The Dragon of Despair

by Jane Lindskold

  Citrine knew this must be so, and that it was her duty to let Mother know that her very own Citrine was with Elise and Edlin and what her address wasùjust in case she didn't see past the New Kelvinese boy-robe and the name Rios. She'd written another note. Today she hoped to send it.

  The words played through her mind as she walked, going as briskly as her curly-toed slippers would permit.

  Dear Mother,

  I am here in Dragon's Breath and, staying at a house owned by a big woman named Hasamemorri. I think I have spelled her name right, but if I have not, she is very large and wears lots of pink. Ask for Jalarios's son, Rios, there and you will have me.

  I would very much like to come and visit you and see your new palace.

  Your obedient daughter,

  Citrine Shield

  When Citrine could stop thinking about the letter and wondering if she had said the right things, she concentrated on trying to look like she was on an errand so no one on the street would stop her. Amidst all these distractions, her heart beat very fast.

  No one stopped her. No one even looked at her much. She hurried up to the message drop-off, a building that looked like a sculpted pillar except that it was hollow inside. It stood alone at the edge of Aswatano. Inside, a bored-looking clerk stood stiff and straight, as if he was a pillar himself. HeùCitrine felt fairly certain it was a heùlooked at the carefully printed routing instructions: Consolor of the Healed One Melina, Thendulla Lypella, Urgent. He frowned, the expression creasing the lines on his face.

  "Why is the address written in these alien characters, boy?"

  Heartened by being taken for a boy, Citrine responded as she had planned.

  "My father works for foreigners. The message is theirs. I am only the runner, great lord."

  She knew that calling the clerk a great lord was overdoing, but she also knew that few people minded being praised above their station.

  The clerk continued to frown, staring at the routing instructions, then at Citrine. For a moment, she felt that his gaze saw far too much. Then he shook his head dismissively.

  "For the Consolor Melina," he snorted. "Foreigners wouldn't know that such missives are to go directly to the post station at Thendulla Lypella."

  Citrine felt a flare of anxiety. She didn't think she could get away from Hasamemorri's unnoticed long enough to make her way to the opposite end of the city. Would Firekeeper notice if she dropped something off? Probably. The real question was would the wolf-woman fasten any importance to the action.

  "Still," said the clerk, dropping the letter into one of the baskets that surrounded him, "they are foreigners. There will be an extra charge for delivery."

  Uncertain whether the charge was for taking the letter to Thendulla Lypella or because the senders were foreign, Citrine obediently paid the amount asked. Then she stopped at a sweets stand and bought some brightly colored rock candy and sweetened dry gingerùher excuse if anyone noticed her absence.

  Wendee Jay had, and though she scolded Citrine mildly for taking off without telling anyone, she didn't seem at all angry. Citrine smiled sweetly at the woman and offered her a few rock crystals.

  Wendee was really very nice. Maybe Citrine would ask her mother if they could keep Wendee for a servant when Citrine came to live in Thendulla Lypella.

  Ignoring the laughter that echoed between her ears, Citrine wandered off to the kitchen to see if she could help by chopping vegetables for dinner.

  WHAT ARE THEY DOING?" growled Northwest, his hackles raised. "Why are they rooting about in the earth like that?"

  Initially, the falcon Elation had been equally confused, but she had an advantage over the wolf. She had flown over and taken a look.

  "They are digging up the dead two-legs that are buried there," she replied.

  "Surely, they're not so very hungry," Northwest replied, his hackles smoothing flat, so complete was his astonishment. "These new ones have brought food with them and are sharing it. In any case, we haven't killed anyone for these long nights past. The meat must be spoiled beyond what even a two-legs would eat."

  "I think," Elation replied, though she was not completely certain this was the case, "they intend to take the dead ones away with them. This would make their retreat entire, and show their willingness to keep their One's promise to Firekeeper."

  Northwest's hackles rose again at the mention of the wolf-woman. Pressured by Wind Whisper, he might have carried Firekeeper's message west, but his defeat had made him dislike her even more.

  Elation tightened one foot's grip on the branch on which she perched, cutting through the bark into the living wood. There were times she grew very tired of wolves. They were impulsive, limitedùas were all the ground-boundùby their inability to see things from more than one elevation. Firekeeper's pack valued the wolf-woman, but other than Wind Whisperùwho was after all an offshoot of that same packùthe remainder of the wolves, indeed, the remainder of the Beasts, seemed to view the wolf-woman as a thing to be used when useful and to be scorned the rest of the time.

  "We don't care about rotting carcasses," Northwest said, sniffing the air to confirm Elation's report. "We should give them a scare so they'll know."

  He tilted back his head as if to howl, but a decisive growl from behind them stilled the sound in his throat.

  "We commanded," said Shining Coat, the One Female of Firekeeper's pack, "that as long as the two-legs were working as if they would depart then they were not to be troubled."

  "But they aren't departing," Northwest whined, cringing a bit in what Elation knew was good manners, junior to senior, among the wolves.

  "Oh?" Shining Coat studied the situation, sniffing the air and reading more from those scents than she did from what she saw. "What are they doing?"

  Elation repeated, "They are digging up the dead two-legs who are buried there."

  "Hard labor for little good meat," Shining Coat replied. "They buried the bodies deeply and set large stones and sections of tree trunks on top. Only the littlest diggers could get to the carcasses."

  Elation fluffed her feathers at the provinciality of wolves.

  "Two-legs value their dead," she replied. "At least this breed does. In their own lands they have fields where they plant them. Some even build them houses. Have you forgotten how Fox Hair came all this way simply to carry marked stones with which to do honor to Firekeeper's dead?"

  "I had," Shining Coat said with the simple humility that was the only good thing Elation saw in the continuous precedence games all wolves played. "I wonder why these bring their dead away with them? The hawk-nosed One who led those with whom Firekeeper departed two springs ago found dead but left them behind."

  "But he did bury them neatly," Elation reminded her, "and showed the bones great respect."

  "True," Shining Coat agreed. "Like knows like best, and these two-legs are unlike anything I knowùeven our Little Two-legs might be puzzled."

  "Might," Elation said, "though Firekeeper has learned much. If she were here, she would know the answer to give us."

  Northwest had been ignoring the byplay between senior wolf and peregrine, his attention returned to the humans and their strange digging. Perhaps the smell of meat, no matter how rotted, excited his senses, for he wheeled on Shining Coat almost as if he would attack her.

  "Let us kill them all now!" he said. "They have taken down the close ranks of dead trees behind which they hid. There are holes now big enough to admit usùand the bears and pumas. We could eliminate them all in a few fast strokes."

  "Have you forgotten the ones to the east?" Shining Coat countered.

  "I did," Northwest said, "but what does that matter? They don't yet have this strong den they are to build. They are easy now, relaxed that they have won the fight with these here and certain that we will give them none."

  Shining Coat leapt on the wild-eyed young male, knocking him to the ground with a thud so solid that Elation was certain that even the humans must have heard it. They did not seem to, how
ever, and by the time her quick glance had darted between the humans and the struggling wolves, Shining Coat had subdued Northwest.

  Moreover, her pack, more sensitive than the busy humans, was emerging from the cover from which many of them had been watching the activity at New Bardenville.

  "We will not kill these humans, Northwest," Shining Coat growled. "Do you forget how many there are across the mountains?"

  "They seemed thin spread to me," Northwest said with remarkable defiance.

  Shining Coat shook him and Elation saw the blood well up through the younger wolf's fur.

  "Two eyes, one nose, no sense," she snarled in a reproof that Elation knew was more commonly applied to pups rather than grown adults. "You run a few days' distanceùmostly by nightùand by this journey you will judge all of two-legged kind."

  "A further run than you have taken!" Northwest persisted with incredible defiance.

  "A hunter doesn't need to see the size of the herd," Shining Coat replied, "when a good scout howls back the count. You reason like a late-autumn pup." That was one born when the winter is coming, and so stupid and weak. "It is no wonder your pack sent you away."

  "Gently, Shining Coat," warned Rip, her mate. "No need to direct your anger to Northwest's kin. They are not here to answer for themselves."

  The One Male turned his attention to the bloodied, cringing, but still somehow defiant young wolf.

  "You may be willing to defy me and mine," Rip growled, "but are you also willing to defy all those of the Beasts who have agreed that for now we are to be careful in our dealings with the two-legs?"

  Reminded thus, Northwest went limp.

  Shining Coat accepted his surrender, releasing his ruff and licking her bloodied muzzle, but she still eyed him with dislike.

  "We let these two-legs go," she said, "even if they take time to dig up old bones. Only if they make a move to replant their dead trees or dig some other secure den do we remind them whose will is law here in the west."

  Her pronouncement was a reminder not only to the quelled rebel, but to anyone in hearing. Elation knew how many listened from the surrounding trees and knew that the news of this confrontation would be everywhere before the humans stilled their labors with the coming of night.

  The peregrine was not surprised to see a raven winging east toward the gap in the mountains, doubtless to assure himselfùand them allùthat the humans were not readying there a den from which they could defy the Beasts, rather than the promised watch post.

  How long though, Elation thought, does it take for one to become the other?

  Holding this uncomfortable thought, the peregrine resumed waiting, wishing that Firekeeper were there to explain how a human might answer that question.

  Chapter XXIV

  PURE DARKNESS didn't come for many hours, but Firekeeperùpossessed of a wolf's patience now that the hunt was impendingùdidn't fret.

  At dinner she ate her share of the roast joint and vegetables, actually enjoying the potatoes roasted crisp in beef fat. Then she and Blind Seer went outside and dozed, awakening in the small hours when even Dragon's Breath had stilled to sleep.

  In the kitchen, Grateful Peace and Edlin were readying themselves. Peace, sorting through his gear, was as alert as the wolf-woman herself. Edlin reeked of a frantic excitement, reminding Firekeeper irresistibly of a puppy grown nearly into adult size and so included in the hunt.

  Still, Lord Kestrel managed a facade of calm, and neither Firekeeper nor Blind Seer felt a need to scrape through it to the truth.

  "I've pencils," Edlin said, holding them up for inspection. "Better than ink, won't smear if we get wet, what?" Firekeeper nodded approval. "And you have light?" she asked Peace.

  "Light for me and for Lord Kestrel," the thaumaturge replied. "I thought you would do without."

  Firekeeper smiled, pleased that Peace remembered. "I see enough with what you have."

  She glanced to where Edlin was busily belting on a long hunting knife and noted that Peace, too, was armed, though his choice of blade was somewhat smaller. Knowing of what her Fang was capable, Firekeeper didn't fault the men for their choices. Indeed, remembering how close the sewer tunnels could be, she thought them wise.

  "I try to get Bee Biter come with," she said, "but he will not. Too close for him beneath the ground, though I tell him it as wide as sky for a tiny creature like himself."

  Edlin shrugged philosophically. The matterùand Bee Biter's probable refusalùhad already been raised in their earlier conference.

  "I say, shall we go, then?"

  Firekeeper nodded. She could hear stirring from the rooms where the others slept, but knew that though they were nervous about this expedition they would not emerge to offer wishes for luck and success. Such activity had been ruled out as possibly drawing unnecessary attention from the New Kelvinese inhabitants of the house.

  Doc had protested that he should go with them in case a doctor was needed, but his offer had been refused.

  "You have teached me and Edlin both," Firekeeper had told him firmly. "No need."

  She hoped she was right.

  They emerged from the back door and side yard into the dark alley that ran along the rear of this row of houses. Although some areas of Dragon's Breath had streetlamps, this neighborhood did not. It might be within the main wall and so superior to the areas without, but it did not merit such flourishes.

  Firekeeper was glad. Dark streets did not encourage night traffic. Moreover, she and Blind Seer would be aware of any potential thieves long before the thieves were aware of them.

  A small corner of her mind remained troubled over the distinction between thief and bandit, between necessary self-defense and what humans saw as excessive violence. She understood surrenderùindeed, her honoring of such had been her weaknessùbut such fine lines made her restless and unhappy.

  They turned on to a side street where a heavy stone capped an entrance into the sewer. Not wishing her human companions to strain themselves, Firekeeper lifted the stone, tilting it against its iron hinges without the lever Peace produced.

  The New Kelvinese raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, merely tucking the implement back where he had extracted it. Firekeeper motioned to the ladder.

  "Go. I come last with Blind Seer."

  She knew she should go first and so scout the area and avoid being blinded by the light from the lanterns her companions carried. Either Edlin or Peace could close the hatch with little difficulty, but the sewer stench was more powerful than she had imagined.

  Peace's slight grin before he clambered down awoke a momentary flare of anger in the wolf-woman, but she recognized that this wasn't really anger, but shame at her own delaying, and so hung her head in mute apology.

  When the two men were below, Firekeeper took a few steps down the ladder, then Blind Seerùcomplaining vigorously about the omnipresent reek of human shitùbacked into her grasp and let her carry him down. In an emergency the wolf could have leapt, but neither of them particularly wanted to risk his slipping from the comparatively narrow walkway into the filth that flowed alongside.

  Taking one last breath of the good night air, Firekeeper pulled the hatch closed after her and felt her way down the rungs to the tunnel floor. The stones beneath her feet were cool and damp, but not wet enough to be treacherous. After a few deliberately deep breaths, she could even sort the difference between the smell of the sewer flow and the air in the tunnel, tasting even the scent of burning lantern oil. Whether she would be able to make any finer distinctions waited to be learned.

  Blind Seer was also making every effort to translate the scent of the sewage into the olfactory equivalent of background noise. Grumbling slightly, but admitting that he was less overwhelmed than he had been initially, he shook to announce his readiness to go on.

  "As I expected from a creature who will perfume himself in the reek of rotting carrion" Firekeeper teased. "You can revel in any stench."

  Blind Seer bumped his head against her in
a wolf's equivalent of an embrace.

  "If the others are done choking at the smell" he said cheerfully, "let us move ahead. Ask Peace what we should watch for. I know he has some concern that the humans will have taken precautions against the easy use of this trail."

  Firekeeper nodded.

  "Ready?" she asked Edlin and Peace, keeping her voice low but not whispering, for Peace had warned them that the sibilance of whispered talk would carry through the tunnels.

  "I say!" Edlin replied, also guarding his tone. "A bit strong, what?"

  Peace, carefully holding his dark lantern so that the small light he let through the shield illuminated only the stones at his feet, said nothing, but Firekeeper saw his curt nod.

  "What should we look for," Firekeeper asked, "to know if there are traps?"

  Peace considered.

  "Wire or string stretched at any level where a trespasser might touch it unaware. I think that we need not fear more complex pressure traps, at least here. They have not had time to do such engineering. Initially, there should not be many traps. The sewers must be serviced and killing workers would not serve at all. The Artificers will have kept their finer work for nearer to the Earth Spires."

  Firekeeper nodded. Then, letting Blind Seer go a few paces in front of her, she led the way. The wolf was to give his full attention to the way ahead while she split her attention between their path and any word from their companions. This much the men who followed her knew.

  What she hadn't bothered to tell Edlinùand of course would not tell Peaceùwas that she did not completely trust their New Kelvinese companion, and was ready for the slightest indication of betrayal on his part. It would have been too easy for him to get word to allies in the city and prepare an ambush.

  Not one of their group had overlooked Grateful Peace's delight at returning to New Kelvin. Firekeeper's own strong feeling that she should be at home with her pack made her ever conscious that Peace could not be trusted. King Tedric had been righter than she had realized. She could not have stood neutral or even merely defensive if her people went to war. Why should any of them expect Grateful Peace to act differently?