Servant of the Dragon

by David Drake

  Krias sneered. "Somehow I doubt that you're quite up to Elfin's cultural standards," he said.

  "Still, he might be getting lonely," Cashel said. He walked into the vast green-lit cavern. As with the place he was leaving, there wasn't anything overhead that looked like a cave's roof. He might have been standing under an open sky.

  The trees on the slopes below quivered gently, like a barley field in an autumn breeze. It didn't look like the trees were all blowing in the same direction, though. Each one shook to a little different rhythm.

  "That's funny," Cashel said. He was about to ask the ring about what he saw. As his mouth opened he heard in his mind the string of insults that'd be all he got from that quarter. Instead, Cashel stepped over to examine the little not-willow. The sapling's trunk was about three-finger's breadth across and as supple as a bamboo fishing pole. The bark was smooth.

  "You'll be sor-ree!" Krias piped.

  The tree's long, whippy limbs wrapped around Cashel. It was like being caught in a net.

  "Call on me!" Krias said. "Call on me, sheep-boy!"

  Cashel let go of his quarterstaff; it wasn't going to help him now. The treelimbs squirmed over him like so many snakes.

  He tried to pull back, not seriously but to test what would happen. Limbs interwove themselves between Cashel and safety, forming a barrier of living wickerwork. He grinned, because that was what he'd expected. The tree didn't meet many wrestlers, he guessed.

  "Are you a lunatic?" Krias shrilled. "Use my name!"

  Cashel hunched down and stepped toward the tree. He gripped it low around the trunk, the same way he'd have gone for the ankles of an opponent who'd fallen for his initial feint.

  No man living had ever broken free once Cashel had got his grip on him. He slowly straightened his flexed knees, letting his leg muscles do the work. As he did so, he leaned back slightly, putting tension on the trunk.

  For some moments the branches pulled at Cashel--hard, hard enough to leave welts where they wrapped his arms and torso. The tree didn't know anything about a fight. Everything it did was just helping its opponent!

  Cashel's teeth were bared and his gasping breaths blew spit from his lower lip, but he could feel the roots start to give. The tree must have known what wa about to happen. Its branches stopped tugging and instead lashed at Cashel like a drover with a stubborn mule.

  Cashel tucked his face into his left armpit to save his eyes, and for the rest--well, whip-cuts weren't going to change anything. Not when he could see the taproot pulling up from the soil, fat and yellow and covered with little broken tendrils twisting like earthworms cut with a shovel.

  The tree made a sound. It wasn't a scream, really; it was more like the rattle of a pot at a roiling boil. The limbs stopped whipping Cashel and the trunk went as limp in his hands as the tongue of a dead sheep.

  Cashel let go of the tree and straightened slowly, breathing in gasps. His head was swimming and he knew he had to be careful not to fall straight down the side of the bluff. "Oh!" he said.

  "And what do you think you proved by that?" Krias said, sounding more puzzled than petulant.

  "I didn't prove anything," Cashel said. "The tree started a fight and I finished one."

  He stretched his arms out carefully and looked himself over. He hadn't pulled any muscles, but he stung all over and he was bleeding in a few places from the tree slashing at him. He hoped there'd be water in the valley below so he could wash off.

  Cashel didn't know what he was going to do for clothing, though. The tree had torn off the right sleeve of his tunic, and he'd split the back all the way down to his belt when he flexed to pull out the root. He wished Ilna was here to mend it.

  Truth to tell, he wished any of his friends were here. Well, he'd be back with them soon enough. First Sharina, then they'd rejoin the others.

  "I could have taken care of the problem a lot easier, you know," Krias said.

  Cashel picked up his staff and twirled it, being careful to keep it clear of the bluff behind him. "I won't always have you around," Cashel said. "Anyway, I'd rather scotch my own snakes."

  He chuckled. "Or trees."

  Cashel leaned over the slope, picking a route. It shouldn't be any worse than the first climb was. He braced his staff a long step down.

  "Sheep-boy?" said the ring.

  "Umm?" said Cashel.

  "You could eat the root of that tree you killed," Krias said. "It's supposed to be tasty, even. If you're the sort of lower life form that needs solid food."

  "Ah," said Cashel. He straightened and drew his belt knife. "Thank you, Master Krias. Those pine nuts were starting to get old."

  Cashel whittled just below the line of the bark. Somewhere back of him, still on the other side of the open door, he heard Elfin singing.

  Vonculo gripped the hilt of his broad-bladed sword in both hands, though the weapon was still sheathed. He was holding it for a lucky charm. His bearded face looked like a beast's in the lamplight.

  "Keep the child out of trouble," Ilna said curtly to Chalcus. She stepped toward the sailing master.

  "We can--" Chalcus said, nodding toward Vonculo and the others.

  "Take her into a crowd of frightened fools?" Ilna snapped. "I think not!"

  Half the crew had pressed toward the bow and their leaders, desperate for information. They squeezed aside for Ilna just as they'd have made way for a viper crawling down the deck.

  There wasn't any information, a point that should've been obvious to anybody with the brains of a pigeon, but this lot seemed to be hoping for a miracle. A miracle seemed the most likely source of salvation to Ilna as well, given that the ships had been caught this way.

  "Well, Mistress Merota," she heard the chanteyman saying, "I'll teach you the woman's part of The Gambling Suitor and we'll sing together."

  "All right, mistress," Vonculo said. "You're a wizard, and if that we heard on shore isn't wizard's work, then it's demons'. We need you to make us safe!"

  He and the men around him were frightened enough to do anything. Ilna kept her empty hands in plain sight, knowing that if she touched her cords she'd be clubbed--or stabbed--by one of the sailors behind her. There wasn't enough light, anyway, for her to bind all those present.

  "I'm not that kind of wizard," Ilna said. "I can weave patterns that have an effect. My art isn't of any good to you."

  "By the Shepherd's tool, mistress!" the sailing master swore. "If you're no help to us, then you've been a waste of the rations you've eaten. You and the girl both!"

  Ilna sniffed. "I can't weave you safety, Master Vonculo," she said. "I'll go ashore and use my senses to find out what's going on, though. The same as any of you could do--"

  She turned and raked her eyes across the men behind her. They flinched as she'd expected they would.

  In the silence, Ilna heard Merota sing, "'Sir, I see you've come again--'" Chalcus met Ilna's eyes over the girl's head. The chanteyman grinned like a hook-bladed knife.

  Ilna turned to Vonculo again. "--if there were men among you!"

  "You mean...?" Vonculo said. He blinked. The answer had gone in a direction he hadn't been expecting, so his stunned mind had to pause before it could interpret the words.

  "I mean that I'll wade ashore and see what really did happen to the men from the other ship," Ilna said contemptuously. "Personally, I don't see anything supernatural about a man screaming. You're ready to do the same yourself the next time a fish jumps."

  "Sure, that's all right," the helmsman said. "We'll have the girl here, so--"

  "No, Tias," said Chalcus in a voice clear enough to carry to the island, "Merota will be accompanying Mistress Ilna and myself as we go view the land."

  "I'm not taking Merota into that!" Ilna said, turning as quick as a squirrel.

  "There's no risk we'll find there, mistress," Chalcus said, his left hand on the child's shoulder, "that's so great as leaving her by herself with folk I wouldn't trust to pour piss out of a boot. Not sparing yourself from
the description, Master Vonculo."

  Chalcus was angry; this Ilna could see despite the chanteyman's grin and pleasant voice. But there was still more to what he was doing than that. There was a streak in the fellow which, if pushed far enough, might lead him to do absolutely anything regardless of consequences. The present situation, the result of the mutineers' stupidity, brutality and fear, had brought Chalcus to that point.

  Ilna didn't recall ever having seen a more dangerous man; except possibly when she glanced into water clear enough to give a reflection.

  "But...," said a sailor hidden in the crowd. "How do we know they'll come back?"

  "Now that's a fine question, Skogara," Chalcus said with a friendly smile. "Do you want to come along and keep watch on our wizard?"

  There was a muffled curse from the sailor but no other response. Chalcus grinned even more broadly and continued, "I thought not; but never fear, we'll be back. What I saw of the island by daylight didn't encourage me to pick it as a place to retire, that I can tell you."

  Ilna's mind slid like a shuttle through choices. Chalcus was right about Merota being better off with the two of them than alone, and Ilna wasn't fool enough to think that she could force the chanteyman to stay aboard with the child. Indeed, they might all three be safer ashore than in the midst of fifty frightened fools.

  "We'll need a float of some sort for Merota and what we carry with us," she said loudly. "I'm not trusting the child to this mud."

  "We'll use Lord Tadai's mattress," Chalcus said with a cheery lilt. "It's feathers in a waxed linen cover. And think how the poor man must be suffering without it, Vonculo."

  "By the Lady's tits!" Vonculo said. "You're a madman, Chalcus. Mad!"

  Ilna agreed completely; but the chanteyman wasn't stupid, not at all. And unless she missed her bet, Chalcus had survived in circumstances when many others had not.

  He turned and slashed twice across the baggage in the belly of the ship, severing the cargo net. The feather bed, on top of other gear as a cover and compressed by the tight-drawn net, sprang up as though volunteering.

  Chalcus had slid the sword from its sheath as part of the same motion as the double cut. It was quite as pretty a movement as those of mountebanks juggling for coppers at the fair.

  He sheathed the weapon. "If you'll get over the side, Ilna dear," Chalcus said at the other sailors watched nervously, "I'll hand this down to you and send the child after it. If you've got anything more to carry, I'll take care of that too."

  Ilna tossed her slight bindle to the chanteyman, then stepped onto an oar and walked herself into the water. "I'm not your dear," she called over her shoulder without particular emphasis.

  "And how would you know, mistress?" Chalcus said. Laughing, he handed her the mattress to lower into the water--it floated like the ducks whose feathers filled it--and then stuck his left arm out like a beam by which Merota lowered herself onto the float. Ilna nodded with approval: if Chalcus had held onto the child, his grip would likely have bruised her.

  The sea water was cold and was sticky with salt. It came waist high to Ilna or a little deeper; nothing dangerous, but wading in it was a thoroughly unpleasant business.

  Ilna grinned tightly. Like so much else about this journey.

  She didn't mind the squelch underfoot, but her bare toes stirred gases out of the ooze. The stench of ancient death was choking, far worse than the margins of Pattern Creek in the borough after the tide slunk back.

  "Oh," Merota gasped as she bobbed on the float. "Oh, what smells so awful, Ilna? Oh, I can't breathe!"

  Chalcus slipped over the side with as little stir as a goose bobbing. "We'll get to shore, child," he said, "and we'll hope that the air's better there... Though I don't promise that, nor anything else good about this island."

  "Your sword will get wet," Ilna said as she started shoreward, tugging the float along with her left hand. The girl's weight made the mattress sag in the middle, letting a stream of water dribble over her knees. Merota winced but didn't complain.

  "Aye," said Chalcus, "and the steel's so good that it'll rust if it hears the splash of a woman's tear... but it's a seaman's blade, Ilna, and I've a swatch of raw fleece in my wallet to wipe the salt off it as soon as we reach land. If I don't have other use for the blade, that is."

  He laughed. To Ilna's surprise, Merota giggled along with him. Chalcus' good humor made even Ilna want to smile, though she restrained herself.

  Though the sea wasn't dangerously deep, it remained at the same awkward depth for step after step. The mud slid around Ilna's toes and didn't give a good grip when she tried to push forward. Water sucked at her garments.

  Ilna chuckled. Well, the mud and water weren't going to prevent her from carrying on with her plan, such as it was; and discomfort was merely a part of life. The greater part of life, she'd found, though others might have another opinion.

  "Mistress?" said Chalcus, responding to her chuckle. He and Ilna towed the float like a yoke of--what? Not oxen, surely. Carriage horses, perhaps; not a nobleman's team, but certainly a healthy, well-kept pair. And by no means ill-matched.

  "I was wondering," Ilna said aloud, "how Lady Liane bos-Benliman views life."

  "A friend of yours, Ilna?" Chalcus said; pressing, but with a tone of mild disinterest that would permit her to ignore the question without creating a problem. Ilna wondered what if anything the chanteyman knew of her, beyond what he'd seen and what he'd seen in her eyes.

  "Liane has always acted as a friend to me," Ilna said carefully. A tag of Celondre's poem ran through her mind as she spoke: Follow a proper goal, for it's doom to wish for what the Gods have placed beyond your grasp. "And I hope I've been a friend to her this past while as well."

  They'd gotten inshore of the other trireme, a glitter of lamplight and curses well off to their right, and the muddy bottom had finally begun to shelve. There was nothing to see on land, though a thin line of foam and debris marked the shore now that they'd gotten this close.

  Chalcus pulled the float in exactly Ilna's rhythm; setting his pace to hers, she was sure, since he was stronger and likely more familiar with the sort of task chance had set them. Ilna noticed that she hadn't been thinking about the stench, the slime and the cold.

  Working with another person was surprisingly easy, if the person had the same habit of fitting tasks into the most efficient pattern. That wasn't very many people, of course.

  "If I can ask question for question," she said aloud, "why were you aboard the Terror, Master Chalcus?"

  He chuckled. "A question I've asked myself often," he said. "The short of it, mistress, is that I'd left my former employment and thought I'd put some distance between myself and the region as well. The Royal Fleet, such as it was, was hiring... and bless me if my first voyage out of the Pool of the Beltis isn't right back to the southern waters I'd left!"

  Chalcus gave a loud, caroling laugh that echoed from the shore ahead. Ilna imagined the nervousness on the triremes as the mutineers heard the sound and mistook its source.

  "That sort of luck makes a fellow wonder if he's been sacrificing to the wrong Gods, doesn't it, mistress?" Chalcus said. "That, or sacrificing the wrong things!"

  "Chalcus?" said Merota. "Do you mean you don't want to meet your former master?"

  "My associates, you mean, child," the chanteyman said with a careful mildness. "And I won't be meeting any of them this side of the grave; though on the other there'll be some looking for me, I have no doubt."

  In a different tone he went on, "I think it's time for you to walk the last cable-length on your own legs, child, though hold Ilna's hand if you please."

  He dropped his corner of the mattress. The water was only ankle deep, but Ilna's feet sank that depth again into the muck.

  Chalcus drew his curved sword; the steel gave a vibrant sigh. "And myself," he said, "I'll go on a little ahead to make sure there's no hole here at the shoreline that you might fall into, hey?"

  "Yes, go ahead," Ilna said. "Ho
ld onto my tunic, Merota. I need both hands for a moment."

  Splashing inshore had dampened the noose she carried in her right sleeve. She ran it between thumb and forefinger, squeezing it dry or dry enough. The white silk would flow like poured milk if she had to cast it.

  Chalcus grinned approval, then started walking directly ahead of them. His feet lifted in and out of the soup with scarcely a splash.

  "Not too far, Chalcus," Merota called.

  "Not far at all, child," Chalcus replied cheerfully, but he didn't turn his head to look at her. The area behind him was for Ilna to deal with.

  The water became shallower, the soil underneath firmer and finally dry. Chalcus' tunic, a blur in the starlight ahead of them, halted.

  "We're coming up behind you, Master Chalcus," Ilna warned.

  "Why did you say that, Ilna?" Merota asked.

  "Because Ilna knows I'm nervous as a cat," the chanteyman said with a grin, "and we'd all be very sorry if I whacked your head off because I mistook a noise, wouldn't we, child?"

  He chucked Merota under the chin, though all the time his eyes were scanning the vegetation which grew to the line of the spring tides. There weren't any tall trees, but shrubs and saplings in profusion interlocked branches.

  "Well, the rest of us'd be sorry," Chalcus added.

  "Shall we strike inland?" Ilna asked. She didn't see an obvious route through the vegetation, but she felt exposed on this muddy beach.

  "Now that we're together again," Chalcus said, "I thought we'd walk down to where the others landed. All right?"

  "Yes, of course," Ilna snapped. "Merota, stay between me and Master Chalcus, if you please."

  Chalcus paused. "The thing is, Merota," he said, "Ilna and I don't know what's going on any better than you do. That comes out different ways, but nothing either of us does or says means we're mad at you. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Chalcus," Merota said. She looked from him to Ilna and went on, "I'm not afraid when I'm with the two of you."

  "Oh, so young and such a liar!" the chanteyman said with a peal of laughter. "But I will say that in the past it's been the wiser choice to be standing with us than to be on the other side."