The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) (25 page)

“Are you her mate?” he asked the male sharply, prepared to debate the female’s right to an opinion. He realized a moment later he shouldn’t have bothered.

“She is my sister!” the youthful male screamed in fury. Then he charged. There was no mistaking his intent. He wanted to split Seagryn’s skull.

While he’d never been attacked by a tugolith, Seagryn had battled scores of playground bullies. Dodging to one side, he watched the tugolith race on past him, a slave to its own tremendous momentum. Seagryn glanced around to insure no other beast was charging, then turned to face his angry assailant.

Berillitha’s brother made a long turn, slipping slightly in the snow, then started back again, looking more vengeful than before. Seagryn waited until the last moment, then leaped aside again. The male rumbled into the midst of the wheel this time, scattering the others before managing to get himself righted once more. He didn’t hesitate to charge again.

How could he handle this situation to cause the least damage, Seagryn wondered. He didn’t want to hurt the beast — he wanted to join these creatures, after all. Should he fight as a tugolith? Change shapes and fight as a man? He could use his magic that way, of course. Then again, he’d also lose his chance to identi —

Crack!
He’d thought too long and acted too little, and this creature he fought could learn. This time as Seagryn jumped to the side, the tugolith changed course to meet him. For the first time his horn felt the impact of a tugolith blow struck in anger, and Seagryn not only went back onto his hindquarters, he continued on over them, somersaulting backward in the snow. He scrambled immediately to his feet, but not quickly enough. The tugolith jabbed his tusk savagely into Seagryn’s exposed flank, and the wizard now understood for himself why young Berillitha had yelped. The horn piercing his side felt like a dagger thrust between the ribs. Fortunately he’d been rolling away from the attack, and the wound did not go deep.

Seagryn bounded forward, then lost his footing on the ice and slid down onto his belly. He spun around on it so that he faced backward. Once again he proved lucky; though his body was out of control, his horn was still between himself and the next charge, and he was able to angle his head to parry the brother’s attack. This one hurt less than those previous, but it propelled him backward across the ice, and Seagryn decided he’d had enough. He turned human just long enough to explode a fireball in the young tugolith’s face and dive sideways into a snowdrift. When he shot back out of it a moment later, again in his tugolith-form, the entire wheel encircled him, their armored jaws gaping down to the ice in astonishment.

“I told you,” Berillitha said triumphantly. “He’s the Wiser.” The lead tugolith took a hesitant step forward and asked Seagryn quietly, “Are you the Wiser?”

Of course he had no idea what that meant. But it sounded a lot like wizard, and Seagryn could willingly admit he was that. If being the Wiser could save him from any further punctures from that young monster’s horn, Seagryn determined he could certainly learn to play the role. “I am,” he said clearly. He hoped he sounded convincing.

He evidently did. The lead tugolith looked around at the other members of the wheel, then said with great solemnity, “This is the Wiser.” They all nodded — and stared.

“Now then,” Seagryn thought to himself. “Just what does a Wiser
do
?”

Chapter Twenty-three

BOUNCING LESEFS

“YOU are the Wiser,” the leader of the wheel intoned expectantly. Then he stepped back into his place in the circle, and waited.

Seagryn turned slowly about, examining each member of the wheel in turn. He hoped this looked wise. He also hoped he might see in one of these faces how he was expected to behave. When he got to young Berillitha, he stopped. An idea had come.

“You were the one who recognized me,” he said boldly, and he paused to give her a chance to respond.

“Yes,” she said at last. Just that. Nothing more.

“I see.”

While he puzzled over what to do next, she responded to that comment too. “We can all see.”

Seagryn looked at her. “Yes.” He hoped she might elaborate, but apparently she’d spoken her whole mind on the matter and that was that. Now what?

It dawned on Seagryn that perhaps none of these tugoliths had ever seen a Wiser before. Was it possible that none of them knew how he was to act either? He had, after all, committed some grievous social blunders, yet now they seemed to be hanging upon his every word. He decided it was worth a try. “Do you have names?” he asked in a voice full of authority.

“Yes,” several of them answered him, and he waited expectantly. Nothing. Seagryn was discovering these were extremely literal-minded beasts.

“Tell me your names.”

They did as he asked, but since they all spoke at once it did him little good. He turned around to face the old leader and said, “Your name again?”

“Yashilitha,” the leader said, and Seagryn nodded curtly and turned to the wrinkled female standing beside him. She spoke her name in turn, and Seagryn continued on around the wheel this way until he faced Yashilitha again. He’d made a great show of looking interested in each name as it was said, but the only one he recalled besides those of the leader and Berillitha was that of Gadolitha, the hot-tempered brother who had buried his horn tip in Seagryn’s hide. The young male seemed docile at the moment, but did a smirk of disbelief play around his black-ridged lips? Seagryn would remember Gadolitha — and watch him closely.

They followed his instructions without question. A Wiser was evidently a leader of some sort, so Seagryn decided to express his leadership. “You are hungry,” he said, and the entire wheel stamped and shuffled in agreement. “We will go to the food.” He started toward the edge of the wheel, expecting them to part and let him through. They didn’t. Had he guessed wrongly? Were they not going to follow him after all?

Seagryn gazed into the faces of a pair of tugoliths who looked back at him blankly. “Let me pass,” he instructed, hiding his concern. They stepped aside. “Seagryn,” he mumbled to himself, “these are
very
literal beasts. Follow me!” he called loudly, and he started back through the frozen landscape in the direction from which he’d come. After a moment, he glanced surreptitiously behind to see if anyone had obeyed him and saw that indeed they had. He was being followed by the whole wheel, walking two by two. Seagryn faced forward, feeling justly proud of himself. Not only had he made contact with these enormous beasts, but they were even willing to follow him!

By the time they reached the line of lesef holes late in the afternoon, however, Seagryn’s high spirits had been lowered considerably. You wouldn’t know it to look at them, he thought to himself, but tugoliths were terrible whiners. Not long after the beginning of their march he began to hear criticism of his leadership issuing from behind. One beast expressed displeasure at his poor choice of pathways through the ice, and another responded — was that Gadolitha’s snide voice? — “A Wiser should know better.” When it became apparent where they were bound, the complaints grew sharper and came with more frequency.

“We are going to the cliffs.”

“We can’t get through the holes.”

“We will burn our toes.”

“The Wiser is not wise.” Gadolitha again? Seagryn wanted to look around and check but refused to reveal that he even heard their comments.

“I’m tired.”

“Let’s rest.”

“I don’t like to burn my toes.”

“We should stick the Wiser.”

That had been Gadolitha; Seagryn was certain of it. He whirled around suddenly and glowered back at the startled column. “Now listen! No one is going to stick me! We are going to food! No one’s toes will be burned!”

“The lesefs will burn our toes,” a wheel member interrupted, and Seagryn was about to shout her down when he realized this was Berillitha who had spoken and he stopped himself.

He pondered his next move a moment, then commanded “Berillitha! Come and walk with me.”

He knew immediately he’d done it again. Yashilitha fell choking to his knees, and Gadolitha rolled his eyes twice and stared at Seagryn, aghast. Berillitha’s expression could not be seen, for she’d buried her head in a nearby snowdrift. The other female members of the wheel were hooting softly in either laughter or shame. But what could he do now, besides carry through with what he’d begun? He needed Berillitha’s advice. If his asking for it humiliated her somehow, it couldn’t be helped — that certainly hadn’t been his attention. “I am the Wiser,” he reminded them all sternly, and the hooting faded away. “Berillitha, come here!”

The wheel stared at him silently. It was Berillitha who eased the tension. She pulled her face out of the drift, walked to the head of the line with great dignity, and waited there, facing forward, for his command. “Follow me,” he shouted again and with great relief saw the wheel start walking once more. Berillitha matched her pace to his, saying nothing. “Now,” he said in a moment. “How do the lesefs burn your toes.”

Berillitha glanced at him as if amazed that he wouldn’t already know, but she did answer. “We step in their holes. They fill up. They pop. Their juice burns our toes.” She took a deep breath after this, as if she’d just delivered a speech of major proportions.

“Can’t you go around their holes?”

“There are many lesefs.”

“I understand. But aren’t burned toes better than starving?”

“Burned toes stay burned. Bad burns turn black. Whole wheels died.” Again Berillitha labored for her breath. This walking and talking at the same time was not an easy task for her.

“The burns are that bad —” Seagryn said to himself, letting his sentence trail off.

“Yes. I am your mate.”

Berillitha’s statement took Seagryn very much by surprise. He responded with very natural shock. “What?” he blurted out.

“We have paired,” Berillitha observed, glancing down at the way they walked together.

“Ah — wait. You don’t understand. I — I can’t be — paired to you! I — I just wanted some information!”

“Yes,” Berillitha responded, but he had the keen impression she still didn’t comprehend when she repeated, “We are paired.”

“Ah — Berillitha — listen to me. Please! I — I’m not like you. I’m not like the rest of your — wheel. In fact, I’m not even a tugolith!”

“Yes.”

“No! I’m different!”

“Yes. You are the Wiser.”

“But listen, I ...” He struggled to find the words to explain.

“I can hear,” she said encouragingly.

He glanced up and saw they were very near the lines of lesef holes and within sight of the food-laden cliffs beyond. “We will speak of this later!” he announced nervously, and the young female nodded in agreement. His head reeling from the enormity of his
faux pas
, Seagryn struggled to turn his attention to the task at hand. He approached the lesef warrens, and suddenly thousands of yellow fur balls popped out of the ground to eye him with terror and suspicion. Now he really felt up against it, for Seagryn had absolutely no plan for circumventing the furry yellow barrier. When he turned to look back over his shoulder he saw the wheel had formed up behind him and now silently watched his every move. What was he to do?

He couldn’t just stand here looking back at the lesefs. He decided to walk toward them. As if they were one beast, the thousands of little heads dipped perceptibly lower in their dens. He took another step and they ducked deeper, but still watched him carefully. He was close enough now to see — there was indeed no clear path through the perforated ground for a tugolith-sized being. He could do nothing in his altershape. Then it occurred to him that if he revealed himself in human-form, perhaps Berillitha would get a much clearer picture of what he’d been trying to tell her and persist no longer in this notion that they were paired! He changed.

He heard the gasp behind him; while he’d briefly taken his human-form during his battle with Gadolitha, most of the wheel had been watching the explosion of light and not him. Now he felt their eyes upon his back, but he hadn’t time to look. He was already tiptoeing through the potholes, watching yellow balls on every side ducking out of his way. Once on the far side, he dashed to the cliffs, took his altershape and gouged out a dozen eggs with his horn, then turned back into a man and scooped them up in his arms to carry them back through the lesefs to his astonished followers. He distributed the eggs among the wheel, then again turned himself into a tugolith.

“There,” he announced, a bit breathlessly. “Eat.”

They all obeyed. With a single bite, each tugolith disposed of the egg before it, then all turned to gaze at Seagryn again. It didn’t take him long to catch the unspoken meaning of their stares. “More?” he said. “You want more.” They nodded.

Seagryn made another trip. And another. But by the time he weaved his way back through the lesef traps for the fourth time, he was feeling rather put upon and decided another means of doing this had to be found. He had to get the tugoliths through the warrens so they could harvest the cliff eggs for themselves. As he deposited this helping before his bored diners he announced his intention. “I can’t do this for you anymore. Now you must follow me through.”

“Through?” Yashilitha frowned, and the whole group seemed to frown in confusion with him.

“Through the — the lesef holes,” Seagryn tried to explain, but the frowns remained fixed upon faces.

“How?” Gadolitha demanded sharply, and the others all shuffled in agreement with his question. They were like children, these tugoliths! Seagryn’s patience felt sorely tired.

“We must find a way together —” he began, but again Gadolitha demanded:

“How!”

“Patience, Gadolitha,” Seagryn said without feeling any himself. “It may take us some time to —”

“A Wiser would know.”

This was more than he could stand, “I
am
Wiser, Gadolitha! I’ve led you to food and I’ve fed you! Now it’s time for you to use some of your good sense and help me to find a way to —”

“You don’t know,” Gadolitha snorted and he turned his hindquarters in Seagryn’s face and started away.

“Come back here!” Seagryn demanded.

Gadolitha only paused long enough to toss an insult. “You are not a Wiser,” he said contemptuously. “You are a people!”

“Come back!” Seagryn demanded, truly frustrated by this huge beast’s stubbornness. He turned to run back to the line of lesefs and shouted from there, “Come back! I’ll help you get through!” But Gadolitha’s action and Seagryn’s lack of a plan had seriously undermined any influence the wizard had possessed. Several others were turning away to watch Gadolitha, and even Berillitha now wore a doubtful expression. “You mean you’re all going to give up that easily?” he shouted. The wheel responded by turning away.

It had been a difficult day. He’d been abandoned, attacked, punctured, exalted, criticized, and apparently wed. He could not stand being ignored, too. He took his pique out on the nearest thing handy — which happened to be a terrified lesef that stared up at him from his feet. He grabbed up the furry animal in both hands, snarled with contempt as it ballooned to three times its normal size, then suddenly drop-kicked it high into the air over Gadolitha’s head. It took off with a squeal, and Seagryn was immediately astonished at his own insensitivity. But when he saw it hit the ice on the far side of the departing wheel and bounce up almost as high into the sky beyond them, he realized he really couldn’t have hurt the little animal very much. Apparently they were made to absorb such shocks. Besides, he’d discovered booting it had felt quite satisfying — so much so he wanted to do it again. He grabbed up another lesef and kicked this one in the same direction, and when it bounced over the heads of the retreating tugoliths they stopped and looked back at him in panic. These were, after all, the little beasts that had caused their toes such pain in the past. Was the Wiser punishing them now for their disloyalty by raining the fiery creatures on their heads?

Seagryn was puzzled by why the little animals didn’t explode when they hit the ice, but he decided that was easily explainable. Crushed within the walls of their burrows by heavy tugolith feet, they had to burst — there was no other place for the air inside their inflated skins to go. But out here there was no need — they could bounce on along for some distance; yet once at rest, they could quickly find their tiny feet and scamper back into their holes —

“A path — I can clear you all a path!” Seagryn shouted to the tugoliths who now stared back at him. “Come! Come on! Berillitha! Come here!” As he called to them he was grabbing up swelled lesefs and punting them in every direction. He soon stopped kicking them, finding it much easier just to grab two or three at a time by their shaggy hair and toss them to one side or the other. After a very little time he’d managed to clear a strip through the yellow fur balls at least a tugolith wide, and took his altershape to demonstrate to Berillitha where to step. “Come on!” he instructed. “Come before they all scramble back!”