Dragon Avenger

by E. E. Knight

  “And good morning to you, too,” Wistala said. “Would you rather have King Fangbreaker hunting you up and down the Inland Ocean?”

  “The risks I run for my circus.”

  “Stop running risks then. I give Mossbell to you, if Hammar agrees.”

  “Hammar has other matters to attend to,” he said. His beard still looked like the poor effort of a youth, even in the fullness of manhood. “First let us win the battle. Then we’ll divide the spoils.”

  The circus folk climbed up each side of the dam and pulled and tied the blasting-casks into place. Wistala plucked crossbow bolts from her scale and nursed her javelin wounds.

  “What about a fuse?” Hammar asked.

  “I’m the fuse,” Wistala said, licking a spear hole in her wing clean.

  When all was ready, and more barbarians had the time to come up the road and array themselves behind the wall, Wistala took flight.

  She saw that perhaps half the barges still dueled with the barbarians at the waterside, ready to destroy canoes or any other light boats the savages might have brought up the mountain to cross the Ba-drink. The others, undoubtedly led by Lobok, were almost at the Hardhold.

  She saw that the gargants and circus folk were well out of the watercourse down the spillway, and dropped down, summoning her foua.

  She loosed it against the dam wall, and it ran down toward the packed and tied kegs. Wistala flew up and out of the way.

  The explosions came, a gentle hand shoving Wistala higher—crack crack huhoom!—sending rock and masonry shooting out across the mountainside, along with bits of timber and line.

  For a moment after the cataclysm, all was silent, or perhaps it was just that it sounded so to battered eardrums.

  Both the masses of barbarians and the dwarves in their barges left off their gesticulations and challenges, insults and catcalls, arrows, sling-stones, and bolts—frozen as though the icy wind carried a spell across all.

  It seemed to Wistala that the fate of worlds hung in the balance of those few moments, as the mountaintops tossed the sound back and forth.

  Nothing happened. Water still cascaded over the spillway.

  Then came more noise, a cracking, crashing sound of rocks sliding, followed hard on its heels, as wagon-wheels follow horse hooves, by the water.

  When describing the scene later, Wistala always said there was no word big enough for how the water moved through the gap, opening it wider and deeper as pieces at the edge fell away—a torrent of water, an avalanche, as though the mountain had sprouted a new shoulder falling into a steep cliff.

  The dwarf barges pulled like mad across the surface of the Ba-drink, but the water fell away from them, sloped under them as first one and then the next fell away, carried sideways toward the gap.

  The barbarians stood transfixed as the barges fell one by one into chaos. Whether they felt for the doomed dwarves, pulling at their oars, throwing anchors in desperation, even leaping into the water to swim as though their arms could accomplish what joined oars could not, Wistala couldn’t say.

  The lake drained away a claw’s-breadth at a time, but soon there was a path along the side of the lake to the Hardhold. The barbarians splashed into the fresh shallows, stomped through mud, a black sea of hide-cape, helm, and round shield replacing the receding waters.

  It was not a charge of ode or poetry. The barbarians came in a ragged line, a few at the front so crazed to outrace the others that they threw away their weapons as they ran, others slipped in the mud and the fortunate got up again before they were stepped on by those behind.

  The dwarves did what they could, barricaded the landings and docks, but the barbarians climbed above to the galleries, or uprighted stranded barges and longships and climbed up the staves at the hull bottom as though they were ladders.

  Screams, and over all the cacophony of steel on steel, the growled hurrahs of the dwarves matched against the wild catlike screeches of the men.

  Wistala caught sight of a long, thin barge flying purple pennants, oars worked by black armored beetles, pulling away from chaos east across the receding waters, a one-legged figure at the center. She took a deep breath and went down to the landing and retrieved the ball-weight and chain.

  Wistala rose into the air, all four limbs holding the burden to her belly. Up, up, up toward the sun, racing only herself and her exhaustion. In all likelihood, she would never have a mating flight. This would have to do. The air grew thin and cold, but she kept her eye always on the barge below, heading for the eastern road.

  When she could go up no more she closed her wings somewhat and went down.

  It was dizzying, a little frightening, she felt hurried by the weight of the iron ball, but she needed time to adjust her dive. The surface of the slowly receding lake rushed up to meet her at a frightening speed. She angled a little, then closed her wings more so she dropped almost straight down.

  Here is your crown, King Fangbreaker—

  Perhaps at the last moment he looked up from his position at the center of the barge, urging his rowing bodyguard on—Wistala didn’t know, for she released her weight and opened her wings, sick from the change in air pressure. Pain tore at her joints as she leveled off, streaking across the lake surface at an impossible speed.

  Kra-sploosh!

  She dipped her wings and looked back. The barge had folded in on itself, and a fountain of water rose from the center like the jaws of some sea dragon shutting on a bird. Flung dwarves spun through the air before splashing down into the Ba-drink.

  She flew back toward the battle, saw that flames were pouring out of some of the balconies and galleries in the Hardhold. Tall Rock seemed still to be holding, and the dwarves manned that half of the half-shattered Titan bridge.

  Wistala flew with aching wings back to the outer wall. Ragwrist and Hammar stood in one of the towers with a few elderly barbarians, and she alighted next to them.

  “Glorious, glorious, glorious,” Hammar said, smacking his fist into palm. “Have you ever seen such a fight? Wistala, you’re a marvel. With you at my side, there’s no stopping me now. We’ll ride your wings to Hypatia herself. ’Twas a happy day when we settled our enmity.”

  “It’s Nuum Wistala, bookburner. I don’t remember settling anything with you,” Wistala said. She beat her wings and rose into the air, seizing Hammar by his fur cloak.

  He hung there, struggling and swearing, and reached for his blade. Wistala beat him about the body with her wing-tips until he dropped it.

  She flew up to the top of Tall Rock, where a few dwarves still manned war-machines, firing down at the barbarians fighting on the Titan bridge.

  She swooped low between the towers, and dwarves scattered. “A parting gift from the Oracle,” Wistala called. “Here’s King Hammar the Dwarfhanger.” She set the former thane down gently. “Dangle him from the Titan bridge or use him to negotiate, I care not.”

  And with that she flapped away, leaving Hammar lying bruised in a ring of desperate dwarves.

  Now there was only one more account to settle on the balance sheet of her life.

  The Dragonblade’s home was easy enough to find. It was the only one with a dragonscale door and fire-shutters, carved under an overhanging rock that resembled a closed clam. The rest of the dwellings were humble shepherd’s huts or fishermen’s wharfside homes.

  Wistala landed in the mud of the fallen-away lake to the barking of hounds from all around the house.

  She waited out of arrow-reach and warily examined the small square windows. The flower boxes and hanging mountain ferns might hide war-machines, for all she knew.

  “I call for the Drakossozh,” Wistala roared. “Let him show his face if he dares.”

  Silence from the house.

  “Well? Daylight is burning, as will this home, if I do not have an answer.”

  The door opened, and a long-limbed young woman stepped out. There was some of the Drakossozh in her broad face, but she had a sensitive mouth. Wistala realized she w
as the womanly version of the girl glimpsed watching the circus leave years ago.

  She came only half out the door, seemed ready to jump back inside and slam it at the first sign of flame.

  “I speak for the household,” she said, voice quavering only a little. “If you’ve come for vengeance, my father is not here. If you’ve come for murder, there are children within.”

  “I’ve come for neither,” Wistala said. She sat, the mud squelching against her backside. Had she ever been so tired?

  “What is your name, girl?” Wistala asked.

  “Adaska,” she answered.

  “I’m—”

  “The Oracle-dragon.”

  “No. Well, I was. Now I’m just Wistala, a dragon who has had enough of fighting.”

  “What can you mean?” she asked, stepping a little farther onto her doorstep. Someone hissed at her from inside, but she ignored the comment.

  “I don’t know when all this started. Did my grandsire kill yours, or did yours kill mine? Your father killed mine, and I should kill yours, but I expect you or your brother would come after me. Am I right?”

  “We would. But dragons must be slain.”

  “Must they? Size put aside, I’m not certain we’re so very different.”

  “Dragons bring ruin and fear wherever they go; look what happens across the lake,” she said. Wistala looked, the carrion birds were already gathering. She wondered if Bartleghaff or his relations were among them. “This was always a peaceful place until you came.”

  “As was my home cave until the dwarves across the lake came. Let us put an end to this feud. At least the one that exists between your family and mine.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ll know when you have children of your own. Where can I find your father?”

  She hesitated. “He rode with his armsmen and dogs, answering the call of the mountain king to hunt you down. He took the north trail.”

  Wistala sighed. “I’ll make it easier for him to find me.”

  “You shouldn’t. He will kill you.”

  “Perhaps,” Wistala said. “Will you consider what I said?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Now I go to convince your father.”

  With some pain she rose into the air and winged across the lake. She found a trail, an old sort of road winding along the lakeside and over little chasms on bridges and between thin, wind-bent trees. The road was nothing compared to Rainfall’s, it was little more than a paved goat trail. It looked old enough for blighters to have built it. Old as war.

  But also old as bridges. She alighted on one, and looked to where her eye caught a glint of metal. She retreated to the far side of the ancient bridge and waited.

  The file of riders soon came over the rise and down the path toward the bridge, which leaped across a chasm to waters that lapped where her tail would reach if she let it dangle. Instead she wrapped it about the bridge; the masonry looked loose enough to be pulled apart if she exerted herself.

  The men spotted her and let out halloos. They dismounted and clapped visors across helms, notched arrows into bows, and the Dragonblade came forward with spear and sword.

  With a shout, one of his handlers released the dogs, who poured across the bridge in a bristle-backed river.

  Wistala flapped her wings, hard, held fast by her tail. The force of the windstorm sent the dogs plummeting off the bridge into the waters below—some with a knock or two, but they swam to rocks and climbed upon them to bark up at their now impossible-to-reach prey.

  The Dragonblade stepped forward, looked down at the vociferous, dripping pack, pulled back his visor and laughed loud and long. He had to lean on his spear shaft.

  “Dragonelle,” he said, wiping his eyes. “You are hard on my dog packs.”

  So he did know the name for a female dragon!

  “Your daughter told me I could find you on this road,” Wistala said.

  The Dragonblade’s face went white, and he raised his spear for a throw. His son behind came forward with a bow ready. “If you’ve—”

  “I haven’t touched so much as a winter cabbage,” Wistala said. “I was all politeness to your girl.”

  “I will still kill you,” the Dragonblade said.

  “Let me speak first,” Wistala insisted. “Our kind have shed rivers of blood, matched against each other. I would have the flow stopped. Shall it always be thus, one family slaughtering another, until the ending of the world?”

  “Or the ending of dragons,” the Dragonblade said. “Calls for peace are always made by those at a disadvantage.”

  Wistala hugged the road, covering her belly with stone, readied to parry blade or spear with wing-points. “Come then,” she said. “Let’s start the madness afresh.”

  The boy raised the bow, sighted with his good eye, but his father held him back. “You must let me finish, as well.” He plunged his spear point-first into the dirt beside the road. “There’s been enough killing for one day. You came to my doorstep and did no harm—”

  “You would believe a—,” his son said.

  The Dragonblade glared at him. “I believe this one. And my eyes. I see no smoke at our part of the lakeshore. And shut it, you fool hounds!”

  Drakossozh looked thoughtful for a moment, and the dogs, silenced for only a moment, started up again. “The dwarves will pay no more hide-bounties, at least not for a long while. Perhaps I should take up chickens. They taste better and do not singe off one’s eyebrows. You have your peace. What is your name?”

  “Wistala.”

  “Ah. You are only the second dragon to ever escape me, Wistala. Wear that with pride, as you do that little bauble between your eyes.”

  “Who was the first?” Wistala said.

  “A drake, a young gray.”

  Wistala’s hearts stopped. “What? When?”

  “A dozen years ago or so,” he said. “I’ve heard no more trouble of him, I expect he died raiding some farmer’s pigpen. No scales, you know. He would be—wait, you two must be related.”

  “I hope so,” Wistala said, wishing the Dragonblade’s dogs would cease barking. It detracted from the solemnity of the moment.

  “Now I do fear to let you go. Were two such resourceful dragons to meet up again . . . but something in my heart says it will not go ill for me, or my family. Go, Wistala. No blade or arrow of mine will touch you.”

  The boy fired, and the Dragonblade threw up a blur of an elbow that knocked the arrow off its path. It skittered harmlessly down the rocks. Wistala gulped, it was just as well they had not fought.

  “Eliam, you vex me. But we will talk at home. Go, Wistala, and let my dogs quiet, before I finish off the pack myself.”

  Wistala took a deep breath and launched herself into the air. She watched the spear point until she was out of range.

  The old dragon proverb: Trust, but keep an eye open.

  Epilogue

  Wistala sat in the old troll cave, near the entrance where the air was cleaner, and dictated her memories of the battle that destroyed the Wheel of Fire, and much of the combined barbarian power in the north, to Lada.

  Of Rayg she had no happy news. A great many dwarves fled down their mysterious holes to the darkroads as Thul’s Hardhold fell, and as Rayg hadn’t been carried off by the barbarians or been found among the dead, she assumed he’d fled for his life with them. The barbarians had caused so much destruction, it was doubtful that he could return through Hardhold, even if he wanted to. But he was in the company of dwarves who would respect him, very different circumstances from abject slavery in the north.

  The thaneship had passed to Ragwrist, of all people, as Mossbell was the largest estate in the thanedom with Galahall divided between Hammar’s barbarian relations. Wistala had sold him Mossbell for a song—literally, for he had a wonderful voice. Now Ragwrist complained of his generosity to his tenants, driving him to the poverty of only drinking wines from the less renowned vineyards.

  The circus went to
Brok, who kept it out of barbarian lands, where dwarves were increasingly unwelcome, perhaps justifiably.

  The Green Dragon Inn still stood, and tall tales had grown up around it and its sign. People in later years reached up to touch it for luck, and heard stories so bizarre and inaccurate, Wistala would have smiled to hear.

  Widow Lessup retired with Yari-Tab in the modestly restored Mossbell hall and devoted herself to feeding and supervising the surviving cats, who kept the mice from nibbling the hooves of Dsossa’s “north herd” of white horses.

  What remained of the Wheel of Fire Dwarves came under the leadership of Lord Lobok, who, if he ever led his fighting dwarves out of the mountains again, would be assured an entertaining place in the annals of military history.

  Speaking of which, Wistala had no particular desire to accomplish a war history, but the librarians had asked for a dragon’s-eye memoir, and they would get one. It was the least an Agent of Librarians could do, before setting off in search of her brother.

  As she talked, chose phrases, and answered the occasional question, Wistala’s thoughts kept returning to the dilemma of dragons. On the one sii, there was the sort of grasping survival of dragons like that smelly wretch in the far north—scattering, hermitage, or worst, assassination—and on the other a useful servitude, a survival that depended on being of use to others, like the man-carrying dragons more and more sailors of the northern part of the Inland Ocean reported.

  Could dragons cooperate, form an order like the old city-states of Hypat? Certainly an extended family could, as the odd dragons of the Sadda-Vale proved. And if they did, suppose a Masmodon or a Fangbreaker or worse arose at the council table? Selfishness and greed were not the least of dragon faults.

  Oddly enough, she wished she could talk the matter over with that dragon DharSii. He had unpleasant manners, to be sure, and was the most arrogant creature who ever cracked an egg, but she could trust him to give an intelligent opinion. And perhaps even more important, an honest one. For in obtaining his opinion, she’d have to sum up her life and actions—she wondered if she’d done right or wrong, though why she should care what he would think of her past she did not know.