Dog and Dragon-ARC (33 page)

Fionn was amused. “Lady Skay, of course, sees it otherwise.”

“How right you are, dragon. Somehow he reminds her of avalanches, which is not inaccurate at times, I will admit.”

“Well, as I imagine you have tried remedying all the usual real reasons for unhappiness, let us see if he can be distracted by juggling or by…cats,” said Fionn.

“Is the…cat safe with children?” asked Groblek, to whom sheepdogs were barely a bite.

Fionn smiled reassuringly. “Children are quite dangerous to them, yes, but they’re very tolerant despite that. And this one will not bite a child. Not for any provocation. Will you bite, Díleas? One bark for yes, two for no.”

“Hrf hrf.”

“Those are of course ‘meows’ in his breed,” said Fionn. “My Scrap raised his intelligence somewhat, Groblek, and he’s of a bright breed. Your child is safe with him.”

The babe was, luckily for Díleas, not as large as his father suggested he might become. And he was distracted, almost hypnotized, by the bright balls being thrown in patterns. And Díleas’s bouncing and his soft fur. “Not so tight, little one. You’ll squeeze the life out of him,” said Groblek. Fortunately Díleas discovered he could tickle by licking.

Between them they settled a small restless, tumultuous avalanche back to sleep.

“I had no idea,” said Fionn, “just how tiring they could be. Anyway, now that you have given me a great deal to think about, can you let us out? We need to go on our way. Whatever else I do…she needs her cat.”

“I will let you out in the mountains of Lyonesse. And I will give you your apprentice’s advice to us. Talk about it.”

“Your kindness wouldn’t run to dinner, would it? For the cat, of course. I wouldn’t trespass on your hospitality,” said Fionn.

“You nearly made me laugh and wake him up again. You are a perpetual trespasser. And I am sure I could find a bowl of milk and some fish…I do believe the cat is baring its teeth at me,” said Groblek.

“He’s a very intelligent animal. And you shouldn’t tease him after your child has had such pleasure trying to catch his tail and tasting his ear. Díleas thinks it may be teething causing the unrest.”

So it was, well fed and without having to travel any further, that Fionn and Díleas came out into the mountains on the borders of Southern Lyonesse.

It was late afternoon here, and from the mountainside, Fionn and Díleas got a fair prospect of the land of Lyonesse stretching out to a distant sea. If they’d been conquerors, it would be the kind of view they’d have wanted to plan their campaign. From here Fionn could see a number of towns—really forts that settlements had grown up around—roads, forests, plains, and brown rivers winding their way to the coast. There in the distance was a flash of armor. It had been many centuries since Fionn was last here. The chief settlement was further north and west. Their kings lived in a sea-girt castle with only a narrow peninsula to access it. Very defensible, and a sacred site too. That would be where he’d hope to find his Scrap. She must have got to the sea to talk to it, and yes, the First-crystal image had showed her in a coracle. Well, she was safer on the sea than almost anyone else would be.

And Díleas was already starting to walk northwards. “It’ll be quicker to fly,” said Fionn.

Díleas turned around and pawed at the basket. And as Fionn knew he did not love flying, that said a great deal. “Let me just organize it properly. Even if she’s in the very furthest corner of this place—it can’t take us more than another day, as long as you know where to go. Do you?”

“Hrf.” Díleas lifted a paw, and pointed. It was a little inland of where Fionn had expected. But perhaps the coast curved. He tucked the blankets in around the dog, and took to the wing. It was still warm enough to find some thermals…

They hadn’t flown more than twenty yards, when something pecked at his tail tendrils as he flapped up. It was a thrush, attacking a dragon.

Then an eagle dive-bombed him—talons missing Fionn’s eyes by a few hairbreadths, wings actually hitting the basket.

And that was just the start. With Díleas sitting up in the basket barking and snapping, and, it seemed every bird from half a mile around came to peck or claw or beat at them with their wings, Fionn struggled to land a quarter of mile away from where he had taken to the air.

Díleas was not impressed by the landing. Or the flight, or the fact that he had feathers in his mouth.

But Fionn was very, very happy.

It was one thing to be told she was here. To follow the faithful dog, faithfully.

It was however much much sweeter to feel and recognize her magic.

“She’s gotten even more powerful. And even more prone to cause chaos,” said Fionn. “The dvergar would be proud of their work and proud of her! I am. We’ve walked before, Díleas. We can walk again. We’re here and so is she. And it feels like she has the wherewithal to look after herself.”

The air, now free of flying dragons—or any other thing that did not belong there—the birds resumed their singing, and Fionn and Díleas began picking their way down the mountain towards those forts and their towns, with Fionn choosing to appear in his normal human guise, in case they met any of the locals. The mountains were relatively bare of the things Fionn expected of mountains—sheep and bandits. There was a bear, but not even Díleas’s “let’s you and him fight” barking could get either Fionn or the bear, busy with fishing, interested. “It’s not the same bear,” said Fionn. “This one did not call you a cat, and I am not going to pick on it just because you want me to. And bears like fish. He’s not catching them for you.”

They walked on down, until met by a rock that turned into a spriggan. The spriggan was not expecting a dragon, not even one doing a very good shape-shift impression of a human. He didn’t realize Fionn could see him, until Fionn sat down next to him and took a firm hold of his ear. “Glamor has never worked very well on me,” he said, calmly but firmly. Spriggans could be decidedly nasty. In fact they usually were, unless they had reason for respect or had decided they liked you as someone trickier and nastier than themselves, or preferably, both. “Generally speaking, I find spriggans give me indigestion,” said Fionn, conversationally. “But one of my fellow dragons said that if you roast them slowly enough, they become crisp and quite tasty.”

“Dragons blowing in here, too, now. What is the place coming to?” said the spriggan. “I didn’t recognize you. I thought dragons were more on the spiky tails and bat wings and flame-out-the-nostrils side.”

“I can do that if you like,” said Fionn, “but I find this so much better for nasty surprises.”

“I think you might get one, coming here,” said the spriggan. “We have a new Defender. I saw her birds chase you out of the sky.”

“Defender, eh? I’m looking for her. She’s…you might say a friend of mine. I want to return the dog that she left in my care. He’s about to mark you as his territory, so I would lose the glamor hastily, my spriggan friend, and tell me where to find Meb. Díleas and I have searched long and far for her. And yes, we’re friends of hers. I swear it on my hoard. That’s a very serious oath for dragonkind.”

“Your name wouldn’t happen to be Finn, would it?” said the spriggan hastily becoming less than rock in appearance. “Or something like that…I got it from the knockyan, and they do mangle names. And it was supposed to be a black dragon, now that I recall.”

“Fionn is my name and, yes, I am called Finn among humans,” said Fionn. He remembered the knockyan. Miner cousins to the dvergar. Not great artisans like the dvergar, but good miners.

“Then you could let go of my ear,” said the spriggan. “I believe it’s due to your ideas that the men of Ys are now back in Ys, scrubbing the insides of their armor. She frightened them near witless and sent them home with their tails firmly between their legs. Said it was your idea, I’ve been told.”

“Can you take me to her?” asked Fionn.

The spriggan shook his head. “I’d like to, but I can’t, no. We’re bound to our rocks. Half a league is what I can wander.”

“It seems you’re quite informed for all that.”

“The knockyan. They love to gossip. And now that Earl Alois has pulled nearly everyone out of the mountains and into Dun Carfon, it’s quite quiet here.”

“Hmm. Why don’t you tell me some of the gossip. It might make travel easier. I’ve always preferred knowing what is happening to blundering in blindly. And if my Scrap needs help, well, best I know what help to bring.”

“There’s a knockyan mine a little down the hill. If you want their gossip, it might be best to get it from them,” said the spriggan.

“What do they mine?” He knew he shouldn’t ask, but some things were too ingrained in dragonish nature to avoid.

The spriggan grinned nastily. “You don’t think I’d be stupid enough to take you to a gold mine, do you? Lead, tin and antimony as far as I know. Ask them.”

“Of course they would tell me,” said Fionn. “Lead on. I’ll do my best not to eat you, or too many of them—as long as they’re also friends of my Scrap of humanity.”

“They, and we, are hers to command. But she has a way of winning loyalty, it seems.”

“My dvergar friends and their little contrivances. I wonder if they had any idea what they wrought when they gave her that one,” said Fionn, thoughtfully, to himself. They had accentuated certain aspects of her nature. Convinced the dvergar those powerful aspects were hers to command…which could go to her head.

From the little knockers Fionn learned much more, although Díleas would not have agreed. The little miners were not comfortable with the dog, and all Díleas wanted was to go north. Now. But their tunnels were such tiny narrow passages spread across the land like some vast spider web. It took a week or two for the stories to travel, but if it happened in Lyonesse, the knockers got to hear about it. There were several armies still abroad in Lyonesse, and Meb had defeated two of them. And here in the south, they hoped for her. But the earl of the Southern Marches did not, because he’d tried to kill her, or so the story went.

“Where is this earl?” asked Fionn, grimly.

“Well, if he’s not out with his troops, he’ll be in Dun Carfon. He’s much loved here in the south, dragon. He alone has managed to really keep his Marches more or less safe.”

“Choosing to try and kill my Scrap is not going to help to keep him safe,” said Fionn. “Is this Dun Carfon on or near to my way north?”

“It would be hard not to go past it, dragon. It lies at the end of this valley, where the river flows into the lakes.”

Fionn remembered the lakes—a chain of shallow marshy lakes just inside the foreshore dune lands. The dunes would be a good defense in themselves from seaborne attackers, and the marshes were good sources of fish and mosquitos. It was easier and faster traveling along the rolling lowlands just above the lakes, than climbing up the steep montane countryside and then through the forest up to the bleak moorlands that they would cross going that way. “My thanks,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll relieve you of an impatient dog’s presence. We’ll stop and talk to an earl along the way.”

“Be careful, dragon.”

“That’s difficult for me, but I’ll do my best,” said Fionn with a wave, as they set off.

CHAPTER 24

It took them another two days’ hard walking to get to Dun Carfon. It was enough time and distance for Fionn to see the ravages of war on the land of Lyonesse, and that this corner at least was doing its best to hold and somehow even to prosper. It must have been an irritation to Queen Gwenhwyfach.

Dun Carfon itself was plainly preparing for war. The abatis on the steep earth slope up to the wall was being repaired, a few burned trees being pulled away. People, some with carts full of fodder and livestock, were all heading into the Dun. Fionn joined them.

The gateway had signs of human mage-craft on it. Fionn regarded that as hardly surprising, and besides, to turn around now—from the one-way press of traffic—was to label himself as someone who had something to fear.

He felt the surge of energy as he walked through. And a squad of men-at-arms and an officer moved in very quickly to surround him, spears at the ready, but at a respectful distance.

“We must ask you to come with us, sir. Earl Alois assures you that no harm will come to you, and he will not attempt to stop you leaving. He just wants to talk.”

Fionn said, sotto voce in a pitch they could not hear, to Díleas: “Stay in sight but not too close.” To the officer he said: “And where do you want to take me?”

“To see the earl, fay creature.”

Fionn knew what the spell was now. Some form of working to identify non-humans. If he’d known, he could have disguised himself as a very big sheep and made Díleas feel important. Well, they had something that looked like a man, but wasn’t. They just didn’t know what they had. And Fionn was not ready to give this Earl Alois the same assurances. Some very real harm might come to him.

They found the earl in the final stages of preparing to ride out with his troops. When the officer told him what he had brought, that was put into immediate abeyance. Except that the woman he was talking to, with a girl child clinging to her knees, another baby on her hip and a sturdy young boy with far too worried an expression on his face for his age, came along. Fionn was politely taken into a large comfortable chamber, that opened onto the courtyard that, obviously by the maps and drinking horns, had served as a planning room for his staff.

“I need to talk to you about the Defender,” said the earl. “Branwen. Can I ask you to leave us, my dearest?”

She looked him straight in the eye, a tear already forming on her cheek, and shook her head. “No. This concerns me, and Owain,” she patted the boy’s shoulder, “as much too.”

“Well,” said Fionn, “that’s why I came here. To talk to you about her.”

“I had no idea who she was,” said the earl. “I know now. I will pay the penalty for my error. No, Bran. Owain. It is my duty and my right.”

Fionn grinned. Not an encouraging grin, at all. And then there was a barking at the door. “Ah. Díleas. I’ll be right back.”

He moved fast. That had been quite an urgent bark.

Outside the room, a man-at-arms was attempting to spear Díleas.