The Dragon At War

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Jim suddenly remembered that the bond that existed between himself, Brian and Dafydd also included Secoh. He felt a sharp twinge of conscience.

  "Brian is sitting up and drinking wine, in spite of all we can say. Carolinus healed his wounds; and you know Brian. Now he thinks he's as good as ever," answered Jim. "Dafydd needed blood; and magically we've been able to give him some of mine. If he needs more from me, Carolinus's voice will speak, the way it did the time before when I left you both; and I'll go back upstairs. But for the moment, I can sit here and relax."

  "And have a cup of wine," said Chandos, filling one and pushing it in front of him. "I'm glad to hear that the two good men are doing well. As for me, I've been quite enjoying my talk with Secoh. First dragon I ever spoke to. Most of my life I've made a practice of talking to anyone I had a chance to speak with; and I've always said that every time I do, I learn something. Now, Secoh's just been telling me about how he and this other older dragon conquered that rogue dragon, Bryagh, in your famous fight at the Loathly Tower. I had no idea that their wings were so useful to dragons in a fight."

  "Yes indeed," put in Secoh, "I am not a large dragon, but with one wing—"

  He suddenly extended one of his wings across the lower table, stretching it out in the hall. Inside here, it seemed to stretch a remarkable distance.

  "With that wing," Secoh went on, "I could knock over five to ten of your georges; and few of them would get up again. With that wing alone I could break the back of a cow—er, that is to say I could break the back of a deer, no matter how large it was. I could knock over a bear, or send a boar tumbling. Most georges don't realize it, but what a dragon uses most in taking a prey or in fighting are his strong wing muscles. In fact, in fights between two dragons, both will be trying to break the wing or wings of the other dragon."

  "Eagles have very powerful wings," put in Chandos.

  "Ours are powerfuller," said Secoh. "Now, when we fought Bryagh, he was so big he would have broken both my wings quickly if I'd been fighting him alone. But Smrgol, in spite of being old and crippled by that illness, whatever it was, had wing-bones as strong as Bryagh's—though the wing on the side of him that had gotten sick was a little weaker than it should have been. At any rate, because he was fighting both of us, Bryagh couldn't devote all his attention to breaking my wings, so we just sort of bit and clawed and pounded on each other, all three of us—"

  He broke off. There had been a sudden uproar of noise in the courtyard, just outside and beyond the entrance door to the Great Hall. It was a mixture, Jim suddenly realized, of screams of human beings, the booming tones of Rrrnlf, and the high shrill sounds of a voice that was not too different from the tones in which Granfer had spoken when Jim, Brian and Giles had made their excursion with the Sea Devil down to see the huge and ancient squid.

  "He's got one!" shouted Secoh gleefully, pulling in his wing and jumping up from the table. "The Sea Devil's got a sea serpent!"

  A sea serpent. Of course! Mentally, Jim kicked himself for not making the association between the sound of Granfer's voice and the shrill one he was hearing now—although hearing it was not quite the right word, since Secoh's voice was practically drowning out the sounds that were coming in from the courtyard.

  Secoh had already started toward the front door.

  "We'd best go too, Sir James—think you not so?" said Chandos.

  Even as he said it, he was rising from the table and starting toward the front door himself. Jim accordingly followed him.

  Secoh was through the door in front of them, in spite of the fact that they were hurrying. They burst out afterward to find the courtyard all but deserted of its usual workmen and other servants who would be passing to and fro. In the center of the courtyard Rrrnlf was standing in the light of the torches around the walls that lit up the whole courtyard. The refugees there had all backed off to a safe distance.

  In his two great hands spaced fifteen or sixteen feet apart, he held an enormous green serpent with four short, stubby little feet. One of Rrrnlf's feet was on the serpent near its tail, immobilizing the twitching of that part of its body. His right hand grasped it almost at its middle and his left hand held it just behind its head. The serpent's jaws, which seemed capable of gaping wide enough to take in a whole horse, were snapping at empty air, while its voice shrilled in anger and protest.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  "Ah, wee knights!" said Rrrnlf. "Is the wee mage also about? Perhaps he might like to see the serpent too. This one's name is linnenü. He got away from me but I ran him down and carried him back here. Had to drag him over that wall of yours, though—be quiet, the two of you there!"

  His last words were a roar directed not only at the serpent, who was squeaking so loudly that what he said was not understandable; but also Secoh, who was standing just out of reach of the other's wide gaping jaws, with his own neck outthrust, shouting insults at the serpent.

  Secoh stopped. The serpent lowered his voice but kept up his complaining. Now he was understandable.

  "… All dragons and Sea Devils, and clean them off the bottom of the sea, or anywhere else they try to hide!"

  Calling the serpent's vocal efforts "squeaking" was probably the wrong word for it, thought Jim; but if that was not what it was, it was something very like it, a high-volume squeak.

  "I said, be quiet!" roared Rrrnlf, taking his hand off the middle of the serpent's body in order to ball it into a fist and bring it down on the top of the serpent's head. Jim winced. A steel wrecking-ball dropped from a height of two stories onto a highway surface of concrete would have made much the same noise. The serpent went suddenly quiet, and stopped snapping its jaws. It hung in Rrrnlf's grasp as if it was dazed.

  "Foolish creatures," said Rrrnlf in an ordinary tone, as an aside to Jim and Chandos. "The lot of them wouldn't stand a chance against a few dozen of my people—if you could ever get two dozen of my people together in one place. But, never mind that now. Here he is, that sea serpent you wanted to ask questions of. I may have hit him a wee bit hard, but he should be able to talk in a moment or two."

  "While we're waiting," said Chandos, "you mentioned the problem of getting several dozen of your people in one place. They don't get together, then?"

  "Well, no," said Rrrnlf, "not ordinarily—except in mating season."

  "And how often is that?" asked Chandos.

  "Let me see." Rrrnlf became thoughtful. "I'm pretty sure there was one in the last hundred years. Maybe, though, it was two hundred. No, I'm pretty sure that there was one in the last hundred years."

  "A hundred years between mating seasons?" said Jim. "Isn't that rather a long time?"

  "Well, you know how it is," said Rrrnlf. "Someone like myself—"

  He looked down at himself complacently.

  "—Isn't ready to fend for himself, the way a Sea Devil should, until he's at least eighty. Also, he doesn't really become what you might call full-grown for about five hundred," he said. "So those first eighty years his mother has to look after and protect him."

  His eyes became misty.

  "I had a wonderful mother," he said. "I wish I could see her again—if I could only remember what she looked like. I think she looked something like my stolen Lady."

  He shook the unconscious sea serpent roughly.

  "Wake up, you!" he growled. "You've got some questions to answer."

  The serpent stirred slightly in his hands and blinked its eyes.

  "What happened?" the serpent squeaked.

  "I hit you one," said Rrrnlf grimly. "And I'll do it again, if you don't start giving us the right answers right away. Where is Essessili? He's got my Lady!"

  "Lady? Lady?" said the sea serpent, still dazedly. "What Lady?"

  "My Lady!" said Rrrnlf. "Don't tell me he hasn't got her, because I know he has. Where is he?"

  "I don't know!" shrieked the serpent, as Rrrnlf let go of its body with one hand and balled that hand into a fist again. "I really don't! He's out in the Channel w
aters someplace, or maybe back at the shore of the other place, what do they call it, France. He didn't come ashore with the rest of us. I don't know if he has your Lady. I've never seen him with anything like a Lady. What does a Lady look like?"

  "She looks beautiful!" snarled Rrrnlf. He seemed just about to thump the sea serpent on the head again with his fist, then apparently he remembered that there were reasons for keeping it conscious. He turned to Jim and Chandos.

  "Did you two wee knights have questions?" he asked.

  "You know we do, Rrrnlf," said Jim reprovingly. He had been startled, and not a little scared, by the tremendous power that Rrrnlf seemed to contain in that huge body of his. Even allowing for the enormous size of his hands, it seemed a little unbelievable. Then Jim remembered that the Sea Devil was wedge-shaped; and above those big hands must be even more outsize wrists, forearms, upper arms and shoulders, all with muscles appropriate to their size.

  No wonder the curtain wall of the castle had quivered, when he had used it as a pivot to vault over onto the other side. But since that first reaction, Jim had remembered that his magic had been good enough to make Granfer go still when he gave it as a spell. Rrrnlf, too, must be susceptible to his magic and to that command, in particular, if necessary.

  "How many of you came ashore in England?" snapped Chandos, walking around to stand in front of the sea serpent's head so that they could look each other in the eye. The serpent was probably more than thirty feet long, but its body was nowhere thicker than about four feet, with stubby little legs; and its neck and head were its smallest body-parts. So Chandos could be eye-to-eye with it.

  "I don't know," said the sea serpent. "I don't know anything. I was just told to come here. So I came. I've eaten a few little land creatures, but anyone would do that. I just came and haven't bothered anyone—"

  Rrrnlf growled.

  "I'll ask you again," said Chandos, "and this is for the last time. If you don't answer then, I'll let Rrrnlf see if he can't get the truth out of you. How many of you are ashore in England right now?"

  "I really don't—" the serpent was beginning, when Rrrnlf, who had both hands back on the serpentine body, began to rotate the grip of each hand in a different direction. The serpent broke off in a scream.

  Jim winced internally. He had come to accept the fact that in this world it was simply standard practice, if you wanted information from a captured enemy, to make life as painful as possible for him until he either told you what you wanted, or died from the process of being made to talk. But Jim had never become accustomed to it; and he knew he never would.

  "Let him try to answer again," Jim said to Rrrnlf. The Sea Devil relaxed his grip.

  "I don't, I really don't—I could only guess—" gabbled the sea serpent in its high voice. "But I will guess, if you want. I'll guess. There's about fifty or sixty of us. That's all, just fifty or sixty."

  "Two hundred and thirty more like," snarled a harsh voice behind Jim and Chandos.

  They turned swiftly, Chandos instinctively putting his hand to the sword at his side as he found himself confronted by a wolf the size of a small pony. Then he recognized the wolf as Aargh, with Angie standing beside him, and let go of his sword.

  "Good. Leave it where it is, sir knight," the wolf said, "or it'll be the last thing you ever touch."

  Such words were a fighting challenge to any knight of courage—and few knights lacked that quality. Certainly, Chandos was not one of them. Jim interposed quickly to avert trouble.

  "Sir John," he said quickly, "you remember this one of our Companions at the Loathly Tower and since. Also, a good friend; and one who knows more about the countryside than anyone else, including this serpent Rrrnlf is holding."

  "Ah," commented Rrrnlf, "a wee wolf."

  "Not so wee, sir giant or devil, or whatever you are!" snapped Aargh. "And you're not so big that my teeth can't cut your heel-strings through and leave you flopping on the ground."

  "No, no, Rrrnlf!" shouted Jim, as Rrrnlf let go of the serpent with his right hand. "He didn't mean it the way it may sound to you. Let me explain to him."

  He turned to Aargh.

  "Aargh," he said, "this is Rrrnlf, a Sea Devil. A friend. He doesn't mean anything by calling you wee. He calls everyone who isn't his size or bigger 'wee.' "

  "That's as it may be," said Aargh, looking directly and speaking directly to Rrrnlf. "But I am an English wolf, sir Sea Devil, and whoever you may be, or however large you may be, makes no difference to me. You stand on my land, by my sufferance. If James and Angie didn't vouch for you, you might find me more difficult to handle than you think, for all your muscle and height!"

  Rrrnlf hesitated, then took hold of the sea serpent again.

  "I don't understand you land people," he said. "Have I offended, someway? I did not mean to offend. On the other hand, being what I am, I'm naturally not afraid of anything."

  "That's as it should be," said Aargh, in a tone that was strangely almost satisfied. "Neither am I. Nor should anyone be."

  Jim was not quite sure why; but the two, the Sea Devil and Aargh, seemed to be looking at each other now with a kind of mutual approval. Any nonviolent solution was a good solution, he told himself. He took advantage of the opportunity to have a moment's low-voiced conversation with Angie.

  "What did Aargh say about Carolinus?" he asked.

  "He said Carolinus smelled differently," Angie spoke equally low-voiced. "He said Carolinus had a sort of sick odor to his normal smell. That was all he could tell me."

  "Well, at least he agrees with us," said Jim. The thought reminded him of what they had been talking about before Aargh had spoken up. He turned to the wolf.

  "To a more important point," he said hastily, "how do you know the number of sea serpents that have already come ashore in England, Aargh?"

  "It is my land, James," said Aargh. "How should I not know? I would have guessed at that number anyway; but it happens I heard two of these long, green creatures talking, and they mentioned that number. The rest are to come later—some three or four thousand of them."

  "Three or four thousand!" said Chandos in a voice that for once betrayed an emotion of astonishment. "There are that many of them in the sea?"

  "There are many, many more of us than that!" cried the sea serpent Rrrnlf was holding. "We will sweep through this island of yours, leaving nothing left alive!"

  "Maybe," said Aargh, "and maybe not. There are those who'll fight you."

  "And the dragons will fight you," roared Secoh, who had been obediently silent up until this moment. "And if you count your numbers in thousands, we count ours in thousands too. And one dragon is more than a match for one of you, any day."

  The sea serpent gave a high-pitched cackle of laughter.

  "A match for one of us. Indeed!"

  It laughed again.

  "You find it funny?" demanded Secoh, sticking his nose almost within reach of the jaws of the serpent. "What of Gleingul, the dragon who slew his sea serpent on the Gray Sands, not twenty miles from here?"

  The serpent stared at him for a second.

  "No dragon ever slew a sea serpent by himself," he said.

  "Either they never told you; or you know it and won't admit it!" roared Secoh. "But Gleingul slew one of you; and all of our dragons can slay sea serpents. You hide down there in the deep water and tell yourself that a dragon is not better than you are. But you're wrong! Wrong!"

  "Secoh…" said Jim, moving over to the dragon and putting a hand on the tight neck of him, for Secoh was working himself into the type of instinctual dragon fury that Jim knew, from his own experience in a dragon body, could lead the mere-dragon into trouble. "Secoh, for the sake of all of us, let the serpent be. We've got things to learn from him yet."

  "Yes," said Rrrnlf, "when does Essessili get here? If he's not here now he'll be coming in with all these others you mentioned. When do they come? Because I will have my Lady back from him if I personally have to slay every serpent on land and sea!"
<
br />   "I don't know," said the serpent, almost mockingly.

  "Do you not!" said Rrrnlf. He turned to Jim. "That swamp water around your castle," he said to Jim, "it's mainly fresh water, isn't it?"

  "Well… yes," said Jim. He had tried very hard, he and Angie both, to clean up the open sewer that was the moat around Malencontri; in common with just about all moats around all medieval castles. But it was far from being the kind of water he would like to take a swim in himself, particularly now, with all the refugees in the vicinity.

  He and Angie ruled this castle and the area around it, but the habits of their servants and the people who lived there were hard to change.

  "Mainly fresh," he said.

  "Good!" said Rrrnlf. He began to carry the serpent toward the curtain wall, beyond which was the moat. A gentle, nearly full moon gilded the teeth in the jaws of the serpent Iinnenü, as he was lifted up, ready to be carried over the wall. "We'll just dip this long, green fellow in it and see how he likes it."

  "Not fresh water!" cried the serpent. "No! No! Not that. I don't know anything; but I'll tell you anything I know, anything at all. Listen—Essessili will come in on the third wave, tomorrow, probably in the morning; and then we'll carry everything before us, routing out the dragons and slaying them as we find them. That's all I know. I tell you that's every bit of the things I know! After us will come the people in their things called ships and find we've cleared the land before them!"

  Rrrnlf took hold of the curtain wall, ready to vault it, after which, presumably, he would drag the serpent over.

  "Stop, I tell you!" wailed Iinnenü. "Stop. I'll tell you everything, then. He's coming here, Essessili is—he's out to get the one they call the Dragon Knight, first; and I was one of those sent to keep an eye on this place until Essessili got here with our main forces!"

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Jim felt a jolt of adrenaline all the way through him.

  Of course, the sea serpents, and especially Essessili, would consider him as one of the dragons—and possibly the most dangerous of them all, since he was at the same time also a magician. Why Essessili should want to risk himself against a magician, and the powers that a magician must have, was still a question; but it was obviously a question to which their sea serpent prisoner did not have the answer.