Hawklady: A Spellmonger Cadet Novel

by Terry Mancour

  It pulled straight up after the first attack, gaining speed and then flipping again and returning earthward with additional momentum. The next pass carved a gory path between the stranded knights and the rest of their comrades, and the next cautioned any goblin from filling the gap.

  In the next few moments Dara felt the Knife’s keen hunger to kill drag her consciousness to new opportunities. The rank behind the knights, protecting what was left of the goblins’ left flank, seemed prime for harvest, according to the Knife. It took a few seconds for the weapon to line itself up properly, but a moment later it was blasting through the thickest part of the army, leaving a bloody trail of death and destruction behind.

  “That’s . . . they made it back, Dara!” Gareth said, a note of awe in his voice, as someone reported the result to him from the field. “Good work!”

  Dara felt elated . . . but she also felt the Knife’s enthusiasm for more blood fill her. She was looking around for more opportunities to use the devastating weapon when once again Gareth whispered in her ear.

  “Stand down,” he ordered. “The Spellmonger is on the field, now, assessing the dragon situation. He’d like to do so without risk of an accidental haircut.”

  Dara sighed but nodded, enforcing her will on the unruly artifact. The Knife wanted to keep playing. She contented it with merely flying, fast and high, over the rainy field below while her master worked.

  Soon the warmagi were congregating near to the unconscious dragon’s mighty head. The beast had settled on its chest, its great wings unfurled over the field like huge awnings, it’s tail curled behind it . . . still twitching dangerously.

  Once she was firmly in control of the Knife, Gareth spoke to her again.

  “Minalan wants you to hit the dragon hard, in the head, as hard and fast as you can. If I didn’t mention it, he wants you to do it hard.”

  “I couldn’t even get through its wing!” she complained.

  “He wants you to try,” Gareth emphasized.

  Dara sighed, frustrated, but began a steep descent, urging the Knife forward as fast as it could go. She formed the idea of what she wanted in her mind, and the Thoughtful Knife interpreted her intent . . . but it didn’t hesitate to plow through another company of gurvani, gathered on the south side of the dragon, before it hit the thing as hard as it could.

  Much to her dismay, the Knife’s fastest speed and most direct attack did little more than bury the point in the dragon’s thick hide. Not even deep enough to draw blood.

  Angrily, Dara urged the Knife backward, and then slammed it into the same spot again, with similar effect.

  “Bide!” Gareth instructed her. “Master Minalan is thinking of a plan.” A moment later he returned. “He says land the Knife near him and wait.”

  Dara nodded curtly, and slowed the speed of the weapon to a near crawl. She picked out the form of her rain-soaked master on the field, standing near this brave warmagi, and set the Knife down.

  It was a relief to relax control of the thing, she realized. She’d balled her fists so tightly that they ached, now, and the pain in her shoulders from the strain of her contact with the Knife was tremendous.

  “Water?” Gareth asked, helpfully. Dara nodded, opening her eyes for just a moment. They, too, hand been held closed too tightly. She gratefully accepted the waterskin and drank three great swallows before she returned it. Gareth studied her face, looking concerned. “How much more of this can you keep up?”

  “I’m fine,” she dismissed. “But the Knife, it’s . . . vicious!”

  “So the legends say,” he nodded. “You seem to have mastered its use,” he added. “Initial reports from the field say you’ve slain hundreds.” His voice had a tone of awe in it.

  “It’s pretty bloody,” she agreed, shaking out her cramped fingers. “I try not to think about it,” she lied. “I wish it were as effective on the dragon, though.”

  “Minalan has a plan,” Gareth said, confidently. “The more snowstone we get next to that thing, the more susceptible it is to our spells. Every man who carried a pebble here from Sevendor is throwing them at the worm. That should bring down the thaumaturgical resistance of it. I hope,” he added.

  “Me, too!” Dara agreed. Pentandra chose that moment to look over at them.

  “Minalan is asking for you to fly the Knife at the dragon again, Dara,” she informed her. “But slowly, this time.”

  “Slowly?” Gareth asked, before she could. “Pentandra, if she hit it that hard to begin with, and it didn’t penetrate its armor, how would going slowly do it?”

  “Because Minalan doesn’t want you to attack the dragon,” Pentandra answered, sharply. “He wants you to take it inside the dragon. He’s placed a piece of snowstone on the Knife which he hopes will provide some vulnerability to it.”

  “What’s that supposed to do?” Gareth demanded. “There are already pebbles of snowstone all around it!”

  “Not inside it,” Pentandra corrected, patiently. “Minalan wants Dara to fly the Thoughtful Knife through its mouth . . . and straight down its throat!”

  Chapter Ten

  Dragonslayer

  Dara gulped as she stared at the hideous, gigantic face of the unconscious dragon. A row of arrows had been neatly shot at the beast’s upper lip, each shaft equipped with a pebble of snowstone. That, and the pile of white pebbles around it, had allowed the warmagi to prop open the mighty jaw of the beast slightly – only slightly – but wide enough to admit the Thoughtful Knife.

  Dara took one final deep breath before she pushed the Knife between the dark gray lips of the beast. Darkness enveloped it at once . . . but the Knife adjusted its magical perception, and soon Dara could see three rows of teeth as long as her borrowed dagger. The cavern of the dragon’s mouth was roomy enough for the Knife to fly without touching a thing . . . but it was almost as thickly armored as the dragon’s exterior hide.

  The throat at the back of the throat, however, was a lighter, more vulnerable-looking tissue, Dara noted. She began pushing the Knife through the sphincter of the worm’s great throat, hoping the sharp blades were doing something when they touched the sides.

  Apparently they were, Dara figured a moment later, as the muscles of the throat spasmed around the foreign object. The pressure of the muscles on the exterior of the Knife was powerful, but Dara wasn’t concerned. The Knife was magically hardened with Alka Alon enchantments, after being fashioned from some unknown but nearly invulnerable material. Whatever else happened, she was reasonably certain it couldn’t be damaged.

  But the spasms did slow her movement.

  “I’m feeling some resistance,” she reported to Gareth. “The throat isn’t as big as you’d think. On the inside,” she added.

  “How far back are you?”

  “Only about six feet, give or take,” she decided. “It’s hard to judge, in here.”

  Dara soon discovered another problem. Once she’d directed the Knife within the body of the dragon, her connection to it began to falter.

  “Oh, Smoke and Ashes!” she swore, as she felt the contact lag. “I’m having a hard time keeping in contact.”

  “It’s the thaumaturgical resistance,” Gareth answered, reluctantly. “Minalan attached a piece of snowstone to the Knife to help, but it’s . . . just do your best. Are you where you need to be?”

  “Almost,” Dara said, exerting her will to keep the connection to the weapon intact. “All right, I’m as close as I can – what?” she asked in surprise, as the Knife started to tumble. The dragon’s throat was spasming again, she realized. Only this time it seemed a lot more deliberate. The Knife tumbled as the powerful muscles clamped down on it . . . but while the pressure was disorientating, the spasm did reveal something important: blood.

  That was something she’d yet to see in this battle. Every attack from outside had been unable to penetrate the armor of the worm, but for the first time she saw the interior of the dragon’s throat splattered with blood from where the sharp wings had
gouged it.

  “All right,” she said, pleased. “I’m in place . . . and I think I can hurt this thing from the inside! I see blood!”

  “Outstanding!” Gareth agreed. “But we need to hurry. A band of shamans is trying to wake the dragon up. Lady Pentandra says to do as much damage as you can, for as long as you can.”

  Dara nodded . . . and released all constraints on the Thoughtful Knife. She let the rabid dog back off its leash.

  Where she’d been forced to be cautious before, on the open battlefield where she was in danger of harming her friends, within the tortuous confines of the dragon’s throat there was no danger of that. Dara sent as powerful a command as she could through her flagging connection, an order the Knife was eager to obey: Destroy!

  Then she receded from active control, and let the Knife do what it was built to do.

  Immediately, the weapon slammed itself into first one side of the dragon’s throat, and then the other. Both sides of the elegant delta wing drew blood and turned the inside of the throat into a gory mess. Yet even the powerful blows of the Knife were not decisive. As deeply as it cut, the bands of muscle that supported the great head of the monster were thick and strong. Dara set the Knife spinning, then, and instructed it to fly in continuous circles down the length of the strangled passage.

  If it had no other effect, Dara’s insidious attack woke up the stunned beast. The muscles slammed repeatedly down on the Knife, desperately trying to dislodge it. It continued its relentless cutting. Thankfully, the spells that Minalan cast were holding the head in place on the ground, but the long tunnel of gray flesh in front of the Knife was bending and shifting as the beast struggled to flee the pain in its throat.

  While she was gratified that she was finally inflicting some damage on the dragon, she could tell that the painful attack was not doing what it was designed to do. It might be in pain and wounded, but Dara knew that the thing was a long journey from being dead.

  “It’s still not working!” she said in frustration. “I’m hurting it, but not really injuring it!”

  “Just keep doing it,” Gareth counseled. “Master Minalan is working on a plan.”

  “I thought this was the plan!” she snorted.

  “He has another plan,” Gareth said, although Dara could detect his confidence was faltering. “He’s a wizard! We always have another plan!”

  “It had better be a good one,” Dara advised, “because this one isn’t working. And it had better be quick, because this thing is waking up, and I’m having trouble maintaining my connection!”

  “Just hold on, Dara!” Gareth soothed. “They’re working on it!”

  Dara sighed. It wasn’t like she could do anything else. The dragon’s throat had the Knife effectively trapped. She could rip the throat into sausage, but the Knife could not penetrate the hide from within.

  Many anxious moments passed, as the Spellmonger and his Magical Corps conspired to finish the job she’d started. While she waited, she tried every trick she could think of to damage the dragon and end its life. But while she managed to fill the throat with a river of blood, she’d yet to hit any vital spot.

  It was frustrating. But she kept at it until she was beginning to grow bored. It became less boring when the dragon well and truly woke up, and desperately tried to dislodge the offending pain in its throat.

  “A few more minutes!” Gareth said, his voice sounding stressed. “Can you tell if it’s awake from the . . . from the inside?”

  “Oh, Flame yes!” Dara nodded. “It’s good and awake. And mad! I’m surprised it hasn’t flown away, by now.”

  “They got enough snowstone near it to bind its head to the ground,” Gareth informed her. “They’re just waiting for something.”

  “What?” demanded Dara.

  “I don’t know yet!” Gareth snapped. “I’m only getting a bit of information at a time. Impatient, aren’t you?”

  “Just bored,” she corrected.

  “Would you like to review some basic thaumaturgy?” he proposed, teasing. “A couple of staves of runes? Now would be an excellent time to run over some of the Pereda . . .”

  “No, thank you!” Dara snorted. “How dare you wait until I’m in a vulnerable position and propose . . . homework! What kind of man are you?” she teased in response, giggling. It was a relief, a joke at a time like this.

  “A dead one, if we can’t get this dragon to join his hallowed ancestors,” Gareth quipped back. “Thank the gods the Spellmonger is here. I can’t think of anyone else who might have a chance against that thing. He’s the cleverest wizard I’ve ever met . . . and the most powerful. You have no idea how lucky you are to be his apprentice!” the young wizard said, with envy.

  “Yes, I’m the luckiest girl in the world . . . apprenticed but two weeks and already, learning how to read, cast spells, and die in battle,” she complained. “Sorry, but I don’t really have the perspective to appreciate that sort of thing at the moment.”

  “A fair point,” Gareth agreed, with a chuckle. “I—all right, Pentandra says to start churning things up in there, again,” he said, suddenly. “They’re going to attack the neck from the outside while you do it from the inside. When I tell you to, push against the right side of that thing with everything you’ve got.”

  “Really?” Dara said, taking a deep breath. “I can do that!” She re-asserted her will over the Thoughtful Knife, encouraging it to shift and vary its attack on the dragon. The beast immediately began struggling to get away from the painful assault, giving the Knife a wild ride.

  Still, she persisted. Every bloody circuit she carved in it she added a little more force to the right side. Over and over she spun the Knife, letting her anger and frustration fuel the connection. The Knife seemed to welcome her rage, transforming it into a ferocious energy. She realized that the more pure fury she fed it, the more viciously and effectively it attacked.

  “Now!” Gareth nearly screamed in her ear.

  Dara clenched her eyes tight and pushed every desperate ounce of will she had through the connection. She felt the Knife slam hard into the selected spot on the right side, slam hard and burrow with all of its might. The force was enough to move the entire neck.

  Then something slammed into the neck from the other side, just inches away from where the point of the Knife struggled. Dara could see, for the barest second, the moment where the tortured flesh of the beast parted in the midst of a thunderous explosion. The feedback was so great she passed out for a moment.

  She came to a few minutes later, Gareth and Pentandra standing anxiously over her.

  Dara shook her head, and realized that her hair was caked to her face with sweat. She heaved a deep breath, and everything came into focus. The control stone lay limp in her sweaty fingers.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assured them, as they shook her shoulders and petted her hair. “Really, it just . . . I’m fine! What happened?” she demanded.

  “We did it!” Pentandra said, gleefully, as she sat back on her heels. “We really did it! We killed the thing!”

  “What was that?” Dara asked in a daze, as Gareth gave her more water. “That thing that hit the other side of the neck?”

  “A knight,” Gareth said, simply. “A knight mage. One very brave knight mage.”

  “A knight? What knight could hit a dragon like that?” she asked, confused. She’d expected to hear of some miraculous spell that Master Minalan had concocted for the occasion. But a knight?

  “One with arcane power in his arm and nobility in his heart,” Lady Pentandra said, gravely. “It was Sire Cei of Sevendor who slew the dragon. Though I fear he did not survive the feat.”

  The next several hours passed in a haze for Dara. She recalled the blood-stained Thoughtful Knife back to her, before she rested. Gareth urged her to not to touch it, until it was magically cleaned – there was no telling what the ferocious creature’s odd blood could do. And he wanted to study it.

  The battle continued for hours
, until well after sundown. The rain finally settled back to a drizzle, creating a loud sizzle in the air as it settled over the still-flaming remains of Cambrian Castle. The result of the battle was never in doubt – once the dragon collapsed on the goblin army’s center, and the cavalry had regrouped for one final devastating charge in the rain, the remnants of the gurvani were chased from the field.

  Dara helped Gareth tend the wounded, as before, and was relieved as her friends and people she knew appeared back at the courtyard for some purpose or another. Baron Arathanial, Tyndal, Rondal, Sir Festaran, Sir Taren, Sir Roncil, Sir Festaran . . . she was happy to see each and every one.

  Save Sire Cei. The brave Wilderlord who had tested his lance against the dragon had survived the attempt, but it was up to the power of the Flame whether he would survive the night. Yet he was as well-tended as a man could hope to be, Gareth assured her. Master Minalan himself was overseeing his care. Should he still breathe when dawn came, the young wizard pronounced solemnly, he could yet recover.

  Monks and nuns from the local monastery had arrived with gangs of peasants pressed into service to drag the dead and wounded from the field, frequently scattering the crows and carrion birds from both. Her family and the other Westwoodmen were busy patrolling the perimeter of the encampment, wary for goblins or canines who might seek to feast on the dead. A few tents and canopies were erected in front of the cottage to shield the most grievously wounded, until they could be transported by wagon to the field hospital for treatment, and thence to Barrowbell for recovery.

  But all of it was a haze, to Dara. Near midnight, as the last of the seriously wounded were trundled away, she collapsed back into the pile of supplies she’d sat on all day . . . and nearly fell over when she realized half of them were gone.

  “That was graceful,” Tyndal snorted, from the doorway.