A Sword for a Dragon (26 page)

By nightfall, the legions were in place.

Observing these preparations, a group of well-placed men gathered in a large house in Solusol, the district just south of the Zoda.

These men were high-placed functionaries in the civil administration, for the most part, although there were also a few merchants.

They greeted one another with the raised palm and the closed eyes of the initiate to Padmasa. All were self-described “magicians” who thirsted to learn more of the great knowledge of Padmasa.

A man known to them only as Magician addressed them. They listened with respectful silence. They were to immediately begin an agitation against the Argonathi “invaders.” The Argonathi were unclean and would forgo ritual slaughter of animals. They would bring down plague on the people. They were also known to be sexually indiscriminate and would rape everyone, man, woman, and child. Rumors of rapes and child abductions would at once be started. Obscene barbarian sex orgies were to be described in horrid detail. Argonathi were also said to be greedy and eager for coin. Robberies and break-ins were to be described, the more to whip up the city people.

The agents listened and went forth to begin their work.

The first sign of the coming of the Sephisti was always the smoke. When the wind blew from the north, the fedd would lift their heads and smell the burning of the lands. Then refugees arrived, and soon they would join them, packing the roads to the south.

They had heard that the Sephisti took everyone, from the children to the oldest crones, and sent them to the dread city of Dzu. They had heard that no one ever returned.

Usually only a few hours behind them would come the first scouts, small men on dark steppe ponies, Baguti cavalry in the service of the Masters. The Baguti fell upon anyone who had not gone down the road ahead of them. Old and sick, infants, they were all seized and driven northwards at once.

Then more cavalry would appear, squads of black-clad men with the fanatical gleam in their eyes of the worship of Sephis. Most of them wore fragments of armor taken from the fallen Imperial army. They would root around in the villages for fugitives and food supplies. Messages would go back to the central horde.

Then they would move on, following the Baguti.

And soon there came the sound of drums, the thundering drums that announced the coming of the army. Hundreds of drums thrummed an endless
boom boom, boomity boom
, that seemed to take over the world and fill it with fear. And finally the very horizon would darken with the first masses of the men in black. Soon the masses would solidify into endless columns, pouring forward on every road.

Tens of thousands of them, organized into huge divisions, would tramp past, in their eyes the fanatic gleam of the hypnotized, nothing else.

For hours it would continue thus, with the thundering drums and the tramping lines of men, and then at last it would be over. Quite abruptly the columns would end and there was only the rear guard, a long line of cavalry troopers ready to kill any stragglers. And when they were gone, the roar of the drums would fade until all that was left was the crackle of the flames burning in the fields.

To the south, in the great city of Ourdh, panic reigned. The upper classes fled in coach and carriage for the southern parts of the empire and jammed the roads leading to the south gates. In the port, vessels willing to risk the river pirates slipped out, laden to the gunwales with more. But for the great mass of the people, there was nowhere safer to go.

Meanwhile, the men of the Imperial Army and the Argonathi legions prepared the defenses. The regiments were allotted sections of wall to hold. The engineers and the dragon squadrons came together to plan counter mine strategies. The dragons were trained in the use of shovel and pick, and usually dug in units of three, one with a pick and two with shovels. When they tired, they would be replaced while they picked up their energies with beer and food. Working this way, they were capable of digging wide tunnels at a tremendous rate.

The soil here on the alluvial plane of the Oon was not perfect for mines because it was so often soggy. However, there had been little rain in Ourdh for weeks, and the ground was dry enough. Paxion expected a significant enemy effort in this area.

The dragons were also trained in the art of toppling siege towers. For this they were equipped with long poles. Working in groups, they could push siege towers over on their sides.

For such work, of course, the dragons had to be protected. A line of wicker shielding was woven and erected down the center of the walls.

There were complaints from Ourdhi officialdom about the enormity of dragon appetites. They ate as much in a day as a dozen men. They drank too much as well. After a day or so of this, General Paxion decided to show the officials exactly why the dragons were so important.

The officials were briefed on the danger of mines being dug under the walls. The walls of Ourdh were massive and well built, but they could be undermined. The only way to prevent mining was to drive countermines into a mine, kill the miners, and collapse their mine.

Three young leatherback dragons carrying picks and shovels stepped forward to a spot on a lawn outside the gate to the Imperial City and began to dig. The pick ripped up six-foot sections of the turf, and the shovels scooped up a cubic yard at a time. In a matter of minutes, the dragons were ten feet down. The Ourdhi officials changed their minds. From then on, the dragons were offered all they could eat and drink.

The demonstration took place on a sunny day with a breeze out of the north that made it worthwhile to wear a light coat. When it was over, Porteous Glaves headed for General Paxion’s quarters, on the second floor of the Fatan Gate. He was scheduled to report to the general concerning the disappearance of Dragoneer Relkin and Bazil Broketail.

Glaves fidgeted a while as the general completed a message and sent it off by courier. At last Paxion looked up. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was filled with weariness.

“Ah yes, Commander Glaves.” His lips compressed in dislike. Paxion had never gotten over his dislike of the man and his stupid leather collars.

Glaves smiled ingratiatingly.

“Well, Commander, what have you discovered?”

Glaves spread his hands and shrugged expansively.

“Very little, sir. The facts of the case are few. As you know, sir, they were on a woodcutting party for our cooks and engineers. About noon, a cart showed up with four barrels of beer, which apparently were drugged, though we never found the casks or any direct evidence. Everyone slept for hours, dragons included. When they awoke, it was almost dark, and the dragon and Relkin of Quosh were gone.”

“Your own inclination then, Commander?”

Glaves feigned discomfort with what he was going to say next.

“Well, we know that the boy had gone over the wall in Kwa and returned with a young woman who was apparently of noble birth. She has since been returned to her family here in the city, I believe. However, we have been unable to interview her. I have a slight suspicion that she has lured the boy, who has taken the dragon with him, to serve as private bodyguards to this noble family. They might do very well in such service, certainly with far less risk to themselves than they would find in the legions.”

Glaves paused. “I hesitate to make any firm conclusions, but this suspicion does trouble me.”

Paxion tossed the quill down on the table, rose, and paced up and down.

“I find it hard to entertain such suspicions. I’ve had the occasion to meet that pair, and they seemed most unlikely to desert.”

“Indeed, sir, indeed. The boy won the Legion Star, after all. The dragon had been presented with a new sword, forged by eleven smiths. It seems incredible that they would abscond after such generosity from the legion. Still, we cannot ignore this possibility.”

“I still do not connect the two matters. If they wished to abscond, they could have done so before this.”

“Perhaps they are hiding right now somewhere in the city. These noble families have considerable resources. Perhaps they waited until they were close to the city. Perhaps they were aided and abetted by the family of the girl.”

Paxion swallowed heavily. It seemed preposterous. But what other explanation could there be? Unless the enemy had for some reason wanted to take a single dragon and dragonboy prisoner. But the enemy would have slain the others in their sleep. It made no sense.

Eventually Paxion dismissed the commander and sent for Captain Kesepton. When the captain had saluted and sat down, Paxion tried Glaves’s theory on the captain.

Kesepton rejected it vehemently. The pair from Quosh were dedicated soldiers, they would never be happy as trained poodles for some family of wealthy foreigners. He suspected it was the work of enemy agents somehow. Perhaps they had contracted with local criminals for this. A dragon and dragonboy to be delivered to them for study and research.

“Then why would they want the boy?”

“Who knows a dragon better than his boy?”

Paxion sighed and asked after Lagdalen, was there any news? Had the witches detected anything? Kesepton shook his head, the worry had put lines on the younger man’s face. He had not slept in days.

Paxion dismissed the captain and returned to brooding on his own. He had many problems facing him, but nothing quite so raised his hackles as this disappearance of a dragon and dragonboy team. He could not believe that they had deserted the legion, he simply could not.

Meanwhile Porteous Glaves rode a ricksha through the teeming streets to the rear entrance of the Temple of Gingo-La. There he presented himself and asked for an immediate audience with the priestess “Fulaan.”

He was led into a darkened room and told to sit on a low chair.

A dim red light came on, and he saw a figure towering above him on a throne.

“You wished to see me?” said a familiar voice. The same that had offered him his escape in return for a dragon and dragonboy. She spoke Verio with a slight accent.

“I did. You have what you wanted.”

There was a long silence.

“Yes.”

“And I want to discuss what I want.”

A longer silence.

“We have considered this already. It was felt that you are a fool and that we might safely cheat you. After all, you have committed treachery, treason. Your legion would hang you, I believe, should they learn the truth.”

Glaves was sweating. The woman continued.

“But we did not decide to cheat. Nor did we accede to the idea of simply killing you. Or of taking you as a slave and castrating you and sending you to an outlying city.”

“No!”

“Without your tongue and your testicles, you would soon vanish into anonymity.”

Glaves mopped his brow. The nightmare seemed endless. Was there no way out? These cheating, deceitful Ourdhi.

“No,” said the woman, “we decided instead to honor our part of the bargain. So you may now tell me what we might do for you.”

Glaves swallowed heavily, his mouth had gone dry. Never, never, would he tread beyond the lands of the Argonath again!

“I need a boat, but not yet. I will only make my escape when I am convinced that all is lost and that the enemy will take the walls.”

“Oh-ho,” the woman gave a ghostly chuckle. “So. You want us to have a boat kept ready for you when the time comes.”

“Yes.”

Again that awful chuckle. “It will be done.”

Relkin’s eyes fluttered open. He groaned and tried to turn over but discovered that he was handcuffed and chained to a ring hanging from a stone wall. He observed that he was in a dank dungeon, walled in damp stone. Dim light filtered into his cell from somewhere high above through a shaft in the center of the ceiling. Under him was a layer of fresh straw and then flagstone.

Wearily he pulled himself into a slightly more comfortable position. How in the name of the bad old gods had he ended up here? Was he under arrest? What had he done to merit such treatment?

Try as he might, all he recalled was a woodcutting detail. They’d been working hard under the hot sun, and then a wagon had rolled up with lunch and some beer to wash it down with.

And then he vaguely remembered a feeling of wooziness right after that lunch and a strong urge to take a nap. And that had been strange since he’d had only a single draft of the beer.

After a moment’s thought, he came to the conclusion that either the beer or the food had been drugged.

But who would do such a thing, and why?

He’d been drugged and abducted. Which meant that there was no one to look out for his dragon, or for the great Purple Green. His dragonboy’s heart started to thump hard at that prospect. Without him to protect them, they would be open to poisoning and who knew what else.

Then he got around to examining the chain and the ring in the wall. The chain was heavy and well made. The ring in the wall looked as if it would have resisted the efforts of the Broketail or even the Purple Green.

He gave a tug on the chain anyway. It was solid. He cast around the place for a tool with which to work on it. Nothing presented itself. His belt, his dirk, even his shoes, were gone, leaving him with just tunic and hose.

Until someone came for him, he was going to stay put. He made an effort to put out of his thoughts any speculation on what his captors might want with him. It was not easy to do. Here in Ourdh, there were vast numbers of slaves and a large percentage of them were muted by having their tongues cut out. All at once his future appeared grim and quite uncertain.

At length, the dim light above waned, and he surmised that the day was coming to an end. Darkness settled in and he strained his ears for sound, any sound.

Nothing disturbed the silence, however, for a long time until quite suddenly he heard a thud nearby, then footsteps, and then the door to his cell was unlocked and opened.

A torch was thrust in and by its light he saw the figures of three women, all wrapped from head to toe in the black garub. Their faces were hidden behind veils. They examined him frankly and discussed him among themselves in one of the tongues of Ourdh, he knew not which.