Dragonbards (7 page)

“Must something happen? Can’t I just
visit?”

“You’ve been busy winning wars. There’s no
time for pleasure. What brought you?”

“A vision,” Teb said. “A battle—dark
raiders. But . . .”

The white otter smiled. “It has already
happened. Sivich marched for Nightpool last night. We survived it
nicely, thanks to Charkky and Mikk.”

Teb sat down on the stone sleeping shelf.
“Tell me. I thought you would be—”

“We are not dead, Tebriel. Charkky and Mikk
returned around midnight with a band of our best young otters. They
tricked Sivich nicely. They alerted Ebis the Black, then stole all
of Sivich’s horses. They guessed Sivich would attack Nightpool
anyway, furious at the loss of the horses. We have badgered him
constantly, and he has seen our scouts.”

“Well? What happened?”

“Oh, he marched for Nightpool, all right—all
those horse soldiers having to go on foot.” Thakkur smiled, his
white whiskers twitching, his dark eyes deep with sweet revenge.
“When Sivich’s armies were halfway to Nightpool, Ebis the Black’s
best horse soldiers surrounded them and killed them.”

Teb smiled. “We thought . . .” A
commotion in the sea stopped him. Thakkur stepped to the door,
sword drawn.

The white otter stood watching uncertainly
as, beneath the cliff, the water roiled and heaved. Suddenly a huge
white head burst out. Thakkur stared, then said, “Hah!” He stood
his ground, looking, and Seastrider stared back at him, her green
eyes laughing. A tuna dangled from her fangs. A second later,
Windcaller crashed onto the sea from the sky, nearly drenching the
island, certainly drenching her rider.

Teb had never seen Thakkur speechless. The
white otter’s eyes were eager. His whiskers worked with excitement.
He seemed to absorb every shining line of the dragons, every
reflected color, every curve of their spreading wings. These were
the creatures he had seen only in vision, had only dreamed
about.

Seastrider thrust her head at the white
otter, pushed her nose at his face, and nuzzled his whiskers.
Thakkur stroked her nose, his dark eyes bright with wonder.

“You are Thakkur,” she said. “You are the
Seer of Nightpool.”

“I am Thakkur.”

“Come on my back, great white otter. I will
show you the sky.”

Teb had to laugh at Thakkur; the white
otter’s eagerness made him shiver like a cub. Seastrider swam close
to the cliff, holding steady in the waves. Thakkur leaped from the
cliff to her back as if he did it every day, then tucked his paws
into the white leather harness.

As Seastrider lifted into the silvered sky,
bearing the white otter, a shout behind Teb made him turn.

“Hah! Dragons! There are dragons!”

“Thakkur—on a dragon! Oh, my!”

On Ekthuma, five speaking wolves were
discovered talking with some children. They were killed and their
bodies bound by chain to the children’s necks, and the children
were made to drag them about the city. That is the way of the
un-men. They hunger to destroy warmth and love.

*

“Dragons in the sea! Hah, dragons!”

Teb stared up the cliff. Two sleek brown
faces looked down at him with broad, whiskered grins and dark eyes
shining.

“Charkky! Mikk!”

“Tebriel! You have dragons!”

The two otters slid down the cliff to
embrace him. They smelled richly of the sea and of fish. Teb knelt
and gathered them in, hugging them, laughing with pleasure into
their whiskered faces. Charkky pounded his back. “It’s a dream!”
Charkky shouted. “You really do have dragons! You found dragons!”
Mikk winked at him with admiration and looked up at Windcaller
banking away over their heads. Kiri sat on a rock, watching them
with interest.

“Maybe a dream,” Mikk said, “but their wings
make real wind. And Teb is real, I can smell him! And who is that
sitting on the rock?”

“Kiri,” Teb said, putting out a hand to her.
She came to stand beside him. Mikk shook her hand.

Charkky smiled shyly when she shook his paw;
he turned away and pulled at Teb’s arm. “Now that you have dragons,
Tebriel, you can drive Sivich from the land. Kill Sivich—”

“I thought Ebis killed him. I thought—”

“Oh, Ebis didn’t kill
Sivich,”
Charkky said with disgust. “Sivich escaped.
He
was
mounted—
he
wouldn’t go into battle on foot. He keeps a few
horses locked in the stable; we couldn’t get at them. We had to
leave them behind.”

Kiri looked from one otter to the other,
first puzzled, then with surprised admiration. “So that was what
happened to the horses. You stole them? I saw the battlefield.”

The two otters smiled.

Teb said, “If Sivich escaped, we’ll find
him.” He put a stranglehold on Charkky so the young otter thrashed
helplessly. With his face close to Charkky’s, looking into the
otter’s dark eyes, Teb said in a low, growling voice, “We will
destroy him—together, we will.”

“Hah, Tebriel! We’ll do that!” Charkky
cried.

Teb held Charkky away, laughing. “I want to
hear all about last night. How were you sure they were going to
attack? How did you get the horses away?”

“We have spies in the palace,” Mikk said.
“Sivich decided to attack Nightpool when he found out we had been
stealing his food and weapons.”

Charkky laughed. “He was pretty mad, raving
about wiping out Nightpool and killing all of us. Vermin, he called
us!”

“So the night of his planned attack,” Mikk
said, “we loosed the horses and drove them off toward the
mountains, to be picked up by rebel troops from the coast.”

Teb looked impressed.

“Horses do not like growling otters biting
at their heels,” Charkky said.

“You’re pretty well organized,” Teb
said.

Mikk’s whiskers stiffened with pride.

“What happened when Sivich discovered his
horses were gone?” Kiri asked.

“Hah,” Charkky said. “He was madder than
sin, too mad to scrap the attack. He set out for Nightpool with
half his soldiers—a hundred soldiers on foot and only himself and
three officers mounted.”

Mikk twirled his worry stones. “His foot
troops came at double march, and we followed them all the way,
running in the darkness. Sivich kept grumbling and muttering about
how he would slaughter us all.”

“
He
thought he’d just march down the
cliff,” Charkky said, “and swim his soldiers across to kill us like
sheep in a pen.”

“Ebis was waiting for Sivich in the valley
between Auric Palace and Nightpool,” Mikk said. “His mounted men
picked off Sivich’s foot soldiers like minnows in a tide pool.
But,” he said more quietly, “Sivich will get fresh horses from the
countries friendly to him, and more soldiers. He’ll come at us
again, you can bet your flippers.” In spite of his steadiness,
Mikk’s dark eyes showed a chill of fear.

“Hah,” Charkky said. “Now Tebriel is here!
And Kiri! And two white dragons to cut Sivich down from the sky,
burn him.”

“How long will it take Sivich to get new
mounts?” Teb asked.

“A week or more,” said Mikk. “By now, the
rebel troops will have swum the horses we stole, across the channel
to Lair Island for safekeeping. Sivich would never find them there,
in that tangle of caves and cliffs. He’ll send north for
reinforcements.”

“We could join with Ebis
now,”
Teb
said. “Attack Sivich while he has few soldiers and no horses.”

“But even without horses,” Mikk said, “he’s
at an advantage when he’s fighting from within the palace. He will
not come out into the open until he has reinforcements.”

Teb nodded. “I don’t want to burn Auric
Palace. If we wait until new troops arrive, we can wipe them
all
out.”

“Yes,” Mikk said. “That would be Ebis’s
choice, too.”

“There will be more dragons in a few days,”
Teb said. “Seven more, and three more bards as well.”

“Hah!” Charkky and Mikk shouted
together.

“Nine dragons!” Charkky yelled. “The sky
will be filled with dragons!”

“And there will be a surprise for Thakkur,
too,” Teb said. He wouldn’t tell them what, though they teased him
to find out. He soon left the two otters and Kiri talking about the
night’s battle. He went along the rim of the island to the caves
that looked down on the inner valley, to Mitta’s cave.

The little pudgy otter was waiting for him.
Teb knelt and put his arms around her.

“You are safe, Tebriel.” Her whiskers
tickled his neck. “Oh, you are safe.” She squeezed him with eager
paws, then held him away to look deep into his face, her whiskers
twitching with happiness. Teb tried not to see the gray hairs that
rimed her muzzle. “Dragonbard,” she said softly, her dark eyes and
her eager otter face filled with bright wonder.

It was Mitta and Thakkur who had nursed him
through his long illness when he hadn’t known who he was, had fed
him, watched over him, set his broken leg, and changed the
dressings on it.

“Dragonbard,” she repeated. “And you killed
the black hydrus. Oh, I am proud of you, Tebriel.” She smiled a
whiskery smile. “You will take back your land, now, when you
destroy Sivich.”

Her assurance, on top of Charkky’s and
Mikk’s, made Teb uneasy. Yet why should it?

He sat with Mitta for a long time,
reminiscing, before he took her to meet Kiri and the dragons.

It was the next afternoon that the sky was
filled with dragons, as Charkky had said. Mikk and Charkky ran to
the highest rock, shouting and pointing. Wings hid the sky. Dragon
faces looked down. Dragon teeth and claws shone.

When the dragons dropped onto the sea, they
sent waves heaving against Nightpool. As they swam, rocking on the
waves, two dragonlings brought Iceflower to the landward side of
the island, where the sea was calm. She looked very weak. Mitta
saw, and went to her.

Only Thakkur was not watching Iceflower or
the circling dragons. He stared past them to where Nightraider
rocked on the far swells. Camery was standing up on Nightraider’s
back, between his spreading black wings. Her arms were raised. She
was holding Hanni up, as high as she could. He perched there,
looking across the waves at Thakkur. Thakkur looked back, rigid
with amazement.

Thakkur dove.

He swam between dragons like a white streak.
Before he reached Nightraider, Hanni dove, too. The two otters met
in mid sea. They bobbed on the waves, looking. They circled each
other, staring. They dove, surfaced, spun in the water, then
disappeared beneath the sea. Teb could imagine their flying race
deep down in the clear green water.

“No one had to introduce them,” Kiri said.
“They were kin as soon as they met.”

He laughed and took her hand. The two white
otters were together. He felt good, very complete. He put his arm
around Kiri, and they watched Mitta, balancing on the rocks, with
the waves crashing around her as she touched Iceflower and talked
to her.

“What’s Mitta doing?” Kiri said. “Iceflower
looks so sick.”

“She’s asking questions,” Teb said. Mitta
had that stern, doctoring look about her.

When Iceflower rose from the sea, she winged
in a dropping glide over the island, and came down in the center
valley. Mitta stood on the rock cliff with paws raised, giving
orders to a dozen young otters.

Soon Mitta had a fire burning in the valley
and a kettle boiling, and she was gathering roots beside the lake.
As she steeped her herbs and roots, Iceflower curled up on the
meadow with her wings tucked around her. Kiri smiled, watching the
efficient little otter. When the brew was ready, Iceflower sucked
up the warm potion obediently, and soon her eyes drooped with
sleepy comfort.

Soon afterward, a second pot of water was
put to boil, and the otters began bringing shellfish. The bards
crowded close to the fire, warming themselves, their stomachs
rumbling as the good smell of steaming clams and lobster filled the
wind. It was not long until they were feasting, at first hungrily,
in silence, then with more grace. Marshy ate so much lobster, Kiri
thought he would be sick. Hanni sat close to Thakkur, wrapped in
Teb’s gull-feather blanket. The little white otter, like Thakkur,
preferred his shellfish raw. All the otters began asking questions
about what had happened in Dacia, though they already knew quite a
lot.

News had traveled fast down across the
island continents, from owl to fox to great cat to wolf to owl, and
at last to Nightpool. The bards listened with excitement to how
skilled the animals’ network had grown.

Thakkur said, “The news that there are still
dragons has given us all new hope. Even the owls are working as one
for the first time. Owls are always such loners.

“They have formed cadres and have begun
living in communal groups, in the cave sanctuaries. By carrying
messages, they have helped the rebel bands come together into a
strong army. When news of the dragons and of your victory in Dacia
swept the continents, Tebriel, within a matter of days every
creature rose to join us.”

The otters began to talk all at once,
telling how the owls had brought news of boats carrying dark
soldiers, and how teams of otters had sunk those boats, swimming
deep underwater to pierce the hulls with sword and spear. Or if no
otters were near, the great cats or the big speaking wolves had
swum out in force, clinging to one side of a boat to flip it,
killing the soldiers as they tried to swim ashore. The speaking
animals were working so well with the resistance that Teb thought
this was nearly like the old times when all speaking folk, man and
animal, lived in an active, working harmony.

This very harmony would infuriate Quazelzeg.
They all agreed that he would invent new ways to fight them, and a
chilling fear touched the little group. The wind seemed to come
colder, fingering down inside collars and parting fur, and the
surrounding sea seemed all at once an open highway to evil invaders
instead of a safe barrier. Little Hanni pushed closer to Thakkur,
reaching out a paw. Kiri put her arm around Marshy and drew him
near, and squeezed Teb’s hand very hard; and she thought, with Teb,
that they dare not let fear touch them so powerfully.