The Fire Dragon (39 page)

“Good morrow, all,” Jahdo said. “Ah, Mam, it be so good to see you there and smell your cooking!”

Dera laughed and waved the long spoon in his direction.

“Never did I think to hear anyone praise my skill at the hearth! It be good to see you in your rightful place, too.”

“But your voice, lad!” Lael said, grinning. “You sound hoarse as a frog in winter.”

“No doubt, Da. I did talk more last night than I've done in all the rest of my life.”

Jahdo sat down next to his sister with a sigh of contentment. Home. At last he could put all the strange and horrible things he'd seen behind him—or so he hoped. Lael emptied the buckets into the big terra-cotta jar by the hearth, then set them down.

“I do be surprised to see you here,” Jahdo said to Niffa.

“Well, I did want to let Mam know where I spent the night past.”

Dera said nothing, but Jahdo noticed her giving the porridge a slap and a hard stir in the pot. Behind her back Lael sighed with a shake of his head, then came over to the table and sat down.

“I'll be going back later,” Niffa went on. “I'd best collect my things here first.”

Dera was concentrating on scooping out the porridge.

She set a bowl down in front of Lael first, then Jahdo, and returned to the hearth.

“I did hear last night about your man,” Jahdo said to Niffa. “It does sadden my heart. I did count Demet a friend.”

“My thanks. I do believe I'll mourn him the rest of my life.”

Jahdo pushed out what he meant to be a reassuring smile, then devoted himself to his porridge. He had seen so much death in the past year that he'd thought himself hardened, but his sister's grief cut him nonetheless. Dera brought her own bowl to the table and sat down. For a while they ate in a subdued silence.

“It gladdens my heart to see you safe,” Dera said finally. “Ai! I feel such pity for that poor Gel da'Thae woman, losing her sons.”

All at once Jahdo realized that he had a task to do, no matter how much he wanted to bask at his family hearth forever. He laid his spoon down in his bowl and stood up.

“Mam, do forgive me,” he said, “but it be needful that I run an errand. There be somewhat I carry with me that does belong to Lady Zatcheka.”

“Well, have you not the whole long day for errands?” Dera said. “You've not finished your breakfast.”

“Dera, hush!” Lael raised one large hand flat for silence. “I think me our Jahdo do know his own concerns best.”

Dera sucked her lips into a scowl, but she said nothing more. As he hurried into the bedchamber, Jahdo felt that he just might burst from pride. His father trusted his judgment. While he knew himself not yet a man, he realized that in some important way, he was no longer a mere boy.

A hot sun woke Rhodry some while after dawn. He threw off his unnecessary blanket and lay naked on the grass, contemplating the clear sky. The night before, he and Arzosah had made a rough camp on this hilltop where, as she remarked, they'd have a bit of a view. Behind them rose
the dark-timbered flanks of the high mountains, coiffed in white, while in front of their camp the grassy slope led down to the valley below. When he sat up he could see Cerr Cawnen as a circle of turquoise lake among house shapes, wreathed in mist like a city of ghosts.

“You're awake,” Arzosah said.

“I am, and I gather you are too.”

The dragon yawned for an answer, revealing her enormous grey tongue and fangs the size of sword blades. She was lying some feet away, comfortably curled with her tail lapped over her front paws.

“Do you want to hunt again?” Rhodry said. “Or shall we just go down?”

“I'm still full from last night. That cow was delicious.”

“I don't want to know about it. The farmers are going to start badgering me for cattle lwdd if you keep this up. Why don't you just eat the deer? There's plenty of them around here.”

“I get tired of venison. A lady likes a little treat now and again.”

Rhodry got up and dressed, ate what was left of his bread and cheese, then rolled up his blankets. By the time he had her harnessed and ready to go, the sun had climbed a handbreadth above the horizon. The town would be awake, no doubt, and people out on the streets.

“I hope Dalla got a chance to warn everyone about you,” he said.

“They've all seen me before,” Arzosah said. “And it's not like I'm going to eat any of them, after all. They haven't angered me or suchlike.”

“Well, once they know that, no doubt they'll feel a good bit better.”

“You're laughing at me!”

“Am not.”

“Humph! You're a fine one to talk about cattle raids. I've seen your Deverry lords close up now, and there's no difference twixt me and them.”

“What? Come now!”

“Well, your lordship sits in his hall all day or rides out
and watches the farmers work, and then he steals some of their food. If they tried to stop him, he'd kill them. Just like me, except the lords aren't even beautiful like I am, and there's rather a lot more of them, too.”

“Here! It's not stealing. The gods have ordained—”

“Oh indeed? You mean, the priests say that the gods have ordained it, but the priests know which side their bread is buttered on. They steal some of the farmers' food themselves. Can you imagine a priest standing up in one of your courts and announcing that Bel thinks the lords should raise their own food like the farmers do?”

“But the lords have their place. They protect their people.”

“From what? Other lords, that's what. If there were none of you, they wouldn't need any of you. Just like here in the Rhiddaer.”

Rhodry found himself without a thing to say. Arzosah curled a paw and smugly considered her claws.

“Shall we be going?” he said at last.

“As soon as you admit I've won.”

“Huh. I'll admit there's some justice in what you say, and that's all.”

“It will do. For now.”

Arzosah stretched out her neck and lowered one shoulder, and he swung himself up onto the saddle pad of her harness. Once he was securely aboard, she stretched out her wings and trotted off, bunching her muscles and springing into the air with a few hard wing strokes that took them well clear of the hillside. She allowed herself to glide, spiralling down in long loops while below Cerr Cawnen grew steadily larger. He could see the outer ring of walls, and the untidy town clustering around the lake, while out in the middle of open water Citadel rose with its burden of trees and buildings, whitewashed wood or pale stone, gleaming in the bright morning. As they swooped lower he realized that the lakeshore town extended out into the lake, built up on pilings and tiny islands that, he suspected, were man-made. Steam rose from the warm water, carrying with it the ripe stench of town life.

“Strange place,” Rhodry called out.

“It is,” Arzosah shouted back. “It's a fire mountain.”

“What? You mean a fire mountain made it?”

“No, I mean it is a fire mountain. The corpse of one that blew its head off. But the water's warm, so there must be life way down below somewhere.”

They swept down, circling around Citadel, and Rhodry found himself remembering the volcano where he'd trapped Arzosah, and all the lore about volcanoes and dragons both that Enj, his partner in that odd enterprise, had told him as well. He could see that Citadel rose sharply from the water on one side while on the other it sloped gently down—the remains of a cone, he supposed, when the mountain had exploded through a side vent. The land of blood and fire, he thought. That's where we are, the far north, just as old Othara explained to me.

Lower and lower they flew, and at last he could make out the boulders and the remains of some stone structure among trees high on Citadel's cliffs. Nearby, on the plaza, they could see townsfolk, many of whom were looking up and pointing at the sky. He leaned over and yelled to Arzosah.

“Right there! What looks like a roof!”

“I see it!”

She banked her wings, dropped, extended them, curled, and landed lightly on the flat stones among the boulders. Distantly they could hear screaming and shouting—from the crowd on the plaza, no doubt.

“Ah, what a welcome!” Arzosah said. “You'd best leave my harness on, Rori. Let them believe I'm tame.”

When the dragon began circling over the town, Dallandra and Zatcheka were walking along the lakeshore. Behind them followed a pair of Zatcheka's guards, each with a ceremonial staff in one hand and a ferocious scowl on his face, which they turned upon any children or dogs foolish enough to come too near. The two women talked around the edges of important matters, exchanging bits of information about the Horsekin while never touching directly on the situation in the Rhiddaer, but even so,
Zatcheka was as wary as a cat walking along a kennel fence and eyeing the hounds below.

“You know,” Dallandra said at last, “your son thought I was a demigod at first, too, but he soon came to realize that I was flesh and blood like him.”

“It be very kind of you to try to set me at ease. I do believe you, mind,” Zatcheka said. “Never think that I would call your words untrue.”

“Oh, I wasn't worried about that. I know it must be a hard thing to get used to, after believing your whole life that—”

One of the guards shrieked. The two women spun around to find both men waving their staves in the general direction of the sky. Overhead Arzosah soared, seemingly the size of a big silver owl at her distance, but she spiralled ever closer.

“Ah, it's Rhodry,” Dallandra said. “The man I was telling you about.”

“He be a mazrak of great power, if he ken the taking of dragon form.”

“Nah, nah, nah, I'm sorry! He's not the dragon. He tamed her, and he's riding her. That's all.”

“All?” Zatcheka gave her a sickly look that was perhaps meant to be a smile.

“I'll introduce you, and you'll see what I mean,” Dallandra said. “We'd best go over to Citadel.”

When the dragon dropped out of sight to land, they hurried back to the camp, but there they found Jahdo, standing outside Dallandra's tent, his hands full of charms and talismans, dangling from a pair of leather thongs. Zatcheka considered him with a thoughtful frown.

“Be this the lad who did attend upon my Meer?”

“It is, truly,” Dallandra said. “I wonder what he's got.”

With a shout Jahdo trotted over to meet them. They all stood just outside the camp down near the lakeshore, while the two guards kept would-be eavesdroppers away.

“Dalla?” he said. “These things do belong to the lady Zatcheka. I mean, they did belong to her sons, and I did save them, and I wager she'll be a-wanting them.”

When Zatcheka saw the thongs and their many small
burdens, she sobbed once, then held out her hands. Jahdo bowed to her and laid the thongs carefully on her palms.

“The one in your left hand, my lady? That I did take from Thavrae's body as he lay on the battlefield. The one in your right—” Jahdo's voice dropped sharply, he gulped hard and went on. “That did belong to Meer, and he were slain by a coward's arrow when the Horsekin were a-sieging our walls.”

“The blessings of all the gods be upon you.” Zatcheka tipped back her enormous head and howled, a long high note that seemed to stick in the wall like a spear. The guards turned, saw the talismans in her hands, and joined her in a second long howl of keening.

“It aches my heart that I did bring you grief,” Jahdo went on. “But Meer, he did tell me that there be a need on any man who finds such things to bring them back to the mother who bore the slain.”

“You've not brought me grief, young Jahdo, but joy, for if the gods guide me safely home, I shall be able to hang these in the temple, where they belong.” Tears welled in her eyes. “And then their souls will rest at last.”

“May peace wrap them in soft arms,” Dallandra said. “You have my heartfelt sympathy for your loss.”

“My lady?” Jahdo bowed to Zatcheka. “I do miss Meer powerful bad. He did treat me like a son, not a servant. I'll not be forgetting him, not if I live to see a hundred winters.”

“My thanks to you for that speaking.” Zatcheka was staring at the talismans in her hands.

“There be another thing,” Jahdo went on. “The white horse over there? See you him, tethered with the others? His name be Bahkti, and he did belong to Meer.”

“In truth, the horse be mine.” Zatcheka looked up, her face so still that it might have been painted stone. “I did let him but borrow Bahkti for his journey. But my thanks for his safe return. Later, young Jahdo, I think me I shall find a little gift for you to show my gratitude.”

“I should be honored, my lady, but truly, I expect naught. Meer was my friend.”

For a moment Zatcheka's mask of stone seemed on the verge of shattering, but she spoke in a level voice.

“Here, mazrak, let me not stay you. There be a need on me to remain here with my grief, but truly, you'd best give the townsfolk balm for their fears of that beast.”

“True spoken,” Dallandra said. “We'll talk more later, if that pleases you. Jahdo, come show me how to get over to the island.”

Since Dallandra had never paddled a boat in her life, she was more than thankful that Jahdo rowed them across. Through the mists drifting across the water she saw Citadel looming above them, closer and closer until at last they ran aground at the sandy shore. While Jahdo beached the coracle properly she stood looking up the winding path that led twixt white buildings to the summit. She could hear distant shouting.

“I hope they don't try to hurt Arzosah,” she remarked. “Not that they could, but if they provoked her—”

“My people, they be not stupid,” Jahdo said. “And Werda does live right nearby the plaza. She'll be holding them off.”

“She's your Spirit Talker? Niffa mentioned that name.”

“She is that.”

After a long climb uphill that left Dallandra panting for breath, they reached the stone-paved plaza and found themselves in the midst of a small crowd of townsfolk, all huddled together. Some of the men carried staves and flails, but they seemed in no hurry to use them. At the far side, where worked stone buildings ended in a tumble of boulders, stood a tall woman with grey hair that hung free to her waist. She was wearing a white cloak thrown back from her shoulders, and she carried a wood staff, bound here and there along its length with flat silver rings—Dallandra could see them winking in the sun as the woman moved.