The Forging of the Dragon (Wizard and Dragon Book 1) (14 page)

She sat at a table pretending to read for several minutes before she could convince herself all was well. When she left the library she had a fully developed scheme of her own in mind. She had something her father wanted. Well, there was something
she
wanted, and she was perfectly willing to trade her tugolith for him. She wondered briefly if the boy already knew ...

Chapter Eleven

SHAPER SKIRMISH

SEAGRYN shouldered his way through the forest, snapping off tree limbs as if they were twigs. They’d been moving southwest for three days. Dark refused to say any more than, “You’ll see,” whenever he was asked why, but Seagryn had decided it didn’t matter. Never in his life had he felt so free!

Since the terrible revelation of his altershape had forced him to leave Bourne and seek his future in the capital, he’d been enslaved to a voracious ambition. When faced with the choice between powerlessness or submitting his destiny to the control of the Council of Elders, he’d easily submitted. He’d first been a dutiful acolyte, then a model student, then a promising leader on the rise. But as he’d reflected over it these past three days he had realized that it had never been any fun.

Being a tugolith was fun! A trunk rose before him and, rather than stepping aside and going around it, Seagryn rammed the bole with his horn. Another tree fell in the forest, and the sound it made was a pleasing crunch!

“Do you
have
to do that?” Dark complained, his arms wrapped tightly around a massive ear.

“No!” Seagryn laughed in a rumbling bass. “But I enjoy it.”

“Well I don’t!” the prophet grumbled. “Try being a bit more courteous toward the person riding on your forehead!”

Seagryn only laughed again. He didn’t feel courteous today. Not that he felt discourteous; mostly he just wanted to play. Was that his tugolith nature coming out, he wondered?

The past few days had given him the opportunity to experiment with his altershape, and most of what he’d learned thrilled him. Oh, there were disadvantages. His enhanced sense of smell, for example, was hardly an advantage when one stunk like a tugolith. Perhaps his scent would be attractive to another of the species, but he’d found that, even when wearing his altershape, he maintained all his human sensibilities. The essence of tugolith took some getting used to.

But the advantages of this tugolith body! For the first time in his life he could do something about obstacles in his path! If a boulder blocked the way, he shoved it aside. Another tree? Instant firewood!

“Would you stop that!” Dark pleaded.

“Why?”

“Think how I must feel! All this — hammering terrifies me!”

“You could get down and —” Seagryn stopped himself. His much-improved hearing had picked up an unfamiliar sound. “What’s that?” he asked.

“What’s what?”

“It’s — a roaring noise —”

“Oh, that.” Dark nodded. “You’ll see.”

“‘You’ll see, you’ll see.’ Is that all you know how to say?”

“I can’t please you, can I?” the boy said bitterly. “You say you don’t want to know the future and yet you do! So does everyone else —”

“Perhaps if you stopped feeling so sorry for yourself, you might see that I asked for simple information — the kind normal people exchange all the time.”

“Then ask a normal person!” the boy growled. “Wait!” Dark added in horror. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Running!” Seagryn rumbled, and indeed he was, leaving shattered branches in his wake. He really gambolled more than he ran, like some immense ballerina dancing through the woods ...

“Stop!” Dark screamed. “Wait! Quit! Cease! Whoa!” The boy kept on shouting for several minutes as he clung in terror to Seagryn’s horn, for the transformed magician paid him no heed. When they broke into a clearing — literally, for two towering giants crashed in chorus as they entered it — Seagryn stopped and raised his head to peer forward. His tugolith eyes, however, were too small and too widely spaced to allow him to see very far into the distance.

With the quickness of a thought he changed back into human-form, and the boy who’d been on his back suddenly found himself dropping out of midair. “Ow!” Dark shouted as he hit the ground of the meadow. There was more disapproval than pain in his voice, so Seagryn ignored him.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing above the treetops to the south.

“What does it look like?” Dark grunted as he got to his feet and wiped the crushed grass from his backside.

“Smoke. Is it a fire?”

“No,” the prophet muttered as he checked for broken bones, knowing in advance he would find none. “Somewhat the opposite.”

“What does that mean?”

Dark glanced around until he spotted a tall deciduous tree that had escaped the tugolith’s indiscriminate reaping. He walked to it and started climbing, then looked down at Seagryn. “Come on up and I’ll show you.” A hint of his boyish grin had returned.

It had been a long time, but Seagryn hadn’t forgotten how to climb a tree. He shinnied up this one behind Dark, and soon they were high enough to see over most of the other vegetation. Seagryn looked southward, and shook his head. “Still looks like smoke to me.”

“It’s mist,” Dark explained.

“Mist?”

“From Tunyial Falls. Come on!” the boy shouted, and now Seagryn saw real excitement in his eyes. They both scrambled down the tree and the powershaper once again assumed his lumbering shape. Within an hour they stood at the edge of a breath-taking cascade, and Seagryn’s enormous mouth gaped open in wonder.

He’d spent many years living next to the large river that meandered placidly through Lamath. They called that ‘the River’ there, as if there were no other. But compared to this waterway, that was just a stream. He could barely see the other shore — in fact, from this vantage point he couldn’t. It was hidden in the cool spray that billowed up from the vast gorge below. Torrents of water raced toward a cliff and leaped off it — and both cliff and river seemed to go on forever. Water droplets beaded on his back, reminding him just how hot it had been through these summer months, and how refreshing a cool dip in a stream could be. But here there was no need to jump in — the water came to him. If ever anyone could drown while standing on the riverbank, this would be the place. Dark let him enjoy it in silence a moment, then explained.

“This is the river that links the land of Arl to Haranamous and the sea. It starts far to the west in Arl Lake. It’s the main highway between the two lands — the two warring lands,” Dark added meaningfully; then he turned and started walking back toward the north.

“Where are you going?” Seagryn called.

Dark turned around, but kept walking backward. “I’ve done my part. I got you here. It’s up to you now, to find out if you’re really a hero.”

“But what about you?”

“Me?” Dark frowned. “Oh, I already know I’m not!” Then the boy faced forward again and disappeared into the under-brush, almost as if by —

“Magic,” Seagryn said to himself. For the first time in his life he could speak the word with a grin. He could perform it! And he was about to. Or so Dark’s words implied ... He took his altershape again, merely for the joy of being able to.

Human hearing could distinguish very little over the roar of the waterfall, but his tugolith ears could strain sounds far more precisely. They heard a column of warriors moving through the forest to the east. Seagryn took his human-form and gazed in that direction for a moment. Then with a wish, he disappeared, using that trick Sheth called “cloaking.” Although every instinct urged him to take cover in the bushes, he forced himself to stand upon the cliff face and wait as the marchers approached. Soon they came in sight.

The column carried a war boat — or rather, part of the column did so. Armed warriors in uniforms of glistening black urged a distraught band of purple-clad prisoners to work harder and move faster. This a few of the laborers struggled to do, but their burden was enormous, and none of their masters seemed inclined to help. Seagryn listened to several individual exchanges as the boat advanced toward him, picking out the conversation of the commander amid the sporting of soldiers who had found others to do their work for them. As the group swept by him, he joined himself to it, walking a few feet to the right of the leader. “There,” the man said, pointing out the place upstream where they would put the boat back into the water. “But we stay well to the right. Get out too far into that current and we’ll be in pieces at the bottom of the falls.”

“And these captives?” the man’s lieutenant asked quietly.

“Usual practice.” The commander shrugged, and the lieutenant nodded and dropped a few steps back to a group of boisterous guards. Seagryn dropped back with him. He wanted to discover what the usual practice might be.

“As usual,” he heard the lieutenant mutter. “Spread out around them as they put the craft back in the water. Whoever lets one of them escape I toss over the falls myself.”

“Yes, chief,” someone mumbled, and Seagryn saw daggers slide out of their sheaths as the men made jokes about the falls turning red. These, then, were Arlian warriors returning home from their success in the east. Seagryn supposed their unfortunate beasts of burden must be captive Haranians. Obviously it was normal practice to dispose of the porters, once the boat was upstream of the falls. Unless he did something to prevent it, Seagryn was about to witness a massacre.

The clot of Arlians broke up, the men slipping out to form a perimeter around the grunting Haranians. Panic seized Seagryn as he dodged to avoid a pair of the bloodthirsty captors. What could he do? Turn tugolith and hope the Arlians would run? But these were seasoned warriors, battle-hardened veterans accustomed to the machinations of wizards. Suppose he did manage to startle the troop, perhaps even trample or horn a few — what then? Wouldn’t they quickly turn and regroup against him? The captives would be as surprised by his appearance as the Arlians, and would drop the boat and scatter. Some would surely escape, but it seemed just as likely most would be killed despite his efforts — some in the
mêlée
, others crushed beneath the war boat. And here in this wilderness, far inside territory evidently under Arlian control, what chance would the scattered individuals have of returning home? Ranoth had wondered if Seagryn could do anything other than turn into a monster. Could he? If so, what?

As the group neared the spot where the boat was to be relaunched, the Arlians closed their circle and drew their swords. In that same instant, the boat and its porters disappeared.

“Magic!” the commander shouted immediately. “There’s a shaper among us!” The circle of Arlians recoiled backward, but before it broke, their commander shouted, “Hold your ground! They’re cloaked, not gone, and a shaper can’t do more than one thing at a time! Shaper!” he addressed Seagryn. “I don’t know who you are nor why you’ve interfered, but we have these cowards surrounded! Depart and leave us in peace!”

Within the cloak the Haranian captives exchanged looks of bewilderment. Seagryn had suddenly appeared before them, holding up his hands for silence until he had the eyes of all, then gesturing to them to put the boat down quietly. They saw him scowl at the commander’s words, then obeyed as once again he gestured downward. Although they tried to be quiet, their burden touched ground with a heavy thud.

“They’ve put the boat down!” the lieutenant shouted.

“Hold your ground!” the commander called again, a tremor of fear creeping into his voice. “Shaper! What do you want with us?”

Gesturing again for silence, Seagryn paced around the perimeter of the circle and found the widest gap between Arlians. He then directed the amazed Haranians to slip through it. Those nearest stepped through without problem, but when the warrior he stood next to shouted, “I hear them walking past me!” Seagryn punched the man in the face in frustration. As the Arlian hit the ground the rest of the Haranians panicked and started sprinting through the gap, and the commander yelled, “There! There! Cut them down!”

Arlian swords whizzed dangerously near Seagryn’s face, then slashed back again even closer. He ducked out of the way, crawled between two pairs of legs, and bounced back to his feet to check on the fleeing captives. His cloak was holding!

When he looked back around, however, four Arlian swords were pointed at his head and chest, and the commander’s eyes bored into his own. “So,” he thought to himself, “I’ve sent the cloak with them and uncovered myself. You learn as you go ...”

“Who are you?” the Arlian leader demanded.

Seagryn started to respond truthfully, then stopped himself. “You — you don’t remember me? I was carrying back in the back, close to the —”

“He’s no Haranian,” the lieutenant interrupted. “You can tell by his clothes and his voice!”

“Right.” The commander nodded, his eyes not leaving Seagryn’s. “You are ... the shaper?”

Seagryn realized he now held the attention of every Arlian, while the former captives scampered into the forest far down the riverline. He’d done it! He’d rescued the Haranians without bloodshed, proving he was indeed a powershaper! Of course, there was the problem of these four swords —

“Speak, man! Are you the shaper or not!”

“Why should I answer? If I say I’m not, you’ll slaughter me. But if I am, your tiny swords are ridiculous. What do
you
think, commander? Do you dare to attack me and find out for yourself?”

The Arlian commander watched him nervously. “That — sounds like — a shaper’s reply —”

“Then have your people put up their weapons and move away,” Seagryn suggested. He found he was enjoying this far more than he could have imagined.