Dragon Champion

by E. E. Knight

  “What was it like, being in an egg?” Djer asked. “Dwarves come like mammals; we don’t have memories of it.”

  “Safe. Wonderful. Like you feel on a cold day in winter when you’re sleeping somewhere warm, not quite awake but not really asleep, either. Your senses flicker on and off.”

  “You’re an education, Auron. I’m now a dwarf of position and experience. I owe it all to you.” He pulled out a long-stemmed pipe and lit leathery leaf within. Djer had been experimenting with different pipe-fillings available at the market, and had found a rich-smelling, almost beery kind that revolted the drake.

  Djer expelled a contented sigh along with the fragrant pipesmoke.

  Auron flicked out his tongue and touched the dwarf’s callused hand. “You worked double shifts in that mine to buy into the Chartered Company. You worked hard and drove your cart even when it wasn’t bringing you much in return. Then you did a favor for a strange beast that in another time or place might have killed you. Your success is entirely your own.”

  With the money-wagon emptied like a larder at the end of winter, Auron toured the markets and stalls with Djer. They explored the offerings of the Vhydic and lands beyond. Auron thrived on the experience. The color and energy of the place was infectious, if a bit overwhelming to a young drake. The markets attracted such a mixture of peoples, sights, and sounds that he felt like just another visitor in a land where every face is a strange one and every sight an oddity. Dogs slunk behind their master’s legs at his coming, and horses danced in fear, but his presence inspired nothing but interested looks and excited comment, a welcome change from the angry call of hunting horns or the scrape of swords being drawn.

  Auron paused at the vendors offering hanging maps and delicate scrolls, the work of men who could not communicate through thought-pictures. But they had some advantages over the mental way of the dragons. A man or dwarf did not have to rely on the accumulated memories of his blood-line: he could learn from the writings of those in another time and place, if he just understood the symbols. An old story did not die with its owner, but lived on whenever someone picked out the words. The inventiveness of the hominids made up for their physical weakness.

  He saw strange long-necked birds which stood on legs as tall as a horse, and a messenger who flew off east on the Golden Road on a vulture that had the wingspan near that of a mature dragon. He smelled a precious metal that came out of the south, something Djer identified as platinum. He tried wines and spirits, passing from exhilaration to sick exhaustion in six wild hours. There were piles of timber that gave off sparks when struck with a piece of flint, crystals that gathered the sun’s heat during the day and warmed a room at night, and puppets that danced without strings and told stories to amuse child and adult alike. What was magic, what was art, and what was craft could not be said except by the makers, who worked with all three to produce the wonders of the bazaar of Wa’ah.

  Auron carried the sights, smells, and sounds of the land of the Golden Road between the Rivers for the rest of his life.

  The barbarians must have slipped across the mountains in the night. Auron heard the far-off clamor of battle before dawn, followed by the nearer sound of dwarves blowing their alarm horns. The round horns, wound once around the torso at the shoulder with the bell baffled so the sound was projected in all directions, cut through the morning birdsong like a dragon’s battle scream.

  The dwarven camp had always been arranged for defense, with the three towers as corners of a triangle filled by wagons running like the walls of a castle between them. The dwarves rushed to fill in the gaps with barrels, boxes, and beams, closing the riverside gap with Auron’s stoutly built treasure wagon. Auron had no role in the drill, nor could he find Djer, so he dashed to the northernmost tower and climbed the outside to get a better view. Panting from the climb, he wrapped himself around the pole leading up to the crow’s nest. The dwarf above stamped his feet in excitement.

  Even with the predawn only turning the high swirling clouds gold, there was more than enough light for Auron to see the panoply of attack. A long column poured out of the mountains, dividing itself into three separate wedges like an approaching hydra. The farthest off turned and made for the Golden Road, the middle for the palisades surrounding the king’s warehouses, and the nearest turned for the riverbank.

  “They’re not making to cross the river,” a dwarf in the watchtower called down to the commodore. “We’re safe!”

  “Can’t you hear the horses?” Auron asked. “To the west, to the west, dwarf!”

  The watchman shifted his grip on the rail and leaned out to look at the steppe and brought a glass to his eye. “No . . . yes . . . no, is there something out there?”

  “Many somethings,” Auron said, backing down the pole.

  Below, in the command cupola, the commodore held some sort of visor to his face, looking out to the steppe. Anxious dwarves stood all around. Auron reversed himself so his head hung down to hear the conversation below.

  “By the hammer that made Ezkad’s ax, it’s the Kun-Dhlo,” Stal said, lowering the glass lenses. “We bought cattle from them only last month. They must be coming with every boy and graybeard who can ride. We’re too spaced out. The towers can hardly cover the walls, let alone each other,” he said to Esef, who had puffed his way up the ladders at the alarm. “We’ve gotten lazy in these smooth days of peace.”

  The commodore inhaled and put a speaking-trumpet to his mouth. “Wind every crossbow and stand to the walls, O Dwarves! Stout arms and hearts, or our names’ll be memorials on the battle wall!”

  Auron watched a long line inch across the steppes. The horsemen were walking their mounts rather than racing pell-mell for the towers. Whoever led the Kun-Dhlo knew how to discipline the warriors.

  The same could not be said for the warriors on the other side of the river. Auron saw that one of the suerzain’s warehouses was already aflame. Wagons began to burn as screams and the noise of battle, like a thousand frantic blacksmiths hammering out tin pots, floated from the far bank of the river.

  “What’ll it be, sir?” Esef asked. “We can save many lives if we abandon the stock and keep to the towers. They want our goods, not our lives.”

  The commodore scraped at the floor with one of his tough feet like a horse eager to be off. “Dwarves don’t abandon their own. I’ve a duty to the Company, as does every dwarf here, to make them trade in blood for what they’d take without gold.”

  “Give ’em a taste of our law,” a beardless signaldwarf said, but the elders ignored him.

  “We should have dug a trench. In my youth, before the suerzain’s family came to power here, we were more careful,” Esef observed.

  “Too late to regret it now,” the commodore said. “Go down and open the stores. If there are any mail shirts, hand them out to the dwarves on the barricades.”

  “Where shall I go?” Auron asked as Esef spoke into one of the tubes.

  The commodore jumped. “By my beard, I thought you were the tail of the banner hanging down. Stay in the towers, young drake! It’s the safest place. We may lose a good many dwarves, not to mention our stock.”

  “Where’s Djer?”

  Esef raised his face from the speaking-tube. “Where a dwarf his age should be, at the barricade.”

  Auron fixed his stumpy tail and swung below the cupola, climbing down the side of the tower as he had come up, eschewing ladder for claw. He found Djer shouting orders for the dwarves to add everything they could move to the barricade. He held no weapon; he pointed and gestured with the long stem of his pipe.

  “What shall I do?” Auron asked.

  Djer kicked a case of crossbow bolts open on the ground. “Here, bowmen, take more!” he shouted, then looked at Auron as if he had just met him as a stranger. “Die on the walls with the rest of us.”

  “Doesn’t anyone here know how to fight a battle?” Auron asked.

  The dwarf set his mouth. “We’re traders first. Warfare is a long second. Th
e towers haven’t been attacked in generations. Our machines used to frighten our enemies.”

  “Another almost,” Auron said.

  The drake could read the fierce light in Djer’s eyes, even behind his daylight-mask. “But they’ll still find that we’ll die only once we’ve built a wall of bodies around us.”

  Auron saw arrayed companies of men in his mind, memories passed down from his grandfather. “Let the machines try to win it for you. But be prepared for them to fail. When men fight, they always keep a strong force out of the battle, in case of the unexpected. Don’t put all your dwarves on the walls—keep something back.”

  Djer looked up at the towers, where the push-pull dwarves were manning their devices for hurling death at the enemy, and at the widely spaced dwarves, only two to a wagon, at the barricades.

  “There’s few enough down here. You’ll be the reserve. Your fire might be a surprise if all else fails.”

  Auron tensed, and his earholes tucked themselves behind his griff as they descended from his crest. “I will try.”

  “Horses won’t be able to get past the barricade. It’ll be like the battle in the tapestry. They’ll ride round and round until they’re all dead. There might be some fights if they dismount and try slipping through, but we should—”

  “They’re coming! Why don’t the towers fire?” a dwarf shouted from the wall.

  Auron craned his neck and looked through a gap in the heap of wagons, bales, and boxes that served as a wall. The horsemen sat their mounts, still well away from the wall. The towers facing the lines of riders launched their missiles. Some flamed in the growing light, leaving smoke trails as they arced toward the enemy. The towers wasted no further missiles after the first fell short. Auron heard whistles and trumpets from the enemy and saw a rustle of motion from behind the barrier of horses.

  “Some among them know how far our war-machines can throw,” Djer said.

  Gaps opened in the screen of horses. Figures on all fours charged forward as the first rays of the dawn touched the banners at the tops of the towers. They were like dogs, only heavier. Auron heard pained squeals and realized they were swine. He saw blood running down their flanks, impelled by cruel spikes digging into their flesh. The pigs bore bags across their backs, the kind of satchels men sometimes put on their horses, though to what purpose Auron could not guess.

  The dwarves did not wait to find out. The towers launched their shot and flame, the walls crossbow bolts. A swine or two fell, but the rest raced forward, some with crossbow bolts stuck through their fleshy shoulders and necks.

  The dawn went white, and there was a thunderclap. A pig had disappeared, apparently in a flash of lightning.

  “Sul-fire! Ware! Sul-fire,” a dwarf at the barricades shouted. “They’re under the walls, bring fire buckets! I smell a—” Another explosion cut the shout off; the dwarf and pieces of his wagon flew into the air as if by a giant’s fist driving up from the ground. Auron’s nostrils caught a noxious reek: a sulfurous mix of rotten eggs, burning flesh, and acidic smoke.

  More thunderclaps sounded, though only one blew another gap in the barricade. Pieces of debris, flesh and wood, fell to the ground. Some dwarves hurled themselves from the walls, but most stood to their posts—bravely obeying orders or frozen in fear of the thunderclaps.

  “The horses come. Loose, loose!” a dwarf called.

  Blowing smoke obscured Auron’s view, and still another explosion made the dwarves duck, upsetting the aim of the crossbowmen. The commodore must have held some of his weapons against this moment, for the towers suddenly doubled their fire. Flame and iron rained onto the line of horsemen.

  “Watch the riverside. Some are crossing,” a deep voice from the southern river-tower boomed.

  “Every dwarf to the north wall!” Djer shouted. He stood on a barrel to see the attack, still with a pipe in his hand. “Let the towers take care of the river.”

  Some of the attackers came off their horses, running forward with ropes and hooks. Others fired curved bows from their wheeling mounts. Arrows struck home among the dwarves; the riders were better marksmen on horseback than the dwarves standing still. Another pig exploded, this time frightening horses as well as dwarves. A few of the latter jumped off the wall and ran for the nearest tower. The towers were sending their missiles toward the river now, holding back the attack by the men who had crossed the river.

  A wagon lurched over, spilling a dwarf as it was dragged from the wall. Horses of the Ironriders pulled at the wheels with ropes and hooks, hauling it out of the barricade by main force. More horns sounded from the attackers, and another rain of steel from the commodore’s tower felled horse and man alike among the pullers. The wagon stopped ten paces from the wall, and riders with spears and curved swords spurred their mounts toward the gap.

  Djer jumped from his barrel and grabbed two dwarves running for the towers toward the gap. “Fill the breech!” he yelled, waving dwarves over from the other walls. But the archers were riding all around the dwarves’ triangle now; the dwarves at the other walls worked bow, crossbow, and sling to keep them off. Each side traded shots; dwarves to either side of Djer toppled, sprouting feathered shafts. With a cry a body of horsemen—all fur cape, pointed hat, and long, black-feathered spear—charged the gap. Auron caught a wild look of fear in Djer’s eyes as he stood alone at the breech without even a shield, working the lever of a crossbow.

  Auron roared. His call rose above the clamor, not the sound of dwarf, man, horse, or even swine. Perhaps a lion could make a sound like that, but it would lack the trumpet quality of Auron’s length of neck. He dragon-dashed straight for the gap and the charging horses, griff extended so his head resembled the point of a battering ram—Djer would not face the raiders alone. Once he was alongside his friend he loosed his foua, spreading a long arc of liquid flame on gap and tipped wagon alike. The superheated wood exploded with a crackling fshoosh.

  A horse and rider braved the inferno; Auron turned his head toward them. His fire struck the horse on the forequarters, melting away skin and muscle, and the beast crashed headlong in its death. Its rider, also aflame along his arms and face, flew forward to land in a horrid writhing heap. Other horses shied away from the flames, turning at the last moment to run along the walls, their riders desperately striking at dwarf heads along the barricade.

  Auron stood in the breach making a show of lashing his neck and tail with mouth open and battle fans extended, enlarging his head. Another wild rider, cape flying out behind, jumped the flaming wagon-trek-tow with a moon-white horse. He held a kitelike banner in a muscular arm, the sharp end pointed for Auron’s breast. Auron’s neck muscles convulsed, but only sour gas came up his fire channels. Something twanged behind; a crossbow bolt buried itself in the man’s broad chest, and he toppled backwards off his horse. The beast danced around Auron, away from the flames and into the darkness of the dwarf compound.

  “Reload this!” Djer barked at a dwarf beside him, handing over the crossbow that had felled the banner man. He ran over to the man and picked up the banner, holding it like a spear, and stood beside Auron.

  “The fire was a shock for them. I knew you would not fail me,” Djer said grimly.

  Arrows arced overhead. “Build up the bonfire,” Auron said. “Have your dwarves throw barrels, anything on it. The horses don’t like it.”

  “I don’t like it much better,” Djer said, coughing in the smoke blowing their way. “But we’ll do it.” He shouted orders, and dwarves ran up to throw anything they could lay their hands on, making a blister of fire around the gap in the wall.

  The Ironriders charged again, braving the fire of the towers. The horses turned away at the last moment. Some of the riders, in their battle fury, jumped off their mounts and fought the dwarves on the walls with fist and dagger, but were met by a wave of hard-armed push-pull dwarves, released from the towers to aid the fight on the walls. A third charge broke almost as soon as it started, when the first missiles from the towers rained
down on the front ranks.

  By the time the sun was two diameters off the horizon, it was over. Across the river, looted barges and warehouses, wagons and stalls burned, putting an inverted mountain of black smoke into the spring sky. Djer retrieved the white horse that had bolted past Auron and rode up and down the walls like a horseman-born, his stumpy legs gripping the beast’s back as the man’s saddle dragged from its belly. He still pointed with his pipe as he shouted.

  Auron found himself shaking as the riders retreated. The Ironriders still blew horns and whistles defiantly, covered by archers who let it be known that they were leaving at their own pace, still fighting—a dwarf who stood up to jeer fell with an arrow through his cheek; he lived but never shook his fist at anyone again—as they quit the field.

  The commodore received a trophy of battle as he passed among the wounded dwarves. It was a green, kite-shaped standard stretched tight on a narrow crossbar. Stitched in black was a figure of a man with arms held out, pointed up from his shoulders as if he were trying to fly, surrounded by a golden circle encompassed by the limits of his hands and feet. It was no small feat of workmanship, especially in the intricate weaving of the golden threads. They were braided into the circle like a maiden’s locks. Perhaps they were a woman’s hair, at that.

  So my old enemy has followed me even here, to the other side of the world. “Which Steppe King bears that banner?” Auron asked.

  The commodore raised an eyebrow. “I’ve not seen that one before. The figure isn’t in the style I’ve seen among the Ironriders.”

  “I’ve seen it before,” Djer said. “When I worked the Varvar coast as a tradesdwarf. Meant ‘Dwarves aren’t welcome.’”

  The commodore shrugged, but Auron saw wide eyes narrow behind his face-mask. “Perhaps the Ironriders copied it.”

  “Were the others driven off, as well?” Djer asked.

  “The barbarians on the other side of the river fared better. They came for pillage, not murder. How they got over the mountains without warning is beyond me. An unexpected feat of generalship for the Ironriders.”