by David Weber
That thought stuck in her brain like a sliver of glass. She was as certain as Wencit that Wulfra was behind it, and the fact that the sorceress had chosen wholesale slaughter as a means of attack told the assassin a great deal. Attacking merchants served no purpose—was, in fact, counterproductive, because it had warned Wencit. Which meant Wulfra either couldn’t—or wouldn’t—control her agent. And that meant, in turn, that she’d purposely chosen a tool which would attack anyone…including the dog brothers.
She peered around a fresh bend and saw nothing. She rotated her head to relax her neck, staring upward, and saw an eagle far above. It floated proudly on the wind, disinterested in any business but its own, and she allowed herself a moment to envy it. Then she lowered her eyes and frowned.
She knew Umaro had passed them on the high road, because she’d watched him do it. That meant he and his men must have reached South Keep before her, yet he wasn’t in the keep or he would have answered her covert signals. So he’d gone on down the pass and might have met whatever hunted here, and a slow rage burned at her core at the thought. If Umaro and Ashwan—especially Ashwan—had been attacked, there was no question of the price to be demanded of Wulfra.
The narrow, twisting gorge widened slowly but steadily, and she and Bahzell drifted farther apart to stay close to its walls. The dawn had turned into midmorning, but the towering cliffs to either side blanketed much of the narrow, stony gulf’s floor in dense, dark shadow. It made the brightness where the sun could reach them almost dazzling, and she didn’t care for how hard it was for sunstruck eyes to make out details in the patches of shadow before they actually entered them.
They rounded another bend, and Bahzell’s hand rose, halting them. Chernion couldn’t see around the bend, but the hradani’s attitude made it plain he’d seen something, yet his lance stayed upright, its butt in the holding bracket at his stirrup iron. Clearly, whatever he’d spotted, he didn’t consider it an immediate threat, but she loosened her sword anyway and looked about uneasily. She glanced back and up, as well, but even the eagle had vanished.
Kenhodan didn’t stop immediately at Bahzell’s signal. He pushed farther towards the right and dismounted, nocking an arrow and climbing a boulder to cover the hradani. Unlike Chernion, however, he could see around the bend from his new perch, and his face was bleak as Bahzell and Walsharno advanced cautiously on a shattered tangle of trade wagons strewn beside and along the road.
Walsharno moved carefully, ears shifting ceaselessly, and Bahzell sat easily in the saddle. His lance still stood upright in its rest, but his head turned constantly, and Walsharno lifted each hoof with delicate precision, in instant readiness for combat or flight. Yet nothing happened until, at last, they reached the outer ring of the tangled wagons and Bahzell swung down.
Kenhodan strained to watch in all directions at once, yet his gaze returned to Bahzell again and again. The big hradani drew on his gauntlets and picked his way into the wreckage. Even at this distance, Kenhodan sensed the anger in his slow, deliberate movements as he bent and picked something up to study it carefully. He straightened again, and stood in instant longer, looking upward, scanning the narrow slot of sky above the pass. Then he dropped whatever he’d picked up and mounted once more, and Walsharno cantered back towards the others. Kenhodan remained on his feet atop his boulder, bow ready, and the others clustered around his perch.
“Well, Bahzell?” Wencit asked quietly.
“No, it’s not after being ‘well’ at all, at all,” Bahzell said bleakly. He held out his right hand, and his thick leather gauntlet smoked in the cold air. Kenhodan sniffed and then coughed on the caustic fumes.
“So,” Wencit said softly.
“Aye, it’s after being a dragon,” Bahzell said, still cold-voiced. “A black dragon, from the acid and the fact that it was stupid enough to chew a wooden wagon. And there’s never a way in all the world as a black dragon’s after coming here of its own.”
Chernion’s head jerked as she stared upward. That eagle had been no eagle…and it had been much higher than she’d thought.
“It was Wulfra,” Wencit said. “It had to be. But how? Even assuming she had the courage to violate the treaty between dragonkind and Ottovar, she shouldn’t have the power to do it in the first place. And that’s the least of it.”
“I’d think that was pretty much the most of it,” Kenhodan said tartly, his eyes—like Chernion’s—sweeping the sky visible above them.
“No,” Wencit said impatiently. “For her to send the dragon here means she knew approximately when we’d get here. The caravan was attacked two days ago, but Bostik says they’ve been seeing a caravan a week in South Keep, which means the dragon got here at most seven or eight days ago. Which means Wulfra knew we’d have been here by then, but for the snow. And that means she’s found a way to pierce my glamour.”
“Is she too dangerous to attack, then?” Chernion asked softly.
“No,” Wencit replied shortly, “but we’re going to have to be more circumspect. To break my glamour without warning me, she must’ve used a trap link somewhere along the way—” only Chernion saw his eyes rest momentarily on her “—but I’m going to see to it that nothing can get through for the rest of this journey. If we avoid her attention, she can’t do anything until she and I are face-to-face. Once that happens, Border Warden,” he finished grimly, “I don’t think she’s going to be sending any more dragons anywhere.”
“I see.” Chernion looked away, her mind like ice and no longer uncertain at all. Clearly the baroness must be seen to.
“Well and good,” Bahzell rumbled, “but in the meantime, we’ve a wee bit of a problem here, Wencit. One that’ll be running forty feet in length and not so very fond of us.”
“True, but we don’t have any choice to deal with it, either. Apparently, Wulfra’s simply posted it here to attack anything that passes. We can’t allow that to continue, and even if we could tempt it into attacking South Keep—which I doubt her control spells would allow for a moment—it might do terrible damage before it died. No, we have to hunt it down.”
“I’ve no quarrel with the notion,” Bahzell replied, touching the mace and sword of his surcoat. “Truth to tell, it’s in my mind as how that’s after being the least of our worries. Like as not, it’ll be hunting us down.”
“Then you should be happy, shouldn’t you? Aren’t you the fellow who once told me you can’t kill something if you can’t find it?”
“As to that, aye. That’s not to be saying as I’ve always found it what you might be calling a pleasant experience, though.”
“Well, if a wild wizard and two champions of Tomanāk can’t deal with it, I’m a bit at a loss to think of who else we might send,” Wencit pointed out a touch caustically, and a deep chuckle rumbled around somewhere in Bahzell’s mighty chest.
“And how do we kill it if we do find it?” Kenhodan asked. “Mind you, I’m sure Elrytha and I would be happy to hold your coats while you three deal with it, but it would be nice if we had some small notion about your battle plan. I’m assuming you do have a battle plan, of course, which I realize might be a little over optimistic on my part.”
“A point,” Chernion agreed. “Can you kill it with sorcery, Wizard?”
“Not in time. Dragons are virtually personifications of the wild magic, so just controlling them is hard enough. Slaying them with the art requires preparations I’ve had no time to make. The good news—such as it is, and what there is of it—is that wild magic or not, they’re creatures of this world, not something like a demon or a devil only Bahzell and Walsharno could hope to stand up to. And they are mortal. The trick is killing one of them quickly enough. Even mortally wounded dragons have been known to go on fighting far longer than almost anything else could have.”
“Wait a minute. You mean we have to kill it?” Kenhodan waved at the wrecked wagons. “We have to kill something that can do that?”
“Aye, that we must,” Bahzell said, “and best be gla
d it’s black, for black dragons are after being stupid.”
“And that helps us exactly how?”
“Bahzell’s right,” Wencit said. “Black dragons are little more than appetites with legs and wings, so this fellow’s likely to be a lot less tricky than his smarter cousins. Of course, even that has its downside, I suppose. The fact that it’s stupid—and that it’s obviously being held here by a spell of compulsion—means it’s unlikely to just run away from a fight even if it’s losing.”
“Wonderful.” Kenhodan rolled his eyes. “Does it at least have a vulnerable point?”
“Well, as to that, not so very many.” Bahzell smiled grimly. “I’m thinking Walsharno and I might be after getting a lance point into its chest, but that’s no certain thing, given dragon scale. There’s no scale as guards its eyes or its gullet, though. Mind, I’ve no ambition to be going for its palette—like enough I’d only see it as I slid past!—but a black dragon’s not after being smart enough to guard its eyes. If the two of us are after drawing its attention, I’m thinking as it’s likely enough to be turning its face toward your bow.”
“You want me to put an arrow in its eye? Just how big is the bloody thing?!”
“As to that, it’ll be as much as nine or ten inches across!” Bahzell said bracingly. “It’s confident I am you can hit a target that big if you must.”
“Are you listening to yourself here, Bahzell?” Kenhodan demanded. “You’re going to ‘draw its attention’ while I shoot.…What if I miss?”
“Then I’m thinking you’d best have another arrow handy,” Bahzell said simply.
* * *
“If it’s a better notion you have, best be speaking up now,” Bahzell replied.
“Sure, and you’re after being in a fine mood this morning.”
“There’s no point at all, at all, in nattering the lad with details as he can’t do anything about, anyway. Come to that, though, I’m thinking we’ve never met anyone less likely to be letting us down in a case like this. Mind, it’s better I’d feel with a few score more Vonderland archers at his back, but we’ve too many other things on our plate to be worrying over might-have-beens.”’
“And you’re after being so modest about it, too,” Bahzell marveled, and Walsharno snorted a laugh.
“And a great relief to my mind it is, too,” Bahzell said politely, and a deep laugh echoed through them both.
The deep voice faded into silence, and the two champions moved steadily into the morning with every sense alert.
* * *
They moved off slowly, for now Kenhodan went on foot with Glamhandro at his shoulder. He would have preferred for the stallion to stay back with Wencit, but the horse was unwilling to be separated from him and minced along beside him. He clearly sensed danger, and—equally clearly—he would have preferred to have Kenhodan on his back, where he belonged. Kenhodan would have preferred that, too, but he had to be in a position to use his bow. So he concentrated on breathing evenly and wishing his palms were less damp.
Chernion rode grimly down her side of the pass, her expression set as she contemplated the unhappy reality that her only possible role was as bait. If the Bloody Hand couldn’t kill the monster, she certainly couldn’t. And though she was a competent archer, she was far from Kenhodan’s equal and couldn’t hope for a killing shot under the circumstances. No, all she could do was help attract the dragon’s attention, and every assassin’s bone in her body revolted at the thought. She found herself hoping that Wencit, at least, survived…and that whatever he had planned for Wulfra was both slow and lingering.
She stopped suddenly, and Walsharno drew up on the far side of the pass as she dismounted at the side of the road and gazed down at the bits and pieces which had once been men and horses scattered in a deep hollow beside the roadbed. The hollow would have been very difficult to see from the road before the dragon went rampaging through it and shredded the scraggly brush which once had screened it, and it lay in deep shadow, even now. Its sides were heavy with frost the sun’s heat had yet to melt and the lighting was poor, yet she could see the details all too clearly.
She drew a deep breath and slithered down into the hollow, her boots crunching in a red crust of frozen blood. She was no stranger to ugly death, but this sickened her as she stood amidst the carnage, gazing down upon it. Then she turned a body with her toe, and her face tightened—in anger, not surprise—as Umaro’s dead eyes glared up at her.
She drew another breath and straightened slowly. That tall, narrow body with the sword in its hand might be Ashwan, she thought through the layer of ice which had encased her brain, but it was so seared by acid she couldn’t be sure. She moved closer, looking down, trying to positively identify the body, and her anger was a cold and burning fury when she couldn’t.
A sister should recognize her mother’s only son.
She looked away and tried to at least count the bodies, but they were in too many pieces. She couldn’t match arms and legs with torsos, and their gear had been thrashed and scattered by the dragon. She looked down one more time at the body she thought was Ashwan’s, then turned away dry eyed.
She climbed back up to the roadbed and found Bahzell and Walsharno waiting for her.
“No survivors down there, Bloody Hand,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t know who they were, but they never had a chance.”
“Aye,” Bahzell said grimly, “and if we’ve no better luck than they, there’s more than us’ll pay for it. Come, Border Warden.”
The courser turned, moving off once more, and Chernion remounted. Her dark eyes were colder and more pitiless than any ice as she rode away from that place of death, and she never looked back.
* * *
Cold wind fingered Kenhodan’s hair as Bahzell bent over the acid-burned bodies of a dozen Brothers of the Axe. The hradani straightened grimly, something black in his hand, and sunlight flashed as he extended it.
“Dragon scale,” he said flatly.
Kenhodan took it, marveling at its lightness. One side was glossy, shining in the sun, but the other was dull and slick. It was larger than his hand and half an inch thick, yet curiously light.
“They scored a few hits,” he said quietly.
“And you see what it was after bringing them. A few bits of scale and—see here where the axe scored it?” Bahzell touched a thin scar across the burnished side. “That was after being a powerful blow, and precious little damage it did. A dragon’s three or four thicknesses of these,
overlapped like mail, and from the thickness of it, this one’s after being older than most. There’s never an axeman born as’ll get steel through such as that.”
“Then I’ll have to hit the mark,” Kenhodan murmured, dropping the scale. He shivered in the cold and looked around the pass, narrow and gloomy at this point.
“Why didn’t they report back before they got this far?” he wondered.
“I’m thinking as they did. From the looks of things, these lads were come on from behind, not the front. If it happens Wulfra’s pet’s after ranging the pass, I’m thinking as he came up with their messengers first and then trailed them down pass. It’s likely enough we’d’ve been after missing what little a hungry dragon’s like to leave.”
“I suppose so,” Kenhodan agreed. “But there’s barely a platoon here. Where’s the rest of the patrol?”
“Down below,” Bahzell said grimly. “Like as not we’ll be finding them stretched out like these lads, unless they were after having Norfram’s own luck.”
“Then let’s go find them,” Kenhodan said, gazing at the bodies. His nervousness had vanished, replaced by an anger that pulsed with the battle rage he’d assimilated in the Forest of Hev, and he welcomed it.
“Aye, let’s be doing that little thing,” Bahzell murmured, and mounted once more.
* * *
They made another half-mile and passed a score more bodies before the ebon fury struck. Bahzell and Walsharno had little warning; they turned a bend, and the black thunderbolt whistled into their teeth.
Kenhodan was forty yards back, yet he heard the whine of air over leather wings as the monster hurtled at his friends. Forty feet, Bahzell had estimated, but he’d been wrong. This scaled horror was at least sixty feet long, with outstretched forefeet as long as Walsharno and edged with claws thicker than Kenhodan’s thigh.
Plated in black iron, the stench of acid venom rippling before it like some pestilence, it hurled itself at the hradani, so close—so quick—there was no time for Bahzell to use his lance. One of those fearsome forefeet smashed at the two champions, brushing the lance side, shattering it three feet from the hradani’s grip, and its head lashed at them.