Master of Dragons

by Margaret Weis

  Edward must have remembered his own courtship, which had lasted a quarter of an hour, for he and Ermintrude had been introduced, wedded, then bedded all in the same day.

  “No tambours and lutes playing when you speak her name, as the poets say?” Edward asked wryly.

  “Everything is so uncertain now,” Marcus said in apology. “I can’t really think about marriage.”

  “Bad timing—despite what your mother and the holy book say.” Edward paused, then added, “Love will come, Marcus. It may not be the love the poets sing about, but it’s much more comfortable.” Another pause, then he added quietly, “Your mother had a talk with Mistress Evelina yesterday evening.”

  Marcus’s skin burned so that the rainwater running down his cheeks seemed to sizzle.

  “Your mother explained to her that marriage was out of the question and promised her that she and her child—if she is truly pregnant—will be provided for.”

  “How did Evelina . . . what did . . . did she say anything—”

  “The girl took it well enough, according to your mother. She was upset, of course, but your mother is of the opinion that she will come around, especially once she understands that any type of relationship with you is hopeless. Your mother told her about your engagement. That should end the matter.”

  It should, but Marcus had the feeling that it wouldn’t. His thoughts in regard to Evelina were all mixed up; a tangle of desire and revulsion that he couldn’t understand. He saw her lying naked beside him on the bed, and he ached and throbbed, and he saw her somewhere else, doing something else—he couldn’t remember what or where—but when that vague memory tugged at his sleeve, the throbbing turned into a sickening feeling that churned his stomach and left a sour taste in his mouth.

  He said nothing, however, and his father, thinking he understood, gave his son a sympathetic glance and rode on ahead, leaving Marcus to his thoughts, which immediately left wedding and/or bedding and went back to what—if anything—lay ahead.

  They rode swiftly that day and made a cold and cheerless camp late in the evening. The rain ceased, but the trees dripped incessantly all night long. The ground was wet and soggy. The fires smoked and gave forth only sullen, grudging warmth. Marcus was stiff and sore from the long ride, and a night spent sleeping on the ground didn’t help. They were up and in the saddle as soon as there was light enough for men and horses to see where they were going. They rode all that day, slept on soggy ground that night, and were up yet again with another gray dawn.

  The clouds passed that morning, leaving a clean-washed blue sky and glaring sun that, by the time they reached Aston Castle, was high above the trees. Prince Wilhelm was not there to meet them. He’d ridden out with his troops. He had left orders for the care of his father and brother and their retinue, orders that his lady-wife carried out in an exemplary manner. Grooms stabled the horses, which were glad to rest after their wearying journey. The knights enjoyed a hearty repast, and the king enjoyed meeting with his daughter-in-law and playing with his grandchildren. There was an air of tension, however, and when a messenger arrived, riding a steaming horse into the courtyard, half the castle turned out to meet him.

  “What news?” the king asked, holding the horse’s bridle himself.

  “Prince Wilhelm bids me to give you this message, Your Majesty,” said the knight. “My lord says: ‘The sun shines. The river flows. The birds sing. Our archers snore beneath the trees and our men-at-arms lose the money you are paying them to each other at dice.’ “

  Edward was careful not to look at Marcus. Those knights who had been lingering nearby glanced at each other, rolled their eyes, shook their heads, and walked off. The king told the messenger to come inside. Marcus followed more slowly and, when he arrived, he found the messenger and the king bent over a map.

  “His Highness chose this position, Your Majesty. If enemy troops were to cross the river, we deemed this to be the likeliest place. He sent scouts across the river to search for some sign of an enemy, and we found nothing. We went upstream and down and I swear on my father’s beard, Your Majesty, that there is no city there. There is no army threatening to attack us. There is naught but trees and brush and deer coming to the water to drink.”

  Marcus sat in a chair in a corner. His father glanced at him from time to time, as if inviting him to speak, but Marcus kept silent. He knew quite well what the scouts had seen, for he’d seen it, too—until Grald had lifted the magical veil of enchantment.

  Edward said that he would like to see for himself the lay of the land and how the troops were deployed. The messenger offered to escort him in the morning.

  When the man had been dismissed, Edward turned to Marcus.

  “I know you are tired from the long journey, my son, especially after everything you’ve gone through. Perhaps you would like to remain here and rest.”

  His offer was well intentioned and kindly meant, and it fell on Marcus with the force of an iron anvil dropped off the top of the castle wall.

  “I will come with you, Father,” he said coldly, and he turned his back and walked off before Edward could say a word.

  33

  “DEATH AHEAD OF YOU. DEATH BEHIND YOU. DEATH ABOVE YOU and death below. No escape, King’s Son. There is no escape.”

  Crouched on his little stool, in his own little room, Marcus spent the night listening to the dragon’s voice hissing through the keyhole. Over and over. Death ahead of you. Death behind you. Death above and death below. No escape, King’s Son.

  The tone was harsh, meant to frighten and weaken. And it succeeded.

  Marcus rose from his bed with the dull, stupid feeling that comes from fatigue. He looked out of the castle’s slit windows to see the east reddening with the dawn. The castle’s other inhabitants were already awake, for the king had ordered them to ride at first light. The voice of the dragon lingered. Marcus closed his eyes and pressed his throbbing head against the chill stone wall.

  The words “death ahead, death behind, death above, death below” had been laid in his brain like some sort of evil eggs, and now, hatching, the dread portent of the warning squirmed and crawled around inside him.

  The dragon army lay ahead of them. The dragon was above them. Death behind and death below. Did the enemy have them surrounded? Were they cut off from the castle and the cannons that were to save them? Was this warning even true, or was this the dragon’s way of defeating them before they’d started?

  The summons came to ride. Accoutered in his heavy armor— plate over chain—Marcus clanked into the courtyard in time to hear a messenger from his brother reporting to the king that the night had passed with no alarms.

  None of the knights that comprised the Prince’s Own looked at Marcus this morning as they mounted and made ready to ride. No one spoke to him either, except his father, to wish him a good day. And Edward’s voice sounded strained.

  Marcus mounted his war horse and rode in silence, the words writhing about inside his brain.

  Death ahead. Death behind.

  Death above. Death below.

  No escape.

  The king’s messenger had galloped on ahead to apprise Prince Wilhelm of their coming, and he was on hand to greet them as they dismounted, giving his father an affectionate embrace and his little brother a cool nod. Prince Wilhelm was about eight years Marcus’s senior. The difference in their ages alone would have likely prevented the two from being close. Add to this the fact that Marcus had been a very strange child, given to visions and fancies and finally going insane, and the result was that the half-brothers scarcely knew each other.

  To give Wilhelm his due, he had never resented the bastard son or feared him or distrusted him, as often happened in other royal households. Wilhelm had defended and protected his little brother, mostly with words, sometimes with fists. Marcus never knew this, or if he did, it was lost in the dazzling, lunatic swirl of dragon-dreams that had comprised his childhood.

  A goodly blend of both father and mother, Wilhel
m had fair hair, his father’s hazel eyes, and a tendency to his mother’s plumpness that he worked hard to avoid. His nature had always been of a serious bent, and he took his duties as crown prince in earnest. When the king and his retinue came upon the prince, he was hot, tired, and in a bad humor. Marcus could not particularly blame his brother. The most vicious foes Wilhelm faced at the moment were fleas, ticks, gnats, grasshoppers, and clouds of ferocious mosquitoes.

  As the morning sun sparkled on the distant river, Wilhelm sat his horse atop the ridge, the visor of his helm raised, trying to ignore the itching of the many bug bites that he was unable to scratch beneath his armor. He made no attempt to keep the annoyance out of his voice as he indicated to his father and the assembled officers how he had deployed his troops.

  “Skirmish line out front comprised of light infantry, small numbers. They will meet the first assault, fall back, drawing the enemy with them. The archers form the next line of defense.”

  He pointed to where the archers could be seen snoozing in the grass, their arrows stuck into the ground around them for easy access, or stuffed in cloth bags lying beside them. Behind the archers was bivouacked the majority of the infantry, a few of whom were moving in a desultory manner about their camp, heading for the trenches that were the privies or munching on whatever food they had for breakfast. The archers, if hard-pressed, could flow back through the infantry, where they could then halt to make a stand.

  “My knights and heavy cavalry will be arrayed here and here,” continued Wilhelm, gesturing, “prepared to flank the enemy. All the men are ready to fight. If we have an enemy. One that is not composed of moonbeams and fairy dust.”

  He cast a dark and baleful glance at Marcus, who saw the look and heard the words, but only as a low murmur beneath the constant hissing of the dragon. His brother and father and the commanders continued to talk. Marcus gazed out across the grasslands spreading before him, and he watched a ripple pass through the tall stands of grass like a wave rising from the river to wash over the land, setting the heads of the grass shivering and dipping low, then rising up and rolling on. The ripple traveled swiftly, spreading across the miles of empty land until it sank away to nothing not far from the ridgeline on which they stood.

  Marcus thought at first it was the wind. Then he realized that the air was still, one reason for the mosquitoes. What, then, had caused that odd motion in the grass? He refocused his eyes and stared hard.

  Nothing. No movement. No sound.

  They’re out there. He knew they were out there.

  He saw his father’s mouth move. He heard, in his head, the fell words “death ahead, death behind . . .”

  Marcus urged his horse close to his father’s. Breaking into the conversation, he said in a low voice, “You must sound the call to arms, Father. The enemy is almost on top of us!”

  His father regarded him in consternation and exchanged glances with Wilhelm, who shook his head and looked away. Edward sighed deeply and rested his hand on Marcus’s hand.

  “My son, there’s nothing out there. You’re imagining things. That’s understandable. This is your first battle. You’re excited, eager—”

  Marcus ceased to listen.

  All you can see is the grass waving gently in the morning breeze and the river in the distance, sparkling and murmuring to itself in the sunshine.

  That is all you can see, but not all I can see. You have to listen to me! Death ahead. Death above . . .

  “Sound the call, Wilhelm,” Marcus urged. “Before it’s too late!”

  “Barking mad,” stated Sir Troeven, commander of the knights of the Prince’s Own, and he did not bother to keep his voice down.

  Those words, cruel words, heard from his childhood on, were a fiery sword. Anger, hot and refining, cleansed Marcus’s soul, burning away fear and doubt.

  Marcus came to himself and saw that his father, his brother, their knights on their horses gathered around him, looked ill-at-ease, embarrassed.

  “Marcus, my son,” the king was saying, “you have to calm yourself ...”

  Marcus backed his horse, backed away from their anguished attempts to assuage the madman, backed away from their pity. He regarded them—poor blind humans—with pity.

  “You can’t see them, but they are there,” he said. “And I will show you.”

  Marcus took firm grip on the reins and touched his spurs into the horse’s flanks. The horse leapt forward. The knights and his father and his brother sat there like lumps and watched him.

  It wasn’t until Marcus began to ride his horse down the ridge that his father finally realized what his son intended. The king gave a shout that jolted men to action. Bearded faces beneath steel helms loomed up in Marcus’s path. Gloved hands tried to grasp hold of the reins and drag him to a stop. He kicked at them and kicked at his horse, urging it on, and men fell back or risked being trampled.

  The animal plunged down the steep ridge, sliding and slipping and almost foundering. Marcus hung on with fixed determination, and the horse managed to regain its footing and continued on at a gallop, heading straight for the grassy plains. The empty grassy plains.

  Horse and rider rode through the camp, overturning cooking pots and knocking down tent posts. Men, half-awake, had to jump for their lives as Marcus thundered past. The king shouted for someone to stop the prince, but no one wanted to risk death beneath the horse’s hooves, and Marcus rode, unimpeded, for the plains of quivering grass.

  And then he heard, behind him, pounding hooves. Marcus glanced over his shoulder. Mounted knights—the Prince’s Own— were chasing after him. The knights were not riding to his call, inspired by his show of courage to join him in desperate battle. They were riding to catch him, drag him from his horse, fling him to the ground, and truss him up in a straitjacket.

  Marcus faced forward, smiling grimly In truth, they were riding to his call. He was leading them into battle.

  They just didn’t know it.

  Marcus left the camp and the army behind. He entered the tall stands of grass, and he pulled back on the reins to slow his horse’s mad rush. He heard the Prince’s Own coming up fast behind him. There were about thirty knights, riding hard. His horse was suddenly skittish and danced sideways, eyes rolling and ears pricking.

  Marcus patted the neck. “You know there’s something out there, don’t you, boy. You know it and I know it and, now, my father will know it.”

  He brought to mind the sight of Grald casting the magic that banished the illusion and caused the city of Dragonkeep to materialize before Marcus’s amazed eyes. Marcus had tried to do the same when fleeing Dragonkeep. He’d tried to lift the illusion in order to find the hidden gate that led out of the city. He had not been able to do it, but then he had been exhausted and panic-stricken, afraid for his life.

  He wasn’t exhausted now. He wasn’t afraid, though he felt certain that he had only moments more to live. He was excited and eager, exalted. His first and last battle would be a memorable one. He could see the magic hanging before him—a shimmering landscape painted on a backdrop of serene blue sky and tranquil white cloud, sparkling water and golden brown grass rippling gently in the morning breeze.

  Marcus rose from his little chair in his little room, and he walked to the door and flung it wide open.

  The dragon, Maristara, was there, holding the curtain of enchantment over her army, ready to whip it aside at the last moment, to the shock and horror of her unsuspecting audience.

  Behind the curtain were dragon warriors, a thousand strong, hunkered down among the brown grass, the sunlight shining off their scaly armor. He saw on their faces smiles of derision and disdain. He saw Maristara smug and triumphant.

  Marcus drew his sword and spurred his horse and rode at the curtain of brown and blue and sparkling river. He hit the fragile fabric of magic a slashing blow with the blade of his own magic, rending it and tearing it to shreds, so that the enchantment hung in tatters that fluttered in the wind.

  Behind him, t
he Prince’s Own had been shouting for their prince to stop. He heard their shouts choked off by gasps of astonishment or garbled curses. The curtain had gone up and the knights were face-to-face with their enemy—an enemy that had not been there one minute and was there the next; a strange and outlandish enemy that looked like no other enemy they had ever encountered.

  The knights were thrown into confusion by this astonishing sight. Reining in their horses, the Prince’s Own milled about in consternation, uncertain what to do.

  Their commander, Sir Troeven—the same who had termed Marcus “barking mad”—was a soldier by profession. He had won his title after saving the life of the former king, Edward’s father, in a fight with an outlaw band who had taken it into their heads that they owned the highway between Idylswylde and Ramsgate-upon-the-Aston. During the past few years, Sir Troeven had been abroad, fighting battles for other kings, since there were none to fight at home. A veteran of many wars, he swept aside all that was strange or confusing about the army in front of him to concentrate on one thing—his duty. His sworn duty was to his prince, and his prince was alone on the field of battle, surrounded by the enemy.

  Drawing his sword, Sir Troeven cried, “To me!” and rode like thunder through the grass and the ranks of the enemy. One after another, depending on the quickness of their wits or the strength of their courage, the knights of the Prince’s Own galloped after their commander.

  The dragon warriors had been assured by Grald that they and their magic would rule the field of battle.

  None will be able to see you. You will sneak up upon them like the night and smite them like the lightning. You will fight at the time and place of your choosing, Grald had told them time and again.

  Unmasked by Marcus’s attack, the veil that covered them unexpectedly lifted, the dragon warriors were caught completely off guard. Thirty armored and mounted knights were riding down on them, and neither magical illusion nor dragon-scale armor could protect them from the pounding hooves of the massive war horses that each weighed upwards of a thousand pounds. The dragon warriors had no time to ready their defensive magicks before the Prince’s Own smashed into their front ranks. Some had only seconds to fling themselves out of harm’s way. Others did not even have that. The gigantic horses knocked them down, trampled their bodies, and kept going, their hooves and forelegs and bellies splashed with blood and gore and dragon scales.