A Sword for a Dragon (34 page)

A second line of men brought the timbers used to prop the tunnel back down the passage around the line of barrows. As fast as the dragons cut the ground, the engineers worked to set in the props and beams.

The scene at the tunnel face was lit by a pair of lamps toted by dragonboys who squeaked past the great wyverns and did their best not to get crushed to death. Thus illuminated, it was a scene from some strange anteroom to hell. The floor even angled downward, as if the intention were to deliver them to some classic hell of ancient myth.

Every ten feet they paused and the engineers and the weather witch came down to listen at the forward wall. The weather witch had been working on this tunnel for days now without sleep, but she showed no signs of the exhaustion she felt. She pressed her head to the earthen wall, her eyes shut. The dragons all around her were silent while they watched her intently.

She held up her hand and clenched her fist, the signal!

They were very close now.

Ahead, only a few feet away, lay the enemy mine. Every so often a heavy cart was rolled back from its front wall laden with dirt and rocks. The faint rumble of the cart was detectable by those with keen senses.

The assault party prepared itself, and the digging dragons were replaced. Old Chektor put down the shovel and squeezed his way back to the surface while the Purple Green and the broketail pushed their way to the front. To help them dig, they had Vlok already in place with a digging bar. They were all equipped with the new kit devised by the dragonboys to help in this strange and dismal combat. There being no room to wield great swords, they carried massive knives made hurriedly from iron stripped out of the city by the legion smiths. The knives were crude, almost triangular, but heavy and sharp enough to cut apart the mud men. The dragons wore gorget, breastplate, helmet, and vambraces for the heavy forearms and thus were well protected on the upper part of the body. The hind legs were left unencumbered.

Behind them was a force of fifty swordsmen and an equal number of spearmen.

Tensely they awaited the final moment. The weather witch conferred with Dragoneer Hatlin. A message was sent back to the gate to confirm and call for reinforcements, and the order was given.

The dragons took up the massive shovels and began digging fast and furious, doing nothing to minimize the noise. All caution was abandoned now.

The ground here was relatively soft, river plain with mud stones and gravel. The shovels sank in, scooped it out quickly, and tossed it back to the mud-soaked men of the digging detail.

They in turn hastened back through the crowd of armed men waiting for the break-in. The tension was already high, and now it rose to breaking point.

The Purple Green had not taken to the art of shovel wielding and now mostly just got in the way as Bazil and Vlok dug into the tunnel face with a furious energy. The shovels went faster and faster, and the muddy earth was thrown back too quickly for the men to carry it away. The Purple Green complained in loud hisses about the dirt getting on him, but it was impossible to avoid his active bulk in the narrow space.

For a minute, then two, they dug like this, and then Vlok’s shovel broke through to empty air and he gave a hiss of excitement. Then Bazil cut through and cleared a big hole. Below them was spread the enemy mine, a scene out of real hell.

Thousands of slave workers, roped at the neck, struggled to push heavy carts filled with dirt. Filling the carts was a mass of the giants, the mud men, working with shovels at the cutting face of the mine, which was very large, much larger than any that had been seen before. The face was forty feet across and if allowed to continue to the wall, would have brought down a deep section. The countermine had broken through into the upper part of the side wall. There was a five- to six-foot drop to the floor.

Bazil and Vlok jumped down into the mine tunnel. The slave workers scattered with a chorus of shrieks. The overseers drew their swords, then thought better of it, and retired up the mine as well. Chaos broke out in that direction.

Then the Purple Green dropped through, and the ground shook briefly under his weight. The great wild one seemed to fill the whole tunnel. He tipped over a cart and then hurled it down the tunnel straight into the ranks of a squad of onrushing mud men.

More dragons came tumbling in along with men and boys with lanterns. The dragons recovered themselves quickly and flung themselves at the mud men. The giants deployed hammers and picks and struck at the dragons with their mechanical rhythm. The dragons had learned to seize the giants by the arm and to stab again and again with their heavy knives. The big triangular knives did horrible work on the creatures, but they were still hard to kill. Hammers and picks bounced off dragon helm and plate. The hellish scene became the site of a grim battle. The sounds were those of dragons cursing, knives and hammers striking, and men shouting the war cries of Argonath as they joined the struggle.

Relkin dropped in behind the first dragons and almost got crushed by the next dragon down, big Cham. Cham’s backside caught him on the shoulder, and he was flung to his knees. He jumped to his feet, dodged out of the way of any more wyverns from above, and looked up in time to see Bazil crash headlong into the ranks of mud men at the face of the tunnel. Behind the broketail came the Purple Green. The dragons and the giants tumbled together in a thrashing pile of gigantic bodies. The mud men were not as effective at this kind of wrestling combat. The dragons wielded their stabbing knives and worked to dismember the stupid, but horribly active monsters of blood-soaked mud.

More giants lurched forward and began smashing their shovels down upon the dragons and giants indiscriminately. Vlok and Cham cannoned into this second line and bowled them over. With much sibilant cursing, they got back on their feet and began the grim work of chopping the mud men to death.

Relkin had been dodging closer to the conflict, with his dirk at the ready. Suddenly he found himself confronting a squat, heavyset figure no taller than himself. The face was a mask of hate, a contortion of the human norm with a splayed nose almost flattened against the skull and a wide gash of a mouth in which were gathered a crowd of peglike teeth. It was unquestionably an imp, and Relkin was astounded to see it there. Imps belonged in the North, on the traditional battle field with the enemy.

The imp ended all speculations by slashing at Relkin with a short sword. He dodged back, bounced off the wall, and sagged against the imp. The imp grasped Relkin by the neck with a strong hand, got the sword up, and was about to run him through when somebody hammered it over the helmet and distracted it long enough for Relkin to twist out of its grip and knee it in the guts. It dropped back with a gasp of pain.

He caught sight of Swane of Revenant’s face for a moment, lit up by a lantern in Mono’s hand. Swane winked at him, counting coup for saving Relkin’s hide. Then the imp recovered and swung at him. Relkin got his dirk up just in time to parry a chopping blow aimed at his face.

He shifted to his left and the imp tried an overhand, which he parried but with a grunt of effort. In truth, the imp’s sword was too heavy for the dirk, Relkin’s whole arm was already numb. Desperately he swung the lantern in his other hand and smashed it atop the imp’s helmet. Oil and flame blazed down the imp’s back, and it emitted a howl of woe. Relkin drove in, got his dirk into it, and then pushed it off its feet.

On the ground now, it thrashed helplessly, and he stepped over it and went on. Men in the black robes and iron armor of the Sephisti shock troopers were trying to get to the dragons from behind, and only the dragonboys stood in their way. Swords were matched against dirks and bows. The boys could not stand for long against such might, and in the nick of time a few Marneri swordsmen joined them and engaged the Sephisti.

Now the fighting became generally fierce and confused. The light from the lanterns was lost in the sea of surging fighters, and it was hard to make out friend from foe. Relkin found himself jammed up against two men in the black cloth of Sephis. He tried to free his dirk, but his arm was wedged too tightly. Behind him were a row of Marneri swordsmen, their shields pressing him up against the Sephisti. The eyes of the Sephisti blazed with a crazed rage. Relkin saw no intelligence there at all. But since no one could move except to sway back and forth as the pressure ebbed and flowed, he was safe from them for the moment.

Then suddenly, one of the giants pushed in, peeled away the Sephisti, and struck down with his hammer at the men of Marneri. These hammers weighed thirty pounds, and to be struck by one meant death. Relkin barely ducked the hammer that swished down and crashed into the shield behind him. The hammer rose and fell, men struck at the mud man, their swords biting deep into the wet flesh, but not deep enough to sunder the thing.

The hammer slammed down again and crushed another man of Marneri. Relkin stabbed his dirk into the thing’s thigh. In a moment, it was jerked from his hand as the giant moved. It took no notice of the knife in its leg, or of any other wounds. The hammer swept down and a man’s shield flew through the air with the man’s arm attached.

Relkin was fond of that dirk; he’d had it a long time now. He dove in close and tried to pull it free.

The giant struck him on the side of the head with its elbow as it drew its arm back to aim another hammer blow. Relkin was bowled over and found himself on his knees, seeing stars.

He started to his feet and a swordsman behind him struck him down by accident, the blade glancing off Relkin’s helmet. Relkin fell facedown in the mud and lost consciousness.

Of the rest of the hard, muddy battle in the enemy mine, he knew nothing.

He awoke quite some time later, lying on a stretcher in a dark place. His head hurt, his helmet was gone, and there was a bandage around his forehead. When he probed at it with his fingers, he felt dried blood, thick and crusty in his hair and down his neck.

A big hiss from behind him turned his head. A massive shape stirred in the darkness and a familiar reptilian visage slid into view.

“Ah, that is good, boy awakes at last. I have waited long time.”

“What happened?”

“Long messy fight, but we destroyed tunnel.”

“Where am I?”

“Hospital tent. They brought you back here without telling me. But I search whole damn tunnel and I find no sign of worthless boy, so I know that boy still live.”

“A good thing, yes?”

“By the roar of the ancients, a good thing yes. Worthless boy may be, but much worse to have to start all over with new one.”

Relkin moved and his head throbbed. He gave a groan and lay back. All he remembered was the dark, the Sephisti, the mud, and the giant. He’d been getting to his feet and then wham, something had struck him down. He was lucky to still be alive. He thanked the good Mother for her blessing. At the same time, and guiltily, he thanked the old gods, too. You never knew who was really looking out for you, after all.

The dragon finished his inspection and leaned back.

“Yes, worthless boy lie still and rest head. Dragon take care of him.”

Relkin sighed at the thought of such tender care, but kept his mouth shut and after a while drifted off to sleep.

The Imperial Granaries were a trio of huge, windowless buildings of plain ocher mud brick dominating Fatan Street in the city’s Tapazit district. Here, where Fatan Street curved westwards, the temples loomed in the mid distance, but the great six-story-tall granaries were the ruling presence. Normally they were the scene of intense activity, a chaos of dealers and workers, merchants and haulers.

Since the seizure of the granaries by the Argonath legions, however, a strange calm had descended on the place. Silence reigned through the halls of commerce. A hundred swordsmen occupied the place, and no native merchants were allowed in. The black market was snuffed out at a stroke.

The Argonathi rationed everything very closely. No longer was it possible for the wealthy to pay for extra supplies of grain or beer. The city rocked with the anger of the upper classes. Pressure was brought to bear on the emperor, who called the witch Ribela into his presence and ordered her to release the granaries back to the control of the Imperial bureaucracy. Ribela refused and after swallowing hard a few times, Banwi Shogemessar was forced to pass that reply back to those who pestered him about the new, austere rationing.

The stern-faced young legionaries at the granary had executed the first couple of thieves and threatened to do the same to anyone who proffered a bribe. The Ourdhi withdrew in genuine puzzlement.

But human nature being what it is, a few bribes were soon being offered anyway. The legionaries would not take them. Not only were they under the eyes of a weather witch much of the time, but their own sense of honor was involved. The bribe offerers were placed under legion discipline and, in front of the ranks on parade, they were stripped, pulled over the sawhorses, and given twenty strokes.

The city reacted with horror and outrage. Hostile crowds hissed at the marching soldiers. From the back of the mobs came missiles, usually stones or lumps of horse dung.

General Paxion called a meeting of the leaders of Ourdhi society and warned them that if the people of the city continued to behave thus, he would take the legions, break out, and leave the city of Ourdh to the Sephisti.

This intelligence was reported to wider circles and then spread into the general populace. Quickly, the open hatred of the legionaries subsided. But the people of the great city were unused to privation and their grumbling grew into a steady, sour murmur that left things very tense between themselves and the foreign legions that defended them. If they were hungry, it was all the fault of the foreigners.

Assured of control over what resources they had, General Paxion was able to give enough grain to feed the dragons and keep up their strength. The men understood how important this was. By now they had all seen the giant mud men.