Dragonheart (19 page)

“Yes?”

“Care to try a double scoop?”

He pointed to the new object of the swamp folk’s ire—Gilbert. The poor baffled priest still gazed upward, unaware that an entire village was now staring at him with vengeful malevolence.

“Bowen?” he plaintively cried out his bewilderment. But Bowen was too busy digging in his saddlebag to answer. For he had already seen what Gilbert saw when he turned his gaze earthward again—the savage sneer of the swamp chief!

“You vouched for him,” the skeletal giant snarled, and again hoisted back his cleaver to strike. And again, he hit the ground before the cleaver hit Gilbert.

This time a half-eaten venison joint was the agent that delivered the blow. It fell at Gilbert’s feet along with the chief and the cleaver. Bowen had pulled the makeshift bludgeon from his saddlebag and dropped it from above. Gilbert picked it up and examined it briefly. Very briefly. For the outraged peasants were upon him by this time, having stopped their advance only long enough to peek skyward to locate the dragon and ascertain whether or not any more dangerous food was being dropped. None was. But Draco was closer than any of them cared to have him.

He sliced down between Gilbert and his pursuers, a taloned claw extended to snare the priest. Gilbert screamed, ducked, and flung the meat into the air.

The claw missed the priest by inches.

“Damn!” Bowen muttered, for the intent had been to nab Gilbert out of his predicament, not frighten him out of his wits. “Run, you fool!” Bowen shouted back at him, and pointed to the villagers, now reassembling for attack. Fortunately, they were momentarily waylaid by a fight that broke out in the front ranks, where, it seemed, the lust for revenge had been sabotaged by the lust for the savory manna from heaven which had laid their chief low and which Gilbert had inadvertently tossed in their path.

As several tussled over the joint Gilbert took Bowen’s advice and ran . . . after Merlin, who was already running ahead of him, spooked by swooping dragons and an insane, shouting mob hungrily waving about cutting tools. The mule was wiser than the master, Bowen observed. After all, if dragon meat wasn’t available, mule might do. That venison joint wasn’t going to feed the whole village. And even a mule would be an improvement on the reeking bounty they culled from the marsh.

Gilbert managed to grab his saddle horn and jam the wrong foot in the right stirrup. Half in, half out, he hopped alongside the excited mule as a rawboned woman charged up and took a wicked slice at him with a filleting knife. Prodded by this encouragement, Gilbert yelped, dived, and slopped sideways over the saddle, his face smothered in the satchel of manuscripts.

This spared him the sight of the dragon plucking him and Merlin into the air.

“A double horse scoop!” Draco’s voice boomed in Gilbert’s ear. Startled, the priest shoved aside the scrolls and saw the villagers behind him . . . and below him, Gilbert spun frantically, coming face-to-face with three other faces. Kara’s was yellow and queasy. Bowen’s smiled in amusement. The horse’s whinnied in bland contentment. Merlin hee-hawed back nervously. And Gilbert screamed.

As Gilbert took stock of his new predicament Draco banked and headed toward the swamp. Bowen saw the village chief slowly lumber up to dazed consciousness only to go down again, ducking the low-flying dragon and the eight kicking hooves dangling from his clawed clutches. The poor fellow had hardly gained his feet when he was nearly run down by this own shouting people, still giving hopeless chase.

The dense fog that enshrouded the heart of the marsh drifted around them as Draco gained altitude, adjusting to the extra weight of the priest and mule. The chief avoided being trampled by his people and called them back as they sloshed out into the swamp or boarded skiffs in desperate pursuit of their vanishing prey.

“No!” ordered the chief. “They have wrapped themselves in the shroud of Anwnn. They belong to the dead now!”

Bowen heard the ominous words over the rustle of Draco’s wings, the terrified bleats of Merlin, and the whimpered ones of Gilbert. And as the chieftain pointed with his cleaver Bowen’s eyes followed its direction . . . toward the craggy tor jutting out of the mist.

Twenty-Two

OLD HAUNTS AND OLD SINS

“There must be an answer!”

Einon sheathed his sword. No dangers seemed to be lurking. The cavern had long been abandoned. With daylight drifting in from its mouth, the place had shed the eerie mystic aura he remembered. Now it was only a cave. An empty cave.

He had not visited the spot in the last four years, not once since that first night. Strange how vividly he remembered the place, how vividly he remembered everything. It had been dark and he had been dying, and, at the time everything seemed a blurred delirium. But there were scholars and priests who claimed that in the final throes of death came great clarity. Perhaps when he lay dying, he had stored in his mind a vision that he could not perceive at the time. Sometimes he had dreams of astounding clarity that, in the instant of waking, became muddled and lost. Perhaps his memory of this place was like that . . . only here the reality was clear and that dying dream of long past was muddled.

Perhaps that was why he could remember the ledge where the dragon perched and held the sword before his eyes. And there was the stone on which he had lain, where he had sworn an oath in exchange for a heart. Gained life for the price of a few paltry words. Cheated death with a lie!

Even as he remembered it he felt no guilt. It had gotten him what he wanted. Just as he had lied to get what he had wanted from Bowen. Bowen and the dragon. He had never thought to see either again.

Bowen had been a surprise. The dragon had been a shock. Any dragon would have been, leaping from the falls like that. But it was when the beast had spread his wings and the scales fell back from his chest, exposing the jagged red scar, that Einon knew he was beholding
his
dragon—and his death—and he had screamed.

But death had not come. And he realized it was not only the scar that had made him scream. It was not only the scar that had made him know. An undeniable intuition had throbbed in his terrified heart as the dragon towered above him. It was the heart the dragon had given him . . . pounding, aching with secret sharing.

Had the dragon felt it too? Had that wrenching moment of recognition stopped the creature from crushing him? Why had he let him escape? Whether the dragon had known him or not, why let him escape? Einon distractedly ran his fingers along his chest as this and other confusing thoughts besieged his mind.

He had gone in search of the girl and had found Bowen. And then the dragon had appeared. All three had played a part in the miracle of his transformation from dying prince to living king. All three he had lost the first day of his reign. All three he had found again . . . together in one place. A disturbing sequence of coincidences . . . as though all his darkest betrayals had conspired to converge upon him. But it could be no conspiracy . . . unless it were fate’s. Just coincidence. Bowen and the girl had wandered into the dragon lair just as he had. He wondered if they had survived the dragon’s fury. Bowen was of no consequence, but he would lament the loss of the girl.

He had seen no sign of them at the falls when he rode back with Brok and a large troop. Only the two men Bowen had killed, bloating on the bank in the sun. Einon was not sure why he had returned. Perhaps in search of answers to the questions that now tormented him. Perhaps to slay the dragon, to purge himself of his old sins in an orgy of blood and violence, the way he solved all his problems and answered all his questions. Perhaps to see if the dragon had slain Bowen and the redhair. Whatever the reason, he had come back with his questions still unanswered and his sins still to be answered for.

“It’s peaceful here, isn’t it, my son?”

The cave was not quite empty after all. Einon saw Aislinn emerge from the shadows on the ledge and step into a pool of sunlight that sprayed through a crevice in the cavern roof. She looked down on him with her strong, sad eyes.

“I come here to be alone sometimes.” Alone? She was always alone. Even at court, when the castle was crawling with people. “You did not find the dragon at the falls?”

“No,” Einon muttered tersely. He did not like his mother finding him like this. He felt weak before her . . . as if she knew his secret fears.

“Bowen? Kara?”

“No. Only the bodies of my men. The dragon must have eaten Bowen and the girl.”

“And not your men? Picky eater.” She was laughing at him. He knew. She wasn’t even smiling. She never smiled. But she was laughing at him nonetheless.

“Why didn’t he eat me, Mother? Why didn’t he kill me? I broke my vow to him.”

“Yes, you did.”

There was still no smile. But he knew she had stopped laughing at him. “Then why?”

Her face was impassive . . . and beautiful. “I can’t answer that.”

“Can’t or won’t? Yours was the dragon clan. It was you who brought me here!” His voice echoed through the cave. “There must be an answer!”

“Perhaps it is in your heart, my son.” As she spoke these words a cloud passed over the sun and smothered Aislinn in shadow once more.

Twenty-Three

THE TOR

“A land of mist and water.”

Mist swirled everywhere. Gilbert could not see a thing. He wasn’t sure whether he himself was shaking or it was the quivering mule beneath him that made him shake. He looked down at the crippled claw that clutched them. He looked above them at the scaly neck extending into the powerful jaw. The rustling wings made the air howl around them and sent his scrolls to shivering.

“Saints preserve us!” he prayed hoarsely as he had prayed a dozen times already, and crossed himself, grateful that so far the saints had preserved them.

“All’s well, Gilbert,” Bowen assured him, even though Gilbert could not see him through the fog.

“Well?” The priest was incredulous. “I nearly have my bald pate trimmed at my neck. I find you in league with a pair of rogues—”

“I am not a rogue!” Kara’s voice cut through the haze.

Gilbert ignored her. “One, a dragon who kidnaps me—”

“He saved you!” Kara protested again.

Again, the priest disregarded her. “—only to get us lost in this dreadful fog.”

“Not lost.” Draco’s firm voice shushed Gilbert’s whining, as did the sight that suddenly loomed out of the thinning mist.

A circle of eerie stone columns rose upon the crest of the tor—an ancient ring that grew larger and larger as the dragon swiftly descended and gently deposited his cargo on the ground.

Hee-hawing, the skittish Merlin bucked Gilbert into the mossy grass and bolted off among the stones. The priest sat up to find Bowen at his side, ready to give him a lift up. But Gilbert had had enough of being toted about and, disdaining the helping hand, got to his feet himself. Straightening his rumpled cassock with obvious annoyance, he stared fearfully through the gloomy mist, and shuddered.

“What deadly, unholy place is this?”

“Most
holy
, priest.”

Gilbert turned to the dragon’s voice along with Bowen and the girl. He was solemnly perched on the most massive of the monoliths in the stone ring. He gazed out on the darkening sky, watching night come creeping through the haze and spoke quietly. “More than death dwells here.”

“W-what more?” Gilbert asked, not sure he really wanted to hear the answer.

“A spirit. Beyond death. Alive and eternal. That remembers the Once-ways and the glory of one who shared our name.”

“What one?” Again, the priest could not refrain from asking.

“Pendragon,” came the answer.

“Pen
—Arthur
Pendragon?” And suddenly the stunned priest knew where he was. “A land of mist and water . . .” And he knew what the stones were. He crossed himself and moved among them in reverent awe, quoting the bits of lore and legend he had memorized in his head, and in his heart. “ ‘Arthur unto the vale of Avalon was swept . . . to lie among his brother knights . . .’ ”

“ ‘. . . in a grove of stone upon a tor,’ ” Bowen finished for him, remembering the words too. Gilbert smiled over at the ashen-faced, unsettled knight.

“Not a grove . . . the Round Table of Camelot!” The friar quivered with emotion, tears rolling down his rosy cheeks. He stood in the center of the ring, pointing out the stones. “This is where Sir Gawain sat. And here Sir Percival. There Galahad. And Sir Kay. And there Lancelot . . . at the right hand of—King Arthur!”

His trembling finger pointed to Arthur’s stone. The tallest one in the circle. The one atop which Draco sat perched.

“I have found you as foretold, brave Arthur. Let the end of my quest be the beginning of a new Camelot.”

Bowen slumped sullenly against Lancelot’s stone, listening to Gilbert’s prayer as the priest and Kara knelt before Arthur’s stone. Draco, still perched atop it, gazed out at the star-filled sky.

“Let us who remember the glories of your golden kingdom feel your noble spirit, O Sainted King,” Gilbert intoned. His voice had none of its usual rhetorical pomposity, just a quiet, fervent clarity. “And let the song of Excalibur echo in our enemy’s ear. Amen . . . Ready, child?” He rose and helped Kara to her feet.

Both turned to Bowen. “And you, Bowen?” Gilbert asked, vague hope in his voice.

Bowen glanced upon the stones. He was impressed. He had been moved, like the others. But he could not be moved to madness. He shook his head at the priest.

“My son, this is Avalon!” Gilbert’s voice was still laced with earnest, kind dignity. “The shadow realm of the Round Table. It is a divine omen!”

“Omens and shadows won’t win battles.” Bowen rose. “Nor will you. You’ll find out when you try to raise your . . . army.” He sneered the word at Kara. “You already know the courage of
your
village. They’re very brave at pelting girls with vegetables.”

Kara calmly stared his sneer down. “It must start somewhere.” She turned to Draco. “Will you wish us luck, Draco?”