Not Exactly The Three Musketeers

by Joel Rosenberg

  Erenor actually chuckled. "I would hardly find that likely."

  Chapter 6

  A Night on Woodsdun

  Night on the flat-topped hill overlooking the village of Woodsdun was crisp and cold, but too dry without beer. Durine missed beer.

  At least there was food, even if the food was military field rations. The best part of it was the amazingly fresh-tasting, cedary water from the water bags and the tiny pieces of honey candy wrapped in greased paper. The rest, though, was unchewable hardtack - you had to break off a piece and let it soften to tastelessness in your mouth - accompanied by a handful of tiny, dried smoked sausages that looked like a crooked old man's dismembered fingers and probably tasted about the same.

  On the other hand, Durine thought, the meal was also without bars or walls that it would take a dwarf to tunnel through. That was, all things considered, not the worst possible deal.

  Take the sort of simple mound that small children make in the dirt, enlarge it to giant size and cover it with grasses and brush, then slice off the top with a giant's sword, and you had the hill that the locals called Woodsdun, same as the village below. Parts of an old road twisted up the side toward the top, but much of it had been overgrown.

  Some rocks and rabble remained, ruins of a castle that had overlooked the surroundings long ago, but only the largest and smallest stones; the bones and guts of a dead castle were useful for building more mundane structures, and anything both large enough to be useful and small enough to be easily portable had long since been loaded on sledges and dragged down the hill, or perhaps just rolled downhill to help build, say, a house or a road in the village below.

  Woodsdun was a smallish village, a cluster of perhaps thirty or so hovels where the road crossed a creek, but there probably was at least a towner with a room or a barn to let for the night. On the other hand, the top of the hill was a much better place to wait and see if a band of a lordling's men-at-arms was riding in pursuit, and Kethol and Pirojil had pushed all four men and all six horses hard to make it this far by dusk, harder than Durine would have.

  Horses were stupid creatures - push one too far, too hard, and it would up and die on you. Better to bet on your fighting arm, and those of your companions, than on a horse's sense of self-preservation.

  This time, the gamble had worked. The horses had worked themselves into an unhealthy lather, but they were grazing peacefully downslope, twist-hobbled against wandering far off during the night. By morning they would be ready to travel again.

  What really irritated Durine, though, besides the presence of the wizard, was the lack of a fire. It was unlikely but possible, of course, that a villager below would notice the sparks from their fire on the hilltop, so there was to be no fire this night, not while they couldn't be sure there was no pursuit. No fire didn't just mean cold food. Durine had been a soldier far too long to really worry about food, as long as there was enough of it to fill the belly.

  But there was more to fire than something to cook with. Durine liked fire; it warmed him in a way that went beyond the physical. Even with his horse blanket beneath him to keep the ground from sucking the heat from his body, even wrapped in his cloak, it would be a cold night, and even if it hadn't, he would have wanted a fire.

  Durine knew himself well: tonight he would dream of stones heated in a campfire, then buried under a thin layer of dirt beneath his bed of cold ground. His dreams - as opposed to his nightmares - were always satisfying to him, as they filled in whatever lack he most felt during his waking hours. When he was younger and more hot-blooded, his dreams had been filled with blood and thick yellow worms of intestines writhing on the ground, but he had long since had enough of that to satisfy any such lust, and his red dreams had turned all pale and sallow, the color of a dead man's face.

  His dreams had been about food from time to time, and even now, every so often it was a woman, although those urges had long started to wither and fade. Even for a long while after he had found himself partnered with Kethol and Pirojil, he had dreamed of being able to leave his back unguarded, but those dreams were gone.

  Warmth was the thing that he would miss most tonight, and he would miss it until he fell asleep. And then all would be fine; he would spend his sleeping hours wrapped in the warmth of dreams of warmth, and if he awoke to a cold reality, so be it.

  Kethol had already wrapped himself in his own cloak and fallen asleep. Or pretended to, perhaps; if he hadn't grown tired of Pirojil's long discourse on the stupidity of Kethol's heroics in Riverforks, he was the only one of the three listeners who hadn't, including Pirojil - and Pirojil had volunteered for first watch, as usual.

  Pirojil would take first watch; Durine, who could easily wake up for his own watch and then fall back asleep when it was finished, would take the second; and Kethol, the third.

  Erenor, of course, wanted to stay up and talk, but that was fine with Durine. He would learn quickly enough when traveling with the three of them that you slept and ate when you could when you were on the road, and if that lesson were to cause the wizard a day of misery on the next day's ride, that was more than fine with Durine, as well.

  Durine wrapped himself in his cloak and stretched out on his horse blanket, his sword under his right hand, a sack of feed grain as comfortable a pillow as there was. He lay back in the cold, and listened to them talk though the haze of oncoming sleep.

  "Well, I had a disagreement with my master, back when I was an apprentice," Erenor said, "and all things considered, it seemed wise to strike out on my own."

  "Disagreement?" Durine didn't have to turn his head or open his eyes to see Pirojil's twisted smile in his mind's eye. "What did you try to steal from him?"

  "Stealing? No. It wasn't a matter of stealing," Erenor said. "And that's such an ugly word. It was an issue of how ... advanced an apprentice I was. He felt that his spell books were perhaps too, oh, sophisticated for me, and that my talents should be better focused on sweeping out his quarters, preparing his food, and waiting upon his needs, both professional and personal - with my only reward that honor, plus an occasional bit of training of a minor cantrip or trivial glamour. I felt that my fires were banked too deeply, and might go out without proper feeding.

  "So, after some perhaps overly vigorous discussion, we parted ways, and I've made my own way since then. It's not a bad life, and those seeming spells I've managed to master, I'm really quite good at. I doubt there's a man in Riverforks who doesn't think that the wizened wizard is the real me, and the muscular young man an illusion I find convenient to make seem real every now and then."

  "You went quickly past that discussion. Did he survive it? This discussion, I mean."

  "Possibly."

  Pirojil laughed. "So you didn't quite cut his head all the way off and burn it separately from the body, eh?"

  "Now, now, now, we're not talking about Arta Myrdhyn or Lucius of Pandathaway, after all, the sort who have prepared spells to regrow a cut tongue and spoken the dominatives and all the rest with a tone of permanence, needing but a tongueless grunt as an instigator. My . .. belated and lamented teacher was a fine wizard, certainly, but not the sort to survive losing so vehement an argument. He made a point or two, certainly, but I felt I got the better of the debate, and well, since I wasn't quite competent to take his place - "

  "You weren't good enough. And you'd have had your head hacked off for killing a useful wizard."

  "You have a way of putting things so unpleasantly. Could we not say that my abilities are not unlimited, and leave it at that? The good people of my teacher's home abode had come to expect perhaps a higher level of competence than I was immediately ready to demonstrate, and I found it expedient to depart for less demanding fields of endeavor."

  Pirojil laughed.

  Kethol woke to a rush of wind like that of a violent storm, and the loud flapping of leathery wings beating hard against the crisp, cold night air. He didn't remember throwing off his cloak and blankets, but he was already on his feet, swor
d in his hand. Durine was already on his feet, his cloak wrapped about him and flapping in the wind, his sword sheathed.

  *Good evening,* sounded in Kethol's mind. He had heard that mental voice before, and while he knew people who were comforted by it, he wasn't among them.

  The dragon dropped the last manheight to the ground, shaking both Pirojil and the wizard out of their sleep.

  Pirojil rose slowly, although the wizard only struggled.

  If it hadn't been for the dragon, Kethol would have had to laugh out loud. Durine or Pirojil had clearly tired of watching out for the wizard and taken the appropriate precautions against the three of them being knifed in their sleep: Erenor had been bound, hand and foot, with a rope around his neck tied to a nearby bush. Any excess movement would have rustled the branches, and on the road, not one of the three would sleep through a warning sound like that. They might be able to snore through the tramping of horses or the cries of a drillmaster on the field or the cries of a market outside, perhaps, but not something as threatening as the rustling of branches.

  You had to keep your priorities straight, after all.

  The dragon craned its huge neck to look down at Kethol with huge unblinking eyes, each larger than the formal dinner plates that the Old Emperor used at table. The dragon's head was vaguely like a forest lizard's, except that it was longer, teeth the size of a man's forearm showing even though its mouth was closed.

  It was a huge beast, its body the size of a large house, even excluding the immense leathery wings that it folded down around itself with a few quick final flips that sent sand and dust whipping into the air.

  *Is there some problem?*

  Kethol had faced things he feared more, but nothing before that made him fear stuttering.

  "Little enough, Ellegon," Pirojil said, saving Kethol the embarrassment "A cold night - "

  *And a fire would be unwise. I understand all too well.*

  Durine grunted. "That I'd doubt."

  The dragon snorted. Derisively, Kethol presumed.

  *Then you're a fool. With all the things that leaked out of Faerie not too long ago still about during the day and particularly the night, the number of arrows and bolts and wall-top spikes coated with dragonbane has gotten to the point where it's enough to make even the most daring dragon nervous, and I've always been the cautious type, myself.*

  The bush that Erenor was tied to was shaking hard. If Erenor could have escaped by wriggling across the ground like a snake, he would have been gone quickly. His eyes were wide in fear, and he couldn't stop trembling, and from the stink that made its way to Kethol's nostrils, he'd been unable to control himself in other ways as well.

  *I'd just as soon you not untie your new companion,* the dragon said. *Unless you're sure there's no dragonbane within reach.*

  The Old Emperor had once said that one thing you should never do was lie to the dragon. Lying to yourself was much safer.

  Ellegon didn't often choose to read minds, but...

  "No, there's definitely some," Kethol said. "The arrows in my quiver are coated."

  Kethol gestured toward his gear, but he didn't make a move toward it. Yes, the dragon could certainly read his mind well enough to know that he meant it no harm, but what if it didn't bother to? Kethol had seen a man die, writhing in dragonfire, more than once. It wasn't something you forgot. Particularly the smell. It could be argued that the dragon was the most important weapon that turned the war Bieme had been losing into the Biemish victory that had created the empire.

  *So, you, too, have dragonbane on you, eh? Should I be concerned? Or vaguely irritated?*

  "Nothing to do with you, Ellegon," Pirojil said. "But, as you said, with things having rushed out of Faerie, it seems reasonable to have some around, no?"

  *Umph.* Folding its tree-trunk legs beneath its body like a cat, the dragon settled down to the ground. A netting of ropes tied to its huge torso held a collection of lashed bags and boxes. In its spare time - when it wasn't busy doing whatever it was that a dragon did; the way Ellegon spent his time wasn't something to be shared with the likes of Kethol and his friends - the dragon had been known to help out the emperor by carrying the imperial mail faster than the imperial messengers could, and in far greater bulk and with much greater secrecy than the telegraph.

  Steam whispered out from between its leathery lips. *And it would be reasonable to have some dried, powdered aconite root in your spicer kit, just in case you wanted to poison a fancier of horseradish, eh?*

  For some reason, that made Erenor stop struggling for just a moment.

  Kethol realized that he still was standing with his sword in his hand, and that was a silly thing to be doing under the circumstances. Ellegon meant no harm, and even if the dragon did, a sword would be as useful against it as a curse. Less; the dragon might be offended or insulted by a curse, but an unenchanted sword had no more chance of cutting through those scales than a leaf did.

  So Kethol just stooped and resheathed his blade in his scabbard.

  The dragon's massive head turned toward where Erenor lay bound. *I see you have a new pet.*

  Pirojil laughed. "It was convenient to have a wizard along."

  *As it might still be. Keep your eyes and ears open in Keranahan. I'm delivering some dispatches there,* the dragon said.

  "I know," Pirojil said. "We've been sent by the - "

  *By the dowager empress to investigate some arranged marriage. Yes, I know. She tried to get Walter Slovotsky to look into it, but he was smart enough to slip away before he was exactly ordered to do it, and then didn't have to have any discussion with Thomen or Beralyn about what his status was or is.*

  "I see."

  *And it seems,* the dragon said as it rose to its feet, *that some people aren't as smart.*

  There was another explanation, of course: the possibility that it had nothing to do with being smart or not being smart, but that Kethol and the rest were simply obeying orders, that they simply had had no choice ... That possibility didn't occur to the dragon.

  *Oh, that occurred to me, Kethol, truly it did,* the dragon said. *But it just didn't occur to me that it was an important distinction.*

  The dragon craned its neck toward one of the larger rocks. Its massive jaw parted slightly, and a gout of orange fire issued toward the rock, fingers of flame licking and caressing the rough surface for only a few moments.

  Heat washed against Kethol's face, even when the dragon closed its mouth and then leaped into the air, massive wings beating hard enough to drive dust and sand painfully into the lids of Kethol's now-tightiyclosed eyes.

  *But,* it said, as it rose into the sky and flapped away, *there's no reason that even the stupidly obedient shouldn't be able to sleep with some warmth and comfort*

  Chapter 7

  Treseen and Elanee

  Governor Treseen was just returned from the Residence when the message arrived. It had been a slow and pleasant ride back from his breakfast with the baroness out at what used to be the baron's country home, and a leisurely ride was a rare treat these days, what with the work of his office.

  It wasn't like the old days, but then again, these days he slept in a clean bed, a warm meal resting comfortably in his belly. There was much more to be said for the new days than the old days.

  And the future was bright with promise.

  He doffed his riding coat and tossed his gloves to the chair in front of his desk and sat down.

  Work, work, work.

  There were tax reports from the village wardens to go over and scouting reports from the occupation troops on the borderlands that had to be read. A case of fulghum rot had hit outside of some of the northern villages, and it was proving resistant to the Spidersect spells that should have stopped it cold. He'd have to have a word with Trewnel the wizard about that, and while he had little faith in Trewnel's honesty, it was either him or Baroness Elanee, and his plans for intimate talks with the baroness didn't include much discussion of the diseases of plants.
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br />   Running a barony was an amazing amount of work, and it was barely possible to get in a couple days' hunting each tenday, not to mention the birds that he had been neglecting. His young sparrow hawk was ripe for training - and a sharp-eyed little killer she was! - and it was all he could do to handfeed her every now and then. Yes, she would come to the lure, but only if the lure was in the hand of his bird keeper, Henros. He had no intention of spending the mountains of coins it cost to feed and take care of his birds merely for the pleasure of that oily Henros.

  He had heard but mostly ignored the clattering of hoofbeats outside his window. There was always somebody coming and going, and usually they were coming and going in a hurry. That was the trouble these days. Too much hurrying. It was one thing to ride quickly into battle, but another entirely less noble, less interesting thing to hurry and scurry forth on matters more mundane.

  He turned back to the papers on his desk and got to work.

  "Governor?" Ketterling stood in the doorway, an envelope in his hand.

  "Yes, yes, what is it?"

  "Message, Governor."

  Treseen frowned as he took the envelope. The imperial mail rider wasn't due for a couple of days yet, and the telegraph line barely reached into Barony Neranahan; stretching it into the hinterlands of Keranahan was a low priority. There was good and bad in that; Treseen was not eager for more imperial supervision. An occasional troop of the Home Guard coming through was more than enough for him.

  "Where?"

  "It's from old Banderan, sir."

  Treseen smiled. Banderan was a companion from the old days, and while there was little to recommend the old days in comparison with the here and now, loyalty and dedication were tested far better with the clash of steel than with the clink of copper.

  "But how did it come in?"

  "The dragon Ellegon, of all things."

  Treseen swallowed heavily. He felt vaguely nauseous. "Ellegon. Here?"