A Sword for a Dragon (40 page)

He’d been trying to forget ever since. The sight of Euxus irritated him immensely.

“Begone! We have nothing to discuss!”

But Euxus did not go. “To the contrary,” he said sternly, “we have a great deal to talk about. But first you must become sober.”

“What? How dare you? You Ourdhi popinjay. Get out!” Glaves flung an arm menacingly toward Euxus.

Euxus seized his hand and squeezed it in a certain way that caused excruciating pain. Glaves tried to cry out for help, to summon Dandrax, but no words came to his lips. Instead, he found himself staring into Euxus’s dark eyes while words of power throbbed around him.

Glaves clutched at his head with his free hand, everything seemed to be spinning. A strange, draining sensation took over, as if something were being wrung out of his body, organ by organ, and deposited in his stomach.

Then with no warning, there came a nausea so intense that his innards jumped like springs. He staggered to a window, leaned out, and vomited a reeking spew of alcohol and bile. The convulsions went on and on with terrible intensity. At one point, it seemed as if he might throw up his own organs, even his eyeballs threatened to pop out of his skull. And then at last it was done with, and an exhausted, limp Porteous Glaves sagged onto a chair and sat there gasping for breath. The strange man he knew as Euxus of Fozad leaned over him and fixed him with an unwavering eye. Porteous was no longer drunk.

Thrembode worked on the Argonathi commander for a long time, but eventually gave up in disgust. The man was in a deep funk, his mind was like jelly, and there was hardly a fiber in his entire being. He wept constantly and bemoaned his lot.

The situation was clear, the Argonathi would not betray a gate, especially not after the battle on the walls. The men of Kadein might have been persuaded to march out of the city and go south, before the battle, but now that they had withstood the attack and taken casualties, they would stand fast until death or starvation took them.

“They will starve then, or they will be destroyed. It will not matter in the long run. You will starve with them. You have been quite useless.”

Glaves turned a sullen, vomit-stained face up to him.

“Who are you really?”

Thrembode smiled. “An observer, my dear fool, just an observer.”

“You know the enemy, what will happen when they take the city?”

Thrembode’s smile became ugly. The fool deserved a little truth in his life.

“They will slaughter most of the population and drain their blood for the life stuff of fresh giants.”

Glaves’s eyes grew round. His face, already pale, went white.

“No one will escape, will they?”

“No they will not. Good-bye, Commander, try to die bravely.”

Thrembode swept out of the commander’s quarters and melted swiftly into the crowds.

At the sign of the Blue Pelican, he turned into a tavern’s door and made his way to the back room. His agents were there, summoned for a rare meeting. It was a great risk, but he needed a swift response and so it had to be taken.

“The groundwork has been laid. Now we must have action. The Argonathi will be resupplied in a few days. We must take advantage of the hunger. We must set a match to this pile of kindling.”

Day by day, the food supply dwindled to virtually nothing. Two days after the victory on the walls, the legion commissary cut off all further rations for the population of the city. What was left would keep the legions alive for a few more days. The populace would have to tighten its belt and get by on scraps for a while. At least there was water and as yet, little disease.

There were ugly scenes outside the granaries when the doors were barred to the people. A mob built up until at length Paxion ordered a detachment to clear the street. At the same time, he increased the size of the force holding the granary and organized mounted patrols up and down the street between the granary and the walls. This gave the Talion troopers something to do and ensured a constant flow of intelligence about conditions at the granary and in the districts between the granary and the walls.

The mobs reacted with mounting fury, but after discovering the mettle of the legionaries in a few serious clashes, the crowds faded. Paxion put a team of archers to work ferreting out snipers, and the arrows out of the alleys ceased as well. Hour by hour, the city’s stomach tightened and the grumbling grew louder and louder.

Paxion toyed with the idea of removing the remaining food supply and parceling it out to the legions, but finally decided that for the amount of time involved, just a few days now until the arrival of the white ships, it was not worth the risk of starting riots by moving food supplies around. They would hold the granary and they would hold the walls, that was all that was really essential.

Ribela suggested that the emperor be protected as well, but Paxion swore he would have nothing to do with the treacherous little Fedafer.

“I doubt that the men would lift a finger to save him from the hanging he so justly deserves.”

Ribela gave up. Lessis’s words rang clearly in her mind. The military had to control its own destiny. The Fedafer would remain protected solely by his eunuchs.

Meanwhile General Paxion had noted that the enemy had nearly completed repairs to the remaining siege towers and was at work rebuilding several others. He pondered the possibility of a sortie, a sudden night assault to burn the towers.

However, his idea was not received enthusiastically, particularly by the Kadeini commanders. They talked of nothing but the casualties that could be incurred. Paxion told them he would let the men of Marneri take the risk and earn the glory. The Kadeini grew even more upset and fretful, and charged that he was splitting the command and ruining morale.

Paxion held off but did not let go completely of the idea. The fleet would soon arrive, and they would then be solidly reinforced. If they could hold the walls as they were, then they could hold them far more easily once they were reinforced and re-supplied.

The dinner bells rang from the cook fires and the legions took their evening meal. The sound of the bells and the smell of the huge caldrons of cornmeal stir about attracted crowds of Ourdhi who stood there at the edge of the various regimental camps, kept back by the line of men with shields and spears.

The legions ate. The Marneri Second was centered on the Fatan Gate, inside which was a cleared space where the cooks had set up their station among the tents of the engineers, the junior officers, the duty administrative office, and a dozen others. Relkin took back two buckets of the porridge for his dragons and then collected a bowl of the stir about for himself. It wasn’t much, but at least it filled his belly for a little while.

The crowd outside the lines was restless. There was a lot of shouting going on, and an occasional brick was thrown from the rear.

A coronet blew and within a few seconds, a pair of Kenor bowmen took up positions on the roof of a nearby building that overlooked the scene. Another brick was lobbed high toward the soldiers. Before it landed, a shaft had streaked past in reply. There was a sudden shriek. The brick throwing ceased.

Relkin got up to the roof of a three-story tenement, the tallest building on that section of the street. He watched the crowd for a while as a sensation of food-induced lassitude seeped through him. He was tired through and through. Tired of Ourdh, tired of being hungry, tired of the siege. He was also tired of grouchy dragons, and the great beasts were getting exceedingly grumpy of late. Dragons hated to be hungry. Dragon discipline, the only thing that kept these huge carnivores in check, enabling the mingling of dragons and men in the legions, had always depended on feeding the dragons adequately. Right now they were not getting enough to calm the fire in their bellies, and they were becoming intractable.

They were all on edge. It had reached the point where just thinking about food was getting painful. And if the rumors were true, then it was only going to get worse.

Still, the sun was setting in a sky striped with long clouds and the breeze was from the south, warm and soft. It was good to relax for a moment and just watch the crowd slowly mill around and then disperse.

Eventually the sun was gone, and Relkin left his spot and went across the regiment’s camp area to the blacksmithing operation. A fighting legion had a strong demand for smithing and so a large blacksmith shop on Fatan Street had been taken over by the legion. The local proprietor had been paid in good silver coin, of course—Paxion was a stickler for the proprieties.

Relkin had several pieces of equipment at the smiths. The Purple Green’s helmet had been struck a couple of times by hammers and had some dents. Bazil’s left cuisse was dented, almost pierced, and a piece of chain mail had been torn away, just ripped out somehow in the fury of that fight on the wall. Then there was a notched tail sword and an order for arrow points. Like the rest of the dragonboys, he was having to fletch a new supply of arrows. Most of the shafts they’d recovered from the enemy’s fire had to be cut down to fit their Cunfshon bows.

Relkin was tired but he was still glad for a good reason to stay away from the dragons. The Purple Green had hissed at him that morning and bared its formidable teeth when he nipped some skin while trying to cut a broken talon. That whole finger was painful now because of that split talon, and the wild one was in a foul mood. For a second, he’d come close to lashing out at the boy.

It was the closest Relkin had come to getting struck by a dragon since he’d been young enough and stupid enough to play a painful trick on his own involving a tack. If they didn’t get resupplied soon, it might be too dangerous to go near the wyverns.

Inside the smithy, there was a crowd of men and dragonboys surrounding the fire pits. Hammering filled the air along with the stench of hot metal and smoke. Neither the helmet nor the cuisse were ready. The apprentice smith who gave him the news was exhausted, with gaunt eyes peering out of a face blackened by smoke. Relkin collected a dozen arrow points, and returned to the warm, spicy air outside.

He set off for a walk along the road outside the lines. There were just a few people on the street. With starvation ahead, the populace had largely retired to their beds.

Here and there on the corners were beggars. Mostly men but with a few women sprinkled among them, clad from head to toe in the black garub to indicate that they were not prostitutes.

As he went past, these people called out in broken Verio for food. Relkin had nothing to give them. Up ahead there was an argument among some of them, angry voices were raised. A woman was shoved out into the street by two men.

Relkin halted in front of her, she turned, and he saw her face and recognized her instantly.

“Lady Miranswa?” he said.

“You?” she said quite astonished.

“The Mother must have willed it,” he said.

“Your goddess of the north, a cold sort of goddess, I think.”

In truth Relkin put as much faith in the old gods as he did in the Great Mother, and he would not argue about religion with anyone, especially not with Miranswa. The memory of that kiss, just before they parted in the Temple of Gingo-La was strong. There had been feeling on both sides, he knew that.

“You who rescued me from slavery and then shattered the power of the goddess, you are here now to taunt me in my misery.”

“I would not taunt you for anything, Miranswa Zudeina. I remember what you did for me and what happened.”

She became irritated.

“I swear I had no idea, I thought you might perhaps escape, no more than that. I did not foresee that you would destroy everything.”

“I did not destroy anything. I rescued my best friend in the world, and I rescued my dragon. I would die for either of them. They have long since earned that of me.”

She saw something in his face that frightened her.

“What did I do? Oh goddess protect me!”

“Miranswa, what are you doing here?”

Her eyes dulled at variance with the bitterness in her voice.

“Food,” she whispered.

He nodded.

“Have you any food that you could give me?” she said with a sudden eagerness.

“No, but I will get you some.”

“I have not eaten for days. There is no food in the city for one such as I, discarded by family and friends.”

“Your family has done this to you?”

“Hah! They would kill me if they could find me. My Aunt Elekwa has taken control of everything. She has my inheritance and will not give it up easily.”

He leaned closer to her.

“I have not forgotten what happened.”

“Oh the Island of the Goddess? Forget it, it meant nothing.”

But in truth, it had not been so meaningless. Relkin found her a place to rest, a cleared space in the back of one of the cargo wagons. The wagons were parked in lines inside the wall near the Fatan Gate, a stone’s throw from the cook fires for the Eighth Regiment and the 109th dragons.

He went to the cook, called in a favor, and received a small bowl of barley mush that had been held over. He gave this to Miranswa, who ate it with the fevered passion of the starving.

Then she slept while he watched over her. She was very thin and completely exhausted. He covered her with his own blanket and then went back to check on his grouchy dragons.

The mood in the starving city had risen to a fever of rumor and hate. At night, there were attacks on the granary, by bands of two or three hundred men, driven to desperation by their hunger and that of their families.

The Argonathi soldiers and Kenor bowmen were too much for these attempts. But they were a mark of the passions rising in the city.

The white ships alas were still days away. There was a sense that anything might happen in the time before they arrived. Officers were enjoined to prevent any incident that might provoke the crowds, it was at all possible. If attacked, however, they were to fight back at once and subdue their attackers. Killing them if necessary. “Be fair but be firm,” that was Paxion’s order.