Dragon Weather

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Finally, though, as they maneuvered around a pillar, Enziet made a thrust, Arlian’s parry slammed both swords against the pillar, and Enziet’s blade snapped, no more than five inches from the guard.

  Enziet reacted quickly, flinging the broken, useless stump at Arlian and running backward, away from his foe, before Arlian could strike him down.

  Arlian recovered quickly from his surprise; the hilt of Enziet’s sword glanced harmlessly from one ear as he dodged, and then he was in pursuit.

  As he fled, Enziet had transferred his swordbreaker from his left hand to his right; now he turned, standing just below the ledge where the lamp sat, and faced Arlian.

  Arlian paused. “No quarter, you said,” he reminded Lord Dragon breathlessly.

  “And I expect none,” Enziet replied, gasping. “But on another point, I’ve reconsidered.”

  “Oh?”

  “You wanted to know the secret of how the dragons reproduce,” Enziet said. “I’ve decided to show you.”

  “What, you’d play for more time? Lead me down into a trap?” Arlian shook his head. “I don’t think so. You’ll die right here.”

  “Indeed I will,” Enziet said, “and it’s here that you’ll see a dragon born.” He turned the point of his swordbreaker toward his own chest. “I’ve felt it coming for months,” he said. “I knew it would come in time, however I fought, but I’ve denied just how close it was.”

  “What are you talking about?” Arlian asked.

  Enziet smiled crookedly. “You thought that when we spoke of dragons in our hearts, we were speaking figuratively. You’re about to see just how literal we were.”

  With that, he plunged the swordbreaker into his own heart, and cut downward convulsively with his dying breath.

  Arlian gasped and stepped back in shock.

  Blood gushed from Enziet’s chest—but it did not spill to the ground as it should have. Instead it expanded and writhed like a snake, curling upward in a solidifying stream. Enziet’s chest rippled as Drisheen’s had, but the movement did not subside; instead it burst Enziet apart, and a creature, born of Enziet’s heart’s blood, stepped forth from the ruined corpse and stood upon four crooked, unsteady legs. It raised its blood-red head, opened golden eyes, and glared at Arlian; a mouth appeared and opened, and Arlian saw needle-sharp, gleaming-white teeth spring forth from its jaw. Wings unfolded from the monster’s back, and it was a dragon, a bright red dragon, standing man-high, with a twelve-foot wingspan and extending perhaps fifteen feet from its newly formed nose to the tip of the soft red tail it had uncoiled from Enziet’s belly.

  Arlian stared at it open-mouthed, the sword drooping, forgotten, in his hand.

  The dragon stepped toward him, and he scrambled backward, bumping heedlessly against rocks and stalagmites. He dared not take his eyes off the dragon for even an instant. He raised the sword to high guard.

  He was suddenly struck by a thought that sent terror through him—what if that thing that had emerged from Enziet’s body were to knock the lamp from the ledge, and plunge the cave into darkness? He doubted it needed the light; it could probably smell him. Even the slight chance of survival he had would be gone if the light died—unless he could get out, into daylight, before it caught him.

  Could it fit up the stairs? Would it pursue him?

  It had somehow fit inside Enziet, like a chick in an egg; he had to assume that yes, it could fit anywhere it chose to. As Enziet had told him, dragons were magic made flesh.

  And there were at least five more dragons asleep in the cavern below, if Enziet had told the truth—and Enziet had certainly proven part of his story to be accurate. What if this newborn monster were to tumble down the pit and wake them?

  Enziet had also said that while a mature dragon might be indestructible, he knew how to kill the dragons’ unborn young. It was clear to Arlian that he had meant by killing their hosts—and Arlian suddenly realized that in his quest for vengeance he had already slain unborn dragons in Drisheen and Horim—but perhaps a newborn, like this one, was also vulnerable.

  If he could kill this dragon he might yet be saved. And every second he waited might be making the thing harder to kill.

  With a yell, he raised his sword and charged the thing.

  The dragon lowered its head and spat venom at him, but it was a feeble gesture; the spray of venom was thin and weak, falling harmlessly to the stone, and it utterly failed to ignite. A faint wisp of smoke appeared, no more.

  Then Arlian jabbed at the dragon’s chest, striking as hard as he could—and the sword slipped off, wrenching sideways in his hands. The blood-red hide still looked soft and smooth, but he might as well have tried to pierce an anvil. Cold iron might have power against magic in the Borderlands, but good steel could not cut a dragon’s hide.

  Before he could recover his balance the dragon struck out with a foreclaw, swatting Arlian aside as if he were a mouse; he slammed against the cave wall, the breath knocked out of him, his back severely bruised.

  The dragon stepped away from Enziet’s corpse, shaking torn bits of flesh and cloth from its claws; it shook itself out, like a dog shaking off water, then stretched like a cat.

  Its claws gouged into solid stone.

  Arlian scrambled to his feet, his useless sword still in his hand, and the dragon turned to look at him.

  He met its gaze, and a flood of memories came back—of how he had looked into a black dragon’s face there in his parents’ pantry, ten years before, and had known he would know that face instantly if he ever saw it again; of how he had seen Lord Dragon on horseback, looking down at him as if he were no more than an insect; of how both Black and Wither had looked at his face and told him he had the heart of a dragon; of how the members of the Dragon Society knew one another on sight.

  Arlian knew this dragon. He knew those eyes. He had seen them before, in another color and another body. They were different now, larger and inhuman, but they were still, unmistakably, Lord Enziet’s eyes.

  The dragon smiled at him, a fierce, hungry smile.

  Enziet had sworn that only one of them would leave this cave alive—and while he might have cast aside his humanity and his old body, Arlian was quite sure that this dragon was somehow still Enziet.

  And it still meant to kill him.

  Arlian tried to think what he could do, how he might find a weakness. His sword could not cut that sleek red hide—but what about the black inside the monster’s mouth? What of its golden eyes? The thin red membranes of its wings?

  He charged it, sword raised, and though it made no sound he thought he could hear Enziet’s laughter. It made no move to dodge or counter, but simply stood there as he plunged his sword into its mouth, down its black throat.

  Then it bit down.

  He barely snatched his hand free as the dragon’s teeth shattered his sword; he stepped back, horrified, as it swallowed the fragments and then smiled at him again, Enziet’s crooked, sardonic smile.

  Arlian dropped the hilt and switched his swordbreaker to his right hand, as Enziet had done. He circled to one side.

  The dragon stood where it was, but turned its head, watching him.

  Then Arlian suddenly sped up, running wildly across the rough stone floor, scattering shards of stone as he ran; he turned, and ran right up to the monster. He grabbed its serpentine neck to steady himself, and with all his strength plunged the swordbreaker down on one of those great golden eyes.

  The blade snapped off with a sudden twang, sending the broken chunk of steel spinning off to the side, and the shock of the impact knocked the hilt from his grip, bruising his fingers; his wrist went numb, and pain shot up his arm.

  The dragon shook itself, sending Arlian flying, and he slammed back against the cave wall again, this time hitting sideways. Pain blazed. He heard something crack—probably one of his ribs.

  He was injured, perhaps serious, and unarmed, both his blades broken, and all he had done was amuse the dragon. It wasn’t even annoyed, judging by its exp
ression—and a dragon’s face, though not as mobile, somehow managed to be at least as expressive as a man’s.

  Enziet’s silent laughter filled Arlian’s thoughts as he struggled to his feet.

  Even though he knew a steel blade couldn’t pierce the dragon’s hide, Arlian still wanted one—he felt naked facing an enemy unarmed. Both his own weapons were broken, as was Enziet’s sword—but Enziet’s swordbreaker was intact.

  And, Arlian remembered, that was the blade that had given birth to this abomination; perhaps that would endow it with special potency.

  Half running, half staggering, Arlian hurried to Enziet’s corpse, behind the dragon. The dragon started to turn, but found itself awkwardly positioned, confined by a stone pillar and a low section of stalactite-encrusted ceiling; Arlian was able to reach the body unhindered.

  The swordbreaker was still clutched in Enziet’s dead fingers; Arlian started to pry it loose, looking up to see what the dragon was doing.

  The monster had disentangled itself and turned, and was advancing, jaws agape.

  Arlian, anticipating a spray of venom, ducked—and the venom missed him by inches.

  As he moved, Arlian saw something, tangled in Enziet’s ruined clothing—the hilt of another knife, a dagger.

  That would not have the unique puissance of the sword-breaker, but he snatched for it anyway, and came away with the swordbreaker in one hand, the dagger in the other—just in time to make a rolling dive sideways as the dragon lunged for him.

  He rolled away—a painful operation, with his bruises and cracked rib, but he forced himself to ignore the pain, as he had often done in the mines. When he was clear of the dragon’s attack he tried to spring to his feet, but instead found himself crouched on one knee as agony laced his side where he had just pulled a muscle right where Enziet’s sword had cut him. His eyes closed involuntarily; when he could force them open again he saw the dragon glaring at him.

  Now it was annoyed.

  He took that as a hopeful sign, and raised the sword-breaker, ready to strike if the dragon lunged.

  The monster obliged, raising its head up as its long neck curved into an S, then striking at him like a snake.

  Arlian dodged and made a strike of his own, plunging the swordbreaker at the dragon’s throat.

  It glanced off harmlessly.

  “Blood and death,” Arlian muttered, as he fell back. He lifted the dagger in a meaningless defensive gesture.

  For the first time he saw the dagger’s blade, and realized that it was black—not the black of iron or enamel, but the gleaming, glassy black of obsidian.

  Enziet had said he had a use for obsidian.

  Enziet had thought there might be a way to kill a dragon, or at least so he had said, and he had been researching it.

  Enziet had been on his way to steal a dragon’s venom—might he have brought something he thought might protect him?

  Obsidian had power against fire and darkness, Rime had told him.

  Arlian plunged the dagger into the dragon’s throat.

  The black blade sliced into that impervious red flesh as if the dragon’s hide were cheese.

  The dragon screamed, an ear-wracking sound like nothing Arlian had ever heard before; it reared back wildly, smashing stalactites to powder with its wings and head, and slashed at Arlian with its foreclaws.

  He dodged one, but the other tore strips of flesh from his shoulder; he gasped at the surge of fresh pain, and struck again with the obsidian dagger.

  He cut clean through one foreleg, crippling the dragon; the severed claw turned to blood as it fell, and splashed across Arlian’s leg.

  The dragon screamed again, and Arlian felt something pop in one ear.

  The thing was hobbling, not sure how to move on three legs, but its head reared back, then struck at him again.

  He met it with the point of the dagger, jamming his hand directly into the dragon’s mouth and driving the blade up into its brain—or trying to.

  It choked, and spat his arm out in a gush of blood, but it still lived, and was still on the attack.

  Just then a faint light appeared where no light had been. The dragon turned to look.

  Arlian hacked at its neck, hoping he could do to its head what he had done to its claw, but the blade would not penetrate that far—the obsidian wasn’t long enough, and the wound closed once the blade had passed through, leaving an ugly scar but not doing any obvious real damage.

  “By the dead gods!” someone called. “Arlian!”

  The dragon roared in anger and started toward the steps, trying to separate Arlian from this intruder—but that meant turning its back to Arlian, who seized his opportunity. He rammed the obsidian knife into the dragon’s side over and over, his hand rising and falling as quickly as his tired, strained muscles could drive it.

  The dragon screamed and writhed, twisting to strike at him, and he felt a spray of venom across one cheek, venom that burned like fire, but he did not stop. Each new blow cut deep, but each cut closed, and no blood flowed.

  And then he struck again, one last time, and it was as if a dam had burst—blood was everywhere, and the dragon seemed to dissolve around him.

  Then he was lying in a pool of glistening blood, and impaled upon his stolen stone dagger was a human heart.

  Enziet’s heart.

  He stared at it for a long moment, then let go of the dagger’s hilt and let his head fall back. Pain and exhaustion boiled up in him, burning the strength from his limbs, and the world vanished in a red and black haze as he lost consciousness.

  * * *

  After a time he had no way to measure Arlian was vaguely aware of being carried somewhere, and of impossibly bright light; then he was laid upon his back on something hard, the light all around him. He heard voices, but could not be troubled to distinguish words.

  Simply breathing was all the effort he could handle.

  After what seemed years he realized that the light was daylight, that he was outside the cave. He observed two shadows, and came to see that they were people leaning over him, blocking out that blinding sky. They were speaking to him, saying his name.

  “I’m alive,” he said, as much to himself as to them, but they understood. One of them fell away, out of his field of vision, and was gone.

  The other fell silent, but remained there, looking down at him. Black against the sky, the face was not recognizable.

  “Sleep, Ari,” the face said at last, and Arlian recognized Black’s voice.

  “Yes,” he said. And he slept.

  When he awoke again he was on his cot in the wagon; the sky outside the windows was dark, but a lantern shone comfortingly over the door. He started to sit up, then thought better of it when pain shot through his side.

  “He’s moving!” a woman’s voice called, and he turned his head to see Brook sitting on a trunk at his side.

  “Give him water,” Rime’s voice replied, which struck Arlian as a very fine idea. A moment later Brook held a waterskin to his mouth and he sucked greedily.

  He was only awake for a few minutes before dozing off again, but it was enough to assure everyone that he was still alive and intended to stay that way.

  After that he recovered quickly. His wounds were painful, but not critical; most of the cuts and gouges were already scabbed over, the bruises already making the transition from purple to golden-yellow. He had not lost any limbs. His right wrist was broken, and at least three ribs were cracked, rather than the one he had thought, but his injuries would heal—except, perhaps, a burn on one cheek that he knew, but did not say, had been left by the newborn dragon’s venom.

  He would live, and he would heal. He was, as Rime pointed out, a dragonheart.

  That reminder sobered Arlian. He lay in silent thought for a long time—by this point he was capable of sitting up, and even walking, but still found it painful.

  “Who found me?” he asked. “Who was it who came down into that cave?”

  “Black,” Rime told hi
m. “I couldn’t get down the stairs in time, with my leg. The others stayed in the wagon.”

  “Just Black?”

  “Just Black.”

  “Bring him here.”

  “He’s driving. We’re heading back for Stonebreak, and we need to keep moving if we don’t want to run out of water. You can talk to him later.”

  Arlian accepted that.

  “Thirif and Shibiel aren’t going on to the south?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “No,” Rime said. “They decided not to risk it.”

  Arlian nodded.

  That night, when they had made camp, Arlian asked Black, “What did you see down there?”

  “In the cave?”

  Arlian nodded.

  “You were fighting something,” Black said. “Something big and red, but I couldn’t see it clearly. You were hitting it, or stabbing it, and it was thrashing around, and then all at once it seemed to vanish, and you collapsed. Then I came down and found you lying in a pool of blood, and a few feet away…” He frowned. “What happened to Enziet? You didn’t cut him up like that, did you?”

  Arlian had had time to anticipate that question. “It was sorcery,” he said. “Or maybe some other sort of magic. I’m not sure what it was. Enziet made it, but it turned on him, and then when he was dead it attacked me.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know,” Arlian lied. “It had claws and teeth, but it wasn’t solid, and when I had cut it enough it vanished.”

  Black nodded. “Sorcery and illusion,” he said.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d seen it at all,” Arlian said. “I’m glad you did, so you can confirm that I’m not mad, and that Enziet is truly dead.”

  “I saw it. And he’s definitely dead.”

  Arlian smiled grimly at that.

  He didn’t say anything about dragons, didn’t mention Enziet’s heart or any ancient secrets. He was not ready to reveal the truth. He was not sure he would ever be ready.

  After all, he was the one man in all the world who knew the secret of the dragons, the secret Enziet had kept for a thousand years.