Dragonlinks (37 page)

He proudly held up a pair of jackhare riding gloves and Jelindel recognised Korok's stitching at once.

‘Nice gloves, but you were robbed,' said Jelindel. ‘Mine cost half as much.'

Zimak's shoulders slumped for a moment, but he rallied. ‘They're heavier gloves, with a drip-flap in the wind sheath for riding in the rain. There's a lot more leather, too.'

‘Mine are jackhare, yours are goatskin. The old devil must have really seen you coming.'

‘He wasn't there. The woman who was tending his stall said he left in a hurry to do some urgent errand.'

‘Or because he was terrified,' Daretor suggested. ‘There's something else, too.'

‘What?'

‘They're nice gloves.'

Zimak flung the gloves at Daretor's head but the warrior ducked – and the room lit up with a dazzling blue flash followed by a blast like a thunderclap. The room filled with smoke as they crawled for the door.

A second bolt of blue lightning annihilated the half-open window shutters.

Horrified, Jelindel watched a line of blue light pierce the smoke and blast the opposite wall to blazing matchwood.

Just as Daretor reached the door it was smashed inwards and several men burst into the smoke-filled, burning room. Jelindel rolled to one side as Zimak lashed out with one leg and caught a man in the knee.

Daretor's axeshaft struck a shadowy face, then he swung back blindly at someone whose blade had scraped across the mail under his coat.

Jelindel spoke a soft word at the legs in front of her and they became enmeshed in blue coils that brought the intruder crashing to the floor. Two others engaged Daretor outside the door, lit only by the fire within the room.

Zimak flung his knife, catching one in the ribs, but the other fled as Daretor tried to get past the body. Daretor threw his axe, catching the attacker between the shoulders. The assailant was dead long before he had tumbled to the foot of the stairs.

The municipal constables arrived to arrest the surviving assassins on charges of malicious affray. Then the Port Authority's Inspector of Order came to survey the magical damage to the hostelry. Jelindel had already done a quick check herself, and had been amazed to find not a single trace of the aura of enchantment.

They retired to Jelindel's room. Outside, a steady, soaking rain had set in.

‘Not one of them had green blood,' Jelindel pointed out as they sat in darkness relieved by a single thumb -lamp.

The constant thrum of rain on the wooden shingles above was like being beneath thousands of stampeding mice. Zimak glared upwards.

‘I hope we're not meant to be going out in that,' he said, pointing upwards.

‘They were all local blade-hands,' said Daretor. ‘I checked with the sergeant of the constables. All were blades-for-hire who usually work as bodyguards, or sail with privateer crews. The tallest of them did have curly black hair and fair skin, like the one Korok described. His blood was red, though.'

‘I had a careful look at the room once the fires were out,' said Jelindel. ‘Those blue lances of light were near-horizontal, and judging from the direction … well there is only one tower with a line-of-sight to the window. The Morgendros Tower.'

‘That's over four crossbow shots away,' scoffed Zimak. ‘A half-mile at least.'

‘Could a crossbow have done what happened up there?'

‘No weapon known to man could do such damage,' Daretor said with authority. ‘It's a weapon without honour. I say it's the linkrider.'

‘That is my thought too, and I feel he is still in that tower,' said Jelindel. ‘We should go there.'

‘What?' Zimak exclaimed incredulously. ‘That weapon can roast you whole from a half-mile away, yet you want to get closer? Besides, it's raining.'

‘She's right,' said Daretor. ‘The linkrider will be expecting his blade-hands to return with the mailshirt covered with the splattered remains of my head. There was a lot of smoke about. I doubt he could have seen what happened, even with a farsight.'

‘My beautiful gloves,' Zimak said miserably. ‘They are soaked with water.'

‘Riding gloves that cannot stand against water are useless as riding gloves,' said Jelindel.

Zimak grunted, but did not disagree. They slipped away from the hostelry and made their way across the port towards the tower.

They were not far away when a small section of the mailshirt began to glow steadily through a tear in the sheepskin jacket's sleeve.

‘He has the link out!' hissed Zimak.

‘Pah, he can't know whether friend or foe carries it,' said Daretor.

‘But once he sees that we are none of his lackeys he will cast his lightning bolts again.'

‘But Jaelin has lightning of her own,' Daretor said thoughtfully. ‘Both of you, run ahead of me to the tower, and I'll come more slowly with the mailshirt. Your word of ensnaring works at up to ninety paces, Jaelin, does it not?'

‘Yes, but at that range I'd barely have the life-force left to crawl until it returns to me.'

‘Then we must get you closer to him. You go on alone. Zimak, stay with me. I have an idea.'

Jelindel ran in an arc, to come up to the Morgendros Tower from the side. The rain had soaked through her boots and her rain cape was of little use when running
through such a heavy fall, but she scarcely felt the discomfort.

She stopped, panting hard, too tired and keyed up to be afraid for the moment. At the base of the tower was some sort of grillwork fence. Jelindel could not tell if it was ornamental or served some other purpose. The only light was from a lantern at the edge of a small square before the tower.

The rain eased as she waited, but still nobody came and nothing happened. Jelindel walked into the square, keeping to the shadows. All the while she kept glancing at the bluestone tower that dominated the square.

There was a balcony near the top of the tower. That had to be where the blue thunderbolts had originated, Jelindel decided. She stared up at the balcony in anticipation. A break in the clouds allowed light from Reculemoon to leak through.

A flash of light erupted from the ground floor portal and a building across the square collapsed in a cloud of dust. A figure emerged holding something small and stubby straight out in front of him. He stopped and seemed to take aim, as if with a small crossbow.

Jelindel took aim herself and spoke a sharp, focused word.

The blue coils were off-target, but not by much. A glowing tangle pinned the linkrider's hand and weapon to a grille. He struggled frantically to get his hand free.

Unsteady and drained, Jelindel drew her shortsword with a brisk ‘shrick' and slowly stalked across the small square.

There, in the light of Reculemoon, the linkrider struggled desperately against the blue, glowing coils. A
shortsword flashed in his free hand, then he chopped down at the blue coils, screaming hideously as his hand was severed at the wrist.

Jelindel tried to run across the rain-drenched square, but she was fatigued and her legs sluggish.

The linkrider dropped his sword, turned and ran, padding away into the shadows much faster than Jelindel's legs could carry her. He was clutching his stump of a wrist in front of him. Jelindel had not set a long delay on the entrapment coils, and they suddenly collapsed and let the weapon and hand fall to the ground.

She picked up the angular, unfamiliar object and carefully put it into her tunic pouch. As she examined the hand she noticed something odd about the smell of the blood. Taking it over to the lamp she realised that it was green.

Jelindel had expected Daretor and Zimak to have come running by now. A crowd began to gather about the ruined building. Some speculated about lightning hitting the place. Others deemed it an evil portent.

Suddenly a section of rubble burst upwards and an arm and head emerged.

‘Daretor!' screamed Jelindel as she scrambled up to help the emerging warrior.

‘I thought you said you could read street signs, you stupid little clown!' Daretor called back into the rubble.

‘Don't you call me stupid, you bumbling great ox!' came a muffled voice from within the pile of plaster-cling and wood slats. ‘Is it my fault if the dummart signwriters can't spell in this town?'

Jelindel went to tell them about the thunderbolt weapon, but something held her in check. Instead she
gently helped Zimak from the rubble. Already blood was smearing his face.

Daretor had three fractured ribs and a multitude of cuts and bruises, while Zimak had a gash down the side of his face and a twisted ankle.

They were dug out within minutes, but it was two days before they were able to ride. By then Jelindel had caught a cold and was running a fever.

‘Just look at this scar on my cheek,' grumbled Zimak as they rode at a brisk trot towards the foothills of the Garrical Mountains. ‘The heroes of legend never get scars in embarrassing places.'

‘It gives you a rakish look,' said Daretor. ‘Girls like scars. They like to touch them.'

‘Do you like scars, Jaelin?' asked Zimak.

‘They leave me cold.'

‘See? See what I mean?' Zimak retorted.

‘Jaelin's no stranger to scars; she's sewed up most of ours,' Daretor replied. ‘Some smooth-skinned wench may find yours a novelty, though.'

It was over a week before the mailshirt began to glow again. As they rode through the foothills and into the Garrical Mountains there was plenty of evidence that the linkrider had passed that way, and was in a hurry.

The villagers that they spoke to confirmed that a one-handed man had indeed gone before them. He seldom stayed for more than a few hours, bought a new horse whenever he could, and had hired an escort of mercenaries somewhere.

Finally luck turned against the linkrider. The Galenian Bridge had been destroyed in a border dispute with
Baltoria, and he was forced to backtrack for more than a day, then take a trail south at Rockwall. The latter was a village cut into the side of a cliff.

Daretor estimated that they had missed the linkrider by only a handful of hours, and they set off after him with no more rest than it took to buy provisions.

The trail became narrower and was poorly maintained. To make progress worse, the linkrider's men had brought down rockfalls here and there, but Daretor and Zimak were already experienced at making their own trails and leading the animals over broken ground. They relentlessly narrowed the distance between them.

‘The mail is glowing,' Jelindel said, taking a glance at the mailshirt that she was again wearing beneath her sheepskin coat.

‘So he's close by at least,' concluded Daretor.

‘But still many hours away,' Jelindel pointed out, looking at a charblack map that she had sketched after talking to the villagers at Rockwall. ‘Serpent's Gap is just ahead.'

‘Long time since my serpent's been near a gap,' muttered Zimak sullenly.

‘Unless you have something helpful to say –' shouted Jelindel.

‘Smoke!' exclaimed Daretor, pointing southeast. ‘Thick smoke, not just a campfire.'

‘There's a bridge on the map,' said Jelindel. ‘They've probably set it afire, and it's at least three hours ahead.'

Jelindel took out her farsight and looked south. ‘There's a village due south, about two miles away by the look of the figures I can see.'

‘There's one called Landretal on the map,' said Zimak.

‘Better check his reading of it,' said Daretor.

‘One more remark like that and –'

‘That's enough, both of you!' Jelindel said tersely. ‘Look yonder, it's the flood plain of a river. It has cultivated fields and sheep grazing in the pastures. We could get across that in no more than a half hour.'

‘There's also a thousand-foot drop a few yards to our right,' warned Daretor.

Jelindel dismounted and walked over to the side of the trail. Kneeling at the edge she peered down.

‘It's not quite sheer, and there are plenty of ledges. We could leave the horses here and climb down using our ropes.'

‘What about my ankle?' Zimak protested.

‘You ride along with the horses and wait at the bridge while Jaelin and I climb down and cross the fields,' Daretor declared with finality.

Zimak shrugged. ‘Aye, then. Jaelin, take my parry-hilt knife; it's lighter than that demishield.'

Taking only their weapons and ropes Daretor and Jelindel made their way down the cliff in a half hour, then began jogging across the fields of the floodplain. They crossed the river on a board and block bridge and met up with the road again just beyond the village.

After a short rest they started down the road towards Landretal.

A man loafing beside the namestone told them that seven men had arrived from the other direction about an hour earlier, and were down at the stables buying feed for their horses.

Jelindel and Daretor carefully checked the place, noting four mercenaries at the stables. All had both hands.

‘Could you take them?' Jelindel asked as they stood by the roadside.

‘One, yes. Two, only with luck. Three, suicide. I can see four here, and there are two more with the linkrider.'

‘And he might run while his men engage us.' Jelindel frowned as she thought. ‘Stay here. When you see the mercenaries running, make an attack on them. With luck a couple of them will stop to engage you.'

‘But what will you do then?'

‘I don't know yet.'

Jelindel made her way through the village, which was preparing for the weekly market on the next day. Provisions for travellers were available at the tavern, she was told, and she was given directions for finding it. As she approached the place she saw one of the mercenaries bartering with the taverner while the other stood beside … Korok! The second mercenary was chatting with a serving girl while the strange little man sat writing awkwardly at a half-barrel table beneath an awning. One of his wrists ended in a bandaged stump.