Murder in Tarsis (24 page)

The old dwarf’s long eyebrows raised in wonder. “What could be more important?”

“Ah, what, indeed?” Nistur said.

“Of course,” Hotforge said sadly, “there may be no one to read it before long. But then, that’s something I want to discuss with Stunbog.”

“You think he can help you?” Shellring asked.

“Let’s get him out first,” said the dwarf. “We can talk about it then.”

With nothing of importance to do for the time being, the three companions seated themselves at the end of a banqueting table. Some elderly dwarf women brought them food and ale, and the companions set to it with a good appetite.

“I hate having to wait like this,” Ironwood complained.

“That is because you are a man of action. I like to employ my leisure time in the acquisition of knowledge. Perhaps we can utilize this time to our mutual satisfaction.”

“What do you mean?” Ironwood asked.

Nistur leaned across the table. “My friend, I think it is time we learned about you. For good or ill, our lives have been thrown together. Perhaps another time I will speak of myself, but just now we seem to be deeply involved with you: your past life, your unique infirmity, the odd hostility that certain parties nurse against you. These things affect and endanger all of us.” He leaned back and smiled, raising a cup of finely worked alabaster. “Besides, it might take your mind off that monster sleeping below us.”

For a long time Ironwood stared at him with a look of near-hostility. Shellring looked back and forth from one to the other uncertainly. Then the mercenary began to speak.

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“The name of my homeland,” Ironwood began, “is irrelevant. I was of decent birth, and I thought I had high prospects. Of course, I was very young.”

“Many of us began that way,” Nistur said.

“Shut up!” Shellring snapped. “I want to hear his story.”

“My apologies,” Nistur said. “Please continue. I shall strive not to interrupt.”

“Well, then, I was trained to be a warrior, as were all the men of my family. But I wanted to be more than a common warrior. I knew I was destined to be a knight, a hero.” His face twisted into a rueful smile. “Well, it’s a common enough dream for a young man. Few try to act upon it.”

He drained his ale cup and put it down. “I was not alone in my vaunting ambitions. In the town next to my father’s estate was another young fellow named Boreas. He was the ne’er-do-well son of the town’s mayor and wealthiest tradesman. We grew up together, roistered and got into trouble together. His father wanted him to follow in the family business, which was the wine trade, one of the most profitable in our part of the world. Boreas would have none of it. He wanted adventure, and he loved to sing and play the harp and act on the stage. All the townspeople were scandalized, for no one of good birth did such things.”

Now his smile contained a wistful fondness. “He cared nothing for them or their offended sensibilities. Boreas had to have the adulation of the crowd, the applause. He loved to be the center of attention. Unfortunately, he was far too popular with the young women, and a day came when he had to flee.

“He came to my family’s castle and begged me to go with him. He had heard a tale, he told me. A young black dragon had been seen in the mountains a few leagues from our town. All that night we talked of this marvel. Surely, Boreas said, the creature must guard a treasure, for this is the nature of dragons, or so all the stories tell us. Whether the treasure was worldly or magical we had no way of knowing, but the beast had already killed some travelers, and the area was gaining a dire reputation.

“Boreas lusted for the treasure and for the sheer adventure of it. He could already see himself spreading the tale of his own deeds with his harp and his voice. But my ambitions were different. I saw only the reputation I would gain by killing a dragon. I knew that most heroes strove and suffered for many years before they gained the esteem of their peers. As a youth, of course, this arduous path held little attraction for me. But by slaying a dragon, I could become a hero with one swift deed. The deadly peril of it only made the prospect more exciting.”

He turned to Shellring. “Young men often think that way. They want glory, but they do not want to face the long, hard years of effort required to earn it. They are easily tempted into trying feats far beyond their years to shorten the path. This often leads to death or disaster.”

“I understand,” she assured him.

“So we set out. Both of us had good horses. I had a lance and my grandfather’s long sword, but only the dingy armor I trained in, for my family was not about to have a new harness made for me until they were

certain I would grow no more. Still, I felt every inch the hero.

“As we drew nearer the lair of the dragon, we began to hear tales of the thing. It was clearly a young one, for it had established its lair only a year or so previously. Boreas found this news disappointing, for it meant the dragon could not have accumulated a great deal of treasure. As I have said, I did not care about the treasure, and I found the news reassuring. As we traveled, I had found my high aspirations assailed by a terrible doubt. Was I warrior enough to slay a great wyrm? A creature that might have slain an army of heroes by the time it attained full growth? Thus, I was relieved. Surely, I thought, I could handle a very young dragon. And, it seemed to me, slaying any sort of dragon would qualify me as a hero.

“One day, we found ourselves in a village at the foot of the mountains. It was a serried barrier of three parallel ranges, and the villagers told us that their road would take us to the nearest pass through the mountains. The dragon’s lair was high on a slope above the pass in the middle of the second range. They told us of a mountain lake there, surrounded by a heavy forest, and in the shadows of this forest the dragon lurked and sometimes swooped down on travelers passing by.

They were overjoyed to see us, for the dragon had been costing them much of the caravan trade. Traders and other travelers had been avoiding that pass, and once the dragon had even come near the village and carried off a shepherd. We were feted and praised as if we had already attained the status of heroes. In fact, we found the people’s hospitality so agreeable that we stayed in the village for five or six days, until they began to hint that it was time we were about the business we had come for. So, amid much singing and throwing of flowers, we rode

from the village and took the road toward the mountains.” He picked up his refilled cup and drank, then was silent for a while.

“Well?” Shellring said, impatiently. “What happened after that?”

“I don’t remember,” Ironwood said.

“What?” she cried incredulously. “You went out and killed a dragon and you don’t remember? I’ve told judges better lies than that!”

“.Let him relate his tale his own way,” Nistur said soothingly.

“Aye, it is true, I have no memory of the next three days. I think it was three days, at any rate. What I remember is that I awoke on an icy slope, and I was in terrible pain.” His eyes were haunted. Clearly this was his most vivid, as well as his most painful, memory.

“I was alone. My grandfather’s sword was gone. My armor was torn, and my right thigh was mangled. With horror I saw how the armor had been shredded and the flesh ripped to the bone. There was blood all around me, and a trail of it leading up the slope. All I could think was that I was alone. What had happened to Boreas? I felt sure that the answer lay at the end of that trail of my own blood.

“So I pushed myself to my feet, and I will tell you that never before or since have I known so terrible a task. The pain in my whole body was intense, and I was weak and dizzy from loss of blood. I had nothing to lean on, and my right leg would bear little weight. I had to hobble a few inches at a time, and this caused the blood to flow from my wounds. I knew by this, and by the near-blackness of the blood on the ground, that I had been unconscious for many hours, perhaps a day or more.

“At the top of the slope was a very strange feature: a dense forest contained in a bowl a few hundred paces in

diameter, the whole of it shrouded in a dense mist. In the woods I found a fallen branch that I was able to use as a staff, and after that the going was a little easier. It was not so easy to see my blood on the mat of fallen pine needles as it had been on the snow, but I managed. Even through the haze of pain, I could feel that it was much warmer in the forest than out on the mountain slopes.

“The distance through the forest was not great, but it was one of the longest journeys I have ever undertaken. I could take no more than two or three steps before I needed to pause, fighting off dizziness and sickness the whole way. Truly, I thought I was dying. But I had to know the fate of my friend before I could give up.

“After what seemed an eternity I came to the little lake at the center of the forest. It was from this lake that the mist arose. I dipped my hand into the water and found that it was very warm, almost hot. Beyond doubt it was fed from hot springs deep underground, and it was the lake that sustained so heavy a forest in those cold mountains. I never learned where it drained, for no stream led from it. I stripped off my now useless armor and paused for a while to rest and bathe my wounds.

“The water seemed to have some healing, or at least restorative, power, for I felt far better after bathing in it. My wounds had ceased to bleed, and the pain was reduced to a bearable limit. I took up my staff and hobbled on, around the lake. In time I came to a spur of the mountain that jutted from a steep, stony slope and plunged into the lake. Where water and stone met there was a fissure, and the moment I saw that crack in the stone, I knew that this must be the dragon’s lair.”

He paused for a while as the old dwarf women cleared away the plates and refilled the cups. His companions waited with barely suppressed impatience. He took another pull at his ale cup and grimaced.

“I haven’t spoken so much in years. It makes the throat dry.”

“But it is good for the soul,” Nistur said. “Please, go on.”

“Yes, what happened next?” Shellring urged.

“In later years,” Ironwood said, “I learned that black dragons are usually found in the lowlands. They love swamps and deep forest. This one must have just left the nest, seeking its own lair and territory. Perhaps it was at the end of its strength when it spotted that freakish hot lake and its forest and cave. It must have decided that this would do for its first home. As soon as it regained its strength, it began its depredations.

“But I knew none of that at the time. I just knew that I had to find Boreas. So, unarmed and all but naked, I waded into the lake once more and made my way along the shallows, into the cave.” His mouth twisted in a sour smile. “Even in my fear, I found the stench within appalling. In the stories, you always hear of great wyrms lying atop heaps of treasure. In those stories the dragon’s lair is a cave transformed into a palace. Let me inform you that this is not true of a young dragon intent only on feeding and growing. I passed bits of carcasses, mostly those of sheep and horses, but some may have been human. All smelled equally bad. Near the back of the cave, I found the dragon.”

He took a deep breath. The others seemed not to breathe at all.

“It was dead, and the signs of a terrible fight were everywhere. I saw bits of my own armor and, no doubt, bits of me, scattered about the cave. The creature lay on the sandy floor, pierced by a number of ghastly wounds. My broken spear was nearby, as was my grandfather’s sword, now twisted like a piece of wire. Human and dragon blood mingled all over the floor.

“The dragon was about the size of a large draft horse, although its neck and tail gave it far greater length. When I saw it, and what it had done, I understood for the first time my folly in ever dreaming that I could slay a great wyrm single-handed. It was a most humbling experience.

“I had to decide what to do. There was no sign of Boreas, nor of our horses. I might freeze on the slopes, and I had to regain my strength before making my way out of the mountains. In fact, I was not at all certain that I would survive my wounds. But I had come to that place to be a dragon-slayer, and I wanted proof of the deed. I still had my knife, so I began to skin the dragon.”

He looked at the two of them somberly. “It is a long, hard task, skinning a dragon. It took me several days to accomplish it.”

“But what did you live on?” Shellring asked. “Did you hunt?”

“He did not need to,” said Nistur. “He had dragon meat.”

“Aye, and I can affirm that it is very sustaining. In fact, between the dragon’s flesh and the waters of the lake, I healed with amazing speed. Later, I learned that this was the dragon’s true vengeance on me, for I began to hope again. I did not know yet that my wounds were indeed mortal. That was to come later.

“The dragon bore many small wounds from the fight, and two that might have been mortal. One was a great rent in its chest. Another pierced the roof of its mouth. I do not know which was the deathblow, nor who dealt it. Indeed, I do not know if I killed the thing at all. It may have been Boreas. Perhaps I have lied about myself for all these years.

“My search of the dragon’s lair turned up no treasure. Apparently this one had not yet developed its acquisitive skills.” He held up the hand upon which gleamed the

knotted ring. “I found only this, which had probably been on the hand of one of its victims. Even I knew its significance, so I took it, feeling that it might come in handy someday, as indeed it did.

“Finally, I had the dragon’s hide rolled into a bundle. I wanted to take its head as well, but I knew I would never be able to bear the weight. The hide would tax my strength to the fullest as it was. One thing I could not bring myself to do; I could not open the dragon’s stomach. I feared that I would find the remains of Boreas there.”

“I can understand how that might be a daunting prospect,” Nistur said. Shellring’s glare silenced him.

“Long had I dreamed of returning to my home as a hero, to be adored for the rest of my life. Now I had my dragon skin, but I knew I could never go back. I was certain that I had caused the death of Boreas, who had been far more popular in the district than I, whose father was a powerful man, and for whom I nursed a crippling guilt. So I set out for the far side of the pass.