Dragon Champion

by E. E. Knight

  “That I am, my young . . . Partner, is it?”

  “Djer. I’ve only just joined the Caravan. We’ve hired another to guard the expense wagon, and since your contract doesn’t begin until we set out, we’ll no longer need your services. Thank you just the same. You’ll be paid at the bargained rate for your time so far and given—”

  “What’s this?” the scarecrow said, wispy eyebrows crashing together. “Who’ve you hired? There’s none east of the mountains as traveled and trustworthy as the men of House Hross.”

  “House Hross, from what I know, has the best of reputations. But you are expensive, and this dragon will do as good a job, for much less.”

  The scarecrow stared at Auron, pupils shrunk to pinheads. “I see no dragon. I see a scaleless lizard.”

  “Nevertheless, he owes us a favor, and he’s only one mouth to feed, whereas—”

  The men protested in their own guttural tongue. They elbowed each other and pointed at Auron, laughing. After further words, the men grew agitated. One, a gap-toothed fellow with furry knuckles, spat on Auron. The man took a step forward, shifting weight to one leg so he might kick, but another long-haired man held him back in a brief struggle. The one with the long hair said something as he reseated a silver circlet about his head, pulling the hair from his eyes.

  “You’d trust that thing over men of skill and honor?” the scarecrow said.

  “That I do, Hross. I’m sure you’ll be able renew your contract next year,” Djer said. “The Company will pay for you to get back down the falls, of course.”

  “But that’s two hundred—over two hundred—days without pay. My men and I won’t stand for it.”

  “I don’t see that you have a choice.”

  The men said something to Hross, and Auron caught the word dragon and fire but little else.

  “A dragon that age breathes little fire,” Hross said. “It’s not anything like full grown. Suppose it gets sick.”

  “I’m healthy,” Auron said.

  “So you speak,” the scarecrow said. “But do you fight with anything besides your bragging tongue?”

  “What bragging have I done?” Auron asked.

  “This dwarf maintains that you can do as good a job as my men. You’ve oversold your abilities, lizard. Get yourself some scales, and try again.”

  Auron ignored the insult as he would a buzzing fly.

  “Our belief in the dragon isn’t changing,” Djer said. “You and your men will have to leave.”

  “Just one of my men could take that thing apart in a fair fight,” Hross said.

  “Ask him what a fair fight would be,” Auron whispered to Sekyw in Dwarvish.

  “What do you mean by a fair fight?” Sekyw asked.

  “No fire breathing. My men each choose their weapon.”

  “Give me my choice of weapon, and I’ll fight all four. Without fire,” Auron said.

  The scarecrow translated for his men, and they talked among themselves. “Young Partner, we’ll happily take the test. My four against your dragon, hand to hand. My men get one weapon each, and as long as we approve of the weapon your dragon has, we’ll fight to see who is the strongest.”

  Djer looked at Auron, and Auron nodded.

  “It’s a match. But we see the weapons your men choose, or there’s no fight,” Djer said.

  The man stuck out his hand, but Djer shook his head. “We’re putting it down clear and simple in writing. If you lose, you leave the camp with your men at your own expense. If you win, your original contract holds.”

  The scarecrow translated for his men, and they all nodded. The one who had spat said something, his lip raised in a sneer.

  “My men demand the body,” Hross said. Auron craned his neck to Djer’s ear and whispered.

  “That will go in the contract, too. If the dragon gets to keep the bodies of his kills,” Djer said.

  “This is to the death, lizard,” the gap-toothed man said to Auron, in guttural Parl. The long-haired one with the circlet about his brow said something in a language Auron didn’t understand, but the others barked at him.

  “It’s a bargain, man,” Auron agreed.

  Word spread through the camp as if criers had sounded the news of the match from the towers. The scarecrow emptied a corral of draft horses, and dwarves began to assemble; they perched on the rails like sitting birds on tree limbs.

  “I’m about to sign the agreement,” Djer said, fixing Auron’s fighting-tail on the stump. “Are you that sure of yourself?”

  “Every fight of my life has been unfair,” Auron said, watching the men hang chain shirts over each other’s shoulders and strap on armor. What he didn’t add is that he’d lost each of them, and survived only by strange chance. “This is one where I’ve picked the odds.”

  Djer looked at the men. “Sekyw, they’re armoring themselves.”

  “Nothing was said about armor!” Sekyw shouted to Hross.

  Hross pointed to the unsigned document, pinned to a post of the corral. “Exactly. Nothing was said about armor.”

  “Let them. The more armor, the better,” Auron said, swinging his tail to make sure the fighting claw was fixed. “Shields, helms, braces—I hope they pile it on. It’ll slow them down.”

  “You’re only betting your life. I’ll be betting my money,” Sekyw said, counting handfuls of coin.

  Djer walked over to the agreement and signed it, and handed the pen to the scarecrow with a bow. Hross scrawled his name and returned to his men.

  “Four armed men against one drake, no flame,” Sekyw called to the dwarves. “Four to one, but I’ll give you better odds. Three to one. I’m offering three to one.”

  “I’ll put down three silver,” a dwarf called.

  “Six Diadem gold on the men,” the captain of the Suram said. The elf towered over the assembled dwarves.

  Sekyw worked the crowd with scroll case and pencil.

  “Were your life not in the balance, I’d want the greedy blighter to lose,” Djer grumbled.

  “Think of it as a consolation prize if the men get lucky,” Auron said.

  “Never. I’d be out a Partnership. But more important, I’d be out a friend,” the dwarf said, tickling Auron under the chin.

  “Back in a moment,” Auron said, his tongue flicking in and out in a rasp across the dwarf’s wrist. He didn’t want this fight for himself, but for Djer. Djer’s honor, rather than dragon pride.

  First beware Pride, lest belief in one’s might

  Has you discount the foeman who is braving your sight.

  But his mother had never mentioned the honor of those who had done you a good turn and offered help in a time of need.

  Auron faced the four men. All wore armor of one sort or another, head to toe, save one man who wore only chain-and-leather gauntlets. The unarmored man held a net before him. Auron looked at the net, and his fire bladder stirred. He couldn’t help the puffs of smoke that appeared from either side of his mouth as he suppressed a belch. Two of the men carried boar spears, with long points and crossbars to stop him from pulling himself toward the holder if impaled. The last man, the long-haired one, removed the silver circlet holding his hair and pulled a helmet on. He snapped down the face-plate and took up a dwarvish double-headed ax.

  The scarecrow whispered something into the ear of the ax-man, then spoke to the man with the net before retiring to the other side of corral rails. Dwarves dropped their tasks and climbed upon wagons and even the outer wall to get a view. Sekyw was not the only one taking bets; Auron saw coin and rings passing to holders all around. He wondered if Djer had hazarded a bet.

  Auron brought himself back to the coming fight. This confrontation was not the joke Auron made it to Djer, for all that he wanted to help his friend. But this time he’d chosen the conditions and the odds, as a way of proving himself after being trapped by hunters twice in his short life.

  The four men shuffled back and forth, talking amongst themselves. Neither side wanted to make the first
move. The net-holder took a step forward, prodded by the ax-wielder, whose hair hung from the bottom of his helm. The spearmen fanned out.

  Auron locked his eyes on the net-man. He put the fury from his fire bladder into his eyes, concentrating on the man’s dark eyes until the spear-men and the sword-wielder shrank away, as if viewed from a distance. Conversely, the net-human’s eyes grew until the loathsome round irises of the human’s brown eyes filled his vision. Auron felt as if he were out of his body—the drake wearing his frame crept toward the net-holder as Auron floated somewhere above, watching dispassionately.

  “Wer! Athack!” the spear-men’s voices shouted at their companion, who stood like a statue. The ax-wielder pulled net-man back as Auron jumped.

  Ax-man, net-man, and Auron went down together as the drake landed on the chest of the retiarius. Auron raked through the netting with his saa, and the net-man came out of his trance, screaming out his death throes. The spear-men charged, and Auron tried to side-step, but his feet entangled in the netting. In the moment it took him to free himself, the spear-men bore in with their weapons.

  Auron writhed and avoided impalement, but one of the spears tore a jagged wound along his ribs. The other dug into the dirt, and as the man pulled it free, Auron whipped his armored tail up and caught the man squarely aside the head. There was a crash of metal, which staggered the spear-man. Auron bit at the ax-wielder. The man kicked him in the snout as he slid backwards toward the ring of spectators.

  The spear-carrier who had wounded Auron raised his weapon to strike once again. Auron dragon-dashed between the man’s horribly hairy legs, knocking them out from under him as he wiggled through. The man planted his spear in the dirt, missing Auron but keeping himself upright with the pole. Auron whipped his neck back and bit up and under the armor at the man’s legs. He felt his fangs go deep, but he did not grip and tear, for the ax-man was already stepping in. The long-haired man, the quickest of his foes, was on his feet and supporting the man whose helmet Auron had dented. He backed off, holding his shield-tail between him and the ax-wielder.

  Auron smelled the blood running out of the leg of the spear-carrier he had bitten. The man ignored the wound; he took a short grip on his spear and used it to maneuver Auron toward the corner of the corral. Auron read the blood trail the spear-man left and waited. As the other two retrieved the net from the body of the retiarius to join him, the suddenly pallid man’s eyes rolled skyward in his skull, and he toppled over. The crowd either howled in triumph or wailed in dismay, depending on which side their money stood.

  The other two stared for a moment, as if trying to discern the magic that had felled their second comrade. They tried to keep him in the corner, holding the net between them. Auron coiled his body, ready to spring to the left of the one still weaving in his concussion.

  He felt something pull at his neck. The audience let out an outraged yell.

  “Naf! Fus pack-par!” a screeching voice called from behind.

  Auron spun. The scarecrow had maneuvered through the crowd and tossed a lasso around his neck, and even now was trying to haul him to the rails of the corral. He heard footsteps behind as the men ran in to finish him. Auron obliged the scarecrow, and uncoiled, launching himself through the gap between the upper and lower bars. The man dropped the rope in alarm, but Auron’s crest caught him in the midriff. Hross folded like a sheet fallen from a washline.

  An outraged dwarf grabbed and cut the line around Auron’s neck, stopping Auron from digging his teeth into his foe’s throat. Hross lay below, arms crossed at his middle, mouth open and making unintelligible gasping sounds. In the second that cutting the line took, Auron’s furor faded, and he took up Hross’s head in his mouth, clamping his jaws firmly to either side of the man’s skull so that the scarecrow’s eyes looked out at the ax-man climbing over the rails.

  Auron tried to say, “Stop the fight,” but saliva and a hissing noise were all that came out of the sides of his mouth.

  “Wait! Wait!” Hross shouted, raking Auron’s snout with his fingernails. Auron made ready to crush his skull should the man try for his eyes. The ax-man looked at his employer, held in Auron’s jaws like an oversize stick in a dog’s mouth, and laughed. He dropped the ax and went down on one knee, holding his right hand palm-outward at Auron.

  “The dragon wins! You win, dragon,” Hross added, to a general cheer. The shouts and applause degenerated into a hundred individual arguments over the bets.

  “It turned into a bad dwarvish joke,” Djer said later as he and Auron approached the center tower. “Three hundred individual, crisscrossing arguments about wagers. Most of the dwarves that bet on the men held that Hross had invalidated the bet by getting involved. Of course, the ones that bet on you said that you won nevertheless. We finally forced Hross to pay the bets he had made, and then cough up at least a symbolic restitution to the others that bet on you. Hross complained at first, but when he saw that every dwarf in the ring would take—or give—either his money or his flesh to get what was owed, he opened his purse. I don’t know why he bothered closing it again—it was as empty as the bodies in the ring. Decent of you not to eat them after all.”

  “That man with the ax, err—”

  “Naf,” Sekyw supplied.

  Auron tried the name. “Naf—human names are hard on a dragon’s mouth, I need to learn some of their tongues—laughed and clapped me on the back. I didn’t understand a word he said, but he seemed willing to leave it at that. He seemed a good man, and after that I lost my appetite to eat his fellows.”

  “I don’t know that these mannish mercenaries keep friends long, or even care if a couple chunt off. They’re not dwarves, after all.”

  They stood for a moment in the shadow of the tower. Forged wheels on the linked-shield rolling road were being oiled and cleaned.

  “The towers leave tomorrow,” Sekyw said. “They’re a sight to see moving. They’ll roll along for a hundred days or more.” He took them beneath the tower; the dwarves just had to bow their heads. Sekyw rapped on a wooden portal with his walking stick. “Tower-warden, open, our brave drake wants a look inside this dwarf-wonder. The Partner Djer wishes to accompany him on a tour.”

  Sekyw stepped out of the way as the flat surface above dropped down, a stairway supported by ropes. Polished brass gleamed at the ends of dwarf-size handrails.

  “Our ally is welcome,” a dwarf in armor of woven leather said, descending the stairs to bow. Sekyw took them up. They saw all manner of wheels and drivers, interlocking mechanisms like the insides of an intricate clock grown to dragon-size. A forged web of steel held up the floors above. A dwarf or two lounged, giving the metal gears an occasional rub from a cloth that reeked like lamp oil.

  “The first level is the driving rooms,” Sekyw explained. “Note how many of the wheels and structural reinforcements have holes. It makes it lighter, with only the tiniest loss in supportive strength. We’ll ride the cargo verticator from here—easier that way. Since the tower isn’t moving, the dwarf-lifts aren’t working.” He pointed to a vertical belt of leather, with little metal handles, or perhaps footrests, which ran on its own set of wheels, a smaller, vertical version of the treads below.

  They stepped onto a metal-webbed platform in the center of the tower. It rested in a cage with bars at the corners, and Sekyw reached for a bell-rope. He pulled twice, and the grate on the floor lifted to a gap in the ceiling above. Djer gasped and grabbed at one of the handrails running between the corner bars.

  “First time in a verticator?” Sekyw said.

  “Ach, no, I used them in the mines. We’d ride up in the coal-scuttles. You had to jump in right or you’d get a good knock in the head. What do you think, Auron?”

  “I could have hopped up to the next level easily enough,” Auron said.

  “Dwarves can’t jump like dragons. Well, not up, anyway,” Sekyw said.

  The second and third floors each held two spoked wheels, like wagon-wheels without the rims. They turned the tree-t
runk-thick axles that descended into the driving room below.

  “A testament to the strength and endurance of dwarves. Each spoke takes three dwarves, two pulling and one pushing so they interlock with the team ahead. They push-pull for four hours on floors sanded to keep them from losing their footing in their own sweat. The towers are also pulled by teams of wraxapods, but the capstan-dwarves can drive the towers in an emergency. Each floor runs one side of track. If they want to turn the tower, they just slow down one side. They match their pace to the beat of drums. The tower captain sends down orders to the drummers through that speaking-tube,” Sekyw said, pointing to a flowerlike projection from the wall.

  Auron had enough imagination to picture the room filled with sweating dwarves, turning the wheels in time to the beat of the drum. Sekyw rang his bell-rope again, and they traveled up to living-floors. This floor was a little higher than the others, to give the dwarves more air as they ate and slept. Sekyw showed them store-rooms full of food and coal, kitchens and bathrooms, and the fixtures where the dwarves slung their hammocks. Wide dwarves, almost as broad as they were tall, greeted them merrily and explained everything from how to get a drink from the gravity-fed cisterns to the watchkeeping system, with labor teams tracked on polished slate boards marked with something Sekyw called chalk.

  They walked out onto the first battlement, level with the walls around the settlement. In the welcome clear air and sunshine, Sekyw walked them past war machines designed to hurl javelins, fire, or helmet-size scoops of metal missiles.

  Djer picked up one of the pieces of shot. It was a little smaller than his fist, a round sphere of iron. “They can knock out a helmeted man, fired from a height, or kill his horse. They’re fired from something that looks like a slingshot on a board.”

  There were two more battlement levels as the tower narrowed to the top. They had to ascend ladders to go higher. Fixed crossbows placed between timber crenellations in the walls replaced the larger engines of the floor below. “Archers, too,” Djer said, opening a case and looking at the arrows standing within.