Dragonlinks (16 page)

‘There is not another deathmoon night due for some months, Fa'red, but my friends here are more than willing to discharge their deathmoon obligation in advance.'

‘Just as I am willing to speak your truename as I die. Would you like that, Preceptor?'

One of the lindraks twittered a question to the Preceptor, but he shook his head and motioned them back. Gilvier, who had been standing just behind Fa'red, felt sweat trickle down his ribcage. He relaxed a trifle.

‘What now?' asked the Preceptor.

‘Now you will go to the governor's palace,' rumbled Fa'red. ‘On the night that my house burned, a smithy was torched as well. An auditor's constable searching the ruins
found two corpses, one of which was … not like us. Its decapitated head had strange, sharp teeth. There was also a gold medallion nearby that escaped the flames.'

The Preceptor pressed his lips tightly together. He stared at the weavework of the carpet.

‘Being a man of refined tastes, he made a reedbond paper rubbing of the trinket before handing it over to the auditor. I have a copy here. Would you like me to read it to you?'

The Preceptor shook his head. ‘I apologise. Only a king and a queen have ever had an apology from me before. Are you satisfied?'

‘No. I want you to go to the governor's palace, fetch back that medallion and present it to
me
, formally, in front of the presiding magistrate.'

The Preceptor swallowed. ‘Agreed.'

‘Then I want rewards posted for the three youths that fled D'loom eight days ago with the mailshirt.'

‘Agreed.'

‘Now go.'

‘Folk have been tortured to death for even thinking about talking to the Preceptor like that,' Gilvier said as they watched the Preceptor and his two lindraks ride away down the cobblestone street.

‘I've already endured torture because of his stupidity and ambition,' Fa'red replied testily. ‘Tell me, Bradant, is there anyone who knows the trails of the Algon Mountains better than you?'

‘In all modesty, no.'

‘Would you be prepared to set off, alone, in pursuit of three thieves?'

Gilvier raised the sword that he was wearing a handspan clear of its scabbard, then let it drop.

‘I am a master of the mountain trails and a proven leader of men, Fa'red my friend. I am not a lindrak assassin, honed to be shot at by my King's enemies.'

‘Even to become governor of D'loom and all Skelt lands to the north? Then again, since the death of Count Juram, there is also a vacant place among the nobility.'

Gilvier blinked. As Fa'red had judged, he too had his secret ambitions, ambitions that he had probably renounced by now. Fa'red had stared down the Preceptor himself, and the Preceptor had been flanked by a pair of lindraks. Then he had sent him away with orders for the governor of Skelt. If he could do that, he could probably make good this wild promise as well.

‘First tell me who I am up against.'

‘A serving wench at the Boar and Bottle saw Daretor leave the port during the fire that destroyed the smithy where Thull's body was found. With him was a youth called Zimak Broagar, a local boy of about fourteen years who excels in kick-fist fighting and who carried messages between Thull and me. The third was a runaway Nerris -sian novice monk called Jaelin Halvet, who has been about D'loom for a sixmonth and worked as a scribe in the market. Daretor, you know of, and together they killed Thull.'

‘So what chance do I have if you insist that I travel alone?'

Fa'red held up his second dragonlink.

‘This will supply you with an inexhaustible army of warriors, all willing to die for you.'

‘What sort of warriors?'

‘Why the very beasts of the forests and the birds of the air, Gilvier. Will you go?'

Gilvier held out his hand and Fa'red tossed the dragon link and gold chain to him.

‘The fugitives have over a week's start, but that is no matter. Stay here until the Preceptor returns. I'll have him scribe up some papers that will get you across any border and excuse all but the most gross of crimes. When you are within a half-mile of them the link will glow, as will their mailshirt.'

‘And I am to return the mailshirt to you?'

‘No, you will go on to the great mountain city of Dremari in Passendof, and then to the Valley of Clouds in Baltoria. Harvest the dragonlinks that are in use there, and
then
return them all to me.'

‘You seem confident that these links are where you say they are.'

Fa'red's cheeks ballooned into a smile. ‘Wherever there are miracles, Gilvier, rest assured the links hide behind them. The Valley of Clouds reeks of link magic.'

I
t was some weeks before Jelindel, Zimak and Daretor reached the Chasmgyle Bridge, deep within the Algon Mountains. They began to cross, but stopped at the midpoint. They watched the waterfall and the torrent below. Fed by melting snows higher up in the Algon Mountains, the Marisa River was in flood.

Highlights from the ruddy sunset gleamed on the water as Daretor turned stiffly in his saddle and pulled out a bundle from his left saddlebag. It was heavy with an armourer's hammer, tongs, chisels and files.

‘Ah, what are you doing with the armourer's tools?' asked Zimak.

‘Throwing them away,' replied Daretor.

‘What? Are you possessed? They are very good tools, and worth many argents. We may need them.'

‘It is a matter of honour, I
must
throw them into the river. I'll gather the scattered links of the mailshirt
together, but I will never use the stolen skills of another warrior. I need no tools, for I'll melt the mailshirt and loose links down to a single lump so that such a dishonourable crime can never happen again.'

‘But Daretor, the tools are innocent! If you want to reject them, sell them or give them to me.'

‘No, Zimak, this must be a sacrifice.'

‘Well sacrifice them to me – No!'

Daretor heaved the tools over the log railing, and they watched the sack dwindle to a speck and hit the raging brown torrent with a splash that blended into the turbulence in a moment. The warrior's hand dropped to his axe, and he patted the head as though it were a faithful hound.

Jelindel dismounted and stood staring over the railing, awestruck. She had never been beyond D'loom in her short life, and even the mountains had been breathtaking for her. In D'loom the mountains had been a ragged line on the distant horizon, only visible on clear days.

‘That was so stupid; it was such a waste!' Zimak ranted as he joined her at the railing.

‘Zimak.'

‘Yes?' ‘This is the greatest thing that I have ever set eyes upon. Shut up, and don't spoil it.'

The bridge was a quarter mile from a mighty waterfall that plunged more than a thousand feet into the gorge then poured past below in a muddy tumult. Mist from the falling water drifted through the sunlight, forming ever-changing rainbows, while the continuous rumble was like the breathing of some dragon bigger than the mountains themselves.

For once in his life Zimak was lost for words.

Jelindel had seen sketches and paintings of the famous gorge and waterfall, but nothing could have prepared her for the vertical torrent itself. It had been one thing to study maps and known world atlases, but it was quite another to be really standing there.

Daretor had been across the bridge once before, and was lost in thoughts that he did not voice.

‘Everything has been a wonder since leaving D'loom,' said Jelindel. ‘Looking out across the cold, bleak beauty of Dragonfrost Plain, the estuary forests of the Marisa River with their floating villages, then the first of the Algon Mountains, and now this.'

‘I – I feel as though I want to take it with me,' said Zimak.

‘A good look is all that we can take,' Jelindel said wistfully. ‘Even the sketches that I have seen give no idea of what it's like to stand here. Henceforth I shall use books only to point to things that I should see and do for myself, not as knowledge for its own sake.'

They remounted and rode across to the other side and were soon in among the mountains. Most of the traffic was in the opposite direction and consisted of refugees from the recent outbreak of fighting with rebels in the mountains of southern Passendof. Jelindel had been wearing the mailshirt as they rode, because she was the least proficient fighter of the three of them and so most in need of a mailshirt's protection. She wore a sheepskin coat over the top of it.

Two hours past the Chasmgyle Bridge Jelindel noticed coppery light radiating from beneath the loosely laced sheepskin. She hurriedly drew the lacings tight to smother the glow from the mailshirt's links.

‘It's glowing,' she announced nervously.

‘Already?' exclaimed Zimak. ‘What incredible luck.'

‘Not luck,' said Daretor. ‘I expected there to be someone else with a link hanging about near Fa'red, waiting for a chance to snatch the whole mailshirt. I was apparently right, and now he's closing in.'

‘We could call them linkriders,' suggested Jelindel.

‘What's a linkrider?' asked Zimak.

‘In refined chivalry, a lady who wears the chainmail link – the lenx – of a warrior going into battle is called a linkrider. Because she wears the link, she rides in spirit with the warrior: they are together through the link.'

‘Tch, chivalry's boring,' scoffed Zimak. ‘All that twaddle about adoring maidens from afar. If it was me I'd just give 'em one when I got close enough.'

Jelindel winced. ‘Be that as it may, linkrider seems a good name for those who wear the links from this mailshirt.'

‘An apt word,' agreed Daretor.

‘They'll have a master's skills and some sort of weaponry,' Zimak reminded them.

‘True. According to Thull, and verified by your own estimate of missing links, there are five warriors in search of this thing,' said Daretor. ‘Five warriors who are almost certainly unfit to wear it or the rings that they hold.'

Zimak said nothing. He rose in his stirrups and scanned the rugged terrain.

‘Am I any better?' Daretor asked Jelindel. ‘Why be invincible? To gain wealth? To gain power?'

‘You ask me?' said Jelindel. ‘I'm sixteen, and a mere scribe.'

‘You're a scholar.'

‘But not a philosopher. Nonetheless … perhaps the linkriders wish to use the mailshirt's powers to solve problems best solved by one's own efforts. Will you be unselfish in the use of its powers if you ever have them within your grasp?'

One of the many refugee families was ahead on the road, travelling towards the Baltorian border. A man and woman led a scrawny donkey that pulled a cart piled high with bundles. Three children trudged wearily behind it.

‘You proved your generosity by helping me,' said Daretor. ‘It is time to put my own heart to the test.' He took out the purse with Thull's eleven gold coins and tossed it to the ragged father as they passed. ‘Buy a new life,' Daretor called cheerily.

Moments later the family began calling incredulous thanks after the trio.

Zimak reined in sharply. ‘That money was to be shared equally among us!' he said angrily. ‘I've a mind –'

‘Yes?' Jelindel cut in. ‘If it's so important to you, go back and take it from the refugees,' she dared.

Zimak cursed silently. ‘One gold oriel is a hundred silver argents,' he grated. ‘That's 1100 silver argents to those beggars.'

‘Ex-beggars,' amended Jelindel. As they rode on she drifted away to her own thoughts for a time.

Daretor also slumped into a pensive mood. Five links to go, five deadly duels – no, six duels, and the battle with temptations to wealth and power would be unceasing until they could destroy the complete mailshirt. For the present it was needed to draw the other links to itself, he reasoned. But when it was complete it could be melted down, sunk in the ocean's deepest chasm, or pitched into
the mouth of a live volcano, to be lost forever with its cargo of deadly skills.

‘The glow is fading,' Jelindel reported, peering up the sleeve of the sheepskin coat.

‘Good, I'm not in the mood for a fight,' grumbled Zimak. ‘I've got saddle sores. It's hard to feel like a heroic warrior on a dangerous quest when you've got saddle sores.'

Try having saddle sores with Reculemoon in the wrong phase, Jaelin thought to herself, rubbing her abdomen.

‘We've crossed the gorge, so how far is this first Passendof town?' Zimak asked.

‘Just ahead. We'll reach it by noon tomorrow,' said Jelindel, hoping that she was reading the map correctly.

‘Just as well,' said Daretor. ‘Being on the open road with the mailshirt means being a target, even if it is concealed.'

They rode on in silence for a while, now more alert and nervous. Daretor's bronzed face scowled while he thought. The mailshirt had begun to glow, then had faded. If they were approaching another warrior carrying a link, it would be glowing steadily brighter. The other had to be behind them and following at a cautious distance. They were definitely being stalked.