The Dragon on The Border

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Its long jaws shoved up under the chain camail that protected the Hollow Man's neck below his helm; and its teeth closed on the invisible, naked throat beneath.

  It was Snorrl, come to the rescue; and the Hollow Men opposing them seemed to lose their appetite for fighting almost immediately.

  Most of them tried to claw backward into the press. Jim's heart sank, for Snorrl was no longer or any way different than he was in his ordinary self. He felt his own face, and it felt, undeniably, familiar. The magic had worn off; and the Hollow Men crazed for gold in front of him had not even noticed that he looked differently.

  His disguise must have lasted, anyway, through the moment in which Eshan came up and spoke to him. Or else Eshan would have noticed immediately that he was looking at the face of Jim Eckert, rather than that of Ewen MacDougall.

  But it made no difference now. Snorrl was now making a way for them through the Hollow Men. Also, hopefully, to the Little Men and Borderers beyond. In the noise and dust and general confusion of the clearing, Jim could not see beyond the Hollow Men closest in front of him.

  Blows came hard against his shield, as he literally hid behind it.

  He saw that Brian, on his left, was not using his lance. Bodies of men and horses alike were pressed too close together for lance-work. Brian's shield and broadsword were both busily at work, as were Dafydd's, on his right.

  Jim glanced around his shield and ventured a full-arm slash at the Hollow Man before him. The Hollow Man went down. He suddenly realized that others like him, but on foot, were trying to kill or cripple Gorp; so that Jim, himself, would be brought to the ground.

  He turned his attention to these footmen, consequently; and found himself unexpectedly helped by Gorp, himself. The war horse—panicking in the uproar that was going on—had once again begun to kick out and bite at everything within reach, armored or not.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  What followed was a sort of timeless blur.

  Jim found himself at once frightened to the very core of his being and at the same time strangely elated; but with both emotions pushed into the background by the need of the moment to thrust, to hit, to work his way forward or be helped forward, by the attacks of Snorrl, Brian or Dafydd. The smell of dust was clogging in his nostrils.

  It seemed to go on for a time that was at once momentary and endless. In fact there was no time. It was all one moment and it was eternity at the same time. But suddenly the bright spear-points of the Little Men were before them, and these were parting to let them through. They crowded into the opening made for them, while the spears behind them closed together once again, against those who had tried to follow.

  Suddenly, they were out of the immediate need to keep fighting constantly. Jim found himself slippery within his armor with his own sweat—he hoped it was all sweat, and not some of it blood.

  To his left the spears and the dust still obscured everything. To his right there was another corridor through the spears down which in the opposite direction Borderers on horseback were pouring, to lock in fight with the fully armored Hollow Men close in toward the cliffs that blocked their escape from the clearing.

  Past the Little Men and Borderers, in the clear beyond the fighting at last, they reined up. Jim looked about him; and, glancing right, saw Herrac sitting still on his horse; with the mounted and armored figures of his sons horsed and around him, particularly noticeable by the smallness of Sir Giles among his brothers.

  Jim had not expected to see his massive figure back here. It was not the usual way for a medieval commander in a battle like this to stand aloof. He turned Gorp toward Herrac and trotted toward him, with Brian on his right and Dafydd on his left, going with him. Snorrl had disappeared, whether to turn back into the fight or vanish into the woods about them, it was impossible to say.

  Herrac not merely had his visor up; but his helm was tilted back, so that his complete head and face were clear. He turned to see Jim and his Companions as they came up.

  "Now, God be thanked!" he said, as the three came within sound of his voice. They rode up to him and stopped.

  "Can we charge with the others, now, Father?" asked Alan, beside his father, his helmet on but its visor up.

  "In a moment," said Herrac. "I've but waited to make sure that his Highness, Sir James and Sir Brian were clear. Now that they are safe, we will join the battle." He flipped his helmet over his head, but kept his visor up.

  "I will return to the fight with you, Sir Herrac!" said Brian. But his voice was weak, and Jim saw Brian sway slightly in his saddle.

  Jim turned, reached out, and lifted the visor that was hiding Brian's face. Beneath it, the other's features were paper-white, once more. He swayed again, slightly in the saddle, even as Jim lifted the visor.

  "You'll not return," said Jim. "I order you to stay with us, Brian!"

  "And I reinforce that order, if need be!" said Herrac. "Sir Giles, you will turn aside from the battle and help these three gentlemen, in particular Sir Brian, so that he may be brought safely back to the castle and cared for. You too, Christopher!"

  "Father!" protested the sixteen-year-old, youngest son.

  "You heard, Christopher," said Herrac. "No more is to be said. You and Giles will take these gentlemen home. For the rest of us, down visors and follow me!"

  With that he dropped his own visor, put spurs to his horse and galloped forward with the rest of his sons toward the nearest opening between the ranks of the Little Men. Christopher and Giles, their visors up and showing unhappy faces, watched them go.

  "Come on, then," said Jim impatiently. "Let's get him back to the castle. One of you ride on each side of Sir Brian."

  "I need them not—" feebly protested Brian.

  "You'll have them, nonetheless," said Jim. "Giles—Christopher!"

  The other two moved up and arranged themselves one on each side of Brian, Sir Giles putting out his arm around Brian's waist.

  Jim, who had moved aside to give Christopher room to move up alongside Brian, led the horses forward at a walk. After a moment he ventured on a trot and looked back over his shoulder.

  "Can he stand this pace, Giles?" he asked.

  "Stand a damn gallop—" Brian made a feeble protest. But Giles nodded.

  "Then go as quickly as you can, but not above this speed," said Jim.

  Suddenly, however, it was as if a hand was laid on Jim's shoulder. He pulled up abruptly.

  "The rest of you take Brian back," he said. "Go as fast as he can stand. Brian, are you additionally wounded? Are you bleeding someplace new?"

  "Not bleeding, damn it!" Brian's voice could hardly be heard. "Just so… damn weak…"

  He sagged in the saddle.

  "Dafydd," said Jim, "you take charge and—

  "No, James," said Dafydd, calmly but decisively. "Giles and Christopher are enough."

  The bowman turned in his saddle and went on speaking to the other two de Mers.

  "The two of you check him for bleeding from his earlier wound, from time to time," he said. "If he bleeds more than a little, slow your horses, and if need be, stop. If the wound or his weakness makes it too much for him to ride, make a litter out of two small fir trees, chopped down and bound together, laying him on that to be dragged back by your horses. You understand?"

  Giles and Christopher both nodded.

  "If even that is too much for him," Dafydd went on, "one of you stay with him and the other gallop at full speed for the castle, to bring back Liseth and help. Giles, best you stay with him; and Christopher make the ride."

  "Dafydd—" began Jim again; but Dafydd calmly turned to face him.

  "You are speaking to Prince Merlion, Sir James," said Dafydd. "I also intend to stay here."

  While this did not settle things for Jim, it was apparently the final argument for Giles and Christopher. Both of them, with an arm around Brian's waist now and back to moving at a walk, started away into the woods. Jim watched them go with deep anxiety.

  "I hope he'l
l be all right!" he said, more to himself than to anyone else.

  "He is a strong man, James," said Dafydd's voice in his ear. "What man can survive, he can survive—and possibly then some. But if you have reason for staying, so do I—even if that reason is not the same. I have a responsibility to the Little Men. Will we share our responsibilities, James?"

  Jim looked at him. Dafydd's handsome face was calm and coldly set, so that it seemed to Jim he saw the man as he had never seen him before.

  "Yes," he said. "We have to know, beyond all doubt that all the Hollow Men are destroyed, before either of us leaves the field. Then—"

  He broke off.

  "Then?" prompted Dafydd.

  "Then…" said Jim.

  Jim fell silent for a moment.

  He did not know what he had been about to say.

  "I don't know," he went on, feeling an uneasiness inside him that was not connected for the moment with Brian's state of health. "Perhaps there's something else."

  "Something else?" asked Dafydd, his eyes hard upon Jim. "Tell me now, and what else should there be?"

  "I don't know," said Jim, again. "At the moment, all I have is a feeling."

  "Whether it will make you wiser to know it or not, I know not," said Dafydd, "but I will say, look you, that I have a feeling also. And you know that I have feelings from time to time that were best paid attention to. You will remember how, shortly after we first met, I felt the passing of something, when you made your decision to go first with Brian and the others to recover the de Chancy Castle before trying the rescue of your Lady Angela?"

  He waited.

  Jim nodded.

  "And again, last year, you remember I told all of you—you, Brian, Giles and the young English Prince—that I had had a cold feeling when I packed to leave the wife I love for France? So that all things I touched seemed cold to my fingers?"

  Again he paused; and again Jim nodded.

  "—All except that sword that Giles took and the Prince would not carry," Dafydd went on. "And it was a sword that was to bring Giles to a time of death, but also to great honor. I have a feeling now; but it is about you, James. A feeling that I should not leave your side, any more than I may leave the Little Men."

  "Well, I can't send you away," said Jim unhappily, but trying to smile. "As you pointed out, you're Prince Merlion."

  "That is true," said Dafydd. "But I also sense that you feel something beyond what is to be seen here today. Yet it seems that the Little Men and the Borderers together are winning the field—are they not?"

  For the first time in some moments, Jim's thoughts came back to where he was and what he was doing. He looked at the clearing. The dust had thinned; and he saw, indeed, that the Hollow Men, what were left of them, were mainly those in full armor. But these were pressed back against the cliff by both Borderers and Little Men, and fighting desperately. All others lay as empty clothing, or armor on the field.

  "Just as long as none of them are playing dead, to be overlooked in their armor by lying still," said Jim with a new and sudden sense of alarm.

  "I think both Snorrl and the birds will be watching for that," said Dafydd.

  Jim looked around him.

  "But Snorrl has gone," he said.

  "Not far," said Dafydd. "Look yon."

  Jim glanced in the direction of the bowman's pointing finger.

  Through the thinning dust he made out the form of Snorrl at the clearing's far end, nosing among the recumbent suits of armor on the ground. The birds were still with them, still circling, the smaller coming down right next to the ground—and now there were some that were indeed small—no bigger than swallows or swifts.

  The end was inevitable now. The living on both sides fought with a cold ferocity. What was left of the Hollow Men fought for survival. The Little Men and Borderers fought with years of hatred behind them. Curiously, none of them spoke or shouted now; and there was no noise but the sound of metal on metal itself.

  Slowly, the line of armored Hollow Men pressed against the cliff grew smaller, thinner and thinner; until there were only a few scattered ones left—and then they were gone.

  The Little Men and the Borderers drew back, in this one moment strangely close; the Little Men no longer in ranks and the Borderers no longer together but mixed among the Little Men. They looked at each other as if they were seeing each other for the first time, in the light of what they had just now shared.

  Slowly, they pulled back from the foot of the cliff; and now Jim could see, as if they were not made of metal but something light that the wind had tossed there, the armor of the last of the Hollow Men, piled like leaves by an autumn wind against the base of the cliff.

  The Little Men and the Borderers continued to move slowly back, pulling apart as they did so, and beginning to regroup into two separate peoples, Little Men with Little Men, Borderers with Borderers.

  Although the battle was over, there still was silence. Jim made out Herrac's towering figure, still on his horse, still surrounded by—as far as Jim could tell—most of his sons, turning back to set up a rallying point well away from the cliff. He made it, turned about and shouted.

  "Borderers! To me."

  The sound of his great voice breaking on the silence seemed almost like a sacrilege. But the Borderers moved toward him like men in a dream, and the Little Men slowly reformed in their ranks, without orders, also moving back from the cliff. Jim started forward on his horse; and, with Dafydd beside him, he rode up to Herrac. The Borderers already around Herrac drew back to let him through. All the sons were there except Giles and Christopher.

  Jim stopped in front of Herrac.

  "You did it—you and the Little Men," he said. "It's done finally, and over with."

  Herrac's glance went past him and Jim turned to see what the other knight was looking at.

  It was Ardac, and five other of the Little Men still carrying their spears and shields. Jim thought he recognized some of the bearded faces from the meeting in the woods early before the battle.

  "We did it with your help," said Herrac to Ardac. "We could never have done it alone. Your spears helped hold them against the cliff so that there was no escape."

  "Nor could we have done it alone." said Ardac. "We know this—you and I, and many still alive here. But we will go now. This will be remembered. But, in a few days, some months, a generation, it will be forgotten again. Things will go back to being as they always have been; with you and your kind, and those who come after you, pressing against us, and we fighting back to hold our borders."

  "No," said Jim, "I don't think it'll ever be the same from now on."

  "Think that if you like," said Ardac to him, "but I think as I always have. There will be no changes—"

  He broke off suddenly as one of the other Little Men touched him at the elbow, and turned him to look away from Jim. Ardac and all the rest were looking away from him too.

  In perfect silence, coming around and down the far edge of the cliff, where the slope was small, stretching out into boulders and rubble, slowly, inexorably and massively, was a Worm larger than the one Jim had seen in the battle at the Loathly Tower.

  Riding it was a man in armor, with his visor up and hollowness showing within. From that hollowness now came the voice of Eshan, shouting into the silence of all on the clearing below, who were staring at him.

  "You thought you'd win!" shouted Eshan. "You can never win! I'm alive and soon all these will be again! Come kill me if you can!"

  None of those below, Little Men or Borderers, moved toward him. Instead, all, and alike, they drew back, though a large distance still separated them from Eshan and the Worm. Snorrl was gone and Lachlan moved back with the Borderers.

  But it was not the sight of Eshan that pushed them back; and it was not even the Worm, hideous and large enough as it was. It flowed over the rocks, leaving those over which it passed with a glistening trail upon them. Four to five feet thick above the ground and ten to twelve feet in length, it bulked, wi
th two tall eyestalks bearing at their ends strangely blank-seeming eyes. These turned and focused from one part of the field to the other below it as it went.

  In front of and below the eyestalks was no indication of a nose, but only a circular, suckerlike mouth, partially opened to show numerous rings of tiny, ivory teeth within.

  There was a jingle of harness, a thud of hooves just behind and to the side of Jim; and a voice spoke.

  "I am here," said the voice of Brian.

  Jim jerked about in his saddle. Brian sat his horse with more firmness now. His visor was up and his face, while still pale, had lost the unnatural whiteness that had been its color before. A little behind him rode Giles and Christopher, looking embarrassed.

  "Forgive me, Sir James!" said Sir Giles, pushing his mount forward until he was on the other side of Brian, and looking across past Brian at Jim. "The fault is mine. But he swore he would fight us if we did not let him return. I could not fight him, nor let Christopher do so; so we have merely come back with him. He would be here; and he is here."

  "Indeed," came the grim voice of Herrac, "the fault is yours, Giles!"

  "Blame him not," said Brian, without looking at the large knight. "No one and nothing could have kept me away. My duty is here. I did not know what that duty was until now; but now I see it clearly. There is one Hollow Man left and he is protected by a Worm; and I—I alone—have fought a Worm and know how to fight it. I must yet fight this one."

  "No," said Jim, with a strangely sudden and quiet sense of finality inside him. "You can't fight him, because you could not possibly fight him and win, the way you are now. I must fight him, and you must direct me, as you have always directed me in my fighting. It's a job for both of us."

  "God save us that it must be!" cried Herrac, in a voice thick with rage. "Because I cannot bring even myself to approach that—that thing; and I see that neither can anyone else here except yourselves! It is not the Worm—it is… it is that and something more!"

  He was right. Terrible as the Worm was, something worse came with and went before it. Something like a great cold breath of wind that seemed to blow through the watchers to their very bones, that sought out in them all that they had ever evilly thought or evilly done. They retreated before it so that, little by little, they all were being driven back by it toward the edge of the clearing.