The only thing that made sense would be to take the oiled groundcloth out of his rucksack, find a small tree – not a large tree; they attracted lightning like an open sore attracted flies – and huddle under it until the storm passed.
"Ahira," he called out to the dwarf, not afraid to raise his voice, knowing that it couldn't carry far over the manic drumbeat of raindrops against the overhead leaves.
No answer.
"Ahira."
Ahead on the path, light flared, bright enough to hurt his eyes. It seemed to be originating from Ahira's hand, and that impression was proven true when the dwarf hid the light in his massive fist, then let a beam shoot out from between two spread fingers, the effect the same as that of a hooded lantern, except much brighter.
His face was split in a broad smile, despite the way that rain ran down his water-stringy hair. "What do you think," he said, smiling, "the chances are that anybody is dedicated enough or stupid enough to be watching a trail during a thunderstorm?"
The rain had already chilled Kethol thoroughly, but he smiled, too.
Comfort was a good thing, but safety was better, and the dwarf had a good point. He nodded.
"Then let's get going." The dwarf set off at a trot.
The forest protected them from the direct impact of the driving rain, but forests always leaked: Kethol was thoroughly chilled and utterly soaked by the time the rain stopped, shortly before the path broke on a narrow dirt – mud, now – road, that led downhill to Denial's Ford.
Downhill, off in the distance, wisps of smoke from stone chimneys beckoned, with promises of warmth and dryness, and while the wind was blowing the wrong way, Kethol could have almost sworn that he caught an occasional whiff of stew cooking over some fireplace.
Stew. Just the thought made his mouth water. There was something about a peasant stew that always sat simmering in the hearth, the stewpot never emptied but constantly refreshed with new vegetables, water, and meat, that warmed more than the belly it filled.
He must have been more tired than he thought, or perhaps he was paying more attention to the stirrings of people in the village below, but he only heard the whickering of a horse a few moments before two men rode out of the darkness of the forest, their horses' hooves making deep sucking sounds in the mud of the road. They both had lances, pointed only generally toward Ahira and Kethol, and one held a hooded lantern high on a pole, the butt end of the pole resting in the socket on his saddle.
The lantern hood slid back as the horseman manipulated the control wire, and Kethol and Ahira were bathed in its light.
Everything is relative. The lantern light would have seemed puny and impotent compared to the elven glow that Ahira had concealed in his fist, but in the dark of night, relieved only by the vaguest glow of starlight and Faerie lights above the thin layer of clouds, it was almost painful to Kethol's eyes.
"And what do we have here?" one asked. "A drowned dwarf and his soggy companion? Stand easy, the two of you, and identify yourselves."
Ahira laid a restraining hand on Kethol's arm, not that Kethol was going to do anything at all, much less something stupid and violent. The muddy road sucked at his buskins with every step, and while Kethol was normally fairly fast on his feet, the horsemen could run him down without any difficulty at all, and wouldn't hesitate to do so.
It would be a shame to be killed by Cullinane soldiers, after all.
Besides ... "My name is Kethol," he said. "Soldier, fealty-bound to Baron Cullinane."
A skeptical snort from one of the horsemen was echoed by the other's horse. "And who is your short friend?" he asked. "Ahira Bandylegs, no doubt?"
"My friends call me Ahira," the dwarf said, his voice calmer even than usual. "Particularly the baron, whose swaddling clothes I used to change, some years ago, and whose errand I'm on."
"Our captain knows Ahira Bandylegs very well, and he's not likely to take kindly to somebody pretending to be him." The tip of the lance didn't waver for a moment. "He, like the village warden, is a humorless fellow; both are very likely to be wondering what you two are doing wandering around his domain at night."
Kethol was wondering why a small village would have a pair of soldiers on watch on a rainy night – and it would, of course, be more than a pair. There were two roads in and out of the village, and that would mean at least four guard posts, at a minimum, eight men on duty at a time, and at least two watches overnight.
Yes, it wasn't uncommon to station a troop in or near a village – for one thing, it gave troop captains more contact with the people of the barony, and that helped with recruitment – but putting a guard out meant something was going on.
One of the horsemen brought something to his lips, and blew a quick tune on his fingerwhistle that was echoed back from the village, below. Kethol recognized it instantly as a call for three horsemen, with the four-note theme, repeated twice, that made it not an all-hands-turnout request.
"A Cullinane man should recognize that," the horseman said. It was a question.
"You should think about finding a better test," Ahira snickered. "Anyone with more wisdom than a snail should be able to figure out that you've signaled for relief, and never mind that Karl Cullinane and I put those signals together back during the raiding years, and I know that you've asked for exactly three horsemen – although why you chose three rather than two or four or just letting your captain, down in the village, decide for himself, well, that is something you can explain to him, as I don't much care."
"You really are Ahira Bandylegs?"
The dwarf unclenched his fist, so that the light source in his palm bathed his face in its painfully actinic, white light. "Yes. Now blow that little quickstep-march that tells them to hurry. We've got some matters that need attention, and the sooner the better."
A hot mug of cloyingly sweet tea warming his hands, his belly, and his soul, Kethol sat close enough to the fireplace that an occasional spark was flicked out of the fire to hiss itself to death on his still-damp tunic.
Ahira was in the chair opposite, his legs folded underneath him, tailor-fashion, a joint of mutton in one hand and a preposterously large tankard of beer in his other.
"So, Captain Sterlen," Ahira said, around yet another bite of meat, "how many good men can you have, armed, rested and ready to ride at dawn?"
The captain seemed young for his position; his mustache was thin and his face unlined, unmarked save for a ragged scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to the point of his jaw. Kethol hadn't asked how he had earned it, although it was a story that the captain likely thought worth telling, given that a beard would have easily covered it.
"I've one troop's horses saddled," the captain said, "and my men are ready to ride right now, or whenever you command, Master Ahira. I'd sooner take the second troop, but – "
"Second troop?"
That didn't make much sense to Kethol, either. He didn't think a small village like this one would need to house as much as a single troop, normally, not unless there was some sort of ore nest about, and he surely would have heard about that.
Sterlen looked at Kethol and then back to Ahira. "It's just temporary. We're expecting a delivery at... shortly, that is. I brought in an extra troop from Emdeen – better to be on the safe side than not – "
"Ellegon?"
Sterlen kept his face impassive. "Excuse me?"
Dwarves were known as the Moderate People, but that didn't prevent the excitement and relief in Ahira's voice. "You're expecting Ellegon. He's bringing in something valuable – " Ahira's brow wrinkled“– oh, say, a generator from Home, to take advantage of the grain mill when it's not grinding, and after the way things went in Keranahan, not only is the dragon nervous about getting shot at, but Doria is nervous about it, too. When is he due?"
"I don't know – "
"Think about it, Captain. We've got to get the baron out of the barony safely, and to the capital for Parliament. And with the dragon due here, that's the best news I've had all day
. So when and where?"
Sterlen dragged up a chair and looked from Kethol to Ahira, and back again. "I have my orders, from the regent herself – "
“– who does not outrank the baron, himself, who is the one who sent me – "
“– to keep matters quiet until Ellegon has come and gone. Word is, there was an attempt to kill the dragon out in Keranahan not too long ago, and there are those of us who think he's more important to the realm than just as something to put on the reverse of a coin."
He fingered an old copper halfmark – Kethol could tell by the unmilled edges. The face of it would hold the image of the Old Emperor, just as more modern coins would have the Emperor Thomen's face on it, but the reverse of both was a dragon, perched on a castle wall, breathing flame.
The Holtun-Bieme war had been won by soldiers on the ground, not a dragon in the air, finally – but it would have been lost, just as finally, if the Old Emperor and the dragon, Ellegon, hadn't involved themselves.
And what would have happened if the Baroness Elanee had managed to have Ellegon killed, leaving her magic-tamed dragon the only one in the Middle Lands? Would the emperor have had to come to terms with her? And if he didn't, would the empire itself have dissolved into baronial wars between – and among? – the Holtish and Biemish baronies?
That was the nice thing about having the dragon around, even only occasionally. It might not really be immortal and its appearance might not actually be inevitable, but it felt that way, and that discouraged revolt.
"You don't have to tell me anything," Ahira said. "Just give me a troop to escort the baron to Biemestren, and when the dragon shows up, tell him. Ellegon can work out what the right thing to do is."
Sterlen didn't answer.
Kethol didn't understand why. They had proved who they were, and –
"Of course." Ahira's smile threatened to split his face in two. "That's why all the guards – he's due now, tonight. He's dropping off whatever he's dropping off here on his way to Parliament, planning on circling a few times above the assembled heads, flame flashing through the sky."
The dwarf was on his feet, Kethol only a beat behind him. "Take us to the rendezvous, now."
"That will be now, Captain Sterlen," Ahira said, in a voice that brooked no disagreement. The captain didn't answer right away. "Very well," he finally said.
Kethol spotted the dragon first.
He had been scanning the sky to the east, looking near the horizon. He had seen the dragon fly in perhaps only half a dozen times – ordinary soldiers, even those who were often assigned to protect nobility, had little to do with Ellegon, which was fine with Kethol, all in all – and the only time he had seen it coming, it was skimming quickly, low to the ground, following the contour of the land, flying as low as possible, not high.
But, finally, a dot that he thought was just a speck in his eye grew larger and larger, and circled in from high overhead, until –
*Kethol. And Ahira,* sounded in his head. *And Captain Sterlen.*
The dot grew larger, and became a bat-like shape, a slim, tubular body suspended between two huge wings. The dragon, wings flapping not at all, circled in and down toward the hilltop.
"Look alert, all of you," Sterlen shouted to the horsemen arrayed along the road to the hilltop. "There's nobody who should be anywhere near here."
A smoldering fire told of where a thick raspberry bramble had cupped the side of the hill. There was probably no reason to waste the wild raspberries – and the few remaining ones were terribly sweet, even though they had dried on the vine – but it was, at least in the captain's mind, at least theoretically possible that somebody could have been hiding in the brambles, and Sterlen had been ordered to keep the hilltop secure within a long bowshot.
All it would take would be one arrow, its tip coated with dragonbane extract, to pierce Ellegon's otherwise almost impenetrable hide, and send the dragon to his death.
That would be a horrid waste. Humans lived only a few years, but dragons lived forever, if they weren't killed. And while Kethol had never had much contact with any other dragons, he found that he liked Ellegon – at least as much as he could like a creature that was easily capable of burning him to death with an idle breath, or biting him in two with teeth the size of a short sword.
*Have I ever burned you to death or bitten you in two?* the mental voice asked.
Ahira turned to Kethol and smiled. "The dragon makes you nervous, doesn't he?"
Kethol didn't answer. There was nothing wrong with being scared, as long as you didn't let your fear stop you from doing your job, but it wasn't something that he was particularly eager to discuss.
*I seem to recall that you were not overly calm around me the first time we met, my young friend,* the dragon said.
Young? With the lines in his face and the gray in his hair, Ahira had to be at least a hundred, a hundred fifty years old.
*Well, no, he doesn't have to be, and in fact he isn't,* the dragon said.
Was there no way to keep it out of his mind? That was the thing that Kethol always disliked about being around Ellegon: he had no privacy, not even between his ears.
*Yes, I can shut out your mind, if I'd like, and no, I don't enjoy poking around humans' minds. I spent a couple of centuries chained in a sewer, being forced to flame it to ashes or live with the smell, and the recesses of most human minds smell worse than a sewer does.*
The dragon landed in the tall grass with a thump that shook the hill, forcing Kethol to reach for Ahira to steady himself.
The great beast folded its huge wings underneath it –
*Him, if you please. I am a him, not an it, thank you very much.*
– and settled to the ground, its – his long neck stretching out first so that he could scan the surroundings from side to side, and then so that he could lay his immense, triangular head on the ground.
The outer lids sagged shut. *Don't be surprised. Even a dragon gets tired sometimes.*
Sterlen's soldiers were already swarming over the dragon as it – as he lay on the grass. He was a huge beast, gray-green in color, his scales ranging in size from that of a serving platter on his wall-like sides and belly to tiny ones, barely the size of a palm, around the edges of his eyes.
The eyes opened again. They bothered Kethol, as they always did. They seemed to see too much.
*It isn't the eyes, it's the mind.*
Thick leather straps circled his chest, just aft of the forelegs and forward of the hind legs, supporting a woven rope rigging, to which half a dozen canvas bags and one large box had been carefully lashed. The box was put on belay by a team of six men on one side of the dragon, while another tried at first to untie the knots, then at Sterlen's command used his belt knife and cut through.
The soldiers slowly lowered the box to the ground. *One low-flow electrical generator, as promised,* the dragon's mental voice said, although it didn't bother to explain what that was.
*It doesn't involve killing anything; you probably wouldn't understand. Or care.*
"That's unfair," Ahira said. "And – "
* – and life is unfair, and if it was fair I could lie around here for awhile, maybe snatch a sheep or two from some field, and not get back in the air to ferry you over to Kelleren's farm, and then the lot of you to Biemestren.*
The dragon craned his neck until his head, easily the size of a carriage, was almost an arm's-reach way from Kethol.
The massive jaw sagged open, wisps of steam escaping from the corners of the ropy lips.
*Well? What are you waiting for? Life isn't fair, and we'd best be going.*
Chapter 13
Parliament, and a
Can of Worms, Opens
Walter Slovotsky took his place at the head table, next to where Thomen would sit – the place of service, on the left, not the place of honor, at the right – when he came down from his rooms and officially opened Parliament.
It would have been nice to be able to sit in the back of the room,
able to slip out if – when – the session became boring. Which was inevitable. Yes, Parliament would handle matters of life and death.
But just because something was important didn't mean it wasn't godawful boring.
Walter Slovotsky sipped at his morning cup of tea while others gathered and took their seats. Servants bustled in and out from the side door, bearing platters laden with mugs, and plates and pots... and notes: with few exceptions, Slovotsky being one of them, people other than nobility and imperial governors were excluded from the Great Hall while Parliament was in session.
The tables had been arranged in a broken circle, leaving plenty of room for servants to pass between them, keeping mugs refreshed and passing messages.
Of which there were plenty. Baron Nerahan, a short weasel of a man, seemed to be constantly answering telegrams – reading a note brought by a runner, and then dashing off a quick response. He had been the first of the barons in the Great Hall, according to the majordomo.
Slovotsky smiled quietly to himself. He had had a word with the engineer on duty in the telegraph shack on the southwestern tower; there would be a detailed log of all telegrams received, as well as sent. Nerahan was probably just showing off – the telegraph lines were almost complete in Holtun, although not in Bieme, and while the purpose of that had, originally, been for the benefit of the military governors, the Holtish barons were perfectly capable of making it look like a luxury that the Crown provided to them, and hadn't quite got around to providing to all the Biemish barons.
Tyrnael, of course, had been the first Biemish baron to have a telegraph station in his baronial seat, and not just or even mainly because he was the senior Biemish baron – by lineage, although not by age.
But Arondael – who was showing every one of his sixty-plus years in the lines of his face – glared at Nerahan with undisguised hatred as he entered the room and took his seat. He sat back in his chair and murmured to General Forsteen, the Arondael military governor, who had arrived with him, practically arm-in-arm. If it had been up to Walter Slovotsky, Forsteen would have been given another barony to govern years before. He was far too cozy with Arondael, and, for that matter, what with them graying and balding at the same rate, and sharing some of each other's gestures, the two of them were starting to look alike, like an old gay couple.
Not Quite Scaramouche Page 14
