"Come come," said Smrgol, gruffly. "No more of this nonsense. We both need sleep."
Something about Smrgol's insistence touched the new sensitivity of Jim's emotional perceptions. He looked at Smrgol as closely as he could without seeming to openly study the older dragon. There was something different about the large body he saw, something hard to pin down but undeniably different from the last time he had seen Gorbash's grand-uncle. Suddenly it struck him what it was.
Smrgol's left eyelid was half closed. It drooped down over the long, narrow eye. Smrgol's left wing also drooped, slightly but visibly; and as he stood on all fours the older dragon seemed to be resting most of his weight on his right two legs. Jim had seen physical signs like these before—if not in dragons. His grandfather had shown similar marks of physical distortion on one side of his body following his first stroke, three years ago.
But dragons didn't get—Jim checked the thought. Apparently they did, if they were old enough or otherwise vulnerable. In any case, whether they did or not was unimportant here. What mattered was that Smrgol was now crippled; and whether he understood the exact nature of what had happened to him or not, he was in no condition to fly right now.
"All right," said Jim. "I guess I can wait until morning."
Smrgol would be no better in the morning, but a few hours would give Jim some time to puzzle out a way of handling the situation. He tucked his head under one wing and pretended to go to sleep. His ears caught what he thought might be a faint sigh of relief, and when he peered out from under his appendage a few minutes later, Smrgol also had his head tucked in and was beginning to snore lightly.
Jim fell asleep while he was still pondering what should be done, but woke with the answer already formed in his mind.
"Smrgol," he said, once they were both awake in the dawn of a new day, "I've been thinking—"
"Good boy!"
"Er—yes," Jim said. "And what came to mind was this. I should probably fly to the Loathly Tower as quickly as I can. If Carolinus is right about Sir Hugh and his men being headed there, then the Dark Powers are probably gathering all their forces. Who knows what they're likely to come up with? Thousands of sandmirks—or anything! Meanwhile, why don't you go secretly on foot back to the dragon caves, so that no one will know you're planning to gather the other dragons, get them together—"
Smrgol coughed self-consciously.
"My boy," he said. "I meant to say something to you about that. As a matter of fact… well, the others aren't coming."
"Not coming?"
"They voted against it. I did what I could, but…"
Smrgol let his voice trail off.
Jim did not press him. He could imagine why the other dragons had voted against it, if Smrgol had already had his stroke when he tried to talk them into coming. An overage and crippled leader was not one to inspire followers with a thirst for combat. Besides, Jim had acquired enough knowledge of dragons by now, both through his Gorbash-body and -brain and from association with Smrgol and the others, to know that they were basically conservative. Lets sit tight, and maybe it'll all blow over, would be basic dragon philosophy.
"Well, that's even better!" said Jim, quickly. "That means you'll be free to walk towards the fens while I fly there, and act as liaison with any of our side that you run into on the ground."
" 'Liaison'?" Smrgol said, suspiciously. "Is that a word you got from Carolinus or that knight?"
"No… Well, maybe. At any rate, it means—"
"I know what it means," said Smrgol, sadly. "It's just that it's such a george type of word for you to be using, my boy. Well, well, you really need me to go towards the fens on foot?"
"I think it'd be wise," Jim answered. "That lets me head right for the tower, and leaves you to take care of… well, everything else."
"That's true." Smrgol's glance darted for a second to his left side. "Perhaps I ought to do just that…"
"Good!" said Jim. "All right then, I'll be taking off right away."
"Good luck, Gorbash!"
"Good luck to you, too, Grand-uncle!"
Smrgol's eyes lit up happily at the last word.
"Well, well, Nephew—don't just stand there. You said you were leaving. Get on with it!"
"Right!" answered Jim; and leaped into the air.
The new morning was as free of rain and clouds as the previous day had been full of them. A stiff wind was blowing toward the fens. At about six hundred feet, Jim spread his wings into soaring position and rode the airstream like an eagle. He had hardly been in the air five minutes, however, before the wind inexplicably changed direction a full hundred and eighty degrees and began to blow inland from the fens, against him.
He tried shifting to various altitudes in an effort to find at least one where this contrary wind did not blow; but it seemed to be everywhere. Battling it for some time, he made very slow process. If this kept up, he might as well have joined Smrgol at making his way to the fens on the ground. In fact, if things didn't improve—
The wind quit abruptly. Suddenly, there was no breeze at all. Caught unprepared, Jim lost nearly five hundred feet of altitude before he could adjust himself to the new conditions and start hunting for thermals.
"What next?" he asked himself.
But there was no next. The air stayed dead calm, and he continued, working his way from thermal to thermal, mounting on one and gliding forward to catch another and climb again. It was faster than walking, but still not the swiftest way of traveling.
By the time he reached the fens, it was midmorning. He made out the line of the Great Causeway and began to work his way out above it at a height of merely a couple of hundred feet.
The land end of the Great Causeway was thickly enough covered with trees and bushes to look similar to the forest land behind the moors and above the fens. The vegetation stood with leaves and branches motionless under the clear autumn sun, as Jim alternately soared and flew above it. Nothing could be seen on the ground, under or between the trees, that Jim could make out. No human or animal figure—not even a bird or cloud of insects—showed itself below. The emptiness of the scene was at once both forbidding and reassuring. Jim found himself being lulled into nearly forgetting why he had come here. Reasonlessly, there came into his head a fragment of a poem he had tried to write in his undergraduate days, before he had sensibly decided to be a teacher:
An hour, an hour… another hour ... Without a difference I can see, Like faceless children on a wall That stretches to eternity …
"Jim Eckert! Jim Eckert!"
A tiny voice, calling from far off, roused him from his thoughts. He looked around but could see nothing.
"Jim Eckert! Jim Eckert!"
A shiver went down his back and spread out to chill his whole body as it came again, more loudly; and now he pinpointed its location as somewhere on the causeway up ahead.
"Jim Eckert! Jim Eckert!"
It was full-strength now, a dragon's voice, but not the voice of a dragon with the volume of a Smrgol or Bryagh.
Jim stared ahead, raking the causeway with his sharp vision. Finally he caught sight of something gray that moved slightly, far up in a patch of tall grass surrounded by trees and bushes. He swooped toward it.
As he approached, he saw what he had already almost guessed to be the source of the calling. It was Secoh, down on the ground, his wings spread out over the grass on either side of him, like some captured bird cruelly stretched on display. The mere-dragon was lifting his head, almost hopelessly, from time to time to call.
Jim was almost above the mere-dragon now. Secoh had plainly not yet seen him approaching—not surprising, considering that Secoh was facing in the wrong direction. Jim thought swiftly. The calling of his real name was eerie; and there was something more than that—something unnatural about the odd position in which Secoh was extended—that made even the thought of answering the mere-dragon an uneasy one.
Jim hesitated; and as he hesitated, the momentum of his glide carried him
beyond Secoh and the mere-dragon caught sight of him.
"Jim Eckert! Jim Eckert!" Secoh cried. "Don't go! Come back and listen to me, first! I've got something to tell you. Please come back! Oh, help me! Help, your worship! I'm just a mere-dragon…"
Jim glided on, closing his ears to the cries fading behind him; but there was a war going on within him. Somehow Secoh had learned to call him by his right name. That meant the mere-dragon had either really discovered something, or else the Dark Powers were using him as an intermediary. Could the Dark Powers be ready to negotiate Angie's release?
He kept a firm grip on the hope that sprung up in him at that last thought. Negotiation was a possibility… and if, on the other hand, Secoh had only discovered something useful, Jim would be foolish not to take advantage of it. Also, although Jim sternly throttled down the idea that emotion had any strong influence over whatever decision he might make, he was touched by the note of despair in Secoh's voice and the mere-dragon's desperate appeal for help.
Grimly, Jim banked into a turn, beat his wings for more altitude and started to glide back.
Secoh was in the same spot, his position unchanged. He set up a chorus of glad cries as he saw Jim once more coming toward him.
"Oh, thank you, your highness! Thank you, thank you…" he babbled as Jim slid in to land on the grass beside him.
"Never mind all the thanking!" snapped Jim. "What's this you've got to tell me—"
He broke off, for he had just noticed the reason for Secoh's unnatural, spread-eagled position. Cleverly hidden in the grass were pegs driven into the earth, to which Secoh's wingtops and toes had been cinched tight by leather cords.
"Hold, dragon!" cried a voice.
Jim looked up. A figure in bright armor, which he had last seen coming at him on horseback, lance in hand, stepped out from the cover of trees on his right; and all around Jim, shoulder to shoulder, a solid ring of crossbowmen had appeared, their weapons aimed and cocked, the quarrels pointed at Jim's chest.
Secoh wailed.
"Forgive me, your greatness!" he cried. "Forgive me! I couldn't help it. I'm just a mere-dragon and they caught me. The Dark Ones told them that if they made me call you by that name, you'd come and they could catch you. They promised to let me go if I could get you to come. I'm just a mere-dragon and nobody cares about me. I had to look after myself. I had to, don't you see? I had to… !"
Chapter Twenty
The figure in armor walked intrepidly forward until he stood less than three feet from Jim's jaws. He put his visor up and Jim saw a square, cheerfully brutal countenance with a large nose and pale, cold, gray eyes.
"I'm Sir Hugh de Bois de Malencontri, dragon," he said.
"I know you," Jim answered.
"Damme if I see why you're any different than any other dragon," said Sir Hugh. "Still, who's to argue if it makes Them happy. Tie him up, lads. He's too heavy for the horses, but we'll make a sledge and drag him on it to the tower."
"Please, Sir knight, your lordship, will you untie me now?" Secoh called. "You've got him. Will you just cut these tight thongs and let me go—"
Sir Hugh looked over to Secoh and laughed. Then he turned back, considering Jim.
"Sir knight! Sir knight!" Secoh quivered all through his body. "You promised! You promised you'd let me go if I got him to come. You wouldn't go back on your knightly words, would you, your Royalty?"
Sir Hugh looked at the mere-dragon again and burst into a roar of bass-throated laughter.
"Hark at him! Hark to the dragon! Knightly honor, he says! Knightly honor to a dragon?"
His laughter cut off abruptly.
"Why, dragon," he said to Secoh, "I want your head for my wall! What sort of jack-fool would I be to turn you loose?"
He turned away; and as he did so a deadly shower came down from the clear sky—a rain of clothyard shafts whistling upon them. Half a dozen of the cross-bowmen fell. The rest, some with arrows in them, broke for the cover of the trees. Four shafts fell around Sir Hugh, and one long arrow drove through the top edge of his left pauldon to ring loudly on the breastplate below, but without penetrating the second thickness of armor.
Sir Hugh swore, snapped down his visor and also ran heavily for the trees. A second flight of arrows descended in a large circle among those same trees, but it was impossible for Jim to tell what damage they had done. He heard the sounds of feet running away, of a man in armor mounting and galloping off. Then silence. He and Secoh were unhurt, but alone except for the dead and dying crossbowmen on the ground about them.
A whimper from Secoh brought Jim's attention back to the mere-dragon. He stepped over and drove the claws of one forepaw into each of the pegs holding Secoh down, in turn, and pulled them out. They came up easily to his muscles. Secoh immediately sat up and began biting through the leather thongs that had held the pegs to his toes.
"Why didn't you pull the pegs out yourself?" Jim asked Secoh. "It's not easy, stretched out like that, I know, but any dragon—"
"They had all those bows and swords and things," said Secoh. "I'm not as brave as you are, your magnanimity. I couldn't help being afraid; and I thought maybe if I did what they wanted, they'd let me go."
He stopped biting through the thongs and cowered.
"Of course, I understand how your worship would feel. I shouldn't have called you down to land here—"
"Forget it," said Jim gruffly.
Secoh took him at his word and went back to biting through leather.
Jim made a small tour around the fallen crossbowmen. But there was nothing to be done for any of them. Those who were down were either already dead or within minutes of dying; none of them yet retained enough consciousness to realize that someone was standing over them. Jim turned away just in time to see Secoh preparing to take off.
"Wait a minute!" he snapped.
"Wait? Oh, of course—wait. I understand, your highness!" Secoh yelped. "You thought I was about to fly away. But I was just stretching the cramp out of my wings—"
"You aren't going anywhere," Jim said, "so settle down and answer a few questions. Who told you to call me Jim Eckert?"
"I already said!" protested Secoh. "The george—the knight—told me; and the Dark Ones told him."
"Hmm. And how did they catch you in the first place?"
Secoh looked unhappy.
"They—they put out a fine piece of meat," he said. "Half a large boar… lovely, fat meat, too."
A tear trickled down from the eye on the side of his head nearest Jim.
"Such lovely, fat meat!" Secoh repeated. "And then they didn't even let me have a bit of it. Not a bite! They just aimed their crossbows at me and tied me up."
"Did they say why?" Jim asked. "Did they give any reason for guessing I'd be along, so you could call me down in the first place?"
"Oh, yes, your worship. They talked about it a lot. The knight said you'd come at just this time, and after they caught you the six men he named must take you without delay to the tower; and he with the rest would catch up with them on the way."
"Catch up?" Jim frowned.
"Yes, your importance." Secoh's eyes looked suddenly a good deal shrewder than Jim had ever seen them before. "This knight was going to stay behind to lay a trap for the other george—your friend. And that was something he wasn't supposed to do: the Dark Ones had sent him out just to get you, and come right back. But he really has a terrible anger against your friend, you know, the one who goes around chasing us mere-dragons all the time. So this knight was going to catch your friend in spite of what the Dark Ones wanted—"
Secoh stopped to shiver.
"That's what's so terrible about them, these georges," he went on. "Nobody can make them do what they're told, not even the Dark Ones. They don't care for anything, just as long as they can go riding around in their hard shells and sticking their sharp horns into poor mere-dragons like me, or anyone they want to. Imagine somebody else going ahead and doing just what he wanted after the Dark Ones had given
him orders!"
"I wonder where they all went when they ran off from here though?" Jim wondered.
"The knight that was here and those crossbowmen?" Secoh nodded his head back toward the mainland end of the Great Causeway. "There's a swamp off to the left there where you'd drown in a minute if you couldn't fly, your highness. But the Dark Ones showed that knight a way through it. He and his men have gone out there, and they'll be circling around to get back on the causeway behind your friends who shot all the arrows in here, just now. I know, because that's the way this knight told his men they'd surprise and take your friends after you'd been dragged off to the tower."
"That means they've cut us off from the mainland—" Jim was beginning, when he became aware that he had been listening to the sound of approaching horses' hooves for some seconds; and a moment later Brian rode into the clearing.
"James!" cried the knight, joyously. "There you are! I've been feeling seven sorts of rascal for trying to talk you into that assault on Malencontri. After you disappeared yesterday, I got to pondering and it struck me that we'd probably been counseling you against your duty; and you'd determined to go it alone, after all. Said as much to Giles, Dafydd, and Danielle; and blind me if they hadn't all been thinking along the same lines themselves. First the wolf, then you, gone. Bad omens, those, for a group of Companions, eh? So we'd already turned toward the fens here, when the wolf caught up with us last night—Hullo! Is that one of our local dragons you've got here?"
"Secoh, your mightiness!" yelped the mere-dragon, hastily. "Just Secoh, that's all. I know you well, your georgeship, and admired you from afar, many times. Such speed, such dash—"
"Really?"
"Such kindness, such gentleness, such—"
"Oh, not all that, actually—"
"I said to myself, a knight like that'd never hurt a poor mere-dragon like me."
"Well, of course," said Brian, "I would have, you know. Chopped your head off if I could have caught you, just as I would any other dragon. But I take it you're on our side now, from seeing you here with James."
The Dragon and The George Page 21
