The Veiled Dragon (26 page)

objected to having their bodies used as bait, the prince could not tell over the din of voices already assailing his ears. He loaded the cadavers into the dugout, leaning one man over the bow and propping the other in the stern. Into the bottom of the punt, he placed a halberd and some supplies he had gathered from his dead troops, including a rope, torches, oil, and a waterskin. After peering through gray mosquito haze to make certain no alligators lurked nearby—most had retreated to their dens to gorge themselves on last night’s catch— Tang slipped into the bog scum. As the water rose above his waist, the stench of decaying plants and rotten fish grew immensely more powerful. He gagged and nearly emptied his stomach, then slapped a hand over his nose and forced himself to breathe through his mouth until he grew accustomed to the reek. He pushed the dugout toward Cypress’s cavern, moving so slowly that even he could not see the water rippling. A familiar, cold weakness crept over his limbs, and his heart began to pound so loudly it drowned out the wails of the dead soldiers. In response, they raised their voices until it seemed the entire swamp reverberated with their howls. “Worthy ancestors, please to silence spirits,” the prince begged. “It is difficult to be brave with such din.” If anything, the spirits wailed more loudly, yet not loudly enough to drown out the small, whispering voice that kept telling Tang he was a fool to face the wyverns alone. It was not the place of Shou princes to wade through swamps filled with the choking stench of death and rot, or to brave black waters infested with leeches and alligators. The bottom vanished beneath Tang’s feet. He forced his legs and arms into service and swam toward the cave. The closer he came to the moss-draped maw, the weaker his limbs felt. He doubted he would have the strength to enter the grotto, but that was not required. All he had to do was push the dugout into view of the wyverns, and they would do the rest. As the prince consoled himself with these thoughts, it occurred to him there was a weakness in his plan. How would he know when—or even if—the wyverns took his bait? The poison would be both painful and quick. Once the stakes punctured the lining of their stomachs, the great reptiles would thrash about and screech madly for a short time, but Tang would not hear them. The dead soldiers were wailing too loudly; the prince would not have heard it if Cypress himself roared in his ear. Tang allowed the dugout to drift to a stop, then hung from its stern. He had two choices: go into the cave with the corpses, or make his report to Yen-Wang-Yeh so the soldiers would be silent. Or sneak out of the swamp while Cypress was away, added the insidious voice inside his head. “I do not go back!” Feeling proud for avoiding the obvious choice of a coward, Tang took the second most cowardly course and swam the dugout toward the yawning cavern. It seemed entirely possible the wyverns would kill him, but that was preferable to disgracing his ancestors by admitting that he had turned out to be a fool. The punt nosed in front of the cavern mouth. When the wyverns did not immediately come swooping out of the darkness, Tang took a deep breath, then slipped beneath the water and pushed the dugout around the corner. The din of his dead soldiers faded to a watery roar, and the cowardly voice in his head stopped urging him to flee. The prince continued to ease forward, hoping his feet did not break the surface when he kicked, struggling to keep his hand from slipping on the boat’s slimy bottom. His lungs were already burning for air, but he knew it was only the coward in him looking for an excuse to flee. Tang continued to kick, praying he would feel the wyverns’ strike rock the dugout before his craven lips opened and sucked a mouthful of fetid water into his lungs. It occurred to him that the wyverns might be gorged already. But they had to be ravenous after last

night’s burst of fighting, and the two lizards had not yet finished feeding when Cypress sent them inside to guard the lair. Unless the prince had misinterpreted last night’s events, they would be voracious enough to devour the punt as well as its contents. So why hadn’t they attacked? Tang’s yearning for air grew so overwhelming that he nearly opened his mouth. Instead, he blew his breath out through his nostrils and continued to swim. At this point, he expected the coward inside to remind him that it was treason to risk the life of a Shou prince, to urge him to swim for the swamp. The whispering voice remained mercifully silent, perhaps because it knew Tang had come too far. The punt was his only camouflage. If he was not behind its sheltering bulk when he pushed his head above water, the wyverns would swoop down to bite him in two, just as they had bitten apart those bodies in the swamp outside. A black fog gathered at the edges of Tang’s perceptions, and he realized he could no longer deny his lungs. He rolled onto his back and pushed his head up alongside the slimy hull. When his face broke the surface, he opened his mouth and quietly filled his chest with dank, moldy air. The cavern ceiling hung thrice a man’s height above hie head. It was a dark vault of broken stalactites and shadowy hollows, dimly illuminated by the swamp’s emerald light. Here and there were blocky holes where some huge chunk of stone had long ago fallen into the water, shaken loose by an earthquake, or perhaps some ancient outpouring of Cypress’s anger. Tang allowed his gaze to follow the curve of the ceiling down to the wall, then farther down to a rock ledge looming above the water. Hanging above this stony bench were two pairs of huge orange eyes with slit pupils and gleaming, voracious gazes. The prince’s heart skipped a beat or several, and he stopped himself from crying out only by pulling his head beneath the water. The wyverns struck the next instant, taking Tang’s bait so hard that they slammed the bottom of the dugout into his chest. The impact drove the air from his lungs, and he found himself choking on fetid brown swamp water. His head broke the surface of its own accord and violent coughs began to rack the prince’s body. He grabbed the side of the punt and tried to regain control of his convulsing chest. A pair of severed legs splashed down on the other side of the dugout. Tang looked up and saw four reeling wings silhouetted against the cavern’s far wall. Still coughing, he grabbed for his halberd, nearly capsizing the punt as he reached inside. The wyverns turned toward him. Their orange eyes glowed bright as fire, and strings of flesh dangled between their needle-sharp teeth. In the dim light, the prince could barely make out a prickly leather ball lodged in the corner of one creature’s mouth. He could not see the second poison sack, but the other reptile kept whipping its narrow head from side to side and thrusting out its forked tongue, as though something were caught in its throat. The wyverns swooped low over the water. Tang found the heft of his weapon and saw his attackers raise their tails to strike. He forgot about the halberd and pulled hard on the side of the dugout, flipping it over on top of him. The polearm’s shaft fell across his shoulder; then a pair of loud, sharp thuds cleaved the din of his dead soldiers’ voices. The bitter smell of wyvern poison filled the air. The prince grabbed the halberd and slipped beneath the surface. A muffled crack reverberated through the water, followed quickly by a great gurgling sound as a large mass splashed into the pool. Tang kicked away from the spreading slick of wyvern poison—he did not want the stuff seeping into his scratches—and came up for air. At the base of the stony ledge lay one of the wyverns, thrashing about in the water and hurling shards of splintered dugout in every direction. A puffy black bulge had The VeUed Dragon

formed halfway down its sinuous neck, where the snake venom was eating away the delicate tissues of the throat lining. As the ring of swollen flesh began to restrict the flow of blood and air, the creature’s nostrils flared, and its eyes bulged. It swung around and, when it tried to rip the obstruction from its own throat, came away with nothing but a mouthful of black mush. It flung the putrid flesh across the cavern, then suffered a wave of uncontrollable convulsions and collapsed into the water. A long, mournful hiss sounded from atop the ledge, where the second wyvem lay above its mate. One side of the beast’s head had bloated into a shapeless mass of dark flesh. The reptile itself looked listless and sick, but there were no tremors or spasms to suggest the venom would ultimately prove fatal, and the venom ball was hanging precariously at the corner of its mouth. If the wyvem was to die, Tang realized, he would have to kill it. He swam toward the back of the cavern, angling toward a large block of stone that rose out of the water and leaned against his foe’s rocky perch. The great reptile raised its neck, turning its head to track his progress. As the prince neared his goal, the wyvem lifted its wings as though to take flight, then abruptly let them fall and reluctantly gathered its legs beneath its bulk. If he turned back now, the wyvern would be too weak to follow him, but Tang had no desire to flee. He wanted to rescue his mother, and to do that he had to slay this beast. He reached the boulder and clambered out of the water, then started up the slippery limestone. The wyvem peered over the top, then turned sideways and whipped its poison-tipped tail toward his chest. Tang brought his halberd around, slapping the poisondripping barb aside with the flat of the blade. In the same instant, he continued the motion, circling it over the top of the wyvern’s tail and bringing the head up on the inside. Had he been fighting a man with a lance or spear, the maneuver would have sent his foe’s weapon flying away. In this case, it twined his polearm into the

powerful appendage. The prince clamped the shaft beneath his arms and held on tight. The reptile pulled its tail back to strike again, jerking Tang up the boulder and swinging him across the stony ledge. He slammed into the cavern wall and nearly blacked out as the breath exploded from his body. The wyvern started to whip its tail back toward the boulder, nearly ripping the halberd from Tang’s grasp, then realized it was dragging something and stopped. The misshapen head swung around and fixed an angry orange eye on the prince, who began to wish he had not been so rash when he had had the chance to flee. Tang leapt over the tail, thereby freeing his halberd, and brought the blade around in a quick arc. The sharp edge slashed through the scaly tendril and sent the tail’s poisonous barb skittering across the stones. Even had he not felt the wyvem’s hot breath washing over his back, Tang would have known what was coming next. He instantly pulled back, pushing the halberd butt into the air behind him, and smoothly switched stances so that he was facing the opposite direction. He found the wyvem’s fang-filled jaws descending toward his head. The prince stepped forward to meet the attack, at the same time thrusting the butt of his weapon into the leathery ball lodged in the corner of the reptile’s gaping maw. The poison sack came loose and rolled deep into the wyvem’s throat; then the beast’s jaws snapped shut and severed the halberd shaft a hairbreadth above the prince’s fingers. Tang started to shuffle backward, then saw a flash of motion in the corner of his eye and turned to dive off” the stony bench. The leathery wing caught him squarely in the back, launching him with such force that he sailed across the cavern and slammed into the far wall. His body erupted in pain; then he plunged into the black water. Tang floated for a long time, too sore to breathe even if he had not been lying facedown in a pool of fetid swamp water. He ached from the tips of his fingers to the ends of

his toes, which was probably a good thing, since it meant the wyvern’s blow had not broken his back. He tried to take stock of other possible injuries, but everything hurt too much to tell if any particular bone was broken or out of joint. When the need to breathe finally grew sufficiently urgent, he tried to roll onto his back and discovered the water was only knee-deep. He gathered his legs beneath him and rose out of the water. At first, Tang did not recognize the strange growling sound he heard and thought perhaps the wyvern was coming after him. Then he recognized it as his own voice, groaning in pain, and realized with a start that the voices of his dead soldiers had fallen silent. In the dim light, he could barely make out the figure of the great reptile across the cavern, lying on the ledge with its barbless tail and one leathery wing dangling motionless over the side. There was a large black bulge near the top of its scaly neck, and the amorphous mass that had once been its head was so swollen that the flesh had split open. “Two wyverns!” the prince whispered. “Perhaps I am fool, but no longer am I coward!” Even as he spoke them, Tang realized the words were not altogether true. There were many forms of cowardice, some more important than others, and he could not redeem himself through a single act of bravery. He turned toward the entrance of the cavern and bowed in deep respect. “Listen, 0 Yen-Wang-Yeh, Great Judge and King of Eighteen Hells.” Tang spoke loudly and clearly, so that his ancestors might hear his words as well. “Listen and hear testimony of foolish Shou prince who squanders lives of General Fui D’hang and many dutiful soldiers

” In the amber dawn light, even Ruha could see that the cart tracks led up the hill straight to the gloomy ruins of what had once been a many-spired fortress of hanging

bartizans and dark hoardings. Tombor had driven through a grimy stream at the edge of the small wood where Vaerana had stopped the column, and the wagon wheels had left a pair of dark lines in the center of the dusty road. “I should have guessed,” Vaerana growled. “The Night Castle.” “The Night Castle?” Ruha asked. “We’ve chased cult assassins in there before,” Vaeranp explained. “Whenever we do, the place fills with darkness. It’ll be a hard thing to find Yanseldara’s staff in that murk—especially if Cypress is there defending it.” Ruha glanced toward the eastern horizon, where the shrines of Temple Hill were silhouetted against At’ar’s blazing golden orb. “The sun is rising; in a few minutes, my fire spells will be powerful enough to dispel even the thickest darkness.” “That won’t do us any good, I’m afraid.” Pierstar Hallowhand rode up to join Ruha and Vaerana. Behind him followed one of his gray-cloaked trackers and a bedraggled, long-bearded man who looked as frightened of his mount as he did the company of Maces gathered on the road. “If the staff was there, it’s gone now.” “How can you know that?” Vaerana demanded. “Longnose found a shepherd grazing his herd south of here.” Pierstar motioned his scout to bring the bedraggled fellow forward, then nodded to the man. “Tell the Lady Constable what you saw last night.” The fellow snatched his grimy cap from his head and began to wring it in his hands, then stared at the ground beneath Vaerana’s stirrups. “It was well past high night, ma’am,” he began. “I was waked by me dogs howling, an’ I heard a bell ringing, only it was real deep.” The man paused, which prompted Vaerana’s gaze to snap toward Pierstar. “I don’t see what—” “Let him finish,” Pierstar said. Then, to the man, he ordered, “Go on, and be quick about it. Vaerana Hawklyn’s not known for her patience.” Looking more frightened than ever, the man blurted, “It was maybe an hour later. My dogs went mad, an’ I looked up and saw a dragon flying over. I thought I’d lost me herd an’ me life too, but it just flew by.” He pointed toward the Night Castle. “It landed in there. I’ll tell you, ma’am, I rolled me blanket quick and started the herd for these woods, but the dragon was back in the air before I made a hundred paces—an’ he was carryin’ something real careful-like in his claws.” “What?” Vaerana demanded. “An oak staff with a big topaz pommel?” It was Ruha who answered. “No. Cypress would not trust anyone else with that staff. It had to be the ylang blossoms.” “I don’t know about your blossoms or your staff,” said the man. “All I saw was a real fat cleric holding a big wooden cask, an’ he looked about as scared as me.” “Then we’ve lost the trail.” Vaerana did not curse or cry out; her shoulders simply slumped forward. “Even if we knew where the lair was, we can’t ride as fast as Cypress can fly.” “We have lost the trail, but not the battle,” said Ruha. “Minister Hsieh is pressing the real oil for us at the Ginger Palace. Perhaps we should go and retrieve it; when Cypress returns home and discovers that he has been deceived, he will come to us.”