Dragon Ultimate (20 page)

"I am of the Gan. I am Hazogi."

"Yes, I can see it, you're one of those slitted-eye horsemen. A hard people, the Hazogi, a hard people from a hard land."

"If you are hard, the life feels good. If you are not, you die."

"Frankly spoken, Munth. Tell me this, General Munth, do you like beautiful women for your bed?"

Munth's eyes narrowed.

"Well, do you?"

"Yes."

"You shall have a dozen of the loveliest from me when this battle is won."

Munth cracked a tiny smile. "My mother would not approve."

Lapsor laughed and extended his huge hands. "Perhaps she shouldn't be told about them, then."

They both chuckled.

Lapsor put a hand on Munth's shoulder. Munth felt dwarfed by the towering knight. "General, I think we will work well together."

Munth did not allow men to put their hands on his shoulder, or lean over him in this position of superiority. His sword would be in their guts first. But Munth had just allowed the Lord Lapsor to do these things, and he knew it was due to some act of sorcery.

"General, I have an army gathering just north of Fort Kenor. When the time is right we will come in on the Argonathi flank and rear. We shall envelop them and destroy them piecemeal."

Such was the force of Munth's anger that he managed to shake off the elf lord, coming back to himself with an almost audible snap.

Lapsor smiled broadly, twirling the hairs he had lifted from Munth's collar together between his thumbs and forefinger and Munth felt his anger melt away just as quickly as it had come. With those hairs, Lapsor could control him unknowing.

"This is most welcome information. I thank you, great Lord."

"Thank you, General Munth. Now, the most important thing during this campaign will be maintaining good lines of communication. Our attacks must be coordinated to have the maximum effect, but we will be operating over a considerable distance from one another; in effect the enemy's army will lie between us."

"There is the batrukh. The Mesomaster Gring will be there to help."

"Excellent. That was just what I was going to propose."

Lapsor rubbed his huge hands together and leaned forward with a conspiratorial gleam in his blue eyes. "Munth! General Munth, you seem to be a lean and hungry fellow. I wonder sometimes if you are more ambitious than you seem?"

"Lord?"

"Munth, consider, you served your masters all your life and what do you have to show for it?"

Munth's forehead furrowed. "What do you mean, Lord?"

"Let me describe your life for you. You sleep on a narrow cot under a tent. You have no lands, not even a house. You eat humble fare and drink bad wine. Once a week you are allowed to go to a brothel. You endure constant scrutiny by spies and informers. Really, Munth my friend, life can offer so much more!"

It was seven years since Bazil and Relkin had passed down this river exactly like this, in flat-bottomed sailboats designed for river work. Seven years before he and the dragon had been one-year veterans on their way to Ourdh and the campaign to save the ancient riverland from conquest by Padmasa.

In the interim both boy and dragon had seen a great deal of the harder side of life. That sixteen-year-old had been almost carefree compared with the worn-faced young man of twenty-three.

This time around they were aided by a cool wind out of the north that kept the sails taut as they sped downstream. They rounded Pine Point and bade good-bye to the middle Argo towns and settlements. In seven years, the small towns had grown considerably and there were dozens of small places that had just sprung up out of nothing along the banks of the river.

The towns thinned out quickly as they entered the Baratan swamps, forty miles of meandering shallow channels. Bulrushes and reeds grew at the margins and the waters were dotted with islands bearing groves of small trees.

That night it was clear with a faint hint of the coming winter in the air. The fleet moored at Gideon's Landing, a spot graced by three buildings. Gideon's Inn overlooked the river with a dock jutting straight out into the water. This structure consisted of about a dozen ramshackle rooms on two floors, with an extensive stables in the back. From Gideon's onward, the swamp waters were shallow at this season and would require daylight to negotiate safely. River traffic often chose to pause here overnight.

Water was boiled and dragons were fed. A keg of ale was broached and everyone had a single mug. The fiddler, ol' Henry, had passed away, so Gideon's was no longer the jolly spot it had once been. Gideon himself was not one for conversation, or company for that matter. So after a desultory round of conversation, everyone drifted away from the main room.

The great beasts took dips in the river and bedded down early in the inn's stables. Dragonboys slung hammocks in the stalls. Outside the swamp was quiet but for an occasional mournful cry from some unidentified bird. Far to the east, on the hills of Esk, a light burned on a watchtower.

Relkin washed himself down under a sluice outside the inn. Endi and Swane were next in line. He moved over, shook off the worst, and dabbed himself dry with his shirt.

"Brrr," said Endi under the sluice.

"It'll do you good," chuckled Swane.

"By the Hand, you wait 'til you're in here, you big ape."

"Who are you calling an ape, Endi?"

"Beg pardon, but that's all we've heard from Rakama and you for I don't know how long."

"Yeah, well that's between me and him, then."

"Yeah, and you owe me five gold pieces," said Endi, reminding Swane once more of his gambling debts.

"Hurry it up, Endi," said Manuel, who was next in line. Rakama had come out now to join them.

Relkin ran in place to warm himself and took a few deep breaths from the nighttime air. The familiar humorous squabbling of a squadron went on between the others, but Relkin hardly listened. He heard the sounds of the swamp instead… the occasional splash of a fish breaking the surface… the croak of a heron… the whine of insects. He wondered if he would ever get to live somewhere as peaceful as this.

Suddenly there was a blaze of green fire in the north, far away, beyond the horizon. It burned very bright for a few moments, then vanished, to leave them all with dazed eyes, stunned with afterimages.

"That was never lightning," said Swane.

Nobody disagreed. It had lasted far too long for lightning.

And then came the sound, a swelling roar that shook the heavens for half a minute before finally dying away. They stood there looking to the north, ears cocked. Would there be more? No further flashes came, and the afterimages began to fade from their eyes.

"Something's different," said Endi.

The swamp had changed. They heard cries and whispers, wails and chirrups as a million creatures rose to the surface. A strange breeze cut across the river, and the swamp sang to its tune. They rose in disbelief at the uproar as every frog, bird, and animal gave out its particular cry, over and over.

"What's goin' on?" said Swane.

"How the hell should I know?" replied Rakama.

The uproar built to a crescendo, then stopped abruptly. There were a few last croaks that slowly dwindled away, and all was quiet.

Everyone was now out on the dock or up on the porch, wearing a general look of astonishment. They looked to one another and shook their heads. The night was peaceful once again, although a wolf started to howl way out in the swamp. It seemed an uncertain omen at best.

After a few more minutes they broke up and, in a somewhat subdued mood, went back inside.

Wolves were calling in the north, back and forth for a long time afterward. Relkin lay awake in his hammock and listened while he wondered about that green light. He knew their great enemy was easily capable of such manifestations. Relkin recalled the final moments in the labyrinth beneath the big house in the valley of the Running Deer when they'd battled Waakzaam. He remembered the blows the monster had struck him with, blows of pure mental power, blows powerful enough to drive a man to his knees, stunned and stupefied.

Could that enemy have returned to their world?

They had not slain him, and perhaps no mortal could slay such a being as Waakzaam the Great. His goal was the conquest of their world, and as long as he lived, he might well return.

In a room on the second floor, Hollein Kesepton, acting Commander of the Eighth Regiment, looked up from a table covered in maps and saw the bright flare blaze in the north, then suddenly blink out.

Later the thunder came and shook the skies for a half minute or more.

Dread sorcery at work? Hollein feared so. He offered a prayer for the witches and their efforts to end the rule of over-mighty mages of the dark spirit. Even as he muttered the words, he doubted their effect. Hollein had served many years in the Legion. He'd been to Eigo and Ourdh and had a formidable array of battle stars on his formal uniform. He knew that sorcery would never be stamped out completely. One had to get on with life, despite that overhanging dread.

He sighed, then looked down to the maps under the small, wavering lamp. Their journey through the swamps was half-completed. By late evening the next day they might be in sight of Mount Kenor. The day after that they would arrive at the landing below Fort Kenor.

He'd begun to gnaw at the problem of the tents once more when the swamp suddenly erupted with sound. He leaned out the window with his hands on the sill. Every bird, every amphibian, every insect even, was shrieking its head off.

Sorcery? It had to be, but to what end? Was there a threat out there? Should the men be called to arms? Hollein listened carefully, then the sound dropped away suddenly and was gone. A shiver ran down his spine.

Men were shouting out on the dock, but more in complete wonder than alarm.

Lieutenant Breff came in, bearing cups of hot kalut. "What the hell was all that?"

Hollein shrugged and shook his head slowly. "Nothing I've ever seen or heard of before."

The wolves in the northland began to howl from pack to pack across the steppes.

"The men are spooked. They're all talking about wizards now."

Hollein took a cup of hot kalut and sipped it. "We still have to get ourselves down to Fort Kenor, no matter what the wizards are doing out there on the Gan."

"Right," said Breff, taking up a writing tablet. "As far as the tents are concerned, I think we got poor treatment from the quartermaster in Dalhousie. We've got nothing like enough. I checked every boat."

"If we have to, we'll make our own. The sailmaster at the landing will have plenty of canvas."

"I'll warn the sergeants. A regular sewing bee it'll be."

"Volunteers will be rewarded with good leave when this is all over. Make sure they all know that."

"Yes, sir. Moving on to weapons, I checked and got the totals from each unit."

Hollein grimaced as he read the figures. "Ten men who don't even have swords?"

"Their replacements are being brought up from Marneri. Held up somewhere down the line."

Hollein tossed the scroll down, leaned back, and sighed.

"That wasn't lightning, Commander," said Breff.

"I know, Lieutenant. But I'm not going to speculate about what it might have been. It was a long way away, for which I'm thankful. We're going to have to cross a lot of streams and marshes. That isn't going to be easy. We have to concentrate on preparing for that. Have to leave the wizards to themselves, at least for now."

"Right, sir. Still, the men are all talking about it."

"I expect they'll talk about it for weeks. I don't expect I'll ever forget it myself. I never dreamed there were that many frogs in the world."

"As for the situation regarding the dragons' gear. We have most of it, but there's a shortage of some items, especially blister sherbet."

The next day the cool breeze out of the north picked up again and they ran on through the rest of the swamp and out onto the Lower Argo. In the early afternoon they glimpsed the cone of Mount Kenor as a slight bump on the western horizon. Soon it was a distinct cone. It was a fine day, and the top of the mountain glittered every so often from its crown of ice.

The mountain ruled alone here. For a hundred miles in any direction the land had been worn down to a plain by the mighty Oon and its tributaries. And yet here was the volcano, eight thousand feet high, towering over the low hills and swamps of the region.

The River Argo wound across the flatland in snaking lunges that generally took it westward, toward the confluence with the enormous Oon. The rushes in the swamps and the grasses on the prairies had turned brown from the summer heat and rattled in the north wind, a constant sussurration in the background.

Now they had to beat up into that northern breeze sometimes, tacking across the broad, shallow river as it wound around on itself in great loops and whorls.

There were a few new settlements down here as well, and inland to the south the grain towns were expanding. Despite the upheavals of the invasion six years before, the settling of Kenor was continuing at a rapid pace.