Battledragon (13 page)

"Then why don't you all go overboard and enjoy your wild lives?" said the Purple Green.

"Because we know that it would be dangerous and hard and hungry. We eat better in the legions, and we not have to work hard," said Vlok, who, though not bright, knew a good thing when it was carefully explained to him.

Later, when Bazil was lying on his pallet, feeling the ship move slowly from wave crest to wave crest as it plowed southwest, he raised the topic again, with the dragonboy this time.

"Boy, tell this dragon, what would happen to a dragon if he dove into sea and swam with whales?"

Relkin looked up sharply. "He'd be left behind, and he'd starve to death in the sea."

"What if he swam back to the ship? Not be left behind."

"Then I suppose he'd be put on trial and given the ultimate punishment. To tell the truth I don't know exactly what would happen, but it would be the end of that dragon and his dragonboy. You aren't thinking of doing this are you?"

"I watched the whales today, they are so very beautiful."

"They are, I watched them, too, but they belong in the sea. Dragons don't, or at least, not dragons that must serve in the legion."

"Serve in the legion, yes, that is it. That is why I did not do it, why I could not do it. But it was hard at times to stop myself."

Relkin knew that the dragons were all skittish from being transported across the ocean. Seawater was their natural home, and it was well known that for a dragon to taste salt water was to turn him feral.

"To swim in salt water is forbidden, Bazil. It is one of the prime rules."

"I know, not to strike a man, not to strike a woman, not to strike a child, not to taste salt water, not to hunt the beast of the field and the fish of the stream."

Baz paused. "But this rule we have broken, for we have often hunted for fish in the stream."

Relkin had to agree. "But you know that that rule is not so important. And we needed to fish to survive."

"Break one rule, break another," muttered the dragon, upset as dragons often were, by human deceits and contradictions.

Relkin suddenly had a great flash of insight.

"Hunting of fish," he said.

Bazil looked up, and there was an unmistakable guilt in his.eyes.

"You did!"

Bazil said nothing, unable to respond. Despite their reputation in human myths, dragons were very poor at lying, especially to dragonboys who knew them all too well.

"You did, you went out and killed that monster they had in the fish market. How?" Relkin broke off, stunned, appalled, and amazed all at once.

"I don't know what to say," he said after a moment.

Bazil said nothing, but felt a certain low misery brought on by his guilt. In a way he had betrayed the basic compact between himself and Relkin.

"And you risked your life. I don't know how you killed it, that shark was as big as one of these whales."

Bazil's pride ignited. "I cut him open with tail sword. Other sharks came, and they killed each other."

Relkin's eyes went wide. "All that for a piece of fish?"

Bazil looked as sheepish as a dragon possibly could. "I had to show the wild one that some fish taste good."

Relkin stared at him, speechless, then shook his head.

"I'll never understand you. Sometimes I think I might have an inkling of what goes on in that big head, but then things like this happen, and I realize I don't know a thing."

The dinner bell rang, and Relkin went down to the galley to fetch up cauldrons of stir about and pots of akh.

Relkin found it hard to banter with the others and even the latest Swane joke couldn't raise a smile, which disappointed young Roos, who had thought it up. All the new dragonboys regarded Relkin as something of a hero. They knew he had received the Legion Star and had served in more campaigns than any other serving dragonboy. To make him laugh was an achievement. To receive a kind word from him made them glow with pride.

When the dragon had a sufficiency, Relkin went up on deck and watched the sea. The whales had been left behind now. He was suffering from a quiet desperation. The dragon had broken the prime rule. Relkin knew that Baz had swum in the sea as a sprat, but that had been long ago. He had obeyed the rule through adulthood. Now he'd gone and broken it. He could turn feral at any moment and that would be the end of their partnership. What would he do then? Start a new dragon? Raise up one from the egg? He groaned at the thought of such a task.

A sailor pointed out a dark volcanic isle away to the south, faintly illumined by the moon.

"You see that glinting down there?"

Relkin admitted he did.

"That be the Isle of the Sorcerer, an evil place that we avoid, though it be useful for the navigation. We turn here to be sure of striking the Watering Isle in the doldrums."

"What sorcerer is that?"

"Don't know that he has a name. Some say he's been dead for a long time, leastwise he hasn't been seen or heard of. But then I never met anyone who'd been to his island and escaped. To be shipwrecked off that black isle is a terrible doom."

In a grim desperate mood Relkin stared at the volcano, a distant dark mass. What dreadful secrets did it contain?

Sometimes the world seemed a terrible place, or at best a place where the good and the light struggled against the tides of darkness to keep a small area within its grasp. Relkin had seen much of the world already, and he had seen much of the dark.

Slowly the distant isle slid past on the fleet's lee side. When it had sunk below the horizon, Relkin went below.

By then the dragon had finished his dinner, and the empty pots were set out ready to be collected and taken down to the galley. Relkin completed the last of the day's chores and bedded down. The dragon was already snoring.

He closed his eyes. Normally he was blessed with the soldier's ability to sleep instantaneously, once he was lying in his cot. This night he found it hard. The thought that Bazil would have risked everything by going out to hunt for a sternfish himself was very difficult to accept. The dragon had always been so steady.

He checked himself, because there had been the mad kidnapping episode a few years back. Perhaps the dragon was not so steady after all. Then he remembered that once again it had been the Purple Green's fault. It was the Purple Green's natural chafing at the constraints placed on dragons who lived around humans. The Purple Green voiced the inner dragon, and Bazil listened. Most of the time it just washed over him and he ignored it. Once in a while something struck a chord in the big wyvern brain, and they got into fearsome trouble as a result.

For instance, much of the year previous had been spent in trials. Relkin had been tried for the murder of Trader Bartemius Dook, slain by Relkin aboard a trading ship. In his favor had been dragon testimony that described the final tense moments in which Dook had threatened the life of one of Bazil's offspring. Dook's behavior had necessitated his killing. Against Relkin was the word of Dook's crew-members and the emotional accusations provided by Dook's surviving kin.

The trial had been moved from Kenor to Mameri to ensure that dragon testimony could be presented. Still, some jurors could not countenance the testimony of dragons, even if they spoke perfect Verio and appeared rational and intelligent. Such folk could not accept equality with any other kind of beings. The first trial had produced a hung jury. The second trial produced a mixed verdict. Relkin was found not guilty of murder but guilty of killing a man in a minor degree of self-defense. Relkin was punished with a mark of censure on his record that would make it hard for him to receive promotion. It would make it impossible for him to be employed by the city of Marneri once he left the legion. Since this was a frequent way for injured dragonboys to earn a living once they were mustered out, this had serious consequences. Relkin's legal advisers appealed this verdict, which prolonged the proceedings into the winter.

The High Appeals Court of Marneri heard the case and removed the mark of censure after lengthy proceedings. But these trials were but half of it, for in addition there were a series of tribunals and inquiries for both himself and for the dragons, Bazil and the Purple Green, who had abducted him and gone absent without leave for a month in the year of the invasion. By Fundament Day, Relkin had been deathly tired of the legal process.

At last it had ended, and he escaped even a mark of censure. And somehow, through it all, it had seemed that the bond between himself and the dragon had grown stronger, despite the adversity.

Indeed, the whole unit had grown stronger. There was a very good feeling in the 109th Marneri Dragons, at least until Dragon Leader Wiliger had appeared.

But now he wondered to himself if he hadn't simply invented these feelings, and that, in fact, something had happened to Bazil, possibly through the words of the Purple Green. Perhaps Bazil had become deceitful, perhaps he would turn feral and either be destroyed or turned out upon the northern shores of Dragon Home. Either prospect brought amazing hurt to his heart.

A scream echoed from the maintops. More screaming followed. There was the sound of feet thudding on the deck above, shouts. Relkin leapt to his feet, found his sword, and looked out the door.

Dozens of other tense figures also bearing swords were standing in the passageway.

The screaming cut off, and there was a storm of other noise and then fie voice of Captain Olinas bellowing, "Belay there, nobody fire, it has Meloy."

"By the Mother's mercy, the monster has Meloy!" said someone in a hushed voice.

Soon the dread explanation arrived. A gigantic flying thing had flapped low over the ship, circled, and disappeared into the clouds. Then it had returned suddenly and seized the lookout from the maintops crosstrees.

By this time everyone was awake and asking questions. The answers were so disquieting that the ship did not settle back to sleep that night.

Captain Olinas ordered a better watch kept and asked for good bowmen to be placed in the maintops to protect the lookout. Commander Voolward asked for volunteers and was gratified to receive a powerful response; dozens stepped forward.

A service was said in the memory of poor Fidel Meloy, now lost to the unknown terror of the night. From then on, men and dragonboys were ready at the crosstrees of all three masts. Others waited on the foredeck and forecastle with bows at the ready.

The next day the winds died to a whisper, and the fleet was becalmed. The volcano of the sorcerer's isle was still visible, a tiny jut upon the far northeastern horizon.

All day they drifted southwest on erratic airs, and Captain Olinas became concerned that they had lost the winter wind early. This would dramatically increase the length of the voyage.

There was nothing to do, except hope for better winds. That evening they ate quickly, and there was an excited competition to stand guard at the onset of night. Would the flying brute return and if it did, would they be able to kill it?

As the moon rose, a few clouds gathered in the east and slowly filled the sky. Bored and disconsolate, the early watch returned to their bunks and were replaced. Another hour passed and nothing was seen. The intensity of the watch slackened, as the men in the crosstrees talked among themselves.

Then, with a shocking rapidity, a giant form plummeted out of the clouds and plucked loose a man in the maintops of the
Potato
.

His screams rang out across the water with a heartrending intensity. A few arrows sped in his wake, but they were late and missed the batrukh.

Once more the watch was renewed with vigilance. Many an anxious eye was cast up toward the clouds from whence these huge fliers could so abruptly drop.

So intent were they upon the clouds that they did not see the swooping shapes mat flew in low, just above the wave tops and then rose at the last minute to pass close over the decks.

Aboard the
Barley
there were a dozen crewmembers standing in the waist, the wind was freshening and they expected Captain Olinas to shift sails again shortly. At the last moment they sensed the thing coming and dove to the decking. It flew over the rail, folded its wings with perfect timing to pass between the masts and snagged a sailor by the name of Peggs. Peggs's shrieks of woe faded away, even as the arrows from the maintops splashed short in the water.

Now the lookouts were rattled. The things came from on high or they swept in low, and they came so fast it was difficult to get a shot at them.

Voolward sent more men aloft and lined the rails with others. Grim-faced, they remained alert the rest of the night, but the batrukhs did not return.

Admiral Cranx was very disturbed. Men had been snatched from six ships, a total of nine were now missing. Cranx was not sure whether they were being devoured by these aerial monsters or taken captives to the sorcerer's isle, which lay just below the horizon to the northeast.

Worse, the wind that had stirred the clouds during the night had faded away with the dawn and left the fleet becalmed once more, hull down from the isle but still well within the range of the enormous batrukhs.

The boats were set down, and they towed all day, but to little effect since a strong current began that pulled the entire body of water on which the fleet floated back to the north and east. Whatever forward progress the boats made was negated by this rearward drift of the water around them.

The Witch of Standing, Endysia, was rowed across from the
Oat
. She was closeted with Admiral Cranx, who then summoned Captain Olinas and Commander Voolward. The witch had confirmed Cranx's worst fears. The sorcerer in the isle had detected them and sent the batrukhs to snatch away more men once the first man, poor Meloy, had been taken. The sorcerer might have decided to try and take more, many more. Suitably entranced, men could make good slaves. The witch was sure that great magic had been made, probably with poor Meloy's life to cement and give it force, and it was this that had stifled the winter wind and left them becalmed close to the isle. The witch would prepare a spell to try and break the sorcerer's grip on the wind. However, she cautioned that she might not have the power to accomplish that much.