much while they were talking to burn another three of the enemy ships. Instead, he skimmed close to the ground, talons out, knocking dozens of men into the air before pulling up and letting out another sky shaking roar.

  “DRAGON RIDERS!” The voice broke over the battlefield. Andrew was sure it was amplified by magic. Or the Wisps, he thought. Through the dust, he saw a Nordarin head and shoulders taller than anyone else, holding a great sword in one hand and the giant shield in the other. They were spread out it a welcoming gesture, though he was surrounded by the dead and wounded of both sides, none very close to him at all.

  “COME DOWN AND FIGHT ME!” the voice continued. “LET OUR DEATHS BE WORTHY!”

  “That’s him, isn’t it?” Andrew said. Anna nodded. Andrew drew an arrow from his quiver and sighted, timing his shot by Jarnvaror’s wingbeats. He loosed, and the arrow flew true. Until the great warrior batted it aside with his giant blade. Andrew swore.

  “NO, MIGHTY RIDER, FIGHT ME!” the warrior called. “YOU WHO TAMED A DRAGON! I AM LIEF, PRINCE OF NORDAR! LET US DUEL FOR THE AGES!”

  Andrew blanched. He’d just shot an arrow at a foreign royal. Maybe they would start a war between Nordar and Grealand. But this time, Peter shouted back, “Why should we come down there, when my buddy can win the fight from up here?”

  The warrior laughed loud and hard. “A pragmatist, eh?” the voice came, a little more subdued. “Fair enough! If you fight me and win, this battle is over, and the survivors will leave in peace, not to trouble this land again. If I win you give us all the jewels in the region!”

  “Don’t think I’m aloud to agree to the gemstones,” Peter said. Again, the warrior laughed.

  “Then let your commander agree! But I want to fight you!”

  The battle seemed to slow down around everyone. Andrew could see he’d been right. For all the Nordar apparently struggled with cavalry, they’d evened the odds in this battle. He found Yamada on the Norarin’s left flank, a little ways from the front line. The captain rode around the field till he was almost under them. “Jarn, take us down.”

  The dragon landed next to the Ryukyuujin captain. “Why did you turn from the ships?” Yamada asked.

  “They have a Wisp,” Andrew said. “I think the prince has it.”

  “That explains his vigor,” Yamada muttered. “And perhaps that of some of his men, if there’s more than one?” he addressed the last statement as a question to Anna.

  Anna shook her head. “I wasn’t able to tell if there was more than one,” she said. “It was Halcyon who noticed, and he fixated on the first one he sensed.”

  The captain nodded his understanding. “Well, this fight isn’t going as well as at first. Once they found their footing, they managed to hold together far better than I would have liked. And now… well, we’d have to make another charge, and they’ll be better prepared for that.”

  “If they win the battle, I’m guessing they’ll just take all those gems, anyway,” Peter said.

  “Most likely,” Yamada said.

  Peter nodded. He started undoing himself from the saddle.

  “Peter!” Andrew said. “You can’t duel him!”

  “I have a feeling if I don’t fight him now, he’ll track us all the way back home just to fight his dragon rider,” Peter said. “Seems like that kind of guy, you know?”

  “Then have Jarnvaror torch him!” Andrew said.

  “Hah! I’ll take both him and his dragon on if you prefer!” the Nordarin Prince called.

  “Not sure it’s a good idea to torch a Wisp in the middle of a battlefield,” Peter said. He slid to the ground and started walking toward the towering warrior. Andrew started frantically trying to undo his own leg straps to slide down after him.

  “Peter!” he cried. Anna caught his arm.

  “Have Jarn fight with you,” she called. “He agreed to it, didn’t he!”

  “Yep. I’m taking that as agreement. Me and Jarn versus the prince,” Peter replied without turning around. He drew his swords.

  “Glorious!” the prince called, adopting a fighting stance. “This will be glorious! The terms of our duel are agreed?”

  Andrew wanted to slide down, to step between the two. Then he heard Peter’s reply.

  “Yeah,” Peter said. “Let’s fight.”