The Dragon and the Fair M

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "Don't eat?" said the Prince, staring at the small figure again.

  "No. We don't need to. Though we like tasting—" He stumbled and hesitated, realizing what he was about to admit.

  "Hob," said Jim, "speak only when you're spoken to. He's right, Your Grace. They do not need to eat. But on to other matters: I take it that the half-dozen knights and that squire can be counted on to take the center of the vanguard if we do attack, along with the four of us here, while our neighbor knights form the flanks."

  "Hah!" said the Prince, his eyes lighting up. "You need not even ask. My father's knights fret to be at swordwork—but I must correct you, James. There are five such knights, and along with the squire, by duty they must charge around me when I take the field. So your answer is yes."

  "There is also Sir Harimore!" said Brian sharply.

  "Harimore?" said the Prince. "But is he not outlawed? I thought he was in France these several years."

  "Certainly not, Edward!" said Carolinus, appearing suddenly. "You're thinking of Sir Harimore Wilts—respected family, north country—but young Wilts lost more than the estate was worth, including taxes. Writs were issued, he fled to France. The man here in this castle at the moment is Sir Harimore Kilinsworth, third cousin of Wilts, perfectly respectable, also a good estate, but loves weapons-use, not dice, and goes around winning tournaments like Brian, here."

  "I did not remark him," said the Prince.

  "He sat at table with you on at least one occasion when you joined the rest of us for dinner at Tiverton, and you've also seen him at meals here since, Your Grace," said Brian, with something very close to an edge in his voice. "He does not speak easily with anyone, even those to whom he has been named, and, least of all, volunteers conversation with his superiors."

  "Ah? Like that, is he?"

  "He is also a gentleman of all weapons, without match."

  "Not even yourself?"

  "I—" began Brian, but Carolinus broke in brusquely.

  "Enough of this all this chatter. You will be glad of Harimore riding with you, Edward. There is new trouble on the way. Agatha Falon is back with the goblins, and with her is the Warlock of the West."

  "Warlock of the West?" Jim blinked.

  "Yes, Jim. A failed Magickian, half crazy, but with a touch of great talent. He may—I say may, only—be able to frustrate even some of the magick I promised you, Jim."

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  "Now I remember your mentioning him!" said Jim. "When is he likely to show up here?"

  "Go to your window and look out." Carolinus pointed at one that looked forward over the great gate of the castle and the front curtain wall on either side of it.

  Jim got up and looked. The other men got to their feet and came to look out windows on either side. Hob started to rise, but a frown from Jim on his way to the window made the hobgoblin sink back to the floor again.

  "You see the blue pennon with a sort of child's scribble in white on it?" said Carolinus. "He makes no secret of his presence, for he lives to be recognized and applauded. Actually he has no right to the title of Warlock, which he gave himself, and actual Warlocks are anyway almost nonexistent nowadays. Nine of ten parts pure charlatan, but unfortunately one part true Magickian—though unacknowledged by the Collegiate. One tenth is not enough, even if he would work his magick by our rules—which he has refused to do. He is vastly ignorant of all but a sliver of true magick, and he fills in with stage tricks."

  "Can he ward himself, Mage?" asked Brian, who had picked up a few of the names for magick abilities over his long friendship with Jim.

  "Anyone who can wipe the mother's milk from their lips long enough to lisp out the simplest spell can throw a ward around himself."

  "Ah," said Brian. "No use trying to cut him out, then—"

  "Sir Brian," said the Prince, "I will remind you that you yourself explained the necessity of not risking our scant number of seasoned knights."

  "I was thinking more of what might be done by an archer catching sight of him…"

  "It is a long shot," commented Dafydd, "and could be somewhat difficult for any but one expert with the bow—and the portion of the target in which a broadhead arrow could kill would probably be open for the smallest of moments only after a long watch. But if it is the general wish I try it, I will do so."

  "It wouldn't hurt him—remember what Carolinus just said about wards. Besides, you're too valuable otherwise to spend your time waiting for a shot to open up," said Jim.

  "Quite right. Waste of time!" said Carolinus. "In any case, you have no time. His presence here means the goblins are ready to try a full attack to take the castle or die in the attempt."

  "Would they indeed try to the death, hobgoblin?" asked the Prince, looking back at the small figure on the floor before the fireplace. "Are such beings really capable of such bravery? Evil creatures are always proven to be cowardly."

  "Oh, yes, Your Grace. We—they, the goblins—are always brave—I should say 'fierce,' rather, as I once told m'lord, to the death!"

  "Hmph!" The Prince went back to looking out the window. After a second, he turned back to Carolinus. "Do you really think they will assault us with all their force, now?"

  "A triple-A-plus Magickian does not think, Edward!" snapped Carolinus. "We leave that to ordinary mortals. However, I will indulge you this once. I know because I know the Warlock always acts the same way. He shows up at the last minute, shows off some of his eye-catching fake magick, and then gets away again, before he could get hurt himself. You will see this for yourself, within three hours."

  "Mage," said Dafydd, "may I ask a question?"

  "You may essay it," said Carolinus, looking blackly at him.

  "Why are the goblins so fiercely determined to take this castle and kill the King? What profit to them in doing so?"

  "That remains to be seen," said Carolinus.

  "Er…" said Hob, from his place on the floor. They all turned and looked at him.

  "As I think I told m'lord," he said diffidently, "the goblins want to kill off us hobs and take our place in human households. Someone's made them think it can be done if they first kill the King of a country."

  "We haven't got much time for talking, then," said Jim. "Gentlemen, if you'll all come back here and sit down, I'll tell you right now what I want to suggest we do."

  They all came back and sat—except Carolinus, who came but continued to stand, but back a little and frowning at them all, as if he had weighed their possibilities of success and found these wanting.

  "Your Grace, gentlemen," said Jim. "War experts since time immemorial have maintained that the best defense is attack, after all."

  He was not quite sure about such proclamations about attack, but none of his audience were in a position to dispute the phrase, he wanted to get their attention from the start.

  "Hah!" said Brian happily. "I suppose if we must, then we must."

  "Beyond doubt," said the Prince.

  There was even something like a squeak of approval from Hob.

  "Pray," said Jim, deliberately using the common fourteenth-century word, "let me continue to finish what I would say. Clearly, from what the Mage tells us, there is no time left for other choices. Attack is therefore surely not only our only, but our best, choice. Remember, we are too few to meet them in anything like ordinary fashion. Therefore our aim must be not to defeat them—which is not practical—but to convince them that if they remain we can slaughter them to the last goblin."

  The frown on Carolinus's face lightened.

  "The Mage's told us," said Jim, into the swing of things now and abandoning fourteenth-century language, "that they've got a trickster on their side. We will use our wits and available help to meet that advantage and overmatch it. The Mage has kindly offered to assist us in the magical area. I must not say more about it than that—the rules of the Collegiate are strict."

  Carolinus's frown, which had threatened to return, vanished.

  "So I plan to make
use of his aid. I also plan to appear, at least, to have the help of the dragons, who have been taking and feasting off the goblins since they appeared here. The magic poison of the goblins can kill human beings, but since they're animals, it won't work on dragons."

  "Indeed!" said the Prince. "Odd, that!"

  "Your Grace—"

  "No, no, continue, James. I will not speak again until you are done."

  "I'm deeply grateful to Your Grace," said Jim. "So we will try to assault them all at the same time with archers, footmen, horsemen, and dragons—also some magic, which must be carefully tailored by the Mage, and what I can do to assist all forces as the opportunity occurs. We'll be doing this as the chance comes, with things that'll convince the goblins that our combined strengths are doing them far more damage than is actually the case."

  He paused, but only for a second, to let his last words sink in.

  "I conceive there aren't any other real alternatives to what I've suggested. Our attack, however, is going to have to come in just the right order, with all forces coordinated, to work best. Accordingly, I propose I stay here with the Mage to make that possible, since only the Mage and I can use magic to move swiftly from one force to the other. We will also go right now, he and I, to ask help of the Cliffside Dragons. If…" Jim glanced at Carolinus.

  "I suppose so," said Carolinus, plainly not thrilled with the suggestion.

  "…and that way we can deal with them, while staying in touch with what the rest of you are doing. Your Grace, please you to ready and order the King's knights, ready to join in with our gentlemanly neighbors who have come to fight with us, under Sir Brian, who will have the direction of all our horsemen in keeping—I suggest this, Your Grace, since this is no ordinary battle, and conceiving you would rather be free to engage in the melee, than standing back with the burden of command, when your royal father's life may depend on our winning. Really good men of their weapons are scarce among us."

  Once more he paused. This was the most touchy point he had to mention. Would the Prince insist on his right to command, which Jim now was openly usurping? Or yield it to Brian without objections?

  "Damme, yes!" cried the Prince. "I have been well-taught in arms since I was a boy—and is that skill to be wasted when the matter is so dire? Never. Let Sir Brian lead as you advise!"

  A most unusual statement from a Prince in this age.

  "Very well," said Jim. That hump was over. "Then we must lose no time. Dafydd, will you pick and marshal your bowmen in the courtyard?—No one but fighting men to be there from now on until further command. I will so order all in the castle. I will announce it as my order."

  He turned to Brian.

  "Brian, you marshal the neighbors, the King's armed men and any else also horsed, in the courtyard, to be followed by the footmen. Your Grace, could I beg you to explain all this briefly to the King, bearing in mind we have so little time? The Mage or I will come to tell you when to move out to the attack. I think that is all—and now we two should be hastening to the eyrie of the dragons."

  There was a scraping of chairs on the floor as they all got up—broken abruptly by a cry from before the fireplace.

  "But, M'lord! What of our hobs? What are we to do?"

  Jim winced internally, turning to face the little hobgoblin.

  "I'm sorry, Hob," he said, as gently as he could. "But while your hobs are here in great numbers, they just have reaping hooks and other ordinary tools for weapons—most of them—and no armor. They don't fit into the present plan of attack. If the chance comes up—"

  "But m'lord!" cried Hob. "They came here to fight!"

  There was a sudden extraordinary silence in the room, a stillness among those at the table. Expressions there had varied from irritation to outrage at Hob's first utterance, but now suddenly they changed. If there was one thing the folk of the Middle Ages valued above all else, it was courage—even in such soft, shy little creatures as these hobgoblins. There was no man there but doubted that the hobs going forth would result in a slaughter that would be remembered for many a year. Yet it was true—they had come to fight, and rightfully were now pleading for the chance to do so. That was an action worthy of men, let alone small creatures who hid in chimneys.

  I'm sorry," said Jim again. It always seemed to fall to him to be the axeman. "It's just not workable right at the moment. But I give you my word—I swear to you—if there's an opportunity, you and your hobs will find yourself in the thick of the battle!"

  That opportunity would not come, he knew. If the real fighting forces could not do it, there would be no use sending two thousand hobs out to be gleefully massacred by their worst enemies. Their reaping hooks were the closest of close-up weapons, while the spears of the goblins were of longer reach. The hobs would be pierced fatally—for if goblins did not know where a fatal strike on their own kind would be, who would?—before the hobs could get within arms' reach of their ancient foes. But still, Jim felt like Scrooge before he had a change of heart, and he was sure Hob was reading the falseness in his promise.

  Hob said nothing, but looked down at the floor.

  "Mage!" said Jim, turning to Carolinus. "Shall we go?"

  The other men had begun to file out of the room—the Prince first.

  "Certainly," said Carolinus. "Why not?"

  They went.

  I'm sorry, said Jim to himself for a third time, just before they made themselves visible in the lowest, central spot of the enormous meeting-cave of the eyrie, with its usual quota of dragons sitting around its upward-sloping sides and arguing with each other at the tops of their enormous voices. Jim prudently became visible in his own dragon-body—recognizable to the dragons as who he was. Carolinus was naturally instantly recognizable.

  There was a highly unusual, sudden, complete silence. All the dragons stared.

  "Dragons of the Cliffside Eyrie!" shouted Jim in his own powerful dragon voice. "We come to you for help!"

  The eyes of every dragon there sharpened. Jim could almost hear each of them thinking, automatically: If he thinks for a moment that the gold and jewels in my poor little impoverished hoard—

  "Help to save our lives!" Jim went on.

  "Urg!" said Carolinus, deep in his throat—but so deep that no one but Jim heard him over Jim's own strong voice, and the now vocal exclamations of the dragons. Clearly, the "our" had stuck in Jim's Master's throat. A Mage needed no one's help to save his life.

  But the dragons were now ahum—make that aroar—with a new interest. Not a loan after all, just a plain call for help, then. Dragons had never seen any reason for adventuring their own skins, human style, for duty or glory, unless one of them had lost his dragon temper, in which case reason went out the window.

  But being asked about giving help was always interesting. Might they be paid for giving it?

  "You have already been aware," bellowed Jim, "that many goblins are in the area."

  They had, of course. Several of those present ran long red tongues around the thin lips of their crocodile-like mouths.

  "They threaten Malencontri, my family and my people there," said Jim, "as well as some of my neighbors. We will fight, of course, but we are too few to withstand such a host. If they succeed, they will possibly rob the castle—"

  A few growls among the crowd. The word "rob," like the word "help," provoked an automatic reaction from them.

  "And in this plight," Jim roared on—the central cavern was filling up as dragons out in the passages heard the noise and came hurrying so as not to miss out on anything—"I thought of my trusty friends, the valiant dragons of Cliffside. If I could come up with something in which they could help, without putting any of them in peril—for I would not want harm to come to one of my friends—"

  The thunderous humming of dragon sotto-voce comment became definitely friendly. Now, this was really interesting. No risk, and… what?

  "We plan an immediate attack, as soon as we get back to Malencontri. We hope they will be taken aback at fir
st by such a small force daring to come out against them. If those of you who are interested in helping would leave right behind us, you could encircle them, high up, just as we engage. Then, when I call to you with my dragon-voice, as I speak now, if you would swoop down as I know you have been doing to pick up a goblin for a snack—which has helped, for goblins are a legitimate prey for you. Hobs, by the way are not, but of course I know all of you like hobs and would not knowingly hurt them—but in the excitement of the battle there is always a danger of a mistake. You'll be able to tell the hobs from the goblins because the goblins do not have gray hair all over their body, nor do the eyes of hobs glitter, nor do they carry goblin-style spears."

  Jim found now that even his dragon lungs had to pause for a breath. "—But if even one hob is taken by mistake, I personally—" and Jim shifted his dragon-voice to challenge volume "—will myself call that dragon to account—"

  "AND I—" thundered Carolinus, suddenly and magically shooting up to Sea Devil height—a head-to-foot measurement that Jim had at one time estimated to be thirty feet, "—WILL LIKEWISE CALL THAT DRAGON TO ACCOUNT!"

  For a second time the dragons present were uncharacteristically silent. Neither did any of them move.

  Jim went on, quickly dropping his roar to a more conciliatory tone. He did not want to scare the dragons off, already they had been threatened by not only their own george-dragon, known to have single-handedly slain an ogre in fair fight, but also by the legendary, all-powerful Mage Carolinus.

  "But then," went on Jim in his friendliest way, "there should be no danger to any hob, anyway, since I do not need you to actually go to earth level. I would like you to break out of your stoops well above throwing range of the goblin spears."

  That should he more than enough—I hope, he told himself, for the goblins to believe that they were suddenly also under attack by the mighty, goblin-eating dragons of up-earth.

  He went on talking.

  "All together, the goblins must conclude that we knew you were coming to our aid, and that was what had given us the courage to sally in attack against their superior forces—we must have known you would come to help."