A Sword for a Dragon (30 page)

“Come on, Baz, hurry, they’re coming.”

Relkin jumped onto the wagon, pushed, and almost got flattened when the dragon lashed his tail in frustration.

Three guards were at the door. Relkin drew the sword and jumped back onto the cart.

“Forgive me,” he whispered.

He jabbed the dragon sharply in the gliwers with the tip of his sword.

With a scream of outrage, Bazil exploded through the door into the street.

Relkin swung himself up right behind him, and the guardsmen missed him by a hairsbreadth.

Relkin slammed the hatch shut on them in the next moment.

The dragon had a very dangerous look on his face.

“Dragon not like dragonboy very much.”

Relkin knew denials were pointless.

“We’re outside, right? We’re alive. Ease up a little.”

The dragon hissed.

“Look, I’m sorry, but aren’t you glad we got out of there?”

The dragon hissed quietly for a second or two.

“By the roar,” he said. The big jaws clacked together in anger. “Someday,” he growled and then, with an effort he stopped himself. “Alright, where by roar of old gods are we?”

Relkin had already crept down the narrow hay passage to its mouth.

“Look at this!”

Bazil joined him.

They looked out on a scene of ceremonial splendor.

The hay passage exited on the south face of the temple. To their right, the surface dipped down to the base of a huge staircase that swept straight up the face of the temple in three long flights.

Around this stair was grouped a crowd of highborns and on the stair itself was the procession of high priestesses, already more than two thirds of the way to the top.

The scene was lit up by hundreds of great lamps posted on ornate, brass lamp stands set at regular intervals beside the great staircase.

Both the boy and the dragon could clearly see the finery of the ceremonial gowns. The priestesses wore vast trailing affairs of lace, satin, and chiffon in pink, pale green, and yellow.

The orchestra, arrayed on a parade ground in front of the pyramid, began a loud, urgent piece of music. Drums rumbled thunderously. Her worshipers called the goddess to take note of their magnificent ceremony in her honor.

“When they reach the top, they kill Lagdalen dragon friend, correct?”

“Yes.”

“We have a long way to climb.”

“Afraid so.”

“By the roar, but I am famished.”

“When this is over, we’ll eat well, I promise.”

“You have promised before, what did that ever mean?”

“I would like to point out that I have achieved a pretty good record when it comes to fulfilling promises.”

“So you say, but then you have human memory.”

“I’m not sure I accept all the claims made for other kinds of memories,” said Relkin quietly.

“Hmmmph. Let’s go.”

“Right.”

The moon was high in the sky, and the ceremony was now entering the climax. The musicians played the anthem of the goddess, an andante, the viols soaring high while the drums began their thunder.

The priestesses had almost reached the top. Now was the time for everyone else to get to their places. The highborn women, clad in elaborate costumes, began to move onto the great stair. The trumpets were raised. The drumming grew steadily louder as the climax approached.

One group of women was heading for their place on the stairs when they noticed something move in the ornamental shrubbery that lined the lower part of the great stair. To their astonishment, a ten-foot-tall dragon lurched out of concealment. A lithe youth darted out behind the dragon. Swords glittered in their hands.

The women opened their mouths to scream just as the trumpets blew, and for the moment they went unnoticed. The dragon and the boy shouldered through the startled crowd of highborn women and marched up the steps of the first flight. As they went, the panic grew until it infected the entire lower tier. Suddenly the ceremony was forgotten, and, scattering their pride to the winds, the aristocratic ladies of Ourdh trampled one another on the stairs in their attempts to escape.

The guards, massed on the first tier, drew their swords and stepped out to do their duty. They were hesitant to a degree. Word of what these dragons could do on a battlefield had spread since Salpalangum. Their commanders bellowed and laid about them with their staffs, and slowly the guards moved down the great stair.

The dragon came straight up toward them. On the way it tested the brass lamp stands, tugging at each one as he passed. Quite soon he found one that moved a little on its foundation. The dragon tossed the sword back over its shoulders and caught it with the broken-looking tip of his tail. Then he grabbed the lamp stand and heaved on it. With a whine of tortured metal, the bolts eased out of their marble sockets and then the lamp stand came free.

It weighed perhaps two hundred pounds, and Bazil Broketail wielded it like a club.

The guards extended their spears in a mass of points. Their commanders were bellowing for reinforcements. Archers had been sent for but had yet to make their way up the staircases through the mobs that jammed them.

The crowds on all sides were now torn between panic-stricken flight and the urge to see the spectacle. The monster was about to be slain by the temple guards. Who would not want to see this? The mobs stopped running and gazed upward to the top of the first flight of steps on the great stair.

Meanwhile, Relkin ran lightly back and forth behind the dragon, as he would in any battle, except that this time he had no bow. Still, he whipped Yoka’s sword about him. His arm had recovered some of its strength, and he felt ready to try anything. After all, he’d come a long way since he’d woken up in the darkness.

Bazil reached the hedge of spear points. He hefted the lamp stand and swung it in front of him in a great sweep, snapping spearheads from their shafts and driving the men back.

Some of the men drew their swords and darted at the dragon with suicidal bravery. The crowd cheered. But Bazil hefted the lamp stand as if it were a two-handed sword and swung it through the men at waist height. Men were knocked flying like balls from a bat. Still, one determined fellow ducked the lamp stand, then bounced back to his feet, and slashed at the dragon’s knee.

Baz pulled back sharply and almost lost his balance. While he struggled to stay upright, the man slashed his flank. Relkin hurled himself headlong into the guard’s side and knocked him backward. The fellow gave an oath, but held onto his sword. Now he steadied himself and lunged at Relkin, who parried, ducked, and barely parried again. The guard was a good swordsman, and Relkin’s arm was growing tired. The blade was coming. Relkin met it, but felt his own sword struck from his nerveless hand. He was defenseless at last. The death stroke rose, and the man gave a scream of triumph and brought it down. But instead of sundering Relkin in two, it rang off the end of the heavy brass lamp stand, suddenly interposed.

The guard looked up at the dragon, stupefied, caught in dragon-freeze.

Bazil wasted no time on ceremony. He kicked the man, knocking him fifteen feet through the air. The body rolled down the stair to the bottom. The watching crowd gave a groan.

The other swordsmen hesitated once more. They hadn’t expected the monster to lash out with its feet like that. Indeed, they had expected to see the huge thing carried up the stair at the end of the ceremony to have its blood poured down the steps in glory of the goddess. A couple of the more dumbfounded forgot to move back in time, and the lamp stand caught them on the next sweep and connected hard. Their bodies flew over the heads of the others and landed with dull thuds on the tier above. The rest of the guards wavered, a few started running.

A couple of brave civilians with small ceremonial swords ran up from the bottom of the stair. Relkin met one with a slash and a parry, and shouted a warning to the dragon.

Baz saw the man coming and met him with the tail sword. The man flailed valiantly, but his ceremonial sword was knocked out of his hands the next moment.

Weaponless, he fell back. His fellow continued to duel with Relkin in a halfhearted way, but he too desisted when the tail sword swished through the air above his head. No one else followed their example.

They mounted the next tier and met no opposition until they reached the top. A single guard remained, to bar their way.

Relkin whistled to the man, caught his eye, and indicated with his thumb that the man should retreat. The guard hesitated, and Bazil made play with the lamp stand. The man backed away and ran for the exit, where he joined the mob of elaborately dressed women.

Relkin noticed that his dragon was breathing hard and that there was considerable evaporation from the open mouth. In such conditions, dragons could overheat and suffer dehydration. He cast around and gave a whoop as his eye lit on a keg of beer, abandoned by the guards. It was nicely set up on a crosstrees, with a couple of mugs hanging below.

“Just a moment, Baz. Are you as thirsty as I am?”

The dragon didn’t hesitate. He scooped up the keg, which was still a third full, and punched a hole through its end with a massive thumb claw. He took a long swig, then poured some into a cup preferred by the dragonboy.

They drank deeply and then went on, toward the top tier, with fire in their eyes. Baz tossed away the empty barrel behind him. It clattered down the stairs.

By this point, the astonishment among the high priestesses had given way to horror. They stampeded for the exits from the top tier, but this level of the ziggurat was much restricted and thus there were few ways down. A mob of aristocrats bunched at the exits. Elaborate robes and lavish gowns were torn and ripped. Silks were crushed underfoot, chiffon and puff shredded by the nails of the desperate.

The dragon and his boy reached the top tier a half minute later, and found it almost completely deserted. In the center was an altar raised up to the goddess. Seven copper mirrors concentrated the moon’s light on the altar stone where Relkin and Bazil were to have been sacrificed.

A small cluster of high priestesses stood there utterly aghast as Relkin and Bazil advanced on them, weapons at the ready.

“Where is the Lady Lagdalen of Marneri?” he shouted at them.

“Fool boy,” snapped the dragon. “They speak their own tongue, they not understand you.”

But at that moment Relkin recognized one of the priestesses.

“That one there, wearing the black. She’s the one I spoke to at Salpalangum.”

It was true, there was the princess, she of the white coach and the big blond coachman. He placed himself in front of her.

“You are the princess who spoke to me at Salpalangum.”

The Princess Zettila stared at him with an expression of acute perplexity. Her world was coming down around her ears. This boy was like some manifestation of the worst devils of hell.

He pointed at her.

“I know you speak the tongue of Argonath, I know you can understand me.”

Zettila’s lips moved, but no words came.

Already the enemy fleet was landing on the shores of the isle. The sacrifices could not be made. The ceremony was in shreds and all was lost. The enemy’s armies would swarm over them and destroy everything. The great temple of the goddess would be profaned.

“Where is Lagdalen of the Tarcho?” said Relkin leaning in closer. It was as if she were in a trance or something. A priestess to his left produced a small silver knife in her hand.

The motion was not missed. The dragon raised the lamp stand. The priestesses cowered back with little shrieks.

Zettila stared at him, the destroyer.

“What do you want?” she said at last. He was holding a sword to her throat. She had decided that she didn’t want to die.

“Princess or not, I will kill you if you do not answer me. Where is the girl from Marneri?”

Zettila’s rage got the better of her.

“You must not do this. You destroy the world. Look!” Zettila pointed to the western shore of the island. There, illuminated by hundreds of torches, they saw a flotilla of rafts and boats from which an army was disembarking.

“Who are they?” said Relkin, alarmed at the sight.

“You little fool! Those are the servants of Sephis. If we do not complete the ceremony to summon the power of the goddess, they will overrun the temple and bring an end to everything.”

“Ceremony? You mean sacrificing me and Baz here?”

She turned eyes filled with tragedy upon him. “It is vital, I implore you to accept this honor. You will be remembered for all time. Place yourself on the altar and convince your monstrous beast to do the same. You must. The goddess demands it.” As she said this, Zettila attempted to cast a spell, but Relkin was wise to it and backed away with a curse.

“Sacrifice yourself, lady. We ain’t interested. Besides, I don’t think your magic’s going to do much to that army. You don’t have time. So just tell me where Lagdalen of the Tarcho is.”

He seized her by the wrist. Her mouth froze in shock. Never in her life had she been manhandled by someone of the servant class. This was appalling, the end of civilization.

“Where is Lagdalen?”

Still she would not speak, and Relkin was loathe to strike her, but time was short.

Bazil lurched forward a stride and thrust his head close to her face. “Answer the boy!” he said quietly.

Zettila heard the monster speak to her, albeit in the barbarian tongue, and felt her heart stop. The eyes were so huge! Yellow with black pupils that had such an unholy luster. Zettila was frozen. Relkin pinched her arm to break her out of dragon-freeze.

“Where is the girl?”

It was hopeless. Relkin was about to resort to desperate measures, when another priestess spoke up.

“The girl is in the room beneath the altar.”

Relkin stepped back.

“Well, better late than never. My thanks to you, madam.”

“Go away,” hissed the woman.

Relkin investigated and located the door. It was bolted on the outside. He released the bolts and found Lagdalen of the Tarcho, bound and gagged, lying on a narrow bed.