by Wayland Drew
“Valerian!” Galen whispered, numb with fear.
But Horsrick said no name. He said nothing. He gaped; he started back as if the tile had struck him; he glanced fearfully at Casiodorus and the royal party, and then wildly at the assembled Urlanders. “The name!” they demanded. “The name!” But still he did not speak, and for a ludicrous moment the chamberlain, who for that instant became simply a silly, cringing old man, actually tried to conceal the tile as if he had not drawn it, as if it were not gripped in his sweaty palm. “The name,” the crowd screamed, in a bestial roar, a single, mindless animal, “The NAME!”
“The name of the Chosen,” Horsrick stared wide-eyed at Casiodorus and spoke so softly that he could scarcely be heard, “is Elspeth, Filia Regis . . .”
From his place in the loft, Galen did not hear the name, but he knew that something extraordinary had happened. The crowd was utterly stilled; Tyrian’s men clutched their weapons in defensive, frozen positions, and for moments the only sound was the stamping of Tyrian’s horse on the cobbles and the high, keening laughter of a distant bird.
Then Casiodorus was on his feet. “No! Impossible!”
“It is not impossible, my Lord,” said a pale and shaken Horsrick. “It is the very name. See for yourself.”
“There is some mistake!”
“There is no mistake, my Lord.” And he dropped the tile into Casiodorus’s outstretched hand.
Again the crowd held its breath, and in the instant they saw from Casiodorus’s face that what Horsrick had said was true; Elspeth was indeed the Chosen. “No!” he shouted, no longer the king but only a father. “No!”
But the crowd responded in a vast fateful breath of relief and anticipation. “Yes!”
“You have misread it, Horsrick! Look, this is a mere scrawl. Unintelligible! Draw again!” And he flung the tile into the smoking ruins of one of the nearby buildings.
The crowd roared. Men shook their fists. Women, transformed into harpies by their grief, thrust indignant hands on hips and shouted out their protests. Among their voices, Galen could clearly hear Valerian’s: “No! No! It was a fair draw! Let it stand!” Tyrian’s men moved forward again, and a line of them appeared before the dais where Casiodorus stood, his dignity abandoned, his hair wild.
“Back!” he said, pushing Horsrick away from the bowl. “We will repeat this draw! The first was invalid!” And despite the roar of outrage surrounding him, he plunged his robed arm into the bowl and seized a second tile. “The name,” he shouted above the uproar. “The name . . .” But he never said the name. He staggered back, stricken by what he had seen on the tile, incapable of speech. He gaped at his daughter as if she were a stranger.
And indeed, the Elspeth who rose now from her place at the front of the screaming throng and made her way onto the dais was a different woman. The old Elspeth had been wan; this one was flushed with new life and purpose. The old Elspeth had been reticent, even almost cowed at times; this one was calm, firm, self-controlled, and utterly assured. She lifted her arms, and in awe and respect the crowd fell silent. Her voice was clear, like the cool song of a waterbird, and Galen could hear it perfectly in his hiding place. “The reason that my father will not tell you the name on the second tile,” she said, “is that it also is mine. And so is this.” She held up a third tile, then a fourth. “And this. The bowl contains as many tiles bearing my name as it does all of yours.” She waited a moment for the significance of the statement to be understood. “Yes, there is a lot with my name for each of yours. Do you know why I have done this?” The crowd was spellbound, waiting. “To compensate. To balance all the Lotteries of other years when I have risked nothing, when my name was on no lots at all. It is correct that my name be chosen now. And so I go to meet the dragon, and to know what others before me have known.” She spoke with a strange elation, before turning to Casiodorus, who was being supported by Horsrick. “As for my father, do not think ill of him. Forgive him. He has governed according to his lights. And if he has violated the Codex, he has not done so out of malice but out of love.” She embraced the helpless Casiodorus in the long, last embrace of the unmarried daughter of her father. Then she summoned Horsrick and his cart. This time, there would be no delay between the Lottery and the Giving.
“No!” Casiodorus tottered forward, his eyes bulging, his hands outstretched. “No! I forbid it! Horsrick, do not bring the cart!”
The old chamberlain turned bewildered eyes on his king. “Sir,” he whispered, “the Lottery has begun. The Chosen has been called. It is too late, Your Majesty!”
“Tyrian, stop this!”
Tyrian did not look at the king. He gazed out over the seething crowd to the horizon of the Blight. “The Lottery is more important than any one person,” he said, “man or woman. What has been done is done. I cannot prevent this Giving.”
Casiodorus sank into a chair that a retainer had placed behind him, and there he remained, staring without seeing, while the procession formed for the journey to the Blight. At last he allowed himself to be guided onto his horse.
As for the procession itself, for the first time in as long as any could remember, there was a kind of pride and even a triumph in it. Someone had found uncharred banners, and they fluttered in the breeze. Flowers had appeared to bedeck Elspeth and her cart, and several of the younger women had even run ahead to strew blossoms in her path. It did in fact seem much more the triumphal parade of a conqueror than of a sacrificial victim; but then, Galen thought, standing and picking up Sicarius for the coming combat, they believed that she had saved them, at least this once. Yes, that explained their exuberance; it was a triumph of hope.
Simon had gone with the rest. Only Valerian was left in the square. As the others departed, she climbed the platform and one after the other drew several tiles from the bowl. Elspeth R., Elspeth R., Elspeth . . . Thoughtfully she turned each lot over, before dropping it back. She stood a long time staring eastward, in the direction the princess had gone. And then, with a glance toward her own home, and up at the loft where she knew Galen was hiding, she hurried after the rest.
Now, Galen said to himself. Now! With Sicarius balanced in his right hand, bearing Valerian’s shield that flickered with a thousand lights, he strode through Simon’s dwelling and out into the sun. Valerian had shown him a high, fast path to the Blight.
He was eighteen.
He had never in his life used a warrior’s weapon.
He was going to fight a dragon.
CHAPTER TEN
Elspeth was being tied to the stake when Galen arrived. The forest path he had taken opened onto the Blight above the main road, and he was able to look down on Horsrick performing his duty, and on the skittish horse. He looked down also on the gathered Urlanders, the distracted king among them, only slightly removed with his court, at the edge of the greensward.
The lair opened above him. Just outside and down from it, wedged between two large boulders and pointing with one stick arm toward heaven still, lay the charred corpse of Jacopus. Galen shuddered, remembering. There was no sign of movement yet in the mouth of the lair; clearly, if Vermithrax was to be engaged, it would have to be sought out. He remembered fleetingly Valerian’s warning about the dragonets, but a careful inspection of the area in front of the cave mouth revealed no sign of them. Could she have been mistaken? Could she have imagined them?
His first step was to free the princess. It was unconscionable that she should be tethered there like some farm animal awaiting execution. He hoisted Sicarius, and strode out into the last of the sunlight on the blackened rubble of the Blight. In a few moments he had reached Elspeth’s side, and with one thrust, the first stroke of Sicarius, he severed the thongs which bound her to the post. “Thank you,” she said. She rubbed her wrists and glanced up the hillside.
In the distance, Galen heard the cries of protest from the throng on the hillside, and shouts of outrage from Horsrick who, having fulfilled all final obligations under the Codex, was now on his way out
of the Blight.
But Galen did not see what was happening amidst the crowd. He did not see that Tyrian had mounted his horse and was coming at the brisk trot of a cavalryman down the road into the Blight. He did not see him push roughly past Horsrick, drawing Tendrun as he did so, and he did not see the horse increase its pace to a gallop over the last half league. In fact, not until Elspeth screamed a warning did he turn and find Tyrian almost upon him, sword raised, teeth bared in his mirthless grin. He ducked, and Tyrian’s sword sang half an inch above his head. The stallion wheeled, but its footing on the rocky ground was uncertain and it balked at another charge. Tyrian dismounted. He was five yards away. He seemed enormous, his sword huge, his black clothing terrifying. The dragon emblem on his chest twisted with a life of its own, and Galen felt the lance yearning eerily toward it. The man moved in the coiled crouch of a skilled fighter, both hands gripping his weapon. He came slowly forward.
“Meddler,” he said to Galen as he came. “I should have killed you at the start.” As if in affirmation the ground quivered; Vermithrax was moving. “We will correct that, now,” Tyrian said. “We will begin to make amends.” He had come close, and he lunged.
Galen had also been crouching, his stance an imitation of Tyrian’s. When the other man struck he raised Sicarius to parry, and felt the sharp shock of steel on steel. The pain of it shot through his wrists and into his shoulders, and the pain ignited him. Despite everything, he had meant no harm to Tyrian; his response to the warrior’s charge had been defensive. He had wanted only to meet Vermithrax. But now the sharp pain reminded him that he was face to face with the man who had killed Ulrich, the man who had murdered old Hodge with a war arrow through the back, the man who had humiliated him, slapped him, treated him like a lackey. He was filled suddenly with an emotion he had never known—hatred. It was like a keen, white flame.
Tyrian laughed. His thick laughter echoed in the Blight like invisible boulders bounding on the slopes. It joined with the rumble of Vermithrax’s movements, somewhere beneath. “Kill me? Is that what you are thinking? You little fool! Look at you! You can hardly lift that lance.” And again, his laughter suddenly cut off, he lunged.
Galen was ready. He had never felt more alert or more intensely alive. He saw vividly, knew exactly what must be done. Again he parried Tyrian’s stroke, and while the other man’s sword glanced harmlessly away, his own weapon twisted back and down, like a scorpion’s sinewed tail, and pierced Tyrian’s shoulder just above the biceps. The centurion’s thick body arched in pain and the arm flopped uselessly at his side. Blood splashed. He looked from the wound to Galen but there was no change in his expression, no sign of either astonishment or fear. His grin remained implacable. He said nothing. One arm seemed quite enough to wield the sword. Its point turned in tight circles at the level of Galen’s eyes. He inched forward.
Galen’s attention, meanwhile, had been distracted. In the flurry of Tyrian’s onslaught he had forgotten about Elspeth, but now he saw that she was no longer beside the post. She was halfway up the slope, determinedly following the same fatal path that Jacopus had taken only the day before. “Don’t!” he shouted. “Stay! You don’t have to!” She gave no sign that she had heard.
Tyrian inched forward. There would be no dramatic lunges this time. Every move would count. He feinted, grinned as Galen dodged away, feinted again. Then he struck. The blow was fast as the flicker of a snake’s tongue, a thrust to the heart.
Galen did not know how he avoided it. Had he been a hair’s breadth slower he would have died pinned and squirming on Tyrian’s sword. Instead he was alive, stretched tiptoe, twisting away like some pirouetting court juggler, and the side of Tyrian’s neck, carried forward by the thrust, was exposed to him. Later, when he had time to reflect, he would wonder why he did not strike with all his force; why instead he allowed the edge of Sicarius merely to drift along that exposed neck between tunic and helm, and he would never be able to say truthfully whether his motives were kind or vicious. Was this the last of the warning? Or was there something of Tyrian even in him; was he toying with the man?
In any case, the second wound had no more effect on Tyrian than the first. He spun back to face Galen, shaking his head as if to fling away the new blood as a dog flings off water. Then he came forward again. He was breathing heavily. You will regret that, his eyes said. You will regret that very dearly.
Galen knew then with a cold certainty that one of them would die. He glanced up the hill again and caught sight of Elspeth just beginning the last, steep section of her climb to the lair’s mouth. If he was to prevent her, there was no time to lose.
He moved to the attack. He felt magnificent. The lance rose singing in his hands and bore him up with it, up, up, until he seemed to be looking down at Tyrian from a great height, and in the instant before he struck, oblivious and impervious to the flailing of Tyrian’s blade, he was filled with such mix of emotions—rage and pity and triumph—that he screamed from the brimming force of them, a dreadful warrior’s scream that bounced and reverberated and took its mighty place among the echoes of the Blight.
Sicarius descended.
Driven exultantly, it pierced the post behind which Tyrian had taken refuge, the open dragon’s mouth on Tyrian’s breast, and the thick torso of the man behind it. Then, as swiftly as it had gone in, it was out, and Galen was backing away, holding it, watching Tyrian die. He was suddenly no longer a foe or a threat. He was simply a big man with a hurt arm and a crease of concern between his eyes, as if he had forgotten to keep some small promise, sagging to his knees, folding to conceal his mortal wound, then falling gently on his side.
The ground shook.
There was no other sound.
Galen turned and ran for the mouth of the lair. He did not feel triumphant or heroic. He felt breathless and nauseous. In fact he thought once that he would have to stop and vomit, but he controlled himself, swallowing hard, and in a few minutes had reached the foot of the last incline. He did not look at Jacopus’s remains, shrivelled there, nor did he breathe when he passed that place of the pervading dragon-stench and the odor of roasted meat. Rather, he scrambled forward and up.
He saw no sign of Elspeth until he reached the ledge at the cave’s mouth; there, amidst the loathsome excreta and detritus of the place where the dragon perched, lay a silken scarf. It was pure and white. It shone. Hers. Elspeth’s. But why? Had it been accidentally dropped, or had she left it for some reason as she went forward to that darkness?
He did not pick it up. He might have done so had he not, peering ahead, seen something else white—too large to be another scarf—farther down the tunnel. Filled with a terrible premonition, he went forward, Sicarius held at the ready.
Again the appalling odor struck him. It was indescribably rank and putrid. It was a stench such as he could never have imagined, compounded of feces, decayed meat, abominable breath, and dank mold flourishing in crevasses. It was overwhelming. He gagged but forced himself onward. The formless patch of white shimmered ahead, now visible, now vanishing. He reeled toward it.
He sensed the walls closing behind.
The tunnel was like the gut of a great beast. Lime-laden water shimmered on the walls. Stalactites dropped in thin strands from the ceiling, and underfoot the passage was slippery with stagnant water and dragonslime. It was a maleficent and baleful tube, and it was lit both by strange sources deep within and by daylight angling crookedly through cracks to the surface of the earth. The light changed and shifted constantly, now waning daylight, now flickering, fading fire.
Galen descended. He was sickened to the heart, both by his surroundings and by what he was now sure he would find ahead, for the nearer he drew to the patch of white, the clearer it became that it was something horizontal, and that small dark shapes were moving on it. A few more steps into that stifling atmosphere, and he saw that it was, as he feared, the Princess Elspeth. Rather, it was the remains of the princess. She had never reached Vermithrax, never offered herse
lf to the dragon. What had befallen her was even worse, was absurd and horrible: she was the prey of the little ones.
Dragonets, two of them, moved on her corpse. They clawed, gnawed. Her body was fast losing its shape, her dress had ceased to be white. They were the size of large, quick cats. From the ridge surmounting their eyes no horns had yet sprung, nor did they jet fire at Galen’s approach. But in all other respects they were perfect copies of Vermithrax. Their teeth lined a harsh V of exposed gums; their fibrous wings arched out, claws threatening; their tails terminated in the loathsome spade that Galen had felt sliding across his skull.
They watched him with malignant red eyes. They were chewing with lazy relish, but their poised stances suggested that if he were to falter, or stumble, or show any weakness, they would be on him in an instant, teeth driven by muscular necks.
He did not falter. Sicarius drew him forward and determined what must be done. The first dragonet he beheaded before it could either move or cry out. Spurting fluids, its body scrabbled in ever-widening circles like a coiled spring let loose, while the jaws of the disembodied head opened and shut, opened and shut, helplessly yearning for Galen. The second was already airborne, leaping for him, as Sicarius slashed down upon it, missing the neck and catching it just behind the thorax. Abdomen and tail dropped earthward but—horrible!—the forepart of the body sailed on, borne on grim little wings, and actually grazed Galen’s shoulder before he managed to twist in the narrow confines of the place and beat it down to the earth. For a moment, beside himself with rage and revulsion, he slashed and slashed until what had been the dragonet was a pulped mass of tissue. And it was only then, when he believed that he had beaten them, and when his relief had welled up in a fit of retching, that the third one sprang on him.