by J H G Foss
‘I bet you did.’
‘That dragon needs slaying though,’ grumbled Broddor. ‘What sort of tale is it - that I fought a dragon as big and powerful as that, but didn’t slay it? It’s hardly a tale worth telling.’
‘Well maybe,’ said Roztov. ‘I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t a bit of misunderstanding though.’
‘He seemed nice enough to me,’ put in Meggelaine.
‘Oh aye? Did he indeed? Well, I fought the bugger for two days, so let me tell you, he’s not all sweetness and light. You druids seem to think you can talk your way out of anything.’
No one said anything until Broddor began again.
‘Well, I suppose Roztov did sort of bring peace to Styke, I’ll give him that. I take it back; I meant no offence to your powers of diplomacy.’
‘None taken,’ said the druid, holding up his hands.
‘But I can’t end the tale by saying “and then a druid came along and resolved it all peacefully”, do you see what I mean? And yet, such a mighty battle, I have to tell it.’
Roztov knew this was a thorny issue for the dwarf, who came from a race that formed so much of their identity through their tales.
‘I’m sure you’ll figure it out.’
‘It would be best if...’
Just then Ghene entered the shelter and put his finger to his lips.
‘There is a dragon overhead.’
While everyone else remained silently inside, the other two druids could not resist going outside to take a look. The tree cover over their camp was thick, but they could catch glimpses of it, casting its shadow over the forest. It was a big black silhouette against the overcast sky. Meggelaine ducked back inside and the other two watched it until it left the area.
An hour after that, as they sat around the fire once more, Meggelaine started shivering in fear.
‘Oh my heart!’ she cried out. ‘I can’t take it any longer!’
‘Meggelaine, you are as cold as ice, get closer to the fire,’ said Roztov as he bundled her up.
‘I’m a nervous wreck, we need to get off this wretched island!’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t take it any longer. Every time I see a dragon I pee my pants. I’m not even joking.’
‘There there.’
‘I need some fresh air,’ said the fressle as she stood up. ‘The walls are closing in on me.’
She left through the shelter’s small entrance and Roztov followed. Together they went down to a secluded spot between two massive trees. Roztov knelt and rubbed Meggelaine’s back until her composure returned.
‘It’s going to drive us all batty, Roz.’
‘Hopefully not.’
‘Look at Ophess, have you looked at her recently?’ she continued. ‘She’s retreated into herself, totally gone. I don’t know why we are not all stark raving mad.’
‘We’ve had worse, Em.’
‘Have we?’
‘Well, I don’t want to make you feel worse by remembering other dark times, but we had some pretty bleak days on the Moon Marshes. And even back in Styke when we went into those endless goblin tunnels.’
‘Oh don’t,’ said Meggelaine with a shiver. ‘And how was I then?’
‘A nervous wreck.’
‘There is only so much I can take, Roz. This is my limit.’
Roztov sighed and thought for a while.
‘Dear Meg. We’ll rest here another day, all right? Then sneak past the Spire, into Stovologard and steal a boat. We could be out of here in less than a week. You just need to hold it together for a bit longer.’
‘You make is sound easy.’
‘I never said that. Just that it might be over quicker than you think.’
‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve not been on a proper adventure in years. I’m old and past it. Then we take on all this. Ridiculous! Me and Ghene deserve everything we get, for being such idiots. I wish I’d never dragged you and Broddor into it though. And Tup. Oh Etruna, and all those poor sailors!’
As she dissolved into tears again, Roztov lifted her up and hugged her like a child.
‘There there.’
It had been a long time since he’d seen it, but this was not the first time he’d had to deal with Meggelaine having a break down. It was understandable, given the circumstances they were in; he had been a bit like that too back in his younger days. Now he was older though, and imbued with so much druidic power he wasn’t frightened of anything much any more and he’d long since tackled all the inner demons associated with seeing friends die and wondering if he could have saved them if he’d done things differently.
He also sometimes wished he could let it all out like Meggelaine did when she had had too much. He wondered if he could do it even if he wanted to. This was how it was though, for him. It was easiest just to bottle it all up inside. The others were different though. Broddor was a dwarf and they were born to battle, Floran was an ugari and they saw the world differently from men. Floran viewed the world outside of Hyadna as somehow not as meaningful as in his home country, as if it was a shadow play, that awakened no strong feelings. Roztov realised that this sounded a little harsh and that Floran was a lot better than most other ugari, who saw all other races as inferior and the rest of the world as pretty much a waste of time.
Ghene too, came from an arrogant race. Elves were long lived and saw the world from a wider perspective. Roztov sometimes thought that Ghene spent too much time looking at the bigger picture, which made him appear callous. That was also too strong, he realised. Ghene was emotional, he knew that, but it all went on inside him. He supposed he was closer to Meggelaine in temperament and outlook. In the lands of men, druids stood alone and distant from the rest of their race, ignoring borders and going about their business largely unchecked. He had grown used to the respect given to him by his kin, but underneath it all, he was still just a man.
She was asleep now. Roztov sighed and carried her back to the shelter.
Later that evening Roztov awoke to find his arm had gone numb. He gently lifted Meggelaine’s head from the crook of his elbow, got up off the bed then pulled the cloak across to cover her sleeping form. He then went outside into the night to empty his bladder. After that he stood for about fifteen minutes, enjoying the quiet of the still forest air.
He felt tired, physically and emotionally, from talking the poor little fressle back to her senses. After a few minutes lost in thought, he coughed, his breath a big cloud of mist that hung motionless in the still air, then turned back to the shelter.
Broddor came out of the door just as he approached it, presumably on a similar errand. He looked up at the druid.
‘Oh, Roztov, I’ve got it!’
‘Got what?’
‘The next big white dragon I slay, I’ll just say it was Mordran,’ said the dwarf with a laugh. ‘That way I can conclude the tale something like “the battle went on for many days” and then um... “I hunted him down, and after an epic chase” something something, and then “finally slew the beast”.’
‘You’re assuming you’ll encounter another big white dragon.’
‘I think there is a fair to middling chance of that happening in a place like this. Any dragon would do though, when you come to think about it. I can’t tell them apart after all, I’m not a dragon expert like you and young Ghene there. And Mordran can change his form into anything, so the next dragon I kill could well be him anyway, how would I know?’
‘Fair enough, but since he’s a shape-shifter he could be anything. Why not (and I’m not advocating this by any means) just go stab a squirrel and say it was him?’
‘Talk sense lad,’ said Broddor as he gently cuffed his friend’s chest. ‘A squirrel? What sort of ending to a story would that be? It has to be a dragon, obviously!’
‘Right. I’m going to bed.’
‘Night night laddie!’
Roztov shook his head, then lay down beside Meggelaine again. Nothing ever seemed to stop that dwarf anyway. He was relentless.
The next morning, the gossip around the campfire was that Floran and Tankle had wandered off.
‘Have they had their breakfast?’ asked Meggelaine.
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Roztov as he ate his. It was trout fished from a nearby river, roasted on the fire, along with a selection of chopped up and baked root vegetables.
‘Well, where did they go? Does nobody else care that they are just wandering around in the forest?’
‘They are not far away,’ said Ghene.
Meggelaine knew that if Ghene said so, then it was true, but even so she continued.
‘I mean, what are they doing? What’s...?’
She stopped when she saw that Roztov was laughing quietly and spluttering as he ate. He nudged Broddor who was sat next to the druid eating his own portion of fish and chips.
‘What? Oh...’ said Meggelaine as she began to understand what was going on.
‘Here, have some breakfast sweetie,’ said Roztov offering her a plate. ‘I doubt they’ll be gone that long.’
‘Fine,’ she replied, grumbling as she took the plate. ‘Always the last to know, nobody tells me anything.’
‘You honestly didn’t see it?’
‘What do I know of the love life of the big folks? Although I now remember you saying he came on this voyage in the first place because he had lady trouble. What was it?’ asked Meggelaine.
‘We can only speculate,’ said Roztov putting down his plate and stretched out his legs by the fire. ’But Hyadnian marriages are really hard to arrange from what I’ve heard. Complicated. And for Vizards it’s even worse. I think he had a thing for a necromancer, which is pretty stupid considering he knows what happened to me.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Meggelaine. ‘Soora went that way after you married her though. It’s another thing to marry one knowingly.’
‘It says something about Hyadnian society if a necromancer was his best or only option.’
‘True enough.’
‘When they do eventually get married, their weddings are quite civilised affairs though, considering how hard it is to arrange one. We attended one when we were there, remember Broddor?’
‘Aye, it was dull. Completely dry, not a drop of drink to be had. Food was good though I suppose.’
Roztov laughed. ‘Well, compared to a dwarven wedding it was dull. Dwarven weddings are just drunken fist fights!’
‘That’s not fair!’ exclaimed Broddor. ‘My wedding was wild even for a dwarven one and if I'm honest it was all the non-dwarves that couldn't handle their ale that was the problem. Don’t judge us all by the one and only dwarven wedding you’ve been to. It was a special case.’
‘So you say.’
The conversation around the fire continued for the entire day in much the same vein. Stories about old comrades and what had became of them, tales of their earlier adventures, the people they had met and the places they had been.
It was a world apart from the life of a sailor and the last three crewmembers of the Red Maiden generally listened to the tales with great enjoyment. Sometimes they got repeated, by Broddor in particular, and when he launched into a tale from the Moon Marshes they had all heard before Salveri sat back with the other two sailors and they struck up a conversation of their own.
‘That dwarf sure likes the sound of his own voice,’ muttered Salveri. ‘These people just sit and swap stories all day. If I’ve heard this one four times in two weeks then they must have heard it a hundred times.’
‘Yes, but it seems to be the way they pass the time. Maybe they used to do it too, back when they were out on campaign,’ said Arrin.
‘They should try the life of a sailor then. No time for chatting, not for a topman. You work all day. You are too tired for chatter at the end of it.’
Arrin and Tankle both knew this was far from true and exchanged a knowing glance between themselves.
‘I don’t know,’ Salveri continued to mutter. ‘They make light of everything. When you think of how many we lost in the wreck. It’s disrespectful... I...’
Salveri paused and rubbed his hands over his face and beard. His anger was swelling, his impotent rage at that gang of freebooters that had, in his eyes, caused the destruction of the Red Maiden and the loss of most of her crew. The loss of his nephew, his sister’s boy, was eating away at him and he planted the blame for the lad’s death firmly at the feet of those that were now talking and laughing so freely around the camp fire.
‘So help me,’ he went on. ‘If I met any of them down an alleyway one dark night, I’d stick a knife in them. That Ophess may be a spoilt brat, but I’d take her any day over that lot. We are nothing to them, just foot soldiers, Lunarian cannon fodder. How many have they already marched to their deaths?’
‘Now then...’ started Arrin.
‘Oh don’t start making excuses for them. Sure, they’ve saved our lives, but it was them that endangered it in the first place.’
‘But the captain, he made a...’
‘Oh, stow it will you?’ hissed Salveri. ‘Gods. That dwarf prattles on and on...’
Salveri stewed in silence for a while. Arrin and Tankle both looked on Salveri with great respect, but neither of them were shy of voicing their own thoughts.
‘Well, you don’t know much about dwarves then,’ said Tankle. ‘When I used to go see my friend Freja in the dwarven fortress I learned that retelling stories is how their culture works. If you knew any dwarves, then you would know this. The others listen to him out of politeness.’
‘My friend Freja?’ said Salveri with a mocking tone. ‘They are all just squatters in the lands of man. I’m glad I live as far west as you can get, away from all the short arses. How do you even have a dwarf friend? You’re a sailor.’
‘I knew her from before I went to sea. When I was a girl.’
‘When you were a little girl? Give me strength. It’s because the captain was a Borlander we had women on board. Letting women on ships, honestly, it’s madness. In any port in Bellavia, they would never hire... ah.’
He stopped talking when Tankle shifted her weight and loomed over him. Salveri suddenly remembered that she was near twice the size of him and while she might tolerate his racism, since his sexism was targeting her personally it was less well received.
‘What was that Sal?’ she said with quiet menace. ‘You were going to say something about women at sea?’
Salveri gulped then said, ‘never mind, wench. Never mind an old man. I’ve had enough of sitting anyway. I’m going out to stretch my legs.’
He then got up and left. Tankle and Arrin shuffled closer to the fire and resumed listening to Broddor’s story.
The next morning the druids deemed it safe to continue and they all packed up their meagre camp. As usual Arrin was one of the first to be ready and he stood in his place in the line waiting for the stragglers. Tankle’s arm was much better now, and she no longer kept it in a sling, but she still needed help getting her doublet on. Arrin noticed that it was Floran that helped her. Ophess’s hair was getting longer, but was still short, like a boy that had just had it cut. Meggelaine had made her a hat from deerskin and she tugged it down over her ears to keep them warm. Arrin had one too.
‘What is the plan, my lord?’ he asked Ghene, who was also waiting.
The elf was eyeing the path ahead as his hands rechecked his belt and scabbard.
‘Oh, we are going north,’ he replied. ‘There are dragons about, but I am fully attuned to this area now. Yes, it should be fine; we'll just go north as directly as we can. We’ll try not to get too close to the Spire. The base of the mountain anyway. From here, viewed through the trees, we only see the top of it and it looks like an incredibly tall tower, but really it’s a mountain. The base is wide.'
‘How close will we be?’
‘It depends on who or what we have to avoid on the way, but a mile at the most I should think.’
A mile sounded quite close enough to Arrin. Everyone was ready now and they set
off into the forest, Ghene leading the way. It was a rugged, densely wooded area, but as ever Ghene found a clear and easy route for them to follow.
At midday they stopped to eat and drink.
‘This place feels just like home, don't you think?’ asked Ghene of Meggelaine. ‘It feels... fey. As if elves live here. I mean, they don't, we would know about that of course, if they did, but if I didn’t know any better I would say this land was tended by elves. The trees grow so straight and true, the streams are full of crystal clear water, the animal trails are so well placed. This could be the Great Forest in winter.’
‘Don’t talk to me about home,’ said Meggelaine. ‘I’ll have another attack of the vapours.’
‘Yes, apologies,’ replied Ghene as he stood and shouldered his pack. ‘Well, anyway. There are dragons over to the west, doing I know not what. The further east we can be the better, so we’ll bend towards the Spire a bit more. Should be fine.’
They had to do a bit more bending, as they day wore on, as Ghene navigated them away from danger. The Spire loomed closer and closer, but it still seemed the safest route. Like mice trying to find a place to hide from a hunting cat they ran for the nearest hole in the skirting board, not knowing what lurked within. They set up camp that night with the Spire towering over them, its base easily less than a mile away although they could not see it among the trees.
In the night, they were kept awake by dragons roaring in the distance.
‘What is happening?’ asked Meggelaine.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Ghene. ‘A battle. A war.’
The next morning they set off again, aiming to pass west of the Spire. It loomed before them, impossibly tall, its top disappearing into the clouds.
After no more than fifty paces Meggelaine stopped in her tracks.
'I don’t want to go', she said.
Roztov came up from the rear of the group. ‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘I'm scared.’
‘We are following Ghene, sweetie. He knows where he’s going.’
‘I know that,’ hissed Meggelaine. ‘Tell that to my britches though, I’m soiling myself. Look at that thing. It must be stuffed full of dragons and we are heading directly for it.’
