The Dragons of Argonath (16 page)

"True."

The dragons had fared better this time around, for only Brezza had been killed, although there were many wounds on the big dragon bodies, despite the leather armor and helmets and shields. The fighting with the bear-creatures had been a close run thing. Bazil had slain three of the brutes before they'd finally given up. Now their huge forms were piled on the barricade, except for one monster that had broken right through the line. It lay by the overturned wood skip outside number seven, the head at an unnatural angle and the huge, hoglike eyes staring down the street.

Thorn sat down on the soot-blackened step. Weariness overcame him for a moment. He took a few deep breaths.

"The witch took a knock."

"Proves they don't have eyes in the back of their heads."

"Will she live, Your Majesty?"

"They say her head's not broken, but she's unconscious, so I don't know. We must pray for her."

Pascal Iturgio Densen Asturi contemplated a future without the Grey Lady at his elbow all the time, and then he prayed that she would live. She was the one who was absolutely indispensable, if the enemy only knew. They could find another emperor, even if they had to go outside the Asturi family, but another Lessis did not exist.

"Can we hold them if they come again?"

"Yes, I think so. But it will be close."

"How long do we have before they attack again?"

"They must rest like we do. It is harder to attack than to defend, and it requires more of a man's emotional reserves. Even imps have emotions, they will be exhausted now. We have an hour or two, I think, before they can attack again en masse."

"Where is the dragonboy?"

Thorn smiled. "With his great beast." Thorn struggled for words. "Your Majesty, never have I seen the like of this. That dragon is terrible in the extreme. He kills them by the dozen. You can see why our legions are so hard to defeat. The battledragons are the lords of the battlefield."

Thorn's eyes were those of one exposed to a miracle. The emperor nodded. It had been an education for him as well. He still wondered how the imps found the courage to charge the dragons, for he knew that he could not imagine trying it after seeing Bazil and the others in action.

"Invaluable experience, Thorn, but we must survive to employ it. We need reinforcements."

"Yes, Your Majesty. Help will come."

"May it come soon."

Thorn shrugged, knowing that it would be hours yet before any significant assistance could arrive.

Pascal sighed as he contemplated the distasteful.

"We need to think out where we can retreat to if we have to give up the barricade." Pascal raised a hand. "No, it has to be contemplated. We are heavily outnumbered."

Thorn nodded somberly. It was better to plan for even the worst eventuality. The emperor was not finished, though.

"We held them, Thorn. I can sense it. Even though they have the numbers, I feel we can still defeat them right here and send a message to their dreadful masters that the men of the Argonath will fight to the death for the things we believe in."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Suppressing any misgivings, Thorn moved on down the street to discuss the situation with Dragoneer Relkin. Thorn had found that Relkin had a store of battle experience that far exceeded his own. Thorn had spent most of his life as a bodyguard, not a soldier. He had never fought beside dragons.

"How is the dragon?" Thorn nodded to the vast recumbent beast lying inside the alley behind the bank.

The big head came up, and one eye focused on him.

"He's doing well. He's hungry, what else?" Relkin said.

"Dragon is very hungry, you forget 'very,'" said Bazil. Despite the grim situation, Thorn felt a grin break across his face.

Sometimes Thorn still found it hard to accept being addressed in ordinary verio by a wyvern dragon, but that sense of oddness was fading. Strange as it was to hear speech from that big mouth, lined with daggerlike teeth, it was not as strange as it had been at first. Thorn was growing accustomed to dragons.

"Then, we must get you some food. I will speak to the innkeeper."

"And plenty of akh."

"Of course." Thorn turned to Relkin.

"Pip Pigget had a good horse. He'll be past Felli by now."

"It's a long march in the night. We have to hold them off until tomorrow morning."

Thorn nodded, eyes downcast. "I pray we have the strength." He rose to his feet. "I'll go and ask about that food. I think we could all use something to get our spirits up."

Privately Relkin thought it was unlikely they could hold out until morning. If the enemy attacked every couple of hours as they had before, then in the end they would be worn down and overrun. The enemy was prepared to press the issue in almost suicidal fashion, and he had considerable numbers, several hundred imps at least. Plus a dozen more of those strange new monsters.

Relkin turned back to cutting down the shafts of imp arrows to fit them for the Cunfshon bow. He had used up all his own shafts long before. The situation was desperate. They would have to retreat from the village and fight their way north up the road, or they'd have to perform a miracle and hold out until reinforcements came.

A miracle! He glanced down the street to the inn, where he knew Lessis lay, still out cold from that blow to the head she'd taken. She could not perform any miracles for them now.

It seemed they were out of options, except for one thing, and that was the one that left Relkin very disturbed. His palms itched, and he started to sweat just thinking about it. His stomach turned fluttery with panic. The Lady Lessis was not, perhaps, their last source for magic. Relkin had seen it, he had felt those strange powers awake inside himself. He had gazed into the abyss they represented, and he had drawn back, genuinely terrified.

Ever since the moment of his possession by the demon of the Ten Thousand, he had lived with this terrible knowledge. When Mirchaz fell and the demon was released and the Mind Mass of Mirchaz finally knew itself, then were the channels laid bare for Relkin to see and never forget.

Then had come the power, surging through him in such shattering volume that when he laid his hands on the gates of the city, they were shattered in a flash of light and thrown asunder. The air stank oddly afterward, his hair stood on end for hours, and there were black spots across his vision that took days to fade, but for a moment he had been a god.

Oh, yes, he remembered those channels. He had visited them before that, but blindly, driven to it by the agonies imposed by the mad elf lord Mot Pulk. But now he knew where they lay, and he thought he knew how to open them. And that terrified him.

Relkin wasn't the sort of person to be easily terrified, not after all he'd lived through in his career with the legion. Yet this frightened him deeply, for he suddenly could see that other life in which he gave in to these powers and became a sorcerer. There was a corruption there that could devour the spirit. He well knew how great was the discipline of the witches. Lessis and Ribela possessed powers that could easily give them command over empires, but they chose to serve the Empire of the Rose. They took no interest in material pleasure or possessions. They were rather frightening in their dedicated single-mindedness. But he doubted that he possessed such strength himself. The wielder of great powers of magic could take what he wanted from the world. That godlike feeling again. But with it came the corruption. Relkin had seen the effects of that corruption. He had seen what it had done to the great Heruta, Gzug of Padmasa, and he had witnessed the dreadful senile corruption of the elf lords of Mirchaz. Could he avoid such pitfalls? Could he remain himself if he allowed himself to fall into the abyss where the magic powers winked and gleamed in the dark?

That way lead to madness, he was certain. The old gods would never forgive him, and if they still lived to govern the heavens, they would doom him. He would be consumed by the magic. He would lose his soul and become something fell and evil.

Thus he had resolved to never open those channels again, for anything. It was better if he forgot all about them. He had told only one person in the world about the experience, Eilsa Ranardaughter, his beloved and wife-to-be. She had counseled him to beg the pardon of the Mother and never, never enter the magic realm again. Among Clan Wattel there was a strong prejudice against sorcerers in general. In the old days they'd burned them at the stake.

Relkin had done his best to forget the powers he had glimpsed. And now he was faced with a terrible choice. More than his own life, more than the life of his dragon, hung on this choice. They might even lose the emperor himself. Relkin didn't have more than the common knowledge of the political situation in the Argonath, but he was sure that the murder of the emperor would not be good for justice or stability. Or for solving the problem posed by the Aubinans. The empire itself could be at stake here.

Did he dare to tread those abyssal deeps once more? Could he make himself go into that state? Was there any alternative? Wasn't it his duty?

And what else was he going to do anyway?

The dragon noticed that Relkin was sunk into himself, but being too tired to care about anything except a meal, he let his head fall back and closed his eyes again.

A few minutes later they awoke to see the happy sight of Avil Bernarbo and his family wheeling a cart down the street laden with a big pot of sweetened corn stirabout. They gave Bazil the biggest spoon in the kitchen and poured in an entire pot of akh.

There was hot kalut, bread, sausage, and pickles for everyone. More carts came down from the inn. At least there was absolutely no shortage of vittles.

Relkin took kalut and a half loaf of bread larded with cream cheese, and sat in the shadows. Bazil finished the stirabout and then stretched out with a happy groan.

"Now if we die, we at least die on a full stomach."

Relkin didn't respond.

At that moment one of the bear-creatures came forward and hurled something high over the barricade. Men went to look and gave cries of anger and woe. It was the head of Pip Pigget.

No message had gone through past Felli. They were alone.

Bazil grunted after a few moments. "So you have realized that we cannot keep them back all night?"

Relkin looked up.

"Boy have no choice, but to try. I know you have this power. Dragon can feel it."

"I'm afraid, Baz."

"We die otherwise."

In the Dragon House at Cross Treys, the day was drawing to a close. The dragons had eaten their dinner, taken a plunge in the pool, and finished their allotment of ale. Then they trundled off to their stalls for sleep.

As usual they slept with thunderous snores, particularly from old Chektor and the Purple Green. Dragonboys made last-minute kit checks before they too turned in to sleep. This came easily, despite the curious whoops and hirrups, blurps and zuzzes that came from snoring wyverns.

There were a few exceptions. Swane, Manuel, and Jak met out front to talk.

"It's not like Relkin, not these days," said Swane.

"Something must have delayed them. Probably they ate too much yesterday. Can you imagine what kind of a party they probably had down there?" Manuel tried to be the calming influence.

"Yeah, and I can imagine the kind of party they're gonna get from Cuzo when they get back."

They shared a grim chuckle. Cuzo could be a right bastard when he thought you'd tried to take advantage of him. Being made to look foolish by Relkin would really turn him purple.

"Swane's right, though," said Little Jak. "They wouldn't have wanted to get on the wrong side of Cuzo. I mean, imagine old Wiliger letting them out on leave like that."

"Never would have happened." Swane was emphatic. "Trouble for Cuzo is that Relkin ought to have been made dragon leader. We know it, and Cuzo knows it, but Relkin wasn't here when Cuzo got the step."

"There's some politics behind it too," said Manuel.

"What? In Marneri?"

"Yes. There's those who have it in for Relkin, and the Broketail too."

"The Aubinans?"

"Right," Swane nodded heavily. "It all goes back to Commander Glaves. They'll never stop trying to get Relkin. A real pity if this turns Cuzo nasty, just as he was easing up."

"It doesn't seem right that Relkin didn't even send a message." Manuel sounded thoughtful. "But whatever the reason for it, they're in hot water with Cuzo already."

"By the Hand, did you see him at dinner call?" Jak puffed up his cheeks and turned himself pink in imitation of their dragon leader.

They laughed, but it was laughter tinged with sad certainty that Cuzo's wrath would fall hard and heavy on their friends when they eventually presented themselves at Cross Treys.

Eventually only the snores of wyverns shook the air of the Dragon House.

Little Jak slept on his bunk, high up on one side of Alsebra's stall, and Alsebra lay stretched out on a mound of fresh hay. The freemartin dragon's sleep was not the noisy process of the Purple Green; she scarcely snored at all and normally she hardly moved from eye shut to eye open—except for an occasional stretch and a wriggle down the back to the tail tip before laying down again in a new position.

From next door came the rumbles and whirs of the Purple Green. Though Jak had grown used to them, he still wondered sometimes how Manuel managed to sleep while actually being in there with the snorer. Jak wondered how anyone could live with the wild dragon. He took up half the stall as it was with that huge bulk, augmented by the wings. There were some postings, like up in the Blue Hills, where they'd had to knock down a wall and give the Purple Green a double stall. And when he snored, it was as loud as he was big. Jak sighed and turned over and pulled the blanket over his shoulder.

Despite it all, Jak slept soundly.

Alsebra too was in her normal relaxed sleeping state, laying on her side with tail drawn around her head. An occasional light flutter came up from her as her side rose and fell.

But then after an hour or so of sleep, something changed. Alsebra's rhythms were off. She began to snort occasionally or to clack her jaws, a sure sign of agitation. And indeed Alsebra was having a most peculiar kind of dream. She kept seeing Relkin, but a weird, blurry Relkin, as if he were a ghost. He was trying to talk to her, but she could not quite hear or understand. As if the words were being swept away in the wind. And she strained to understand, strained so hard that her head hurt, but she could not quite get it.