Battledragon (57 page)

Heruta shrieked in horror. How was he to escape without a suitable mount?

The dragon came on. The Great One could no longer get a grip on the beast. There was only one place to go. Heruta fled, scrambling up the steps that lead to the high place, overlooking the volcano's crater.

The mountain jerked again, and a great cloud of dark smoke towered into the sky overhead. An angry roar burst from the volcano's throat.

When the ground stabilized once more, Relkin climbed unsteadily to his feet. Lagdalen was crouched over the Lady Lessis. Wiliger was sprawled on the floor. Relkin swallowed. The dragon leader had come through in the end. Poor Wiliger had shown his courage. Relkin turned his eyes upward; stepping around the dead batrukh, he started up those steps to the high place.

It was a long climb, but in the end he came to the place where he and Jak had been chained. There he saw the Master stand at bay.

The lava down below was boiling, and the heat and the gas made it hard to breathe. Far below, the searing blast of the Thingweight's death had awoken the volcano's heart. A long rumble in deep basso shook the ground. The Master wobbled. Relkin fell against the wall. A gout of flame shot up from the lava pool. On the outside of the volcanic cone the foundry buildings collapsed in clouds of dust and slid down in ruin.

In desperation, Heruta conjured and stretched out his power to crush the dragon. A great weight fell on Bazil's mind. His thoughts seemed to coagulate. To move forward was almost impossible, as if an invisible but unbreakable membrane was stretched in front of him.

Dragon teeth ground together in his long jaw as he struggled to break the wizard's grip. He could barely feel his arm; all sensation was fading as time seemed to slow to a crawl.

Out of the corner of his eye Bazil saw the boy slip past, knife in hand. The Master was tiring and did not react quite quickly enough, and Relkin struck. Forced to defend himself against renewed physical assault, the Master had to switch his attention to the boy. This freed the dragon for a moment. Bazil lifted an arm that felt heavier than lead and brought Ecator around in a gleaming arc of death.

The Master stepped back. Bazil gave a grunt of satisfaction. His muscles were responding once more. Bazil stepped over Relkin—who was sprawled on the ground—shifted his weight, and swung again. Ecator flashed and took off the Master's arm at the elbow. The blade sang in a high wild tonic, but Heruta screamed in incomprehension. Shaking his head, blood fountaining, he stepped backward, missed his footing, and plunged over the edge and fell with a long, wailing cry into the heart of the volcano.

For a long moment there was nothing but the rumble of the volcano and the seething of the lava. Then the mountain leapt under them. A tremendous blast convulsed the world.

Bazil fell on the flagstone and scrabbled for fingerholds as the mountain shook and shuddered and threatened to toss him into the fiery crater, too.

Relkin crawled to the dragon's side, holding on for dear life as the ground jumped beneath him.

"We did it, Baz. Put an end to him."

A section of the crater wall slid down, taking the stairs with it. Below them they saw the batrukh aerie break up and fall away. They were trapped now.

"Boy celebrate too soon."

Relkin never got to answer because at that moment the ground heaved again and their entire section of the mountain broke away from the cone and slid down the side. Behind it billowed a pillar of smoke, reaching high into the sky.

For a moment Relkin was in free fall, then he returned to the floor with a thud. Bazil had a fingerhold in a metal ring sunk in the stone. They were on a ride like no other, sliding, gathering speed, as their giant fragment of the mountain roared down the slope like a huge stone sleigh.

Then they left the mountain and arched out from the mountain's side; the sea was beneath them, rushing up, flecked with foam. Boulders were flying all around them. Relkin glimpsed an incredible jet of lava that was blasting forth from the volcano's ruined side beneath a cloud of incandescent smoke.

Then all was lost in black smoke and dust for a moment before they struck the water, and Relkin was thrown high into the air, turned a somersault, and landed feet first in a wave of extremely hot water.

He screamed, choked, and almost drowned, but somehow struggled to the surface and broke through successive shock waves as huge objects crashed into the sea around him. Each time he felt himself hurled up, out of the water for a moment. The last one was the greatest of all, however, and it tossed him out of the hot stream of water into a cool one, and just in time, for he was already half scalded. He tried to swim, but the waves flung him from side to side until at length he felt himself picked up by one larger than the rest and hurled down deep into the cooler water.

For a while he waited, lungs bursting, to simply drown, but the current that had taken him down now moved him upward again. He surfaced, sputtering, beneath a vast cloud that filled the sky. More waves were coming, lifting him high for a moment before dropping him back in the deep troughs between them. The sky beyond the waves was a mad riot of scarlet and orange fire, toiling with huge coils of black smoke. The volcano had blown itself to pieces, along with much of the Isle of the Bone.

Relkin did his best just to keep his head above water as the waves carried him farther from the island, which was split in two now by a wall of fire.

Sizzling lava bombs fell into the sea; some burst quite close to him, but he took no notice, his thoughts dulled, his heart numbed by the loss of his dragon.

And then there was a different sort of explosion in the water beside him. A huge shape surfaced, and his dragon swept him onto a broad leathery back.

"I thought I saw boy. Hard to fool this dragon's eyes."

Relkin gave a prayer of thanks to all the gods and clung there to Ecator's scabbard as the wyvern swam, his great tail boosting them out into calmer waters while volcanic bombs continued to rain down around them every so often.

The waves continued, but the wyvern powered on, leaving the boiling cauldron of the drowning volcano behind.

He swam for a long time, during which the world behind them continued to vent steam and smoke with unmitigated fury, but they were spared the lava and blast effects, and eventually Bazil grounded on a wide beach covered in warm grey ash.

Relkin slipped down to splash ashore. It was a steaming desolation. Seaweed was strewn across the wreckage of palm trees. A fishing boat perched high on a dune. The half of the sky behind them was covered by die death throes of the volcano. The half ahead was hidden in white haze.

A thin wind blew in from the sea with a whiff of sulfur. They stood still for a moment and gazed about them. They were utterly alone, but they were alive.

The volcano blasted westward, blowing out one-third of its crater and hurling it into the sea. Superheated lava struck the water and generated a vast cloud of steam, which soon hid even the smoke of the eruption.

To the east, however, very little material fell, and thus the band of survivors was spared. They staggered out of the hot, stinking mist onto the beach under a strange, bloodred light. Alsebra led them, carrying the Lady Lessis over her shoulder. The Purple Green was still on his feet, and carrying Dragon Leader Wiliger, who drifted in and out of consciousness. Vlok, Swane, and the Count Felk-Habren came behind, followed by Lagdalen, of course. Nothing could kill Lagdalen of the Tarcho, it seemed.

With grateful groans, the dragons waded into the water and let the waves crash over them. The sea was a turmoil of waves moving in different directions, but it was blissfully cool on their overheated skins. All the bruises and singed spots felt better at once.

"We been through far too much, we need rest," said Vlok in tired complaint.

"Listen to Vlok," said Alsebra, "for once he's absolutely right."

"We lost the Broketail," said the Purple Green.

"And boy Relkin."

"I grieve for them."

"I, too."

"We fought side by side, the broketail dragon and me," said the Purple Green. "I don't know how many fights we were in, but he was always at my side in every battle. He saved this dragon's life, not once, but many times."

"And this dragon's life," said Vlok.

"And this," said Alsebra.

"Since they came to me where I was starving to death in a dismal cave and showed me how I could live a better life, with honor and the chance to smite our enemy, I have been with them. We even ran off and starved in the forests once to try and save boy Relkin."

"Oh, yes, we remember that," said Alsebra.

"I cannot believe he is gone."

Alsebra glanced up to the skies, hidden beneath the volcano cloud.

"He will lie under the red star now. Across the long leagues that span the stars he will be running, and to the red star he will go. That is the fate of all dragons in the end."

A pall fell across them, and they spoke no more.

They stood in the surf while the world around them hissed and shook. Every so often a fresh gout of lava would hit the western side of the island and unleash a great blast of sound. The rest of the time there was the rumble and the distant roar of the seething crater. It was a dark, inchoate world, filled with terror, but they were not afraid. They had seen too much death now to ever fear it. They waited there until the Lady Lessis awoke from the coma brought on by Heruta's magic. Count Felk-Habren sat at the edge of the surf and stared out at the water. Lagdalen sat by the Lady. Wiliger awoke, stared about himself with a completely lost expression on his face. Then he saw her and seemed to relax. He did not speak, but sat there looking out over the waves and the three towering dragons standing in the surf. Swane had gone out to scout the coastline to the south of their position. They were still too close to the volcano.

And then the Lady's eyes opened, and she gave a sigh that Lagdalen heard at once.
She tires of this life
.

Lessis was slow to get to her feet, but steady once she was on them.

"Heruta is gone," she said in a calm voice. "The greatest wizard in the world, our tormentor, he is dead."

She looked back to the volcano, as a rift in the clouds exposed the eastern side for a moment. The cone was still intact on the east, but beyond it was a halo of fire as the western side of the island was reforged with fresh lava.

"And they will sing the songs of Bazil Broketail long after men have forgotten everything of Heruta Skash Gzug, the mighty maggot and dark Lord of Padmasa—wound to the world, corrupter of men's hearts, and a mortal bane to their women. He is gone, but they will sing of an orphanboy from

Quosh and the broketail dragon for as long as men can sing."

The big dragon eyes were all fixed on her. Lessis felt a momentary flash of fright, dragon-freeze she supposed. After all this time spent working with dragons, it surprised her. And she had never suffered it before. But there was a penetrating intensity in their gaze that she could not recall feeling before.

Lava crashed into the sea on the far side, and the noise overwhelmed them for a moment.

Lessis bowed her head. She hoped she had not trespassed on their feelings.

"They will sing," said Vlok after a long silence. "We will sing first, though."

The others agreed with urgent hisses.

Lessis took a breath, and then urged everyone to move into the water. "We are in the Mother's Hand, that is clear, but we should move away from here as quickly as we might."

They waded in and found the water still cool; despite the fury unleashed on the far side of the island, the eastern water remained its normal temperature.

They swam, or more accurately, the dragons swam, while the people clung to them or rode on their shoulders. The waters were rough, but the dragons swam slowly and steadily through the chop, finding some great renewal of strength in the contact with their most natural element.

For a long time they swam thus, resting at intervals, allowing themselves to drift, and then powering on with smooth strokes of their tails, away from the thunder of the fire mountain.

When they were many miles distant, they noticed that the mists and smoke were thinning around them. A breeze from the south was coming up. Their hearts rose a little at this sign of peace, and they went on.

In time they were spotted by three lateen-rigged single-masted ships from the south, fishing craft of the Xiphura people of the southern coast. To their joy they found legionaries on these boats, each of which had a crew of six.

The ships weren't big enough to take the dragons, but the wyverns could take a tow line and thus get assistance. Lines were paid out over the end, and the wyverns took hold. The strange little fleet was slow but it kept an eastward heading, and in time they reached the shore, not far from the party of fugitives from the battle of the field of broken stones.

The great news went out. The wizard was dead, and so was the prophet "He Who Must."

More fishing ships came up from the south and bore them all away to safety in the land of the Xiphura. There they regrouped and tended to their wounded. The expedition had ended in a disastrous battle, but their enemy had been destroyed along with his secret weapon. Overall it had been a great victory, despite the terrible casualties. The passage of history had been interrupted with a grand stroke.

Peace was slow to reestablish itself, however. The Kraheen peoples underwent a period of anarchy. The oppressive, bloodthirsty culture of the Prophet collapsed. For a few days, raw red chaos ruled and many wrongs were righted with the sword and many oppressors were laid in the dust while gracious homes were torched.

When the fury had begun to burn itself out, leaving the Kraheen people completely desperate and disorganized, the legions moved north again and occupied the capital. Lessis and the other witches began a program to rehabilitate the Kraheen tribes. Their society needed to reknit itself, and that could best be done in the old culture, with the simpler life of farming and fishing on the Inland Sea. They would put aside the swords and shields and take up the plough and the tiller.