The Dragon of Despair

by Jane Lindskold

  Their friends didn't leave that afternoon either.

  The wolf-woman had glimpsed each of the others about the grounds, usually going and to and from the place where the horses were kept or to one of the shops, so she knew they were alive and well.

  She'd even seen the man Blind Seer had maimed, his arm carefully wrapped, sitting in a chair where he could get some fresh air. Of the other four bandits she'd seen nothing, but that didn't bother her. Perhaps the guards were keeping them locked up just as their dogs were locked in a pen alongside the guardhouse.

  The failure of Firekeeper's companions to leave the inn and journey on did, however, play havoc with the wolf-woman's intentions. She had planned on following them when they left, rejoining them when they were some distance from this place. She knew their final destination was Hasamemorri's house in Dragon's Breath. She figured that her friends knew she knew this and would count on her joining them.

  But they didn't leave.

  The first full day since her escape passed and turned into a new day. Firekeeper watched carefully whenever one of her friends came outside, hoping for a signal. She saw none, but she realized that the guards were keeping a close watch on her companions. Never did one leave the inn but a guard or two emerged at the same time. Her friends were not imprisoned, but certainly they were being restricted.

  Firekeeper cursed the kestrel Bee Biter, who was still absent. If Bee Biter were near, Firekeeper could have begged him to gather information. It would be humiliating, but better than this nervous not knowing.

  On this second day of watching, armored guards and the sniffing dogs came out again. Firekeeper praised herself for having not given into an urge to sneak down to the grounds the night before. Had she done so, the dogs would have gotten her trail. As things were, they failed again. Several troops of men tromped through the surrounding area, but Firekeeper and Blind Seer found them easy enough to avoid.

  By the third day, what game there was started growing wary and though Blind Seer did not need to eat every day, when he did eat he needed to eat heartily, not the little fish and squirrels on which Firekeeper could subsist. With these complications in mind, Firekeeper decided that the only solution was to sneak down by night and find out why her companions were being delayed.

  Blind Seer wanted to come with her, but Firekeeper refused.

  "You will frighten all the animals, sweet hunter," she said, embracing him, "and their noise will alert the guards. Wait for me."

  "And if you do not return," the wolf growled, "as the others have not?"

  "Then," the wolf-woman said, "do come, but come when the wind and the night both are with you. Slay a creature or two, perhaps those sniffing dogs would do for starters. I think we can put such fear into these foolish ones that they will be glad to see the back of us."

  Laughing, his teeth white in the light of the waning moon, Blind Seer agreed.

  "You have only this night," he warned her. "Tomorrow I strike."

  "I would not have it other, dear heart," she assured him, and kissing him on the damp leather of his nose, she slipped down into the grounds.

  There were human guards posted, but Firekeeper had watched them these last several nights and she knew that they were past that tense alertness that had marked their first night's watching. Even so, her heart pounded a little faster than usual, but she knew that was good. Were she not to feel the thrill of the hunt, then she might grow careless.

  Dodging into the darker shadows where the torchlight didn't fall, Firekeeper made her way to the side of the inn. She had already noted which rooms her companions had been given. They were on the third story, back in a corner, doubtless so that the locals need not get too close to the foreign taint. There was an outside stair near them, but Firekeeper disdained it. Besides, if there was a watch on her friends, a guard would surely be set in that close stair.

  The inn was built from stone, rough chunks probably cleared from the local fields and in the building of the turnpike. They were mortared together in the form of a small castle complete with turrets. Much art had gone into the design, but the stones had not been dressed smooth and they provided ample toe and finger holds for her.

  She swarmed up and sniffed at the open window. The air smelled of male sweat, not unclean, simply the body cooling from summer heat. Had there not been so much at stake, Firekeeper would have slipped in then and there, trusting her own speed and agility to get her away if she was detected by the wrong person. Because she could not take that risk, she crouched on the windowsill, wishing for a proper wolf's nose so that she could be absolutely certainùas she was almost certainùthat one of the scents was Derian's.

  She crouched there a long time, until one of the men shifted in his sleep and began to snore. A slow smile spread over her face. That was Edlin, sure as rain makes wet.

  Dropping from the windowsill into the room, Firekeeper took a moment to assure herself that Edlin, Doc, and Derian were alone. She knew from earlier travel that Peace, in his role as servant, must sleep elsewhere, just as the women must have their own room. The women had arranged to keep Peace's "darling little boy" with them, thus sparing Citrine some potentially awkward encounters.

  None of the New Kelvinese apparently thought this last at all odd. Doubtless they dismissed it as another foreign peculiarity.

  Firekeeper debated only a moment on who to wake first. Doc always slept lightly and seemed used to keeping his tongue when awakened from a sound sleep. She padded over to where he slept and, crouching next to him so that her mouth was near his ear, spoke softly.

  "Doc," she said, touching him lightly on the arm. "Is Firekeeper."

  Doc did not disappoint her. He blinked to full wakefulness as easily as she had climbed the side of the building.

  "Firekeeper? Ah, good. We thought you had stayed in the area."

  He glanced over at his snoring cousin and poked him in the side.

  "Ed! You're snoring!"

  "I say!" Edlin muttered sleepily. "So sorry, really."

  He rolled onto his side and started to snuggle back into his pillow.

  "Edlin," Doc said holding his hand ready to clap over the younger man's mouth. "We have a visitor. Firekeeper is here."

  Edlin blinked blearily.

  "What? I say, did you say?"

  "Keep your voice down," Doc urged. "Firekeeper has come here at great risk to herself."

  By now Derian was stirring. He didn't seem to be as muzzy-headed as Edlin and had apparently gathered something of what was going on. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked around the dark room, eventually identifying the darker blot next to Doc as their visitor.

  "We thought you would stay close," Derian said, his voice soft but choked with emotions Firekeeper couldn't begin to define. "We're in a bit of a bind. The guards won't let us leave until you're found. Elise has done the ruptured-dignity thing and appealed to our embassyùI know we didn't want to draw a lot of attention, but it would have seemed odder if we hadn't."

  Firekeeper nodded, realized Derian couldn't see her, and said, "What is 'ruptured dignity'?"

  Derian laughed softly. He reached for the lantern near his bed and lit it, bathing the room in a pale yellow glow.

  "You've seen it. When a noble gets all formal about privilege and proper treatment and all."

  Firekeeper had indeed seen such behavior, many timesùbut rarely from Elise. She thought, however, that Elise could rupture her dignity very well if she chose.

  "And what has happened?" the wolf-woman prompted.

  "It will be days before we hear anything from the ambassador," Derian said, "and it's quite likely the ambassador won't be able to get us out right away. You see, it's not any of us the guards want."

  "It's me," Firekeeper said.

  "Right."

  There was a span of silence during which Edlin finally woke up all the way. Then he had to be forestalled from making a great commotion in his joy at seeing his "dear sister."

  Firekeeper sighed. E
dlin wasn't an idiot. She knew that, would even defend him against those who misjudged him. However, there were times this was hard to remember.

  "You not come out window and go?" she asked wistfully.

  "No," Derian replied, a touch of admonishment in his tone. "That would make nearly impossible the task for which we were sent here."

  "I know," Firekeeper sighed. "You cannot go. I cannot…"

  She stopped, chewing over the beginnings of a plan.

  "Give me a knife," she said.

  "What?" Doc asked, apparently speaking for all three men, judging from their wordless exclamations.

  "You give me knife," Firekeeper said. "I give this knife to guards. I hide my knife. Like Elise I rupture my dignity if they say they search me. I also rupture dignity if they try to hurt me. Am I not daughter of Earl Kestrel?"

  "I say!" Edlin said. "That's not bad at all!"

  "No it isn't," Derian agreed, "and it goes well with what we have told them already. I've seen their attitude toward us shift over the last few days. They're less confident than they were the night you fled."

  "I wouldn't be surprised," Doc added in the tone of one who knew more than he was saying, "if my patient has talked a bit about the intent with which he and his companions went after Firekeeper and Blind Seer."

  "You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, would you, Doc?" Edlin said with a delighted chuckle. "Just like I didn't point out how those dogs were all fighting animals, not some farmer's herd dogs, what?"

  "Right," Doc agreed.

  He turned to Firekeeper.

  "It's a good plan," he said to her, "but there is a chance that they will attack you or lock you up. They've had several days to get worried and tense."

  Firekeeper shrugged, though in truth she didn't feel nearly as easy as she pretended.

  "True," she said. "That is why I keep my Fang."

  Chapter XVIII

  AT DAWN, the wolf-woman padded into the Mushroom Stanza Inn's central stable yard. Blind Seer, pacing at her side, seemed twice his usual size with his hackles raised, but she took no comfort in this. Rather she wished he were smaller than the smallest mouse so that no arrow might hit him. So that none of the New Kelvinese humans could claim to have been surprised by their coming, Firekeeper and Blind Seer had howled to signal their approachùan act that, while eliminating surprise, set the resident livestock into a panic. However, even that warning might not be enough to keep them safe from a nervous bowman.

  Some of Firekeeper's companionsùmost importantly Doc, for whom the New Kelvinese held deep, superstitious respectùwere waiting outside when the two wolves descended from the rocky high ground into the stable yard. Edlin ran forward to greet them, an action that must have looked spontaneous to any who had spent time with him these last few days but was calculated to insure that any guard would think twice before loosing an arrow or throwing a spear.

  "Sister Blysse! Good to see you, what?" Edlin said, his joy so sincere that Firekeeper felt a twinge of guilt that she could not feel for Edlin what he did for her.

  "And you, Edlin," Firekeeper said, giving the young man's lanky torso a quick embrace. "I waited for you and for others to go on the road, but you no go, so I come back for you."

  "I say," Edlin replied, his tone slightly stagy even to Firekeeper's ears.

  "These New Kelvinese won't let us go, you know. Captain Brotius wants a word or two with you about the other night, what?"

  "I have words," Firekeeper growled, unable to control a momentary flash of anger that some stranger would expect her to answer to him. "Where is this Brotius that he might give me his?"

  Edlin looked around and there was Brotius crossing the yard from the militia guardhouse, a severe and angry expression on his face. Today his face bore a few lines of red and white like a reversed widow's peak descending his shaved forehead. Firekeeper matched them to the device on the guard post's flag and thought she understood their meaning.

  "Are you ready to surrender?" Brotius demanded as soon as he was close enough not to shout.

  Firekeeper had been trying to prepare herself for this momentùsurrender was, after all, considered a viable option between wolvesùbut Brotius's arrogance made her unwilling to back down without question.

  "I still not know why I do this thing," she said, her hand moving to the knife she had borrowed the night before. She had hidden her Fangùafter some consideration of the limitations of her usual costume for hiding much of anythingùstrapped close to Blind Seer's belly where his thick fur hid both sheathed blade and the light thong that bound it to him.

  Brotius replied, "Because you kill a man and your dog arm bit another."

  "I could have killed all," the wolf-woman reminded Brotius, locking her gaze with his, "but only took life to keep my own. You should give me thanks for having taken away such ugly ones."

  Off to one side Firekeeper heard Derian swear softly. She knew she had departed from the script they had worked out the night before, but she couldn't help herself. Surrender was a serious matter among wolves.

  Brotius looked angrier than ever.

  "I the guard, not you," he said stiffly. "I deal with 'ugly ones.'"

  From somewhere on the fringes of a gathering crowd, Grateful Peace glided smoothly forward.

  "If my services as a translator may be of help," he offered. He spoke first in Pellish, then said something in New Kelvinese that Firekeeper figured must be about the same thing.

  Brotius grunted, then spoke at such a rapid spate that his native language's liquid sounds flowed in an uninterrupted torrent.

  Grateful Peace translated blandly, "He wants to know why you came back if you didn't plan to surrender."

  "I come back," Firekeeper said, "so he let my friends and you go. I do nothing wrong. The men I kill were bandits."

  Peace translated. Brotius snarled something, a fairly long speech this time, which Peace must have shortened in translation.

  "Captain Brotius wishes to know if you think that your being a noblewoman in your own land makes you immune to New Kelvinese law."

  Firekeeper shook her head, addressing Brotius while trusting Peace to give her words sense.

  "No. I think that because I try to keep my life hot in me that is the first law."

  "The men didn't want your life," Peace translated for Brotius. "They wanted to have their dogs fight your dog."

  "Blind Seer is my life," Firekeeper said simply, "and the bandits not just want fight. They say they make carpet or cloak of him. They follow us here from other place to fight."

  Peace finished speaking, listened while Brotius spoke, then waved for Elise, who had pushed her way through the throng.

  "Lady Archer," Peace said, addressing her with a formal note to his words that had not been present when he translated for Brotius, "you speak our tongue best of your group. Captain Brotius wishes to know whether you think that Lady Blysse could have mistaken bluster for an actual threat."

  "I do," Elise said, crossing the stable yard at such a pace that Firekeeper knew she had been longing to do so ever since the conflict began.

  Once she was close enough that her words could be kept private, Elise spoke earnestly to Captain Brotius in his own language. He replied with what Firekeeper thought was at least a little courtesy. The wolf-woman was getting tired of being discussed as though she were a piece of furniture, but given the alternative she thought she could bear it.

  Idly, she reached and rubbed behind Blind Seer's ears.

  "You are as impulsive as a pup with a butterfly. See what trouble it causes?" the wolf said affectionately. He shifted his huge head under her hand, "A little to the side there."

  Eventually, Brotius and Elise stopped speaking. Elise's expression was tight around the mouth and eyes, and Firekeeper braced herself for bad news.

  "Brotius wants Blind Seer caged," Elise said shortly.

  "No."

  "He says Blind Seer is a dangerous animal."

  "He is," Firekeeper said proudly
. "I will not make Blind Seer like dead meat to make Brotius feel he can pee farther than anyone else."

  Elise pressed her lips together, whether to swallow a giggle or a snort of disapproval Firekeeper couldn't guess. Before Elise could speak further, Firekeeper offered:

  "I put Blind Seer on leash and collar."

  Elise translated the offer. Brotius shook his head. Firekeeper had another idea.

  "Ask why he want this. I have come. Now we can go."

  Elise replied woodenly, "Captain Brotius says he is not the one who can judge whether or not what you have done was murder. Therefore, he is not qualified to let you free."

  Firekeeper snorted.

  "Easy, dear heart," Blind Seer cautioned.

  Firekeeper held her temper with difficulty.

  "Who is this qualified?"

  "Brotius has sent for a judge. The judge should be here within a few days."

  "Then we go?"

  "If the judge says that you are not guilty of murder."

  For the first time Firekeeper considered that someone might be stupid enough not to see things her way.

  "And what happen then?"

  "At the best they would send you home."

  "And at worst?"

  "They would kill you."

  "They not do that to Earl Kestrel's daughter," Firekeeper stated confidently.

  Elise bit her lip.

  "No, I don't think they would, but Firekeeper…"

  "Yes?"

  "They might kill Blind Seer."

  WHERE'S CONSOLOR MELINA?"Toriovico asked Tipi. Melina's maid gave him a saucy look.

  Tipi was a slave, probablyùjudging from her upward tilting slanting dark eyes, but light brown hair and pale skinùoriginally from Stonehold, where children from mixed-race matings were still considered shameful in some social circles.

  The slave had been purchased as a novelty when she was a girl of fifteen some thirty years before, but her novelty had vanished along with whatever peculiar beauty she had possessed. The thoughtful administration of Thendulla Lypella had seen her retrained as a domestic. Until recently, Tipi had been considered so inefficient that she had been assigned to the service of foreign visitorsùamong them the visiting Melina Shield.