Dragonfire

by Charles Jackson

  “I wish everything was that simple,” she sighed in frustration, leaning back until she was wedged into the rear corner of the cargo bed between the wall and the back door. “I trained for five years with wooden swords, practising against a seventy-year-old. I don’t know anything about fighting. I don’t even kill spiders when they come in the house. This isn’t some fantasy movie with plucky hobbits or sparkly vampires… I might get killed… you might get killed, trying to protect me…”

  “People die every day,” Godfrey shrugged, not at all caring that he had no idea what a movie or a hobbit was. “Not meanin’ to take that road meself for a few summers yet, but you don’t always get to pick your time… particularly in the Blacklands. Soldier, farmer or king… any day could be your last: no point walkin’ around the whole time, actin’ like y’r already dead. All the more reason to make the most of what you’ve got right now, I say…”

  “That’s… that’s a pretty cool perspective,” New replied eventually, staring at the roof of the wagon after reconsidering the sarcastic remark that had flared in her mind about him trying to sell life insurance.

  “And you were going to say something else at first,” he pointed out, not missing a thing. “What’s a shotgun?” He added, throwing her off track with a change of subject before she had a chance to feel embarrassed. “You said this thing ‘went off’ and that the rider was killed… is it some kind of crossbow?”

  “Oh… er… not really… It’s… well, it’s a gun… that fires shot…” she tried to explain, cringingly awarding herself a ‘Mastery of the Bloody Obvious’ award within her own mind as Godfrey raised an eyebrow and she realised the statement was no help whatsoever. “It’s like a hand-held cannon… not good at long distance like a rifle would be, but lethal at close range.”

  “What’s a ‘cannon’?” He asked blankly, giving her no help at all.

  “Oh, jeez… cannon don’t exist here either? That’s not good: a shotgun loose in a world without firearms… not good at all.” She paused for a moment, then soldiered on. “It’s basically a long, steel tube that fires big lead balls really fast out one end – faster than the eye can see. It’s far more deadly than a crossbow at close range – maybe fifty to a hundred meters… uh… yards…” she corrected, switching to a rough approximation of imperial measurement. It’d probably punch through anything short of metal armour, and I’m not sure if even that would be strong enough to stop it at close range. Sorry… I don’t know a lot about guns…”

  “More than we do, though,” he conceded with a serious expression. The description Nev had given was vague at best but it nevertheless painted a grim picture of a weapon far more dangerous than any crossbow. “I’ll need to get word to my local command about it: they might be able to…” his words trailed off as he realised Nev’s eyes had closed, and that her head was beginning to nod slowly forward.

  “Wha – what…?” She mumbled, shaking her head in a vain attempt to clear her thoughts.

  “Come on…” he grinned, taking the sword from the seat beside her and laying it down on top of her bag. “You need some rest: you got hardly any sleep at all last night, and you’ve had none since…”

  “I – I’m fine…” she insisted, her words slow and slurring.

  “Of course you are…” he agreed with a silent chuckle, placing a guiding hand on her shoulder and sliding her along the seat just far enough to leave space for her to lay down “… now rest…! That’s an order!”

  Her response trailed off into nothing as she lay her head down on the straw-filled cushions and drew her legs up almost into a foetal position. She was asleep and snoring lightly by the time he’d sat down again on the other side, watching her with a thoughtful expression.

  They were already through the town gates at Welshpool as Nev awoke with a start, six hours later. A second cushion had been placed beneath her head as a pillow at some stage during the journey, and a blanket laid across her against the cold, and the fact that she’d remained asleep for almost the entire trip spoke more of her levels of exhaustion than it did of the smoothness of the ride.

  A few seconds of waking panic dissipated quickly as she realised Godfrey was standing at the front of the cargo area, looking out through the central hatch there and engaged in quiet conversation with Lester and Arleigh. Rising into a seated position, she gave herself a moment or two for her thoughts to clear before also standing and staring out through one of the small, louvered windows on her side. The smell of the town had already filled the inside of the van, hinting at volatile combinations of refuse, stagnant water and human waste… none of it good.

  The view that presented itself wasn’t much better as she wrinkled her nose in disgust. As with the other houses she’s seen so far, most of the dwellings that filled the town were one- or two-roomed blackhouse-style structures with open windows and thatched rooves. Narrow, muddy alleys ran between clusters of them, with little or no yard other than spaces set aside for livestock such as pigs, chickens and even the occasional cow. There were dogs everywhere of all shapes, sizes and cross-breeds, and all of them running loose in the streets with barks, yips and howls as they chased each other about and otherwise begged or stole scraps of food from the local populace. Nev noted with interest that several of the animals looked to be purebred dingo or something very close.

  Smoke filled the air. It dominated and pervaded everything, even eclipsing the markedly less pleasant odours of refuse and waste that that were notable but at least dulled by its overpowering presence. There were few lights on inside the houses – most hard-working commoners had been asleep for hours by now – but dark, wispy plumes of smoke and the occasional spark nevertheless rose from almost every roof as hearth fires continued to warm those cold, Spartan houses of stone, wood and mud brick. It was dark now and clouds had indeed gathered once more above as predicted, but there were lit torches burning along the main roads, set into posts perhaps a metre-and-a-half tall on either side of the street that gave light enough to get some idea of what was going on around them as they passed.

  Very few civilians seemed to be out and about that late but the local military were prevalent, wandering about in twos and threes and armed with swords and crossbows. As Arleigh’s van continued on through those narrow, winding streets, Nev noted several times that soldiers had stopped civilians in the street, and the body language and general stance clearly suggested they were ‘checking papers’ or otherwise making official enquiries as to their reasons for being out and about at such a late hour.

  On one occasion, she witnessed three uniformed troopers kicking a fallen civilian – a teen of possibly fourteen or less – who could only lay there and cover his head against the worst of their blows. No one came to his aid and not one of his attackers seemed the slightest bit self-conscious about assaulting an unarmed boy in the middle of the street. She turned away momentarily as one of them aimed his crossbow, preparing to deliver a killing shot, and steeled herself against the faint scream that came next, the cry cut terribly short soon after.

  “Just another regular night in Welshpool,” Godfrey observed darkly as he joined her in the rear of the wagon, staring out through the next louvered slot next to hers.

  “What did he do?” She asked in an angry whisper, as enraged as she was sickened by the experience.

  “No idea…” he shrugged with a grimace, his tone of resignation conveying his own disgust well. “Probably not much; maybe they caught him thieving, or maybe he was just some poor sod they didn’t like… doesn’t take much to find yerself dead in a Blacklands town if you get on the wrong side of the city watch. Luckily, Arleigh here’s well-known to ‘em and he slips a few coins to the local commanders here now and again to keep in sweet: they’ll not bother us, long as we keep out of their way.”

  “This place is brutal…!” She muttered with a shake of her head.

  “Aye, it can be,” he conceded. “It’s a hard life for a peasant here, that’s for sure. Some kingdoms are kinde
r on their subjects – down in Huon, where me and Lester come from, Phaesus is well known to be a fair and decent ruler so far as kings go – but all the same, there’s nowhere I’ve seen where common folk have it much better.”

  “I used to think we had it tough…” Nev admitted, considering her father’s unrelenting work and the fact that she rarely even saw him outside of weekends. “…I’m starting to change my mind about that, now…”

  She still wasn’t completely sure of the truth behind the world in which she was currently trapped, but it was already clear that it wasn’t far removed from the historical middle-ages of her own. The squalor in which common folk of previous centuries had lived in her world had seemed distant and unreal when printed in the pages of a history book, and Nev was discovering that seeing it first hand was a sobering experience indeed.

  “We’re here…!” Arleigh called sharply from the front of the wagon at that moment, and both of them were jolted into forced sitting positions together as the wheels below passed unexpectedly over something large and uneven in the middle of the road.

  “Heads down and not a word…” Godfrey warned immediately, throwing the blanket she’d worn over her sword and bag and taking a seat across the other side as the wagon began to slow to a halt. “They’ll have to check his goods, but they’ll not put much effort into looking so long as they don’t see anything interesting. They’ll expect to see our faces, but don’t look ‘em in the eyes – just look straight at me: staring at ‘em would look like defiance and we don’t need that kind of grief right now.”

  “What – what if they ask me something?” She hissed, suddenly terrified over this new and unexpected information.

  “They won’t,” he answered with certainty. “They’ll think you’re back here ‘cause of the Keepsake Law, and no one cares about what a girl has to say anyway… just keep quiet for a few seconds and we’ll be fine…” he added, cutting off a reaction to his last remark that he knew was coming.

  “It would’ve been nice to know about this earlier…!” She seethed quietly, the rational part of her mind knowing he was only commenting on how women were treated in general rather than making any personal statement, but finding herself no happier about it.

  “What… and give you time to worry about it? Nahhh…!” He shot back with a grin, somehow – as usual – managing to defuse her temper with a single, cheeky remark.

  The rear doors flew back a few seconds later to reveal the unpleasant faces of three guards, none of them likely to be appearing on The Bachelor in Nev’s considered opinion. One held a burning torch raised in his hand while the other two carried loaded crossbows, neither weapon directly pointed at them but both nevertheless aimed close enough to make a none-too-subtle statement.

  “What’s all this then, Hammond?” The crossbow wielder called out with lazy suspicion, laying eyes on Godfrey and Nev. “You operating a cab service as well, now?”

  “They’re me niece and nephew, Derek, come across from Fishwaters…” Arleigh called back, not even bothering to turn around. “Got ‘em some work on a ship headin’ out tomorrow.”

  “Lucky sods,” the man presumably named Derek harrumphed with a shrug. “Better a life at sea than bein’ knee-deep in cow pats, I’ll warrant. You, boy: what’s yer name?”

  “G-Godwin, sir…” Godfrey answered immediately, affecting a nervous tone and, to Nev’s surprise, lightening his voice slightly so as to sound younger. “Godwin Arleigh… and this here’s me sister, Jenna…” he added, nodding toward Nev as she spent the entire time staring woodenly at a point over his left shoulder.

  “Fine lookin’ girl there, Godwin…” Derek observed with a little more interest than any of them would’ve liked. “Looks to be at least eighteen summers – why’s she not married off already, ‘stead o’ takin’ away a man’s job…?”

  “Poor thing’s ma was afflicted by the fever while she was carryin’ her,” Godfrey answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Left her a bit soft in the head when she were born y’see, sir… she can follow simple orders and cook well enough to be o’ some use, but there’s no man willin’ to take the risk of fathering idiots.” That remark dulled the guards’ interest somewhat… children born with intellectual disabilities generally didn’t survive long in that world, and those few that did were also of little use later in life for looking after invalided parents as they grew too old to work. “She’s mute as well, sir, which don’t help…” he added quickly, well aware of how much effort Nev must’ve been expending at that moment to not react or pass enraged comment over what he’d just said. “One of the ships here needs a cook, though, and she can do that well enough, sir, like I said.”

  “Alright then, kid – wasn’t askin’ for her bloody life story,” Derek growled, already losing interest as he waved a dismissive hand. “Just keep yer noses clean while you’re here and we’ll get along fine. Off you go, Hammond!” He called out, louder now. “See you at Endweek with the next payment, yeah?”

  “You know it, Derek…” Arleigh agreed with a forced smile, waiting just long enough for the guards to close and secure the rear doors before gently urging his horses on through the gates leading into the Welshpool docks.

  “You are so in trouble right now!” Nev hissed, glaring at a grinning Godfrey as Lester – being unhelpful as always – burst into fits of muffled laughter the moment they were clear of the gates.

  “You’d rather they ask you directly or – even worse – take you over to the barracks for ‘questioning’…?” He asked pointedly, making a huge effort of his own not to laugh.

  “That’s not the point at all and you know it!” She shot back, also smiling now in spite of herself. “‘Soft in the head’… seriously…!”

  As they all shared in a moment’s relief, the serious part of her inner consciousness tried to tell her that the situation wasn’t amusing at all: that having had a close call with soldiers who’d have executed them on the spot as spies, had they known who she and Godfrey really were, most definitely wasn’t a laughing matter. Yet the sudden adrenalin that the unexpected encounter had sent coursing through her system combined with the relief of making it through unscathed had brought on a kind of euphoria that she’d never known before.

  With no prior experience of combat or similarly life-threatening situations, Nev was also being given her first glimpse of intense bond that could be formed between individuals in the face of extreme adversity. She already trusted Godfrey with her life, and despite knowing that at least part of that trust came from superficial things like the fact that that she found him very attractive physically, there were also some far deeper reasons behind it.

  There was definite proof in that particular pudding, in that he’d already saved her life twice and had made efforts to defend what he called her ‘honour’ in protecting her modesty. Both his actions so far and his inactions – the terrible things he might have done to her had he not been the man of honour and decency she firmly believed him to be (things that she’d almost certainly not have been able to prevent) – had clearly established Godfrey as a man of integrity. He also had the uncanny ability to defuse almost any situation by making her laugh… by making her feel good… to feel better about herself… although that same part of her mind was also trying to tell her that that had nothing to do with anything either.

  The wagon moved beyond the gates to the port, the horses threading their way between torch-lit barns and larger warehouses that, apart from one church, were the only structures Nev had so far seen that were of anything more than rudimentary, single-storey construction. Although still relatively empty, the port itself was definitely more active than the rest of the town, covering an area of several thousand square metres with four long, wooden piers stretching out into a large, sandy estuary that was sheltered by a large island to the south, and opened out into the wild expanses of Deepwater Strait to the east and west.

  Other carts and wagons moved this way and that, with dockworkers loading and unl
oading by completely inadequate torchlight. All four piers were crowded on both sides with a huge variety of vessels large and small that included, Nev realised with surprise, both sailing ships and oared galleys. Many appeared to be civilian ships, but there were definitely a few warships among them and all of those were larger triremes and quadriremes, their tiered banks of oars set in a raised position as they lay at anchor.

  “There’s somethin’ big afoot,” Godfrey noted with suspicion, staring out at the moored vessels through the windows on his side. “Harald usually keeps his navy over at The Long Pier – they wouldn’t be anchored here unless they’ve run out of room…”

  “There’s a bit been going on while you’ve been coolin’ yer heels over Crookhaven way,” Arleigh advised, calling back from the driver’s position. “Harald’s reached agreement on a treaty with Huon…”

  “A ‘treaty’…?” Godfrey snorted, making no effort to hide his disbelief. “Is Phaesus so simple he believes that would ever happen? Harald would sell his own grandmother into slavery… and kill his ma to get to her…”

  “Aye, that’s my thoughts on the matter too,” Arleigh agreed with a shrug as he hauled back on the reins and once again brought the horses to a halt, this time at the jetty, close to the easternmost pier. “No one asked me what I thought, though, and there’s to be a signing all the same… the whole bloody fleet’s setting sail for Huon to attend some big ceremony in a few days’ time, where they’re gonna sign this thing and be done with it all. Everyone’s crowin’ about how it’ll be the ‘end of war’, or some such rubbish…”