The Fire Dragon

  When someone called her name, Dallandra turned and saw Niffa, walking toward them, carrying a candle lantern. Dallandra hailed her with a wave.

  “Who's that?” Carra asked.

  “Jahdo's sister. And my new apprentice.”

  “Truly? Well, that's exciting!”

  “It is, indeed.”

  With a pleasant greeting Niffa strolled over, holding up the lantern. When the pool of light fell on the women's faces, Carra stared, her eyes widening. Niffa started to speak, then fell silent, studying Carra's face in turn. They had recognized each other. Dallandra turned cold with the certain knowledge that in some life or other these two women had been bound together by Wyrd. Yet as those moments do, this one faded fast. Carra stammered out a “good evening,” and with a sickly little smile Niffa answered, then looked away, blushing.

  “Well, now,” Dallandra said briskly. “Let's go back to the fire. I'm hungry enough to eat a wolf, pelt and all.”

  That evening, as they sat at the campfire with Dar and his men, they talked mostly of ordinary things. Niffa had much to tell them about the situation in the town, and she in turn quite understandably wanted to learn all she could about the Westfolk.

  Every now and then Dallandra would notice the young archers eyeing Niffa or grinning at her on the edge of a flirt while she glanced at them sideways, on the edge of a blush. Dallandra would scowl, and they would look away fast. They knew that the lass was her apprentice now, that Niffa's welfare in the world as well as in the dweomerwork lay in her hands, and none of them were eager to cross a dweomermaster. My first apprentice! Dallandra thought. Ye gods, I hope I never fail her!

  Eventually Carra took the baby into the big round tent, then Dar followed her. Out in the forest and in the grasslands the rest of the elves had been sleeping under the stars in this dry weather, but here in this public campground they wanted privacy. Although their party had only the one proper tent, every rider carried a length of Eldidd canvas and a short pole to make a lean-to. Each lashed one end of his canvas to the tent, tied the other to the pole, and drove the pole into the ground like a long tent peg. It was rough, but they each had private shelter of a sort. Niffa watched all of this fascinated.

  “The tent does look like a wheel hub now, with all those spokes! Our Jahdo, he did tell us that the Westfolk ken how to make a home wherever they are, and he did speak true.”

  “Well, it's home for us,” Dallandra said. “I doubt me if you'll find it comfortable at first, but I hope you'll get used to it.”

  “So do I. From the bottom of my heart.”

  They shared a laugh. The eleven men spread out their bedrolls under their improvised roofs and turned in to sleep. While she still had the firelight, Dallandra set up her own lean-to, divided her blankets twixt herself and Niffa, and unlaced her pair of saddlebags to make two pillows. Once the fire burned low, the two women strolled down to the lakeside with a fresh candle in the lantern. The night wind had picked up, and Dallandra had got used to the smell to some degree, so that it was pleasant, walking along the shore and watching the silver road that the moon laid upon the water.

  “Dalla?” Niffa said abruptly. “The strangest feeling did trouble my heart when I met the princess.”

  “Did it? I thought I noticed an odd look on your face.”

  “It were—” Niffa shook her head in confusion. “I could have sworn—well, it did seem that I remembered her. Yet never in our lives could we have met.”

  “It's impossible, indeed.”

  They stopped walking at the edge of the tiny waves. When Niffa held up her lantern, the light sparkled on the water as if to mirror the moon's road.

  “There be some truth here, bain't?” Niffa said at last.

  “There is.” Dallandra smiled, waiting.

  No good lay in telling unready souls about the wheel of birth and death, but if Niffa asked, she would answer honestly. Niffa lowered the lantern and stood looking out at the dark mass of Citadel, rising from the lake.

  “I do hope my mother's heart be not troubled,” Niffa said. “But I doubt me if she did notice me gone, we had so many visitors.”

  So. She was not quite ready.

  When they returned to the camp, Dallandra banked the fire with the bricks of sod that one of the men had cut earlier.

  She let Niffa have the lean-to and showed her how to wrap her blanket efficiently around herself. She put her own bedroll by the banked fire and lay down, hoping that it wouldn't rain during the night. In the dark she could hear Niffa squirming around, trying to get comfortable whilst fully dressed on hard ground. If she's going to ride with the Westfolk, Dallandra thought, she'd best get used to it. Then she fell straight asleep.

  Only to wake to the sound of a scream in what seemed but a moment later, but silver dawn was flooding the east with light. She sat up, unwrapping her blanket. The scream, a dark throaty male voice shrieking in full terror, rang out again. Dallandra shoved her blankets back and leapt to her feet. A quick glance at the camp showed her that most of the men were just waking, swearing and reaching for weapons. Most, but not all—some while earlier Vantalaber had taken a leather bucket and gone to the well to draw water. So, apparently, had one of the Gel da'Thae men, who by the time Dalla fully woke had stopped screaming and was grovelling on his knees in front of the utterly surprised Van.

  “Dalla!” he called out in Elvish. “This Mera's gone daft!”

  “No,” Dallandra called back. “He thinks you're a god.”

  As Dallandra ran for the well, Niffa caught up with her. The rest of the Gel da'Thae came running from their camp. As soon as they got close enough to see the elves clearly, they all began shouting; most fell to their knees, some even prostrated themselves, hiding their faces in their manes of hair. When the elven men started to laugh, Dallandra snarled them into silence.

  “I know it looks like a jest,” she said, “but it's deadly serious to them.”

  Walking slowly from the Gel da'Thae camp came a tall person covered with green tattoos and wearing a leather cap that seemed to hide a hairless head. Rather than screaming, this person paused, arms folded across chest, to consider the tableau near the well. Another, much like the first, hovered uncertainly behind. Both wore white-cloth garments, falling just above the knee, that might have been long shirts or short dresses.

  “That be Meer's mother,” Niffa said. “Lady Zatcheka.”

  “My thanks!” Dallandra spoke in Deverrian. “I truly couldn't tell if she were woman or man.”

  With one hand raised, palm out in the sign of peace, Dallandra slowly walked forward. Niffa accompanied her, but she waved cheerfully to Zatcheka.

  “There be no jeopard here!” Niffa called out. “This be my master.”

  At that Zatcheka came to meet them, but cautiously, gesturing for the other woman to stay back. The elven men stood on their side of the well, while the Gel da'Thae men crouched or knelt on theirs. A few feet apart Zatcheka and Dallandra stopped, considering each other in the brightening light.

  “You be the children of the gods,” Zatcheka said, and her voice shook. “Come ye back to claim your broken heritage?”

  “We come in peace,” Dallandra said. “And though we are the children of the gods, we are no more so than you and yours. We are born, we die, and in between we rejoice or suffer just as you do.”

  Zatcheka thought for a long moment, glancing around her at the men of her kind, crouched immobile, waiting, some staring at her as if begging her to decipher this dangerous situation for them.

  “Your son Meer taught me much,” Dallandra went on, “about the Gel da'Thae and your ways. I swear to you, we mean you no harm, and we want no tribute or slavery from you. No more do we fear you, because Meer taught us that at the heart we share many things.”

  Again Zatcheka thought this through.

  “What shall we call you?” Zatcheka said at last. “If not children of the gods?”

  “The Westfolk,” Dallandra said. “The men of Deverry call
us that, because we live to the west of them, but it will do.”

  “I see.” Zatcheka hesitated, then made some decision with a firm nod. “Whoever you are, I think me you did come here timely, like, if you would be friends.”

  “My apprentice told me about the Horsekin.”

  “Then you did hear the worst of it.”

  “I can tell you worse than your worst. I was at the siege of Cengarn, when the Horsekin tried to take one of the Slavers' cities. It was a gruesome thing.”

  Zatcheka let out her breath in a sharp hiss.

  “We would be friends, indeed,” Dallandra went on, “if we're going to make a stand against such as them.”

  “Give me leave to speak to my people.”

  “Of course.”

  Zatcheka turned and began to speak in a clear, firm voice. Although Dallandra could understand but one word of it, “Westfolk,” she could hear the authority in it, the words of a woman who expected to be obeyed. Sure enough, the Gel da'Thae men first listened, then sat back on their heels to look at those they'd thought gods. Some smiled, a few laughed, and at length they all rose, bowing to Dallandra. The elven men they regarded pleasantly enough. Zatcheka turned back to Dallandra.

  “Shall we let our people go about their morning?”

  “By all means,” Dallandra said. “But shall you and I talk more?”

  “Such would gladden my heart.”

  Zatcheka turned, clapped her hands together twice, and called out a few words in her language. The Gel da'Thae bowed, then hurried off, back to their camp. Dallandra turned and waved to Prince Dar, who'd been watching all this with his arms crossed tight over his chest. He nodded to acknowledge her, then called out in Elvish, telling his men to disperse. Dallandra waited until the Westfolk men had all gone back to camp.

  “Niffa?” Dallandra said. “You'd best go tell your mother where you've been. Lady Zatcheka and I have much to talk about.”

  Jahdo woke when the sky was just turning gold with sunrise. For a moment he lay still and luxuriated in the knowledge that he was lying in his own bed, in his own chamber, listening to his own brother snoring nearby. Ambo was sleeping curled beside his head, and Tek-Tek had draped herself across his chest. He picked her up and laid her next to Ambo, got a nip for his pains, then rolled out of bed on the other side. Niffa had never slept in her bed. He sat looking at her empty mattress, then shrugged and got up. He could guess that she'd stayed at the elven camp.

  After he dressed, he leaned onto the windowsill and looked out. By craning his neck just right he could get a glimpse of the lake over the houses on the next street down. Home. He really was home. The smell of cooking porridge finally drove him to dress and leave the view. Out in the big room he found a rumpled-looking Niffa, finishing the last of a bowl of porridge at the table while Dera stirred the iron pot at the hearth. Lael was just coming in the door with two buckets of water.

  “Good morrow, all,” Jahdo said. “Ah, Mam, it be so good to see you there and smell your cooking!”

  Dera laughed and waved the long spoon in his direction.

  “Never did I think to hear anyone praise my skill at the hearth! It be good to see you in your rightful place, too.”

  “But your voice, lad!” Lael said, grinning. “You sound hoarse as a frog in winter.”

  “No doubt, Da. I did talk more last night than I've done in all the rest of my life.”

  Jahdo sat down next to his sister with a sigh of contentment. Home. At last he could put all the strange and horrible things he'd seen behind him—or so he hoped. Lael emptied the buckets into the big terra-cotta jar by the hearth, then set them down.

  “I do be surprised to see you here,” Jahdo said to Niffa.

  “Well, I did want to let Mam know where I spent the night past.”

  Dera said nothing, but Jahdo noticed her giving the porridge a slap and a hard stir in the pot. Behind her back Lael sighed with a shake of his head, then came over to the table and sat down.

  “I'll be going back later,” Niffa went on. “I'd best collect my things here first.”

  Dera was concentrating on scooping out the porridge.

  She set a bowl down in front of Lael first, then Jahdo, and returned to the hearth.

  “I did hear last night about your man,” Jahdo said to Niffa. “It does sadden my heart. I did count Demet a friend.”

  “My thanks. I do believe I'll mourn him the rest of my life.”

  Jahdo pushed out what he meant to be a reassuring smile, then devoted himself to his porridge. He had seen so much death in the past year that he'd thought himself hardened, but his sister's grief cut him nonetheless. Dera brought her own bowl to the table and sat down. For a while they ate in a subdued silence.

  “It gladdens my heart to see you safe,” Dera said finally. “Ai! I feel such pity for that poor Gel da'Thae woman, losing her sons.”

  All at once Jahdo realized that he had a task to do, no matter how much he wanted to bask at his family hearth forever. He laid his spoon down in his bowl and stood up.

  “Mam, do forgive me,” he said, “but it be needful that I run an errand. There be somewhat I carry with me that does belong to Lady Zatcheka.”

  “Well, have you not the whole long day for errands?” Dera said. “You've not finished your breakfast.”

  “Dera, hush!” Lael raised one large hand flat for silence. “I think me our Jahdo do know his own concerns best.”

  Dera sucked her lips into a scowl, but she said nothing more. As he hurried into the bedchamber, Jahdo felt that he just might burst from pride. His father trusted his judgment. While he knew himself not yet a man, he realized that in some important way, he was no longer a mere boy.

  A hot sun woke Rhodry some while after dawn. He threw off his unnecessary blanket and lay naked on the grass, contemplating the clear sky. The night before, he and Arzosah had made a rough camp on this hilltop where, as she remarked, they'd have a bit of a view. Behind them rose the dark-timbered flanks of the high mountains, coiffed in white, while in front of their camp the grassy slope led down to the valley below. When he sat up he could see Cerr Cawnen as a circle of turquoise lake among house shapes, wreathed in mist like a city of ghosts.

  “You're awake,” Arzosah said.

  “I am, and I gather you are too.”

  The dragon yawned for an answer, revealing her enormous grey tongue and fangs the size of sword blades. She was lying some feet away, comfortably curled with her tail lapped over her front paws.

  “Do you want to hunt again?” Rhodry said. “Or shall we just go down?”

  “I'm still full from last night. That cow was delicious.”

  “I don't want to know about it. The farmers are going to start badgering me for cattle lwdd if you keep this up. Why don't you just eat the deer? There's plenty of them around here.”

  “I get tired of venison. A lady likes a little treat now and again.”

  Rhodry got up and dressed, ate what was left of his bread and cheese, then rolled up his blankets. By the time he had her harnessed and ready to go, the sun had climbed a handbreadth above the horizon. The town would be awake, no doubt, and people out on the streets.

  “I hope Dalla got a chance to warn everyone about you,” he said.

  “They've all seen me before,” Arzosah said. “And it's not like I'm going to eat any of them, after all. They haven't angered me or suchlike.”

  “Well, once they know that, no doubt they'll feel a good bit better.”

  “You're laughing at me!”

  “Am not.”

  “Humph! You're a fine one to talk about cattle raids. I've seen your Deverry lords close up now, and there's no difference twixt me and them.”

  “What? Come now!”

  “Well, your lordship sits in his hall all day or rides out and watches the farmers work, and then he steals some of their food. If they tried to stop him, he'd kill them. Just like me, except the lords aren't even beautiful like I am, and there's rather a lot more of t
hem, too.”

  “Here! It's not stealing. The gods have ordained—”

  “Oh indeed? You mean, the priests say that the gods have ordained it, but the priests know which side their bread is buttered on. They steal some of the farmers' food themselves. Can you imagine a priest standing up in one of your courts and announcing that Bel thinks the lords should raise their own food like the farmers do?”

  “But the lords have their place. They protect their people.”

  “From what? Other lords, that's what. If there were none of you, they wouldn't need any of you. Just like here in the Rhiddaer.”

  Rhodry found himself without a thing to say. Arzosah curled a paw and smugly considered her claws.

  “Shall we be going?” he said at last.

  “As soon as you admit I've won.”

  “Huh. I'll admit there's some justice in what you say, and that's all.”

  “It will do. For now.”

  Arzosah stretched out her neck and lowered one shoulder, and he swung himself up onto the saddle pad of her harness. Once he was securely aboard, she stretched out her wings and trotted off, bunching her muscles and springing into the air with a few hard wing strokes that took them well clear of the hillside. She allowed herself to glide, spiralling down in long loops while below Cerr Cawnen grew steadily larger. He could see the outer ring of walls, and the untidy town clustering around the lake, while out in the middle of open water Citadel rose with its burden of trees and buildings, whitewashed wood or pale stone, gleaming in the bright morning. As they swooped lower he realized that the lakeshore town extended out into the lake, built up on pilings and tiny islands that, he suspected, were man-made. Steam rose from the warm water, carrying with it the ripe stench of town life.

  “Strange place,” Rhodry called out.

  “It is,” Arzosah shouted back. “It's a fire mountain.”