Dragon Avenger

by E. E. Knight

  “Mark! What does she do?” Rainfall said.

  Dsossa exploded out of the barn in a knot of horseflesh, her bare toes clutching at the saddle stirrups and fingers holding both reins and mane of her mottle-gray horse. Backside raised and head close beside the neck of her horse, she galloped across the lawn toward the road wall, similar horses flanking and behind her, running for no other reason than that the lead had taken flight. At the rear was Stog, gray all around the nose, eyes, and hooves, who gave up the chase at the fountain and turned to watch the intruders with interest.

  The black-leather-clad youth, fair hair showing under his cap, said a word to the men behind him. A group of six rode to the other side of the turnaround, taking great recurved bows off their backs and arrows from saddle quivers.

  Thane Hammar pointed and cried out, and three of his saddled retinue charged after Dsossa.

  “Let the archers bring her down,” the armored rider said, pointing with a long crossbarred spear. Wistala’s heart went cold; she knew that armor and spear of old.

  The archers nocked their arrows and edged their horses so they could fire clean.

  “Stog,” Wistala shouted in the beast tongue, and the giant black helm on the armored rider turned toward the balcony. “Cry out, as you did that night on the road!”

  But Stog was already running, tail up. “Better!” the old mule cried, and threw himself at the heads of the line of horses. As Stog tore through, kicking at the bigger horses left and right, the archers lifted their bows. One arrow shot almost straight up into the sky. Stog plowed into the horse bearing the young man in black leather, knocked it and the rider over, and jumped clear.

  “Kill that beast!” the bright-haired youth called.

  Stog wheeled and ran so that he’d be a crossing target. The archers fired, and as the arrows hit, Wistala felt their impact in her heart. She no longer feared a fight, but longed to plunge into the array in the courtyard, to rend and tear with claw-tips wet and hot—Rainfall took a breath.

  Stog collapsed, falling forward. Wistala lunged, but Rainfall grabbed her by the rattling griff.

  “No, Wistala. They want that. There’s the Dragonblade out there, with his spear!”

  The archers put new arrows in their strings and turned toward the receding figure of Dsossa, heading for the road wall rather than the gate. The Dragonblade passed his spear point across a torch carried by one of his men, and it sparked and sputtered as though it were a firework.

  Stog moved and rolled, snapping arrow shafts, then rose, blood running from the piercings. The young man, dusting disgustedly at the dirt on his leather suit, gaped.

  Froth dripped from his mouth, Stog stared fixedly at the archers, now drawing against Dsossa. He began to stagger toward them, braying:

  While a horse will carry any fool—

  “Shoot that wretched animal!” the youth said. The archers turned.

  “Eliam! She’s getting away,” Thane Hammar shouted. He turned his head to the man heating the spear. “Drakossozh, your son’s a fool.”

  The arrows flew again, striking Stog all about the shoulder point, neck, and withers. Stog stumbled but did not fall. Wistala saw his ribs against his skin as he took a deep gasping breath.

  “If the going’s hard, you’ll want a mule . . . ,” Stog brayed, oblivious of the arrows. He staggered forward toward the archers.

  “Again!” the man-boy shrieked, his voice breaking. “Will no one find that horse’s heart?”

  Stog, still lumbering forward, may have understood the words, or at least that he’d been called a horse, for he turned toward the voice, eyes white and staring. The arrows cut air again and struck with wet smacks, and this time Stog’s front legs collapsed. The back pair pushed the body forward another nose-length or two, then sagged.

  But Dsossa was at the wall, gathered self and horse, and went over a slight sag in its length in a flash of gray white. Wistala heard hooves pounding up the road toward Quarryness.

  The three riders after her aimed for the spot, as well, but the first horse balked. It tried to turn, sliding on its hooves, and went over sideways, back crashing into the wall with rider pinned between. The second horse half-sat down as it skidded forward, and the rider, carried by momentum, slid forward up its neck and hit the wall at the knees. He spun feet-up as he went over. The third managed to turn his horse to run along the wall but got tangled in the legs of the mount who’d gone back-first into the bricks, and horse and rider tumbled.

  “Get back, Wistala,” Rainfall said. “I have to delay them so Dsossa has time.”

  To do what? Wistala wondered, staring wretchedly at Stog’s body, trying to will the old mule back to life. Warn the Inn—no, she’d turned north. Get to the circus? She shifted backwards into the hall.

  Wistala counted heads. There were over a hundred riders to the front of the house, and she could hear others in back, probably a like number, though there were still no sounds of destruction to the house. What could anything but an army—?

  “Who do I have the dubious pleasure of addressing?” Rainfall shouted from his balcony.

  “Into the old wood dry-room behind the chimney,” she heard Forstrel saying as light feet ran down the stairs. “Then down. Quickly now.” Forstrel approached, the azure blue battle sash of Rainfall’s grandfather held as carefully as though it were woven from a morning mist.

  The barbarians, who’d been poking around at the stable door and looking into rain barrels, moved to look at the tree-flanked balcony. Thane Hammar turned his horse, but kept to the other side of the fountain, perhaps fearing arrows. “Your Lord Hammar is paying a final call on Mossbell!” he shouted.

  Wistala, her fire bladder pulsing, noted that he hadn’t had success with his beard, which was still thin and scraggly, for all he tried to shape it into a point below his chin. “It’s time for us to finally settle accounts, in a single night-of-blades.”

  “Night-of-blades—tsk,” Rainfall said. “Barbaric phrases, from a Thane of the Hypatian Empire.”

  The Dragonblade raised his spear; its tip glowed faintly red, like cooling metal from the furnace, but the steel couldn’t have been more than torch-hot.

  Forstrel knelt beside Rainfall’s wheeled chair and tied the sash about his waist, as calmly as though ten-score armed barbarians didn’t surround the house. Rainfall raised his arms a little so Forstrel could work the knot after wrapping the silk twice about his waist.

  “I appreciate the call, though not the companions. You keep strange and lowly company these days, Hammar.”

  “Ha!” Hammar shouted. “This from an elf with a pet dragon!”

  “You come bearing arms to this estate, do violence to my animals, and attempt to murder my wife,” Rainfall said. “I suppose you know your thaneship is now utterly forfeit.”

  “Glad I am to be free of the title,” Hammar said. “You will wish, before the moon reaches its zenith, that you’d shown more loyalty to me. The barbarians have admirable methods for dealing with those who show disloyalty to their lords.”

  “I’ve never claimed loyalty to Hammar, only to the office of thane,” Rainfall said. “If you had a jot of your father’s wisdom, you’d know that way is better.”

  A rider with a knotted beard and heavy tattooing above his eyes grunted something at Hammar.

  As they spoke, Rainfall turned to Forstrel. “Good work, Yeo Lessup,” he said quietly. “Now get to the tunnel with the others.”

  “My mother stands in the hall with her laundry ladle, swearing to brain the first barbarian through the door,” Forstrel said.

  “Drag her down by the ear if you must,” Rainfall said out of the side of his mouth. “I want you in the escape tunnel forthwith. Don’t stand there rooted—obey!”

  “Master,” Forstrel said, bowing, and there were tears in his eyes.

  “Watch out for him,” Forstrel whispered as he squeezed by Wistala.

  Outside, the barbarian finished his speech.

  “And you shall
have it!” Hammar shouted. “Warriors of Kark, Blacklake, and Turi Fell, all that you may carry off between the Whitewater and the twin hills is yours. Beast, coin, garment, bag, and babe, take what you will.”

  Rainfall lifted himself out of the chair, gripped the balcony railing in white knuckles. “You know not what you do, Hammar,” he shouted, but the barbarians were cheering so loudly, Wistala wondered if he was heard.

  The barbarians divided, and Wistala, peering over his shoulder, saw a contingent ride off in the direction of the Green Dragon Inn and the homes around it.

  “I know exactly what I do, enemy. I’ve got men in every town of the Minelands and the Quarterings. Loyal men, and I’m declaring myself Lord. My alliances are set, and my plans are just begun. But there’s one small irritant, no more of consequence than a road pebble in my horse’s hoof, and that’s this estate. I now take what is rightfully mine.”

  “You and your barbarian wife are welcome to it,” Rainfall said. “I will go in peace. Take Mossbell lock and window intact.”

  Hammar turned to the Dragonblade. “Have you ever heard the like? As though he’s doing us a favor! No, that is water long since under your precious bridge. I’ll have my justice for the years of insult and hang you by the boughs of your grandfathers!” Hammar turned to the remaining barbarians. “Search this wart of a hill from top to bottom, and bring out that elf and his riches!”

  Four of the barbarians—it was hard to see where hair and beard ended and where the fur of their loincloths and vests began—drew war-picks and -axes and hurried for the door. Wistala heard crashes at the back of the house.

  Rainfall backed his chair into the hallway.

  “A good game while it lasted, Wistala. You should break toward Quarryness. The dogs and riders won’t get over the wall, they’ll have to go back to—”

  A female shriek sounded from below. “Brutes!”

  “Oh no,” Rainfall said. “Don’t tell me she wouldn’t—”

  Widow Lessup ran up the grand stairs with a speed that did her years credit, clutching an oarlike laundry ladle.

  “Oh, sir, they’re breaking in,” she said. “I couldn’t leave, I just couldn’t, I tricked For and shut the—”

  Rainfall ignored her. “Wistala!” he shouted.

  Three barbarians ran up the grand staircase. Wistala extended her neck and spat her foua, its oily odor setting every fringe-tip down her spine aquiver.

  The first two men dissolved in the hot spew; the third fell back down the stairs, his arms beating vainly as the liquid fire engulfed his head.

  “Go now, Wistala, out the back gallery!”

  The railing began to burn.

  “No,” Wistala said. “Not without you.”

  She whipped her neck up and crashed her head into the ceiling. A second smash—her vision went white for a moment—and she was through to the floor of the library.

  Rearing up, she tore the hole wider with her sii. Rainfall pressed on a wooden panel, and a grid of steel dropped down behind them, closing off the balcony doors . . . though she imagined arrows could still be shot through.

  “Up,” she said. Both hominids stood there dumbly. “To the library!”

  “I’m to climb your back?” Widow Lessup asked.

  “No, go up the stairs,” Wistala said, pointing at the nearby stairwell.

  “But the master,” Widow Lessup said.

  Wistala closed her jaws on his seat back and, neck muscles straining, lifted him through the hole.

  “Should have thought of this years ago,” Rainfall said from the library.

  Wistala climbed up and through the hole.

  “If we’re to die, I’m glad it’s here, Wistala,” Rainfall said. “Remember when I’d read to you from—”

  “Always. But we’re not dead yet,” she said, looking down into the grand staircase, where smoldering barbarians were setting wood alight.

  Widow Lessup ran through the door and shut it behind her. Below, they heard doors breaking, crockery smashing, and assorted calls in tongues perhaps only Rainfall understood.

  “May For have the sense to keep them in the tunnel until this is all over,” Widow Lessup said.

  “I wish you’d gone along,” Rainfall said.

  “Me? Crawl through all those cobwebs? I’d rather be stripped and carried off by the Hordes of Hesstur out there than breathe spider sacs.”

  Wistala looked at the desk, nosed open a drawer.

  “Whatever are you doing there, Tala?” Rainfall said.

  “Your cord-and-seal cutter, there, the short sharp blade. Let’s have it.”

  Widow Lessup ran for it. “Are we to slit each other’s throats? This is just like that play . . . ummm, the one with the old tyrant king and the three children . . .”

  “No. I need my wings. It’s a bit early, but I can move them a little, even though they’re still encased. I may be able to fly.”

  “How does a knife—?” Rainfall said. “Oh.”

  “Widow Lessup,” Wistala said, pointing to the twin lines of raised scales on her back. “You’ll have to do it. Hard and fast, parallel to my fringe, like you’re dressing a goat.”

  Rainfall grasped her by the hand and pointed.

  “Oh, I don’t know—”

  “Fast!” Wistala said. “But not too deep. Cut the skin along the stretch marks—that’s probably the way it would open naturally.”

  Widow Lessup took a deep breath. . . .

  The first one hurt. The second one hurt even more, because she still had the pain of the first lining her back. Wistala tried to ignore the pain, and concentrated on the crashing sounds on the floor below. She also smelled smoke.

  She extended her bloody wings as far as she could in the library, marveling at their form. They seemed a bit undersize compared with her mother’s, but then they weren’t fully grown yet, as she was in the middle of her final drakka growth spurt.

  “I take it you’re going to go up and out?” Rainfall said, looking at the crystal cupola.

  Wistala plunged her head through the hole in the library floor, as though she were going for a fish through an ice hole. She locked her jaws over the head of a barbarian running with an armful of stolen linens through the corridor below, pulled him up, and flung him skyward and through the glass, which mostly shattered outward from the force with which he was thrown.

  Widow Lessup sighed. “It was such a pretty thing. Why must pretty things always be smashed?”

  Wistala reared up on her saa and, using the scales on her sii, smashed away the remaining bits of glass. She took a deep breath and roared out her pain and anger into the night: “Let all who would burn these books know that there is an Agent of Librarians here. Enter to curses and peril!”

  “You’ll have to leave that wondrous chair behind,” Wistala said. “I’m not sure I can carry you and it, as well.”

  “Take Widow Lessup first,” Rainfall said.

  “Sir!” Widow Lessup objected. “My heart will fail me anyway, carried aloft by a dragon.”

  He wiped his seal-cutter clean and placed it carefully on his desk next to his ink and quill box. “A Hypatian noble’s first duty—and if necessary, his last duty—is to his servants. Carry her to safety, Wistala. I remain to defend my library and all it stands for.”

  He stared so levelly at her, she knew it was pointless to argue. She plucked Widow Lessup up by her apron and housecoat and lifted her up and out of the cupola. The grounds around Mossbell were bathed in light from the furiously flaming hay and meal of the barn.

  “No! No! No!” Widow Lessup screamed as Wistala climbed out next to her and extended her wings, flapped them experimentally. The goats had either fled the smoke or blood and dragonsmell.

  Wistala peeped over the roofline that was part hill crest, hoping the bush and wildflowers atop Mossbell hid her skull’s outline.

  There was chaos in the front by the fountain. The Dragonblade was shouting, pointing at her, and upbraiding one of his men with the back of h
is hand. The thane was riding in circles, trying to bring together barbarians, many with singed beards, who were running from Mossbell carrying everything from candlesticks to dining chairs.

  Other barbarians, under the eye of their chief, stood their ground, waiting for action. Behind them were the Dragonblade’s warriors and archers.

  Save for one. The leather-clad youth called Eliam was chasing something around the courtyard. A blur of orange—Yari-Tab, running rather stiff-leggedly, for she had seen her share of winters since coming to Mossbell.

  She yowled as the man-boy caught her and picked her up, but not a face turned toward the boy running with an old cat.

  Wistala felt her fire bladder bulge as Yari-Tab clawed and bit vainly at the leather sleeve and gloves. He ran across the courtyard, laughing, swinging her by the scruff to pitch her into the fire—

  Wistala launched herself, loosing her flame in a shower on the Dragonblade’s warriors and dogs, who scattered or burned. As for the wretched boy, her mother’s medicine would do for him.

  She wipped her tail down and lashed him across the face with its scaly tip, knocking him off his feet. She beat her wings madly and gained altitude, a little more loopily than she would have liked, but she banked and turned back toward the roof of Mossbell, where Widow Lessup was running down a goat path with skirts held up.

  She saw Yari-Tab dashing into the shadows of the side gardens, and the youth sitting upright in the courtyard, hands held to his face with blood running between his fingers, a sharp shadow thrown by the burning barn behind him.

  “Teach you to wear your helmet,” the Dragonblade laughed. “Even if it does spoil your hair and hide that handsome face.”

  She swooped in behind Widow Lessup, corrected—

  Using her sii with claws tucked in, she grabbed the woman by the shoulders and pulled her into the sky, hearing late arrows fall through the air behind. . . .

  Wistala, daughter of Irelia, lurched as she soared, thrown off by the strugging woman. It was a worse flight than even an aging sparrow or a sick bat could manage, but flying she was, better than in any dream.