Dragon's Ring (35 page)

Vorlian barely managed to spiral out of the tangle to catch air in outspread, desperate wings. He had fallen too fast and too far! There was no way he could remain airborne. The injury from the storm was a screaming agony now, as he frantically air-braked. It was still never going to be enough. He landed hard.

With a muddy splash.

Zuamar had struck a rock-ridge. Vorlian had been luckier. He'd landed in a peat bog instead, and had struck it moving a great deal slower than Zuamar had.

He was in pain, covered in glutinous black mud, and his wing was injured.

But he was alive.

Zuamar was not. It took a great deal of force to sever a dragon head. The speed of the fall and impact with the rocks had provided that.

Vorlian tried to move. Winced. He was a sitting duck like this. He struggled to pull free of the bog.

Fionn glided in to a perfect four point landing on a rock spike—out of easy flaming range. But then he hadn't taken advantage of Zuamar's incapacity either. Maybe he didn't want to flame Vorlian? The black dragon appeared completely uninjured, and perfectly capable of killing a trapped dragon.

"Just what, in the name of the seven hot places, are you doing here, Vorlian?" the smaller dragon asked. Fionn's voice was tinged with irritation, but he did not sound particularly aggressive about his questioning.

Vorlian was too sore for sophistry. "I came over here to fight Zuamar. He's been tresspassing in my air-space. Threatening my kine with elimination."

Fionn snorted. "He was one of the old ones, Vorlian. He's had more dragon fights than you've had sheep for breakfast. I always thought you were one of those who could rise above this. Anyway, I have things to do, and you appear not too badly hurt. Are you going to live without my help? Because I'm running late. Got Tasmarin to destroy, and time and arcane forces wait for no dragon."

He always made those inane comments—but he did not seem to have any interest in taking advantage of the situation Vorlian found himself in. "I've hurt a wing. I don't think I can fly for a few days. And I am stuck in this vile mud," said Vorlian.

Fionn chuckled. "The mud saved your life. So I'd be polite about it. Speaking from experience—you're sinking into it, and the more you struggle deeper you'll get. There is only one way out. You need to transform yourself. You do still remember how?" asked Fionn, sardonically.

"It is demeaning to take on any form but that of noblest of creatures," Vorlian said, shocked despite the circumstances.

"I'm sure your mother said that to you," said Fionn. "But right now you need to ask whether drowning in mud is any less demeaning. A wyrm—one of the old forms—should get you out. If it was good enough for your forefathers, it's good enough for you. And don't go looking for Zuamar's hoard when you do get out. He had some of the nastiest traps that you can imagine. Now, I will leave you to decide whether you prefer being demeaned or drowned. I've got work to do."

And he took off gracefully and flew away to the east. Toward Starsey.

Vorlian had to wonder about his own hoard.

And then if he could still remember how to do what every young dragon did . . . and was told off by its mother for doing.

Vorlian wondered just who Fionn was. And what his business could be. Vorlian wasn't even sure which island he had his eyrie on. He was always just around.

After one or two abortive attempts Vorlian found that cellular memory still worked. He became a mighty wyrm and managed to wriggle his way free of the bog. He could no longer see Fionn in the sky, and in truth he was too sore and exhausted to care. He dragged himself into the cover of a nearby pine-wood and slept like the dead.

Meb's morning began with a thunderous knocking. She had barely sat up in bed when the scowling innkeeper burst in . . . with the daughter of the house who had waited on them and run Meb's bath. He appeared to be holding her by the ear. She was in tears.

Meb hadn't actually had enough experience of waking up in inns to be absolutely sure that this wasn't the normal way that for people to be roused. To her, "usual" was Finn waking her and having the two of them slip out in the darkness. That probably wasn't normal either. But it did seem odd.

Díleas—whose experience of beds, let alone inns, had to be less than hers, let her know that he also thought so. He growled, sounding, for a half-grown pup, quite alarming.

It wasn't enough to make an impression on the innkeeper. "Boy, where is your master?" he demanded.

She blinked. "In his bed, I should think."

"Ha! It's not been slept in!" said the innkeeper damningly.

Meb gaped at him, and piled out of bed herself, then pushed past him and ran to see, with Díleas at her heels, bouncing in delight.

The bed had plainly not even been sat on. And the window was open. It was bitterly cold in there. The larger of the bags he carried was still there, leaning against the wall. Looking at it, Meb found the only relief to be scavenged from the room with its neatly made and turned down bed.

"Where is he?" she demanded fiercely of the innkeeper. "What have you done with my master? Tell me!"

"Me?" The innkeeper was plainly rocked in his tracks by the savagery of her demand. "I've not seen him since last night. It's what you've done to my innocent young daughter, you serpent!"

"Your daughter! But . . . I've done nothing to your daughter." Behind her father's back the pretty apple-cheeked young woman looked at her imploringly.

The innkeeper sneered at her scornfully. "Oh yes you have, you vile deceiver. She's admitted the whole of it to me. Her mother and I found her bed with a bolster in it and we were waiting for her when she came sneaking in, just before dawn. She tried to put the blame on your master first to protect you! That's when we discovered that he was missing and the whole wicked truth came out. You seduced her with lies and promises when she took you up to your bath."

"What?!" Meb could scarcely believe that this was not just another strange dragon-dream.

"This wicked girl admits that she spent the night with you, and that you satisfied your carnal lusts on her, having beguiled her with your promises," said the innkeeper triumphantly. "You'll have to marry her and make an honest women of her now. You offered her that! I'll see that you make it good, you young limb."

"Marry? But, but. Uh . . ."

"You'll not weasel out of it, boy. My brother is the Mayton Lawman. Breach of promise will be enough to see you rot in jail or be sold. And you can't fool me. You're no traveling gleeman. Not with that kind of money!" There was a look of greed behind his righteous indignation. "Now, when will your master be back?"

Meb desperately wished that she had the least idea. Or even knew where he'd gone. He might have gone to the moon for all she knew. She was badly rattled by his sudden vanishing. Yes, he did strange, inexplicable things. Yes, he was no gleeman—although he was very good at being one. Yes, he seemed adept at getting out of tight spots. That didn't stop her worrying, did it? She was a lot more worried about him than the threat of being forcibly married to this silly girl. After all, she could just drop her trousers and prove her innocence. It wasn't something she was eager to do, but if Finn was not around . . . "He will be back when he's finished transacting his business," she said airily.

"Just what is your master's business?" asked the Innkeeper, suddenly suspicious.

"I'm really not supposed to say," said Meb, thinking desperately, as it also suddenly occurred to her that she had very little money.

The innkeeper, who was built like a side of pork, cracked his knuckles. "You'd better."

"Um. Well, we're traders."

"Where's your pack train? Your guards?" said the innkeeper, his face a fine example of what disbelief looked like.

"We, uh, trade in small valuable items. Pack trains get attacked and robbed. No one bothers gleemen." She hoped desperately that he would believe her.

"Oh. Jewels," he said knowingly.

"Possibly," said Meb, cautiously.

He seemed to take that as a "yes." And also that that was a good thing for his daughter. He made his best effort at an avuncular smile. "Well, boys and girls will be boys and girls, eh? She'll make you a very fine wife."

Meb tried to look as if the soft complexion, blue eyes and rosebud lips of the innkeeper's daughter, not to mention the generous curves that nature had not seen fit to give to Meb, were something she might find attractive. It wasn't easy. In the meanwhile she needed to find a way to get herself, Díleas and Finn's pack away from here. A fire or an earthquake or something.

Fionn was moderately tired by his brush with Zuamar. The constraint against killing generally lay within Fionn's natural bent anyway. He was involved in the manipulation of forces of vast power—he understood the need for such limitations. It was just a pain when it came to dealing with the likes of Zuamar. Still, things had worked out in the end. Yenfar would acquire another dragon ruler—probably not Vorlian—and the senseless killing would stop. And if all went to plan, it would stop mattering soon. Right now he had practical problems to deal with. A dragon, in daylight, was one of the most obviously visible things. It was just his ill-luck that right now it was a beautiful, clear, crisp, winter morning. Vorlian of course would not be on Starsey to challenge the interloper. But it did mean Fionn would have to land some distance from the inn and then walk back. Which all took time, and his human charge was accustomed to rising early.

He hoped that she would not panic if she found him missing. Her power in a panic might have all sorts of undesirable consequences, not least that, in spite of the natural cover provided by that locale, she would show the searchers just exactly where she was. She was also all too good at getting herself into trouble without him.

"Why am I smelling smoke?" said Meb, sniffing.

This was not a faint scent of it in the distance either. A strong smell of burning was drifting up the stair. The innkeeper turned and ran. "The bread. I forgot the bread!"

It smelt like more than bread burning to Meb. But she wasn't going to look a gift fire in the mouth. She grabbed Finn's pack. Her own little bag of belongings—her juggling balls, and a few other pieces, was also was also packed, ready. She just had to grab it and run . . .

And then she realized that the stupid girl had not run after her father. "Go. Your inn is on fire!" Meb said.

"I'm coming with you. He'll kill me if you're gone," said the girl. "He beats me."

At least she wasn't trying to stop Meb. "I don't want to marry you," said Meb, having retreated to her room to pull her boots on. There was a yell to fetch water from downstairs.

"I just said that to stop him hitting me. If he knew I was really with Justin, he'd have killed me. He hates Justin. When I said it was your master . . . he was quite pleased. My father said that he must be a smuggler."

Meb opened her window. It was a long way down. "Is there any other way out of here?

The girl nodded. "There's a ladder from the loft. It's quite steep."

"Show me."

So the girl did. There was a narrow winding stair at the end of the passage that led into the loft. A little door led out and to a ladder stapled to the outer wall. Meb was alerted to the fact that dogs are not much good at ladders by Díleas's worried whine, when she began to climb down. She came up again and put him into the larger bag, slung it over her shoulder, tied hers to her waist and climbed down the ladder into the stableyard.

The girl climbed down halfway and then dropped. As, in terms of weight, she was bigger than Meb, they and Díleas ended up flat on the stable-yard floor. "You're supposed to catch me," said the girl. "Justin does."

"Well, stick to falling on top of him then," said Meb, standing up and dusting herself off. "We'd better leg it."

The inn was at a crossroads, with the main coast road that ran a mile or two inland of the sand-dunes, a track that ran to the beach and a little fishing harbor, and the road up the fertile valley between high ridges. The obvious start direction was up the coast road as the kitchen of the inn—and its fire—was around the back and the inn faced the coast road. The bulk of the building sheltered them from view . . . For the first few hundred yards. The truth was that Meb didn't want to go too far. She wanted to go up that steep slope behind the inn—and watch for Finn. And get rid of this annoying liar of a girl.

It soon appeared that that was not going to be so easy. For starters, although the girl couldn't climb, Meb, loaded down with her bag and with Finn's heavy pack, couldn't immediately outwalk her. No wonder Finn always seemed to have something for every emergency! This pack must weigh nearly as much as she did.

And the girl seemed determined to stick as close as glue. Meb felt faintly guilty about trying to get away, anyway. The girl had only lied because she was being beaten. And she gave Meb useful advice—first about the ladder and now a stile that would let them into a hedged field off to the left, which would allow them to circle back.