The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (37 page)

Either way, his arm had stopped hurting, and his chest. He yanked up his sleeve and watched as the wounds closed, then smoothed as neatly as if they had never been there. Matt found himself wondering if they had.

Then he bent his arm, and decided they'd been real. He'd have to use that arm delicately for an hour or two--and take shallow breaths.

He glanced at Tuck. The color had returned to the friar's face, and he was breathing more easily. "Praise Heaven!" He sighed. "We are well again." Matt glanced out over the courtyard and saw a few men picking themselves up, looking amazed and making the Sign of the Cross. Apparently Tuck's spell had been broadcast; Matt wondered how many of the enemy's wounded the friar had healed, too. That wasn't so good--they could have hundreds more enemies to fight, all over again...

He leaped up, winced, and climbed up to the battlements--stiffly, but without much more than a set of aches. He looked out over the slope and saw all the enemy wounded still lying where they lay, calling out for help.

"I can only aid those who are in a state of Grace, or wish to be." Matt turned around to see that Friar Tuck had come up behind him. "I should think," he said slowly, "that they're in great shape to realize the error of their ways."

"Some, no doubt--mayhap most, now that they are removed from the influence of their army's sorcerer."

"Or now that he has removed himself from them," Matt demurred.

"Even so. But there be those in whom hatred for all things good and Godly has grown so strong that they will not even now repent." That struck a false note. Matt looked at him narrowly. "Not trying to come up with excuses ahead of time, are you?"

"Never!" Tuck looked up at him in indignation.

"Sorry, I didn't really mean it," Matt said quickly. "Just habit. I owe you an awful lot of thanks, Friar."

"Then aid me with these enemy wounded." Tuck turned away. "Come with me; I must visit the sick."

Matt frowned, wondering why the friar wanted him along. Then he remembered that he could heal the bodies as soon as Tuck had healed the soul, and followed after.

They joined the soldiers who were collecting fallen weapons and stray arrows. They also gathered up the extra crossbow bolts and other munitions that had been stored away, plus any hardware the army had left in its flight. Then they filed back into the castle, much more slowly than they had gone out, for Friar Tuck checked every load to be sure that nothing under an evil spell was being brought back into the castle. A few items did indeed grate on him, apparently having been put to some rather gruesome uses; Tuck even drew away, repulsed, by one or two. The soldiers threw them back among their dead owners. The incident set Matt to thinking of Trojan horses, and being very glad Friar Tuck was there.

The checking would have been even slower if Puck hadn't been screening the peasants before they got to the friar. He rode unseen within Sir Guy's helmet, murmuring to him as he walked among the peasants and soldiers. Ostensibly, the Black Knight was keeping up morale that had never been higher, congratulating the defenders and thanking them for their loyalty and faithfulness. Matt, however, had adamantly refused to help out. He knew his own limitations and had no illusions about the amount of goodness in his soul. He knew himself to be secretly vengeful, with a repressed streak of cruelty. It never occurred to him that Tuck might have had similar failings, kept in check only by stern self-control. Matt had not quite yet realized that morality is not an inborn trait and does not come naturally.

"We can't stay here, though," he told Sir Guy, when all the peasants and soldiers were back in, and the gates had been closed with the drawbridge up.

"We're sitting ducks."

Sir Guy nodded. "It was needful to seek refuge within this castle when the Army of Evil was hot on our heels; but now that they are gone, we may sally forth once more and carry the battle to them."

Matt felt cold inside at the thought of deliberately confronting that army again--but he nodded anyway. "That's what we came here to do, isn't it? Besides, if we let our soldiers disperse and go back to their homes, they'll be overwhelmed by local sorcerers and their henchmen."

"In unity there is strength," Sir Guy agreed, "though there is no safety for good folk in this land--and none for evil folk, either, if they only knew it."

"Yes. It's just a question of how soon the wolves will turn on each other, isn't it?"

"Not whiles we do move, I fear. Nay, we must band together, no matter where we go. As an army, we have at least some chance of survival." Matt didn't bother mentioning that, in the position they were in, survival depended on winning. It went without saying.

So they gave everyone a chance to catch up on eating and sleeping--though they still rationed the food, at Matt's insistence; he knew what gorging could do to people who'd been on a bare subsistence diet for so long. Between snoozes, the peasants packed food, and the soldiers packed weapons--Sir Guy made it very clear that personal possessions would have to stay behind.

So it was, a long triple file that flowed out across the drawbridge, in the early morning light two days later--an inner file of peasants, many driving carts filled with provisions, with soldiers pacing them on either side. Robin and his band led the way, right behind Sir Guy and Matt.

"So why don't I get to carry the knight?" Narlh growled. "Too low-class, huh?"

"Now, Narlh, you know 'tis naught of the sort," Yverne soothed him. " 'Tis only that Sir Guy is accustomed to the dragon--and I most surely am not." She shuddered.

Narlh immediately softened. "Oh, all right, lady. Yeah, you need to ride just as much as any of the other women--and I wouldn't trust you to that big lunk of lizard. And I suppose the knight shouldn't do much walking, in all that tin he's wearing."

"It would overtax him sorely," Yverne agreed.

Matt reflected that they were in the right country for over-taxing. The day was bright and clear when they set out--but it clouded up fast. About noon, with the clouds lowering about them, Matt began to feel a thickening in the air--not really the atmosphere, of course, but his own personal ambiance. He stepped over next to Stegoman and called upward toward the knight. "Sir Guy?"

"Aye, Lord Wizard?"

"I'm feeling magic thickening about me. Not much, yet, you understand, just the first traces."

The knight frowned and glanced back at Friar Tuck. The clergyman was marching along with a strained face. "Our holy man must sense it, too," Sir Guy said. "He is telling his beads."

Matt looked behind, startled. Sure enough, Friar Tuck had hauled out a rosary large enough to qualify as a minor weapon and was mumbling the old, simple prayers as he fingered the beads.

"What ill do our sorcerous enemies brew for us?" the Black Knight demanded. Matt shook his head. "I don't know--too early to tell. But tell everybody to brace themselves for an attack."

"Whence could it come?" Sir Guy waved an arm at the wide plain all about them. The land stretched away to the horizon, golden with ripening grain--except for the swath of waste where the fleeing army had trampled it. They were marching down the middle of that swath, for it spread twenty yards on either side of the road, reminding Matt that they were marching toward their enemy--who might have pulled his men together by now. The notion didn't exactly improve Matt's state of mind.

Still, Sir Guy had a point. How could there be an ambush in the middle of a plain that made Kansas look hilly? Where would the ambushers hide?

The answer to his question came right after lunch. The army had rested and eaten, packed up the leftovers, and set forth again--but as they marched, the clouds lowered farther and farther, until they touched the earth. The feeling of magic was as thick as the humidity.

"Faugh!" Yverne's voice called from ahead. "What stench is this!"

" 'Tis truly appalling," Maid Marian's voice agreed from farther off. "What evil mist has risen about us?"

"It's the work of sorcerers, whatever it is," Matt called back.

"Are they nearby?" Sir Guy's voice demanded.

"I doubt it," Matt called back. "They're probably still with their army. They can hex us quite easily from there, I assure you--especially since they've already been over this bit of terrain, and we haven't."

"Anything could hide in this fog!" Sir Guy growled.

"You can say that again," Matt called back. "In fact, say anything! Just keep talking, or I won't be able to tell where you are."

"Halt!" the Black Knight cried, and Stegoman slowed and stopped. Matt fumbled toward them, felt a scaly hide under his hand, then saw the slab of Stegoman's side loom out of the mist--and, above, some dark object that must be Sir Guy. "We cannot march amid such blindness," the knight called down. "Hold to the dragon's tail, Lord Matthew, and bid another hold to you. Then, mayhap, we can wend our way to light and safety."

"Not too much wending," Matt cautioned. "We could get trapped going around in a circle forever."

"Thou hast the right of it," Stegoman agreed. "Nay, are we marching west still? Or have we turned already?"

"I'll find out," Narlh's voice said. "Lady, if you would climb down for a few minutes?"

"Surely." There was the slithering sound of cloth against scales. "But what mean you to do, good monster?"

"There's the wizard, over there. Say something, Wizard!"

"Right over here, Yverne," Matt called. "That's right, here--take my hand..."

Yverne caught his fingers and stepped close to him with a shudder. "I had thought myself lost, even in the space of two strides!"

"You could have been," Matt assured her. "But back to your first question--Narlh, what're you trying--"

Wings thundered as huge feet pounded away, then ceased.

"Alley!" Matt swore, not daring to use the first word in Ibile. "He's flying!"

"He shall lose himself!" Stegoman cried. "Knight, dismount--or ride high!"

"What do you mean to do!" Sir Guy cried--but he slid to the ground anyway, then was almost bowled over in the backblast from Stegoman's wings as the dragon leaped into the sky.

"Watch out!" Narlh's voice thundered from overhead. "Where do you think you're going, you plate-nosed platypus?"

"To find thee!" Stegoman rumbled, his voice dwindling. "Nay, come down!

Thou'lt be lost forever in this fog!"

"There's got to be a top to it, somewh--Ow! Get off my back!"

"I am not on it, thou dunderheaded drake! Thou hast e'en now collided with mine!"

"Yeah, and those fins hurt, too! What're you doing flying upside down?"

"Upside down?" Stegoman cried, outraged. "Why, thou half-brained half hawk, I am an upright dragon in every sense of the term! 'Tis thou who art inverted!"

"Look, lay off the fancy language and tell me why you're flying with your back to the earth!"

"I am not!" Stegoman howled. " 'Tis thou who dost roll as thou dost fly!"

"Well, sheer off, then! I'm going to find the top of this fog if it kills me!"

"Nay!" Stegoman cried in a panic. "We have need of thee! Thou art too good a monster to squander thy life so untimely!"

There was no answer, except for a high, long, fading screech, as of a falcon stooping.

"He has gone!" Stegoman's voice grew louder. "Nay, Sir Knight, call out to me, so that I may land not too far from thee!"

"Back, everyone!" Sir Guy called. "Back, but stay linked by touch! Give the dragon room to land!"

"I hear thee!" Stegoman's voice boomed out overhead. "Keep thy call sounding!"

"Come nigh!" Sir Guy called. "Come hither! We await you! Come, kindly dragon! Lower thy great bulk to us again, that we might--" His voice was drowned out by a huge thundering of wing beats that abruptly stilled. Matt strained to see, worried that his friend might have crashed...

"I am landed," Stegoman's voice boomed out. "Come nigh me, friends!" They all started to move, but Matt called "Wait! We might miss you in the fog! Give us a light!"

Stegoman roared, and Matt saw a dim orange glow ahead and to his right. He slogged over to it, picking up Sir Guy on the way and pulling Yverne at full reach behind him. He was careful to note just how far he was angling away from his former direction of travel. Then he felt Stegoman's scales under his hand, and called out, "We're here!"

The roaring stopped, and he heard Yverne weeping softly behind him. Sir Guy said, "Nay, fear not, maiden. You know the dragon to be a good friend and true. His roar is fearsome, aye, but only for our enemies, not for us."

"You are a great comfort, Sir Knight!" Yverne said, and there was a quality to her voice that kindled jealousy within Matt. "I am assured. But what of our friend the dracogriff

"Dumb beast," Stegoman growled. "Flew away. Up high. Couldn't fmda topsh ofa cloudzh, and izh shtill tryin'."

Matt looked up, alarmed. He tried to stall it, and called, "You need to turn around, Stegoman! We're going the other way."

"How y' know?" But Stegoman slewed around toward Matt, mumbling and looking surly.

Matt frowned. "How's that again?"

"I shaid, shtupid shorsherer who triezh to blind ush all sho he c'n steal our blood," Stegoman grumbled.

Matt felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He would have recognized that slurring anywhere! Stegoman was drunk again.

But how? On what? Had Matt's cure for his hatchling trauma worn off somehow?

Or been counteracted?

Or...

"Vile shtuff musht be shtraight from Hell," Stegoman muttered.

"Even so." Sir Guy frowned. "Is't not made by a demon, Sir Matthew?"

"You bet it is!" Now Matt recognized that vile smell--it was charred rum!

"Uh, come on, Stegoman. We've got to get out of this fog, before we suffocate."

"Ohh, awright." The dragon lifted his head. "Uh...which way izh out?"

"That way!" Matt pointed straight ahead with total conviction. "I was careful to keep facing the same way I had been as I angled over toward you! Just turn around and head that way! We'll be right on your tail!"

" ' Sh not long enough for all of you." Stegoman lumbered around, headed roughly the way Matt was pointing, and started waddling.