true power. Stripped of his coterie, I saw him as he was: a cosseted child with a penchant for cruelty that had never been denied.
This is what we have feared and fled? This?
Nighteyes, what do you here?
Your kill is my kill, my brother. I would see what meat we have come so far to take.
Regal squirmed and thrashed, literally sickened by the Wit-touch of the wolf against his mind. It was unclean and disgusting, a dirty doggy thing, nasty and smelly, as bad as that rat creature that scuttled in his rooms at night and could not be caught … Nighteyes leaned closer, pressed the Wit against him as if he could smell him all that way away. Regal retched and shuddered.
Enough, I told Nighteyes, and the wolf relented.
If you are going to kill him, do it soon, Nighteyes advised. The other one weakens and will die if you do not hurry.
He was right. Will's breath had gone shallow and rapid. I gripped Regal firmly, then fed more strength into Will. He tried not to take it, but his self-mastery was not that strong. Given a chance, the body will always choose to live. And so his lungs steadied and his heart beat more strongly. Once more I drew Skill into myself. I centered myself in it and honed its purpose. I turned my attention back to Regal.
If you kill me, you will burn yourself. You will lose your own Skill if you kill me with it.
I had thought of that. I had never much enjoyed being Skilled. I had rather far be Witted than Skilled. It would be no loss.
I forced myself to recall Galen. I called to mind the fanatical coterie he had created for Regal. It gave shape to my purpose.
As I had longed to do for so long, I loosed my Skill upon him.
Afterward, there was little left of Will. But I sat by him; and gave him water when he asked for it. I even covered him when he complained faintly of cold. It puzzled the wolf, my deathwatch. A knife across his throat would have been so much faster for both of us. Kinder, perhaps. But I had decided I was no longer an assassin. So I waited for his last breath, and when he sighed it out, I stood up and walked away.
It is a long way from the Mountain Kingdom to the coast of Buck. Even as the dragon flies, tirelessly and swift, it is a long, long way. For a few days, Nighteyes and I knew peace. We traveled far from the empty Stone Garden, far from the black Skill road. We were both too stiff to hunt well, but we had found a good trout stream and we followed it. The days were almost too warm, the nights clear and kind. We fished, we ate, we slept. I thought only of things that did not hurt. Not of Molly in Burrich's embrace, but of Nettle sheltered by his good right arm. He would be a good father to her. He had had practice. I even found it in me to hope that she might have younger brothers and sisters in years to come. I thought of peace returning to the Mountain Kingdom, of Red-Ships driven from the coast of the Six Duchies. I healed. Not completely. A scar is never the same as good flesh, but it stops the bleeding.
I was there on the summer afternoon when Verity-as-Dragon appeared in the skies over Buckkeep. With him, I saw the shining black towers and turrets of Buckkeep Castle far below us. Beyond the castle, where Buckkeep Town had been, were the blackened shells of buildings and warehouses. Forged ones ambled through the streets, pushed aside by swaggering Raiders. Masts with tatters of canvas dangling from them thrust up through the calm waters. A dozen Red-Ships rocked peacefully in the harbor. I felt the heart of Verity-as-Dragon swell with anger. I swear I heard Kettricken's cry of anguish at the sight.
Then the great turquoise-and-silver dragon was alighting in the center grounds of Buckkeep Castle. He ignored the flight of arrows that rose to meet him; ignored, too, the cries of the soldiers who cowered before him, senseless as his shadow spread over them and his great wings beat to lower his bulk to the ground. It was a wonder he did not crush them. Even as he was alighting, Kettricken was trying to stand up upon his shoulders, crying to the guard to lower their pikes and stand away.
On the ground, he dipped his shoulder to let a disheveled Queen Kettricken dismount. Starling Birdsong slid down behind her and distinguished herself by bowing to the line of pikes that were pointed at them. I saw not a few faces I recognized, and shared Verity's pain at how privation had transformed them. Then Patience came forth, pike gripped tightly, helm askew upon her bundled hair. She pushed through the awestricken guards, her hazel eyes flinty in a pinched face. At the sight of the dragon, she halted. Her gaze went from the Queen to the dragon's dark eyes. She took a breath, caught it, then breathed the word. 'Elderling.' Then she threw both helm and pike into the air with a whoop, and rushed forward to embrace Kettricken, crying, 'An Elderling! I knew it, I knew it, I knew they would come back!' She spun on her heel, issuing a flurry of orders that included everything from a hot bath for the Queen to readying a charge from the gates of Buckkeep Castle. But what I will always hold in my heart is the moment when she turned back, to stamp her foot at Verity-as-Dragon and tell him to hurry up and get those damned ships out of her harbor.
The Lady Patience of Buckkeep had become used to being obeyed swiftly.
Verity rose and went to the battle as he always had. Alone. Finally, he had his wish, to confront his enemies, not with the Skill, but in the flesh. On his very first pass, a slash of his tail shattered two of their ships. He intended that none should escape him. It was but hours later that the Fool and Girl-on-a-Dragon and their followers arrived to join him, but by then not a Red-Ship remained in Buck Harbor. They joined him in his hunting through the steep streets of what had been Buckkeep Town. It was not yet evening when the streets were empty of Raiders. Those who had sheltered in the castle poured back into the town, to weep at the wreckage, it is true, but also to come near and wonder at the Elderlings who had returned to save them. Despite the number of dragons who came, Verity was the dragon that the folk of Buck would remember clearest. Not that folk remember anything too clearly when dragons are flying overhead, casting their shadows below. Still, he is the dragon one sees on all the tapestries of the Cleansing of Buck.
It was a summer of dragons for the Coastal Duchies. I saw it all, or as much as would fit into my sleeping hours. Even awake, I was aware of it, like thunder more felt than heard from the distance. I knew when Verity led the dragons northward, to purge all Buck and Bearns and even the Near Islands of Red-Ships and Raiders. I saw the scouring of RippleKeep, and the return of Faith, Duchess of Bearns, to her proper keep. Girl-on-a-Dragon and the Fool flew south along the coast of Rippon and Shoaks, rooting Raiders out from their strongholds on the islands as well. How Verity conveyed to them that they must feed only on the Raiders, I do not know, but that line was held. The folk of the Six Duchies feared them not. Children ran out from huts and cottages, to point overhead at the jeweled passing of the creatures. When the dragons slept, temporarily satiated, on the beaches and in the pastures, the people came out to walk among them fearlessly, to touch with their own hands these jewel-glittering creatures. And everywhere the Raiders had established strongholds, the dragons fed well.
The summer died slowly, and autumn came to shorten the days and promise storms to come. As the wolf and I gave thought to shelter for the winter, I had dreams of dragons flying over shores I had never seen before. Water churned cold against those harsh shores, and ice encroached on the edges of their narrow bays. The OutIslands, I surmised. Verity had always longed to bring the war to their shores, and did so with a vengeance. And that, too, was as it had been in King Wisdom's time.
It was winter and snows had come to the higher reaches of the Mountains but not to the valley where the hot springs steamed in the chill air when the dragons last passed over my head. I came to the door of my hut to watch them pass, flying in great formations like migrating geese. Nighteyes turned his head to their strange calls, and sent up a howl of his own in answer. As they swept over me, the world blinked around me and I lost all but the vaguest memory of it. I could not tell you if Verity led their flight, or even if Girl-on-a-Dragon was among them. I only knew that peace had been restored to the Six Duchies and that no Red-Ships would venture near our shores again. I hoped they would all sleep well in the Stone Garden as they had before. I went back into the hut to turn the rabbit on the cooking spit. I looked forward to a long quiet winter.
So the promised aid of the Elderlings was brought to the Six Duchies. They came, just as they had in King Wisdom's time, and drove the Red-Ships from the shores of the Six Duchies. Two great sailed White Ships were sunk as well in that great cleansing. And just as in King Wisdom's time, their outstretched shadows on the folk below stole moments of life and memory as they passed. All the myriad shapes and colors of the dragons made their way into the scrolls and tapestries of that time, just as they had before.
And folk filled in what they could not remember of the battles when dragons filled the sky overhead, with guesses and fancies. Minstrels made songs of it. All the songs say that Verity came home himself upon the turquoise dragon, and rode the beast into the battle against the Red-Ships. And the best songs say that when the
