An Armory of Swords

by Fred Saberhagen

  Trav didn’t know.

  “Please, Trav, listen to my words,” Wyatt pleaded. His eyes, something inhuman about them, glowed a dull ocher that reminded Trav uncomfortably of his dragons. Trav looked at the tight knot of villagers gathered around Kennick and Juliana and wanted to join them, if only to shout denunciations.

  Wyatt whispered to him, pleading. “Believe me. I might tell stories for a few pennies, but there is truth in much of what I say.”

  “What? That a dragon bit off your leg?” In other times, Trav might have been interested. Now he wanted only to get to his special cave and tend his reptilian wards.

  “More. I lost the leg just as you did your toes.”

  “I told you, that was frostbite,” Trav said in a flat voice.

  Wyatt ignored the response. “I swung Dragonslicer. I used the true Sword to kill my dragon.” He sniffed hard and wiggled his scaly nose as if scenting the air. “The Sword is magical.”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Trav said, distracted.

  “I still have it,” Wyatt said unexpectedly. Trav stared at him. Wyatt rushed on: “I was entrusted with the true Blade. The one Kennick calls Dragonslicer is a piece of trash. It looks no more like the real thing than I resemble Kennick.” Wyatt spat out the words contemptuously.

  “I must go.” Trav’s head was buzzing with wild stories. He had things to do and didn’t want Wyatt around.

  “They kill!” Wyatt shouted after him. “They are creatures of evil! I spent my life killing them, but they killed me. Look at me. Look!”

  Trav gazed back over his shoulder. “I see an old fool, fit for nothing but to muck stables and clean privies. And now no one wants your yarns!” Trav’s anger was directed inward as much as it was toward Wyatt. He was being forced to admit to himself that raising the dragons had been wrong.

  The old man hobbled on after him, still speaking in low tones no one else could hear. “Trav, Trav, I killed dragons with Dragonslicer. That is no yarn. But the burden was too great.” Trav, fascinated despite himself, could not tear himself away, as Wyatt pursued him. The old man sobbed: “In pride, in madness, I even thought to have a dragon for a pet. But the beasts cannot be controlled. I became like them. I killed dragons until I was no longer able, then I put aside the Sword.”

  “Enough!” Trav clenched his eyes shut, refusing to listen, refusing to think. “You are old, ancient. You have no business following me.” He opened his eyes into a silence.

  Wyatt was standing with his head cocked on one side. Bright eyes looked out of his hideous face. “You go to the cave? They’re not there now. Both are out killing.”

  Trav felt a hand of ice clutch at his heart.

  Wyatt went on: “They range farther now, out to slay humans. I have watched them growing this past week. Quick, very quick. Out on the road this mom, the bigger one killed a riding-beast—and its rider.”

  “None will believe you.”

  “Why do you nurture them? Why do you loose them on the country? Can’t you see their evil? Feel it?” Wyatt straightened, surprising Trav with his height. The two were on a par in both height and girth. For the first time, Trav feared the old man.

  “Whatever your reason, you are the one who must undo the evil you have created. The Sword—” Wyatt coughed and pointed, with a finger gnarled as an old tree root. “It is hidden—” He broke off, coughing so hard he couldn’t stop.

  Turning his back on the momentarily helpless man, Trav hobbled away as fast as he could. Wyatt might destroy all he had worked for. Piddling and Yilg weren’t killers. Not in the way Wyatt claimed. He, Trav, had raised them, and they were gentled to humans. That wouldn’t stop the pair from intimidating anyone who lacked a backbone. Kennick would never stand and fight a pair of dragons, even ones hardly larger than a dog.

  Instead of visiting the cave, Trav wandered for hours through the spring woodlands, thinking hard. Kennick might hear Wyatt’s accusation of Trav raising dragons. No matter that Piddling and Yilg were still small. It was time for him to expose Kennick as the coward he must be.

  Returning to Slake, Trav’s resolve hardened when Kennick rode into the village on a fine new riding-beast and a tooled saddle chased with silver. Kennick jumped to the ground and embraced Juliana.

  As Trav hobbled up, he heard the paladin say, “Juliana, my love! I am glad you are safe! There is a dragon marauding along the roadway. I feared for you.”

  “With you here, there can be no danger,” Juliana said, adoration glowing in her eyes. She clung tightly to him.

  Trav wanted to spit. Instead he hurried forward and said loudly, “I’ve seen the dragon. I know where it lairs.”

  “What? What’s that you say?” Kennick spun, his face suddenly pale. He touched Dragonslicer’s hilt, fingers drumming nervously. The fear in the champion’s face was all Trav might have hoped for, but Juliana still did not see it.

  “Less than a day’s walk from here,” said Trav.

  “You do not joke?” Kennick tried to recover his composure. To Trav’s critical eye, he failed. Trav dared not let the paladin escape now that he had set the hook. One look at a real dragon and only Kennick’s dust would be seen in Slake.

  “You must face the dragon, or Juliana will be in jeopardy. You spoke of depredation.”

  “But it was far from here. That way. The reports—” Kennick swallowed hard, and Trav reveled even more in the man’s discomfort. Revenge was sweet.

  “Only Dragonslicer can slay this dragon.” Trav’s voice prodded the reluctant hero. “I can show you the cave they—it—lives in.”

  “No, Kennick, don’t go!” cried Juliana, true fear in her voice for the man she thought she loved.

  “He must!” Trav prompted, as innocently as he could. “Otherwise, who can tell what the dragon might do to Slake?”

  Kennick moved his lips as if his mouth were dry. But the man managed to summon up some courage. “Then come with me, youngling. Show me this dragon, and I’ll slay it.” He turned to Juliana. “I dedicate this creature’s death to you, my love.”

  They kissed, and Trav for a moment was tempted to snatch Dragonslicer from Kennick’s sheath and end the farce.

  Moments later, Kennick had grabbed Trav’s arm and was hoisting the youth behind him in the high-backed saddle. They charged off, Trav doing his best to hang on while he gave directions. He had to admit riding was superior to hobbling along on his mutilated feet.

  In less than an hour, Trav and Kennick were dismounting in front of the dragons’ cave.

  Kennick Strongarm stared at the cave entrance but made no move to approach it more closely. In a low voice he said, “It hasn’t the look of a dragon’s lair about it. I know. I’ve seen dozens.” The man struggled to keep the quaver from his voice. He fingered Dragonslicer again, then drew the sword and advanced on the cave. Kennick stopped outside and called, “Come meet your death, vile beast!”

  “You’ll have to go in after the dragon,” Trav said, enjoying the paladin’s fright. “I’m not sure a dragon understands our language.”

  “They are clever monsters,” Kennick said, but he didn’t argue. He edged forward, hand trembling on the sword’s handle. Kennick looked back at Trav, a glare of hate and desperation, then plunged into the low cave. Trav saw fat blue sparks explode from the steel blade as Kennick swung wildly at nothing, striking rock.

  Then there was only silence.

  Trav frowned. Yilg ought to be growling and Piddling snorting fire—or Kennick screaming in abject fright. There was nothing. Trav shuffled toward the cave mouth and peered inside. It took a few seconds for him to understand what he saw.

  Kennick stood over a dragon’s skeleton, but plainly the champion had not killed the creature. The flesh had been stripped from these bones some time ago. Looking closer, Trav saw that one of the creatures he’d raised—perhaps Yilg?—had been eaten. The gnaw marks on the gleaming white bones were unmistakable.

  “What did this?” Trav asked, confused.

  Kennick’
s voice was hoarse, but had regained some strength. “It matters little. The dragon is dead. Once more I have triumphed!”

  “You’ve done nothing!” cried Trav, outraged that Kennick would take credit for an accident. “You can’t claim any honor in finding a dead dragon.” He tried, physically, to stop Kennick from taking the skull as proof of death, but failed. The man was too strong for him.

  “Walk back, youngling,” Kennick ordered with satisfaction, hurrying from the cave and mounting his riding-beast. He never looked back as he held his trophy in his lap. Trav grumbled and started walking home as fast as his feet would take him. Anger burned away pain. He returned to Slake almost as quickly as if he had possessed a full set of toes.

  But he did not return to the celebration he thought sure to be in progress. The village was deserted. Even during the withering fever, some people had been outside, wandering the muddy trails between the pitiful dwellings. Not now.

  Frowning, Trav made his way to his home and stopped at a little distance. The roof had been burned off, leaving only a charred shell.

  “Father!” he called. “Juliana! Where are you? What’s happened?” Trav rushed to the door and peered into the charred husk of building. He blinked in surprise when he saw Kennick huddled in the far comer, arms curled around his knees and mewling pitifully. Taking a single step, Trav stopped and then vomited.

  His father’s body, burned and dismembered, had been partially eaten by monstrous jaws.

  “It was a dragon, a big dragon,” moaned Kennick, his voice unrecognizable. “When they eat human flesh they grow huge quickly.”

  “Where is Juliana?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  Trav spun when he heard feet pounding behind him. His relief was boundless when he saw Juliana. Her dark hair was disarranged, and she was flushed, but unharmed. It was up to him to tell her of their father’s death.

  “Juliana, wait,” Trav said, trying to keep her out of their house.

  “I know he’s dead, Trav, I know. I saw it and I ran and hid. The dragon! It’s half the size of this house, and it’s coming back.” Juliana pushed Trav out of the way and dropped to her knees in front of Kennick.

  She grabbed him and shook him hard. “Kennick, you’ve got to fight the dragon. It’s vicious! Terrible! And it’s coming back!”

  “No, no!” Kennick threw the sword from himself.

  “Kennick, you must. You’re our only hope. The dragon feeds constantly on us. It... it’s out there!”

  Trav looked from Juliana to Kennick to the monstrous dragon lumbering outside, heading toward them. It shocked him to see, by the pattern of facial markings, that the marauding dragon was Piddling, the once-puny hatchling.

  Giving a last frantic look at his father’s half-eaten body, Trav scooped up Kennick’s fallen sword and ran outside, screaming. He swung Dragonslicer as hard as he could, counting on Vulcan’s magic to pierce the thick brown scales on Piddling’s chest.

  The blade glanced off, not even scratching the outer surface. The recoil staggered him and for a moment he stared up into the dragon’s yellow eyes. Trav wasn’t sure what he read there. Not anger. Not malevolence. It was more like surprise or even delight.

  Piddling roared and let out a long belch of flame that surged above Trav’s head. He ducked low and swung. Again the blade bounced off the dragon’s hide. This time Piddling spun with startling speed and caught the blade between imposing jaws. The dragon’s neck muscles tensed, and the sword shattered like glass.

  Trav stared at the sundered blade shining on the ground, then backed off from the dragon. He stopped and stood his ground.

  “Piddling, here,” Trav said, reaching into his pocket, pulling out a crushed pig-bug, and holding it in a surprisingly steady hand. The dragon bent, and its darting black tongue flicked across Trav’s palm. The pig-bug vanished.

  Trav didn’t know what to feel. In the shock of his father’s death, all he could think of at the moment was that Piddling had probably killed Yilg, Grendl, and Drowsy, cannibalizing its own kind to grow this large.

  “Trav, get back,” called Juliana.

  “No, wait, I—” Trav screamed when Piddling moved with dazzling quickness and caught Juliana in heavy jaws. The girl screamed once before being broken in half.

  Trav’s mind snapped. Dragonslicer had failed against Piddling; he beat at the dragon’s haunches with his bare hands. Somehow, this attack made Piddling stop his feasting and turn his head with its bloody jaws, staring at him with wide, questioning yellow eyes. Then Piddling snorted flame and walked away slowly until he vanished into the gathering twilight.

  Trav sobbed. He wanted to kill himself. He couldn’t bear to look at the thing that had been Juliana. He was responsible—and all because of Kennick.

  “Kennick!” he cried. Suddenly he had a target for his towering wrath. He hobbled to his burned-out house and looked around wildly, trying to find the object of his hatred.

  “He’s gone. Saw him running away toward Westering. Might be there by now, the way he was running.”

  “What?” Trav whipped around, fists balled and ready to fight, to confront Wyatt’s hunched figure.

  “That wasn’t Dragonslicer. I carried the true Sword and know. He lied about everything.” Wyatt spat a gray-green gob that hissed on the ground. He grimaced, displaying blackened, broken teeth, then coughed. The rattle sounded deep in his chest.

  “Go away. Let me be.” Trav wanted to strike out, and now there was nothing to hit.

  “Kennick was a fool and liar, a blowhard who never saw Dragonslicer. That’s not even a good copy. A jeweled blade—bah! Too long, not sharp enough—and lacking in any god-forged magic. And those gems. Fake. Fake, just like Kennick.”

  “You are as big a liar. You never held Dragonslicer.”

  “Take this,” Wyatt said, shoving into Trav’s hands a long package wrapped in old, cracked oilcloth.

  Before Trav could reply, he heard Kennick’s loud shout. “That’s him. He’s the one. He’s a demon! He commanded the dragon to do his bidding!” Kennick, advancing, stumbled at the head of a dozen people, most from Slake but a few Trav had never seen before.

  Trav jerked around to face Wyatt. “You? You’re a demon?”

  Wyatt coughed and spat. “Would a demon take such a sorry form? No, my young fool, he means you. He’s damning you. You might not be a demon, but you’re responsible.” Wyatt sank down, amid a loud crackling of joints. He shivered, though the air was warm, and stared at Trav.

  “You’d best run, my boy. They want someone to blame—and you know you are responsible. You know it—and so do I.”

  “I didn’t mean for all this to happen.” But Trav darted away as fast as his feet would take him, clutching the package Wyatt had forced upon him. The stumps of his toes, never well healed, turned bloody with his relentless flight, but he never stopped or looked behind him. If there was any pursuit, it fell behind. Slake was a world carried to the far side of the moon and beyond. His life was gone, his family, his friends, everything gone. He ran without knowing where his feet took him until he fell to the ground, exhausted.

  It might have been the next morning or the next or even the next when he opened the package and realized where his destiny lay. The instant Trav touched the sword, he knew that Wyatt had told the truth.

  On this plain, black hilt in bold relief there reared a small, white dragon, and the keen steel blade gleamed even in the pre-dawn darkness, catching the smallest ray of starlight and magnifying it until the weapon shone brightly. Even real jewels would have been superfluous. Trav, though no magician, could feel the latent power as he swung the Sword and listened to the shrill whine, a beautiful keening that tore at his senses and made him want to cry with pain. But he did not stop swinging the blade. Power flowed through him and grew until he knew he could stand against any beast, dragon or demon.

  “Revenge,” Trav said, then fell silent. He shook his head and amended this. “Justice. It will be nothin
g more than justice.”

  He whipped the blade, now feeling feather light, in a broad arc and created a new shrilling, a higher pitched wail that rose in frequency until he no longer heard it. But in the distance came a trumpeting reply he knew well.

  “Piddling,” he whispered. Trav continued to whirl Dragonslicer about, the shrilling an allurement for his monster. When his arms began to tire, a deep rumbling approached and Trav saw his one-time pet.

  Piddling stood half again as large as in the village, the diet of human flesh augmenting both bulk and height. The dragon moved with a litheness that astounded Trav.

  Juliana. Their father.

  “Come here. Piddling, come to me,” Trav urged. He swung Dragonslicer about his head and moved forward, his legs rubbery and feet bloody from the hard journey.

  The dragon’s head bobbed about, its long black tongue snaking forth as it sampled the air. Tiny sparks ignited in its nostrils and flames leaped out, only to die a few meters short of Trav. He paid no heed to the dragon’s warning and surged forward, Dragonslicer moving with magic-driven power.

  The blade touched Piddling’s chest scales and did not bounce off. The Sword cut deeply into the dragon’s body. Trav shoved as hard as he could, Dragonslicer gouging out a deep chunk of flesh. Piddling snorted, more in surprise than pain, and lowered his head, as if to butt Trav playfully.

  The youth gripped the Sword of Heroes with both hands and drew the keening blade through a long swift arc that did not stop till it was more than halfway through the dragon’s neck, devastating flesh and bone. Piddling twisted and tried to escape, then dropped to the ground, mortally wounded. The huge beast twitched and kicked, and the fires of its nostrils faded to dull-burning embers.

  “Got you,” Trav panted. “Damn you. You killed my father and sister and—”

  Trav’s voice trailed off. An eyelid twitched and opened; one large yellow eye fixed on him. Piddling tried to reach out a taloned forelimb—as if, Trav thought, to ask a question. But the move did not get far before the dragon died.