Dragonwitch

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

He reached out to slap his friend’s shoulder, but the goblin dodged, and the little mortal female ducked away, pressing herself against the banister, her skirts gathered up in a bundle to her chest but still falling nearly to her feet. Ghoukas turned to her, looking her up and down. She was so little, she scarcely reached his breastplate! But unlike the pasty mortal womenfolk he’d seen all day, she was a nice brown and healthy looking.

  Ghoukas tipped back his visor, revealing a hungry face. “Are you taking this morsel to Corgar? He’s ordered all the mortals put to work, you know. A shame, really. A beastie like this might have other uses.”

  He leaned down. The girl tried to back up the steps but tripped over her skirts and sat down in a pile of petticoats and brocade. Ghoukas laughed. “Pretty!” he said. “I think she must be pretty. What do you think, Krikor?”

  The goblin said nothing. Ghoukas turned to him, his huge eyes narrowing, his stony brow wrinkling into puzzled crevices. “I said, what do you think, Krikor?”

  Silence—other than surprisingly light breathing from behind the helmet. Ghoukas frowned. “Wait a minute,” he said, his addled brain slowly catching up. “Wait a minute, you’re not—”

  Suddenly he dropped the food, snatched the helmet away, and stared at the pale human face with the shock of bright red hair.

  Then Mouse leapt on his back, managing despite her heavy skirts to get purchase on his shoulders and cling there. Ghoukas roared, surprised, and twisted about, trying to loosen her grip, but she clung with the tenacity of ivy, and Ghoukas could not reach her to pull her off.

  Alistair, moving heavily in his armor, picked up the goblin spear. He breathed, timed his stroke, then swung the stone spearhead and struck Ghoukas such a blow across the face that the goblin stopped, his vision whirling.

  “Jump!” Alistair cried to Mouse, and though she did not understand, she obeyed, sliding from the goblin’s back and landing in a cushioned cloud of skirts. Alistair struck again, and the goblin, not so impervious to one of his own weapons as to those of mortals, tumbled down the stairs. He landed at the bottom, lost in a stupor.

  Alistair assisted Mouse to her feet, and they both stared down at the hulking form of Ghoukas.

  “Nicely done,” Mouse said, grinning up at the young lord.

  He understood her smile, if nothing else, and smiled back. Then he reclaimed his helmet. “We’d best hurry,” he said, indicating the passage with his spear. “If the cat missed this one, we don’t know how many others might have slipped his notice. I don’t know that we can repeat this little performance.”

  Mouse took her place as the captured slave, and the two continued on toward the great hall. All was gloomy, lit only by the dimness of moonlight through the windows. The air was thick with things unseen.

  The Chronicler crouched behind Corgar’s chair, his senses dull. For hours, it seemed, Corgar had sat with his feet up, barking orders to goblins, sending them skittering about Gaheris at his whims. He had ignored the Chronicler’s existence since Leta was dragged from the room, and for this the Chronicler was grateful.

  His manacles were large and appeared too loose for his small hands. Yet, although the stone neither shrank nor expanded, they held him fast.

  The chain piled up beside him on the floor. He studied every stone link leading from the mass beside him up to the ring on Corgar’s great belt. Everything about the goblins was stone, it seemed—their chains, their armor, their weapons. Stone should not be stronger than the iron weapons of Gaheris, yet the Chronicler had seen swords crumble into clay when they met the goblin hewers. He had seen lances break upon the hides of goblin warriors.

  He hung his head, cursing under his breath. What could he, with all his book learning and his short limbs, hope to accomplish if he slipped his bonds? It would take a rare man indeed to stand up against such fiends. A rare man . . . not a freak.

  The room was dark with sinking shadows; the two lighted torches served only to cast the rest of the room into greater darkness. And in that darkness, a flicker of gold caught his eye.

  The Chronicler turned, startled. Was his mind playing tricks on him? He could have sworn he’d seen eyes peering at him from under one of the lower tables. Then what might have been a shadow moved and vanished. Frowning, the Chronicler sat up and craned his neck, moving slowly to avoid drawing Corgar’s attention.

  “I hunger!” the great goblin bellowed, abruptly standing. The movement yanked his prisoner’s chain, and the Chronicler just avoided being struck across the face by the swinging links. “I have not eaten since we marched from the Wood. Are you beggars holding out on me? Would you starve your future king?”

  “No, no, my lord!” several goblin voices replied.

  “Where is Ghoukas? Did he not go searching out the larder hours ago? Fetch him! Fetch him at once!”

  Goblins scurried to obey. Another—a female, the Chronicler thought, only because she was a little smaller, not for any feminine grace on her part—stepped forward and offered Corgar a draught of wine. The Chronicler smelled the richness of Earl Ferox’s finest and grimaced as the monster downed it in a single gulp and called for more.

  Another flash of gold. The Chronicler moved into a crouching position, trying to gain a better view. He could have sworn he’d seen someone dart to the female goblin’s side. He could have sworn he’d seen a deft hand slip something into the wine. Surely these goblins with their night vision would spot anything peculiar much sooner than he could!

  Yet they continued about their business. Corgar downed his wine and continued barking for Ghoukas. His servants and slaves bustled about in the dark, but the Chronicler could not see well enough to know what they were doing.

  He thought he heard a thunk and a muffled groan.

  “What was that?” Corgar growled.

  “What was what, my lord?” someone asked.

  The warlord did not answer. The Chronicler heard the scrape of his claws digging into the tabletop.

  Another thump in the dark—soft, almost inaudible, and unpleasant.

  “There’s someone here,” said Corgar, his voice suddenly thick and surly.

  “There’s lots of us here, my lord” came a reply.

  “No, no,” said Corgar. The chain linked to his belt swayed along with his huge body as he rose. “There’s someone . . . something . . . else.”

  This time one of the goblins gave a strangled gasp. Instantly, the others were on alert, drawing their weapons. But though Corgar fumbled for his, he could not seem to get his hand about the hilt. This enraged him and he roared, “Who’s there? Who dares assault the company of Corgar at his hard-won table?”

  “Aiiieee, he’s—” The voice cut off sharply.

  Every goblin strained to see in the darkness, as seemingly blind now as mortals. The Chronicler fell to his hands and knees and crawled into the darker space beneath the table. He felt his captor on the other end of the chain swaying like a drunkard, ready to topple. A goblin screamed as his brother, striking out at a flicker of nothing, caught him across the face. “Sorry, there!” the inadvertent attacker said, then roared when the fallen goblin kicked him in the knees. A full-fledged brawl would have broken out, but Corgar, his voice almost unrecognizably thick, bellowed:

  “Look, you rat faces, he’s there!”

  All eyes, including the Chronicler’s, turned at once. Standing in the doorway of the great hall was a figure all of them recognized instantly, a figure the Chronicler knew only from books and engravings, so old and so odd as to be discounted without a thought. Yet there he stood—in flesh or illusion—larger than life and unmistakable.

  Eanrin, Chief Poet of Iubdan Tynan. The Bard of Rudiobus.

  His eyes alone shone brighter than his golden hair. A world of sunshine seemed to surround him in the gloom, and his red jerkin glimmered with delicate threads. He raised his arms as though to greet all those assembled, and cried out in a voice merry with smiles:

  “What-ho, Corgar, old chum! It’s been some time since last w
e met. Come now, haven’t you a word for an old friend?”

  “It’s the knight!” Corgar cried. “The gate guarder!” He lunged but lacked control over his own feet. Without a thought for their warlord, the goblins flung themselves after the brilliant figure, who darted from the room with the speed of fleeting summer. The goblins loped from the great hall like hounds after a stag.

  “Catch him! Catch . . . him . . .” Corgar snarled, each word more muddled than the last. With a growling gurgle, he collapsed across the table, his arms outspread and his jaw slack. His eyes remained open, two luminous orbs of white in the darkness.

  The moment Corgar fell, the Chronicler was on his feet, following the chain, hand over hand, until he reached Corgar’s belt. But the lock there would not give.

  “Hallo?” A timid voice whispered across the hall. “Chronicler?”

  It was Alistair.

  “Can’t see a thing in this murk. Watch your step, Mouse! You all right? The room is empty, I believe.”

  Of all people, this was possibly the last the Chronicler would have expected. He remembered dimly that Alistair had been absent from Earl Ferox’s funeral. Somehow he must have escaped the turmoil of the day. And now . . . what? It was too absurd! The whole affair was turning into some nightmarish hallucination!

  But Corgar was asleep, and the goblins, for the moment, were led away. This might be his only chance.

  “I’m here!” His voice, so little used for the last several hours, cracked. “I’m here, m’lord, by the earl’s seat!”

  “Chronicler?” Alistair, setting aside his goblin’s spear and shedding the heavy breastplate, waded into the dark of the room, his hands out, leaving Mouse behind by the door. “No one else is here, I trust? It looks empty enough, but I can’t see much.”

  “Their leader is here!” the Chronicler said.

  “What?” Alistair froze midstep. “In this room?”

  “He’s unconscious.” The Chronicler looked again at Corgar’s slack face. Though the muscles were motionless, there was fierceness behind his eyes. “At least, he can’t move. He seems to be under some sort of spell.”

  “Ah! The cat-man must have got him. Mouse, where are you?”

  Mouse recognized her name and picked her way across the room, following the vague shadow Alistair cast by the dim torchlight. He reached out for her hand, but she ignored him and hastened past to the long table, freezing when she saw Corgar. But she had not endured the last weeks and the last dreadful day for nothing! Calling on reserves of courage she had never known she possessed, she hastened around to the other side of the table where the Chronicler stood, his head barely higher than the board.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. Mouse spoke in her strange, fast language, her voice furtive. The Chronicler shook his head, at a loss.

  Alistair joined them and said, “We’re here to rescue you. Any ideas how?”

  The Chronicler showed his manacled hands. “There must be a key,” he said.

  Mouse leapt to Corgar’s side. Though her fingers flinched and her skin crawled at the prospect of touching the goblin—who seemed to be watching her from those luminous eyes—she plunged her hand into the narrow space between his breastplate and his dreadful rock hide. Sure enough, there was a key ring hidden there.

  She tossed the key to Alistair, who could scarcely fit it into the lock, his big hands were shaking so hard. But then the manacles fell away, and the Chronicler nearly fell over in his eagerness to be liberated of them. His wrists were raw and bloodied from his efforts to escape, but he did not care. He was free!

  The first words out of his mouth were: “We’ve got to find Lady Leta.”

  “Leta?” Alistair snorted, not unkindly. “Look, Chronicler, we’ve come to rescue you and propel you into some nonsensical prophecy fulfillment. We have no time to be heroes. We have to save the world!”

  “We can’t leave her to these monsters.”

  “We haven’t a choice.”

  Mouse, her eyes straining in the dark, turned from one young man to the next as they exchanged hushed words. They were arguing. They were standing in the middle of a goblin-infested castle in front of a possibly conscious slavering monster arguing. This was why men were never permitted to speak in the Citadel of the Living Fire! She thought she would scream.

  Then Corgar moved, and she did.

  14

  IMMORTALS NEITHER COUNT THEIR LIVES IN YEARS nor feel the passage of time. Yet somehow I felt the passing of days, and they were slow. I ruled my city with a firm hand. In the place where the Mound had clutched the ground, we built beautiful tombs and in them laid the remains of my father, mother, and brother. Etalpalli grew and prospered, and I made alliances with Faerie lords and ladies of other realms and sat in councils of both war and peace.

  I waited for Etanun’s return.

  At last he came. Though I spent every day with the beat of his promise in my heart, I was surprised when I saw him climbing the long steps of Omeztli to my throne. I smiled to see him, rose, and offered him my hands.

  “You have grown!” he said when he saw me, “and you are more beautiful even than when I saw you last, though I did not think it possible!”

  I felt my face flush at the praise, but I quickly laughed it off. I walked with him through the city, folding my wings and stepping delicately upon the stones so that I could remain by his side as I showed all that had been done during his absence. He in turn told me of his doings, of the brilliant Houses of Lights that he and Akilun were building throughout the Near World.

  “Mortals cannot hear the voices of Lumé and Hymlumé,” he explained to me. “Not on their own. But when the doors of a House are opened, and the sun and the moon shine inside, even mortals may hear and know the truth of the Song Giver, the Lumil Eliasul.”

  Everything he said was wonderful to my ears. I rejoiced with him at his successes and boasted to him of my own. At the end of the day, he bowed and said to me, “I am pleased to see you so well, dear queen, and shall gladly bear word of you to my brother.”

  “Will you leave so soon?” I asked, startled.

  “I must,” he said. “I have duties elsewhere.”

  “But you will return, won’t you?”

  “I will,” he replied.

  So I found myself obliged to live upon another promise.

  It was only a small movement. One hand scraped along the table. One eye twitched.

  But it was enough.

  “He’s coming awake!” Mouse cried. “Run!”

  Alistair took hold of her hand and leapt onto the table and over, dragging Mouse along. The Chronicler ducked underneath, took a few paces after them, then stopped and darted back. He took up the manacles chained to Corgar’s belt and clamped them around the leg of the huge table.

  A snarl, and Corgar’s hand crashed down beside the Chronicler’s ear. Trembling fingers tore away a chunk of the table board. The Chronicler looked up into white eyes as Corgar struggled to push himself upright, his sagging jaw working and his lips contorting.

  “Idiot!”

  That roar belonged to Alistair, who grabbed the Chronicler by the collar, hauled him off his feet, and hurtled across the great hall. They flew across the dark room even as Corgar, screaming animal rage, lunged from his high seat. But his belt, clamped to the table, dragged him back down, and he was still weak from whatever drug Eanrin had slipped him. His roar grew, and though there were no words, the sound carried throughout the castle.

  By the time they reached the big doorway leading from the hall, the passage outside was crowded with oncoming goblins. There could be no escape that way. Without a choice, they slammed the door, threw the heavy bolt, and sped toward one of the servants’ entrances, praying it would be empty. Corgar, straining at the chain, hurled a chair at them. Alistair narrowly missed a braining as it crashed into the wall beyond his head.

  They raced down the servants’ corridor, making for the inner courtyard. Goblins roared at their heels, and Mouse expected to
feel the thrust of a stone lance through her rib cage. Alistair dragged the other two behind, his long legs making tremendous strides. The Chronicler would scarcely have made five paces before being overtaken, and Mouse, encumbered with skirts, could not have fared better.

  This passage, like all others in the castle, was dark. But suddenly a rectangle of faint light appeared before them as the far door opened. Alistair redoubled his pace, his heart surging. To reach that opening was all that mattered in the tiny space of time that was now their whole existence.

  A goblin loomed in their path, blocking out the faint light. Alistair yelled in rage. Nothing would keep him from his one, final goal! He dropped the hands of the other two. In three strides, he tore the helmet from his head and swung it like a club. By some luck or blessing, he struck aside the blade of the goblin’s weapon, which clanged against the wall. He pushed into the goblin at full speed, and they both fell, landing in a tangle of limbs. Alistair lay stunned, his world exploding with bright, flashing lights. It didn’t matter. They’d reached the goal. Let him die now, if he must; the doorway was gained, and he lay on the courtyard cobbles.

  Hands grasped his neck. He felt himself raised up, smelled the stench of goblin breath.

  “Can’t be having any of that, now, can we?”

  Eanrin’s voice danced with the sparks in Alistair’s brain just before he was squashed beneath an inert goblin form. The monster’s face pressed against his cheek, one jutting tooth driving into his skin.

  Mouse and the Chronicler fell through the doorway even as Eanrin clubbed Alistair’s attacker. The Chronicler immediately turned and slammed the door, but the oncoming goblins fell against it, straining its hinges.

  “It’s no use!” Mouse cried as she dragged him away. She stared wildly about the courtyard, which in the moonlight seemed bright as midday after the gloom within. Goblins poured down from the castle walls, spilling like plague rats through the gates from the outer courtyard, from every doorway. “It’s no use!”

  Eanrin stood like a shining tower in the darkness, his face alight with a wicked smile. He helped the stunned Alistair to his feet, clapped him on the shoulder, then reached out and snatched the Chronicler by the shirtfront. “Are you the chosen one, heir to Halisa?” he demanded.