Bazil Broketail (57 page)

Puxdool was advancing. There was no way to fight this troll without a weapon.

And then there was a flash of light, and something silver and gleaming fell past his eyes and sank quivering into the sand not ten feet away.

The crowd was hushed.

Baz reached out and yanked it from the ground.

Piocar! His own!

He kissed the hilt and swung the great sword down before him.

Puxdool had halted and was backing up. Puxdool had never faced a dragonsword before.

The blade in his hand brought renewed strength to Bazil’s weary limbs. He looked up, exulting. Only one person in the world could be responsible.

There were people in the crowd pointing up at the highest gallery, which ran beside the top of the tower, where the shadows barely hid the gleam of the Doom.

A small figure stood there, waving down at the dragon.

Bazil lifted Piocar high and waved back. That boy was a good one, at least some of the time.

Then he turned and advanced on Puxdool.

Puxdool retreated but not quickly enough, and soon steel rang on steel and the troll was defending himself desperately. Piocar swept in and then over and down, and with a crunch cut through the troll’s shield and cleft it in twain. With Piocar the dragon’s extra weight and power were unstoppable.

The crowd groaned.

Puxdool let out a bellow of rage mixed with fear and took his sword in both hands.

Piocar met it and turned it aside, and Baz slammed the troll with the weight of his shield. Puxdool was knocked backwards. He recovered only in time to receive another heavy buffet. He slammed into the gate and bounced back; Baz met his return with the edge of the great sword.

Puxdool gave a sick groan and went down, hewn almost in half at the waist.

The crowd was stilled. The other trolls stood back in horror.

Puxdool was slain!

From the high tower over the keep came a terrible shriek of rage from the Mouth.

Drums began to thunder.

Relkin flung himself down the stairs at a blistering pace. His dragon still lived! And if the goddess willed, that dragon would still be alive at the end of the day—at least he was armed properly now.

And Relkin had seen the very man they had pursued to Tummuz Orgmeen. Lessis would want to hear of that!

Furthermore, he had seen a dozen or more fighting men in the arena and they were the men of Marneri, he was certain. Even the captain, he lived. Relkin drove himself on—the lady needed all this information.

He reached the bottom of the secret stair, where a Stygian gloom prevailed. He slowed his pace, not wanting to trip and fall in the dark until his eyes had adjusted.

Even moving slowly he didn’t see the girl pressed into a recess in the wall until she stepped out and touched him on the shoulder, whereupon he jumped like a startled deer and reached for his blade.

“Relkin,” she said, trying not to laugh at his surprise.

“Lagdalen? By the Great Mother, you scared the wits out of me that time.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. What did you see?”

He nodded towards the passageway. “I have news for the lady. Bazil is alive—I found his sword and threw it down to him. And I think the captain lives, too.”

She let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“Thank the Mother for that. Come on then! The lady is very anxious to hear your report.”

“There’s been a lot of fighting. The drags—I don’t even know one of them—have busted loose. The enemy made a mistake and gave the wrong dragon a chance to fight. He’s killing them.”

Lagdalen drew him down the passage.

“Hurry.”

The tunnel had several twists and turns before they emerged into a larger passage and stepped onto some stairs.

On the next floor up they found the survivors of Les-sis’s force of women. They had seen fierce fighting, and the floor of the hall was littered with their own dead, among them were twenty imps and half a dozen men.

The women had fought magnificently, but they had failed. The double doors to the Doom’s Tube were guarded too heavily. There were trolls there and the doors had been shut. The women could not break through.

Lessis saw Relkin and Lagdalen and ran to them.

“Quickly, young man, what did you see?”

“Dragons are loose in the arena with some Marneri men.”

Lessis accepted this with a short, deep breath.

“She has heard our prayers, that’s all I can say. Thank you, Great Mother, we shall not disappoint you.”

Lagdalen sensed hope bursting anew in Lessis.

“What can we do?”

“We must go up one more level and then break through to the mid-section doors to the arena. It can be done. I know the way.”

Within less than a minute Lessis had led the sixty-odd survivors of her force, all of them now heavily armed with weapons taken from imps and men, and placed them below a stair that rose to the ground level of the keep. Quietly they climbed the first flight and there they paused while Lessis went forward alone, creeping silently up the next few steps.

The landing above was jammed with imps. Steel glinted in a hundred hands.

She retreated as silently and invisibly as she had appeared. Not an imp moved—none had seen a thing.

Suddenly from the dark depth of the stairwell came a ferocious bellow and the sound of heavy feet.

“Gazak! Dragon!” muttered the imps.

Another bellow, closer this time, set them close to panic.

And then the women from the pens, swords in their hands, came racing up the stairs and fell upon them, all the while screaming like banshees. The imps were paralyzed.

Swords beat down like hammers upon helmet and shield. Imps fell, were cut down and trampled. They fought back briefly and then broke and fled before the storm. The women were right behind them with swords lashing out to cut down the hindmost as they ran.

Together they all burst into the great passage to the mid-point gate. A crowd of men and imps, the handlers and haulers who worked in the arena, looked on with complete astonishment for a moment before they too took to their heels and ran down the passage.

At the gate itself a dozen heavyset guards turned to face them. There was no way past this obstacle; Lessis led them on, a sword in her hand.

But these were no imps, these were seasoned men— killers all. They eyed the onrushing mob with cold detachment; they would not flinch at witch’s tricks.

Relkin was running behind the lady, and Lagdalen was just behind him.

The women never faltered. They were ready for death; their flesh tormented by the horror thrust upon them, their spirits enraged beyond measure, they came on with their swords up.

It might have been a slaughter—the guards would have killed all of them quite easily, except that as they closed Lessis raised a hand and from it flashed a blue flame that struck into the eyes of the foremost guard, who waited for her with sword ready.

He was blinded and flailed weakly with his blade, missing Relkin, who sank his dirk into the man’s belly in the next instant.

Then the forces crashed together and swords rose and fell, but a gap had been opened through the line of guards, and Lessis and Relkin widened it further when Relkin engaged another guard long enough to let Lessis reach his throat with her dirk.

The women kept coming, over the bodies of their sisters, and now other guards were falling, borne down by the sheer weight of numbers, slipping in the blood that pooled on the floor.

Lessis and Lagdalen reached the doors and heaved one open.

The daylight of the arena flooded in.

Two dragons and a dozen men stood fifty feet away, formed up in a defensive position, ready to fight to the death. Marching towards them out of the double gates of the keep was a squad of eight trolls with one hundred imps. The Valkyrie was riding up and down while the golden youth led the crowd in more chanting.

The defiance of the dragons had been magnificent. Puxdool’s great corpse still twitched occasionally on the sands. Other corpses were strewn here and there. The mob of Tummuz Orgmeen had seen great excitement, the dragons had been worthwhile opponents of their power, but now, now they were to be exterminated. Their defiance could only be tolerated for so long.

On came the trolls and imps.

Lessis remained within the doors, cupped her hands and blew, producing the shrill, sharp notes of the cornet of the Argonath.

The men turned, Captain Kesepton saw the opened doors and the lady in grey and barked an order. The dragons were already lumbering towards the opened gates.

“Who is that dragon?” said Lagdalen, pointing to the giant purple-green one that was approaching on all fours.

Lessis kept her voice level.

“That is a wild drake, my dear. The ancestor to all our wyverns.”

Lagdalen stared wide-eyed at the monster.

“They eat people, don’t they?”

“They do. But right now I think this one has more important things on his mind than the menu. We’d better open these doors wider.”

Relkin was also staring. Not even Vastrox would outweigh this monster. Then the gate area was crowded with them—two dragons took up a lot of space. Relkin, however, was too busy hugging his own to worry about that.

“You’re alive!” he kept saying as he pounded on Baz’s leathery hide.

“And so is boy!” said the dragon happily, leaning on Piocar and breathing hard.

They slammed the gates shut in the faces of the imps. Then Captain Kesepton paused beside Lagdalen.

“Well met, Lagdalen of Marneri. Even if we are to die here I will not be sorry, for I will die beside you.”

Lagdalen’s heart leaped even further. He had survived, they were together.

“Well met, Captain. Surely the Mother watches over us. I did not think I would see you again.”

Their hands were clasped together. Kesepton leaned over and kissed her. It seemed the most natural thing in the world.

Lagdalen’s eyes were filling with tears; it was all so horrifying and yet so magnificent. They had raised rebellion in the heart of the Doom’s city, they had shaken the rule of the great rock, they would never be forgotten.

Kesepton leaned back. Liepol Duxe gave him an insulting look, but he refused to take the bait. Lagdalen would be his wife someday, he was certain of this now.

If they lived, which was most uncertain. Death was all around them and death was closing in, in the hands of trolls, men and imps, a horde aroused within its own foul nest. What possible chance could they have against such odds?

Thrembode had left the general’s corpse hidden and gone immediately to his chambers.

To his horror he found that Besita was not there. Once again she had disobeyed his orders. She had become so filled with her sense of importance here in Tummuz Orgmeen that she casually ignored his wishes. Now he had to waste precious time searching for the trollop!

But he had to have her—she was his trump card. With her he could go over the head of the great stupid rock. He would go to Padmasa for justice.

It was a chilling thought but unavoidable. The Doom’s displeasure would soon lead to an ignominious and horrible end, or worse, conscription into the ranks of obscene sense organs hanging in those cages.

So he would flee, and he would take Besita. The Masters would like that, to be able to question a princess of the Argonath. The Masters would learn much from such an interrogation. The Masters would overrule their stone Doom in Tummuz Orgmeen.

But he would have to move quickly. General Erks was an important man and his absence would be noted. A search would soon turn up his body and the hunt for Thrembode would be on. Erks’s staff most certainly knew of their meeting and probably even understood what the general was going to say to the doomed magician.

He snapped his fingers—of course! Besita was in the arena, in the magician’s box. Watching the dragons fight.

He turned and ran, taking the stairs two at a time, barely pausing to identify himself to the guards at the top landing. In the box he found Besita and several other women, military wives of the high command.-

Besita was stunned, almost angry at first. Had she no rights? Why did Thrembode have to ruin her afternoon? But he would not be denied, and took her arm and hustled her from the box.

“What is it?” she whispered, but he would not say.

Outside he halted briefly.

“We are leaving Tummuz Orgmeen.”

“Leaving? But we went through hell to get here—why are we leaving now?”

He barely restrained himself. The trollop didn’t want to go, eh?

“I have orders to go on. You are wanted at higher levels.”

“Higher than the Doom?”

“Much. The makers of Dooms want you.”

She swallowed. The Masters.

“I do not want to go. The Doom did not mention this. Does it know?”

“I do not know,” he hissed. “I only have my orders. Come with me. Now!”

Besita did not want to come, but he would not be resisted; she was tugged through the labyrinth of the city. There was no time to waste. They but needed horses and then they would be on their way.

At the outer gate of the keep Thrembode passed through without drawing a check. No alarm had been raised yet over General Erks. Thrembode began to hope that everything would go smoothly and they would escape.

They reached the stables. Imps ran to fetch horses as soon as small gold coins were pressed into the stableman’s hand. Thrembode breathed a sigh of relief. Just a few minutes now.

Before the horses appeared, however, a squad of troopers in black slipped into view and closed in around Thrembode.

He watched them with a sick feeling in his belly. He was trapped! Trapped by the Doom. The damned thing had anticipated his move. Perhaps it had even wanted the death of General Erks. It was hard to know—the thing would kill whomever it felt it needed to. It liked to kill, the magicians all knew that.

With swords to his throat Thrembode could do nothing but surrender. They put him in chains and hustled him and Besita back into the keep and up the stairs.