Ashley put his head between his knees. He should have been more careful. He had seen the signs the night before: the bones piled at the mouth of the cave; the rank smell; the charred tree. He had used that wood to build a fire, yet he had never thought why it was burnt to begin with.
He could never have guessed what was going to return to the cave. He would never have imagined such an awesome creature. Even in his worst nightmares, no such beast existed. Then again, neither should a winged horse exist. The final cracking sounds told him that she didn’t, anymore.
He shivered. It didn’t seem he was going to last for too long in Oldenworld either. It really was ruled by Chaos.
After a while the beast returned to the crevice. It snuffled and snorted when its snout was as far in as it would go. It sent a tentative blast of golden fire licking toward him that singed him with a rotten carrion stench. Ashley found a boulder to cower behind, in case it blew a worse blast of fire the second time. The creature had its great eye stuck up against the crack again. The green iris glistened, fascinating in a deadly way, cunning intelligence shimmering in its depths.
Could it smell him in the chamber? Princess had given herself away with all her stomping and whinnying, but he was sitting as still as a mouse. It shouldn’t be able to see him in the gloom, for it blocked out the light every time it leant close to look inward. It wasn’t stupid. It knew he was in there.
After a while, it gave up and retreated, probably to the same hiding place it had used to ambush Princess. The sound of it sinking to lie down was like chainmail settling on stone. The silence returned to the cavern, except for that distant rumbling that grew slower and slower until Ashley couldn’t be certain that he still heard it.
Was he imagining that it was still there, or had it dragged itself outside?
It was awfully quiet. The cold numbed Ashley’s bottom to creep up his spine. He didn’t dare move.
He waited and waited, his guts a tight knot.
An hour passed, then two. Every minute was an agony of suspense. How much longer would he be trapped in the chamber for? Until starvation took him? The daylight faded, the night came, and the silence stretched on like an oiled tightrope across the abyss of fear.
By the next day, he couldn’t bear it anymore. If there was a chance to escape, it was worth taking. Ashley reached out with his mind, but this time there was nothing to sense apart from the empty walls of the cavern. He made as little noise as possible stretching and trying to work some blood back into his numb legs and feet, but he was as stiff as a corpse, and deathly cold. He tiptoed towards the crevice.
As he neared the mouth of the chamber, the grinding respirations in the cavern became clearer. He pressed his shaking hands against the rock face, and leant past the corner. The creature’s breathing was a steady rumble, one slow breath for every twelve Ashley took. He hoped that meant it was properly asleep, digesting its meal. Ashley searched the gloom for the lurking shape, and found it by the telltale glimmer within its nostrils, a faint hint of the fire it contained. It was deep in the shadows, far from the mouth of the cavern, but its head was pointed directly at Ashley, as if it had lain down in position to leap. The creature’s eyes were closed. It drew another slow whistling breath and then exhaled with a decadent, sonorous purr.
His heart pounded. Maybe he could sneak past it. It lay in a hollow, under an overhanging ledge. Maybe it wouldn’t have enough clear space to use its wings at first. No, he mustn’t wake it at all, for he had to find another hiding place once he had escaped this cave. Ashley tried to gauge the distance between the creature and the beckoning glow of the cave mouth. Sixty, maybe seventy paces? The creature was just as far away to the side, but he had no illusions about its speed. He had seen it leap before. If it was awake, it would be upon him long before he reached the exit.
What am I doing? By Fynn, what am I going to do if I get out there with it on my heels?
He was so filled with dread that he could hardly balance on his legs, but somehow he forced his hand to push the wall away, and he tottered a step into the main cavern. He stood there, his throat dry, his jaw clenched against the sound of his own breathing.
The beast didn’t move. The deeper shadows were still. The beast’s feral scent filled the cavern, carried upon another slow reverberating exhalation. He took another unsteady step away from the safety of the crevice. Another. The cavern’s floor was more uneven than he remembered. He came halfway to where his campfire had burnt away to ashes.
He stopped.
Something was not right. Beyond his panic, he knew he was missing something. A horrible premonition that he was being very stupid churned in his stomach. He tried to see inside the dragon’s head again, to sense any thoughts, any images that would betray its intentions, but there was nothing there, nothing at all. That was what was wrong. It should be thinking something. Even if it was asleep, it would be dreaming. Yet he could sense nothing. It was almost as if it was hiding: hiding its thoughts from him, so he would be lured out from his safe cleft.
The dragon drew another slow breath. The twin fires glimmered within its nostrils. Then he saw it—the fraction of movement at the base of its lidded left eye, a brief glimpse of green. It was watching him!
He ran for the safety of his crevice. The creature came at him with a leap that carried it halfway across the cavern. It roared—an ear-splitting thunderous wail—but Ashley’s potent fear lent speed to his legs. He reached the ragged opening in the cavern wall. Flame singed his back as he ducked into the chamber. He dived down behind his boulder. A scraping sound suggested that the great snout had been shoved into the crack again. He flinched as rank hot breath washed over him. He gagged, but remained where he was. There was nowhere else to go.
THINKS IT IS CLEVER, IT DOES, IT DOES. DRAGONS ALWAYS WIN AT GAMES OF PATIENCE.
Thoughts as thick as castle walls, images as tall as trees.
When his heartbeat had steadied a little, he peeped over his boulder. The great green eye was blocking the exit. No food, he tried to convince it. Bitter ugly food, poisonous food, not worth hunting.
It pulled abruptly away, and Ashley felt a moment of triumph.
But it was not over. A great barbed tail slithered into the crack, its thickened end searching the air like a blinded fighter swinging a club. At full reach, it smacked into the rock above Ashley’s head then twitched away to slam into the other wall. He was grateful for his boulder’s shelter. Without it, he would have been squashed like a fly against the wall.
He might have convinced the creature he was not worth eating, but that was not enough. If it wasn’t going to eat him, then it would kill him instead. He was in its lair and he would be punished.
Wham! The tail clipped his head on the next pass, leaving a ringing dizziness behind. He ducked between its legs, and heard the next swipe connect with the rock overhead. The creature thumped away at his refuge for some time. The air filled with dust, and infrequent showers of stone chips rained down on his head. At last the creature grew tired of its failure to squash him.
It thrust its snout into the crack instead, and let off a frustrated blast of fire. The air was unbreathable for a few moments, so hot and dry. The creature seemed to sense his discomfort, for it fired him again and again. The back of his hands were singed, his hair curled and his thick travelling robe began to smoke. He kept his head tucked down. His lungs ached for clean, cool air, but there was only the foul exhaust from the stinking furnace to breathe.
UNGRATEFUL MIDGET! MY BREATH IS THE FLOWERS OF SPRING.
Ashley sensed something beyond the curse as well, deep in the patterns of that great mind: a sense of hurt pride. Ashley looked up in wonder. The beast cared what he thought. The beast was vain. Even though he was to be killed, his opinion mattered to it. It was actually upset that he considered its breath foul.
And it had sensed his thoughts, he realised. It had his talent.
HEAVEN’S SCENT! BLESSED WITH MY FIRE’S KISS, THE BEST OF ALL THE DRA
GONS, AND HE THINKS IT FOUL, HE DOES. HE’LL BE BETTER OFF DEAD, THE RUDE LITTLE HUMAN. NOT EVEN WORTH KEEPING AS A SNACK, NO.
Another roar of golden heat washed overhead. His boots issued a puff of greyish smoke. He slapped at a flame that had caught on his knees. It went out, but left a black scar in the fabric.
Too close. The flames would soon burn him.
Ashley gathered courage for what he would have to do. He knew he would not be able to dominate the creature’s great mind. It wasn’t like the wild boar in the forest, but maybe flattery would work. He was desperate enough to try anything.
“Great Dragon!” he shouted, not moving from his place of meagre protection. “Please do not kill me. I wish to behold your beauty for a moment longer!” It was easier to focus on the thoughts when he spoke them aloud, and he wanted to be sure it understood every word. Ashley strained to imbue each image with as much clarity as possible. It was the equivalent of mental shouting, he supposed. The beast sensed something of it, for it paused and didn’t loose another burst of flame.
MY BEAUTY?
He could only hope it understood the mental images he offered in its own terms. Its thoughts were vast, so wide, but they were becoming more understandable to him. Most of his own thoughts were probably inaudible to it, like the small squeaks of a mouse, but if he concentrated really hard, he could amplify the thought enough for the beast to appreciate them. The thought about its bad breath must have just slipped across in the ether. Maybe it was oversensitive to criticism.
“Great Dragon, I wish to behold your true wonder, but I am scared you shall burn me before my eyes rest upon your loveliness. This dark cavern does your beauty no justice. I have seen the morning light glitter against the tips upon your head, but I suspect that your skin must look majestic in the full light. Please, let me live a moment longer, so that I might see you more.”
A considering rumble came from the far end of the corridor. The creature’s huge eye was up against the opening again. A slit green eye. A squinting eye. A thinking eye.
THIS LITTLE ONE IS NOT AN ORDINARY MAN. HE SPEAKS AS A DRAGON. HE HAS SEEN ME GLITTER?
A dragon? “I have travelled from afar, and nowhere have I seen such a magnificent creature as you.”
I AM MAGNIFICENT? I AM MAGNIFICENT. I TOLD THEM I WAS.
“What is your name, great dragon? Tell me what they call you, so that I might have a name to place beside the memory of your exquisite bejewelled eyes.”
He encountered a strange thought-form, a sound or symbolic image in a language he could not grasp.
“What would that sound like, if you were to call it out to—the others?” He suspected there were others of its kind. The dragon threw its head back and issued a piercing sibilant cry.
Ashley did his best to interpret the sound. “Sassraline?” It sounded like a jewel. The dragon clicked its teeth. “Is that ... a girl’s name, or a boy’s?” he asked. The dragon’s eye became suddenly hooded, dangerously so. It thrust its snout into the crevice and spewed out a blast of fire over his head. He fell to the floor, and scrabbled backward to his boulder.
SILLY SWEETMAN. HE REALLY DOESN’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT DRAGONS.
Heaven’s breath, heaven’s breath. It’s the scent of spring flowers!
The dragon made a kind of coughing sound. After a while he realised that it might be a kind of laughter. The dragon had only intended to warn him with the blast. It could have fried him easily, it could do so at any time, but it waited for him to find his feet. His hair was singed worse than the last time.
A girl then, he decided.
“Great Sassraline! You bless me with such an honour, to live a moment longer in your presence. Your breath is like a blazing forest, so rich with scents. Please forgive my rudeness, for I am but a little man, and am awed by such a dazzling creature as yourself. I was blind to not know the truth at once, but I am not accustomed to such wonderful ferociousness in a female. You are so strong and terrifying to me.”
There was an awful moment when he thought he had guessed wrongly, but then she sighed and sank to the floor again, her eye up against the crack. She waited for him to talk.
“Great Sassraline, your eyes are more dazzling and beautiful than all the jewels of the world.”
HE IS VERY CLEVER, THIS ONE, BUT HE DOES SAY SUCH NICE THINGS.
The dragon settled down, slightly further away from the crevice, where he could see most of her head. She closed her eyes. Ashley continued his litany of praise until her breaths were slow and deep, and the fire in her nostrils was only a faint glow. He couldn’t trust that she really was asleep; the only thing that could keep him alive was to continue talking, to flatter the scales off her belly, and to give her no reason to feel threatened.
“Your tail is so graceful, your talons so strong. It is truly a wonder that such a fearsome hunter as you can have such great mercy to allow me to live, miserable wretch that I am, but I can see that you are very wise, and must have lived a long, long time.”
“Not that it shows in your scales,” he added hastily, “they are as bright as a maiden-dragon in her prime, and no less alluring.”
It was exhausting. The longer he spoke his praise, the more outrageous he had to be to add anything new. He was terrified he might offend her odd sensibilities with an ill-considered word, but she didn’t blow fire at him again, or even snap her teeth. She seemed content, for a while. Later, much later, the faint light from beyond the mouth of the cave began to fade.
He earned every breath of that long, long day, stealing moments of life from the dragon’s vain heart.
24. BATTLE CRY
“In the dead marshes, don’t follow the lights;
When the dead marches, don’t follow their fights.”—Zarost
Flowers grew everywhere outside the Lûk down. They wreathed the short slope with colour, brilliant under the morning sun, dancing against the darkness of the forest nearby. Nobody knew how the blossoms had come to be, for they hadn’t been there the day before, and Rôgspar wasn’t known to have fertile soil. Little white snowdrops and fuzzy mauve velvet-flowers grew among clusters of lilacs, the thyme bushes were smothered in pink and the sorrel in red. Flowers, thick in the hollows, all the way up the mound of Rôgspar’s cast where the earth ejected from the down over the years had raised the spiralled exit path above the surrounding meadow. From where she stood, Tabitha could see a few of the trapdoors that marked the many entranceways to the settlement; most were indiscernible among the grasses. The occasional ventilation pipe protruded clear of the surface, marking the limits of the hidden habitation below.
The sunlight danced upon Tabitha’s smile. . The colours of the flowers reflected what she felt inside. Alongside the descending path, even goldenbells dipped their heads in the breeze.
She squeezed Garyll’s arm and he hugged her tighter.
“Sihkran thinks we may encounter more trouble than we are looking for,” he said, as they followed the departing Lûk patrol. “He thinks you should stay here, with the other women.”
“No!” Tabitha objected, looking up to read Garyll’s face: those dark eyes that entranced her, those lips that had kissed her, so strong and yet so tender. She felt as if he was a part of her, as if their bodies were still linked. She could feel his smile hiding beneath his sober expression.
“What if we must go into the Hunterslands to follow Bevn?” she added. “No Garyll, we must stay together.” She didn’t want to be separated from him, not this morning, not ever.
“Sihkran thinks it will be dangerous.” At the mention of his name, the leader of the Luk glanced their way. He looked concerned.
“So will it be for you men if you try to get me to stay,” replied Tabitha, planting her feet and facing Sihkran down. Sihkran raised his hand in mock surrender.
“It was a suggestion,” he said.
“Well it was a bad one. We’re all in this together.”
Garyll hesitated. “If we are attacked, promise me you’ll fall back.”
“You’ll not make a coward out of me,” she answered.
“No! You are not a warrior, Tabitha. The Lûk are better prepared for this.”
“It is our crown that we seek, not the Lûk’s. We should be at the front of things.”
“The men are preparing for a fight.”
“They expect blood to be spilled,” added Sihkran. “They shaved their heads this morning.”
“A battle is no place for a woman,” said Garyll.
“Then today I am not a woman, I am a wizard!”
Sihkran’s expression became as blank as stone, and he nodded and strode away. Garyll didn’t look happy, but he could think of nothing to say. Tabitha looked around among the men. She hadn’t noticed their haircuts, for all of the warriors still wore their brightly coloured headscarves, but a warrior pushed his bong back to scratch at his head, revealing a scalp that was bare and oiled. The grey skin glistened like steel.
“Why do they do that?” she whispered to Garyll.
“Sihkran told me that their hair is plaited and kept here at Rôgspar. If they do not return from a foray beyond the border, the hair is sent to their families in Rek, or Koom. They do not wish to die in the Hunterslands and have such wealth go to waste.”
The men were grim-faced, restless; ready to set off for battle. They all carried spears, hardened long-shields of woven cane, ochre-coloured breastplates of a tighter weave and sling-shaped bags which fitted close on their backs. Garyll had been given a shield himself, which he had strapped to his left arm. He had declined the spear they had offered him, preferring his short baton that hung from his belt. Mulrano had his woodsman’s axe and a pack of provisions. From the boisterous welcome he received as they joined the ranks, it seemed he had made some friends the night before.
Second Sight: Second Tale of the Lifesong Page 40