The milking was done at last. There was enough milk left for Shona and Blade, except that the milk in the bottom of Blade’s pail was in the form of a small round cheese.
“You prefer that to milk, don’t you?” Scales said when Blade looked at him. “I’ll have one of those cows now.”
“But—” said Blade.
“If I eat it in front of the murderers,” Scales explained, “there’ll be no arguing when I tell them what to do next.”
Scales did just that, with horrid rendings and mooings and much blood. To add to the effect, he tore off two large lumps and tossed them to Don and Kit. Both griffins were so savagely hungry by then that they ate the pieces ravenously. The soldiers went very quiet. But Blade counted the cows and found that they still had the same number. He rather thought Kit and Don might have been eating cheese.
“I don’t propose to inquire,” said Shona. “But I didn’t realize dragons could do this.”
“Mum said some of the old ones were quite good at magic,” Blade told her.
“And Scales is old,” Shona agreed. She sighed. “If I’d gone to Bardic College when I was supposed to, I’d probably have learned dragonlore by now. I might know all about Scales. He could have been a legend in his time for all I know.”
Legend or not, Scales got them across the moors to the camp long before nightfall that evening, and the following night, too. The next day they toiled briskly across much more broken terrain, filled with woods and small rivers, and arrived into camp rather later. The soldiers cheered. Inside the mist of the dome were the rows of barrels they had come to expect from the previous two nights.
“Thank goodness!” Shona said, sliding off Beauty. “We can rest while Blade does the avians.” Blade had been taking the geese around to all three tours, because that was the easiest way to do it.
“Not much rest tonight,” Kit said, groaning with weariness. “We’ve got the first Wild Hunts today.”
“Tonight? Really?” said Don. “Have we been going that long?”
“’Fraid so,” said Kit.
Blade looked at the row of geese. They looked up from eating something in the grass and dared him to put them in that hamper again. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m too tired.”
“Nonsense!” boomed Scales.
“Let’s eat, anyway,” Shona sighed.
They did that. Blade fell asleep over the last of his supper, despite rowdy noises from the soldiers around the beer barrels, and woke at sunset feeling much better. The geese, to his surprise, were sitting smugly in the hamper, waiting for him. They were not going to miss their chance to bully humans.
“All right,” Blade said to them. “I bet you don’t dare bully three lots again.”
They made scathing noises. Easy-peasy.
Blade left as Kit was hauling himself off the ground and preparing to do the illusions for the Wild Hunts. When he returned astride his hamper of highly satisfied avians—they had sent three wizards racing up three different mountains faster than ever, and Blade had still not set eyes on a single Pilgrim—Kit was still trying to do illusions. He had given himself red eyes. He had transformed the Friendly Cows into great black horned things with ordinary eyes. Nothing would persuade the eyes of the cows to flame as Kit wanted. And the dogs kept shaking themselves irritably and losing their black coats and burning eyes in a shower of misty droplets. None of the horses would show the slightest change. Kit was looking a bit wild over it all.
“You look tired, Blade. You don’t need to come,” Shona said kindly.
“But I want to!” Blade insisted. He was dying to pretend to be the Dark Lord.
“Oh, curses!” shrieked Kit as the dogs all shook themselves normal again.
Scales was lying up against the dome of the camp, as he had taken to doing, to make sure the soldiers behaved themselves. He was watching Kit’s efforts as sarcastically as the geese were. “If I may make a suggestion?” he boomed.
“What?” snapped Kit.
“These game-playing Pilgrims are going to see very little in the dark,” Scales pointed out. “You are black. You propose to turn the yellow cat-bird black, and you have a winged horse that is black. The other flying horse, though tiny, has wings that look like the ribs of a skeleton. All you really need to do is make the rider of the black horse black—”
“That’s me,” Shona put in.
“—then you put yourselves in the air in front and bring the dogs along as they are to make a noise,” Scales continued. “I assure you this will be enough. The cows are far too slow to keep up.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Kit admitted.
“But what about me?” said Blade.
“I require you to stay here,” said Scales.
Somehow there was no arguing with that. Blade had to watch, bitterly disappointed and furious with Shona for hogging the post of Dark Lord, while two black griffins with fiery eyes—Kit did not think Scales should have things all his own way—and a horned rider mounted on a winged horse all flew slowly away northward accompanied by a posse of excited dogs and one wildly skittish flying foal. As soon as Kit was a mile or so away, the black horned monsters he had left in the camp melted into the Friendly Cows again.
“Why do you want me here?” Blade said sullenly to Scales.
“One of you needs to be properly rested in case of trouble,” Scales pointed out. “You are the most useful, because you can translocate.”
It made perfect sense, but it did not prevent Blade from feeling like Cinderella—or worse, Lydda. “What did you do with the soldier you crunched?” he asked resentfully. “Eat him?”
“What soldier—? Oh, I remember,” Scales answered. “No, that was an illusion. I do not care much for the taste of human.”
“Huh!” said Blade. Scales had an answer for everything. Blade hunched down by the camp fire, intending to sulk, but the sulk quickly passed into staring at flames and the staring passed into sleep, almost in no time. Blade slept for three hours or more, until he was woken by the return of the Hunt, the dogs weary but exultant, Beauty and Pretty with foam under their wings, and the rest very cheerful indeed.
“Hey, that was fun!” Don said, plumping down by the fire. “They didn’t half run!”
“Marvelous!” Shona laughed. “I want to make a song about it.”
“Me, too,” said Kit, mantling hugely in the shadows beyond Beauty. “A war song!”
Blade was somehow the one who had to rub Beauty down and try to get a rug onto Pretty. Glumly he handed out rewards to panting dogs and put down water, feeling more than ever like Cinderella.
“You can go tomorrow, Blade,” Shona told him generously.
“Thanks a bunch!” said Blade.
But when he saw how tired everyone was the next day, he had to admit—grudgingly—that Scales might have been right. The dogs groaned and limped. Pretty hung his head and refused to eat. “Been too silly last night,” he told Blade. Shona was saddle-sore, and even Don was rather stiff. Blade would have felt more sympathetic if they had not all still been so cheerful. Kit might grunt every time he moved his wings, but his eyes gleamed and his crest was up cockily as he strutted over to open the camp when Scales got the soldiers walking again. “MOVE, SCUM! MARCH!”
Scales must have spiked the drink in those barrels to keep the soldiers quiet. They came out of their camp gray-faced and shambling, all with the most evident hangovers.
Shona laughed heartily. “It’s nice to see so many people looking worse than I feel!”
Blade disagreed. He could feel the soldiers hating everything, the marching, Scales and Kit for making them march, this world, the people who had sent them to this world—everything and everyone. They were ready to murder someone for it. It made Blade nervous. He rode along braced for trouble.
So it happened that Blade was the well-rested and alert one who responded at once when, about the middle of the morning, there came a loud, rhythmic banging from a clump of trees over to the left of their march.
He kicked Nancy Cobber and set off to investigate as soon as he heard it. Don only responded when Scales bellowed, “Go and see what the trouble is!” By the time Don’s rather stiff loping brought him up to Nancy Cobber, Blade was halfway to the trees, and there was shouting coming from there, as well as banging.
“Some kind of fight?” Don panted.
Blade had his mouth open to agree when an obviously terrified small pony with a large basket strapped to its back burst out from among the trees and careered toward the marching soldiers. It saw Scales. It screamed. It tried to stop and turn but lurched and unbalanced the basket on its back. The next second it was down, rolling and kicking, frantically fighting its way out of the straps that held the basket. Blade and Don broke into a gallop. But long before they could get close enough to help, the pony kicked itself free, struggled to its feet, and went racing away southward. Blade and Don were left staring at the basket, lying in the grass, spilling gold cups, caskets, plates, bracelets, coronets, and necklaces. Every object was most beautifully made, and most were studded with precious stones.
“Robbers,” said Blade. “Come on.” He shook up Nancy Cobber again and galloped toward the trees.
There were five more ponies with baskets under the trees. Standing in a ring with their backs protectively to the ponies were six small men, whose heads only came up to the waists of the ones attacking them. The attackers wore the shiny black armor that Blade knew so well. Here were some of the soldiers they had lost three days ago.
“Uh-oh!” said Don, and took to the air, remembering Scales’s advice.
Nancy Cobber was hard to stop. Blade was forced to go on, into the midst of the fight. The dwarfs all had big axes, with which they were lustily hacking and parrying—except for one, who was banging for help with his ax on a large gold plate—but they were evidently losing. The soldiers attacking them were twice their size. Blade did not even have a sword. As Nancy Cobber thundered into the melee, all he could think of to do was to yell, so he yelled, trying to make his voice sound like a dragon’s.
It partly worked. Several of the attackers turned toward him. This gave two of the dwarfs a chance to swing their axes at legs. One soldier went down. But two more came for Blade with swords. Blade had it quite clearly in his mind that he was going to be dead when Don came crashing down through the branches overhead. He was near and sudden enough to seem huge, and black against the light, and clapping his wings mightily to stay hovering. Blade thought he was Kit for a moment. The soldiers made the same mistake.
“Hell!” said one. “It’s that black sod of a griffin. Get him!”
But Don got him. Don was about the size of a lion and his strength, when he cared to use it, was the strength of a lion. He seized that soldier and threw him to the ground. He threw another on top of him as the first man tried to get up. That made three attackers down and was enough to turn the fight the other way. The dwarfs became very busy swatting with the flats of their axes. The one who had been beating the plate joined in, too, and within a minute all six men in black armor were rolling on the ground, groaning. Blade snatched the coil of magic reins that he always kept hung on Nancy’s saddle these days, slid off Nancy, and made sure that he had a loop of reins securely wrapped around each soldier.
“Foof!” said Don, landing beside him. “I thought you were dead any second there. Want me to drag them over to Scales?”
“Easier if you wait until they can walk,” Blade said. None of the soldiers was badly hurt. The first one down was already trying to sit up.
Meanwhile the dwarfs were standing around making those throat-clearing sounds people make when they are embarrassed at having to say thank you. Blade could see why. They were warlike, strong-looking little men, with thick legs and big shoulders. Their hair and beards were plaited into several dozen skinny pigtails that were each woven with clacking bones and tufts of red wool, and they wore steel caps and breastplates. Their axes looked formidable. Blade could see they were the sort of folk who would think they ought to cope with six large attackers without needing help. Possibly they could have done if they had not had to protect the ponies.
“Your other pony dropped its load out on the grass and then bolted, I’m afraid,” he said, to cover their embarrassment.
The one who had been banging the plate sighed. “Typical,” he said. “This mission has been a pig’s breakfast right from the start. You’d think we’d offended one of the gods. We had a landslide coming out of the mountains, we spent the next day mired in the rains, yesterday was all horseflies and mosquitoes, and now this! If this tribute gets to Lord Mr. Chesney in one piece at the right time, I shall be so surprised you can cut off my beard and call me a giant. I kid you not!”
Don and Blade exchanged startled glances. “Excuse me,” said Don. “Why do you have to get tribute to Mr. Chesney?”
“We do it every year. He requires it. He’s our overlord,” said another of the dwarfs, surprised and rather gruff about it.
“Then—er—where have you come from exactly?” Blade asked.
“Fastness in the Mossy Mountains. Borders of King Luther’s land,” said a third dwarf. “Why? You want to make anything out of it?”
“Of course not,” Blade said quickly. He and Don frowned at one another, both feeling that something was not quite right. “I—er—just wondered how much further you had to go,” he said.
“Oh, only as far as the nearest ocean,” the first dwarf said, with angry talkativeness. “That town where the Pilgrim Parties come through. They’re calling it Gna’ash or something this year, aren’t they? We’re supposed to get there when the last tour goes out, while the demon’s still got the portal open. Then the tour people take the tribute through and we leg it back home again. Just one of those little tasks that keep life interesting. If we get there, of course. I’m not counting on it this trip.”
“But does Mr. Chesney own the land where your fastness is, or something?” Blade asked, truly puzzled.
The dwarfs looked at one another. Some shrugged. The gruff one scratched among his pigtails and replied, “Don’t think so. We’re in King Luther’s land if we’re anywhere.”
“Then—er—shouldn’t you be taking the tribute to King Luther?” Blade asked.
All the dwarfs laughed. “No way,” said the talkative one. “Tribute goes to Lord Mr. Chesney because he’s Dark Lord of the world. I thought everyone knew that.”
Blade nodded, thinking the dwarf was probably right, but Don said indignantly, “No, he’s not! My father’s Dark Lord!”
The dwarfs all laughed again. “Oh, yes?” said one. “I do see a strong family resemblance there.”
Don’s beak opened angrily. Blade kicked his front leg to shut him up. Luckily at this moment Shona rode up on Beauty, surrounded by dogs and leading the trembling, sweating little pony. The dwarfs all started clearing their throats again. The talkative one even managed to say, “Much obliged—” before Bertha discovered that his face was just at licking height for dogs.
“Come along,” Blade said to Don. The men in black were now sitting up, holding heads and rubbing legs and glowering. Blade mounted Nancy Cobber again and told Don to drag them away.
“We were happy to help,” Shona was saying charmingly as Blade headed for the huge green bulk of Scales at a sharp trot.
“What was that about?” Scales wanted to know as soon as Blade was near enough.
“Six of the soldiers who escaped the other day were trying to rob some dwarfs,” Blade reported. “We got them. Don’s bringing them. But do you know, Scales, those dwarfs are carrying a fortune in golden things! They say it’s for Mr. Chesney and—”
“I thought I smelled gold.” Scales’s vast head swiveled around toward the trees. The stretch of grassy land between was now dotted with figures, Shona and Beauty in front, surrounded by cheerful dogs, and Don further back, holding the reins in his beak and plowing forward to drag the resisting group of men in black. But Scales’s head was turned toward the three dwar
fs busily picking up cups, plates, and bracelets and packing them back into the basket. Blade had forgotten what dragons were like about gold. He began to feel anxious. “Did they say why?” Scales asked.
“They said it was tribute because Mr. Chesney’s Dark Lord of the world,” Blade said.
Scales went very still, with that stillness that suggested muscles making ready to spring.
“But that can’t be right, can it?” Blade asked anxiously.
Scales’s wings rattled in a shrug. “They must have made a mistake,” he rumbled. “I think we’ll feed the murderers now, since we’re stopped, anyway. Go and milk cows.”
After lunch they pressed on again, leaving the dwarfs to go the opposite way, to Blade’s relief. He had not altogether trusted Scales to leave the gold alone. The soldiers’ hangovers seemed to have abated with exercise. They marched over open grassland, where trees clustered beside small streams, at quite a brisk pace, with Scales steadily crawling behind, and by evening they were beginning to see mountains in the distance ahead. By this time Blade was ashamed that he had not trusted Scales over the gold. Dragons nowadays did not have hoards—except things like Callette’s gizmos for the tours—and Scales seemed to be adapting to modern ways. He had to be, Blade thought, or he would not be helping them like this.
“Helping!” said Kit when Blade mentioned this to him. “I call it taking over!”
The next camp came into sight soon after this. Barnabas had set it up almost tastefully beside trees that were beginning to turn gold or faint orange. Everyone made for it thankfully. As soon as the soldiers were inside and Blade had taken the animals to drink at the nearby stream, Scales beckoned Kit and made Kit walk with him all around the camp, showing him how to seal the magics of the dome more securely into the ground.
“Wizard who did these camps did a rather sketchy job,” he explained when they had finished. “But you should be safe for the night now. I’m off for a while. I’m getting hungry, and I fancy a hunt. I’ll see you soon.”
He spread his wings, took three light running steps forward, and soared away into the wide evening. The soldiers, with their faces misty blue from the dome magics, lined the curving wall and made rude gestures after him. The rest stared after him in alarm.