by E. E. Knight
Wistala wondered what kind of seeds she could plant behind that fiery golden mask. “You will put your armor on again. You will lead your dwarves into battle. You will take an act other generals will call rash, but it will bring you victory and accolades. Complete victory and high accolades.”
“Can I trust a dragon?”
“Yes.”
“Because I have before, a mated pair who cheated me.”
Wistala had trouble forming the words. “If I cross you, I will die as they did.”
“Hmpf,” Fangbreaker said. “You take the chance that I will not chase you down the mountain road. But I will cross the Inland Ocean and carry vengeance even into the earthquakes of the fire coast beyond if you prove a charlatan.”
Wistala took a deep breath. She might as well be skinned for a bull as a calf. How would Prymelete put it? “Then hear my oracle and judge: You must and you will master the council table. You must and will throw away the ways of politic and traditon that hold you back. You must and will master yourself, go down the mountains again, burning off the girdle of fat and replacing it with one of leather and iron. You must and you will master your people, as once Thul did, be firm and they will love you for it. Be hard and they will worship you.” She half-heard his lips form a familiar word out of Rainfall’s histories. “Forge them into one weapon, and I see no power on the Upper World or Lower that can stand against you—yes, even the ten-jewel crown will be yours—”
“The crown of Masmodon,” Fangbreaker whispered. “Such an oracle. Oh, dreams! Oh, dreams!”
Wistala collapsed, knocking over some of the candles. Ragwrist stopped one before it could set the tent alight.
“No more, I beg you, great dwarf,” Ragwrist said, falling to his knees. “You’ll be the death of my poor dragon.”
Wistala watched the dwarf out of a rolling, water-lidded eye. He shook himself from his reverie. “Hmpf. The story’s worth some coin, though the pratfall at the end is a bit much.” He reached into his purse and flung a handful of golden coin at her. It rattled off her scales like hail. “Spend it quickly if you lied.”
“You’re too generous!” Ragwrist said, gathering the gold, though he didn’t offer any back to make Fangbreaker’s payment more equitable. Wistala again heard dwarves dropping on their bellies as the staff tapped its way off.
Ragwrist added to the drama by telling the prone dwarves outside that the fortune-telling was over for the day, but by special engagement, the circus would stay one more day before moving off.
That night Wistala ate at Ragwrist’s table.
“Keep up performances like that, and at next two-moon’s break this winter, I shall have a new wagon built special for you, drawn by a tusked-and-silvered gargant. Yes.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll come after us if my prophecy doesn’t pan out?” Wistala asked.
Ragwrist wiped grease from his chin with his multicolored sleeve. “They never do. Most hominids spare themselves the embarrassment of admitting they were cheated. Ah, Wistala, this is the beginning of a profitable friendship.”
The circus packed up, though no dwarf children were brought across the lake to see the gargants go, and only a few dwarf-helms showed at the broken towers.
One odd group of humans did come across to watch the circus go, however. A tall handsome woman in a blue cloak, a young girl, and a towhead boy watched the train pack up. The woman knelt beside the boy and continually pointed to Wistala and spoke to the youngest child, and soon the child was pointing, too, but the wind carried her words away.
Wistala wondered if this was the Dragonblade’s family, and for one awful moment was tempted to run up the hill and burn them down to charred bones, so that the Dragonblade might come home to destruction and grief, but she suppressed the evil thought.
She was a dragon, after all, and better than the assassins.
A month later, the circus stopped at the prosperous Green Dragon Inn. Wistala couldn’t say how she felt about the homecoming: happy that she was again seeing familiar faces, or saddened that she would leave with the next “close.”
She appeared at the Quarryness Hypatian Hall and confirmed that she still lived, much to the delight of the children who gathered on the common and stairs to watch.
Rainfall was his same courteous self, and Widow Lessup still despaired at the damage Wistala’s scales did to the doorframe and stair walls, though Wistala walked about the house with claws retracted, trying to pad as lightly as Yari-Tab, who now had a velvet cushion under the skylights in the library.
“And the thane? Still angry with you?” Wistala asked at dinner. The same Old Guard sat around the table, with the addition of Lada and the subtraction of Intanta, who was watching over Rayg.
“We correspond but little,” Rainfall said, Lada hanging on his arm, as she had from the moment of their arrival. “He has more barbarian emissaries out of the north visiting him than agents of the Hypatian Order.”
Rainfall tickled Lada under the chin, and she beamed.
“Circus life agrees with Wistala, who’s grown to twice her former size,” Rainfall said. “How do you like it, Granddaughter? You seem a little thinner, and not just at the waist.”
“They work me from sunpeep to the last red cloud,” she said.
Ragwrist refilled his wine goblet. It was not such fine crystal as the glass Rainfall had broken in his library, but it still sparkled, due to Anja’s applications of rag and ash. “Such thanks! You’ve received an education that will last the rest of your life. And I’ve two more years on my contract.”
“Perhaps I can buy her out of the rest.”
“I’ll ask a heavy price of affection from Lada, before I let her go,” Ragwrist said, raising an eyebrow.
Lada frowned suspiciously. “How dare—!”
“Hear him out!” Dsossa said.
“I want but two concessions. I demand first that you mind your grandfather in matters of education and deportment, for both you and your son,” Ragwrist said. He winked at Dsossa, and Wistala noticed that she and Rainfall were holding hands under the table. “Secondly, I demand that you accept Dsossa as your grandmother, for she has said she also wishes to quit my circus. Much thanks that I get!”
“I promise,” Lada said, kissing her grandfather’s hand and then Dsossa’s cheek.
“Oh, how will I make up two such losses?” Ragwrist asked.
“Marlil’s as good a rider as I, and her bosoms are still high and full,” Dsossa said. “I’m sick of the stench of gargant-vents, and would rather smell hay and horse feed.”
“Fallen bosoms or no, count yourself lucky that you’ve not employed with the long-scrub under that point,” Lada said. “Gargants have a sense of humor about when they answer nature’s call. I would rather shovel up after the dragon.”
Chapter 20
Second Moon of the Winter Solstice, Res 480
Beloved Father,
I hope you can read the hand of my apprentice. She has a lovely voice, and I often think she should be singing rather than learning to be a fortune-teller, but what the Air Spirit gave her in voice—I know as a good Hypatian you tut-tut dragon cosmology, but it is the belief of my sires and it abides with me—dutiful Earth forgot to place in her hand.
I pray you, Dsossa, Lada, and Rayg are well. I hope the volume of the history of Ghorghars did not go astray. The bookbinders should cover the gilding on the page edges somehow. Does Dsossa still risk her neck at the road wall on her hunter? How is the new Mod Lada handling her duties?
I am now too big to ride in a house cart without folding myself in halves. Brok tried building one of greater length but the axles wore so on the turns, they were continually breaking off wheels. He believes craftsmen of the Diadem could supply us with a flatbed, but Ragwrist moans at the expense, and besides I am large enough to hang a banner on, so I go down the road ahead of the gargants announcing the circus in words and pictures.
Speaking of Ragwrist, the dwarves of the Wheel of Fire have writ
ten him again asking for my services to be “sold” to their council, as though I am a slave to be bid for in a market square. He shows me the letters, laughs, and then politely declines, though he keeps threatening to accept the Hypat Arena guild’s offer whenever I complain about the quality of the fowl and fish he buys.
I have little news to tell you save that which you’ve already no doubt heard: your old friend Heloise of the Imperial Library is dead. They asked me to attend a special ceremony for her (as a curiosity, I supposed) at the small Library Hall in Vinde, and as we had only just left it, Ragwrist gave me leave to go with only a few words of regret. I earn his purse and my stomach enough coin each year. After the ceremonies, some of the Librarians warned me about the fortune-telling. They think it reflects badly on my title. I promised them to give up the name “Oracle” soon . . . for reasons I’ll explain below. I caught up to the circus with some deal of bother with the river dwarves and took the first opportunity to write.
I am weary of fortune-telling. My heart was never really in it; I dispensed more advice such as I saw things rather than prophesy. Sometimes my heart would be so grieved by the stories I heard, I gave away my own small store of coin, but that led to every beggar in Hypatia showing up outside the tent, or so it seemed to the circus. Odd that I should be talented in guessing other races’ minds, but there you have it. One improvises to survive. How else could a dragon see the cities of Hypat in such celebration and safety? For this I thank your foresight, in knowing that eventually I’d want mental diversions and new experiences. I love every road, river, and shore of Hypat, but I fear I must leave it within a year or two.
There are tiny bulges running my back now, elf-father, and they will swell and I shall have my wings and the ability to go wherever there is wind. I have promises to keep and I will go when they come despite the mawkish lamentations of Ragwrist, who, having heard my dictation, has just popped his head in and offered his regards. But don’t worry, I shall still fly back to Mossbell every three or four years at least and prove that I am alive. I hope to sell the place back to dear Rayg (is he still raiding Jessup’s honeycombs?) one day if his wit continues to so impress you.
We are readying to go back on the Old North Road again, so you should expect us in springtime.
Traveling in hope,
Tala
The Old Guard assembled again in that easy spring, and for the last time, as they had other years under similarly disposed stars.
The party dined in the receiving hall that Wistala might fit, and the youngest Lessup girl who once so feared Wistala darted back and forth with trays beneath her neck with giggles to her sister. Rainfall, who scooted about the house on a wheeled chair made by a journey-man dwarvish artisan, worked the big back wheels with his arms as he circled the table, pouring wine for all despite the gentle imprecations of Yeo Forstrel, who was trying to out-Rainfall Rainfall in courtesy and decorum.
The party adjourned for the Green Dragon Inn, now at one end of a semicircle of a full dozen homes and establishments, from whose narrow windows song carried up and down the road. The post had expanded into a full news-case, with glass, and a special window had been added to the front of the inn to handle letters for Mossbell’s tenants, artisans, and a handful of professionals owning houses along the road who liked Rainfall’s manners and easy terms.
Wistala, as was the custom, called out the inn’s evening company and then stood under the sign and raised herself up a little so that she could touch nose to the weathered board, and all put lips to glass after a glad cry.
Jessup kept his son at the tap and his daughters with the mugs. He now wore a coat with gold buttons, thanks to the sales of his brewery-mead to taverns in Quarryness and Sack Harbor and beyond.
The next day the circus moved on to the common at Quarryness. Wistala promised to return to the quiet of Mossbell in the evening across the twin hills, home to Dsossa’s two herds of horses, though as the day progressed, she wondered if the throngs who’d descended on the town to see the show would keep all performing late. After her customary appearance to old Sobyor, who’d grown fatter than she knew humans could achieve, she spent the day letting her apprentice “interpret” the dragon’s impressions of the seekers.
Many of the seekers asked their questions in Parl with a barbarous northern accent.
But eventually the crowds trickled off.
As she passed up the road on the way to Mossbell, sniffing the early-summer countryside on a fitful wind, she noticed a blue firework burning atop the eastern of the twin hills. Did Mossbell’s shepherds and horseherds signal to each other in some manner? Fireworks, as she knew well from Ragwrist’s moanings, even blue signal flares, cost a good deal of money, for only specialists, usually dwarves, could accurately mix the ingredients—
Signal flares?
Hearts hammering, she left the road and cut cross-country to more quickly reach the house, troubled by the strange lights against the night sky. When she finally broke through the last line of the back woods and looked out over the garden—full of beanpoles and tomato vines and fragrant with basil and peppermint—and saw the house at peace, she ceased her headlong, bush-tearing charge.
Worried for nothing. Were you expecting flames from the library skylight?
She still slipped cautiously around to the front, smelling and listening, and pulled on the bell.
Dsossa herself, with Forstrel behind, answered the door. She wore an ordinary housecoat; he still had on a button shirt and polished shoes even at the late hour.
“Our fortunate dragon! We’d given you up.”
“It was a rare day at the circus,” Wistala said. “Is all well here?”
“I’m sorry, but we’ve dined already. We did save scraps, and Rainfall is still up. We’re having a digestive gruel and infusions—would you join us in that?”
“You mistake my meaning. There aren’t strangers or barbarians or anyone dining tonight?” Wistala asked.
Dsossa and Forstrel exchanged glances and shrugs. “What are you fearful of? Don’t tell me you’ve had a premonition.”
“The only auspices I read glowed upon the twin hills. Someone burns fireworks on your property.”
Dsossa came out from the door and walked around the side of the house. “I see nothing now. Why would shepherds do something like that?”
Forstrel disappeared into the house with a quick step, and the wind died down. There was a vague murmur to the east.
“Hoofbeats?” Wistala asked.
“I hear nothing,” Dsossa said.
“You should return to the house,” Wistala said.
“No. I hear them,” she said, her hand at her throat. “There are no roads to the east—that land is nothing but thickets and gullies.”
“I know.”
“Rah-ya! Wistala, what passes?” Rainfall called from the tree-flanked balcony above the door. Now the hooves could be heard even when the wind blew.
“Lock the doors and shutters!” Dsossa called as she raced across the lawn toward the stable, the ends of her housecoat flapping.
“Forstrel, the doors! The windows!” Rainfall shouted as he turned his seat on the balcony. He spun around again, completing the circle.
“Wistala, get in here!”
“But the main door—”
“Climb up here. The front gallery is wide enough, and I don’t care if the paintwork and floors get scale-chipped. Hurry!”
She could see lights in the tree line to the east, along the little path Jessup had driven the wagon the day they buried Avalanche. “Name of Masmodon!” Rainfall said, his arms falling limp. “What’s this?”
“Invasion,” Wistala said.
Wistala heard alarmed cries from within the house, both male and female, and Forstrel’s echoed voice bellowing orders: “Drop that, girl, and get all the shutters on the top floor. Latch and bolt! Hurry!”
Wistala climbed the tree trunk nearest her easily enough, despite the light-headedness she felt at the thought of a
battle, and as she put sii on the balcony rail, the hoofbeats grew thunderous with alarming suddenness.
A clump of torch-bearing horsemen with no more formation than a broken egg emerged from the wood path. They spread as they came, one part riding for the garden, the other for the front turnaround.
“Inside, Wistala,” Rainfall said, his voice so deep and hard for a moment, she thought she heard Ragwrist beside.
Her shoulders and hips made it through the double doors. It occurred to her that she’d fit on the grand staircase down, but she might not make the tight squeeze to the third floor, should it become necessary.
Wistala turned—with some difficulty, and stuck her head out of the gallery door next to Rainfall.
Forstrel came down the hall, squeezing past Wistala. “I’ve seen to the lower level myself, Master,” Forstrel said.
“Douse the lights—let’s not give archers a mark,” Rainfall said. Then he whispered to Forstrel.
Wailing battle horns sounded from the riders, now individually distinguishable. Most were hairy and bearded; they rode blanket-back on shaggy mounts, handles of weapons sticking up from their back and belts like quills on a porcupine. But at the center of the group riding hard for Mossbell’s door was a better arrayed company. Wistala marked a man in dark plate with a white sash about him atop a black-armored horse, followed closely behind by a boy-man in black leather with a red sash draped across his shoulder.
Behind that pair rode another score of warriors, and more men at the back with packhorses and strings of those sharp-faced dogs with the twin lightning bolt runes emblazoned on their side.
Wistala remembered the dogs as being bigger and fiercer looking. Now they just appeared to be like any other pack of tongue-lolling hunting hounds, albeit matching in size and color and odd marking.
“How can this be? The thane rides at their head,” Rainfall said.
Wistala looked out. Near the man in the black armor rode Thane Hammar, clad in chain armor and blue-and-yellow cloaks and sub-cloaks trailing down across the horse’s back to its hocks.