Bazil Broketail (36 page)

“Where is my dragon?” he said.

She sucked in a big breath.

“Well, boy, the Broketail is a big dragon. He can look after himself.”

She lay down and felt the boy sobbing against her ribs. Nesessitas curled her tail about him and hoped she was right about that Quoshite; she missed him and had an idea they were going to need him before long.

It was rare for a dragon to feel fear, and yet Bazil Broke-tail could not shake a strange feeling of discomfort that seemed to emanate from the ruins around him.

The moon lit up the tumbled towers and fallen galleries. A few buildings gaped like skulls into the night, their open windows like the empty eyes of the dead. He found himself walking stealthily as if he feared detection.

Massive walls, mounds of rubble with dwarf trees growing atop them, all were illuminated in white moonlight. The sense of foreboding only became more intense.

Then he came onto a broad avenue, stone flagged. Above it loomed the arch of Mach Ingbok. For a long moment he gazed up into the mad face carved in stone.

There was only cruelty and an insane lust for power in that face. He turned away with revulsion and promptly got lost in a maze of ruined courtyards on the far side of the avenue.

He decided to turn back. There was nothing here but rubble and an omnipresent sense of evil. As he worked his way back to the central avenue, near the arch, he heard something to his right, coming from deeper inside the city.

He paused and then heard it again, clearly—the sound of voices. He listened and discerned that there were two women talking together, and there was something familiar about at least one of them. Something tugged at his mind.

And then he saw three men, with drawn dirks and swords, stalking through the ruins towards the voices. Their intent was plain; they were about to kill the speakers.

One voice laughed, and he looked up in surprise and dismay. It was the laugh of Lagdalen, dragon friend of Marneri.

The men with weapons were about to kill her!

Bazil moved, slipping quickly down a sloping alley and around a pile of stone.

The men were close, and he could see the women, Lagdalen and Lessis, in their cloaks of grey with cowls up against the wind. The men were familiar, too; he saw the symbol of the Sixth Talion Light Cavalry on their coats.

Did they really mean to kill the ladies? But why else did they draw weapons and crouch there? What mad treachery was this?

The two figures in grey were very close now. Bazil drew Piocar in silence and stepped forward.

For a moment he thought one of the men had seen him. He was only a dozen paces away, standing in the shadow on the same side of the avenue. The man’s head had turned towards him, then turned away. But the man had noticed nothing.

The women passed Bazil’s position, went on, and the men sprang out of concealment in front of them.

Swords flashed. The girl screamed and tried to run but fell, twisting her ankle. Lessis sprang back, her own knife glittered in her hand. Three men with dirks drawn set against a single woman, caught by surprise.

And suddenly Bazil stood among them with Piocar drawn. The men gaped, their eyes bulged. Baz saw Sergeant Duxe’s earnest features contorted in astonishment. And then despair overtook the surprise.

“What goes on here?” said the dragon in a loud voice.

Subadar Yortch was the man in the center, his face a picture of surprise.

“Why, it’s the Broketailed one, and the lady!” he said.

“By the old gods, we almost slew them!” exclaimed the trooper beside him.

Lessis held her knife in front of her, her eyes glittered as dangerously as the blade, perhaps more so.

She raked them across the men—Duxe wilted.

She knew what they had planned.

“The Broketail, we thought you lost for good,” said Yortch with a slight sob as if he were under great stress.

Bazil looked to Lessis—should he kill them?

“Stay your sword, Sir Dragon,” she said. “There must be an explanation for this. A mistake, I’m sure.”

Yortch was still struggling to compose himself. “There was a report of imps, lady. Imps here in the city. We came to ambush them.”

“Imps?” she said.

“Ah yes,” said the trooper. “I saw them, crystal clear—they were climbing along a wall. I told the subadar and he suggested we take a look. When we heard you coming along, we thought you was the imps.”

“Of course,” she said with a smile. “Well, if there are imps you had better carry on, find them if you can and dispose of them. I will tell Captain Kesepton that you will report back when you find them.”

Duxe had the look in his eyes of a rabbit mesmerized by a weasel. Lessis was dispatching them into the depths of the city to hunt imaginary imps. But they’d already claimed that was their mission; there was no escape.

Duxe stifled a great groan. He was ruined. He knew the lady understood what they had intended. Now she would destroy his career.

Coolly Lessis helped Lagdalen to her feet and walked away. The men were too paralyzed to help. The girl’s ankle was tender at first but gradually the limp ceased.

With a long, searching look at the men, Bazil sheathed Piocar and strode off behind the two figures in grey. He caught up after a few strides.

The lady turned back to him.

“Tell me now, Bazil of Quosh, how came you to be here at such a fortunate moment?”

“Ahum, yes! Well now that is a long story, but let us just say that I was lost and now am found.”

“Found, yes, and in the nick of time.” Lessis reached out and pressed one talon with her hand. For some unknown reason this made his heart seem fit to burst with pride.

They went quickly out of the city and climbed up to the path through the rocks that led to the camp. At the sight of the campfire, a scattered handful of small lights, Bazil felt tremendous relief.

He had barely reached the camp when he heard an excited voice behind him, turned, and a dragonboy slammed into him and wrapped young arms around his leathery neck.

By the fire, before she went to sleep, Lagdalen finally articulated the worrying thoughts that had been churning inside her since they’d left the dead city of Dugguth. “My lady, how can we travel on with those men? They meant to kill us back there. So how can we trust them from now on? They will surely fear condemnation and will have to kill us to avoid court martial.”

Lessis had merely nodded. “Of course. But we have not intervened yet. In the morning I will speak to the men.”

Lagdalen noted that jut to the lady’s chin. She knew that was a signal that a supreme effort was about to be made. The woman was a Great Witch, a sorceress of the highest quality. Lagdalen wondered if it could be possible to change these men’s minds. But then, she reflected, Lessis could produce the most amazing effects in people.

“They did mean to kill us though, did they not?”

“Yes, my dear, I’m afraid they did,” Lessis said mildly, “and we shall have to watch those men carefully. It may be hard to dislodge the evil in their hearts now, for exactly the reason you spoke of. The fear of punishment will act as a mirror for their fear of destruction on the Gan. But, I will be thinking of them too.”

“Why do they want us dead?”

“Because we lost the battle at Ossur Galan. And because they fear we will lead them to their deaths.”

Lessis paused to consider something. “And of course they’re probably right. The difficult thing to communicate to them is that we have to recover the princess, and that if we must forfeit the lives of all the men and dragons, then we must if by that we can free her.”

“The princess is that important?”

“Yes. All forecasts of Marneri under the rule of Erald show a terrible corruption and eventual collapse of the morale in that city. We cannot allow this to happen. Marneri is the most vital, the most valuable of all the nine cities.”

“What about Kadein? It’s so much bigger.”

“Ah, Kadein. If only they knew how to work in Kadein. But they are a great trading city and they are blessed with the wealth of the Minuend. No, Kadein is a great metropolis, alright—someday it will rival Ourdh in size, I think—but Marneri is more vital. Our best generals and sea captains always come from Marneri and Talion. Unfortunately, those from Talion are so difficult to get along with that they alienate their men and sailors, and so it is Marneri that we turn to for the very best.”

“So we must find Besita.”

“We must find her and bring her back alive, and untainted by the arts of the Power. Once that dreadful stone in Tummuz Orgmeen has had time to work on her, she will become more dangerous than even Erald.”

Lagdalen gulped—were they going all that way? To that terrible place?

Lessis was looking at her carefully, reading her thoughts precisely. “We’ll catch up very soon, and then we’ll find a way. We won’t have to go that far.”

Lagdalen accepted this. The fear of the grim city of the Doom faded a little.

“There is something else that troubles you, child. I can sense it.”

Lagdalen blushed.

“Come on, my girl, you can tell me. In fact you must, I insist upon it.”

There was nothing for it but to confess.

“Oh, my lady, I fear that I am in love.”

“Love?” Lessis said the word softly. Unsurprised, however.

“Yes.”

“I’ll bet it isn’t the first time.”

Lagdalen was startled.

“Well, no. I’m afraid not.”

Lessis was smiling. Lagdalen felt a surge of relief.

“When I was your age I fell in love about once a week, I think. I eventually married a man as well, a great man.”

Lagdalen was awed to hear such personal information from the Great Witch.

“What happened?”

“To Hujo? Oh, we are great friends still, although we have not lived together as man and woman for many years. Our work separated us. He is still the leading man in the village and will be until his death.”

Village? Was the great Lessis just a village girl? Lagdalen was used to thinking of the village folk as being ignorant, crude, inferior to the city folk. To think that Lessis had come from a village was upsetting to a lot of deeply held prejudices.

“Who is the lucky man?” said Lessis.

Lagdalen licked her lips.

“Captain Kesepton. I know that he looks at me with strong feeling. I can read it in his eyes.”

Lessis clapped her hands softly together once.

“Ah, youth! How could I have left this out of the projections? Lessis, you’re getting too damned old!” She turned back to Lagdalen.

“I had noticed the young captain’s eyes upon you, my dear, and I should have known you’d be aroused to him. He’s a good-looking young devil, that’s for sure. But—” She raised a warning finger, then checked herself.

“Well, you’re young, although I feel a wisdom growing swiftly within you, my child. Soon I will be unable to call you ”child“ at all. However, in the affairs of the heart wisdom is a difficult thread to pull forth. You must of course realize that the captain is a soldier, he has at least ten years to serve in the legion. So you will be a soldier’s wife, living on the frontier here, for at least that long. You won’t be living in Marneri, surrounded by your kith and kin.”

Lagdalen was clearly ready to sacrifice for her heart’s sake. Lessis smiled again; the girl was such a good-hearted sort. She knew she’d made the right choice with this one. And it was equally impossible to guess how someone would come through the turmoil of early adulthood and the attractions of the opposite sex. Or the same sex, for that matter. Lessis knew that her predecessor on the Imperial Council, Great Witch Fyine, had preferred the company of women to men all her life, in bed as well as out of it. It had not prevented her from giving great service to the empire.

She shook her head. There was no way to know how this would go. Perhaps she would soon need to find a replacement, perhaps not.

“And you should also remember, my dear, that young Kesepton will be seeing a lot of combat in these next few years. He may not survive long enough to support a family.”

Lagdalen knew this risk too well. She had seen what battle was like now; never would she forget the screams, the grunts, the clash of steel and flesh and helmet and club. Never.

And her beloved would be going into that hell again and again, for years. Sometimes she thought she could not bear it.

“I know,” she said. There were tears welling in her eyes. “Is it wrong, my lady? Is it wrong for us?”

“Not at all, and if you and the captain decide you love each other, then I will be glad to wed you. But not until we are safely back in Dalhousie or some other fort with our mission accomplished. Our duty comes first here, our hearts must obey and we must concentrate on our mission. We cannot allow ourselves to fail. You understand this, of course.”

Lagdalen nodded. “Yes, of course.” She relaxed. Her secret was out, if it had been a secret at all, and with Lessis one could never be sure. She leaned back into her blankets.

“My lady, I am so relieved that you approve.”

Lessis shrugged her shoulders. “Approve isn’t quite the word I would choose, my dear. But this old woman knows better than to try to get in the way of love.” She chuckled as if recalling some other situation in some other time.

“Oh no, nothing could be more foolish than that. It has its own tides and times, times and tides.” Lessis reached out and stroked the girl’s face with a gentle hand.

Soon afterwards Lagdalen slept. Lessis removed the small bottle containing the dust she had taken from the siphon in the temple and examined it.

It glittered in the glass. She shook it and watched the grains sparkle and tumble, literally stuff from beyond the world. There were many uses for such strange material, and in the imperial laboratory back in Cunfshon the researchers were waiting for her to return with this sample.

She put it away and stared into the fire. She had to compose a little speech for the following morning. These men had taken a beating. Of course they’d won a victory, but at too great a price. It had been such a desperate thing, and they were hardly fit to continue the campaign. Certainly not in their own minds after two battles in three days and losing two-thirds of their number in casualties.