A Dragon at Worlds' End (41 page)

Several Ardu had gone into the slave city. They had spoken with Ardu who dwelled there and passed on the word. The forest god was come to Mirchaz, to seek an end to the tyranny of the Lords Tetraan. They brought back rumors of some sort of panic that was currently gripping the High Lords Tetraan. It was called the Iudo Faex and was of terrific importance in the Great Game. They had also brought back some representatives of important groups in the slave city.

Bazil heard all this and judged that conditions favored swift action. They were a small group, but they had a big reputation. Terror filled the farmlands around them. It would not be too long before the city sent out a large force to find and destroy them. If it was large enough and well enough armed, Bazil knew it would eventually kill or maim a certain leatherback battledragon and annihilate the Ardu men. They did not have sufficient force to undertake a successful guerrila fight. One mistake and they would be undone. He had been forced to abandon his first plan, which had been to arouse the countryside, draw the enemy out, and ambush them. Now that seemed futile.

Therefore they needed to act while the initiative still lay in their hands. Confirming him in this belief was the word that the Upper City was tense and volatile. The City of Slaves seethed with complex tides of emotion, but all were assured that it would rise if given sufficient incentive. So much anger against the lords had built up that it needed only a catalyst to explode.

Bazil digested all the information, along with a prodigiously good dinner, and tried to sort it out. At least the recce parties had filled their larder well. Scarcely a chicken could be left in the western hills. Norwul and Lumbee came to sit with him as they did every evening when they discussed the situation and tried to set strategy. They had evolved a triumvirate of command with many battle situations left to Bazil's decision. Bazil had been in enough fights to have assimilated the Legion knowledge of war.

Norwul was eager to plan for an assault on the main city gates, which were open at all times. The City of Slaves would be induced to riot and the slaves would come to the attackers' aid, storming the gates.

The Ardu looked to Bazil, who grunted dissent.

"Riots have happened before. The defense of the city gate is probably prepared for such things. Besides, neither slaves nor Ardu trained for assault on walls. This dragon know that without training, army not very good at assault on walls."

"If we surprise the guard, we might take the gate before they can close it."

"The guard will have been redoubled. They know we are here. They will have taken measures. Perhaps the gate itself is now shut more often."

Norwul was left nonplussed. The big brown eyes blinked in frustration. "But if we don't attack, what can we do? Mirchaz can raise an army to hunt us down. They kill us all eventually."

"In time, yes. We not give them time. We try a feint with the riot and a surprise attack. That will concentrate their attention on the gate and the south. It will make them a little nervous, perhaps."

"We must do more than make them nervous!" exclaimed Norwul, exasperated at the thought of not attacking the great enemy at once. He was impatient. He pounded a big fist into a palm.

"Norwul say we take the big club down there and we beat on Mirchaz. We make Mirchaz feel the pain he cause Ardu!"

Bazil shifted his tail, the dragon equivalent of a shrug. "While they got nervous, we send small group across the lake and attack the pyramid at night."

"They will see boat."

"No boat. We swim."

"Swim!" Lumbee and Norwul looked at Bazil with round eyes.

"Take best swimmers, then attack the pyramid. That where the Game is. That what they think is most important. We take control of their Game. Then we dictate terms of surrender."

"We kill them?"

"We cannot kill all of them. Too many. Perhaps not all of them deserve to die. We are too few to impose such things. We have to settle for less than complete revenge."

"What if Relkin is dead?"

"If they kill boy, then many will die, this I swear by the fiery breath of the ancestors."

As they thought about the idea, Lumbee and Norwul began to see that it represented their best chance. Norwul was most impressed.

"Forest god make great magic. We have much power in this plan."

Norwul left to begin selecting swimmers. Lumbee stayed with Bazil to interview the slave representatives from the city.

Bazil and Lumbee had learned a few days before just what the Great Game did to the slaves put through the mind mass. All the Ardu fighters burned with redoubled anger. Bazil had heard that two-thirds of the released slaves from the mind mass were left completely witless— burned-out husks that had less mentality than an animal.

Now came three representatives of the city. Bazil was not sure what to expect. Lumbee introduced Jup, an older fellow with a bitter look. Heagle was a tall man with wide shoulders and impressive strength in his frame. He refused to sit and kept his hand on his sword the whole time, ready to cut his way to freedom if he had to. Redfenn was the only Ardu, but his tail had been cut off and sold to a gourmet club when he was young. You could only tell by the coloration of his hair and the slight slant to the eyes that he was Ardu at all.

Redfenn showed no dragon freeze. Jup and Heagle both froze when they looked Bazil in the eye the first time. Lumbee had long since learned the routine, though, and woke them both with snaps of her fingers beside their ears.

They shook their heads, blinked a few times, and avoided looking directly at Bazil, though they were clearly fascinated with him.

Redfenn spoke Ardu, which explained why he was there. He introduced the older men. Jup was a representative from the leading rebel group, the Outcasts. Heagle came from the guild, which represented all the mercenaries, thugs, soldiers, and freebooters of the city. Redfenn represented everyone else.

After initial introductions, Redfenn spoke to Norwul, assuming that he was in charge.

"I take it you are the one to talk to. I like the girl, but I do not talk with a female in this matter. Is she meant to be gift for me?"

"Certainly not!" said Norwul, taken aback. He had grown used to the triumvirate system that had worked out between himself, Lumbee, and the wyvern, and was shocked by the outsider's response.

Redfenn hardly seemed to notice his offense. "We have been waiting for your arrival. The kebbold is already a legend in the city. They all wait its arrival. And I have to say that it is an impressive kebbold. How do you keep it under such control?"

Bazil knew that "kebbold" was the Mirchaz word for pujish. His eyes popped and he swelled angrily,

"I am not kebbold," he said in loud, sibilant, but unmistakable Ardu. Redfenn's jaw dropped, Heagle's eyebrows climbed his forehead, and Jup goggled.

"It speaks!" gurgled Redfenn.

"I speak as well as you, in more languages. My name is Bazil. Yours is Redfenn. Do you understand? Can you?"

Redfenn swallowed hard. "I… yes, I think so, but it is hard. You look just like—"

"Good. Because we have a lot to do and we don't need to have you sitting around looking like an egg unhatched."

Heagle shook his head angrily. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. How can this animal talk?" he said to Redfenn in fractured Ardu.

Bazil understood enough. "I talk because I have a brain. All wyverns talk. We talk in our own tongue, which you do not talk. I also talk in Verio, the language of men in my homeland. And I talk the language of the tailed men."

Heagle and Jup followed this only remotely, since neither of them spoke Ardu fluently, but they understood that Redfenn and Bazil were having a conversation and they were stunned.

"It talks to you?" said Heagle.

"It speaks good Ardu."

"Is it a god?" said Jup.

"It is some kind of trick. A ventriloquist or something," snarled Heagle. "It's a damned kebbold, done up in some fancy trick. Either that or there's a man inside the upper part of it."

Heagle had lapsed into Mirchazese in his anger.

The word "kebbold" got through, though, and Bazil gave a grunt and surged up onto his feet.

With a sinuous move he unsheathed Ecator. In the flat rays of the dying sun the great blade glittered like glasss.

With a measured series of moves, Bazil put Ecator through its paces. The blade made the most terrifying hum when it swept over their heads and Jup cowered on the ground thereafter, not daring to resume standing until Bazil had finished.

Heagle drew his own sword, but some shred of self-preservation kept him from attacking the dragon. Instead he watched in awe as the huge creature went through its practiced routine with the blade.

Redfenn just stared, openmouthed, thinking he had never seen anything more dangerous in his life. It wasn't a kebbold. No kebbold could be trained to handle a weapon—and not just any weapon, but a battlesword that was longer than a man is tall.

Heagle was suffering a most peculiar sort of inner agony. He knew that the beast could not be a kebbold. Kebbold were uniformly vicious, stupid creatures. Nobody had ever kept one of the large types of kebbolds without it escaping and killing people. They were huge, active, and could not be tolerated where people lived. Kebbold could not exist that could fight with a sword, but Bazil existed, and so did Ecator.

Bazil stood there, looming over them while he rested his forearms on the handle of the sword.

"I am not kebbold."

"I agree," said Redfenn.

"To business, then. We have plans to make."

And while they schemed, the men barely able to contain their amazement, another piece of the prophecy of Bos was taking shape.

In the bottom tiers of the pyramid the fragmented, dying mind was swirling. And at the last, with annihilation approaching, there came something like a huge, soft hand to catch it up and hold it from the finality of death. Soft words played through the mind of the old one.

Hush,

dusk purples to the night but dawn will come. First will come the knock, and then the coming of the old mind. Welcome.

In a dark chamber, on a high floor in the Pyramid of the Game, the lords Zulbanides and Rasion met alone.

"The City of Slaves is upset. We think there are agitators, probably from these Ardu that are terrorizing the countryside." Rasion wore silver breastplate and greaves over light blue military silks.

"I've said it before," growled Zulbanides, still in his robes, "and I'll say it again. We should level that nest of vermin and send them out beyond the farms. Then they can steal and riot and do whatever else they wish to do and no one will care."

"Well, until we do that, we do have to care. The watch at the gates has been doubled again."

"Have the gates been shut?"

"No, it would wreak havoc on the merchants and farmers. The market has its busiest day tomorrow. The wagons will be coming in all night."

Zulbanides sighed. "But at the first sign of trouble the gates will be shut?"

"Of course."

"Well, thank Bos for that! The merchants would put us all at risk for the sake of a farthing. I've said that before, too."

"The city must eat. Tomorrow the market will be groaning as usual. Have you seen the new melons? Delicious!"

"Ah, yes, Rasion, but about the other matter?"

"The kebbold? Well, it is to be hunted down and exterminated. A force of five hundred guards, accompanied by three hundred volunteers from the slave-taking corps, will set out tomorrow to find and kill it."

"Eight hundred men to slay one kebbold?"

"There are hundreds of Ardu bulls accompanying it, Zulbanides."

"So they say, but they also say the most ridiculous things. This legend that it carries a sword… you've heard it?"

"Yes, of course. In fact, it may not be so ridiculous."

"What?"

"I have been investigating this phenomenon, and in the course of my researches I have discovered that there is said to be an army of such beasts. They are called dragons and they dwell in the far eastern lands of Ianta. There is a realm known as Argonath, part of an odd little empire, centered on the isles in the eastern sea. In the Celadon aeon it was the land of Gazzat. The mage lords ruled there from time immemorial."

Zulbanides' scowl intensified. That was where the boy had claimed to originate, too. Zulbanides had returned again and again to every nuance of memory of that meeting. Had he missed something? Was he losing his edge?

"You jest. A kebbold that wields a sword?"

"We have lost touch with the world beyond our realm, Zulbanides. Things have progressed. There have been developments undreamed of. As a result of a conflict with the Padmasan abbots, an army equipped with these unique kebbolds was sent to Eigo recently. This must be a straggler from that army."

"Incredible. Damn those upstarts in Padmasa. Their vile magic, all death-related, you know. Disgusting." Zulbanides stared into the dark. When he spoke again, his voice was husked with dangerous emotions.

"In all the aeons no one has dared to disturb us in our fastness. Now we have this savage intrusion by a kebbold with a sword. Someone mighty moves against us. It is in violation of the covenant at Gelderen."

"Lord, it fits the prophecy."

"The five things?"

"There is a 'forest god' mentioned there, is there not?"

"Yes."

"This kebbold is called the forest god by the Ardu. So I have been informed by our spies in the City of Slaves."

Zulbanides' response was cut off by a knock at the door.

"Who is it?"

"Captain Katun."

"Captain?"

"Well, he was before his disgrace. We recalled him to service with this emergency. He has considerable experience. Moreover, he was the one who captured our mystery youth upcountry and brought him in. Perhaps he can tell us something more about him."

"Ah, I see. I remember that he was disgraced, but clearly we must be flexible."

Zulbanides turned to the door. "Come in."

The door opened and admitted Katun, now wearing leather armor and helmet. He was weaponless, having been disarmed on entering the pyramid. No one like Katun would ever be allowed in the presence of such as Zulbanides and Rasion while he bore arms.