Dragonheart (6 page)

But someday Bowen would put an end to it, put an end to this curse. He looked at the dragon talons mounted on his shield. Eleven. This was the first in a long time; dragons were harder to come by of late. But he would go on searching, no matter how hard it became. He would search until he was finished. Eleven wasn’t enough. There were more out there. There was
one
out there. With each kill he had checked the breast for the telltale scar. He had checked the right claw . . . and the middle talon. No, it wasn’t enough.

Only eleven . . . no . . .
ten.

Only ten.
Bowen studied the centerpiece of his trophy shield, ran his finger gingerly down the jagged edge of the broken talon. The one lie among his victories. Merely a promise of victory. An unrealized dream that beckoned him . . . or taunted him, Mocked him and haunted him. Like the dream that had come to him tonight as he had dozed, as it had come so often in the last three years. Not a dream at all, actually. A memory. For it had happened. He had stood upon that mountaintop and watched the dragon wing its way into the setting sun and disappear with it into the darkness beyond his reach. And he had shouted those words after the fleeing figure. “I will undo your treachery.” Made his vow. A memory. A dream. A nightmare. A destiny.

Bowen flung the shield aside and, kneeling by the pond, dipped his hands into it, splashing his face with water. It was warm. Probably the heat of the fire. As the ripples he made settled he stared at the face frowning back at him from the pool. He barely recognized it anymore. The laughter in the eyes had dimmed; the gaze was cold and cynical. The frowning mouth tight and hard set. The face was still chiseled, but freshness had fled the sun-leathered flesh and the smoothness of the still-firm jaw was marred by a unkempt beard. Gray tinged the brownish-blond hair that tangled down his neck.

Bowen puddled the water with his hand and drowned the frowning face. He gazed across the flame-flicked pond to the burning dragon. A fiery lump of flesh slid off the exposed rib cage, hissing into the water. The carcass flared with unsettling incandescence. It was almost too pretty. Magical. Melancholy swept over Bowen like the fire swept over the dragon. How bright the blaze!

Part II

THE QUESTS

Oh, Avalon! Bright Avalon! End my soul’s dismay.
Return forgotten glories that once held noble sway.

—Gilbert of Glockenspur,
“Lost Avalon”

Six

ONE LESS DRAGON

“Never have I seen such skill!”

The wheat waved gently in the morning breeze. Or perhaps it merely bowed to the bombast of the recitation that disrupted the serenity of the day.

“So lost the world when lost its code,
So lost in evil cruel!
But one back dared to bear the load
And seek the golden rule.”

The poet was a priest, Brother Gilbert of Glockenspur. He rode his mule down the brown path between two fields of wheat, composing as he recited, scratching with a quill across a vellum scroll unrolled on a writing tablet braced against the mule’s neck.

“A solitary pilgrim rode
Upon his lowly mule . . .”

Both the mule and monk were laden with scrolls and manuscripts. Bundles of parchment protruded from four saddlebags flapping against the mule’s flanks. Slung about the priest’s middle was a cloth sack filled with scrolls. As the mule plodded down the path Gilbert pondered his next line, tapping the quill against his pursed lips. Inspiration struck; he dipped his quill in the inkwell on the tablet, and scribbled across the scroll, speaking aloud the words as he wrote them.

“Content with this, his humble mode,
His quest was spiritual . . .”

It came out “spirichool,” a tortured attempt at a rhyme with “mule.” The mule itself shook its head with a short snort, as though in derision. Gilbert frowned at the animal.

“Everyone’s a critic.” Gilbert scratched out the line. But his editing didn’t seem to satisfy the mule, who whinnied nervously and stamped his feet. Gilbert’s writing tablet and its contents clattered to the ground, ink spilling over his composition as it went. Gilbert yanked the reins, trying to control the beast.

“Whoa, Merlin! It wasn’t that objectionable. Whoa!”

But Merlin responded with a rambunctious buck. Braying, he sent the priest flying after his writing tablet. Gilbert tumbled cassock over crucifix, the manuscripts spilling from his pouch into the wheat with him.

The priest sat up with as much dignity as he could muster and, thrusting aside a clump of wheat from his face, glared at his disturbed mount, quivering and stomping the ground.

“I’m not in the mood for any of your tantrums, Merlin,” Gilbert chastised as he crawled about gathering up his scrolls, quite oblivious to the animal’s blatant distress. Or its cause.

He did not hear the creeping rustle in the field behind him. He did not see the curling smoke that weaved through the tendrils of wheat and, like a snake, slithered toward him.

Totally unsuspecting, Gilbert wagged an admonishing scroll at the shivering mule. “I realize that, thus far, this has been a rather uneventful, if not altogether fruitless and boring, quest. But remember its goals, its glory! Soon something’s bound to happen!”

Something did.

Gesturing grandly with his manuscript, Gilbert caught it on something behind him. As he turned to inspect the obstacle he was engulfed in a puff of smoke. Coughing, the priest fanned the smoke away with his hand . . . and struck something. A shiny tooth. His manuscript was snagged on it.

Actually, it was a fang. A very sharp and very long fang, as Gilbert discovered, sliding the rolled parchment off of it. The fang jutted out of the grain stalks just below a scaly snout and a smoke-spouting nostril. Down the snout, peeping out from the crisscross web of wheat and smoke, glared a gimlet reptilian eye!

Saliva slid down the tooth onto Gilbert’s shaking fingers. In slack-jawed fright, he jerked them back from the fang as a sudden roar rumbled up from behind the tooth, The wheat trembled in the growling blast.

So did Gilbert, collapsing to the ground with a whimper. Just in time too. For the roar was followed by a jolt of flame that just missed the buckling Gilbert’s skullcap and hit right in front of Merlin’s forehooves.

With a panicked hee-haw, Merlin turned tail and bolted into the wheat. With a yelp, Gilbert followed the mule’s example, scrambling for the dubious haven of the field, now ablaze.

One backward look gave him the only glimpse of his pursuer he wanted. The dragon raised himself up above the wheat. And up. And up. Head cocked, he glared at his fleeing prey with one good eye. The other was covered with milky film. Ribs protruded beneath his mottled, scarred hide. His wings flapped in reflex only. Their membranes were shredded and pocked with holes, their flying days long over. His tongue flicked across his lips. Crammed between his teeth or in spaces where his teeth once were were half-chewed stalks of wheat. No wonder the old boy’s ribs were showing. Another drop of spittle slithered over his open jaws as, on gimpy legs, he hobbled after his prey.

Arms laden with his precious scrolls, Gilbert crashed through the stalks. The fire was rapidly spreading and the smoke confused his direction. He heard the rustling of pursuit. Caught sight of hide in one spot, then a glimpse of thrashing wing in another. A flickering tail. That glaring eye.

The smoke was like a fog. And the rustling seemed to come from everywhere. All around him. Then right in front of him. Charging down on him. The wheat quivered as swift clomping pummeled the soil.

Gilbert’s sandals slapped to a sliding halt as something long, slender, and sharp speared out of the stalks at him. But it was not a fang or talon. It was a lance! Wailing, the frenzied friar flung himself to the ground in a welter of flying manuscripts and fevered prayer.

“Jesu!” Gilbert crossed himself and flopped his face in his hands, awaiting the inevitable. But when impalement eluded him, he peeked through his fingers to find the lance had skimmed over his shoulder, its point still burrowing in the soft soil behind him. On the other end of it was a knight charging through the wall of wheat on horseback. Gilbert blanched. At least impaling would have been a tidier death than trampling. But the knight reined his horse just short of the priest and yanked back his lance, shooting the priest a surly scowl.

Gilbert’s already-pounding heart nearly thumped out of his chest when he spied the faded emblem of the sword within the circle on the knight’s tattered surcoat. He had never thought to see that glorious symbol adorn a living man’s breast. He had only seen it depicted in drawings or on ancient tapestries, read about it in his books and scrolls . . . a dream of dead ages to be wondered on and mourned by historians and poets like himself.

Of course, Gilbert would have expected—and, if truth be told, wished for—a more worthy representative of the Old Code. His poet’s fancy had always held an idealized version and this tousled-maned, unshaven wreck of a knight did not come close. Oh, he was a decent-enough-looking fellow. Run a comb through his bedraggled hair, clean him up. put some new clothes on him. Besides the torn surcoat, the fellow wore a dull coat of mail, dirty patched breeches, and scuffed boots.

Both he and his steed were laden with assorted weaponry. Broadsword, lance, bow and arrows, mace, battle-ax, and buckler. The shield gave grim evidence of his trade . . . on its face was mounted an awesome assortment of dragon talons.

Of course, Gilbert’s appraisal had been instantaneous and instinctive. Other thoughts dominated his mind, so when the knight snapped at him in curt irritation, “Fool! What are you doing here?” Gilbert stammered out an answer.

“Dra . . . dra . . . drag . . .”

“Yes! Where?” the knight barked impatiently.

Gilbert gestured wildly with a bent scroll clutched in his shaking hand. But before he could pinpoint the direction, a shaft of flame belched out of the wheat, flashing between the knight and the priest, setting the crop behind them ablaze.

Gilbert screeched and the knight whirled his mount through the smoky haze, seeing the dragon’s plated spine dip down behind a ridge in the field. Raising his lance, he gave chase.

A dazed Gilbert realized the dragon’s fire burp had set the scroll in his hand ablaze. He blew on it frantically, then stuck it in the dirt to extinguish the fire.

A painful yowl jerked the priest up, shivering. The wheat rustled in manic agitation. Smoke from the burning field wafted by. A flash of dragon tail whipped in the air, then snaked out of sight. Then the stalks began to quiver in front of Gilbert. Something was coming toward him!

It was the knight’s riderless horse. Gilbert knelt in prayer.

His prayer was answered. The knight was alive . . . for the moment. He rose on the end of his lance, which stopped perpendicular to the ground.

It was an easy guess where the other end was embedded, for there was a terrible growling and thrashing. The lance shaft trembled so violently that the dragonslayer lost his grip and was thrown down out of sight.

Gilbert followed the waving, snapping stalks that marked the tussle. A sword flashed up. Down. There was a hoarse gasp. Then no more waving. No more snapping. No more tussling.

The priest stopped. Listened. Not a sound. Absolute quiet. He took a chance and peeked through the stalks . . .

And a dragon claw loomed up!

Gilbert leapt away. Fell. Somersaulted backward. His head bobbed up in time to see the taloned claw clutch convulsively, waver in midair, spasm again, then come careening limply down toward him. A talon slid past Gilbert’s frightened face, just missing his belly, slicing the rope belt of his cassock, then flopping between his splayed-out legs, just below the point where they joined, just missing what Gilbert had euphemistically dubbed his “staff of life.” Of course, as a priest, he had no real occasion to use it for that purpose, and thus, since it had never achieved its full propagating potential, it was hardly the most crucial part of his anatomy. Still, it had certain practical functions that might have been inconvenienced by its destruction, so he rejoiced that the claw had missed it.

He stared at the limp limb, finally summoning a modicum of courage to poke it with a tentative finger. It did not respond to his touch.

“It’s dead, monk.” The knight emerged through a haze of smoke, clamoring over the back of the dragon, which curved above the wheat.

Wreathed in smoke, he stood atop the dead beast, his chest heaving from his exertions. Firelight and sunlight splashed across his face, making the sweat and blood on his cheeks and brow glisten. He hadn’t made much of a first impression, thought Gilbert, but now he looked every inch a knight of the Old Code. The monk scrambled to his feet as the knight descended from his kill.

“Magnificent! Marvelous!” Gilbert’s enthusiasm ran ahead of him as he struggled to knot up his severed belt and retrieve his scattered scrolls along the way. “Heroics befitting the days of Arthur and the Round Table. Never have I seen such skill!”

“Then you’ve led the sheltered life that becomes a monk.” The trace of a tolerant smile broke the knight’s stern mask. With his sword he prodded at the dragon’s exposed chest.

“Also scholar, scribe, historian, and poet,” Gilbert bowed, dropping several scrolls while his knotted belt came undone again. “Brother Gilbert of Glockenspur, your servant, Sir . . . ?”

“Bowen . . .” The knight brushed back the scales over the dragon’s heart.

“My humble life, Sir Bowen, is in the debt of your exalted prowess, daunting courage, and superb, swift sword.”

“You have a poet’s gift for exaggeration.”

“Oh, sir, you should read my histories!” What a complimentary fellow, thought Gilbert. “But you belittle your own talent. A great victory for you and the Lord!”

“Then let the Lord savor it.” Bowen frowned as he ran his hand along the smooth pale breast exposed under the scales. It was the only part of the dragon that wasn’t scarred or discolored. Bowen examined the pocked, shredded wing in weary disgust. “There’s too little glory to be shared in this kill.”