Dragon Bones h-1

by Patricia Briggs

  Oreg tilted his head, staring at the pyre with dreamy eyes as an odd half smile tugged the corners of his mouth. "I smell dragons," he said.

  "Axiel said he thought there was blood magic involved."

  "There is a taint to blood magic," replied Bastilla. "And I don't feel it here."

  I didn't feel up to explaining about Siphern. Weariness from working magic and from the knowledge that the hole in my spirit where Hurog belonged was permanent made me want to keep it as simple as I could. "Could a mage or a group of mages drain an object of magic and use it for themselves?"

  "Yes," said Oreg at the same moment Bastilla said, "No."

  I raised my eyebrows at them, and Bastilla finally shrugged. "I suppose it's possible. Theoretically. But the stone would still exist—just not magic."

  "Not this stone," disagreed Oreg, still in that strange, dreamy state. "I smell dragon."

  "Could they have transformed the stone?" asked Penrod.

  "That stone felt like dragon magic," said Axiel. "Could something have transformed a dragon into the stone, and the Vorsag released it?"

  A cold chill ran down the back of my neck just before the steady drizzle of rain turned to a torrential downpour.

  "Kariarn has a dragon?" asked Tosten.

  "Someone has a dragon," said Oreg peacefully.

  Part of me was chanting euphorically, I knew there were still dragons, I knew it, I knew it, while the rest of me tried to figure out what Kariarn would do if he controlled a dragon.

  "Where do we go from here?" asked Bastilla.

  Good question. I put the thought of the dragon aside for the moment. That done, the question was fairly simple to ask. I only needed one more bit of information to test out my theory about the Vorsagian attacks, and I knew where to get it.

  "Axiel," I asked, "Do you know how to get to Callis from here?"

  "Callis? Yes, I think so. Why Callis?"

  "Because I need information. And if anyone has information on what's been going on here, it's that old fox Haverness. Last I heard, he rules at Callis still." Haverness's people would know if the other villages the Vorsag hit had held better artifacts than the ones that had been passed by. They would know where other likely targets would be. My father had said that Haverness knew more about what the king's troops had been doing than the king had for all the old fox tramped about court looking as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

  The pouring rain eased a bit after an hour or more. For lack of a better place, we set up camp in a relatively sheltered spot under some trees. The fire smoked and sputtered, but it was good enough to cook over. It was my turn to do the cooking.

  Oreg had gone hunting and produced a pair of rabbits. I had them spitted and turning over the fire when Ciarra came to sit beside me and took one of the spits, more because she wanted decent food to eat than out of any desire to help me.

  "So you're not avoiding me anymore, eh?"

  She grinned at me and tapped my face.

  "Me? Grumpy?" When she raised her eyebrows, I said, "It rains all the time here, and we've been running around not accomplishing much for the better part of the summer."

  She shook her head at me and pointed to the sky, then to my face.

  "I know it's still raining," I said. "But now I know what we need to do." It was true. Kariarn had a dragon and possibly more magic than the world had seen in an age, an entire village had been slaughtered, Hurog was lost, but I felt better because I knew what I was going to do. "You're turning the rabbit too fast."

  She leaned against my shoulder but didn't noticeably slow the spit. Her rabbit was perfect; mine was too pink in the middle. Not that it mattered, as hungry as we were.

  We all went gathering wood after dinner except for Ciarra who, armed with a hunting horn to call us, stayed with the horses. Usually we all traveled separately, but this time Oreg came trotting by my side. He was quiet for a bit, but I could tell from the bounce in his step that he was just biding his time.

  "So you decided to be a hero, again," he said finally. I couldn't decide if there was sarcasm in his voice or not.

  "Oranstone needs a hero," I said, kicking a stone out of the path with a little more force than necessary.

  "Are you going to free the dragon?"

  "Oreg. Gods, there are seven of us! What do you think we can do?" And there, I thought, was the problem with my scheme to help the Oranstonian villagers. I wasn't a legendary warrior like my father; I wasn't Seleg; I had no army. It was like the story about the fly who declared war on the horse who took no notice.

  "He can't be allowed to keep her," he said with sudden heat "There were no flame marks where the dragon fought. They must have it under a spell."

  A spell? My mind boggled at the thought of how much power it would take to control a dragon. "Could you break a spell strong enough to hold a dragon?" I asked.

  His silence answered me. At last he said, "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to Callis. From there, I'll send a message to the king, my uncle, and Haverness, so something is done to stop Kariarn—if anything can stop him now."

  "They'll try to kill it, Ward." Oreg said in a low tone. He meant the dragon. "They can't afford to let him use a dragon."

  "And just tell me what else they can do." I said, knowing he was right.

  We walked a few more paces, Oreg's face turned away from me.

  "Seleg didn't need an army to kill a dragon."

  I came to a full stop. "What do you mean?"

  "If one Hurogmeten killed a dragon, why shouldn't you?"

  I scarcely noticed the sarcasm as a cold knot settled in my stomach. "Seleg chained the dragon?" My hero killed the dragon in the cave?

  Protect those weaker than yourself, he'd written. Be kind when the opportunity is given. Ideas that no one else in my father's home would have said aloud for fear of being laughed at. Seleg set forth the ideals I'd tried to follow. But it was impossible to disbelieve Oreg's truth.

  "And killed her so he'd have the power to defeat the invading fleet. He was scared. Frightened he'd lose Hurog." There was something wrong with Oreg's voice, but I didn't pay attention to it.

  It hurt to breathe. If Seleg'd killed the dragon, he'd also had Oreg beaten for protesting it. I'd seen the beating myself in the great hall the day Garranon had come to Hurog. How could I feel betrayed by a man dead for centuries?

  "Oreg…" I stopped when I saw his eyes, glowing with an uncanny lavender light. Despite the ring I wore and the disparity in our sizes, I backed away.

  "Did killing the dragon make your life easier?" he whispered to me. "Do you hear her scream every night like I do?"

  "Oreg, I haven't killed any dragons." Chills crept up my back, and I stepped another pace away.

  He laughed like the autumn wind in a field of corn. "I warned you what would happen. Your children's children's children will pay the price for what you have done."

  Oreg's episodes weren't insanity. Warrior's dreams, Stala called them, battle visions. Sudden visions of past battles so strong that they overwhelmed the present, terrifying when they hit an armed man but doubly so when that man was also a wizard. A wizard of Oreg's power made the dream real enough to bleed.

  "Oreg," I said. "It wasn't me."

  A soldier in his lifetime could amass a lot of horror and shame; how much more numerous were the memories Oreg had. He'd told me once that he tried not to remember things.

  Oreg stared at me, breathing heavily as he fought the vision off.

  "It's done with, Oreg," I said. "The dragon died a long time ago."

  "Ward?"

  "Yes." The terror in his eyes hurt me. Was he afraid of his memories? Or was he afraid of me? I turned away and began walking. "We need to hunt for wood."

  After a moment, I heard his footsteps following me.

  "Sorry," he said. "You look like him, you know. He was a big man, too. And filled with magic—like you've been since Menogue."

  I shrugged.

  We ga
thered wood for a bit. There wasn't much to be had that hadn't rotted in the damp. The woods looked as if they'd been gleaned already. We were too near Silverfells.

  "After I killed that boy on the Oranstone border, I pretended to be my father," I said abruptly. "He was good at killing." I needed to talk to someone. Bastilla was a better listener, but Oreg had known my father.

  "Not like your father," Oreg said, as if convincing himself. "You've never been like him."

  I thought about the swift easing of my knife into the boy's neck, the way I couldn't lend words of comfort to my brother when he mourned the loss of his innocence; and I knew Oreg was wrong.

  "When my father died, do you know why I really didn't want to drop my role as an idiot?" I asked.

  "No." His reply was too easy. He'd increased the distance between us, oh so casually, reacting to my body language, I thought, and I tried to loosen up.

  "At the time, I thought it was mostly embarrassment. But that wasn't it entirely. You see, I'd played an idiot so long, there wasn't anyone else to be. When I left Hurog, I tried being that mercenary, but it wasn't right. So I picked Seleg."

  He was quiet for a long time. I didn't look back for him, just paced forward, away from camp. We'd been talking too much to find any game, but given any luck, Tosten or Axiel would bring something back.

  "You do Seleg very well for a man who didn't know him." His voice was tentative. "He wasn't all bad—not until he grew old and frightened." The gap between us closed. "He wasn't as smart as you are, nor as kind. Just be yourself, Ward." We marched through the muck side by side now.

  There isn't any me, Oreg, I thought. Just bits of my father, a stupid mercenary who charmed everyone he met except my aunt, and an ancestor who left too many journals for me to read.

  Oreg grinned at me suddenly, shaking off the gloomy mood. "I know you. You talk slow and fight hard. You're smart and kind to small children, abused horses, and slaves. You're the Hurogmeten. That's more than most people know about themselves."

  I smiled at him, a grateful smile, as I'm sure Seleg would have had. The idiot talked slow; my father fought hard. Seleg was smart, arrogant, and kind—and Hurog wasn't mine. I was so good at playing roles, I'd even fooled Oreg. I would just have to make sure I didn't start fooling myself.

  I'd intended to share the watch with Oreg, but after our talk in the woods, I changed my mind. I'd said too much, and it had left me raw. I gave him first watch with Penrod, which left me with Penrod's usual partner, Bastilla, for second watch.

  A rise in the ground not far from camp allowed a fair view of the trail from both east and west. After Oreg and Penrod retired to their bedrolls next to Ciarra and Tosten, Bastilla and I settled on a boulder large enough for the both of us.

  "You came back from the village as if it gave you new direction." She shifted uncomfortably on the hard surface.

  "Knowing your enemy and understanding your allies is the best way to win a war, according to my aunt." I gave her a wry look. "Not that we have any chance of winning a war against Vorsag, mind you, but I've an idea of what they may be after."

  She laughed and took a bit of bread and cheese out of a small pack she'd brought and handed to me. "Eat this. Axiel gave it to me for you. He said if it didn't get eaten tonight, no one could eat it, and you've been eating less as the supplies get lower. You've started to lose weight again."

  I nibbled the stale bread with all the enthusiasm it deserved. How could something be dry and moldy at the same time?

  "So you think the Vorsag are after artifacts?" She laughed at my expression. "You asked me if a mage could harvest magic from artifacts."

  I put down the food without much regret. "I hope Haverness's people will be able to tell me for certain."

  "It will be good to do something else besides slogging through marshes," she said wryly. "I prefer fighting."

  I laughed softly. "Me, too." That was my father in me.

  She touched the corner of my lips with a finger. She hadn't been flirting, so I was unprepared for her touch.

  "I keep expecting you to be stupid, do you know?" She traced a line from my mouth to the corner of my eye. My breathing grew ragged despite the effort I expended to steady it.

  "It's the eyes. Hard to look smart with cow eyes. And I talk too slowly," I said.

  The feather-light touch of her fingers on my face caused my belly to tighten. It wasn't the first time she'd indicated she would be willing to sleep with me. It was one of the reasons I'd always paired myself with Ciarra or one of the men. Penrod and Axiel might be able to couple without commitment, but I'd never gotten the knack of it.

  "I would have thought listening to you would make me impatient," she breathed, "but your voice is like a velvet drum. I always feel so safe with you." She held my head with both of her hands while she came up to her knees to kiss me.

  She desired me for my body. Women had liked it even when they had thought it belonged to an idiot. Maybe especially when they thought it belonged to an idiot. But she liked me, too. That would make it more than sex, a gift between friends.

  Or at least she liked the man she thought I was: strong, competent, honorable, smart.

  The echoes of my earlier conversation with Oreg kept me from falling into her spell. As I drank in the smooth-wine flavor of her mouth, I fought for the strength to pretend for a few hours more. One of the things the game with my father had taught me was that half of the success of the disguise was in the mind of others. My father thought I was stupid, so he ignored signs that I might be something else. Bastilla thought me a hero; the role should have been easy, but it wasn't. I pulled away reluctantly.

  "Ward?"

  Breathing hard, I rested my forehead on hers, trying to find a reason for my restraint that wouldn't hurt her or me. It was easier knowing I was more recreation for her than serious prey. The Avinhellish were freer about such things than we Shavigmen.

  "We can't do this, Bastilla. We're on watch. If we get any further, I won't care if a hundred Vorsagian raiders come galloping down that road." It helped that the excuse was true.

  She snickered and allowed me to break the mood. "A hundred, eh?"

  I nibbled down her neck once, regretfully. Then I bounced to my feet and took several steps back. "Maybe a thousand. I'm going to run the perimeter." I pointed at her. "You stay here."

  She was still smiling when I left, but I knew that I had just put off a problem I'd need to deal with later.

  Callis looked as different from Hurog as possible, given that they were both fortified keeps. Hurog was square, where Callis was round. Callis was perhaps three times as large and built out of native stone. The gray green lichen covering the walls turned the orange stone to a muddy brown.

  The gates were closed and barred. Persuading the young warrior in charge of the gate to let me inside proved to be significantly more difficult than finding Callis had been.

  His lord wasn't there, which I knew.

  We looked like mildewed bandits, which I also knew.

  Far worse, we looked like Shavig bandits. We'd grow old and rot before he'd let us in, he informed us with a few pithy adjectives. Judging by the grins from his fellows (who'd gathered around as soon as they noticed something interesting was happening at the gate), they'd be pleased to help us along.

  Well, he wouldn't be left on guard for more than half the day. I'd wait and see how the man who replaced him on wall was before I tried any more desperate measures.

  We'd picked a few apples from an orchard not far down the road, and Axiel handed me one. It was green and sour but better than stale bread and moldy cheese.

  "Where'd that apple come from?" called the guardian of the gate suspiciously.

  "Bought it from a man down the road." I took another bite and smiled around the sourness.

  "No Oranstonian would sell our good apples to a Northlander."

  "Well," I stared at the apple a bit. "I'd not call it good, but he said it was the best Oranstone had."

 
; The snappy retort lost a little because of the distance the wall put between us, but I saw from his grin he was ready to give as good as he got. The guard was bored, and so was I. Neither he nor I really wanted a confrontation, just a few minutes of stupid Northerner/Southerner, all done in good cheer. Unfortunately, one of his fellows, a young newcomer to the conversation, didn't understand the game.

  "That apple's too good for Shavig scum like you!" The hothead had a crossbow, and he nocked it.

  My aunt always said you had to watch out for the young ones as they are generally too stupid to understand what's really going on. It had always amused me when she told me that.

  I caught a glimpse of the gate guard's horrified face and knew that he'd be almost as unhappy if the young man shot me as I would. The walls at Callis weren't as high as Hurog, maybe only twenty-five feet. Luckily, I was faster with my apple than the guard was with his crossbow. He mustn't have had a good grip, or the apple would just have spoiled his aim rather than knock the bow out of his hand. His weapon fell only a few feet from me.

  The gate guard, as senior on the wall, turned on the rash and bowless guard. I couldn't hear what he said, but the boy wilted.

  "What's going on here?" The voice rang clear as a bell, though I couldn't see the man who spoke. Judging by the sudden attention of everyone on the wall, it was someone very senior.

  I picked up the bow, disarmed it, and tossed it up and over the edge of the wall. I was hoping it would land at their feet just when the senior man approached them. Maximum embarrassment for them, possible entrance for me, as I had stopped the boy without hurting anyone and returned their weapon.

  After a few moments, a new face appeared at the wall. His head was shaved from the top of his ears to the nape of his neck in Oranstonian traditional style, but he'd allowed his beard to grow out white and full like a Shavigman. It was a distinctive style and made him easy to recognize.