The Shamer's War

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  Cursing silently, I drew Ursa’s cloak more closely around my shoulders. I should have made a break for it. Back then, when the guards were all busy with the wounded rider, I might have got away. Damn Ivain and his “something will happen.”

  Dragon blood was buzzing through my body. I no longer felt the cold or the pain from my ankle. But when I had cautiously tried it, it still wouldn’t bear my weight. How on earth was I supposed to run away when running was impossible? Crawl really fast?

  Wait. What was that? Something… something over there, by the stable. A crouched form darting through the doorway, on soundless feet. And then the stable gate opened. And clattering chaos broke out into the courtyard. A horse, no, two… no. More and more horses, ten, fifteen, even. They came trampling into the courtyard, white-eyed with panic. One of the guards at the gate called out, and I decided to steal a horse.

  If I could.

  The horses were careening around the yard, and the dragon didn’t help matters when it suddenly heaved itself to its feet, hissing at them. Now, if only one would come… there. I caught the mane of a small yellow buckskin mare, leaped up with all the power of my one good leg, and flopped onto her back, belly down. That was as far as I got, as we went clattering wildly along, trailing my chain. And right then, there was a hollow roar. The castle gates blew open, and the terrified horses went charging through it, into the streets of Baur Laclan.

  I finally managed to hoist my leg over the buckskin’s back. We might be out of the castle but not out of the town. The horses thundered through the streets, and Dragon soldiers leaped aside to avoid being trampled. But there were more and more horses. And some had riders. All Laclan. And one of them was Ivain.

  They ran the herd through the narrow streets and out of the town, and they didn’t stop until we were far away, in the middle of the wilderness.

  “Well, lad, you made it,” said Ivain when we could finally rest a bit. “Well and good.”

  “Was that what you wanted?” I asked, dizzy and confused. “To rustle a herd of horses?”

  “Och, no,” said Ivain, as if I was being more than just a little slow. “That was just to entertain the Dragon-pack. The most important thing… well, it might be they have not discovered that just yet.”

  The most important thing?

  “What is that, then?”

  “Ah, some folks were in a bit of a squeeze. Arlain and a few others. Not right, that. So we had to get them out of it. And there are a few ins and outs to the castle that Drakan doesn’t know about.”

  “You mean… did you get the children too? Because otherwise, it’s no good at all!” I thought that Obain, at least, would march right back into captivity if Maeri was still hostage.

  “That was the idea.”

  “All of them? You got all of them?”

  “I do not have the second sight, lad, now do I? We will know when we meet up with the others.”

  We met the others shortly before dawn. The Laclans had succeeded in freeing all the children except three. And in the mountains, Helena Laclan waited in her hiding place, ready to receive them. Some of the fishermen chose to go with the children. Others—one of them Obain—joined Ivain’s troop.

  “The devil will not have an easy time of it up here,” said Obain. “Just say the word. Anything to roast his tail.”

  “Drakan will move for Skayark,” I told Ivain. “He thinks that is where Nico is.”

  “Aye, well,” said Ivain. “And just how did that thought occur to His Lordship?”

  “I told him.”

  Ivain looked at me for a while. “Skayark is a big mouthful even for a dragon,” he said.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  A grim smile split Ivain’s weather-beaten Laclan face. “Sometimes, lad. Sometimes ye make me think ye might have half a brain after all.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But it would be even better if Skayark had fair warning.”

  “Aye, ye’re right.” Ivain turned to the rest of the Laclan troop. “Crooklegs. Gevin. Ride hell for leather. Tell Astor Skaya that Drakan is coming. It might be it will take him a fair while, what with dragging along the dragon beastie. But he will come.”

  Two Laclan men turned their horses and set off as if Drakan himself was at their heels. Which he was, in a way. The rest of us followed at a more leisurely pace, though still too fast to suit my poor, battered body.

  “What about us?” I said. “Where are we going?”

  “Skayark, of course,” said Ivain. “Did ye think I would make ye miss all the fun?”

  It was hard riding even for men who were well and rested. For me, only one thing made it possible—Drakan’s small bottle. I could not have stayed on my horse without it.

  “What is that smell?” asked one of the Laclans riding near me. “Is that you, Obain? Did ye roll yerself in goat’s dung or something?”

  Obain repaid the insult with an even better one, and the others roared with laughter. But I knew the smell wasn’t Obain’s. It was mine. My whole body reeked with it—the stench of dragon blood.

  It wasn’t like the first time. I remembered it well, that rush of freedom and power. It was not like that now. Now I could just barely hang on if I took a small swig every other hour or so. My own revulsion at myself faded somewhat, as did the pain. There was a certain stillness in my head. That was all. I didn’t know whether the difference was due to the fact that it was no longer the first time, or whether it was just that I drank as little as possible.

  We rode through the night. At dawn, we took a short rest, but no longer than it took the animals to eat and drink a little. Then it was back into the saddle.

  “Are ye coping, lad?” asked Ivain, who had noticed how hard it was for me to get back on the buckskin.

  “Yes,” I said, through my teeth. And I was. After another sip.

  “What is that?” asked Obain curiously. “Ye’re sucking at that thing like a lamb with a feeding bottle. How about a nip for a friend?”

  “You wouldn’t like it,” I told him. “It’s medicine. From my mother.” I quickly tucked the bottle out of sight. He might think me an ungrateful lout and my refusal poor repayment for the borrowed socks, but that was nothing to the scorn I would earn if he knew what was really in the bottle. He didn’t mention it again, and no one else was curious enough to ask.

  Later in the morning, it started to snow. Huge fluffy flakes, crisp with frost. I put back my head and looked into the gray sky, watching the whirl and flurry. It was a dizzying sight, and I had to grab hold of the buckskin’s mane to steady myself. The deepest of the claw marks tore open for the umpteenth time. There was a bitter taste in my mouth that was not due only to the dragon blood; it was the taste of fever. Wound fever. The arm was infected now, I knew, but there was nothing much I could do about it.

  We passed the road that led to Baur Kensie, but didn’t make the detour.

  “Shouldn’t we warn them?” I asked Ivain. “If Drakan is coming this way soon…” Mama and Melli. Maudi and all the others…

  “They already know,” he said. “Maudi Kensie has brought the clan into the mountains, weak and strong together. She knows Baur Kensie can’t hold against a Dragon Force.”

  The clan—did that mean Mama too? Yes, it did. I was sure of it. She was as much a Kensie now as anyone could be whose great-grandparents had not worn Kensie cloaks and herded sheep with Maudi’s forebears.

  We were headed into the mountains ourselves now. The trail climbed and kept climbing, and the snow fell more and more strongly. There was snow around Skayark, lots of snow. On the highest peaks it did not disappear even in high summer. And though the Skayler Pass was no snow-clad peak, still it was quite high enough—a narrow passage between two giants: Eagle Peak to the north, and the Gray Widow to the south.

  The mountains rose steeply on both sides of the trail. And ahead of us, Skayark’s jagged walls came into view, and the banners flying from the battlements, blue and black with a golden eagle, visible even t
hrough the blizzard. The real eagles, of which there were quite a few up here, seemed to have stayed at home, waiting for the weather to improve.

  I had been here before, more than once. I clearly recalled the sense of being a nut in a nutcracker. If Skayark closed her jaws on you, you did not get away unscathed. Perhaps not unbroken either. I reminded myself that we were on the same side in this war, and hoped that Astor Skaya saw it that way too.

  “Who goes there?” called the guard at the gate.

  “Men of Laclan,” Ivain called back. “Clan peace, Skaya! Let us in, in the name of clan peace. We’re freezing our jewels off out here.”

  “All right, all right,” came the curt reply from above. “On our way. Yer errand boys have already warned us.”

  The gate opened, and we rode through it. The question was how long it would be before Drakan, too, came knocking at the door.

  Too many people. That was what first struck me as we passed into the barbican. More people than I had ever seen here before. Not just armed men, though there were quite a few of those. Also women and children and old people, and… baggage, I supposed was the word. Boxes, chests, sacks and baskets, even furniture. Every available space was crammed with it.

  Ivain looked at it with disapproval.

  “What a mess,” he growled. “What if they use fire arrows? Astor Skaya should keep them on a shorter leash.”

  A boy of no more than two or three darted across the barbican, shrieking with laughter. On his heels came a slightly older girl.

  “Gully! Gully, come here!”

  She nearly collided with my horse, and the buckskin threw up its head in alarm. Again I had to clutch at the mane so as not to come off, and I knew that even with the dragon blood bottle, there was not a lot left in me anymore.

  “Much too long a leash,” sighed Ivain. “You there! Where do we put up the horses?”

  Right then I caught a glimpse of a pair of familiarly fair braids.

  “Rose?”

  It was her. She stopped and whirled, so that the basket of laundry she was carrying nearly tipped.

  “Davin!”

  A few paces, and she was right next to the buckskin.

  “You look sick as a dog,” she said. “What will happen once we get you off that wretched animal?”

  “Not a lot,” I admitted. “I’m not sure I can walk. But Callan. Is he… is he all right?”

  “All right might be stretching it,” she said. “But better. I think we will get there. Come on, Davin. Let me help you before you fall down yourself.”

  She put down the basket and took my arm. I let myself slide off the buckskin and took care to land on my good foot. Rose ducked under my arm and set her shoulder in my armpit to support me.

  “Phew,” she said. “You need a bath.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I had one.” How I wished that was all I needed. But a bath would only clear away part of the stench.

  Then I put my bad foot down, and for a moment everything else ceased to matter.

  “Davin. What is it?”

  I couldn’t answer. It took all my strength not to scream.

  “That foot of his is in a bad way,” said Ivain. “And there is something amiss with his arm as well. The lad is in poor shape altogether.”

  “Then why haven’t you done anything about it?” said Rose angrily. “He can barely stand!”

  “He is lucky not to be dragon food,” said Ivain. “And we have not had the time to stop and admire the view. Obain, give the lass a hand. He is not featherlight anymore.”

  Obain swung down off his horse and supported me from the other side, and between them they managed to haul me off to what Rose called the sick bay.

  The sick bay. Callan. Did that mean—

  “Your mama is there too,” said Rose. “Come on, Davin. It’s only a few more steps.”

  I felt like taking a few more steps in the opposite direction. Or a few hundred steps, even. Mama. Here. Now. I was relieved to know she was safe, or as safe as anyone might be with the Dragon Force less than two days away. But the thought of facing her—

  “Come on, lad,” complained Obain. “Ye might do a little of the walking yerself.”

  After the hustle and bustle of the barbican, the sick bay was rather quiet and empty. Beds waited, but as yet there were not many sick or wounded to fill them. At the end of one row was Callan’s bed. And by his side sat Mama, holding his hand.

  I think she heard us coming. And I think she let me see her holding Callan’s hand on purpose. But when she saw how they had to hold me up, she let go of him and got to her feet.

  “Davin!”

  “It’s not that bad,” I said, though I knew she would soon find out about the fever and the infected wound. “I just hurt my foot.”

  “And his arm,” said Rose. “And he’s sweating like a pig. Sorry, Davin, but you are.” At least she didn’t mention the smell.

  “Put him there.”

  They got me to the bed opposite Callan’s and let me sit on it. Mama stood at the foot of it, taking stock.

  “You have a fever,” she said.

  “I suppose so.”

  “Rose, we need hot water. Cloths and bandages. And see if you can find some clothes. That shirt is fit only for the middens. What hurts the most?”

  I was almost grateful to be injured, right then. It meant we didn’t have to talk about Dina and Nico and Callan right away. I knew it was just a temporary stay of execution, but any respite was welcome right then.

  “There is something wrong with my ankle,” I said. “And I have a… a cut on my arm that might be infected.” I didn’t say what had cut me.

  She nodded. “Let’s have a look.”

  She picked the remains of Obain’s sock off my foot. Rose couldn’t hold back a gasp, which was perhaps not surprising. The foot was so swollen it hardly even looked like a foot, and the skin was shiny and bluish black all over.

  “What on earth did you do to it?” asked Mama.

  “They chained me,” I said. “And then a dragon started to play catch with me.”

  “Honestly, Davin,” said Rose in a this-is-not-funny tone of voice.

  “If you don’t believe me, ask Drakan,” I said sourly. “He was rooting for the dragon.”

  “Well, at least it explains the stench,” said Mama.

  “Is this how dragons smell?” asked Rose.

  “More or less,” said Mama. She had begun to press on the ankle, examining it, and I had to clench my teeth, or I would have yelled.

  “But it’s out of joint!” she said. “How long has it been like this?”

  I had to think. Time had gone a little vague on me.

  “Four days. Just about.”

  “It won’t be easy, then.” She raised her voice. “Allin!”

  Mama and Rose were about the only people I knew who called Black-Arse by his real name. And saints, was I happy to see his freckled grin as he came trotting into the sick bay.

  “Davin,” he said. “Did ye come in with the Laclans?” And then, not waiting for an answer: “Phew! You do stink!”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’re not exactly squeaky clean yourself, you know.” He had a black sooty streak across one cheek, and his hands looked as if he had greased them with goose fat and rubbed them with ashes, the way royalty did in the fairy tales when they wanted to pass for beggars.

  He grinned. “Master Maunus and me are working on something,” he said. “Just ye wait. It’ll knock yer socks off.”

  Somehow that sounded ominous, coming from Black-Arse. He had not got his nickname for nothing.

  Mama gave his hands a disapproving glance. “Try not to touch anything in here,” she said. “Allin, I need a strong man.”

  Black-Arse straightened proudly. “At yer service!” He saluted her boldly, giving himself another black streak in the process, this time on his forehead.

  I saw Mama suppress a smile.

  “Someone a little stronger, Allin,” she said.
“Who do we know?”

  Black-Arse shrank back to his normal size, like a punctured pig’s bladder. He threw Rose a quick look, and I knew it was to see whether she was laughing at him. Black-Arse had a weakness for Rose, and it wasn’t just because she was a mean cook. Although that was by no means unimportant, if you were Black-Arse.

  “Killian is not so bad,” he said. “Callan is stronger, but—” He glanced at Callan’s bed. Callan had his eyes closed, and I think he was asleep.

  “Get Killian, then,” said Mama. “And Allin…”

  “Aye?”

  “Wash your hands before you come back in here, won’t you? Cleanliness is important in a sick bay.”

  “Aye, sure,” he said, and was off again. I envied him his two good legs and his ability to run.

  A little later Killian Kensie came in. Black-Arse may have warned him. At any rate, his hands and face were a good deal cleaner than usual.

  “Black-Arse said ye needed a hand?”

  Mama nodded. “Davin’s ankle is dislocated. I need someone who can pull it back into joint, and I’m not strong enough myself.”

  Ouch. And ouch again. That sounded dreadful.

  “Are you sure?” I said, even though I knew it was stupid. “What if it’s only a sprain?”

  “Davin. It is clean out of joint. And if you ever want to walk on it again, we need Killian to put it back.”

  Oh, for a swig of the dragon blood bottle. A large one. But I couldn’t bring out the bottle now without revealing that I had it. And I couldn’t stand the thought of Mama and Rose discovering what was in it. Better to be racked and broken by Killian’s big hands.

  And that was about what it felt like. I am not proud of it. I screamed like a girl. I screamed so loudly that I woke Callan up. But in the end I felt how the joint went back to where it should be. You could even hear it. And right away, so quickly it felt as if someone had waved a magic wand over it, the pain lessened enormously. It was still very tender, yes. But the wrongness and the I-can-hardly-stand-it pain went away.

  “It almost doesn’t hurt now,” I said, amazed at the difference.