Moth and Spark
Page 41
Green and black. He woke immediately. Not jewel green, but deep green, the hue of very old bronze and several shades darker. It glistened and shone as old bronze never did. The wings were black. Gold scales banded its neck. It was smaller than Kelvan’s dragon, feet more delicate, head more curved.
There was still a rider harness strapped to it. He realized Kelvan was nearby. “Do you know it?” he asked.
“Aye. Its rider died in the taking of Caithenor. No one will be claiming it back from you.”
“Was it followed?” He knew the dragons would not have followed on their own, but it could hardly have left unnoticed.
“No,” Kelvan said. “There’s no rider anywhere near us, I’m certain of it.”
Tam put her arm around his waist. “You should fly it,” she said.
“Come with me.”
She shook her head. “Not this first time. It should be just you.”
He put his hand on the scales and let his mind slip into its mind. At once he realized how much he had been restraining himself when he spoke to Kelvan’s dragon. He had not wanted to intrude. But this, this was his. Anticipation churned under the surface images of its thoughts. It was expecting things to happen too.
The rider’s helmet was attached to the straps by a loop. He put it on his head and climbed onto the dragon. Tam looked quite small. He waved at her. She blew him a kiss.
Kelvan said, “Fly fast, fly far, and fly well.”
I’m a rider now, Corin thought, awed. Up! he said to the dragon.
And oh, this flying was different too. His mind fell into the dragon’s and he saw with its eyes, felt the wind with its skin. His arms were wings. The air currents were pale ribbons that changed colors like opal or mother-of-pearl, and the colors told him where to go. Violet to descend and dawnlike pink to rise. The sea was a sheet of silver, etched and polished. Every edge and surface of mountain rock was marked, clear, distinct. The waterfall at the valley’s end threw out droplets of clear glass that hung in the air before drifting slowly downward. Even the smallest ones had shape that he could see.
He swooped so low to the rock that claws nearly scraped, hurtled sideways through a gap between two crags, circled and looped with the slightest bend of wing, flick of tail. The air was a cushion, a bed, a buoyant thickness of light. Several goats stood on an outcropping, and his blood surged with hunger and the desire to kill. One quick swipe of claw across back, one taloned grip of neck and hindquarters, and the beast would be his, hot and rich.
No, Corin thought, exerting control. He brought the dragon out of its downward curve and back up. He looked down at the valley and as he tried to focus his human gaze on the huts his eyes blurred, and when he looked again there was nothing below but river and meadow. Illusion.
He had the dragon hover and sat still upon it, watching the movement of wings, feeling the air pass over him. The heat of the dragon’s body worked its way through his trousers into his thighs and groin. His stomach tightened and curled, and his head pounded. He was holding on so hard that the straps wrapped around his hands dug painfully into his skin. He drew in all the air his lungs could hold and shouted so that his whole body shook. Again.
Then he retreated back into himself. Softly, he directed the dragon back downward. It landed with silence and grace. He slid off and put the helmet back on its strap. Sound rushed in. Birds, the ocean, a rooster crowing somewhere up the hill.
Tam was waiting where he had left her. The light on her shirt revealed the shape of her body perfectly.
With very great effort he took her hand and kissed it, courtly, polite. She looked at him and said, “You can ravish me later. There’s work to do.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said. “Damn you. We haven’t any maps here, how good is your geography?”
The three of them came to Tower Peak the next morning an hour or so after sunrise. It was a two-hour flight, and Corin was tired and stiff when they arrived. He had kept an arm around Tam’s waist nearly the entire time, even when he did not need to. Her hair was clean and combed, and she wore a vivid red and gold scarf wrapped loosely around her neck. It drew the eye from her plain clothing to her face, beautiful. She looked fit to be a queen.
The weather had held, and the sky was clear. By the time things started the sun would be high enough over the crenellations of the mountaintop to keep Corin out of the shadow, and the riders would not have to squint to see him against the mountain. The huge slabs of granite were almost white in the sun.
He had been there once before, on that long journey through the mountains to the Dragon Valleys. He had expected that it would be diminished, as so many things in memory were when seen again, but if anything it was larger than he recalled. The mountain sloped down to a narrow river valley that was gold with meadow and green with pines. On the other side of the valley the bare ridge above the trees was an uneven collection of fractures and lumps and cliffs. Smooth fans of grey ash spread above loose jumbles of rock. To the north and south the ridges continued as far as the eye could see, growing gradually higher northward. There was just enough wind to blow the ends of Tam’s hair about.
They were on level granite below a fissured ridge of rough stone that had the appearance of a war-tower wall. The mountain curved behind him in a half-round with rocks protruding from either end, creating a natural amphitheater. There was easily space for five or six dozen riders without forcing them to crowd together. His dragon and Kelvan’s would stay near, flanking him, but the riders’ dragons would have to find perches on the crags and outcroppings. That was one reason Corin had chosen the place; he wanted the riders to feel somewhat naked.
Tam kept her hand in his. She was unusually silent. He thought it was more than fatigue from the early rising and the long ride, or worry over what might happen. She was looking everywhere, her gaze fixed and intent. Perhaps she felt lonely, there in the starkness of rock and sky. He was counting on it quelling the riders a little too.
Kelvan hollered, “One comes!”
“Go!” Corin shouted back. He watched carefully as Kelvan rode up to meet the rider. They would not be able to speak directly, of course, not at that distance even with only a light wind, but they had hand-signs. Kelvan would not speak to the other rider through the dragons unless there was some crucial need to; he was to act as Corin’s lieutenant, not as the riders’ peer.
Tam said, “Where should I wait?”
He had considered having her stand beside him, but they had decided it was better to keep the focus on him alone. It would be distracting enough to the riders that she was there at all. He had not wanted to bring her, but she and Kelvan both said her power might be needed.
“There will do,” he said, pointing at a spot several yards behind him where the granite had cracked in a steplike formation. “On the top. Do you think you’ll be able to hear?”
“As long as the wind stays light.” She paused. “Corin, do you remember what Rois said about places of power?”
“Yes.”
“This is one. The dragons may be able to use it.”
“I will be careful,” he said. It was a complication he could do without, but if the dragons used it, they used it. Kelvan and the rider were landing.
She took her hand out of his but waited until the other rider was approaching to bend her head and walk backward from him. He resisted watching her over his shoulder.
Several more riders were circling above. A few specks on the horizon betokened others. That was one thing one could say for them, they were punctual. As each came in and was separated from his dragon, Corin observed him closely. A handful were younger than himself, but most were Kelvan’s age or older; some were grey-haired. They were all strong and graceful. If they rushed him with rider-quickness he would not have much chance, even with a dragon close by. Most looked at him with the same neutral expression. They would hear him out, but he had not won them yet.
The breeze died down, a stroke of fortune, and the sun on his back was suddenly hot. Corin straightened. He had better start. They were too well disciplined to shuffle, but he would lose their attention if he waited any longer.
“Riders,” he said, and again, “Riders!” He saw his voice catch them. Confidence surged through him. He was prepared for this.
“Hadon betrayed me,” he said. “Hadon betrayed you.” Clear, simple sentences, but they would need reason behind them, not rhetoric. This was not a mass of impressionable peasants or fawning lords. He and Tam and Kelvan had debated at length about which language he should use and finally decided on Mycenean, to emphasize the depth of Hadon’s betrayal.
“When the king swore his loyalty to Hadon, when I put my own hands between the Emperor’s and swore the same, Hadon himself swore that in return for such loyalty he would provide the protection of the Empire. That is the compact of a liege with his vassals.
“And what has he done now? He has opened the way for the barbarian Tyrekh to conquer Caithen, and he has sent his own soldiers and servants to help. He has sent you. You! To burn a city that has never raised a hand in war against him, to destroy people who look on him as their own lord. You are the instruments he uses in his betrayal. It is not right, it is not just.”
He paused to stare at them. They stared back. He lowered his voice a notch and said, “If you choose to take Hadon’s way, I cannot stop you. If you continue to serve a coward in his cowardice, I cannot keep you from doing so. All I can do then is pity you. If you bring my head to Hadon and are rewarded, I can’t even pity you. But your dragon will scorn you.” He gestured sweepingly to the dragons scattered about on the rocks. As though prompted, several of them keened. A soaring raven made a sharp angle and winged rapidly south, away.
Corin lowered his voice a bit more and shifted his tone to something less emphatic and more conversational. “You know why he’s done this, of course. Because the dragons have chosen me to serve them and to free them, to let them return north, where they belong. And that’s the hard choice for you. Serve a traitor and keep a dragon, or lose your dragon and keep your honor.”
He stopped again. He expected that one of them would speak. But they did not. They looked expressionlessly back at him, judging, thinking. On an impulse he changed tactics.
“But it’s not really a choice, is it?” he said. He reached to the dragons with his mind and found the threads of light that joined them. He heard their hums. He sent them a thought. “Because I command the dragons. I speak with them.”
He waved both hands like a conductor, and the dragons rose from their places and swooped across the sky. He was not sure what they would do; he left it to them to decide how they wanted to show their submission and their power. He waved again, and they gave a loud cry in harmony. It was piercing and beautiful. It vibrated in his chest. A rock cracked explosively on the opposite mountain. Something roared.
They all turned to the sound. A chunk of rock was falling, and bringing other stones with it in a rush. It sounded like the sea, like the wind, like the rattle of a hundred wagon wheels on the cobbles. The slide continued, pouring down the mountainside like a living thing. It reached the trees and crashed into them. They cracked and toppled. The rising dust obscured the slope. Ravens croaked and fluttered away in a line. Then silence returned.
Hastily Corin thought the dragons back. That was more than he had expected. His pulse was racing.
He and the riders looked at one another again. Some of the neutrality had worn off their faces. It was time to make them speak to him now.
He called a single name. “Ennoc.” The word hung clear in the air. Kelvan had said this was the man the riders would follow. If he turned him, he turned them all.
From the back a rider came forward. He was tall for a Mycenean, with very dark hair cut helmet-short and golden-brown skin. He, or his parents, must be from some other vassal country. Corin saw antagonism in the lines of the man’s body. Antagonism and strength. Dragon cold ran through him. He might be outmatched.
The rider stopped perhaps ten feet away from him. They looked at each other. The expression on the rider’s face was not hatred or defiance but contempt. Corin’s anger rose, but he checked it.
The rider spat, drew his sword, and charged.
Corin had been prepared for such a possibility, but it was the dragons that saved him. The man moved as though he were swimming through treacle. Corin drew his own sword and brought it up in one smooth curving stroke before Ennoc jerked into ordinary motion and brought his down. The sun glittered blindingly on the blades.
The swords clashed with a tone that reminded him of dragonspeech. After a few more testing strokes he and Ennoc stepped back and circled each other, assessing. Corin caught the rhythm of the man’s movement and darted in.
Ennoc parried easily. Corin feinted, made a counterthrust, felt the quickness of his body. So fast. It felt like the swift descent of a dragon. The energy and ecstasy of it were almost unbearable. The swords struck in a blur of radiance. Again and again, the sound of the clash too high-pitched for him to hear more than a faint whine.
Abruptly Ennoc lunged at him with such speed that he seemed almost to disappear. Corin spun and ducked in one motion. Ennoc’s blade struck his with such force that he almost dropped it. Not fair, he thought like a child. Not fair at all. He was not able to be so quick.
He reached to the dragons again. They stretched the moment out. Suddenly there were two Ennocs, then four, all of them bearing down on him. Their movements were not identical. This was no mirrored illusion: it was a sequence. His own sword was a beam of light. When the blades struck each other sparks went flying. He sped up himself enough to face only one Ennoc and hold him off, again and again, but could not attack. Sweat poured from him. His arms shook with effort. His lungs were aching from the altitude. The rider had the advantage of him in that. When the blades struck, he could tell that he was stronger, but he was getting short of breath too quickly.
He began to feel desperate. That meant he would soon be getting careless. His mouth was drying up. There was so much sweat on his sword hilt and hands that it was hard to keep his grip. The granite did not yield, and his feet were hurting. There was no room for slipping or drawing back.
Why couldn’t the dragons help him more?
They had given him their magics, maybe he had to find it in himself. Something more than rider quickness.
He parried another thrust and felt himself weaker. Fire, he thought. They gave me fire.
Flames licked along the blade of Corin’s sword and sprang up at Ennoc’s feet. They writhed around the rider’s arms and wound their way, hissing, up his legs. The man cried out. Corin thought it was more in fear than in pain. He looked at his arms and saw the sweat gleaming on them like scales. He took his left hand off his sword hilt and watched the fingers elongate and curve into claws. With one swipe of his hand he could tear Ennoc to pieces.
He was consumed with dragonthoughts. The sweetness of blood, the rippling colors of flight. He was bound. Time only went one way now. Space was a confining net. It was wrapped around his wings and claws. He was trapped in ice. There was no way out. It would only break when fire roared again from the earth and filled him with light and heat and motion. Made him light and heat and motion.
He stopped moving and looked around. There was light wrapped around Tam’s neck and shadow falling down her back. The sky was the pearl of dragon eggs and the mountain was the darkness of coal. The riders were outlines of colored lights. The wind drifted silver among them. Somewhere, deep below, heat waited to hatch.
He had not that strength. Not yet.
Fire burned around his head in a band. It reminded him that he had been born a prince, not a dragon. He let go.
Ennoc was on his knees before him, swordless. Corin put the point of his blade at the man’s neck.
“Are you going to make me kill you?” he asked harshly in Mycenean. His throat was raw from the thin air.
The rider looked up at him. His eyes were a surprising green. After what seemed a tremendously long time, he shook his head.
“Say it.”
“I yield.”
Corin pressed the sword tip slightly harder.
“I yield, my lord.”
Corin sheathed his sword. “Stand up.” He had to play this delicately now. He raised his voice and said, “I command the dragons, and they command me. I will die to free them if that is what it takes. I will die to free your dragon, even if it is your sword that kills me. Would you do the same?”
“Why should I?” There was a measured quality to the tone, not defiance.
“I will not bargain with you,” he said, hoping he had imbued his tone with just the right amount of arrogance. He looked over the crowd of riders. “With any of you. But I can make a promise. When it is over, I will allow you to return to Mycene if you wish, or stay in Caithen. I will not force you to my service, nor will I turn you away. When the dragons are free, you have your freedom. What happens between you and the dragon is up to the dragon.”
“You are not the king.”
“In this matter I speak for him. And equally he will honor my promises if I die.”
To his great relief, Ennoc did not challenge him again. The man stood quietly, considering. He said, “If the dragon stays with me I can fly where I wish?”
“Yes.”
The mountain silence was immense. Not even a bird called. Corin had no idea what he would do next if the man refused him. He was tempted to have Ennoc’s own dragon engage in some theatrics, but better not. He did not need to show off might as a dragonlord now, he needed to show himself a better man than Hadon.