Battledragon (50 page)

"Anybody know where we are?" said Spearman Rikart.

Nobody answered for a while.

"Ask the witch, she'll know. She knows everything," said someone else in a bitter voice.

"It's not her fault. We had to stop them firing those things at the column."

"It's not her fault?" said someone else, incredulous. "That's a joke, right?"

"Pass over, friend. That's wrong. It's no one's fault. We had a job to do. We done it, but we paid a price."

"Damned witches brought us here."

"You join the legions, you join to fight."

The witch they argued over was too busy right then to answer the question, even if she had heard it. Not that she could have said precisely where they were. Lessis knew they were close to the Inland Sea, and that this river must run into that sea, but how close that sea was she did not know. And besides, there were too many badly wounded to treat right away for her to spend much time thinking about it. She was helped by Lagdalen, who was completely covered in mud, blood, and general filth, from head to toe, but continued patching and bandaging men with stolid indifference. Lessis noted that Lagdalen had developed an endurance almost equal to that of a Great Witch. Her years with Lessis had hardened her.

They left the worst till last, when Swane joined them.

"I need you to hold him down, Dragoneer Swane."

Swane understood. He was big for his age, already a well-developed man.

The gangrene had begun in the patient's arm. The imp blade had cut to the bone, and the wound had turned bad. Lessis had never performed an amputation before, although she had witnessed hundreds over her lifetime. Cutting through a screaming man's flesh while others held him down was not the same as watching and assisting the surgeon. Trying to tie off arteries with shaking fingers and vision blurring from fatigue was even worse in some ways. With Lagdalen's deft fingers moving around hers, she struggled through it. Somehow they kept the young man alive. He went into shock before it was over, and that made the latter parts of the operation simpler. Swane helped with the sewing; like all dragonboys he was deft with needle and thread.

They wrapped the amputee in a blanket and prayed over him for a moment. The Hand of the Mother hold him close. Swane returned to his dragon, who was already asleep and snoring thunderously. Lessis went on to her last call, Legionary Petto, who was obviously going to die that night. Peritonitis had taken hold from the spear thrust in his belly. Lessis had nothing to dull the pain except a flask of black drink she'd taken from a dead imp major. She gave some of this to the worst cases. The ones who were dying anyway. It dulled their pain even as it excited them. It was hard to lie to Petto, who didn't want to die and was afraid of going to the Mother's Hand. He knew what was happening. It was difficult to ease his fear. Lessis spoke with him for a while and worked subtle magic on him. Despite the intoxication of the black drink, he calmed, his breath came more easily, he struggled less. He made ready to go to the Hand.

At length Legionary Petto slipped into unconsciousness, and Lessis left him and went to sit beside Lagdalen under a tree. There was a piece of hard biscuit in her pack. They shared this, the last food they had. Neither spoke. Both were close to exhaustion.

Then Lagdalen's head dropped suddenly against Lessis's shoulder. In a moment she began to snore softly. Lessis laid her head back against a tree. The sight of Lagdalen sleeping brought on a tremendous urge to sleep herself. She felt tired to the bone, just so, awfully tired.

She awoke to a gentle shake of her shoulder. She sucked in a breath with a gasp as her hand went to her dagger.

"It is I, Count Felk-Habren, Lady."

"Ah, yes, pardon me, Count." Lessis remembered where she was. Lagdalen still slept, curled up like a kitten beside her.

The count continued to have difficulty with the concept of dealing with what looked like beggar women as if they were his equals, but he had seen the work of these same beggarly looking witches when they blew up the enemy's tube weapons, and he had seen them fight during the long, crazy retreat from the battlefield. He had seen this fragile-looking drab parry a sword thrust, go inside, and kill an unwary imp with the long dagger she carried at her hip. Thus, his discomfort was now matched by a healthy respect for their power and their courage.

"We must talk."

"Good idea, Count."

Felk-Habren grasped at the air with his hands.

"I do not know what to do. I knew we had to smash those weapons, and we did that, but now I am lost."

Lessis pulled herself to her feet.

"Lost? No, my friend, we are not lost. We know several things about our location. We can't be far from the Inland Sea. We've traveled westward since the battle. This river will take us to the sea. That seems the way to go. So we have an idea of where we are and where we're going. More than that, we seem to have given the enemy the slip, too. No signs of them for hours now."

Felk-Habren squinted at her.

"I wish I could believe that. There are thousands of Kraheen out there searching for our trail."

"Then I suggest we use the river to escape. Let us build a raft of some kind and float downstream."

Felk-Habren stared at her. Where did she get such an idea? Why did she think he would know how to build a raft? Just because Imperial engineers were always building things? He was a Czardhan knight, a pinnacle of chivalry. He knew how to ride and how to fight and that was it.

"Don't worry, Count," she said, reading his thoughts. "The men have built many rafts in their legion careers. They can do it, if anyone can."

The Czardhan nodded slowly. The witch was right. Count Felk-Habren had seen these soldiers produce one amazing feat after another during their journey across this accursed continent.

"What will we do when we reach the Inland Sea?" Lessis pursed her lips. That was a good question. She was not altogether sure. Obviously the original plan was finished. The legions were in full retreat. She would never turn them around now. She just prayed that the legions succeeded in escaping the enemy. Perhaps, she thought to herself, the main column of fugitives would decoy the enemy's attention away from a small force bent on infiltrating the very heart of the enemy's power.

"Well, Count, I think we shall seek the opportunity to get as close to our enemy as we can. I think the dragons would like that. How about you?"

Heruta Skash Gzug, Great Master of the Dark Arts of Padmasa, wielder of the power of the vanus void, adept of the black fire, lord of ice, overcomer of death, ruler of millions, summoned his inner strength. As an "enthraan" or wizard of the Tathagada Dok, he was able to draw strength from the stuff of the world, to amplify that which he generated within himself.

Feeding off the energies of the fire pit beneath them, Heruta built a field of titanic properties. With it he sought to crush Relkin inside his own skull.

Relkin, unable to see and feeling utterly lost, fought back with a dumb, relentless persistence. Despite the agony it caused, he struggled free of each engulfment. Ignoring the fire that seared his mind, he refused to succumb.

Heruta the Great, who could literally hammer dozens of men unconscious with a single blast of mental power, was stunned. There was a streak of stubborn willfulness in this bastard child of some seaside slum that would not give up. Each effort to bind it down ended with a corner popping up again. The bonds would snap, and the defiant curses would spit from the boy's lips.

Heruta felt a rage such as he had rarely suffered building within him. It became so intense that it actually affected his power of concentration, and for a moment the pressure on the boy ceased.

Relkin pulled his head away from the stone. He could see nothing through the blindfold, but he sensed his enemy was nearby, standing over him. He turned his head to face him. "Never," he croaked.

Heruta's rage suddenly cooled, imploding like a black balloon. He became icily determined. Immediately he summoned up a mental probe, something that sliced through the boy's crude defenses, and searched deep within the mind.

Relkin writhed as this mind rape went on, and spittle foamed at his lips and his limbs twitched unnaturally.

Heruta looked and then withdrew. It was there all right, the subtle marks of great magic wrought on this boy. In fact, Heruta could discern several layers of such marks. The boy had been involved in the affairs of witches, that was known. The child had been involved in the catastrophe at Tummuz Orgmeen. He had also been present in the overthrow of the Demon Lord in Dzu. Something had toughened him. The boy was clearly more than he seemed to be on the surface.

Could this be the work of the Sinni? Did the Sinni dare to interfere so obviously in a world like Ryetelth? This armoring of a child seemed unlike the witches, who kept their miserable secrets to the inner circles of their mad cults. But for the Sinni to involve themselves like this would break a dozen great treaties on higher planes. Huge powers would be brought to the brink of conflict by such a thing. An incredible thought to Heruta the Great, but the workings of every little worm were important in the struggle across the sphereboard of destiny.

And then again there was that odd echo of another kind of magic, a power that Heruta had not felt in an aeon. The boy had had some kind of run-in with creatures that, in his simple way, he thought of as "golden elves." Could the ancient Danae still walk the fields of Ryetelth? Heruta had thought the ancient race long gone, withdrawn to the purer land of Illius.

Heruta wondered if the child might even be a weapon against him, deliberately molded in combat and finally offered up to him like this. The Great One gave a soft hiss and checked the chains that bound the boy. No, there was nothing to fear, no human boy could break those chains.

Suddenly there came an interruption. Verniktun approached and genuflected, proferring a message scroll. With a sniff of irritation Heruta scanned the message, then he hissed and rasped in rage. The fools had cracked the barrel of the first of the quick-firing cannon. It would have to be redone. Recast completely. Heruta went at once to the forge. He would oversee the casting of the next barrel himself. The steel master that had cracked the barrel would be fed to the fires.

Relkin was just as suddenly left alone. His head lolled back on the stone from immense exhaustion. The heat from the lava below and the sulfurous fumes made his head swim, but it was better than having his mind raped by the Master. Nausea wracked him and left him gasping for air, fouled, and weak. His situation had never seemed quite so desperate.

After a while the exhaustion finally overcame him, and he slept, sagging to his left in his chains. His dreams were not pleasant, and he whimpered occasionally and twitched against the stone.

He awoke from evil dreams to find the blindfold had been removed. Bright daylight, white clouds above, and Relkin observed that he was set on the rim of the volcano's cone. Then a face swung down in front of him, a face contorted into a hellish mockery of a man's. Whorls of green-black horn spiraled outward from eyes that glowed like windows onto hellfire, a flickering orange-red. The mouth and jaws had fused into a beak.

The vast mental presence of the Master surrounded his mind once more. He struggled, and was rewarded with the image of a stupid worm struggling on hot rocks beneath a relentless sun.

"Surrender," spoke the voice.

Relkin swallowed; his mouth had gone dry. How long could he stand against this power?

"I am tired of your resistance," the voice said within his head.

There was a movement. Behind the gold-carapaced figure of the Great Master, a pair of imps pushed forward, holding little Jak between them. The boy had been ill used. Blood and bruises marred his fair face. There was a long, diagonal cut across his chest. Jak managed to smile. His front teeth were gone.

"Don't give up, Relkin," he spluttered through split lips.

"That's how you treat prisoners of war?" Relkin threw at the thing covered in horn.

The voice of power within his mind "spoke" in a voice ringing with steel and might.

"You will cooperate or I will hurt him."

"I should have expected that. Seems pretty cowardly to me."

The great presence grew cold. Jak screamed, and his face contorted into a rictus of agony.

Relkin looked away.

<>

"I do not like to do this, but you give me so little choice," said the voice, now in a less strident manner.

Relkin fought off despair.

"You'll die one day, and then old Gongo will come for you, that's all I know. Everything that lives will eventually die."

"Oh-ho, old Gongo, is it?" rasped the Master suddenly, breaking into speech. "What have I here? A true man among the female-worshiping Argonathi? You remain faithful to the old gods, eh? None of this worship of their so-called Great Mother."

Relkin felt a sudden nervousness. He had been so ambivalent about all the gods, even the Great Mother, his beliefs were in a state of confusion.

"Gongo will take you for a judgment. Think on that, thing of horn and fire. One day you will stand in front of a much greater power and be judged. How will you fare on that day? With all the blood and horror you have chalked to your name?"

"May the old gods watch over you, child. I am glad to learn that they still have their followers among the benighted folk of Argonath."

"Leave Jak alone, it's me you want."

"Such conceit! Especially from a little orphan bastard."

Relkin felt a flush of shame. This thing knew how to hurt him with a phrase.

"What do you want?" he said at last.

"To be your friend, child," spoke the voice inside his head.

The waters of the Inland Sea broke in surf upon a silver strand about half a mile from their position. Sea grass dotted the sand dunes. From where they stood, on a slight eminence, covered in scraggly gum trees and deep purple greasebush, they could see well out across the water. On the horizon lay the dark mass of the Island of the Bone. Jutting up at one end was the cone of the fire mountain, which rumbled and emitted a thin stream of dark smoke.