Page 52 of Consorting with Dragons

“But why would anyone do such a thing?”

“To have a place to hide their ships?”

“Think of what you’re saying. That would take an extensive and elaborate spy network, operating right under our noses. The scale of such an enterprise would be enormous.”

“Not necessarily. If the leaders are bold, and maybe a little desperate and determined, they could do it, I think. Imagine if they either obtained the funds or siphoned them off from other projects to repair the old base enough to allow a few ships to land. By paying people off to look the other way just in case someone got lucky, as you say, then it could work. They’d be coming in high in the mountains, which are really remote as I’ve discovered. And if they came in at night, under one of the really thick and extensive cloud covers you have here on Horvath…I think it might be possible. They could build a camp in some remote spot, like the one I saw. They could move in the dragons and camouflage the ships, leaving the ships at the docks and traveling by dragon to their camp. I know it sounds farfetched, but it depends on how desperate they are.”

“But to what point? What would these people want to do?”

“Maybe they might want to overthrow your queen.”

I gasped in shock and just stared at him, my mouth falling open.

“Hear me out,” he said. “You’ve told me that a lot of Horvathians wanted a change in leadership after the king died and think the queen’s son will never be properly ready to lead,even after his birthday. I know you’ve been worried about a coup.”

“Yes, but that would be an internal one. Not one from outside our planet.”

“What if it is internal? Or a mixture of both? What if some of the ones who were unhappy about the queen’s son taking the throne thought of a new king, an older man for example, who might have some kind of distant but legitimate claim to the Horvathian throne. Or one they could claim as legitimate. A claim that they could embellish and exploit. Someone like Travon of Thalios, for example, who is related to the royal family. Like I told you, I saw those soldiers wearing green uniforms like the Thalians wore on Lycanus 3. And there was a huge tent in the middle of the camp. Travon could be inside it.”

I felt as if my head were spinning. He was right about it seeming extremely farfetched, but what if some of his theories held even a grain of truth? No one ever visited that old, abandoned airbase anymore, and they hadn’t for years as far as I knew. There had been some recent talk about refurbishing it, but it had been voted down by the parliament. The votes against that plan had come from the Conservative side, the side that was unhappy about my aunt being Regent. I hadn’t paid much attention to that at the time, because they were always unhappy about something or another. But what if this was more serious that just dissension? What if that had been the first rumblings of treason?

I hadn’t been paying attention the way I should have been to things for a while now. I’d realized that when I saw how far out of control Bentine had become, the colonel I’d fired, along with his cohort Lieutenant Mythe. Both of them had, in effect, disputed my right to do what the hell I wanted to do with Talon and waltzed onto my property to take Talon back to the TrainingCamp. It had been an extraordinary thing for them to do, and I wouldn’t stand for it.

Since my father died, leaving me in charge of the Special Warfare Riders or the SWR, I had, admittedly, not been paying close attention to politics. My uncle, the late king of Horvath, had designated me as the Riders Command Leader, a title he’d created for me, saying “he didn’t trust anyone else to do it.” It was a commission I took seriously.

Now I wondered what the source of his distrust had been. Before I could discuss it with him, my uncle had died. He had been a popular ruler, but there were many who thought he had been far too liberal in his views. Before his funeral, after hearing of some of that dissension in the Parliament, I had given a fiery speech about how the Horvathian army would throw its full support to the queen if there were any signs of trouble, and traitors would be arrested by military forces and summarily executed. Things had been much quieter since then, and I had thought that solved the problem, but what if it hadn’t? What if the traitors had simply gone underground, all the while still scheming and making their own secret plans?

“I have to see for myself, Rylan. You stay here and keep the vetamis quiet. I’m going for a quick look.”

“They may have sentries after dark.”

“I’ll be careful. If I’m not back in an hour, you take Sulamon with you and go back for help. He’ll lead you out of here and take you back home. Call the base and speak to my second in command, Captain Brodor.”

Rylan made a scoffing noise. “We’re not leaving you.”

“Yes, you damn well will! You’ll do as you’re told.”

“When has that tone of voice ever worked with me, Quinn? I’ll be here until you get back, and if you don’t get back, then I’ll come looking.”

I growled at him, but he was completely unfazed by it. “Well, go on then,” Rylan said, “if you must. And we’ll be here when you get back. But make it fast and be careful, or else…”

“You’ll come looking,” I said, with as much sarcasm as I could get into the words.

“Damn right I will,” he said, and stepped over to press a sudden kiss to my lips. It was supposed to be just a quick kiss, I think, but as usual, the moment his lips touched mine, so much heat sparked between us that I was surprised something didn’t catch on fire. He gazed up at me then and I claimed his mouth again in another searing kiss. I’d thought for a few moments that long day that I’d lost him, and it had been devastating. Now that I had him back in my arms, I couldn’t take any more chances on losing him again.

As it turned out, I didn’t even make it to the camp before I was captured. It was fully dark by then, and I’d thought I could sneak up on them like Rylan had done, but this time they had sentries in the woods. And I had the terrible misfortune of stumbling right into two of them.

Of course, I fought them, and I killed one of them right away, though the other one hit me with the butt end of his weapon, stunning me a bit. I kept on struggling anyway, until two more soldiers ran up and one of them pressed the barrel of his weapon to my temple and growled something me that I knew was a serious threat to my life. Only then did I finally stop struggling with them and just shot them filthy looks instead as I knelt on the ground, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath.

All the while I was calling out in my head that I had soldiers on me and for Rylan and the dragons to leave at once. As clear as day, I heard a deep sob come from Sulamon’s throat that almost broke me.

“We’ll get him back, Sulamon!” I heard Rylan say. It must have been filtered through Sulamon or Talon. “We have to! Tell him we’re coming for him!”

I heard a rumble come from Sulamon’s chest, and then he and Rylan must have had some private conversation I couldn’t hear, because in the next second, I knew that Sulamon was leaving. I felt it through our connection, the leaping up in the air and beating his heavy wings to lift him up into the sky. I was concentrating so hard on it that when the sudden blow to the back of my head came, I slumped instantly to the ground as it put me out like a light.

Chapter Sixteen

I came around, bound and beaten and lying upon the cold, hard ground. Someone saw I was awake and shoved me roughly up to my knees, landing a few kicks on my hip to take with me. King Travon was standing in front of me, a little apart from the other men, wrapped in a thick fur coat against the mountain breezes. He looked just as villainous as I remembered.

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