The first floor of the building was bisected front to back by a wide hallway. Rooms led off the hall to the left and right, and everywhere Sara looked there were scribes, slaves, and young knights bustling around in a constant stream of activity.
They entered the first room they came to, a room made dim with shuttered windows and not enough lamps. A large desk took up most of the space, and behind it sat a man in the uniform of a lord knight. He was a man of massive size, who once had the bulk and muscle to fit his frame. Now his body had shrunk inward, leaving his skin to sag over prominent bones. He wrote busily on a parchment with one hand. The other hand lay on his lap, hidden out of sight. His head, loosely covered with thinning brown hair, tilted over so Sara could not see his face.
One of the guards cleared his throat. The lord knight lifted his head.
Even with the guard's warning, it took all of Sara's concentration to relax the muscles in her face and keep her breath steady when she saw the ravaged ruin of Lord Knight Cadrel's visage. It had to be a disease, she thought, for an old wound would have scarred or at least shown some indication of healing. This affliction was slowly rotting away his face, feature by feature, inch by inch of skin. His nose was already devoured into discolored holes, and the open, gnawing sores covered his lips, one cheek, and his left temple. The remaining skin looked dull white, as if it had already died.
He sat expectantly, almost daring someone to say something. When no reaction came from Sara or the guards, he cocked an eyebrow at them. "Well?" His query came out dry and raspy.
"Lord Knight, General Abrena sends this knight to you for reinstatement and suggests one of the new talons."
"Does she," Cadrel said, sounding slightly irritated. Stacks of scrolls and parchments littered his desk. He had to lift his left hand from under the desk. Sara saw it, too had been devoured by the disease. Two fingers were gone, and a third was rotted to the second joint.
He shoved a few piles aside and shuffled through a stack until he found the list he wanted. "What are your strengths, woman?"
"Training dragons, healing, cooking," Sara replied briefly.
"Good. We need dragon trainers." He snorted. "By the rift we need everything! I do not know how she expects me to fill every talon and wing she wants when we have so few." He had a deep voice and formed his words with deliberate care. Even so, his speech came out slightly slurred due to the damage to his mouth. His meaning was clear enough to Sara, though, to distract her from her dismay and pity.
According to all those tents and barracks out there, she pondered, the general's army had reached an impressive strength. Why does he complain?
The lord knight consulted his lists once more and said, "Report to Knight Officer Guiyar Massard, Red Quarter. He needs a second-in-command." He pushed his maimed hand out of sight and went back to work with out waiting for a reply.
Sara and the guards saluted and retreated outside.
"What is it?" she asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
"Morgion's Curse," one guard replied, looking peaked. "I can never get used to seeing it. He was struck with it during the Summer of Chaos when the gods left us. Without the healing magic, no cleric has been able to help him, and no herb can even slow it. He is hoping for war soon to avoid a long and lingering death."
Sara rubbed her cheek. She had heard of Morgion's Curse, named for the god of decay and disease, but she had never seen such an advanced case of it. Those unfortunates who were afflicted used to seek the help clerics for healing. Now there was nothing left for the sick and wounded but herbs, witches' brews, and folk medicine once thought redundant.
The guard returned her sword, then pointed east toward a section of tents. "The Red Quarter is that way. Look for the red flags," he told her, a hint of scorn in his voice. "Knight Officer Massard is probably still there. He is supposed to be drilling his recruits today, but he stayed at the taverns quite late last night."
The second guard said something sharp and irritable in a language Sara did not recognize, and the two strode away to return to their dragons.
Cobalt ambled over to join his rider. "The dragons told me they were glad to see me. They said the knights are very shorthanded."
"So I am beginning to see," Sara said thoughtfully.
Cobalt fixed an amber eye on her face. "Are you here to stay?"
She laid a hand on the warm scales of his leg. "Only until 1 learn what I need to know and can figure out a way to get away from here unscathed. If you change your mind and decide to stay with the knights, I will not try to stop you."
"There is nothing here I crave." He chuckled. "Except perhaps, someone else's coins or treasure. No, when you go, I go"
They walked together in companionable silence toward the quarter where the red flags flew. At the edge of the tents, more guards stopped her and questioned her, As soon as they heard who she was looking for, they smirked and jerked thumbs toward a section of large canvas tents set up before an open quadrangle.
"There are herd beasts in a pasture east of here set aside for the dragons," they told her. "Your dragon will have plenty of time to feed if he wishes."
Cobalt did wish, and with a grin, Sara unsaddled him and sent him on his way.
Curious, she made her way toward Knight Officer Massard's tent. What was it about the man that sent everyone sneering and smirking? Five paces from the tent, she found out. A loud, rumbling snore issued from the open flaps; a pool of drying vomit covered the dirt by the entrance.
Sara gingerly stepped over the mess and pushed open the flap. Fumes of vomit, unwashed body, and old ale filled her nostrils. Skull-splitter ale, she realized, holding her nose. If the man sprawled out on the cot had spent a night drinking that, it was no wonder he passed out. She curled her lip in disgust.
He's been like that for hours," said a young male voice behind her.
Sara backed carefully out of the tent and turned to meet the speaker. Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. For one precious moment, she thought Steel had returned to her. Then her common sense returned and her eyes looked closer, and the image of Steel faded softly away.
The young man who stood on the path was as tall and dark-haired as Steel had been. His skin was tanned from years of work in the sun, and he grinned at her with a crooked smile so like Steel's it wrung her heart. But there the resemblance ended. As Sara stared at him, she noticed his eyes were green, like the grasslands on a spring day; his face was long and narrow set, with features slightly too large to be very handsome. Thick, dark eyebrows shaded his eyes, and a newly healed scar marred his left cheek. He wore the black tunic and pants trimmed with blue that seemed to be the latest uniform of the order, as well as a chain mail shirt and a light cloak. He had a good sword strapped to his waist.
He tilted his head at her silent appraisal and asked curiously, "Were you looking for him or just wondering what the racket was?"
"I am supposed to report to Knight Officer Massard," Sara said. "Is that… ?"
"The one and only, thank the gods. Commander of the Sixth Talon. All five of us."
Sara glanced around at the tents. "Five?" she echoed in surprise. A talon usually had nine.
The young man waved a hand at the tents around them. "Most of these are empty. Set up for future recruits, I guess."
Or to fool a spy looking down from the heights, Sara added mentally. She introduced herself.
"Derrick Yaufre," he returned. "No offense, but you must be one of the original knights."
Sara laughed. She liked this man's slightly irreverent and honest outlook. "None taken. And you're close. I joined more years ago than I care to remember."
"Good. We need some experience. Massard is an original, too. One of the survivors of the war. Now he spends most of his time drinking or sleeping it off. The rest of us are so new our armor still squeaks. Come on, I'll introduce you."