A Sword for a Dragon (49 page)

Another dragon was coming. The first reached down and helped haul up the second one.

The Kadeini men looked at each other, turned, and ran. Kesepton and the boys pursued them, but with Rokensak in the lead, they dove into the river and swam for it.

The dragonboys knocked open the hatches and were rewarded with a sudden eruption of angry, confused sailors who’d been locked up below for hours.

“What happened?” said Kesepton.

“How should we know? The hatches were suddenly locked hours ago, and we’ve never gotten an answer since. Was it mutiny?”

“Deserters from the Kadein legion, I’m afraid.”

“Where’s Captain Peek.”

A search of the Captain’s quarters, however, revealed no sign of the
Nutbrown’s
master but did disgorge Commander Glaves and his manservant, Dandrax, holed up behind the door where they’d been confined since the beginning of the fight.

They pulled him out. He was bellowing threats and curses the entire time. Then when Glaves found himself in front of Kesepton, with dragons standing on the ship’s deck, he fainted dead away.

Dandrax came peacefully once they’d poked him out of the cupboard where he’d taken refuge. They were bound at the wrists and set side by side on a bench.

Glaves seemed shocked into complete silence. Dandrax shrugged when questioned. “I work for the man, what am I supposed to do?”

“Where is Captain Peek? And Shipmate Doon?”

“You’ve got no evidence that was anything to do with me. Ask the Kadeini.”

“The Kadeini are not here, you are,” replied Kesepton. Dandrax spat.

“There will be a trial, that’s all I can say.”

“What happened back there then?” asked Dandrax. “How did you escape?”

“The battle is over, for now. The mud men stopped coming. Something went wrong with them. They addled and dissolved into mud.”

Dandrax whistled. “Great sorcery then.”

Kesepton nodded, he knew it had to be the work of the Great Witch. He’d seen things the previous year that he would never forget.

“Yes.”

Dandrax gave a big sigh. “Then my master’s scuppered and so am I.”

Glaves stared ahead of himself in complete apathy. He made no response to questions put to him.

“You did not have to obey him when he told you to murder. Or to steal this ship.”

“What?” Dandrax was indignant. “And not be paid for all I’ve done on this expedition? He owes me good gold coin, and plenty of it.”

“And so your motives are frankly mercenary. If you killed Captain Peek for money, you will hang.”

Dandrax looked down. “So that’s it, right? You’re going to pin it all on me. They’ll let this fat bastard go, right? They’ll give him a reprimand while they hang me! That’s how they do their justice in the cities. The rich men get away with it, the poor man hangs.”

Kesepton turned away from the fellow.

“You’ll get justice. And if you killed Captain Peek or Shipmate Doon, then you’ll hang for it, off the yardarm of this ship most likely. And if you didn’t, then you’ll live, though you may serve time in prison. But you’ll get justice, and so will your master.”

Kesepton stormed back to the deck, boiling with anger at Glaves and his treachery.

“Where do you wish to go, Captain?” It was the mate.

“Can you take us to the city of Dzu? We need to get as close as we can today.”

“Dzu, the city of Dzu?”

“Yes.”

“Well, yes, of course there may be pirates.”

“We have to reach Dzu. With the dragons aboard, we can defeat any pirates that might dare to board.”

“We’ll be there by noon.”

“Then we must go slowly, for we should enter the city under cover of darkness.”

“So it will be, Captain.”

The door to the cell opened after several hours, and a party of imps brought the Lady Ribela in on a stretcher and laid her on the floor beside Lagdalen.

A slave, his face terribly cut and broken, brought her some hot water and some clean rags. Then he produced a small oil lamp, lit it, and set it beside the stretcher. The slave tried to whisper something through his broken teeth, but he was interrupted by a blow.

“Alright, enough, get out of here,” boomed a harsh voice. The slave cringed and crept away. A brutal-looking man in black stood over her. A large whip was coiled at his hip.

“This hag has been bruised a little. You are to tend her and make sure that she’s fit for travel. She’s going on a little ride to the mountains.”

“What do you mean?” Lagdalen was carefully examining the lady. She had been terribly ill-used. The fingernails from her hands were gone, and there was dried blood everywhere. The flesh of her upper arms and belly showed the marks of hot irons and pincers, too. Lagdalen felt a great anger rise inside her. The man suddenly leaned down, grabbed her by the hair, and pulled her head back.

“She’s going to fly. A rukhbat has been sent for. It will take her to Axoxo. You have heard that name, I am sure.”

Axoxo, it was a name of death, a name that ranked with Tummuz Orgmeen. A fortress for a Doom. But the rest of his words left her puzzled. To fly? A rukh-bat? What did he mean?

“She may not be well enough to, ah, fly after what you’ve done to her.”

“If she isn’t, then your head will be the first to be taken. The master will demand it. Though I think it would be a terrible waste of one so pretty. It is not often that we gets to sample the pleasures of the females of the witch isles. I had not realized how comely they might be.” The man stroked his crotch and leered at her, then released her and stood back. A moment later the door closed behind him, and she was alone.

The water was hot and it would not stay that way so Lagdalen went to work at once, cleaning and bandaging where possible. It was heartbreaking work, but eventually she was done and sat there staring at the witch, willing her to live. Lagdalen grew drowsy and dozed. She awoke with a start. The witch was awake and peering into her face.

“Girl” she whispered, “are you well?”

“Yes, my lady?”

“Is it safe to talk?” Ribela’s voice was scratched and throaty.

“I think so. We are alone. This is a dungeon, two floors above ground I think. They brought me here after they separated us.”

“Have they harmed you?”

“No, my lady.”

“Thanks be to the Mother of us all. And my thanks to you dear Lagdalen for your aid.” Ribela held up her bandaged fingers. “You learned a lot in your work with the Grey Lady I think.”

“Yes, my lady, I did.”

“Good, that is why I chose you to accompany me. Listen to me now, we have much to do if we are to avert disaster.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“While I have been sitting here, I have concocted a plan.” Lagdalen leaned closer, and Ribela whispered in her ear.

And while the Queen of Mice whispered thus, her enemy convened another small conference in a cell not above one hundred feet away.

The Emperor Banwi Shogemessar had been confined here since they had brought him in. He had wept and begged at the door, but there had been no response. He dozed on the narrow mat, lost in mourning for his former life.

Suddenly the door opened, and in strode a tall figure hidden beneath a black cloak. The air went cold, the room trembled with power. Banwi felt his mouth go dry and his throat constrict. An inhuman face, surmounted by eyes that flickered like yellow flames, bore down on him. A weird, rasping voice spoke.

“Welcome, precious Emperor, welcome to the Temple of Sephis.”

“Don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.”

“You fear mere physical torment?”

“I fear everything, master.” Banwi got to his knees.

“Do you know who I am?” said the voice.

“No, not at all, I would never tell. Just let me go, please. I am sorry, I never meant to—”

“Shut up!” snapped the harsh voice. “I am the Mesomaster Gog Zagozt.”

Banwi shuddered. That such things actually existed. It was just as Aunt Haruma had told him. She had been right, the priests had been wrong and so had Zettila. But it was all too late now. Much too late.

“What do you want with me?” Banwi managed to say at length.

“You are about to enter a new phase of your existence. Up to now you have been useless, a burden to the very people you were supposed to tend. Fedafer of the well-watered land! Hah! A pitiful joke.”

The figure leaned down and took Banwi’s face in a powerful grip. The eyes flickered close to his own. Banwi came close to screaming.

“Now you will become useful at last. You will live out your days as a faithful servant of Sephis.”

The Mesomaster gave a great laugh, released Banwi, and pushed away.

A snarled command brought a pack of imps into the cell who seized Banwi, bound him, and drove him ahead of themselves down a stone-flagged passage. There was a guarded doorway, two huge men armed with sword and shield stood there. They looked down as the emperor was pushed through by the imps, with the figure in the black cloak coming up behind.

They emerged in a large space, lit only by a flame burning atop a large stone altar. Past the altar was a deeper dark than the rest of the place, as if it were a great pit. Banwi sensed something in that dark. His hair stood on end, and he tried to back away.

The imps laughed and shoved him forward. A whip cracked against his shoulder, another slashed him across the buttocks, and he jumped with a little shriek.

“Silence,” roared the voice. “You are in the holy presence of Sephis himself.”

Two tall men in the robes of priests had appeared. They came forward and took the emperor by the arms. They began pulling him toward the altar stone.

“No,” wailed Banwi Shogemessar, and he dug in his heels. The two tall men jerked him off his feet and carried him the rest of the way before dumping him on a stone platform that projected out over the dark. Banwi realized he was indeed standing over a great pit. A strong fishy odor was rising from below.

The Mesomaster mounted the stone altar. He uttered a brief incantation. Something stirred below in the dark depths.

Banwi felt his bowels turn to ice. A mass was shifting around in the pit, rising toward him through the dark. An enormous mass, larger than a whale, a great serpentine body ten feet thick equipped with a strange set of four long arms tipped with pincers and claws. The body was covered not in scales but in plates of chitinous armor.

Two vast black eyes, the size of dinner plates, bore down on him from above. Banwi stared into those eyes and felt his will drain away like blood from a mortal wound. What was left of him was ready to serve the serpent god.

The land on the west side of the great river was silent and dark. There were no lights, no friendly yellow lamps across the flat land.

Above the city of Ourdh, the river split in two. The main stream headed due south and swept past the headland on which the city of Ourdh had been built. The second stream broke westwards for thirty miles and then trailed away southwesterly before splitting again. On the northern bank of this stream stood the even more ancient city of Dzu.

They passed a line of enormous ziggurats, “Pachipandi,” said the mate, “the temples of the old god, the serpent god.”

“They like to build temples here don’t they,” said the helmswoman, old Tarano. “Everywhere you look, they got another one. Must give the Mother the giggles every time she looks at it.” The mate chuckled.

“It must be something to do with living in such a flatland,” said Kesepton, who was marveling at the effort that had gone into these huge, now rotting, pyramids. “These people need some real mountains to inspire them. They ought to come up and see our mountains in Kenor.”

“I think you be thankful in the end that Ourdhi peoples not ever come to Kenor,” said old Tarano.

“Why so?”

“There are a hell of a lot of them. Could fill Kenor right up.”

The
Nutbrown
nosed into a creek mouth about half the distance to the city.

“Any closer and they’ll see our sail.”

Kesepton agreed. “Many thanks to all of you. We will leave you here.”

Kesepton and the dragonboys went over the side and reconnoitered the area around the west bank of the creek. They saw no sign of human activity and signaled the dragons. The great breasts climbed down thick netting to the water. Then their armor and shields were lowered to them, and they formed a chain and passed it to the shore. Dragonboys sweated to haul the metal up onto the beach while Kesepton kept watch.

Soon the dragons came ashore. The
Nutbrown
slipped her moorings, pulled back out into the broad channel, and turned to leave. They were on their own.

From Kesepton’s understanding of the map, they were just a few miles from the city, across the base of a peninsula. Dragons put on armor and slung their shields and swords across their backs.

Dragonboys worked carefully on the cords and retainers, making sure that everything was a perfect fit. They worked in the darkness, by feel rather than by sight, but they were so familiar with the joboquins and the fastenings that it was actually better that way.

When all was ready, they set off and marched westwards in a short column, with the dragonboys ahead as scouts and Kesepton behind them, with the dragons behind him.

The first thing they discovered was that the countryside truly was empty of people. The rumors had been true. They passed a village where doors sagged open and debris littered the streets. A skeleton lay in the crossroads. A skull still rocked atop an assegai thrust into the ground.

The skeletons of cattle and donkeys were seen alongside the roads. They passed through another empty village, and then another. It was as if some terrible pestilence had swept through the place and annihilated the population.

“Where is everybody?” said Mono after a while.

“Gone to the new god in Dzu, I’m afraid,” said Kesepton.

“What’s he do with them?”

“The witch told me they make the giants from human blood.”

“Mother protect us!”

“So that rumor was correct,” said Swane. “We heard about that before. I just couldn’t believe it. Something so evil.”