Dragon Ultimate (49 page)

When the nervous energy of hungry dragonboys had dissipated, Lagdalen spoke. "The Lady told me a few things about your mission. I think I understand what you did. The worlds themselves will always thank you, Relkin of Quosh."

"He's gone, our enemy. We settled him."

"It is as if a great shadow had been lifted from our hearts."

"And we're going to be mustered out, early retirements." His excitement showed.

"We heard that," said Hollein. "It was wonderful news. You two have served in enough battles for five lifetimes."

"Amen to that," said Lagdalen. "Now"—she pulled a scroll from her sleeve—"I have this message for you."

Eagerly he broke the seal and read the contents. It was from Eilsa, and she was on her way to Marneri to meet him. She had been at Widarf working with the chronically ill, mostly left over from the plagues of Waakzaam. Apart from needing more sleep, for they had been working long hours lately, she wanted for nothing except the need to see him.

Relkin kissed the scroll and rolled it up.

Lagdalen had further information. "Eilsa will arrive tomorrow in the late afternoon. It seems that your last message to Widarf from Dalhousie was delayed or lost. She only received a message from Razac."

Relkin let out a restrained whoop. One more day to wait.

"I was going to suggest that you dine with us, the two of you, tomorrow. We'll find a way to leave you two alone. I know you have a lot to tell each other."

"Thank you, Lagdalen of the Tarcho. That would be wonderful."

"Come to our apartment at the sixth hour. And tell Bazil that the Tarcho family is ordering a pie up from the Fish Inn. It'll be the biggest pie they've ever baked. I know there's another squadron in the dragonhouse, and we wouldn't want to leave anyone out."

"Well that will be much appreciated. Where we've been, the food was really dull."

Before Lagdalen and Hollein left, she reminded Relkin that he should come by her office, there were messages for him from the bank in Kadein. His investments were safe, but there were matters for him to look into and papers to be signed.

Relkin read and reread the message and looked up to see the dragon, fresh from the dragon's dinner in the main hall.

"Message from Eilsa Dragonfriend?"

"Yes. She'll be here tomorrow."

"That is good, for boy need to fertilize her eggs."

"Ah." Trust the dragon to leap forward to that. "Well, actually not just yet. There has to be a wedding first."

"Why is this? You not need wedding before."

And trust the dragon to point out this embarrassing truth.

"Because, well it just has to be that way. I mean, in society that's the way people do it."

"Except when boy Relkin do it before? Like with girl Lumbee."

"No, those were exceptions. You know, we didn't know if we were ever going to be coming home."

"What about the princess in Ourdh?"

Relkin shrugged. "That was different, I don't exactly know why. It was her decision. I mean she couldn't marry me, I was an outlander, and I was a dragonboy in the Legion. Besides I was too young."

"You were too young for wedding. But not too young to fertilize the eggs."

"Yes."

"But now you have to have wedding and then you can fertilize the eggs?"

"Well, yes."

"Humans make the fertilizing of the eggs a very complex process."

"And dragons don't?"

"No."

"What about fighting for the females? Don't you have to do that first?"

Bazil softly clacked his jaw. "Sometimes."

"Well, we don't have to do that, though some of us do anyway."

"Fight is pretty simple. Weddings, this is complicated."

"Yeah, you're right about that."

Bazil seemed to mull this over for a few moments.

"Still, this dragon look forward to seeing Eilsa Dragonfriend."

The next day it took a good swim and a pint of cold water to clear his head, but Relkin rose early, made sure the dragon was set with a bucket of hot kalut and some half dozen loaves of fresh bread and hurried out to the narrow streets of the Elf Quarter. His first stop was at the smithy of Lukula Perry, an elf smith who had made the current scabbard for Ecator. Relkin had written to Lukula with another kind of request. Relkin was very satisfied with the smith's work, paid him in Marneri gold, and left. From Lukula's smithy he went on down Half Moon Row to a small shop on Hat Street. The door was very stout, but it opened to a rap from the knocker, and he went into the dark interior.

Twenty minutes later he emerged once more and made his way quickly back up Tower Street to the top of the hill. He did not go into the dragonhouse, however, but crossed over the hill and went on down Water Street to Lagdalen's office.

There he signed the bank papers, examined the statements of his assets, and drew up a will.

When all that was done he had just enough time to show her what he'd bought in the shop on Hat Street. He pulled out a small velvet pouch and from it withdrew a great square-cut sapphire mounted on a simple gold necklace. The stone was awesome, the kind that a wealthy banker might bestow on his bride, and unable to stop herself Lagdalen asked, "Relkin, how did you come by this? This isn't loot, is it?"

"I bought it from the jeweler on Half Moon Street, Fipps is the name. He's had this stone for a while and I saw it in his shop a long time back. No one had wanted to pay his price, until today."

Relkin had haggled hard for the stone, but still paid more than fifty gold pieces.

The blue gem was gorgeous and sent flashes and gleams of blue light all around the room. Deep down, Lagdalen thought the stone was a little excessive. She imagined that Eilsa would, too, but she recognized that this was not how Relkin saw it. He had grown up in a military camp; he hadn't been exposed to the finer aesthetic of the higher culture.

And, she reflected, if anyone had the gold to buy such a bauble, it was Relkin. Lagdalen had seen those accounts sent up from Kadein. Relkin and Bazil were well set for their new lives. She congratulated him on the purchase and even expressed a little envy of Eilsa to make him laugh.

He left soon after and returned to the dragonhouse. There was a lot to take care of. The joboquin needed new straps, the armor-plate inventory had taken some hits, and the tail sword was notched. Getting the leather he needed took him a while. Not even the famous Relkin of the 109th could get the clerks in the commissary to work any faster than they had to.

His own kit was pretty torn up, too. There was just time to put in a request for new shoes and jacket to replace those worn beyond repair. Then he brushed down the dragon and worked on the dragon's feet, which had the usual blisters from a long march.

The lunch bell rang, and soon huge portions of stirabout laced with akh were rolled out to the waiting wyverns.

His leather requests came in after lunch. He went down at once to collect them—a mound of thick leather straps, all ready to be sewn into the joboquin to replace the worn-out ones.

Bazil was in the exercise yard, working with the sword on the butts. Relkin took up needle and thread and starting repairing the joboquin. Cuzo had offered the help of twenty dragonboys, but Relkin knew better than to accept that one. He'd be cleaned out of thread, needles, glue, and who knows what else in no time. Then they'd be into his stock of liniment.

Time flew as his needle flickered and the strong thread was worked through the joboquin, replacing the stretched and sagging belts and straps.

When she entered the doorway he didn't look up at once and when he did their eyes met and time seemed to come to a stop.

She flew across the intervening space. Aunt Kiri's cry of "No!" could be heard out in the main passage, but he and Eilsa were too busy kissing to care.

The wedding was held on a fine day in the third month of the year. It was warm for the season, and the folk of Marneri came out in great numbers to bid farewell to their heroes.

Eilsa's wedding dress was in the classic Wattel pattern, with white satin and lace plus the pale green sash of the clan over her shoulder. Relkin wore full Legion uniform, with his new blue coat bearing a raft of medals, including the new Imperial Star.

At his appearance, the pack of dragonboys in the audience let out a storm of whistles and whoops and had to be hushed by a curt bark from Cuzo.

A dozen of Eilsa's relatives were in the city for the ceremony. They formed a group to one side and displayed a coolness toward the proceedings that was painful for Eilsa, but fully expected. As she was wed, they removed the clan sash. She was now out-clan, and no longer the titular head of Clan Wattel.

At her throat she wore the enormous blue stone that Relkin had given her. She knew her relatives would not approve such an open display of ostentation, but she wanted them to know that while she had married a dragonboy, an orphan with no family and no estate to inherit, she hadn't married a poor one. He'd have an estate someday, and she would share it.

The ceremony went off very well. At the appropriate moment Relkin produced a pair of gold wedding bands, crafted by Lukula in the elven manner. The gold was braided with pale yellow electrum, three strands of each. Now Eilsa took one band and placed it on his finger and he took the other and put it on hers.

The priestesses sang the wedding hymn in the sweetest way and afterward the happy couple paused on the steps of the temple for the traditional first public kiss.

At the bottom of the steps the well-wishers whistled and whooped and once again the boys of the 109th had to be barked at by Cuzo to curb their excesses. Hollein and Lagdalen were there; so were several senior officers of the Legion, plus all of the Tarcho clan.

Absent were the representatives of Eilsa's family. They had withdrawn early, taking the clan sash with them. There was no secret about the fact that Eilsa's family had taken this marriage badly. Her heartbroken mother had not even come. Eilsa had expected all this, had known it would be like this from the moment her heart had been given to Relkin of Quosh. Hard as it was, she had grown to accept it. And yet she felt a lingering sorrow at her mother's absence.

From the temple they rode in a carriage up to the tower. There they went up to a small suite of rooms that had been set aside for them in the grand Tarcho apartment, and they didn't come out again until late in the afternoon when the cornet sounded for the evening meal in the dragonhouse.

There, they joined the dragons and boys of the house for a feast in the dragonhall. Sides of beef were roasted over a huge mound of hot coals and served with buckets of roasted potatoes, noodles, and hot akh. Even while this was being devoured a series of grand pies was rolled in with accompanying horns and explanations. A gift pie from the merchants of Marneri and Bea was brought in, another one was from the Tarcho family, and each of these was broken open and the insides dished out. Ale from the Tower Inn was rolled in and sent round to wash it all down.

"Does it feel different?" said the Purple Green, who had finally eaten his fill and was reclining against the wall of the huge space given over to dragon dining.

"Does what feel different?" said Bazil.

"Being out of Legion."

"Doesn't feel much different. Later, I expect this dragon will be lonely."

Both huge beasts made the dire sounds of dragons when they laugh.

"Hah! You will miss us."

"Hard to imagine, but true."

"We all retire soon. Maybe this dragon come and settle near you. Boy Manuel say he want to be farmer, so he tells this dragon all the time. I am to be a farm dragon, too."

Bazil was silenced for a moment by this thought. His impulse to sarcasm faded away. Even the ferocious spirit of the Purple Green would grow calmer as it grew older. Maybe he would even be a good farm dragon. Certainly he had strength to spare.

"That would be good. You can grow all the food you like."

"Yessss." The big eyes gleamed at this thought. "Like you we have gold that men value so much. We will have horses to do the heavy work. This dragon like that idea."

"Still be plenty of work. Boy Relkin explain to me what we are going to do. It is much more than just cutting down trees and sawing them up. We build house and barns. Have to build a mill. Boy insist we build near a mill stream. Have to cut millstones. That be hard work. Also have to build bridges. It is complicated."

"As long as boy understand how to build it, this dragon can help with strength."

"That is true," said Bazil, once more considering the awesome bulk of the Purple Green.

"Whatever it takes, we get the job done, that I learn from boy Manuel."

"See? You did learn things in Legion."

The wild one blinked dangerously, then softened. Why evade the truth any longer? He'd been fighting this idea for years. It was time to give it up.

"Yes, you right about this."

"And soon you be retired, too. By the breath, you've been in enough fights. They should retire you now."

The Purple Green made an approving grunt. "This dragon kill many, many brasska."