Dragonfang (14 page)

Zimak swiped at an insect. The damnable things were twice the size of Q’zaran midges, and their bite was slightly venomous. ‘That’s unfair. Tactics win over brute strength every time. Back on Q’zar I fought many powerful men. I beat them fair and square.’

‘Yes … with martial ability I have not seen displayed here.’

‘Daretor, we have been over all this.’ Zimak swiped the air. ‘We go over it every day. You demand I confess, I say there is nothing to confess.’

‘Tell the truth, now. Did you have a dragonlink hidden in that lead ring?’

‘And this is today’s NO! I did not.’

Zimak had never actually seen the dragonlink he was wearing, yet his fighting skills did indeed stem from its power. The link had been encased in a lead ring scavenged from a corpse. Incredible fighting skills had suddenly descended on him from nowhere. Eventually he had concluded that the lead ring was responsible. It was some time later that he realised it might be some enchantment inside the lead.

‘I was a street fighter even before the lead ring was given to me,’ Zimak said, smoothly. ‘I learned to fight very quickly. My teacher was astounded. People said I had great natural ability.’

‘So you keep saying. You might have unwittingly been wearing a dragonlink,’ said Daretor, choosing his words carefully.

‘How could I ever know?’ countered Zimak.

‘How could I know what you knew?’ replied Daretor.

‘Was I ever false in any other way? Besides, you know I trained under a Siluvian black-band master.’

Daretor didn’t look convinced. ‘Tell me that story again.’

‘I used to run dangerous errands for an old master who was living in exile in D’loom. He saw that I had aptitude and, in return for the errands, he taught me for four years before he croaked.’

Daretor did not reply. Instead, he rode along thinking for some time. He was a huge and powerful man, and did not look to be quick of wit. He was, in fact, quite intelligent, especially in logic. Daretor thought things through and tried to be fair, even when the answers that he arrived at were not to his liking. Had Zimak known he was wearing a dragonlink? Zimak claimed no one in D’loom knew of his master for his life depended on anonymity. A likely story, but …

Had Jelindel known about Zimak’s deceit? When they were thrown across worlds, everything they had been wearing stayed behind in Q’zar. It might have been the only way Jelindel could get her hands on Zimak’s dragonlink.

There was no point in discussing any of this with Zimak. He would only get plausible reasons as to why the little thief was innocent. On the other hand, Jelindel now possessed all the dragonlinks and the completed mailshirt. What had she done with them? Had she used their power to become the most powerful Adept in the land? Did she rule Q’zar? Daretor had to return. Perhaps it was his destiny to save the world from her.

They rode through a narrow gap between two granite columns, then reined in together. Before them stretched a vast, dry riverbed of rounded, green stones.

Zimak caught his breath. ‘Look.’

Daretor casually pulled out his farsight. The less travelled Zimak was often prone to cries of exultation and naive excitement.

The greenish-blue sky was marred by a wind tunnel that tore along the horizon. It gathered dust, shaping it like a dirk, so that the ground crunched like hardpacked snow rather than cracking like good Q’zaran sand.

What Daretor saw made him sit up on his horse.

Through the dying heat waves, he saw a mountain range so
high and spiny that it blotted out the stars. It reminded him of a giant dragon whose bones had been picked dry and its skeletal remains left to bleach beneath the merciless sun.

‘You don’t suppose that range was once a real dragon, do you?’ Zimak said, uneasily.

Daretor stifled a yawn. ‘Probably not. We’ve seen no evidence of such monsters,’ he said.

‘Thank White Quell for that,’ Zimak said. ‘Speaking of dragons, we haven’t seen a shred of the dragonriders.’

‘According to the Matriarch, they keep firm boundaries. This is where the griffiads live.’

‘Griffiads?’ Zimak scanned the horizon for any movement. ‘Did she say they’re anything like dragons? I mean,
griffins
back home were quite like them and just as dangerous.’

Daretor frowned. ‘Nothing like them, from memory. They’re smaller, for a start.’ He looked at the sky as though seeking signs of the flying beasts.

Zimak followed his gaze and once more found himself studying the mountain range. ‘It looks like a sculpted dragon, or maybe it’s a griffiad.’ His voice was almost awed, as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘Like gods have moulded it from sand and fused it together,’ he added.

Daretor would have agreed with Zimak, but his mind was elsewhere. Zimak’s naiveté helped to relieve the tension, but it didn’t pay to lose focus. They had been climbing steadily this past day. Their water skins were half empty and the last of their salted meats had been eaten that morning. Since entering the plain they had not seen wildlife or any indication of water. To turn back now would be pure folly. To go forward was to risk not finding an exit from the basin they were in.

He swept the darkening horizon with the farsight. The land
was as barren as Dragonfrost back home, although not as rocky, nor as bitingly cold. It would make sense that game sheltered during the blistering days and ventured out during the cool of the night. Still, the absence of wildlife was unsettling.

Although the path was little wider than an animal’s track, they saw that it had once been a stream leading out to a largish basin of water. Perhaps centuries of white waters had cut a manageable pass through the desert. Following the path might lead them out of here.

They dismounted to rest and shift their loads.

‘So, the green mountains,’ said Daretor, contemplatively.

‘Green mountains,’ echoed Zimak. ‘But they are mountains of green rock, not mountains covered in greenery.’

‘They are still green.’ Daretor’s voice was meditative. He had long since learned that not everything was as it first appeared.

‘But I was expecting forests and water. What are we going to hunt, eat, drink and burn? The horses eat grass. Rock is not going to be much of a substitute, even if it is the right colour.’

‘The Matriarch said there would be green mountains, and there are green mountains in front of us. Come on.’

Zimak made no further attempt at conversation. Daretor remounted his horse and moved down the dry riverbed to the vast, flat expanse of green pebbles. Zimak hesitated, then followed.

Moments later Zimak spurred his mount past Daretor. ‘Look!’

Near the centre were pools of clear water with little fish swimming in them. Tufts of ragged grass grew at the edges.

‘A strange place,’ Daretor said, shifting in his saddle. ‘From further up the track I’d have said we were in trouble.’

‘You need to be less suspicious, Daretor,’ Zimak said. He reached into the pool and replenished his waterskin.

Daretor scanned the vast tract of land between them and the mountains. ‘One of us has to do the thinking,’ he mumbled. Then he fell into a brooding silence, which Zimak knew not to interrupt.

Zimak too fell into a deep melancholy. He would have preferred to stay with the Matriarch’s camel train. But, since it had been stripped of all its men, he knew it to be a fool’s paradise, especially in times of civil unrest. Since parting company with the Matriarch he and Daretor had narrowly avoided several bands of men and witnessed the sacking of a small settlement from afar. Nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, compared with Q’zar, it had been an uneventful two months. They saw no evidence of, say, the Preceptor’s military machine, destroying everything in its path. And if they had, Daretor would have welcomed it. Action was something he understood.

Eventually Daretor broke the silence. ‘According to the Matriarch the Forest of Castles should be a little way ahead. Beyond that is the city where the magical stone circle is being built.’

‘A forest of castles sounds like a city in itself,’ Zimak pointed out. ‘Maybe I should end my journey there.’

‘As you will.’ Daretor spurred his mount. He was surprised by a small tug of disappointment. Although Zimak could be mind-bogglingly annoying, Daretor knew that a part of him would miss his companionship.

They rode up the bank on the other side. Steadily the basin became pockmarked as though smaller versions of whatever had created Skyfall on Q’zar had fallen from the skies here, too. The indentations were sometimes so deep that Daretor deemed it safer and quicker to detour around them. Others were so huge in diameter that a circuitous route was out of the question.

‘What could have made these?’ Zimak said, apprehensively. ‘Footprints made by giants.’

‘With huge pommel-like feet,’ Daretor said. ‘More like a giant stilt-walking clown,’ he laughed, going along with Zimak’s imagination. ‘It is said that Skyfall was nothing more than a star falling into the Hamarian desert,’ he added, looking skyward. ‘Perhaps the stars here are not so stable as those above our world.’

Zimak craned his neck as though a falling rock might hit him on the head at any moment. ‘One thing’s for sure,’ he said, ‘if a rock the size of this crater hit us, we wouldn’t have time to worry about it.’

Daretor raised himself in the stirrups. ‘I don’t intend to be here when they drop,’ he said. ‘Odd though it seems, the craters are focused in this spot and nowhere else.’

They crossed a brief expanse of broken, baked clay and pulled rein at the precipice of the crater before the escarpment of green. The foothills were tantalisingly close.

When they finally arrived, the Forest of Castles was no more than dozens of stone columns, a hundred feet across and about twice as high. They looked a little like castles, but they were clearly natural. Zimak regretted his earlier announcement that he would end their partnership here.

‘Staying?’ asked Daretor.

‘Very funny,’ Zimak replied. He did not even bother to rein in his horse. They cantered through the monoliths, the horses’ hooves echoing like cannon shots between the pillars.

It was almost dark. The twin suns had retired below the horizon and a moon had risen. Its presence made the pair uneasy. Q’zar had three moons. This world had one moon and two suns. That meant that some nights were very dark indeed, and moonless nights were more common.

The ground was littered with shards of rock that had fallen from the pillars during the frosts of the intensely cold desert nights. The horses began to slip and stumble, until the pair was
forced to dismount and lead. Now it was their turn to slide, stumble and stagger.

‘Be careful,’ Daretor snapped as Zimak fell. ‘You make enough noise for an army.’

‘There’s no one here, you great ox,’ Zimak called as he got to his feet. He was bone-weary and Daretor’s indomitable spirit was beginning to grate.

Something dark fluttered above them, and Zimak pointed. ‘There’s something with wings up there, flying,’ he warned.

‘Without wings it would be down here, and walking,’ Daretor said, simply.

‘I mean, it’s a bat. They fly out at dusk, and suck blood from creatures like us.’

‘The Matriarch told me they are fruit bats,’ Daretor replied. ‘She told you, but you were too busy fondling her handmaiden to listen.’

‘Andzu was fondling me and ministering to my wound – and I
was
paying attention. To both the handmaiden
and
the Matriarch.’

Daretor squinted at the sky. Dark shapes like sheets of paper seemed to be fluttering up there. He pulled rein and held up his hand for silence. ‘Can you hear something?’ he said, cupping his ear.

Zimak’s horse whinnied. ‘You’re spooking my horse –’ he began, but didn’t finish his rebuke.

All at once, every cave, overhang and fissure in the towering rocks poured a tide of black creatures into the sky. The sound of their wings and the chittering was so loud that Daretor and Zimak had to shout to make themselves heard. They flattened themselves against their rearing mounts, and Zimak’s horse galloped off, dragging him along with it. Eventually the torrent of bats dwindled on currents of hot wind, then silence returned.

Zimak staggered back to Daretor, his foot aching from being dragged across the uneven ground.

‘That was a bit of luck,’ Daretor said, mounting.

‘Black Quell’s blood!’ Zimak screamed. ‘How could you call that luck?’ He jabbed a finger at the distant sky that was now shifting and swirling like a locust plague.

‘Lucky for us they didn’t tarry,’ Daretor said. ‘Best we move on before they return from their feasting.’

‘Feasting?’ Zimak whispered, fearfully. ‘You said they were fruit bats.’

‘The
Matriarch
said they were fruit bats. I suspect they
are
vampire bats, Zimak. They eat flesh and suck blood. It’s what they do,’ he said, matter-of-factly.

‘Well they seem to be the citizens of the Forest of Castles,’ said Zimak.

‘Fancy any of the girls?’ Daretor laughed.

Zimak ground his teeth. ‘I’ve had just about enough of your Jelindel-type remarks. I want a real city. Peopled by real people. With money. Women. A thriving population not afraid to take a bet. A place where someone of my talents can advance.’

Daretor smiled. ‘There is one close by.’

‘Gah, Daretor. And how would you know that? Did a bat tell you?’

‘Yes, as it happens. I was joking about the vampire bats, by the way. We wouldn’t be here if they had been bloodsuckers. Fruit bats mean fruit. Fruit sufficient to feed as many bats as that means very large orchards. Large orchards mean many people buying fruit. Many people means a city. The Matriarch said we should cross the river by morning, get past the Forest of Castles and be amid the mountains before evening. Perhaps we should not have been so hasty, with evening so close.’

‘We?’ exclaimed Zimak. ‘You were the one who insisted we keep moving.’

Zimak’s outburst echoed eerily amid the pillars.

‘If there is anything here to worry about, I suggest that we start worrying,’ said Daretor.

Something in his voice made Zimak take note. ‘What is there to fear from fruit bats? What can they do? Spit seeds at us?’