The Shamer's War

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  “No,” said Mama. “Do you still think it was just a sprain?”

  Compared to that, the cleaning and bandaging of the claw marks were easy as pie. I even managed to push the bottle under my pillow before they helped me out of what was left of my shirt. But the fever was still there, of course, and they had to help me wash. Very strange. Like being a child again. It was one thing with Mama, but Rose… I didn’t like her to see me so weak and pitiful. Mama made me drink two different kinds of tea, one with willow in it, the other some concoction of various herbs which all seemed to be competing for the ghastliest taste. Once all this was done, she went back to Callan’s bed.

  “Will the lad be all right?” asked Callan.

  “Yes,” she said. “If he does as I tell him.” The last bit was clearly meant for me to hear.

  “Good,” said Callan. “Because when he and I can both stand on our own two feet again, that boy is getting such a clip to the ear that he’ll think he can fly.”

  I slept for most of the day. But the dreams wouldn’t quite leave me alone. Once I woke myself up, yelling so loudly that the sick bay was still ringing with it when I opened my eyes. Callan was watching me from his bed, but he didn’t say anything.

  Rose, on the other hand…

  Rose was sitting beside my bed, looking pale and anxious.

  “You’re really sick, aren’t you?” she said.

  I probably was. I was cold all the time, even though there was a great big brazier right next to my bed.

  “It’ll pass,” I said. “Once the fever drops.”

  “Yes,” she said. And then the words suddenly burst from her, as if she had been holding them back for a long time: “I know I’m always nagging you.”

  Where did that come from?

  “It’s… I suppose I’m used to it by now.” More or less, anyway. Sometimes when she snapped at you, there was a real sting to it, and I didn’t enjoy that.

  She nodded, as if I had said something important. I didn’t know what. Nico had once told me that there were great big books for when you were learning a foreign language. Books full of foreign words. Dictionaries, I think they were called. I wish someone would make up something like that on girl language, because most of the time I understood barely half of it.

  “You know, you still stink a bit,” she said. But she took my hand all the same.

  DAVIN

  A Big White Death

  Four days later, Drakan came to Skayark with his army. And his dragon.

  There were so many soldiers that they filled the entire pass, from mountainside to mountainside. Even if he tried, he couldn’t attack with all of them at once. There wasn’t room.

  I stood on top of the outer wall and watched them as they came. Getting up the steps had not been easy, but more because of the weakness of the fever than because of the ankle. My foot was much better already.

  They stopped while they were still so far away that they looked like one being, a snaking people-beast, black against the snow. But one thing was visible even at this distance: the long, pale gray body of the dragon.

  “What does he want with that monster?” Astor Skaya seemed to be asking his question of the air. He did not really expect anyone here to answer him. “What good is it? It has delayed him two days already. Does he think we will take fear at the sight of it and run away?” He spat into the snow at the foot of the wall. “It’s just a beastie. A big one, I grant ye, but still just a beast.”

  I knew one reason, at least, why Drakan had dragged a living dragon all the way from Dunark into the Highlands. But I wasn’t going to shoot off my mouth about it. And before the day was over, all Skayark knew another reason.

  It began when Drakan sent a messenger out ahead of his lines. The messenger approached the walls. And he wasn’t alone. In front of him marched a troop of…

  Very small soldiers?

  No. Even though everything looked smaller from up high, there was still no doubt.

  “But they are children!” said the archer next to me. “Children with weapons. Do they expect us to fight children, now?”

  “Ye cannot,” said my neighbor on the other side. “Ye cannot shoot at children!”

  “That is what he is counting on,” I said.

  It was true. They had weapons, the little soldiers down there, though they were hardly more than ten or eleven. Bows. Crossbows. Spears reaching much too far above their heads. A grown soldier with a full-length sword could mow them down like a farmer harvests his corn. If he could make himself do it, of course.

  Soon, they were close enough for us to see their faces. Most were boys, but there were a few girls as well. And there was something icily familiar about the short-cropped hair and the serious faces. They looked just like the children from the House of Teaching. Exactly like them.

  “How does he make them do it?” asked my neighbor. “They have no chance against a grown fighter.”

  How? I knew how. Drakan might not have a Hall of the Whisperers. But I was pretty certain he had Educators somewhere in his Dragon Force. Terrifyingly clever Educators. And when you take children away from their parents…

  “What else can they do?” I said bitterly. “Look at them. What can they do except obey the adults who feed them and clothe them and tell them what to do?”

  “Skayark!” shouted the messenger, a Dragon knight I recognized, called Voris.

  “What do ye want?” answered Astor Skaya. “Ride back to yer Dragon Lord and tell him he is not welcome on Skaya lands!”

  “My Prince, the Dragon Lord of Dunark, Solark, Eidin, and Arkmeira—and of Baur Laclan too. Baur Laclan too, sir! My Prince the Dragon Lord has a message for you. He has brought a dragon.”

  “So we have noticed!” called back Astor Skaya. “Though what he wants with that big dumb beastie is more than I can fathom.”

  “The dragon is hungry,” continued Knight Voris, disregarding the interruption. “Every day it will eat a child.”

  “What?”

  “Every day until Skayark surrenders. And it will not be one of these good children—the faithful, fine children of the Dragon—but a Highland brat. We have enough of them.”

  He turned his horse and rode back to the Dragon Force, his small soldiers trotting behind in close formation.

  “Do ye want us to shoot him in the back?” asked one of the archers on the wall.

  “No,” said Astor Skaya. “At this distance, ye might hit one of the children.”

  “Is it true?” asked my neighbor. “Does the devil have Highland children he can… he can use to feed that monster with?”

  “He has some, at least,” I said, thinking of the three we had not managed to rescue from Baur Laclan. And there were probably others. Not necessarily all of Highland stock, but children were children, wherever they came from.

  “The man is mad!”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed. Sick, yes. But he knew what he was doing. Every time he had taken a city, every time he had used whatever means he had thought most effective, no matter how cruel and revolting others found it. At Solark, poison in the water. And at Arkmeira, One, two, three, four, you die. A fifth of the men in the city. And now he had decided that the way through Skayark’s impregnable defenses lay… what should I call it? In our minds or our hearts. How many children could we watch die? And it wasn’t just the children that the dragon might eat. What if he really sent his army of child soldiers against us? Then we, too, would become the murderers of children. How long could one stand that and still have the heart to go on fighting?

  I knew well enough what Nico would have said. Not one. Not a single child should we allow to die. But how were we to prevent it?

  “Can we free them?” I said. “The children.”

  “We must try,” said my neighbor. “But look at it. Look at that army. We haven’t a hope.”

  I cursed, slowly and thoroughly. Then I made for the stairs, limping painfully.

  “Where are ye going, lad?”

  “To
see someone I know.”

  I found Black-Arse exactly where I expected to find him, in the corner of the castle smithy that Master Maunus had invaded and made into his workshop. The two of them had their heads together, bent over the contents of a clay jar.

  “It might be ye need more nitrate,” said Black-Arse.

  “Not on your life, young man. You’re not the one we’re trying to kill.”

  “But it has to work quickly—”

  “It will work, never fear. The question is, though, how do we get it up there? Oh, hello, Davin. Up and about again?”

  “What are the two of you up to?” I asked.

  Black-Arse grinned. “A bit of a boom,” he said.

  “Something big enough to kill a dragon?”

  Black-Arse raised both ginger eyebrows. “Dragons?” he said. “Has he brought dragons?”

  “One. But one is enough. Well? Will it kill a dragon?”

  “I should think so,” said Master Maunus. “If we can place it right.”

  Black-Arse looked dreamy. “Imagine us being able to say we killed off a real dragon,” he said. “Now, that would be something, would it not?”

  “It would,” I said. “And especially this one. So come on. Tell me how to do it.”

  Master Maunus cleared his throat. “Listen, young Davin. What do you think your mother would say to this?”

  “I have no idea,” I said curtly. “I’m not going to ask her.”

  We were waiting for the darkness. The Dragon Force was still out there, within sight of the walls but out of range of our arrows. The dragon was at the front, lit by several big fires that were probably necessary to keep it warm and moving.

  Master Maunus had promised not to tell Mama about our little outing. I think the clincher was his own eagerness to see if this would really work. And it would not be entirely easy to find two other volunteers for the task Black-Arse and I were about to undertake.

  “Are ye sure yer foot is up to it?” asked Black-Arse. “And the rest of ye? Ye were sick as a dog only days ago.”

  “Of course I’m sure. Or I wouldn’t do it.”

  He looked at me. “Aye. Ye would. Ye’ve never known when to quit.”

  “I’m fine, I tell you.”

  He shrugged. “If ye say so. But if ye drop in yer tracks out there, do not count on me to drag ye back.”

  I got up.

  “Where are ye going?”

  “I forgot my knife.”

  “Hurry, then. It will be dark enough, soon.”

  I limped across the barbican to the sick bay. In there, it was dark and quiet, and I could hear Callan’s breathing. Slow and easy. Hopefully, that meant he was sleeping. I sneaked up to the bed I still slept in, when I slept at all, of course. I wouldn’t be getting much rest tonight.

  I put my hand under the pillow. Then I lifted the whole thing. Then I shook out the blanket, and finally the mattress. All in vain.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” asked Rose.

  Startled, I spun on my heel. There she was, in the corner beside Callan’s bed. And in her hand she held my bottle of dragon blood.

  “Give it to me,” I said.

  “It stinks of dragon,” she said. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Just give it to me.”

  “I don’t think so. Because whatever it is, I don’t think it’s good for you.”

  I threw the blanket and pillow back onto the bed. Why did she have to be such a busybody? But I took care to sound calm and relaxed.

  “Come on, Rose. It’s nothing to get all worked up about.”

  “Davin, I want to know what it is.”

  “Just something I got from one of the Laclans. You know. Helps you keep warm.”

  But she shook her head. “You’re lying. And you know what, Davin? You’re a piss-poor liar. It shows from a mile away.”

  I hardly listened. I was almost within reach now. One more step… I flung myself forward, seizing her wrist. The bottle flew out of her grasp and rolled along the floor, so that I had to drop to my belly to catch it before it rolled under Callan’s bed. It hurt like hell because the claw marks weren’t quite healed yet, but that didn’t really matter now. I had the bottle.

  “What is it, lad?” muttered Callan sleepily. “Cannot the two of ye find a better place to fight?”

  Rose straightened to her full height. “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “I’m all done fighting him. As far as I am concerned, he can go to hell in whatever way he pleases.” And then she walked out on us.

  I stood there in the gloom, hiding my little bottle in one hand. A moment ago, all I wanted was for her to leave me alone. But now that I had my wish, it felt all wrong.

  “What did ye do, boy?” asked Callan.

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh aye. And ye expect me to believe that?”

  “You heard her. We’re done fighting.”

  Callan made a growling sound in his throat.

  “Listen, lad. The two of ye fighting, that is all in a day’s work. It’s when ye do not fight that I start to worry.”

  I unstoppered the bottle in the shadow of the doorway before going back outside. There wasn’t a lot left. I drank all of it and tossed the bottle on to the middens. And it was then it really struck me: If Black-Arse and I succeeded, then the dragon would soon be dead. And then there would be no more dragon blood available this side of Skayler’s Edge.

  It actually made me hesitate. And then I was ashamed of my hesitation. Because if we didn’t kill that dragon very soon, Drakan would start feeding it on children.

  Shame. There hadn’t been enough left in the bottle to rid me of it. And that was probably a good thing.

  “Here,” said Black-Arse, passing me a white sheet.

  “What do I want that for?”

  “For when we reach the snow,” said Black-Arse. “So we will be less easy to see.”

  He had a point. I rolled up the sheet and put it inside my shirt. If I put it on now, it would merely make me look like a pale ghost against the blackness of the castle walls.

  Of course, there were men on the walls. Guards and the like. But they all knew Black-Arse and me by now, and no one tried to stop us. It wasn’t until we started climbing off the wall and up the mountainside that we were hailed and called on to stop.

  “Halloo, there. Where do ye think ye’re going?”

  “We have a little present for Drakan and his dragon,” said Black-Arse. “But do not tell anyone. We want it to be a surprise.”

  “The dragon? Lads, ye do not want to go anywhere near that beastie. The Dragon Lord is sure to have set a guard.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll keep our distance.”

  And so we would. You would have to be part mountain goat anyway to climb into the pass from up here. Climbing back up would be impossible. Traversing the mountainside, the way we were doing it, wasn’t exactly easy. There were trails here and there, mostly made by animals, and it was possible to walk upright if one was careful. In other places we would have to cling like limpets and use both hands and feet. Black-Arse had packed our dragon present in a rucksack, which we took turns carrying, leaving our hands free, but even so it was no picnic. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t keep from grinning.

  “What are ye laughing at?” asked Black-Arse at some point. “It is not that funny.”

  “You don’t think so? Aren’t you looking forward to… to seeing the dragon’s face when our present goes boom?”

  Black-Arse couldn’t help grinning too. “Aye. That I am. But you. Ye’re usually more serious.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “No. I can see that.”

  And so we pushed on through the snow, with the white sheets tied on like cloaks so that Drakan’s guards should not catch sight of us. I had no wish to test the range of their crossbows. The cold nipped at our hands and feet, and the breath rose from my mouth like a pillar of steam. But inside, I was warm and happy. It was such a good feeling to be
with Black-Arse, my best friend, on a mountainside in the middle of the night—or at least after dark—and to know that this silence would soon be broken by a colossal boom. I felt almost like—

  Like the night I had ridden with the Dragon knights, thinking I could fly.

  Not a nice thought.

  But…

  But this was different. We weren’t going to set fire to anybody’s thatch. I wouldn’t be shouting “Death to the enemies of the Dragon” tonight. Death to the Dragon, more like.

  “Are we there yet?” I asked.

  Black-Arse measured the distance with his eyes. “Just about, I think. Master Maunus said…” He looked around, then pointed. “There. Just below the rock that looks a bit like a hare.”

  I looked up. It didn’t look very much like a hare in my eyes, but I knew which rock he meant.

  I looked down into the pass. The dragon lay coiled by the fire, almost directly below us. Around it, there were guards, perhaps even Dragon knights. I couldn’t tell from this distance, but I could always hope.

  “Here,” said Black-Arse. “Hold this, will ye?”

  He passed me the rucksack, and I took it—with my bad arm, unthinkingly, because right now it didn’t hurt. But that arm was not as strong as the other, and the leather straps of the rucksack were slippery with Black-Arse’s sweat. I dropped it.

  “No!”

  Black-Arse moaned as if I had dropped a living baby. But it had not fallen very far. A little farther down, in the snow on a rocky outcrop.

  “I’ll get it,” I said.

  “No,” protested Black-Arse. “Ye aren’t—”

  But I had already leaped. I skidded sideways and down, slid on my butt for a little while, and landed as I intended, on the outcrop, right next to the rucksack.

  “Davin!”

  Black-Arse peeked at me from above, pale behind the freckles.

  “Are ye mad?” he hissed. “What if ye had missed it?”

  I grinned at him. “But I didn’t, did I?”

  “Pass me the rucksack.”

  I tried to do as he said, but it was too far.