Knights of the Crown w-1

by Roland Green

  The lack of archery made little difference. Slowed and unslowed, ogre and human alike, the attackers started to flee downhill. At times the unslowed helped pull their slowed comrades to their feet and clear of the dragon’s smoke; at other times they let them lie or struggle.

  Pirvan found himself leading the pursuit downhill. Halfway to the foot of the hill, the path seemed to sprout half a dozen unslowed opponents. One of them threw a club at Pirvan and hit a soldier coming up behind him. Then Haimya was again on one flank, Kurulus on the other. There were only the three of them, but the taste of victory was in their mouths, and they moved faster than their opponents could have, even unslowed.

  A moment came when Pirvan realized that they faced only one opponent, though he was fighting hard enough for three. He was also shouting to comrades carrying away the wounded and others Pirvan could not see:

  “Run! Run, but not downhill! The fort has to be awake! Run, you fools, the dragon’s on your heels!”

  Pirvan wondered about that; he hadn’t heard that weird and sinister warbling for some time. Dragons were hard to kill, but what of a wounded dragon-which should be sound asleep a mile below the earth?

  Pirvan suddenly knew he would feel great sorrow at not knowing the dragon better. If there were any doubt about its being good, it had settled the matter.

  The defender of the retreat lunged forward, swinging a club and thrusting a short sword. Kurulus spun clear of the sword thrust, but not of the club. It cracked across his head, and he went down. Haimya nearly went with him, but rolled and sprang up, thrusting at the enemy’s chest.

  The thrust never went home. The ogre toppled as Pirvan lunged in from the rear, flinging his dagger. The pommel-weight drove hard against the back of the ogre’s skull, and for a second time Haimya nearly went down.

  By the time she was on her feet, Pirvan had wrestled the ogre over on to his back, to keep him from suffocating in the mud. No, make that wrestled the half-ogre.

  He was the height of a tall, muscular man, and his body’s proportions were wholly human, except for the hair. The brow ridges, the jaw line, and the shape of the skull told of the mixed blood.

  Mixed in blood, perhaps, but wholly a warrior. As the half-ogre opened his eyes, Pirvan knelt beside him.

  “Can you walk?”

  “Unh?”

  “I said, can you walk? I will let you go, but you have to walk-”

  Pirvan felt warm breath on his back. “I shouldn’t kill him?” came a rasping voice, too deep to have a human source.

  The thief did not waste time turning around. “No,” he said. “He fought too well. If he can walk-”

  “I heard you the first time,” the half-ogre said. He might have been a child being awakened for school. With a grip on a low branch, he heaved himself to his feet and stumbled off into the darkness.

  “Good,” the dragon said. “I do not like killing, though I would have killed him if I were more in your debt and you asked it of me.”

  Pirvan tried to translate that remark; the dragon turned its head upslope. Its body tensed, both wings twitched, and moments later a mudslide rumbled and sloshed down the path. It was not a deep mudslide, just calf-deep, but it drew a furious cry from up the hill.

  “What son of fifty fathers turned those rocks to mud! I had them all locked up!”

  Pirvan laughed. He recognized Tarothin’s voice, which made one less thing to worry about. With Haimya, he pulled the reviving Kurulus into a sitting position, so that he could spit the mud out of his mouth and wipe it from his eyes and ears.

  Then he stared at the dragon. “You can talk!”

  “Of course,” the dragon said. “My only problem, once I was fully awake, was not having anyone to talk to.”

  He sniffed at Pirvan and Haimya. “But before we do any more talking, I think we should all bathe.”

  Chapter 12

  The dragon was male and gave his name as Hipparan. Either Tarothin did not have the power to counter whatever protective spells guarded the true name and discover that, or he did not care to offend the dragon.

  Pirvan quickly became persuaded that it did not really matter. Hipparan seemed to feel that he had discharged most of his debts to the human race by driving off what he called “a sorry pile of sweepings and scourings of several races.”

  Pirvan asserted that if the victory had been so easy, then the dragon owed his rescuers even more. Hipparan replied that it was all very well to say this by human reckoning, but dragons reckoned debts otherwise. Copper dragons reckoned them the most minutely, of all good dragons. Indeed, the only dragons that reckoned profit and loss more tenaciously were the evil white dragons, and everyone knew that they went about feeling superior with very little to justify that opinion.

  “It’s useful that Hipparan knows as much about his race as this,” Tarothin said. He and Pirvan were standing out of hearing of even the keenest-eared dragon. The wizard looked as if he’d bitten an unripe fig. “I had hoped I would not need to teach him as well as heal him.”

  “Oh, I suspect there are very few things he will need to be taught,” Pirvan said. “Although I begin to wish we’d had to teach him to talk.”

  “Consider how much time that would have cost, in readying him to face the black dragon.”

  “If it exists.”

  “I think Eskaia is right. Both are part of the balance, and I will be surprised if there is no plan for them to meet each other. Also, remember that most human weapons are useless against dragons, and only at a greater cost in lives than we can afford. Or does Golden Cup have a dragonlance stowed away with all the rest of the lumber in her hold?”

  Pirvan held his peace. He rather wished Hipparan would do the same. The dragon might need speech to fulfill his purpose, but one could hope that he would not also use it to deafen and madden his rescuers!

  It would have averted the next argument with Hipparan if Tarothin had been able to heal his damaged wing. Not that it was a matter of Hipparan’s being unwilling or Tarothin not having the appropriate spells (at least some of them, those which could not harm any living creature even if they might not do it much good).

  It was a matter of Karthayan law. This inlet was Karthayan territory (a claim at which most of the Istarians politely raised eyebrows but otherwise held their peace). Therefore, any wizard not licensed in Karthay could not heal dragons or anybody else anywhere around the fort.

  Tarothin pointed out with polished phrases that he was an entirely lawful neutral wizard in Istar.

  Did he have papers to prove it?

  No, but he could cast spells to bring the evidence from Istar.

  He could not cast spells. No exceptions or exemptions. But he could certainly send a messenger to Istar and have the messenger bring back the necessary documents, sworn statements, and so forth. The Karthayans would even be happy to provide the messenger and a ship for him, for a suitable consideration.

  The Istarians were left wondering whether the Karthayans were trying to prevent the departure of the dragon entirely, or merely make it more profitable. Some of them also said, where no Karthayans could hear it, “If the Karthayans do this when they’re under our rule, how are we going to know when they rebel?”

  Tarothin said that he could easily overcome that miserable excuse for a cleric, but it would be like using kittens for archery practice. Also, it would undoubtedly create more delays, more legal complications, and more excuses for the Karthayans to assess fines.

  With sarcasm crackling in every word, Eskaia expressed delight that he saw matters so nearly as she did without being commanded.

  While some of Golden Cup’s people wielded words, others wielded axes. If Hipparan could not be healed enough to fly until they got to sea, then he would have to be floated out to the ship on a raft and hoisted aboard like the longboat. This presented problems, not the least of which was the dragon’s weight, which required a large raft and might overburden the ship’s lifting gear.

  The first notion they ha
d for building the raft was to use the cut logs at the fort. They learned that these were the property of the lords of Karthay and not to be sold, except at a price that took even Lady Eskaia’s breath away.

  The next idea was cutting trees. For this, however, they would need a license, the obtaining of which seemed as complicated as obtaining Tarothin’s legal documents from Istar. It also bore an impressive price, roughly equivalent to a small manor.

  They next considered sending a boat down the inlet or even outside it, to cut trees and tow them back. That seemed a counsel of desperation, considering the amount of time it would take to build a raft one log at a time and the improbability of the Karthayans ignoring the undertaking for very long.

  In fact, one harbor guard galley followed the boat immediately. Once the boat left the inlet, the galley was so close behind that the ram actually gouged the boat’s stern a couple of times.

  The hint was explicit; the Istarians took it. They also took more gold from the strongroom and bought enough timber for a raft to support six dragons.

  At least that was their intention. Hipparan disagreed. It had to be at least twice its present size.

  “Cut the logs for it, and we’ll gladly use them!” Kurulus snarled.

  It would have been a considerable understatement about him, or a good many others of the shore party, to say that they were at the end of their patience. In fact, it was so far behind them that it was barely visible on the horizon.

  Hipparan stared at the trees, then at Tarothin. Something passed between dragon and wizard that made Tarothin clap his hand to his forehead and turn to speak to his companions.

  The dragon made a wordless sound that conveyed indescribable vulgarity. Then he thrust his head toward the base of the nearest tree, closed his eyes, and took three deep breaths.

  A glowing copper-hued circle appeared around the base of the tree. A heartbeat later, it vanished in a great gout of mud. Suddenly the tree and several of its neighbors stood in a vast waste of mud, a good spear’s toss wide. Tarothin and Pirvan, closest to the dragon, had to jump back hastily not to be caught in ooze that might be of any depth.

  Another heartbeat, and they knew-deep enough to topple the trees, as the weight of their trunks and crowns overbalanced the remaining efforts of their roots. The largest tree was the first to fall, snapping off branches from itself and its neighbors as it came down with a soggy crash, hurling mud and twigs in all directions.

  Pirvan and Tarothin jumped back even farther, but not fast enough to keep mud and twigs from splattering them. Wizard and thief wiped mud from their eyes and plucked twigs from their hair, as the rest of the trees subsided with a formidable snapping of branches. Everyone hastily gave still more ground, as splinters the size of arrows flew in all directions.

  Hipparan walked as delicately as a cat along one trunk and posed on the pile of toppled trees. “I know not from rafts, they being a human contrivance. I should think that here are at least as many as you have shown me already”

  To Pirvan’s eye, admittedly not that of a seasoned timber feller, Hipparan had knocked down enough trees to build a small ship.

  Tarothin was the first to find words.

  “Why didn’t you do that before?”

  “I did not owe you enough to solve your problems for you. At least not before I knew how serious they were.”

  “I suppose we now owe you,” Haimya muttered.

  Dragons, it appeared, had exceptionally acute hearing. Hipparan waved his one good wing, sending a storm of flying leaves into everybody’s face. If dragons could grin, he would have done so as he spoke.

  “Of course, fair warrior. You are swiftly learning the customs observed in dealing with copper dragons.”

  Haimya and Pirvan did not dare speak again, but another exchange of glances told of another common thought: I could just as well have remained ignorant of customs and much else about copper dragons.

  Then Haimya’s eyes took on a distant look. Pirvan knew she was chiding herself for such selfishness, when Gerik Ginfrayson might even now be courting death close to a black dragon.

  He started looking for an axe, saw none, and for a moment was afraid they’d been lost in the bog or smashed under the falling trees. Then he saw the handles of the tools sticking out from the edge of the mud. He hurried forward to grab them, stepped into a deep hole, and went in up to his waist.

  He had to count to fifty to avoid an outburst of language that would surely offend the gods and perhaps the dragon, though he was very much in a mood to offend the dragon. Then he held out an axe, handle-first, Haimya and the mate gripped it, and with all three struggling and sweating Pirvan rose from the mire like some hero of legend.

  If this is heroism, give me honest night’s work, he thought.

  * * * * *

  Their troubles were almost over when Hipparan climbed aboard the raft. It had taken all the purchased and spell-toppled logs, as well as lashings that used most of the spare cordage aboard Golden Cup and some scores of feet of vines as well.

  “If we needed any more, we’d have to start tearing up our clothes,” Kurulus said. “Although some of us might look better after such work than others,” he added, with a grin at Haimya.

  Pirvan kept rude words off his lips with an effort, and knew he’d lost the battle to command his face before it began. Fortunately Haimya was not looking at this display of unseemly jealousy.

  She stared at the mate, then smiled. It barely missed being the smile of a cat about to take a mouse by the throat. She did not move a finger, but she somehow managed to look as formidable as if she’d already drawn her sword.

  “My apologies, Ma’am,” the mate said, bowing. He tried to doff his hat, but it was glued to his hair with mud. “But only a blind man could fail to notice that you’re more than commonly handsome.”

  “I do not insist that men blind their eyes,” Haimya said, with a real smile now. “Only bind their tongues, at least when there’s work to be done.”

  “As indeed there is,” the mate said. It was not quite a groan.

  Once the raft was assembled, it took a further while to persuade Hipparan to board it. He was reluctant to wade, no one wanted the lashings tested by his jumping, and the raft drew too much water to let him climb aboard dryshod.

  So they had to buy more logs, split them, and make a gangplank long enough to reach from reasonably firm mud to the raft. At least they had the consolation that they’d built the gangplank with steps, so Hipparan might be able to climb aboard. No one dared even think about what hoisting him aboard might do to her laboriously repaired rigging.

  By now everyone aboard the ship knew that they were going to be taking a dragon aboard. The fact that it was a good dragon did not ease everyone’s mind, even those who had seen Hipparan fighting ashore. Sailors were notoriously superstitious, and the only one who claimed much knowledge of dragons was Tarothin. Of course, he had saved the ship and done other marvels, but no wizard was infallible.

  Most of the crew muttered, frowned, or stared. Three went farther, or at least attempted to. They tried to desert.

  Two stole a boat and rowed ashore. The Karthayan soldiers promptly caught them as they blundered about in the jungle, making more noise than twice their number of ogres. The soldiers also returned them to Golden Cup, and the punishment they received was as much for what the Karthayans charged for this service, as it was for the act of desertion.

  A third man took more thought-or at least it seemed so at first. He slipped overboard from the seaward side of the ship and swam out into the inlet. Perhaps he intended to reach the watchful galley, throwing himself on the mercy of fellow sailors. Perhaps he merely intended a landfall beyond the reach of the garrison.

  Whatever he intended, he never accomplished it. The boat setting out after him by the light of Lunitari saw him swimming strongly. Then he threw up his arms, screamed once as if his soul were being torn apart along with his body, and vanished.

  Cramp, current, curse,
or something in the water, no one knew, and few cared to speculate aloud. The grumbling became muted, and the desertions ceased.

  It did not hurt that the next day Hipparan scrambled up the gangplank from the raft onto the deck without missing a step. In language that seemed to have become more flowery in the few days since his appearance, he thanked the crew for its hospitality and swore not to abuse it. Then he slipped down into the aft hold, which had been cleared for his accommodations, at the price of a good deal of labor made more exhausting by the damp heat of the inlet.

  Pirvan watched the hatch cover slide back on, then he sighed.

  “It’s not over yet,” Haimya said. “Though I admit I’ve seldom seen a horse go into a strange stable with as little fuss.”

  “Did I say it was over?” Pirvan asked.

  “That sigh expressed hope at least.”

  “Yes. I hope he’ll consider that he now owes us something, for all the work we did. He only cast a spell and knocked down some trees. Or is casting a spell as much work for a dragon as it is for a human wizard?”

  “I suppose that it’s different with each dragon, as it is with each wizard.”

  “We can always ask Tarothin,” Pirvan said.

  “But will he answer?” Haimya asked. Then the sour look left her face. “Wager. Hipparan still considers us in his debt.”

  “Accepted. What is the forfeit?”

  Haimya grinned. “The loser massages all the winner’s most painful muscles.”

  Pirvan could not have replied except in a nod, but that seemed enough. Within, he was wondering how he could possibly lose the wager.

  * * * * *

  They spent another day at the inlet, loading barrels of fresh water, bundles of firewood, and baskets of fruit and salt fish. Then, that evening, the captain inspected the ship, and they sailed at dawn the next day, riding the ebb tide out past the galleys, to open water, which some had doubted they would ever see again.