Song of the Beast (31 page)

“I won't need a bloodstone.”

“Of course you need a bloodstone. Without its protection, you'd burn. You'd—”

“The absence of the bloodstone must be the key to setting them free. To create the bond ... to become one ... without the stone. He said I must go as a youngling. In nakedness, he said, but I knew he wasn't referring to clothes. He doesn't understand clothes.”

By the time I recovered enough wit to close my mouth and follow him, his long legs had reached the bottom of the slope, and he had disappeared through a rocky tunnel that led into the wild western lands of Catania, toward Cor Neuill and the other dragon camps in Elyria and beyond, in search of the beast he had believed was his god.

Chapter 22

“Why don't the blasted twits come back?” I threw my sword onto the dirt floor and it skidded into the stone firepit, no doubt nicking the exquisitely perfect edge I'd just spent most of a day giving it. “How long can it take to get a look at four dragons?”

“I don't particularly like the waiting,” said the singer quietly, “but I can't say I'd rather be poking around a dragon camp myself just now.”

“You—”

“I know. I'm a sniveling coward not worthy of being called a man.” Aidan MacAllister sat in the corner of the grimy hovel, his face expressionless, his hands quiet in his lap, exactly where he'd put himself that morning.

“How can you sit there and do nothing for eight hours on end? You're driving me mad.”

He'd said not a word until I'd spoken to him. He'd not moved, not occupied himself with anything I could see, yet his eyes had stayed open, staring into nothing. It was infuriating. While I could think of nothing but climbing to the top of the sod roof and screaming at every Ridemark clansman in Elyria to come and fight me, the Senai sat on the damp, filthy floor as calm as an old granny.

“Practice,” he said. “I wouldn't recommend the schooling though.”

“Pitiful,” I snapped, and for the fiftieth time that day I stepped outside the door of the hut into the rutted dung pit that passed for a road. I peered into the distance, watching for any Elhim approaching the cluster of hovels the locals called the village of Wyefedd. It was far too much of a name for the five filthy shacks and the half-burned “stable”—a lean-to that had housed no beast but rats for at least ten years. For one who had been born in a palace, MacAllister certainly knew more about the nastiest places in the kingdom to bed down than any Rider would ever guess.

Wyefedd lay just north of Vallior, outside the small dragon camp of Fandine, which housed dragons and Riders who had been injured in battle. Since leaving the mountains of the Carag Huim, we had been working our way toward Vallior and the large dragon camps of central Elyria, staying on back roads, avoiding cities and people and the persistent Ridemark patrols. Since there was no reason to believe “his” kai, the one he named Roelan, was any more likely to be there than at Cor Marag, or L'Clavor, or Aberthain, or in any of the twenty other dragon camps throughout the kingdom, MacAllister decided that we would visit Cor Neuill last. Though it was the first Ridemark encampment we passed, the singer's sneaking visit with the leather merchant would ensure that it was closely watched.

We traveled at night. During the day we slept out in stables or sheds or sometimes in sleazy inns where a whisper to the landlord would get you a room that no royal guardsman or Ridemark officer would ever be allowed to find.

“I thought you were welcomed everywhere, fed and lodged without having to pay,” I'd said to MacAllister one morning as we lay down in a deserted, sod-roofed shack next to an abandoned coal pit. “How do you know about these vile places?”

“Because those who lived in these circumstances had the same claim on me as the high commander of the Ridemark.”

The Senai would answer whatever I asked of him, but no longer anything beyond it. Everything had changed since the cursed Iskendar had planted his vile seeds. Though no less gently spoken, Aidan MacAllister had closed himself up again. I believed he would name me his ally, but it was clear he no longer trusted me. Fair enough.

 

We had found Davyn and Tarwyl on the Vallior road ten days after leaving Cor Talaith. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say they found us. On a sultry dawn as we approached the turnoff to Grimroth Lair, our first dragon camp, we narrowly escaped running into a roadblock that had sprung up in the night. As we lay panting in a dry hedgerow, caked with dust and sweat after a half-league sprint down a wagon road, I told the Senai for the hundredth time that we needed to find Narim. “He'll know what to do. He's had enough years to think about every possibility. Even if we get to a camp with our heads intact, how do you propose to get inside? One slip will have you back in your cell.”

MacAllister shook his head. “I can't wait for Narim to decide what bit of his plan to reveal to me today. He started me on this venture, but I'm the one who has to finish it.”

“Then why am I here? I've no intention of risking my neck for your private adventure. It's only my swearing to Narim that keeps me with you. If you're not interested in his plan, I'll be off in a heartbeat. But what would you do then? Once you get inside a camp, how do you think to keep the dragons from cooking you while you figure out what to do? Will you sing to them?”

We were both tired from constant hiding and running, and we hadn't even begun the search. He just didn't see the impossibility of it, and I couldn't make my tongue keep still. I wanted him to lash out, to explode in anger at the cruel things I said to him, to demand to know what I was hiding, so perhaps I would have no excuse to hide it anymore. But all he did was bury his anger. “Of course you're right. Send him whatever message you want. But I'm going ahead.” I wanted to kick him.

We backtracked half a day's walk to a wretched little market town called Durvan. Half the houses and shops were burned rubble, and the other half were worse: dark little hovels with sagging sod roofs, rotting timbers, and filthy rugs hung over the doors to keep out the rain and wind. Pigs rooted in the lanes, and people emptied slops jars right outside their doors. I never could see why people would think such places were better than tents. No one in the town would look you in the eye, and no one looked as if they'd had a decent meal in a year.

Just at the edge of the houses sat the Bone and Thistle, the inn where Davyn had been working at the time MacAllister was released from prison. We found two Elhim working there, a groom and a pot boy, neither of them familiar to me. They claimed not to know our friends and didn't want anything to do with us. They just about chewed their boots when we made a sideways mention of Cor Talaith. But just before nightfall, when we slipped into the local market to restock our food supplies, we saw Davyn and Tarwyl playing draughts on an upended barrel.

They continued their game as we strolled past, and showed no sign that they knew us. I thought for a moment we must be wrong. One Elhim looks very much like another. But MacAllister said he could not mistake the hair that always fell over Davyn's left eye nor Tarwyl's nose that had been broken and healed crooked, so he assumed they were being cautious. We followed their lead and did not search them out, but took our time leaving the town. Sure enough, at nightfall, just as we left the last straggling shacks behind, two Elhim drifted onto the roadway two hundred paces ahead of us. We kept our distance and made sure no other travelers were watching as we followed the two down a narrow track into a thickly wooded glade. They were waiting with a lantern and outstretched hands.

“By the One!” said Davyn. “We'd almost given up on you. Not a word, not a glimpse, not a hint of your whereabouts until Greck and Salvor sent the news. You'll probably hear a great sigh of relief go up through the land. We've set watchers everywhere.”

“It seemed prudent to stay hidden,” said the Senai. “We've had a wicked time avoiding Ridemark patrols. I would as soon have kept it that way, but Lara seems to think we'll never accomplish anything without Narim. I have less faith in his plans. I can get people killed well enough on my own.”

“We've known the risk ever since we took Lara in,” said Davyn. “You must understand that it could have happened anytime. And Iskendar and his followers agreed to that risk. They never regretted helping her, no matter what the consequences would be. And they never regretted helping you either. You could have stayed there in peace forever if—”

“If I hadn't given them reason to believe I was still interested in gods and dragons.”

“Yes. I see you've come to some understanding of the attempt on your life. When we saw your beacon, all knew what it could mean. Narim ... all of us ... tried to make Iskendar listen to reason. He didn't have to agree with us; all he had to do was get out and live. But he wouldn't. It's not your fault.” Davyn laid his hand on MacAllister's arm.

The Senai didn't welcome it, but he didn't shake it off either. “Perhaps if I had known some of this earlier, we might have been able to avoid the event as well as the guilt. So where is Narim?”

“He's helping the survivors find a place to settle until we can find a new sanctuary. With your permission, we'll send him news right away. He is most concerned ... most anxious, as you can imagine, to find out what's happened with you ... what happened with Keldar. We've all wondered. ...”

“We need to keep moving. I'll tell you about Keldar as we go.”

As we set out again on the darkening road, MacAllister was gloomy and untalkative. The Elhim enjoyed themselves as always. Davyn clapped Tarwyl on the back. “Never will I go plotting without you, friend. ‘Sit in the market,' you said. ‘After thirteen days of hiding, they'll need supplies.' ”

Tarwyl laughed his deep-throated laugh, always unexpected from a soft-faced Elhim. “At least you remembered to bring your kit. I'll have to share your cup and dig into my purse to buy a change of shirt!”

I brought up the rear and watched for pursuit. Someone had to keep a mind on danger.

 

In the three weeks since that day, we had visited three dragon camps. Tarwyl and Davyn would work their way into the lair, posing as an ironmonger's assistants looking for custom from the Ridemark, or supply clerks hunting work. MacAllister instructed them to watch for any dragon that looked older than average and had either an oddly formed shoulder or back, or one that seemed to draw an unusual number of birds about it. Idiot. He might as well have told them to look for Grimaldi the dwarf king, the enchanted swan Ludmilla, or any other creature from his myth songs. But the Elhim took the Senai's word as god-spoken. At the first three camps they had found no possibilities, and now we sat in the hovel near Fandine, waiting, waiting, waiting—interminably waiting.

“At last!” The sun was low when I saw the two slight figures coming over the rise in the road at the edge of Wyefedd. I yelled at the two as they strolled casually toward our hiding place. “Can you lift your feet any slower?” I said. “We've had such an exciting day waiting for you, I can't bear it to end.”

“We're saving something for the journey back,” said Davyn.

I felt MacAllister jump up in the darkness behind me. “You found something?”

“There are four dragons in Fandine. One of them has a ‘bad wing.' We didn't see it, but the smith told us of it. We could see flocks of birds over the place where it lay. It seems the first possibility.”

“We'll go in tonight,” said MacAllister. “Show me how to find him.”

With a burned stick Tarwyl drew a map on a scrap of wood, showing a little-used path into the lair, the guard posts, the outbuildings, the Riders' huts, and the approximate position of the kai.

“How will you know if he's the one, Aidan?” asked Davyn. “You've never told us what you plan. Perhaps we should wait for Narim. He should catch up with us any day now.”

“Lara must command it to say its name, just as she did with Keldar that first time,” said the Senai, pulling his cloak about his shoulders.

Davyn was horrified. “But you said you almost—”

“I wasn't dying; Keldar was. I felt it from him. This time I'll be ready. Let's go.”

“Wait!” I said as the Elhim followed the Senai out the door. “You might ask me—” But by the time I shouldered my armor bag, they were already halfway through the village. I had to shove my way through a clot of five nagging beggar children to catch them before they disappeared.

MacAllister strode the half league through the stickery brush and stunted trees to the boundary of the lair as if the legions of the Ridemark were on his heels. While Davyn and Tarwyl scouted the path into the lair, the two of us crouched behind a wall of crumbling red sandstone and looked down on Fandine. Short bursts of sharp-tongued, blue-orange fire streaked across the darkening sky. Balefire, my clan called it, for its color and intensity told us that the kai was in pain—and thus likely to blast anything that wandered within a thousand paces of its snout. Wounded kai were exceedingly dangerous.

“I'm sorry you have to go,” said MacAllister softly, breaking his long silence as if he had read my thoughts. “If I could spare you, I would.”

A kai screamed in the distance, the cry echoing from the red cliffs behind us and before us, and the Senai shuddered at the sound.

“We can stop now,” I said. “Even if they were once as you believe, they are no longer. They're killers. They have no minds. You've been deceived. Narim has—”

“Has what?” His dark eyes flared, reflecting the blue-orange fire of the wounded kai.

I couldn't answer. “Wait and talk to him.”