Far above the green valleys just below the clouds, the great dragon soared. When it bothered to glance down at all it was to search for one of the great herds of grass eaters that long before had roamed the plains, though it had no great enthusiasm for the task. Hundreds of years ago the herds had dotted the wide spaces between the few clusters of twig-and-leaf huts. Five dragons had shared the valleys. Then the strangers had come marching in tight formation, and filled the air with arrows. The earlier men had called him a god and left offerings. Those newcomers had brought only death. After two of his fellows had been killed, the memory was still bitter; he had chosen to travel to the less hospitable but empty lands to the north. Three days before he had returned, older, stronger, and determined to reclaim the mountains in which his ancestors had dwelled before men had learned about fire. If the wild herds were gone, so he would eat the villagers' fat cattle.
Briefly, but without interest, the great beast noticed as figures scurried in the center of one of the villages below. It swept on, the humans too wrapped up in their own struggles even to notice its majestic passage.
It was a cool day, but the hilt of the rune-covered sword held by the white-and-red mantled knight felt almost warm in his grasp. Twice now he had barely deflected powerful swings from his opponent's heavier longsword. That Tartar's longer weapon had also effectively nullified the advantage a man fighting from horseback had against a man afoot. Seconds before he had turned his attacker's blade, the longsword's point had been deflected so that it tore a shallow cut in the unprotected side of his horse. Frightened and stung by the long wound, the war-horse was becoming difficult to control. The rider had barely regained control when the short, dark-haired horse nomad began another sweeping strike.
Rather than meeting the blow, Aleon forced his mount to back away. The momentum of the heavy sword forced the nomad off balance and he spun slightly off guard. As the man struggled to recover, the knight leaned forward and drove the point of his own blade into his enemy's chest.
The blade cut through the horse nomad's poorly patched chain coat, meeting with little resistance, and continued through the wiry body until it jammed against the man's rib cage. Turning a surprised and accusing stare at Aleon, the nomad collapsed, nearly dragging the sword from the young knight's grip. He folded to the ground with a gurgling gasp.
The newly mantled knight was unprepared for the satisfaction he felt when his blade tore through his opponent's armor. This was his first real battle. He'd contemplated many times how he might react. Most of his thoughts had concerned whether or not he would be courageous. But in the urgent moment of battle, that hadn't been important. He hadn't even thought about it when he spurred to attack the raiders. Now something else worried him even more. He'd studied the Bible and knew that Jesus was a merciful lord. Since his first days the brothers had told him to emulate the apostles and saints. Those were merciful men who worried for their souls and the souls of others. The entire process of killing should have sickened a holy knight, but it didn't. It had been kill or die, and he had prevailed. Instead of remorse, he felt a lightness about it that left no room for mercy. Even now he had no concern for the fact that he had just guaranteed eternal damnation for the man he'd killed. That lack worried the young Templar. Was this what he had spent years of prayer and fasting to become? Was he now more a killer than a Christian? A poor Christian knight in title only? Had he ever not been?
Ignoring the danger posed by the Tartar's few remaining companions, the youthful Sir Aleon de Couveour, newly invested companion of the Knight Guardians of the Temple of Jerusalem, dismounted and stood over his fallen enemy. The nomad wasn't dead yet, though he was breathing only in painful gasps. Hypnotized by what he had done, Aleon stared at the face of his enemy. The raider appeared to be about his age, no more than twenty years; it was hard to tell from his dark skin and squint-eyed face. Since the man wore chainmail Aleon concluded that he must have been a minor noble or the son of a lesser khan.
The body convulsed, arching its back and twisting until the knight wondered if someone so badly wounded might still try to attack him. He was about to back away when he noticed the haunted look in the dying man's eyes. Aleon had seen that look before, in other men who saw death approaching to claim them. The fallen nomad calmed, his muscles relaxed and only his dark eyes still showed fear. Then the eyes were empty, life gone from them. He was the first man Aleon had ever killed. Aleon had to resist the urge to kneel and offer passage prayers for the man. Any prayer learned in the Cathedral would hardly be welcomed by a pagan of the steppes, nor did Aleon feel his prayers would be sincere.
Concern over his lack of remorse mixed with a grim satisfaction. He had arrived in this distant corner of this valley two months earlier. He had entered that first village proud and self-important in his new role of defender of the region. The Templars were a small order, founded less than a decade earlier. Even so, they already had a reputation for the effectiveness with which they defended the kingdom's borders. The villagers, themselves newly settled in the former wasteland, had cheered his arrival. They had expected a guardian and were happy to receive a Templar. The more cynical among them observed that much of the valley's richer residents' joy was due to the fact that, having forsworn all personal wealth, a Knight Templar asked only food and shelter from those he protected, and would be unlikely to threaten their fortunes with importunate demands for monetary rewards.
The wind increased, as if it had been holding its breath during the duel. Aleon's white mantle emblazoned with its red cross slapped against the young knight's leg in mock punishment for the guilt he didn't feel. The Templar raised his head and looked into the eyes of the nearest remaining Tartar. Ranged in a wide arc in front of the lone knight were five more raiders. While less dangerous singly than their leader, fighting five attackers meant that Aleon would most likely die. The horsemen chattered among themselves in their heathen language, spreading out while staying beyond the reach of his sword. Occasionally one would glance at the horses they had staked at the edge of the village. Aleon worried that the five had been sworn to the fallen noble. They might have no choice but to attack, yet he couldn't tell a thing from their gibberish. The young knight strained to remember what he had been taught but couldn't recall whether a Tartar's bodyguard's duties included revenge for his death.
In the two months he had been the guardian of this most distant outpost of the Kingdom of Worzcraw, Aleon had arrived on the scene again and again only after the Tartars had already fled with their booty. Chided by those he was sworn to protect, he had scurried these last weeks from village to village, hoping to be at the right spot to intercept the valley's tormentors, but always arriving too late. The village he had first been cheered in upon his arrival was now a smoking ruin, and its inhabitants dead or prisoners marched off to the steppes and the pens of Saracen slave traders.
Finally Aleon's frantic pursuit of his foe had brought him to this newly founded village close to the forest's edge just when he was needed. Half the houses were already burning when he arrived, but the nomads had not yet fled with their loot. He'd ridden straight to the center of the village, ready to fight and almost expecting to gain quickly an honorable death that would erase his failures and guarantee his place in Heaven. One nomad had run at him with a levelled spear. Using his shield to brush aside the iron-tipped weapon, Aleon had swung his sword across the saddle and felt the blade hit home. The man stumbled into the forest with his shoulder welling blood and one arm dangling limply. There'd been no time to react to that victory. His horse continued its gallop and stopped only after it had carried him into the midst of the dismounted raiders.
Within seconds he'd engaged and struck another Tartar. The man's small shield had shattered, and with a shriek of pain he'd run away between the burning huts. At his cries the rest of the squat raiders had dropped their loot and scurried away from the heavily armored knight. Only the nomad's chain-clad leader had kept his head and called for his followers to join him
as he rushed at the Templar, sword at the ready. But before the others could regroup Aleon had won their brief duel and slain him.
One of those followers now hefted his spear and Aleon's muscles tensed, guarding. Those who remained were a ragged lot, only one even wearing any semblance of leather armor. Two men carried small axes, one a spear, and the last two rusty short swords. The Templar took a single step toward them and raised his sword and shield to the ready. This pose was too much for men who'd just seen their leader, presumably their best warrior, die after only a brief instant of combat. All five began to edge toward their mounts and, when far enough to feel safe, turned to scramble onto them and flee into the woods.
Aleon knew he should follow them, but didn't. Reluctantly, the knight moved instead to where one of the peasants lay sprawled. The man was still alive, but the blood flowing copiously from the wound in his side gave him little hope for his survival. A scythe lay nearby, attesting to the farmer's courage in defending his home even with such poor weapons. There was little the Templar could do to aid him. Using strips of the man's tunic, Aleon bound the wound as well as he could while mumbling a prayer, and moved on to the Tartar's next victim. A short time later those villagers who had fled during the attack returned and began to care for the fallen and mourn their dead. By this time the first farmer had died. Cries of despair rose from his widow and children whenever the armored youth passed nearby, as if blaming him for the Tartar attack. To escape their wailing, Aleon stalked to the edge of the forest and made sure that the bandits had not turned back or hidden themselves but continued to run.
One farm lad tended to Aleon's horse. The young knight was gratified to learn that in spite of the blood, the animal was not seriously injured. Five dead peasants had been gathered in the village and were laid near the man Aleon had killed. Some women spat on the corpse. Afraid they would take unholy revenge on the body, the Templar insisted two youths bury it unmolested in the forest, and leave the grave unmarked.
As Aleon rode out of the village an old woman took hold of his leg.
"My son's one of those there lying dead! He died to give us a chance to escape those bastards. Why didn't you come sooner?" she lamented. She dashed tears off her cheek with a filthy, soot-stained sleeve.
"I came as soon as I could, good woman," Aleon said.
"God should not take ones so young," the old woman said brokenly.
All sense of victory lost, the young knight brushed her off with a murmured prayer, and spurred on with tears in his own eyes as well. The tears were, he told himself during the long ride home, only due to his passing through the smoke still belching from the green grass roofs on three burning huts.
For years Aleon had trained to do what he had just done: kill a man. His family, minor gentry back in Normandy, had nearly impoverished themselves to buy his equippage and secure him a position as a squire. It seemed to him a glorious future lay ahead of him, and he entered into his training with outward humility but a high heart. When he took his oath he had not fully realized that to defend some people, he would have to kill others. The young Templar recalled the emptiness in the eyes of the man he'd just killed, he lost control of his stomach and had to lean over the side of the horse as he lost the meager remains of the distant morning's breakfast. After that he tried not to think at all.
Sagging with exhaustion, Aleon was most of the way back to the dormitory of the small temple in which he lived when he saw a delegation hurrying toward him. At its head was the local Patriarch. The head of the local Greek Orthodox church came from a noble family, and ruled over this area in both a secular and spiritual sense. This high cleric was Aleon's host and a source of constant annoyance. He had resented his district being sent a newly invested and unproven knight. Worse yet, the Templar, sent as part of a gesture by the Grand Master, was in his eyes almost a heretic, a Roman Catholic and Papist. The darkly-robed priest had harassed Aleon almost from his first day, constantly criticizing the knight's inability to defend every inch of the shire, ignoring the reality of geography and the limits of human strength.
A tall, heavy man with white hair and age-spotted skin, the Patriarch tended to avoid all physically strenuous activity, so Aleon was dumbfounded to see the old cleric was virtually running toward him. Behind the Patriarch, Aleon could now distinguish several more shop owners and the head men of three nearby villages. Since there was no way they could already know he had slain the Tartar noble, Aleon braced himself for more criticism as they approached.
"Thank . . . the Almighty . . . you've returned," the Patriarch began most uncharacteristically as he hung onto the barding of Aleon's horse, panting. Aleon noticed that his black and gold surplice was moist across the back and his face was dark red from more than the exertion of his hasty approach. Something had to be very seriously wrong.
"I met the Tartars and slew their leader," Aleon informed the cleric while the man tried to regain his breath. He'd meant the news to be reassuring but it felt awkward. For a moment the image of the young nomad breathing his last returned and his stomach twisted.
Seeing the announcement had no effect, the Templar asked, "Sir, what brings you in such a hurry?"
". . . over by Creshski's village . . . cattle . . . dragon," the holy man's words were lost amid the clamor of other voices and the knight realized everyone was suddenly yelling at once. Aleon let them babble for a few breaths, then bellowed in a voice loud enough to carry.
"What dragon?"
Another burst of senseless noise arose as everyone tried to answer at once. Aleon waved his arms for silence. They ignored them.
"Patriarch!" Aleon demanded over the din. "What is everyone talking about?"
"It is a dragon!" the elder insisted.
Aleon could only sit and gape at that reply. "Dragons are the stuff of stories that the old men and women tell in my native Normandy, my lord. They are a myth."
The Patriarch showed his annoyance. Finally, he managed a few words between gasps for breath.
"This . . . is here . . . not Frankland."
Aleon tried not to smile. Dragons were legendary, tales used by peasants to frighten children. Dragons were symbols, representing power and evil, and a way to teach young squires about courage and sacrifice. A few peasants must have seen a large bird and the tale had grown in the telling. He was almost annoyed that this rumor was overshadowing his triumph against the Tartars.
When his breathing returned to normal, the old cleric raised his arms.
"Silence, all!" He turned to confront Aleon, who hastily wiped the traces of amusement from the corners of his mouth. "You, boy, you don't know. We have received a messenger, who tells the tale of this so-called-by-you legend. Two weeks ago, in the westernmost part of this shire, cattle began to disappear at night from the byres."
"Thieves," Aleon shrugged, unconcerned.
"No! It could not be. The village folk suspected the Tartars, but they steal whole herds. Yet these stories concerned only one cow or bullock at a time. There were no cattle tracks, not a trace of how they left."
"No prints? So the thieves were sweeping the ground behind them with branches. On my fathers land. . . ."
"I did not say there were no prints," the elder informed him sternly. "My messenger brought me the tracing of the single print that was discovered in the field from which a cow was stolen." He thrust parchment at Aleon, who unrolled it. On the sheet made of the entire hide of a sheep was the tracing of a single beclawed footprint.
"An invention," Aleon suggested.
"No, sir knight," a man said. Aleon recognized him as an experienced woodsman who had often guided him through the forests. "Three days later the dragon itself was seen. It bore no rider, no livery. It was carrying a whole deer in its talons. I and another hunter saw it pass within bowshot overhead."
"And neither one of them shot at it," the Patriarch said severely. The crowd around him laughed nervously, and the woodsman grew redfaced.
Aleon shook his head, trying to keep hi
s voice from sounding patronizing. "There is little a hunting bow could do to the thick scales of a dragon, my lord. They would have risked their lives in vain to alert it to their presence." At his words, the woodsman bestowed a worshiping gaze.
"So you do believe in this legend?" the Patriarch asked with emphasis.
"I . . . I am less certain that what I am hearing is a mere rumor," Aleon said carefully. The woodsman had been there, and he was widely respected for his integrity. He was not likely to invent a hysterical vision of a dragon. Though it was hard for the knight to accept what he said, everyone else listened in nervous silence. "Tell me about it, friend," he asked the woodsman.
The dragon was a large one. Even discounting the hunters exaggeration, whatever he had seen was not just an oversized bird or lizard. It had been a clear bright day when they'd seen it no more than a league away and just taking flight with a still live deer in its claws. It had been huge and the flapping wings thunderous. "The monster had to be easily half an arrow's flight across, my lord!"
The man sounded so sure, so sincere. Aleon, while still skeptical, had to accept that the woodsman believed what he was saying. Even the town's well-travelled and thoroughly jaded merchants crossed themselves and glanced nervously at the sky as the hunter went on to describe arm-length claws and man-tall fangs. As he and his companion watched from beneath a bush, it had flown northeast into the mountains.
Aleon felt the stirrings of adventure within him. In a way he was relieved that such a deed needed to be done. He'd spent weeks chasing Tartars, and only today, almost by accident, met with some success. If nothing had interrupted this assignment, he foresaw many more months of frustration. He had been raised from infancy on the ancient tales of brave knights slaying massive winged monsters. Should a dragon actually exist, and Aleon managed to defeat it, he could leave this dismal kingdom and return to the Commandery in glory. So for now he would assume, perhaps even hope, that the dragon existed. Aleon addressed the Patriarch, who had recovered his strength, and was now standing at a haughty arm's distance from Aleon and his steed.
Dragon's Eye Page 9
