“I give thee greeting, Maker-that-was.”
The speech took shape in Dewan’s mind but nowhere else, because the voice that uttered them made no sound recognisable as words. It was an intermittent rustling hiss like metal on metal, backed by the rumble of a huge fire, and above that rumble he heard a click, click as the dragon’s eyelids shut and opened in a leisurely, insolent blink.
“And this thing in thy hands? Is it a whip to give control over me? I dare thee to use it so.” Gemmel looked from the dragon to the Dragonwand and back again, then lowered the spellstave with a small, jerky, embarrassed movement.
“I… I wouldn’t use it like that. You should know.”
To Dewan’s ears he sounded ashamed, just as he had done after believing even for an instant that Aldric might have raped and beaten the Drusalan courtesan Kathur. Sense, experience or even just a moment’s thought before he spoke would have spared him that error. He wasn’t ashamed of being wrong, but of being wrong before witnesses. What had the old man so preoccupied, wondered Dewan, that he made such mistakes? The dragon? Maybe, because there was a tension between them that Dewan sensed was something new.
“Why should I know, Maker? Upon thy word? Not so. Only the Word of an honourable man holds weight with me. Thee made me so. Thee knows well what I am. None should know it better.” Dewan watched and listened to the exchange sitting stock-still in the saddle of his stock-still horse, aware of how obvious he looked and equally aware that trying to become less obvious would only make him more so. So he stayed where he was.
“Or perhaps,” the dragon continued, “I should not have tried thee with denial and with doubt. We are of a kind, thee and I. There should be trust between us.” Ymareth’s head dropped lower. “Why, therefore, is Aldric Talvalin held prisoner by those who are his enemies? Know this, Maker: he is a man of honour. I could have brought him escape, yet he kept his given Word and would not accept. Think on that.”
“Prisoner? Where?” For all his hope to avoid attention Dewan blurted out the question without thinking, and an instant later was staring almost down the dragon’s throat.
“Aboard a ship of this Empire’s war-fleet,” Ymareth replied. “There I found him.”
“Then I was right! Gemmel, I was right! It was that battleram. It must have been—”
“Dewan, control yourself!” The wizard’s voice was sharp with reproof. “How many battlerams are there in the fleet – in each fleet, for the love of Heaven – and how many possible destinations might each vessel have?”
Ar Korentin matched stares with the older man for long seconds, then looked away, subsided into his saddle and closed his mouth while Ymareth the dragon watched their byplay with what might well have been dry amusement.
“Maker, if ye be so uncertain of this ship’s abiding-place, why ride ye inland from the sea where such ships pass?” There was knowledgeable derision in the words. “Know this: the Eye of the Dragon sees much that is hidden, and mine own eyes see from such heights that the sight of men cannot know my presence. Even,” the dragon pre-empted Dewan’s unspoken thought, “with a long-glass.”
That suggested an altitude ar Korentin chose not to dwell on. His Vreijek upbringing still had too much superstition about it to hear such things with anything like peace of mind, and he had always disliked heights.
“This I saw,” Ymareth continued. “Kailin Talvalin came to a strong place filled with soldiers of the Empire. Time passed, and I saw speech among men who by their garb were of rank and power. There was a killing, to no purpose. He rides now with them, red-clad even as they.”
“To the Red Tower,” breathed Dewan.
“To thy destination. Yea or nay?” Either Ymareth knew without being told, or was guessing, or was giving a command veiled as a suggestion.
“Yes, Ymareth dragon, Maker to made. To the Red Tower.” Gemmel’s voice became just the merest trace pompous. “And we travel there now.”
“On these?” The dragon-voice was wholly sarcastic now, no longer veiled by irony or allusion. “Then of a surety thy need for haste is small.”
“They were all we could find at short notice,” snapped the wizard, and to Dewan it seemed he was speaking with the ease of long familiarity. Nothing else could explain such a casual approach to a creature which could roast him, or flatten him, or snap him in half as a man bites a biscuit. The implications were enough to lift the short hairs on the nape of ar Korentin’s neck.
“There is a swifter way, if ye dare it.” Ymareth didn’t elaborate further; there was no need. The dragon’s wings spread out to either side of the bridle-path, enormous fingered sails more vast than those of an Imperial warship. Their silent invitation was plain, and chilling.
“What about…” Dewan’s voice faltered. Sitting on one of them the problem of the ponies was plain enough, until he looked at Ymareth and at Ymareth’s fanged, smoke-fuming mouth and knew exactly what about the ponies. He was no Alban horse-lord, with excessive fondness for that animal, but even so the prospect of feeding them to a dragon was enough to send a clench of distaste through his war-hardened stomach.
“Take off the harness and all the other gear,” Gemmel said dispassionately. “Like it or not, this has to be done.”
“Would you be as quick with your orders if I was Aldric and one of these was his black Andarran?” Dewan’s temper flared up for an instant. It was an uncalled-for remark, regretted the instant the words were spoken and past recall.
“You’re like him enough, Dewan ar Korentin. More than enough. You know how to hurt with words. Now let’s get this thing over.”
Ymareth watched and waited with dreadful patience, saying nothing, perhaps aware of how these men felt about the beasts they had ridden, aware too that there was no place for words here and now. There was nothing to gain from lengthy speech on either side. Looked at with an honesty little short of brutal, it was kindness. To abandon the ponies in this wilderness of scrub and snow and desolation would condemn them to a lingering death by freezing, starvation or wolves. Better the – Dewan recalled his own thought – the brief, bright glory of a dragon’s fire.
He loosened the cinch on the last saddle, lifted it away and lowered it to the ground just a little way off. With all the gear strapped around it, that saddle was heavy. When Gemmel’s hand came down on his shoulder, it felt just as heavy.
“Stay here,” the wizard said. “We won’t want to see this.” Dewan looked at the old man while pity fought with contempt for room on his face.
“You’re like a king.” Which king, he didn’t need to say. “You can command death by war, by assassination, by execution, but you’d as soon not watch it happen.” Aldric had told him once about how Gemmel, though skilled enough in academic swordplay, was shocked by seeing what it did in combat to living flesh. This was the same. Dewan straightened up and shrugged the wizard’s hand away, then turned around.
“If you watched, if they all watched once in a while, you and they would be less free with such orders.” The ponies were still immobile, still frozen by whatever spell was laid on them, as incapable of escape as prisoners trussed for the block or soldiers drawn up in line of battle. You’ve lived among the Albans for too long, Dewan told himself, to show such concern for a pair of nags. But he gripped Gemmel’s shoulder as the wizard had gripped his. “You gave the command, old man. It’s only right you should look at the result. So look. I said, look!”
He swung Gemmel around by main force just as Ymareth’s jaws snapped twice. Neither pony could have known what happened, for each head came off like someone swatting the blossoms off dandelions. One instant they were alive and whole, the next… Not. Even the blood on the snow was no worse than the mess which followed a successful hunt, nor the noise of rending meat any more dreadful than the sound of feeding dogs. No, not dogs. Ymareth ate with all the fastidious delicacy of a cat, or a certain young Alban kailin of Dewan’s acquaintance.
Ymareth swallowed down the last fragments and a lance of yellow-wh
ite fire billowed from its mouth, scouring the dragon’s teeth. Dewan understood now why it didn’t have the foul breath of a carnivore; that cleansing gush of flame seared away any stink of old meat.
“Now gather that which thee might need,” said Ymareth. Dewan could detect well-fed satisfaction in the dragon’s voice. “And mount to my neck.”
As he bent again to lift the pack of gear and armour to its accustomed place across his shoulders, Dewan hesitated and braced his weight against his knees until the pounding heartbeat in his ears ebbed to a normal murmuring of blood. Cold sweat had broken out across his forehead, and a hot throb of pain ran down the core of his left arm. For just a moment his world spun around him and then grew still again. He ground his teeth until his jaws ached and drew himself upright again with a shudder caused, so the Albans claimed, by someone walking across a grave. That was no longer funny. Not now.
Since the beach below Dunacre, Dewan ar Korentin had realised what dying felt like.
*
For the tenth or the twentieth or the hundredth time, Aldric swivelled half-around in Lyard’s saddle to glance back at the men who kept him company. This glance, like all those others, made him feel no easier. It wasn’t the company an Alban gentleman preferred, more the sort he would have made considerable efforts to avoid if he had the choice. Which he hadn’t.
It wasn’t Bruda who unsettled him, not even glowering Voord with his killer Tagen at his elbow, but the half-score of heavy cavalry who made up the honour guard for this group of staff officers and adjutants and thus gave credence to their supposed rank. They wore the lizardmail of katafrakten, and Aldric had ugly memories of katafrakt armour. The demon-sending Esel had filled such armour when Duergar Vathach sent him – it? – to the Erdhaven Festival. Those memories were only six months old, nothing like enough to be at ease with them. Not yet. If ever.
It wasn’t just the escort which made Aldric uncomfortable. Despite carrying the most senior rank except for Bruda, he knew the insignia were just borrowed ornaments he had no right to wear. If put to the test they would be no protection at all.
At least the armour under those rank-badges was comfortable. Senior officers, Goth had told him, didn’t wear issue equipment like an enlisted trooper but armour tailored for them with more care than fine clothing. Unlike cloth, metal and leather didn’t forgive careless measurement. There was such self-satisfaction about the way he said it that Aldric almost told him how every Alban armour but the lowest quality was made like that, but saved his breath. There was no tailoring in what he wore, it had been assembled from available parts, yet it fitted better than his own black tsalaer would do now. What with one thing and another he had lost almost twenty pounds in weight, fast and badly, and Alban harness tended to hang loose when it didn’t fit. Aldric’s would have hung very loose indeed.
The Imperial armour was red rather than black, plates and splints linked by strips of mail rather than the lacing of lamellar, yet for all the differences it was familiar enough except for the high-crowned helmet. That had a peak, neck-guard and cheek-pieces like the war-mask of its Alban counterpart, but so close around his face that the effect was almost claustrophobic. It also had a nasal-guard which made Aldric squint until he was playing host to the chieftain of all splitting headaches.
If he came out of this venture with his head split by nothing more permanent, he would be a happy man.
The roads were busier than expected. Either the Empire was in less internal trouble than Goth and Bruda claimed, or its citizens were making convincing efforts to maintain a normal life. Only one thing disturbed him a little, and that was how ordinary folk reacted to the uniforms and colours of their own army. He had seen something similar in Alba, when he had ridden as an eijo. But there, people had shown no more than cautious, courteous, mannerly respect. This time it was fear.
At first he had been half-inclined to ask if there was any special meaning to all the insignia in gold metal and coloured enamel on helmet, overrobe and armour. Then the inclination died. The pattern of bars and triangles meant he was en-hanalth, a rank high enough to offend Hautheisart Voord, and that was all he needed to know. The other badges might mean he held pretended rank in an elite, heroic regiment of cavalry. They might also mean he was in the political police whose action squads could execute a man for insulting the Emperor – or more likely the Grand Warlord – by doing his privy business with a ring bearing their likeness on his finger.
But there was one matter which continued to interest him, and he had no wish to raise it with his companions. Once or twice he had sensed and then seen a mounted figure far off on the horizon. He was wrong, or was just guessing, but he had no need for a scholar’s spectacles just yet and was ready to swear it was the same person every time. A long-glass might have confirmed that notion, but he had none in his gear and though Voord carried a good one, Navy issue, he was the last person Aldric would ask. And perhaps he was wrong after all, for he could think of no reason why a solitary rider would want to shadow a column of heavy horse.
Ever since the Imperial military took an interest in him, he had watched for hidden significance in everything and everybody without a clear motive for what they were doing. But why shouldn’t someone else be riding this road? Egisburg was a large city, there were many more reasons to go there than his own, and reluctance to get too close to Imperial soldiers was scarcely grounds for distrust. It was more deserving of applause for caution and good sense.
For himself, he would as soon have the breadth of a province between himself and Voord. But he had given his word to help in this enterprise, not just to Goth and Bruda, mere foreigners, but to Rynert of Alba. A given word was a given Word, and a Word given was a word honoured, no matter how it complicated his life. He would hold to his Word to the best of that life’s ability.
But he would have loved to have a friend nearby – Gemmel, Dewan, someone, anyone – to confide in now and then.
*
Lord General Goth had been right about how close Egisburg was to the Emperor’s domain, a distinction he made clear with a smile that to Aldric looked more at home on the jaws of a wolf. He knew exactly what the thought meant, because he had seen a wolf grin just like that.
It was three days’ ride on the straight Army roads from Goth’s fortified headquarters. The journey would have been still quicker had they used the Falcon courier routes, but those were prohibited even to senior officers, and more to those only pretending their rank.
Throughout that last long afternoon, four cold hours that shifted between crystalline clarity and the blur of falling snow, Egisburg changed from a mere smudge on the horizon to the hunched, jagged reality of a city. Even then it was only as evening folded grey wings about them that they had their first clear view of the place they hoped to enter and leave unscathed. Aldric sat up straight in his saddle, aware the sporadic conversation at his back had died away. It wasn’t surprising, but it suggested even the Secret Police weren’t immune to the Red Tower’s reputation.
There were larger fortresses in the world and he had seen several. Datherga, Segelin, Cerdor, even his own hold of Dunrath was bigger than this, and in their turn they would be dwarfed by Imperial fortresses like the Grand Warlord’s citadel at the heart of Drakkesborg. But for all their size none could have looked more forbidding to intruders. Aldric had expected a slim spike of masonry like that in the old story of the Storm Bird and the Horse of Thunder he had loved so much as a child, or the strongholds built by Hertan holy men for pious seclusion and shelter from raiders. The Red Tower of Egisburg was neither. Somebody had decided long ago to build a fortress at the junction of the two rivers, then spent so lavishly on the great keep at its heart that no money remained for more. There were no curtain walls, no river-fed moat, no outer defences at all.
But there was the Tower.
*
From base to rampart it was two hundred sheer feet of worked granite sheathed in the thick pigmented glaze which gave the place its name, a d
eep crimson unpleasantly like the colour of fresh blood. It reared against the iron clouds, distorted by an errant swirl of snow, until an amber ray from the setting sun stabbed over Aldric’s shoulder and illuminated the stonework. For that moment, until the rent in the overcast closed again, the tower glistened with a sheen that was almost sticky. It wouldn’t have surprised him if it had smelled the way it looked and he shivered just a little within his borrowed armour. The Red Tower’s history was such that its name beyond the Empire was a threat to frighten naughty children.
Beyond, but never within. Within the Empire such threats frightened more than children, for there the Tower was real.
Aldric’s guess was right. It should have been the most splendid, most imposing and most impregnable fortress in Drusul, but only historians and scholars remembered its builder’s name. Disowned by his infuriated family for squandering all their inherited wealth, they wanted nothing more to do with him and he had died an unmarried, childless and forgotten old man.
Eighty years later the tower became a fortified residence for the hereditary Overlords of the rapidly growing new city-state of Egisburg, a place growing rich on the traffic passing along its twin rivers, and by ironworks already passing into proverb. ‘As sound as Egisburg steel’ had become a mark of approval more than a century ago. In those days the Sherban emperors were more open-minded of independent city-states than now. During the early decades of the Sherbanul dynasty, before the coming of the Warlords, they needed a secure place for important prisoners, political hostages and unwilling guests, pending ultimate decision on their fate. That decision could be a reprieve, a favourable treaty, legal execution or once in a simple disappearance.
The Dragon Lord Page 20
