by Robin Hobb
Nighteyes and I leaped after him. We were agonizingly close behind him. I ran fast, but the wolf ran faster, and Will fled the fastest of all. At the moment when his reaching fingertips brushed the pillar, the wolf made a final spring. His front paws slammed into Will’s back, sending him head first toward the pillar. As I saw him melting into it, I cried out a warning to Nighteyes and gripped his fur to drag him back. He seized one of Will’s calves as Will was snatched away from us. At the moment that his jaws closed on Will’s flesh, the dragon’s shadow swept over us. I lost my grip on the world and fell into blackness.
Tales abound of heroes who have wrestled dark foes in the underworld. There are a few told of those who have willingly entered the dark unknown to rescue friends or lovers. In a timeless moment, I was offered quite clearly a choice. I could seize Will and choke the life out of him. Or clasp Nighteyes to me and hold him together against all the forces that tore at his wolf’s mind and being. It was, really, no decision at all.
We emerged into cool shade and trampled grass. One moment there was only darkness and passage; in the next we breathed, and felt again. And feared. I scrabbled to my feet, amazed to find I still gripped Verity’s sword. Nighteyes heaved himself up, staggered two steps and fell over. Sick. Poisoned. The whole world sways.
Lie still and breathe. I stood before him and lifted my eyes to glare around us. My gaze was returned, not only by Will but by most of Regal’s new coterie. Most of them were still breathing hard, and one gave a shout of alarm at the sight of us. When Will shouted, a number of Farrow guards came running as well. They fanned out to surround us.
We must go back through the pillar. It’s our only chance.
I cannot. You go. Nighteyes’ head drooped toward his paws and his eyes closed.
That is not pack! I told him sternly. I lifted Verity’s sword. So this was how I was going to die. I was glad the Fool had not told me. I probably would have killed myself first.
‘Just kill him,’ Will ordered them. ‘We’ve wasted enough time on him. Kill him and the wolf. And then find me an archer who can shoot a man off a dragon’s back for me.’ Regal turned Will’s back to me and strode away, still issuing orders. ‘You, Third Coterie. You told me a finished dragon could not be wakened and made to serve. Well, I have just seen an unSkilled Fool do that very thing. You will find out how it was done. You will begin now. Let the Bastard test his Skill against swords.’
I lifted my sword and Nighteyes pulled himself to his feet. His queasiness lapped against my fear as the circle of soldiers closed around us. Well, if I must die now, there was no more to fear. Perhaps I would try my Skill against their swords. I discarded my walls, flinging them aside disdainfully. The Skill was a river that raged all around me, a river that in this place was always in flood. As easily as drawing a breath it was to fill myself with it. A second breath banished my body’s weariness and pains. I reached out with strength to my wolf. Beside me, Nighteyes gave himself a shake. The rising of his hackles and the baring of his teeth made him twice as large. My eyes circled the swords that surrounded us. Then we no longer waited, but sprang to meet them. As swords lifted to meet mine, Nighteyes raced forward and under them, then spun to slash a man’s leg from behind.
Nighteyes became a creature of speed, teeth and fur. He did not try to bite and hold. Instead he used his weight to knock men off balance, sending them stumbling into one another, hamstringing them when he could, slashing with his teeth rather than biting. For me the challenge became not to strike at him as he dashed thither and yon. He never tried to challenge their swords. The moment a man turned to him and advanced, he fled, to shoulder past the legs of those who sought to confront me.
As for me I wielded Verity’s sword with a grace and a skill I had never before known with such a weapon. Hod’s lessons and Hod’s work finally came together for me, and if such a thing were possible, I would say that the spirit of the swordmaster was in the weapon and that she sang to me as I wielded it. I could not break out of the circle they pinned me in, but neither could they get past my guard to do more than minor damage.
In that first flurry of battle, we fought well and did well, but the odds were impossible. I could force men back from my sword and step toward them, but in the next moment I must turn to fight those who had closed behind me. I could move the circle of battle, but not escape it. Still, I blessed the greater reach of Verity’s sword that kept me alive. Other men were coming at a run to the din and shouts of fighting. Those who came drove a wedge between Nighteyes and me, forcing him ever further away.
Get clear of them all and run. Run. Live, my brother.
For answer he raced away from them all, then suddenly came looping back, charging right through their midst. Regal’s men hacked at each other in a futile effort to stop him. They were not used to an opponent less than half the height of a man and with twice the speed of one. Most aimed chopping blows at him that did no more than cleave the earth in his wake. In an instant, he was past them and had vanished once more into the lush forest. Men glared about wildly, wondering where next he would come from.
But even at the hottest of the fight, I knew the hopelessness of what we did. Regal would win. Even were I to kill every man here, Will included, Regal would win. Had already won for that matter. And had I not known he always would? Had not I known, from the very beginning, that Regal was destined to rule?
I took a sudden step forward, took off a man’s arm at the elbow, and used the momentum of that blow to call the sword’s blade back in an arc that took the tip across the face of another man. As the two fell, tangling together, there was a tiny opening in the circle. I took a step into the brief space, focused my Skill and seized Will’s insidious grip upon my mind. I felt a blade lick against my left shoulder as I did so. I spun to engage my attacker’s sword, then bade my body think for itself for a moment and made good my grip on Will. Wound through Will’s consciousness I found Regal, twisted into him like a drill-worm in a deer’s heart. Will could not have broken free of him even if he had been able to think of doing it. And it seemed to me that there was not enough left of Will to even form a thought for himself. Will was a body, a vessel of meat and blood, holding Skill for Regal to wield. Bereft of the coterie that had strengthened him, he was not all that formidable a weapon any more. Less valuable. One that might be used and cast aside with little remorse.
I could not fight in both directions at once. I kept my grip on Will’s mind, forced his thoughts away from mine, and strove to direct my body as well. In the next instant, I took two cuts, one to my left calf and one to my right forearm. I knew I could not sustain it. I could not see Nighteyes. He at least had a chance. Get clear of this, Nighteyes. It’s all over.
It but begins! he contradicted me. He surged through me like a flash of heat. From some other part of the camp, I heard a cry in Will’s voice. Somewhere, a Wit-wolf ravaged his body. I could sense Regal trying to unwind his mind from Will’s. I clamped my hold tighter on them both. Stay and face it, Regal!
The point of a sword found my hip. I jerked away from it and stumbled against stone, leaving a bloody handprint as I pushed myself upright again. It was Realder’s dragon; I had dragged the battle that far. I put my back to him thankfully and turned to face my attackers. Nighteyes and Will still fought; plainly Regal had learned something from his tortures of Witted ones. He was not as vulnerable to the wolf as he once would have been. He could not hurt the wolf with Skill, but he could wrap him with layer upon layer of fear. Nighteyes’ heart was suddenly thundering in my ears. I opened myself once more to the Skill, filled myself and did what I had never attempted before. I fed Skill-strength as Wit to Nighteyes. For you, my brother. I felt Nighteyes repel at Will, breaking free of him for an instant. Will used that instant to flee us both. I longed to give chase, but behind me, I felt an answering stir of the Wit in Realder’s dragon. In a brief stench, my bloody handprint on his hide smoked away. He stirred. He was awakening. And he was hungry.
The
re was a sudden crackling of branches and a storm of torn leaves as a great wind broke into the still heart of the forest. Girl on a Dragon landed abruptly in the small cleared space by the pillar. Her lashing tail cleared the area around her of men. ‘Over there!’ the Fool shouted to her, and in a moment her head snaked out, to seize one of my attackers in her fearsome jaws. He vanished in a puff of smoke, and I felt her Skill swell with the life she had consumed.
Behind me, a wedge-shaped reptilian head lifted suddenly. For a moment all was blackness as that shadow passed over me. Then the head darted out, swifter than a striking snake, to seize the man nearest us. He vanished, the steam of what he had been stinking briefly past me. The roar the dragon gave near deafened me.
My brother?
I live, Nighteyes.
As do I, brother.
AS DO I, BROTHER. AND I HUNGER!
The Wit-voice of a very large carnivore. Old Blood indeed. The strength of it shivered through my bones. Nighteyes had the wit to reply.
Feed, then, large brother. Make our kill yours, and welcome. That is pack.
Realder’s dragon did not have to be invited twice. Whoever Realder had been, he had put a healthy appetite into his dragon. Great clawed feet tore clear of the moss and earth, a tail lashed free, felling a small tree as it passed. I was barely able to scramble out of his path as he lunged to engulf another Farrowman in his jaws.
Blood and the Wit! That is what it takes. Blood and the Wit. We can wake the dragons.
Blood and the Wit? At the moment, we are drenched in both. He understood me instantly.
In the midst of slaughter, Nighteyes and I played an insane child’s game. It was almost a contest to see who could wake the most, a contest the wolf easily won. He would dart to a dragon, shake blood from his coat onto it, then bid it, Wake, brother, and feed. We have brought you meat. And as each great body smoked with wolf-blood and then stirred, he would remind it, We are pack!
I found King Wisdom. His was the antlered dragon, and he roused from his sleep shouting Buck! For Buckkeep! Eda and El, but I am hungry!
There are Red Ships aplenty off the coast of Buck, my lord. They but await your jaws, I told him. For all his words, there was little human left about him. Stone and souls had merged, to become dragons in truth. We understood one another as carnivores do. They had hunted as a pack before, and that they recalled well. Most of the other dragons had nothing at all human about them. They had been shaped by Elderlings, not men, and we understood little more of one another than that we were brothers and had brought them meat. Those who had been formed by coteries had dim recollections of Buck and Farseer kings. It was not those memories that bound them to me, but my promise of food. I counted it as the greatest blessing that I could imprint that much on those strange minds.
There came a time when I could find no more dragons in the underbrush. Behind me, where Regal’s soldiers had camped, I heard the cries of hunted men and the roaring of dragons as they competed for, not meat, but life. Trees gave way before their charges and their lashing tails sliced brush as a scythe cuts grain stalks. I had paused to breathe, one hand braced on my knee, the other still gripping Verity’s sword. Breath came harsh and dry to me. Pain was beginning to break through the Skill I had imposed on my body. Blood was dripping from my fingers. Lacking a dragon to give it to, I wiped my hand down my jerkin.
‘Fitz?’
I turned as the Fool ran up to me. He caught me in his arms, hugged me hard.
‘You still live! Thank all gods everywhere. She flies like the wind itself, and she knew where to find you. Somehow she felt this battle, from all that distance.’ He paused for breath, and added, ‘Her hunger is insatiable. Fitz, you must come with me, now. They are running out of prey. You must mount her with me, and lead them to where they can feed, or I do not know what they will do.’
Nighteyes joined us. This is a large and hungry pack. It will take much game to fill them.
Shall we go with them, to their hunting?
Nighteyes hesitated. On the back of one? Through the air?
That is how they hunt.
That is not this wolf’s way. But if you must leave me, I will understand.
I do not leave you, my brother. I do not leave you.
I think the Fool sensed something of what passed between us, for he was already shaking his head before I spoke. ‘You must lead them. On Girl on a Dragon. Take them back to Buck and Verity. They will hearken to you, for you are pack with us. It is something they understand.’
‘Fitz, I cannot. I was not made for this, this slaughter! This taking of life is not why I came. I have never seen this, not in any dream, nor read of it in any scroll. I fear I may lead time awry.’
‘No. This is right. I feel it. I am the Catalyst, and I came to change all things. Prophets become warriors, dragons hunt as wolves.’ I hardly knew my own voice as I spoke. I had no idea where such words came from. I met the Fool’s unbelieving eyes. ‘It is as it must be. Go.’
‘Fitz, I …’
Girl on a Dragon came lumbering toward us. On the ground, her airy grace deserted her. Instead she walked with power, as a hulking bear or a great horned bull does. The green of her scales shone like dark emeralds in sunlight. The girl on her back was a breathtaking beauty, for all her empty expression. The dragon head lifted and she opened her mouth and darted her tongue out to taste the air. More?
‘Hurry,’ I bid him.
He embraced me almost convulsively, and shocked me when he kissed my mouth. He spun and ran toward Girl on a Dragon. The girl part of her leaned down, to offer him a hand as she drew him up to sit behind her. The expression on her face never changed. Just another part of the dragon.
‘To me!’ he cried to the dragons that were already gathering around us. The last look he gave me was a mocking smile.
Follow the Scentless One! Nighteyes commanded them before I could think. He is a mighty hunter and will lead you to much meat. Hearken to him, for he is pack with us.
Girl on a Dragon leaped up, her wings opened, and with powerful beats they carried her steadily upwards. The Fool clung behind her. He lifted a hand in farewell, then quickly put it back to clutch at her waist. It was my last sight of him. The others followed, giving cry in a way that reminded me of hounds on a trail, save they sounded more like the shrilling of raptor birds. Even the winged boar rose, ungainly as was his leap into the air. The beating of their wings was such that I covered my ears and Nighteyes shrank belly-down to the earth beside me. Trees swayed in that great passage of dragons, and dropped branches both dead and green. For a time the sky was filled with jewelled creatures, green and red and blue and yellow. Whenever the shadow of one passed over me, I knew a blackness, but my eyes were opened and watching as Realder’s dragon lifted, last of them all, to follow that great pack into the sky. In a short time, the canopy of the trees hid them from my view. Gradually their cries faded.
‘Your dragons are coming, Verity,’ I told the man I had once known. ‘The Elderlings have risen to Buck’s defence. Just as you said they would.’
FORTY
Regal
The Catalyst comes to change all things.
In the wake of the dragons’ departure, there was a great silence, broken only by the whispers of leaves as a few sifted down to the forest floor. Not a frog croaked, not a bird sang. The dragons had broken the roof of the forest in their departure. Great shafts of sunlight shone down on soil that had been shaded since before I was born. Trees had been uprooted or snapped off and great troughs had been gouged in the forest floor by the passage of their immense bodies. Scaly shoulders had gashed the bark from ancient trees, baring the secret white cambium beneath. The slashed earth and trees and trampled grasses gave up their rich odours to the warm afternoon. I stood in the midst of the destruction, Nighteyes at my side, and looked about slowly. Then we went to look for water.
Our passage took us through the camp. It was an odd battle scene. There were scattered weapons and occasional
helms, trampled tents and scattered gear, but little more than that. The only bodies that remained were those of soldiers that Nighteyes and I had killed. The dragons had no interest in dead meat; they fed on the life that fled such tissue.
I found the stream I had recalled and threw myself flat by it to drink as if my thirst had no bottom. Nighteyes lapped beside me, then flung himself to the cool grass by the stream. He began a slow, careful licking of a slash on his forepaw. It had parted his hide, and he pressed his tongue into that gap, cleaning it carefully. It would heal as a fusing of dark hairless skin. Just another scar, he dismissed my thought. What shall we do now?
I was carefully peeling my shirt off. Drying blood made it cling to my injuries. I set my teeth and jerked it loose. I leaned over the stream, to splash cold water up onto the sword cuts I had taken. Just a few more scars, I told myself glumly. And what shall we do now? Sleep.
The only thing that would sound better than that would be eating.
‘I’ve no stomach to kill anything else right now,’ I told him.
That’s the trouble with killing humans. All that work, and nothing to eat for it.
I heaved myself wearily to my feet. ‘Let’s go look through their tents. I need something to use for bandaging. And they must have some food stores.’
I left my old shirt where it had fallen. I’d find another. Right now, even its weight seemed too much to bother carrying. I probably would have dropped Verity’s sword, except that I had already sheathed it. Drawing it again would have been too much trouble. I was suddenly that tired.