Tor watched Barlanik, briefly silent as he thought it over. Drewitt was not always a good judge of character, and was easily riled, and his Commander would know this. Barlanik made up his mind. He said to Drewitt, “I appreciate your advice, though in this instance I am not going to take it. Tor knows the prisoner better that either of us. We need all the information we can get, and I don’t want to keep a man in prison if he can be useful out of it.”
Drewitt did not look happy. “He can’t join the cavalry without a horse, and we haven’t got one for him.”
“He can borrow one of mine,” said Tor.
As soon as his debriefing with Barlanik was over and Jervaid was released, he came looking for Tor. She was the only person he knew in the camp. He found her at the Dragon Tower sitting in the morning sun in her shirtsleeves cleaning her armour, leaning against a large sleeping dragon’s steep flank. She glanced up and saw him regarding her and the dragon.
“Jervaid! They’ve let you out! That’s great!”
“Hi. Interesting pet you’ve acquired since we last met.”
Something in the quality of Xantilor’s breathing told Tor that the dragon was now awake and listening, but he did not stir.
“Oh, this is Xantilor. He rescued you, you know, but you were out cold at the time and wouldn’t remember. I’ll tell you about him sometime. Do you want me to show you around? I’ve just got to finish this, but then I’m free till lunchtime.”
“That would be delightful.” Jervaid settled himself cautiously beside Tor. Xantilor’s dark gold scaly sides were warm and moving slightly with his breathing. Each scale was as big as a hand, ridged down the middle and ending in a point. “It’s quite safe is it, I mean it’s not going to suddenly breathe fire at me?”
Xantilor gave a small snort, and two smoke rings floated up in the sunshine.
“Don’t worry Jervaid, I’ll protect you,” said Tor with a grin. All at once she was feeling happy.
“I can’t think of anything nicer,” said Jervaid softly, fixing her with his blue gaze. “Will this be twenty-four hour protection? How exactly are you going to protect me and when do you start?”
There was a louder snort from Xantilor. Jervaid frowned. “Would it be possible for us to continue this conversation somewhere else, without the reptile?”
The dragon’s head lifted and swung round on his long neck and he stared hard at Jervaid. He had given up his pretence of being asleep. His tail flicked and turned purple at the tip. Smoke drifted from his nostrils. After a moment Xantilor transferred his attention to Tor. “Is he staying long?”
The relationship between Jervaid and Xantilor did not recover from this bad start. When Jervaid next called at the Dragon Tower, Xantilor was lying across the Tower entrance, completely blocking it. “Oh, it’s you again,” he said.
“Evidently. I’ve come to see Tor.”
“Have you indeed.”
“Yes, so if you would just move out of the way…”
Xantilor appeared to consider the suggestion carefully, from all angles. “No, I don’t think I will.” He stared at Jervaid, waiting for him to go. Jervaid experienced the unusual sensation of not knowing what to say.
The next few times he called, Xantilor was in the same position, still guarding the Tower. Sometimes he had his eyes shut, though it could be seen that he was not asleep since he could not help his scales turning a hostile purple. Jervaid did not quite dare to climb over him, and Xantilor knew it. The dragon had won when he gave up and left.
Jervaid decided to complain to Tor.
That afternoon, a messenger rode full speed into the Castle. Although dusty and exhausted from his ride, he insisted on being taken straight to Barlanik, who was in close conference with Kerris.
“They’re besieging Gosburton, Skardroft’s men,” the messenger panted. “A big force. We’re putting up a fight, but we’re not professionals and they’ve got us outnumbered. The mayor sent me. When I left it didn’t look good.”
“Why on earth Gosburton?” said Kerris to Barlanik. “It’s of little strategic value, where it is, right up to the northwest by the mountains. Do you want me to go there?”
“Yes, as fast as you can. Where’s Tor?”
“She’s out on Xantilor.”
“Damn. Take a unit of cavalry and mounted archers, and a spare horse for Tor. As soon as she gets back I’ll send her to support you with Xantilor.”
Tor was excited when she heard they were to go into action for the first time. “Now remember,” she said, as she put on Xantilor’s saddle, “the main threat to us is the archers. Watch out for them, approach from behind, keep moving so we’re not an easy target.” She touched the flame from her lantern’s candle to the slow-burning torches on either side of the Dragon Tower gate, to light them home. The aromatic smell of pitch filled the night air. “Let’s go.”
Gosburton was a small market town, with a low wall round it and four gates, but it was not intended to be a stronghold and it would have taken a large force to defend it against the troops that Routh had sent. It was dusk by the time Kerris’s soldiers arrived in view of it, and the attackers had breached the walls and were overrunning the town. Smoke was already rising here and there.
Tor and Xantilor arrived a minute later. They flew round the town, but there was little a dragon could do to help with street fighting, as the danger of harming their own side or setting fire to the thatches was too great. Tor joined the cavalry, leaving Xantilor to watch for an opportunity to help, should one arise, on his own. She ran to the horse that was waiting for her, and jumped on. Kerris led them at a gallop into the town.
At least it was easy to see which was the enemy. The attackers were well armed, Skardroft’s crimson and black colours contrasting with the polished steel of their armour. About half of them were on horseback. Beside them the defenders looked pitiably ill-equipped, though they were fighting with the dogged determination with which men defend their own homes. Bodies lay in the gutters, almost all of them men from the town. It was Tor’s first experience of war, and no one had told her it would be so noisy; she was used to the clash of weapons from sword drill, but now her ears were assaulted by yells, screams and the squeals of injured horses. There was a foul smell of things burning that were not meant to burn.
Skardroft’s men turned to face the new threat, and suddenly Tor was in her element, using the skill she had been practising for as long as she could remember, swift, fearless and deadly. The battle began to go their way, the townsfolk fighting with renewed vigour by their side.
After a time, the enemy seemed to melt away, and they realized they were making off through the far gate. Kerris and his soldiers pursued them a little way, then Xantilor took over, harrying them with fire, scattering them through the forest. Kerris returned to the town. He organized chains of men with buckets to put out the fires, and more men to collect the enemy dead.
It was quieter now. Women wept over the bodies of their husbands and sons, and disconsolate huddles of people conferred beside the burnt-out houses. Kerris left part of his troop to garrison the town, after talking to the Mayor, and then they prepared to set off for the Castle again through the night.
“Did they strike you as a bit cowardly?” Tor asked Kerris, as she took her leave of him. His eyes and teeth gleamed out of a face smudged with soot.
“No, why?”
“I don’t know, I went for a soldier and he took one look at me and scarpered, as if he were scared. It happened more than once, actually. Like they didn’t want to fight me, or something.”
“Everyone I met seemed quite keen to fight me,” said Kerris, “sometimes several at once.”
“Well, I sort of had that too – at one point I’d followed one man running away, and six of them went for me, tried to get round behind me, but they still seemed reluctant to fight. It was a bit odd.”
Xantilor came up. “I had expected to have rather more to do in my first battle.”
“Yes, it’s a shame, e
specially as you’re in such good shape,” said Tor, “ but there will be another time. Let’s get back. See you, Kerris.”
Tor and the dragon flew back to the castle in the light of the stars and a sickle moon, the countryside dark below them except for the glow-worm lamplight from villages and hamlets. Tor felt intoxicated by their flight. She was in danger of getting used to flying, doing it every day, but the darkness made it extra thrilling.
Barlanik had had the lanterns lit around the castle court. As they came in to land, she could see there was some kind of commotion going on. Drewitt was there, armed, with his troop. It looked as though they had just returned from somewhere. She saw Xantilor to the Tower, then went back to report to Barlanik, as Kerris would be longer on the road. Drewitt was already talking to him.
“They’d gone by the time we got there. It was burning like a furnace, no survivors that we could see. If anyone got away into the forest, they didn’t come out while we were there. Nothing we could do, so we came back.”
Barlanik turned to Tor. “What about Gosburton?”
“We beat them off – thirteen of the townspeople killed though, I’m afraid. A few houses up in smoke, but not too bad. They’ll have to repair the breaches in the walls. None of us hurt. Where else did they attack?”
“Parslow, a village to the south. Not an obvious target. Skardroft’s changing tactics. I wonder why?”
That day marked the end of the life at the Castle that Tor had got used to, with its practice and training and time for conversation with her friends; with its sense of an army preparing in an organized way its next move. From now on, they were living hand to mouth, scrambling to react as news came in of fresh attacks. Barlanik went out on these sorties in his turn, alternating with Kerris in case there was an assault on the Castle itself. Xantilor was proving how useful a dragon could be in battle, and he and Tor were finding they hardly needed to speak to each other in a fight, each knew the other’s mind so well.
Barlanik sent regular enquiries about Urquin’s condition, but there was no improvement. He began to expect news of the old King’s death. He feared that all his future dealings, like his unsatisfactory current ones, would be with Edric.
CHAPTER 16
Pomfret Willoughby
Routh reported to Skardroft the day after the intensification of their campaign. He put as positive a spin as he could on what was not a remarkably impressive start. “Parslow’s been burnt to the ground as a warning to other towns inclined to favour the rebels. We are expecting to see support for them reduce considerably. At Gosburton our men were on the verge of victory when rebel reinforcements arrived and drove them off. However, we were able to inflict considerable damage on the fortified walls and there were many enemy casualties.”
“What you are telling me is that at Gosburton you did not send enough troops for the job. That is not the sort of mistake I expect you to make.”
“No, Sire.”
“Do not make it again.”
“Yes, Sire. If Your Majesty will forgive my saying, your decree about your granddaughter is having an unsettling effect on the men.”
“Torbrek was there? In Gosburton?”
“I believe so. With the cavalry. Naturally, the men are reluctant to attack anyone they think may be your granddaughter, given the penalty for harming her. Attempting to capture her alive when she is a formidable fighter is distracting them from what they should be doing.”
“She was not hurt?”
“No, Sire.”
“Keep me informed of any future sightings of her. If anything happens to her and you do not tell me, be sure I shall find it out.”
In the days that followed, more calls for help came from other strongholds. The fights that ensued had mixed results, often depending on how quickly they could be reached; and Tor and Xantilor travelled faster than the cavalry. Tor sympathized with trained soldiers being routed by blasts of flame. She wouldn’t have liked it herself. On the other hand, given their enemy’s propensity for setting fire to people’s homes, there was an element of poetic justice in it.
She felt very proud of Xantilor, who never grumbled at constantly having to get ready and go off to fight at short notice, often when they had just returned from another sortie. She suspected that the dragons of old in the Dragon Battalions would have been much younger than Xantilor. He was living the unfulfilled dream of his youth, being a warrior dragon, and enjoying it. They kept a wary lookout for enemy archers. At the ominous sound of arrows pattering on the dragon’s scales they moved, fast, and so far had escaped injury.
Tor now appreciated to the full why Attalor had insisted on training in adverse conditions. She fought on hot days when, after the bliss of flying through the cool air, sweat ran down her face into her eyes in the battle; in torrential rain when water seeped under her armour and her feet slipped in the mud; and at night when she could hardly make out her opponent. She got used to fighting when she was hungry, thirsty and bone-weary.
The troops at the Castle kept on the alert, ready to go at short notice. They did what they could to strengthen the defences of the weaker towns, and vigilant watches were kept where it had not been thought necessary before. They set up a system of beacons, so they knew as soon as possible whenever there was an attack. Barlanik sent soldiers to protect particularly vulnerable or strategically important places, though this left him with fewer troops to defend the Castle. Plans to attack Tarragon were put on hold.
Meanwhile, Jervaid saw less of Tor on her own than he would have liked. Drewitt, with suspicions of both of them, had made sure that Tor was not attached to the same cavalry unit as Jervaid was in. Though they were sometimes together in company, Tor and Xantilor frequently had to rush off to fight in another skirmish with Skardroft’s men. The dragon was proving extremely useful in the current situation, and Tor was working much longer hours than if she had stayed permanently in the cavalry. Jervaid, although he too was often out on raids, had more time on his hands than she did, and found this frustrating. Their friendship was not progressing as fast as he had intended.
He complained to Tor the next time he managed to catch up with her. She was grooming Carrots, who laid back his ears and rolled his eyes when he saw Jervaid.
“Not you too,” he said to the horse, then to Tor, “that beastly dragon of yours won’t let me into the Tower to see you. He’s being really obstructive. Can you tell him to stop being such a pain?”
Tor did not take this as seriously as Jervaid would have wished; in fact she found it amusing. “Poor you. Perhaps he’s been talking to Drewitt. It’s quite difficult to get a dragon to do something it doesn’t want to, you know. I’ll look it up in The Dragon Keeper’s Guide if you like. I think it’s quite sweet though – he’s just being a bit possessive. After all, his whole career to date has been guarding people. You can’t expect him to change overnight. Can you pass me that brush?”
Jervaid passed it to her. “But it means I hardly ever see you.”
“I know, I’m sorry…”
“And when I do, you’re either in the middle of doing something and you can’t stop, or you’ve been up all night and can hardly keep your eyes open, or you have to rush off and fight.”
“It’s bad luck that things have hotted up just when you get here. A week ago it was different. Blame Skardroft. I don’t know why he’s suddenly going at us hammer and tongs.”
Jervaid went over to Tor and took the brush away from her and set it down, then put his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. “I’d really like to see a bit more of you…” He leaned towards her. Tor’s heart beat faster. How blue his eyes were…
She heard footsteps and a cough. Drewitt, whose horse was stabled next door to Carrots and Whisper, had come to collect it and was eyeing them distrustfully over the stable barrier. Tor sprang away from Jervaid and Drewitt pointedly turned his back on them and switched his attention to saddling his horse. Jervaid waited impatiently for him to finish and go, while Tor, rat
her red, went back to grooming Carrots. When they were alone once more, he said, “Well? If you called off the dragon, I could bring a bottle of wine round to the Tower one evening. I could borrow a lute and play to you. I’ve never seen your turret room. And it would be nice for us to be alone together for a change…if you’d like that?”
“Of course I would, but…” At that moment the clarion sounded in the courtyard. Tor sighed. “I’m sorry, Jervaid, I’ll have to go. I’ll see you when I come back, I hope.”
It had also dawned on Jervaid that he was being held somewhat at arm’s length by Barlanik and Kerris. Drewitt was openly cool, but he had expected that and it was unimportant. Given his useful inside knowledge of Skardroft’s organisation, he had rather optimistically envisaged becoming an integral part of their decision-making processes, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that he did not enjoy their full confidence. After the initial debriefing, they seemed not to have much use for him. They had him to one or two meetings in an advisory capacity, but it was plain there were things they did not discuss in front of him. This was especially noticeable as Tor was included in all their deliberations, and sometimes she could not see him because she had to attend a meeting to which he was not invited.
He would hang around in Linet’s room waiting for her to emerge, but when she did, Tor tended to ask him to come for a drink with her and Kerris, which was not at all what he had in mind. And he got the feeling that Kerris, amiable though he was, would rather have had just Tor’s company, so they could talk with a freedom impossible in front of an outsider.
Jervaid began to find Tor’s high estimation of Barlanik tiresome, as well. She looked grave when he made flippant remarks about him. As Skardroft’s campaign intensified, and Urquin’s forces began to feel the strain, he wondered whether he had made the right decision to join them. Frustrated, thwarted and bored, he looked around for something else to occupy him.
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