Aldric bared his teeth in something halfway between grin and snarl, trembling all over, then returned more slowly, more carefully, across the narrow causeway to safety. Once there he sat on the plinth’s top step for a long, long time and stared at nothing until his racing heartbeat slowed, his sodden clothing dried a little and his breath grew steady. Then he took his first close look at the spellstave he had come so far to find.
It was the length of a hall-spear, maybe six feet from end to end and well-balanced for one hand or two. Tiny filaments buried in the smoke-black translucent shaft glistened like cobwebs caught by sunlight and a silvery dragon wrapped serpentine coils around it. The tail formed a wicked spike at one end and its sculpted head made a crested pommel for the other.
The dragonhead had just one eye, its empty socket no defacement but a clean recess waiting to be filled. Aldric needed no ten years as a sorcerer’s apprentice to know the Stone of Echainon would go there in due course. A flame-shaped crystal writhed from the dragon’s mouth, clear as a midwinter icicle, though when it scraped against the stone step between Aldric’s feet that delicate-seeming substance bit into the granite like a chisel in soft wood.
Magical talisman or not, the Dragonwand was an impressive weapon in its own right, and if—
The thought vanished abruptly when Kyrin yelled from the hall below, and Aldric came down the steps in bounds of four at a time. Even over the clatter of his descent the cavern echoed with a metallic scrape like a thousand swords all drawn at once. In such a place, such a sound meant just one thing.
The firedrake.
*
Aldric jumped the last short distance to the cavern floor and landed with a slithering crash as his feet went one way, the weight of his armour went another, and his balance wavered for half a flailing second somewhere in the middle.
Kyrin was already half-crouched in a defensive stance, her sword drawn and poised. The slender estoc had always reminded Aldric of a needle, and even Isileth Widowmaker was no better against the creature they faced now.
Iron coils grated together and iron talons clicked on the stone of the plinth as the firedrake rose. It stood more than twice Aldric’s height, it stretched sixty feet from nose to the finned barbs of its tail, and at full spread those vast wings would span the Cavern from end to end. Its body was like a greyhound, all narrow waist, lean belly and deep chest made deeper still by tremendous flight muscles, but it moved with the stealthy grace of a stalking cat.
An iron eyelid lifted and Aldric wrenched his own eyes away, for after hearing and reading so many old stories he knew something of the lore concerning firedrakes. Wise people didn’t meet them stare for stare. A hasty sidelong glance proved him and the old lore right. for Kyrin and Dewan were already locked in place by the firedrake’s gaze. She stood frozen in her combat crouch while Dewan, many paces distant, had been struck still in the very act of drawing his sword.
Those same wise people didn’t run when the time to do it was long past, and honourable people didn’t abandon their friends, so he stood his ground like one cat facing down another. Cats with somewhere safe to go will run, but if they can’t then in the last desperation even the smallest cat will forget how small it is. Aldric felt very small indeed, but he poised Isileth Widowmaker in one hand and raised the Dragonwand above his head. Then the words came, whether from the spellstave or from some less knowable source, filling his head and pouring from his mouth.
“Ymareth!” The firedrake’s scales rang with a steely music as it halted, and he felt a brooding presence leaning over him, an unimaginable intelligence considering him, a shadow like the shadow of death hanging right above him. “Ymareth,” he said again, with more respect, and then a third time almost in greeting. “Ymareth… Techaur arrhath eban Ykraith, aiy’yel echin arhlathal Gemmel pestreyr.”
All movement ceased and Aldric finally risked an upward glance, certain the firedrake had understood what he had said and uneasily aware that he hadn’t. He might have promised it… Anything. His gaze slid across the armoured, graceful head, always avoiding those amber eyes, and he wondered about the old tales where firedrakes spoke. This lipless mouth and thin forked tongue could never form the sounds of any human language.
Then it did speak, in a voice not loud but huge, and inhuman words rustled in Aldric’s ears like cymbals brushed with wire. Yet their meaning was clear enough in his mind, and their archaic mode was entirely fitting.
“I give thee greeting, man. I am Ymareth. Know me, and know that I am lord.”
The word was not arluth. Instead it was anak – owner, possessor, one who held with the strong hand, and Old Alban like all the rest. Aldric had studied the language as a child and disliked it because it was useless, because no-one used it any more, and because no-one had spoken it except in ritual for half a thousand years. Until now.
He had a strange feeling Ymareth was more curious about his sword than anything else. Perhaps Gemmel had come here in the past with Isileth Widowmaker on his belt, or perhaps… The thought hovered for a moment, crossing with the firedrake’s language, and went nowhere. He sheathed the long blade, but he had no intention of laying the Dragonwand aside. Then he went to one knee and gave the courtesy of Second Obeisance due to any highborn in their own hall.
“Speak thy name, man, that I may know thee.”
“I am Aldric, Ymareth-anak, third son of Haranil Talvalin, and I ask—”
“Aldric Talvalin?”
Even though he had given his name freely enough, a muscle still twitched in Aldric’s cheek. What he had heard was no echo but recognition where none should be, and under his armour the hair rose on his forearms as their skin went to gooseflesh. Yet he also sensed a shift in the atmosphere of the Cavern. Its awesome ruler was no less fearsome – anyone not afraid of a full-sized firedrake was either lying or insane – yet it was somehow less menacing.
“Auldarek ar’Talvlyn,” Ymareth said again, his name sounding now as it would have done to ar Ayelbannr kozh, the Albans of the Old Time, when their keels struck shore, when they claimed the Land and in the savage years that followed when they secured their grip on it with fire and steel. “What do ye here in mine abiding-place? Speak, that I may judge the rightness of it.”
“Ymareth-anak, I… I ask a favour.” Aldric gathered his courage, stood up straight and grounded the Dragonwand between them with a small sharp click against the stone-flagged floor as if it was a spear brought to parade-rest. “I crave the borrowing of this talisman.”
“Upon what cause?” Grey smoke curled from the firedrake’s jaws, proof its wakening was complete. “Wherefore desire ye Ykraith only, Talvalin, and not the many treasures of mine hoard?”
“I ask only for the Dragonwand, Ymareth-anak, as an honest man with no desire for stolen gold. But I desire revenge on my enemies, and aid in the achieving of it.” Ymareth snorted smoke and a few sparks from its nostrils, and Aldric could have sworn the huge creature was laughing at him. Perhaps it was.
“O prideful, prideful, as befits the son of a clan-lord. Do I touch too closely on thy honour, kailin-eir Talvalin? So, and so, and so. Know this: were ye not an honest man I should not have spoken save to taunt thee ere thy most assured death.”
Aldric raised his eyes and the firedrake opened its mouth to give him a clear view of nine-inch fangs, great cheek-teeth big enough to bite an ox in two, and a slight, deliberate exhalation of yellow-white flame. He cringed inside but held his ground and, if such a word had any meaning for it, Ymareth seemed impressed.
“Speak and say, what foes do so concern thee that fear of my wrath does not deter thee?”
“The necromancer Duergar Vathach,” Aldric replied, “and Kalarr cu Ruruc.”
There was a coughing sound within the firedrake’s throat and tongues of flame licked from Ymareth’s jaws as its head shook with amusement. Aldric choked as smoke enveloped him, and when it cleared he saw through streaming eyes how close the fanged jaws had come, bringing the wash of a great hot br
eath and the icy stab of the fear of death. Instead of a blast of fire, those jaws stretched in a tongue-lolling grin like an impossibly huge fox.
“I compliment thee on thy choice of enemies, kailin-eir Talvalin, if there was choice at all. Duergar Vathach I know not, but cu Ruruc of Ut Ergan is a creeping viper I thought dead, long ages past.”
Once again Aldric heard recognition where none belonged, and half-expected a demand to elaborate; then came the susurration of a scaled neck and the bright, ringing clank of a talon laid on the floor as the firedrake’s shadow moved, leaning down for a closer look at him. He stared hard at his own gloved hands and tried to ignore the colossal wedge-shaped head less than an arm’s length above his own.
“I did hear thee speak the words of swearing and of summoning and of claiming. All these cu Ruruc knew of old. What of the words to bind me, kailin-eir Talvalin?”
If Ymareth thought for one instant that Kalarr had sent him he would be ash and embers before he drew another breath. Aldric took a desperate chance and looked up, directing what he hoped was an open, honest gaze between Ymareth’s eyes. Even glimpsed on the edge of sight, the blank, phosphorescent glare set his senses swaying. It needed an effort he hadn’t known he possessed to look anywhere else. Runnels of perspiration tickled his back, and he could taste the salt droplets forming on his upper lip as the eyes enticed.
“Ymareth-anak,” he managed at last, “I have no words to impose my will upon you. The strongest one I know binds me. Once given, my Word is kept.” He put his free hand down to touch the grip of his tsepan for emphasis, then realised accident or unthinking intent had laid it on Isileth’s hilt instead. “But… But I confess that keeping it is often hard.”
There was a long, slow, still moment and then the firedrake blinked, its spell withdrawn with the abrupt jolt of a downward step missed in the dark. Aldric cried out in shock and almost let the Dragonwand clatter to the floor.
“Those who speak with me make use of twisted talk and riddles,” said Ymareth. “Always until now. It is passing strange for a Talvalin of all men to be so forthright. Take Ykraith, kailin-eir, clan-lord’s son, and may it give thee power to visit vengeance on thine enemies that they may be consumed with the heat thereof and entirely eaten up. When all is accomplished, I would have thee and none other bring it back.”
Aldric made a deep, respectful bow, but the firedrake was already coiling onto the platform where he had first seen it, slow sinister grace in every movement. Its head swung to study him again.
“I will sleep the long sleep once again, Talvalin, but first I will tell thee that which may prove useful. Should thee possess a thing sought greatly by cu Ruruc, make pretence of its destruction. Then act upon what follows.”
Scales clicked and grated as Ymareth settled on the plinth, eyelids drooping to shutter those hypnotic eyes. The smoke-plumes drifting from its nostrils ceased as some internal process slaked the fires in its belly, and silence returned to the Cavern of Firedrakes.
Aldric’s head pounded, what with the unremitting heat, the air stiff with enchantments, and the strain of encountering an ancient, wise and frightening firedrake. Spoken direct, hinted at or left unsaid, the convoluted working of its mind was enough to give anyone a headache. Yet that final advice was sound. If Kalarr believed the spellstone was destroyed, he would also believe the one who did it was an ignorant fool and no threat. And he might, just might, do something stupid.
Beside him he sensed Kyrin stirring. Snared by the firedrake’s gaze, subject only to Ymareth’s will, if it had commanded her or Dewan to walk down its throat they would have done so. Yet it had not, for some reason Aldric couldn’t explain any more than he could understand its strange familiarity with his name and sword.
But Gemmel could explain.
And one way or another, he would.
*
Kyrin shivered, then lowered her sword and put one arm around Aldric, not as a frightened woman or concerned lover but a warrior relieved to see their companion-in-arms safe after risking misadventure. When she released him again she backed away until only the tips of her fingers touched his face, tracing its features like something unfamiliar.
“Are you safe?” she said. Aldric nodded. Unroasted, sane and with all his limbs in place was safe enough for now. “You were talking to that, that thing as easily as you talk to me. Who are you? What are you?”
“I’m who I always was. And I’m still scared.” Under the metal carapace of his armour it felt like a creature with big soft wings was flying clumsily around the pit of his stomach. “I expected to be scared. But I’m still alive, which I didn’t expect at all. Speaking to a firedrake isn’t easy.”
Ar Korentin came sprinting up, then slackened his headlong pace and approached more sedately as befitted a captain-of-guards, even a thoroughly startled one. His eyes were heavy, like a man woken after too much wine, but a flood of questions was dammed up behind his impassive features. At least the simple ones came first.
“Are you both all right?”
“Yes. You?”
“Well enough.” Dewan showed his teeth. If it was a grin, it needed work. “I’ve been better.”
“You could have been worse.” Aldric tucked the Dragonwand under one arm, not sure he should let either companion touch it and not sure they even would, and took his borrowed helmet back from Kyrin. With the straps buckled and the cheekplates laced down it felt reassuringly solid even on his aching head, and he continued with a swift check of every other belt and fastening on his battle harness.
“Look to your armour whenever you can,” he said as Dewan watched, “so you never die wishing you had… An old proverb my father liked, though he usually meant I should tighten the girths on my pony or make sure my breeches were decent.” He tugged at a final strap. “All right, I’ve got what I came for. Let’s go.”
They went back along the hall together, and if they walked faster than before, nothing was said. The attraction of the treasure still tugged at them, but awareness of its guardian made resistance easy. Ymareth’s dormant bulk, lost now among the shadows at the far end of the Cavern, was an excellent deterrent.
It was also a distraction. Perhaps there was some remnant of the firedrake’s spellbinding gaze, or relief at surviving an encounter which might have killed them all. Whatever the reason, when the attack came it took them by surprise.
Two men burst from the open doorway. There was no challenge and none needed; the shortswords glinting in the unsteady light made their intention clear enough. Kyrin and Dewan dodged to either side, but Aldric was right in front of them. That was when long hours of training became reflex.
He pivoted on one heel and the first blow missed by inches, but avoiding one blade put him into the path of the other. He swept the Dragonwand across to block it, and splinters flew as a great gouge chipped from the shortsword’s edge. Ykraith took no harm at all, and its defensive sweep ended as a strike that smashed the attacker back against the unyielding stone arch like a stick of firewood snapped across a knee.
As he swung around to meet his first opponent again Aldric let the spellstave drop and grabbed for Isileth instead. The man was too close for the undrawn blade but at perfect distance for a Viper’s Strike, and the taiken’s pommel slammed against his face and neck like a siege-ram, three meaty thuds that after endless practice came almost as close together as the clapping of hands. The first impact broke his nose, the second hammered a half-formed howl of pain back into the mouth that made it, and the third crushed his windpipe. He reeled back choking, and that gave Isileth Widowmaker enough space to clear her scabbard in the raking upward diagonal of the Boar’s Strike.
It sheared him to his spine.
The old tales claimed a taiken longsword could cleave armour, but old tales always said such things and Aldric had never believed them. He believed them now. Even though his opponent wore a bullhide jerkin reinforced with broad bronze plates, Isileth parted leather and metal like so much damp paper. Flesh and bon
e were no obstacle at all.
The man’s chest opened like a carcass on a butcher’s counter. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he crashed backwards to the ground as if the spew of frothy blood from lungs and heart drove him there. His legs kicked in half a dozen random jerks, then quivered and were still.
From start to finish, from ambush at the doorway to corpses on the floor, the incident had taken less than fifteen seconds.
Aldric released a long breath between his teeth. Light and shadow moved between the peak and cheek-plates of his helmet, revealing spots and trickles of blood on his face but no emotion. It had become like Esel’s face, cold metal with the scar on one cheek a mere flawed imperfection.
Kyrin watched him wipe and dry the longsword. This wasn’t the Aldric who smiled and made bad jokes and had gentle hands. He was an eijo with no gentleness in his life. The man she thought she knew wouldn’t have done what he had just done without showing some reaction to it.
“Who were they?” she asked, so quietly that the question passed unnoticed.
The taiken’s smoke-grey blade returned to its scabbard with a soft, prolonged hiss, just steel against wood and leather but all too like a sigh of satisfaction. Isileth Widowmaker had tasted human blood for the first time in many years and her thirst was quenched. Until the next time.
Kyrin had heard stories about Alban named-blades, and remembered the sense of icy menace on the one occasion she had drawn this one. Then, she had been uncertain of the feeling’s source. Now she was sure. Even though swords were no more naturally evil than storms or men or dragons, they were forged for a purpose. It was one this taiken seemed all too eager to accomplish.
The Horse Lord (The Book of Years Series 1) Page 20