The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (32 page)

"This abomination is an insult to all Dragondom, and a trespasser besides!" the dragon howled.

"It was my beast of a father who was the abomination, you half-crocked-dile!" Narlh bellowed. "He seduced my mother and flew laughing away! Her, the most beautiful, innocent griffin that ever was! And you have the gall to defend him?"

The dragon froze. Then he said, in glacial tones, "No. And if 'tis true, he will die battling a dozen dragons. His is the right of defense, but ours is the privilege of enforcing our law. Only tell me his name, and I will hale him before the High Council, to answer for his misdeeds with tooth and flame."

"I don't know his name!" Narlh bleated in agony. "He didn't exactly leave us his pedigree and his coat of arms, y'know! All he left was me--and a ravaged soul!"

The dragon crouched, eyes smoldering. At last, he said, "His deed shames me, and all dragonkind. We will seek him out, we will tear him."

"Oh, yeah, sure! The only thing you tear is half-fledged wanderers with dreams in their heads!"

The dragon glowered at him, then said, "None may enter the realm of the Free save themselves alone--or their guests."

Matt decided it was time to jump in--literally. He landed between the two cages, holding up a palm toward the dracogriff. "Hold it, Narlh!" The monster gulped, then coughed and gasped. "Don't do that, Wizard! You know what it's like to swallow a fireball?"

The dragon stared, then swung his head toward Matt. "He is thy friend, Matthew!"

"Yes," Matt said. "He has saved my life twice, at least." Narlh stared, frozen. Then, slowly, he turned his head toward Matt, and there was bitterness and blame in every line of his face.

"Don't look at me like that!" Matt held up both hands, beseeching. "There's a reason for it--what Stegoman did to you! He wouldn't do it again for the life of him!"

"Oh?" Narlh's syllable dripped sarcasm. "I suppose a demon made him do it, huh?"

"Of a kind, yes--the demon rum, or its first cousin."

"Doing what?" Sir Guy stepped up, frowning from one beast to the other, his hand on his sword.

"Burned Narlh and chased him out of the air, so badly that he fell, and just barely survived," Matt said, his voice low. "Stegoman was on sentry duty at the border of Dragondom, Sir Guy--and he was drunk."

Narlh stared.

Then he said, "Drunk? A dragon, drunk? What'd he do, drink a brewery?"

"Nay." Stegoman's face set into rocky lines. "Mine own fumes. When I breathed flame, I became giddy and crazed. I was rent for that, monster--my wings were torn in many places; I was condemned to crawl upon the ground for hurting other dragons."

"Oh, sure, dragons! But who cares about a lowly dracogriff, huh?"

"None saw that," Stegoman confessed, "or I might have been taken from the air much sooner."

"Sure. Right. A model of justice, these dragons." Stegoman's eyes narrowed. "Do not mock."

"Why not?" Narlh blasted. "Who're you trying to feed the big lie, lizard? So you were grounded, huh? Then how'd your wings get healed?"

"By Matthew," Stegoman said simply.

Narlh stared at him. Then, slowly, he turned toward Matt again. "You traitor."

"I hadn't even met you yet! Besides, Narlh, I cured his drunkenness, too! He can breathe enough flame to fire a steam engine for a hundred miles and not even be tipsy! That's why I know he wouldn't fry you now!"

" 'Tis true," Stegoman said "I would summon other dragons and chase thee away from our borders, aye--yet not even that, if thou wert to tell me of thy complaint against one of our number."

"Sure," Narlh said. "Sure." But he didn't bellow this time. Then he turned to Matt. "If you're such good buddies, how come he isn't traveling with you anymore?"

"Because," Stegoman said, "Matthew is a wedded man, and cannot go gadding about on a quest--and there's no place at court for a dragon."

"There will always be a place for you at Alisande's court!" Matt protested. A hint of a smile showed at the corners of the saurian's mouth. "Bless thee for thy fond protestations, Matthew--yet even had I stayed, thou wouldst have had scant time for the company of a confirmed old bachelor like myself. Nay, a wife leaves a man little time for unwed friends."

Sir Guy frowned. "I would not say--"

"Nor would I," Matt cut in, "considering that I didn't marry her." Stegoman stared. "Not marry..."

Sir Guy looked up, startled "Why, how is this, Matthew?"

"Alisande has this thing about being nobly born." Matt shrugged the issue away. "I developed a certain desire for a higher station in life." Sir Guy lifted his head slowly, looking more and more worried as he went.

"Desire, yeah." Narlh's jaw lolled open in a grin. "And a big mouth. Tell

'em about your little memory lapse, Wizard."

"Memory lapse?" Stegoman turned to Matt, frowning. Matt felt his face grow hot. "I, uh...kind of bent the Third Commandment a little..."

"Bent?" Narlh hooted. "He bent it so far it snapped back!"

" 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain'?" Sir Guy turned very somber. "What did you call Him to witness, my friend?"

"I'll, uh, tell you later." Matt forced a sickly grin. "Suffice it to say that it resulted in my undertaking a quest remarkably similar to your own."

"And not entirely voluntarily." Finally, a smile broke through Sir Guy's cloudy mood. "Well, no matter how you are come, you are well come! I thank all the saints for your presence; now I can hope!"

"So can I," Narlh growled. "Hope these bars'll rust! If I have to wait that long to get at that overgrown salamander, it'll be worth it!"

"Salamander? Why, thou knowest not of what thou dost speak, foolish halfling!"

"Halfling?" Narlh leaped forward, slamming into the bars and bumping the whole cage forward a yard. "You take that back, you nettled newt! Or so help me, I'll haul my brass over there and toast you for a mallow!"

"Thy cage is iron, not brass," Stegoman snorted, "and thou hast but half a brain! Half a brain, half a dragon, half a griffin--why, thou art so many things thou art naught of any, least of all a dragon!"

"I've had it!" Narlh bellowed. He threw himself against the bars, bumping his cage closer and closer to Stegoman's. "You high-and-mighty hypocrite! You self-righteous, pompous excuse for a syllabub! You're the kind of flag-waving traitor who'd turn around and lead a hunter to a nest, to kill the hatchlings for their blood!"

"I? Never!" Stegoman roared, outraged--and Narlh had to duck the tip of his flame. "I, stoop to so vile a vengeance? To crawl beneath the lowest of the low?

How durst thou accuse me of such! Blood must answer! Wizard, take away these bars, for I am hot for..." He suddenly froze.

Matt looked at the dragon's eyes and made a guess as to what was going on in his mind.

Narlh turned to him, narrow-eyed. "What'd you do to him?"

"Nothing," Matt said, low-voiced. "I think he's just realized how come you would think of such a vile insult."

"Aye." Stegoman gazed at the dracogriff out of hooded eyes. "Thou, too, hast known their horrors, hast thou not? Thou wast not the only egg hatched from thy brood, wast thou?"

Narlh, glared, outraged. Then he whipped his head around to Matt. "You told!"

Matt shook his head. "I didn't know. You never told me. You were here, you heard--I didn't say a word about it."

"Why else wouldst thou have thought of such scum?" Stegoman said. "Why else wouldst thou think that the nadir of life-forms is the hunter who doth seek out hatchlings to drain and sell their blood, even as they destroy those of dragons?

Thou must needs have known them, must thou not?"

"Awright awready! So I ran, I flew, I fled! The fiend was towering up into the sky, from where I was! I was only two feet long! I chickened out, all right?

I didn't even try to fight! Now you know! Y' happy now?" Then Narlh bowed his head, his voice choked, hushed. "All of 'em! All my brothers and sisters, all five! And I didn't even raise a claw to defend 'em! Well, almost none." His head snapped up, glaring at Stegoman. "I did scratch his face for him! And my sister almost got away! But he..." He choked and turned his face aside.

"None can blame thee," Stegoman said quietly. "Thou didst fight whiles thou couldst, and fled when thou couldst not fight. Nay, I, too, fled, for the wight was far too huge for me."

Narlh looked up, startled. "You...?"

"I was not born vast, no more than thou wert," Stegoman reminded him. "I, too, was hunted by these vile humans, who pander to the more depraved of the sorcerers." He turned to Matt. "Take off these bars, Wizard!"

"Hey, hold on!" Narlh bellowed. "If you let him out, you got to..." He stared as his cage faded away. "I didn't even hear you talk."

"You were kind of loud." Matt was beginning to understand a lot about his monstrous friend.

Stegoman waddled up toward Narlh. The dracogriff braced himself, but the dragon only said, "Come. We must discuss how we will clear the earth of these vile sorcerers, who buy our blood--how we will chase them, as their minions have chased us, and scour them from the land, thou and I."

Narlh stared at him for a few long minutes.

Then he nodded. "Yeah, sure. Awright " He turned his head a little away, eyeing Stegoman narrowly. "Truce?"

"Truce," Stegoman confirmed, "and peace, if thou wilt, for no greater reason than our common friendship with one of the few wizards who doth disdain to feed his power from others' lives. Nay, and if thou dost wish to seek justice for thy mother, I will myself escort you into Dragondom--when this coil is done, and Ibile is cleansed."

"Yeah. Yeah, sure." Narlh nodded, faster and faster. "Yeah, we'll get the wizard to work up the right verses, and tear 'em outa their lairs!...You really think we got a chance?"

"As to that..." Stegoman said, and led the other monster away, chatting quietly, plotting mayhem.

People began to look out of arrow slits and doorways, wondering if the quiet in the courtyard meant anything trustworthy.

Sir Guy blew out a shaky breath. "For an instant, I feared our keep would be tumbled from within! Yet I doubt me not we have strengthened our forces amazingly, by these two monsters' union." He forced a grin and finally managed to clasp Matt's hand, slapping him on the shoulder. "And you do strengthen us tenfold! How good of you to come, Matthew! Yet how did you know we stood in your need?"

"Mostly because I had a friendly ghost trying to lead me somewhere--and when Max showed up beside him for a minute, I knew he was showing me the way toward you." Matt grinned, massaging his hand and trying to ignore the sudden ache in his shoulder. "So how's the quest been? Doesn't look like a total bust."

"Well, we are alive," Sir Guy said, "and that's no small task, after three years' sojourn in this land of evil."

"It's well-nigh impossible! But that was always your kind of job. Was Max any help?"

Sir Guy opened his mouth, but the spark was there, dancing in the air between them and humming, "Not a whit! This great lout of a knight kens no more the use of my powers than he knows of the shape of the earth." Sir Guy reddened. "The earth is flat, Demon, as all do know!"

"He will not believe 'tis round!" the spark keened in exasperation. "Nay, the best he can think to have me do is to kindle fires in siege engines--a task that he could achieve with an arrow and a bit of tow!"

Matt shook his head in commiseration. "Sounds like a rough three years for both of you." He'd never seen Sir Guy run out of patience before. "Maybe it's a good thing I came."

"Aye, if he will give me back into your direction again!"

"Done!" Sir Guy snapped, with as much relief as anger. "Go you again to your old master..."

"Friend!" Max snapped

"Friend, then." Sir Guy eyed Matt as though he doubted the term. "Let him direct you--and I will cleave to the steel that is my heritage!"

"Shoemaker, stick to thy first." Matt held out a hand, and Max darted up his cuff. He turned back to Sir Guy. "Maybe I can be some help here, after all."

"First?" Sir Guy frowned. "Wherefore should a cobbler adhere to a first?"

"Think about it. In the meantime, though, let me compliment you on three years of amazingly good work." Matt surveyed the tents pitched against the walls, the overflowing stables, and the stalwart peasants who were just now getting back to their evening chores, almost certain the monsters were done fighting.

Sir Guy nodded. "I thank you. And, yes, this is a worthy accomplishment--to gather together these few of Ibile's four estates who as yet live free of corruption."

"All four?" Matt looked up, alert for implications. "Clergy, nobility, commoners, and serfs? You found a few priests still alive?"

"Some dozen, from a proud Archbishop, whom Stegoman and I succored from a siege of evil that would surely have been his death, to a humble trio of nuns--all that was left of their abbey--who did come to us in the guise of beggars, to seek shelter among us. Yet their prayers gave us more strength than they took, 'gainst evil sorcery."

"Nice gleaning," Matt said, amazed. "But how about the nobility? I thought Gord--uh, the king, had been busy kicking out any lords who looked to be virtuous."

"He did, but some few hacked and hewed their way free, and roamed the countryside, defending the poor where they could and eluding his sorcerers and knights as well as they might. One by one, they came to us, estranged and dispossessed, but alive, and still a mighty force in the land." Matt remembered the link between the land of Merovence and its people, and how the land virtually repelled a usurper--or sickened under his rule. "Well, between them and the common folk, you have a fair amount of strength concentrated here."

"Aye, if we can endure."

"I'd guess you could hold out for years." Matt looked at the fortifications around him. "This castle looks pretty sturdy."

"It is, a valiant maiden. She has guarded this confluence of waterways for three hundred years, never taken. Twice has she withstood siege and emerged victorious--but never against a host so wicked and so powerful as Penaldehyde."

"Penaldehyde?" Matt frowned. "What kind of weapon is that?" Sir Guy smiled without mirth. "A living weapon, Sir Matthew, and as mighty a one as resides in the king's arsenal. Nay, Penaldehyde is a sorcerer most truly steeped in wickedness, whom the king wields as the sword of his right hand."