“I have no need of gold, Lord Firedrake,” he answered. “But I seek revenge on my enemies, and Yk-raith will help me. I ask you for it, and do not touch your treasure, because I am an honest man and not a thief.”
Ymareth snorted, so that smoke and a few sparks billowed from its nostrils. Aldric could have sworn the huge old thing was laughing at him and perhaps it was. “O prideful!” hissed the dragon softly. “Do I touch too closely on thy honour? So, and so, and so. Now verily this is true, for were ye not an honest man I should not have spoken, save to taunt thee ere thy most assured death.”
Aldric raised his eyes slightly. As if expecting him to do so, the dragon opened its mouth fractionally. There was no more blatant menace in it than in any panting dog, but the action gave a glimpse of nine-inch fangs, of great cheek-teeth big enough to shear an ox in two— and a slight, almost accidental but certainly deliberate exhalation of yellow-white flame. Though he cringed within himself, Aldric did not move. Ymareth seemed impressed, if such a word had any meaning to it.
“Speak and say, what foes do so concern thee, that fear of my wrath does not deter thee?”
“One is the necromancer Duergar Vathach,” Aldric replied, “and the other is Kalarr cu Ruruc.”
There was a coughing sound within the firedrake’s throat and tongues of flame licked from Ymareth’s jaws as its ruffed head shook with amusement. Aldric began to choke as smoke enveloped him, and when it cleared he saw through streaming eyes that the dragon was leaning towards him, mouth agape. He felt the wash of a great hot breath and the icy stab of the fear of death.
Ymareth unleashed no blast of fire, and when Aldric opened his eyes again—carefully avoiding those of the firedrake—he found the creature wore a tongue-lolling grin like that of some vast fox.
“I compliment thee on thy choice of enemies,
kailin-eir
Talvalin, if there was choice at all.” The dragon’s voice became quiet and deadly. “Cu Ruruc of Ut Ergan is a creeping viper and made essay to dominate me many lives of men ago. He was most wise and cunning, well versed in words of power, but he knew not that Master-word which has governance of dragonkind. Verily it was his great good fortune to get from here alive that day.” Aldric heard the susurration of a scaled neck, the bright, ringing clank of a talon laid on the floor and saw the shadow of the dragon’s head move as it leaned down to study him more closely. He stared hard at his own gloved hands and tried to ignore the colossal wedge-shaped head which hung less than an arm’s length from his own; even then he could feel Ymareth’s gaze probing at him, searching for what a firedrake might term falsehood.
“I did hear thee speak the words of swearing and of summoning and of claiming. What of the words to master such as I,
kailin
Talvalin?” The voice reeked of heat, of the clean stench of fire—and of suspicion.
Aldric felt panic welling up inside him; if Ymareth thought for one instant that its own mighty person was in danger, it would obliterate him before he could draw another breath. He took a desperate chance, bowing with proper respect for the dragon’s power before raising his head to stare not at, but between Ymareth’s eyes. Even then that blank, phosphorescent glare glimpsed only with the edge of sight was enough to set his senses swaying,, It required an effort of which Aldric had not known himself capable, not to gape in helpless fascination at the golden orbs and let the peace, the stillness, the terrible tranquillity of the dragon-spell take him where it would, even to walking down the firedrake’s throat. He could feel runnels of perspiration tickling his back and taste salt droplets forming on his upper lip. The eyes enticed, but Aldric managed to keep his gaze fixed on Ymareth’s crest and let it wander nowhere else.
“Lord Firedrake,” he managed at long last, “I have few words of any power, and none that might impose my will on you. The strongest word controls myself alone. It is my Word of Honour, and one I try always to keep— but it is often far from easy.”
The spell was withdrawn so abruptly that Aldric cried out like a man in pain and fell forward on to his hands, forehead almost touching the ground. “Those who speak with dragonkind make use of twisted talk and riddles,” said the great voice. “Always until now. It is passing strange that thee of all men should be forthright: Take Ykraith,
kailin-eir
Talvalin, and may it-give thee power to visit vengeance on thine enemies that they may be consumed with the heat thereof and entirely eaten up. But when all is accomplished, I would have thee and none other bring it back.”
Aldric bowed gratefully, extending deliberately now to the full obeisance which he had reached only accidentally before. Ymareth seemed to ignore him; it was coiling up again on the platform where he had first seen it, slow and sinister grace in every movement. Then its head swung to regard him once more. “The Charm of Understanding wearies me, and I would sleep the long sleep once again. Ere then I would tell thee that which may prove of some purpose. If perchance ye should
possess
a thing sought after greatly by cu Ruruc, make pretence of its destruction and await what follows…”
The
eijo
had no idea how Ymareth had gained such knowledge, but its advice seemed sound enough: if Ka-larr thought the spellstone was destroyed, then he would also think himself free of any challenge to his own ability and might… just might… do something stupid. Unless what the dragon really meant was… Aldric’s head began to pound, what with the unremitting heat, the air stiff with enchantments, and the strain of talking to an old, wise, crafty and—hide it how he would—frightening firedrake in awesome full maturity. The convoluted workings of sorcery and dragon-minds were enough to give anyone a headache.
Scales clicked and grated as Ymareth settled on the plinth, and its eyelids slid down to shutter the glow of those terrible hypnotic eyes. At his side Aldric could sense Kyrin stirring; despite his warning she—and probably Dewan who had been too far away to hear him— had looked full at the dragon’s gaze and had been snared, subject only to the firedrake’s will. If it had bidden them walk up to be devoured, they would have done so without resistance. The smoke-plumes drifting from Ymareth’s nostrils ceased as some internal process slaked the fires in its belly. There was a heavy silence.
In the shadows at the entrance of the hall, something glinted as it moved.
When the dragon fell asleep Kyrin shivered violently, glanced from the corner of one eye at Aldric, then threw her arms around him and clung there tightly. After only a few minutes she released him and backed away, her glazed sleepy look rapidly becoming one of disbelief as the spell faded and understanding took its place. “Aldric-
ain
...” She faltered, glanced at Ymareth and then looked him full in the face. “You were talking to… that thing… as easily as you talk to me. Who are you?
What
are you?”
“I’m Aldric Talvalin and I’m scared.” The
eijo
smiled, a sour twist of thinned lips, but he was not being funny. Under his black metal carapace he was trembling with reaction, and there was something with big, soft wings flapping around the pit of his stomach. “Which I expected to be. And I’m still alive, which I didn’t expect at all. Speaking to firedrakes is…” he laughed weakly, “... rather a strain.”
Ar Korentin came sprinting up with a clatter of armour, but when they turned to look at him he slackened his headlong pace and approached more sedately, as befitted a captain-of-guards—even a thoroughly shocked one. His eyes rested briefly on Aldric, then slid past him to the dragon. The
eijo
could tell there were many questions dammed up behind Dewan’s impassive features; questions which he would be well advised to answer. But not just yet.
“Are you both all right?” was all the Vreijek asked, and Aldric nodded.
“Yourself?” he returned.
“Well enough,” said Dewan, shrugging off the languorous heaviness in his limbs as unimportant, and showing some teeth in what should have been a grin but fell rather short of the mark. “Though I have felt better.”
“So have I,” Aldric conceded. Laying the Dragon-wand carefully by his feet, he wrapped head and chin in the heavy silk scarf he had taken off earlier, then settled the comforting weight of coif, mask and helmet over its padding and laced them in place. As he straightened with Ykraith in both hands, he saw ar Korentin watching him thoughtfully. Aldric’s mouth twitched into a little smile.“‘In strange places, when all seems still—look to your armor,‘“he quoted. “I’ve got what I came for. Let us leave.”
They walked up the hall together, with that strange attraction of the treasure still tugging at them—but after having seen its guardian, resisting the urge to steal was easy. Even though hidden now by shadows at the far end of the cavern, Ymareth’s ominous bulk was an ever-present deterrent.
Perhaps his senses had been dulled by the proximity of the firedrake’s spell-binding gaze, perhaps his mental faculties were not operating fully in this place of sorcery. For whatever reason, when two swordsmen sprang at him from the stairs Aldric was taken completely by surprise.
Unbalanced, he could not sidestep the nearest man fast enough, and like most
kailinin
he seldom carried a shield when out of the saddle. But he reacted with the speed of training that had become almost a reflex action, blocking the closer cut with the only thing to hand—the Dragonwand. As the sword came slashing down on to his head he flung Ykraith up, braced like a spearshaft in a wide double grip. Steel and glassy adamant met with a harsh belling clang and sparks flew. Splinters also, as the sword-blade shattered.
Aldric twisted at the waist and lunged towards his second enemy with the long, sharp crystal tip, using only his right hand—lower down the staff—to give a longer reach. It was an old trick of straight-spear fighting.
Like so many old tricks, it worked. Ykraith’s crystal flame and its dragonhead slammed into the swordsman’s throat just where neck joined collarbone, tore through everything in their path and burst from his spine with sufficient force to nail him to the wall. With his neck uncleanly but completely snapped, the man was dead almost before he knew that something was wrong.
Long before that Aldric had released the Dragonwand. His left hand had already freed Widowmaker’s safety-collar from her scabbard’s mouth and tilted the longsword’s hilt forward. His right hand crossed, gripped and drew.
Dewan had already noticed how fast the young
eijo
could move, but he was two hundred years too young to have seen this form of draw before. And his eyes were hardly fast enough to see it now.
With a bright, brief
sring
Isileth blurred from her scabbard in an arc of light. Dewan heard a noise, a thud blended with a moist, ripping crunch; and then Aldric’s arm was fully extended after its horizontal sweep, the longsword gleaming in a hand which had been empty one-eighth of a second before. There was a dark, wet smear on the last six inches of its blade. Aldric whirled the
taiken
up behind his head, left hand joining right prior to a vertical cut. It was not needed.
The Alban’s opponent made a wheezing sound, not from his mouth but from his chest, and his eyes glistened white as they rolled up and back. Though the man wore a bullhide jerkin,
taikenin
in hands little stronger than Aldric’s had cloven armour. Mere human bodies were no obstacle. Isileth’s backhand cut had sliced through breastbone, heart and lungs, and as the man collapsed a bubbling spew of blood erupted from his gaping ribcage. Both legs kicked in random jerks and then, as the body accepted it was dead, they quivered and were still.
From beginning to end the thing had taken seven seconds.
With a slow, sweeping movement, Aldric brought the poised longsword over and down into a posture of readiness and drew in a deep, rather shaky breath. The breath whispered softly out between his parted lips as he relaxed, then stepped back, fastidiously avoiding the mess which oozed across the floor. Light and shadow moved within the trefoil opening of his war-mask as he turned his head away. There were spots and trickles of blood on his face, but no emotion; it was cold, immobile as if graven of grey metal, with a flawed imperfection scarring one cheek under the curved black armour.
Kyrin stared at his dispassionate features and an overwhelming sense of unreality filled her mind. This was not the Aldric she knew, the one who smiled and had gentle hands. This
eijo’s
face was that of a stranger who had felt no tenderness in all his life. Her Aldric would not have… Would not have done what he had just done without showing some trace of feeling.
Then she met his eyes and saw the pain in their grey-green depths. Aldric was skilled in the art of
taiken-ulleth
and would kill without hesitation. But not without reason. And not without remorse. Not yet.
Dewan, perhaps unfairly, had seen nothing of that brief, wordless exchange; he was impressed merely by the speed and near-surgical precision of Aldric’s fighting style. He was not an Alban. “Who were they?” he wondered, half to himself.
Widowmaker, cleansed and sated, hissed softly like an angry cat as she slid down into her scabbard. She had tasted human blood again, for the first time in three centuries and her thirst was quenched once more. Until the next time. Kyrin remembered all the stories she had heard of Alban named-blades and remembered, too, the sense of icy menace she had felt on the only occasion she had drawn the star-steel sword herself. Then she had been unsure of the feeling’s source; now she was quite certain. Yet the
taiken
was not evil in itself, no more than men or dragons were—but it had been forged and named with one purpose in mind, and though she could not blame either Aldric or his blade, it did seem that Isileth Widowmaker fulfilled that purpose all too eagerly.
The young
eijo
jerked Ykraith from the stone wall, lowered his second victim to the ground, then eased the Dragonwand’s deadly crystal point out of the corpse’s neck and brought it round for cleaning. He blinked; the talisman was unblemished by any trace of blood, as if the fluid had refused to touch its surface. Or had been absorbed.