The scoundrels talked less and appeared far more dangerous, but Tobas thought it far more likely that they would kill their comrades than that they would kill a dragon. Knives, lies, and stealth would not be much use against dragons.
He hoped that Dwomor did have other recruits, because he did not believe this bunch could kill even a small dragon.
Of course, that meant that he wasn’t going to get rich.
Oh, well, he thought, perhaps there would be other opportunities in Dwomor. He took a last look at Morria Castle, then turned and went below.
Dusk of that third day found the ship approaching the mouth of the river, not the Great River, someone explained, but another, the largest in the Small Kingdoms, which had half a dozen names. The Londa River seemed to be the most popular label. It flowed south from the mountains, then hooked to the west to reach the sea; they would be following it north to the lake that was more or less its source.
It seemed odd to Tobas that there was no castle guarding the mouth; he mentioned it to one of the sailors.
“I think there was a castle, once,” he replied. “But we’re on the border between Stralya and Londa here, and it probably got destroyed in a border war. Or maybe it fell into the sea, the river’s wearing down those cliffs, you know.”
Tobas nodded. He was about to ask another question when a roar from the bow answered him before the words left his mouth; the anchor had just been dropped. No attempt would be made to navigate the river by night. The crew lifted anchor at dawn. By the time Tobas had eaten his meager breakfast, they were in sight of Kala Keep.
The name was misleading, as the keep itself was part of a large castle that stood within a walled town. Boats of every sort lined the riverfront.
One boat, bearing a large red and gold banner, pulled up beside the snip. Tobas noticed that it could move far faster by means of four oars than the ship moved beneath full sail; the wind, which had never in the course of the voyage been particularly strong, was dying, cut off by the surrounding hilly land.
A long discussion ensued between the ship’s captain and someone in the boat, but Tobas could hear none of it and resisted the temptation to move closer. Finally the captain came away and gave an order in a language Tobas did not understand, he had discovered within hours of boarding that this ship’s crew was of mixed nationality and that all of them understood and spoke several tongues.
A moment later a green and black flag was hoisted. “Dwomoritic colors,” someone explained. “Kala must be at war with someone, if they’re demanding colors be flown.”
“Oh.” The sailor seemed very casual about it; Tobas wondered how anyone could be casual about war.
They sailed on past the town; but before noon, the wind had died away completely, leaving them still within the kingdom of Kala, drifting back downstream with the current. After a careful study of the sky, the captain ordered sweeps.
Tobas had never seen sweeps before, long oars that took three men apiece to haul, three sweeps to each side. He watched in fascination as the ship picked up speed again.
They anchored in a wide, slow stretch of river that night, with orchards and fields lining either shore; this, the passengers were told, was a spot somewhere in southern Danua. The next day should take them past Danua Castle and into Ekeroa; if the wind were to pick up in the right direction, they might reach Ekeroa Lake.
The wind did not pick up. Danua Castle was very much like Kala Keep in appearance, and the farms of southern Ekeroa were indistinguishable from those of Danua or Kala. Tobas wondered why these tiny realms were separate kingdoms, when they had no natural boundaries or apparent cultural differences, but decided it would not be tactful to ask any of the natives of the Small Kingdoms on board, and none of the Ethsharites seemed likely to know.
That night they anchored in the mouth of an unnavigable tributary that poured in from the east; by midmorning of the following day, the river had widened out into Ekeroa Lake. The sun was only a few degrees past its zenith when they sailed up to the docks below Ekeroa Castle.
When they had all disembarked, Tobas took a long look around. He saw the castle looming above him, dark and ominous and alien; the town clustered tightly around it — tall, dark, narrow wooden houses — and scattered among them seemed to be an inordinate number of trees. The people were mostly short and pale, clad in oddly styled clothes and speaking a strange, liquid tongue. Behind him lay the dark, smooth, still water of Ekeroa Lake and the odd, stubby fishing boats the natives used; on all other sides, the town appeared to be ringed by forest, a forest that was mostly made up of the peculiar needle-leafed trees he had heard called “pines.” Off to the east he could see misty gray shapes rising jaggedly above the trees on the far side of the lake, those, he realized, must be mountains, the first he had ever seen.
Not a single feature of the landscape, either natural or man-made, resembled the familiar rolling grasslands, sprawling villages, and gravelly beaches around Telven. The calm black-shadowed green of the lake was utterly different from the never-still blue and white of the ocean he had always known, while the alien pine forest filled the air with its curious scent.
He realized for the first time just how far from home he had come. CHAPTER 9
“All right, heroes!” the recruiter bellowed. “Line up here and we’ll get you aboard the wagons!”
Reluctantly, Tobas joined the other adventurers in gathering at the spot indicated. The wagons did not look particularly inviting, simple unpainted wooden boxes on mud-spattered, spoked wheels, each with a wide sheet of brown canvas draped over a sagging ridgepole to provide a modicum of shelter. They were drawn by mules, rather than the usual horses or oxen. Five wagons had been provided, each drawn by two mules, which seemed more than necessary, since their only cargo appeared to be the party from Ethshar.
The caravan master seemed to agree. “Is this all of them?” he demanded.
The recruiter nodded. “You try signing up Ethsharites! They just aren’t an adventurous people.”
“Well, get them aboard, then, and let’s go!”
The recruiter began herding his charges in, two to a wagon; Tobas, in the second wagon, found himself paired with Tillis, as he had been aboard ship. Before he could decide whether that was good or bad, the wagon started with a jerk, and they were off again.
Only after they had been rolling for twenty minutes did Tobas realize he had seen almost nothing of Ekeroa, which had looked like an interesting place, despite its strangeness.
At first the caravan headed almost due north, through dense forest along the lakeshore and then, when they were past the lake, beside the river; about two leagues from town, however, they abruptly turned east and forded the stream, which had shrunk to a manageable size.
From then on their course remained east by southeast, climbing steadily into the mountains, for almost three days, save for a bad stretch late in the second day when the road wound back and forth so much that Tobas was never entirely sure of the direction.
Three days alone in a wagon with no one to talk to but Tillis sent Tobas into a deep depression. His luck was obviously still bad, after all, he told himself; he should never have stolen that boat, as that wicked deed had probably cursed him. He should have stayed in the Free Lands, waited until he could board a vessel honestly, or even have walked to Ethshar.
And once in Ethshar, he should have known better than to fall asleep in the street. That carelessness might be the true font of his misfortune. If he had stayed awake, he would not now be on his way to be killed by a man-eating dragon somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Looking out past the edge of the canvas as the wagon jolted along, he wondered why anyone would live in country like this, rocky and steep, but after a time, he realized that almost no one did. The caravan passed no villages and few homes. Dwomor, if this was the only way to reach it, must be unbearably isolated.
For a bad moment, he wondered whether any dragon really existed. Perhaps they were on their way to be sold
as slaves in some barbarian realm, the story of the dragon being merely an explanation to cover their failure to return. Perhaps they would be sacrificed to demons. Perhaps they would be cooked and eaten.
Tillis babbled on maddeningly about how strange and beautiful the countryside was; Tobas did his best to ignore him.
The first night they reached an inn in the forested hills just as dusk was beginning to fade. There they received the best food Tobas had eaten since Roggit had died; he eagerly wolfed down everything put before him, then fell pleasantly asleep in a corner before the evening was well begun.
The next morning he awoke stiff and sore and foul-tempered and spoke to no one at breakfast. He refused to help with preparations for the next leg of the journey.
Only when he climbed aboard the second wagon, as directed, did he realize he was being put in with Tillis again. He turned to protest, but it was too late; the caravan master had given the mules the signal, and the wagon was moving.
The second night they were out of the thickest part of the forest and well into the lightly treed foothills; the inn was rougher, and the food less appealing. This time Tobas stayed awake, but contributed little to the after-dinner conversation, as it seemed to be made up almost entirely of boasting about prior exploits.
Tobas did not consider any of his prior exploits anything to boast about. He could not even resort to family, as Tillis did, since his ancestors had all been quiet farmers save for his father, and bragging about a pirate captain among Ethsharites did not seem a wise thing to do.
In the morning he tried to put himself in a different wagon, the fourth; its previous occupants, seeing him there, shrugged and boarded the second.
A moment later Tillis climbed into the fourth wagon. Tobas closed his eyes and pretended Tillis wasn’t there.
At times during the long day it almost worked.
The third inn was a ramshackle structure clinging to a rocky mountainside, but included an enthusiastic staff that made up for the physical shortcomings. Tobas took a particular interest in one of the proprietor’s daughters, a dark-haired beauty who appeared to be roughly his own age, but she was fascinated with Peren’s strange coloring and laughingly brushed aside Tobas’ tentative advances in order to devote herself to the albino.
Tobas shrugged off his disappointment; he was used to it. His successes with women had been few and far between.
But then, he was still young, he told himself.
For the last day he finally managed to pair himself with someone other than Tillis; he waited until the young Ethsharite had boarded the fourth wagon, then jumped into the fifth.
He found himself sharing the vehicle with Arnen and one of the other scoundrels, Korl Korl’s son. They stared at him for a long moment when he climbed in; then Arnen drew one of his knives, a long, narrow dagger, and began cleaning his nails with it. Korl simply leaned back against the side of the wagon and stared.
The entire morning passed without any of the three saying a word. Early in the afternoon, however, Korl whispered something to Arnen, who smiled nastily in return.
That was the full extent of conversation in the wagon that day, and Tobas quickly found himself wishing he’d stayed with Tillis.
Late in the afternoon the wagons pulled to a halt. Tobas had dozed off, despite the bumping; he woke with a start; sat up, and peered out the end of the wagon, wondering why they were stopping when day was still bright.
He realized why quickly enough; this was not another inn, but a castle, set in the middle of a small plateau.
This, obviously, was Dwomor Keep, the castle he had come to save from a dragon.
He wondered why anyone would want to bother. If he had lived in such a dismal place and had found it to be threatened by a monster, he would simply have left.
Dwomor Keep was a large, sprawling structure, obviously built piecemeal over a period of centuries; the various towers, turrets, and wings had only one unifying feature, that being that they were all in a sad state of disrepair. The town this miserable fortress guarded was a pitiful huddle of no more than a dozen sagging cottages, though a few scattered farmsteads could be seen here and there on the surrounding plateau; the entire area stank of manure. Any claim to be the rightful capital of Old Ethshar was obviously an unfounded boast. Either that, or the ruins of the capital had been completely buried centuries ago, and this place built on top.
He leaned out for a moment, gazing about at the surrounding countryside.
The castle stood at the approximate center of a more or less level area perhaps half a league in diameter; to the west, in the direction of the setting sun, Tobas could see nothing beyond, as if the World simply ended at the edge of the plateau. In every other direction, however, hills piled up around the little plain, and to much of the north and east mountains rose beyond the hills.
Looking back toward the castle once more, Tobas saw that the wagons had paused to allow a portcullis to be opened; when that had been done, the caravan proceeded on into the castle courtyard, where he remained unimpressed.
The courtyard was unpaved, simply an expanse of bare dirt that undoubtedly turned to a sea of mud whenever rain came; the castle structures around it were even more ramshackle and mismatched than the portions visible from the outside. The exterior, after all, had to be built of stone in order to be defensible, while the stables, mews, sheds, and other added interior features could be — and were — built of a variety of woods, bricks, and what appeared to be mud and straw.
What, he wondered, did Tillis make of this brave castle? It hardly lived up to the storytellers’ images.
The wagons came to a final halt, and the recruiter came marching back along the line, shouting, “All out! We’re here!”
Tobas clambered out of the wagon and dropped to the ground. He glanced at the gate they had entered through and noticed that the portcullis was being cranked back down; presumably the locals did not want any of their hired dragon slayers to escape.
And having thought of the locals, he noticed that there were certainly plenty of them around. He estimated thirty or forty people, mostly women and old men, were standing about the courtyard, studying the new arrivals.
He resisted the temptation to draw his athame and hidden vial of brimstone and set someone’s clothes on fire. The gesture would be startling, impressive, and probably very satisfying, but it might make too many enemies. Besides, he didn’t want to impress anyone; if he did, they might actually expect him to kill their ravening monster, wherever it was.
He wasn’t sure just what he wanted to do or where he wanted to be, but he was sure he didn’t want to tackle a dragon. Any fantasies he might have had back in Ethshar, brought on by the mention of a thousand pieces of gold, had been jounced out of him in the course of the long and uncomfortable journey from the city to Dwomor.
“All right, you people,” someone, a middle-aged man who was apparently a local official, called in truly barbarous Ethsharitic. “Do any of you speak Dwomoritic?”
No one answered.
“I was afraid of that. What about Trader’s Tongue?”
Two people admitted to that.
“We may need an interpreter, I guess. At least the king speaks Ethsharitic. All right, follow me.”
“Wait a minute!” the recruiter interrupted. “I want my money!”
“You’ll get it,” the official replied testily.
“I want it now! You said payment on delivery. Well, here they are, delivered, nine of them. Pay me; I’m not going to risk losing out if you scare some of them away.”
“You couldn’t wait five minutes?” He glanced at the nine adventurers, all of whom were listening with interest, then dug in the purse on his gold-trimmed belt and fished out a handful of coins. He counted out eighteen, Tobas could not see their size or metal, and handed them to the recruiter, who immediately, without a further word, headed for the gate. Tobas grinned; someone, he did not see who, laughed aloud, rather unpleasantly.
“All right
,” the official said again. “Follow me. I’ll take you to your audience with his Royal Majesty Derneth the Second, King of Dwomor.”
The adventurers obeyed, filing haphazardly through the door. Rather to his surprise, Tobas found himself last in line; looking about, he realized that there were no guards or other restraints to keep him from deserting. The recruiter had departed with his money safely in hand; the caravan master was busy unhitching the mules; nobody else seemed likely to argue if Tobas simply turned and walked out, as the recruiter had, using a small door he saw standing open beside the portcullis that apparently led through the gatehouse.
No, he decided after an instant’s hesitation, he would follow along. He had nowhere to go in the surrounding mountains; furthermore, it might not be safe to wander aimlessly about the unfamiliar countryside. There could well be bandits and brigands, or wolves, in the area, not to mention the dragon that might be roaming about somewhere out there. The natives might not be friendly. He couldn’t speak the local language; it was, from the little he had heard, similar to Ethsharitic, but not similar enough to be intelligible.
And he was, he realized, curious to learn just what the true situation was, whether the dragon hunt was legitimate, and if it was, why anyone with a thousand pieces of gold would be hiring nobodies in Shiphaven Market instead of experts to dispose of a dragon as formidable as this one was said to be. Dragons had been around for hundreds of years, after all; somewhere, somebody must have developed methods of dealing with them, other than gathering up a bunch of desperate young men and letting them try their luck. Maybe, by pointing this out, he could earn himself a little something. Not a thousand pieces of gold, of course, but something.
Also, if he hoped to find any wizards around here who might teach him new spells, the castle was the likeliest place to find them, or, for that matter, anything else that might lead to a career of almost any sort.
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