Dragons of War (24 page)

"They're fanatics, I tell you. We have them in Vo right now. They want all the girls to wear black, all the time."

"This is going to be a miserable spell of duty."

One of the troopers noticed him.

"Hey there, Relkin, what will the dragons think of this, then?"

"We starved 'em in Ourdh, and we just got by. I mean, they didn't eat anyone, but it came close. They're going to get cranky and mean. They love their beer. I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of a dragonsword anytime soon."

"Let's just hope we get an early patrol. Be better off out in the woods than stuck here. If the dragons get all nervy, you can be sure the horses are going to sense it, and then we're going to have trouble ourselves."

Relkin agreed. Far better to be out there on patrol than in this cramped little fort with no beer supply. He sighed inwardly, life could get very difficult here.

Angered by their treatment by the puritanical town elders of Kohon, Captain Eads's force took to the hill campaign with a will. The losers were the Cralls. Men and dragons marched back and forth across the fells while the troopers performed prodigies, and within a month they had smashed the Crall power forever.

One by one the Crall fortresses were reduced and destroyed. An abundance of stolen property, including the treasure chest of Bleuse Crall himself, the Crall's chieftain, was recovered and returned to its owners or sent downstream to Fort Dalhousie.

The Cralls laid snares and dug pits and set ambushes, but they inflicted few casualties. The dragonboys and the men of the 322s and 182s were too sharp-eyed and quick-witted for them.

On one occasion only, the Cralls attempted to give battle. Within ten minutes they had lost one hundred men, and their power was shattered. The lesson was driven home. Against disciplined, well-trained Argonath legionaries, stiffened by dragon forces, any attacker risked all.

On the last day of the month, Bleuse Crall himself was captured at Hanging Crag and brought down to Kohon Town. After a legion trial at the fort he was found guilty of the murder of more than four hundred people. The list of crimes took more than an hour to read out. Bleuse Crall was hanged at sunset the very same day.

Thereafter, life in the fort became quiet and boring.

In honor of their success, the high elders of the Dianine sect had decreed a redoubling of their vigilance against sin of all kinds.

Shoes were to be replaced by clogs. All spices were banned along with garlic. Fruits were only to be eaten cooked. No books were to be read other than the Book of the Dian. No music of any kind was to be played after nightfall. It went on and on. For many offenses, there were now whippings and stonings ordered.

Occasionally horrid screams floated up from the town in the afternoon when the punishments were held. In the fort they looked at one another, rolled their eyes, and shrugged.

There was little to do but work on improving the fort and keeping fit. Turrent became obsessional about their kit, which gleamed even more than it had before. They all joked that if they were to parade with the rest of the legion, no one would see them because of the shine on their brass and steel.

One day Relkin and little Jak were summoned by Turrent and given the job of going into the town to fetch up some bales of hides that were to be stretched for shield repairs. In addition, they were to pick up six cartons of steel nails sent up from Dalhousie at the request of the fort's engineer.

Relkin and Jak were put in charge of a huge mule with wicked-looking, yellow teeth and eyes filled with malicious calculation. The mule was nicknamed Snapper, and he soon showed them why when he nipped Jak on the rump in an unwary moment.

When Jak finished howling, he whacked the mule a few times with a piece of planking but the mule merely shook its head, snorted, and then emitted a series of honks indicating amused contempt.

Relkin took the piece of board away from Jak.

"C'mon, Jak, let's get on with it. Keep back of him and watch his feet. He's ornery as a nest of hornets."

They went on down the street into the somber town. As they passed the shuttered windows and silent alleys, Relkin became uneasy.

"Turrent would just love it if we got in trouble."

"Well, we're going to be careful, then."

"Just keep your hands to yourself, and don't make any faces, either."

"Yeah, and you stay out of trouble, too. I haven't been in any real trouble yet. Not like some."

Relkin was tempted to cuff the younger boy, but refrained. It was true enough, after all.

"Yeah?" he said with a sneer. "Then how come you're here with me?"

"I just can't polish metal bright enough for him. He always complains about ol' Rusp's joboquin clasps. I just don't know how to get 'em shined up like you do."

"You got to get a second pair, Jak. They detach easily enough. You keep that second pair shined, and you put 'em on for inspections. That's the only time he expects to see them shining."

Jak was amazed. He'd missed this trick somehow when he was coming up.

The town was eerily quiet. The view out over the lake was breathtaking down toward the lakefront. The lake shimmered under the sun, lost somewhere between blue and white in haze. Distant hills glittered. Relkin's spirits soared despite the unease he felt.

Then as they passed the central plaza, they saw where everyone was. A crowd was gathered to watch public chastisement. Men wearing tall black hats stood on a platform where a man and a woman were bound naked over the stocks. At a command, two men stepped forward with rods that now rose and fell upon the unhappy lovers. Their cries echoed off the Kelderberg. Relkin averted his gaze and nudged the mule onward. Little Jak stuck his fingers in his ears to block out the sounds. A man in black clothing frowned at him from a doorway. Relkin frowned back, forgetting his injunction about not making faces.

Moving on, they passed a shuttered inn, the door nailed up, the sign torn from its chains. Three dour-faced men in somber clothing stared at them on the street. After watching the dragonboys go past, these men muttered prayers. Their prayers were harsh ones, filled with condemnations of the unholy and the wicked who knew not the Dian.

Surreptitiously, both Relkin and Jak made the sign of the evil eye back at the men, and Relkin whispered a curse he'd learned in Ourdh concerning each man's parentage and his descendants unto the third generation.

They reached the dock without incident and got in line at the warehouse. Here there were a few people from outside the town, tight-lipped drovers and mule skinners in from the farmlands.

There were four loading docks, and they had to ask at each for the shipment they had come for. Neither shipment had been set out. Their inquiries brought out another pair of dour-faced men in black cloaks who examined their credentials and questioned them closely.

It soon became apparent that these men had heard about Bleuse Crall's treasure chest. Relkin marveled at the speed with which such news could travel. These men asked many questions, but kept returning to the treasure. Had the dragonboys seen it? Could they describe it?

Before Relkin could stop him, little Jak blurted out,

"Sure enough. It's a chest of gold and silver coin. We found it in a wagon at Hanging Crag."

Relkin stamped on Jak's foot.

"Ow."

Jak shot him an injured look and then realized what he'd done.

"Oh, by the breath, I'm sorry Relkin."

The Dianines murmured together.

"Excuse me," said Relkin. "The hides? Can we start loading. We'd like to get back to the fort."

The warehouse men looked up. "It will be a few minutes. It will have to be located."

"Well, hurry it up, will you?"

The men ignored him. Then they went back inside and left him and Jak standing there with Snapper.

They waited by the dock but although loads were put out for others, crates of tea, sacks of kalut, even bales of hides, none was put out for them.

Relkin was feeling hungry enough to faint, so he left Jak in charge of the mule and went down to a street-side cook-shop that served the dock area. There he bought hot bread lathered with sesame sauce.

Outside the cookshop, he paused by the dockside to wolf down the bread and sauce. Looking out across the lake with the hills beyond it dappled with sunlight, he was struck once again by the beauty of the place. If only all the people here weren't so strange. Even the Cralls were easier to understand than these religious fanatics. Relkin would be glad to get back to Fort Dalhousie. The atmosphere in Kohon Town was oppressive.

A boatman was sitting nearby drinking a cup of kalut.

"So dragonboy," he said, "how do you like the land of Kohon?"

The sound of the public beating came back to Relkin. The boatman wasn't wearing the funereal garb of the Dianines, so he didn't hold back.

"I'd have to say I don't care for it much."

"Hah! Well, that's honest enough." The man looked over his shoulder. "But you want to be careful what you say around here, the Dianines don't care for such honesty in strangers."

"They seem to be obsessed with rules and punishments. We hear the sounds all the time up in the fort."

The sailor leaned forward and lowered his voice.

"Maybe that's because most people here are terrified, and they're only going along with the fixations of an all-powerful minority."

"I still don't understand how things got this way. Don't these people worship the Great Mother like everyone else?"

"As to that, I couldn't really tell you. They worship the Dian, right? That's their way of seeing the Mother. The folks in black hats say it's the only form that's real and the only one they'll worship. I thought the Mother was in all things, everywhere. Anyway, it wasn't always like this. The town was a good place to visit up until three years ago. That's when they managed to get one of their own elected as mayor. This merchant called Emser had converted to their beliefs, but he kept it from everyone, even his own wife. Then when he was elected, he started putting them in charge. They terrified everyone with arrests and public floggings."

The sailor paused and finished his cup of kalut.

" 'Course, there was a need for the town to get a little more civilized. It used to get a little too wild here on market days. Those farm boys out there in Kohon don't see another soul for days until they get to town. Once they'd had a skinful of beer, they'd go wild. The jail was always full of them for days after."

Relkin raised an eyebrow.

"You mean it's not full anymore?"

"The stocks and whip are a lot cheaper. And stoning people in the stocks is about the only fun left in the town. Other than watching floggings."

"That's their idea of fun?"

"They put the lash to boys and girls who steal a kiss after prayers, and they all spend a lot of time just praying, especially the young."

"Don't they sing in the temple anymore?"

"Only the priests of the Dian sing. Everyone else just prays."

Relkin shivered at the thought. Nothing bored him more than organized prayer. Then he caught himself wondering if the old gods were really still alive, and if they ever thought about a dragonboy who called on them every so often but never prayed much. He shook his head to dispel the unwelcome thoughts that came on the heels of this reflection.

"Tell me about Portage Town," he said, gesturing out across the lake.

The sailor laughed. "Now that's what Kohon used to be like. It's a good town, if you ask me."

"How about these Dian people, are they there, too?"

"Wouldn't dare show their noses in Portage Town. Now don't get me wrong, the folk there are worshipful, but of the Mother and in Her Place. Like everyone else in the Argonath." The sailor grew indignant. "But they know that there's more to life than just praying and standing around watching another whipping."

Suddenly a shadow fell over them. Relkin looked up into the grim visage of a tall man in the black cloak of the Dianines. Several others, with tall conical hats, stood behind him.

"Uh-oh," said the sailor getting to his feet.

A long arm reached out, and a bony hand clapped onto Relkin's shoulder.

"What is this? Idle youth! Sitting about gossiping about your betters! Talking about religious matters without a license. Defaming the Dian! Loitering with intent to do mischief!"

"No, sir, not at all. I'm just taking my lunch. I've got a mule and a load of hides, over there in the warehouse, and I'm taking them to the…"

"Silence!" The man had a nose that was comically large, red, and protuberant.

"I'm taking them back to the fort right away," said Relkin with determination, getting to his feet.

"Nonsense, you're going up before the judge, you and this rogue here."

"Rogue?" said the sailor backing away at once.

"We overheard you," said one of the other men in black.

"Defamed the Dian, I heard it," said another.

"He'll get the lash and a week in the stocks."

"And the boy?"

"The lash for certain. He may be too young to take a week in the stocks."

"I told you I think that age limit has to go. Everyone, no matter how young should take their turn in the stocks if they stray from the path of the Dian."

"Wait a moment!" Relkin was incensed. "You can't do that without a military tribunal. You have to send to Captain Eads up in the fort."

"Trying to tell me my business, are you?" snarled the man with the big red nose. "We'll decide what the law says and who we need to ask about it." He snapped his fingers.

"Take them away!"

The sailor bent down and threw a stone that knocked away a conical hat. The men cried out in rage. Relkin dodged a clumsy grab, darted left and right, and tore across the street and ran into the warehouse.

The mule stood there alone. Little Jak was gone.

A slack-jawed fellow standing on a line for sacks of wheat leaned over and whispered.

"They arrested your little friend. Said he defamed the Dian and took him away."

"How long ago?"