Dragon Rescue (5 page)

He searched his memory for some idea of the enemy. Rellings?

Snowfield tribes—that was it! They were, he’d heard, fierce fighters.

Allies—or co-conspirators—of the exiled Peter of Gantrell. Men of the snowy wastes in the Northlands beyond the kingdom’s frontiers to the north and east.

On the broad front porch of Lakehead City Hall he began to shout orders in all directions. There were always idle early tipplers at Head o’ Lake’s public bar and lazy malingerers sitting on wharf benches and iron bollards, whittling large pieces of wood down to small pieces and swapping tall lake tales in the morning sun.

“Find the pigeon seller!” the bailiff called to a group of boys and girls on their way to school. “Lord Mayor wants him at once!”

“But, Bailiff Kedry...” one of the older lads objected.

“Now!” Kedry barked. “Someone tell the school-marm there’ll be no classes today—nor until after the militia muster is completed and the men have marched tomorrow morning. Go!”

The children, surprised and not entirely displeased by his orders, shot off in all directions, shouting the exciting news at the top of their shrill voices. A war patrol on the lake began within hours.

Before the town merchants, farmers, the sail makers, rope walk-ers, and shipyard carpenters of Lakehead had gathered excitedly to muster in the town square, fully two dozen sturdy, swift lakecraft of all types and sizes had hoisted sail and headed for the horizon.

Inshore, their leader was Captain Boscor Sack, aboard his fast ketch-rigged sloop
Windsong.
Farther down the lake, smaller and faster boats such as
Felicity,
belonging to Boscor’s brother Trover, caught the freshening westerly breeze and formed a forward picket line from north to south.

The lake at this time of year was filled with all manner of water-craft, hurrying east or beating to the west to complete one last voyage before the first winter storms
could catch them too far from their home ports.

The Outer Fleet was busy inspecting each westbound ship and boat as it approached the fleet. Captain Trover was diplomatic.

“Advise you to go on to Lakehead at best speed,” he yelled to a lake bargeman he knew quite well. ‘‘Better to be away from the fighting, unless you relish land warfare with them Rellings, Fross!”

“Thanks for the warning!” Captain Fross yelled back. “Dine with me at the Head o’ Lake, tomorrow night, eh?”

“If I could, I would, with pleasure,” Trover bellowed. “We’re liable to be out here on the rough, cold water for some time yet!”

As they pulled away from the slow barge, Trover’s nephew, Giffom,
Felicity’s
best lookout, called a new sighting.

“Small boat, dead ahead,” he hailed from
Felicity’s
foremast head.

Trover strode to the bow’s peak to catch a glimpse of the new sighting.

“How many men in her?” he shouted up to Giffom.

“None I can see, Uncle Captain!” the boy replied at once. “Seems to me she’s adrift.”

“Run her down just the same,” the lake captain decided. “Bear a point to starboard, Henric!”

“Aye, aye, Captain!” responded the helmsman, expertly twirling the spokes of the wheel.

In eight minutes Trover was peering down into the small rowboat. From the looks of it, it was the kind the lake fishermen used to tend their nets—badly needing paint, clumsy, bluff of bow, and flat of keel. Trover spotted no oars in her, which was unusual to say the least.

In the bottom, curled like a sleeping baby or a sick old cat, lay a man dressed in wet gray-white furs.

“Ahoy!” shouted the captain, forming a megaphone with his hands.

“We’re taking you by the board, mister! Name of Magistrate Fellows and the good Lord of Morningside!”

The figure in the boat stirred, lifted his head, and groaned in pain.

“Get down there and see what’s the matter,” Trover ordered one of his hands. “Careful now!”

The young sailor dropped expertly into the fisherman’s skiff, scarcely making it rock. The man in the bottom moaned loudly and tried to lift his head again.

“He’s badly hurt!” the sailor yelled back after a quick examina-tion. “Lots of blood all about! And no oars in the boat, Captain!”

“Hoist him aboard, then, but carefully, carefully,” decided Trover.

Even from the foredeck he could see the bloodstained bilgewater around the man in the skiff.

A stretcher was quickly rigged from the main gaff and the wounded man in bloodied furs was hauled up, swung inboard to the main deck, and hustled below, where he was lifted carefully into one of the bunks.

“He’s an awful hole in his belly,” whispered Trover, almost to himself. “Lost a lot of blood, must be.”

He did what he could to make the stranger comfortable in the bunk. The wounded man gasped for water and the ship’s boy brought a mug and held it to his lips.

“Easy! You’ll choke him if you give it to him too fast!” his captain snapped. “Cover him with plenty of warm blankets and stay by him.

Tell me if he comes to and wants to talk.”

“None of the lakeshore fishermen I ever met,” said an older member of
Felicity’s
crew. “Strange cast to his features, too.”

“I can see!” growled Trover, turning to return to deck. “Keep a close eye on him, boy! Yell if he comes to enough to talk.”

On deck he hailed the nearest blockade ship.

“A Northlander, or I miss me guess! We’ll take him back to Lakehead,” he explained when she closed on the
Felicity.
“Keep an eye out for more stray boats, Fellish! I’ll be back after dawn, I judge.”

“Who is he?” Fellish wanted to know.

“Not sure. Looks like he might be one of them Rellings the bailiff spoke about!” replied Trover. “Wounded close to death!”

He turned his eyes inboard. “Hands to the sheets! Prepare to go about! Helmsman, port tack for Lakehead! Hop to it! He’s in a bad way, or I’m no judge, whoever or whatever he might be, poor soul! May not live to see the bailiffs gaol!”

Chapter Three

Call to Arms

The ten-day overland journey from Hidden Lake Canyon to Overhall was pleasant, especially in this early fall of the year when dry southerly winds alternated with sudden light showers and cool gusts off the distant Quietness.

At first Tom and Manda rode along the east-west range of the Snow Mountains, enjoying the spectacular, scenery of snowcapped peaks on one hand and flat, featureless desert on the other. Riding at a relaxed pace by day and camping out at night were rather pleasant, a change from the hard work of beginning a house in the canyon.

When they had reached a point several days’ ride to the east of Hidden Lake Canyon, the land began to roll gently and the yearly rainfall there was sufficient to encourage lush grasslands but very few trees. This was the western edge of Murdan’s Ramhold, and his huge flocks of sheep grazed here in the winter and spring before summer dried the water holes and springs, and the rams and their ewes had to be herded up into the foothills to the north for yeaning, to spend the summer and early-fall days.

The grasslands were not quite as empty as they seemed. Every day or so the travelers came to upwelling springs, many of which had fostered the growth of prosperous ranches and even a few villages.

This broad, fertile land was the bread basket of Carolna. Seemingly endless grasslands became seemingly endless fields of wheat, oats, corn, and barley and pasturelands for horses and fat cattle.

The Librarian’s party overtook and passed long trains of wagons being hauled by teams of stoic oxen, down to the Cristol River, where the wheat and barley would be ground at water-driven mills, bagged, and shipped by flour barges east to Head of Navigation, a day or so south of Overhall and west of Lakehead.

From there the cargoes were carried by ox train over the shallow divide to Lakeheart Lake, and transhipped another time into sturdy lake barges for the next leg—to the more populous east. Much of the wealth of the powerful Gantrell family had come from controlling this trade and its traffic, Manda explained to Tom.

Like the loads of milled flour, Tom and Manda were carried the middle third of their journey up the slow, winding Cristol. The river barges, driven by the steady autumnal westerlies, were quite comfortable and roomy.

Their fellow passengers were a varied lot; hardworking smallholders on their way to the eastern cities with their wives, children, and servants to sell their grain, buy seed, purchase new clothing and winter supplies, and see the sights; commercial travelers returning east to restock their trade goods and report to their employers a successful summer; an occasional circuit court justice and attendant cloud of lawyers and clerks excitedly looking forward to the Fall Sessions at Lexor.

If not the men, their wives immediately recognized Princess Alix Amanda and made much of her presence. Tom talked to their husbands about farming and building houses in the west, while Manda was told how to raise chickens, cows, and children so far from the amenities of castles and cities.

Evenings were filled with music—many of the travelers brought fiddles and harps and flutes along for just this time—and stories and news. The barge crews furnished plain but plentiful food and drink.

In this way, the long days of early fall aboard a river barge were pleasant and never lonesome.

At the confluence of the Cristol and its largest tributary, Overhall Stream, Tom and Manda had their horses and sumpter mules un-loaded from the livestock pens on the foredeck, saddled, and reloaded in a grove of ancient riverside willows, and rode up Overhall Vale to the Historian’s tall castle, by far the most pleasant part of their long journey.

On every hand Overhall tenants and neighboring freehold farmers stopped their late-summertime work to come to the roadside to greet the Princess and her consort. The young couple was known everywhere, but nowhere more cordially greeted than here, near Murdan’s home Achievement.

The countryfolk well remembered the capture of Overhall by the Mercenary Knights, the fight against Lord Peter of Gantrell, and the victorious return of their lord after Gantrell had at last been forced to flee into exile.

“We could swing around to Ffallmar Farm and spend a day or two with Rosemary and her family,” suggested Manda.

She’d been the only woman in Hidden Lake Canyon all summer long—the rest being menservants, surveyors, and young second-sons who had been selected by Tom and Manda to work his new Achievement.

“I miss Mornie, too,” she admitted wistfully. “I wonder how she fared in Broken Land this season!”

“You’re travel weary as it is,” protested her husband. “But if you really want to take the extra time...”

Tom was an indulgent husband. Fortunately, Manda was an inde-pendent woman who seldom took advantage of his good nature.

“No, no!” she said with a sudden brilliant smile, “I still am a city and castle girl, you know. I’ll be happiest when we ride into Overhall’s front gate once again. Besides, you must report to your employer.

Murdan’ll be impatient to hear how we’ve fared out in the wilderness.”

Tom urged his mare to a gallop, leaving the mules to follow at their own pace. Manda followed Tom. They rode swiftly along Overhall Stream until they started up the greensward hill leading up to the Overhall foregate.

Pulling his horse down to a walk again, Tom said, “Well, in a few more summers and winters, we’ll have a place as populous and pleasant as Overhall, all our own. Well, maybe not quite as populous.”

“I know that!” his wife said with a laugh. “I’ve absolutely no com-plaints, really! I’ve enjoyed our summer at Hidden Lake as much as any I can remember—and I’m ever so old, you know.”

They had been seen and recognized coming up the vale, and by the time they rode through the barbican gate, across Gugglerun Draw, and through the wide-open inner gate, a crowd had filled the outer bailey, shouting their welcome.

Murdan was in their midst, beaming broadly behind his full black beard. With him stood his daughter Rosemary and her three young children, waiting for them to dismount so they could engulf the arrivals with their love and joy.

“I do like homecomings!” cried the Historian, stepping back so others could salute the Librarian and his beautiful Princess. “We’ve laid on a real Overhall dinner party for tonight, after you’ve rested and washed up and gotten settled in.”

“I can start right now!” exclaimed Manda, forgetting her travel weariness at once. “Oh, Rosemary! I was just now saying how much I missed you. Next summer you really must bring the children to Hidden Lake for a long stay. It’s well worth the journey!”

Rosemary’s youngest, Eduard of Ffallmar, jumped up and down with excitement at the thought.

“Will I see rattlesnakes? Will I ride on a riverboat?”

“Eddie,” cried one of his sisters in the matter-of-fact exasperation common to all older sisters, “you’ve seen mountains before! And the ocean, too. Remember when we were stolen away to Wall?”

“But that,” said Eddie, just as a matter of fact, “was years and years ago. Now I can ride a horse as well as anyone.”

Tom settled the matter for the moment by asking Eduard and his sisters to lead their sweaty horses up to the stables under Aftertower and make sure they were rubbed down, watered, and fed a heaping measure of oats with brown sugar in reward for being so good as to carry their riders a thousand miles with not a bit of trouble, not even a lost shoe.

“All goes well beside Hidden Lake, then?” asked Murdan of them both.

He led them into his Great Hall at the bottom of Middletower, where a light lunch—three tables filled with it—had been whipped up by Mistress Grumble, Murdan’s capable housekeeper, on very short notice.

“We got all the lines and angles measured and staked out and the elevations figured,” Tom told him eagerly. “Retruance can begin designing the house and the grounds, now that we have the proper figures. If all goes well, we should be able to start some construction with the new year.”

“Do you still not intend to build curtain walls about your castle?”