The Dragon Lord

by Peter Morwood

  Aldric could guess what the little tableau was about. Garet had volunteered – if he had volunteered – to punish this Alban upstart, and couldn’t stop while he fought on Hautheisart Voord’s behalf. Especially after a disarming move that made him, and thus the man he represented, look like fools. Commander Voord wasn’t someone with a forgiving nature.

  Aldric gave a curt, cautious bow as he returned the captured taidyo, aware there was more attention along the conference table as if they knew the next exchange would go beyond a mere display of skill. There was something else, a sensation as if Isileth was out of her scabbard again. Aldric didn’t understand why, only that it was enough to raise the hackles on his neck.

  “I won’t draw blood just to prove a point,” he said. It was something that needed said, regardless of who it annoyed. He wouldn’t draw Garet’s blood, though Voord was another matter. If the cadet had intended to kill him rather than just show him up he would have had fewer scruples, but Aldric had already been King Rynert’s executioner. A duty-bound, honour-bound, reluctant slayer. Never again, not for any man besides himself. He tried to think of a tactic which would end this business before someone was seriously hurt. Before he was seriously hurt, because mere welts and bruises wouldn’t satisfy Voord, not with his broken face as a reminder.

  They took guard again with a deal more care than the nonchalance of their first exchange. The taidyin touched with a clack and oak ran against oak, dented surfaces ticking together as the pressure of wrists increased. There was the shuffling sound of someone’s feet and a moment’s stillness when nothing moved but mind and eyes. Then Garet launched his attack, a proper cut this time, downward and diagonal at neck or shoulder, hard, fast and direct, yet still not taking advantage of the weapon’s extra length.

  Aldric intercepted the cut with one of his own, right hand as pivot and left on the pommel to blur the topmost foot of the hardwood blade forward. It struck within an inch of his aiming-point, not against Garet’s sword to block it but full on his exposed forearm to break it.

  The sleeve of light silvered mail was no protection. There was a padded garment underneath, but it was only thin uniform-red silk stitched with a quilted pattern more for appearance than effect. The mail-rings flexed under the blow as mail-rings will, and Aldric heard a muted crack as bone gave way. He followed with an Eagle’s Strike in low line, another diagonal snap-cut that all but tore the kneecap off and smashed the joint beneath.

  Garet crashed onto the floor and lay there trying not to scream.

  As Aldric backed away the other tau-kortagor, Tagen, barged past him and knelt at the injured man’s side. Aldric could hear his muttered curse, for it had gone very quiet in Lord General Goth’s great conference hall. Quiet, and expectant.

  “Well?” Voord asked, his bruise-blurred voice free now of all passion, anger or even interest. The blood on his face was drying black.

  “The broken arm should heal clean, sir. But…” Tagen hesitated. “But he’ll never walk again without a stick.”

  “Small use to me, then,” said Voord. “Auneyar ka svoyestu. Slijei?”

  “Silij-hah, hautach!” Tagen didn’t hesitate or question. He slid his makher from its scabbard, poised it for an instant’s aim and jabbed the point into the base of Garet’s skull. The injured man’s eyes opened wide, whites visible all around the staring pupils while his legs went kick-kick-kick, kick, kick…

  Kick.

  And he was dead.

  Aldric forced his face to stay expressionless. In his heart he had anticipated something like this, then dismissed it as beyond even Voord. That was what had been in the air and disturbed him before the serious fight began. He should have been on his guard, responded in another way, not given Voord a reason to… To do what had been done. Then Garet’s life wouldn’t be spilling without purpose across the polished floor.

  But to someone like Commander Voord there was no better way to impress someone unconcerned by killing than to show still less concern. Aldric’s restraint proved his weakness. Garet’s death proved Voord’s strength. It was a vile way to behave, but that was Voord, that was the Secret Police…

  And that was Goth and Bruda too, for they must have guessed what might happen, no, what would happen, and said not a word to stop it.

  Aldric looked at them, and looked at the blood, and kept his thoughts to himself.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I often wondered why you had such an interest in ymeth,” said Dewan staring at Gemmel’s back as they rode along on hired horses. He was trying to strike up a conversation for what felt like the hundredth time. Even an argument would be better than the gloomy silence which had settled over the sorcerer since talking to Kathur the Vixen. A hard woman in a hard profession, he thought. As hard as any man, and maybe harder.

  Perhaps it was the sympathy from Gemmel, or the protection offered by Dewan’s ready sword, but no matter how she felt inside, Kathur closed it away like the hot coals in a dampered stove and rose magnificently above what had been done to her. She was long gone now, by ship to south or west, funded by enough gold from a secret cache that Gemmel’s offer of silver had only made her laugh. It was a genuine laugh at that, the first in far too long, but if laughter came hard talk came easily and it had all come spilling out, as unselective as an up-ended bucket.

  Dewan and Gemmel had heard about the governor of Tuenafen, about the garrison commander’s son and the stableboys, how several of the seaport’s magistrates liked to relax after a hard day administering the Empire’s justice, and how two of their wives got their own back. Although Gemmel seemed scandalised it had been fascinating, and would have been most useful had they planned to stay in Tuenafen and set up as professional blackmailers.

  But they also heard about Aldric, and what Kagh’ Ernvakh planned for him.

  At first Dewan had laughed, as he felt certain Aldric would have done, at the ballad-singer’s notion of rescuing a captive princess from a lofty tower. But the laughter had been brief and Gemmel hadn’t joined in. This matter stopped being a child’s tale and a source of amusement when it involved a friend and the risk of that friend’s death. Dewan was also well aware that for Gemmel, Aldric Talvalin was much more than a friend. He had heard the title altrou – foster-father – used more than once by the younger man, and knew Albans didn’t grant such titles lightly.

  The risk centred on someone Kathur had named with venom several times: an Imperial officer called Hautheisart Voord Ebanesh. She had been Voord’s lover, then his mistress, five years ago and even then his tastes had inclined more towards exotic than erotic. Voord, Dewan decided, was peculiar. But promotion to hautheisart at twenty-seven suggested an aptitude beyond the ordinary in more than just bedroom acrobatics.

  They knew now where that warped genius lay. Voord was a gamester, a gambler, a player of one side against another and both sides for himself. His games extended back beyond the death of old Emperor Droek and the division of the Empire. They continued through that division and right up to the present day, complex, self-serving and often murderous. He still played both sides, although of late there seemed a marked preference for one over the other, but Voord still worked hardest for Voord.

  Amongst all Kathur’s other talk she had mentioned his plot to gain control of an isolated province on the Jevaiden plateau. The intent was to transform it into an independent, neutral city-state, supporting and supported by the Emperor and the Grand Warlord both. Voord’s scheme had come to nothing for various reasons, and one of them was a certain Alban clan-lord sent there on his king’s business yet still unaware what he had upset.

  Not that this was the first time Aldric and Voord had crossed paths in ignorance. Oh no. Voord himself had talked too much in bed in his younger days, when he was less cautious but just as cynical. He had bragged about his first great stratagem, the plan which had gained his promotion from kortagor to eldheisart and the long leap so few men made from army tactician to secret police strategist.

  That pl
an, which broke half-a-dozen of the Empire’s strictest laws against sorcery, was pushed through by Grand Warlord Etzel’s personal intervention. It had a special attraction, for with the Imperial dominions stable and the borders peaceful, several councillors had declared that the mere post of Warlord gave needless offence to neutrals and allies alike. What Etzel needed was enough havoc in a neighbouring country for the only practical response to be Drusalan military intervention, and he didn’t care where it happened.

  The country chosen for intervention was Alba, and four years ago that plan had sent the necromancer Duergar Vathach to Dunrath.

  Kathur should never have known about that undertaking. It had failed, and put an extra twist in Voord’s already-twisted mind, making failure his worst sin and the one most drastically punished. But she had heard all about it anyway, from a mind and mouth loosened by Voord’s over-use of ymeth in his wine. Despite the lack of success it had done no harm to his career, and in those days there had been no such thing as sides within the Drusalan Empire. That explained Voord’s candour as nothing else could. Emperor and Warlord were twin figureheads on one ship of state, but the so-called equal partnership was that of a puppeteer and his doll. And it was the Emperor who danced while the Warlord pulled the strings.

  Gemmel rode on, sagging in the saddle and looking far from comfortable. The wizard was a good horseman, better than many Dewan had seen though as an ex-eldheisart in the Bodyguard cavalry at Drakkesborg he was often over-critical. Right now Gemmel’s mind seemed occupied by more than even the instinctive knee-grip and balance which kept him on his rented pony’s back. He had been prone to broody periods like this ever since they landed in Imperial territory, and more so since they saw the white scratch of the dragon’s passage against the cold blue vault of Heaven.

  Dewan couldn’t understand why, because even he, unimaginative military hard-head that he was, had been thrilled to the core by the sight. It didn’t matter that he had seen Ymareth before, in the Cavern of Firedrakes. There and then it had been right and proper, just – just? – one more strange and marvellous thing among so many other marvels. But the sight of a dragon in flight across the open sky was another matter. Nothing had diminished its distant grandeur, though at almost four miles up it was distant indeed, no bigger than a swallow, with only the stately leisure of its wingbeats and the condensing trail of heat from its mouth to show it what it was. His toast to the great being’s mere existence had been sincere.

  So what was wrong with Gemmel? Dewan looked at him again and wondered if it was worth wasting more breath trying to cajole the old man into speech. Deciding not, he hunched himself deeper into the furred hood of his cavalry riding-coat.

  There had been no dragon in the sky today, or any blue sky for one to fly across, only an overcast as grey and featureless as new-split slate. By the Alban calendar it was Hethra-tre, deh Gwenyer. The Drusalan reckoning put it in more simple terms: the third day of the tenth month, and three days into winter. The year was winding down, and the weather was working hard to prove it. Today had started bad and grown worse, from a non-existent dawn lost in slanting rain through chill sleet to a brief fall of snow. That at least was over, but it had already transformed the countryside into an ink-wash study. Everything was black or white, with no subtlety of shading beneath a leaden sky heavy with the promise of more snow. Dewan glared at it, getting the answer he expected as a quick flurry of fat, soft flakes. And it was cold. The breath of men and horses alike went smoking from their nostrils to drift away as if it was fog, or the breath of dragons.

  Dewan ar Korentin wiped hoar-frost from his moustache and exhaled a soft oath on his next billow of breath. Cold, he thought, watching the skeins of vapour twist away from his face. So cold. His eyes shifted focus as something drew their attention to the middle distance, a movement caught at the edge of sight like a cloud of midges dancing on warm summer air. Except that this wasn’t summer, the air wasn’t warm, and whatever he had seen weren’t midges.

  There, look!

  No, it was gone again, if it had ever been there at all. Dewan blinked in case the thing was a speck of moisture on his eyelashes, or a bird – though he had seen no birds today, unlike men they had too much sense to travel in such foul weather. Maybe it was just a trick of imagination. He turned his head away, dismissing it, then snapped back as the thing he thought he hadn’t seen came scything out of the low cloud like a monstrous bat, ribbons of smoke scrawling behind as if a charcoal pencil marked its line of flight.

  Firedrake! thought Dewan. Ymareth…?

  Or not Ymareth at all, for it was so big!

  His doubt came not just from the thing’s size but the steepness and the speed of its approach. With wings half-closed like a hawk stooping on fieldmice the dragon reached them in the space of a single racing heartbeat, too fast for evasion, almost too fast for prayer. It slashed past in a great rush of hot wind, faster than any creature had the right to move, even one born in legend, passing just twenty feet above the ground and because they were both mounted, it was less than twelve feet above their heads. For an instant the world was dominated by huge dark wings and a crested wedge of head, an armoured serpentine body and a fang-crowded mouth trailing smoke which brought the bitter reek of burning.

  The thump of displaced air tore at their clothing, whipping up spirals of snow that melted even as they left the ground, and swirled off in the dragon’s wake as it climbed up again, driven like the swinging of a pendulum by the awesome dive-created speed which had flicked it past them like a beast from dreams or nightmares.

  The ponies went mad. Kicking and squealing, bucking and plunging, the animals tried to throw their riders, to throw their saddlebags, to flee in abject terror somewhere, anywhere, as far from this airborne horror as their legs could carry them. The beasts’ eyes were rolling white, like the foam which creamed on bits and bridles.

  Gemmel too seemed to have gone a little mad, for Dewan could think of no other reason why he should laugh as he slid from saddle to ground. A quick, casual gesture of the Dragonwand had frozen both of the fear-crazed ponies in their tracks and only their eyes could move now. From ears to tails, the rest were as still as any equestrian statue in cold bronze. Dewan looked at the Dragonwand, then at the wizard, then at the distant firedrake, and thought how very appropriate to himself. He was too sensible to voice the thought aloud, but the dragon seemed to hear him anyway.

  A quarter-mile away and three thousand feet up, the great wings beat once, twice, three times, until the dragon’s climb was as steep and fast as a pheasant rocketing from cover. Then with the acrobatic nonchalance of a raven it rolled over, twisting snakewise in the air as no bird ever hatched from egg could do, and came back towards them in the same instant.

  Now the approach was a leisurely wide-winged glide rather than the earlier dive, but no less ominous. Dewan could see the smoke wind-dragged from its mouth was thicker now, denser, as if the fires of the creature’s belly were fully alive. As if to prove it, the dragon’s head swung to one side with a deliberation that reminded him of a battleram’s weapon-turret. Then with a whistling roar that reminded him of nothing on or above or under the whole wide world, its mouth unleashed a gout of yellow-white flame.

  Dewan flinched at its brightness, glaring and brilliant against the dullness of the day, and at the heat which slapped at him as if a furnace door had been flung open. At the same time he drew an unsteady breath of awe and wonder. If he had to die, there were more squalid ways than this brief, bright glory. Another instant and he was wondering at his own morbid turn of mind. The hundred-yard-long plume of fury choked in a swirl of dark smoke, and the dragon was upon them.

  Its wings flared and shifted to control the air which flowed around them, then scooped down in a great braking arc as Ymareth – if this was Ymareth, and Dewan was still far from convinced – rounded out its final descent and settled onto the ground with all the neatness of a hawk returning to a familiar wrist. The grace of that landing was eerie in
something so huge, its reluctance to set foot to the snowy ground seeming like a cat in wet grass. This cat was well over a hundred feet long, radiated warmth he could feel from where he sat, and as the armour of its belly touched patches of snow, those patches became clouds of steam and fast-forming pools of water.

  The dragon looked from side to side, considering them both: older man and younger, mounted and afoot, shocked-silent and still chuckling. Its eyes were pools of yellow phosphorescence which drew Dewan’s gaze and held it…

  That would have held it, had he not torn away with an effort like lifting a great weight. His face darkened, flushed with blood not summoned by dragon-heat or winter-cold but pumped there by a heart provoked into a spasm of furious beats, a muffled drumroll which filled his ears and made his senses spin. It felt as if his whole chest was about to split wide open before the hammering died away and the world stopped swaying, and Dewan drew a normal breath again.

  By then the dragon’s attention had turned to Gemmel and the wizard was no longer laughing. Instead he raised the Dragonwand as if to fend off the advancing jaws or deflect the spell which burned in those great, glowing eyes. They regarded him, Dewan thought, with more than a touch of scorn and what on a more human face might have been contempt. Then it spoke.

  And Dewan understood what it was saying.

  For all his years of service in the Imperial military, he remained loyal to his birthplace. Dewan ar Korentin was Vreijek, not Drusalan. That meant hearing himself dismissed more than once as a mere provincial, and was why he had never reached a higher rank than eldheisart-of-cavalry. It meant that despite his veneer of Imperial dignity and Alban courtesy he was descended from a passionate, imaginative people with an acceptance for the Art Magic no longer tolerated in any Imperial heartland. And it meant that the Drusalans or Tergovans or Vlechans who arrogantly styled themselves Imperial might have retreated from their comprehension of dragon-speech into the incomprehension of madness. It was the mere provincial who, despite an instant’s nerve-shock like jumping into an icy pool supposed to be warm, accepted what his brain told him without question.