Echoes of Betrayal (39 page)

Arcolin sighed and forced himself to start writing. Drafting a report to King Mikeli was as difficult as he’d expected. “A dragon came
to me last night …” What would the king make of that? What proof did he have other than the gnomes in the cellars? And yet … the tip of his tongue tingled with the remembered heat and flavor of the dragon’s tongue. The dragon was real. If he’d imagined the taste of a dragon’s tongue, it would have been something exotic, spices from Aarenis or a flavor he’d never tasted before. Fresh-baked hot bread-crust … that was real.

“A dragon came to me last night in the guise of a man.” But that wasn’t the beginning. The beginning was the gnomes.

“While inspecting Captain Cracolyna’s dispositions on the Pargunese border”—that was better—“gnomes arrived with a report.” “Demand” was more like it, but “report” sounded better.

“My lord, you asked me to come?”

Arcolin looked up with a start. “Captain—yes, I’m sorry, I’m trying to write a letter to the king, and I’m having trouble. Please, sit down.”

“I apologize for my cohort, my lord. By now they should be more disciplined.”

“Think nothing of it. Every recruit cohort does something stupid at Midwinter. Then they get back to business. What I wanted to ask you was this: I need a trusted messenger to carry this letter to the king in Vérella.”

Before he could say more, Arneson spoke up. “Why not Sergeant Stammel, my lord? He’s well known as a senior veteran, trusted by all. I could go myself, of course, but there’s much to do with the recruits before you march them south.”

“He can’t travel alone,” Arcolin said. He did not want to mention the possibility that the dragon might return and heal Stammel.

“Of course, my lord. But with one of Captain Cracolnya’s veterans, perhaps?”

Stammel would be better, Arcolin realized. Arneson had never been at court; he was not known and might not be believed. “Let me tell you what the king must know,” Arcolin said. “Since you will be staying here while I am in the South, you also need to know it.”

It was as hard to say as it was to write. “Last night a dragon came here.” At Arneson’s startled look, Arcolin nodded. “Yes, an actual dragon. You know the gnomes mentioned one, but I did not believe
it.” Arneson nodded and listened without asking questions; Arcolin went on, finishing with the dragon’s demand that he touch tongues with it to seal their agreement.

“What did it taste like?” Arneson asked then.

Arcolin felt his brows rise. “Taste like? Like hot bread-crust, fresh from the oven. And the smell, as well, which had been all hot iron before.”

“I wonder if it tastes the same to all,” Arneson said. Once more Arcolin was surprised. “I mean,” Arneson went on, “it is a magical creature, and it can appear in two shapes. Does everyone who sees it see the same thing? Or is its appearance—even its taste—a form of enchantment? Or drawn partly from the person who sees it?”

Arcolin shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said. “It never occurred to me to ask … If you had seen it, Talvis, I doubt you would have asked anything either.”

“You’re right,” Arneson said with a chuckle. “But the morning after, and in its absence, questions come to me.”

Arcolin went to the map cabinet and spread the map of the domain on his desk. He had already marked the line the gnomes had told him about, using their map as a reference. His preliminary dispositions still looked adequate to him, but what would the king say about them? At the south end of the newly cropped domain, the border angled east abruptly before meeting the old Tsaian-Pargunese line.

“Where is the new Pargunese boundary?” Arneson asked.

“Here,” Arcolin said. He had marked it lightly—two days’ ride from their new one. “I don’t know how one dragon can patrol all that, but it should at least help keep them out.”

“That corner’s going to be the problem,” Arneson said. “Whatever the Pargunese are now, if they cause trouble again, we’ll need a permanent fort in there—right here, I’d say.” He pointed at the angle itself. Then he looked at Arcolin. “I wish I’d seen the dragon.”

“So do I,” Arcolin said. “Then I’d have a witness to send to Vérella.”

S
tammel was enjoying a pot of sib with the recruit sergeant, Naris, when Naris said, “Sir Count!” and his chair scraped on the floor. Stammel set his mug on the table and stood, only a little slower.

“Sergeant Stammel, I need you,” Arcolin said. “Get your cloak.” Arcolin sounded tense.

Stammel wondered what it was. He kept one finger on the battered old table around a corner, then took two steps to the wall with its pegs for cloaks, knowing that his was on the end.

“We’ll be awhile,” Arcolin said to Naris. “Any more excitement in barracks?”

“No, sir,” Naris said. “They were glad enough to be back to schedule today, all quiet.”

Stammel had his cloak on when he sensed Arcolin near and put out his hand; Arcolin took it and put it on his shoulder. They went out into the cold wind, out the postern with a word for the watch, and then some distance from the gate but still in the wind shadow of the stronghold when Stammel felt a vague warmth ahead and smelled hot iron. They had gone the wrong direction for the stronghold forge.

“Captain?” He hated the quaver in his voice; he knew what it had to be.

“The dragon I told you of wants to meet you,” Arcolin said.

Stammel felt the prickle of sweat breaking out; his stomach
churned. “Where is it?” he asked, but he was already turning toward the warmth and smell.

Densely packed into the shape of a man, fire outlined the parts of an obvious dragon. Snout, neck, sinuous body, legs, tail curled up around the whole … Were dragons so little? Curiosity nudged against his fear.

“Is this your sergeant?” The voice sounded human, a deep man’s voice.

“Yes,” Arcolin said. “This is Sergeant Stammel.”

The shape in his mind jerked nearer, close enough that he could feel the heat on his skin. Stammel fought the urge to step back.

“I would speak with him alone,” the man said. “If that is acceptable to you, Sergeant Stammel.”

Stammel struggled to get any words out. The heat, the unnatural sight of fire shaped like a man and a dragon in one brought back the terror of the invasion he had suffered. “It … is,” he managed at last; his voice sounded to him as harsh as a breaking stick.

“I will not go far, Sergeant,” Arcolin said.

“You may return to your work,” the man said. “I will bring him to you, and I will not hurt him,” the man went on, but Stammel saw the flickering of flames. How could fire not harm him? Yet … Arcolin said he had touched the dragon’s tongue, in its own form, with his own tongue and had not perished.

Stammel heard Arcolin’s boots on the frozen ground, going away, out of hearing. The dragon in man’s shape was near enough to warm him, and despite the midwinter cold, he did not shiver. Not from cold, at least.

“Tell me,” the man’s voice said. “What do you see?”

“Usually nothing,” Stammel said. “Though latterly, a faint blur of light sometimes at midday. Nothing clear enough to tell shape or distance. And what my mind sees now is not from my eyes.”

“Tell me,” the man said again.

“A man’s outline filled with fire shapes that I imagine are … parts of a dragon,” Stammel said. He shuddered despite himself. “I was filled with fire once …”

“Your captain said you were attacked by the spirit of an evil man who tried to take your body … but you say fire?”

“It felt like fire,” Stammel said. His throat closed tight again; the memory choked him.

“That was not my fire,” the man said.

Stammel said nothing.

“Tell me, are you wise?” the man asked.

“Wise? I do not know what wise is,” Stammel said.

“How, then, do you judge what is right to do? Your captain tells me you are good with recruits—what do you think he means by that?”

“I teach them what will most likely keep them alive in war,” Stammel said. “I decide which will make good soldiers and which will not.”

“Judgment,” said the man. “A task impossible without wisdom.” He walked around behind Stammel, the warmth moving with him, and Stammel forced himself to stand still. He could see, with the not-sight of his mind, the fire-shape moving there. “What are you most proud of, Sergeant Stammel, in all your years of training recruits?”

That one was easy. “That I trained a paladin, Paksenarrion. That I saved her from an unjust punishment.”

“And your greatest shame?”

“That I did not see the deeper evil in two other recruits that year.”

“What happened?”

“One of them later did Paksenarrion a great injury; the other was the one who invaded me.”

The man was back in front of him now. “And it is from that invasion you lost your sight?”

“Yes.”

“But your captain said you fought later—shooting a crossbow—how did you do that without sight?”

“I could hear where they were—and there was a kind of … of … not exactly sight, but a bright place.”

“You called yourself the Blind Archer, he told me.”

“Yes. It came to me—I had heard the legend, but in the battle it seemed the right thing to say.”

A sound like steam from a spout, a hiss. “What do you want to be, Sergeant Stammel?”

To be? What did that mean? “I am a soldier,” he said.

“Yes … did you always want that?”

“Yes, from boyhood.” The man-outline, fire-filled, stood in front of him again. Man … dragon … he did not know how to name it.

“You are a brave man,” the voice said after a pause several breaths long. “To endure the mind’s eye seeing a man-shape full of flame when you have been a man full of flame, or so it felt—that alone shows your courage. But I sense more courage: you have not killed yourself by grief, as some might have done. You do not ask for a quick death. You do not beg … and yet, you have no thoughts—this long after your blinding—for what else you might be. You have no plans for being a blind man.”

“I … cannot.”

“May I touch your face?”

“Yes.”

Warm dry hands against his cheeks from chin to brow, thumbs light on his eyelids, warm as summer sun, pushing them gently up. In his mind, eyes stared into his, eyes unlike any he had ever seen. Huge, golden, light flickering in them. A tongue reached out—a wiggling tongue of flame—and he felt himself tremble. It touched his forehead … but did not burn him. Then it withdrew, and the hands lifted away. He felt himself blink.

“Sometimes,” the man said, “what fire has burned can be healed by another fire. And sometimes not. My fire will not heal you, Sergeant, and I am sorry for it. If there is healing for your sight, it is not mine to give, and I do not know where it might be, other than the world-maker.”

The hope Stammel had not let himself admit died, and in spite of himself he groaned.

“You are all of a piece, true soldier, as iron is iron,” the man said. “You are not wise as men are wise but wise as iron is wise, by being of one kind and one mind only. I do not know how to help you but in one way.”

Stammel waited.

“I have need of an archer.”

That was not what he had expected to hear, if he could have expected anything.

“An … archer?”

“Yes. Dragonspawn freed by the men of Pargun threaten that land and this, and no common weapon will kill them. If you are willing, you can do so as the Blind Archer. It is dangerous; you may well die.”

“It would protect this land?”

“Indeed. I believe if you see me, even in man-shape, you will see dragonspawn … and you are courageous and skilled in war. I can give you the right weapons, arrows that will kill them. But there is danger for you and for me. You must come into me, as the queen in Lyonya did—”

“The elf?”

“No.” That came with a wave of stronger heat. “No, Half-Song, the king’s betrothed and perhaps by now his wife.”

“The Duke—the king—is married?” Stammel felt a wave of joy that Kieri, so long alone and grieving, might have found another love.

“She came to me without fear,” the man said. “And when I changed to my own form and asked her to touch her tongue to mine, she did so. And then walked into my mouth, courage bright as my own fire, and helped me slay two of the dragonlets that burned Lyonya’s forests.” A pause, then, “With a bow and arrows tipped with dragonfire, she slew them, and it is that task I would ask of you, since she must stay with the king now and heal that land of its wounds.”

Stammel felt a rising excitement. Could he really—he had shot those southern brigands, but dragonspawn? “I have sworn fealty to Lord Arcolin,” he said. “He holds my oath, and my duty is first to him.”

“Would you come with me if he released you? I must tell you that you are not like to return.”

Would he? Could he leave the Company, which had been his life since he left home all those years ago … leave Arcolin, leave Devlin, leave all the people he knew … leave Kolya Ministiera, who had offered him a home? He struggled to bring those faces to mind, but they had faded in the time he had not seen them. He could leave them if by leaving them he could save them.

“I will,” Stammel said. “If he releases me from my oath.”