…Long, long ago the firedrakes flew,
And flaming flickered in the sunlit sky.
But firedrakes fly no more within the sight of men…
Until now. The sky was a pale late-autumn blue, unblemished by any cloud whether black or white or grey. But a single wisp of white ran across it, fine as a hair and so straight that it could have been a seam across the vault of Heaven. At its uttermost tip, like the perfect barb of a perfect spear, was a minute black filament of darkness that changed from cruciform to a mere dark scratch and back again with the rhythmic beating of great wings. No one else had seen it. No one else could have known what it was, except for Gemmel and Dewan. And both of them could name it.
Ymareth had left the Cavern of Firedrakes.
“Splendour of God,” breathed Dewan ar Korentin, and there was much more than just an oath in his reverent voice. He was as awestruck as Gemmel had been the first time, years ago, lives ago. As anyone would be, if they possessed an ounce of imagination or an ounce of romance in their soul. Any man, any woman, any child would want to see this wonder above all wonders of the world, a creature from the legendry of many peoples, alive and magnificent in clear cold air, glinting dark and glorious against a sky scored by the vapour-trail of heat from its own mouth.
Twenty thousand vertical feet separated it from its stunned audience of two, details lost in a haze of distance and the glare of the noonday sun, but Gemmel didn’t subject it to the indignity of close examination through his long-glass. It was enough to know the firedrake was scything northward on the track of the battleram they had seen that morning, sliding out from Tuenafen on the wings of urgency across a sea of hammered steel. Now darker wings were driving in its wake.
“Kamis!” bellowed Dewan, “Innkeeper! Bring us the best wine you’ve got left, and drinking vessels worthy of it!” The man had, and brought them out: tall, slender goblets made of crystal and burnished silver, stemmed to stand a foot above the table’s surface. The wine was golden Hauverne, matherneil, bottled in green glass with a wax-sealed stopper that might take lengthy seconds to remove, but Dewan struck the bottle against the table’s edge with a wrist-snap that cracked seal, stopper and bottleneck clean off. He countered his soldierly impatience with a flourish worthy of a courtier as he filled first Gemmel’s glass and then his own with the rich rare vintage. As he lifted the goblet his grin, all white teeth and curling moustache, held such pure, happy mischief that it stripped ten years from his weathered face.
“Drink, purcanyath sorcerer. To Aldric. And to aid unsuspected by all!”
*
Aldric’s eyes opened sluggishly, then squeezed shut again. There was a throbbing in and behind them, and he knew from bitter experience that if too much light startled that throbbing he would be very, very sick. His mouth and nostrils were tainted by an acrid, vinegary sensation, the taste and smell of whatever had put him to sleep. He had, he concluded with a spasm of exasperation, spent the greater part of the past few days either drunk or drugged or knocked unconscious.
And that was undignified.
Aldric Talvalin wasn’t a religious man, even less so than most Albans, who preferred not to bother their gods overmuch in case those gods took notice. He had stopped believing in the so-called benevolence of Heaven on the day his father died, and since that day he had refused to cross the threshold of any holy house. But there were times, and this was one of them, when he had the distinct feeling that some Power beyond his understanding was trying to make a point.
Just now the world seemed to be moving in a dozen directions at once. Then things fell more or less into focus, and sounds which had meant nothing just seconds ago made sense at last. The world – his part of it at least – was moving. Reflected light slid to and fro across a ceiling far closer than it had any right to be, and could hear a constant liquid rushing, blended with the multiple notes of half-a-hundred different creaks from wood and cordage. As the narcotic clouds cleared from his addled brain he realised he was at sea in more ways than one.
Someone at the back of his mind broke into ironic applause, but it was true enough. He was aboard a ship, one not only under way but moving fast, and the only vessel he knew capable of such speed was one of the Imperial battlerams from Tuenafen harbour. The exhalation of breath which hissed out between his teeth was also a sigh of resigned defeat. So they had him after all, whoever they were. Kathur had won. Were the energetic pleasures of her company worth this, and what would follow? Aldric doubted it.
There was no need to move or even look around to know he was unarmed. That memory was clear enough despite the soporific fog. Careful, over-knowledgeable hands had stripped off every blade he carried, and even removed the belts and laces from his clothing in case he might turn them into nooses or garrottes. It wasn’t clear how they feared he would use such makeshift weapons. If a lengthy and unpleasant road to death awaited him then departure on his own terms, by tsepanak’ulleth or less formal means, was best sought without delay, so they would have good reason to worry that a kailin-eir of traditional views might cheat them.
But he was not, and he would not.
Aldric stared at the ceiling and admitted a fact he had known this long, long time: he would sooner live than die. No matter that it might be true of most men, it wasn’t true of high-clan Albans, the cseirin-born like himself. And yet unlike himself. ‘Where there’s life, there’s hope,’ Gemmel Errekren had told him once, and Aldric had snorted in derision, a mask covering how he really felt. He was all too aware that following the Honour Code as he claimed to do would have given him no choice but death by his own hand… How many times now?
Too many.
He was still alive through his own choice, and that wasn’t cowardice no matter what might be said, or what had been said, even though no one was fool enough to say it in his hearing. Cowardice was running away. Not tactical withdrawal, but turning tail in flight whether that flight led to the woods, or the hills, or the dark land beyond the stab of a tsepan’s blade. Courage was standing fast, setting to rights, taking the hard path. Courage gained trust from friends, from companions and from self.
Aldric stared at the ceiling and grinned a brief sour grin. Trust, indeed. I must remember not to trust you near complaisant, pretty women. A most lamentable failing, except where one woman is concerned. Was concerned…
But – he came back to reality with a jolt – who commands all this? None of his possible enemies had the power and wealth and resource displayed so arrogantly here, and there weren’t so many enemies, either. Those who crossed Aldric Talvalin with malicious intent seldom survived. But what about using a first-rank courtesan for bait, burning down an expensive tavern to close the trap, and sending a squad of tulathin and a full-crewed battleram to collect the prey? It spoke of astounding wealth, or authority involving rank, status and a unit of the Imperial military. Authority that suggested the Emperor…
Or the Grand Warlord.
Woydach Etzel was one of the few who fulfilled all those requirements. He had access to an Empire’s riches, and the rank both to discourage idle questioners and manoeuvre warships like pieces on a gaming board. So this was what happened to a Sword when a Spear or Mace or Arrow tapped it out of play and back into the box until next time, except carved bone and stone felt no pain when the end came. Aldric wondered if he would be so lucky.
The cabin door rattled as it was unlocked, like so many other doors this past while. It slid open and a young man entered, wearing the single rank-bar of a tau-kortagor officer cadet on his armour. Improbably, he was smiling, more improbably still, he spoke good Alban and most improbably of all, he seemed concerned.
“Ah, you’re awake. No ill-effects, I trust?”
Solicitude and his own language from such a source were so unexpected that Aldric thought his ears were playing him tricks, and he stared at the tau-kortagor until the officer repeated his question. Then, and only then, he blinked and shook himself back to sense.
“Ill-effect
s?” It was a relief to speak Alban after so long contending with Jouvaine and Drusalan. “None. None at all. I’m fine, I suppose.”
“Excellent. My name is Garet, on Hautheisart Voord’s personal staff.” He hesitated as if expecting a reaction, but though the names tickled at Aldric’s memory they were only two among many and had no significance. “I’m assigned to your care, so will you have food?”
Aldric shrugged. He wasn’t seasick but he was having trouble adjusting to the situation, especially since he’d just discovered he was secured to the bunk by wide soft bands of woven silk around one wrist and ankle. He had spent so much time staring at the ceiling and exploring his thoughts, rather than the narrow confines of the cabin, that he hadn’t noticed them until now. They were as solid in their way as braided hemp or wrought-iron manacles, and he didn’t need to test them to realise they were far beyond his strength to break. But they weren’t meant to hurt him either, and that prompted an uneasy image of eggs carefully packed so they wouldn’t get broken by accident. The breaking happened later, with more deliberation...
“What about these things?” He raised his bound wrist and stared at Garet, who had the good grace to look abashed.
“I, ah, I haven’t been given permission to release the prisoner.” Aldric made a small noise suggesting the prisoner wasn’t surprised by that response at all, and it seemed to embarrass Garet still more. “But, but I could ask the kortagor-tulathin on your behalf. He brought you aboard, so he might just…”
Even offering to make the request was a small kindness Aldric hadn’t expected. Where there’s life, he thought, and lay back on his bunk to watch the play of light across that too-close claustrophobic ceiling.
But he didn’t dare to hope. Not yet.
*
The order to release him wasn’t long in returning from whoever commanded such things aboard this battleram, though as might have been expected from Drusalans it was wrapped in so many conditions as to cancel any usefulness.
They removed the silk straps confining him to the bunk, but he still wasn’t allowed on deck and now there was a steel and leather harness on his left leg. It was like the complex splint worn after an injury, but for restriction not support with the hinge of its knee-joint locked so tight that each stride was a rolling, stiff-legged hobble. He could walk, more or less, but the notion of him pouncing on someone was a wry joke. Aldric hadn’t given any indication that he wanted to, but evidently someone thought he might and the leg-brace was a back-handed compliment to his presumed talent for mayhem.
The food brought from the warship’s galley went a long way to compensate for dented pride. They weren’t prison rations but various excellent dishes that were another proof of concern for his well-being: thin soup garnished with herbs, grilled fish he guessed wasn’t long out of the sea, meat and vegetables in a spice-fragrant sauce and even some wine to wash it all down. However his reputation had reached the galley as well, and lost nothing in the telling. In case he tried to conquer the battleram with his dinner service every piece of food was cut up in advance, and the only utensil was a wooden spoon with blunt fork-tines sawn into it. It looked like something given to young children so they couldn’t hurt themselves.
Or to Alban kailinin, so they couldn’t hurt anybody at all.
As he ate, Aldric reflected ruefully that if he was less well known or his fame less impressive, he could have got away. Off a ship in open ocean? Be reasonable! At least it would have gained him a little more freedom. Notoriety might flatter several of the people he had met but he could do without it, and he wondered if the officer cadre of the Drusalan Empire knew the concept of a gentleman’s parole.
He had been hungry and the meal had been good, a combination that made for empty dishes and a stifled belch as he lay back for a digestive nap. It wasn’t something he bothered with in normal circumstances, but the heavy framework round his rigid, awkward leg was a reminder that his circumstances were very far from normal. And it was unlikely someone would release him for a stroll…
Up on the command deck a bell marked the changing hour. It was a sound he remembered from his voyage aboard En Sohra down to Techaur Island. Just after noon, thought Aldric drowsily, just after lunch. That made it the Hour of the Hawk becoming, becoming…
The pointless effort of pointless thought was such that he gave up, snuggled into the rolling, swaying embrace of the bunk and drifted into the only escape he could find.
Becoming, he might have finished, the Hour of the Dragon.
*
It felt as if he had barely closed his eyes before they snapped open again, jerked from sleep by another sound he had heard before: the clangour of an Imperial warship’s alarm gongs sounding battle-stations. For the first few seconds his strange, troubled dream carried over to the waking world, then reality intruded as footsteps clattered outside and overhead. With another clattering, harsher and more metallic, armoured screens dropped over the cabin’s small, thick-glassed ports and he found himself in twilight, his only illumination the wan trickle of daylight round the edges of each screen.
It was no longer a dream, it was a nightmare, that same recurring nightmare of helplessness. Once more he was aboard En Sohra; once more the battleram Aalkhorst was shearing down on him with white water boiling from her prow; once more he could only hope she would turn aside.
And she did. The bunk beneath him heeled abruptly, its angle so steep that he all but tumbled off. A hiss of rushing water filled his ears, and the feeble light beyond the screened ports turned green then black as the battleram executed an evasive turn. Aldric knew what was happening. He had watched Aalkhorst make a manoeuvre like that, dipping part of her hull beneath the waves as her helm went hard over at speed. But Father of Fires, he hadn’t known such a turn was so bloody steep!
Twice more the vessel rolled, and twice more Aldric dug his fingernails into the planking and tried to avoid being flung to the deck. Already there was blood on his face and a ragged gash at his hairline, mementos of violent contact with one of the bulkhead uprights. Then between one turn and the next the world outside flared bright. It lasted just an instant, slower than the brilliant flicker of a lightning-flash but much faster than the glow of sunlight breaking though cloud, and the warship stopped her violent twists and turns. She wasn’t dead in the water, there was too much momentum in her great bulk for that, but she ceased to be a vessel cutting through the ocean and became instead a mere decelerating hulk. And he could smell burning.
There was a dreadful stillness as if everyone aboard – officers, crewmen, marines, even the ship herself – drew in a great breath and held it in anticipation of something monstrous about to happen.
Aldric’s fingers tightened as the battleram heeled once again, then clamped even harder when the angle changed and he realised she hadn’t heeled at all. She had tipped forward with her stern rearing out of the water as her beaked prow plunged. He had never watched a ship sink, but he had heard it described and could guess well enough what it was like.
Like this!
The cabin door slammed open and outlined by its frame, no, clinging to its frame as Aldric clung to his bunk, was the officer-cadet Garet. He didn’t look concerned for anyone except himself, and no longer even looked young. In the shadows of his close-fitting helmet his face was blanched white as bone with shock, or fear, or disbelief, as white as the knuckles of the hands which gripped the edge of the cabin door.
“You!” He gasped the word, Drusalan now and as harsh as that language could achieve. “Hautmarin Aralten wants you on deck! Move it! Now!”
Aldric stared at him and as if the officer’s mood played counterpoint to his own, the unknowing fear of the past minutes froze over and became an icy armour of dignity and pride and honour-born courage. It wasn’t the same as true courage, he knew that even if no one else did, but it seemed the same and would have to do. He slapped the brace on his leg like a man swatting at an insect he couldn’t quite reach.
“Not with t
his. Remove it! Now!”
He spoke in the highest mode of Drusalan he knew, aware it was an insult but needing to reassert himself as more than just a passive prisoner. Garet glared at him then ripped a long dagger from its sheath, and for an instant Aldric thought he had miscalculated, pushed a little too far, overstepped the mark. The dagger poised, glittering in the cabin’s subdued light, silvery striations of honing on its edges sparkling at him as the weapon trembled in an unsteady grip.
“I should gut you for that, hlensyarl,” Garet whispered. “But not just yet. I have my orders. Later.” He sucked in a deep breath, trying to regain a degree of self-control. “You’re going nowhere unless I get your Word of Honour. Your gentleman’s parole. You do understand ‘parole’, Alban? And ‘gentleman’? And ‘honour’?”
Garet also knew how to use language for insult.
Aldric hesitated. Though he had already considered such a possibility and would have welcomed it half an hour ago, things had changed. The warship seemed under attack – seemed, he reminded himself – and he might well have a chance of escape during the confusion. But not when bound by an intangible thing harder to break than the brace on his leg. Without his given Word it wouldn’t be removed; without its removal there would be no chance to escape; with it removed and his Word given he couldn’t escape anyway. But locked in this cabin with iron locked round his leg, the only other certainty would be of drowning if the battleram sank.
“All right. All right…! I swear.” He could remember the proper Alban phrases and hastily assembled enough Drusalan to match them. “I take oath on my Honour and my Word that I will not escape or take flight from my captivity without permission granted by those who hold me here.” The cadet watched him, expression easy to read in its frame of the rank-barred helmet. Tau-kortagor Garet was wondering, and not troubling to hide his doubts, if the Alban’s oath was worth any more than the breath which carried it.
The Dragon Lord Page 13
