Dragons of War (11 page)

"Have faith in us," said the Purple Green. "We will be good hunters."

"And we will not be alone," said Bazil.

"What does that mean?"

"We will find High Wings, and my children. We will all live together."

"She will want to return to Dragon Home. She will never agree to live this close to humankind. Besides, dragons don't mate for life."

"We will go north as well."

"Brrr. It's cold up there, eternal snow and ice and all that."

"We are hunters, we will live where the game is."

"Bazil hasn't hunted since he was a sprat. Since we lived in the village."

"You have your bow. We know you are good with it. We will drive the game, you will kill it, or wound it and slow it up enough for us to kill it. I have thought it all out."

Relkin felt something very heavy in his chest. He shrugged and then let out a great groan. There was nothing to be done now. To go back meant a hanging for sure, before the entire legion.

After a while he recovered the circulation in his limbs, and stood up and exercised briefly. It was incredible but true, his old life, the only life he had ever known, was over and done with. From now on he would be renegade. He would never see the cities of the Argonath again. These thoughts depressed him, and he shook his head to try and drive them away.

"We must move on," said the Purple Green, "I am getting hungry; we need to hunt."

Relkin sighed. "And we need to get farther away from the river. The legion will send out search parties for us, and they won't take long to work out where we've gone. They know that your ladylove is living up on Mt. Ulmo right now."

"We go there first, to find her."

There wasn't much alternative.

"Let's move it then. We've got a long way to go."

They set off, heading up the great Argo Valley toward the distant mountains. As they went they kept a sharp eye for anything edible.

After a couple of hours, they found a porcupine. When challenged, it climbed the nearest tree. The dragons eyed it carefully. At the most it promised a couple of mouthfuls, no more. After careful appraisal, they left the porcupine behind as not being worth the effort and continued their march.

Hours passed and they grew hungry. As the sun began to sink into the west, all three were ravenous.

And then at last the Purple Green's sensitive nose caught the scent of meat.

"There is open flesh, blood, not far from here, upwind."

They turned off their trail and headed due north, into an area of bare rock with small pines and oaks clutching to it in the cracks.

Quite suddenly the smell strengthened to the point where even Relkin could detect it. They came over a small ridge and found the source ahead. An elk carcass, torn open and half devoured.

They also came upon the owners of the kill, a pack of six wolves who rose with a snarl at the sight of Relkin and then withdrew to a safe distance when he drew his bow. Then when the two dragons showed themselves, the wolves yipped in surprise and vanished into the short forest.

Relkin and the two dragons were left to inventory the carcass. The wolves contented themselves with staring at them from the safety of the trees.

The wolves had killed the elk that morning and had fed on it all day. The fat had been stripped from it, the liver and choice internal meats had gone first. What was left was the stringy flesh of the lower legs and neck, plus the back and the bones.

Relkin cut himself some ragged strips and built a fire and held them over it on some pointed sticks. While they sputtered and charred, the dragons crunched up the remainder of the elk.

Relkin had a chewy, meal of tough meat. By then it was dark and a cool air was coming off Mt. Ulmo. The dragons, far from sated, laid themselves out to sleep for a few hours. Relkin persuaded them to hack down some boughs with which he fashioned a more or less comfortable mound in which to sleep.

Thus they spent the night. In the morning they awoke, very hungry and set off toward Mt. Ulmo at once.

Before noon, Relkin was able to shoot a rock dove in a canyon above the Argo. He plucked the dove as he walked and roasted it on a little fire when they paused for a rest. He gave the dragons a nibble apiece and ate the breasts himself.

The dragons were starving.

That night they slept hungry, not having come across any game at all.

The next day they continued the slog toward Mt. Ulmo.

In the late afternoon, with hungry dragons fairly groaning from the discomfort in their bellies, they stumbled on a small herd of deer.

The deer spotted them and fled at once in a jumble of white tails, across a meadow and into the trees.

Now it was time to test the Purple Green's theories. The dragons went to the right of the deer and entered the woods while Relkin loaded his bow and hid himself. The dragons were going to work around behind the deer and drive them back to the meadow's edge.

Relkin waited a long time. The deer did not emerge. Eventually two tired and frustrated dragons appeared.

The deer had refused to be driven. They had raced northward each time the dragons tried to get around them and herd them back to the south and the meadow.

Eventually they had distanced the dragons completely and vanished into a thick pine forest that began on the higher slopes a few miles farther up.

Again they slept hungry and awoke hungrier still.

That morning they startled two more small herds of deer, and Relkin spent some time trying to stalk a solitary doe. He got to within a hundred feet of her but before he could shoot, she saw him and fled, bouncing jauntily across a short stretch of brush and disappearing into a patch of birch trees.

For lunch he shot three squirrels. His own he cleaned and roasted. The dragons ate theirs raw, furtively, without looking at each other.

Then, late in the afternoon they had a stroke of luck. A wild boar engaged in rooting for tubers in a clearing took violent exception to Relkin's trespass. The boar charged without pausing to sniff out the scent of dragon. Relkin avoided the brute's charge by swinging up into a little oak tree. The boar proceeded to cut up the tree with his tusks while making a great deal of noise. In his enjoyment of his fury, he failed to notice the dragon that suddenly exploded out of the screen of trees nearby and threw itself at him.

At the last moment the boar realized its peril and turned and fled, escaping the outstretched grasp of the Purple Green and barreling across the clearing and by great good fortune, ran itself right into Bazil's path.

Ecator swept up and down with a great whooshing sound and the boar was cut in twain in a flash, dead before it had any chance to comprehend its doom.

Relkin assembled material for a large fire and roasted the pig while the dragons sat there salivating and staring at the thing.

They ate with enormous grunts of pleasure while Relkin devoured his own along with some summer raspberries he'd found on the margins of a bog.

At length he banked the fire down, and they fell asleep, reasonably content for the first time in their life in the wild.

Evening's light fell from a clear sky on the white city of Marneri by the shores of the Bright Sea. The bell tolled steadily to bring the faithful for the Temple Service at dusk. Novices in dark blue ran down the marble steps to the entrance of the Novitiate, their bright girlish chatter ringing off the stone walls. On the battlements far above, the guard changed while sergeants barked commands.

In a high apartment of the Tower of Guard, Lagdalen of the Tarcho was ushered into a room with wide windows and a view of the city stretching away to the harbor and the Long Sound beyond it. A white-whiskered, old man, full-bellied under a red velvet robe, rose to greet her.

"Welcome, my child, welcome to my favorite room."

"Thank you, Chamberlain Burly, it is most wonderful. You have the best views of the city from here."

"You honor me, child, but I am chamberlain no longer. That position is held by Axnuld of the Fiduci now."

"Of course, sir, but still I think of you as chamberlain, so long did you serve us all in that capacity."

"Most of the old king's life I served. It wore me out in the end. It is only right that Axnuld should serve the new queen."

"King Sanker was well served by you, sir. I pray daily that the queen will do as well with Lord Axnuld."

"Well, she will have to do her part, too. It is an exacting business being a monarch. She will know that by now, of course."

"She does, my Lord Burly, she does. In truth, she regrets her assumption of the throne every day. Queen Besita is not blessed with an appetite for hard work. To the contrary, in fact, if I may be so bold."

Burly chuckled. The girl was barely twenty, and yet she spoke with an unwonted frankness about the monarch.

Lagdalen was already far more than the girl she appeared to be. She had been inducted into the secret world of the Great Witches. She had served in the most perilous circumstances and seen things that had stripped the childishness away from her early in life.

Burly knew that just a couple of years earlier, Lagdalen had been tossed out of the Novitiate under a cloud. Flighty and irresponsible was the word on her. Now such comments were stilled. There was a sense of gravity to this young woman that spoke of the power of the witches. Already a little had rubbed off on her. Once the witches began their work on her, she started to become like them. At that thought old Burly's chuckle died away in his throat.

"We must remember that Besita has had a difficult life for one such as she," he said. "We are fortunate that they were able to recover her from that web of sorcery in Tummuz Orgmeen." Burly waved a hand. "But you know much more about these things than I. I merely mention it to remind us of our good fortune in having Besita to follow the old king."

"True enough, Lord Burly, although now we face the challenge of getting an heir from the queen. She has avoided the issue to this point."

"She has the choice, Tarquin of Talion is the right age. Brother to the new king there, he would serve well. The blood of Tarquins is hot and strong. Perhaps it would liven up the line of Marneri."

"The queen is not partial to the lord Duke of Talion I fear. She casts her eye to Kadein."

"Ah, she is still enamored of that aristo fop Gellion?"

"I would not dare to say it to anyone but yourself, Lord Burly, but you are correct, painfully correct."

"But she grows in years and must soon choose or forever remain childless."

"It is true, my lord, and we hear discussion of the matter every day."

Burly chuckled, he could well imagine it. How different was the tone in the new reign from that which he had known so well in King Sanker's time.

"But this is not why you have come to me, is it, girl?"

"No, my lord."

"You wish to ask me about the factors of Aubinas." Lagdalen nodded, and her eyes shone with appreciation of his perspicacity.

"Truly your reputation for farsight is well earned, Lord Burly. I do indeed wish to ask your advice in the matter of the grain factors. The queen is torn and quite indecisive. She is under great pressure from the senator from Aubinas. Yet she must allow the judgment to be rendered. The tribunal heard the evidence months ago. The jury handed up a verdict. The man is guilty. He committed piracy and murder. But still the Aubinans demand that he receive the lightest sentence possible."

"And what would that be, pray?"

"Confinement to his own estates; house arrest if you will."

"For how long?"

"For the rest of his life. There is a clause, an ancient one, from the forms of the Vero. He can be imprisoned in his house, and the door can be clapped up and he can be kept there forever or until his death. Once, long ago when the Vero were a simple mountain people, it meant slow death from starvation. The houses of the ancient Vero were not very big. But in the case of Porteous Glaves, the home in question would be a great mansion on a large farming estate. He would live out his days in idle luxury. Clearly, it is a travesty of justice."

Burly nodded calmly. Such travesties occurred. They had to be fought, but not all could be prevented.

"I agree that this would be an abomination. The man, Glaves, was a corn factor in Aubinas. A wealthy man who bought his regiment. He broke under the strain of the campaign in Ourdh and behaved badly. The legions are demanding an end to the practice."

"There is much opposition among the vested interests, particularly in Aubinas."

"The Aubinans can cause trouble."

"Kadein has sworn to stay out of the matter."

"King Neath is a good man. He will stick to his word, I am sure, but they will still be drawn in if the Aubinans switch their grain sales to Kadein. Prices will soar in Marneri."

"Prices will be depressed in Kadein."

"Popular with the common people. And foreknowledge would be most rewarding for those who moved quickly to ship grain back to Marneri."

"Our markets will be disrupted for months."

"And all because of one fat, worthless Aubinan corn merchant that we ought to hang."

"Yes, Lord Burly, exactly so."

"And the queen's Kadeini friends are telling her to hang him. They hope to make a killing in the markets."

"Exactly so, my Lord."

"And the Marneri Council is urging caution. I am sure Fi-ice and Plesenta want no chaos in the grain markets." Burly nodded to himself for a moment.

"A knotty problem, indeed. Tell me one thing, who are the most prominent among the magnates now trying to put pressure on the queen?"

"Wexenne of Champery, Tafd of Posila, my Lord Burly."

"Ah, of course. Wexenne. The very name of the man bespeaks trouble. A most difficult, insidious fellow for the most part."

Lagdalen nodded her agreement. The Magnate Wexenne always made a point of ignoring Lagdalen completely whenever they chanced to meet in the queen's chamber. Wexenne's voice, at work upon the queen's ear, had become all too familiar in recent weeks.

"Wexenne hopes to profit. Glaves had dreamed of becoming senator. He had built up a strong position for the next election. Now he is ruined. Even if he lives, he will never be able to run for elected office. But he can throw great weight behind someone else. Like Magnate Wexenne. Glaves has wealth and an organization; Wexenne has merely wealth."