Battledragon (48 page)

When he remembered it all, his heart sank. The legions had been hard hit. The fantastic journey across half the world had been for nothing.

The very last links in the chain of memories eluded him, however. How had he come to be lying in the cool darkness, in a place that smelled of wet stone and mold?

A chilly thought struck him at last. What if this was death? Had old Gongo, the god of the afterlife, collected him from the battlefield and brought him to lie in the halls of stone until the end of time? If so, it was going to be a pretty boring wait lying here in damp darkness. He hoped something would happen occasionally. Then he chided himself for his irreverence. It was no wonder he was always in trouble.

And then an aching sadness came over him as he realized that if he was dead he would never achieve his dream of a life with Eilsa Ranardaughter. Nor would he ever see his great dragon again.

He lay there, cold and damp and very low in spirit, for a long time. Oddly enough for one who was dead, he felt his wits sharpening and his head clearing in a more or less steady progression during this period. He could feel his breath coming evenly, steadily, through nostrils to chest. This struck him as strange. Did the dead breathe in the Halls of Gongo?

Suddenly he heard a loud snort and a mutter. He held his breath and listened with every fiber of his being while he tested his bonds.

There was no easy way out of them. Thick leather thongs had been used. He could tell at once that it would take him a long while to gnaw through them. .

How could he be dead and have his wrists bound?

The conclusion was obvious and of little comfort. He had been captured by the enemy and left here with who knew what in this dark place. Perhaps he was the next meal for some troll or other fell beast of the enemy.

Where were the gods when you needed them? It seemed that the gods had rolled the dice on him again and come up with singles. He prayed that they might roll them again, and he promised to make sacrifice as soon as he was able, if he could only get out of this place.

Then, without warning, he sneezed at the cold.

The breathing sound was interrupted; a familiar voice said, "Who's there?"

"Jak?"

"Relkin, is that you?"

"Of course it's me. How did they capture us?"

"Relkin, I'm so glad I'm not in here alone."

"Is there anyone else?"

"Not that I've heard."

"Is anyone there?"

The silence convinced them that there wasn't.

"I was trying to get you on your feet; I didn't see the one that got me; he sneaked up from behind."

"I don't remember."

"You're lucky to be alive. We lit the fuses on the enemy weapons and blew them to pieces; something must have knocked you cold. I thought you were going to die. There was a lot of blood."

"Yeah, I can feel a big cut on the top of my head. I guess old Caymo was rolling the dice for me after all. Where are we?"

"Inside some big building, that's all I know. I was put in a closed cart for three days and could hardly see anything since I was tied up. Then they pulled me out, and a great stinking troll carried me inside a wide door and down a passage and put me in this room. Someone shut the door, and I've been here ever since. I don't know when they brought you in, I was asleep for a while."

"Then we're a distance from the battlefield."

"Miles."

"They didn't kill us, that's significant."

"Of course not, they're gonna sacrifice us. That's what they do to prisoners, Relkin. You heard the stories. They rip your heart out of your body while it's still beating and offer it to their god."

"Yeah, I heard." Maybe old Caymo had rolled the dice pretty damn badly. "Except we're from the legions, Jak. They'll ask us questions before they kill us. You'll see. We might get a chance to escape."

"That's what I hoped you would say. If the madman from Quosh says we're gonna get away, then I'll believe it."

"What happened to Stripey?"

Jak's voice dropped. "I don't know. I hope he got away. He was in my pack when they took me. They tore it off. I don't even know if he was still in there at that point."

They lay there in the dark, talking bravely to keep each other's spirits up. Relkin recalled a similar situation in the Temple of Gingo-La in the faraway land of Ourdh. This time, however, there was no lovely Miranswa to save him. This time the orphan boy from Quosh was going to face the music.

Food and water had been brought once before, according to Jak. The service had been dismal. Someone had crouched over him in the dark and shoved wet bread into his mouth.

Relkin hadn't eaten for days, however, and he was so ravenous even this would have been acceptable. He was also terribly thirsty. After a while his dry throat made him stop talking. He dozed, awoke, and dozed again. His thirst had grown unbearable.

And then the door suddenly crashed open to admit a fierce red light. By it they saw a pack of squat, dark-skinned men in leather aprons and feather headdresses. Heavy gold chains hung around their necks, huge rings flashed on every finger.

Relkin's heart sank. These gentlemen looked every inch like priests. Maybe little Jak was right after all.

The priests pulled them to their feet and hustled them out the door and down a corridor of stone. The leather between their ankles slowed them, and the Kraheen goaded them with sharp blows and hisses of impatience.

At length they passed some guards and entered a larger room. A fire blazed at one end, throwing a harsh light across a scene of fantastic savagery.

On a dais stood a single figure, clad in cloth of gold like a shimmering pillar. Before him groveled a small army of men in leather aprons and feather headdresses. In a cage set to one side of the dais were a dozen poor wretches, crammed into a space big enough for half their number.

Five stout imps armed with bludgeons, whips, and swords guarded this cage.

Behind the figure on the dais was a stone altar. On the altar was the corpse of a woman, her chest torn open and her heart removed. The man in the cloth of gold held up the woman's heart and squeezed it so that drops of blood fell into his mouth.

Relkin and Jak exchanged a grim look.

"Old gods have ratted on you, Relkin," said Jak.

Relkin and Jak were pushed through the milling horde of priests while the man on the dais harangued them with a voice of electrifying power. Relkin couldn't understand a word, but he sensed the excitement in the crowd around him. They were spellbound.

Then they climbed some steps to the top of the dais and were brought before the figure in the cloth of gold.

A devil's face looked into theirs. A devil splashed crimson from nose to chest. A face cut by harsh lines with deep-set eyes that blazed with an insane fire. The devil smiled evilly at them. His hands came up and made clutching motions at them, then he barked something to his servants.

Drums were beaten, horns blared, the priests shouted for joy. Doors opened at the far end of the room, and Relkin and Jak were hustled through them and onto a huge balcony overlooking a great amphitheater. Down below was a mass of Kraheen waiting expectantly under torchlight.

At the sight of the figure in the cloth of gold, a roar went up. When the prisoners were brought out, the roar increased and a harsh chant began, a few syllables repeated over and over again while the crowd raised its hands en masse.

From the cage the imps brought in a pair of Talion troopers captured the previous day. Both men had been beaten and stripped, but they retained their native bumptiousness. When an imp struck one of them, he struck back, hammering the imp in the face with an elbow, then putting a knee to good use in the imp's midriff. For this he was struck repeatedly with whips until the tall golden one shouted at the imps and made a gesture with one hand at his throat.

The crowd roared; they hated imps. To see the Prophet kill imps would be wonderful. Lustily they called for the death of the imps. But it was the Talion troopers who were pulled forward and bound to thick poles set on the edge of the balcony. The crowd fell into an expectant hush.

Relkin didn't want to watch, but found it impossible to look away. The Prophet began his incantations and raised his hands to the heavens again and again in supplication. His voice grew harsh and then rose to a demonic shriek that cut through the listeners' thoughts like a hot knife through snow.

The air grew dense with energy, a feeling of doom pulsed in the air. The troopers gave out hoarse cries of agony that mounted quickly to shrill squeals.

The crowd murmured expectantly as the Prophet moved closer to the doomed troopers with his hands extended toward their chests and his mouth open in an obscene rictus of a smile.

The troopers began to jerk madly against their bonds, pulled by a force greater than anything in their own bodies. It was eerie to see these big men pulled off their feet, the bodies contorting as their pink chests surged out to meet the brown hands that grasped at them.

The power rose, the air crackled as if lightning was about to break loose, an unbearable tension lay over everything, and then with a sound like small trees being split with an ax, the rib cages of the two doomed men broke asunder in a fountain of blood.

A moment later the bloodstained Prophet, drenched with gore, had the men's hearts in his hands as he raised them over his head.

The crowd let out an ecstatic roar, a terrifying cry of monstrous lust, a satisfaction with dreadful evil.

For a full minute they roared while the tall man in the bloodstained cloth of gold capered back and forth before them, squeezing and shaking the hearts in his hands so that drops of blood rained down on the fortunates in the audience who were positioned right below him.

Eventually he slowed and let his hands drop. The hearts were exhausted. The pleasure had faded. Gradually the crowd's excitement dimmed, and the noise died down. The Prophet turned and signaled to the imps standing behind Relkin and Jak.

In moments the boys were lifted up and borne to the poles, and Relkin felt a sense of utter hopelessness overcome him. This seemed such an unclean way to die. But there was nothing to be done and he was bound to the stake, positioned so that he stared across ten feet of space to little Jak, who was plainly terrified.

"Commend your soul to the Mother, Jak!" he called. "She will protect you from now on."

Jak heard but made no response. He was frozen with terror. Relkin tried again and drew an angry slash from an imp's whip. This time, though, his words had gotten through to Jak, whose face softened a moment and then firmed with new strength as he overcame the terror of death.

"If you live in the Mother's Hand," he shouted back, "you need not fear death."

An imp stepped up to snarl in little Jak's face. Jak spat in his eye. The imp staggered back and snarled and plied his whip on little Jak.

Once again the Prophet checked the imp with a snarl. The crowd murmured in appreciation. The Prophet spread his arms wide and began to summon up his power once again. Relkin felt his heart flutter oddly in his chest, and he was struck by a sudden nausea. From nowhere came a blow; it was as if he'd been kicked in the chest by a mule. He heard himself bellow involuntarily.

The crowd roared. The Prophet came close, and Relkin stared up into those mad eyes above the thick gore. So this was death, thought Relkin. Old Gongo could not be any more horrible. He felt his ribs starting up, bending under the invisible pressure of the mad Prophet's magic. It felt as if a hand with cold fingers was actually prising his chest up and up until it must burst and send his heart flying to the Prophet's hand.

And then, with shocking abruptness, a huge man clad in black leather appeared in his field of vision and shoved the Prophet aside. The spell collapsed.

With a strange crawling sensation, Relkin felt the pressure on his heart ebb away. His skin itched unbearably. Tears ran down his cheeks, and there was a ringing in his ears.

More men in black leather, with the conical helmets of Padmasa, appeared around them. Relkin and Jak were cut free and hustled away while the crowd groaned its disappointment.

Down a labyrinth of stone corridors they went, before exiting from a narrow side door that opened onto a dark alley. It was night, and a soft moonlight pervaded the upper air. A torch flared, and by its flicker, Relkin saw a dozen men with swords and helmets of Padmasa style in the alley. Several had their swords drawn, and now they danced ahead on the lookout for trouble.

They went on through another alley, then down some stairs and through streets lined with rough-hewn houses built of stone and thatch. They emerged onto a harbor; Relkin could just see the outlines of the headland to his right. Beyond that was the openness of the sea, the great Wad Nub, the Inland Sea.

Now they were taken out onto a generously proportioned two-masted ship, something that was at least as large as the river-going boats of Kenor.

Aboard this ship they were driven down belowdecks and confined to a narrow dark compartment. The door was bolted on the outside. Soon afterward they felt the boat leave the dock and begin to make its way out onto the waters of the Inland Sea.

Behind on the wharf a small creature scurried out of the tunnel mouth and into the protective shadows of a pile of barrels being unloaded from the next ship up the wharf. It gave a soft, mournful hoot at the sight of the first ship leaving the harbor. Men in black loaded the barrels into carts and drove them off the dock. Other men went aboard the ship and disappeared below.

Before the unloading was complete, the creature had managed to reach the side of the dock. For a moment all was still. The small animal scurried up the gangplank and hid itself beneath a heavy coil of rope.

Not long afterward more men came to the dockside, boarded the ship, and cast off the ropes tethering it to the dock. The sails were unfurled and quickly filled with wind, and the ship headed out of the harbor and into the Inland Sea.

The man called Kreegsbrok came to them once again.