The Crown and the Dragon

by John D. Payne

  “Dragon,” he whispered, an urgent tension in his voice.

  Elenn froze.

  Aedin lifted his hand from her mouth and gradually shifted his weight until he was seated besider her.

  She heard nothing at first, but then there was a quiet rustling like Cauleyne the chamber maid shaking out the rugs. It was the rhythmic beat of the dragon’s enormous wings, flapping in the distance. As it grew louder, Aedin pulled her under the cover of a nearby mountain ash. Through the leafy branches, she watched, paralyzed with fear.

  Above the trees flew the dragon, its red scales glittering in the sun. The giant beast was only three hundred yards away. Elenn buried her face in Aedin’s chest, clutching her head with both hands. Aedin embraced her and stroked her hair, and she clung to him, pathetically.

  A minute or so later she regained her composure enough to remember that she was angry with him, and she shoved him away, more rudely than she intended. He stood up, a little stiffly, and didn’t offer her a hand.

  Aedin hoisted their gear onto his left shoulder. “From here,” he said, “we’ll be heading east to the Narrows.”

  “Will it come back?” Elenn asked.

  “Doesn’t often come this far north,” said Aedin. “Usually stays below the cataracts. But I heard him twice yesterday when I was outside the cave. In truth, everything below the Lough is his territory, and we would do well to remember that.”

  Elenn nodded, and rose to her feet unsteadily. She felt terrible. Her head was reeling. The dragon, the hangover, the drowning, the crow monsters, Leif’s assault, the death of her aunt—it was all too much. Her stomach heaved.

  “Time to move,” Aedin said.

  Elenn took one step to follow him, and bent double to vomit.

  Aedin recoiled from the splash with a groan of disgust.

  “I’m all right,” said Elenn, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Aedin shook his head and walked on without her. “Better be the best bloody farmland in Deira,” she heard him mutter.

  That evening, as they crested a ridge in the forest, Elenn could see down into the valley below. A small village in the far distance was in flames. The dragon circled slowly, almost lazily in the air above the buildings, swooping down to breath huge blasts of flame.

  “Are there people down there?” Elenn asked.

  “Maybe a few,” Aedin said quietly. “This country has been more or less abandoned for years, but sometimes you find people in deserted buildings.”

  “What people?” asked Elenn.

  “Outlaws, mostly,” said Aedin. “Sometimes desperate refugees.” He shifted his pack. “Not that there’s much difference between the two.”

  They watched for several minutes as the fires spread and the dragon darted here and there, sometimes pouncing on prey too small to see from this distance. Elenn wondered if it was people that the dragon was hunting. She hoped that it was sheep or cattle.

  This area between the Lough and the Cataracts had once been the object of an intense three-way dispute between the Lairds of the Riverlands, the Leodrine Order, and her own Adair ancestors. Green and fertile, the land was rich in gold and other ores. It ought to be full of farms, villages, mills, castles—people. But the dragon made that impossible. It was a living scourge, as Aunt Ethelind had read to her out of the prophecies of the elders.

  “A plague of fire,” said Elenn quietly.

  “Aye,” said Aedin. He shook his head and walked on.

  They picked their way slowly through the forest, which was thicker in the valleys and thinner at the top of hills and ridges. They kept their eyes on the skies, but they did not see the dragon after the burning village was out of sight.

  In fact, they saw few signs of animal life other than birds. The forest was eerily still. Perhaps the dragon had frightened the deer and other animals into laying low. Elenn wanted to whistle the song she had been teaching to Gawaine, just to break the tension, but her sputtering attempts only earned her a glare from Aedin, who told her to be quiet. For a while she was, but the silence was oppressive.

  “Where do you think it’s gone?” asked Elenn. “Back to its lair?”

  “Maybe so, maybe no,” said Aedin. “Never could figure the confounded thing out. Neither could the Vitalion for that matter. Can’t kill the thing. During the war, we shot it with a ballista… Bolt was steel-tipped, five yards long and as thick as your arm… Just bounced off. Didn’t even slow it down…”

  “Only a Paladin can kill a dragon,” said Elenn, trying to remember the prophecies.

  “Didn’t have one handy at the time,” said Aedin a little bitterly.

  Elenn had no answer to this, so she went back to walking behind Aedin in silence. But this left her alone with her thoughts, which were a tangle of fears, doubts, and confusion. She needed to speak, if only to bring order to her jumbled mind.

  “Last night,” Elenn began soberly.

  Aedin grimaced, but Elenn forged ahead. “Later last night,” she continued, “did we…” She trailed off, unable to finish.

  “You know,” said Elenn, “I always say too much when I drink.” She looked at Aedin’s face, but it was unreadable. Did he know something? Had she revealed her secrets? “But, I didn’t… say anything?”

  “Nothing I can think of,” said Aedin.

  They walked.

  “And we didn’t…” She took a deep breath. “… do anything… improper?”

  “No,” said Aedin. “Nothing.”

  Elenn sighed with relief.

  “I mean, you did dance about in the altogether for a while,” said Aedin with a grin, “but you did it good and proper.”

  Elenn stopped in her tracks, hot with embarrassment.

  “Oh, you should see your face!” Aedin hooted.

  Laughing, he continued through the woods, leaving her behind. He strode confidently through the brush until he was whipped off his feet and yanked up into the air.

  Elenn immediately thought of the dragon and threw herself to the ground. But when she heard him cursing, she opened her eyes. Rather than being devoured alive by a hungry dragon, Aedin was dangling upside down in the air, a rope wrapped around one leg. As she watched him twist around, the eagle-headed Sithian sword fell from its sheath. Aedin tried desperately to catch it, but missed.

  Elenn walked over to help him.

  “No!” cried Aedin.

  But it was too late. Elenn felt a rough rope tighten around her ankle, and then she too was wrenched off her feet and hoisted into the air. Her head, which had been feeling a little better, began to throb painfully as all her blood rushed down to her head. She felt like her eyeballs would explode.

  “Aedin! Help me!” Elenn called out, holding her head with both hands.

  There was a commotion in the woods. Elenn opened her eyes to see two men come running out. From their clothes, they looked like Riverlanders, not men of Ghel.

  “Aedin!” cried Elenn. “Aedin, do something!”

  Cursing, he spun around uselessly at the end of his rope.

  The two men approached Elenn without speaking a word. They cut her down, pulled her roughly to her feet, and put a bag over her head.

  “Aedin! I can’t see,” said Elenn. “What’s happening?”

  “Criminy,” muttered one of the men. “This one’s talky.”

  “You have no idea,” said Aedin.

  Elenn could not believe that he would say something so rude and insulting while they were being kidnaped. It was inhuman. “Aedin! Aedin, how could you?”

  She tried to think of something else to say—some appropriately cutting rebuke to get him to repent of this monstrous cruelty. A moment later she was surprised by the men pulling off her hood.

  “Oh!” Elenn, said, pleased. “Why did you—”

  One man shoved a filthy rag in her mouth and tied it in place with another rag, gagging her. He smiled and pulled the hood back over her head.

  “Thank you,” said Aedin.

  Elenn�
�s tears flowed freely as she was thrown over the back of a stranger and lugged through the woods like a carpet. Yesterday she had seen hideous things made of crows. Today she had seen a rapacious dragon. But perhaps the worst monsters were people.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Aedin hated to speak so callously to Elenn, but showing their captors that he cared for her would only encourage them to use her pain in an attempt to get to him. The best thing he could do to keep her safe was to demonstrate indifference—even hostility.

  Still, it was pretty miserable to listen to her sobbing as they were dragged through the woods with bags over their heads. The poor girl had been through so much, and Aedin knew he was responsible for a great deal of that pain.

  To take his mind off Elenn’s heartbreaking whimpers, Aedin tried to figure out who they were dealing with. Their abductors had taken their valuables, including the Falarica and the fat gold ring Elenn had given him as collateral. Simple robbers would have slit their throats, though, instead of taking them captive. Slavers would definitely have kept Elenn alive, but probably would have either killed Aedin or tried to recruit him. And one of the Orders would have accused them of something before taking them into captivity.

  No, these men must be scouts for a local clan. Some of the original inhabitants of the southern highlands—like the Taftoughin—had survived twenty years hiding under the shadow of the dragon. There were also desperate refugees who had come here to try to scratch out a living—like the Trelawneys. And some clans from outside dragon country were looking to expand—like the Maulduin from around the Lough, the Halsings from the North, or the Deegan from the Riverlands.

  As he stumbled along in the dark, Aedin listened to the men speak, and judged them to be from Ghel. This eliminated the Trelawneys, the Halsings, and the Deegan. Maulduin or Taftoughin, then. Inside the sack, Aedin frowned. Neither possibility was good. Leif was a Malduin. If he was with them, Aedin would be killed and Elenn forcibly married. As for the Taftoughin, Aedin had fought both for them and against them—but most recently against. They were likely to hold a grudge.

  Whoever they were, the men dragged them along for what seemed like an hour or two, although it was difficult for Aedin to tell. When they stopped, the men bound their hands and feet together and then took off their hoods, one at a time. Aedin got water and a little bread. Then the sack went back on and someone shoved him to the ground and told him to sleep.

  Aedin listened to Elenn go through the same thing. As soon as her gag was removed, she began begging, telling the men that she meant them no harm. They told her to shut up or she would get no food or drink. She became quiet, and Aedin thanked the Gods and prayed that she would simply endure in silence.

  But as soon as the men were done feeding her, Aedin heard Elenn again pleading—and protesting that she could not sleep bound and gagged, with her head in a sack. This earned her what sounded like several unpleasant cuffs. Aedin forced himself to laugh, which got Elenn crying harder. It was vile, but Aedin told himself that he was saving Elenn’s life.

  Elenn cried herself to sleep. She must have been exhausted. Aedin was pretty well beat himself, but he couldn’t really sleep. He was listening for any sign of further harm being done to Elenn. He didn’t know what he could do about it, but the prospect kept him awake much of the night anyway.

  In the morning, they got another drink of water and were again dragged through the woods. After three or four hours, Aedin began to hear the sounds of sheep, and of people. Their journey was coming to an end, for good or for ill.

  Their captors came to a halt and untied the cords that held the burlap sack on his head. Aedin steeled himself, knowing that he might well be facing execution. A hand pulled off the sack, and Aedin found himself dazzled by the light.

  Blinking to clear his vision, he saw that he stood in the ruin of an old stone brough-fort, with sunlight streaming in through holes in a charred roof. Burn marks on the walls and massive damage to the structure told him that this place had fallen prey to the dragon.

  Next to him stood Elenn, still gagged. Her eyes, one bruised black, glared cold hatred at him, and Aedin raised his eyebrow at her in disdain and then turned away with a snort.

  The scouts who had captured them stood at either side, heads bowed. Atop a makeshift dais of stones fallen from the walls perched a ratty throne, shielded from the midday sun by a goatskin canopy. Slouching on the throne was a great bear of a man with graying hair and the moldy remnants of a Laird’s cape. He grinned cruelly at Aedin.

  Clooney Taftoughin.

  Aedin smiled back, desperately fighting a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had seen that grin before, and knew that it meant nothing good.

  One of the scouts carried their weapons and valuables up to Clooney. As he delivered a whispered report, five women of various ages lurked near the throne, their hair modestly covered by shawls or caps. At least three of them he knew to be Clooney’s wives. A score of other ragged-looking folk lined the walls of the hall, watching in silence.

  The scout finished and stepped off the dais. Clooney took a deep breath and regarded Aedin and Elenn with a stern gaze, stroking his unshaven chin.

  Still smiling, Aedin winked.

  Clooney laughed and leaped to his feet. “Aedin Jeoris!”

  “Clooney,” Aedin replied, with the most amiable chuckle he could manage. “Been a long time.”

  “Too long, too long,” said Clooney, walking forward with his arms outstretched as if to embrace an old friend. But when he got close, he delivered a vicious punch to the stomach that folded Aedin in two and left him crumpled in the dirty stone floor.

  “You son of a Vitalion doxy!” shouted Clooney, his face red with rage. Then he laughed and leaned down toward Aedin. “That’s for Dunotten.”

  Aedin gasped for breath and could make no reply.

  “Mingin’ dobber tried to kill me,” said Clooney. Aedin looked up and saw that Clooney was addressing his remarks to Elenn. “Stuck a sword right through my side.”

  Clooney lifted his shirt and showed Elenn a white scar about three inches across. Elenn looked at Aedin. Despite how cruel he had been, despite how hurt she must have been, worry was still apparent in her eyes. Aedin gave her as hateful a sneer as he could manage, and saw her expression change to one of cold fury. Much better.

  Clooney returned to his throne and eased himself down into it.

  “Clooney,” said Aedin with some difficulty, “you left out… the part where you were… standing on my head. In three feet of water.”

  Clooney laughed. “Aye. I did.” He turned to Elenn again. “He was fighting for the enemy,” he said with a helpless shrug.

  “The Vitalion?” asked Elenn, the words still compre-hensible through her gag.

  “No,” said Clooney, “the Deegans. May they rot in the abyss.” He spat, very nearly hitting one of his wives, who looked askance at the spittle but did not move.

  Clooney motioned with one hand at Elenn and one of the men removed her gag.

  Before she could speak—and get them both in trouble—Aedin pulled himself into a kneeling position and spoke. “The Deegans did rot in the abyss,” he said, “right after you set fire to their keep.”

  Clooney laughed. “Aye,” he said with a contented sigh. “Those were braw times.”

  “So the debt is paid,” said Aedin.

  “Ach! I’ve missed you, Aedin,” said Clooney, ignoring his question. “But it seems you fare well without me.”

  Clooney motioned for one of his wives to come forward. As she did, she pushed back her cloak, revealing herself to be a short, pretty, dark-haired woman. He produced the chain with Elenn’s ring and hung it around her neck, which earned him one smile and four hard stares from the other wives.

  He next pulled out the case containing the Falarica. Opening it, he held up the artifact for all to see. The intricate silver filigree caught the light, eliciting excited gasps and whispers from his assembled pe
ople.

  Elenn shot Aedin a look of panic, but he was in no position to help. In fact, his position had seemed rather desperate from the instant Clooney’s wife had shown her face. He knew her. It was Nywen, his estranged wife.

  She called herself Lilith now, or at least she had when Aedin had last seen her. It was the name she had chosen when she had begun to study conjuring, against his wishes. Looking back, he saw that the fight had been less about magic and more about how far they had grown apart. It had not ended well. Aedin gritted his teeth.

  As Clooney sat back down on his makeshift throne, Lilith stared daggers at both Aedin and Elenn. Aedin tried a cautious smile. Lilith smiled back poisonously, her eyes full of hatred. Fingering the gold ring, she leaned down and whispered into Clooney’s ear. The clan leader nodded, and then waved her away.

  “So, where’d you get this pretty piece?” asked Clooney, looking at Elenn instead of the Falarica that sat in his lap. He winked.

  “Not mine,” Aedin said, “but I can explain.”

  “None of your silver-tongued explaining,” interrupted Clooney. “It doesn’t belong to you. And that makes you a thief, on a nobleman’s land.”

  “Clooney, please,” Aedin began, but a backhanded slap from one of the guards cut him off. Lilith looked as pleased as cat with a mouthful of mouse.

  “It sticks in my throat,” said Clooney sadly, “but one must keep to the old ways. String him up, boys!” The assembled people shouted with obvious delight.

  “But make it quick,” said Clooney, as the guards pulled Aedin to his feet. “This one and Clooney Taftoughin had some braw times together.”

  “You treacherous knave!” Aedin shouted, as the guards began to pull him away and out of the hall.

  Then he heard Elenn’s voice, loud and clear, behind him. “Laird Taftoughin, I am Elenn of Adair, sole living heir of House Adair. My father was Ethelward Barethon, son of Syffred Barethon, of clan Wulfling.”