The Fire Dragon

by Katharine Kerr

“Of course!” Maryn stepped in between them. “I have the highest regard for both of you.” All at once Maryn grinned. “I think me Lord Braemys is in for a bit of a surprise.”

  “So we may hope,” Nevyn put in. “He's badly outnumbered, and cleverness was the best weapon he had.”

  “Well, it's blunted now. Still—” Maryn hesitated. “Pray for us, and for the kingdom.”

  “Always, Your Highness. Always.”

  When the army rode out, Nevyn stood at the edge of the camp and watched till they were out of sight. The cloud of dust that marked their going hung in the air, as cloying as smoke, for a long time. Perhaps, he told himself, perhaps today will be the last battle ever fought over the kingship. All he could do now to ensure it was to invoke the gods and hope. With a weary shake of his head, he walked over to the circle of wagons to meet with the other chirurgeons. They all needed to ready their supplies for the flood of wounded that would soon deluge them.

  Like the others, Nevyn would work on the tailgate of a wagon, sluiced down with a bucket of water between patients. On the wagon bed itself he arranged herbs, tools, and bandages, then put a second set of supplies into a cloth sack. Eventually, if the prince won the battle, Nevyn would go to the battlefield to see what he could do for the wounded left there.

  At the wagon to his right, Caudyr was doing the same. He was a stout fellow in the prime of life now, not the frightened lad Nevyn had first met as Grodyr's apprentice all those years ago. Grey laced his blond hair—prematurely, really, but then he was often in pain. He had a clubfoot, which gave him an uneven, rolling gait for one thing but for another threw his entire body out of alignment. His hips and knees protested so badly that as he aged he had more and more trouble standing for any long while.

  Today as Caudyr laid out his supplies, he looked so pale, his mouth so twisted, that Nevyn went over to his wagon.

  “Are you all right?” Nevyn said.

  “I will be.” Caudyr paused to stretch his back and grimaced. “I slept wrong or suchlike, is all. It'll loosen up in a bit.”

  Nevyn considered him, but he had nothing to offer to kill pain but strong drink, an impossibility since Caudyr would need all his wits about him.

  “Well,” Nevyn said at last. “Try to sit down till the battle joins, at least. Though it won't be long now. The prince will be making his stand only about a mile from here, but it's going to take time for the Boar's army to find us.”

  “Only a mile?”

  “He wants to be close at hand should Braemys decide to raid the camp.”

  “The wretched young pigling tried it last time, truly. He's a clever man, young Braemys.”

  “He is. Unfortunately.”

  Both men turned and looked beyond the huddled wagons. Outside of the ring, Oggyn was marching his company of spearmen into position. Beyond the wooden wall they stood shoulder to shoulder in an overlapping formation three men deep. With long spear and shield they made a living wall and a formidable one against an attack on the baggage train. Let's hope they have naught to do but stand there, Nevyn thought. But who knows what the gods have in store for us?

  In the hot spring sun Prince Maryn led his men to the chosen field. The army jounced and jingled down the road in a plume of dust that drifted across green pastures and rose high in the windless air, an invitation to Lord Braemys and his allies. As usual when the army marched to battle, the silver daggers rode at its head with Prince Maryn safely in their midst. As he always did, the prince grumbled and complained, too, as if after all these years of riding to war together he still feared that his men would think him a coward. And as usual, Branoic was the one to reassure him.

  “Ah for love of the gods, Your Highness!” Branoic said. “If you fall in battle, all these cursed years of fighting won't have been worth a pig's fart.”

  “True spoken,” Maryn said. “But it gripes my heart all the same.”

  Not far from camp lay their destination, a stretch of fal-low fields beside the east-running road. When they turned off the road they found the grass high enough to swish around their horses' legs. With the silver daggers around him Maryn stationed himself at the road, facing south. As each unit arrived he rose in the stirrups and waved a javelin at the spot where he wanted them. Warband after warband trotted across the field till the grass lay trampled into the dirt. Over a thousand riders waited in a rough formation, a curving line some six men deep, an unpleasant surprise for Lord Braemys.

  Acting at the prince's request, Gwerbret Ammerwdd led the other half of the army past them. He arranged his units into a shallow crescent with the embrace facing east and blocking the road to greet their share of the enemy when it appeared. Their line stood at right angles to Maryn's, like a bowstring with Maryn's formation the arrow, nocked and ready. By the time the full army stood disposed, the sun had nearly reached the zenith. Ammerwdd rode up to the prince and made him a bow from the saddle.

  “My liege, if I may be so bold, it would be best if you withdrew from the first rank.”

  “So it would,” Maryn said. “Very well, silver daggers, follow me.”

  Ammerwdd bowed again, then trotted back to his own line. Prince Maryn led his silver daggers through the ranks of the south-facing army and took a place behind the center of the long line. The banners of the red wyvern stood off to one side, billowing as the wind rose.

  “Naught to do now but wait,” Owaen remarked.

  “Not for long.” Branoic rose in his stirrups, turned toward the east, and shaded his eyes with one hand. “I see dust coming. Ammerwdd's men are going on alert.”

  He heard Maryn burst out laughing, and on that laughter the command travelled through the ranks: draw javelins and stand ready to use them. With a jingle of mail the men leaned down and drew the short war javelins from the sheaths under their right legs. Horses stamped and tossed their heads; some men laughed, while others turned grim and quiet. Branoic was about to make some jest when he saw the ravens, circling high above the assembled armies.

  “Look at that,” he said to Owaen, “the cursed birds are eager, aren't they? Three big ones!”

  “What birds?” Owaen was looking up where Branoic was pointing. “I don't see any birds.”

  “Oh.” Branoic lowered his javelin. “Guess I was imagining things.”

  He felt very cold, and very still, as if his vision, his mind, his heart, his very soul had all suddenly turned inward away from the world. As he looked out toward the south, where a second plume of dust had just appeared, it seemed that he was seeing not the day and the landscape but a thin grey picture of them. The Three, he thought to himself. Well, lad, you always knew it would come to this. When he looked Owaen's way, he saw him rising in his stirrups and looking toward Ammerwdd's position.

  “Here comes the first lot of rebels,” Owaen said abruptly. “Hold your position, men! Wait for the Boar and his little pigs to arrive!”

  Off to their left, beyond the crescent of Ammerwdd's waiting line, noise exploded, men screaming war cries, galloping hooves, the whinny of frightened horses, and all the jingling chaos of a charge. All along Maryn's line horses stamped and neighed in answer; the men had to fight to keep their mounts in position. Off to the south the plume of dust swelled like smoke high into the crystal-blue sky. A few moments more, and figures appeared under the dust, a lot of them, mailed riders on horseback, following the grey banners of the Boar.

  “Here they come,” Owaen whispered, then laughed, a little mutter under his breath.

  Branoic could hear the horses. With a howl of war cries, Braemys's men started their charge, expecting to slam into the rear of the fighting. Branoic settled his shield on his left arm, raised the javelin in his right, and waited.

  At about the time that Braemys was leading his share of the rebel army toward the banners of the Red Wyvern, Lilli was sitting in her window, perched on the sill and looking down on the ward far below. Her intellect seemed to have deserted her—she could neither study nor think clearly thanks to the icy cold f
ear that gripped her. When she held up a hand, she found it shaking. Somewhat's going to happen, she thought. Some evil thing. She gasped for air; her lungs ached, or so it felt, as if some invisible being was squeezing her ribs with huge hands.

  Overhead a flock of little birds flew, chirping and twittering to themselves—sparrows, most likely, but suddenly in her mind they loomed huge and black, shrieking as they wheeled round the dun. The sunlight began to disappear, swallowed up by the black of raven wings. Lilli had just enough presence of mind to twist around and fall inside the chamber rather than out to her death. She lay huddled on the floor and heard herself moan as the vision overwhelmed her.

  Over the battlefield she flew among the ravens. To her horror she realized that the birds were as real as the armies, that they rode the wind and waited for the feast being prepared for them below. In the vision state she heard nothing, not war cry nor clash of metal. The sunlight and the silence melted together into something thick and enveloping, as if she were drowning in honey. At first, too, she could barely make sense out of what she saw. The fields below glittered—armed men, she realized—their armor glittered as they charged together, broke apart, spun, rushed this way and that. Surges of movement carried ten, twenty, some uncountable number of horses and men forward, then turned on some tide of their own and swept them back again. At times the mobs below pulled apart, and she could see the ground, all trampled grass and red stain. At other times it seemed to her visionary sight that the red blood rose like a river in spate to pull the men and horses down under its drowning waves.

  Slowly she began to pick out details: a sword held high, a javelin gleaming as it sped through the air. Banners rose out of the chaos. She saw the grey Boar of her old clan first, dipping and swaying in the midst of hard fighting. Like the ravens she wheeled and turned. Maryn! she thought. The red wyvern! At her thought she saw his banners, creeping forward in the midst of a tight squad of riders. These horsemen moved together like longtime partners in some well-known dance. When the squad leader turned, they turned smoothly; when he charged, they leapt forward together. Silver daggers, Lilli thought.

  “Branoic!”

  She heard her own voice speak his name, the first sound in this long ghastly vision. At the sound she saw him, or rather a rider who she somehow knew must be him, up near the front of the squad. Swords flew and horses reared or stumbled. Wyvern shields flashed up, Boar shields answered them. A wedge came cutting its way through from the Boar's side of the melee and slammed into the side of the silver daggers. Lilli heard herself scream and scream again as the wyvern banner swung, dipped, threatened to fall. She could look at nothing else until at last, with a defiant swoop, it straightened itself and soared once more above the melee.

  The Boars began to retreat, but one silver dagger had ridden too far out. He was cut off, doomed—but another— Branoic—spurred his horse and came after, swinging hard, yelling a horrible hoarse cry that blended with her own screaming, the only sounds she could hear. Men fought and died in silence; horses wrenched their mouths open in agony; she heard nothing but Branoic's berserk howl and her own terror matching it. It seemed to her that she hovered low over him as he swung and cut and shoved his way to the isolated rider's side. For a moment the two held position, doomed together, it seemed.

  Sudden flashes of metal filled her vision. Prince Maryn himself came charging in to the rescue with the other silver daggers right behind him.

  She saw blood. Saw a sword rise and fall. Saw Branoic's face run with blood. Heard his howl cut off, heard nothing but her own sobbing. Saw nothing but his face, slashed half-open like a torn mask hanging in blackness. Saw nothing.

  “My lady, oh my lady!” Clodda's voice sobbed in the blackness. “My lady, oh by the Goddess!”

  Lilli opened her eyes and saw her maidservant's face, perfectly sound and whole, leaning over her. She was lying on the floor, Clodda was kneeling next to her, they were in her chamber.

  “Oh thank the gods! My lady, I thought you were dying.”

  “Here.” Elyssa's voice came from some near distance. “Give her some water.”

  Clodda put an arm around Lilli's shoulders and helped her sit up enough to lean against the wall, then held the wooden cup while Lilli drank. Elyssa knelt down beside the maidservant.

  “What is it?” Elyssa said. “Did you fall? Are you in pain?”

  “Should we get old Grodyr to attend you?” Clodda said.

  Lilli shook her head and took the cup, then gulped more water. The two women sat back on their heels and waited till she finished.

  “I had a vision.” Lilli could hear her voice croak, all hoarse. “Branoic's been wounded. Badly.”

  They stared at her for a long silent moment. She braced herself against meaningless reassurances, but none came.

  “Oh gods, how horrible!” Elyssa said. “I'll pray for him, then.”

  “And so will I,” Clodda said. “There's not much else we can do.”

  “That's true,” Lilli whispered. “I wish it weren't, but it is.”

  • • •

  The chirurgeons back in camp heard the battle begin, a distant shouting on the wind. For some while they paced back and forth beside their readied wagons, but soon enough the wounded began to arrive. Some men could still ride, others came in the company of friends who left them to rush back to the slaughter. With them came news: the Boar forces had received the shock of their life to see Maryn waiting for them. The other part of the enemy army, that under the command of Braemys's allies, had broken fast—its men had been bandits, mostly, was the judgment of those men who could talk well enough to consider the matter.

  The sun was still fairly high in the sky when the tide of wounded began to swell. This time the slightly wounded men brought in the badly wounded, and most of those died while the chirurgeons were trying to help them. Yet their presence meant that some troops had the leisure to help their comrades, that the battle was turning Maryn's way. Distantly on the wind came the sound of silver horns, screeching for a retreat. Nevyn prayed that it was the Boars pulling back. A man with a bloody scrape down one arm confirmed Nevyn's guess while he waited his turn.

  “The Boars are running like a lot of scared pigs,” the rider said. “I'm no captain, my lord, but I think me they were only planning on making one try on the prince and then retreating if they couldn't kill him straightaway.”

  “What?” Nevyn turned briefly away from the patient lying on the wagon bed. “They were making straight for the prince?”

  “They were, my lord, but the silver daggers, they were right around him.”

  For a moment Nevyn felt fear like a cold stone in his stomach. If the prince were slain? Yet he had only a little while to wait before he learned that Maryn was safe. He had just finished binding his informant's arm when he heard someone yelling his name. He turned and saw the prince himself, his mail hood pushed back, his pale hair plastered to his skull with sweat, running toward him.

  “It's Branoic! He's bleeding too badly for us to bring him all the way in.”

  Nevyn grabbed his readied sack of supplies and raced after Maryn as he led the way back. By then the tide of wounded had turned to a flood. Men brought them in fast, dumped them near the wagons, then rushed back to their horses to return to the field. Together Nevyn and Maryn picked their way across the camp, strewn with the dead and dying, horses and men both. In the middle of the worst of it they found Caudyr and a little clot of silver daggers clustered around someone who lay on ground turned muddy with blood. At the prince's order, the men parted to let Nevyn through. He saw Branoic with Caudyr kneeling beside him, pressing a wad of bandages to Branoic's face. Red oozed through the pale linen. Branoic struggled to sit up.

  “Lie still!” Caudyr snarled.

  Maryn fell to his knees behind Branoic's head and shoved him back down by the shoulders. Caudyr gasped out a thanks.

  “Where is it?” Nevyn knelt beside his fellow chirurgeon.

  “Cut his mouth in two,�
� Caudyr said. “A lucky stroke just under the nasal of his helmet. It's deep, and it won't staunch.”

  Caudyr lifted the wad quickly and pressed it back even quicker, but Nevyn had seen what he needed to. The blow had split both lips, shattered teeth, then bitten deep on either cheek, almost to the ear on the left side of his face. No doubt the skull lay cracked under that part of the wound as well. Branoic's eyes sought him out, and in them Nevyn read a desperate resignation. He knows he's going to die, Nevyn thought. Aloud he said, “Let's get it stitched up. We daren't move him till we do.”

  Prince Maryn rose, glancing around him. “Well, don't just stand there, you pissproud lot of slackers! Get out there and find the rest of our wounded!”

  The men rushed off at his order, but the prince himself lingered, staring down at his rival. Nevyn had no time to wonder if Maryn were glad or sorry to see Branoic at the gates of the Otherlands, and in a moment, the prince turned and walked away. Nevyn rummaged in his sack and found a long needle, threaded and ready.

  “Nevyn, your aid!” Caudyr yelped.

  Nevyn turned back to Branoic and found him choking on his own blood. Caudyr had put one arm under his massive shoulders and was trying to raise them whilst keeping the bandages pressed on the wound. Nevyn grabbed the wad and let Caudyr lift. Branoic's face was dead-white and sweating; the skin of his eyelids stretched thin, a pale bluish white. Suddenly his cloudy eyes rolled back in his head. He coughed, spasmed, flailing with one arm and waving it near his head, as if he were trying to find his face.

  “It's no use,” Nevyn whispered.

  Caudyr nodded. Branoic convulsed again, both arms working, and somehow managed to pull himself up to a sitting position. For the briefest of moments he stared un-speaking at Nevyn's face; then he arched his back and fell in an oddly graceful gesture to die against Caudyr. With a sigh the chirurgeon laid the body down upon the ground and crossed its arms over its chest. Nevyn felt his cold skin crawl with the presence of spirits close at hand, clustering on the etheric plane.