Dragon Avenger

by E. E. Knight

  Wistala cleared her throat. “Drakes and dragons are more fond of these kind of displays, and more skilled, but I’ll do my best:

  While a horse will carry any fool

  If the going’s hard you’ll want a mule!

  Twice the load on half the feed,

  A mule is tougher than any steed!

  But treat him well when put to task

  Or he’ll knock you on your—

  “Ask no more verses of me, I’m out,” Wistala finished.

  “Prettier than any nightingale,” Rainfall said. “And a good deal louder.”

  “Let’s have it again,” Stog said. “While a horse will carry any fool . . .” he brayed in time to his hoofbeats.

  And so, with Stog repeating the verses until dogs whined in complaint, they came into the Quarryness around the midnight hour.

  The town was bordered by Rainfall’s road to the east and a great hill to the west. The hillside facing the town was one long cliff, with some wooden scaffolding up the side where men took building stone. A small watercourse cut through the town, bridged in two places by stone. There were several constructs of two or three levels at the center of town around a rather muddy common and a few leafless trees, but the rest of the town was a small warren of narrow, twisting streets.

  “The thane allows for division and subdivision of the town parcels,” Rainfall said. “He forgets that the old Hypatian engineering, while somewhat wasteful of space, also prevents fires.”

  There were still a few lights in some of the upper windows and galleries of the town, but none strode the streets save for a pair of men Rainfall identified as firewardens—also charged with keeping the peace. Downstream Wistala heard faint notes of music and song.

  Rainfall turned Stog into the center of town, just off the main road. He stopped Stog before a stout, triangle-topped building with a silver banner-staff at the peak. “High temple,” Rainfall said, pointing to a grand, round-topped building. “Low temple,” he said, referring to a long, flat-roofed stone-walled building opposite. “Courthouse and muster-hall.”

  Ranks of carved men carrying spears and shields decorated the sides. “Bring me right up the steps to the door,” Rainfall said, in beast-tongue, to Stog.

  The doors were metal-covered and fitted in such a way that the hinges were concealed.

  “There will be a low judge or two within,” Rainfall said. “The law never sleeps, as old Arfold, my law-teacher used to say. Strike the door with your tail, Wistala, and wake them.”

  Her scales rang on the metal surface, and the pounding echoed within.

  The pair of firewardens watched from the common, talking to each other quietly. One hurried away toward the road.

  “Again, please,” Rainfall said.

  Wistala pounded on the door again.

  A decorative panel in the door suddenly opened. “I rise, I rise. What have you to say that can’t wait until a daylight hour? Is there a murderer to be celled?”

  “Good evening, Sobyor,” Rainfall said.

  The man’s rather small eyes widened. “Your Honor!”

  “Oh, that title’s long since washed to the sea. What are you doing manning the door-minder’s garret, Sobyor? You were once the best low judge in the three north thanedoms.”

  “And high judge for three whole days, thanks to you. What in the worlds is that?” he asked, staring at Wistala.

  “She’s my legs, if you’ll let me through this door. We’ve some small matters of business to attend, and I’m afraid they cannot wait. Admit us, and help me mind the mule, would you?”

  “I’m . . . I’m not to recognize you,” Sobyor said. “Orders from High Judge Kal himself.”

  “What authority does Judge Kal have to give you such an order? This is a Hypatian Hall, and I require admittance.”

  “I am . . . I am not alone in here,” Sobyor said with a glance to his right.

  “Who is in there with you?” Rainfall asked.

  “A pair of firewardens.”

  “Tell them—,” Wistala started to say.

  “Hold your temper,” Rainfall cut in. “Sobyor, how is your practice in Thellass-tongue?”

  “Mus mis palandam,” Sobyor responded.

  “Rah-ya!” Rainfall said. He rattled off a string of speech Wistala didn’t understand, but it meant something to Sobyor.

  “Opt,” Sobyor replied, shutting the panel.

  “What are you about?” Wistala heard a gruff voice inside say. There was a brief rattle inside, perhaps a hand checking the lock on the door.

  “My duty,” Sobyor’s voice replied.

  Quieter now: “What was all that grotting about?”

  The voices faded.

  “Wistala, how would you like to perform your first duty in defense of the Hypatian Order?”

  “Sir?” Wistala asked, lowering and raising her head.

  “There are airing windows up under the overhang of the roof on the side walls of this building. Climb up and see if you can get through one, and open the door.”

  Wistala didn’t like leaving Rainfall perched on Stog at the big doorway; it seemed the whole town was laid out to look at the stairs leading up to the Hypatian Hall. She couldn’t imagine what danger to expect, surrounded by paved streets and rain-collectors in the quiet of the night, but she didn’t like it.

  The columns were fluted, which served her claws admirably, and alternating grips between sii and saa, she gained the roof despite the slick mist-wet. The roof tiles were long and thicker than her sii, chevron-shapes interlocking as they descended from the peak, and spotted with generations’ worth of bird droppings.

  She lowered her head to look under the cornice at the side of the building and saw the gaps Rainfall had mentioned. They were recessed so that it would be hard to see them, let alone shoot arrows or other projectiles into them from the street. Wooden shutters filled the intermittent gaps.

  Gripping the roof with one saa and her tail, she managed to poke one open. It gave way on a horizontal pivot-point with a loud—to her—squeak. Flattening herself, she crept in under the shutter.

  An entrance gallery yawned below her. She looked down on a row of frozen head tops—larger-than-life busts were on display on the inner side of the walls, and there was little to see beneath but a few benches. The back two-thirds of the building was blocked off by a wide staircase leading up to a semicircular forum, with banners on display above wooden doors.

  Wistala heard voices from a smaller half-door set beneath the great stairs.

  She lowered her tail and managed to test one of the busts below. It seemed solid enough. She jumped down to it and perched for a moment atop the great man’s head—he had a heavy brow and a nose of a size to equal the fame he must have gained in life to be so immortalized—and from there leaped down to the floor.

  The floor was smooth but a little dirty, and had a series of strange divots and channels carved into its surface, not deep at all and useful only in collecting dirt, as far as she could tell. But the object of this exploration was the door.

  Or door within a door, rather. There was a smaller portal set in the mighty wooden doors, barred by simple iron bolts set into tubes. She drew back the bolt on the smaller door and opened it.

  “Daughter, you are a wonder,” Rainfall said in his elf-tongue.

  Wistala took pleasure in hearing the familiar, but wondered if she could ever call Rainfall father—even in elf-tongue.

  “I do not think you can ride Stog within unless I open the larger doors,” Wistala said.

  “I’ll have to ask you to bear me inside.” He slid off Stog, using a leather strap to lower himself by the hands in the manner of a laborer she’d once seen come down from Jessup’s roof by taking a rope hand-under-hand. Then he switched to his rough beast tongue: “Stog, this shall only take a moment. Don’t befoul the steps, please.”

  Once he was seated upon her and holding on to her fringe, she took him through the door.

  “Take me to the ingress
under the stairs—that’s the attendant-judge’s office.”

  Wistala bore him into the hall.

  “Locks on a Hypatian hall door. Where are late-riding couriers supposed to shelter, or impoverished travelers? And what’s this . . . the design on the floor’s been taken up!” Rainfall said as they passed the channels in the floor. “Where had the poor gold gone, I wonder . . . gilding the cornices at Galahall, no doubt.”

  Flickering light and voices came from beneath the stairs.

  Rainfall sighed. “This hall has become a tomb to old ideals. In my grandfather’s time, at this hour there were travelers sleeping beneath the gaze of Iceandler, or Torus the Elder, the smell of pine knots burning in the braziers. I suppose the only crowds nowadays come on Taxing Day.”

  Wistala saw at the base of the ingress another door, half wood and half bars, with a sort of cut-off table in the middle and a space just big enough for a man to put his fist through above the table. On the other side, Wistala caught a glimpse of shelving, divided and subdivided into cubbyholes filled with tied scrolls.

  Voices and moving shadows came from the other side of the door.

  “Careful with that light, there. You’ll burn my ear off. Oh, now I can’t see anything,” Sobyor’s voice echoed out into the hall.

  “Take me to the grate,” Rainfall said.

  Wistala went down the eight steps to the area before the barred door. Some old, dirty quill-feathers lay on the floor.

  “Ahem,” Rainfall said.

  Wistala heard quick startled steps inside, but kept her head down and out of sight.

  “How did you get in?” a rough voice barked.

  “The more interesting question, firewarden, would be by what power you kept me out of a Hypatian Hall.”

  Rainfall’s voice returned to its usual soothing melody: “I just need the court’s seal on the two small matters we spoke of earlier, Sobyor,” Rainfall said.

  “Prepared, and here’s the logbook, as well,” Sobyor said. “Just as well to have all neat and proper.”

  “We’re not to have any business with him,” a shriller voice cut in.

  Wistala heard a heavy tread step up to the grate, and smelled gar-locque and onion. The light from inside the room was almost shut off entirely. From seemingly atop her, Sobyor’s voice said: “Best sign it fast, sir. The wardens are restless tonight.”

  “Judge Kal will hear every particular!” the shrill voice warned.

  “Certain particulars will catch up to the high judge, one of these days,” Rainfall said. She heard him writing. “Wistala, your penny, please.”

  She passed it up to Rainfall. “The transaction is witnessed by the court,” Sobyor said. “Make a record of Nuum Wistala’s credentials.”

  Sobyor again, quieter: “Is that the—?”

  “I must make do as best as I can,” Rainfall said.

  “What are you doing, there?” the rough voice said.

  “Completing a little court business,” Sobyor said. “You could read it yourself. If you could read.” Wistala smelled a candle and hot wax. “There. Signed, sealed, and seconded in the log.”

  “Thank you, Sobyor,” Rainfall said. “You always were the best of men. I’ll leave you to this gloom and the barred doors.” He tapped Wistala.

  “This will really get up the thane’s nose,” Sobyor cackled.

  As she climbed the stairs bearing Rainfall, Wistala glanced back and got her first look at Sobyor. He was an enormous man, both tall and fat, with thick curly hair. No wonder the firewardens protested his behavior with words only. Sobyor closed one eye at her; then they were back in the entrance hall under the statues.

  “That went better than expected,” Rainfall said. “Had there been a hostile low judge on duty, I would have had to submit petitions and so on, which could have slowed us up.”

  It seemed a slow enough business to Wistala, who was beginning to wish she’d burned Galahall down with Thane Hammar in it, saving trouble all around. Except that would have brought a frown to Rainfall’s face. He set such a store in his legal niceties.

  They walked the road a good deal slower on the trip home. Wistala trudged along ahead of Stog to keep the pace comfortable, but even Stog seemed tired. Rainfall passed the time by explaining to Wistala about the importance of the Thanes to the Hypatian Order: they could more effectively lead troops from their thanedom when gathered under a general than strangers and were supposed to be the shield and sword of the other elements of the Hypatian Order, the priesthood and the judges. But military power, pomp, and panoply went to some men’s heads like wine.

  Wistala was happy to see the twin hills at the edge of Mossbell’s lands pop out against a suddenly pink sky. The far-off chain of snowy mountaintops to the east glowed orange as the dawn crept up.

  Then she heard a frighteningly familiar sound from ahead.

  “I hear hoofbeats,” Wistala said. “Many riders.”

  “What’s that?” Rainfall asked, waking. Stog halted.

  “Riders ahead,” Wistala repeated.

  Rainfall looked down at her. “Get off the road, Wistala. I’ll handle them.”

  “I hope there’s a few horses from the Galahall stables,” Stog said. “I’ll give them—”

  “I’m not leaving you alone,” Wistala said.

  “Oh, I suppose your existence is public now. I’d hoped to wait until you were a little older and stronger.”

  Wistala sat in front of Stog and waited.

  There were seven riders, two riding close to the edge of the road on either side, and the rest in back in a bunch that expanded and contracted as the horses trotted close to each other and then veered away.

  The riding party spotted Stog, and the five in back formed into a line, blocking the road.

  “Rah-ho,” Rainfall said quietly to himself. “The thane himself rides. This should be an interesting interview.”

  Wistala tried to guess which one was the thane. There was a tall powerful man all the way over to the left side in the group of five. He kept looking at the others.

  She couldn’t tell if they were arrayed for war, for they wore cloaks against the chill. The two in front had short horse-bows, and all wore helms of silver color—no sign of spears or lances.

  The men slowed, walking their horses up, the front two falling in a little closer to the others. One dropped back a little, as well. He was shorter than the others, perhaps some kind of servant to the warriors.

  Rainfall bowed from his tied-on seat. “Thane Hammar. How nice toto meet you on a chilly morning. Your countenance always warms me.”

  Astonishingly, the one farthest to the rear spoke. “Greetings! Rainfall of Mossbell. I won’t say I was surprised, for I rode looking for you. Your thane recognizes you.”

  Rainfall bowed again.

  Wistala examined him more closely. He was a youth, as far as she could judge men, perhaps Forstrel’s age, but more slightly framed. Tiny wisps of facial hair at either side of his mouth made his upper lip look as though it had sprouted wings, and his cheeks were spotted. His red horse, though bigger than the ones the others rode, didn’t bring him close to their head-height, and his helm, shinier than the others’, swept up to a forward point like a hawk’s beak, though it seemed overlarge and heavy for so small a head, for its brim came down almost to the bridge of his nose. He kept looking at Wistala from beneath it.

  “News!” Hammar said. “I’m sorry to hear of your injury. I had no idea it was so severe, and word has just reached me. I wish to provide comfort.”

  “As usual, the thane is all kindness,” Rainfall said. “But there is no need for you to exert yourself in my behalf, or add to your cares. I am managing.”

  “I’ll not be dissuaded. Your burdens must be lightened. Especially now that your granddaughter is happily returned to you—”

  “Bearing your progeny,” Rainfall said in a sterner tone.

  “Please! Pay no attention to rumor,” Hammar said. “The brat might be anyman’s. I’ve h
eard it was my stableboy. Or possibly one of the gamekeepers.”

  Wistala suddenly hated this half-grown bit of tailventing. Like Rainfall’s history lectures or talks on leverage, nothing cleared and settled her mind like seeing, smelling, and hearing.

  “I’m shocked to see a girl not yet sixteen so insulted, in so many despicable ways,” Rainfall said.

  “Watch your tongue, elf,” the tall man on the left said. “Notch!” He turned his head toward the thane. “I don’t like the look of that creature in front of the mule. It seems ready to jump.”

  The two riders with bows put arrows to their strings, but did not draw.

  “Wistala, stay still,” Rainfall said.

  She tried to keep her tail from moving, but it seemed possessed of a mind of its own.

  “The road seems an uncouth place to trade words,” Rainfall said. “Perhaps you can return to Mossbell with us and we may talk over breakfast, once weapons are properly hung up.”

  “Goat-milk yogurt is not to my taste,” Hammar said. “I bear a warrant which must be answered in court. You shall appear before Judge Kal to answer. You’re no longer fit to be the master of an imperial estate.”

  “Our opinions are alike, then,” Rainfall said.

  The thane’s eyes widened. “You are wise to acknowledge your limitations.”

  “Advice that might be taken as well as given. Our opinions are alike, but I’ve made my own arrangements. I’ve sold Mossbell.”

  The red spots on the thane’s face suddenly seemed darker against his skin. “To whom?”

  “Nuum Wistala, who you see before you.”

  “No! Nuum? This . . . creature?” Hammar said.

  “The creature before you is a titled Hypatian,” Wistala said.

  “It speaks,” one of the men with the bows said.

  “She’s an Agent of the Librarians at Thellasa,” Rainfall said. “And my legal adopted daughter. Daughter, mind you, which takes precedence over granddaughter, should I meet with some unfortunate accident on this highway. The bill of sale is recorded.”

  “Ho! You are undone!” Hammar said. “This creature attacked Galahall not three months ago, intent on arson and assassination. I’ll have you hanged for treason next to her hide!”