Dragons of War (52 page)

"So, Relkin," said Manuel a little later while they were filling water jugs. "You still believe in your old gods?"

"Yes, why not?"

"You think old Asgah is now delivering the souls of our comrades to Gongo in the caverns of the dead?"

Manuel was surprisingly well-informed. All that book learning, thought Relkin wistfully. Relkin had never had much time for books after this third season in the village school. He'd learned to read and count, and that was about it.

"Yes, I suppose so. Where else do you think they would go?"

Manuel smiled. "Into the arms of the Great Mother, of course."

Relkin turned away. Did old Gongo really exist? A monster with eight heads and thirty-seven arms? Who lived in a cavern beneath the world and ruled the souls of the dead unless they were specifically taken up by one of the gods of the upper world?

There was no way to know if Gongo was really down there, below the dwarf kingdoms, deeper than the lurkers. Relkin felt uncomfortable. Compared to the Great Mother, old Gongo suddenly seemed barbaric and even bizarre. How could there really be something like old Gongo down there below the ground?

" 'The Mother runs through all of us, forever and forever.' " The litany ran through his mind.

Relkin thought of old Caymo, his own favorite god. Had Caymo intervened in the fighting? It didn't seem so. It had been a hell of a fight and a long one, and at the end they had strode over the barricade and put the imps to flight. They had done it themselves. Old Caymo hadn't done a thing. Or at least, if he had, he'd allowed a lot of men to die needlessly. Relkin had seen the graves being dug, hundreds and hundreds of them. If Caymo had responded to his worshipers, then why had he let ol' Rusp die, or Bryon for that matter.

It seemed senseless to Relkin. He was angry with the god and with himself for his stubborn clinging to these old-fashioned beliefs.

He borrowed a barrow to carry shield and helmet to the smithy, and when he'd seen they were stacked up in line for the smiths' attentions, he took up his bow and went out onto the heath to hunt and to be by himself for a while.

He moved slowly, his legs felt weak and quite ill-used. On the heath he saw rabbits. Unfortunately, they saw him, too, and disappeared into their warrens as soon as he got close enough for a shot.

He located a spot at the crest of a mound topped by heather where he could command a semicircle of ten rabbit holes. He hid in the heather and waited.

The rabbits were cautious but they were also hungry, and after a while nervous heads popped out for a moment and then withdrew. After a few tentative sallies, the entire rabbit appeared and roved over the grass at the bottom of the sandy bank. Eventually one came within range. Relkin waited. He didn't want to miss, and he didn't want to have a wounded rabbit running back to its hole to die underground.

The rabbit came closer, but he was still not absolutely certain of a kill. At last the rabbit took that final hop. He aimed and would have released, but the rabbit gave a sudden jerk, squealed and died, pinned to the ground by another's arrow.

A figure in clansman's leather leggings and top came out of the heather and scooped up the rabbit and pulled the arrow through.

Relkin stood up in the heather, indignant and angry and about to curse the fellow when he saw that it was Eilsa Ranardaughter.

"Oh, by the ancient prophets," she said in surprise, "you startled me." Then she took in the bow in his hands. "You were aiming at this one, too?"

His complaints had suddenly evaporated.

"It's that kind of a day, I suppose. We used up our luck yesterday."

"We won a great victory. Why does it feel so bad, Relkin?"

So she had reached that point already. A grim inner smile flickered. She had been ready for a fight before. She just hadn't ever seen so many die.

"Always does when you take a lot of casualties. Makes it all seem pointless. When everyone's dead, what does it matter who wins a battle? But after a bit that wears off, and you remember that you were protecting a lot of innocent people, who the enemy wants to use to breed imps. And you remember all the things you've ever seen of the enemy, and you know you had to fight, even if it cost every single one of your friends' lives. Even if it costs your own."

She was silent for a moment.

"I think ye are correct, Relkin. I feel sorrow for the losses, but also a terrible satisfaction that we destroyed that swarm of horrible imps and those demonic trolls."

"Not just trolls and imps," said Relkin with anger in his voice. "There are plenty of men who fight for the enemy. Captain Eads and the troopers captured some of the mercenaries. They're being interrogated. Later they'll be hanged."

Eilsa's eyes flashed fire. "I'd burn them at the stake."

Relkin nodded. This was the old Eilsa. "No one loves the men who fight for the enemy. But hanging's the clean way. That's the way they do it in the legion."

She sniffed. "In Clan Wattel we only execute proven murderers. But we do not hang them. They kneel and put their heads on the block in Castle Green, and the headsmen cuts off their heads with an ax."

Relkin felt more emanations of old Gongo. These Wattels were from the old time, from the age of Veronath. You heard it in their speech all the time.

"Do you need the rabbit?" said Eilsa suddenly. "Perhaps we should try and take another."

Relkin looked back to the dark holes in the sandy bank. "No, I don't need it. There'll be beef for dinner tonight. I saw them bringing out some steers from your clan herds."

"Yes," she said proudly, "my father had ordered a feasting tonight. I wanted a rabbit to make a pie for my father; he loves a good rabbit pie. And at the feasting, I know we would be honored to receive you, if ye wouldst come."

Relkin was taken aback, unused to such an invitation.

"I would be honored, indeed, to be received at your fire. But, are you sure that it would be taken well by others? Your father for instance. I am only a dragoneer. Would he not prefer lieutenants from good families, with land in Aubinas, to seek you out, Eilsa Ranardaughter?"

She laughed. "I do not care for the lieutenants. And I particularly do not care for Lieutenant Apteno and all his land in Aubinas. My father is a wise man, Relkin, and he will always welcome a warrior as brave as yourself."

They walked together through the heather and down a dry, steep-walled gulley. As they went, they discussed the world and how they hoped to live in it when they were "free." For Relkin, this freedom was a very palpable thing, visible just seven years away. For Eilsa, it was far more nebulous and hard to imagine, although she desired it just as strongly.

The gulley opened out into a circular depression with a dull dark pond in the center, gummed with weed, yet home to an assortment of voluble frogs. On the far side they saw some more rabbits, but they made no effort in their direction, being happier to just sit on some hummocks of bunch grass and chew grass stems and talk.

Eilsa Ranardaughter liked talking to this dragonboy. She felt that there were no barriers between them. Furthermore, she was intrigued by his mention of "destiny."

"You were right, Relkin. You said we would survive, and we did. And now you will go on to Arneis and find your destiny."

He laughed. "For all I know, it is simply to stand in a field in Arneis and die there. Sometimes I think all this is just foolishness."

"Do not say that you will die so soon," she said. Relkin saw that she cared for him, and his heart soared. Meanwhile, Eilsa was stricken with sudden horror at losing him all so soon. He would march to the east on the morrow and leave her behind. And in a few days he might well be dead on a battlefield, and she knew she would be devastated. She would never love anyone again.

She shocked herself. She was daughter of the clan chief, she could not have a love marriage, a "make your own mistake" marriage, as the old joke went.

They walked through the sand and the heather under bright sunshine, and Eilsa put her fears out of her mind for the while and tried to simply enjoy this moment. As they went, they talked about their lives, and she described as well as she could, the life of a princess of the Wattels. They laughed together at her descriptions of her teachers in Castle Wattel, old Rimmeer the mathematician and Miss Gimbrel, who taught them language and deportment. And she told him about her wicked but wonderful maternal grandmother, who always got tipsy at winter feast and told rude jokes. And even went further than that if you were to believe everything you heard.

Then she talked about her friends, like Silva, who had always been there since she was a little girl. And old Rufus the woodchopper, who had whittled things for her since she could remember. And then she told him a joke she had heard concerning Edon Norwat, the callow youth to whom she expected she would be wed, sometime in the next two years.

This thought left both of them quietened, saddened by the realization that theirs was an impossible love.

Eilsa knew that even if she really loved this youth, she could not have a life with him. He was already wed, to the legions for seven more years, and to his dragon for the rest of their days. Dragons could live up to forty years.

No, it was not possible.

She wondered to herself for a moment if that was why Ranard had been so casual about this acquaintance, because he knew that Relkin would go over the mountains and probably never return. Ranard was a crafty man, how well she knew that! And he knew his daughter's nature. Had he calculated that this would be how it would end?

Relkin was telling her about the cities of Ourdh that he had seen, how they teemed with people, how there were great avenues that ran for miles and miles and were choked with wagon traffic. How the rivers swarmed with small craft. And above it all, how there loomed the pyramidical ziggurats of the innumerable ancient religions that had held sway over the masses of the Fedd. For a few moments Eilsa forgot everything and imagined these huge ziggurats. She had heard of them many times, they were the largest man-built structures in the world.

Quite suddenly this idyll was shattered by a peculiar harsh scream that sounded right behind their ears, and they spun apart and crouched as an eagle flew low overhead and veered right across the pond and then turned back again, very low and headed toward them. Relkin's bow was wound and the arrow notched. He lifted it but did not aim.

He had barely had time to notice that there was something not quite right about this eagle when a much larger bird, or flying thing, swooped over the crest beyond the pond and flew straight at him. Wings the size of ship's sails beat loudly, and a great ratlike face swung toward them, dominated by red eyes that glowed like fiery coals.

"Batrukh!" Relkin screamed, and shoved Eilsa out of the way, before taking careful aim and planting his arrow in the thing's breast as it swooped by just overhead.

It gave a chilling shriek of rage and pain, then veered away and flapped up, gaining altitude over the pond and turning to come back at them. Relkin had a second arrow notched, and the bow wound and ready. But then at the highest point of its climb the Batrukh's wings folded, and it plummeted directly into the pond and disappeared with a tremendous splash.

A moment later the eagle returned and landed close by, wings beating slowly above its head. Relkin saw that its tail feathers and some of the wing feathers were damaged. It had been attacked in the air by the batrukh.

Relkin also saw the most curious thing. The eagle wore a leather pouch on its neck. There came a flicker of movement, and he could have sworn he saw a small bird, a sparrow perhaps, detach itself from the eagle and flit across the ground.

The eagle remained still and silent, wings folded, regarding Relkin and Eilsa quite calmly from twenty-five feet away. Relkin had never seen one of these great birds so close, and the leather cup had sparked many questions in his mind.

"What was that thing?" said Eilsa, pointing in the direction of the downed batrukh. Waves were lapping around the shore of the pond.

"A batrukh, a thing of the enemy. I saw one once in Ourdh, just after we left the city of Dzu."

This boy had seen far too many weird things for his years, thought Eilsa Ranardaughter. The world outside of the Beks where she had lived all her life suddenly seemed terribly threatening.

"That was a great shot, Relkin."

Relkin shrugged. "Nay, Eilsa Ranardaughter, I'd say it was a tolerably easy shot. It flew straight overhead, not fifty feet away, and never changed course. You could have done it just as well. I saw you shoot that rabbit."

"Still, you found a killing spot."

"Maybe the old gods are looking out for me, after all."

"This eagle is behaving so strangely."

"I think it is hurt."

"What is that leather thing on its neck?"

They approached the eagle very cautiously, but it remained utterly still.

The small bird had returned. It hopped across the ground for a moment then perched in the heather, where it regarded Relkin with a very intent gaze from tiny, dark eyes.

It was a wren, quite unmistakable. Now it flew past him just inches from his nose. He ducked. He'd heard of aggressive wrens before, but never one that would attack a man.

The wren settled on the heather close by and stared at him. It emitted a high-speed burst of sound that was not at all like normal wren song. Relkin stared and the hair on his neck rose as a mouse came out of the heather and stood up on its hind legs and fixed him with another pair of tiny, beady eyes.

Eilsa was transfixed.

"What are they, Relkin?" she said with a tremulous, near giggle. "Are they friends of yours?"

He felt his eyes bulge. The two tiny animals came together. They spoke to each other with the strange bursts of sound that were unlike either birdsong or the squeaking of mice.

"Weirds they are, they can be nothing else," Eilsa backed away a step.

The mouse came toward them, quite confidently, pausing only when it was right in front of him. It sat back and looked up at him.