Hexwood

  It was, too! Vierran realised. This dragon had a bushy eyebrow tuft over each of its round yellow eyes, and further tufts above and below its mouth. These, and a somewhat rounded head and snout, gave its khaki-green muzzle the illusion of being the face of a benevolent old man. A bearded old man. The bread fell out of Vierran’s hand and plummeted to the turf. She felt sick. If one man could become a dragon, then so could another.

  “Yam, I swear that’s Reigner One!”

  There was nothing she could do. The gates had opened during the fanfare and Hume was already out there. His precious sword was in his hand. He had chosen to wear the lightest possible armour, little of it and that little of hardened leather. It looked impressively daring, when he knew he could not be hurt. His figure looked tiny as it appeared at the base of the castle walls.

  There was a patter of applause from the draped wooden seats on the wall. “Looks under-equipped to me,” Ambitas remarked between sips of hot spicy wine. “I hope he knows what he’s doing.”

  While Ambitas was speaking, Hume came far enough beyond the castle gate to see the body of Sir Harrisoun, dumped in the corner behind the left-hand gate tower. It was probably the worst moment of his life. He looked at the corpse, its green-white face and the blood on its throat. He looked in astonished horror downhill at Mordion. And he knew this dragon was not Mordion.

  There was a moment when he wanted so badly to run away, back inside the castle, that his whole body twitched that way. But it was no good. He could hear the last of the bars clanging into their locks behind him. That gate was well and truly shut. By the time they got it open again, the dragon would be on him, and he would be a pair to Sir Harrisoun. Besides, Lady Sylvia was up there, expecting him to fight this beast. He seemed to have no choice.

  Mordion created me miraculously for this, Hume told himself. It’s what I’m for! All the same, as he made himself move, he did not feel particularly designed for anything – unskilled, gangling, too young, too frightened, and above all most stupidly in the wrong kind of armour. But he mustered what little courage he had left and walked, very slowly and steadily, down towards the dragon with his sword held out.

  The dragon watched him coming with its head enquiringly bent, as if it took a benevolent interest in this puny creature, or as if it thought the sword was a plaything. But Hume could see the great muscles of its haunches slowly bunch and round eyes unerringly focus. Hume, as he walked, had time to think that perhaps he might try to exhaust this dragon, and then to reject that idea. It was too big and too strong. He would be exhausted himself long before the dragon was. But he might just get it to exhaust its fire. He had no idea how much fire dragons had, but they surely must run out in the end. Then he might dodge in underneath. Telling himself that the sword he held was a wormblade, designed, just as he was, to kill dragons, Hume kept walking.

  The dragon leapt, long before he expected it to. Aided by its wings, it was suddenly above him, reaching with huge claws and six-inch teeth in its gaping mouth. Only the fact that Hume had been watching the bunching muscle alerted him in time. As the dragon moved, Hume moved, forwards, and scuttled underneath it in a crouch and out. The dragon ducked its head after him, snaky swift, and spewed murderous jetting flame. Not just flame – poisonous gas, hot oily smoke, and with those a mental surge of pure venom. Hume rolled aside, coughing, singed, greasy with the vapours of that breath, and got to his feet, dizzy more than anything with the hate that came with the flames. He ran in a circle. Get it to burn itself. Confuse itself with its own hate. He ran hard, and it pursued him, lumbering round with its wings half-cocked to points, sending out gouts of its greasy fire.

  These mostly landed just behind Hume, but once or twice they agonisingly found his legs, right through his thick leather gaiters. With each blast came the same outsurge of utter malice, aimed personally at Hume. It was horrible, but it helped. The malice started fractionally before the fire. Hume ran his third frantic circle, waiting for the hatred, listening for the whirring gust the fire made, then leapt as he ran, and watched the fire shoot beneath him in a black flaming swathe.

  Holy – gods – things – above – worshipped! he thought, punctuating each thought with a leap. This dragon hated him – really hated him! If he had not been so busy, he would have been appalled at being so hated. As it was, he ran in a wider circle, and thanked his stars he had been idiot enough to wear such light armour.

  “I see the reason for the armour now,” Ambitas said, leaning forward to look.

  Morgan La Trey swiftly fetched a small phial from her sleeve. While Ambitas’s attention was on Hume’s racing figure, she tipped the liquid in the phial into his wine. “He certainly is rather good at running away,” she agreed, smoothly hiding the phial away.

  “This is getting him nowhere!” Vierran whispered, clutching her face.

  “The dragon has one more set of limbs,” observed Yam, “and a tail in reserve.”

  “Oh shut up!” said Vierran.

  This is getting me nowhere! Hume thought. His circles had become wider and wider. He was now running in a curve that would have him in the lake on the next circuit. Could he get the thing to quench its fire in the water? Dared he dive in?

  He never got the chance. The dragon chased him along the lake shore, bracketing him with gusts of fire to right and left. Hisss went the fire on the water, and smirrr on the wet turf. It was playing cat and mouse. Hume knew it. His lungs sawed. His face threw off drops of sweat as he ran.

  “This is the most wonderful display of cowardice I ever saw!” Morgan La Trey said, leaning forward delightedly.

  “Hm,” agreed Ambitas. “But he’s not killing it, is he?” He took an anxious sip at his wine. Funny. It did not taste quite as it had before. There was a new bitterness behind the spice. Lucky he had only taken the merest sip. La Trey was still leaning forward to see out beyond the tower, where Hume seemed to have turned and started pelting uphill. Ambitas quietly changed his goblet for hers and leant forward to watch too.

  Hume knew he had to do something. There was a happy air about the dragon’s hatred now, as if it were doing exactly what it had always wanted to do. He knew it would play with him until his legs buckled, and then—Don’t think of that! Hume’s life in the wood seemed to be passing in front of his hot, bursting eyes. A memory came to him, out of early days, when he was small. There had been a dragon once then. He could only hope that the same thing would work against this one.

  He put out a fierce effort and pounded uphill towards the castle. Got to get above it for this.

  He made it, largely because the dragon paused on the lake shore and watched him cunningly. You think you can get away? Hume could feel it thinking. You would be so lucky! Hume gained some ten feet of height above it in the meadow and squatted on the turf to get his breath, giving – he hoped! – the same cunning look back. Come and get me, dragon!

  “Now he’s just going to sit there!” said Morgan La Trey. She took a disgusted pull at her wine. Ambitas watched her with satisfaction. A nice long gulp. Good.

  The dragon turned and began a leisurely walk-glide uphill towards Hume. It had him now. Instead of moving, Hume sat where he was and called insults. “Big teddy-face – fatso – half-breed – stupid old Orm! Come and eat me, Orm! Breakfast!” He had no idea what he was saying. His only thought was that he had to get it angry enough to open its mouth. But it came on almost smiling. “Orm, Orm’s a silly old worm!” Hume shouted. “You never could get me – and you never will!”

  That did it. Orm’s mouth opened in a laugh of denial. Fat lot Martellian knew! Breakfast was the word. Breakfast for a long time, in shreds.

  As soon as the great mouth opened, Hume flung his sword, accurately, so that it turned over and over in the air and clanged upright between Orm’s great teeth. Orm reared up howling, with his mouth fixed open. Fire gushed skywards in clouds. Orm lifted a great claw and tugged at the long cold wedge in his mouth. And came hopping onwards on three legs as he tugged, glaring mu
rder at Hume, bringing his spiked tail round in a whistling smack.

  Hume stood up and fell away backwards just in time. It was not over. And now he was weaponless. He stood up and fell away again, this way and that, as the great tail followed him, smacking and darting. And Orm still has his talons! He only has to hit me once! Hume thought, scrambling away on his back. The tail smacked again, and he only just rolled in time. Oh help! His nerve broke. He screamed for Mordion. It was the most shaming thing, but he couldn’t think what to do not to be killed. “Mordion, help! Come quickly! I’ve been so stupid!”

  The shadow of great wings covered him almost at once. Hume looked up incredulously. How? Instant translocation? Mordion was coming down from level with the castle’s highest tower, fast, with his glittering black neck stretched.

  Vierran did not see him. She was on her way down the spiral stairs, hoarse with screaming, wrestling to get that bracelet off her arm. Yam bounded spongily down after her, protesting. “With a gun like that you will have to be within feet of the dragon to hit it.”

  “Yes, I know, but the darts are poisoned. It’s worth it,” she said. “Shut up and get this postern open for me.”

  As the wing-shadow passed over Orm, he knew the threat instantly. He lodged a claw behind the sword and wrenched. The sword, and a tooth, flew free in a spray of grey blood and spittle and clanged to the turf beside Hume. There was no time to get airborne. Orm reared up high, roaring.

  Mordion half-folded his wings and came down in a near-dive, calculating distances and what had to be done. Yes, it would work. If Orm breathed fire, he would roast himself as well as Mordion, so Orm would not dare. He plunged on, straight on to Orm’s raised blaring jaws and locked them with his own.

  Vierran burst out through the postern to the flapping struggle of four mighty wings and trumpeting shrieks from Orm. It seemed to her at once that Mordion had to have the worst of it. His wingstrokes were clapping like thunder and he was being steadily pulled down. She was not sure what good a microgun would do. She simply ran towards the locked, flapping dragons. As she ran, Mordion got a clawed hind foot planted behind Orm’s shrieking head. Like that, doubled up and grappled, he took off skywards.

  Orm’s neck snapped with a crack as precise as the neck of the rabbit. Vierran could hear it even through the thunder of Mordion’s wings. Hume remembered that incident too. More shamed than ever, he snatched up the sword, wondering as he did so how he could bother that Orm had swallowed the red stone on the hilt, and plunged the blade into Orm’s underbelly as Orm’s huge body toppled away backwards.

  Mordion drew in his fiery net and landed beside Hume, shuddering with the pain.

  “Your face is bleeding!” said Hume. “Mordion, I’m sorry!”

  “It needed doing,” Mordion said. “Just a minute.” And vanished.

  Something had happened, up there on the battlements. Mordion could feel it. It was urgent enough for him to use this new trick of instantaneous travel that he had discovered when Hume called. Using on himself the force he had used on the river and then on Martin, he supposed it to be, in the instant of transit. It was very precise. Mordion arrived in front of the two grand central seats of the wooden stand, one piled with pillows, the other draped with gold embroidered cloth.

  He said, with some difficulty, because his mouth was very torn, “What have you done?”

  They looked up at him sullenly. “Nothing,” said Morgan La Trey. “Should I have?”

  “I only wanted a bit of peace,” said Ambitas. “She tried to poison me.”

  Mordion considered them. Reigner Three’s face had already elongated into a carven ivory muzzle with scarlet eyebrow spikes. Her hands were forming talons of the same scarlet. Reigner Two was more recognisable, since his snout was puffy and plump, although it was covered with pinkish-yellow scales. Mordion could see them both enlarging. Having been a dragon himself, he would have liked to let them be. But Reigner Three was second only in viciousness to Reigner One. As a dragon, she would be vicious indeed. Over Two, Mordion hesitated. Two was always so harmless. Yes, Mordion thought, harmless because Two just sat there, knowing exactly what the others were doing, and then smugly reaping the benefit. In his harmless way, Two was at least as harmful as Reigner Three. As a dragon, he would arrange to sit in a cave and have people bring him juicy young women to eat.

  Mordion sighed and terminated them both, there and then, and turned away as soon as he had.

  Turning, his eye caught a flash of silver against the green turf below. Yam was moving smoothly and speedily along the base of the castle. Mordion did not hesitate. He translocated again.

  Vierran had been running towards the dying dragon and Mordion, who was standing by Hume and holding his sleeve to his bleeding face. Before she had run two yards, Mordion was gone again. She had just located him by the outcry up in the wooden seats, when he was not there either.

  Halfway through his translocation, Mordion wondered if this might not be cheating, doing it this way. He could, quite seriously, not afford to cheat. Vierran saw him suddenly drop to the turf by the walls, only twenty feet away, and go speeding after Yam in great sprinting strides.

  I’d no idea Mordion could run like that! Vierran thought. She bundled up her tiresome skirts and pelted after the pair of them.

  She was still some way off when Yam checked and swerved. Sir Artegal and Sir John were coming round the walls the other way with a posse of outlaws behind them. In order not to run full tilt into them, Yam had to surge aside and dart along in front of their surprised faces. This gave Mordion time to put on a spurt and throw himself into a dive, long and sliding, which enabled him to grab Yam by one of his flying silver ankles. Yam tipped and swayed, and by a robotic miracle managed to stay upright. “Let go,” he said. “You will damage my delicate interior mechanisms.”

  “Nonsense!” gasped Mordion, face down on the grass, hanging on to Yam’s leg with both hands. “Give in, Bannus. I’ve got you.”

  “You will damage—” Yam intoned, but broke off and said in a much less mechanical voice, “How did you guess?”

  “You always knew too much,” said Mordion. “But I think I really got suspicious the night Hume ran away and you said, ‘The wood has brought him back.’ That struck me as a very unrobot-like thing to say.”

  “How foolish of me,” said Yam. “I admit it. You have me. You may let go now.”

  “Oh, no.” Mordion cautiously pulled his knees under him, still hanging on to Yam for dear life. “Not until you’ve sorted out this mess. You made it, after all.”

  Yam gave a resigned shrug of one silver shoulder. “Very well. But there is one more thing I wish to do first.”

  “Then you do it with me holding your leg,” Mordion said.

  Vierran reached them then. She was not sure what was going on, but the state Mordion’s face was in made her clasp her bracelet back on her arm and feel for a handkerchief. She had just found it when neither Mordion nor Yam were there any more. She looked round in pure exasperation and located them down the meadow beside the dying dragon.

  “Where next?” she said, setting out once more in another direction.

  Orm was not yet dead. Mordion knelt beside Yam with his face turned away. He did not like to think that even Reigner One should suffer in this way. The sword was still plunged into Orm’s chest and his huge head lolled, but his yellow eyes were open and aware.

  “Orm Pender,” Yam said in the clear, sweet voice of the Bannus, “you cheated me twice, once when you made yourself a Reigner and once when you exiled Martellian. By your cheating you gave yourself an illegal thousand years as Reigner One. It has pleased me very much to cheat you in return. I waited those thousand years, until someone with sufficient Reigner blood was near enough to restore me my full power. I knew this was a statistical probability. As soon as your seals were removed, I spread my field along every communication line and through every portal to the House of Balance, and I brought you here to die. I wish you to know that every
one of my six hundred and ninety-seven plans of action was designed to end in your death. And your death now comes.” Yam’s rosy eyes turned towards Hume. “You may take your sword back now.”

  Hume put out a reluctant arm and dragged the sword out of Orm.

  They were in a small hollow in the wood. The ground underfoot was squashy and crackling with old leaves. A tree leant into the hollow, one of those trees that sprout multiple trunks from a central stump. Hume leant on a chest-high trunk, dangling his dripping sword, with his head bowed. He was still very much ashamed. Mordion crouched beside him, still holding on to Yam, and Vierran at last seemed near enough to pass Mordion her handkerchief.

  “This is the best the Wood will let me do for a meeting place,” Yam said. “It may become somewhat cramped, for this meeting requires no less than thirty persons of Reigner descent, and this I have been careful to provide. You may let me go now, Mordion Agenos. I am concluding my programme. I promise you that this is all I shall do.”

  Mordion did not trust the Bannus an inch, but he slowly stood up, ready to snatch hold of Yam again if he turned out to be cheating. It was probably among the worst of Orm Pender’s misdeeds, he thought, that he had taught what surely should have been a totally fair-minded machine how to cheat. But Yam stood where he was, silver ankles deep in dry leaves.

  Mordion turned to Vierran. She held the handkerchief out silently. Mordion took it and pressed it to his gashed face, smiling at her round it. She could see the gashes slowly starting to heal. But there was such sadness in the smile that Vierran seized his free hand in both of hers. To her great relief, Mordion’s hand curled round and gripped her fingers in return.

  Both of them jumped as Sir John Bedford said angrily, “What’s going on now? We break our necks building rafts and crossing that lake, and next thing we know, we’re out in this damned wood again!”