Dragon Weather

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  When he was in the mine he had often dreamed of returning there, and now, if he chose, he could—who would stop him?

  But why should he? Nothing remained of Obsidian but ruins. Sweet had told him, one long night last winter when he and she had exchanged reminiscences, that the village was never rebuilt; a place that dragons had destroyed was considered cursed, forever unsafe.

  The thought of Sweet troubled him; he seemed to see her face in the western sky. He felt guilty that he was here, rather than back in Manfort searching for her.

  He could never have found her and rescued her as the ignorant naïf he had been before meeting Black, though. He was not yet ready to make his bit of justice in the world, not yet ready to free her and avenge poor Rose. Thinking about Sweet could only distract him from more immediate concerns; he would come back for her in time.

  He once more turned his attention to the town they were entering.

  So this, he thought, was Benth-in-Tara, where his grandfather had long ago come to trade. And now here he was, following in Grandsir’s footsteps—but nobody here would be interested in swords or daggers.

  He had not thought of that when stocking his wagon; of course the caravan made other stops on its way south, and he had brought nothing to sell at any of them.

  That might be an expensive oversight. He frowned.

  “A day here,” he said. “What’s the next trading stop, then?”

  “Jumpwater, I think,” Quickhand said.

  “And after that?”

  Quickhand thought for a moment, then ticked off the names on his fingers.

  “Blasted Oak, Sadar, Cork Tree, Stonebreak,” he said. “Then we get to the Desolation, and from there there’s nothing until we reach the Borderlands, and where we go depends on what road the masters choose.”

  “There’s more than one road?”

  “There are at least three routes across the Desolation, and they branch further on the other side.”

  “And what determines which route we take?”

  Quickhand shrugged. “News and rumor in Stonebreak, the weather, any signs or omens we might encounter … whatever the masters hear and see.”

  Arlian frowned. It all seemed too vague and poorly planned for his liking.

  “It’s in the southern part of the Desolation that Black and I are going to earn our pay,” Quickhand remarked. “That’s bandit country, where the roads come down off the high plateau and wind through the canyons.”

  “Not until then?”

  Quickhand shrugged again. “Oh, maybe,” he said. “If we weren’t here there would probably be burglars and sneak thieves slipping into the wagons in every town, but who would dare tackle a group this size, even if they were just merchants?” He gestured at the long line of wagons trailing behind them. “Even merchants can put up a fight, after all.”

  “But then how do the bandits in the Desolation operate?” Arlian asked. “How can there be enough to attack this large a group, but few enough that a dozen or so guards can handle them?”

  “The canyons,” Quickhand explained. “They can block the road, trap the whole caravan, with just a few men, and then starve the caravan into submission. A dozen good fighters can drive them away and keep them away while the others clear the road.” He paused, then added, “Usually. They have other tricks, as well—they’ll try to split the caravan, or disable a few wagons so they can loot them, or take a few prisoners they can ransom.”

  “Oh,” Arlian said. Just then he caught sight of a curious structure ahead, at the very heart of Benth-in-Tara—a single vast roof supported on a forest of pillars, its sides and interior open. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “The marketplace,” Quickhand explained, as he steered the plodding oxen directly toward it.

  The caravan rolled into the marketplace and formed up in three lines beneath the roof—one along either side, and one down the shady center. The guard wagon, which had no goods to display, was in the center—and Arlian’s own wagon was right next to it.

  When they had stopped, as the other wagons were still rolling into position, Arlian leaped to the ground and greeted Black, who had already disembarked.

  “Nothing to sell here?” Black asked.

  Arlian shook his head. “I didn’t think of it,” he said. “Foolish of me.”

  “Ah,” Black said. “And here I thought you’d done it deliberately, so I’d have more time to thrash you tomorrow.”

  Arlian smiled; sure enough, he realized, if he had nothing to trade on trading day, he could devote the time entirely to his swordsmanship.

  Word of the caravan’s arrival was spreading rapidly through the surrounding farms and villages, and the next day brought hundreds of people flooding into town, eager to see what treasures the caravan might be carrying—even though most of them couldn’t afford to buy anything.

  Arlian and Black left the crowds behind and found an open field just outside town, left fallow this year and now green with weeds and sprinkled with wildflowers. There Arlian took up a dull-edged practice sword and a wooden swordbreaker, and faced off against Black, blinking in the bright summer sun.

  The day after, as the last straggling customers headed homeward and the caravan began rolling again, Arlian was no longer smiling; Black had indeed thrashed him, figuratively and almost literally. They had fought only with blunted practice blades, but Arlian still had a dozen cuts on his chest and arms, all of which had been treated with brandy and bandaged. He also had a scratch across one cheek deemed too small for bandaging, as well as innumerable bruises received not only from the practice weapons, but when dodging had slammed him against a tree or rock, or when he had dodged or parried a stroke of Black’s blade only to receive a punch or kick, or when he had fallen to get out of the path of Black’s blade.

  He had thought he was making progress in his lessons, but the day spent in Benth-in-Tara had shown him how far he still had to go. For the first time Black had moved beyond the basics and a few simple practice moves into real fencing, and he had demonstrated that he was able to cut Arlian at will, while turning aside every assault Arlian attempted.

  Arlian overcame his initial resentment at this brutal treatment by reminding himself that Lord Dragon might well be as good a swordsman as Black, or better, and Lord Dragon would not hold back, would not stop his blows as soon as they cut cloth or drew blood. He knew that Black, in his brutality, was really doing him a kindness.

  But as he sat on the seat beside Quickhand, the cuts stinging and bandages tugging with every bounce the wagon took, it didn’t feel like a kindness.

  The evening lessons on the road returned to the less-strenuous mode of demonstration and practice, rather than actual combat, but at Jumpwater, six days later, another trading day meant another all-out training session.

  Jumpwater had no covered market like Benth-in-Tara’s, but a series of three broad terraces on the road that wound down the slope toward the Forest River. The wagons lined up on those terraces above the town, and merchants were able to display their goods to the entire population of Jumpwater simultaneously.

  Arlian still had no goods to display. The road out of Jumpwater now led across a sturdy wooden bridge, but Black took Arlian down to the rapids, and they fought on the stones that had once been the only way across the river and which had given the town its name.

  Arlian’s only consolations were that he received significantly fewer cuts and bruises, and two of the three times he fell in the water he was able to pull himself out before Black could come to his aid.

  Ten days after that, at Blasted Oak, while the merchants did their business in the great central square around the shrine that supposedly sheltered the stump of the blasted oak itself, Arlian met Black in a field behind the brewery. There he actually managed to counter one of Black’s lunges and draw blood from the back of the older man’s hand—whereupon Black announced that Arlian was getting too familiar with his opponent’s style, and set the other guards to taking turns in sparring w
ith Lord Ari when they weren’t occupied in keeping order at the caravan market.

  None of the others attacked as fiercely as Black, but Arlian discovered that Black had been right—several of the others were able to get past his guard by making moves that Black had never tried.

  As he lay on the thin mattress in his wagon that night, wishing he had paid the money for a featherbed at the local inn so that his bruises wouldn’t hurt quite so much, he began to wonder whether he would ever be a real swordsman. There was so much to learn! How could anyone ever learn to counter every possible move, in every possible style? Black insisted that wasn’t necessary, that there were patterns he could learn, but Arlian did not yet see them.

  At Sadar he began to see them.

  Sadar had no true marketplace, and they were out of the forest once more and onto an open plain; the caravan simply lined up along the road south of town. Black led Arlian out onto the empty plain to practice amid the tall grass.

  Summer was just past its peak, and the weather had grown steadily warmer as they moved further south, so the fighting there was done bare-chested and dripping with sweat. Arlian found that this made defense easier; he could see his opponent’s muscles start to tense before the sword itself moved.

  Perhaps that was the extra bit of information he needed, or perhaps something simply fell into place, but he found himself moving his own sword to parry his opponent’s before he was consciously aware that Black had attacked. It simply felt right.

  Up until now exchanges had mostly been quick—typically feint, parry, thrust, parry, and then a touch or a break. Now, though, Arlian found himself launching into sustained bouts, where his blade and Black’s would dart and clash for minute after minute before one of them left an opening or stepped back to regroup.

  Arlian received only a single cut after that, and few bruises.

  A fortnight later, at Cork Tree, while the merchants did what business they could in pouring rain, Arlian and the other guards fought in dripping shirts in the yard behind a slaughterhouse. At midafternoon, Arlian left a red welt on the side of Black’s neck.

  Black smiled at him. “If you’d been using a real sword I’d be dead or dying,” he said. He touched Arlian’s forehead with the tip of his own mock weapon and flipped a lock of wet hair aside. “See why I keep mine short?”

  “I’ll cut it later,” Arlian said with an exhausted grin.

  At Stonebreak the caravan set up along the base of the cliff, and the masters demanded that the guards stay close by, and maintain a careful watch—while this wasn’t yet bandit territory, the locals were not entirely trustworthy. Arlian and Black were therefore only able to manage an hour or two of practice, no more than on most evenings when the caravan was traveling.

  Black and Quickhand were now working together, so that Arlian could practice fighting multiple opponents; after all, bandits didn’t usually stage formal duels.

  From Stonebreak the caravan made its way up the ravine, into the Desolation. Rumors passed up and down the chain of wagons as to which route the masters would choose when they emerged onto the plateau.

  Everyone agreed that the direct route, the straight line across the high desert, would not be safe—the summer had been fairly dry, and the Midway Waterhole would almost certainly be empty, which would mean dead oxen and disaster.

  That left the Low Road, around the western rim of the plateau, safe but slow, and the Eastern Road, much shorter and reasonably well watered but through rough country.

  Arlian hoped for the Eastern Road; he was impatient to get back to Manfort. He knew that he was now at least an adequate swordsman—still no expert, but adequate—and wanted to get on with his plans for rescue and revenge.

  The trail up the ravine was hardly a road at all, Arlian noticed; there were no wheel ruts to be seen, nor any sort of marker. It was simply the route where there were no rocks in the path big enough to stop a wagon. He commented on this—he had to speak loudly to be heard over the wind that howled overhead, above the ravine.

  Quickhand shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing up here but the Desolation,” he called back, “and nobody goes through the Desolation except the one or two caravans a year bound for the Borderlands. That’s not enough to make a real road.”

  “And the roads across the Desolation…”

  “They’re like this. The Low Road has a few markings so people won’t lose the path; the Desert Road doesn’t. I’ve never been on the eastern route.”

  Arlian nodded. They rode on, until they finally emerged from the top of the ravine and Arlian saw the Desolation.

  He stared out at it in dismay.

  For as far as he could see there was nothing ahead of them but brown stone and golden sand; the thin stream that had cut the ravine was hidden in its stony bed, showing only as a black line across bare stone. Not a single blade of grass, not a single speck of green, could be seen anywhere. Hot wind swept across it, stirring the sand.

  Arlian leaned to the side and looked back, past his own wagon, past the caravan. The ravine’s curves hid the route they had followed to reach this height, but he could see across the stony plateau to the cliffs.

  Beyond those cliffs the world below was still green; he could see green faintly through the summer haze. That was a comforting reminder.

  He turned forward again.

  Black had stopped the guard wagon by the crack in the stone, and was climbing down. Quickhand directed Arlian’s own wagon to stop beside him.

  “We’ll want to top off every water barrel,” Black called. “And while we’re doing that the masters can settle our route.” He turned and squinted at the wasteland. “Doesn’t seem too bad,” he said. “I’ve seen it worse.”

  Arlian swallowed; his throat was suddenly dry. “How could it be worse?” he called.

  Black looked up at him. “The wind could be stronger, the sun brighter, the air hotter. If we’d been here earlier, at midsummer, I’m sure it would have been worse.”

  “Oh,” Arlian said.

  “It’s a tricky matter, timing a southbound caravan,” Black remarked. “Too soon, and the summer heat will kill you. Too late, and the streams will have dried up and you’ll die of thirst. I think we’ve hit it about right.”

  Arlian looked out at the aptly named Desolation.

  “Oh,” he said again.

  If this was right, he hoped never to see wrong.

  21

  The Eastern Road

  They took the Eastern Road.

  Arlian thought calling it a “road” was sorely misleading; “taking the Eastern Road” just meant circling around the utterly barren sands at the heart of the Desolation on the eastern side until they reached one of the defiles leading down from the plateau.

  This route would bring them to the eastern Borderlands; a few of the merchants grumbled that they’d have made a better profit to the west, but most were pleased. Arlian didn’t know enough to have an opinion either way.

  Navigation on the Eastern Road was simple enough, even though there were no markers; keep the sands always on your right, and stay on bare stone. Boulders, rockslides, and breaks in the stone too wide for a wagon wheel to cross—and all three were numerous—meant detours. In several places the “road” led across immense, tilted slabs of rock; some of the upward-sloping examples of these were steep enough that the oxen couldn’t manage them unaided, and the riders had to get out and push. A few were so extreme that oxen had to be shared and the wagons hauled up the slope in shifts. On downward slopes the wheelbrakes were used to keep the wagons from running away and running into their own oxen, and riders would walk alongside, ready to grab if the brakes started to slip. When anyone spotted a hole in the stone the entire caravan would come to a halt while buckets dredged up the trapped water.

  Arlian wondered how these holes had formed, but no one had an answer. They were simply part of the Desolation; each spring the rains filled them, and until they dried out they made it possible for caravans to get across withou
t dying of thirst, and without hauling insanely huge quantities of water up the ravine from Stonebreak. The limited water supply was the reason only a single caravan each year could rely on safely crossing the Desolation by each of the three routes.

  The caravan traveled as far and as fast each day as the oxen and the terrain would allow; there was no reason to linger in this ghastly wasteland. By day the sun and hot wind baked them dry; by night the wind was cooler, almost pleasant, and most of the caravan’s personnel slept out on the rocks, under the stars, rather than in their stifling, overheated wagons.

  It never rained in the Desolation in the summer. The more experienced travelers laughed at the very idea. Rain fell heavily enough in the cold months, sometimes flooding dangerously across the stone and turning the sand into treacherous muck, but in the summer the Desolation was always utterly dry.

  The sun beat down relentlessly from the cloudless sky, and despite the heat Arlian began wearing a broad-brimmed coachman’s hat to shade his face from that withering glare. He had bought the hat back in Manfort, at Black’s urging, but had never expected to use the thing; now he found it indispensable. As usual, Black had been right.

  As the days passed the terrain grew even worse, and more detours were required; they passed broken stones that Arlian thought might be ruins of some sort—but who would ever have built anything here, in the Desolation?

  He also found odd marks in the stone on occasion. At one point he noticed a set of three parallel grooves, almost like claw marks—though they were too large for claw marks, and what could claw solid stone?

  Other than dragons, of course.

  Some of the waterholes were not mere holes, but caves, reaching deep into the stone beneath their feet. One day, as they were pulling water up from one of these, Arlian remarked, “I wonder if any of these connect to the caverns where the dragons sleep?”

  Black threw him a sharp glance. “I doubt it,” he said.