The Dragon At War

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "You know, Secoh," said Jim, his dragon's voice carrying easily across the forty feet of air that separated him from Secoh, "we ought to have our own dragons aloft, keeping track of the serpents, and the george army's movements. But, come to think of it, I suppose as things stand now you wouldn't be able to get any of the Cliffsiders—"

  "The young dragons'll jump at the chance!" cried Secoh. "I'll get them taking turns, and relieving each other every so often, just the way the French dragons are doing it."

  "But I thought—"

  "Oh, they'll want to!" said Secoh. "They're very much ashamed of themselves, after getting frightened and flying off, leaving the Dragon Knight to face those sea serpents alone. They'll do anything to make up for it. I'll probably have more wanting to do it than we have jobs for."

  "I see. Well," said Jim, slightly embarrassed, "then, maybe we'll have enough so we can use some as liaisons between us and the rest of the English dragons as they gather and move in."

  "Liaison?" asked Secoh.

  "Carriers of messages," explained Jim.

  "Oh," said Secoh. "Yes, they'll make very good liaison-uh-ers. And there'll be lots wanting to do it. Just leave it to me."

  "All right," said Jim. He was startled to see Secoh start to turn away from him in mid-air and soar in the direction of what must be another thermal. "Where are you going?"

  "To Cliffside!" Secoh called back. "We're practically there now, anyway."

  "We are?" said Jim. The time had gone faster than he had thought since they had left the English army. Clearly his thoughts had gone on too long. "Wait a minute—"

  Now he really had to shout. Secoh was some distance off. But Jim's voice evidently was equal to the task.

  "Am I headed back toward Malencontri?" Jim roared. His dragon senses told him he was; but he wanted to make sure.

  "Just fly straight ahead!" Secoh's voice floated back to him.

  "All right," said Jim to himself, but with a touch of foreboding.

  He looked at the landscape ahead for some point to line himself up on; and saw a dark section of forest, of the same color as that around Malencontri. He flew toward it.

  He went on for some three miles, dropping altitude as he went, and was pleasantly surprised to make out first a clearing amongst the tree-tops, then an actual clearing that held the castle itself. He thumped down in the castle courtyard beside Rrrnlf, who was seated with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, looking despondent.

  "Don't worry, Rrrnlf," he said to the Sea Devil. "We'll get your Lady back all right—oh, by the way, I'm Sir James Eckert, but wearing my dragon body."

  "Ah, a wee dragon, now, are you?" Rrrnlf nodded sadly. "That's the way the world goes. A wee knight one moment. Then a wee Mage. Then a wee dragon. Why not? Nothing matters, anyway."

  "Cheer up!" said Jim. "Carolinus promised you back your Lady; and he's a magician who keeps his word."

  "That's what they all say," said Rrrnlf, still sadly.

  Jim gave up trying to lift the Sea Devil's spirits. With a flurry of wings that raised an explosion of dust in the courtyard, he half jumped, half flew to the top of the castle's tower. Folding his wings there, he was about to start downstairs to the solar when a thunderous sound shook the air of the courtyard.

  For a moment he froze; then realized it was simply Rrrnlf sneezing in the dustcloud. He went on down the stairs, and into the solar, gratefully shutting the door behind him.

  He realized suddenly he could use some sleep, himself, after all the flying he had done; in spite of his long rest before he had left Malencontri. Maybe in sleep the back of his mind would come up with some better ideas. If the serpents were going to be at the walls of Malencontri in their thousands, in just a couple of days, he would need to think of some way of making sure of stopping them from overcoming the walls.

  Scuttling along on the ground on their short legs, it was hard to imagine how they could get over even the curtain wall; but there might be ways he did not expect. He needed to let the question soak in the back of his head while he slept. With luck, he would wake up with an answer.

  He changed out of his dragon body into his human one and tumbled naked into his bed, pulling a huge pile of blankets and furs over him. There was a chill of foreboding deep inside him. Never mind, he told himself sternly, as he drifted off to sleep; ideas often come during slumber.

  But when the next day dawned, no ideas had come to him.

  Nor did the second day's dawn bring any. But it brought the serpents.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Jim's first warning that their attackers were there in full numbers came from Angie, who woke him and told him that the castle was surrounded.

  "My God!" said Jim, rolling out of bed and beginning to scramble into his clothes. "We've had individual ones moving back and forth across the open between us and the trees for the last two days, but when did they show up in large numbers?"

  "During the night, evidently," said Angie. "Everyone else is on that new observation platform. You know—the one we built just inside the curtain wall by enlarging the platform for the big pot on swings that was there to pour hot oil on anyone trying to break through the front gate? You'd better get there right away."

  "Just as fast as I can!" said Jim.

  "You know, Jim," said Angie as he dressed hastily, "I'm really worried about Carolinus. He's not at all like himself. He's refusing to help; and it seems almost as if he wants the sea serpents to kill us all. As if he can hardly wait to be killed by them himself. It's almost as if he's looking forward to having everything over with."

  "Will you help me with my armor?" interrupted Jim. "Everybody else is in armor, aren't they?"

  "The knights, yes."

  "Well, give me a hand then, will you?" said Jim. "Thanks. Angie, I'm sorry about Carolinus. I'll try to do what I can if there's a chance to find out what's troubling him. But right now there's no time for that. This is a matter of staying alive. Now, the greaves, if you don't mind. Tie the leather thongs tight above the bulge of my calf muscles. Otherwise, just walking stretches them loose and they're likely to work around my legs. I need them to protect the front of my legs… that's right…"

  They both fell silent, as they struggled to get Jim into his armor and weaponed. Dressed, Jim headed off down the stairs of the tower, with Angie beside him, through the Great Hall and out into the courtyard. It was far different from the courtyard he was used to. Nearly every foot of space was taken up with people or domestic animals; for all the people living on Malencontri lands, and some simply close to them, had come for sanctuary inside the castle.

  Makeshift tentlike shelters had been put up around the walls for the privacy of those who had the material and could afford it. Temporary latrines had been dug in a courtyard corner that gave a little privacy. Meanwhile the moat was smelling worse than ever, from the human waste and garbage dumped in it, through various chutes and over the curtain wall.

  Angie had long ago set up garbage holes and disposal areas outside the castle walls; and the moat had become almost clean. Now it was back to smelling like the moats around most castles. Jim had been a little surprised at how quickly he had begun to ignore the stink. You simply lived with it; and that was that.

  With Angie close behind him now, he ran up the steps to the catwalk around the curtain walls; and looked over them to see the open land around the castle now one carpet of long green bodies. It was a beautiful morning. He half ran along the catwalk to the enlarged platform above the gates, where not only Brian, Giles and Dafydd were waiting for him, but also Carolinus, Secoh and—to his surprise—John Chandos.

  "When did you get back here, Sir John?" panted Jim, as he came at last to a halt on the platform. The senior knight smiled at him in his usual calm manner.

  "Eight of your dragons flew me in from where the army was placed," he said. "The lift off the ground and the return to earth were a bit bumpy, but the rest, quite pleasant. M'Lady had made and sent with the dragons a sor
t of long net bag in which I could lie, padded with soft cloths and eight lines each harnessed to each of the eight dragons—"

  Chandos made a slight, involuntary-seeming gesture of his right hand toward his upper lip before checking it. It was exactly the sort of a motion Giles would have used if he had been about to twirl the end of one of his magnificently long, blond mustachios in satisfaction.

  "—If any other Englishman," Chandos went on, "with, I suppose, the exception of yourself, Sir Dragon, has ever so flown through the air, I do not know of it. I shall long remember the faces of those nearby as eight dragons landed to carry me off!"

  There was a slight tone of condescension in Chandos's voice as he mentioned Jim that gave Jim a twinge of a faint unhappiness. It was the other side of the coin, he told himself, of the pride he had felt at being included by Iren among the family of dragons.

  To Chandos, even to Brian and Giles, he would never really be an Englishman, never completely one of them. Not that they would remind him of it, for the world; and, being his friends, they would draw their swords at the very intimation by anyone else that he was less English than those around him. But deep within, they were aware he really was not; and could never be. They knew it, and he knew it. Just as he knew that he really was not a dragon and could never really be one.

  He shook off the touch of emotion, and looked at Chandos with relief.

  "But why did you come back?" he asked.

  "The Prince had other captains," said Chandos. "I got them to agree to move as you said; and then felt I could be of best use back with you here."

  "Well, I'm very happy to see you here," said Jim. "Since you are, certainly you'll do me the great kindness of taking command."

  "Well, Sir James," said Chandos thoughtfully, "you do me honor. Nonetheless I think it best you lead. I find the Lady Angela is at least as well trained to siege defense as I am; and in fact, no doubt, much better. She has evidently been taking instruction from a neighbor of hers. M'Lady Geronde Isabel de Chaney."

  He glanced at Brian.

  "Whose favor Sir Brian, here—ah—wears."

  "The Lady and I are betrothed, Sir John," said Brian, with some emphasis on the word "betrothed."

  "Oh? I was not aware," said Chandos. "My apologies and felicitations, Sir Brian."

  "I am honored by them, Sir John," said Brian. They did not exactly bow to each other; but they somehow reminded Jim of Son Won Phon and Carolinus, after their duel in the amphitheater had been won by Carolinus.

  "At any rate, Sir James, the Lady Angela is much better at internal command of a siege than I," went on Chandos, "who, in fact, has had more experience attacking castles than defending them. Moreover, it is your castle and you have abilities that I would not try to match. You are therefore the very man to command."

  "Well, I…" Jim turned, almost in desperation, to Carolinus. "Carolinus—"

  "Don't look at me!" snapped Carolinus. "I'm a magician, not a knight; and I've never had a castle in my life. Besides, as John says, you have what I might call special… abilities, to handle this situation."

  "I'm glad you think so," said Jim unhappily. He turned to Angie. "How are we fixed for stores and supplies and things like that, m'Lady?"

  "We have enough to last us for several months," answered Angie crisply. "Possibly even to feed everyone within our walls, including those who've just come in the last few days, until cold weather. I can't imagine the sea serpents sticking it out that long if they can't get at us."

  "Neither can I," said Jim. But he was staring at her in some amazement. "How did we happen to accumulate that much in the way of stored food?"

  "We didn't," said Angie. "I did; during the times when you were off on some trip or other. I stored all our own harvesting, and bought extra grain and root vegetables to increase what we had. Primarily, I was interested in lasting through the winter without some of our people starving to death. But also, from what Geronde told me, I wanted to be well stocked up in case of something like what's happening now."

  "You bought extra?" asked Jim. "Then how are we fixed for—" He quickly searched his mind for words that would convey his meaning to her without betraying it to the fourteenth-century people around him. "—financial reserves?"

  "Effectively," said Angie cheerfully, "we don't have any."

  "Don't have any!"

  "No," said Angie slowly and deliberately, "but we've got what's necessary to feed our people, put a roof over their heads and keep them warm, until next spring. There's other currencies than money. You've got the wherewithal to keep alive a large number of fellow humans, until spring brings fresh crops and fresh food. You're rich, my dear Lord."

  "I see," said Jim feebly. "Well, it was wonderfully done, Angie. You always amaze me."

  "Somebody has to!" said Angie, but the tartness in her voice faded toward the end; and looking at her, Jim could tell by familiar small signs that she was really not feeling as sharp with him as her words had indicated.

  He turned back to the curtain wall and looked over it.

  "Well, it's a great relief to know we're that well fixed," he said. "Though I don't know what kind of weapons we can use against attackers like this."

  "With luck, look you," said Dafydd unexpectedly, "a clothyard shaft with a broadhead point will kill one; if only it can be fired into its open mouth at the right angle so as to reach back to whatever they have for a brain. I have had some small success that way. But it is a chancy business, particularly firing from above. They must look up, first, or the shaft will not strike home. I doubt if many of our own archers or crossbowmen can do any great damage that way. Aside from that—"

  He broke off, looking past Jim out in the field. Jim followed the direction of his eyes. A relatively small-looking, gray, four-legged figure was dodging in and out among the great, green bodies, sometimes leaping up and running right along the back of one of them and jumping to another. Massive jaws snapped viciously at him, but were always a few seconds too late. As the figure approached the castle, it was plain to see that it was a wolf; and that the wolf was Aargh.

  As he got closer to the castle, Aargh leaped from one back to another, no longer touching the ground at all; and ended up by running along the back of a serpent at the very edge of the moat opposite the updrawn drawbridge. He leaped from the very tip of the serpent's opened upper jaw into the moat.

  He swam across to the few inches of earth at the foot of the curtain wall and called up to Jim and the rest. His speaking voice was not equipped for shouting words; effectively he howled his request up at them.

  "A rope!"

  Jim looked around frantically; and was astonished and happy to find a coil of rope not more than two steps from him. He started toward it, but Dafydd already had picked it up, and was letting one end of it down as fast as he could to Aargh.

  Aargh seized the end of the rope in his jaws as it reached him; and Dafydd began to haul him up the side of the cliff. Jim and Brian quickly grabbed hold also, lending their strength to the task. Aargh rose rapidly, and a moment later was pulled over the edge of the curtain wall, dropped the rope and leaped down to stand before them, soaked and smelling very badly indeed.

  "Aargh!" cried Angie, hugging him, indifferent to the wetness of him and the odor. He licked briefly at her face, wagging his tail.

  "Aargh!" echoed Jim. "I didn't think… I mean, it didn't occur to me—"

  "What you mean is," growled Aargh, "you hadn't taken time to worry about the wolf."

  Jim felt ashamed.

  "Yes," he said.

  "Well, why should you?" said Aargh. "Aargh looks after himself. Then, if he has time, he looks after his friends, too. Right now you're busy looking after yourself. No—"

  He licked out at Angle's face again.

  "But it's nice to be made much of by your female."

  Angie hugged him once more and then let him go.

  "I forgive you for that 'female'!" she said to him. "The main thing is that you're in here, now; and
safe."

  "Am I safe?" asked Aargh.

  He looked around at the rest of them, ending with his gaze fixed on Jim.

  "I don't know if any of us are," said Jim. "What's it like out there?"

  "I stayed out as long as I could," said Aargh. He started to shake himself; then snorted and grinned wickedly at the rest of them. Turning, he walked away along the catwalk for half a dozen feet and shook. Fetid moisture sprayed in every direction, but fell short of the others. Then he stalked back to them.

  "What's it like?" he echoed. "What it's like, is that these invaders have cleared out everything living; from the sea to here and east and west as well. Anything eatable's been eaten—for as far as I searched. Those green monsters will feed on anything. I saw one push a tree over so it could reach and eat a squirrel's nest with the squirrels in it. I saw another seeming to eat earth; until I realized he was after a mole, underground there—which he got."

  "But you," said Angie. "How did you survive?"

  "I?" said Aargh. "By being fast. There were too many of them to hide from—even for me to hide from. And I cannot kill them quickly. Their vital parts are too deep in those thick bodies for my teeth to reach. The only way I can slay one is by bleeding him to death. And that I'll be able to do best in the narrow corridors and rooms of this self-made cave of yours you call a castle. They'll kill me, but I'll take some with me; even though they do their dying after I'm already dead."

  "Did you see anyone who seemed to be their leader among them?" asked Jim anxiously.

  "Leader?" Aargh was interestedly sniffing at his own right flank. "—All sorts of interesting things in that waterway of yours down there—"

  "We know," snapped Carolinus.

  "No," said Aargh, "I didn't see any leader."

  "If they're all here because they're concentrating on me," said Jim, "Essessili must be among them someplace—"

  Rrrnlf's head came up.

  "Essessili?" he said. "Where?"

  He was on his feet before any of the rest of them could respond.

  "Still!" cried Jim, jabbing his finger at him.