Dragon Outcast

by E. E. Knight

  “Who are you to give orders, Batt—Rugaard? You’re just a courier.”

  “I’m also the Tyr’s eyes and ears wherever I go. I can be his voice as well, if griff meet teeth. But I’d much rather ask than order. So I ask again, please stay back behind HeBellereth. If matters go as badly as they did yesterday, I expect you’ll have another chance to fight.”

  The blighters lit a few cooking fires, but just a few, on the hillside, allowing them to go out as the warm night passed. HeBellereth agreed to act as bait, and morning found him stretched out on the hill, head lolling, looking like one of those savanna rock piles of red scale.

  The Ghi men were no fools, however. They marched their archers to the ford in the river and sent scouts across. The blighters threw spears, hiding from the archers behind the trees with their roots in the floodwaters. The blighters ran as soon as the men in glimmering armor went forward, arms linked at the elbows as they fought the current, crossing like some fantastic serpent.

  The blighters got into the spirit of the game, gathering here and there on the hillside to scream insults at the men, sometimes tossing a rock that would go bouncing down the hill and land well short of their foes. Each rock was answered by a hail of arrows once the archers came across and the blighters retreated uphill.

  The Ghi-men scouts, clad only in light tunics and sandals with a brace of javelins across their backs, hurried to high vantage points and blew signal horns. The archers crossed from behind. Men with long spears and tall shields had come across, and a group of heavily armored men with great helms and wide blades tied across their backs began to venture into the current.

  The Copper watched all this from thick grass halfway up the hill, with strips of thick green sod dripping with ants and beetles laid across this back, his scale rubbed with dirt—Rhea had misunderstood his orders at first, and braided some flowering bramble around his crest and tucked flowers into his spinal ridge. Once she understood that he wanted to be grubbed up, she put a thick paste of mud on every scale.

  The Ghi-men scouts found the body of Nirolf lain atop a pile of rocks sticking up above the grasses of the hill, and went to work with their knives.

  The drake near him, who’d wormed his way into the center of a thick succulent-leafed bush, growled.

  “Still,” the Copper ordered. But he liked the sound of their anger; it meant they’d got their spirit back.

  More scouts hurried up toward HeBellereth. One pointed to the spot on his belly where partially digested coins could be found, and two set down their javelins and drew blades while a third kept watch, signal horn in one hand, javelin in the other.

  The spearmen came up the hill in a rather ragged line, some falling behind thanks to rougher terrain, others forgetting themselves and hurrying toward the fallen dragon, eager for a chance at a trophy.

  “Still,” the Copper said again as the spearmen approached, but kept his good roving eye on HeBellereth. The duelist had unusually steady nerves to let a pair of men approach his leathery belly. Or had he slipped into unconsciousness?

  HeBellereth suddenly rolled, putting the two men under his massive weight.

  The third scout’s mouth dropped open, and he reached for his horn, brought it up toward his lips—

  A flash of green scale exploded out of the hillside as Nilrasha leaped on the scout. The Copper’s brain made sense of it only once it was over, so improbable was her sudden appearance, as though she were conjured up out of the blades of grass that could never conceal a creature of her size. The precision of her leap matched her stealth. She struck high, wrapping herself around her foe like a constricting snake, digging in with her claws, and the struggling pair toppled into the grass. The horn spun in the air and fell.

  Why didn’t Nivom start the contest? What was he waiting for? The lines of spearmen were almost to the dead tree that marked the widely spaced hiding holes of the wounded drakes….

  A warning horn on the hillside sounded. A scout, somewhere he couldn’t see, must have seen HeBellereth move. The spearmen looked to their companions and stepped sideways to close….

  “Cry havoc!” the Copper roared—well, trumpeted—and if some sentry far down the river valley thought he heard a goose being strangled, it was because the Copper didn’t have much of a roar yet.

  Showers of dirt flew in the air as the drakes rose. Bright gouts of flame erupted on the hillside, spreading and falling as it rained on the warriors. Screams of pain competed with the signal horns and bellows of the Ghi-men chieftains.

  The Copper dragon-dashed forward, threw himself on a hastily upflung shield, and brought both shield and man down. He gouged, kicked out a saaful of belly organs as he’d done on practice bullocks, and moved on to the next target, a warrior running forward, spear set to skewer him.

  His head whipped up and back and his chest muscles tightened. He spit—what was this? A thin stream of liquid hit the man across the shield and shoulders, but no flame. The warrior danced for a second as though he were on fire, and then the Copper and the man locked eyes as they each realized what had happened. The Ghi man raised his spear for a throw, but a green flash flew over the Copper’s head.

  “What are you waiting for?” Nilrasha said, spitting out a mouthful of tendon and blood vessel from the warrior’s gaping neck. “They’re running!”

  So they were. What was left of the spearmen hurried down the hill, using their spears as a third leg, holding their shields across their backs against further flame.

  The Copper marked oily smoke rising from the riverside foliage. A body of swordsmen in a rough triangular formation let the archers pass through and take shelter behind their blades and shields. Little puffs flew from the formation into the trees on either side of the ford. The Copper realized he was seeing the bright feathering on the archers’ arrows rather than the arrows themselves.

  A drake dashed forward, hurled himself onto the swords and shields, and disappeared into the mass of men. A cheer rose from the Ghi men.

  “HeBellereth,” the Copper called. “We need a shield wall broken. Can you move?”

  “Out of my way, drakes!” HeBellereth roared. “I’ve hot blood to cool in that river. Try to take my gold-gizzard now, you dogs!”

  The dragon pushed off with his back legs and began to slide down the hillside on his belly. He tore through brush, snapped and flattened small trees, and a wounded drake only just limped out of the way before he pushed past, tail swinging as he tried to keep balance.

  And failed. He hit a steeper slope as he neared the river and one of his back legs slipped under his hindquarters. The great red dragon upended and fell sideways, rolling down the hill like a felled tree.

  But he was too close for it to make a difference. What the men thought in those last heartbeats could only be imagined. Some of the archers fired, but the arrows had all the effect of pebbles hurled into floodwaters. The triangle dissolved, spreading to each side.

  HeBellereth righted himself in the center of the warriors, biting and thrashing. The battle turned into a rout. Pieces of armor and pieces of swordsmen flew in all directions.

  What was left of the swordsmen nearest the river ran for the ford. Spearmen, finding their line of retreat blocked by the raging red-scale, waded into the trees, only to be pulled under by drakes—or a crocodile or two that smelled blood in the river and decided to take an easy meal courtesy of warfare.

  The Copper spotted men and beasts pulling war machines that looked like oversize crossbows toward the bank of the river and hurried toward HeBellereth. But Nivom anticipated him and called for his drakes, and the mighty dragon, to take cover behind the trees at the riverbank. HeBellereth, his blood flaming in the heat of battle, even found the strength to fly a few dragonlengths to reach a thicker section of trees.

  The catapults on the other side of the river sent a rain of stones, but they fell somewhat short of the bank. A drake or two waded into the river to roar defiance at the retreating men.

  “We gutted them,” a
drake said, looking at the bodies scattered on the hillside.

  “This is news our Tyr will wish to hear,” Nivom said. Blood ran from both nostrils, but his eyes were bright with triumph.

  “We’ve just given them a shock,” the Copper said. “Now it’s time to complete the victory and burn that city. Our good Firemaiden Nilrasha knows a way in—”

  “Ghioz is strong. They’ll send armies to avenge their dead.”

  Nilrasha appeared at his side with her usual stealth. “The bigger the army the better,” she said. “More mouths to feed. Let them sit behind their burned-out walls and starve; we’ll cut off their flocks and take their wagons.”

  The Copper half expected Nivom to roar and snap, for some captains didn’t like arguments. Nivom just said, “We’ve traded blood for blood; it’s time to send in the king’s headmen and arrange a peace. They may be inclined to agree to stay on the north side of the river from now on.”

  “Our Tyr won’t like the sound of that. A fight, a win, and a peace will please him,” Nilrasha said. “Honors all around.”

  Nivom, for all his brains, had little experience with hominids. The Copper knew what bargaining with hominids brought. They designed deals only to get what they wanted for a moment, and the instant their need was met, the deal was forgotten. They had to be made to shake in fear of ever giving offense to dragonhood, and tuck their squalling broods in at night with tales of fiery vengeance falling from the skies if the scaled gods were offended.

  “You won’t get a lasting peace unless you’re negotiating from a position of strength,” the Copper said. Nilrasha chirped agreement, sniffing him now that his blood was up.

  “‘Settle terms only once your claws are pressing their neck to the ground,’” Nilrasha quoted, using one of NoSohoth’s briefer maxims.

  “The Upholder would just as soon end this war quickly,” Nivom said. “In his Uphold, NiThonius speaks with the Tyr’s voice.”

  The Copper tried to count the warriors left in the towers, his blood cooling and the wisdom of Nivom’s words settling his scale. “A few days behind those stone walls and they’ll mourn their dead and get over their fear. They’d give in fast enough if there were nothing between them and the blighter tribes but a pile of rubble. If only we could bring them down somehow.”

  “Yes, the walls are an enemy as strong as the Ghi men. But I saw fire slide off the stones like rain,” Nilrasha said.

  “War machines would help,” the Copper said. “Couldn’t the blighters build some?”

  Nivom sighed. “Not to match the Ghi men’s. They’re cleverer when it comes to such contraptions, and they have better steel and wood than the bleached-out timber under this sun around here. Their projectiles can always fly higher and farther….

  Nivom gave a little choke, and the Copper wondered if he was having an attack of some kind. Had a poisoned arrow pierced him somewhere unsuspected?

  “Air Spirit, Rugaard! I think we can do it. Yes, I’m sure we can!”

  Over the next day the two sides gathered, each on their own bank of the river. According to the blighters some of the smaller farming settlements and posts had been abandoned as Ghi men sought safety for their families behind the thick stone walls of the town. Boats soon crowded the riverside below the town, and herds sheltered at night beneath the city walls.

  The blighters gathered too, but some of them, seeing no fight at the moment, little food, and no plunder, grew bored and wandered away. Even the king himself came, with NiThonius and such forces as could be spared from guarding the river crossings, which set the blighters all to groveling and celebrating as they heaped the few remaining captured weapons at his feet.

  Meanwhile, Nivom worked with HeBellereth. The dragon recovered from his wounds quickly, eating rainy-season-fat Bant cattle and gazelles, though he sometimes winced when he had to walk far. The king watched HeBellereth’s endless flights and practice drops with the stones, and then ordered his people to assist the dragons with their strong backs.

  Each day the Copper took Rhea to the riverbank for water and bathing. He liked to check on the men’s boats in any case, to see if it looked as though any had been loaded. There were two-score or more small, narrow vessels and they could get a substantial force over the river if they so desired. Once satisfied that another day had passed with the two armies glowering at each other from their opposite points, they went to an island-sheltered bank and he’d let Rhea bathe him, and herself. He ventured out into the pool first to check for crocodiles; then she went in and scrubbed him over with rushes. Sometimes he would roll over and she’d tickle his belly.

  Fourfang didn’t think much of bathing, but he took a captured Ghi-man spear into knee-deep water and came back with a fish or two, sucker-mouthed bottom-feeders that he would fry on an old shield, bathed in herbs.

  While they dried, Rhea would sometimes skip stones at Fourfang and spoil his fishing. She took perverse pleasure in making the blighter splash around and curse her. At times she laughed, and the Copper found the sound so pleasing that he prevented Fourfang from thrashing her with cattail stalks.

  Nivom joined them one evening.

  “I wonder if this will work after all,” Nivom said. “Should we even attempt it if it might fail? Another failure before their walls will just encourage the Ghi men. The king sent a messenger across, letting the Ghi men know he was present, but they sent forth no emissary to plead for peace.”

  “Is he having trouble dropping the stones?”

  “If he releases them too high, he misses the target marker. If he releases them low enough so they’re sure to hit, he’ll pass over the town belly-down. Their war machines will get a chance at him then, and it will probably take many stones to collapse the wall. He still wants to try. It’s a terrible thing to have a vision and not be able to see it through.”

  The Copper didn’t know what to say. If Nivom wasn’t smart enough to figure out how the walls might be brought down, the Copper certainly couldn’t improve on his plans and practices.

  Out in the pool Fourfang speared a fish and bent over to retrieve it. The Copper nosed a river-smoothed rock toward Rhea.

  She cackled and picked up the stone, then flung it with her arm out sideways so it skipped across the water and hit Fourfang square in that odd assortment of reproductive apparatus male mammals displayed.

  Fourfang howled as he clutched his fish and his loincloth.

  Nivom took a startled breath. “Of course! Of course! Why didn’t it occur to me? Speed—speed’s the thing, and he can get all he wants far from the walls. That’s it, Rugaard; your little human did it!”

  He hurried off up the hill without any more explanation.

  Chapter 18

  SiDrakkon returned before Nivom’s attempt against the walls could be put into effect. He seemed rather surprised to find the drakes and HeBellereth still camped on that hilltop, with some of the signs of an intact army at war: herds of cattle and goats, blighters making charcoal, members of the Drakwatch on the adjoining hills and keeping watch from stone piles on the savanna.

  With him were two young dragons with wings freshly uncased, and another veteran duelist, a one-eyed, rather fat dragon who collapsed to the ground as soon as they alighted and roared for food to be brought to him.

  “Cursed ill luck,” SiDrakkon said, looking south at the rolling cloud banks portending the afternoon’s rain. “I set out from the Lavadome with a full score, but everyone had to get a turn of hunting in when they weren’t arguing. I’ve brought what I can; the rest will catch up or deal with my wrath on their return.”

  Nivom and the Copper exchanged a soft snort.

  SiDrakkon looked from the working blighters, using drag ropes to bring a boulder up the hill, to Nilrasha teaching some of the Drakwatch how to stalk in tall grass, to the temporary huts and corrals that had been built for the Bant king and his retinue.

  “What transpires here?” SiDrakkon asked.

  “We’re preparing for an attack on the wal
ls,” Nivom said.

  “With what forces?”

  “HeBellereth.”

  “He lives? Good. But one dragon would be wasted. Now, with all five of us, we’ve got a good chance of clearing those towers of war machines.”

  “They’ve built more, many more, on every rooftop in the town,” Nivom said. “You can see them from our hilltop.”

  “Delay always allows the enemy time to prepare,” SiDrakkon said. “Still, enough fire should make them abandon their machines. It may take several days, but I’ve seen it done.”

  “Your honor, Nivom has a plan to bring down the walls,” the Copper said.

  “Sacrifice every blighter here to the Earth Spirit; it still won’t bring an earthquake.”

  “No, sir. With rocks. Dropped by HeBellereth.”

  “Ahh, youth,” SiDrakkon said, softening his tone a little. “Always thinking they can reinvent warfare. It’s been tried in other places. Never works—not one stone out of scores of scores goes true. No, I’ve got the experience.”

  “You don’t understand,” Nivom said. “It’s a matter of force and momentum. He’s been knocking down trees for days now—”

  SiDrakkon’s griff dropped and rattled. “Trees don’t shoot back. No, we’ll start this very night. No, not another word out of either of you! It seems I got here just in time before you all got yourselves killed. Fire and terror are the way to go with humans; believe me. They’re not dwarves, after all. Fire and terror, drakes. Fire and terror. Now, we’ve got to hurry. According to the griffaran there’s an army of Ghi men on the march, big enough to sweep this collection and two more besides off these hills.”

  SiDrakkon’s second assault on the city walls was an improvement on the first only in its brevity. His duelist, enraged by javelins fired into his wings and belly, plunged into the city, and managed to make a good deal of noise roaring and smashing before he was silenced. The two young dragons, fast friends since their days in the Drakwatch, according to Nivom, died together when one was brought down in front of the gate tower and the other flew to fight beside him.