The Dragonstone

by Dennis L McKiernan

“Are you hungry already?” asked Delon. “For Drôkken fare?”

  But Egil replied, “Late. After sundown, I think. At time of their own mess. Then a warder brings food.”

  “Perhaps he’ll have something which Ferai can use as a pick,” said the big man.

  “Oh,” said Delon, enlightened.

  “If we get free— No, rather, when we get free,” said Ferret, “we’ll need weapons.”

  Aiko paused in grinding the wooden spoon against the rough stone block. “When they opened the door”—she gestured at the iron-bound panel at the end of the hallway—“I Could see what looked to be a guardroom. Surely there will be weapons there.”

  “Wait now,” said Egil, leaping to his feet. “There is an armory just beyond the guardroom…or at least there was when last I was here.”

  “Then if we get out of these cages and through that door,” said Aiko, “we have a chance to secure weaponry and make an escape.” She resumed her grinding.

  “We still have to get past a fortress filled with Drôkha,” said Delon.

  “And down to the docks where the Brise is now moored,” added Egil.

  “Unless we abandon the ship and fare through the jungle instead,” said Burel.

  Egil looked across at Arin. “Is it day or night, love?”

  “It is a quarter way ‘tween sunrise and noon,” she replied.

  None questioned her answer, for she was a Dylvana with the inborn Elven talent to know at all times where stand the sun, moon, and stars.

  Egil grunted and said, “Then we have, I believe, from now till morning to make our escape, for Ordrune slays but a victim a day. He’ll not come for another until tomorrow.”

  “Art thou saying that Alos…?”

  “Yes, love. That is Ordrune’s way.”

  “Oh, chier.” Arin buried her face in her hands.

  Ferret glanced at Arin, and then at Alos’s empty cell. Finally she said, “All right, let’s not waste his death. Assuming that I can get my hands on something which will free us, what then? What’s our next move?” She looked across at Burel. “What choices lie before us, my fatalistic friend? What predestined path will we take?”

  Burel grinned wryly, then turned to Egil. “You have been here before, Egil. What would you advise?”

  Egil took a deep breath, then said, “Well, assuming we get free and have weapons in our hands, here is what we can do….”

  * * *

  Near sunset by Arin’s reckoning, their deliberations were interrupted by a muffled singing from beyond the iron-clad door. The warder window clanked open and a Drôkh peered in, the sound of the boisterous chanty blaring in as well. Then the door was flung wide, and inward came two Drôkha bearing up an old man singing at the top of his lungs:

  “Old Snorri in a cog

  With his three-legged dog

  Sailed off on the Boreal Sea.

  And the Mystical Maid

  At last was well laid,

  So she set Snorri Borri’s son free.”

  It was Alos.

  Drunk.

  The Drôkha opened Alos’s cage and shoved him within, the oldster reeling forward to collapse facedown in the rot of the sour straw.

  Muttering to one another in Slûk, the Drôkha slammed and locked the cell door and withdrew.

  “Alos, old man,” called Delon, “you’re alive!”

  Alos rolled over and peered at the ceiling. “Who said that?”

  “We thought you were dead,” said Ferret.

  Alos craned his head up and bleared at the cell. Then he rolled back over and, levering up to hands and knees, he crawled to the bars and rapped a knuckle to one and then hissed, “Oh, no. I’m back in gaol.” He began weeping.

  “Alos, old man, tell us what happened,” called Delon, kneeling at the bars between their cells.

  Snubbing and snuffling, the oldster looked over at the bard. “We’re trapped, you know,” he whined.

  In her cell across the way, Aiko turned her back to Alos, but Delon said, “Indeed. Nevertheless, what happened? What did Ordrune do to you?”

  “Do?”

  “Yes. Where did he take you? What did he do?”

  “Why, he gave me some wine. Splendid wine.” Alos slumped sideways, then hitched about until he sat with his back to the bars. Then he squinted his good eye and growled, “And he told me who raided the Solstråle with his crew of Trolls, the bastard who sunk her down in the chill waters of the Boreal Sea.”

  Aiko turned. “That’s all, Alos? Nothing more?”

  Alos frowned in concentration. “It seemed that there might be something else, but—”

  * * *

  “…Indeed, my friend, it was Durlok and his black galley who did the deed, Durlok who thinks to be Gyphon’s regent on this world, but it is I, Ordrune, who will be His agent instead….”

  “…Yet tell me, good Alos, just why would a mere seven of you come to my tower?…”

  “…A rutting peacock, eh? Why, I would not have guessed. Here, have some more wine….”

  “…Cut off her hand, you say?…”

  “…One eye in dark water? What might it mean?…”

  “…From the High King’s cage with what? Oh well then, that explains how she opened locks I thought beyond any thief’s skill to broach. Let me refill your cup….”

  “…They slew Ubrux the Demon? Oh, they are indeed formidable….”

  “…Here, my friend, inhale the fragrance of this vial, and then we’ll have some more wine. That’s right, just inhale as I tell you in spite of your misgivings, unlike before, you will never again desert your shipmates in their time of need, and you have said nothing of any consequence—yes, yes, inhale—nothing of any consequence at all….”

  * * *

  “—but I am certain that I told him nothing of any consequence.”

  “You were gone much too long for that to be the whole of it,” said Aiko. “What else did you speak of?”

  Alos frowned. “The weather. The stifling jungle air. The blood-sucking bugs. Durlok and his black galley Trolls overwhelming the Solstråle simply because her captain and crew knew the way into Serpent Cove.” He turned and glared at Aiko. “Say, what are you accusing me of?”

  “There’s more here than meets the eye,” hissed Aiko.

  * * *

  It was after sundown when the portal to the outer door was opened and a Drôkh peered in. Then keys rattled in the lock, and a warder entered lugging an iron pot and he kicked the door to behind. He was alone, yet he was cautious and, with snarling gestures, he made each prisoner move to the back of the cell—all but Alos, that is, for the old man was unconscious and slumped down against the bars—before he dipped gruel out of the kettle and into the crusted wooden bowls at each cage.

  Aiko glanced at Ferret and received a nod, and when the Drôkh came to Aiko’s cell—“Saté!” she called.

  The guard looked up.

  The hurled wooden spoon, its handle sharpened to a cruel point, took him in the throat. The iron pot clanged down on stone, and gargling and clutching at the air, the Drôkh staggered back, crashing into bars behind, where Burel grabbed him and wrenched his chin sideways, breaking his neck.

  Aiko reached out and dragged the pot to her and wrested the soft iron bail forward and back, freeing it from the eyelets, then she handed it through the side bars to Ferret.

  Ferret set the tip of the iron into a crevice in the stone, bending the nib into a sharp crook. Quickly she inserted the angled end into the lock, and in mere moments—click!—the door was open.

  Moving from cell to cell, she opened the locks to each, Aiko’s first, Alos’s last.

  The iron-clad outer door was still unlocked. Cautiously they edged it open a crack. The key ring yet dangled from the latch. The guardroom was empty of warders.

  Aiko glanced at Egil, a question in her eyes.

  “Perhaps they are at mess,” sissed Egil.

  Silently they slipped through to the armory, and lo! there on a table w
ere arrayed their own weapons and gear.

  “Something is not right,” growled Aiko.

  Arming themselves, Delon went back for Alos, and he came carrying the oldster across his shoulders, Alos dead to the world.

  They scooped up as many lanterns as they could find, and following Egil, up a stone stairwell they crept. At the next level they peered out into the courtyard. A crescent moon hung low in the west and in the shadows immediately at hand they saw no one, though up on the torchlit walls warders patrolled.

  Again Aiko growled and shook her head, but she said nothing and instead, with Burel, stood guard at the door, while Arin, Egil, and Ferret emptied lantern oil across the wooden floor.

  Ferret set it alight, and then they all scurried out into the night, Delon yet bearing unconscious Alos.

  As they came into the shadows of the battlements, a Rûptish horn blatted, and Drôkha cried in harsh alarm, for smoke poured from the building behind. Amid shouts and clamor Spaunen rushed down from the parapets, and others came tumbling out from the main building. And in the confusion, none noted the seven who ran the opposite way, up the ramp to the castellations, and then over the wall, Burel now bearing the burden of Alos as he clambered down the rope in the pale moonlight.

  Down the switchbacks to the dark, unwarded docks they ran, where, as some made the sloop ready, others set the sails of the moored dhow aflame. And then, in the light breeze now flowing down the cove toward the sea, wing-on-wing the Brise fled the conflagration behind.

  * * *

  And from his aerie atop the tower, Ordrune watched as the sloop slipped away in the ruddy light of the flames. Though unforeseen, it was of little or no consequence that the building behind was ablaze and the sails of his ship were on fire, for all was going according to plan.

  CHAPTER 65

  As shouting Chun battled the blaze in the main building and other Drik and Ghok scrambled down the switchbacks toward the sail-fired dhow, Ordrune strode along the buttressed walls to enter the tower. Inside, the dark Mage made his way to the spiral stairs leading to the chambers below. Down he wound and down, until at last he came into the shadows of a room of manacles and chains and straps and tables and racks and hooks and knives and other such, a room filled with echoes past of agony and terror, a room where astral blazes were wrenched from tortured souls and twisted to malevolent ends.

  Crossing this horrific chamber, Ordrune trod toward an iron door barred with three massive metal beams, a door from which emanated the sound of slow monstrous breathing and the stench of carrion. As the dark Mage approached the heavy portal, something massive thundered into the iron, juddering the panel and rattling the bulky hinges and bars…and angry skreighs shrieked forth.

  Ordrune mouthed a silent word, quelling the sound and fury on the opposite side. Then he raised each of the heavy bars in turn and opened the door and stepped into the reeking fetor beyond.

  There he faced a monstrous winged thing from elder days, its flailing pinions leathery and black, a single scimitarlike spur jutting forth from the forward bend of each wing, its long beak filled with jagged teeth, the large piercing claws of its feet hooked and clutching and grasping. And it skrawed and clacked and lurched among a litter of bones, bones gnawed and crushed and cracked and splintered for their marrow.

  Ordrune looked into one of the creature’s glaring yellow eyes and reached up to stroke its long neck. Then the dark Mage smiled and said, “I have a mission for you, my pet.”

  CHAPTER 66

  Down the channel of Serpent Cove fled the Brise, her sails spread wide to catch every bit of the following wind. With Alos unconscious in the cabin below, Egil manned the helm, while Ferret and Delon handled the sheet lines. Arin, Aiko, and Burel stood in the stern peering aft, arrows nocked in the event of pursuit, though only Arin could see fully by the light of the thin crescent moon.

  “Something is not right,” growled Aiko.

  Burel glanced at her. “Not right?”

  “It was too easy,” she replied, “as if Ordrune wanted us to escape.”

  Burel canted his head. “My sire was slain for merely knowing of the existence of the scroll, and he did not even get to read but a line or two. Yet we know even more, for we heard the whole of the text, the words Dara Arin read. Why would Ordrune kill one with little or no knowledge yet allow others who know its contents in full to escape? It makes no sense, Aiko.”

  In the pale moonlight Aiko glanced up at the big man. “Even so, Burel, it was as if our way was deliberately kept free of Kitanai Kazoku.”

  “Kitanai Kazoku?”

  “Foul Folk.”

  “Ah.”

  Delon, holding a line and peering at the enshadowed jungle to either side, said, “Even had Ordrune wanted us free, Aiko, how could he have known of our plans—your sharpened spoon, for instance?”

  Egil said, “Perhaps he did not, yet he did know given the opportunity we would attempt escape.”

  Aiko nodded and added, “Do you think it was pure chance that our weapons were at hand when we fled?”

  Delon shrugged, saying, “It was, after all, an armory where we found our gear. Where else would you expect weapons to be stored? I think you look too far to find a plot, Aiko.”

  Arin said, “Could it not simply be that Fortune turned Her smiling face our way?”

  Aiko looked from Delon to Arin yet said nought, her gaze impassive…

  …And down Serpent Cove sailed the Brise, the strengthening wind blowing toward the distant sea.

  * * *

  The moon set, leaving but the glimmer of the spangle overhead to light the way. Arin moved to the fore and used her Elven sight to guide them. Time edged past, along with the slow miles, as night gradually wheeled toward the dawn. Stars above shone down, like silent observers watching desperate life unfold below. And still the Brise sailed onward.

  * * *

  It was dark when they slipped past the town in the throat of Serpent Cove, dawn but a faint glimmer in the east. And though the tide was in full ebb and low, they had no choice but to run the fangs in the blackness, for to delay risked discovery by the Rovers.

  “As we did before,” called Egil, “strike all sails but the main and jib.” Working together, Delon, Burel, Aiko, and Ferret took down the jib top, fore stay, square, and the gaff top and stowed them below. Arin took station on the starboard wale to give Egil directions at the tiller, while the others took up lines for the difficult run ahead. And though they fared on but two of her sails, still the Brise ran fleet, for the offshore wind blew strongly and bellyed the sails full.

  “Stand ready on the jib; stand ready on the main,” called Egil above the surge of waves as they began their run true northeast toward the striated guide-rock.

  “Trim starboard a bit, Egil, half a point,” cried Arin, leaning out over the rail and peering ahead. “That’s good. That’s good. True her up now.”

  The Brise cut a foaming white wake in the water, the churning trail faintly luminous as the sloop ran at an angle toward the jagged Serpent’s Fangs, the rocks jutting taller now that the tide was low and ebbing.

  “Remember, all,” cried Egil, “we will jibe starboard a full ten points to square up on the next guide. Stand ready.”

  Now the ship fled in among the fangs, the inner guide-rock yet ahead. But even as jagged stone slid by, Arin cried, “Oh, no!”

  “What is it, love,” shouted Egil, spray showering over the Brise in the darkness as her bow churned through the waves.

  “Another ship, a dhow, has begun a run inward toward the fangs. ’Tis a Rover craft.”

  “Damn, damn!” cried Egil. “We can’t come about in these rocks. We’ve no choice but to try to run past her.”

  “How can they see?” called Ferret. “Have they an Elf aboard?”

  Arin did not answer as—Whoom!—waves thundered into rock, water leaping to pour over all; instead she called, “Stand by!…Stand by!…Stand by to make the turn!…Now! Now, Egil, now!”

  �
��Now!” shouted Egil. “Jibing now!”

  Zzzzzz…Wet rope buzzed against cleats as the Brise swung rightward ’round the great striated stone to veer sharply starboard, from true northeast by the compass toward a south-southeastern run, Egil hauling the tiller hard over to make the sharp-angled turn, the crew ducking the boom as it slammed ’round from starboard to port as the ship jibed before the wind, the canvas full taut with the sharp-driving air as the sloop on a beam reach slammed her shoulder to the sea and ran through a tangle of deadly fangs for the guide-rock beyond, while crew let line and took up.

  And in that same moment the Rover dhow to the east entered the fangs opposite.

  Arin quickly moved to the larboard rail to sight on the guide-stone ahead. Billows crashed in against the huge rocks, upflung waves hurtling over the Brise and down, drenching ship and sails and crew. Arin shook water from her eyes and stared steadily at an oncoming rock taller than the others.

  “Starboard, ease starboard, Egil!” she called. “Now steady as she goes!”

  “Hoy now,” came a slurred cry, and Alos stumbled topside from the cabin below. “What’s all this—?”

  “Stand by to jibe larboard a full twenty-eight points,” called Egil. “Alos, ‘ware the boom!”

  “What?” cried Alos, lurching out from the cabin door as the ship sped through the roaring blackness, death to the left and right, her bow crashing, waves smashing, spume flying, water drenching all.

  Without turning loose of her line, Aiko kicked the old man’s legs out from under him, and just as Alos slammed down to the deck—

  “Now, Egil! Now!” shouted Arin.

  “Jibing now!” called Egil, haling hard on the tiller.

  Zzzzz…Again loose ropes buzzed against cleats as strong hands haled hard on the opposite lines. ’round came the bow of the Brise, a tall rock to the larboard looming but an arm’s span away. Wham! the boom slammed across from port to starboard as the ship heeled over and the stern swung through the wind and the Brise came to a larboard beam reach.

  Water whelmed into stone and leapt into air as the sloop sped through and onward, while Arin shifted to the starboard rail, stepping over floundering Alos to do so. She leaned out and peered to the fore, where an oncoming Rover dhow loomed.