The Dragon and the Gnarly King

by Gordon R. Dickson

  His horse broke into a trot. The other horses broke into a trot; and Gorp, without needing a signal from Jim, did the same just to keep up with the animals on either side of him. The men holding the bridles were gone.

  The trees thinned, the ways between them opening. The trot became a canter. All of them dressed their shields, and each lifted his lance from its socket, holding it ready to drop into position for use—and the canter became a gallop.

  They burst into a clearing.

  For a few seconds Jim was able to register the scene before him. It was a clearing very much like their own camp, with a stream at the upslope end. Near it were tents in neat rows, with pennants now snapping before each doorway in the morning breeze. A few figures in the garb of men-at-arms, who had been moving around, stopped as if frozen, then turned.

  Shouts went up from the camp. The men outside the tents drew swords and turned to face them, or spun about and ran, open to be ridden down and speared. In a split-second, it seemed, their line was upon the tents themselves. Some of them collapsed. A man erupted from one of them, unarmored but with broadsword in hand, popping up suddenly before Jim and Gorp. Gorp reared in fright and from instinct, striking out with his front hooves.

  The man went down. Jim galloped around the tent, just as someone else rode directly into it, spear foremost. The tent collapsed as Jim went past the end of it. Figures were coming out of the other tents, some with a part of their armor on—a helm, perhaps a shield—some with nothing but a sword, like the first man Jim had seen. Jim's wavering spear-tip missed all of those in his path. Without warning he was out of the clearing, riding into the woods and trying to pull Gorp to a stop.

  The horse took some little distance to halt. He was snorting and wild-eyed, either with excitement or fear. Jim got him turned around finally, and became aware that among the trees surrounding him, other riders were turning their mounts. Chandos was close.

  "A Chandos!" shouted Sir John. Jim and the others closed on him. "To me in the clearing! Form line!"

  They clustered together, forming the line that had been demanded, while going around the trees in their way. There were some collisions with each other and with tree branches, and a good deal of swearing.

  "Silence!" roared Sir John. "A Chandos! A Chandos! To me, here!"

  Their line began to take shape again and extend on either side. Their footmen had run around the clearing through the woods and now began to appear just behind the horses. The line moved out into the open space. The sun was above the horizon now but still invisible behind the trees. Overhead the sky was blue, but the west was full of clouds.

  Chandos had lifted his visor to make his voice carry. Jim had lifted his, automatically, sometime earlier—he did not remember doing it. He saw that most visors were up, the riders' faces sweating and ruddy in the open helms.

  "They form!" said the low voice of the armored rider to his left, one of the young knights. "—Those we fight!"

  It was true. Somehow, in what seemed the few moments they had been reforming their line in the trees, men from the tents had managed to don some, if not all, of their armor, and brought up their warhorses. They were forming a line on the far side of the clearing, beyond the tents.

  Chandos sat his horse, giving them time to form while his party waited in plain sight, ready to ride at his signal.

  The line formed by their opponents was like their own. Heavily armed and armored riders were in the center, with a number of lighter-armored men with light lances on the wings. Footmen were still bringing horses to a few fully armored men yet on the ground; and as they mounted, they found a place in the center of the line.

  "Now!" shouted Chandos, as the last scrambled into their saddles. "Keep the line! At a walk, to the open ground. Go!"

  They moved. They rode at a slant to the left side of the open area, where no tents had been pitched, and their opponents moved in line to match them at the opposite end of the space. It was all very slow and deliberate.

  Jim took off his metal-backed glove to wipe his wet face. He could feel moisture rolling down his neck into the padding under his body armor. Gradually, the movements on either side grew less and less, until both lines were completely still, facing each other across uncluttered ground.

  Chandos rode forward alone some six or eight feet and turned to look from end to end at his line.

  "Keep level!" he called to the waiting horsemen. " 'Ware the slope to the right of the ground, here. Do not crowd left to make up for it!"

  On the other side a thickset armored figure was shouting something to the horsemen of his line. Chandos rode back to his place beside Jim and turned about. The thickset man finished and rode back into his own line.

  For a moment nothing happened, no sound or movement on either side—and in that moment, for the first time, Jim recognized Brian's coat of arms, bright in color on a shield opposite him.

  For a moment his breath stopped in his lungs, for Brian looked to be directly in line with him, next to the thickset knight as Jim was next to Chandos. Then, abruptly, he realized that in fact Brian was at least three figures out of line with him, since the thickset leader was that far out of direct line with Chandos. Air rushed back into Jim, with a vast feeling of relief.

  In the rush and fury of the ride into this camp, he had all but forgotten Brian's possible presence. Now there was no doubt. His closest friend was not a hundred yards away, visor down and lance held ready. But, thank God, they need not encounter with each other. Brian would take out whomever he met, almost certainly. As for Jim, he need only forget about any deliberate use of his spear and crouch behind his shield. Odds were he should survive unhurt.

  But the strange moment of suspense was over.

  Chandos shifted from beside Jim, taking a position several places away and more directly facing the enemy commander. He lifted his arm, then brought it down, pointing toward their opponents; and the other leader did the same.

  "A Chandos! A Chandos!" he shouted; and his horse sprang forward. The line—and Gorp—jumped; after that first abrupt movement breaking quickly into a trot and even more quickly into a canter, a gallop—for the space between the lines was short in which to gain momentum with the heavy warhorses. Jim leveled his lance, crossed his fingers mentally, and found himself hurtling toward the opposite line, which was hurtling toward him—now, both at full gallop.

  He had started out facing a narrow-bodied armored figure holding a spear, the point of which—even when upright—wavered slightly in the air. The figure was several bodies to the right of where Brian rode unwavering, his shield on his arm. But now the lines began to break apart as individual horses and riders made different speeds, and Jim began to find Gorp being crowded left by the horse next to him, away from the slope.

  It took him a moment to realize what was happening. All the horses to his right were trying to move left—away from the slope of which Chandos had warned them.

  There was no point in his reining Gorp right against that multiple push. He might as well relax and drift with the rest of them—

  —and then he realized he was coming, second by second, more in line with Brian's approaching shield—and lance.

  Desperately, he tried to rein Gorp to his right, but he was pinched between the horses that flanked him. Gorp tried to obey, but the weight of not merely the horse to his right but others beyond was too much for him.

  At the same time, however, the lines were drawing together so quickly that Jim now saw, with relief, that it was the man next to Brian, after all, whom he would encounter. That particular warrior had spurred ahead of those around him; and Gorp's attempts to hold his position had caused him to be squeezed out ahead of Jim's line—so that the two men hurtled together almost as if in a personal duel.

  Jim couched his lance, holding it loosely and waiting; then at the last moment gripped it with all his strength.

  They encountered.

  Jim had been in melees before; and in sports he had known the shock of opposi
ng bodies. But this was like being thrown against the stone face of a vertical cliff. He was fleetingly aware that Brian, next to Jim's target, must have recognized his shield and was now lifting his lance, so that it could not strike Jim, even by accident.

  At the moment of impact, Jim felt his lance-point slide sideways. His opponent had carried his shield slanted, to cause Jim's point to strike it at an angle and slide off—a trick Brian had tried to teach Jim. Jim's lance-point flew wide, Gorp's shoulder took the smaller opposing horse in the forward ribs, knocking it off its feet; and Jim's elbow rang against the helm of his opponent as the man fell.

  But the point of Jim's lance, glancing off the tilted shield and with the full weight of Gorp and himself behind it, drove on, in behind the edge of Brian's shield and into Brian's armor and body. Brian clung to his saddle with one hand, but he and Blanchard both went down; and a split-second later, Gorp tripped over the fallen Blanchard. Jim went flying over his head.

  His impact against the ground was even worse than the impact against his opponent. But for some reason it was not as important to him. The only thing in his mind was Brian.

  Lifting his visor, he found himself lying on the ground just beyond Brian; and, looking back, saw the broken stub of his lance literally sticking up out of Brian's upper body. Next to the two of them, both Blanchard and Gorp were struggling to their feet. Out of the corner of his eye Jim saw another armored and mounted figure riding at him, with no spear but with a sword held high, ready to strike.

  Jim's use of magic in that moment was instinctive. Ignoring all the rules of Magick and chivalry that required a magician not to take unfair advantage against a non-magician opponent, he hastily threw a ward around Brian and himself. But the on-coming figure never reached it, his horse swerving away as Blanchard lunged at it.

  Blanchard, the best-trained and most powerful warhorse that Jim had ever seen, was clearly enraged. His instincts were to protect his downed master, and, as the swordsman's momentum carried him past them all, the horse turned his attention to Jim, who was all but standing over Brian.

  Rising on his hind legs as a good warhorse should, the great white stallion attacked the nearest enemy to his fallen rider, with hooves and teeth. Jim, safe behind the ward, nevertheless tried to duck out of the way. Frustrated to find himself unable to make contact with his enemy, Blanchard turned his attention to Gorp, who rose also and responded in reaction. Screaming, the two stallions struck and tore at each other; and Jim, desperate to stop them quickly, reached out with his magic to separate them. He transported Blanchard back to the clearing at which they had camped last night.

  Gorp, abruptly unopposed, looked about in bewilderment. Jim saw another figure on horseback charge toward him, only to be intercepted by someone else—the fight had now become a series of individual combats between mounted men who were being circled by wary men on foot, looking for openings. It seemed to Jim's hasty view only a confused series of swirls, mostly moving away downslope.

  His first thought was that he had killed his friend. Brian was motionless, his eyes closed. Jim knew he had to get his friend away from here—he reached out to the campfire where he had stood near Sir John this morning, and abruptly they were there, the mound of dirt that was the covered fire still warm and smoking slightly. Blanchard, already there, turned to charge at Jim once more; but Jim's ward still protected Brian and himself.

  Beyond Blanchard Jim could see, tethered to a line running through the trees, the spare horses that had been left behind when their line moved out to the attack earlier this morning. That reminded him to reach back to the battlefield for his own warhorse, Gorp.

  Throwing his helmet down, Jim turned his attention now to Brian. But Brian lay still, and did not answer when Jim spoke to him.

  Jim did not know if he had the strength to pull the end of the broken lance from Brian's body—his brain seemed jangled, and he was not even able to remember if the spear had been barbed, or not… He was fairly sure a knight's lance would not be, but—his guts seemed to turn over at the thought of physically pulling it out of Brian's body. Like an echo came Carolinus' voice in the back of his head, reminding him to hoard his magic.

  "The hell with that!" he said. Pulling out the lance fragment by hand, he might do even more damage to Brian than he had already. He set about visualizing a process for magical removal of the lance-point.

  The tension still in him made this, too, difficult, but eventually the image in his mind took solid shape. He saw the lance point and shaft dissolving where it was—everything it might have carried into the wound with it evaporating, disintegrating the smallest source of infection—and finding its shape again outside Brian's body. He saw the bleeding stop and the wound closing. And, as it became clear in his head, so it happened—suddenly the broken piece of blood-stained lance was lying on the ground beside Brian's still body.

  He used the same technique to remove Brian's armor, then cut open his clothing with his dagger. The wound was now a pink line against Brian's chest. It was no longer bleeding, but large amounts of blood had soaked the padding under the armor, and even made a small pool on the ground.

  Jim put his ear to Brian's chest. Brian's heart was beating, slowly but strongly. He was still unconscious, but that could be from shock. Jim had done all the healing that he could with his limited knowledge of magic.

  He remembered when Dafydd had lost so much blood at the time when they had met the pirate called Bloody Boots, on their return to England from France. Carolinus had been able to heal the archer in other respects; but there was nothing even he could do about the loss of blood. But then Jim had found a way to roughly type Dafydd's blood and find a match; so that Carolinus was able to use magic to transfuse some blood into Dafydd after all.

  Jim might be able magically to manage the transfusion, now. But they were far from Malencontri, the only place where the care a badly weakened Brian would need could be found.

  Jim tried to think now, but he found himself exhausted, not so much physically as mentally. Use of magic took a physical toll on the body, and maybe a mental one, for all he knew—he had never before done so much in so intense a state. He tried to force himself to concentrate on what he absolutely had to do next. He could think of nothing. His head whirled.

  He was too worn-out to do anything more. He crouched once more to lay his ear against Brian's chest. It beat the same as before, a reassurance he badly needed.

  Still trying to think of how he might get Brian to safety, he fell asleep, one arm thrown across Brian's chest to wake him if Brian should suddenly move or appear to need help.

  Chapter Twelve

  The distant rolling of drums, thundering at a military beat and approaching, in the dream he was having, got mixed into something about having bought a hot dog from a street vendor and being just about to bite into it.

  It was a hot dog drowned in mustard, a delicious taste he had not experienced for some years now, since he and Angie had come to this world. Gradually the mouth-watering prospect faded away and vanished. The drums turned into a different sort of drumming: a steady hammering ring of rain against the ward Jim had set up to protect Brian and himself. He came all the way to wakefulness.

  The day was almost down to a twilight darkness. Sullen dark clouds, obscured by the rain, covered the sky in every direction; and the rain came without pause.

  If fell on the lowered head of Blanchard, standing just outside the ward, as close as it would let him come to his master. The horse no longer seemed to think of Jim as his rider's enemy. He snorted and shook his head, drops of water flying.

  "Stop raining!" grumbled Jim, half-awake, making a magical command of it.

  He wanted to get back to sleep—and he had not even had one bite of that hot dog. But the rain kept falling; and Jim became alert enough to remember that the weather, like sickness and a few other larger things, did not respond to a magician's command. At least, not his.

  Awake now, he turned to check on Brian. But Bri
an was still and very pale. Jim hastily put his hand up to Brian's lips and felt a movement of breath. He was alive, then; and the lack of blood showing at his lips should mean the lance had not pierced a lung. He felt the skin of Brian's chest.

  Brian's skin was cold.

  He looked up into the rainy sky, but it told him nothing. He could not tell just how long he had been asleep—it had been morning, and the sky cloudy, the last time he had noticed it. Now that he looked at the gray sky overhead, he made a wild guess that behind the cloud cover it was noon or later. But the rain had brought a distinct chill to the air, and he needed to get Brian warm as quickly as possible.

  He looked back at the great white warhorse. Blanchard continued to look at Brian. Faithful unto death—of course, Jim thought. He might have expected it of Blanchard.

  Jim broke the ward and got up, finding his joints rather creaky. The clearing was empty, silent. Even the wind had stopped blowing. The rain was lessening, but everything was wet. He thought of taking Brian over to the hut, where it would be dry enough to build a fire. And perhaps he could find, in the belongings on the sumpter-horse, some of his own dry clothing to cover and warm Brian.

  Something had to be done. They could not stay here indefinitely. Brian badly needed the best care that could be given him. That could only be Malencontri, with its servants, and particularly with Angie.

  But they were more than half of England away from Malencontri. Even if the distance had been only a few miles, rather than several hundred, there was no non-magical way to get Brian there in less than ten days or more of carrying him slowly and carefully, possibly slung between two horses—that is, if he would survive the trip.

  The only alternative was to use his magic again. This supply that Carolinus, only a short time back, had emphatically warned him to hoard, was being squandered right and left. Moving himself, Brian, and the horses back to proper care would be a prodigal use of it. But he could not let Brian stay here and die.