The Oathbound Wizard-Wiz Rhyme-2 (8 page)

"How should I know? I only saw him from the back! And you might have taken off your sorcerer's robe to fool me. All I know is, he's a sorcerer, and he's still after me."

Matt nodded. "And now he's chased you all the way back into the mountains. Want to tell me about the last try?"

"Maybe it was him, and maybe it wasn't," the dracogriff muttered. "But it was a huge snake, ten feet thick and, I swear, a hundred feet long if it was an inch, with breath that could shrivel the bark off a tree--I saw it do that; there's a whole woodlot, fifty miles in front of us, with naked trunks. And boy, could it move! When I tried to go around, it struck way ahead of me--and when I tried to circle around its tail, it whipped about and struck even farther than its back tip! So I pulled all my nerve together and tried to fly over, but it reared up and snapped at me--I just barely dodged aside in time! So I flew back a mile, then dropped and ran--but it kept coming, faster and faster. Wouldn't come up past the foothills, though."

"Trouble hauling all that mass upward?"

"No, trouble with the rocks I kept throwing down at it; sometimes it pays to be taloned. It went away when the sun set, and I figured I was safe--you know how snakes are about nighttime and cold. But I still got as high up as I could before I settled down for the night, and I made sure I slept where there was a lot of loose rock, so I'd hear it if it came."

"And where it would be really easy for the sorcerer to make a small boulder roll down and pin you."

"Awright! I can't think of everything!" the dracogriff bawled.

"No, and you do have to sleep some time," Matt said, "or you'll drop from sheer exhaustion."

"Yeah." The dracogriff sounded surprised. "Yeah, that's the way of it. You see a little more than your own side, don't you?"

"Well, thanks. I like to think so." Matt hoped he wasn't blushing. He went for a quick change of subject. "You know, I really appreciate the lift."

"I was going that way anyway," the dracogriff growled. "Hey, since it looks as though we're going to be together awhile, you might as well have a name for me. Call me Narlh."

"Narlh," Matt repeated, trying very hard to get the final aspiration correct, feeling honored, and knowing he was right. He suddenly realized he'd made a new friend, and had just added to his load of responsibilities--but it was worth it, worth it. "My name's Matthew; call me Matt."

"Matt," the dracogriff repeated, as though the name had a strange taste.

"Boy, you people have funny names."

"They go back a way," Matt said, careful not to say anything about the dracogriff's name. "Hey, you know a good place to have breakfast?"

Narlh's pace was a lot quicker than Matt's; they went downhill rapidly and passed into a pine forest by midafternoon. The dark trees made Matt nervous, clustering so closely about the roadway--ideal conditions for an ambush, every foot of the way, and there was still the problem of that sorcerer Narlh claimed was chasing him. Not to mention the possibility of more powerful sorcerers, who might have been attracted by Matt's rock-moving spells; but they were a long way away from where the spells had been worked now. Still, the trail was pretty clear...

The gloom deepened toward dusk; the sun was going down, and so was Narlh's mood. He was starting to mutter to himself, and Matt wasn't all that enthusiastic about riding on a resentful monster. "Uh, it looks as though the trees are thinning out over there. How about pitching camp?"

"Fine!" Narlh angled toward the trees so rapidly that Matt lurched and clutched at the saddle. "Look," he said, "I don't mean to be a pain in the neck..."

"It was my idea, wasn't it?" Narlh snapped. He broke through a screen of branches, and Matt saw a clearing spread out about him, fifty feet across.

"Say, now! This is even better than I thought!" He hopped off Narlh's back, then stopped. "Maybe it's a little too convenient." But Narlh wasn't listening. He was pacing away from Matt, following the curve of the trees, rolling his shoulders, spreading and folding his wings, and muttering to himself. Matt could only catch the occasional phrase, such as

"Monkey on my back...confounded shrimp...muscles I didn't even know I had...being obligated to one o' those filthy humans..."

Matt decided he didn't want to know the rest. He shivered, pulling his cloak about him--they were still in the mountains, and the air was developing a real chill with the approach of night. He turned, scouting for fallen branches, and collected an armful. He dumped them in the center of the clearing, then hunted up a dozen large rocks, set them in a ring, and built a campfire in the middle. He glanced up at Narlh, thinking of asking for a light, but the beast was still pacing, and his grumbling had deepened. Matt shrugged, turning away, and fished in his belt pouch for flint and steel. Sure, he could have used a quick spell, but he was still leery of attracting attention, and he did kind of want to stay around for a while. He shaved a stick with his knife, laid it in a bed of dry grass, and struck the flint against the small file. Sparks jumped on the third try, setting the grass a smolder. Matt breathed on the tiny coal, coaxing it into life; it grew bigger and bigger, then set up a flame--which ignited the shavings, and a real fire danced up. Matt sat back on his heels, feeling a glow of accomplishment just as big as anything he'd had from working magic--and bumped into something behind his back. Warily, he looked up, and saw Narlh's dragon snout over his head. The beast was looking at the fire.

"Not bad," the dracogriff grudged. "So your magic makes fires, too, huh?"

"Yes, but this wasn't magic," Matt explained. "Just flint and steel." The dracogriff looked down at him with a glint of respect in its eye. "For real, huh? Hey, I guess you are a fire-maker."

"Well, sure, but so are most people."

The dragon head turned back to the fire. "That's right. I'd forgotten that, about your kind. Maybe you can't breathe fire, but at least you can make the stuff." He looked down at Matt again. "And you can make bigger fires with magic, huh?"

"Sizeable," Matt said carefully. It was reassuring to see Narlh coming out of his dark mood.

"How about food?" The dracogriff turned away without giving Matt time to answer. "Miserable way to travel...nothing to eat, all the game's been killed off..."

Matt frowned. "That's right, there is a siege going on in the neighborhood, isn't there?"

"You betcha, boyo! And those greedy soldiers have hunted down everything larger than a mouse already. Gotta be something, though..." And he shouldered away through the brush, still muttering.

Matt sighed and pushed himself to his feet. Time for him to forage, too--though from what Narlh had said, he wasn't going to find much. He poked around among the trees, not wanting to go too far from the camp fire, and did come up with a few fallen nuts and a bush with a scanty supply of berries. He came back to the fire, hunger gnawing at his belly, picked up a stone, and cracked one of the nuts. He pulled the shell open--and saw a shriveled, mangled bit of meat. "Worms have been here before I have," he muttered. "Well, a real warrior wouldn't need to eat, would he?" He picked up the next nut, set it against the rock, and picked up the stone...

Something slammed down on the ground right next to him. Matt found himself staring at a haunch of venison, unskinned.

"I didn't need it all," Narlh's voice explained. "Figured you might be able to use some. I was full, anyway."

Matt looked up at the gruff, scaly snout above him, amazed. "I thought I was the magician, here! How did you find game where there was none?"

"It was good at hiding," Narlh snorted. "I'm better at finding. Eat." Matt smiled, oddly touched. "Well, thank you, Narlh! But are you sure..."

"A dracogriff can't afford to be logy," Narlh snapped. " I heard your kind needs to scorch it before you eat it."

"Yes, it is nicer that way." Matt started skinning the haunch. "Thanks, Narlh--a lot."

A few minutes later, the venison was roasting on an improvised spit. As soon as the outside was brown, Matt started cutting off slivers. It tasted good, very good--it had been a long time since those breakfast apples.

When the edge was taken off his appetite, he remembered his manners and looked up at Narlh. "Want to try a slice?"

"Don't mind if I do," the dracogriff allowed. "Must be something to be said for it, the way you're wolfing it down."

Matt held out the chunk of meat, which took a fair amount of courage as the huge dragon's head reached down to take it from his fingers. Narlh chewed once, then turned to spit the meat out. "Yuck! Ugh! How can you stand the stuff!"

"Sorry," Matt said, feeling sheepish.

"I guess it smells better than it looks," Narlh growled.

"Must be." Matt kept on trimming until he was full. Then he kept the core of the haunch roasting until it was almost charred on the outside. Well done, it should keep for a day or two--and, though Narlh seemed to be able to find game where there was none, there was no guarantee. Waste not, want not. While it roasted, Matt raked some charcoal from the fire, let it cool, then started drawing--long, straight lines. He still didn't trust the forest.

"It is certain, then?" The queen sat tight-lipped, fingers pressed deep into the plush covering the arms of her throne. "He has crossed into Ibile?"

"Not so much `crossed,' Majesty, as having appeared on the other side of the border." The messenger clenched his hat in his fists, worried about how the queen would react to her fiancé's defection. "The sentry on the topmost crag of Mount Damocles looked away, toward the other side of the range, then looked back--and saw him there. He says he will swear 'twas the Lord Wizard, an you wish him to, for he was in your army at Breden Plain, and stood near to his Lordship in the battle."

"He must have extraordinarily keen eyesight, to be sure of him at such a distance."

"Such clearness of sight he has, Majesty--'tis the cause of his being stationed at the mountain border." The messenger didn't mention the sentry's montagnard grandfather, who assured his descendent a warm welcome in the local villages, as well as keen eyesight.

He didn't have to; Alisande had chosen the mountain sentries herself, and for exactly those reasons. "There is no need to swear; I credit his report."

"He says also that he knew the Lord Wizard by his colors--his golden doublet and azure hose, and by the glinting symbols on his cape." Symbols in a wizard's cloak, one might expect--though why Matthew had chosen to have a block-capital M embroidered in place of the usual stars and crescents mystified Alisande. Monograms she could understand, but Matthew did not strike her as swollen with his own self-importance in any other way. It did, however, make him unmistakable. "I thank you, good courier." She sighed. "Now leave me, and take your refreshment in the kitchens." The messenger stared in surprise, then bowed and backed away the proper distance before turning on his heel and nearly sprinting out of the throne room. He knew the propensity of royalty to take out their vexation with bad news on him who bore it, and was amazed and tenfold more loyal to the queen who showed such self-restraint as to thank him instead!

"He has done it," Alisande murmured to herself, wishing for the hundredth time for a chancellor with whom she could discuss such weighty matters--but that chancellor himself was now the subject of the discussion, and she would have to talk to herself in his absence. "You have done it, my love--you have stridden into the den of lions without care, and may shortly be without head." She shivered, feeling dread hollow her at the thought. "And what choice have I but to follow, and that with all my army, in some faint hope that I may bring you back alive." She shuddered and shook her head. "Ah, my Matthew! Wherefore could you not have thought before you swore?"

But she knew the answer--in fact, she was the answer. She rose to call up her heralds and set the war in train.

Servant, Go Where I Send Thee

The night darkened around the camp fire, and the wind tore at its flames. Matt shivered as he sprinkled the white powder, closing the twenty-foot circle he'd drawn in the dust.

"And just what good is that going to do, I'd like to know?" Narlh humphed.

"A lot, if anything magical tries to get at us tonight." Matt stood up, dusting off his hands. "Or anything not-so-magical, for that matter."

"What's the powder? Lime? Chalk?"

"Talcum," Matt said, embarrassed "It's the only verse I could think of offhand."

"How's it go?"

"I'd like to tell you, but I hate singing commercials. Besides, I don't want another bottle of the stuff right now."

Narlh frowned. "Doesn't seem like much, to keep out a sorcerer."

"Remind me to tell you how to keep elephants away."

"What's an elephant?"

Matt started to answer, then thought better of it. "A mythical beast." He glanced up at the moon, then turned back to inscribing the pair of concentric circles, hurrying now.

"Whatcha scared of?" Narlh demanded. "Something I oughta know about?"

"I should think you would already. The closer we come to midnight, the greater the danger from sorcery."

"Oh, yeah?" Narlh lifted his head, glaring. "So that's why the bum could always sneak up on me! Why didn'tcha tell me this before?"

"Because I only met you today."

"Oh." Narlh frowned, looking away. "Yeah, there is that. Right now, though, I don't see anything to worry about." He lay down, his front legs walking around in a circle as he did, ending curled up with his head on his toes.

"Nothing dangerous because of claws and teeth out there?"

"Naw, and nothing dangerous because of sharp, pointy sticks and big ideas, neither. In fact, not a soul in sight."

Matt nodded. "It's the things without souls that worry me--and the ones who have sold them."

Narlh lifted his head, eyes narrowed, growling low in his throat. "They bother me, too." He eyed the double ring that now surrounded their camp fire, about twenty feet out. "So that's all you have to do to keep sorcerers away?

Just sprinkle a powder?"