Dragonbards (5 page)

“There’s a ship in the swamp,” bellowed
Firemont.

“It stinks of dark warriors,” cried
Bluepiper.

“If you yell any louder,” Teb growled,
coming awake, “they’ll have set sail before we reach them.”

The dragonlings lowered their voices, eyeing
Teb with respect.

The bards dressed quickly. Teb convinced
Marshy to stay in the cave with Iceflower. The rest were soon
winging south in the icy dawn, the four bards yawning, trying to
come awake, checking again for swords, pulling their hoods around
their ears. Kiri looked, sleepily, across the frozen air at Teb.
Already a rime of ice crystals covered her hood and the escaping
wisps of her hair. Below them, the white mountains caught light
from the sun still hidden beyond the sea, the volcano’s face
stained by the sun’s fire. Beyond shone the marsh, its brilliant
green shocking against the endless white.

The ship is hidden beneath the trees,
said Bluepiper. They circled low. The oaks spread a protective
leafy roof over the steaming waters.

Yes, there,
cried Seastrider.
There . . .

They could see, beneath the moss-hung trees,
part of the ship’s bow. They could sense the dark warriors and
could sense a terrified captive. Their minds were filled with its
silent cry for help.

Someone small,
Kiri said,
someone
young.
She looked across the wind at Teb.

Teb’s face had gone white. His pulse
pounded. He could sense the small creature clearly and was filled
with its pain and fear. He could see the small body trussed
tightly, its broad tail bound to its side, its webbed feet wrapped
so tight they were numb. He knew that the otter had no real hope
that anyone would hear its silent calls. He gripped his sword as
Seastrider dove.

As she flew just above the deck, Teb slid
off. Seastrider banked away between the trees. The air was warm and
heavy, the deck wet and slick. Starpounder swept down, and Colewolf
dropped off beside Teb. It was still night in the tree-covered
marsh, the ship too dark for them to see much. They could not sense
a guard. The could feel the otter’s pain, and they knew something
else about it. . . .

Suddenly a shout—hatches were flung open,
lamps blazed. They ducked behind a cabin as half-dressed soldiers
poured up out of the hold. Weapons gleamed in the light of swinging
lanterns. Teb slipped on the wet deck, recovered, blocking swords
with his blade. Four came at him. He lost sight of Colewolf, was
backed against the rail.

He thrust at a charging soldier, sent him
overboard, faced three more. He struck and dodged, sweat running
into his eyes. He took a gash on his shoulder. Two more were on
him; his weapon was forced back; he felt the barrier of cabin wall
behind him.

He kicked one in the groin and ducked, then
swung, but the other lunged, its weapon tossed aside, its cold
fingers clutching his throat. Its knee slammed into his stomach. He
sprawled, his belly torn with pain, and heard crashing
overhead.

Branches broke under the diving dragons.
Kiri shouted, her sword flashing as she dropped to the deck. She
struck down a dark figure. Teb caught a glimpse of Camery; then
Seastrider’s head filled the foredeck. She snatched up a warrior
and crushed it. Dragons towered around the ship, coiling over it so
it rocked and heeled. Teb saw fire creeping along the deck from an
overturned lamp. He heard a faint, chittering cry.

He ran crouching past the battling swords of
Colewolf and two dark soldiers and made for the foredeck as fire
leaped behind him.

My heart breaks for the little animals who
suffer at the hands of the unliving. Of all that we cherish,
perhaps tenderness is most detested by the dark. Oh, Camery,
Teb—you must escape this terror somehow.

*

The cry came from a locker. Teb jerked the
bolt free and swung the door open. The little otter stared up at
him with terror. It was wrapped in chains so tight it couldn’t
move. Its white fur was matted and bloody. A white otter—a rare
white otter.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said softly, taking
it up in his arms. When he turned, a dark soldier blocked his way.
Seastrider reared, knocked the un-man over the side, and struck out
with fury at two leaping warriors.
Give the otter to me,
Tebriel.

He shoved the little otter into her open
mouth. She lifted away fast, her wings shattering a mast. Fire cut
along the rail and into the deck as Teb spun around, to fight
beside Colewolf.

They killed five more soldiers. When the
fire leaped like a wall around them, they fled to Starpounder’s
back. “Kiri!” Teb shouted as the black dragon lifted. “Camery
. . . Kiri . . .”

“Here,” Kiri shouted, “I’m here.”

“Camery!
Where is Camery?”

Below them, the ship was a raging fire.

“In the swamp,” Kiri cried.
“There . . .”

Nightraider flashed by them, breaking trees
as he sought to reach Camery. She was high in a tree climbing away
from three dark soldiers, her sword flashing as she turned to
strike at them. She felled one, but the sword of the second plunged
inches from her head. Nightraider snatched him off and crushed him.
Camery slashed at the third. He fell. She leaped for Nightraider’s
back, and he rose straight up, winging through leaping fire. The
three dragons sped south over the marsh and beyond it.

Seastrider stood on an icy hill. The young
otter lay between her front feet, nearly hidden by her big head as
she breathed warm air over him. Teb slid down from Starpounder and
knelt beside the small, battered creature. He touched it gently,
whispering to it, sickened by the chain that cut and deformed its
small body. He examined the lock, trying to force it with his
knife.

“They put me in a leather bag,” the young
otter told him. “I ripped it open, so they chained me.” The left
side of the otter’s face was so swollen, his eye was only a slit.
His white fur was the color of dirty rags, matted with dried
blood.

Kiri and Camery found mud at the edge of the
field and brought it in handfuls, to pack around the chain. When
the otter’s body was protected, Seastrider cut the metal lock off
with a small, quick spurt of flame. As Teb unwrapped the chain,
fresh blood started to flow. Camery felt the little otter’s legs
carefully for broken bones. When she felt his left thigh, he jerked
and cried out.

She examined it carefully. “I can’t tell
whether it’s broken. Oh, how could they hurt a little creature
so?”

But they all knew how the dark could. The
dark partook greedily of such suffering. The little otter had
closed its eyes tight against the pain. Its paws were clutched
together against its belly. Teb could imagine what plans the dark
had for the little white Seer.

“So small,” Kiri said.

Camery looked up at Teb. “It was a white
otter who took care of you at Nightpool.”

“Yes,” Teb said, stroking the little otter’s
ears. “A fine otter, who taught me much.”

“What is your name?” Kiri said.

“Hanni. I am Hanni.”

“Are you of the nation of Cekus?” Teb asked
him.

Tears started in the little otter’s eyes. He
turned away and wouldn’t answer.

When Camery took him in her arms, he
snuggled against her and laid his bloody, swollen head beneath her
chin against the warmth of her throat.

Colewolf took off his heavy coat, buttoned
it up, and tied the neck shut with rawhide cord. He tied the arms
together to make a sling around Camery’s neck, and they settled
Hanni carefully in the warm pouch. Camery’s pale hair fell down
around him, but when she brushed it back, Hanni grabbed a handful
and pressed it against his nose.

“Gold—so gold. Like the chain of my worry
stone.” He stared at Camery. “They took my worry stone— that was
why they wanted me. They tried to make me tell where it came
from.”

Camery cuddled him close and stroked
him.

“What worry stone?” Teb said. “What was it
made of?”

“They tried to make me tell. They hurt me. I
didn’t tell them.” He closed his eyes.

Teb said patiently, “What was your worry
stone, to make the dark want it?” Most otters’ worry stones were
only smooth rocks from the sea floor, hung on cords around their
necks to keep their paws busy and to crack clams and mussels
with.

“It was a special shell. It brought
visions.”

“I see.” Teb studied Hanni’s blood-streaked
white face and intense brown eyes. He was a very young otter to
have survived the dark’s torture. “Let’s get you back to Stilvoke
Cave, where you can have rest and doctoring and a hot meal. You can
tell us the rest of the story there.”

As they rose on the cold wind, the sun’s
light glanced up from the ice fields in blinding flashes. Camery
held Hanni close to her, snuggling his face under her chin. He was
silent, sniffing the wind, staring around him with excitement at
the sky full of beating wings.

When they dropped toward Stilvoke Cave,
Marshy and Iceflower rose struggling on the wind to meet them. The
sick dragonling’s wings seemed too heavy for her weak body. “She’s
mending,” Marshy shouted, “she’s stronger!” He clung with his arms
tight around her neck as she landed stumbling beside the big
dragons—but she was trying. For Marshy, she was trying.

In the cave, Kiri and Camery cleaned Hanni’s
wounds and spread on the dwarfs’ special salve, made from moss and
oak bark. King Flam brought the little otter a rich soup of dried
fish, which Hanni devoured greedily, between yawns.

“You are of the nation of Cekus,” King Flam
said.

Tears began again, and the little body
shook. Hanni tried to speak and could not.

At last he said, “There is no more nation of
Cekus.”

They watched him in chilled silence.

“The dark raiders came in their ship.
Ev-everyone was fishing in the sea.” He choked and swallowed, and
there was a long pause before he could go on.

“The dark soldiers killed my family. They
killed everyone. With arrows, with spears.” Hanni turned his face
away. “I wasn’t there. I was the only
one. . . .”

He collapsed into sobs again, all the pain
of his loss and of his long torture shaking him. Camery and Kiri
held him between them, murmuring to him.

The young white otter cried uncontrollably
for a long time, in a storm of grief. When at last he could
continue, he told them how he had been alone at the back of the big
meeting cave, engrossed with the small conch shell he wore as a
worry stone.

“The conch held a vision,” Hanni said. “I
was seeing so strong a vision, I didn’t hear anything. I heard a
little rustling noise once, as if someone was there. I didn’t pay
any attention.

“When I came out of the cave, the bay was so
silent. I didn’t hear the voices of my family. There was no
laughter, no shouts about what fine fish folk had caught. They—”
Tears flowed. Hanni pressed his face into Kiri’s shoulder.

“There was blood in the sea. Dead bodies
everywhere. The dark ship was just disappearing around the end of
Sitha. I stood looking. I knew I must go out there to see if anyone
was alive. I went toward the water. They—the dark unliving—had not
all gone. One of the dark creatures grabbed
me. . . .”

The rest of Hanni’s tale was of torture.
Small tortures, Hanni called them, because they didn’t want him too
injured.

“They wanted me to take them where I had
gotten my worry shell. They thought there were more like it. They
didn’t want me all broken; they wanted me to lead them there and to
dive for the conch.” He looked up at Teb. “The dark unliving want
visions; they want the power of visions.

“They tried to make me bring a vision in my
shell. They knew I could. I
wouldn’t,”
he said stubbornly.
“They tried to make me use it to tell where the dragons were.”
Hanni stared at them. “That was why they came to Cekus, to find the
young dragons. When—when no otter would admit they knew dragons,
the un-men killed them. Then they thought the shell could tell
them.

“When one of them touched my shell, he
backed away. None of the others would touch it. One lifted it from
me with the tip of his sword while they held me down. They tried to
make me tell how much of the vision-making was my power and how
much came from the shell. I don’t
know
which is which. I
wouldn’t tell if I did.”

“Maybe it’s all your power,” Teb said.

Hanni shook his head.

“Have you ever brought visions with another
shell?”

“Yes. But not as clear as with the conch. It
was a rare one, a golden conch. My uncle brought it up from the sea
bottom before I was born. He found the chain in the sea. He
threaded it through the conch. When I was born white, he knew the
conch was for me. When I was big enough, he put it around my
neck.

“Now,” Hanni said, “now it’s at the bottom
of the marsh, all burned.”

“Are there other ships?” Teb said. “Did they
mention other ships traveling with them?”

Hanni shook his head. “They seemed to be all
alone.” He began to shake again. Kiri cradled the small otter in
her arms, and the dwarfs made murmuring noises. King Flam reached
to stroke the little creature.

“You can stay here,” the dwarf king said.
“You can live with us, and you will be our own child.”

Hanni cried all the harder.

“That is kind,” Teb said. “Or perhaps Hanni
will decide to join the otter nation at Nightpool. There is a white
Seer there. Thakkur could be his teacher.”

Hanni stiffened.

Flam said, “Yes, perhaps he should be among
his own people. If he has skills that can be used against—”

“It was Thakkur!” Hanni cried. “His name—the
white otter I saw in vision when . . . before they
captured me. It was Thakkur. He is in danger—his whole island is in
danger.”