Dragons of War (5 page)

By dusk they put in at Fresham Landing, a small town with steep slate roofs rising above narrow cobbled streets strung along the bottom of the river bluffs. Above loomed the mass of Mount Sootberg. The temple bell was calling the faithful to evening service as the
Starkaor
tied up. Relkin had convinced Bazil to wait until he had made the situation clear to Trader Dook. He was afraid that the leatherback would not be able to control himself once he came that close to his beloved wild green dragoness.

Relkin hurried along the Fresham dock, congested with fishing craft of all sizes. Mixed in were a few schooners and brigs from the river trade. Trader Dook's ship was around a curve in the embankment, a brig of sixty tons called
Calice
.

Relkin's inquiries brought a surly, heavyset fellow with a coarse red beard to the gangplank. Trader Dook, he was informed, was across the way at the Hag's Dead Inn.

This establishment, a narrow, three-story building of grey brick, was named for the unfortunate wife of the innkeeper who had never counted a happier day than when his spouse fell out the upstairs window while shouting at the dairymaid and broke her thick neck.

Relkin pushed into the inn's parlor, which held two dozen or more customers, mostly folk of the river trades, at their meat and drink.

Trader Dook, recognizable by his tall green trader's hat, was supping a pint of ale in a booth with two of his crew.

Relkin pulled a chair up to the side of the table and introduced himself. Quickly, carefully, he explained the situation and then sat back.

Trader Dook exchanged a long look with the two hearties on the other side of the booth. He scratched his long nose and exposed grey teeth in a humorless smile.

"Little bleedin' dragonboy come all this way to try and steal our fortune, ain't he, Nert?"

The one addressed as Nert leaned over the table and scowled at Relkin.

"We caught these dragons fair and square. They're ours."

Relkin struggled to keep his temper.

"You don't realize this perhaps, but it is against the laws to keep winged dragons."

"Then I'll clip their bleeding wings right off, won't I?" said Trader Dook. "Get used to it; they're ours, and we're going to take 'em down to Ourdh and sell them. They'll fetch a good price there."

"Heh, damned Ourdhi will eat anything, right, Nert?" the third man said suddenly with a giggle.

"Damn right, Golber," said Nert.

"You're breaking the law."

Trader Dook's powerful hand shot out and seized Relkin by the front of his shirt and pulled him close so the reek of beer filled his nostrils.

"Listen to me real careful, boy. My name is Trader Dook, and I don't care about the damned laws. When this is over, we'll have enough to set up wherever we like. If we can't live in Kenor, we'll live someplace else."

"Look, you don't understand, I'm not alone."

"Shaddup!" snarled Dook.

Relkin was growing tired of this. He shook himself free and stood up.

"You're making a serious mistake."

Dook nodded to the other two, and then all three of them rose and rushed him.

Relkin was taken aback, not expecting violence inside the inn. He shouted for the landlord, but received no more answer than a crowd of faces eager to see a beating. Dook and his boys were famous for it. Relkin spun and ducked and almost made it to the door, but then somebody stuck out a foot and he tripped and went down. By the time he was up again, Dook's long hand closed on his shoulder, and he was pulled back into their reach. Nert held him while Dook and Golber rained down punches. Golber did the body work, and Dook concentrated on the face. Relkin lost consciousness before it was finished. He never felt it when they tossed him out the door, and he landed with a thud in the gutter.

He awoke after perhaps an hour, and groaned aloud as he sat up. His ribs were very sore. Golber was a heavyset fellow and good with his fists.

He put a hand to his face and felt the congealing blood there. Dook had cut him pretty badly. His nose felt like a piece of putty. His lower lip was swollen, the side of his jaw ached.

He got to his feet and staggered back to the schooner. The dragon was gone, impatient at the boy's delay. Relkin prayed that Baz hadn't massacred Dook and his men. They were in the wrong, but they could not be slain for what they'd done. To kill them would mean a court-martial for both of them.

Back on the dockside, he forced himself into a shambling run. It was amazing how many separate pieces of him hurt, but he picked it up as he reached the bend. He had to stop the dragon.

Then, at last, he saw him, a tall figure, standing at the end of the dock staring forlornly out across the water.

The brig
Calice
was gone. While Relkin had lain unconscious in the gutter, Dook and his cronies had unshipped and sailed away. By straining his eyes into the night, Relkin could make out a white sail, already a mile or more downstream.

Bazil was about to hurl himself into the river and try to catch up by swimming when Relkin put himself in front of him.

"No, you'll never catch them, not when they have sail up. We'll have to take another ship."

"Hurry up then, because they're getting away."

Relkin was still staunching the blood flow from his battered nose when he concluded a deal with a captain named Vlope who owned the sloop
Peralta
and was prepared to sail her on the river at night. For the privilege, Relkin had promised a gold piece, a good chunk of their savings.

The sloop was smaller than the schooner
Starkaor
, and Bazil had to position himself amidships, in the waist. The crew of three worked around him as they set
Peralta's
sails on the single mast.

Soon they picked up speed. Captain Vlope knew these waters from a lifetime of sailing up and down them. With the intermittent light of the moon, plus the lights on the bluffs and down in the harbors, he could risk putting on speed even at night. The darker than dark mass of the Sootberg soon fell behind them and far ahead the light on Catamount Point rose into view. A careful examination of the reach ahead showed no sail. The
Calice
had already rounded Catamount Point. Trader Dook was wasting no time on his escape, and Dook's own knowledge of these waters was almost as extensive as that of Captain Vlope.

Vlope accepted the challenge. The sloop flew on, lifting occasionally in good gusts and sending up a spray of cold foam from the bows. Catamount Point grew before them and then passed behind. The water now grew choppy as they entered the race where the steep tumbling river Vets came down and joined the Argo. The sloop pitched drunkenly across this section, occasionally her bow picking up and yawing despite everything Vlope's crew could do. Still they made good time. The water was deep throughout this stretch of the river, and now the long Loop Reach was opening up in front of them. Here was an opportunity for the sloop to show her speed.

He scanned the reach ahead. In the murk it was hard to tell, but eventually Vlope spotted a pair of sails far down the reach. The brig?

It seemed likely.

"He has a substantial lead," Vlope said with a wintry grin. "But
Peralta
will show them."

They sped past the little town of Mother Loop, another collection of dark slate roofs, huddled on the southern bank. A handful of yellow lamps lit up the place, and atop the temple shone the Loop Light, a powerful navigation beacon for the whole reach.

Ahead rose the bulk of Grand Bluff. Here there were shallows and danger from grounded trees brought down in the spring floods. Captain Vlope swung the
Peralta
wide, away from the southern shore, and with anxious eyes peering through the dark for the first sign of those treacherous drowned trees, they swept around the bluff and entered the long Randle Reach.

Halfway down the reach, they passed a fishing boat hooking for night eels and learned that they had gained on the brig, but that it was still several miles ahead.

Captain Vlope fell into a sulky silence. Eventually he growled, "Damn that man, he'll be in the islands in the morning light. We'll have to search all day, I bet."

Vlope was prescient. At the end of Randle Reach the Argo was joined by the wide, sluggish Flueli. The river broadened and grew shallow, and the main channel vanished into a network of islands and shallow streams. A ship the size of the
Calice
would have to pick her way carefully here. But pursuers would have to look in a hundred different coves and inlets to be certain that the fugitive was not left behind them.

The dawn came and with it came the famous mists of Flueli, thick clinging vapor that blanketed the river and made progress hazardous.

By mid-morning the mist was lifting, but the
Peralta's
progress had been slowed to a crawl, and the task ahead was monumental. The brig would have slowed as well, but if Dook simply pushed on to the far side of the islands, he could escape completely while they investigated all the side channels and inlets here. Vlope gambled, and the sloop pressed on, staying with the main channel, seeking to pass through as quickly as possible and close up with the
Calice
if Dook had done the same.

He had not. By mid-afternoon, they were clear of the islands on the western side, and there was no sign of the brig, although several fishing vessels passed by. They had no report of the
Calice
either.

Vlope swung the
Peralta
about and began tacking up river, putting into each side channel as they came to it. Hours passed and still there was no sign of the
Calice
.

"Could be anywhere in these damned islands. It'll take a week to search them all," grumbled Vlope.

The light was beginning to fade and with it Relkin's hopes of ever catching up with Dook, when the sloop skimmed across the outlet of a blocked channel, hidden behind willow thicket. There was no point in putting in there, the water was not deep enough.

Suddenly the dragon gave a grunt.

"Something floating in the water there, look."

Relkin called to Vlope to slow and bring the
Peralta
about until they came abreast of the floating object.

It was the body of Golber, slashed horribly across the throat.

"Golber!" exclaimed Relkin. "One of Dook's men." At the sight of Golber, Relkin felt his sides ache.

Golber floated away, food for fish.

"Up there, in that dead water, I'd say," said Vlope, pointing through the willows to the hidden inlet.

"But how?"

"Entrance on the other side of the island is probably deeper. Brig's anchored just inside, out of sight of the main channel and close enough to be able to run for it if she has to."

"Put me ashore," said Relkin.

Through the gathering dusk, Relkin made his way up the beach and into the tangled thickets of willow and alder that covered the low-lying island. Clouds of mosquitoes arose off the stagnant inlet, and they soon found Relkin's sweating form as he worked his way through the dense thickets. It was an ordeal, but at length he won through to a zone of sand dunes beside the inlet. The water curved away to the north and east, and he followed, splashing through the shallows for a half mile until he rounded the bend and came in sight of a ship. A pair of wan lights at bow and stern gave some illumination. It was undoubtedly the brig. Relkin marked the quarry's position and then returned the way he had come.

Vlope nodded briskly at this confirmation of his suspicions and sent the
Peralta
upstream and around the island until they approached the open mouth of the closed-off inlet.

Bazil and Relkin, stripped to the essentials of dirk and sword, were lowered over the side into the water. Peralta moved away, tacking upstream to await their signal. Bazil rolled over slowly, enjoying the feel of the cold water again. All wyverns loved to swim, an echo of their monstrous forebears.

Relkin, teeth chattering, swam up and climbed astride the dragon's massive shoulders. Now with smooth strokes of the great tail, the dragon headed into the inlet.

Like some enormous crocodile, Bazil coasted the last twenty yards, scarcely breaking the surface of the water. No alarm came from the ship, and at length they were poised beneath the bow of
Calice
.

Voices could be heard, angry voices raised in argument somewhere aft, but the bow was quiet. Carefully Relkin stood up on Bazil's back, steadied himself, and then leapt for the scroll work of the brig's figurehead, a Snailmaiden with long hair and horns. He landed, got a grip on her horns, and hauled himself up to the rail while ignoring as much as possible the savage stabs of pain from his ribs where Golber's fists had landed.

There was a single figure standing watch on the poop deck. Down below the argument continued. Relkin was able to ascertain that it was coming from the aft hold, where the hatch was open, letting warm yellow lantern light flood up from below. Relkin slithered soundlessly onto the deck between two coiled ropes and crept sternward. The watch made no move. So far, so good.

In fact, the man on watch was the lumpy Nert, who listened with half an ear to the row down below while he grieved for poor old Golber.

The damned cages were just badly designed and poorly made, and that had been Golber's downfall. That and Trader Dook's recklessness. Golber and Nert had been drinking and amusing themselves by spitting at the dragoness. Trader Dook had come by and challenged Golber to get closer so he could literally spit in her eye. Golber, poor old fool, had gone one step too close, and in a movement almost too fast for the human eye to witness, the green dragoness had reached through and slashed his throat and chest with her talons. At least it had been quick. Golber was dead before he hit the floor.

Now, as Relkin listened, they argued. Some of the crew wanted to avenge their loss by killing one of the young dragons. Dook was adamantly opposed. The young dragons were worth a thousand gold pieces apiece to a gourmet club in Ourdh.

Nert was confused. They ought to avenge poor Golber. Part of Nert wanted to kill the dragoness herself, but the other part of him knew that she was worth five thousand gold pieces, and he really didn't want to lose that. On the other hand, what was poor old Golber worth? Was he even worth losing a thousand gold pieces over? It was an ugly decision, one that Nert had decided to leave up to Trader Dook. Sometimes Nert didn't like the world, or even himself.