Tales of the Dragon's Bard, Volume 1: Eventide (32 page)

Caprice grabbed Jarod’s arm.

She pleaded,
“Which one?”

Khrag had come out of his lair for the first time in uncounted years and was, for a time, lost. It was partly the fault of the weather, which had obscured the ground beneath him, and it was partly the fault of the Dragon’s Bard, whose directions were simply not that good. But he had felt like it was time to feel the open sky again, and terrorizing a village always satisfied his ego. He was a carnivore, but his tastes ran more in the direction of mutton and cattle. Still, it was always good to keep up appearances and instill a healthy panic in those who lived upon what he considered to be his land.

The real problem, however, was that his eyesight simply was not nearly as good as he thought it was.

So, having finally found the Wanderwine River and followed it up its course more by smell than by sight, the ancient dragon Khrag, who loved stories more than anything else, found himself unwittingly in the center of a tale being forged. He circled the east edge of the town, and as he was approaching the central courtyard he thought he saw something that was a personal affront to his honor and his pride.

Another dragon was terrorizing his village.

That
he could not permit.

The wings of Khrag were so wide that their tips disappeared behind the gables of the Griffon’s Tale Inn and stretched all the way past the cooperage. With a terrible cry, the ancient dragon reached downward with its hind talons, gripping the roof of Harv and Merinda’s shop for its perch. It craned its long neck skyward, trumpeting its challenge. The tail flicked and slammed into King’s Road, shattering the cobblestones and gouging a deep gash across the street.

Jarod turned, appalled. “Jep! Help me turn this around! Now!”

The dragon craned its neck down, eyeing the dragon across the way. Its angry roar shook the square as its head bobbed, following every motion of its false counterpart flying back and forth above the mill.

Jarod was terrified! The ballista that had once seemed so powerful now looked small and insignificant before the frightening enormity of the dragon rising above him in the square. He could turn the weapon, but even if he managed to fire it and hit the monstrous creature, he was sure he could only wound it at best, calling attention to himself away from the dragon-kite that seemed to hold the dragon’s fascination . . .

Out of Jarod’s panic rose a desperate idea.

“Caprice!” he shouted. “Get away from here! Run!”

“Come with me!” she called, but Jarod was already running toward the bridge, pulling Aren’s sword from its scabbard.

Jarod saw where the blackened rope hung low across the river, crossing the low wall around Trader’s Square. Without thinking, he jumped up onto the wall and then leaped for the cable, grasping it with his free hand and wrapping his legs around it. Only one thought screamed in his mind: if the dragon-kite flew away . . . maybe the real dragon would follow it. He started desperately sawing on the cable with the blade of the sword, its edge surprisingly keen as the cords began to separate and unravel.

Jarod glanced back across the bridge. The dragon took a step into the square, its gigantic claw slamming down close to the ballista. Jep Walters was fumbling in his pockets, pulling out his ancient and never-fired wand.

Caprice was trying to hide behind the ballista, the dragon’s head stretching toward the mill over her.

“Caprice!” Jarod shouted. “Run!”

The dragon drew in a great breath.

The cable separated.

Jarod crashed down on his side near the west end of the bridge.

An enormous spout of flame surged from the dragon’s mouth, roaring overhead with a terrible heat. But the false dragon, cut from its mooring, suddenly shifted, and the full impact of the rush of incandescent fire streamed directly into Bolly’s Mill.

The flour dust within the mill exploded, mixing at once with the oil left at the ready inside its doors. The ensuing fireball lit up the night, engulfing the structure immediately in searing, raging flame.

The paper dragon, caught in the heat of the blast, rose upward, itself catching fire. Tipping forward, it rushed on its false wings directly toward the dragon in Charter Square.

Jarod got to his feet and started running across the bridge. He was too slow, he thought desperately, trying to outrun the downward rushing false dragon.

Suddenly, he felt himself leave the ground. An enormous fist had gathered up the collar of his watch coat and lifted him off the ground, rushing him across the bridge and into the square.

“I’d like my sword back now,” Aren said as they galloped forward. “You go save Caprice.”

The centaur tossed Jarod toward the ballista. He lost his footing in the rush, tumbled, and fell at Caprice’s feet. Jep Walters was shaking, gripping his wand, and trying to point it toward the dragon directly overhead.

Jarod looked up. The flaming dragon-kite was rushing directly toward them from over the Cursed Sundial.

A new column of fire roared over their heads, catching the paper dragon and tossing it high into the air.

“Now!” Jarod yelled, grabbing Jep and Caprice by the arms and rushing toward the Griffon’s Tale Inn on the north side of the square. Behind him, he felt the heat and heard the roar as the enormous kite crashed down on top of the ballista and ignited the oil sitting around it.

The mill was burning furiously on the far side of the river. Townspeople were pouring from their homes, shouting. In the best of times a single fire could threaten an entire village, and now they had roaring blazes on both sides of the town.

On both sides, Jarod thought. Both sides at once.

Tomas Melthalion stood in the open door of his inn, risking his own life as he beckoned them in his direction.

“Go to the Squire,” Jarod said to Caprice, pushing both her and Jep Walters toward Tomas and his open door. “Go now!”

Jarod turned at once toward the Cursed Sundial.

He glanced to his left. Through the towering flames of his own ballista he imagined he could see Aren Bennis, sword in both hands, speaking with the dragon. The dragon’s head was bent over attentively.

Jarod glanced to his right. The mill was ablaze, its flames threatening the Guild Hall and soon all the homes on Cobblestone Street.

He came to the Cursed Sundial.

The flames of the mill cast a faint shadow across the face of the sundial as though it were sunset.

The flames of the dragon-kite and the burning ballista cast their own shadow across the face of the sundial as though it were sunrise.

Jarod reached inside his watch coat, undid the top buttons on his shirt, and pulled out his amulet from Caprice.

“I wish the curse were broken,” he said, pressing the amulet against the center of the sundial’s face.

He waited.

There was a cracking sound.

Suddenly, the pedestal crumbled into shattered fragments of granite as a column of light rushed skyward, pierced the clouds, and then slowly faded.

The dragon trumpeted once more and then spread its great wings. The air rushing beneath its downward stroke nearly pushed Jarod to the ground, but in a moment the dragon was high above the rooftops and turning east before disappearing in the low clouds.

Jarod felt a drop fall on his cheek. Then another.

In moments, a torrential downpour engulfed the town. The sky poured out a sea of water, dampening the fires more effectively than all the buckets in Eventide could have ever hoped to achieve. The townspeople still had to deal with the oil fires, but those were far more manageable than the general conflagration they had been faced with minutes before. Bolly’s Mill was a complete loss and was going to burn for some time, but the men in the village were already working to contain that blaze, and the kite fire was already nearly out.

Caprice Morgan rushed out of the inn. Her beautiful auburn hair was soaked at once as she ran across the flooding square toward where Jarod stood. She gazed in wonder at the shattered sundial, then, with a smile, turned toward the wrecked wood and canvas dragon smoldering behind him.

“I guess now they’ll call you Jarod the Dragon Slayer?” Caprice said lightly.

“More likely Jarod the Mill Slayer,” he sighed. He took off his watch coat and put it around her shoulders. “I don’t suppose there’s much call for mill slaying, is there?”

“I’ve had a call for one,” Caprice said. “It took a Mill Slayer to break the curse. Now that you’ve fixed my wishes, I suppose your bill will be terribly expensive, won’t it?”

“You’d be surprised at what I work for,” Jarod smiled at her.

The clomping sound of Aren Bennis was approaching. Jarod turned, “Aren, whose idea was it to . . . Aren? Are you all right?”

The centaur had a pained look on his face as he spoke. “Khrag was just a little confused, is all. I knew him from . . . when was that? I can’t seem to . . .”

The centaur’s sword fell, clanging loudly to the ground. Aren grabbed his left arm, wincing with pain.

“Aren?” Jarod stepped toward the centaur.

Farmer Bennis dropped down to his front knees. “You’re a good lad, Jarod. Don’t waste a minute . . . not a single minute . . .”

Aren fell heavily on his side, his face a mask of peaceful sleep.

Jarod fell to his knees next to his fallen friend, trying desperately to rouse him, but Aren never awoke again.

The old centaur was gone.

The torrential rains wept around Jarod.

The young man had no more wishes left.

• Chapter 22 •

The Wake

Farmer Bennis had lived a quiet life on his farm north of Eventide. There were those who knew that the elderly centaur had fought in the Epic War many years ago, but none of them knew anything of his service—whether he had been present at any of the mythic battles whose songs everyone knew or if he had had occasion to see any of the heroes of that age. He was just a farmer who had seen some service, a good neighbor and a quiet, gentle soul.

No one ever made much fuss about a funeral for a farmer. Dying in Eventide was as much a part of their lives as the seasons. After some debate, they brought his massive body to Beulandreus Dudgeon, who was beside himself with grief. Nevertheless, the smith built a sound iron frame for the centaur’s coffin and called on Harv Oakman to come carve the wooden panels that were to fit it on every side. Beulandreus offered Harv any amount for his best work, but the carpenter refused any pay, crafting the ornate carvings specifically to the rather astonishing details directed by the dwarf. It was an extraordinarily long coffin as such things go, designed by the dwarven smith to allow the centaur’s body to be laid out at length, his torso leaning forward, his arms under his head, laid facing to the right as though he were asleep after the manner of the centaurs. Then his sword was set in the coffin next to him and his buckler, retrieved from his home, laid across his back.

With the centaur seemingly at rest, the coffin lid was set into place and Beulandreus himself secured it, tears streaming from his eyes the whole time. It took sixteen men to lift the funereal box and carry it to the Pantheon Church. There they set him in front of the altar, the coffin’s bulk too large to properly set on the altar itself. Thus they left Father Patrion to determine to which of the gods they should commend his soul and the proper manner of his burial—the prospect of interring the plough-horse-sized farmer leaving the priest at a complete loss.

In all the concern of the town over the burned mill and the raid by no fewer than two dragons at the same time, no one noticed Ward Klum speaking quietly to Meryl Morgan, who left at once on horseback with a message to Mordale.

However, everyone quickly learned of the reply.

The greatest heroes of the age—the very men and women of legend who had fought in the Epic War and saved all the land from terrible darkness—all began to arrive in the village. Princess Aerthia took several rooms for herself and her ladies. Teron, hero of the Mordale Siege, and his companion Karmados, the warrior-dwarf, both arrived, along with their families. Each of them quietly took lodgings in the inn. However, when Lord Pompeanus arrived at the inn door with an entire cadre of his knights—all in their finest livery—the Squire himself inexplicably disappeared, leaving his wife, Daphne, to deal with the unexpected and impossibly honorable lodgers.

Each of them had answered the call—because a centaur farmer had died in Eventide.

Jarod stood as close as he could come to the Pantheon Church. His father and his mother stood with him at his side.

The mourners overflowed the church, packed shoulder to shoulder down the steps and out onto the green. It was a sea of people, the likes of which had never been seen in Eventide. Ranks of centaurs stood on either side of the coffin, kneeling down on one fore-knee with their heads bowed in honor. Lord Pompeanus’s knights stood at attention in their ceremonial armor. Lords and ladies, heroes of legend, and, arriving earlier that same morning, King Reinard and Queen Nance themselves. The Queen wept quietly before the coffin as King Reinard knelt before it, stretched out his hand to rest upon it, and bowed his head.

The Dragon’s Bard and his scribe pushed their way carefully through the crowd until they stood next to Jarod. Edvard took off his ornate, impossible hat and gripped it with one hand as he folded his arms and considered the scene.

“Why, Father?” Jarod asked quietly, afraid to disturb the respectful quiet. “Why have they come?”

“I can tell you,” the Dragon’s Bard sighed, more thoughtful than anyone, even his scribe, had ever seen him before.

“Then tell me,” Jarod said.

“It’s a very old story—one that I could not tell before now,” the Bard continued softly. “It was a story
he
never told and preferred that others not tell either.”

The Bard looked up into the late autumn sun and paused, considering.

“Go on,” Jarod urged.

“During the Epic War there was a dark time when the king—then but a prince—was a young and inexperienced commander,” Edvard began, though his telling of the tale was now, for the first time, simple and unembellished by his typical histrionics. “He led the armies of the Eastern Glory against Urchik and the Shadow-soul Thieves.”