The Sword of the South - eARC (55 page)

“It is well,” the dragon thunder muttered. “You have the courage of your past and future, Young Killer. What service shall I render you?”

“Wencit’s the one who knows that answer, Torfrio.”

“In the timestorm, it is the same,” Torfrio said. “Tell me your need.”

“I—” Kenhodan hesitated, touched by a different sort of uncertainty. How could he…?

“You see the timestorm, Son of Fire,” he heard himself say then. “You know our need.”

“I do. But what do you give in return, Young Killer?”

“State your terms, Son of Fire,” Kenhodan said levelly. “If I don’t agree, I’ll tell you.”

“A dragon’s answer!” Torfrio trumpeted in approval. “Very well! Play for me when the timestorm wills and play for me tonight.”

Kenhodan glanced at Wencit in puzzlement, but the wizard only looked back levelly. Clearly, this conversation—this bargain—was his to make and his alone.

“Two tunes, Son of Fire?”

“Two. One tonight, and one when the timestorm wills.”

“When will that be?”

“You know the tune; the timestorm knows the time,” the dragon voice muttered in thunder. “Play, Young Killer. Play! I must taste the timestorm.”

Kenhodan reached for his harp case like a man compelled. His hands opened the fastenings with a nimbleness which belonged to another and drew out the harp as if they knew a secret his mind had still not grasped. Then he lowered himself to the ground, seated himself on spring grass within the corona of wild magic radiating from Torfrio and leaned back against a pillar of dragon claw. He raised the harp, and his fingers kissed the strings.

Power hammered in his blood, pulsing with conflicting emotions as he waited for the music he was somehow destined to play this night. And then his fingers moved, and music spurted into the night—a wild melody…but one he’d heard before. Fierce and proud it was, and it reached deep into its listeners. The dragon head flung upward, snapping into the heavens, eyes slitted in concentration. Bahzell, Chernion, even Kenhodan himself—one by one they fell into the tiderace of notes, vanished into the music. Only Wencit stood as if unaffected, yet tears slid down his cheeks, burning with wild magic.

The sorcery of his own harping snatched Kenhodan into another place and time. He whirled through unimaginable distances, and then he saw what he’d seen once before, but this time in far more detail. He saw a rich land in the pride of its power…and he saw dark powers, fed on blood and smoke. He saw them raise armies of demons and ogres, of trolls and ghouls, of demons, of Krashnark’s devils and Krahana’s undead. And he saw twisted parodies of every Race of Man—human and hradani, dwarf and elf—marching to the orders of that darkness, flocking to its banners, yielding to its will. All too many gave themselves willingly to the Dark, but willing or no, the end was the same for all.

Sorcerers led them, raining death on any who opposed them, and flame towered into night skies. Swords drank the blood of man and woman, mother and child, aged and young. Grim ruin enveloped half a continent before its first flooding onrush was checked, and those who died fighting were the fortunate ones, for they were spared the ghastly altars and sacrificial knives.

But the desecration wasn’t unchallenged. The Light gathered itself against the stunning onslaught, and armies marched against the tsunami of destruction. Scarlet standards led them, emblazoned with the golden gryphon and crown, and they met the armies of darkness headlong in battles that watered the soil with the blood of hero and murderer alike.

Again and again the crowned gryphon triumphed, but its armies couldn’t be everywhere, and with every victory, those armies grew steadily smaller while the power of the Dark swelled with every murder, every atrocity. Desperation beat in Kenhodan’s harping as the defenders died and the attackers’ strength grew ever greater. The balance tipped further and further against the Light, and if victory had ever been within the gryphon’s grasp, it was no longer. Ship after ship fled the embattled land, fleeing ever northward, packed with refugees and the only hope of whatever future might yet be. The gryphon spread its wings, no longer seeking victory or even survival, spending itself, pouring out its life’s blood to cover that retreat, protect that seed corn of all it had failed to save in Kontovar. One by one the ports fell and fire and sorcery consumed or enslaved the life remaining in the ruins, yet
still
the gryphon banners—tattered, now, and stained with smoke—fluttered over the ever dwindling armies, and Kenhodan wept as a continent slid unstoppably into darkness in the whirling storm of his harp’s notes.

And then the gryphon stood at bay above an army trapped, unable to reach the sea which had been its final destination. Waves of enemies crushed closer, hemming the final warriors in a net of bloody steel. Desperate sorties struck the encircling ranks, only to fall back or die. Haggard cavalry hewed a path halfway through the attackers, but the horses were hamstrung, the riders dragged down. Less than one in ten of the mounted knights lived to retreat.

Back and back the defenders fell, carpeting the grass and bloody mud with their foes. But the commanders of their foes cared nothing for their own troops’ lives. Those lives meant nothing beside their hatred for all the defenders stood for, and every life they spent to crush their enemies only fed the power of the Dark they served. Back and back they drove the gryphon’s final warriors, until a tiny knot of warriors stood at bay atop a hill, a desperate ring about a tall man whose sword flashed in the darkness of sorcery. That sword grew to fill Kenhodan’s vision, humming and snarling, shining with the fury of the sun, cold as the stars while blood hissed and steamed from its trenchant edge. The blade flamed unquenchable, unsullied by the gore it shed, dragging his heart into his throat and wracking him with sobs.

The music was a dirge as darkness swallowed the hill, overwhelming the gryphon banners, crushing in death what could never be beaten into submission. And as the harp wept, Kenhodan saw the sea-girt island once more as the cold glory of destruction spiraled up from its walls and towers over a sea like a glittering mirror. But this time…this time he saw the fire
strike
.

The brilliance burst, the life stuff of the last white wizards of Kontovar roaring into the heavens in a million flaming pinnacles. They seared the clouds aside and hurled themselves upon the conquered continent, and where they touched was destruction. Soil and stone flared like tinder, ran like wax, and billows of flaming smoke veiled unguessable devastation. Cities burned like pitch, guttering into extinction. Fortresses hissed briefly, like coal newly dropped into a furnace, then exploded into steam and rubble. Armies of slaves screamed in one horrible voice, the hideous death cry of an entire continent as they were consumed, but the destruction was too vast, too terrifying, to be grasped.

Kenhodan cowered before it as the music thundered to its crescendo, crashing over all the world in a hurricane of loss, of destruction, of grief and memory and unendurable loss…and then, mercifully, between one note and the next, it ended.

Silence fell, and Kenhodan shuddered, sucking in air as he escaped the ancient terror. Sweat soaked him, and his muscles were water.

He opened his eyes slowly. Chernion lay on her face, her hands clasped over the back of her head in fragile defense, her shoulders heaving. Bahzell still stood, but only his locked thews kept him on his feet. His eyes were pits of horror, staring at nothing, while his ears pressed close to his skull. Somehow he’d drawn his sword despite the music’s spell, but the blade trembled in his hand and firelight shook from the steel in waves. The coursers stood like stone, magnificent equestrian sculptures, carved out of eternity’s heart by harp song. Even Wencit knelt, beaten to his knees by the harp, and his shoulders shuddered while tears covered his cheeks with flame.

Kenhodan shook his head and tried to rise…and his muscles obeyed him as if nothing had happened. He felt imprisoned in his own body, but that body moved easily, with all its wonted suppleness. He straightened and stood, gazing up the mailed cliff of the dragon’s throat, watching the vapor from its jaws streak the moon, and Torfrio’s great eyes were half-slitted, jagged green fire spurting from under heavy lids.

Then the head lowered slowly. The sinuous neck curved, bending itself to half encircle him where he stood and press the mighty chin to the ground. The green eyes were no more than a yard above Kenhodan’s head, and they opened slowly to show him the incredible depths of those ancient pupils.

“I taste the timestorm,” the dragon rumbled slowly. “Truth rides the years, Young Killer.”

“You know me,” Kenhodan said, and his voice was firm and measured in the shocked hollow of the night. “Do you know the name of that tune, as well?”

“Aye, Young Killer. I know ‘The Fall of Hacromanthi.’”

“You know it, Son of Fire—but what does it mean to you?”

“Mean, Young Killer?” The green eyes flared like bonfires. “How strange that you should ask me for that! But the timestorm’s moment is not now. Not yet!”

Kenhodan swallowed the refusal. He longed to ask more questions, but he dared not. Mystery and danger surrounded him; if he’d ever doubted, he no longer could. Not after his second taste of that devastating music. If he could wreak that with nothing but a harp, what else could he do? What other secrets lay hidden within him, waiting to wake too soon at a single unwise answer? He had only Wencit to guide him, and if the wizard couldn’t answer his questions, Kenhodan dared not risk upsetting his plans by asking them of others. For the first time he accepted that fully…and, to his own surprise, without bitterness.

Silence lingered for what seemed a small eternity before Torfrio, finally, broke it once more.

“For what you have done, will do, and may do, Young Killer,” the dragon rumbled in strangely formal thunder, “you have my service. I will bear you over Bellwater.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Wizards’ Plans

It was not, Kenhodan discovered ─ not entirely to his surprise ─ quite that simple. Torfrio could have carried them in his talons, but not without injuring them severely, assuming the horses didn’t simply die of fright, which made
that
approach somewhat short of desirable. And, unfortunately, they had neither the time, the tools, nor the material to build the sort of platforms the black wizards’ enslaved dragons had carried in Kontovar. It was left for Torfrio to suggest the means, though he did so with manifest distaste.

“You must ride on my back, Young Killer—you and your friends and beasts. I cannot fly with you to block my wings, so I swim.”

“But—”

“My scales are thick; my back is broad. I cannot be hurt by such as you upon me, and you cannot fall. This is the only way.”

“I…see.”

Kenhodan turned helplessly to Wencit, but the wizard only smiled and nodded in agreement. He seemed to have recovered from the harping, although Bahzell was still shaken and Chernion…Kenhodan feared her reason had broken. She showed no more volition than a newborn child, allowing them to push or lead her from place to place but not moving at all of her own will. Wencit saw the guilt shadows in Kenhodan’s face and drew him quietly aside.

“Don’t worry about the Borderer, Kenhodan. She’ll recover.”

“But why was she so much more affected? Why isn’t she recovering
now?
”

“Perhaps because she had less warning,” Wencit suggested. “Unlike Bahzell or me, she’d never heard ‘The Fall of Hacromanthi’ before, you know. Or perhaps she has less protection from her dead. But she
will
recover, though it may take a few hours yet.”

“If you’re sure,” Kenhodan said doubtfully. “But about this dragon ride…”

“It should work. Torfrio’s back is longer into broader than
Wave Mistress
, after all. And he
can
swim, however much he may hate the very thought.”

“Why should he hate it?”

“Red dragons are fire worms, the mightiest of all the dragons, but they all hate water.” Wencit chuckled. “Enough of it will quench even the dragon princes’ fire. Of course, that would take a
lot
of water, but the differences between their nature and sphere and that of water go straight to the bone, so Torfrio’s making a great sacrifice to aid us.”

“But will the horses stand for it?”

“The coursers understand our need as well as you or I do, and Glamhandro’s willing enough. After I speak to the others, they won’t even know what’s happening. And,” the wizard went on more briskly, “we ought to do this quickly. It’ll be dawn soon, and it would be far better for Torfrio to be far away before anyone sees him and guesses where we crossed.”

“That makes sense,” Kenhodan said, and turned decisively to Bahzell.

Wencit watched him with a melancholy inner amusement. Kenhodan had somehow assumed command—a not inconsiderable achievement, especially given Bahzell’s decades of experience and accomplishments. Yet the change was also inevitable, for the hidden part of him was stirring, driving him beyond the reckoning of any but Wencit himself.

Bahzell Bahnakson’s was a strong, tough personality, one fit to stand unbowed in the face of demons, devils, and the Dark Gods themselves, yet he, too, recognized Kenhodan’s new strength. There was no change in the hradani’s speech or manner, but now it was Kenhodan who stirred their entire party back into motion, oversaw the reloading of their pack animals, and decided how to deal with Chernion…and did it all so naturally he wasn’t even aware he was giving
directions
to a champion of Tomanāk—
two
champions of Tomanāk, counting Walsharno—and the last white wizard in all the world.

Bahzell looked up as he resaddled one of the pack horses at Kenhodan’s instructions and met Wencit’s smile with a grin of his own. He was a warrior, a realist, and a champion of Tomanāk. No champion of the war god was a shy and retiring type, and Bahzell was even less shy
or
retiring than the majority of Tomanāk’s chosen Swords. But for all his own towering accomplishments, all the hard-focused, steely purpose of his personality, there was very little arrogance in Bahzell Bahnakson. Where he was equipped to lead, he would lead; where it seemed best to follow, he would follow, with no lessening of his own confidence, his own tenacious fidelity to the goals and obligations which were his. And for the moment, however it had happened, Kenhodan was the person best suited to command.

The wizard prepared the packhorses and Chernion’s mare for the crossing with care, laying his hands on their ears and muzzles one by one. His eyes glittered as he whispered to them, and their fear sweat dried and they became as biddable as Chernion.

With the horses quieted and their equipment packed, Bahzell tightened the mare’s saddle and lifted the assassin into it. Chernion made no resistance as he picked her up as lightly as a child, and she sat her saddle placidly, but she made no effort to take the reins, either.

Torfrio lumbered down to the river, and they followed, staying well clear of the sworded tail. The grounded dragon seemed clumsy, but that appearance didn’t deceive Kenhodan. He remembered the black dragon’s deadly speed too clearly for that.

Torfrio’s head swayed as he neared the water. His eyes glittered more brightly than ever, and the breath in his nostrils whistled like a windstorm as he steeled himself and dipped one forefoot into the cold river.

Steam billowed with the hiss of a Dwarvenhame blast furnace, but Torfrio moved steadily onward until water lapped his huge shoulders. White clouds of vapor pearled under the dying moon, shot through with the polychrome glitter of his scales, and he swung his head and peered back with impatient, lambent eyes. His mighty tail curled into a ramp, and the travelers crossed it to his back.

The tough scales were unyielding even to the coursers’ hooves, and the travelers mounted to save space, for the flat area of the massive back was limited, despite the dragon’s enormous size, by bulging wing muscles and a sharply serrated spine. Kenhodan and Glamhandro rode at the base of the dragon’s neck with the others strung out behind as Torfrio slid forward. His head arched high and his neck cut the water like a ship’s prow while waves lapped his sides, their crests erupting into steam at the touch, although none reached the travelers.

Kenhodan smiled quietly as he listened to the whuffling sounds of Torfrio’s breath and the deep, grumbling thunder of what were almost certainly muttered—by dragon standards, at least—maledictions upon all water, but it seemed impolitic to comment on them.

The Bellwater was over a mile wide in the driest months, and far wider now. Water gurgled as Torfrio forged towards the farther bank, but it was a lengthy business. Steam cloaked them throughout the crossing, and that puzzled Kenhodan, for Torfrio’s scales weren’t especially hot. Warm, yes, but not hot. Was the antipathy between his innermost nature and the water even deeper than Wencit had implied?

When they finally reached the farther bank, Torfrio could hardly restrain himself long enough for them to disembark. As soon as the last hoof touched land the dragon bustled out of the water with a massive tail flick that sent a wave over a startled Bahzell in a moon-gilded glitter. Kenhodan swallowed a laugh as Torfrio shook himself like an angry cat. Not till he’d shed the last, distasteful drop did the dragon turn to Kenhodan again.

“Well, Young Killer. You are across…and dry.”

Humor might—or might not—have accounted for the emphasis on to the final two words, Kenhodan thought.

“We thank you, Son of Fire.”

“Thank me not. The bargain is fair, and fairly struck. Until our paths meet in the timestorm, may your sword shine in victory. Farewell!”

The last word vanished in a sudden blast of wind as the dragon launched into the night sky. Mighty wings shivered the river, driving its cool breath into their faces like a hurricane edged with hot spice. Kenhodan staggered, driven backward three paces by the battering backdraft of those stupendous pinions, and Torfrio arrowed upward into the half-disc of the setting moon with preposterous speed. He dwindled with that same startling rapidity, and Kenhodan turned to Wencit.

“What next?” he asked dryly in the suddenly still and quiet night.

“I suggest a secluded campsite,” Wencit replied with a smile. “We can all use a little rest after this…strenuous evening.”

“Hear, hear,” Bahzell Bahnakson murmured quietly.

* * *

Wulfra of Torfo sat in her rock garden and regarded the morning with sour displeasure. She was surrounded by perfect statues of men and women, each with an expression of horror and shock, and she smiled unpleasantly as she reached out to the delicately carved lady in waiting standing beside her exquisitely carved wooden bench with a hopeless face. A fierce blue flame danced from the sorceress’ fingertip to play along a stone arm, and her smile became brighter as a shrill scream filled her mind.

She let the flame burn for long minutes, savoring the exquisite shrieks only she could hear, then closed her hand to quench it. Silent, broken sobs died slowly, slowly, and Wulfra returned her mind to her problems.

Curse the old man! Where
was
he?

She slid her hands slowly over the polished bench’s smooth grain while she pondered. She knew no more about Wencit’s location now than she had a week ago, and her patron had gone completely silent. He hadn’t contacted her in days. For that matter, he’d ignored her own diffident effort to contact
him
, and that silence was even more frightening than his icy rage had been. She could do nothing more without the aid he might have lent, but no aid was forthcoming, and the grim truth had become increasingly clear in the days of his silence. Her death would serve his ends as well as her victory, yet if she meant to survive, she must somehow convince him to give her more power.…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a hesitantly cleared throat, and she looked up with suddenly fiery eyes. Her inner anxiety sharpened her anger at the violation of her command that she not be disturbed, and her guard captain flinched as those blazing eyes met his.

“Well, Tenart?” Her voice was soft. “I trust you have reason?”

“I beg your pardon, Baroness,” Tenart said quickly, “but—”

“That had better be an
excellent
‘but,’ my friend,” Wulfra purred, “or you may spend the next few years here in my garden.”

“Please, My Lady! I…It…A matter of urgency, My Lady! Very great urgency!”

Sweat greased Tenart’s brow. There were compensations for the hearty soul who captained Wulfra’s guard, but moments like this weren’t among them. He shivered and kept his eyes off the lifelike, suffering statues.

“Such as?” Wulfra’s voice was velvet-covered ice.

“The watchers have sent word, My Lady!”

“The watchers?”

Wulfra’s brows rose, and Tenart allowed himself a tentative breath of relief as her forehead furrowed in thought. The watchers were a legacy from her father, a canny man who’d created a secret network of heliograph-armed observers throughout his own lands…and well out into those of his neighbors. The late baron had used them sparingly, in order to keep their existence secret, but their warnings had kept him better informed than most noblemen in Angthyr.

Wulfra had retained the system for several reasons. Its existence, hinted in the right quarters, covered much of her arcane spying, since she could attribute so much of her near omniscience to it. And while she could see farther and more clearly than they, she could look in only one direction at a time. Her watchers sometimes snared tidbits she might have missed.

“Well, Tenart? What was this important message?”

“They reported a dragon, My Lady—a red dragon. It left the Scarthū wards last night and returned this morning.”

“And you interrupted me to tell me
that?
You’ll make a nice birdbath, Tenart.”

“No, My Lady! Please! There was more!”

“Then tell me before I put a sundial into your navel!”

“Yes, My Lady! One of the watchers saw a strange light to the north—how far he couldn’t say—but the dragon flew in that direction before the light was seen and came from the same direction this morning.”

“Ah?”

Wulfra leaned back in thought, and Tenart resumed breathing.

Strange lights, was it? Wulfra tapped her teeth with an exquisitely manicured fingernail while she thought. Now what could that be? She’d tampered with dragon kind—most definitely, she’d tampered. All the worms would be her enemies now, but they couldn’t cross the dragon ward to work her harm. Or not directly, at least; it was entirely possible that one of the great worms might still find a way of striking at her
in
directly. And the message said the dragon had headed for the light before it was seen, so it was unlikely Wencit had summoned it across the ward. Anyway, her mind was so attuned to the wild wizard that she could hardly miss so potent a spell as that.

“Red, you say?” she asked thoughtfully.

“So the watchers say, My Lady.”

“Hmmmm…”

Now which red might it have been? Shicolo and Dormandos were too reclusive, and most of the others were either too young or too old for such shenanigans. Torcrach? Possible…he was a bit old, but they didn’t call him Fire Fang for nothing. Or possibly Torfrio? He was the most powerful red these days, but he normally paid scant attention to events beyond the Scarthū. Unless her meddling…?

She shook her head irritably. The reds were dangerous. Unlike their lesser brethren, they understood the wild magic in their blood. They could even use it to a limited extent, so it was possible a red could block her perceptions. But why? Unless it was because of that damned black!

Then again, what had actually happened was unimportant. She needed a pretext to demand more aid, and the dragon might provide it. She wasn’t the cat-eyed wizard’s equal, but neither was she a fool. If he needed her alive long enough to lure Wencit into whatever trap he’d set, he might at least give her additional protection against the dragons in the meantime. And spells strong enough for that might prove useful against Wencit, too.