Yay for more Dasque Magic! *happy dance* LOL, I didn't translate it well from her notes to the submission document. *sigh* :p

Thanks again to my devoted readers who comment on my stories. I am truly grateful, and I absolutely love to receive reviews and comments. *hugs for Warrose and alyssacousland*

Part 51: A New Guard

The next day, the decree that Darin Cousland was the successor to King Karlus was announced. The Riders protected him, their drakes squatting on the walls of the Palace, making people ooo and ahhh as they walked past, watching the living, breathing legends that looked back at them with curious, dispassionate eyes.

Simon left that evening, flying late into the night to climb into bed with his pregnant wife. The others stayed a week, but when they returned, they brought Darin with them.

"I thought you were the new Heir," Simon said in surprise, greeting his friend.

"I am, I am. Most of the Guard in the Palace are completely wrapped up in watching over Karlus, though. So after much discussion, we've decided to allow the old guard Standers like me, who were here during Mathinas and took the wrong vow, to decide whether to stay here and take the proper one, or to accept Fealty to me, and become my personal Guard." He sighed and pulled Simon aside. "This all feels so bizarre. I never once imagined this would happen to me. I guess I thought my father would become King and Dason would be his successor."

"Dason?" Simon asked.

"My little brother. He's sixteen. Father's second wife after my mom died."

"Ah, too young to be an effective King, especially against someone as treacherous as Theodore," Simon surmised.

"Look at you, the political wizard," Darin joked. "I guess once you've shoveled shit, you never forget how, huh? Maybe you can give me lessons."

They laughed and then turned to see one of the Patrol Riders coming in with great haste.

"Hi Saraiah, what's going on?"

"Simon, do you know where Alistair is? That group up on the mountain have pulled up their tents. They're heading this way, and they're all armed. Even the kids are armed to the teeth," she told him, her voice filled with worry.

Simon sighed. "What else can go wrong?" he asked rhetorically.

"Pip?" he asked the sunning copper dragon.

"Hmmm?" came the answer.

"Can you find Alistair? One of the Riders needs to report. That group up the mountain is armed and moving our way now."

Instant awareness flooded Pip's mind. "Pip has informed the Father. Simon wishes to go and see with Pip?"

Simon grinned. He didn't get to ride very often now, and the prospect pleased him. "Yes," he said. "Let's do. Can you inform Blake and Senistraz?"

Simon excused himself, wishing Darin luck in recruiting enough Standers to get himself a proper escort. He affixed Pip's harness—yet another new one, as Pip continued to grow, now much larger than even Alistair. Then he was aboard, and Pip was aloft.

He watched the world through Pip's eyes and his special vision. It was rare anymore that he got visions of his wife, though he did tell her it had continued for him. It hadn't done for her, and he wondered secretly if maybe it was a sort of compensation for his own lost vision. But he loved to look through Pip's eyes, and that was one of the reasons he continued to fight both with and without that aid.

Now, though, he was flying once more and looking at the world with enhanced vision, and it was even more beautiful than he remembered. At length, the group came into sight, and he asked Pip to hone in closely on them.

He felt a shock of surprise and pure incredulity slam through him. So intense was his reaction that Pip roared in surprise.

"What distresses Simon?" he demanded.

"I'm not certain. Your vision is a little different from mine. Can you see them a bit more closely?"

"The Father does not wish the drakes to get close enough to be seen by them," Pip said dubiously.

"Well, you're not a drake," Simon argued.

Pip, sensing his rider's deep desire to see the group more closely reluctantly winged closer to the group, still high enough, though, to stay out of their range of sight.

"Pip," Simon thought. "Look at them!"

"Pip is looking," Pip said dryly, and pointedly.

"They look like me and Blake!"

Pip dipped his wing and lowered somewhat, to get a closer look. "They do!" he agreed. "They are Simon's people?" he asked.

"I'm not absolutely certain, but it seems the only logical explanation," Simon said. "The problem is, if they knew we were here, why didn't they send word to us? Why hide out here, rather than come in and greet us?"

Chilled by the question, they winged away, well aware that Saraiah's assertion was true—these people all carried weapons. Men, women, children, and elderly alike were armed. Most carried at least one, and many positively bristled with steel.

This was as fully armored a force as ever there had been, and they were headed en masse towards the Bronze Enclave. Not including the children and the elderly, there were easily close to ten thousand armed adults.

Pip relayed to Alistair all that they'd seen and realized, including that these might be Simon's people. The response was a simple question. "What if they think you were stolen, and they are here to retrieve you? No one speaks their language since Abbie died, we may not be able to get the truth across to them."

It was an even more chilling thought.

His heart heavy and his thoughts in turmoil, Simon rushed back to his wife and unborn children, filled with a sudden overwhelming protective instinct.

They no sooner landed than a massive fight with Darkspawn broke out, and Simon was some four hours late going to find his wife. It was the worst Darkspawn attack so far. With Darkspawn in their midst, an army no one could communicate with on the way, and civil war threatening, the Bronze and White Orders quickly began to feel beleaguered and overwhelmed.

Darin suggested that perhaps taking some of their forces for his own use was a bad idea, but Alistair and Velistara insisted, as did Simon and Blake. A kingdom at civil war would be no boon at all to the Orders. So he departed with a group of some thirty new Guards, another near hundred preparing to follow within a week.

Every day for the next three, the drakes continued to report significant progress of the armed group towards the Bronze Enclave and Margarite. On the fourth day, they were within sight, and by afternoon were near enough to be within range of their long bows.

There, they stopped, though. A small group consisting of one elderly woman, two men, an a younger woman rode out on small, tough mountain horses towards the walls of Margarite. They were flying a small white banner above a flag bearing a dragon perched on a mountain range with wings spread out.

Simon walked out to meet them, together with Alistair, Fordir, Velistara, and a Healer from the Pearl Magi.

"So it's true," the younger woman said as they reached hearing distance. "One of the Dragon's Claw clan lives. Where is your mate?"

"My wife," Simon replied, stressing the word firmly, "is heavy with child, and I would not put her into a situation such as this because of it."

"Do you suggest that we would harm the Matriarch of the Dragon's Claw?" the woman asked, surprise evident on every face of the small contingent. Then she added, "Must we shout at one another? We mean you no harm."

After some nervous discussion, Simon said, "You may approach. You will be safe so long as you do not draw weapons."

The group moved closer, but stopped when they were close enough to see Simon's eyes. Then they moved forward much more quickly.

"You are blind!" the old woman said. She sounded surprised, even almost fearful.

"Yes," Simon said.

"How can that be?" the younger asked. "Will the clans accept him?"

"They must," said the younger.

"Never," snarled one of the men.

Simon crossed his arms. "Accept me? Why would they need to accept me at all? I don't recall asking to be accepted. I have a life here that I'm very happy with."

"You do not understand," the elder woman told him. "The Patriarch of the Dragon's Claw Clan is the Arbiter of all the clans."

"Arbiter?" Simon asked, a sinking feeling running through him.

"Yes. You must settle disputes and ratify marriages as well as Sealings and betrothals at the Gatherings," she told him. "Have you not heard the songs as the People have celebrated betrothals, sealings, marriages, and births?"

"I'm not sure," Simon said. "I've heard something. Felt something. But I didn't know what it was."

"What have you felt?" she asked.

"Like a tugging? A pulling?" he said, trying to sort the feelings out. "Sometimes strong, usually mild."

"He is the Patriarch," the woman said. "There can be no doubt."

"No!" the man beside her said. "He's a blind fool! If he felt the pull, he would have responded to it!"

She turned to him, "You're just angry because you don't feel it yourself."

"Mind your tongue, old woman," he snapped back.

"He is the Patriarch, blind or not," the other man said.

"No!" the other yelled again. "I challenge him!"

There were gasps. "You would challenge a blind man?"

"I would challenge any man who seeks to usurp the Patriarchy! If he is too weak to be challenged, he is too weak to be Patriarch!"

"Salanzin, this is foolishness," snapped the elderly woman.

"If he thinks me weak," Simon snarled, "let him prove it."

"You don't know what you're saying, you don't know our ways. He is the best warrior of our clan. You cannot hope to defeat him," the old woman warned.

"If he's going to insult me—"

"Simon!" Alistair snapped at him. "Before you start brawling, shouldn't you listen first? Consider your wife, your children… Pip?"

"Is a challenge to the death?" he asked.

"Of course not," the elderly woman said. "We don't waste warriors that way. But—"

"Then let's get it over with," Simon said. "I'll show him 'weak'."

"Simon—" Alistair tried again.

"Stay out of this," Simon snapped. "No heals or poultices, agreed?"

"Fine," snarled Salanzin. He leaped down from his shaggy horse and the others separated.

"You accept the challenge?" he asked.

"Don't—" the old woman began.

"Yes," Simon said.

"If you lose, you will lose your wife, your Clan, your position, and all your possessions," she told him with a sigh.

"What?" Simon started, but Salanzin swung viciously at his head, and he ducked.

"Too late," the other man crowed. "You accepted the challenge."