Dragon's Ring

by Dave Freer

  The ruts were deep enough to follow even in the growing gloom of twilight. And walking was at least doing something. Behind her was the ruined remains of her home. Her whole life. It seemed that she'd lost what family she had. At least Hallgerd's two sons might be in Tarport. Might be. Roff had not said anything about them. She crossed a stream just before total darkness fell, and was able to slake her thirst. By then she wished that she'd kept the half-dried fish.

  At length, walking on, following the ruts in the light of the risen moon, she spotted lamp-light through a chink in a shutter. It was a snug little farmhouse. Meb wondered if she dared to go and beg for shelter. But they'd probably set their dogs on her at this time of night. There was a hay rick, however. That had to be better—and warmer—than out here. Tired, hungry, scared, and very much alone, Meb burrowed into it. It was prickly, ticklish—and out of the night-breeze. At least it wasn't raining. It was coming on for the time of year when the cold autumn rains could endure for a week at a time. By then she would need to have a roof over her head at night.

  Chapter 6

  The place hissed with smokes and steam. Entirely too much steam as far as those who called it their home away from home were concerned. They were creatures of energy, not flesh. The steam in the fumarole would have cooked flesh. Most flesh anyway. Not dragon-flesh, which was a source of some grievance among them. They found the steam cool, and worse, wet. Sulfurous smokes were preferred . . . but they had known from the first that this was a hardship-posting—with great rewards, it was true.

  "They failed," said the one who, when not among creatures who were patterns of energy, was sometimes called Haborym. He went by numerous names. He even, with difficulty and for a short period of time, assumed the appearance of flesh. The illusion was hard to maintain, and not a true shape-shifting. It was worth it, however, for dealing with other species.

  His master, one who was great enough to keep contact with their master across the twisted dimensions of time and space, simply sat there and waited, staring at him with a vermilion heat. Waiting until Haborym felt he had to add something more. "I destroyed them of course. As soon as the sprite was not there."

  "You have set in motion the recruitment of more?"

  "King. We recruit constantly. You know that. The amazing thing is that the others have not found the signs of it. I destroyed those merely in case the accursed sprite used her powers later. She was suspicious that I could find a hundred and twenty armed men so close and at such speed."

  The demon lord spat, a plume of flaming incandescent matter. "A pity. Why did they fail?"

  "Because we mis-guessed the human's power. We'd given the hunters a simple talisman that would have glowed when they found her. But the idea was to round up all the women and take them away. Something alerted the village to the raiders, presumably her. And they were badly mazed by the place. Seeing things that frightened them. A dragon. I presume that she has some skill with illusions. I had to leave all of that to the sprite, and you know how they are about getting too close to conflict. Yet they love others to use it. To kill. I would have sent in a pack-peddlar or something. But she wanted blood spilt. Her worshipers went back there and found one of the villagers. They put him to the knife and lash until he talked, and confirmed that she'd not been seen after the raid. But the people of the village went to Tarport. One of them claimed that he'd seen her."

  "Fss." His superior hissed in irritation. "It had to be Yenfar that this human turned up on. Well, subtlety was always been our strength. I assume you have now been able to over-ride the sprite as her plan failed?"

  "Yes," said Haborym, glad to have something positive to report. "I have dispatched seven of my very best men from Cark. We are hampered by my not being able to go there."

  The demon lord sat and fulminated. But now Haborym had nothing to add, so he simply waited. Eventually, the demon lord spoke. "It would seem that the right answer may be to remove that which blocks us from the place, because I feel that your humans will fail. However, you will have to exert your charm on the sprite. Persuade her that it is her idea to go and remove the treasure from the place where the alvar have kept it. As long as it is not returned to the merrows. It is to be assumed that the magic that keeps us from the place is bound to that object, not the place. They were less trusting of us in those days, the alvar."

  The flames that were Haborym nodded, in the fashion of his kind. "I will do this, Lord. But she will not act herself. I know her."

  "Point her at a thief or two." The demon lord laughed and so did Haborym. "And get a simulacrum fashioned. One that will at least stand cursory examination. That way we may be able to avoid trouble with the alvar until it is too late."

  Chapter 7

  It was amazing, Meb thought, how a couple of apples and a few handfuls of late blackberries could change the way you looked at things. She'd woken before dawn, and beat a hasty retreat from a sniffing, but tail-wagging dog. She hadn't been able to resist the apples in the orchard next to what was becoming a country lane. She still felt guilty about them. They had just been windfalls, but still. One didn't steal, even if the common sense part of her mind said that the pigs could spare a couple of bruised windfalls. But now she was wearing stolen clothes, and eating stolen fruit. Hallgerd would have said that she was on her way to perdition.

  Thinking about her made Meb's eyes misty with sadness and half-realized tears. She didn't even notice that, as she crested the hill, Tarport had come into view.

  It was, by Meb's standards, a vast metropolis, and very frightening. Hallgerd had always been full of horrific tales of what happened to nice girls on the streets of that sinful city. Of course the details had been rather vague, possibly because Hallgerd hadn't had much of an imagination, and she'd only been there a few times herself. But girls definitely came to tragic ends if they went there alone, without a male escort.

  When Meb looked up, it was there. The great city. Even from a mile away she could smell it—a mixture of fish, smoke, tar from the tar-pits a few miles inland and other less pleasant smells from thousands of people, a handful of dvergar, and an occasional visiting alvar come to oversee the work of their underlings. She didn't have much of a choice but to enter it alone.

  A little further on her coastal track joined the main pike from the tar-pits, and from the farmlands inland and from the more populous South Coast. Fresh wares, inclined to spoil, came in by cart, rather than by the canal that ran next to the road. Meb was thirsty, but she didn't want to drink that canal-water! It was dirty green and smelled of rot. Small bubbling tufts of suspicious-looking emerald drifted in it.

  Eight-horse drays loaded with stinking barrels—material to calk and seal ships across the seas of Tasmarin—trundled along slowly. Carts and even a carriage with some alvar lord in it made their way among the walkers and donkey trains.

  No one seemed to notice a girl in boy's clothes, with bare feet and hair that had been roughly cropped by a merrow knife. It didn't stop Meb looking very warily at the people around her. Anyone of them could be the vehicle of her horrific fate, after all.

  Being alone took some of the magic out of the place. Despite the smells, the idea of strange places had always fascinated her. Now, in a large part, she was simply too scared to marvel at wonders like buildings that were three whole stories high. And made of brick too!

  In the jostling crowd at the open city gate she did feel ghostly fingers in her pocket, but as she had nothing to steal, these vanished. The men always said that in Tarport you kept your money in your fist, and your fist in your pocket, and even that didn't always work.

  Meb had not thought much beyond walking to Tarport. Now that she was here, alone, in the thronging streets, it occurred to her that she had absolutely no idea how to begin looking for the other villagers, let alone her step-brothers. Well, said the sensible voice in her head, if the boys were anywhere, it would be down at the docks. But, in between the houses, she seemed to have lost her sense of direction. Finally, after wa
ndering—for a second time—past a tantalizing smelling bakery, she steeled herself and asked a porter with a load of cloth-bales. He looked a little puzzled. "Back the way you've just come, sonny. Most of the boats are out, though. Yellowtail are running off Headly point. They were taking everybody who could haul a line this morning."

  "Thank you, sir." Just in time she stopped herself curtseying, and managed to turn it into a bob of a bow. Yellowtail! The boats could be gone a week, with smacks ferrying the catches in as the men worked, hauling bright spoons of polished white-metal for the big fish. Still, what else could she do but to go and look?

  The fishing harbor was indeed mostly deserted. Across on the other side of the bay most of the berths were full, with lines of porters carrying cargoes onto bigger vessels. Here on this side there was just one boat, hauled up on the slip, with the three men working on replacing some planking on the bow, looking as sour as green fruit. She walked over to them.

  "What do you want here, boy?" asked a fellow with a tar-bucket and line-scars on his hands. "Come to prig stuff, eh?"

  "No, please Sir, I'm looking for my brothers. Mikka and Hrolf Gundarson. From Cliff Cove," said Meb, humbly.

  The fisherman shrugged. "They'll be at sea. Every fisherman and every man Jack and the gutter-sweepings of the town are out after the yellowtail. The fish have come in strong after the easterly. That's where we'd be, if it wasn't for these stove-in planks."

  Meb's heart fell. What was she going to do now? The apples of this morning seemed a very long time back. "Please Sir, do you have any work for me, then?" she asked. Maybe at least they'd feed her. And they were fishermen. More familiar than the townspeople.

  The fisherman pointed with a tar-brush at a grey haired man with an adze, a plank and a look of extreme irritation on his face. "Ask the old man. But now's not a good time."

  And, indeed, the man shook his head. "You're too small. We're not some cargo-lugger that likes pretty boys on board. Try over on the cargo quay."

  The one with the tar-brush grinned. "You want a spot of my tar to seal your butt first, boy? You'll need it with that lot."

  Blushing furiously, Meb beat a retreat. She didn't have much in the way of breasts. Hallgerd had said that they'd come with children, if not before. But with her small build, short hair and breeches, she obviously passed for a boy—with the jokes aimed at boys. So . . . what did she do now?

  In the short term, the answer was: she didn't know. She settled on mooching around the town, hoping to spot some of the village people—besides Wulfstan. She looked for possible places to find work. She even tried the baker and a fruit stall.

  Neither had any need for a ragged little boy in fisherman's breeches. There were quite enough around town, as they made plain with hard words and, in the case of the fruit-stall owner, a hard blow on the ear for a ragged boy that was not quick enough to dodge. The market, with barrows of everything from bolts of bright cloth, that she longed to touch, to mountains of late fruit, to stalls hung with dried squid, and others loaded with ewe's-milk cheeses, was a wonderful place indeed—except that it made her even hungrier. The stall-owners also made it very plain that they didn't think that she looked like a customer. So she left and wandered back toward the docks, walking along the canal, watching the horses pull the heavy barges loaded with everything from coal to fleeces.

  For quite a while she watched a couple of women—who didn't look much older than herself, but were dressed in what Hallgerd would have described as a "wanton" fashion. Their faces were very painted, and their hair was loose—a shocking thing too. But then maybe the same standards didn't apply in the big city. They didn't seem to be selling any goods. It was only when a sailor came up, talked briefly to the women and walked off with one of them that Meb realized that they were displaying their wares, all right. And Hallgerd's assessment would have been right. Women working in the market stalls or carrying their shopping home all had their hair done up, mostly in braids or twisted and pinned to the tops of their heads.

  Ruefully, Meb felt her own head, looked at her "borrowed" breeches. She'd only taken them to cover her undress and to protect her from the cold. She'd really meant to give them back. But it did close that possible avenue. She realized just how hungry and scared she must be to even think that way. The odd practical voice inside her head said that for women enduring a fate worse than death, at least they didn't appear to be starving. The practical voice horrified her village morality sometimes.

  Meb began to wonder if she could make her way back to the windfall apples and the hay-rick.

  The Gate-horn signaled that she'd left it too late, however. And the sky, which had been growing ever more heavy and dark, decided to add rain to her woes. It came cold and thin, blowing in gusts chased by a bitter wind. The last stall-holders began folding up their awnings and packing their barrows. They turfed their scraps into the gutters and onto the cobbles, and then, collars up, pushed the barrows away down the streets and alleys. Meb had hung around the market area for just this reason. There had to be some scraps she could eat?

  Too late she realized that she wasn't the only one waiting for them to leave. Half a dozen feral-looking boys had beaten her to it. And they weren't keen on sharing either. They surrounded her. "Get out of here," said the largest of the ragged urchins. "This is our turf, see. Get away before we fix you good."

  Meb backed away. At least two of them were bigger than she was. She had no desire to be "fixed good." But she had to find some food, and some shelter. The wind that brought the autumn rains came all the way from winter. She went hunting a drier spot. The alley seemed tempting, overhung by buildings, it must be nearly dry, even if it stank of urine.

  She walked into it, without thinking much about the comments the men made about keeping out of the alleys in town. It was indeed nearly dry under the eaves.

  In the darkness somebody grabbed her from behind. Wrapped their arms around her, and held her. And someone else hit her over the head as she tried to scream. Her shoulder had taken part of the blow as she tried to pull free, but it was still painful and left her feeling stunned and weak.

  She was vaguely aware of someone feeling in her breeches pockets. And lifting her shirt and feeling her bare skinny stomach. The voice seemed to come from some great distance off. "Damn. No money belt either. I were sure he were a runner. Pretty boy like that, usually works for them."

  "Fool kid to come down here," said a second voice. "Shall we toss him in the canal?"

  "Nah," said the first voice, dismissively. "Who's going to care if he got a rapper on the bone-box? Skinny street brats a-plenty out here. Come on. We might as well go to the alley just past the Green Lantern. There's bound to be drunk or two come in for a leak."

  "Usually not much gelt on them by the time they get there," grumbled the second voice. "And it's wetter than here." But he was moving away. Or was that her consciousness?

  Meb blurred upward out of the painful darkness to be sick. There wasn't much more than bile in her stomach, but she threw it up anyway. She was cold, she was damp. The eaves above her dripped steadily, splashing to join the trickle in the middle of the noisome alley. Her head hurt. How her head hurt! With an effort she sat up properly, leaning against the wall. What was she doing here?

  Slowly it came back to her. They'd tried to rob her. Succeeded—except that she had had nothing to steal. Scared, her eyes probed the darkness. Other than a vague lighter patch she could see nothing. Hear nothing either . . . except . . . squeak . . . skitter . . .

  Desperately Meb got to her feet. Not rats! She couldn't stay here with rats, no matter how awful she felt. With one hand on the half-rotten bricks of the wall, she staggered out into the rain.

  There was little enough light here either. Slivers of a warm yellow glow leaking into the rainy air from the shuttered windows was all—except for a green lantern hanging from the eave of a building a little further down the canal-path.

  The sight of it brought up an alarm signal in her mind.
The ones who'd attacked her had said something about that. She started to walk in the opposite direction. But a group of men, swaying and laughing came around the corner from that side. So Meb turned hastily and walked back toward the Green Lantern, walking in the rain, rather than too close to the shelter of the buildings, until she was well past it.

  Because she walked there she spotted the drunk. He was asleep—in the rain—on the little stair to the water-level, just beyond the Green Lantern's front door. If he hadn't been wearing something bright yellow she might still have not seen him.

  He snored peacefully. And looking down, Meb saw that his hand rested on a pouch. It bulged.

  She walked on. The revelers turned into the door of the Green Lantern and were soon noisily making merry inside.

  The voice inside said: "If you didn't go back he'd be robbed by someone else." The Meb brought up by Hallgerd's strict principles said: "It's theft." The practical voice inside her head argued that he'd probably die of cold sleeping in the rain anyway. If she felt that way about it she could leave him something.