[Hurog 01] - Dragon Bones

by Patricia Briggs

  I turned abruptly from Oreg, trying not to react when he began a high-pitched keening as I pulled the shield of stupidity firmly around me. The visitors had hung back while my uncle approached, but it only took me a few strides to reach them.

  “Garranon!” I grabbed his hand hard and shook it vigorously, despite his decorous attempts to escape. Then I slapped him on the back, holding him in position with the hand I still held.

  He gave a muffled yelp. My uncle threw his arm around my shoulder and pulled me off unobtrusively. “Lord Garranon and his brother Landislaw have ridden all the way from court this past week,” my uncle said.

  Garranon was about average height with fine-boned features, curly brown hair, and thin lips that smiled too easily. He looked younger than he was, which I suppose was the attraction he still held for the king. His brother Landislaw looked very like him, but somehow Landislaw made the same features appear rugged rather than aristocratic. On Landislaw, Garranon’s thin nose became strong and masculine. The narrow lips were firm, the smile charming. With the two of them together, one thought of scholar and warrior or stag and blooded bull—or so the ladies of the court said.

  After I made everyone sufficiently uncomfortable by staring at them, I nodded my head. “Court is boring. I would have come here, too.”

  Landislaw laughed. “Truthfully said. I’ve enjoyed this past week more than any week at court. I’ll be sorry to see it over.” Landislaw was a panderer and a bully whom I disliked intensely.

  Garranon was still rubbing his shoulder unobtrusively, but he had court manners. “I wish to express my condolences.”

  I looked at him inquiringly.

  “For your father,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said with sudden comprehension. “Yes, for my father. Died a few weeks ago.”

  Disconcerted at my lack of filial mourning, Garranon’s practiced speech left him. I liked Garranon more than I wanted to like the high king’s favorite. I liked him even better now when his presence meant I had to wait to tell Duraugh the truth.

  My uncle stepped in smoothly. “Now that Ward’s here, perhaps you will tell us what brings you here, my lords.”

  “Hunting?” I asked. Oreg had quit making any noise but soft grunts, but the sound of leather hitting flesh echoed in the hall, and the thick magic kept me from concentrating on our guests.

  Garranon snorted sourly. “Yes, we’re hunting—but not the kind you mean. Landislaw bought a slave from an acquaintance. Now he finds that the slave wasn’t his friend’s to sell.” A slave? Poor abject things, they were commonplace in Estian at the high king’s Tallvenish court as well as other parts of the Five Kingdoms. Shavigmen didn’t own slaves.

  “It belonged to his father,” added Landislaw with a graceful grimace.

  “His father,” continued Garranon sourly, “is Black Ciernack.”

  “The moneylender?” asked my uncle, clearly shocked. Maybe he hadn’t heard the rumors about Garranon’s brother.

  Oh, Landislaw was not in debt, quite the contrary. He brought friends from court into friendly gambling dens, just seedy enough to appeal to the jaded young courtiers. The dens belonged to Ciernack. If Landislaw’s friends lost money there, it surely wasn’t his fault. Just ask him.

  “The moneylender,” agreed Garranon. “Before Landislaw could return her, she ran away. So we’ve been chasing her ever since. Frankly, if Landislaw hadn’t discovered that someone had been feeding her stories that Hurog is a refuge for slaves, we’d never have found her. From the tracks we’ve followed, she’s in a tunnel down by the river. I don’t know how she got in there: We couldn’t move that grate. But her footprints continued beyond the grating.”

  Garranon was speaking to me rather than my uncle. It was one of the things that made me like him. Most people at court tried very hard to forget I was there, even if I was standing beside them.

  I frowned at the floor. “Sewers.”

  Garranon snapped his fingers. “Of course. I was wondering what that tunnel was. I’d forgotten that this place—” He made a sweeping gesture around the room. “—was dwarven made.”

  “No,” I corrected. “Just the sewers.”

  “Ah.” Garranon nodded. “Even so. We have an escaped slave in your sewers, and we can’t get beyond the grate that seems to be sealed to the tunnel mouth.”

  Not when I’d been there last, I thought. As far as I knew, the grate should still be off its hinges, because I’d forgotten about it. Oreg must have sealed it after the slave ran inside. He had more reason than most to care for a runaway slave. Perhaps that was what had set him off on his fit.

  Behind me, the sound of the whip had become rhythmical, though Oreg had quit making any sound at all.

  “We left the men and dogs there and came here to see if you had a way into the sewers,” said Garranon.

  “No,” I said.

  “You’ve been in the sewers, Ward,” reminded my uncle with a frown. “Certainly you know how to get into them.”

  I nodded. I did indeed. “No slaves at Hurog.”

  Garranon and his brother regarded me warily, but my uncle began frowning. He knew what I meant; I could see the apprehension in his eyes. I had no particular fondness for slavery or Landislaw. If Oreg wanted to save the poor thing, I felt no compunction about helping him.

  “We followed her in,” said Landislaw slowly, perhaps thinking I’d understand it better that way. “She went in through the grate. We could track her that far. But she won’t be able to get back out that way, since we left men guarding the grate. We need a way in.”

  “Only way in is through the grates,” I said mildly.

  “You can open them?” snapped Landislaw, dropping his pleasant act. He must be really worried. It didn’t bother me to see him sweat. One of the boys Landislaw had led into Black Ciernack’s nets had killed himself. He’d been a good lad, kind to his stupid friends.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “Then let’s go get the slave out,” snapped Landislaw, ignoring his brother’s hand on his shoulder.

  “There is no slave,” I said, smiling at him as if I thought he were hard of understanding.

  My uncle bowed his head, shaking it slowly.

  Perhaps forgetting that my stupidity was in my head and not my body, Landislaw grabbed my upper arms.

  “Wrestling,” I said happily and tossed him a dozen feet into the pack of mastiffs that usually lolled about the fireplace when no one had them out hunting. “I like wrestling.”

  “Not,” said my uncle firmly, “in the keep, if you will, Ward.”

  I looked hurt and pointed at Landislaw. “He started it.”

  Garranon had turned away so that I was the only one who saw his grin.

  “I don’t think he intended to wrestle with you, Ward,” replied Duraugh in a long-suffering voice. He walked to the sputtering lordling who was fighting off the cheerful tongues of half a dozen dogs. “Here, now Courser, behave yourself. Down, Two-Spot. My lord, take my hand. You might remember that my nephew likes nothing more than a good wrestling bout. He’s civilized enough if you keep your hands off him.” There was cool rebuke in his voice.

  Landislaw gave me a cold look, but he’d gone beyond the bounds of guest manners, and he knew it. He took my uncle’s hand and climbed to his feet.

  “I believe I know what Ward was trying to tell you,” continued Duraugh, escorting Landislaw back where Garranon and I waited. “As someone must have told your runaway, by ancient law, there are no slaves at Hurog.”

  “I knew that, my lord,” said Garranon, “but what does your choosing not to own slaves have to do with our slave?”

  “You don’t understand, my lords,” apologized my uncle. He repeated himself. “There are no slaves here. If your slave has made it onto Hurog land, then she is no longer a slave.”

  Landislaw looked at him in disbelief. “You’re jesting.”

  Garranon turned to my uncle, though he kept a tight grip on his brother’s arm. “Lord Duraugh, surely y
ou could make an exception this time.”

  “No,” I said firmly, though my uncle was nodding. “There are no slaves at Hurog. As I am Hurogmeten, caretaker of these lands, there are no slaves here. All who come to Hurog are free to stay here peacefully; Hurog is sanctuary to all.” It took me a good long while to get it out, not being particularly swift of tongue.

  My uncle recognized the song I quoted from, one of the more famous sagas about my hero, the Hurogmeten Seleg. (Seleg hadn’t started the tradition of no slavery—it was an earlier Hurogmeten who needed people to help farm the land—but Seleg had revived it.) The other two men, not being Hurogs, stared at me as if I were a cow that suddenly began talking.

  “Ward, that is only a story,” Duraugh said carefully. Testing, I think, to see how he could persuade me.

  I smiled. “Mother told me I should be like Seleg.” I could see the dismay in my uncle’s eyes.

  Every man who lived on Hurog lands knew the stories, and there wasn’t a man here (or woman for that matter) who didn’t revere old Seleg. Reminded that Seleg had taken pride in Hurog’s refuge status, they would all be on my side, whether my uncle agreed or not, and he knew it. Landislaw was not going to leave with his slave. Poor Landislaw.

  Duraugh frowned heavily at me. “Gentlemen, give me some time to talk with Ward . . .”

  “Should be locked up . . .” said Landislaw.

  My uncle raised his voice. “I’m sure that you and your men are very tired. I’ll station a few of the Blue Guard at the sewer tunnel and let you and your men rest. You’ll feel better after a good meal and some sleep. Ward, you need to change out of your riding gear. I’ll be up in a moment to discuss some business that has come up since you left this morning.”

  Oreg screamed suddenly, and I couldn’t help flinching.

  Garronan stiffened, an odd, listening look on his face. “What was that?”

  “What?” asked Duraugh.

  “That sound. Like something dying. . .” his voice trailed off when he realized no one else was reacting.

  “Ghost,” I said casually. “I’ll go clean up, now.” I bowed to everyone in general and bounced up the stairs in character. As soon as everyone cleared out, I planned to go back and check on Oreg.

  Axiel waited for me in my rooms. Mutely, he helped me disrobe and wash up. He didn’t even comment about the new set of Oreg-sewn clothes lying on my bed ready for me to wear to dinner. I’d have to talk to Oreg about that. I didn’t mind Axiel knowing about the “family ghost,” but it wouldn’t do to have him the topic of common gossip.

  My bedroom door opened just as Axiel was tightening the lacing on my left arm—the right was already done.

  “If I could speak to you for a moment alone?” asked my uncle.

  I nodded. Axiel finished the lacing and bowed his head shortly. “I’ll be in my quarters if you need me.”

  Duraugh waited until the valet left before he began pacing back and forth. “Out of the mouths of children and . . .” His voice trailed off before he added “idiots.” “Where did you get your sense of right and wrong, Ward? Not from Fen, I vow. Much as I loved him, he was a chip off our father, and Da would have laughed himself to butter if someone reminded him that Hurog was supposed to be a refuge.”

  I stood where I was, moving my head with his pacing—something that looked particularly idiotic. I stopped when I remembered that I was going to tell my uncle the truth.

  He halted midstride as if it had only been my head movements that had powered his steps. “I came up here to argue with you. If word of this gets out, we’ll be a target for every runaway slave in the Five Kingdoms. We’ll be laughed at in the king’s court. But that wouldn’t matter to you, would it?”

  He didn’t sound like he wanted an answer, so I didn’t answer him directly. “In Hurog there are no slaves.”

  He sighed, but it sounded almost like a sigh of relief. He stared past me, speaking as if to himself. “There are no slaves at Hurog. The ancient law, written into our charter by the first high king states when any slave sets foot here, they are freemen from that time forth. That my father and his father chose to forget it makes it nonetheless true. Landislaw and Garranon will just have to take their chances with Ciernack. Seleg’s word still holds true in Hurog.”

  “Garranon’s all right.” I said. “Landislaw can rot.”

  Duraugh frowned. “You don’t like him? Why not?”

  This was my chance to tell him that I was smarter than he knew. But my tongue was never swift, and in the end, I just shrugged. I’d wait until Garranon was gone.

  “If you had liked him, would you have declared the slave free?” asked my uncle.

  I frowned at him. It was a good question. Was most of my decision based on spite? Would I have remembered the ancient laws if Landislaw hadn’t been in the middle of it? I thought of Oreg mourning in the great hall and the chained dragon somewhere below the keep. Too many Hurogs had forgotten their laws over the centuries.

  “There are no slaves at Hurog,” I said.

  My uncle gave me an odd smile and half bowed in a gesture of respect. “Indeed.” He shut the door behind him.

  The only slave who remained in Hurog said, “Ward? You won’t turn her in?”

  I turned to see Oreg standing before the panel in my wall that had opened into the passages. The cuts and marks were gone, and he seemed lucid again, though he hugged himself and shifted from one foot to the other anxiously.

  I wished suddenly that I knew how to free him, too. Perhaps I’d talk to one of the king’s sorcerers next time I was at court, though I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone else to know our secrets. I also doubted that even one of the king’s wizards could unlock an enchantment that would last so many years. Everyone knew that mages were more powerful in the Age of the Empire.

  “I won’t turn her in,” I said.

  Oreg raised his chin. “Really?”

  “Really.” I hoped the firmness in my voice was enough to convince him. “You’ve seen that she has bedding and food?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, “but she’s still scared. I put her in the cave with the dragon bones.” In a softer voice, he said, “She hasn’t seen me. I just put warm things and food in the cave. I should have told you this morning.”

  “You’ve sealed her in the cave?” I asked. “She’s been there all day?”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll go talk to her,” I said. “She should be all right in the keep, even if Garranon and Landislaw haven’t left yet. Or she can wait there if she likes and you have no objections.”

  Oreg had come to me for help. Yesterday, Pansy had whickered when I came up to his paddock. Miracles do happen. Oreg stared at me uncertainly—looking as young as my brother had that last day. Sometimes I could forget what Oreg was, but not after the scene in the great room a few minutes ago. He’d come for help, but he didn’t quite trust me enough to take it.

  “She will be safe,” I assured him.

  Though he didn’t move, the panel behind him slid open. He turned on his heel and walked through. I followed, and the panel slid shut behind me. This time, the passage was very short into the dragon cave, as if it were merely adjacent to my room instead of deep in the heart of Hurog. As I crossed into the cavern, I noticed two things: The first was a strange, thrumming noise inside, and the second was the magic filling the cavern like thick soup fills a pot. I could see faint glows twinkling among the rocks, and the back of my neck kept telling me that there were things watching from the shadows.

  When I stopped, Oreg turned back to me and said, “She’s trying to work magic, but she isn’t strong enough to break my protection of the bones here in Hurog.”

  We hadn’t been quiet coming in, but she didn’t seem aware of us as we maneuvered through the rubble to the sandy area where the dragon bones lay. She sat in front of the skull. Her hair hung in matted, filthy clumps halfway down her back. She was so dirty it was hard to tell much more about her, even in the light provided by the dwarnve
nstones. The thrumming sound I’d heard was her singing, though it sounded like no music I’d ever heard.

  I was watching her so closely, it took me a moment to notice that the chains were off the skeleton. I’d thought about doing it myself but had come to the conclusion that it was too much like hiding my family’s guilt. A dragon’s remains being found deep in Hurog would not be surprising; having it bound made our culpability clear to any who saw it. So I’d left it as it was.

  “Welcome, fair traveler, to Hurog’s hearth.” I gave her the traditional greeting, making her status as my guest real, whether she realized it or not.

  She must have been absorbed in her spells, because at my words, she jumped to her feet like a startled rabbit, and her voice choked off. Before I could say anything further, she made a throwing gesture with her right hand and a flaming, crackling something launched itself from her hand with blinding speed.

  Then it stopped several lengths in front of us and winked out.

  “Peace, little sister,” crooned Oreg. “I’m sorry I had to leave you here, but I had to know what the Hurogmeten intended before I knew what I could do for you.”

  She lifted her chin. “I am not your sister.” Her voice shook, disguising everything about her accent except that she had one.

  “Why did you come to Hurog?” I asked peaceably.

  “I thought Hurog was supposed to be a place of refuge, where dragons and slaves are safe. The others laughed at me. Then I came here and found they were right.” She gestured toward the dragon’s chains that lay near her.

  I decided she was probably from Avinhelle, though Ilander’s accent was much thicker. The Avinhelle folk were given to slavery, so that would make sense. But something about her didn’t ring true; she didn’t sound as subservient as she should if she were a slave.

  “You are safe here,” I said earnestly. “You may stay at Hurog if you wish. It might be wiser to stay down here until Garranon and Landislaw are gone, but that is up to you.”

  “Who are you to say this?” she asked scornfully after staring at the two of us a moment. “The both of you are little more than children.” The effect was ruined when her voice broke.