Battledragon (7 page)

It was difficult in the extreme. But as one ale was followed by a second, and their attention was drawn to sizzling chops and slices of roast pork, it became a little easier. Manuel did most of the talking. Mono was the quiet sort anyway, and Relkin didn't trust himself to speak. He was still too astonished by this turn of events.

Wiliger wanted to know about the great fight at Sprian's Ridge, and he listened intently to Manuel's descriptions, venturing little in reply except an occasional "my word!" or "by the Hand."

When he'd heard it all, he congratulated them quite handsomely and then told them of his own fight, at Cudburn's Shoals. He seemed quite unselfconscious as he spoke.

"The enemy had thrown a large body of imps across the shoals, and my regiment was in danger of being cut off. There was this group of rocks by the river's edge. It was absolutely crucial, but we'd been driven off them. I took up the fallen standard and rallied some of the men, and we retook those rocks and threw the imps into the river. Saved the day, I think."

"Of course it was nothing compared to what you fellows did at Sprian's Ridge, but it was hot enough that day." They listened and exchanged puzzled glances. This was a transparent effort to win them over. They were supposed to accept that Wiliger was a real soldier and not some overfed fop with a wealthy father when all the evidence was to the contrary.

Wiliger next asked them, one at a time, to recount briefly their life stories.

"Where were you born, for instance, Relkin?"

"Village of Quosh, sir, in the Blue Stone country."

"Ah, the Blue Stone. Such pretty country, I've always enjoyed it. My uncle has an estate there, he holds it in fief from the Baron of Borgan."

Relkin's eyes widened for a moment. He and Bazil had once worked for the Baron of Borgan, a disastrous period for them both.

"So, where were you schooled?" said Wiliger.

A course of pigeons stuffed with foie gras arrived. Relkin admitted to having been to the village school in Quosh for a couple of years.

Wiliger frowned. "You mean that you have only had two years schooling in your life?"

"Yes, sir."

Wiliger muttered something under his breath.

"And you, Mono, where did you attend school?"

Mono looked down. "I never did no school, sir. Farmer Gool's wife learned me the skill of reading, but I never did too well at the writing. I can count, though, she learned me the counting and the multiplying."

Wiliger's eyes popped. " 'Tis extraordinary, and yet they allow you to serve in the legion.".

He turned to Manuel.

Manuel had been to school from the age of seven and had attended the academy in Dragon Lore and learned much concerning the physiology and behavior of the dragons.

Wiliger at once asked Manuel his opinion on the great Chesler Renkandimo, renowned author of
Knowing the Dragon
and the great
Care of the Wyvern Dragon
.

Manuel hesitated. "Renkandimo is not much favored at the academy. He lacks a grounding in the principles of the biologic. His prescriptions are whimsical in some cases."

"Whimsical? Dear me, surely not. The great Chesler whimsical, it can't be." Wiliger seemed most upset by this news.

The incredibly filling stuffed pigeons were at length picked clean. More ale was brought, and all three dragon-boys were feeling the effects by this time. Manfully they drank it down and prepared to tackle the desserts as they arrived, beginning with the wondrous house apple pie.

For the second day in a row, Relkin was feeling overstuffed to the point of bursting. Worse, this time his head was feeling wobbly from three pints of the best ale. He normally never drank more than two. Now came a fourth and a huge wedge of black currant pie.

Having exhausted his interest in the lives of the dragonboys, Wiliger turned back to Relkin.

"I have ordered new cap badges for the unit. Like my own, with larger numbers, a great idea don't you think? This is a proud unit, a legendary one. We want people to see our number and give us the respect we deserve."

He'd taken off his hat and was pointing to the horrid great flashy thing.

Relkin choked for a moment. When he got his breath back, he struggled to find words. Something impelled his tongue to truth, perhaps all that ale sloshing around inside him.

"Sorry, sir, they're irregulationary. Can't be used."

"What?"

"Cap badges will be one inch long, seven-sixteenths of an inch high, three-sixteenths thick, made of Cunfshon brass and polished to a high shine." Despite being drunk, Relkin rolled the oft heard syllables off his tongue like some religious chant. Manuel and Mono nodded in time.

Wiliger's face darkened.

"What do you mean?"

"It's Legion Regulation 243, sir," said Manuel quickly. "Cap Badges Will Be." He saw Wiliger's confusion. "Our former dragon leader used to recite the dress regulations to us at every parade, sir. I think we know all of them by heart. Cap badges are strictly prescribed for in size and material."

There was a long, pregnant silence while Wiliger went scarlet. They all kept their eyes on their plates. The rest of the meal was an agony of embarrassment, and they were all glad to escape at last and scurry back to the Dragon House.

The land of the Kraheen bore a well-earned reputation for cruelty and the rule of savage kings. Their neighbors avoided them, in part because of the legends concerning cannibalism and their dark terrible ways, but also because their land was isolated beyond the Ramparts of the Sun, in close proximity to the ancient forests known as the "Lands of Terror."

Wealthy Kraheen women poured fortunes in fat down the throats of tame pythons and fed them on slave children. High Priests carved totems from especially fattened, living men and women. Hung on hooks from the chins of the gods of Stone and Fire, these living emblems howled out their propitiation of the deities. Sometimes they lived for weeks this way. At every rising of the full moon, the priests bled human sacrifices and then bathed themselves in the juices.

The Master Heruta Skash Gzug had sent Kreegsbrok to end this world and replace it with another. He had been given five hundred men, the pick of the armies of Padmasa, with fifty troll and five thousand heavy imp. This force had been enough to shatter the army of the Kraheen nobility and scatter it to the winds. Kreegsbrok had taken the royal family prisoner. Through them, he had become the ruler of the land of the Kraheen. He promulgated enormous reforms, especially to the use of the land that was to be distributed among the peasants.

This was an enormously popular step. At once the people rallied behind the new regime. The orders went out for the arrest of all the old nobility.

When Kreegsbrok and his men had finished with the old nobility of the Kraheen, there was a mound of skulls ten feet high standing at the gates of the new fortress that was rising on the Island of the Bone.

The last holy men of the old gods had been made to swim for their lives with the bones of their high priests still smoldering in their mouths. The old ways were no longer needed, for the Prophet had come to life.

"He Who Must" strode the world once more, a legend from a previous millennium. From his fingertips danced blue fire that could heal the sick. From his eyes emanated a strange force that brought calm to the souls of the mad. He spoke with a voice of honey and brought balm to the back of the ancient people. The Prophet had the power in him and demonstrated it before the people every day.

And so they came to him, in vast throngs, pouring into the capital city from the hinterland. They returned speaking of the marvels they had seen, bearing among them the lame who could now walk and the blind who could now see.

And thus did Heruta Skash Gzug fashion a hand to carry his other great weapon, the were-sword, the destroyer of worlds, cast of metal in great forges built on the Island of the Bone.

Kreegsbrok had been summoned one night and flown on the back of a massive batrukh across the waters of the Inland Sea to the Island of the Bone. There within the new fortress he was received by the Great One himself. The Master, great Heruta, commended his servant. Kreegsbrok had done well and had repaid the faith shown in him by his Master.

He was given a new task in life. He was to manage the Prophet, to control the strange thing that Heruta had created from the long-dead flesh of "He Who Must."

"He lives, but he knows in his heart that he is dead," said the Master in that eery rasping voice. "This makes him vulnerable to the suicidal impulse. Death is generally sweeter than life for such as he."

"Yes, Master," said Kreegsbrok.

"You must keep him alive, good Kreegsbrok. With him alive, we shall have an army of a hundred thousand Kraheen who will willingly fight to the death. Such a host will be necessary for the next steps in our mission."

Kreegsbrok said nothing, his eyes fixed on the ground, unwilling to gaze too long on the whorls of sparkling horn that covered the Great One. Heruta floated a few inches from the floor in utterly inhuman form. He understood the effect his appearance had on his servants, and he relished the fear it grew in their hearts. ' "Kreegsbrok, good Kreegsbrok, you are a creature of war.

You have served our power faithfully for many years. You understand something of the great struggle we are engaged in."

"Yes, Master."

"Since the disaster of two years ago, we have been on the defensive. It is imperative that we regain the initiative and gain enough time to rebuild our strength. That is our mission here. We must succeed!"

Kreegsbrok clenched his fists. "We shall win!" he said in a tight voice. The Great One smiled for a moment.

"Of course we can expect our enemies to take some action. Our presence here is now known. It was inevitable that they would find out somehow, they always do. Still, it will take them years to mount a response, and even then I doubt they will be able to take effective action. We are too far from the coasts they dominate with their filthy fleets. But I expect the hags of the Witch Isle to try their best. They will come in various guises. You will need to be very alert. They will try to subvert our work upon the old Prophet. You will notify me at once if you detect the slightest sign of witch magic!"

"Yes, Master."

And thus Kreegsbrok had become the keeper of the Prophet. A strange business, watching over a man who was not a man, alive but not alive.

At times Kreegsbrok detected a definite personality within the husk, a glimmer of the ancient man who had been consumed by his ascension to "He Who Must." It came alive when he spoke to the crowds. He was a captivating speaker, imbued with an energy that moved people to ecstasies. Afterward there would be a light in his eyes, and he would speak to Kreegsbrok in broken Verio, which ancient tongue he had known something of in bygone times. Kreegsbrok was conversant in Verio, along with several other languages learned during the campaigns of his youth. The Prophet would question him about the world as he knew it. The answers always excited the Prophet, and at times he would rage off in Kraht, completely unintelligible for a while. At other times he would simply laugh and ask more questions.

And then the eyes would go out and the body would stiffen. Though it moved and even spoke, it seemed to have no life within it.

When it slept, it was as if it were truly dead. To waken it, Kreegsbrok forced black drink into its mouth. The black drink had a powerful effect on the thing. It always wanted more and Kreegsbrok had to be careful to keep it from intoxicating itself.

"You don't understand man-who-still-lives," said the Prophet one time. "You don't understand a thirst built over a thousand years."

But the Prophet lived enough to speak to the people, and that was all that was required of him. Every day the heralds went forth from the new temple to summon the crowds.

And they rose up and came to see him, in their tens of thousands. They came with the thunder of drums and the ululation of the multitude. They came with fierce joy in their hearts and a flame lit in their eyes. They came to worship the Prophet and to relish his message.

Darkness fell, huge fires were lit on the water and out of the night He came and stood before them, bathed in light from two orbs that were lit upon the base of the pinnacle. He wore the cloth of gold and strode a white carpet. He raised his hands and silence fell.

In the distance there was a great flash of light from the Bone. A few seconds later a dull boom shattered the night and echoed off the cliffs of the Place of the Pinnacle.

From the great crowd there came an ecstatic sigh.

The Prophet came to them and in him was the power. He preached it to them and the power went out into them; and they felt the joy in their hearts grow louder.

When he paused, their ululations rose to the heavens. A harsh birthing cry of the legend of the Prophet. Ajoth Gol Dib, the One Who Must, who came to the Kraheen alone, promising an end to their misery, an end to disunity and slavery.

Cry joy for the love of Ajoth Gol Dib! The Great One Who Must!

Across the white carpet he came, tall, beautiful, with the fires of destiny blazing in his great dark eyes. The masses swooned at the sight of his beauty. They drank up his words like sweet wine.

The message was a seductive one. Accursed by all other peoples, the Kraheen would rise up at the last and assume the rule of the world. For too long had others cheated the Kraheen. For too long had the coastal peoples kept the Kraheen from the riches they deserved.

In the name of Lugad, the God of the ancient Kraheen, they would go forth and spread the message of the Prophet. Fall down and worship Lugad, all else is forbidden on pain of death. For Lugad had given the world to his faithful Kraheen, and it was now time for them to take it.

And he told them to throw down all other rulers and to know no other gods but the One God, Lugad. And he promised them that if they did this, then Lugad would look upon them with great love in his heart and would raise them up and make them the mightiest people of the world.