Dragonbards (2 page)

“
We have become a world of lost souls,
without ties, without history. Soon we will all be slaves of the
unliving. And the dark leaders use their slaves cruelly.

“
The dragons have been driven out of
Tirror by the dark, murdered by the dark, all the dragonbards they
could find, murdered. If there are other bards, they have hidden
themselves, as I have. I am not proud of hiding. But alone, without
a dragon, what can one bard do? Alone, I cannot keep the past
alive.”

Camery looked up at Teb, her voice catching.
He took the diary from her and began where she had stopped.

“
Teb and Camery, you may find this diary
one day. You are only small children now. I have not told you that
you are dragonbard born. I see the longing in you, that terrible
restlessness, and I yearn to tell you. But haw can I? It would tear
you apart to know your true natures, just as it has torn at me, for
there is no dragon to join with.”

Colewolf sat with his arm around Kiri, his
daughter’s cheek pressed against his chest, and little Marshy
sprawled across their laps. They listened to Meriden’s prophetic
words and were filled with sadness for her.

“
I must leave this world,”
Camery
read,
“and find my way into other worlds. It is the only way I
can help Tirror. I know now that the Castle of Doors does exist—a
way into those worlds. I have seen it in bard knowledge, though
that knowledge is so often destroyed by the unliving.

“
I believe the last dragon on Tirror has
gone through the Doors, and I must follow her.

“
Why has knowledge of the Castle of Doors
touched me now? Why do I remember now? Am I growing stronger in
what I am able to recall? Or has the dark revealed this to me,
meaning to lure me away from Tirror? But why—what harm can one bard
do to the powers that seek to destroy us?

“
I dare not go into Aquervell to find the
Castle of Doors. The dark holds that continent too strongly. I
think there is another Door; my bard knowledge touches it faintly.
So much knowledge seems just beyond my reach. I believe there is a
Door beneath the sea, in a sunken city off our eastern coast. I
believe it joins the Castle of Doors by a warping in space and
time. I will sail into the eastern sea and leave word behind that I
have drowned. If I can find the Door and get through, and find the
dragon, perhaps together we can discover a way to drive the dark
from Tirror. Together, we can try.

“
What will become of my children? The
dark will seek bard children; it will not allow one bard to live.
Yet I must leave them. I am so torn and so miserable.”

Camery’s green eyes filled with pain. “She
didn’t know—that the dragon she sought was
here,
asleep for
so many years. She didn’t know that Dawncloud would wake and go to
search for her.”

Teb shook his head. “Or that Dawncloud would
leave a clutch of young behind—our four dragons—that there
would
be dragons on Tirror again.”

“And now there are six more,” Camery said.
“And Mama doesn’t know . . . if . . . if she is
still alive, to know.”

It was Colewolf who had learned of the six
dragonlings, from a rebel soldier come recently to their own land
from Yoorthed. The man had found a dragon nest atop a rocky isle
and climbed to find the empty shells. Later, when Colewolf had
given the four bards this information, in vision, his daughter’s
dark eyes had been deep with yearning, for Kiri dreamed that
perhaps her own dragonmate would be among them. And six-year-old
Marshy’s face had held the same need.

The dragons began to stir restlessly. The
bards mounted up, and they took to the sky again. By mid-morning, a
thin strip of white shone ahead, dividing sea and sky.

They reached Yoorthed at midday. It
stretched away below them, an empty plain of ice, broken in the
distance by mountains.

They winged along the ice cliff just above
the sea, searching for caves. When they found none, they circled up
over the plain and came down beside a gully filled with snow. The
dragons dug into it with powerful claws, carving a cave out of the
wind. Bards and dragons pushed down into the sheltering hole in a
tangle. Nightraider rested his black head across Seastrider’s white
shoulder. Colewolf could hardly be seen under Starpounder’s folded
black wing. Kiri knelt to kiss her father, then settled beside
Windcaller. Little Marshy snuggled against Teb, under Seastrider’s
chin. Bards and dragons slept as the sun climbed the frozen sky and
dropped toward evening.

They woke suddenly. The sense of a creature
in pain woke them, a shock of terror that jerked them all out of
sleep.

“Dragon!” Kiri cried, leaping up.

Windcaller roared, thrusting up out of the
cave to leap into the evening sky. The other three dragons bellowed
and rose behind her, circling, sensing out.

Ratnisbon has fallen, on our northern
border, and half a dozen islands north of Vuchen Vek. In so many
lands, young girls are chained within the palaces for the use of
the unliving, and men and boys are tortured. No king or army seems
any longer able to drive the dark out. My dear husband is the most
vigilant of kings, but I fear even for him, and for our green,
lovely land.

*

“Young dragons,” Nightraider cried, circling
above the bards. “Young dragons—to the
north. . . .”

“No,” said Seastrider, banking away. “One
dragon to the south, near that far line of mountains. Can’t you
sense her there? She is held immobile, filled with pain,
dizzy. . . .”

‘To the north!” screamed Nightraider,
snapping his wings against the red sky. “Four young dragons to the
north.”

“To the north,” echoed Starpounder.
“Dragonlings in the north.”

Teb stared up at the wheeling dragons,
amazed. They seldom argued. But he, too, sensed dragons both to the
north and the south. Though from the south, he thought, came the
terrible shock of distress.

‘To the south,” roared Seastrider, huffing
flame. She dropped out of the sky, flaring her wings to land beside
him. “South!” she bellowed.

“We’ll separate,” Teb said. “Seastrider and
I, Windcaller and Kiri and Marshy will go south.”

“It could be a trick of the dark, to
separate us,” Camery said.

“It could be. We will take care.” They might
not be able to touch one another’s thoughts so far apart, with the
dark so strong.

Camery and Colewolf mounted up, and the
black dragons headed north. They traveled in silence, searching the
ice cliffs.

The white dragons moved fast to the south,
Teb leaning down between Seastrider’s wings to watch the frozen
land. Marshy rode in front of Kiri, his legs tucked into
Windcaller’s harness. The dragons skirted just above the crashing
waves, watching the white cliff for caves, for claw marks in the
ice, or any sign that a dragon had passed this way. They were
gripped by the bleakness of the frozen land, by the absence of
life. Teb looked across at Kiri.

I could have sent you with your father. But
. . . I like having you with me.

She looked surprised; then her eyes softened
with pleasure.

“Cave ahead!” Marshy shouted. “Cave!” The
child leaned so far out into the wind that Kiri grabbed his
shoulders. A thin opening yawned in the cliff. The dragons circled,
to hover beside it.

“Go in,” Teb said. “Can you get in?”

Seastrider studied the black hole, sensed
the cave’s emptiness, and slid into the dark slit folding her wings
close as Teb lay along her neck. Windcaller followed, Kiri and
Marshy crouching low. The roof brushed their backs.

Inside, the cave opened out into a large,
echoing chamber that was almost warm. The riders slid down. Teb
took a candle from his pack and struck flint. Flame chased the
dragons’ shadows up the frozen walls.

“There!” Kiri said, pointing to where claw
marks scored the ice. Each set of claws was as wide as Marshy’s
head—this was a young dragon, not yet full grown. The two dragons
sniffed at the marks. Marshy stood on tiptoe and pressed his
fingers into the deep scratches. His small hand trembled. His
cheeks burned and his gray eyes glowed with a bright, urgent
knowledge. Ahead of them somewhere in this frozen land was a very
special dragon—the dragon with whom he must be paired. And ahead of
them somewhere, his dragon was sick, perhaps dying. He knew this
with a deep, instinctive insight.

Deeper in the cave was a tumbled pile of
sheep bones and the backbone of a deer. Marshy found where the
young dragon had slept, a circle where the ice had melted and
refrozen.

“A female,” Marshy said, kneeling beside the
slick circle to pick up a white dragon scale. All white dragons
were female. Each pearly scale was as big as the little boy’s palm.
The look on Marshy’s face was the same as Camery’s when she and
Nightraider had found each other. It was the same look that had lit
Colewolf s eyes when he met Starpounder, after believing for so
long that there were no more dragons on Tirror.

Teb watched Kiri and touched her thoughts.
She was glad for Marshy; her mind filled with a prayer to the
Graven Light that they would find Marshy’s young dragon in time.
But she was torn, too, with a desolate yearning for that moment
when she would join with her own dragonmate. Unsteady questions
seared her, and the thought that she might never know her own
dragon.

Kiri traveled with Windcaller, but both she
and Windcaller searched for another. There was no deciding who
would belong to a certain dragon. Such a thing was without choice,
established by powers far greater than even bards and dragons could
control.

“Please,” Marshy said, “we must hurry. She
is sick, maybe dying.” The two dragons were poised at the mouth of
the cave. The bards mounted and headed south again, watching for
any movement across the ice plain that was fast dimming toward
night. But it was not until the sky was nearly dark, the plain
turned to heavy gray, that the two dragons sensed something.

There,
Kiri thought,
a gully—that
line . . .

The dragons strained into the wind toward
the thin scar that cut across the ice. As they neared it, it
widened to a deep ravine. They circled and dropped, hovering,
looking down into the cleft, at the shadowed procession that moved
along the bottom.

A procession of small men marched there,
leading a train of sleds lashed together and pulled by wolves.
Bound to the sled, her head lolling, her tail dragging through the
snow, was the limp body of a young white dragon.

She can’t be dead!
Marshy cried. But
the little boy’s terror filled them.

The dark seeks to destroy the mystery of our
pasts within us—and so destroy our sense of who we are. That is how
they will enslave us—by creating a race without self-knowledge.
Only dragon song can stop them. Oh, I dream of singing dragons with
claws and teeth like ivory swords, tender and affectionate dragons,
so clever at the vision making.

*

The dragons circled the ravine, driving a
sharp wind down across the procession. The white dragonling’s body
rocked limply on the line of sleds. They could not tell whether she
was alive. Marshy stared down at her, his face white with longing
and terror. The fur-clad soldiers flashed swords and spears,
looking up at them with no hint of gentleness. These were not human
men, but dwarfs. Teb watched them, his hand on his own sword. If
the dragonling was dead, surely they had killed her. He clenched
his knees into Seastrider’s sides.
Dive!

No, Tebriel. They have not hurt her.

I said dive!

Can’t you sense it? They are rescuing
her.
Seastrider swung her head around close to his face.
The
dwarf folk mean her no harm! She is near to death. Sick, with
something foreign and horrible. It is not
their
doing.

Seastrider spread her wings and dropped soft
as a white flower beside the procession. Windcaller followed. The
small men backed away against the snow cliff, their swords drawn
but not lashing out. Dwarfs and bards remained still, watching each
other. Seastrider said,
They are afraid, Tebriel. But they are
not evil.
Marshy slid down from Windcaller and pushed boldly
past the swords toward the small dragon. Teb and Kiri dismounted,
to face the band’s leader.

He was no taller than six-year-old Marshy,
broad and stocky, dressed in heavy ermine furs. His crown was a
gold band studded with emeralds, sewn into the ermine hood that
covered his ears and the end of his pale beard. His lined face was
burned by sun and cold. His eyes were so dark, there seemed to be
no pupils. He stood with his feet apart, and they were goat’s feet,
hooved. The tops of his furred trousers were tied around his ankles
with rawhide straps. Teb saw the delight in Kiri’s eyes, though her
face remained solemn. The dwarf king’s sword was a blade of fine
blue steel, its gold hilt studded with rubies. The other dwarfs,
perhaps forty in all, were richly dressed, all armed with splendid
blades.

“We are dwarfs of the nation of Stilvoke,”
the small king said. He eyed the tall white dragons with respect
but not, Teb thought, with fear.

“What do you do with the young dragon?” Teb
said. “Where do you take her? What has happened to her?”

“The dragon has been drugged, young bard. We
found her awash in the sea, her body beating against the cliffs. We
hauled her out. There was half a dead seal floating beside her,
stinking of the drug cadacus.”

Teb looked at Marshy, filled with pain for
him. The child was pressed against the young dragon, his arms
trying to circle her neck. So the dark also knew about the new
clutch of dragons—if the dwarf could be believed. Did the unliving
mean to kill the young dragons, or to capture them? He looked
steadily at the dwarf king, his mind edgy with questions.