Dragons of War (53 page)

There was something about those eyes, some power in them that was irresistible. Relkin bent down and picked up the mouse.

"Nay, Relkin, do not touch it. It be a weird of some kind. Unholy work, the things of the enemy."

"I do not think so, Eilsa. I have a feeling that I know this mouse."

Eilsa stared at him. He could only mean witchcraft. He'd mentioned elves and witches before this, but she hadn't really credited any of that with being more than dragonboy tales. Not things to be taken seriously.

He knew the mouse. How? From where? Questions multiplied in her mind. The wren flew up to his shoulder and perched there quite content.

"I know them, Eilsa, I feel it in my bones." He looked down into the eyes of the mouse. Such brilliant little eyes. They glowed like glossy pearls of black, swimming with hidden motions that seemed to hint at meanings. There was something here he needed to learn. He groped for it, staring more intently than ever. Things were moving in circles, and he felt his thoughts emptying out of his head as if he were falling asleep, except that this was no sleep state. And then, faint but unmistakable, crossing the divides between them, he understood a "voice" speaking in his mind. It was small and distant, as if a child were shouting from the far end of the street. But he understood it and knew that it was the Queen of Mice herself.

Relkin emerged into normal consciousness quite suddenly. He had expected it, forewarned by the voices, but to Eilsa it was a pleasant surprise. She had grown increasingly concerned with his silence, with the fact that he and the mouse appeared to be in a mutual trance, their heads locked but a few inches apart.

"Eilsa," he said, staggering, and put out a hand to her. She took his and felt a slight shock at the touch. The mouse stood silent on his other hand. The wren had gone off in pursuit of insects, never going very far, however, and returning occasionally to feed the mouse, a sight that caused Eilsa to shiver at the weirdness.

"You have been silent for an hour or more Relkin. Are ye well?"

"I am well Eilsa, very well, and I was right. I do know these creatures. They are animants of my friends the Great Witches Lessis and Ribela."

"And the eagle?" She nodded toward the great raptor that had taken the opportunity to hunt and had returned with its own rabbit, which it was tearing up ravenously.

" 'Tis an extraordinary feat. The eagle is an animant as well, of another friend of mine, a young lady that once I loved, before she was wed that is." His face grew concerned. "Now I love only you, Eilsa Ranardaughter."

"I know, Relkin, and I love thee. But our love is doomed before it can begin."

"And destiny is a matter of likelihoods. Some things are more likely than others. Some can be glimpsed in the future if the seeker knows how. Some can be glimpsed by the Sinni."

"Destiny, likelihoods, the Sinni. I'm not sure I understand you, Relkin."

"I'm not sure I understand it all myself, but I do know that we have to find Captain Eads. There is something very important that I must tell only him."

Holding hands, blissful in the moment, they ran for the camp, both small animals riding on Relkin's shoulders.

Upon reaching the camp, Relkin went to Eads's tent and requested permission to speak to the captain.

There was a guard, a legionary from the 322s, who looked askance at the mouse and the wren, then took in the beautiful golden-haired young lady, and then swung back to Relkin.

He heaved a sigh. "All right. This looks like something weird. It better be important. If the captain comes down on me, Dragonboy, then I'll come looking for you, got that?"

"Understood."

They were ushered into Eads's tent.

"Speak, Dragoneer," said Eads, with an uneasy glance in Eilsa's direction. If Relkin had gone and compromised the young lady, there might be hell to pay. These stiff-necked upland clans could be very tricky about their women folk. Eads felt a strong annoyance at the boy. This one was always getting into trouble. What the devil was wrong with him?

Then he realized that there were small animals riding on the boy's shoulders and his annoyance turned to anger. His cheeks reddened. Before he exploded, Relkin said, "Sir, I have to report something so strange that I would scarcely believe it possible except that I've seen this kind of thing before. Too much, sir, far too much, I agree. I know what you're thinking, sir. I am not crazy. Eilsa Ranardaughter is here to confirm some of what I have to tell you."

Eads was still close to an explosion; it had been delayed a few seconds, no more. If this dragonboy thought he could get away with this sort of impertinence, then he was going to find out that he was wrong, terribly wrong. He'd be running extra work details for three months, perhaps six, perhaps a full year.

Relkin launched into a long, halting explanation of how he had seen the eagle, slain the batrukh, and discovered the small animals.

Eads's eyebrows rose, rose higher, and rose almost into his hairline as he listened to all this.

"If you are angling for a dismissal from the legions, young man, then you are going about it in the right way.

However, before I have you drummed out, you will receive a week of field punishment. Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir. May I continue, sir, it is vital that you hear me out, please believe me. Ask Eilsa Ranardaughter if what I have just told you is true."

Eads swallowed heavily and looked to the girl. She was the clan chief's daughter and was said to be strong-willed but level-headed.

The questions were many for Captain Rorker Eads.

Was the boy utterly mad? Was he spouting nonsense? Was he angling for a dismissal from the service so he could pursue the beautiful young heiress of Clan Wattel?

Then speaking clearly and unhurriedly, Eilsa confirmed Relkin's story, that they were not ordinary animals, not at all, she concluded.

Eads nodded slowly. It was too deep for him. Both of these children had gone off their heads. Perhaps they'd eaten some funny mushrooms or been snakebit. He would have to call in the surgeon, perhaps the good doctor would be able to prescribe a tonic.

Relkin could see that Eads had not accepted their story; he wasn't taking it seriously. Too strange. In desperation he stepped forward and put the mouse on the table beside Captain Eads.

The mouse sat there quite still, looking directly up at the captain.

Eads looked down. The mouse was behaving just as strangely as the children. This was getting decidedly beyond a joke. He raised his head to call for the surgeon, but the mouse eyes seemed to say "no" to him.

The black eyes were so bright, so beady, so lustrous, and filled with swirling motions. Eads felt the hair on his arms and neck rise, and sweat started from his brow.

"May the Mother preserve me," he whispered.

"She will," said a tiny, precise voice in his brain.

Eads stared down at the mouse with horror. It was speaking to him. A damned mouse was speaking to him!

"This is not a mouse speaking to you," said the voice in his mind quite clearly. "I am Ribela of Defwode. I fight in the service of the Empire of the Rose."

Horror turned to amazement in Eads's face.

"What is this?"

"You need to reach Arneis. We go there as well, but ahead of you, once our eagle has recovered his strength."

"Eagle?"

"The boy told you. The girl told you. They speak truth."

"By the breath this is amazing."

"I would agree with you. It is the product of exceptional effort, of that you can be certain."

Eads shook his head. It did not change a thing. He still heard the voice. He looked up at Relkin and Eilsa with horror and amazement, struggling for control.

"I'm sorry, Captain," said Relkin, "I could think of no other way of making you understand. You do understand, don't you?"

Eads swallowed.

"You do," said the voice in his head.

"I do. I…" But he fell silent and turned to look back to the mouse on the table, and there he stayed, with his mouth part open.

The bird flew down to the floor and seized a fat spider and ate it. Then flew up to Relkin's shoulder again.

Eads shook his head. He had known that witchcraft was one of the empire's great strengths, but he had seen only the ceremonies to give strength to walls on Fundament Day. He had never even dreamed that such a thing could happen. But two witches were here, in the persons of these tiny animals. And one of them was talking to him.

And what she told him was electrifying. "There is a secret stair. Not five leagues from here it lies. The great stair of Veronath it was called once. It has lain hidden here for centuries, unused except by occasional agents of the Office of Unusual Insight.

"The stair was built by the Emperors Fedosius and Chalx in the Vapasid dynasty of Veronath. There are twenty-three turns in the stair, and it connects to the underground cavern in which runs the Eferni River to the Danding Pool, and beyond the pool lies Dandelin and Arneis."

"Arneis," breathed Eads.

"You must get to Arneis, Captain. Every man and every dragon will be needed."

"You're right. By all the—I just don't know, I mean, I…" Eads fell silent, stunned by this latest revelation.

"It is the Dark Stair," said the voice. The Wattels are the ancient keepers of this region. They keep the secret of the Dark Stair."

"They did not tell me."

"They have dwindled into goatherds and lost much of the knowledge of their forebears. They view all outsiders with suspicion. The clan chief only thought of his clan's interest. But you must forgive him. The Wattels must march. We will need their Fird in the battle line in Arneis."

"How," he began uncertainly, "how can we persuade him to undertake this mission?"

"You will take me to him."

As these words came into Eads's mind, popping out of nowhere, like his own thoughts except not, he saw the wren flit back and proffer a tasty big beetle to the mouse. The mouse ate the beetle while the wren sped away, out the tent through a side flap.

Eads rose, and with Relkin and Eilsa accompanying him, he headed for the tent of Clan Chief Ranard.

It was a harrowing moment for Clan Chief Ranard. All his clan's secrets were exposed it seemed. Weirds, like things out of ancient myth, had appeared and rode on Captain Eads's shoulders. His deception exposed, Ranard flushed with shame and could not meet Eads's eyes.

Shaken by the experience, the clan chief called together the leaders of the Fird. Mastering a tremor in his voice, he informed them that he had received a summons to the Imperial Mustering, which was being held in Arneis. Every able man was required to present himself.

He told them that it was time for him to reveal to the world the greatest clan secret of all. He spoke of a Great Stair to an underworld river not five leagues distant. The stair had been built in the latter days of the king emperors of Veronath, and Clan Wattel had originally served by guarding it. It was still hidden by great magic, and had been built as an escape route under the mountains. For in those days, the power in Padmasa had first arisen.

They were to take the Dark Stair and the underworld river to Danding Pool on the far side of Mt. Livol. From there they would march to the mustering, wherever in Arneis the standard had been set up.

The Clan greeted this with a roar of approval. They had fought and been bloodied, and they knew very well that if the great battle in Arneis were lost because of their absence, then they would die accursed. For die they would, under the iron foot of the great enemy, which would surely stamp them down, even here in their ancient remote fastness.

As Ranard told them, this assault was the greatest ever made by the enemy, greater even than the Hosts of dread Dugguth that had poured forth to overrun Veronath in the ancient days.

The word went through the Host and the Fird in a matter of minutes. The response was swift and echoed that of their leaders. They streamed over to form a dense mass surrounding Ranard's tent, and loudly pledged themselves to the fight in Arneis.

Ranard sent them back to their tents to rest, for they would march the following day.

The clan chief was left alone with his daughter. There was still a haunted look in his eyes. What Eads had told him had been the greatest shock of his life. He had almost fainted when he realized that Eads was talking of the. Dark Stair, the great secret that his clan had guarded for centuries. And Ranard's deception was exposed to his everlasting shame.

He had never imagined such things coming to him in his life, but they had and there was no getting out of what had to be done. It was their fight now. He knew that in his bones and had ever since the battle of Clove Valley. Those abominable things would come back eventually, to take all the Wattel women and to slay all the men.

In the end Clan Wattel could not remain above the call of the empire. It was just as Ranard's father had predicted. And now Ranard wondered if the old man's prediction of complete doom and destruction would also come about.

Eilsa brought him a cup of a bitter herb infusion, and she insisted he drink it. As he did so, she checked the bandages. The wounds had been cleaned, but in some places they were deep, and she worried about corruption in them. She had already suggested that Ranard visit the medic in Eads's force. He had refused. Her concern had grown so that she had broached it to Relkin. Relkin had given her some Old Sugustus disinfectant at once.

She treated a swab of shredded boiled cloth with the foul-smelling liquid in the little bottle and pressed it to the wounds.

Her father jerked suddenly as the liquid soaked in.

"By the breath!" he whistled. "That stings something sharp!"

"It shows that there is corruption in the wound, Father. It is a thing of the empire, a cleaning thing that kills the corruption and prevents death from small wounds."

Ranard stared at the swab and the small bottle. "So my own daughter betrays me and uses dragon liniment on her father," he teased.

"I did not betray us, Father. The weirds knew everything."