Battledragon (20 page)

He and Baz had marched all over that land, and they'd seen some places with good soil that were still completely wild. The area had poor riverine communications because of the rapids on the Bur River. However, the rapids downstream from the Kalens could eventually be overcome by the construction of a system of imperial chutes, like that he had seen in action on the Keshon breaks. In the meantime, they would sell their grain to the Wattels, who grew oats and rye on their upland fells but often had short supplies in deep winter.

Once they'd cleared some land, he and Baz would grow wheat and barley and root vegetables. They'd plant orchards and vineyards, too, and sell all their surplus to the Wattels.

To help them clear the land, they would buy a string of horses in Kohon and bring them over the plateau and down the Bur to the Kalens country.

Relkin and Eilsa would be wed, and they would raise a family. Bazil would win the right to fertilize eggs. That would mean they would have to make a pilgrimage back to the village of Quosh in the Blue Stone country. That would be some day when the famous broketail dragon came home to the village of his birth. There would be such competition for the chance to raise one of the young scions that Bazil would father.

By then Relkin would be a father. What would that be like? He shrugged inwardly. Was he really ready for that? Ready to be responsible for children of his own? He wasn't sure. Not just yet. He'd seen what it had done to his friend Lagdalen of the Tarcho. She had become such a serious person. It felt as if she had aged a decade or two, even though she was still just a little older than he was.

Relkin felt uncomfortable at the thought of settling down for a moment. He loved this roving life. He wanted to see the world. He didn't want to be cooped up on some farm in the backwoods.

He giggled. He was getting ahead of himself here. He was going to see a lot more of the world before he had any chance at all for settling down.

He prayed that Eilsa would not change her mind; five years seemed incredibly long when he thought about it. It made him recall with a start that five years before he'd been an unknown dragonboy in the village of Quosh, still struggling with his lessons. Five years could be a long time; there would be many changes in that span of time.

Eilsa Ranardaughter would be under a lot of pressure to forget the dragonboy and marry someone of importance within the Clan Wattel. Could she possibly hold out against that pressure?

Relkin agonized and then dismissed such thinking. Whatever would come would come, and if old Caymo, and the Great Mother, wished it, then he would be wed to Eilsa and they would live together as he envisaged it.

His watch ended with nothing to report, and he climbed out of the tree, slipped into his blanket, and slept like a stone until awoken by the reveille one hour after the dawn.

The dragons rose, stretched, and watered themselves. Then they ate enormous breakfasts and resumed their work. They were reaching the end of the job, and it was announced that they could rest for the remainder of the day. The fleet would sail on the evening tide.

The last casks were filled before noon, and they broke for lunch. Afterward some dragons slept happily in the sun or swam lazily in the pool.

The dragonboys on the other hand spread out and explored the island. What trouble could they possibly get into in one afternoon?

Under the inspiration of the reborn Prophet, the Kraheen people arose like a cloud of dense smoke above a forest fire. Kraheen armies, reorganized by General Kreegsbrok, were dispatched to the north and east. The impact was swift. The Kraheen had abandoned the historic style of combat, in which they threw javelins from a distance and achieved victory solely by outnumbering an opponent. Instead, they now closed for a decision and fought with stabbing spears. This proved devastating to all the neighboring tribes, and soon there were legions of captives marching into slavery in the Kraheen lands.

Under Kreegsbrok's guidance, the entire basis of the Kraheen economy shifted to war. The Kraheen, as foretold by the Prophet, became a caste of warriors. Captive slaves worked their fields and took care of all mundane tasks. The Kraheen, long a downtrodden folk, accepted the new order with enthusiasm. Their armies became a terror to the rest of the continent of Eigo.

In the north, they menaced the advanced states of the Bakan. In the east, they threatened the Impalo kingdoms and even the empire of Og Bogon. Other forces were sent to the western shores to spread the message of the Prophet to the Kraheen sister peoples that dwelled there. Mass conversions became the norm. The ancient worship of the gods of Fire and Stone was replaced with the creed of "He Who Must."

An avalanche had been let loose among the unsophisticated peoples of the inland basin of Eigo, and with the creed of the Prophet on their tongues, new armies were on the march in every direction, bringing devastation and ferment in their wake.

The Great One was well pleased at first. His servants were making progress on the Isle of the Bone. All around the inland sea, the work of the Prophet was building armies. In the meantime, as expected, the enemy had discovered what he was up to and had launched an expedition to Eigo. The hags had responded with a swiftness that was both gratifying and unsettling. Heruta Skash Gzug knew that the hags understood how dire was the threat. They took him seriously. They had been forced to give him respect. This made him smile. On the other hand the thought that two full legions backed by thousands of other troops from the advanced parts of the world were on their way to snuff out his experiment raised a frisson of concern in his mind.

Heruta Skash Gzug had learned the hard way that it was unwise to underestimate the forces of that eastern empire. It was those accursed dragons! But for them, the Masters would long ago have achieved dominion over Ryetelth.

Still, there were ways to slow the enemy. Heruta Skash Gzug had sent emissaries to the ancient Sorcerer of the Black Isle, Gadjung, who had promised his aid.

In addition, a massive Kraheen army had been dispatched over the Ramparts of the Sun to take war against the Bogoni, who were the natural allies in eastern Eigo of the Empire of the Rose.

And yet Heruta Skash Gzug felt uneasy. He called on his servants to accelerate their efforts. On the Isle of the Bone, they worked feverishly to master the art of casting iron and forging steel. It was difficult work, dependent on the fiery furnace in the heart of a volcano. Currently the volcano was semi-quiescent. The heat was barely enough for making steel. Progress had slowed.

The Master consoled himself with the success of his other weapon, the Prophet. He summoned Kreegsbrok for regular reports. Kreegsbrok sensed the Master's mood and doctored his reports accordingly. There were disturbing aspects of the Prophet's eerie new life, but Kreegsbrok knew that the Master did not want to hear about these things. He wanted to hear good.news. He wanted this very badly. Kreegsbrok had learned that it was unwise to personally bring bad news to the Great Ones.

Still, when Kreegsbrok was deposited back on the battlement of the palace of the Prophet and the batrukh flew away, he was left with the dilemma of how to deal with the increasingly strange and terrible thing they called "He Who Must."

The problem was the Prophet's thirst for killing, as powerful as a young man's lust for women. If denied too long, the Prophet would become dangerous, capable of attacking anyone around it, quite suddenly, without warning.

The first time it had slain Kreegsbrok's servant, Golse, whipping Kreegsbrok's own dirk from his sheath and sinking it into poor old Golse's back.

Kreegsbrok had been forced to bring it slaves for slaughter. Nothing else would do. It could no longer be satisfied with the prisoners that it executed for the crowds. Worse, the more it killed, the more it wished to. It would go on for hours, one after the other. A knife thrust into the throat of a helpless man, bound at wrist and ankle, the deep gouge for the voice box, the fountain of blood. The thing gave out hot gasps of pleasure as the blood smeared its body. Quivering with the pleasure of death, it would rip out the still-beating heart, to squeeze the blood into its upturned mouth as if it were some obscene fruit. Then the energy would fade, the excitement would cool. There would come a shiver, a shake of the head sending bloody drops spattering. The knife would come up again, and it would advance on the next victim.

Kreegsbrok had done his utmost to keep it a secret. It would not do for the Kraheen to learn of this. Their faith in their Prophet must remain unsullied and pure. The knowledge that "He Who Must" was, in fact, "He Who Must Kill" would dampen their ardor for the cause.

Accordingly he had four specially trained guards who disposed of the bodies. This had become a difficult proposition. At first they'd dumped them in the sea, but, of course, pieces floated to shore. Burial was difficult. The Kraheen traditionally burned their dead and buried only ashes. To sequester a large enough piece of land for burial and to keep inquisitive souls away was possible, but it would stir rumors and eventually the truth would leak out.

Then Gulbuddin, his second in command, told Kreegsbrok of the dungeon below the palace of the Prophet. Kreegsbrok investigated and discovered large rooms once used to torture apostates of the cult of the God of Stone. Into these rooms the guards stuffed bodies.

They quickly filled. A stench began to rise from the dead. Kreegsbrok was forced to act again. He commissioned some of the barges used in ferrying goods to the Isle of the Bone and late at night used a team of slaves to haul the corpses from the vault and pack them into the barges. Then the barges made the journey to the Isle of the Bone. The bodies were moved on carts up the slopes of the volcano and thrown into the main crater. When the noisome task was done, Kreegsbrok and the four guards slew the slaves and threw them after their horrid cargo.

When the barges docked at the palace later that night, Kreegsbrok found Gulbuddin waiting.

"So you have brought back my barges. I wonder what you've been up to with them."

"You don't want to know," said Kreegsbrok, who had labored all night and was sick to death of the business.

"Well, I have a cargo that must be shipped to the Bone today. We've dug up every stable in this stinking country. All the dirt where horses have pissed for years. I've got twenty cartloads ready."

Kreegsbrok's forehead furrowed.

"The Great One moves in mysterious ways," he said.

"That He does. But you tell me what you think He wants twenty cartloads of piss stinking dirt for."

"Maybe he is raising a new monster that eats it. You remember the ogres?"

Gulbuddin shuddered. "Damned things ran amok. One of them ate my friend Kinradrik. Bit his head off just as you please."

Kreegsbrok laughed. "I saw one once grab someone's horse and eat that! Alive, too."

"That's disgusting."

Kreegsbrok laughed some more, but agreed.

"How goes it with the Prophet?" said Gulbuddin.

"To be truthful, I am worried. It has grown a little strange, shall we say. Mostly it sleeps, but when it awakes, aiee." Kreegsbrok spat eloquently.

"It was strange from the beginning. A dead thing imbued with a mockery of life."

"Yet it serves our Master well."

Gulbuddin nodded. "Of course, of course."

"It says food has no interest for it."

"Yet it must eat if it lives, surely?"

"Aye, it must eat, but it does not want to live."

Kreegsbrok handed over the barges and went to look in on the prophet. "He Who Must" was asleep, lying prone on its back with its mouth open. It would stay that way until he awoke it. Which was a blessing. Once awake it would soon turn to its obsession and demand slaves to kill.

Kreegsbrok tiptoed away nonetheless and repaired to his own chamber. He left two guards on while the others slept. They had had a long night of it. As he composed himself for sleep, he wondered briefly what the Master would want with twenty cartloads of stable dirt.

Bazil lay quietly in the sun with his legs and tail immersed in the cold, clear water. The difference in temperatures between the top and bottom half of his body was most pleasurable. Equally so was the mere fact of relaxation in the sun. There had been days of work with the barrels, hustling to and fro, and now they could rest.

The only thing he missed was a keg of good Argonath ale. After a hot morning's work a spot of ale, preferably two or three gallons' worth, would have gone down very well.

He turned over and rearranged himself. He'd lost some weight, and he could feel how taut and well toned his upper body had become. These days of simpleminded physical labor had been good for him. Even with regular exercise routines, the confinement of shipboard life inevitably reduced a dragon's fitness. Bazil fervently hoped the voyage would soon be over. He was tired of the crowding and the lack of room. He was also tired of the temptation of all that ocean water lapping around them. It would be better to be well removed from the smell of the ocean. It upset them all, except the Purple Green, of course, and Bazil knew better than most of them just why. At times he had to struggle against a great urge to leap overboard and return to the bosom of the ocean. When they were back on land again, that urge would disappear. They would exist within the military machine of men, and in that routine there was a mindless kind of comfort. They would march and drill and practice and eat. Eventually they would fight. Wyvern dragons enjoyed all of these things, especially food and fighting.

Furthermore, like the rest of the dragons, Bazil was intrigued by the rumors that they might meet with their very own legendary ancestors.

Eigo was the dark continent, a vast tropical landmass, in shape rather like a capital A with the top of the letter in the northern tropics and the equator bisecting the continent. Legends spoke of a vast inland sea in the heart of Eigo. This sea was called the Nub, (N-uh-b) of Eigo and was marked by very deep waters and active volcanoes.