Dragon's Winter (29 page)

His bow toward Karadur was a mockery of courtesy. “Karadur Atani, lord of Dragon Keep! I am Gorthas, herald of the Black Citadel. Welcome to my master’s country.” His voice rasped like metal over rock. “Ah, I see a friend among the dour faces! Azil, prince of thieves and traitors. I am glad you did not die on the ice. You afforded me much entertainment. I look forward to renewing our acquaintance. I have much still to teach you about pain.”

He grinned horribly. The watching men stirred. Hands tightened hard on weapons.

Karadur said flatly, “My warriors want very badly to kill you, monster. Tell me why they should not.”

Gorthas chuckled. “Oh, assuredly they should not. Not until they, and you, have seen what fine toys I carry. First, this.” He drew his sword from its sheath. “A Chuyo blade, in a fine leather sheath. Does anyone know it?”

There was a small stir in the ranks. Then Rogys said, “I know it. It was Wolf Dahranni’s blade.”

“Good, good.” The envoy brought something glittery and small into the light. “There is this, also. Pretty thing it is.”

Hawk said, “That is Wolf’s talisman.”

Gorthas peered at her. “Ah, there you are, cousin!” He tossed the silver chain and its pendant into the air, caught it, and tucked it away. “This toy is mine now, since its wearer has no need of it. And lastly—” He reached inside the black cloak and withdrew what appeared to be soiled scraps of blue cloth. He pitched them to the snow. “You may find these interesting, my lord Dragon.”

“Rogys,” Karadur said, “bring them to me.”

Dismounting, Rogys stepped slowly from his place at Karadur’s back. Stiffly he knelt to gather up the bits of cloth. Karadur took them on his palms.

“A child’s shirt,” said Gorthas gleefully. “A child’s pants, lovingly woven and sewn by his dear departed mother. A little wolfling’s clothes. Perhaps someone here knows them.”

“I know them,” the dragon-lord said. “Why do you have them?”

“As evidence, my lord Dragon. The little wolfling, unlike his parents, is not dead. He is in Mitligund, in the castle of Koriuji. He is cold, and frightened and hungry. My master has no fondness for children. But he will survive—for a while. How long is entirely your choice.” Gorthas’s hideous voice was soft with delighted malice. “My master has known for months that you planned to attack him this spring. If you wish the child to live, he says, you will halt this invasion. If you refuse, the boy will die in slow torment, as prolonged and agonizing as can be contrived. I leave it to your imagination to consider how.”

The soldiers stirred, horror and raw repugnance on their faces. But Karadur’s impassive gaze did not waver. He said, “Why should I hold the life of one child so dear as to agree to that? You and your beasts have entered my domain and murdered my people.”

Gorthas shrugged. “Like yourselves, my lord, we are hunters. Your men hunt moose and elk and deer over the steppe; why should my wargs and I not enjoy such privileges in your domain? My master grieves that you begrudge my companions and myself our forays.”

Karadur said, “My men and I hunt for food.”

“Or pleasure. Or to keep sharp your weapon skills. My wargs do not eat, but I do. Come, this is wasting time. What say you, my lord? Children can be so easily hurt. Does the babe live, or die? It is your choice.” He folded his arms. The men, except for Finle, watched Karadur.

The dragon-lord sat as if he had been turned to stone. Finally he said, softly, “Lorimir. My lord?”

“You knew him well. Tell me: what would my father do now, were he in my place? Would he turn tail, and ride home?”

Uncharacteristically, the captain hesitated. Then he said, “My lord, were he here, your father the Black Dragon would utterly reject this commerce. He would burn that castle and everything in it, including the child’s bones, to bare white ash.”

For a moment, caught in a common dream, they all saw it. Wings spread wide, floating like a giant leaf, the great black dragon stooped low over the gleaming castle. White fire, relentless and searing as the wind from the sun, streamed from his open mouth. Black towers blazed like new-lit torches. Stone walls crisped and curled like paper...

Even Gorthas saw it. His crimson eyes lost their triumphant glitter.

Karadur nodded. Pitching his voice so that all his men could hear, he said, “Monster, I will not dishonor the dead. Nor will I turn back. Instead, I will make a compact with your master.

“I challenge him, or his champion if he so prefers, to single combat: a battle to the death. If I win, the child he has taken captive will be released to me unharmed, and you and your wargs will forever cease to hunt in my land.

“If I lose, your master takes my castle and my domain for his own.”

Lorimir said, under his breath, “Dear gods. My lord— what—” Karadur waved him silent. The soldiers looked at one another.

Gorthas said smoothly, “It’s an interesting proposition, my lord Dragon. Where and when do you suggest this fight occur, and with what weapons?”

Karadur shrugged. “As I am challenger, that is your master’s choice.”

“I see.” The warg-changeling yawned. “I will convey your proposal to my master.”

“No.” Karadur signaled as he spoke. On a single indrawn breath, the archers of the company laid arrow to bowstring. “You will accept or reject it, now.”

Gorthas stiffened. He said, voice rasping like a rusty file, “If you kill me now, you doom the wolfling to a miserable death.”

“I will grieve to the depths of my soul,” said the dragon-lord. “But you will be dead, and your master soon after.”

“You cannot kill my master.”

“I think I can.”

“You know nothing. You think he is a sorcerer, a little apprentice wizard, whom you once knew.” Gorthas’s voice hissed with malevolence. “He is darkness and destruction. He is the devourer of light, the emperor of despair. Warriors and princes and wizards bow before him. His name rings through centuries. You will learn it, before you die.”

Despite themselves, the listening soldiers responded with a roar of disbelief and defiance. The wargs roused, snarling. When the clamor ended, Karadur said, “You speak well for your master. Will he save you, do you think, from my archers’ arrows? Do we have a bargain? Or do you and your wargs die?”

Gorthas snarled. “I tell you, I cannot—”

Karadur said, “Archers, spare the monster. But kill the wargs.”

Bowstrings hummed in deadly concert. The three wargs yowled, and convulsed, each with ten trefoil-barbed arrows embedded in it. A terrible stench, of rot and decay and corruption, came from the corpses. Gorthas crouched, frozen. The staff in his hand trembled with impotent rage.

“Monster, you may live, or not. Speak now. Do we have a bargain? Yes or no.”

“Yes!” The word was a bestial howl.

Leaning forward, Karadur said searingly, “If, when I arrive, the boy has been harmed, I will burn the castle, and everything in it, down to its very heart. Monster, you are dismissed.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then grey smoke stained the day. Gorthas the man vanished. A solitary warg clashed its jaws together, and raced over the snow.

18

After dinner, when the camp was still, Hawk went first to speak to Murgain, and then to Karadur’s tent. Rogys stood sentry before the entrance. “Ask him if he will see me,” she said.

The tent was bright with candles, and, after the crowding of her own tent, seemed spacious: it held two pallets, and a brazier for warmth, a stool, and a wooden chest.

Azil Aumson sat cross-legged on the second pallet, his face in shadow. Karadur sat on the stool. He was holding a bound book.

“My lord, forgive me for disturbing you. I have a request.”

“You are not disturbing me.” He set the book down and swung to face her. She felt the link between them tighten. Muscles moved fluidly beneath his shirt. His skin gleamed like polished metal in the light. “What is it?”

“My lord, I have been—
listening
—for my friend Bear all afternoon and evening. I have not been able to find him. I wish to leave the camp to search for him, and, when I find him, I would like your permission to tell him what has happened today.”

“You have left camp before without my permission, hunter.” She did not answer. “Very well. Go, and tell your friend the Bear what you think he needs to know. And tell him, too, that my offer to him is still open.”

“I will, my lord. Thank you.”

Karadur let the book drop open again. Then he said, “Hunter. What do the men say about what happened today?”

She had thought he might ask. “My lord, they are happy to have killed the wargs. They are angry on behalf of the child. They would like to storm the castle, especially since they believe it is unprotected. But they trust your judgment, and they believe, with all their hearts, that you would never place your domain at risk. They believe you cannot be beaten.”

She saw the two men exchange glances. “Any man can be beaten,” the dragon-lord said dryly. “Thank you. Go. Safe journey.”

She stepped from the tent. The night was clouded, but the camp was as usual ringed by torches; their glow would guide her back. She changed, and spiraled into the night, plunging upwards in a sudden hunger to be free of everything except wind and sky and the smell of the earth. She flew for a time, until her heart eased.

Then, cautiously, she opened her mind and called her friend’s name. He might hear her, and answer. He might hear her and not respond. With a spell-sickness on him, his perceptions might be dulled: he might not hear.

Bear
, she called.
Don’t hide from me.
She repeated it, stretching her thought to its limit. But she could not feel him. She flew in circles, lower and lower, looking for the spark of his fire to the west of the war band’s camp. Once she thought she saw it, and arrowed downwards, but it was nothing, a star glinting off the ice... Finally she gave up. She climbed steadily upward, hunting for a thermal, a rising wind on which to stretch her wings and ride, but the wind had changed; it blew fitfully, coming now from the west, now from the east. The camp was
there:
eastward across the steppe. Laboriously she beat her way toward it, cursing the refractory winds.

After a long, long time, she knew that she was lost.

Her wings felt sticky. She could not see the ground. The stars swung in unfamiliar circles. They made patterns, the patterns had names, but she could not remember the names, nor why she needed to know them. She was flying through a thick close fog: it had drifted slowly around her, tendril by tendril, but now it was everywhere, coating her feathers with foul ash. It was the mist. Summoning her strength, she beat furiously against it, forcing herself above it; but it slowed her, and dragged her down, tangling her in subtle, confusing strands.

Then she struck the ground. Because she was in hawk form, and therefore light-boned, the fall did not kill her. But it drove the sense from her mind and the breath from her lungs. When at last consciousness returned, she opened her eyes to find herself in human form. Brightness seared her vision: the flames of a torch, held near her head. Her hands were bound behind her back.

A rasping voice snapped an order, and the man holding the torch retreated. Then a grinning hairless man bent over her, where she lay on her side in the snow. “Well met, cousin.” He kicked her in the ribs. It hurt. “Get her up.”

Human hands closed urgently round her arms and jerked her swaying to her feet. Her head ached. She smelled human fear. She pulled against the thick ropes on her wrists, but the knots were taut and secure. Her weapons—bow, knife—were gone. Her vision blurred, then steadied. She counted five men, and Gorthas. He wore Wolf’s sword at his belt. He smelled of dead things.

He held his hand out, showing her the silver hair-clip with the arched hawk-wings. “Is this what you miss, archer?”

She would not acknowledge his victory. “I was looking for my knife.”

He hit her in the face. It rocked her head back, and blurred her vision again. “Don’t talk,” he said. “You speak only by permission.”

She waited until she could see again, and then said, “You asked me a question.”

He hit her again, with his fist. Agony drummed through her skull, and the strength went out of her legs. She sagged. The silent men kept her standing. The fear-smell was theirs.

Gorthas waited until she could hear him, and then said genially, “I will hit you if you speak again. Do you know where you are?” He gestured. The man with the torch lifted it so that she could see. Before her, the earth was pitted and torn as if monster talons had clawed it. Beyond the savaged ground rose a great square darkness: the Black Citadel. A frosty breeze blew from its open gate. “Bring her in. And douse that torch, you fool!”

They made her walk. Head pounding, she stumbled through a maze of icy hallways. She tried to map them but her aching mind could not hold the patterns; they slid from her. Suddenly they halted. Gorthas pushed her to her knees. Winding his hand in her hair, he forced her head up. She saw an icy chair, elaborate as a throne. On it coiled a monstrous white worm. A human head topped its glistening body. The face seemed young—and then something shifted, and it looked old, a hundred years old. Horribly, impossibly, the pallid features seemed familiar.