The Incorporated Knight (3 page)

             
"Well," said Jillo, "if the nags won't stand, needs we must face the worms on foot."

             
"That seems to me to throw away our lives to no good purpose. For these vasty lizards can outrun and out-turn us and are strongly harnessed to boot. Barring the luckiest of lucky thrusts with the spear—as, say, into the eye or down the gullet—that fellow we erst encountered could make one mouthful of my lance and another of me."

             
"Your knightly courage were sufficient defense, sir. The Divine Pair would surely grant victory to the right."

             
"From what I've read of battles and feuds," said Eudoric, "methinks the Holy Couple's attention often strays elsewhither, when they should be deciding the outcome of some mundane affray."

             
"That is the trouble with reading, sir; it undermines one's faith in the True Religion. But ye could be at least as well-armored as the dragon, in your panoply of plate."

             
"Aye, but then poor Daisy could not bear so much weight to the site—or, at least, bear it thither and have breath left for a charge. We must be as chary of our beasts' welfare as of our own. Without them, 'tis a long walk back to Arduen. Nor do I deem that we should like to pass our lives in Liptai."

             
"Then, sir, we could pack the armor on the mule, for you to do on in dragon country."

             
"I like it not," said Eudoric. "Afoot, weighted down by that lobster's habit, I could move no more spryly than a tortoise. 'Twere small comfort to know that, if the dragon ate me, he'd suffer indigestion thereafter."

             
Jillo sighed. "Not the knightly attitude, sir, if ye'll pardon my saying so."

             
"Say what you please, but I'll follow the course of what meseems were common sense. What we need is a brace of those heavy steel crossbows for sieges. At close range, they'll punch a hole in a breastplate as if it were a sheet of parchment."

             
"Such arbalests take too long to crank up," said Jillo. "By the time ye've readied your second shot, the battle's over."

             
"Oh, it would behoove us to shoot straight the first time; but better one shot that pierces the monster's scales than a score that bounce away. Howsomever, we lack these little hand catapults fell, and they make them not in this barbarous land."

-

             
A few days later, while Eudoric still fretted over the lack of means to his goal, he heard a sudden sound, like a single thunderclap, from close at hand. Hastening out from Kasmar's Inn, Eudoric and Jillo found a crowd of Pathenians around the border guard's barracks.

             
In the drill yard, the guard was drawn up to watch a man demonstrate a weapon. Eudoric, whose few phrases of Pathenian were not up to conversation, asked among the crowd for someone who could speak Helladic. When he found one, he learned that the demonstrator was a Pantorozian. The man was a stocky, dish-faced, snub-nosed fellow in a bulbous fur hat, a jacket of coarse undyed wool, and baggy trousers tucked into soft boots.

             
"He says the device was invented by the Sericans," said the villager. "They live half a world away, beyond the Pantorozian deserts. He puts some powder into that thing, touches a flame to it, and
boom!
It spits a ball of lead through the target as neatly as ye please."

             
The Pantorozian demonstrated again, pouring black powder from the small end of a horn down his brass barrel. He placed a wad of rag over the mouth of the tube, then a leaden ball, and pushed both ball and wad down the tube with a rod. He poured a pinch of powder into a hole in the upper side of the tube near its rear or closed end.

             
Then the Pantorozian set a forked rest in the ground before him, rested the barrel in the fork, and took a small torch that a guardsman handed him. He pressed the wooden stock of the device against his shoulder, sighted along the tube, and with his free hand touched the torch to the touch hole. Ffft,
bang!
A cloud of smoke, and another hole appeared in the target.

             
The Pantorozian spoke with the captain of the guard, but they were too far for Eudoric to hear, even if he could have understood. After a while, the Pantorozian picked up his tube and rest, slung his bag of powder over his shoulder, and walked with downcast air to a cart that was hitched to a shade tree.

             
Eudoric approached the man as he was climbing into his cart. "God den, fair sir!" began Eudoric, but the Pantorozian spread his hands with a smile of incomprehension.

             
"Kasmar!" cried Eudoric, sighting the innkeeper in the crowd. "Wilt have the goodness to interpret for me and this fellow?"

             
"He says," said Kasmar, "that he started out with a wainload of these devices and hath sold all but one. He hoped to dispose of his last one in Liptai, but our gallant Captain Boriswaf will have nought to do therewith."

             
"Why?" said Eudoric. "Meseems 'twere a fell weapon in practiced hands."

             
"That is the trouble, quoth Vlek. Boriswaf says that, should so fiendish a weapon come into use, 'twill utterly extinguish the noble art of war, for all men will cast away their weapons and refuse to fight, in lieu of facing this devilish device. Then what should he, a lifelong soldier, do for his bread? Beg?"

             
"Ask Goodman Vlek where he thinks to pass the night."

             
"I have already persuaded him to lodge with us, Squire Eudoric."

             
"Good, for I would fain have further converse with him."

             
Over dinner, Eudoric sounded out the Pantorozian on the price he asked for his weapon. Acting as translator, Kasmar said: "If ye strike a bargain on this, I should get ten per centum as a broker's commission, for ye were helpless without me."

             
Eudoric got the gun, with thirty pounds of powder and a bag of leaden balls and wadding, for less than half of what Vlek had asked of Captain Boriswaf. As Vlek explained, he had not done badly on this peddling trip and was eager to get home to his wives and children.

             
"Only remember," he said through Kasmar, "overcharge it not, lest it blow apart and take your head off. Press the stock firmly against your shoulder, lest it knock you on your arse like the kick of a mule. And let not fire come near the spare powder, lest it explode all at once and blast you into gobbets."

             
Later, Eudoric told Jill: "That deal all but wiped out our funds."

             
"Even after the tradesmanlike way ye chaffered that barbarian down?"

             
"Aye. The scheme had better work, or we shall find ourselves choosing betwixt starving and seeking employment as collectors of offal or diggers of ditches. Assuming, that is, that in this reeky place they even bother to collect offal."

             
"Master Eudoric!" said Jillo. "Ye would not really lower yourself to undertake menial labor?"

             
"Sooner than starve, aye. As Helvolius the philosopher saith, no rider wears sharper spurs than necessity."

             
"But if 'twere known at home, they'd hack off your gilded spurs, break your sword over your head, and degrade you to base varlet!"

             
"Well, till now I've had no knightly spurs to hack off, but only the plain silvered ones of an esquire. For the rest, I count on you to see that they don't find out. Now go to sleep and cease your grumbling!"

-

             
The next day found Eudoric and Jillo deep in the Motolian Forest. At the noonday halt, Jillo kindled a fire. Eudoric made a small torch of a stick whose end was wound with a rag soaked in bacon fat. Then he loaded the device as he had been shown and fired three balls at a mark on a tree. The third time, he hit the mark squarely, although the noise caused the palfreys frantically to tug, rear, and roll their eyes.

             
Leading their mounts, the hunters proceeded to the place where they had met the dragon before. Jillo rekindled the torch, and they cast up and down the beast's trail. For two hours they saw no wild life save a fleeing sow with a farrow of piglets and several huge snails with boulder-sized shells.

             
Then the horses began to plunge and whinny. "Methinks they scent our quarry," said Eudoric, trying to quiet them.

             
When Eudoric himself could detect the musky odor of dragon, he said: "Tie the nags securely. 'Twould never do to slay our beast and then find our horses had fled, leaving us to drag this terrestrial cockadrill home afoot."

             
As if answering a challenge, a deep grunt rumbled down the trail. While Jillo secured the horses, Eudoric laid out his new equipment and methodically loaded his weapon.

             
"Here it comes," said Eudoric as he detected the vibrations of a heavy tread through his boot soles. "Stand by with that torch. Apply it not ere I give the word!"

             
The dragon came into view, plodding along the trail and swinging its head from side to side. Having newly shed its skin, the creature gleamed like fresh paint, its hide bearing a reticular pattern of green and black. Its great, golden, slit-pupiled eyes focused keenly on the hunters.

             
The horses screamed; the dragon speeded its approach.

             
"Ready?" said Eudoric, settling the weapon in its rest.

             
"Aye, sir. Here goeth!" Without awaiting further command, Jillo applied the torch to the touchhole.

             
With a great boom and a cloud of smoke, the device discharged, rocking Eudoric back a pace. Through the dissipating smoke, the dragon appeared still rushing towards them.

             
"Idiot!" screamed Eudoric. "You were not to give fire until I commanded! You've made me miss it clean!"

             
"I'm s-sorry, sir. I was palsied with fear. What shall we do now?"

             
"Run, fool!" Dropping the bronzen device, Eudoric turned and fled, with Jillo close behind him.

             
Then Eudoric tripped over a root and fell sprawling. Stopping to guard his fallen master, Jillo turned to face the dragon. As Eudoric scrambled up, Jillo hurled the torch at the onrushing monster's open maw.

             
The throw fell short of its target. It happened, however, that the charging dragon was at that instant lumbering over the bag of black powder. The whirling torch, passing beneath the creature's gaping jaws, struck this sack.

             
BOOM!

             
When the dragon hunters returned, they found the monster writhing in its death throes with its underbelly blown open and blood and guts spilling out.

             
"Well!" said Eudoric, drawing a long breath. "That's enough knightly adventure to last me for many a year. Fall to; we must flay the creature. Belike we can sell that part of the hide we take not home ourselves."

             
"How propose ye to get the hide back to Liptai? It must weigh in the hundreds."

             
"We shall hitch the dragon's tail to our two nags and lead them, dragging it behind. 'Twill be a weary swink; but we must needs recover as much as we can, to recoup our losses."