DragonKnight (31 page)

“I’ve decided,” said Regidor, “that this is an abandoned tumanhofer settlement.”

Bardon compared what he had seen here with a visit he had made to the tumanhofer city of Dael. “I think you’re right. It must be very old and must not have been occupied for centuries.”

“Longer than that. I don’t recall seeing any mention of this in Librettowit’s history books.”

A heavy object—a blur of white—a tail!—slammed down between them as they passed a wide tunnel. The animal sped away, the tail disappearing into darkness.

They had their swords drawn. They listened to the heavy tread of the attacker as it moved farther and farther away.

“What was that?” asked Bardon.

“I think we may have found the snake dragon’s big brother.”

“Did you get a look at it?”

“Only the pasty white dragon tail.” Regidor replaced his sword in its sheath. “I wonder if it has two heads.”

“I wonder if it’s hungry.”

         
40
         

L
ITTLE
D
ETAILS

Traveling through the burrows became a long and tedious task. One tunnel looked much like the last, and the monotony of the walls wore on the squire’s nerves.

“I’d much rather be flying,” he told Regidor.

“Ah yes. When I first started flying on my own I had no stamina, no endurance. Now I do pretty well at the long stretches.”

Bardon nodded, figuring his friend understated the case. He knew Regidor to be extremely agile and stronger for his size than any creature he had ever encountered.

“Here’s another drawing and the same type of writing beside it.” Bardon pointed to the inscription on the wall.

“Each battle scene is a tad different, Squire.” Regidor examined the scratched image. “In this depiction, there are seventeen tumanhofers battling the two-headed dragon. In the one previous to this, there were twelve, and in the first, there were only seven.”

“You counted?”

“Well, of course, I counted.” Regidor ran his fingers over the unreadable words. “The depth of this carving is deeper than the first or the second. The number of lines are less.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, the dragon has been larger in proportion to the crudely drawn men in each successive picture.”

“Regidor, you amaze me.”

The meech dragon smiled over his shoulder. “I used to amaze myself, but I am getting used to my genius as time goes by.”

Bardon stared at his friend for a moment before he recognized the humor in Regidor’s eyes.

Laughing, Bardon sank down to the floor. “I’m ready for a little break.” He pulled out his water flask and a packet of food.

Regidor sat beside him. Both of them leaned against the rock wall, and the meech pulled out his own provisions. He handed the squire an extra package.

The squire peeked inside. “Daggarts. Thanks.” He shifted to rest more comfortably against one of the spiraling grooves. “Have you thought about what was used to burrow these tunnels?”

“Yes.”

“And what was your conclusion?”

“Didn’t have one.” Regidor chewed a bite of bread. “What kind of cheese do you have?”

“Bordenaut.”

“I’ll trade you criantem for the bordenaut.”

“Deal.”

They exchanged hunks of cheese and sat resting while they ate. When he had almost completed his repast, Regidor brought out Glas’s diary. He thumbed rapidly through the pages and slowed down when he came to the section about the burrow. He skimmed several pages.

“That’s what I thought.”

“What?” asked Bardon as he rolled the crumbs of his lunch in the paper it had come in.

“Glas never mentions the two-headed dragon, the pictures or words etched into the walls, or the unusual formation of the grooves in the stone.”

“What does that mean? That he wasn’t very observant?”

Regidor shook his head. “This section is inconsistent with the careful notations on other pages of his diary.” Regidor closed the book and tapped the cover with the claw tip of one finger. “I suspect that Glas was never in one of these tunnels. He probably recorded what someone had told him, not what he had seen with his own eyes.”

“That means we have been depending on a map drawn blindly.”

“That doesn’t mean it is entirely inaccurate.” Regidor stood. “Let’s move on. The quality of the air is improving steadily. We should reach an opening to the outside very soon.”

Bardon stood, stuffed his trash into an inner pocket, and dusted his hands off on his trousers. “I’m eager to get this underground journey over with.”

Regidor took the lead. Bardon followed six to ten feet behind him. They passed several tunnels branching off to the right, but none on the left. Ahead there seemed to be an intersection where a tunnel completely crossed the main one. Bardon heard a whoosh like a sudden intake of breath, and then a huge white stone rolled across their path in the junction ahead, blocking the way.

Both men drew their swords. Regidor leapt to Bardon’s side and turned so that they stood back to back. They listened and waited.

A scrape across the stone floor gave away the location of whomever or whatever else waited in the warren. The sound repeated, closer.

Regidor sniffed the air. “It is the same dragon who startled us with a whack of its tail some time ago.”

“I suppose we are going to find out if it has two heads.”

Regidor grinned and nodded. “And whether it is hungry.”

The creature approached them from the tunnel they had just passed through.

“Ah,” said Regidor as it came closer, but still could not be seen. “It has two heads, and it is hungry. They are quite interested in having something besides druddum for their next meal.”

“I had noted the almost nonexistent druddum population in this warren.”

“Indeed.”

“So interesting that you can mindspeak with our opponents.” Bardon breathed deeply, relaxing his muscles in preparation for the fight. He flexed the fingers that held the hilt of his sword. “It would, perhaps, be more useful if they responded to your eloquence by abandoning their intent to devour us.”

“The problem with mindspeaking with these snake dragons is they don’t join in the conversation.”

Two scuffing noises indicated the beast was much closer.

“I,” Regidor continued, “make perfectly reasonable suggestions. And I am ignored.”

“For instance?”

“I suggest that we taste ghastly. One head tells the other that it will be nice to each have its own body on which to munch. I say we are mighty warriors who will hack their sluggish, overgrown body to bits. It says it needs to approach with greater stealth.”

“It’s using quite an elaborate vocabulary.”

“No, no, Bardon. It is my vocabulary. I am merely interpreting the grisly mental images that I detect in its feeble brains.”

“So it isn’t a particularly smart dragon.”

“Correct. Both heads together couldn’t spell
cat.
” Regidor pointed with the tip of his sword. “There, in the tunnel, just out of view, it stands, watching us.”

Bardon heard the hoarse chorus of breathing from the two heads.

“It was smart enough to block our way, then circle back to attack us.”

“Merely copying someone else’s strategy.”

“Whose strategy?”

“One of the tumanhofer hunting parties.”

Bardon considered the ramifications of Regidor’s statement.
This must be the original two-headed monster. A descendant wouldn’t have memory of a battle with tumanhofers eons ago. Long memory, but not very clever. There must be a way to trick this creature.

“Regidor, I recall hearing of Wizard Risto doing a particularly clever visual deception. He created an illusion in which he, or several images of himself, stood about the room.”

“A good idea, Squire.”

Bardon blinked and saw not one meech dragon standing beside him with sword drawn, but two. He turned his head to the other side and saw three more replicas of the original Regidor.

“Now be careful,” warned Regidor, “and don’t swing your sword through the real me. Piercing one of my fellows would not injure them, but—”

The two-headed dragon bolted out of the dark. In three strides, it loomed over them. Both heads swiveled, trying to pick a target.

“Not identical twins,” observed Regidor.

“Definitely not,” agreed Bardon.

The skin of the dragon’s left neck was wrinkled, with an ugly purple mottling over a greenish tan under-color. Smooth, ebony skin covered the other neck. The left head reminded Bardon of a gourd with a point on top, and it wobbled a bit on its perch. The underbite of this distorted head exposed a row of jagged, crooked teeth with gaps where several had fallen out.

The roundish head of the right side had a crest of burnished copper scales. It sported a strong jaw line and a mouth full of shiny, pointed white teeth.

The well-formed head swooped down, mouth open as it tried to bite one of the Regidor illusions. Its teeth snapped together, holding nothing.

Bardon took advantage of its bewilderment and charged. He slashed the creature’s neck and chest, then ran out of reach. He turned and surveyed the situation, looking for his next opportunity. The wound he inflicted on the two-headed dragon barely trickled blood. The squire didn’t have an opportunity to puzzle over why his attack had done so little damage.

The weaker head swung wildly through the line of Regidor images. It whipped through three and came in contact with solid flesh on the fourth. Regidor was thrown off balance and fell on his back. He used his position to strike a blow to the underside of the beast’s chin. It roared and pulled back.

While the uglier head retreated, the stronger, smarter-looking head glanced down at Regidor. With teeth bared, it struck. Regidor rapped it sharply on the snout with his blade. It reared up as the weaker head came down for another strike at Regidor. The heads came together with a resounding thud. The meech rolled to the side and sprang to his feet.

Regidor breathed rapidly, and with every breath, more images of himself appeared. Bardon’s eyes widened as he watched. The meech dragon wizard had improved upon his first attempt. The first set of Regidor images had moved in synchronization, all doing exactly the same thing as the original. These images moved around the room independently.

Bardon recognized what each illusion was doing. Forms. In years of training, Bardon had done these same routines himself in a state of mind that was detached from the motions. Now these images of Regidor went through the forms in mindless repetitions.

The momentarily stunned dragon shook its heads and gazed, glassy-eyed, around the tunnel. The head closest to Bardon bobbed, sinking slowly until its underdeveloped chin rested on the ground a few feet from where the squire stood.

“Uh-oh,” said Regidor.

“What?”

“The other head is not too happy with what we’ve done to his partner.”

“We didn’t do that.” Bardon pointed to the unconscious part on the floor and then at the still functioning part looming above them. “It did. It knocked it out with its own hard head.”

Regidor laughed. “A concise summary of the circumstances. But to this menacing head it is a minor detail. Unfortunately, the conscious part of the beast does not take responsibility for the injury to its other half. It blames us.”

“Well, what’s it planning to do?” Bardon eyed the creature.

“It’s trying to figure that out. It’s never fought solo before.” Regidor yelled and jumped to the side as the beast’s head came slamming down. “I guess he’s not going to bother to do any more thinking.” He swung his sword and hit the creature between the eyes. The blade left a deep scratch.

“Our problem is going to be piercing this thick skin,“ Regidor commented to Bardon as he danced away from the snapping mouth. “You might join me in this fracas. I’m not so conceited that I have to fight this thing alone.”

Bardon stepped over the sleeping head and joined Regidor in his defense against the still-active, stronger head. The effects of the collision between heads had worn off this one. Instead of dazed, the creature was enraged.

It repeatedly thrust its open mouth at the two-legged warriors, snapping and snarling and keeping Regidor and Bardon jumping. The men made numerous hits. They battered the dragon with their swords, leaving bloody marks on its face and neck. But the wounds did not inhibit the dragon’s fury.

“Aim for its eyes and the inside of its mouth,” suggested Bardon.

“I
am
aiming for those tender spots. I believe this beast has a few more years of fighting experience than we do. Ouch!”

Bardon glanced at his comrade. Regidor’s foreleg bled from a straight-line wound. It didn’t look like the jagged tear teeth would make.

“He bit you?” asked Bardon.

“No! The confounded animal slapped my own sword against my foreleg.”

“Not a good idea, Reg. We’re having enough trouble subduing this beast without your loaning him the use of your weapon.”

Bardon felt something painful clamp down on his calf. He looked to see that the ugly half was awake and active and biting his leg.