In Treachery Forged (The Law of Swords) (47 page)

The “giant” creature landed in front of the group, only to reveal it wasn’t quite so large after all. Despite what Maelgyn had heard about how dragons were larger than some towns, this particular dragon wasn’t much larger than a horse – a large horse, admittedly, but a horse nonetheless. Then again, it was the Red Dragons whose fabled size the legends were based on.

“And I am Khumbaya, Keeper of the Gates. Tell me, Sword Prince Maelgyn – have you and the masters of Borden Isle returned to your former state?”

Maelgyn shook his head. “No, we are still in a civil war. That may change soon, however, and when it does we will need your aid immediately. I thought to give warning to you, so that you may discuss this matter among yourselves before we meet again, and to prepare your answer to your summons.”

Khumbaya snarled. “We do not heed
any
mortal’s beck and call. We refuse to fight for you until the war with Borden Isle is over. We have no reason to listen to you until then.”

“Ending the war with Borden will be my task,” Uwelain declared, stepping forward. “I am from Borden Isle, and I may have a way to reunite Svieda peacefully. I ask that you grant us this preliminary meeting for all our sakes.”

“No,” the dragon growled. “You are an ignorant whelp of no consequence, and unless you actually have ended the wars already we care nothing for what you have to say.”

“Please,” Wangdu intervened. “Your leaders would be well advised to talk with us, they would. You must be informed, you must, of what will be asked of you.”

The dragon turned its eye on him. “Is that so? And just why should we trust you, Elf?”

“This Elf is trustworthy,” Onayari insisted. “If he were not, would we of the Nekoji grant him – and these others – with coats of our furs?”

“I will also vouch for him,” El’Athras snorted. “He’s just about the only Elf I’ve ever met with a real sense of honor any more.”

The dragon stepped back slightly, looking as amused as an intelligent scaled beast could look. “A Dwarf respecting an Elf?” he snorted, smoke spewing from his nostrils. “Unheard of! Well, perhaps it may be worth listening to you, Elf! A Dwarf, two Humans, an Elf, and a Nekoji, eh? An odd gathering, to be sure. I will discuss this matter with the elders. Await here for word of our response. Proceed no further, lest we slay thee.”

Without even giving them a chance to reply, the dragon leaped into the air. Maelgyn had never seen a Golden Dragon in flight – in fact, the only dragons he had ever seen before were the great beasts which were Red Dragons, and those were from afar. To see one of the Golden Dragons soar into the sky was a different experience altogether. Golden Dragons were smaller, yes, but also a lot sleeker as well. It was very difficult for him to compare a creature like the Red Dragon he had seen in his youth with the magnificent being that had just left. Truthfully, they were so different from one another he had a hard time thinking of them both as even being related races.

Khumbaya did not return quickly. No-one seemed to feel like speaking as they waited, yet the silence dragged on oppressively. After a while, Maelgyn started looking around for something that might ease their discomfort.

“El’Athras,” Maelgyn began, finally breaking their silence. “I was informed that my ship’s blacksmith, the man who is known by the crew best as ‘Forge,’ disappeared during the expedition to meet with Lord Uwelain. I understand that even those Dwarves who do not specialize in smithery have some skill in the craft. Do you believe you or Tur’Ba could handle the duty until we find a replacement?”

“We Dwarves are skilled in a limited understanding of mining and metallurgy at birth, much as Elves know the science of plants and Merfolk know the ways of both swimming and walking. However, I would suggest your wife or Sir Leno fill the role, instead. My own skill has greatly diminished in its old age, and Tur’Ba is too impatient to truly understand the art. Your wife or Sir Leno would have their magic to help them.” El’Athras fell silent, and for a moment Maelgyn feared the silence would return, but then he seemed to recognize the need for a distraction. “We should have found one of the Merfolk to bring with us instead of you, Baron Uwelain.”

“Oh?” Uwelain said.

“Yeah. If we had, then it would have looked like an appeal from the united races,” the Dwarf explained. “Though I’m not sure we
could
have brought one with us; I understand the shapeshifting abilities which allow them to function on land – and to impersonate people, at times – will only last them for a few short hours. Then, if they don’t return to the water, they transform back into a Merfolk, which cannot walk on land easily.”

“It’s still possible,” Maelgyn said. “My uncle, the late king, once received a Merfolk delegation at the Royal Castle. They had to construct a water-storing wagon to manage the journey, but with one they can travel just about anywhere and remain healthy. They don’t usually use up the water as they travel.”

“They would not have wanted to come, they wouldn’t,” Wangdu mused. “Deathly afraid of dragons, they are.”

“And with good reason,” Khumbaya mused, flying back in. “They cannot bear to be near us, for our inner heat will kill them whether we desire their death or not.”

Maelgyn straightened his posture, and turned to address the dragon. “So, will your people see us?”

Khumbaya puffed some smoke out of his nostrils. “They wish more information. What is it, Elf, that you believe we will be so interested in?”

“The Sho’Curlas Alliance has trained as many as fifty Black Dragons to sweep through all nations, they have,” Wangdu answered. “Surely, the assemblage of so many under one power at least deserves the honor of your leaders’ attention, it does, whether they take action or not, they do.”

“The elders will be informed. However, even so great a force to you is insignificant to us. I doubt they will be interested,” the golden dragon proclaimed before once more taking off in flight.

“That was rather abrupt,” Onayari mused.

“Dragons are an impatient lot, they are,” Wangdu answered. “And that one is also cursed with the affliction of youth, he is – possibly no more than twelve or thirteen centuries old.”

“He’s older than most of us,” Maelgyn pointed out.

“The youngest golden dragon hatched is a thousand years old, it is,” Wangdu answered. “Our history tells us that the first Ancient Dragons’ eggs took almost a thousand years to grow to maturity, they did. It took another two hundred for them to learn to speak properly, it did. Golden Dragons may be different, they may, but even so he’s fairly young, he is. There’s a reason there are so few of them, there is.”

Maelgyn sighed. “I think we can be glad there are so few of them – they are quite hostile to mortals, even when those mortals are actually immortals like yourself.”

“Ah,” Wangdu replied darkly. “Well, we Elves have done worse to dragons than most mortals, we have. Before the days that Humans, Dwarves, or Nekoji were anything more than wild animals, they were, the Ancient Elves, our Ancient Enemy, and the Ancient Dragons fought their great three-sided war, they did. While true that no Elves or Dragons from that day are still alive, they aren’t, stories of them exist still, they do. Our people were quite vicious, they were.”

Maelgyn perked up at that, wondering at several things. That the Ancient Elves fought wars was no surprise – many of their relics and surviving creations were centered around warfare – but he had been unaware their wars went back that far in their history. If Humans, Dwarves, and Nekoji had not been their enemy, than who was?

“Dare I ask what those things your people did to them were?” El’Athras hesitantly inquired, voicing the other question that rose in Maelgyn’s mind.

“Ask the dragons,” Khumbaya said, once more appearing silently from above them. “Ask the eldest of the Golden Dragons. Their parents, known to you as the ‘Ancient Dragons,’ lived through those wars at their worst. They know better than any alive how evil the Elves can be.”

“I agree, I do,” Wangdu said. “Modern Elves do not understand, they don’t, just how horrific our Ancient brethren were. I had to go to Ancient Elven libraries long thought lost to learn the whole story, I did.”

“Ancient Elven libraries?” Khumbaya growled out, incidentally throwing a few sparks of fire. “You are Wangdu, then, aren’t you?”

Wangdu bowed. “At your service, I am.”

The dragon returned the bow, displaying a great deal more respect than he had before. “Perhaps you may actually be able to fulfill the condition that the Elders have demanded of you if Master Wangdu, Savior of the Golden Dragons of the Northern Plains, is on your side.”

“Oh?” Maelgyn asked, unaware of what Wangdu may have done in his long past to be named a hero of the Dragons, but set it aside as yet another question for a later date. “And what condition is it that they have imposed?”

Khumbaya shook his whole body like a wet dog, then turned to Maelgyn. “My apologies, your highness, but the Elf distracted me from my message. The Elders have asked me to deliver this proclamation: They will not meet with you now. However, if you kill the human styling himself as Sword King Paljor, whether you end the breach between Svieda and the Borden Islands or not, they will agree to meet with you. And they feel that, while the treaties of old are negated by the breach, they might be willing to negotiate a stronger alliance than before.”

Maelgyn’s eyes widened. No individual Golden Dragon – much less an entire nation of them – had ever even hinted at an actual alliance before. Perhaps, before the days of recorded history, there was an individual Ancient Dragon or two who had allied themselves with a mortal power against the Elves, but that was only in myth. An entire nation of Dragons doing anything more than fighting with other Dragons on behalf of any other race was unheard of, even in the wildest of those myths. What made it even more incredible was that the Golden Dragons of Borden Isle were the largest nation of Golden Dragons still in existence – and one of the last. The Golden Dragons of the Northern Plains who Wangdu had been the ‘savior’ of had since left their lands to join them, as had many other Dragon colonies throughout the world. Sviedan scholars had noticed that the past century or two marked a growing Dragon gathering, of sorts. Every Dragon in the world, even those from parts of the world not on Human maps, seemed to be giving up their homes in order to join the den in Borden Isle. There had been some concern about that, but if what Khumbaya was saying was true....

“Why? Your people have
never
desired such an alliance, before.”

The dragon seemed to hesitate for a moment, but it was hard to read hesitancy in a dragon. “Our people have decided that Paljor’s existence is a plague unto us. We are not afraid of war, but killing him ourselves would start a war where we least want one – our home.”

Uwelain spoke up at that, as the only Borden Islander present. “This sounds most peculiar, Gatekeeper. The Swords of Borden Island have not been in your favor since our rebellion against Svieda as you deem us Oathbreakers, but you have always been cordial to us nevertheless. What could any mortal do to be named a ‘plague’ on the largest dragon nation in the world?”

“The
only
dragon nation,” Khumbaya corrected. “We are all here now, or will be soon. The breeding season is approaching – an event during which we, as a race, are at our most vulnerable, so it occurs just once every millennia – and there are now so few of us that we cannot support a breeding season across more than one nation. The season, in mortal terms, is still far from now – fifty years, by your reckoning – but we must prepare ourselves decades in advance. By then, we must be on very good terms with whatever mortal power is in position to protect us... and the Borden Isles are the most defensible home we have ever held. Therefore, whoever rules the Borden Isles can do what they desire with impunity, and we can do nothing in retaliation for fear of offending them.”

“But that does not explain what Paljor has done against you,” Uwelain pointed out. “It must be something he has done both personal and severe, but I have heard of nothing.”

Once again, the dragon hesitated. He seemed quite unwilling to answer, but he hadn’t refused to explain altogether yet. Maelgyn decided to press for an answer.

“If we could just make him step down from the kingship, would that be sufficient? Or is his offense so great he would have to be killed, regardless?”

“We would hold him to account,” Khumbaya finally answered. “For the murder of Elder Veila, one-time queen of another Dragon colony. She survived wars with horrors the mortals in this part of the world would not be able to imagine, only to meet her end at Paljor’s hands.”

Maelgyn started. “How many men did he use to kill Elder Veila? Surely our spies would have told us if his armies were on the move, even as poor as our intelligence has been, so—”

“I believe you misunderstand, your highness,” Khumbaya replied. “He slaughtered Elder Veila in order to make a suit of dragonhide armor – similar to those we gave your ancestors, one of which I see you now wear. He felt that he deserved the stronger and more flexible material of Golden Dragonhide over the typical Red Dragon’s skin. However, he did not ask his armies to do it for him – he defeated Veila alone.”

Maelgyn couldn’t comprehend what he heard for a moment, and lost his composure slightly. “What are you saying? He... he killed a dragon
by himself?
”