Dragonbards (15 page)

What did this mean?

A voice riveted him. Not the woman’s voice
but the dragon’s, deep and thunderous:

“I am
the
dragon, Quazelzeg.
I
am the one you must seek.” The dragon smiled, bloody mouth gaping,
white teeth like blades, flames spurting from deep within.
Quazelzeg stared, hating it—and lusting to own it.

“I am the one you must follow,” it said. “If
you follow me—and if you can kill me—you will win this world
completely.

“But only by killing me.
Only me
. . .”

The dragon turned. The woman looked at
Quazelzeg for a moment, calmly, in full command. Her eyes held a
deep challenge that infuriated him. When she turned, she swung onto
the dragon’s back; it spun, and they were gone into blackness.

He stood staring after them. Countless Doors
began to appear, opening into uncounted worlds. He could see the
dragon racing through, so that it seemed to be a thousand dragons.
Wherever he looked, Doors shone in a spinning tangle of chambers
and caves and infinite space, and always the dragon was racing
through as if it challenged him to follow.

He did not want to admit that this was more
than trickery. He could turn and go back to his own palace—or he
could follow and destroy them. He stood for an instant alone
between worlds, lusting with the challenge. Then he brought his
powers around him like protecting armor and stepped into the
careening blackness.

*

The two white dragons beat across a powerful
wind, easing a path for Iceflower, who limped along behind them. It
was just dusk. Aven rode before Teb, filled with eager visions of a
blue dragonling. Darba rode in front of Kiri, her wonder touching
Kiri powerfully: She was free; she was with other bards like
herself. She was, ultimately and joyously, with dragons. Kiri
hugged the little girl and smiled.

Yet when Kiri looked across at Teb, that
hurtful unease crawled in her mind again. She tried to hide her
uncertainty. When he touched her thoughts with a powerful sense of
needing her, she responded with all her strength. In the thin
moonlight, his look was so honest, and so caring, that she reached
through space to touch his hand between sweeps of the dragons’
wings.

*

Ahead of them, on Windthorst, Camery and
Colewolf’s armies waited in silence atop the mountain ridge above
Sivich’s camp. Many of the warriors who waited with them had, a day
ago, been slaves of the unliving. Awakened to the visions of dragon
song, these men and women and children had armed themselves and
made their way south, side by side with the speaking animals.

Owl spies patrolled mountain and valley,
winging silently through the night between Camery’s camp and Ebis’s
army, waiting on the ridge farther north.

*

Ebis lounged beside his black stallion,
letting the animal graze at the sparse grass. He was a big man,
broad of shoulder and with a heavy, curling black beard. Not since
he had won Ratnisbon back, some years ago, had a battle excited him
so. This night’s work must make an end to Sivich—and a beginning to
the end of the dark rulers. Certainly the dragonbards had fanned
the fires of revolt across the larger continents to a roaring
blaze. Many slaves had turned on their masters and killed them, and
joined with Camery’s troops.

Thinking of Camery made him smile. He
remembered her as a little girl. She had grown up very like her
mother—a fighter just like Meriden. A fine figure she made on that
black dragon, a daughter Meriden would be proud of. He made a
fervent warrior’s prayer for her in this battle; and for Tebriel
and his bards to return safely from Aquervell.

*

Quazelzeg followed the woman and dragon
through endless Doors, planning to drive them into some dark world
where he could destroy them. He could hear the deathly cries of the
soulless multitudes, very near. Soon he was moving through a mass
of writhing cadavers, thinking how best to draw the woman and
dragon to him. The creatures clustered around him, reaching up.
Moldering bodies cried out to him. He trampled and kicked them,
taking pleasure and strength from their pain, knowing they would
take the same from him if they could—but knowing they could suck
life from the dragon. As he strode across the bodies, hurrying
after the dragon, the creatures’ bloody hands began to pull at him.
He beat them back, but they clutched and heaved, climbing up him
until suddenly he was no longer taking power from them—they were
taking power from him. He ran, turning back to strike at them.

He saw the dragon very near. It was smiling;
the woman, Meriden, was smiling. He swung at the bodies with fury.
They clung, covering him. He fell under their weight, was
smothering under creatures that sucked at his power to build
their
strength. He screamed. . . .

The bodies vanished; the dragon was gone,
the woman gone. He stood in his own courtyard, staring at the
flickering torchlight. He was alone, and it was night, not morning.
The thin moon was low overhead. There was no soldier in the
courtyard, no servant. He shouted for officers and servants. How
long had he been away? How long . . . ?

His captains came running, the humans among
them stumbling and bleary eyed. Captain Vighert cowered before him,
his face white.

“We thought you dead,” Vighert said. “You
fell, in the courtyard. We carried you to your chambers—you lay as
if dead. . . .”

“I am not in my chambers. I am not dead.
Have you sent for ships?”

“There are no ships,” Vighert said. “They
burned the ships.”

The officers watched, the un-men without
expression.

“There are no ships,” Vighert repeated.

“Did you open the cave? Did you release the
queen?”

“We . . . no. You gave no such
order.”

Quazelzeg stared at Vighert, then up at the
darkening sky. “How long . . . ?”

“Since this morning,” Vighert said.

“Why didn’t you open the cave?”

“You gave no such order.”

“Open it now. And go to my chamber, Vighert,
and bring the queen to me.” He smiled. “If my pets kill the entire
lot of bards and dragons, so be it. If they do not. . .”
His smile deepened to a white scar of stretching mouth. “If they do
not, what is left will come crawling to me for protection.”

“But how can they follow? There is no
scent—we don’t know . . .”

“They will follow. Open the cave.”

Vighert stared.

Quazelzeg said patiently, “It will be
Tebriel himself who will lead my pets to the dragons.” Yes,
Meriden’s son would lead them, and that would be the sweetest
revenge of all. He looked at his hands, which he kept immaculate,
and saw filth from endless worlds.

By the time the creatures were released, the
thin moon was dropping into the west. Quazelzeg’s pets swept out
through the hole at the bottom of the wall, up into the night,
following their queen, their wings cutting the wind with a dry,
snapping sound, their little sharp teeth gleaming, their little
dull minds dreaming of blood. Their yellow queen led them with
sporadic shiftings across the sky, pulled by a thin, uncertain
beckoning. The black cloud of vamvipers shifted with her, changing
and changing shape like black smoke, filling the wind with their
stink.

*

It was just dark when Camery looked up
suddenly to see three smears of white moving fast across the stars.
“Teb,” she breathed. She stifled a shout of greeting as the white
dragons slipped across the wind and dropped for the mountain. The
massed warriors moved back to give them room, and the three came to
rest in a furling of wings. Camery could feel Kiri’s silent cry,
Papa! Oh, Papa!

Starpounder and Nightraider reared, nudging
their sisters in greeting, fanning their wings over them, nearly
smothering the bards. Kiri slid down and ran into Colewolf s arms,
and clung close. The three dragonlings came dropping out of the
sky, where they had been patrolling, to press around Iceflower,
nudging and caressing her. Only Rockdrumlin was missing, as he
carried Charkky and Mikk over Auric Palace.

Camery hugged Teb and held him, then pulled
Marshy to her. She saw the two new children and reached to gather
them in, but the red-haired boy moved away from her and stood
alone, staring at Bluepiper.

As the dragonling stared at the boy, all
whispering stopped.

Child and dragonling looked at each other
for a long time, with the troops so still around them that Camery
could hear Aven swallow. Suddenly Bluepiper snorted softly, bowed
his neck, and pushed his face down at Aven. The little boy wrapped
his arms around the dragonling’s blue, scaly nose. They remained so
until Aven flung himself onto the dragonling’s back and leaned
over, hugging Bluepiper and gulping back tears.

When he slipped down from Bluepiper’s back,
it was to buckle on the harness Teb and Kiri had made. Quickly he
mounted again, and Bluepiper leaped for the sky. Darba watched them
with envy.

Kiri put her arm around Darba and drew her
close. “I have no dragon, either,” she said. Darba looked up, her
eyes wide with surprise.

“Nor has Windcaller a bard,” Kiri said.
“Windcaller and I travel together, but we are not paired. You will
travel with one of the dragonlings until you find your own dragon
mate.”

The little girl looked incredulous; then joy
spilled out in a bright smile. She grabbed Kiri, hugging wildly,
her excitement sweeping them both. Kiri held her tight, and over
Darba’s shoulder she saw Firemont looking. She beckoned to him.

The red-black dragonling came nuzzling,
pushing at Darba with a sly look in his eye. Kiri showed Darba how
to harness him. He sighed with pleasure as the little girl buckled
on the soft leather. “You are beautiful,” Darba whispered.

“And you are the most beautiful of all
possible girl children,” Firemont answered.

As Kiri gave the child a leg up, Firemont
opened his wings and lifted away silently into the night. Soon they
were lost in the blackness.

Teb had watched the child and dragonling—a
stupid display of sentiment. He walked away by himself and stood
looking morosely down the cliff where Sivich’s armies were
hidden.

The moon shone across the top of the ridge,
but it would leave Camery’s descent down the mountain in blackness.
She had planned very well, he admitted crossly.

He was confused and puzzled by his own
anger. Something was pulling at him, and had been ever since he had
left Aquervell. He reached out to face it, irritated and very
tired. He felt it quicken, and felt his interest in it quicken.

Kiri watched Teb, frowning, but when she
went to join him, he moved away from her along the mountain rim.
She stood staring after him, then turned away and went to stand
with Papa. Colewolf put his arm around her. They stood looking down
the cliff, where they could hear the occasional jingle of a halter
chain and a muffled voice.

It was bad, in Aquervell,
Colewolf
said.
Very bad for Tebriel.

Yes. Very bad.

You’re afraid for him.

She showed him what had happened to Teb.

He squeezed her shoulder, held her close.
His solid warmth and his silent, reassuring thoughts strengthened
her. Her father had great power. His silence—the muteness of his
voice and the quiet of his nature— was deceptive. They stood for a
long time, his spirit firm and undismayed. When they turned back,
she felt stronger.

But Teb and Camery were standing beside an
outcropping of boulders, arguing in harsh whispers, and Teb’s fury
frightened Kiri anew.

What horrors will Quazelzeg bring into
Tirror? His power grows with each country he conquers, with each
person he enslaves. And as it grows, it moves closer to my king and
my children.

*

Teb faced Camery angrily. “We could destroy
Sivich now! His troops are waiting below the cliff like sheep for
slaughter. If we fire-dive the camp, stampede the horses, we can
kill every man. What are you waiting for?”

“If we attack here,” Camery said, “Sivich
and his captains will escape into the caves. We don’t know those
caves and tunnels; this mountain is honeycombed with them.” She
shook her head. “We’d kill only their soldiers, not the leaders.
We’d kill
all
their soldiers, even those who could be
saved.” She studied Teb, puzzled by his anger. “Once they’re out in
the valley, we can surround them. We can begin the battle with
dragon song—with visions that will free so many—to fight for
us.”

Teb only looked at her coldly.

“We must free those soldiers who can be
freed. We must give them a chance to turn on their masters.” She
touched his cheek, seeking for warmth in his face, and saw only
rage. When he turned away, she stared after him, perplexed and
afraid. What was wrong with him? She saw Kiri in the shadows and
went to her.

“What’s wrong? What happened in
Aquervell?”

“Let me show you.”

The visions were powerful. When Kiri was
finished, Camery was filled with Teb’s sickness. She watched his
dark silhouette pacing the cliff and touched his thoughts—and
recoiled.

“What shall I do?” she said sadly.

“Do just as you planned,” Kiri said. “Attack
Sivich. Surely in battle Teb will come right. There . . .
there’s nothing else we can do.”

Camery nodded, and pushed back her pale
hair. “Come on. Colewolf and Marshy are doctoring Iceflower. I’ll
feel better when I’m doing something—I can think better.” She took
Kiri’s hand, and they went up over the moonlit rocks. Perhaps they
both needed Colewolf s steady comforting.

He was brewing herbs to press against
Iceflower’s wounds. Beside him, Marshy folded blankets for
poultices. Iceflower lay quietly while Elmmira licked her torn
flesh, cleaning it before the packs were laid on. The great cat
reared against the young dragon and climbed over her with heavy,
gentle paws. When Kiri and Camery began to soak the blankets and
fold them over her wounds, Iceflower looked around at them with
pleasure. “Warm,” she said. “So warm.” But then her eyes flashed
with suspicion. “These wounds are only of the surface. You are not
going to keep me from the battle? I am quite well enough to battle
the dark armies. I am strong enough to kill a thousand dark
soldiers.”