The Fire Dragon

by Katharine Kerr

  “Good morrow, Your Grace,” Dallandra said. “What is all this?”

  “Succor from the high king, I'll wager,” Cadmar said. “Our liege is as generous as he should be, eh? You'll remember how I sent him messages at the lifting of the siege.”

  “Last autumn? I do, truly.” Mentally she counted out months—it would have taken the courier a long time to ride to Dun Deverry, so far to the south, and of course, it would have been wasted effort for the king to send wagons north in the winter. “This is as soon as his men could have reached us, then.”

  “Just that.”

  “I see they've brought their own provisions. And thank all the gods for that!”

  But in the event, the carts proved to hold far more than the necessary provisions for the king's men. The king had sent seed grain of the best kind of wheat from his own stores. His personal envoy, a Lord Yvaedd, announced this as soon as he'd presented himself to the gwerbret. He was a smooth-looking man, Yvaedd, with oiled black hair, pale grey eyes, and the soft lilt of Eldidd in his speech.

  “The high king sends you this grain as a gift,” Yvaedd said. “Doubtless, Your Grace, you're short up for coin. The farmers will gladly pay for this bounty.”

  Cadmar considered him for a moment with narrow eyes.

  “My lord,” the aged gwerbret said finally, “I see you hail from the coast lands. Things are different, up here on the border. My farmers are all freemen. Their grandfathers came here willingly with my grandfather when the high king's grandfather declared Arcodd open for settlement. We don't have much coin, either, up here in the north.”

  “Ah well, then, some extra labor on your walls—”

  “My lord, forgive me for interrupting. I see I haven't expressed myself very well. Every farmer who's my vassal is going to get a sack of this grain the same way I did, as a gift.”

  Yvaedd stared, then his eyelids fluttered, and he bowed.

  “My apologies, Your Grace. The high king sent me here because he wished to know more about the Northlands. I see that I have much to learn. I promise you that you'll find me a willing pupil.”

  Cadmar smiled with a little twist to his mouth. Yvaedd bowed again, rather randomly, to those standing near the gwerbret. Dallandra was suddenly aware of how clean Yvaedd was, and how clean all his men were, too, with their white shirts, heavy with embroidery, their fine grey brigga, and well-polished gear. What had they done? Carried clean clothes with them all this way for the day when they'd meet the gwerbret, or stopped to wash clothes at some river on their way? It had to be one or the other. She noticed them looking around at Cadmar's dun with faint smiles or a wrinkled nose for the pigsties by the far wall. As much as she hated the place herself, their sneers annoyed her.

  “Well, now,” Cadmar said briskly. “Please forgive my discourtesy, Lord Yvaedd. Come in and take the hospitality of my hall.”

  The very next morning messengers rode out to announce the king's boon. The heralds left as well, but they headed back south to the duns of Lord Gwinardd, Cadmar's vassal, and Gwerbret Drwmyc, his ally, to take them a royal command to come testify in Cengarn. Apparently Lord Yvaedd wanted to hear the recent war discussed in some detail and from more mouths than the gwerbret's.

  “I don't understand,” Dallandra told Rhodry. “Doesn't he believe what Cadmar says?”

  “He'll have to pretend to if naught else,” Rhodry said, grinning, “or he'll end up facing me on the combat ground.”

  “What?”

  “Well, if Cadmar's honor should be insulted, he can't fight to defend it, not at his age and with that twisted leg and all. I've already won a trial by combat, and I'm a silver dagger, so I'd be the man to represent him.”

  “Yvaedd wouldn't like that much.”

  “True spoken. So His Lordship's being circumspect. Strange reports have reached the king, says he, about strange things.”

  “Huh, I'll just wager they have.”

  “Our Lordship wants to hear every detail. He brought a scribe, too, to write everything down nice and proper.”

  “I see.” All at once she smiled. “You know, I think I'll see if I can call a witness myself. Evandar would be an interesting man for Lord Yvaedd to meet.”

  Later that afternoon, when she had a quiet moment to herself, Dallandra sat up in her tower room and let her thoughts reach out to Evandar, but she felt no answering touch of mind on mind.

  In the gwerbret's chamber of justice Lord Yvaedd was holding a council of sorts, though he kept to the polite fiction that Gwerbret Cadmar was presiding while he himself merely listened and advised. Under the banners of his rhan the gwerbret sat at an enormous oak table with the golden ceremonial sword of his rank laid crosswise in front of him and a priest of Bel at his right hand. At his left were Prince Daralanteriel and Lord Gwinardd. Although Drwmyc had sent word that he would arrive after his dues and taxes had come in, Yvaedd had been unwilling to wait so long to open his inquiry. Yvaedd himself was seated off to one side, with his scribe at a table behind him. The scribe kept making notes on untidy bits of pale scraped parchment, the trimmings from sheets cut for book pages and proclamations.

  Rhodry himself sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the table with Cadmar's captain and Gwinnard's. Why a lowly silver dagger had been summoned puzzled him, and as the council proceeded, no one spoke to him. Sunlight streamed into the room, lazy flies circled; staying awake turned into a major battle. Once, in fact, Cadmar's captain let out a long hard snore, but Rhodry elbowed him awake before the noble-born noticed.

  None of the noble-born had any idea of how to make a coherent story out of the complicated events leading up to last summer's siege. Dar was perhaps the best at it, but Cadmar and Gwinardd kept interrupting him to add details and digressions. Yvaedd, however, seemed to find their talk of false goddesses and sorcerers who could turn themselves into birds interesting enough. Though at first he asked various questions, eventually he merely sat and listened. Toward the end Rhodry wondered if Yvaedd realized how bewildered he looked. He supposed not. Finally, Dar described the Horsekin. He rose from his chair to indicate their enormous height while Gwinardd and Cadmar kept interrupting to talk about their horses and long sabers. Yvaedd could take no more.

  “My lords!” Yvaedd rose and bowed to Dar. “And Your Highness. Truly, I mean not the slightest insult, but these Horsekin—I've never heard of such a thing, and here I was born in the west myself.”

  “But in Aberwyn. That's all the way down on the sea-coast.” Dar considered for a moment. “Here, my lord. If you started telling your friends at court about the Westfolk, would they believe you?”

  “They wouldn't,” Yvaedd said. “I catch your drift, Your Highness—you're certainly quite real, for all their disbelief. My apologies.” He glanced at the scribe. “We will take these Horsekin as described. Make sure you write down every detail. This is troubling news.”

  The scribe nodded.

  “They take slaves, you say?” Yvaedd turned back to Cadmar.

  “Just that,” Cadmar said. “And I fear me they see Deverry as a fine place to catch some new ones.”

  “The high king will see the great import in this. Fear not. I'm cursed glad you could hold your own against them, when the time came to face them in the field.”

  “Imph,” Gwinardd said. “We never would have managed that without the dragon's help.”

  “The dragon?” Yvaedd turned to him. “Does His Grace have an alliance with Aberwyn, then?”

  “Not that dragon!” Gwinardd leaned forward, all seriousness. “I don't mean a blazon, I mean a real one. You know, like in the old tales. A scaly sort of beast, black and green, with enormous wings. The enemy mounts couldn't stand the smell of her, and they bolted.”

  Yvaedd looked at him with his mouth stuck half-open like the lid of a rusty metal chest. Gwerbret Cadmar sighed, then hauled himself up with the aid of his walking stick.

  “It's late,” Cadmar announced. “We've been at this blasted conference all afternoon, and I
for one need some ale. I suggest we convene again tomorrow.”

  “Very well, Your Grace.” Lord Yvaedd's voice sounded as feeble as a man with a fever in his blood. “I wouldn't mind a tankard myself.”

  As the council was dispersing, Lord Yvaedd caught up with Rhodry just outside the door.

  “Come walk with me, silver dagger,” the lord said. “I'd like a private word with you, if I may.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  They strolled down to the end of the corridor and stood looking out of a small window, framing the view of the town below the dun. Lord Yvaedd considered Rhodry for a moment, then smiled in a way that was doubtless meant to be pleasant.

  “I hear from your way of speaking that you hail from Aberwyn,” Yvaedd said.

  “I do, my lord. Eldidd marks the way a man speaks for life.”

  “Just so. I can't help noticing just how much you resemble His Grace Cullyn, Gwerbret Aberwyn. Not to bring up anything painful, of course, but I trust you'll forgive me for wondering about the resemblance.”

  Rhodry stifled a laugh. Cullyn was his firstborn son, but obviously Yvaedd was thinking this silver dagger one of the great lord's by-blows.

  “My father's name was a secret my mother kept, my lord,” Rhodry said. “I do know that we never lacked for food or shelter when I was a child.”

  “Ah.” Lord Yvaedd allowed himself a slight smile. “I see.”

  Rhodry smiled, briefly, in return.

  “On the morrow, silver dagger,” Yvaedd went on. “We'll need your testimony. Lord Gwinnard's tale of a dragon interests me most greatly.”

  “No doubt, my lord, but I'll swear it's true, and on my silver dagger at that.”

  For a moment Yvaedd looked him over with a frozen little smile; then the lord muttered a pleasantry and strolled off.

  For some while now, Rhodry had been spending his sunsets on top of the main broch in Dun Cengarn. Arzosah hated flying at night, and so, his reasoning ran, she was likely to turn up at the end of a day. Every night when she failed to return, he would stay on the roof until the ward was dark enough for him to climb down unobserved. He knew perfectly well that Dallandra believed Arzosah faithless; he was working hard at not believing it himself.

  By the time he escaped from Lord Yvaedd, afternoon shadows filled the ward. He hurried up the staircase to the top floor of the main broch, pushed open the trapdoor, and clambered out onto the flat roof. What if she never returned? He forced himself to consider how long he would stay in Cengarn to wait. After all, poor little Jahdo was longing for his home and kin. Daralanteriel, too, was eager to take his new lady home to his people. Rhodry walked over to the roof's edge and looked idly down. With his scribe in attendance, Lord Yvaedd stood on the cobbles and questioned the gwerbret's captain. Rhodry was just thinking how lovely it would be to chuck a stone down on top of him when he heard the sound.

  He'd heard it before, this faint throbbing in the air, as if some giant hand slapped a distant drum. He spun around and shaded his eyes while he stared off to the north. He could just see a black speck in the sky, could just discern that it was moving and coming toward him. He held his breath, hardly dared to hope as he watched it speeding against the blue. The thwack thwack of wide wings grew louder, the speck grew larger. Rhodry let out his breath with a whoop. It was Arzosah indeed, flying fast and steadily.

  Down in the ward someone cried out. Rhodry looked down to see Lord Yvaedd staring at the sky and waving his arms like a madman. From his distance it was hard to be certain, but he thought that perhaps the lord had gone pale. Servants and riders were pouring out of broch and stable to cheer the dragon's approach. Laughing under his breath, Rhodry looked up again as Arzosah circled the dun, then with a magnificent stretch of wing glided down. She looked well fed, and her greenish-black scales gleamed in the afternoon light. Suddenly she curled her wings, hovered in the air, and settled gently onto the roof.

  Rhodry ran to her and threw his arms around her neck, which felt as cool as satin to the touch. Although her kind gave out a strong smell much like vinegar, he found it bracing and oddly pleasant. She made the huge rumble that did her for laughter. “I absolutely hate to admit this, Rori, but it gladdens my heart to see you again, too.”

  “Good. You can't know how welcome you are, my friend. Would you mind carrying me down to the ward? There's a man here who thinks you don't exist.”

  Arzosah craned her neck and looked down, judging the space. Lord Yvaedd stood where Rhodry had last seen him, but he had tipped his head back and was staring up. His scribe looked up, screamed, and ran back into the broch. The king's men ran out after him. They were made of sterner stuff—they stayed, clustering round Yvaedd like children around a father.

  “I can land off to one side, I think,” the dragon said at last. “Climb aboard.”

  Since her harness was lying in a storage chest in Dallandra's chamber, Rhodry scrambled up inelegantly and wedged himself between two of the big spiky scales where her back joined her neck. Arzosah spread her wings, flapped hard, leapt, then glided down in a long turn to settle on the cobbles not far from his lordship. The king's men all scattered, leaving their lord alone to face the dragon. Yvaedd's face had indeed gone pale, and sweat gleamed on his forehead. Rhodry slid down and bowed to him.

  “My lord, allow me to present to you Arzosah of the Lofty Wings, my friend and my companion in the recent war.”

  Arzosah stretched out her head and nodded at Yvaedd.

  “Charmed, I'm sure,” she said, “Your Lordship.”

  Yvaedd struggled for words. When none came, he bowed so low he nearly scraped the cobbles. His men must have remembered their oaths to defend him; they returned, but one slow step at a time.

  “An honor,” Yvaedd squeaked. “Quite an honor. Ah, that is—ah—” He turned and dashed for the broch.

  The king's men hesitated, glanced at the dragon, then raced after their lord. Rhodry began to laugh; he leaned back against the dragon's foreleg and howled until the tears came. She let out her breath in a long and meat-scented sigh.

  “I'd forgotten about humans,” Arzosah said. “You're the only brave one I've ever met, Rori Dragonfriend. And maybe that's why I came back to you.”

  “I don't think there's any reason for us to stay much longer,” Dallandra said. “Prince Dar tells me that Lord Yvaedd's gone suddenly tractable.”

  “Tractable?” Rhodry said.

  “He believes everything he's told and has his scribe write it down most carefully.”

  They shared a smile, and the dragon rumbled under her breath. They were all sitting on the new grass atop the market hill, where Arzosah could stretch out comfortably and take the sun. Since the townsfolk knew her well from the summer past, they mostly ignored her, although a pair of big tan hounds had taken up a watch at a distance and barked now and again. Arzosah eyed them and licked her lips.

  “I suppose those belong to someone,” she said.

  “No doubt,” Rhodry said. “Leave them be.”

  “Very well.” Arzosah yawned and curled a paw to consider her claws. “Now about our journey. No doubt the hatchling wants to get home—young Jahdo. By the by, he polished my scales with a cloth this morning. A very sweet child, he is.”

  “He is, truly,” Dallandra said. “We've got a lot of things to work out yet. You and Rhodry will be able to travel a great deal faster than the rest of us. It's a long way to Cerr Cawnen, judging from what Jahdo's been telling me. We'll need provisions and suchlike.”

  “But can't Evandar open one of his roads?” Rhodry asked. “They seem to save a good bit of effort, though I can't say the same about the time involved. That always seems to get a bit twisted.”

  “He told me he'd open a gate for us when I saw him some while ago. I've not seen him since then. I've been trying to call him again, but he's not shown up. I hope he's in no danger.”

  At that Arzosah hissed, just quietly to herself.

  “I know you don't care for him,” Dallandra sa
id to her.

  “Don't care for him?” Arzosah hissed again, more loudly. “I'd eat him if I could. If there was anything really there to eat, anyway. Nasty bastard, tricking me the way he did. Humph!”

  “Not so nice of him, but I can't help but be grateful,” Dallandra said. “Without you, we would have lost the war, and the Horsekin would have impaled us all or staked us down to die.”

  “He might have just asked me for my help.”

  “Would you have given it?” Rhodry said.

  “No, but he might have asked anyway. Then when he ensorceled me it would have been only fair.”

  “There's a certain logic in that, truly.” Dallandra rose, dusting off the seat of her leather trousers. “I need to get back to the dun. I'll talk with Jahdo.”

  As she walked off, Dallandra glanced back to see Rhodry leaning back comfortably against the dragon's scaly side. Arzosah had curled herself into a semicircle with her head on her paws near him. The man and the dragon made an oddly apt pair, she thought—both of them as cold and hard as winter steel despite their good humor toward those they counted friends.

  Evandar turned up that night, finally, near sunset. They met outside the dun and town, down in the meadow to the west where a stream splashed and gurgled, running full of snowmelt. In the last golden light of afternoon they strolled beside trees touched with the green of new leaves.

  “Jill died in this spot,” Evandar said abruptly.

  “I know,” Dallandra said. “I rather wondered why you chose it.”

  He shrugged and walked on, his head bent as if he studied the grass.

  “I was worried about you, my love,” Dallandra said.

  “My apologies. I was off arranging things.”

  “Things? What do you mean, things?”

  “Rhodry's brother, of course, getting him home again.”

  “Oh, that!”

  “What did you think I meant?” Evandar scowled at her.

  “That it was another one of your schemes, of course. My apologies, my love, but they get so complicated—”

  “Oh, I know, I know, and mayhap this one is, too, but I could think of no other way.”