Bazil Broketail (59 page)

The troll jabbed at him; he moved, slipped and started to slide down the stone.

Desperately he grabbed at the cables with his free forehand. For an agonizing second he caught nothing, and then his talons wrapped around the last and simultaneously his right foot caught on another further down the Doom’s smooth side.

For a moment he hung there over the sheer drop, then he slowly, painfully crawled back.

They were pushing out the ladder from the catwalk to the Doom’s upper pole. A pair of magicians were sending imps across with spears in their hands.

Baz got his footing back once more in time to meet the first imp’s spear and knock it aside. Then he hacked down the next couple with a backhand slice and finally swung the sword down, cut the ladder and sent the rest of the imps hurtling into the abyss.

The troll lunged with the lance and it sank home in Bazil’s thigh. The troll tried to turn it in the wound, but Baz gripped the haft of the lance with his tail and jerked it out of the troll’s hands. Then he pulled it free of his leg. The pain was fierce, but he ignored it and turned to deal with the fourth cable.

Arrows were thudding into his back but he swung again, a terrific blow that cut through the wire with a flash of sparks.

The Mouth was shrieking; the great stone shifted again and tilted suddenly; Baz clutched convulsively at the remaining wires, dropped Piocar and then hung on desperately as he was hurled upwards in violent reaction as the doomstone slipped from the web of cables and fell down the Tube.

Down, through the levels of the great keep it fell, past the horrified eyes of its slaves and servants, through a long second before the blink to eternity.

At the bottom it shattered with a thunderous impact that rocked the entire keep to its very foundations, while a black flame blazed up and released a choking cloud of green smoke that rose up the Tube and escaped into the clear blue sky through the hooded window at the top.

The mountain itself shuddered and shook, and from the populace of Tummuz Orgmeen came a wailing cry of terror. The unimaginable had happened. The Doom had been cut down from on high and destroyed.

Their Master was gone, and with it went their strength and purpose. They covered their heads against the sight of the black fire and ran from the arena. Within minutes the first of them began the flight, scattering from the city itself, desperate to escape the collapse of the dread power they had served.

Imps, trolls, even the black-garbed troopers ran with them, ignoring efforts by a few commanders to stop the panic. The loss of the controlling force had turned the place over like an anthill dug into with a spade. Anything that could be carried away was taken, but the exodus once begun could not be stopped.

In the confusion the forces arrayed against Lessis and her band of women survivors melted away. Lessis and Lagdalen led them up the secret stair to the high gallery and thus into the Doom’s Tube at the highest level. They encountered little more than token opposition.

In the Tube they found a blackened chaos. Blinded, choking imps staggered past them into the sunlight. The women took these imps and threw them off the wall at once while the men of Marneri looked on, awed by the rage that burned in these women.

There were also a few men and women of the city, and among these they discovered the Princess Besita, alive but soot-stained and coughing from the green smoke.

Lessis plucked her up and carried her out on the high gallery to cleaner air. In the confusion only Lagdalen noticed this feat of strength. Since the death of Ecator, Prince of Cats, the Lady Lessis had grown very strong.

Besita got slowly to her feet, unhurt except where she’d breathed in the smoke. Lessis gave thanks to the goddess and hugged the princess, who immediately broke down into further coughing.

They did not find the magician, though. Somehow in the final chaos he had broken the cuffs that bound him and escaped by sliding down a cable to a lower floor of the Keep. From there he joined the rout that fled the place and disappeared into the Can.

Finally they discovered the Broketail dragon, completely covered in soot, with dozens of arrows sticking out of his hide. He was curled up in the pocket made by the three remaining cables, still hanging there in the center of the Tube.

To rescue him they had to winch him down to the floor of the Tube, standing amidst the black rubble of the smashed stone. The place stank of sulfur and ozone, and the walls were scorched from the violence of the Doom’s destruction.

The great purple-green dragon picked up the wounded leatherback and carried him out of the keep and into the sunshine. He set him down on a patch of grass near the gate that was normally used for beheadings. The lady crouched beside the limp form and placed a listening tube against the dragon’s chest. Relkin had tears on his cheeks. His dragon looked virtually incinerated, grilled, covered in soot and blood, studded with arrows.

But Lessis held up a hand suddenly. “He lives yet,” she said.

Relkin could hardly believe it. For a moment he stared hard at her and then erupted into a whoop and called for fire and boiling water and some tools to get the arrows out.

The Doom was smashed but the dragon lived.

It was almost three months later, in midsummer, that Bazil of Quosh, known as the Broketail dragon throughout the legions, marched through the gates of the city of Marneri once more.

The sun was shining and a warm breeze was coming off the Long Sound when, with Relkin at his side, he passed through the Tower Gate. Behind came the other survivors of the destruction of the Blunt Doom of Tummuz Orgmeen. A great crowd was on hand, indeed, folk had lined the roads for the last three leagues or more.

They were a small band, these survivors, headed by the two remaining dragons of the 109th—Bazil and big Chektor, whose broken feet had mended since the spring. Behind them came a handful of dragonboys, recovered from the slave market in Tummuz Orgmeen, and the dozen survivors of the Marneri Thirteenth and Talion Sixth Light Cavalry.

At the gate they were met by cheering throngs who showered them with petals of the white lalyx, the flower of Marneri. Every dragon in the city was lined up at the entrance to the Dragon House. Great Vastrox himself handed Bazil a new sword, since Piocar had been lost forever in the destruction of the Doom.

On that same day, Captain Hollein Kesepton and Lagdalen of the Tarcho were wed in the Temple of Marneri. Among the well-wishers were Sergeant Liepol Duxe and Subadar Yortch, now recovered from his wounds.

Also present were Dragoneer First Class Relkin of Quosh and the famous Broketail dragon himself. It was the first time a dragon had entered the Temple in Marneri and the request had sent the administrators scurrying to the precedent books. Finally, Lessis had spoken with Ewilra, the High Priestess, and a special bench was set up and the dragon allowed in.

The ceremonies were conducted by the witch Lessis, who confessed that this was the first wedding she had ever performed. Nonetheless, she did it gracefully enough, except that when she released the doves that symbolized the new couple, they refused to leave the Temple through the roof aperture but perched there cooing, quite unwilling to leave her presence.

Hollein Kesepton had not been brought before a court martial as he had expected, but then neither had he been promoted. Instead, after careful consideration, the legion had given him a fresh command, a company in the Second Legion, and a posting on the frontier of the Teetol country. Lagdalen was to join him at Fort Picon.

One notable absence from the ceremony was the Princess Besita. The princess had been taken to a convent in Bea where the Office of Unusual Insight had a counseling school. The princess had suffered greatly from her months as a captive. For almost all of that time she had been gripped by a spell that had made her a willing slave to her captor. Breaking that spell and restoring the princess’s sanity had become a grim and difficult task.

Of Thrembode the New, there was no word, except for a report to the Office of Insight concerning a magician who was said to have taken passage from Ourdh some three months after the fall of Tummuz Orgmeen on a ship bound for the lands of the west.

The destruction of the Blunt Doom had repercussions of great importance. In the eastern theater, the Masters found their power drastically curtailed and they went over to the defensive throughout the region. The threat of war had lifted on the frontiers.

After the wedding ceremony, the guests moved up the hill to the Tower of Guard where a feast had been laid out by the Tarcho family. Toasts and dancing began later, but after a couple of turns about the floor with Hollein and then with her father, Lagdalen excused herself and slipped down the stairs to the courtyard. There she found Relkin and Bazil sitting together on the back steps sharing a cask of ale. Relkin had a pewter pot and Bazil hefted the rest of the barrel in his huge hands.

“Welcome to the bride!” said the dragon, and shifted his tail to make room for her on the step beside him.

“I couldn’t stay up there a moment longer without taking a few minutes to talk to you two. It’s been too long.”

The dragon chuckled. “And we’ve missed you too, Lagdalen Dragonfriend.”

“And that’s the truth,” said Relkin, airily waving his pot of beer.

Lagdalen marveled at their new garments—a dragoneer’s uniform for Relkin and a new leather joboquin for Bazil.

They examined the new sword, a legion blade, not quite as long or as massive as Piocar, but still a dragonsword. Since the loss of Piocar, Bazil had felt strangely naked. He’d taken the heaviest troll blade he could find but it had never felt right in his hand. Now, at last, he felt complete once again.

Lagdalen smiled. “I hate to disappoint you, but I think you may not have to use that blade now that the Doom is gone.”

“That sounds good to this dragon. A life of beer and good legion food. We sit around and get fat and then retire.”

Lagdalen laughed then, and marveled that they had survived to sit here in such cheerful comradeship.

“And when do you two leave for Kenor?” she asked after a moment.

“We go to Dalhousie next month, escort for the new recruits. What about you?”

She shrugged. “Soon. We are posted to Fort Picon.”

Relkin gave a little sigh. “We will be far apart then.”

She laughed. “Oh, Relkin, if there’s anything I am sure of it is that our paths will cross again.”

The dragon put out an enormous forehand and rested it gently on Lagdalen’s shoulder for a moment. “We never forget you, Lagdalen Dragonfriend.”

“And I will never forget you, Bazil of the Broken Tail.”

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