Battledragon (49 page)

"You will be questioned by the Great One himself, quite soon. I have come to warn you not to attempt to dissemble or deceive the Master. He will detect any untruths, and you will regret them at once, believe me."

Kreegsbrok's Verio was good, albeit with a strange accent. He had questioned them himself, thoroughly. At first Relkin had given him only his name and rank and unit, as he was trained to. Jak had been taken away to be questioned separately. Kreegsbrok learned enough from them separately to converse intelligently about the expeditionary force. The more Kreegsbrok knew, the harder it became for Relkin to keep silent.

"Why does a Great Master want to question me?" said Relkin. "I'm just a dragonboy."

"I have served the Master for many years, dragonboy, I have learned never to question anything he does. He will have a good reason. Perhaps he will share it with you. Just be sure not to anger him with some silly attempt at deceit. He can sniff out the slightest untruth, and then he will be cruel."

"I have answered your questions, Kreegsbrok, will you answer one for me?"

Kreegsbrok looked at him. It was odd, but he liked these youths. Servants of the enemy they might be, but they showed a grit that he had to admire. Even in such dire circumstances, they kept their heads. Kreegsbrok had seen many a man confronted with an imminent interrogation by one of the Great Masters of Padmasa shake, tremble, and even foul themselves from fear.

"All right, speak, Dragonboy."

"That man, the Prophet of the Kraheen, why does he kill like that? Is it to entertain the people?"

Kreegsbrok pressed his lips together. His dislike for that part of his life was so great that it was hard for him to talk about it.

"He is not properly alive. He lives only to kill. It is his greatest pleasure."

"Why do the people love it so?"

"We have made them great and given them power and slaves. They think the deaths increase their power, though in truth, they are a cruel people eager to have revenge on the world."

"What do you think of the killings, Kreegsbrok?"

"I do not think of such things. It is not my job."

"You are a man of honor, Kreegsbrok. I see that from your weapons, from your dress, from the way you carry yourself."

"I command the Master's forces in this region."

"Then you must be a great general. You must have a sense of honor. How can you obey such orders, doesn't the killing sicken you?"

"Shut your mouth, Dragonboy. You people of the East are weak. You let women rule like men, and so you are weak like women. You know nothing of the world."

Relkin laughed to himself at that, but thought better about letting Kreegsbrok hear him.

"You know something, you're wrong about that, but never mind. You're a brave man, a soldier, and you must have once had honor. I think you must have shut your heart away somewhere and lost it in the darkness. Now you serve a thing that kills for the pure pleasure of it. Now you have no honor, do you?"

Kreegsbrok stared at the boy for a moment and raised a fist.

"I would make you pay for that, Dragonboy, but you are wanted by the Master." Abruptly he turned and stalked away.

Not long afterward men came and blindfolded Relkin and led him away. There was a long tramp through an echoing place, perhaps a cave. Then he was forced to ascend a great many steps, and as he climbed them, the air grew thick with sulfurous fumes. It became hard to breathe after a while, but his captors would not let him stop. If he slackened the step, they jabbed him with knife points to keep him moving. At last they reached their destination, and he was pushed against a wall and shackled there with heavy chains. The sulfur smell was very strong, and the air was hot and heavy. From somewhere below there was a constant harsh roaring sound broken occasionally by louder crashes. His captors took their leave, and he was left, blindfolded, alone, in a high place over great peril.

He was there for perhaps an hour when he felt the first touch of the presence. It came directly into his mind, a little thought, a sort of warmth, even friendliness. A kitten of a thought, just out to be playful.

Another mind was surfacing within his own thoughts. It spoke to him, and it did a whole lot more.

Of all dragonboys serving in the legions of Argonath, Relkin was perhaps the most practiced in the arts of magic, all on the receiving end, of course. He had spoken with the Great Witches, Lessis and Ribela, on the mental plane, so he was not struck dumb with terror.

On the other hand, the witches had never "arrived" in his mind like this. They came like still, small voices "speaking" in his head. This was different. This was as if a part of him spoke to himself. It was as if he no longer completely controlled his own mind. He disliked it intensely.

The arriving presence was amused by his dislike.

"I know you," it said. His lack of fear had confirmed everything it had learned.

"Kreegsbrok has done very well to bring me this dainty," said the voice in his mind. It turned to him; he felt the power grow enormously. His mind was gripped as if by huge, unseen hands. He felt his memories invaded; flashes of thought rushed past, looted from his private places.

Relkin hissed and spat, enraged.

"You have involved yourself in the affairs of the great too many times, dragonboy Relkin, to escape me now. When you left your village, you hoped for great things. And you have achieved them."

Relkin struggled not to feel the false pride that the thing in his mind pressed upon him.

"You have fought in many campaigns. You have seen battle again and again, and you have survived and emerged covered in glory. Why, they even gave you the Legion Star after your exploits in Tummuz Orgmeen."

"We threw down the Doom." Relkin spat back, taking control of his own mind for a moment.

"Yes, you did," said a huge voice in his brain, as the invisible grip came down again, but much, much tighter.

"Do not think to resist me, child. You cannot, and I do not wish to hurt you. No, not in any way, despite all the injury you have done to me and my cause."

Relkin struggled to spit out his reply, but could only manage an incoherent snarl.

"Listen to yourself, now you are snarling, like an animal. That's what those witches have done to you. Don't you see? You've been raised under witches' sorcery. From the earliest times they indoctrinated you with their bizarre theories. People are not equal, boy, this you must understand. You are not equal to me. No living man is equal to me. Comprehend this truth. Then listen to the message I bring you, for it will liberate you and set you on the true path to enlightenment."

Relkin's struggles had lessened. His thoughts had grown confused. It was true that he'd seen plenty of sorcery performed by the witches, but it had always been for the good of all and the peace of the Mother, or so he thought. And yet there was another thought, which spoke of the sacrifice mat dragonboys made, losing limbs, dying, all for the comfort of a society that valued them little and rewarded them meagerly. For ten years of extremely dangerous service, you received a mere forty acres of virgin land in Kenor.

Well, the dragon received eighty more, so between you, you had one hundred and twenty acres. It was also possible to buy more, and if you saved, then you would have enough to add to this total. This way a sizable farm could be built up quite quickly. Relkin's optimistic views of the future were strong; he'd spent many hours daydreaming them into fantasy life.

But the other voice would not be quiet. "The life of a small peasant farmer!" it bellowed, "for risking your life for them over and over again." At the siege of Ourdh, at the great battles of Salpalangum and Sprian's Ridge, or in the catacombs of Tummuz Orgmeen, Relkin and his leatherback dragon had served them well. And for all that suffering and sweat, terror and toil, they would give him land enough to be a peasant.

Another view swelled up. After service with the new power, the power brought by the Masters, someone like Relkin would retire to a country estate with a pension of considerable value and high honors. He would have hundreds of acres, and hundreds of servants. His life would take place on an altogether more exalted plane.

Relkin rejected it. This was all falsity; he knew how the servants of Padmasa lived. He had seen Tummuz Orgmeen.

"But come, I have no need to contend with you. You are simply dwelling in ignorance. I shall show you the way. Listen to the words and learn, child."

The voice in his thoughts grew to become the universe, absorbing everything into itself.

"In the center of all there is nothingness," it said. "The nothingness is what we come from and what we return to. While we live, we are given the world to enjoy. It is ours to use while we have it. There is nothing that is forbidden.

"Of course, the pursuit of the better things is to be preferred. The higher elements are much worthier of our efforts than the animal urges of our flesh. We have developed the way to pursue the higher elements and to overcome the limitations of the flesh."

The voice plucked at something in his mind.

"Yes, you were marked by the Sinni. And you saw them, I think, during another of your depredations. Think how the Sinni live! At higher energies, where power is vast and pleasure limitless. You, too, could have this, if you master the subtleties of our method.

"All this can be open to you, child, if you will but open your heart to us."

"I have no master," said Relkin aloud, with a great effort. "Leave my mind alone."

There was a long moment of suspense. As if a great avalanche were falling on him from a height.

"Oh, but you do have a Master!" roared the voice, taking over the universe once more.

"I will empty you and reform you. You will become my golem, and you will live forever."

"Never!" Relkin screamed back with everything he had.

The small group of men and dragons were now fugitives from the enemy. They had successfully destroyed the enemy's weapons, but since then they had been driven westward and had lost hope of rejoining the main army.

They halted for the day when they finally struck the main stream of the river. They had spent much of that day hacking through undergrowth surrounding small tributaries, getting closer and closer to the river itself. It was getting dark. They were exhausted. Dragonboys were on their last legs, but they struggled up and set about checking their dragons for cuts and abrasions. The older men, many of them wounded, simply fell asleep wherever they lay down.

Dragon Leader Wiliger made his rounds, limping, with a large bandage on his wounded hand and another bandage on his lower jaw. Wiliger's bark had long since ceased to frighten the boys, and he had abandoned his martinet pose. Something had happened to Wiliger. He had become a good dragon leader, eternally solicitous of the boys and their wyverns. Somewhere in the white heat of days of fighting, seeing boys and dragons die under the enemy bombardment, he'd lost his arrogance and gained a genuine humility.

With the dragons who'd lost dragonboys, the Broketail and Alsebra, Wiliger tried to tend to them. He took scraper and points and attempted to fill in. The dragons ignored him as they usually did. Bazil was sunk into his own interior gloom. Alsebra simply felt numb at the loss of her second dragonboy. She had already lost her dragonboy since her young days, Bryon. She knew what the Broketail was going through. And at the same time she genuinely missed young Jak with his cheery ways and his skill with cuts and bruises.

Wiliger tried to change the bandage on Alsebra's slashed left forearm, but she withdrew it after she realized how clumsy he was.

"Mono will do it, later," she said with a hiss.

Bazil merely glared at him when he sought to check the leatherback's cuts.

Once, Wiliger would have been offended and would have gone off in a rage. Now he accepted the situation and left quietly, going over to comfort Manuel, who they had picked up from the battlefield unconscious and who later despaired at the loss of the Purple Green, who had been slowed by his wounded leg and had become separated from the rest of them in the dark. Manuel had come into the Dragon Corps to care for the wild dragon. Despite the Purple Green's temper and ingratitude, there had grown a bond that was very strong. The young man's heart was breaking as he contemplated the strong likelihood that he would never see his wild dragon again.

The bond between dragon and boy was that powerful kind that can come between species, such as a dog for a human. But between the battledragon and the dragonboy, the bond was stronger by far. Dragons were not only intelligent and incredibly fierce, they were capable of great emotional involvement. They tried not to show this, but it was always there.

Bazil, of course, was utterly desolate. His boy was gone. He had lived with boy Relkin for most of his life. They had grown up together. Bazil had often warned that boy that this would happen, and it had. Now the dragon was alone. Memories crowded in his thoughts, all tinged now by sadness.

He felt a presence and raised his head. Alsebra leaned closer so that he could see her eyes clearly.

"Jak was my second boy," she said. "I mourn his loss. Your pain is deeper, though. I know. When I lost Bryon, I felt as if I had lost a part of my self. We grow close to our boys over the years."

Bazil could hardly speak. He slumped beside the water, sitting back on a fallen tree, Ecator in its scabbard before him.

"It was not like boy to volunteer for anything. Why this time? It seem damned foolish."

"Someone had to do it. Boys have to prove themselves not completely worthless. Relkin was angry. We all angry."

"Yessss."

Bazil hissed with a deep boiling kind of rage. His hands clenched on the pommel of Ecator. Someone would pay, by the ancient gods of Dragon Home, he swore it.

The word was passed around that there would be a share-out of the available food.

They could not risk a fire. The woods behind them were alive with Kraheen scouts. Sergeant Worrel had organized the collection of every scrap of food they had. Now he split it up and shared it out equally. It was meager. A scrap of dried biscuit with a thin slice of sausage and a fragment of cheese. Even without a fire, the food distribution point became the center of the little camp. A ring of hungry, exhausted men formed around it. The dragons were settled farther away, where they could stick their big feet in the river. The dragons did not expect any of the food; there wasn't enough to even give one dragon a snack.