The Dragon in Lyonesse

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "You think Lyonesse can win, then?" said Jim, reaching them.

  "With my Blues, here, there would have been no doubt of it," said Dafydd.

  "Win! Certainly!" said Brian. "What are ruffians like those to the gentlemen of the Table Round? We will sweep them from the Lyonesse earth!"

  "You're going to fight with the Originals?"

  "Why, yes, James! That is to say, they go first, of course. The place of honor. It is their Lyonesse and their right!"

  Out of the corner of an eye, Jim caught sight of a somewhat stout knight—his helmet off, showing a half-bald head—waving both fists as he talked to Pellinore; evidently demanding something. Whatever it was, Pellinore seemed unmoved and adamant about not yielding.

  "Cumberland's men are here now, then?" said Jim.

  "See for yourself, Sir James!" said King David, waving outward toward the emptiness of the Plain.

  Jim looked, and after a moment made out a dark line of what must be armed and ready men. They seemed at least five miles off. He shaded his eyes, trying to see better.

  "They're much closer than they seem, Sir James. It is a trick of the eyes that the Plain makes, with that small in-pinch of the trees about it in its middle. Behave yourself, Plain!" said the QB, who had not been in evidence up until now.

  For a moment the line of men seemed suddenly to jump closer—close enough that Jim could make out men and horses as individuals. He was almost sure he recognized Cumberland, but just then the Plain suddenly picked up its illusion of distance again; and he had not recognized anyone else.

  "Where's Modred?" he asked, reminded of that individual, "and Morgan le Fay?"

  "Morgan le Fay is planning to be with us, of course," said the QB. "Where else should she be on such a day? But so far no one has seen her. As for Modred, you have barely missed him. It was said he had expected many of the Knights to rally to him. They did not. He left, saying he would go arm himself and return—but he has not."

  The dark line of enemy fighters had seemed impressive to Jim. He glanced about at the Lyonesse Knights. They had seemed a good number as he came in; but looking at them now, he could not convince himself that their forces were in any way equal to those of the distant men.

  "They aren't moving toward us," said Jim—for that much at least he had seen in the moment when they appeared close, "—and we aren't going forward. Is there a chance the battle might not happen."

  "Never fear it, James!" said Brian. "Our foes are merely sorting out who shall ride where in the first line; and who, if any, shall be in the lines to follow it. If it weren't for this damned Plain, seeming to hold them off at such a distance, I could tell a great deal from a closer study of how they set themselves. Not only whether their strength lies in the center of the van, or on the wings; but also who leads what division and perhaps much of what skill he has by the way he sits his horse and argues, or does not argue, with those he will lead."

  "Well," said Jim. His doubts of the success of Lyonesse arms in this situation were beginning to grow. Not only were the Originals so much fewer in number, but they were rather old—not only in their actual age, since they must date back to the fourth century A.D. or something equally antique—but they all showed physical signs of aging. The half-bald stout man, for example.

  Also, they had to be out of practice. Sir Bedivere had said that they no longer fought among themselves. How true that was, Jim did not know. There had been that moment when Sir Kay made the joke about "light" and Lancelot, when Jim—from his Land Above experience—was sure Bedivere was entirely ready to fight Kay over it.

  Maybe Kay's quick backdown had settled the matter. But in any case, they could be badly out of training for a combat like this—perhaps centuries out of training and only remembering their glory days when they were younger.

  "Well," said Jim, again, "we can go take a look. Are you ready to be a dragon again, Brian?"

  Brian beamed.

  "Most ready, James!"

  "Then, here we go—QB, will you explain to Pellinore or any of the Knights who might be worried by our change of shape and flying off, that it's all in their good cause. You can also reassure them I'm not going to use any magic while I'm gone—this is a knightly situation, not a magickian one; and, being a knight myself, I understand how the two must be kept separate."

  "I will be glad to do so. Thank you, Sir James, for telling me that," said the QB.

  "No call for thanks," said Jim; and added—forgetting how he had carefully used the word magickian so as to be understood by the Originals—"a magician's duty. Come, Brian." He took a very small bite from the magic apple.

  Instantly, as two dragons, they took off—the roar of the wings attracting the general attention of everyone about them, as Jim had foreseen.

  "We'll circle around behind Cumberland's men," said Jim, when he and Brian had reached a height where they could talk without being overheard on the Plain below. "If they see us going off in another direction out of sight beyond the treetops, they'll stop worrying about us. Then we circle, gaining altitude until we can come back in overhead so high they won't be sure we aren't birds of some kind."

  Brian nodded.

  "I doubt there are dragons in Lyonesse," he said.

  "Probably not. I'd have sensed them if there were," said Jim. But a realization of this had not occurred to him before now; and he privately made up his mind to gain even more altitude before they made their return above Cumberland's force.

  The maneuver went well. They came back at what was probably over a thousand feet above the enemy, emerging into sight on a long curve that became a spiral above the Plain, so that they could look at the armed men below from the front of their formation, as well as the back.

  "Perhaps down there they think of us as ravens, hoping to dine off the dead after the battle," he suggested to Brian.

  "Too high for ravens," said Brian promptly. "Eagles, more like. Your eagle is not shy when there are corpses to be found below."

  "Of course. Yes. Very good. Eagles."

  As he spoke, Jim was studying the length and breadth of the formation below. There had been some of the massive, legless leapers that he had seen escaping from the fire at the Dark Powers' Nursery, as well as a fair number of ogres, backing up the lines of enemy humans. A small fluttering of Harpies showed just above their heads.

  Altogether, there were fewer of such than he had expected to see. Had he really stopped so many of the Dark Powers' creatures with his accidental fire? Surely a number of those he had seen collapse must only have been temporarily out of action; and would have recovered by this time.

  But perhaps not. It could be that his earlier impression had been right—that their grasp on life was small when they were not busy at what they had been made to do.

  So, the number of monsters to be present was a question mark.

  He looked at the armed men and tried to form some estimate of their dangerousness beyond the fact that they were now clearly several times in number compared to the Knights of Lyonesse.

  He saw no sign of the wild animals who had listened to him when, with the QB he had spoken to them in the forest.

  A few tents, he saw, had been set up behind the lines of the fighting men, and between them and the horse lines. Jim sighed to himself internally, quietly. He should have suggested that the smaller animals could secretly gnaw loose the reins and tether ropes of the enemy's horses before the battle started. That might just have slowed down at least some of the attackers from getting mounted when the battle started.

  But, clearly, the wild ones did not seem to be here. Perhaps they had changed their minds about coming. Animals would not necessarily think as humans thought.

  He and Brian finished their third circle above Cumberland's force, without apparently attracting attention.

  "Brian," he said, not too loudly, just in case.

  "James?"

  "Unless you need to look some more, let's head back to the Lyonesse Knights."

  "I n
eed not. Let us go, then."

  They wheeled away; and in a moment they were no longer over the field and Jim headed down to be sure the treetops would hide their going. Once at a lower level and unobservable, he turned back toward the friendly end of the Empty Plain.

  "Brian," he said, at normal dragon volume now that they no longer had anything but the forest below to overhear them, "just for the moment forget that the Originals are all Knights of the Round Table. Think of the situation as if we had the number of knights we do have, but they're all perfectly ordinary knights. How do you feel about our chances in the battle, then?"

  Brian was silent for several minutes as they continued to soar just above the treetops, carried along by a friendly breeze in the right direction. Just below them, the slender top limbs of the trees leaned before the light air as if pointing their way back to their friends.

  "Why, then," he said at last, in a tone of unusual—for him—seriousness, "I like it little."

  He fell silent, as if this was sufficient answer.

  "I know they outnumber us, two—maybe three or more—times to one," said Jim, to prod him to further speech. "What else makes you feel the way you say you do?"

  "Four times or five—even six—would be more like it. They are drawn up in two 'battles'—while we can form only one worthy of the name; and that is the Knights of the Table Round themselves—for the Descendants and others who follow will not be what a man could call a battle—" By "battle," Jim knew, Brian meant something an army of Jim's original time would call a "division. "—for they will have no notion of riding more or less together, no matter how willing or able they are, one by one."

  "And—" Jim prodded again.

  "Several matters!" said Brian, almost irritably. "Surely you noticed them as well as I while we flew above them? Surely, if you have never seen actual warfare yourself—nor, indeed, have I, except for that moment in France when you and I both were on the skirts of what might have been a battle if it had not been called off—surely you have spoken with men of war like Sir John."

  There were many Sir Johns, but Brian could only mean Sir John Chandos. None of the others were a close friend and also a war-captain of such repute that his words on fighting an engagement of two armies would be golden.

  "No," said Jim, "I never have."

  Brian turned his head to look squarely at Jim, his dragon face showing—though he did not realize that Jim, having himself been a dragon on frequent occasions for several years now, could so easily read it—the measure of Brian's great astonishment.

  "It is almost beyond belief," said Brian, "that he should so have spoken to me, and at such length, on the matter, but never have done so to you!"

  Chapter Forty-Two

  It's not really surprising," said Jim—and checked himself on the edge of an explanation that would either be embarrassing to Brian, or offensive.

  Jim knew only too well why Chandos had said nothing to him about the tactics and strategies of medieval war—while speaking at length with Brian.

  It was because Chandos, as an experienced leader of men under fighting conditions, had seen within seconds of meeting Jim that he was no potential leader in that area, and never would be. Brian, on the other hand, was exactly the opposite.

  Jim not only did not have the aptitude for combat leadership—he had no real wish to have it. When fighting was unavoidable, he could do it—once he got into it. But he had no great love for using spear, sword, battle-ax, or any other weapon on his fellow human beings; and nothing was likely to make him develop it.

  Brian, on the other hand, in spite of his romanticism about the whole realm of knighthood—he was almost a sort of "display" knight in that regard—was fourteenth-century born and bred; and owned the hardheaded pragmatism of those times. He, not Jim, was ready to see the advantages in knowing as much as possible about warfare as it was then practiced.

  In contrast to Jim, he not did not dislike fighting—Brian lived for it. A strange mixture of the best of friends if he was on your side of the barricade, and the most devastating of enemies on the other side.

  Curiously, this was not because he enjoyed the wounding or killing of other men, but because he lived to test himself to his utmost; and a full-scale battle was the best stage on which that test could be made. One in which he could attempt to display what he considered the best of knightly conduct—preferably to win, but with winning or losing being a matter of secondary consideration, in the end being beside the point.

  There could be even one more thorn in the unconsidered explanation for Chandos's preference Jim had been about to make to Brian; and which, if he was not careful, could wound his friend deeply. Brian had worked hard, through all their available time together, to turn Jim into a competent—hopefully, a potent—fighter with sword, spear, and all other knightly weapons.

  For Brian to learn after all this time that his efforts with Jim had been wasted on inferior metal would disappoint him greatly. But it would strike him much harder that John Chandos—who would certainly know correctly about such things—had understood this at a glance. It would be heartbreaking to Brian after all his patient work.

  For Brian, there were only his inferiors, whom he treated with an instinctive kindness—though somewhat roughly, in the manner of the times in which he lived—and his peers, who he would someday meet and beat—or be beaten by—and, finally, his undeniable superiors.

  The short list of those last included those like John Chandos, and Jim himself—whom Brian held in a sort of awe in one area, as a superior untouchable even by Chandos himself. That area was magic; and in that Jim was beyond understanding, a possessor of vast strange knowledge from someplace unknown; but nonetheless, a fellow-spirit in that he clearly felt about the essence of knighthood as Brian himself did.

  But—Jim caught his thoughts up sharply—this was not finding an answer to the question that had clearly been in Brian's mind the moment Jim let slip the information Chandos had chosen not to talk to him, though he had talked to Brian. Jim's mind scrambled. So far, in the weapon practice sessions, the excuse that he was from someplace else and had not had the upbringing Brian considered automatic and normal for anyone who was considered good birth and breeding, had served to explain his ineptness. Maybe it would serve again, now.

  "Well, you know," he said to Brian, in a lowered voice, "I'm not an Englishman."

  Brian responded immediately; and with great sympathy.

  "Never mind it, James!" he said stoutly. "Not your fault, dammit. Put it from your thoughts. Would you like me to tell you now what other matters would concern me if our Knights were not of Arthur's table?"

  "Very much," said Jim.

  Brian looked ahead toward the black-and-white horizon. Once more he said nothing, but this time for a much shorter moment; and when he did speak, it was in a decided tone of voice.

  "If our knights were not the Knights they are," he said, "I must say I would mislike much about this battle that is coming now. For example, were we all of us no more than ordinary gentlemen, our enemies could be thought of as dangerously outnumbering us."

  "Hmm?" said Jim. "You do think, then, that for the Knights winning won't be easy?"

  "I think that much and more, James. Moreover, a good number of those facing us may also have war experience; at least a good number, or they would not have chosen to win their livelihood by the sword, in coils such as this. They must know as well as we do the quality of those they oppose here, small in numbers as we are. Remains, though, that it bodes ill for any one of them who finds himself face-to-face with one of ours, who has fought in Arthur's name."

  "But our Originals are old."

  "Bah!" Brian's dragon head turned to stare Jim in the eye. "A few gray hairs or a bald pate do not take away the skill of one born to his weapons and still in exercise, James! Still less do they take the heart with which that one fights. Perhaps a little swiftness of arm and hand may be lost—but that is with ordinary men; and those of whom we talk are not o
rdinary. Did not even Modred, when Arthur thrust him through with a spear, push his body up the shaft piercing him, so that he might reach and strike his father? You cannot think of such only in the same terms as ordinary rievers and hedge-knights!"

  "No," said Jim. "Of course not. But—"

  "And there are other concerns as well," went on Brian, "that should not be overlooked."

  "For example—I mean, what are they?"

  "Well, there is the matter of the equipment of Cumberland's men. All of it. Just as you have your Gorp and I have this glorious Blanchard, most of those we fight must be better horsed than our valiant Knights. You perhaps remarked, the last time we journeyed through Lyonesse and I had a spear-running with the Descendant of Sir Dinedan—and likewise when we both crossed spears with the Bright Knight—that not only were our horses heavier and our leather stouter, but our lances were stiffer and stronger."

  "I hadn't noticed," said Jim, half honestly.

  "You must mind such things, James, as I have told you. Watch everything about the man you fight—however, I except that tall white steed of Pellinore's from the mass of such among our Originals. But from what I have seen so far he is the only one of such qualities. I think, also, the steel we strike with may not blunt so quickly on enemy armor, nor our own armor, reinforced with steel plates, yield as does a simple chain mail shirt to a sword edge. But more than anything else I concern myself with the matter of Pellinore being chosen leader."

  "Pellinore?" said Jim. "He must be the strongest man in Lyonesse!"

  "I doubt it not. But more is required of a war-leader than strength alone. Chandos spoke strongly on this, and gave me a number of shrewd examples of how the lack of this or that other necessary part had caused the defeat and death of good men—not only gentlemen but good men of the common sort. Lacking it, they fell into disaster. On the other hand, said he, a great leader, having those parts, can so enflame and inspire those with him that they who have such talents not, may find them."

  "I can believe it," said Jim; and, allowing for a certain amount of natural exaggeration on Brian's part—for after all, there were human limits—he meant what he said. "But Pellinore is the best we have. Unless you're thinking of someone like Gawain, who was one of the Knights Arthur took special pride in—"