A Dragon at Worlds' End (2 page)

Hard as those moments were, what Lagdalen could see happening to the queen was worse, because the effects were so vastly more widespread than her own troubles. Besita was floundering, losing her moorings. She refused to work; she refused to accept the duties of being a queen. As a result of her intransigence, the line of the Bestigari clan was coming under perilous scrutiny. The kings and queens of the Argonath city-states were subtly monitored by the witches. Royal arrogance, mania, bloody perversions, and destructive impulses were not allowed to run on for long before poison or an "accident" intervened. If Besita were to die, the throne of Marneri would move to a new family. Such an event would involve the danger of civil war among the clans and provinces.

Lagdalen was left to wish that Lessis was still among them.

The Witch of Standing, Fi-ice went up and gave the blessing for the memorial. Her voice was high, brittle with tension, but still it carried and the words took effect. Men came down off the balls of their feet. They composed themselves for prayer. She read a short, familiar passage from the Birrak and then led them in a short series of prayers. When finished, she stepped back amid complete and utter quiet broken only by the wind whipping across the parade ground in gusts, snapping at the flags.

General Wegan stepped forward and in a crisp voice, clearly audible across the parade, he called for a minute of silence. Nothing was heard thereafter but the patter of the rain and the flap of flags. The minute lasted well into ten minutes and then to twenty before by general consent it came to an end and the units were dismissed and broke up and drifted away, mingling with the crowds. The hush persisted and the crowd started back down Tower Street in relative silence.

Dragons lumbered to the dragonhouse, followed by the dragonboys. Small groups of soldiers were gathered here and there, most in motion as the parade broke up and dispersed.

Dragonboys Swane and Jak were leaving together when they crossed paths with Captain Kesepton and Lagdalen. The boys immediately came to attention and snapped a salute.

Kesepton returned it. "Well met, my friends from the fighting 109th."

Lagdalen greeted each of them with a hug, but their pleasure at meeting again was dampened by the somber echoes of the service.

"It's a hard day, Lady Lagdalen," said Jak after a moment.

"I know, Jak. It is for me, too. For all of us."

"Hard sometimes to believe they're gone, all of them," said Swane.

"Damned hard," said Hollein Kesepton, who'd served many times with Bazil and Relkin. "They were a great pair and their song will be long sung in the Legions of Argonath."

"Tell me, Lady," said Jak. "How is the Lady Lessis? Do you see her?"

"No, Jak, I don't see her anymore. The lady has gone to her home in the isles and she says she will never leave them again. She took the losses in Eigo to heart, you see. She told me one time afterward that she didn't think she could ever order men to go to their deaths in battle again."

The dragonboys were saddened further by this news. Their lives had been made pretty turbulent by the demands of the Gray Witch, but they wouldn't have traded them for quieter times in camp at Dalhousie. They had been halfway around the world in service with Lessis and had seen things that no one would believe. They had gone to the very edge and confronted the great enemy in his abyss, and still they would have had no other life. They had survived and been hardened in the process.

Lagdalen could see the changes in little Jak. Although still diminutive, his face was creased with lines and he radiated a new sense of strength. The boyishness had gone out of his eyes, he was a soldier now. Lagdalen had seen the same thing happen to Relkin. It changed you, to be tested like that, on the anvil of war.

"How are the dragons, Jak?"

"They are well, Captain. A bit down, as you'd expect. Especially the Purple Green—he's taken it hard. He and the Broketail were close from the beginning. From before I joined."

"Bazil Broketail was the reason the Purple Green joined the Legions," said Swane.

"So it's a little difficult. They get sulky pretty easily."

At this point a tall shape loomed out of the crowd and called to Lagdalen.

"Uncle Iapetor!" she cried.

Old Iapetor, a sea captain for many years, greeted the others warmly.

"A day for grief, a poor day to meet, perhaps, but I am honored. Any friend of Relkin of Quosh is a friend of Iapetor of Marneri."

"Very pleased to meet you, sir."

Swane was about to make their excuses when two more figures, these wearing the long military cloak, appeared, and he glimpsed gold stars on their collars. With a nudge to the ribs he hissed "Generals!" in Jak's ears.

Both dragonboys cut a salute as tight as any they had ever made before. General Kesepton returned the salutes, but not casually.

"At ease." Old Kesepton extended a hand toward his colleague.

"This is General Hanth. He's taking over supply operations here in Marneri. General, this is my grandson, Captain Kesepton, with his wife, Lagdalen."

"Delighted, Captain, Lady."

But General Kesepton had examined the two dragonboys now and noted the number in shining brass on the peaks of their caps.

"And, General, we have the honor of saluting two members of the fighting 109th Marneri."

Hanth looked up. "We do?"

"Yes, General Hanth, this is Dragoneer Swane and Dragoneer Jak. Jak tends Alsebra, the sword-skilled freemartin."

"Ah, yes, who hasn't heard of her? I am honored, boys, honored. The Broketail dragon was your friend. Be assured that all Marneri is suffering with you this day."

"Yessir!" said Swane and Jak, reacting to the presence of general officers with parade ground manners.

Kesepton smiled broadly, at a memory from thirty-five years before, and asked Hollein to dismiss them and send them on their way. He moved on to the old friend he'd seen standing beside Lagdalen.

"Ah, Iapetor, you old fox, how are you?"

Iapetor and Kesepton clasped hands firmly.

"The quacks are after me, General, but I keep 'em at arm's length."

"A sad day."

"And a bad one, old friend. The Aubinans will use this, you know they will."

Kesepton nodded heavily. The grain magnates of Aubinas sought independence from Marneri for their rich province. The struggle to sway public opinion was ongoing, but the forces of Aubinan independence were gaining the upper hand.

Both the older men also knew that Lagdalen was now in the front lines of this struggle, and she was but a girl in her twenties. Still, by virtue of her personality and the power of her position as the assistant to Lady Lessis, she had become the crown attorney for the prosecution of the case against Porteous Glaves. This case had become a cause celebre for the Aubinans, who claimed that Glaves was being persecuted by a vengeful Marneri government.

Kesepton saw the tightening in her face when Iapetor mentioned Aubinas. He thought to spare her on such a mournful occasion. She carried too much of a burden already.

"The Broketail dragon was a legend in his own times. We don't see that sort of thing very often."

But Iapetor could not be deflected. "The Aubinans will try to blame the queen, and the witches."

"Ah, well."

They both turned to Lagdalen, who kept her face purposely as blank as possible. The case could not be discussed casually and she was annoyed at Iapetor for bringing it up. She would not be drawn.

"We face difficult times, good sirs," she said. "And these losses make them harder to bear. But we will not give up. We will never give up."

On that note they parted, hunched against the rain and the wind, which was colder than before. Workmen began to dismantle the parade stand while a couple of stonemasons took measurements where the monument to the fallen was to be erected.

Two predators slipped silently through the ancient jungle, eyes and ears alert for the slightest signal of either prey or danger. Hunger gleamed in their eyes, while starvation showed in their shrunken bellies and haggard faces.

As usual at this time of the day, the jungle seemed to be holding its breath. A deep silence extended with the heat of the midday. All life except the vegetative was in suspension, and nothing moved except the mists rising over ponds and rivers. The jungle seemed to be waiting for something to make a move, perhaps a mistake. This was a forest made wary to its soul, as they had already discovered. Mistakes were usually fatal.

The hunters made a mismatched pair, the first a little less than six feet tall, his well-muscled body bent over in a stalking crouch, white teeth visible in the dusky shadows. The second, a much larger beast, was twenty feet in length from nose to tail tip, striding close behind, jaws held slightly apart.

Skeerunch, crackle.

There it was again!

They were united by sudden soaring hope.

Directly in front of them, something was making noise. Such indiscretion was rare indeed in this ancient forest, which was ruled by packs of two-legged, running killers. The animals that survived were exceptionally fleet and nervous. The hunting pair had sensed game around them on a number of occasions and had even glimpsed animals as big as elephants, but the potential prey had fled swiftly and almost silently into the forest as soon as they were spotted. In the dense jungle of endless conifers, cycads, and fern trees, these animals were capable of much faster movement than would have seemed possible. They were strong and tough-skinned and paid no heed to the spines on cycads and the sharp leaves of palms, and consequently were in no danger of ever being caught.

The smaller hunter suddenly slowed and pressed himself to the bark of an enormous conifer. His attention was directed ahead through a screen of trees into a clearing lit by the sun and filled with lush vegetation. The large predator crouched, eyes working on the dark ahead.

At last! Could it be? Food?

Through the tree trunks they glimpsed an immense beast with a very long neck that stood on four legs like tree trunks in the midst of the young, lush fern trees that were competing to fill the clearing's slot of blue sky. This beast was engaged in the happy business of stuffing fern fronds down its throat to the system of stomachs in its relatively enormous body. The tiny brain in the diminutive head had little room for any thoughts beyond those concerned with the simple pleasures of ripping off more fern, compacting the vegetation into a ball, and then swallowing it, which took a long time with a neck like that.

It was a young member of its tribe, and as yet unaccustomed to the harsh ways of the world. In time, if it survived, it would become very much larger,
A
giant with a tail nearly thirty feet long. Now, it was not very much larger than the bigger of the two predators studying it from the green murk beneath the trees. It remained blithely unaware of any threat. When it finished consuming a fern tree, removing all the fresh young growth, it took a step forward and brought its mouth down on the next hapless tree.

"Food for a week," whispered the smaller of the hunters, his hand unconsciously reaching up to tug lightly on his new-grown beard.

"Boy may be right," said the larger of the pair with a faint sibilance to the voice. "We haven't eaten anything since that snake the day before yesterday. This dragon could eat a lot right now."

"So could this boy."

The young man who said this was fairly salivating as he gazed at the young beast, visualizing it as no more than a collection of chops, ribs, joints, and the like, which might be roasted, baked on hot stones, or dried in the sun for jerky.

The dragon, a brown and green monster of about two tons, wore a massive leather scabbard behind its shoulders and within that it carried a dragonsword.

"You stay here," said the young man with the unfamiliar, dark beard. "I'll go around to the right and get behind it. When I come whooping up at it, you creep in close."

Both of them knew that if Bazil Broketail could get close enough to wield that dragonsword, then the beast would lose its head in a fraction of a second and they would have a feast on their hands.

"Boy go!"

Relkin moved to his right, making almost no sound at all. This past week in the ancient forest had sharpened his stalking skills considerably. But as he went, he bemoaned once again the loss of his precious Cunfshon bow. With that bow he could have put a shaft into the eye of this beast at a hundred feet and ended their quest for dinner in a trice. Without that bow, they were reduced to skulking along to get to close quarters with the sword.

A dense stand of cycads slowed him up. Their bark sprouted long spines that were sharp and fragile, and could leave agonizing little splinters in one's skin. Being cautious around cycads was absolutely necessary.

That bow would have made all the difference, but it was gone forever. It had been taken from him when he was captured on the battlefield of Tog Utbek. He imagined that it had probably been destroyed when the volcano erupted and great Heruta was slain.

A sting on his hip told him he hadn't been quite careful enough. Between the cycad spines that littered the ground and the spines on the trunks there was a lot to look out for. Relkin was barefoot, too, having lost his boots in the Inland Sea. He slowed, moving cautiously to keep those spines out of his skin.

At last he was in the right position. The young giant munched on. It held its long, flexible tail off the ground whenever it moved and occasionally curled and uncurled it with a vigorous snap. Relkin wondered again how it was that this beast had survived to munch ferns and get fat in these forests, which as he knew were haunted by a great many predators, some of them much larger than even a full-grown battledragon and utterly ferocious.

For the third time he asked himself if it could truly be all alone. But careful scrutiny of the trees showed no signs of any other beasts. Nor were there any sounds to indicate more like this one. There was just this one beast, happily stuffing itself on bright green fern trees. Relkin was too hungry to worry about it. The beast took no notice of him and he approached it within fifty feet. This time they were going to make a kill.