In the Hall of the Dragon King dk-1

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  “Balder!” Ronsard shouted, his face shining with unexpected happiness. “Can it be?” He threw an arm around the horse’s thick-sinewed neck and slapped the animal’s shoulder affectionately. Then he stepped away and patted his charger’s forehead saying, “You have cared for him all this time? You’ve kept him for me?”

  Quentin nodded, for the first time feeling a twinge of loss at giving up the horse.

  “But I have a secret to tell.” The rugged knight gazed steadily at Quentin. “Balder is not mine. My own courser was lost in the ambush of the King. This good mount belonged to one of my companions…” He faltered, but his voice was steady when he continued. “He will not be needing his horse anymore.”

  “But you were his last master. He is yours all the more since his owner is gone.”

  “No, I cannot take him. An animal like this one,” he patted the sleek jaw, “chooses his own master. I think he has chosen you.”

  Quentin could not believe his ears. But the others sitting nearby agreed with Ronsard. Theido said, “Every brave knight should have a charger just as brave. Balder is the only horse for you, I think.”

  Durwin added, “You have grown much and have become a real horseman-very different from the young acolyte I found curled upon my hearth,” he laughed, “who left his horse to fend for himself while he slept!”

  Quentin colored with the memory, but he gratefully accepted the reins back from Ronsard and eagerly led his horse away to be bedded for the night.

  The company ate a simple meal in silence, which Quentin thought unusual. There had not been a quiet mealtime among the high-spirited companions since they had sighted land. Queen Alinea did not even come out of her tent to eat, but remained within. Trenn ate quickly, grumbled, and left to attend to her.

  One by one the others went away to their rest. Quentin knew something was wrong, but he did not have the heart or the nerve to ask outright what it was, feeling that it would only further dampen already depressed spirits. He wondered if the mood around the campfire was a reflection of his own of the last few days. He turned this over in his head as he lay under the low evergreen where Toli had prepared their places near the horses.

  He rested, but he could not sleep. After a while the noises of the camp died down as the soldiers went to sleep. Quentin rose and returned to the fire where he found Durwin sitting all alone, stroking his beard and gazing into the dwindling flames.

  “What is it?” he asked the hermit softly.

  “Do you not know?” asked Durwin. His eyes did not leave the fire. “Go and see for yourself.” He waved his arm toward the plain.

  Quentin got up and made his way through the wood and came to stand at the very edge. There, spread out upon the plain, light from hundreds of fires twinkled like stars in the sky. For a moment he wondered what it could mean, but then the significance hit him. He felt a catch in his throat and a sharp pang arrowed through his chest. He stumbled disheartened back to the place where Durwin kept his vigil.

  “There are thousands of them. Thousands…”

  “So it is. I should have foreseen this. I should have known.” He fell silent again.

  “Why did they not swoop down upon us the moment we landed?” asked Quentin a few minutes later. He too had become absorbed in watching the fire, though his thoughts were very far away.

  “I wondered the same thing. I have been thinking about it all night. Why not, indeed?”

  “I will tell you!” the hermit said suddenly. “They are waiting for someone. Yes, that must be it. They already possess the advantage of superior numbers; they could destroy us without delay. Yet, they hesitate. Why? Because someone’s presence is required. A commander? Perhaps. But someone who must arrive before the battle begins.”

  It seemed perfectly obvious the way Durwin said it just then. Quentin wondered that he himself had not thought of it. His eyes sought Durwin’s face, red in the glow of the fire’s embers. Durwin seemed blind to the world as he sought an answer within the glowing coals. Quentin got up and placed another log on the fire, and presently yellow flames were flitting and crackling once more.

  But the hermit remained unmoved, as if he were boring into the very heart of the earth for an answer. Quentin watched, his senses tingling. Gradually, Durwin’s calm features were changing, little by little becoming a mask of terror.

  At that moment Quentin felt the tingle of a chill, as if an icy finger had licked the length of his spine. He shivered in spite of himself.

  With an effort Durwin tore his eyes away from the fire. He turned a horror-stricken countenance toward Quentin-flesh pale from the exertion, eyes showing white all around. “There. You felt it, too, just then. They are coming… the Legion of the Dead. They come.”

  Quentin’s heart fluttered in his chest. He glanced toward the moon hanging ripe over the treetops, spilling a cold, comfortless light down upon them. To Quentin it seemed to have shrunk inward as if oppressed, or drawn back by some unseen hand. He shivered again.

  Then Durwin was on his feet, grasping a long straight branch like a wizard’s staff, his face frightful in the red light. “King Selric!” his voice boomed a summons in the quiet darkness. He strode toward the tent calling for the king and others to awaken.

  “Send your swiftest rider to the south, to Hinsenby,” he told the king who met him as he stumbled from his tent half-asleep.

  “What is it?” The question came from all who had gathered instantly around the hermit. “What have you seen?” asked Theido.

  “The Legion of the Dead. Send your swiftest courier to the coast. Mayhap he shall meet with Eskevar’s returning forces. It is our only chance.”

  “Help would be welcome in any case,” replied Selric, “But this…”

  “I am not afraid of Nimrood’s foul Legion,” swore Ronsard.

  “That is because you do not know them,” answered Durwin. He shook his head slowly, as if remembering a great tragedy. “They are terrible to behold: the greatest knights of the age. In death they serve him. Immortal. They cannot be killed in battle by blade or bolt. They fight and do not grow weary, for they are strengthened by the power of their dark lord.”

  “Then what good are numbers against them? Were we ten times as many could they be defeated?” Selric sighed, bewildered.

  “With aid we may find an advantage. Without it we will not last long enough to try,” said Ronsard.

  “Kellaris will go,” said Selric. “Call him,” he ordered one of his men away. And to another he commanded, “Make ready a horse. The swiftest. Better give him my own.” The man darted away and Selric turned to the others. “The choice agrees with you?”

  “I would go,” offered Ronsard.

  “Stay, sir, we will need you here the more, most like.”

  “If his horse had wings, still I wonder if it were fast enough,” said Theido. “How long do you think they will remain encamped on the plain yonder?” He turned to Durwin whose brow wrinkled in speculation.

  “I cannot say for certain. A day I think. Yes, perhaps more. I can feel them coming, but they are a long way off. There is a little time yet.”

  “Then tomorrow at dawn Ronsard and I will ride out to scout the enemy’s position,” said Theido. “We may find a weakness in their defenses which we can turn to our advantage.”

  “Yes, an excellent idea.” The impatient stamp of a horse and the jingle of his bridle interrupted Selric. “Ah! Here is Kellaris! Ride like the wind, man. Bring help.”

  “I would rather remain here with you, my King,” the knight replied.

  “And I would have no one else by my side. But the need is great. On your way and do not fail.”

  The knight raised his hand in salute and, turning the horse, leapt away and was lost in the darkness. For a long while Quentin imagined he could hear the horse’s hooves pounding away in the night.

  The others dispersed then, each his own way. Quentin sought Durwin’s side as they walked back to the fire.

  “What is the Legion
of the Dead?” Quentin asked when they were once again seated before the dancing flames. “I have never heard of it before.”

  “‘Twere better no one ever heard of it.” Durwin sighed. He had just about reached the depths of exhaustion. He drew his lips away from his teeth, as if he were about to bite into a bitter fruit.

  “Nimrood’s sorcery knows no bounds. He dares all and fears nothing. Where others quail he treads boldly. He has looked upon the face of evil from the time he was young. He has delved to the very heart of evil itself and has grasped it in his hand.”

  “He has long been about his specialty: weaving spells over the dead. With this art he has assembled the most skilled warriors, the most courageous knights the world has ever seen. When they fell in battle he somehow knew of it and, by one means or another, spirited the body away to his castle. There he keeps them, and has kept them ever ready, preserved in death to serve his will.”

  “There are six or seven of them, maybe more by now. I do not know. I have heard reports from time to time, but nothing for many years. I dared not even consider that such a thing was possible-even for Nimrood. But when we were there, in his dungeon, I felt their presence. I knew then…” Durwin’s voice lapsed as he gazed into the fire, shrinking away from it as though from some hideous memory too horrible to contemplate.

  “And you said nothing?”

  “I said nothing. Selric, Theido, and the others already know about it, of course. There was no need to trouble anyone else. And I had hoped there was a chance that Nimrood would withhold them for some other purpose-though that, I admit now, seems rather foolish.”

  “Is there nothing to be done against them?”

  “If there is, I do not know it-that is, short of Nimrood’s death. If he were to die they would perhaps be released. It is his power which binds them still to this earth. But, as you saw yourself, the enemy is ten thousand strong. Against such odds-well, Nimrood is quite safe. Had I my power…” Durwin gazed forlornly into the fire. Quentin saw the depths of hopelessness written in the hermit’s face.

  Then Durwin stirred himself and stood slowly, smiling wanly at Quentin. “Still, I will watch through the night. It may be that I will discover something,” he tapped his shaggy head, “that will be useful to us. Good night, Quentin.”

  “Good night.” Quentin wanted to go to Durwin, to throw his arms around the priest’s knees, to cry with him, to comfort him and be comforted. But he remained seated by the fire, and the hermit wandered off already deep in thought.

  A loneliness crept over him as he sat before the snapping flames. When at last he arose to return to his bed, he felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life.

  FORTY-SIX

  THE SUN was a hazy red globe barely peeping above the far hills when Quentin awakened. He lay and listened to the beginning day: the lone call of a bird to its mate, the clank and rattle of iron pots in the hands of the cooks, the swish of the horses’ tails and their gentle snuffling and snoring.

  He lay and listened, sifting the sound for he knew not what, seeking an answer to the meaning of his dreams.

  He had dreamed through the night. A strange, disjointed vision which he had dreamed before. But this time it was clearer, more distinct than before, yet he was no closer to an answer to its riddle.

  He saw it mostly as a play of color: brilliant greens of all shades infused with sparkling gold; cool white, flecked with green-gray splotches; silver-blue shadows deepening to utter black. The colors swirled and interchanged, mixing, melting into one another, but always ending in deepest darkness.

  Through it all he heard a kind of music, a high-pitched ringing. A bell? Perhaps; he was not certain. Beneath the sound there lay something vague and unsettling. He cared not to look too far for its source for fear of what he might find.

  The dream also carried with it a sharp feeling of longing, a beautiful loneliness, a yearning unrequited. It was an emotion which left a hollow feeling in his breast upon waking.

  After some minutes he rolled himself up and went down to wash in the river. The water’s chill sting quickened him fully, and he began by degrees to forget his dream, though the strange hollow feeling remained.

  As Quentin dipped his cupped hands into the clear water, splashing it over his neck and arms, he heard a commotion in the camp behind him. He jumped up, dripping, from the flat rock on which he lay and hurried back along the trail.

  He arrived as a large group gathered around a rider on a foaming horse. He could not see through the crowd who the rider could be. Then he caught sight of Toli hurrying away from the scene.

  “Who is it, Toli? What is the news?”

  His friend fixed him with a worried look. “It is Kellaris, King Selric’s messenger. He has returned…”

  “But how? He cannot have come back so soon.”

  “He did not get through,” said a voice behind him. Quentin turned and met Trenn shuffling away from the crowd. “Jaspin has forces moving in on all sides. Kellaris met them in the night. He was pursued-there is no way out. We are trapped.”

  The words were a pronouncement of doom in Quentin’s ears. Trenn stumbled off to inform Queen Alinea. Quentin turned again to Toli who merely stared back with his round, dark eyes. What the Jher was thinking made no impression on his face that Quentin could read.

  He was about to suggest they go find some breakfast when he remembered something that stopped him where he stood. “Theido and Ronsard-where are they?” he asked.

  Toli looked back at him for a moment. “Why, they have gone to scout the enemy. They left before dawn with five knights. They rode to the south along the river.”

  “But that is the way Kellaris went,” Quentin said, a note of alarm rising in his voice. “They will be ambushed and killed! Someone must warn them! Quickly, ready Balder!”

  At first Toli hesitated, as if to object to his master’s command. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, turned and hurried off with Quentin on his heels.

  In a twinkling Balder stood ready, and as Quentin bounded into the saddle of the mighty courser he saw Toli spring lightly onto his own mount’s bare back. “Come along, then,” cried Quentin. “We will go together.”

  They trotted through the camp from behind the ring of tents. Durwin and Selric were standing in conference with Kellaris, and Quentin called out to them as he spurred his horse away. “We go to warn Theido and Ronsard!”

  “No! Wait!” shouted Durwin after them. King Selric barked an order. “Somebody stop them! Come back!”

  But they were already bounding away through the woods and were gone. “The god be with them,” sighed Durwin.

  Toli led the way, following the trail of the scouting party with his tracker’s sharp eyes. They rode, it seemed, for hours. The initial excitement of the moment quieted to a drumming sense of urgency. Quentin feared that if they did not find them soon, it would be too late.

  The sun was up and throwing bright light into the wood, sending slanting rays of yellow beams through the ground mist which wafted over the path to vanish as it touched the light. The woods smelled of damp earth and growing things. A patch of mint grew somewhere nearby; its cool scent tinted the air as Balder moved on.

  Then, just ahead, they heard a sound: horses moving through the underbrush, the clink of their harnesses and the soft creak of leather. The low tones of a rider talking with his companion came to them as Toli reined his spotted black and white to a halt. Quentin bumped up beside him. “Have we found them, do you think?” he asked hopefully.

  Toli frowned. “We must find a place to see them where they cannot see us.” He led them off the trail and around to a place where the trail would again pass in front of them. They waited. The unknown party came closer. Quentin could hear their voices, though he could not make out the words.

  Toli slid from his mount and crept to the edge of the trail. Then they were within sight. Quentin could see a white shape moving through the trees, followed closely by another, and then another. As they a
pproached Quentin lost sight of them; the surrounding trees which protected him cut them off from view.

  Quietly he urged Balder forward a few steps. The dark leaves shaded his face. Toli stood beside him.

  The riders, four in all, had stopped in a small clearing along the trail. They seemed to be looking for something. One of their party was kneeling along the path and the others swung their eyes through the surrounding trees, as if seeking a sign.

  “The enemy,” whispered Toli.

  They had run into a party of Jaspin’s men who were evidently searching for someone. “They are after Theido and the others,” answered Quentin. “Come. We may reach them ahead of these hunters.” With that he turned Balder and drew away from their hiding place along the path. They dodged along the track for a while and then rejoined it far ahead of the enemy soldiers behind them. No sooner had they joined the path and proceeded a little along it when they again heard the sounds of horses and men moving just ahead of them. “This will be Theido!” said Quentin, a smile lighting his face.

  He spurred Balder ahead and came around a tree-lined bend in the trail. Suddenly they were face to face with five strange knights, coming directly toward them on the trail.

  Quentin froze. Toli turned his horse aside and pulled Quentin’s arm. At first the unknown knights did not seem to see them. They came on a pace or two, talking among themselves, eyes down along the track.

  Then, even as Quentin turned Balder off the path, one of the riders glanced up. Quentin met the other’s eyes and in the briefest instant read the surprise there.

  “Look!” the enemy knight shouted to his companions. But Quentin, with Toli ahead of him, was already dashing away.

  “Spies!” he heard another shout. A third yelled, “After them! Kill them!”

  Toli was already a blur bobbing ahead of him as Quentin flung himself forward. Balder put his head down and leaped off the trail. Quentin ducked the branches which struck out to unhorse him, keeping himself low in the saddle, laying along Balder’s surging shoulders.

  Behind him he could hear the sound of pursuit through the tangled woods. Voices rang out sharp and steel-edged in the quiet morning air. Toli shot fleeting glances over his hunched shoulders to make sure that Quentin was keeping up.