Tor braced herself and pulled on the rope with all her might as Xantilor made his third try. But this time was even less successful than his other attempts. His energy seemed to be failing. He was left gasping for breath and looking beaten.
Tor burst into tears. “Please, Xantilor, you’ve got to get out, please, I can’t bear it,” she sobbed.
At the sight of Tor’s tears he bunched his muscles and made a final convulsive effort; it seemed as though it could go either way right up till the last moment, then he landed exhausted on the road, water dripping from every scale. He had turned a dull olive green, and his head was bowed. Tor hugged him tightly, still crying, not caring how wet she was. “Xantilor, you are the best dragon in the world. Come on, we’ll find a clearing in a part of the forest they’ve searched and wait for the sun to rise. We’ll be safe and you’ll soon warm up.” She hoped this was true.
Xantilor breathed in and blew, then said apprehensively, “I can’t breathe fire any more.”
Tor put her arms around him again. “Poor Xantilor, don’t worry, you’ll be fine once you’re warm. It’s going to be a hot day. We’ll be all right together.”
They set off slowly, Tor walking beside his head. Xantilor was too chilled to move fast, he was defenceless, and they had to go in the opposite direction from the one they wanted. But at least for now they had escaped from the troops.
Later that same morning, Barlanik was waiting for Gwenderith. She had wanted to see him about something. He felt a bit guilty towards her; he’d seen very little of her lately since the pace of the war had redoubled, and forgot her existence for days at a time. He hoped she did not feel neglected, as he did not want to hurt her feelings.
Barlanik was not sure why she was still there; the Castle was getting less safe, but then he supposed so was the journey back to her father. As well as Skardroft’s troops, there were bandits on the roads taking advantage of the disorder in the country. He could not spare the men to accompany her. Urquin would have to send an escort when the time came for her to go.
There was a knock at the door, and she came in smiling prettily. She had done something different to her hair. “I hope I’m not interrupting you in anything important, I know how busy you are.”
“Not at all, it’s good to see you,” Barlanik said politely.
“How is your campaign progressing?”
Barlanik wished, not for the first time, that she didn’t feel she had to show an interest in the war, thinking he liked to talk to her about it. He didn’t. “Oh, fine.” This seemed a bit dismissive. She was looking expectantly at him. “Well, actually, it’s not going too well right now, but I expect things will pick up.”
“Oh dear, what is the problem?”
Barlanik realized too late he should have stuck to “fine”. His conversations with Gwenderith always seemed to get bogged down at an early stage. “Skardroft suddenly seems to be taking it personally…but nothing we can’t cope with.”
“I didn’t know you had met Skardroft?”
“Well no, I haven’t, it was just a turn of phrase…”
Gwenderith looked rather puzzled. Barlanik began to hope for an interruption. As if in answer, a rap on the door, and Drewitt came in. He glanced at the Princess and said to Barlanik, “Sorry to burst in like this,” (“No, no,” said Barlanik) “but I thought you would want to know. We were called out to Biddingwell before dawn; the watch had seen troops approaching, quite a lot of them, but they didn’t attack. When we got there they’d gone, completely vanished. But the thing is, Tor went on ahead with the dragon, and she hasn’t come back. She should have been back a couple of hours ago.”
Barlanik got up. “There was no sign of them at Biddingwell?”
“No, nothing.”
“Then either they didn’t get there, or more likely, it was a trap. But if they’d killed the dragon, they couldn’t have moved him, and you’d have seen him there. Let’s get search parties organized.” He remembered the Princess. “I’m sorry Gwenderith, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later.”
He went out with Drewitt. Gwenderith was left sitting in Barlanik’s room trying not to feel disappointed. She had embroidered a cushion for him with a picture of the Castle, and had come to give it to him.
Routh was biting his nails. Where the hell were they? His men were spread out doing a thorough sweep of the whole area, and the dragon seemed to have simply vanished into thin air. Could he have been wrong about its injuries? No, he knew it could not fly, so then where was it? He had been so close to getting both dragon and girl…
“Carry on, keep searching and don’t lose pace,” he said curtly to his men, who were tiring and quiet now, no longer thinking they were just about to move in for the kill.
Xantilor could feel his feet again, and was running along as briskly and as quietly as he could in the golden morning light, one wing drooping, while he and Tor listened for sounds of pursuit. Xantilor was cheered by finding that, just as Tor had said, after a few hours’ rest in the sun his fire-breathing ability had returned as his temperature rose. Their plan was to dive for cover in the forest edging the road on either side if need be. They just had to hope the enemy was now behind them. With luck, they might even have given up the search by now. Tor refused to consider the possibility of another ambush ahead, because there was nothing they could do about it; it was a chance they had to take.
“Xantilor, stop – listen,” said Tor abruptly. Xantilor came to a halt. Behind the birdsong they could hear the faint drum of hooves. It was coming from in front of them.
Barlanik’s search party took the direct route between the Castle and Biddingwell, while the other groups fanned out on either side. He tried to comfort himself with the knowledge that Skardroft wanted Tor alive as much as he did, but vivid images of disaster kept flashing unbidden through his mind. In his years as a soldier he had seen enough bloodshed and death to picture her in graphic detail – Tor sinking with an arrow through her heart, Tor fighting bravely and hopelessly in a defiant last stand with Xantilor against a whole battalion, Tor’s face blank and lifeless, her beautiful eyes dimmed. He had never experienced such near-panicky feelings of foreboding in his life before.
They were half way to Biddingwell when he stopped his troop to listen yet again for sounds of the enemy or Tor.
“Barlanik?” Tor’s voice came from the forest border, and magically there she was, bedraggled and dishevelled with a muddy Xantilor behind her trailing a wing. “We thought you were the enemy. I’m so pleased it’s you!”
Barlanik jumped off his horse and ran over to her. His relief was too great for words. Too late, it occurred to him that Kerris would have kissed her, and that he could kiss her now, but even as he thought of it the moment passed. Tor was explaining to him what had happened. It was bad news that Xantilor would be out of action until his wing healed, but right now this seemed unimportant compared to what he had been dreading minutes before. He would come to appreciate later just how catastrophic the loss of a dragon fighting on their side was for them. Meanwhile, Tor got on the spare horse he had brought for her, and they turned for the journey back. It was then that they heard hoof beats on the road behind them.
They turned again and drew their swords.
CHAPTER 20
Changes of heart and mind
“I have some success to report, Your Majesty,” said Routh that afternoon. Skardroft, he was relieved to see, seemed tired but calmer today. “I mounted an ambush myself outside Biddingwell, with concealed javelin throwers, and we succeeded in wounding the dragon. It now cannot take to the air, so will cease to represent a threat to our army.”
“And Torbrek?”
“The dragon managed to fly as far as the forest, with your granddaughter.”
“You said it was unable to fly.”
“So it was, Sire, once it came down; naturally we gave chase and caught up with them on the road, and if it could have flown away it would have done. Unfortunately, they had been joined by a
band of rebels. We engaged them, but I am afraid they got away.”
“They defeated you, in other words. I suppose you are going to tell me that once again you did not have enough men?”
Routh was certainly not going to tell Skardroft the truth; that, having had half the army out on this exercise, he had unexpectedly encountered Torbrek and the dragon after he had left the chase to his officers, and been on his way back to Tarragon with only a handful of men. Even now, he could not work out how they had got where they were. He was still kicking himself, too. With maybe just another twenty or thirty men he would have had the upper hand. He could have presented Skardroft with Torbrek, the dead dragon and, to top it all, Barlanik’s black dagger. What a coup that would have been. He gritted his teeth at the thought of the missed opportunity. He had been close, so close to getting them… “The dragon could still breathe fire, Your Majesty. And your granddaughter represents a challenge to take unharmed.”
To Routh’s surprise, Skardroft nearly smiled. “She’s a good fighter?”
“Exceptional, I would say, Your Majesty.” She’d killed three of his soldiers that morning, Routh thought sourly, and here was Skardroft smiling fondly at hearing about it. Routh had a different opinion. She was a freak; such behaviour was unnatural in a woman; if he had his way, he’d string her up from the nearest tree. “Also, Sire, Barlanik was there, so we had two Knights against us.”
“Barlanik was there? You wasted a rare chance this morning, Routh.” Routh saw him pause, and decide to say no more. “Ah well, it’s progress of a kind; I expect to see some gains now neither side has a dragon.”
When Routh had gone, Skardroft brooded on what he had heard. The thought of Torbrek fighting side by side with Barlanik was intensely disagreeable. He hated to think they might be close. Jervaid’s remark, about her being interested in Barlanik, came into his mind.
He wished Routh had killed him.
Back at the Castle Tor got the doctor to bandage Xantilor’s broken bone. He was reluctant at first. She waited impatiently while he told her in his precise voice that dragons were not his area of expertise; the bone structure of a wing was uncharted territory as far as he was concerned; he could not guarantee the outcome. But she had faith in him after Jervaid’s recovery, and persuaded him. His opinion after splinting the wing, though given with many caveats, was that there was no reason Xantilor should not fly again once the bone had mended. Tor had to stop herself kissing him.
She left the dragon curled up asleep in the sun, and went to find Barlanik.
The skirmish on the road that morning had been the first time Tor had fought beside her Commander, and she had been impressed. He was good. You could tell he was a Knight. Anticipation, precision, speed and power; Stavely was forever going on about the four attributes a swordfighter needed, and Barlanik had them all. He always seemed a beat ahead of his opponent, and able to predict his next move. She thought he had noticed her fighting, too; there was a moment after they had won when they looked at each other and smiled complicitly.
Barlanik was writing a letter; his dark eyes warmed when he saw her in the doorway. She told him the doctor expected Xantilor to make a full recovery.
“That’s good, though we’re certainly going to miss him while he’s non-operational. At least you’ll be able to catch up on some sleep. Did you get the doctor to take a look at that cut on your arm while he was at it?”
“No, I didn’t think of it, but it’s only a scratch.”
“Let me see.”
Tor sat on the desk and rolled up her sleeve. The sword had sliced through the fabric, and it was one of her favourite shirts. She was more concerned about that than her arm. Linet would have mended it for her had she still been there; Tor would have to have a go at it herself knowing she’d do it badly. Barlanik went and got a bottle of brandy from the cupboard and a bandage, pulled up a chair, and cleaned the cut with the brandy. It began to bleed again.
“You’ve made it worse – I’d have done better to drink the brandy.”
Barlanik looked up at her under his lashes. “You don’t know what’s good for you.”
For some reason Tor felt herself blushing; she became very aware of his hand on her arm. He did not move. There was a breathless pause as they looked in each other’s eyes.
At that moment Gwenderith opened the door. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were busy. I’ll come back,” she said, and left hastily.
Barlanik finished the bandage in silence. Tor thanked him and returned to the Dragon Tower. She climbed up to her turret room and walked round it slowly, gazing out of the windows without seeing the landscape. Something momentous had happened. Tor had fallen abruptly and unexpectedly in love with Barlanik. It was as though she had been standing idly admiring the view over a cliff and someone had pushed her off it; the feeling of disbelief and astonishment.
He was certainly handsome (if not as dazzlingly good-looking as Jervaid) and they had become friends lately; she had always respected him, and had grown to like him too, but this feeling was of an entirely different order.
She felt shaken by it.
Gwenderith went back to her apartments, put the cushion down in a corner and sat at her writing desk. That one glimpse of Barlanik with Tor, and she had known with certainty that he loved Tor. She could not explain why she was so sure, but she knew now that he would never marry her. She got out a sheet of paper.
“Dear Edric,” she wrote, “would you come and collect me as soon as possible…” A tear fell on the page. She wiped it away. “My plans have changed, and I am very anxious to be home. I know you will indulge me like the kind brother you are. Please let the messenger know when you can come. Your loving sister, Gwenderith.”
She folded the paper, sealed it and asked her maid to find the messenger directly.
In the next few days, Tor found that just looking at Barlanik made her breathless; but she found it difficult to keep her eyes off him. Each expression that passed over his face, every movement he made, the tiniest detail of his appearance mesmerized her. She was always hoping to see him, and never knew how to behave when she did. If he spoke to her she became tongue-tied. It was his physical presence that did it; she could contemplate the idea of him quite agreeably, indeed she spent a lot of time doing this, but he had only to walk in the room for her to go to pieces.
She hoped she would get over it soon before he decided she’d turned into a complete imbecile. It was much, much worse than how she had felt about Jervaid.
Barlanik noticed her altered manner, and was bewildered by it. Just when he felt they were getting close, when they had become such friends, she seemed to have gone off him altogether, avoided him and didn’t have two words to say to him.
Prince Edric arrived on horseback with his retinue of a dozen or so guards. Barlanik had been asking him to come for weeks with increasing urgency without result, but the letter from his sister had brought him within days. Tor had some curiosity to see him, and made sure she was there when he arrived through the main gate into the square, and Barlanik went out to greet him.
Tor saw a tall youth about the same age as herself, his brown hair already thinning on top, with slightly sticking-out ears and a high colour. He had an indefinable air of naivety combined with self-satisfaction. Tor thought he looked soft. Barlanik welcomed him and asked after Urquin.
“He’s sitting up now, and the doctors are optimistic, but he still can’t do anything for himself. I’m running things for him.”
“I’m glad to hear he’s a little better; I hope he recovers very soon.”
He called to Tor. She went over, looking at Edric rather than Barlanik. She was finding it easier to behave normally in his company as the days went by, but had a disconcerting tendency to blush whenever she saw him. It was better if she avoided his eye initially, she had discovered, until the moment had passed.
“You haven’t met Tor, Edric, she’s new since your last visit; she’s our Dragon Master.”
Edric bowed, eyeing her curiously. “So you’re a Dragon Master? And what does a Dragon Master get up to?”
How did he manage to make so few words sound so patronizing?
“I train Xantilor, and we go into battle together.”
“Isn’t that rather dangerous for a woman? I wouldn’t like my sister doing it.”
Barlanik said, “Tor is a Knight, Edric, one of the Hundred.”
“Is she indeed?” He laughed. “That’s convenient – if the dragon decides to eat her, she won’t need a champion, she can fight it herself.”
“Xantilor hardly ever eats people,” said Tor. “Unless they’re really annoying. Their clothes get stuck between his teeth.”
“Edric,” said Barlanik quickly, “do you want to have a word with Gwenderith before the meeting? I’ll see you later, Tor.”
As they walked away, Tor heard Edric say, “So you’ve got a girl in your army?” He gave that irritating little laugh again. “You must be short-handed. I can see why you need my troops.”
This did not endear him to Tor. Gwenderith had not come out to meet him, because she was avoiding Barlanik, and Edric went to find her before going in to talk about the campaign with Barlanik and Kerris. She was sitting in her sunny room stitching at embroidery in a frame, and jumped to her feet when she saw who it was. Muffin barked and bounced up around him.
“Hello Gwen, how are you? Have they been looking after you?”
“Oh Edric, it is good to see you. How is father?”
“He’s on the road to recovery, the doctors think.”
“That is such good news. I can’t wait to see him again after so long. Let me look at you. How handsome you are in your armour.”
Edric smiled affectionately at her. “You’re not looking too ugly yourself. I’d lay a wager I’m not the only one to think so. I’ve just been talking to Barlanik.” He smiled knowingly and put his head on one side. “Any sign of wedding bells yet?”
Torbrek...and the Dragon Variation (The Torbrek Trilogy) Page 17