by David Weber
But the dragon had never met a Sothōii courser. Walsharno neither panicked nor bolted nor froze like every other horse it had encountered in its long and hungry life. Instead, the courser swerved, dodging like a dancer, and Bahzell dropped the shattered lance and raised his right hand.
“Come!” he bellowed, and his greatsword materialized in his hand, wrapped in a sudden flare of azure brilliance. Walsharno wheeled on his haunches, spinning back towards the dragon, and the pass shuddered as eighty tons of hungry fury slammed down. Dust spurted from the scaly feet, and its claws furrowed the stone.
“Tomanāk!” Bahzell’s bull voice cut through the hiss of the dragon and the slither of falling stones. Walsharno sprang off his hocks, and the hradani rose in the stirrups to swing two-handed. His muscles corded, razored steel slammed the side of the huge neck like a cleaver, flying bits of shattered scale glinted in the sunlight, and the sound was like a hammer on an anvil.
The dragon barely blinked. Its left forefoot flashed with blinding speed, slashing at the midges beside it. Walsharno dodged, barely in time, and Bahzell’s sword struck the same spot with the sound of an axe in wood.
Despite his taut readiness, the sudden attack took Kenhodan by surprise. He raised his bow, but the dragon had already turned away, and its venom flashed in a black tide as it sought to destroy Bahzell and the courser.
Walsharno screamed as a droplet seared his quarters, but he never flinched. Instead, he reared, and two steel-shod forehooves, edged with the same blue nimbus as Bahzell’s sword, crashed against the dragon’s forehead like the mace of the Tomanāk itself.
The dragon shrieked, even its bulk staggered by that titanic blow, and Bahzell thrust for an eye. But the dragon was already pulling back, and the sword point slammed just below the great orb. More bits of scale flashed in the sunlight, shattered as the Axe Brothers blows had been unable to accomplish, but the eye was undamaged.
Kenhodan bit off a curse. Bahzell and Walsharno had been forced to the left, turning the dragon away from him. He caught a fleeting glimpse of one glaring eye and his arrow flashed away, but it hit the bony eye ridge and skipped, humming as it bounced. Bahzell dared not break back up the pass, yet Kenhodan couldn’t move far enough to his own left to get a shot. He could only snatch another arrow from his quiver and pray for an opening.
Chernion gave it to him. Her mare was no courser, but she was war trained and willing. The assassin clapped in her heels, and the mare lunged forward, ears back, while the assassin rose in the stirrups. Unlike Bahzell, she made no attempt to swing. She rode at the thrust, body stretched forward over her horse’s neck, and the tip of her blade arrowed straight for the dragon’s eye.
For a breathless moment, it seemed she would strike home, but the dragon saw her at the last moment. It jerked away, and her sword slammed into the inner surface of its ear, instead. The scales were thinner there, and black blood flashed, but a huge wing was already swinging. It crashed into the mare, spilling her to her knees, and Chernion flew from the saddle. She hit in a roll, coming to her feet in a supple movement to face the dragon, her blade still in her hand and no hope in her heart.
The dragon turned. Here was a less elusive morsel, and it meant to have it. The head drew back, the long neck curved, and Kenhodan fired again.
The arrow slammed into the monster’s left eye, and the orb burst in a hideous shower of fluid. But the barbed head struck the top of the socket and thick bone deflected it. The dragon reared, half-blinded and screaming in anguish. One huge foot snapped the protruding shaft, and its pain fanned its fury.
Kenhodan reached for a third shaft. He would have cursed that last shot, but his mind was too cold, too calculating and exhilarated for such emotions. He nocked the arrow and stood waiting, praying for another chance.
Dragon feet thundered on stone, and it bulked over Chernion, hissing. Its jaws opened, forked tongue flickering as it cocked its head to fix the assassin with its remaining eye. But Chernion circled desperately to her right, staying on its blind side. It gave her a precarious chance of escape, but each foot she moved turned the dragon farther from Kenhodan’s bow.
Bahzell and Walsharno recognized both her peril and Kenhodan’s need and the courser swerved back in front of the dragon. Bahzell’s sword hammered its shoulder, battering the scales with a blow savage enough for the creature to feel even through its armor, and it turned once more, cat-quick despite its size, slashing at the hradani.
Walsharno reared and struck again, but this time the dragon was turning into the blow. The stallion weighed well over a ton and a half, but weight was meaningless against the muscles of that massive neck. The swinging head slammed up under the plunging hooves and threw the courser end for end like a child’s pony, spilling Bahzell from his back. The hradani rolled back upward, almost as quickly as Chernion despite his size and armor, and the hissing head poised above them, mouth opened to strike.
But the turn exposed the ruined left eye once more, and Kenhodan’s bow sang. The arrow flashed into the oozing socket and the dragon shrieked as blood splashed. It reared, badly wounded this time, but once more the arrow had missed the tiny brain in its massive skull. The mighty wings flailed, blowing Chernion from her feet, smashing Bahzell back to his knees, and Kenhodan reached for a fourth arrow as the remaining eye finally fixed upon the source of its pain.
The monster forgot the others, gathered itself, and leapt at him.
The red-haired man watched black death flash at him, and his bow tracked. He needed a perfect shot, and the angle of approach denied it. He stood perfectly still. If the gods were good, they might give him a single chance.
The huge beast hurtled towards him, head cocked, the angle to its brain closed. Kenhodan’s hand twitched, almost loosing, but something inside him—something cold and deadly ─ withheld him. He would find the shot he needed, or he would not loose at all.
Something flared beside him, and he had a vague impression of Wencit standing in Byrchalka’s stirrups, his right hand cocked at his shoulder. Glaring fury glittered and burned on the wizard’s palm, and then his arm came forward. A ball of flame arced to smash the dragon’s cheek.
The monster squalled as the witchfire hit and scales hissed, blazing like pitch. The shock and pain staggered it, and its head lurched down. For a moment—one fleeting instant—the ruined eye was exposed.
In that flicker in the heart of eternity, Kenhodan fired.
The arrow streaked to its target, slamming through bone and membrane. Barbed steel crashed deep, the dragon’s scream deafened them as the arrow split its brain, and Kenhodan knew his shot had been true. But the dragon didn’t know it was dead; it thrashed onward with the deadly vitality of reptile kind, and the gaping stalactites of its ivory fangs were the last thing he saw.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A Father’s Fears
Kenhodan woke to pain. He forced his eyes open, biting back a moan as fire burned his left side, and Wencit looked down at him.
“Rest easy. You’re not hurt as badly as it feels, but it’s bad enough, and I’m sure it feels even worse!”
“W-What happened?” Even as he heard his own voice ask it, a back corner of Kenhodan’s mind decided that was the stupidest question he’d ever heard. Or remembered hearing, anyway.
“Dragons don’t die easily,” Wencit replied almost absently, ripping at Kenhodan’s tunic, and the red-haired man yelped as fresh anguish lashed at him.
“Easy!” he gasped. “That’s the only skin I have!”
“And you won’t have as much of it unless we do something about the acid,” Wencit told him tartly. “Bahzell’s just a bit busy at the moment, so do me a favor and behave yourself—” Kenhodan yelped again as more fabric tore in a fresh spasm of pain “—while I at least get it off of you.”
“It’s not my fault your touch isn’t exactly gentle,” Kenhodan panted through his teeth. He raised his head and looked down the length of his body.
The stony floor of the pass was
cold under his spine, and he didn’t like the oozing, blistered spots running down his left side from just below the shoulder almost to his hip. None of them were very big—the largest was no wider than a copper kormak coin—but they radiated pain out of all proportion to their size. He’d clearly caught only the very fringe of the dragon’s acid spray, but what had hit him was more than bad enough to be going on with, in his admittedly somewhat biased opinion.
“That’s going to upset Gwynna,” he said, raising his left hand and not quite touching the burns. They were raw and livid against the pale pattern of his long-ago scars. “She won’t like that. Probably think I was careless.”
Wencit straightened and looked down at him with a startled expression, and Kenhodan blinked. What an odd thing for him to have said, he thought. But it didn’t seem odd…or did it? He tried to think about that, but it was hard. His mind seemed to be…floating, and the blue sky that framed the wizard’s head as Wencit bent over him had a strange, flickering texture. For that matter, it was growing dimmer down here in the depths of the pass. But, no, that wasn’t quite right, either. It wasn’t growing dimmer, it was just that everything was moving away from him, receding into the distance and spinning around him somehow even though he knew it wasn’t actually moving. Of course it wasn’t. He was the one who was moving as the stone under him whirled and curtsied in a strange, steadily accelerating pinwheel dance.
He opened his mouth, tried to ask Wencit what was happening, but nothing came out. The wizard bent closer, his lips moving as if he were saying something, but the sounds were meaningless. Kenhodan couldn’t make them out, and then the whirling world crashed in upon him in a maelstrom of exploding light.
* * *
Chernion pushed herself shakily to her feet and looked around for her sword. It lay several feet from her, and every muscle ached as she hobbled over to pick it up. The mighty wind from the dragon’s wings hadn’t simply knocked her over; it had blown her at least ten feet, and she wondered if she’d cracked a rib when she bounced off of the boulder which had intercepted her fall.
She straightened her spine and surveyed the pass.
The dragon lay in a huge, broken sprawl, one wing outstretched across a third of the narrow gorge and the other crumpled under it. Her mare stood a hundred yards up the pass, right forehoof raised and held carefully off the ground. She was surprised the horse hadn’t bolted further, even on only three legs, but then she realized Byrchalka had one hoof planted on the mare’s reins.
She quirked a smile at the sight, then shook herself. Wencit was on one knee beside Kenhodan, but where was Bahzell?
She turned, searching for the hradani, but it took her several seconds to realize he must be on the far side of the mountain range of dead dragon. That had to be the only reason she couldn’t see him, but surely he was tall enough at least his head should have been visible from here now that she was back on her feet. Only…
She grimaced at the thought and started around the dragon, stepping carefully across its tree trunk-thick tail with her sword still in her hand, then stopped as she realized she’d found Bahzell…and why she hadn’t seen him before.
Walsharno was down, and one look at the big roan told Chernion he would never rise again. His right foreleg was obviously shattered, blood soaked his side where broken ribs punched through hide and hair, and bubbles of blood frothed from his nostrils with every breath. Not even a courser could survive that sort of damage, a corner of her mind told her.
But Bahzell knelt beside the huge stallion with his greatsword in his right hand. His eyes were closed, his forehead was pressed against the sword’s quillons, his left hand was on Walsharno’s heaving side, and as she watched a faint blue glow enveloped him.
She blinked, not sure she was actually seeing it, but the glow grew stronger, brighter, and she realized what it was. She’d never seen it done, but Tomanāk’s champions were healers as well as warriors. She knew what Bahzell was doing, knew that at this moment every ounce of concentration, every particle of awareness, was concentrated and focused as he reached out to Tomanāk for the power to repair even those ghastly wounds.
But that would take time, her brain told her. Not even a champion could simply snap his fingers and make injuries like those disappear. And while he was focused, while every scrap of awareness was narrowed into the intensity of his purpose, he was vulnerable. Defenseless. Unaware of any danger and unable to respond even if he’d been aware…and she stood behind him with a naked blade in her hand.
She glanced back at the others. The wizard’s hands moved quickly, ripping smoldering cloth from Kenhodan. Clearly the red-haired man was out of action for the moment, and Wencit’s shoulders sagged wearily even as he tore the acid-splashed clothing from Kenhodan. Instinct told her that whatever wizardry Wencit had used against the dragon had weakened him, at least temporarily. He wasn’t as distracted as Bahzell, but his focus was entirely on Kenhodan at the moment, and as she realized that, she recognized the opportunity.
She knew her own capabilities, and her mind played out the entire sequence of events. A quick sword thrust to the nape of Bahzell’s exposed neck as he bent over Walsharno. A swift turn to her left while the hradani collapsed silently, the viper-quick flash of a throwing knife, and the unwary wizard would sprout steel between his shoulder blades and collapse over Kenhodan. Then three quick strides while Byrchalka was still realizing what had happened and she’d be close enough to hamstring the other courser, bring him down before he could react.
She could kill them all before any of them reacted. Oh, it was possible Byrchalka might react quickly enough to save himself—even kill her, instead—but the odds were hugely against it. This was what she did, her profession, and she knew in her bones that she could have them all. That Bahzell had saved her life, that Kenhodan had slain the dragon, meant no more to her calculations than her own attack upon it. They’d had no more choice than she had, and chivalry carried no weight in the cool merchandiser of death’s scales.
None of those things mattered…but they didn’t need to. Wulfra owed a debt not even her own death could ever pay in full, and her companions were Chernion’s best chance to collect. So, really, there wasn’t even a decision to make.
She sheathed her sword and moved to Bahzell’s side, sinking to one knee beside him, and laid her own comforting hand on the side of Walsharno’s neck.
* * *
Kenhodan drifted slowly up from the reefs of sleep and found himself in a soft bed under crisp sheets by an open window. Cool breeze bathed his face, and the sun filled the white walled room with clear light. He opened his eyes to see Wencit standing beside the bed with Chernion beside him and Bahzell in an armchair on the other side.
“Welcome back, slug-a-bed,” the hradani rumbled.
“From where?”
Kenhodan’s voice sounded rusty to his own ear, and he grimaced in irritation. It was odd, he thought. He felt as if he’d been hammered flat, wrung out in a ball, and then flattened to dry in the sun. Yet at the same time, he felt curiously tranquil—not so much rested as simply…restored.
“You suffered a reaction,” Wencit replied, stepping back from the bed and settling into an armchair that matched Bahzell’s. “Some people do; some don’t, and the only way to find out whether or not someone does, unfortunately, is from experience, so no one’s very anxious to find out if they do.”
“Reaction?”
“Shock,” Wencit said. “Dragon acid’s venomous as well as corrosive. Some people have minor reactions to it while others die from it very quickly indeed. You happen to be one of those who react strongly. So am I, if you’re interested.”
“Actually, while I’m sure that’s fascinating, I’m not, thank you.” Kenhodan smiled briefly. “Interested, I mean.”
“I’m thinking as you should be.” Bahzell’s deep, unwontedly serious tone pulled Kenhodan’s attention back to the other side of the bed, and the hradani shook his head, ears slightly flattened. “If Wencit h
ere hadn’t been after recognizing the signs and doing it quick, we’d not’ve gotten you back to South Keep alive, lad, and that’s the gods’ own truth.”
Kenhodan’s eyebrows rose, and Bahzell nodded firmly.
“It’s distracted I was, and that no mistake, when Walsharno went down,” he said. “I’d seen you fall as well, lad, but I’d no notion as how you’d been hit hard, and there was Walsharno with two broken legs and half his ribs crushed.” Kenhodan’s face tightened at the catalog of injuries, but Bahzell raised one hand in a quick, soothing gesture. “It’s fine he is now,” he said quickly, “and already more recovered than you. But you might be saying as I was a wee bit…focused on healing his hurts while Wencit was looking after you. Only then you took it into your head to be sliding down into shock, and if he’d not recognized it double quick and called me over to heal you, you’d not have lasted another five minutes, and that’s a fact.”
Kenhodan blinked. The thought that he’d come that close to death was strangely intellectual, not quite real, as if it had happened to someone else. Yet even as he thought that, a chaotic memory of a spiraling confusion of light and dizziness flickered through his mind, and with it came the sudden, chill realization that he truly had.
“In that case, I’m deeply grateful—to you both.” Kenhodan extended his hand to clasp forearms with the hradani, then looked back at Wencit. “And while we’re on the subject, I’m grateful for that fireball, too. If you hadn’t—”
“Enough!” Wencit frowned ferociously. “All anyone’s done since we got back is thank everyone else in sight for saving everyone else! You’re the one who killed the thing in the end, and that’s what matters.”
“Aye,” Bahzell agreed firmly, and Chernion nodded as well.
“Well, then.” Kenhodan waved one hand in a half-awkward brushing away gesture and looked for another topic.
