Dragon Weather

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Arlan looked at the colorless landscape, at the black emptiness where the bandit had vanished. There was nothing useful he could do; reluctantly, he obeyed Black’s command.

  He awoke at dawn, as usual, and the caravan was rolling again before the sun had cleared the horizon. One ox was bandaged but mobile; another was dead, and was unceremoniously dumped atop the opening where the archer had vanished.

  The ground was sloping downward now, and treetops were visible in the distance—but trees unlike any Arlian had ever seen before, with long, slender trunks supporting clusters of immense fronds. They grew steadily nearer as the day wore on.

  The rough stone turned gradually into something resembling a real road as the morning progressed—they were moving down a gravel-bedded wash between two stony ridges. The sand was no longer visible to the west.

  Around midday a man appeared, strangely dressed in a flowing robe, strolling easily across the gravel toward them; Black beckoned for a horseman to go meet this new arrival and report back.

  The rider conferred briefly with the stranger, then rode back to report. Arlian handed the reins to Quickhand, jumped down from his own wagon, and ran forward to hear what was said—not merely for his own information, but so he could pass the word to the other merchants while the rider reported directly to the masters.

  “He’s offering us safe passage,” the horseman explained. “For one-fourth of everything we carry.”

  Black nodded. “Go tell the masters,” he said. The rider saluted and rode off.

  “One-fourth?” Arlian exclaimed, shocked, still walking alongside the guard wagon.

  “That’s the point of those archers,” Black replied. “If we’d come this far unmolested we would have just laughed at such a demand. Now at least some of us will want to consider it.”

  “I won’t,” Arlian said.

  “And of course that settles it,” Black said. “I hadn’t realized you were the caravan master; when did that happen?”

  Arlian flushed, and said nothing more. Instead he turned and began walking back, calling out the news to each wagon as he passed.

  At last he came to the masters’ wagon; the side shutters were open, and the masters were arguing in the center. Knobs lay abed at the rear; two guards were on the rear platform, and two—one of them driving the oxen—on the front bench.

  “I’ve passed the word,” Arlian said.

  Lord Sandal turned to look at him. “And what are the sentiments of our fellow merchants?”

  “I don’t know,” Arlian admitted. “I didn’t take time to ask.” He hesitated, then added, “I don’t want to give in to extortion.”

  “That’s one,” Lady Thassa said.

  “Out of forty-two,” Lord Drens said. “It proves nothing.”

  “Are you proposing we take a vote?” Sandal demanded.

  “No, of course not,” Drens said. “But it would do no harm to know what the merchants think.”

  “Might I remind my lords,” Arlian said, “that my cargo is primarily fine weaponry. Turning one-fourth of it over to outlaws does not strike me as wise.”

  “I told you we shouldn’t have allowed him to bring those things!” Drens exclaimed.

  “Sometimes,” Thassa said angrily to Drens, “I wonder why we brought you.”

  “As the voice of caution, as I recall,” Sandal said wryly.

  “A role I do my best to fill,” Drens retorted, “since neither of you seems to have any sense of self-preservation!”

  Sandal sighed. “I had hoped we would be able to preserve the appearance of unity,” he said, “and present everyone with a unanimous decision. I take it, however, that this isn’t going to be possible.”

  “Not unless the two of you suddenly regain your sanity,” Drens said. “One-fourth of our goods is not worth my life.”

  “You put little faith in Black and his men,” Sandal said dryly. “Not to mention our own capabilities with missile and blade.”

  “I know my own abilities,” Drens said. “And one of those abilities is the ability to die if struck through the heart by one of those arrows!” He gestured at Knobs.

  “And you seem far more able than I to trust these bandits to keep their word,” Thassa replied. “Why should they settle for a fourth, when by a simple betrayal they can have all? These are men who have already fired upon us from ambush, after all. I vote to refuse.”

  “As do I,” Sandal agreed.

  “Shall I tell Black?” Arlian asked.

  “That’s my job,” called a horseman. He urged his mount forward.

  By the time Arlian reached his own wagon Black and the other guards in the lead vehicle were in their full armor, helmets, breastplates, and mail, their weapons at ready. Out ahead of them the bandits’ representative was walking, pacing the advancing caravan at long bowshot.

  “Give him our reply,” Black ordered, pointing.

  Half a dozen men raised bows, and half a dozen arrows flew.

  “But he’s unarmed!” Arlian protested—too late. The outlaw fell, screaming, with an arrow in his thigh.

  “By all the dead gods!” Black exclaimed. “You hit him! Good shooting!”

  Arlian ran up alongside the lead wagon. “But he was just a messenger!” he called.

  “He’s a bandit,” Black said. “Besides, I just thought we’d scare him away—I didn’t expect a hit at this range!” He marveled again at the sight of the wounded bandit lying on the gravel, clutching his leg.

  “He can’t take our response back to the bandits now,” Arlian said.

  Black turned to stare at him. “And you think that’s bad?” he said. “You want them to be warned?”

  Arlian opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stopped walking, letting the wagon pull away.

  Black turned to the horseman, ignoring Arlian. “Go see if he wants to surrender,” Black ordered. “And kill him if he doesn’t.”

  “Should I retrieve the arrows, if I see them?”

  Black shook his head. “You’d have to dismount. We’ll get them when the caravan reaches them.”

  Arlian’s own wagon came alongside him, and he jumped aboard. He hesitated, and then instead of seating himself next to Quickhand he ducked inside and found his helmet and mail.

  The bandit surrendered and was lifted aboard the lead wagon, where Black questioned him intently—but quietly; Arlian could not overhear anything of the discussion.

  Word was passed, though.

  “They’ll attack tomorrow,” Stabber told Arlian and Quickhand. “He swears he doesn’t know exactly when, but Black says it’ll probably be right after dawn, before we get out of this defile into open country. They’ve got plans to trap us and disable the wagons, but this boy didn’t know any details.”

  Arlian nodded, and Stabber moved on to the next wagon in line.

  Quickhand sighed with relief. “Tomorrow,” he said. “That gives us time to prepare a little.”

  Arlian nodded—but frowned.

  When the messenger didn’t return, wouldn’t the bandits realize their man might have been captured alive? Would they really expect him to have kept his mouth shut?

  Arlian knew that had he been the bandit leader he would have had an alternate plan. He would attack tonight.

  But Black and the others must surely have thought of that.

  For the next half hour they rode on in silence, but the thought that they were riding into a trap nagged relentlessly at Arlian, and finally he could stand it no more. He dropped to the ground and ran forward to catch Black’s wagon.

  Black listened calmly to Arlian’s concerns, then nodded.

  “You may be right,” he said. “But if they’re planning to trap us, then they must have set it up well beforehand, and I doubt it could readily be moved. Still, we’ll want to be very careful tonight.”

  That did very little to allay Arlian’s worries, but he reluctantly returned to his own wagon. He couldn’t tolerate doing nothing, though, so despite the sweltering heat he again
donned his mail shirt and helmet.

  It was less than an hour later, while the sun still hung high above the western ridge, that the trap was sprung.

  The gravel road had turned into the bed of a steep-sided canyon, sloping steeply downward between jagged, uneven stone walls; even with brakes set the wagons tended to slide forward on the loose gravel, and the oxen were holding the wagons back as much as pulling them, squalling unhappily about it. The animals could undoubtedly be heard for a mile in either direction, Arlian thought—and perhaps that had been what allowed the bandits to carry out their attack with such perfect timing.

  Arlian had been watching his own oxen struggling to keep their footing, and keeping an eye on his wagon to make sure it wasn’t going to slide out of control, when he happened to catch sight of a rock on the canyon wall that appeared to be moving under its own power.

  He started to say something, to call a warning or a question, but then the rock tumbled free and a rope sprang up from beneath it, snapping taut.

  More rocks tumbled, and more ropes appeared, and the gravel ahead of Arlian’s oxen suddenly showered upward as an immense net burst up from concealment—between Arlian and the lead wagon.

  Even as the oxen struggled to turn aside before plunging into this unexpected barrier, and the wagon slewed sideways on the gravel, Arlian saw what the bandits had done. Heavy ropes had been run up either side of the canyon, hidden behind outcroppings, stuffed down into crevices, or covered with loose stone, and on cue these ropes had been pulled, hard, snapping them up out of their hiding places.

  And these cables supported a gigantic rope mesh extending the entire width of the canyon; when the ropes were pulled the top of the net sprang up to a height of ten or twelve feet, while the base remained hidden in the gravel. This net had been completely buried under the loose stone of the road, impossible to detect until it was too late.

  On the other side of the net most of the guards had leaped from their wagon, which Black was struggling to stop; now they ran up to the net, blades naked in their hands.

  But on the north side, where Arlian was, bandits had appeared along the ridgetops, arrows nocked, bows raised and ready—at least a score of them, all in those flowing red-and-white robes.

  “Get down!” Quickhand barked, ducking back into the wagon. Arlian barely heard him over the lowing of frightened oxen and the shouting of angry men.

  One of the bandits was making his way carefully down the slope toward the caravan; he appeared to be shouting something, but Arlian couldn’t distinguish his voice over the din.

  On the other side of the net Black was standing in the open-shuttered and now halted guard wagon, holding the wounded captive upright by the front of his shirt.

  “You lied to us, you little bastard!” Black bellowed, in a voice that somehow carried clearly to Arlian over the chaos.

  The prisoner said something in reply, but Arlian couldn’t hear it.

  The other guards were hacking at the huge net, but making little progress; the ropes were as thick as a man’s forearm and tarred with something that stuck to sword blades. That, and the springiness, made it almost impossible to cut through.

  Arlian jumped to the ground, sword ready. He refused to hide in his wagon.

  Someone farther back in the line was shouting for quiet, and the voices, both human and ox, were dying away as the caravan came to a full stop, the situation became clear, and the confusion began to fade.

  “Surrender!” the bandit on the slope called. “We’ll take half your goods as toll, and then you’re free to go!”

  “Half?” Arlian wasn’t the only one to shout that back angrily.

  “You have until I count ten, and then my archers will loose!” the bandit spokesman cried down.

  Arlian ignored him, and turned to the net.

  Trapping seven of the guards on the other side was clever—but not that clever. “Climb over!” Arlian shouted. “Two of you hold it steady for the others, then two steady it from this side for the last two!”

  “Do as he says!” Black called.

  “Five!” the bandit shouted.

  “Quickly!” Arlian screamed. “And dive for cover when you’re over! Under the wagons!”

  “Eight!”

  Arlian suddenly realized that he should take his own advice—but if he ducked inside his wagon he would be trapped there, pinned down.

  He would take his chances, he resolved. Perhaps whatever Fate had propelled him this far from Obsidian and Deep Delving would protect him—Fate, and the armor he wore.

  “Ten! Loose!” the bandit cried—diving to the ground himself as he did. Bowstrings snapped, and a hail of arrows soared down into the canyon—but none fell near Arlian.

  That made sense, he realized as he watched the shafts rattle off wood and stone; there were perhaps thirty archers, at most, shooting at forty-five wagons—forty-four, if the lead wagon wasn’t included.

  The guards were still struggling with the net—climbing it was apparently far more difficult than Arlian had realized, since men on the ground could not steady the top few feet. “Up the slope!” Arlian called, waving frantically. “It’s not as high up there!”

  The bandits, having fired, were advancing down the slope as they drew fresh arrows from the quivers on their backs; each took two or three steps before nocking the next shaft, and then two or three more before drawing. At that rate they would reach the caravan after another half dozen volleys—which was undoubtedly the idea.

  “If we have to come down there and fight,” the bandit spokesman called, “we’ll show no mercy!”

  A bowstring snapped, and an arrow sailed past the spokesman, missing by several feet. Someone intended to resist, at any rate.

  Arlian thought his own bow was still somewhere in his wagon; he had no idea how to use it and knew it, so he had no intention of going back for it. Instead he intended to use his sword—if he could get close enough to the bandits.

  They were moving down the slopes on either side, but they were also converging toward the center of the caravan, several wagons back from Arlian’s own position; he began to run and dodge up the sloping road, changing his direction sharply whenever he heard a bowstring.

  An ox bellowed as an arrow struck meat.

  The bandit strategy was becoming clearer; they were using the arrows to keep the merchants cowering in their wagons while they were collecting into a group that would attack the central wagons one by one. The guards, isolated at either end of the line, might be unable to reach them in time.

  Arlian wasn’t about to allow them to attack unhindered, though; he might be just one man, but he could do something.

  And he saw now that he wasn’t alone—at least two of the guards from the masters’ wagon were on the ground and moving down the road to meet the bandits, and one of the horsemen was charging, sword drawn, up the canyon side toward the approaching marauders.

  The bandits shouted to one another, and the next ragged volley of arrows was concentrated on the horseman; his mount suddenly stumbled and went down, a shaft projecting from its neck.

  One of the faster-moving bandits had reached the side of the caravan; he dropped his bow and pulled a heavy mallet from beneath his robe and ran up to the nearest wagon’s rear wheel, mallet swinging.

  Arlian understood that tactic well enough; the bandits wanted to cripple some of the wagons so badly that the caravan would abandon them, trade goods still aboard. With a wordless yell, Arlian ran at the hammer-wielding southerner with his sword raised in an overhand attack.

  At the last instant the man dropped his mallet and turned; at the last instant the horror of what he was doing suddenly registered in Arlian’s mind; but it was too late. His sword plunged forward and down, into the unprotected hollow at the base of the bandit’s throat. His forward motion pushed the blade deep and thrust Arlian up against the bandit, so close he could smell the man’s stinking breath.

  The bandit’s eyes flew wide, his mouth sprang open as if to
vomit, but nothing came forth but a sort of choking gasp.

  Then Arlian heard a sound behind him; he whipped his blade free and turned, and the bandit tumbled forward, blood spurting, to land at his killer’s feet. One hand slapped limply against Arlian’s shin.

  But another bandit was upon him, this one with a wooden spear in hand, and Arlian was too busy to think about the man at his feet.

  It was only later that he realized that for the first time, he had killed a man.

  He could kill if he had to. When the time came, he could strike Lord Dragon down.

  Somehow, that knowledge failed to cheer him.

  23

  Aftermath

  The fight was long and bloody; the caravan guards were outnumbered, but better armed and better trained. The merchants for the most part proved to be useless as fighters; most were unable even to defend themselves.

  Arlian was the exception; he fought side by side with the guards, doing his part to even the odds. In the chaos of wielding sword and swordbreaker against spears and clubs, so completely different from the one-on-one sword fights of his practice bouts, he was unsure whether he killed anyone after that first assault. He knew that he drew blood many times, but beyond that he could not be certain just what effect his blows had.

  He shouted for the merchants and their families and hirelings to come out and fight, did everything he could to urge them to join in their own defense, but to no avail. Most remained huddled in their wagons and were completely useless even there.

  This was demonstrated several times by one of the bandits’ favorite tactics, which was for half a dozen men to charge into a wagon with clubs and spears and slaughter everyone aboard, then to use the wagon as a miniature fortress against the guards. The guards, outnumbered as they were, could not defend the entire long line of wagons at once and were unable to prevent these captures.

  It was Black who came up with the counter—station a man at each end of the captured wagon with orders to kill anyone who set foot outside. Two men could bottle up half a dozen bandits this way, and in fact roughly one-third of the entire raiding party was trapped in this fashion.