A Sword for a Dragon (48 page)

He had been prepared for death just hours before. He had taken up the sword and was ready to go out and die fighting the enemy when the end came and the mud men came pouring over the breach. But death was not to be his fate. Eternal ignominy had been selected for him instead.

Something unknowable had intervened. Everyone was calling it a miracle, and those men who disdained the Temple and any religious belief were seriously rethinking. Those who knew the powers of the Queen of Mice understood that some tremendous sorcery had been achieved. Paxion understood that.

But before he might enjoy the feeling of being saved from imminent death, his heart had been brought low by the news of the attack on the
Nutbrown
and the apparent desertion of a commander, a captain, and thirty-five men from the Kadein legion. Shame had overwhelmed him.

And then came the news of ultimate catastrophe. The emperor had been abducted during the battle. Even worse, incredibly so, was the fact that the Lady Ribela, the very Queen of Mice was missing, along with her assistant. The only possibility seemed to be that they had been taken along with the emperor.

The entire expedition had crashed in disaster: they had lost the city of Ourdh, they had lost the emperor, and now they had lost the Great Witch Ribela. Paxion knew his name would go down in history as one of the great military blunderers of all time.

He turned his face to the wall and began to recite his prayer. He would not speak to anyone. It was as if he were no longer there.

His staff, dismayed, left him alone. They informed General Pekel, who now took over the command. Unfortunately, General Pekel was in a strange mood as well and spent much of the time pacing up and down rubbing his hands together and talking to himself.

When Kesepton approached him and requested permission to pursue the enemy down the tunnel that had been found in the emperor’s bedchamber, Pekel barely seemed to listen before agreeing. Kesepton wanted to go alone. He did not expect to return.

In fact, General Pekel was secretly obsessing about that damned coward Glaves and Captain Rokensak. They had been there for the meetings with the sly Euxus of Fozad. They knew that Pekel had been ready to treat with the enemy. If they were recaptured by anyone but Pekel, they would be sure to sing a lengthy song and implicate as many others as they could.

Pekel sweated at the thought of it.

Here they were, saved by a miracle, with the white ships only hours away now, and he, Horatius Pekel, was undone. If those cowards were recaptured, his career would be over.

Pekel hardly heard the earnest young captain, but he knew what the fellow wanted. If he wanted to commit suicide trying to get his wife back, then that was alright with Pekel.

As for the witch and the emperor, Pekel really didn’t care that much. Like everyone else, he despised the Ourdhi ruling elite and, in particular, the emperor. And like many men of Kadein now, he distrusted the witches and disliked their interference in the affairs of men.

Thus he bade Kesepton go to his death and resumed pacing. The white ships were coming. Pursuit of the
Nutbrown
would soon be organized. Pekel gazed into a distinctly unnerving future.

In the emperor’s bedchamber, Kesepton found a group of grim-faced young men and dragons waiting for him. They looked as if they’d seen some hard fighting. There were head bandages among them, and scrapes and scratches aplenty.

At their front was Relkin of Quosh with his two mighty dragons behind him. Relkin was dirty and worn except for a fresh bandage on his head.

“I’ve scouted down the tunnel for half a mile, sir,” said Relkin. “It turns slightly to the right there.”

“Thank you, Dragoneer,” said Kesepton with a tight smile.

“Captain Kesepton?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“We’re coming with you. We can’t leave her in the enemy’s hands.”

“I can’t allow it, you will be needed here.”

The broketail dragon leaned forward and rumbled. “Lagdalen dragon friend will not die alone.”

Kesepton swallowed and saluted the dragon. “My friend you do us great honor, but I cannot allow you to do this.”

The other great beast leaned forward. Kesepton almost went into dragon-freeze, he’d forgotten how huge the wild dragon was.

“You cannot stop us, Captain. I go with the broketail dragon, we die together. Perhaps it is a good time to die.”

Kesepton could not answer for a moment. That these huge monsters of war would be willing to throw away their lives by following him was a tribute to his wife and to himself, that brought a lump to his throat.

Two more wyverns stood forward. Kesepton did not recognize them at once, then saw the brasshide, Chektor.

“Captain, I fought at Ossur Galan and Mount Red Oak. I will come, too.”

“Thank you, Chektor.”

The dragonboy Mono was beside his dragon. Kesepton recalled that Mono and Relkin were the sole survivors of the original 109th Marneri dragon squadron.

The other wyvern was a leatherback.

“Vlok come, too. Where the broketail and the wild one go, goes Vlok.”

“Swane of Revenant, sir!” snapped the dragonboy.

“Sir?” said Relkin.

“What is it, Dragoneer?”

“The legions will be resupplied today, will they not?”

“They will.”

“And the enemy will not be able to attack again for hours.”

“So we believe.”

“Then we must go. We were privileged to fight alongside the Lady Lessis. We know how important the Great Witches are. We have to do this, we have to recover the witch. Even beyond our duty to find our friend is the need to rescue the witch. It must be done or our whole campaign here is nothing but a disaster.”

Kesepton nodded. The lad was correct, and he reminded himself that while Relkin was but a youth, only the Great Mother herself knew what terrors he had already dealt with in his time in the catacombs of Tummuz Orgmeen.

“So be it, perhaps this is what Heaven wants from us. Perhaps the Mother has selected us all for this service.”

“Perhaps,” said Bazil. “But dragon heart say that there is no fate, the future is made by the present.”

Kesepton moved down the stairs, and looked off down the tunnel with the aid of a torch.

It was wide and roomy, cobbled.

“Big enough for a coach and horses,” said Relkin, easing down beside the captain.

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

“We questioned some of the eunuchs,” said Swane. “They said the passage was once used by the empresses to ride to an island in the river where they used to meet their lovers.”

Kesepton whistled. “The empresses of old must have had a pretty passionate nature.”

“They also said that the slaves who dug this tunnel were all slain when it was completed to keep it a secret.”

“But the secret was not kept.”

“It was discovered by the first emperor of the Shogemessar dynasty and walled up. The eunuchs forgot to warn us about it.”

“The enemy found it without difficulty, I take it.” Kesepton was bitter. The Imperial Court had been nothing but difficult, haughty, impossibly demanding, reactionary, and xenophobic. Kesepton had formed a poor impression of the great civilization of Ourdh.

“I wanted to kill the damn eunuchs, but Dragoneer Hatlin stopped me.”

“As he should have. We do not kill our allies without good cause.”

“Sir, we hate the damned eunuchs here. Fact is, we pretty much hate all the people in this city.”

Kesepton nodded. “Understood. But our principle remains the same. We do not kill anyone except the professed servants of the great enemy.”

“Yes, sir,” said Swane.

Kesepton set off down the tunnel. “Come, there is no time to waste if we hope to find them.”

They stepped down into the tunnel, three boys, three wyverns, and a massive, wild drake.

“It must have been a small coach.”

“Small horse, too,” growled Bazil.

“Afterward I will eat a horse,” said the Purple Green. “By the roar of the old gods, it is close in here, in this human hole.”

They set off at a brisk pace, using the light of a single torch, although they carried several more in case the first burned out.

The tunnel extended for miles beneath the waters of the river. At first, this occasioned some jokes about the empresses of Ourdh and the lengths they would go to in order to see their lovers in peace and quiet. But the experience palled swiftly. They tunnel was damp and cool. Ahead stretched the slow-curving walls and the endless cobblestones. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of men had dug this tunnel. A colossal effort that must have cost a fortune.

Then, at last, the walls ended. A set of steps rose up in the dark to a massive door. They put their ears to this door, but heard nothing.

Kesepton gave the order, and Chektor hewed into the door and broke it through. It was large and imposing, but not designed to be dragon proof. They stepped out into the night. It was nearly dawn, and they were standing in the ruins of what had once been a large house. The roof and upper floors had long since vanished, and the remains were little more than decayed ruins.

Beyond the house was a tangled forest of palms and pines. They pressed through them for a quarter of a mile and found themselves upon a beach fronting onto the dark river. Startled monkeys scampered away through the forest with shrieks of alarm. The river stretched away to the lightening horizon where dawn was beginning to show its first glimmerings. There was no sign of land.

“This is the eastern bank,” said Kesepton. “Let us see what lies on the other shore.”

The island was a mile long and a third of a mile wide at its widest, a sliver formed atop a sandbar. When they reached the southernmost tip, they immediately noticed a light out upon the river. It moved slightly and was doused. Then there was another in almost the same place. It remained alight and in one place.

“A ship,” said Kesepton after studying it with his field telescope.

Indeed, it was a large vessel, square-rigged, and standing fast about a mile farther west, in the lee of the island. There was something strange about the ship, however. She carried no sail and seemed not to move. In the current there should have been some movement.

Kesepton understood at once.

“She’s caught on a bar, my friends. It’s low tide, and she came in too close to the island on this side.”

Kesepton continued to study the ship, which was barely visible in the very early light of dawn. Suddenly he let out a low whistle.

“As I hoped, it’s the
Nutbrown
.”

They all stared into the murk.

“How deep is the water there?” said Mono.

“On the lee side of the island, the water will be shallow, the sandbars extensive.”

“Hard to swim if we’re carrying armor and shields,” said Bazil Broketail.

“We’ll leave those behind. If we’re successful, we can retrieve them later,” said Kesepton.

Relkin pointed to the east. “Dawn soon.”

“We should hurry then, before the sun rises. We’ll be easily seen in an hour.”

Without further ado, they marched out into the shallow waters toward the ship.

After going half a mile, the water was waist high on a dragonboy, and the dawn light was strengthening, though it was still semidarkness.

They began to hear distant shouting from the ship, angry voices railing at one another. A chorus of boos and roars, more snarling and yelling, then a scream and several more screams.

“Sounds like they may have fallen out with each other,” said Swane with considerable satisfaction.

“If we hurry, we may arrive unannounced,” said Kesepton.

At length, they had to swim the last few hundred yards, which they did holding onto the backs of the dragons, since the dragons could swim far faster in the current than any man.

They reached the side of the ship, which was stuck fast at the bow. The argument continued. There appeared to be two factions exchanging insults and curses. Intermingled with these came occasional clashes of metal and sometimes a thrown object would hurtle off the ship and splash into the river.

Then a boat splashed into the water on the far side, and men plunged down around it. Other things were thrown after them, but they made themselves lively and within a few minutes had rowed out of range, although they continued to yell insults.

By then the dragonboys were already up the side and were releasing the landing netting stowed along the gunwales. It clattered down to the dragons below.

At last somebody saw them and let out a scream of alarm.

“Pirates!”

The men came running, swords out.

“Not pirates,” snarled a voice, “dragonboys!”

“What the hell?”

Captain Kesepton came over the side, and the men pulled to a stop.

“That fornicating staff captain,” said someone at the rear. Kesepton strode toward them with no sign of fear.

“You are deserters, and you’ll hang unless you surrender at this very instant and help me on my mission.”

“It’s the damned whelp of old Kesepton’s.”

“Paxion’s pet staff officer, he’s very well connected.”

“What says you we take him for a hostage, lads,” said a man with an officer’s uniform.

Kesepton turned to this man.

“Captain Rokensak, why are you not with your men at your post?”

Rokensak’s lips twisted into a snarl. “Because I’m here, you stupid Marneri eunuch. Because it’s death to stay back there. I mean, why the hell are you here then?”

Rokensak’s sword was up between them, Kesepton stepped back lightly.

“You will end in complete disgrace, Rokensak. I don’t understand it.”

“Stupid whoreson of Marneri, let my steel explain it.” Rokensak flung himself on Kesepton, and their swords rang off each other.

The other men, Kadeini troopers, also came forward, and the dragonboys were forced to engage them with their light swords. The legionnaires were seasoned veterans, and the boys were pressed hard and slowly driven back to the ship’s side.

And then with an immense effort a dragon arm came over the side, and with a huge grunt a two-ton leatherback rolled onto the deck and hauled itself to its feet. In its hand gleamed the dragon sword.