Mistress of Dragons (17 page)

Draconas
smiled in the darkness. He moved closer to the stone wall, away from the light.

Both
men stood still, barely breathing, listening. The language the two voices spoke
was the language of most of those living on this part of the continent,
although the male voice had the dialect and accent of someone who came from
farther south. The other speaker, “Her Worship,” spoke with a sibilant lisp, as
might be expected of a creature with a long and slender tongue flicking between
sharp fangs. “You are certain he will try the pass?”

“I
am. Where else would he try?”

“I
do not know, but if there is another way he will find it. He is not one to
underestimate, as I think you would have learned by now.”

“Your
warrior women patrol the border—”

“Yes,
because they spotted the monks. Another example of your incompetence.”

“They
let themselves be seen. You suggested it—”

“I
suggested that the soldiers should be seen, to give the idea that there might
be an invasion. Instead the warriors saw the monks. The women are not fools.
They have been asking questions. The Mistress had to pass them off as mere
travelers.”

“Besides,
there is the enchantment,” Grald continued in sullen tones. “He tried once to
cross and failed—”

“And
you think that failure would deter him? He is a dragon, Grald, not a human. I
think you forget that sometimes.”

“He
is in human form,” Grald returned. “And that makes him vulnerable.”

“Not
so vulnerable but that your monk botched his job.”

“We
had no time. We had to move fast—”

“And
so do I. The old woman is frail and feeble and of no more use to me. The
Mistress dies this night. Once you have started the others on their way, return
in the morning to collect the body. Burn it as you did the others.”

Edward
dug his fingers into Draconas’s arm.

I
heard, damn it. Draconas jerked his arm away. Now what the devil do we do?

Grald
was not pleased. “I am opposed to this. The woman could live many more weeks,
months even. More time is needed to prepare the new—”

“The
decision is mine to make,” said the lisping voice. There came the sound of an
enormous bulk shifting its great weight, of claws scraping against rock floors
and scales rubbing against rock walls. “You have what you came for. Take care
of your business and let me take care of mine.”

“Very
well, Maristara. You know what you’re doing, I guess. I’ll be in touch,” said
Grald.

The
shadow bowed low, then started to move.

Draconas
flattened himself against the wall. Beside him, he felt Edward stir, reaching
for his sword. Draconas laid a restraining hand on the king’s arm.

For
a brief moment, Grald’s shadow blotted out the light, and then he emerged into
the chamber in which they were hiding.

Draconas
stared. He felt Edward give a little start of amazement.

Grald
was a giant of a man. He stood at least seven feet tall, with massive shoulders
and arms, a chest like an oaken barrel, and thighs that were thick and
muscular. Draconas could have bathed in the cuirass the man wore over his upper
torso. He wore a huge hammer strapped to his back. A broadsword clanged at his
hip.

Grald
stalked past them without seeing them. He was blind angry, stomping his feet
and cursing beneath his breath, and looking neither to the right nor the left.
Edward and Draconas kept still until they heard his huge footfalls die away in
the distance.

The
dragon made her departure, as well. Draconas recognized every sound, knew each
for what it was—the scrape of a wing tip against the wall, the scrabble of her
claws on the floor, the shuffling sound made by the long, sinuous tail dragging
across stone.

The
image conjured up by these sounds was so clear to him that he could not imagine
how Edward would fail to realize the truth. Draconas was going to be forced to
explain the unfortunate fact that they’d discovered a dragon in a kingdom that
was supposed to be free of dragons and he began to swiftly cobble together a
mixture of truth, half-truths, and downright lies.

Edward
didn’t say anything. The king was strangely silent.

Draconas
plucked the king’s sleeve. “We’ll go out the same way we came—”

“Go?”
Edward turned to him, amazed. “We’re not going anywhere. We must save the
Mistress.”

“Keep
your voice down,” Draconas warned. “These caves are echo chambers.”

“We
must save the Mistress,” Edward whispered. He pointed toward the chamber. “You heard
what that Maristara woman said. She plans to slay her this night.”

“Your
Majesty, it’s far too danger—”

“There
you go again. Calling me ‘Your Majesty’ in that honey-coated voice. But it won’t
work this time, Draconas.” Edward was grim and determined. “You were right when
you said this quest was a holy one. God brought me here for a higher purpose
than to save my kingdom from the dragon. God means me to save this woman from a
terrible death.”

Draconas
could have told him that God had nothing to do with it. Edward had been brought
here by a dragon on a ruse— a ruse that had failed, for Draconas had no
intention of coming between the dragon and her prey. The Mistress was as good
as dead, as far as Draconas was concerned. He would have to devise another plan.
His task now was to save this hotheaded human from himself. Draconas was sorry
he’d ever shown Edward that beautiful face in the topaz.

The
king drew his sword, heading for the chamber where the light had been left to
burn itself out.

Draconas
bounded after him.

“Didn’t
you hear those sounds? This cavern is guarded, Edward, and the guard is no
ordinary one.”

“Some
great beast, you mean?” Edward glanced at him with cold disdain. “A mastiff,
perhaps? A wolf? A lion or a bear? Do you think I’m afraid of any of these? I
must find her, Draconas. Find her and rescue her. God brought me here for this
purpose. God is with me.”

He
better be, because I’m not, Draconas thought to himself in exasperation. Aloud
he said, “How will you find her? You have no idea where
you
are, much
less where she is.”

Edward
paused, looked upward. “You said yourself we were inside Sentinel Mountain. The
monastery must be directly above us. She will be there and I will find her. God
will see to it.” He rested his hand on Draconas’s shoulder. “You have had
everything your way thus far, my friend. But not now. I must do this and
nothing will stop me save death itself. If I do not return, take word to my
beloved wife that I died on a holy quest.”

“Oh,
for the love—”

Edward
clapped him on the shoulder and advanced into the chamber. He appropriated the
torch that Grald had left burning, for Draconas could see the light waver, then
move. He could hear the king’s footfalls moving with it.

Calling
down imprecations on the human’s head, Draconas ran after Edward. He caught up
with him just as he was exiting the second chamber and entering a third.
Dragons always chamber their lairs, a defensive measure that allows them to
seal off some chambers in case of attack, keep others open. Edward held the torch
high, looking all around him, moving slowly. He was at least proceeding with
caution, not rushing heedlessly into danger.

Coming
up from behind, Draconas let himself be heard, so as not to startle him. Edward
turned to regard Draconas with a warm smile.

“I
knew you would come. I knew you would not fail me.”

“You
knew more than I did then,” Draconas muttered. “Here, give me the torch if you’re
insistent upon this.”

“I
am,” said Edward. “I have seen no sign of your wild beast, Draconas.”

“You
heard the sounds, same as I did,” said Draconas. “I heard them,” said Edward, “but
I don’t hear them now, do you?”

“No,”
Draconas admitted.

Despite
their immense girth, dragons are adept at silent movement. Their weight is not
commensurate with their size. Dragons weigh far less than they look. Their
bones are hollow, so that they can fly. Their hide is thin, which is why it is
protected by scales. Because they do not have much mass, they can squeeze their
bodies into impossibly small spaces and thus they build their lairs with narrow
tunnels and small alcoves and cul-de-sacs.

Dragons
do not appreciate being roused to action and much prefer to draw an enemy into
an ambush, where the dragon may deal with him swiftly and surely. They lure any
foe foolish enough to attack them deeper and deeper into their lairs, lure them
to their doom.

Maristara
could be doing that very thing. She might be lulling them into complacency,
waiting for them to lose themselves in the labyrinth, waiting for them to come
to her.

The
chambers in this part of her lair were large, the tunnel easy to follow, for
they were near the opening. Soon, however, as Draconas had foreseen, the
chambers narrowed. The main tunnel split and branched off into other tunnels.
They had entered the dragon’s defensive maze and this was where she might
choose to fight them, lying in wait in an alcove or curled up at the end of a
cul-de-sac.

Draconas
claimed the lead. He would come upon the dragon first or so he reasoned. He
would allow Maristara to see him in his dragon form. Hopefully the unexpected
sight of another dragon sneaking into her lair would disrupt her own plan of
attack long enough to give Draconas the advantage.

Fighting
humans is, for dragons, pitiably easy. One blast of fiery breath, one swipe of
a mighty paw, one crunch of the powerful jaws and it is over. Fighting another
dragon, however, requires thought and guile, strength and cunning. Expecting an
easy time against a human, Maristara would find herself up against a much more
formidable foe. In the split second of her confusion, Draconas could cast a
spell that would incapacitate her and then both he and Edward would have a
chance to flee. He would use the dragon’s maze against her, for she could not
maneuver swiftly through the narrow tunnels and they could. Draconas never lost
his way underground. He would be able to guide them to safety—if all went
according to plan.

Which,
he realized suddenly, had not happened once since they’d started on this
ill-fated venture.

DRACONAS
HAD CONFIDENTLY ASSUMED HE’D TAKEN everything into account when making his
plans to deal with the dragon, but, apparently, he’d missed one. A major one.

No
dragon.

Draconas
was not lost in the labyrinthine tunnels. He was more at home in dragon mazes
than he was in the streets of crowded cities. He kept to those tunnels used by
the dragon, which were easy to distinguish, for she had left her mark upon the
stone walls—places worn smooth by centuries of her bulky body scraping against
the rock, shedding scales that glittered in the torchlight. No refuse, dragons
kept their dwellings neat. He wondered absently what she did with it. Draconas
carefully avoided those passages that gave no sign of her comings and goings.
Those were probably laid with traps.

He
listened hard to try to detect some trace of her and at first he did think he
could hear the scrape of a claw or the dragging thump of her tail. The sounds
were faint, however, and he couldn’t be certain. He couldn’t tell if the dragon
was ahead of him or behind. This last hour, he’d heard nothing except the
skittering of rats. He assumed the worst—Maristara had chosen her battleground
and was waiting for them.

He
crept grimly, stealthily on, but nothing happened. He came to several places
that he himself would have deemed ideal for an ambush and he tensed, ready to
meet the dragon’s attack, only to encounter nothing more frightening than his
own shadow, bobbing up to meet him as he rounded the corner.

“What
a fearful, smothering sort of place,” Edward remarked in hushed tones. “These
tunnels don’t seem natural to me. It looks as if they’ve been engineered. Are
you sure you know where you’re going?”

Since
that was the fifth time Edward had asked that question, Draconas saw no need to
answer.

He
did not relax his guard. He continued to move slowly and deliberately, ignoring
Edward’s urgings to press forward with haste. Once, annoyed at Draconas’s slow
and deliberate pace, Edward had tried to surge ahead. Draconas pulled him back.
The dragon was here somewhere. She had to be. There was nowhere else for her to
go. Draconas began to consider the possibility that she did not know
they
were
here. Either that, or she had made other arrangements for their disposal.

“We
must be near the tunnel’s end,” Edward said suddenly. “I know this sounds odd,
but I smell perfume.”

“Not
perfume,” said Draconas, and he came to a halt. “Incense.”

Incense
and something more—humans. The scent of humans in a dragon’s lair was something
he had never before experienced. He’d noted the scent of the baby-traffickers
immediately on entering, but the soldiers and the false nuns had not passed
beyond the first chamber. The giant human, Grald, had advanced into the second
chamber, but no farther. Draconas had not smelled humans in the labyrinthine
lair until now.

The
human scent was strong and all-pervasive and it came from somewhere up ahead.
Humans frequented this place they were about to enter. They came here often and
of their own free will.

For
this was not the stench of slave pens. The smell of human flesh mingled with
fragrant flowers and incense and perfumed oils.

And
no sign of the dragon. Draconas realized with a tightening of his gut that he
hadn’t seen a dragon scale in the last one hundred yards or so.

“Why
are you stopping?” Edward demanded. “If that’s incense you smell, then we must
have reached our destination. We have to hurry if we are to save the Mistress
from that assassin!”