Battledragon (34 page)

Relkin made a wry face. "I suppose it's all highly secret anyway, and you can't tell such things to a dragonboy."

"Well, of course, some things are. Believe me, there are things you wouldn't want to know."

From the eagerness on his face, Lagdalen was sure that she was wrong about this, so she fell silent.

"Well, one thing that isn't a secret is that you and the Grey Lady flew into camp on the back of a batrukh! Everyone was amazed. The dragons talked about it for hours. Until the Purple Green started wondering how the thing would taste."

Lagdalen laughed, and for a moment the gauntness was gone and her eyes shone with the happy light of youth he remembered so well.

"The Lady tamed him. Found him on a mountain. He had hurt his wing and was starving. His name is Ridge-eyes, and he's actually quite sweet once you get to know him and accept that he is what he is. The Lady tickles him behind his ears, and he purrs. I swear he acts like a great big house cat."

Relkin was most amused by this thought.

"What does he eat?"

"Oh, whatever he can catch, swans in flight, storks, geese.

He really likes the larger birds. Sometimes he takes a wild goat right off the mountainside."

"So how did you take to flying on the back of a batrukh like an old-time witch?"

"Well, you flew with a dragon, didn't you?"

"I did," and Relkin recalled that magical day when the green dragoness had borne him in her talons from Mt. Ulmo to Dalhousie. "It was amazing, I think of it often. You must have seen so many things!"

"Everlasting jungle, a forest that extends for a thousand miles. Mountains so high they have glaciers and snowfields even though we're in the tropics. I have even glimpsed the Inland Sea."

"Is it as big as they say?"

"It must be, it shone right across the horizon."

"It is so good to see you, Lagdalen of the Tarcho. And Bazil will want to see you, too."

"He is nearby?"

"They're in the grove behind us, sleeping I think. We came a ways this morning."

He laughed. "Flying on a batrukh. Now I've heard of everything."

Lagdalen sighed. There were more terrifying ways to fly, she knew only too well. Through the dark animantic magic, she had been made to live in the mind of an eagle for many days once. She had almost not come back.

"It's funny how different my life is from what I imagined it would be when I was a young novice in the Temple."

"Do you remember when we met, Lagdalen? You were always in trouble. I don't think you would have made it to become a priestess."

"Probably not." She sighed again. "But if I hadn't met a certain dragon and a certain dragonboy, I would have been spared an awful lot."

"It was fate, Lagdalen. The Great Ones wanted us to meet."

"After all that we've been through because of that meeting I have to admit that you may be right." She was smiling again. "Such strange and terrible things have I seen. But tell me, how did you fare in the battle?"

"Nothing more than a few scratches. Bazil got his worst wound before the fight."

Lagdalen heard Relkin's tale of the attack by the Czardhan knight and gasped in horror.

"What a fool!"

"Certainly a lucky fool. If the dragon had had the sword with him, there'd be one knight less."

"What will happen to the knight?"

"He has not been sentenced yet. But Bazil requested another joust as punishment."

Lagdalen laughed. "You mean the dragon will have shield and sword? That would be a death sentence."

Relkin nodded grimly. "It would be, but we would blunt the sword and the dragon would try not to kill."

"But why risk it? Why not let them give him fifty lashes?"

"To demonstrate why they should never try such a thing again. These knights are a hot-blooded lot. There have been several incidents besides this, though this was the worst."

"Ah, I see." Her eyes darted about him. His clothes were worn and his boots showed the signs of a long march, but the rest of him seemed in perfect health.

"But you, Relkin, you are well enough."

The lump on the head he'd received in Koubha had only just declined to insignificance, but at heart he knew she was right. The campaign had been good for him after the months at sea.

"I'll live," he said with a grin. "So, what can you tell me about where we're going?"

She put a finger to her lips. "You shouldn't talk like that. Somebody might hear you."

"Who's going to hear me out here?"

"You never know."

"This is literally the middle of nowhere. Go on, tell me something, anything. All we get is endless rumor."

"Well, I can tell you about the mountains in the west. I think we'll be going there, all of us."

"Those would be the Ramparts of the Sun."

"Yes, that is their name."

"Then, it's true isn't it? We're going to go all the way to the Inland Sea."

Lagdalen shook her head. "I don't know, Relkin. The Lady does not tell me such things. What if I were taken by the enemy? It is better if I know as little as possible of the grand strategy."

Relkin sighed, not sure whether he could fully believe this.

"But the mountains are wonderful; they are the greatest mountains I have ever seen."

"Greater than the Malguns?"

"Oh, yes, they are so high they have ice and snow on their tops, even here in this tropical land."

"How are we going to cross them then?"

"There are passes, and roads. The Impalo peoples have long tended the roads. They guard the passes against the Kraheen."

"Hmm, but the Kraheen were here already. What does that say about this guard?"

"It is known that this Kraheen army came from the south. They crossed the mountains far to the south and marched for months to reach the lands of the Bogoni unobserved."

"So." Relkin stared off into the west. "How far is it to these mountains?"

"A month's march, I would say."

"What is the land like along the way?"

"From what I saw from the batrukh's back, it is like this except that it gets drier the farther west you go."

"And when we cross the mountains?"

"I do not know, Relkin, honestly. The Lady knows, but only she."

Relkin knew he would have to be satisfied with this. In truth, he was not displeased. It was something to have confirmed his suspicion that they were heading westward, much farther than they had already come.

"And how fares the Lady Lessis? She was so good as to write me a letter, did I ever tell you, Lagdalen?"

"No, Relkin, but she did. She told me that you were the only dragonboy she has ever written to."

"She is well, then."

"Relkin, you know the Lady, she never changes much. Even when we carried her in the catacombs of Tummuz Orgmeen, she remained much the same. She is as she was, and I think, as she will ever be."

"I've heard it said she's five hundred years old."

"She is older than that by a century, Relkin." Her smile grew brittle. "I am barely grown myself, but it sometimes seems I've served for centuries myself."

Relkin sensed Lagdalen's sorrow at being parted from her baby.

There was a sudden interruption when a heavy tread behind them announced the arrival of a leatherback dragon of considerable girth.

Bazil came around the tree, scooped up Lagdalen, and put her on his shoulder.

"Greetings to Lagdalen Dragonfriend. This dragon heard boy talking with someone and then thought he recognized your voice."

"You were right. How are you, my friend?"

"Wounds are healing, none serious. The fight was not serious, either. If we had some beer, then all the dragons would be quite content, except for the heat. Dragons come from the frozen north."

"Which is why you need some beer."

"A serious lack."

The dragon set her down on her feet.

"I do not know when you will get any. There's a long march ahead of you. Perhaps when you pass through the lands of the Impalo kings there will be beer."

"That would be something."

"Relkin told me that you have challenged the Czardhan knight."

"Boy is right."

"What will you do to him?"

The dragon shrugged eloquently.

"I will not kill him."

The morning was cool and bright, as they so often were on the inland plateaus of equatorial Eigo. Only later in the day would the heat and humidity rise to the level of discomfort.

It was an important day, for it had been chosen for the punishment of the Czardhan knight, Hervaze of Gensch.

The day before had seen the trial of the Knight of Gensch, charged with assault and malicious wounding of the battledragon Bazil of the 109th Marneri. It had taken long negotiations with the Czardhan leadership to agree on the conditions for the trial.

The fighting with the defeated Kraheen army had petered out some days before. The remnants of the Kraheen were in flight south and west, into the swamps south of Pugaz. The allied army had concentrated around the market town of Douxmi, close to the western edge of Og Bogon. A couple of days of rest were in order for the expeditionary force.

The trial of Hervaze had been public and well attended, with the King of Og Bogon sitting as judge. Hervaze was defended by a skillful knight from Lenkessen, Irs Parmy. Parmy spoke Verio almost as well as he spoke his native Demmener and brought a trained advocate's skills to the task. The prosecution was led by a Major Herta of General Steenhur's staff, who favored a blunt approach that often intimidated witnesses.

Testimony was heard from Dragoneer Relkin, who had witnessed the assault, and from the dragon himself. This latter development had been highly controversial among the Czardhans. Many of the knights had still refused to accept the essential "personhood" of the wyvern dragons. Some of the most conservative knights could hardly believe that the wyverns could think and speak.

Bazil's spoken testimony, therefore, had been a shock to many. To hear a vast battle beast stand before the court and speak Verio like a man was profoundly disturbing to some. What Bazil had said, however, changed the minds of some Czardhans and threw many others into confusion.

Then Major Herta had called the companions of the Knight Hervaze to testify. At first their answers were evasive, but Herta struck home by appealing to their sense of honor. They testified truthfully, that Hervaze had been drinking a fiery distilled spirit and had challenged the wyvern dragon and then charged the beast when it refused the challenge.

Finally Hervaze himself was put to the questions. At first, aided by Irs Parmy, he had avoided incriminating himself, but at length Major Herta was able to set the knight upon his honor. He acknowledged, at last, that he had charged the dragon and speared him.

The king found Hervaze to be guilty and handed him over to General Baxander for proper military justice. Baxander announced that Hervaze had a choice of punishments. He could accept fifty lashes, given in front of the entire army, or he could put on armor and take up his lance and fight the dragon again, this time in fair fight.

There was a great gasp of wonder among the knights. Whose idea had this been? Then it was announced that this challenge had been demanded by the dragon himself. Who had ever imagined that a dragon would make such an honorable request?

Hervaze of Gensch recalled being swatted off his horse by that dragon. It had been a hell of a blow. Hervaze also thought of what he had seen on the battlefield at Koubha, that perfect carpet of dead men, cut to ribbons by dragon-sword.

Yet, the men of Czardha were brave to a fault, and Hervaze was nothing if not a typical specimen of his kind. He would happily accept such a death rather than submit to the ignominy of fifty lashes in front of the entire army.

His acceptance of the challenge set off a round of cheers from the massed knights, many of whom believed that any good knight, properly armed and mounted, would dispose of a dragon. In the legions, meantime, there had been a knowing chuckle or two as they'd dispersed from the open-air court.

And so on this pleasant, sunny morning the army was drawn up on either side of a long, open space, with the ground packed hard and dry in the center. A long white line had been chalked down the middle.

General Baxander, flanked by Count Felk-Habren and King Choulaput, rode up and sat their horses at the midpoint of the white line about one hundred paces clear.

At one end of the white line was a knot of men and a great warhorse, at the other a knot of dragonboys and single, brooding wyvern. Both Hervaze and Bazil wore full armor. Hervaze's lance was tipped with a flat, and Bazil carried a dulled, legion issue blade rather than Ecator. Bazil disdained the clumsy legion sword, but both he and Relkin knew that Ecator would kill the knight. The blade was a witch blade with a mind of its own and a passion for killing.

A horn blew. An equerry from Czardha read out a proclamation, first in Demmener, then in Gelf, finally in Verio. The combat would take the form of jousts, the knight to remain on his side of the white line and the dragon on his. Each joust would begin on the sound of the horn and end when the parties had passed each other. Jousting would continue until one or other of the parties retired or was unable to go on.

A drum began to thump, and now preparations intensified. The knight was assisted into his saddle and his mount led out to the beginning of the white line. He made an imposing sight, a towering form, encased in steel plate and helm, with the oval shield and the long lance set in his stirrup cup. On the plains of Czardha, across Hentilden to the borders of Kassim, these were the rulers of the battlefield. Not even the troll hordes of the enemy had withstood the charge of the massed knights of Czardha.

The horn sounded a warning note. There came a confused cheer from the ranks of Czardhans lining one side of the ground. Hervaze's massive mount positively frisked forward to the starting point. Hervaze seemed to radiate the confidence of the ever victorious knights of Czardha.

Then everyone looked to the other end of the line. They saw a huge, crouching bulk, hidden behind a great rectangular shield with a long steel blade that rose up to rest against a mail-clad shoulder. Incalculable menace rose like a cloud of doom from this figure. There were some among the Czardhans who felt their hearts suddenly falter for the first time.