The Dragon At War

  He used this spell now, and in a moment was his dragon self. Secoh, who had looked large beside him before, now looked small and insignificant.

  Nonetheless, in spite of that insignificance, he had need of Secoh.

  "Secoh," he said, in a low voice, "I need your help."

  "Yes, m'Lord—m'Lord Dragon Knight," stammered Secoh.

  "You remember the fight at the Loathly Tower?"

  "Oh, yes, m'Lord."

  "Do you remember Smrgol giving me advice on how to fight the Ogre?"

  "I remember…" Secoh was hesitant. "Something about something Smrgol said to you because he'd fought an Ogre before. Something about their arms, their elbows, I—I think."

  "That's right," said Jim. "Now, the only person who could tell me how to fight a sea serpent would be Gleingul, Smrgol's ancestor who slew a serpent by himself at a place called the Gray Sands. Now don't tell me there isn't a story about that fight that's told and retold in dragon circles. And don't tell me you don't know it practically by heart."

  "Oh, yes, m'Lord Dragon Knight," said Secoh eagerly. "There is such a story, and a great story it is!"

  "Good," said Jim. "Now, quickly—what can you remember from that story that would tell me how to fight Essessili?"

  Secoh sat down on the platform and his eyes became abstract, almost dreamy.

  "It was more than one hundred turnings of the sun ago," he began. "It was in a time when Agtval was already a very old dragon, and no longer left his cave to do the mighty things he had done earlier—"

  "No!" shouted Jim. Secoh stopped abruptly.

  "I don't want the whole story," said Jim. He knew only too well the dragon tendency to start a tale deep in the past, and make as long as possible a story out of anything worth telling. "I want you to think. I want you to tell me what you remember from that tale that would help me in fighting Essessili. In short, how did Gleingul do it? Just how did he attack the serpent? What did he do to the sea serpent to put him in a position to win? How did he finally kill the serpent?"

  Secoh looked disappointed, but swallowed and thought hard for a long moment.

  "Well, m'Lord," he said at last, slowly, "there's this business that Gleingul mentioned about using your wings. He said it was very important. Wings made the difference. Oh, I don't mean for flying, m'Lord—"

  "What do you mean then?" Jim coaxed him.

  "I mean for hitting, m'Lord! Of course," said Secoh, "you know our wings, how strong they are. Otherwise how could we take off and lift so quickly into the air as we do? Everything that flies has strong wings. It's said a goose can knock a george, a grown george right off his feet if he hits the george right with one of his wings. You can imagine what we can do. Use your wings, was what Gleingul told us to do if we ever fought serpents."

  "I see," said Jim.

  And indeed he did. The first time he had ever tried flying as a dragon he had shut his eyes and pumped his wings wildly for fear of falling off the cliffside where he had launched himself into space. When he had opened his eyes he had found himself high up, very much higher than he had expected.

  It had been his first experience with the tremendous power of the muscles that drove their great, long wings. Those wings might not be lovely to look at—in fact, they looked more like enormous bat wings than anything else—but he knew their power.

  Now that he stopped to think about it, he could feel the heavy bands of muscles that crossed his chest above the breast bone. Yes, the wings would be the equivalent of heavy clubs—even when a sea serpent was on the receiving end.

  "Good," he said hurriedly. "What else can you tell me? Think!"

  Secoh squinted hard at the platform between his feet. He was giving every physical evidence of thinking just as hard as he could. After a moment though, he shook his head.

  "That's all I can recall, m'Lord," he said.

  "Thanks a lot," said Jim. A sarcastic note escaped into his voice. He hastened to make up for it. "Forgive me, Secoh. You've been a great help."

  "Forgive you, m'Lord?" said Secoh, raising his eyes in wonder. "What for?"

  "Never mind," said Jim. "I appreciated you helping me as much as you did."

  "Oh, that!" said Secoh. "Any dragon could do you that much, m'Lord. I wish I could do more."

  "No," said Jim. "It's up to me, now."

  He looked for Angie. Gazing around, he saw her standing on the other side of him. Forgetting he was in his dragon body, he leaned forward to kiss her, suddenly realized, and instead licked out a long tongue that just touched briefly on her cheek.

  "I love you, Angie," he said, in a very low voice.

  She stepped forward and threw her arms around his dragon neck, burying her face against his rough scales.

  "You know I love you, Jim," she said.

  She stood back.

  "You'll take care of him, Jim," she said in a strong voice. "I know you will!"

  "Thanks, Angie," he said.

  Reluctantly, he turned from her, spread his wings and went up in the air over the edge of the wall, swooping down to where Essessili waited for him.

  At the last moment he changed his mind. An inspiration had just struck him. There was no reason why he shouldn't take a page from the method of peregrine falcons he had seen. He would rise to a great height, and then dive on Essessili with all possible speed, pulling out at the last minute to strike with, not his open claws, but those same claws gathered into heavy-boned fists.

  Below him, the sea serpents burst out into shrill cries of condemnation, seeing him apparently turning to flee. Above him, the waiting dragons of two nations were ominously silent. He knew what they must be thinking. After accepting the challenge, he had suddenly turned fearful; and was running from the fight.

  "M'Lord! M'Lord!"

  Jim paused in his climbing for altitude, to see Secoh laboring to catch up with him in mid-air. He held his position, going into a tight, soaring circle as Secoh finally joined him.

  "I thought of something else, m'Lord!" panted Secoh, as he began to soar alongside Jim. "The tale definitely says that Gleingul killed the serpent by driving his claws deep, deep into the base of the serpent's throat. But he did it from behind. Clinging to the serpent's neck and reaching around it to drive his claws in!"

  "His throat?" said Jim.

  He remembered how Dafydd had been having success shooting arrows into the back of the open mouths of the serpents. His arrow undoubtedly passed into the roof of the throat, behind.

  Clearly it must reach the serpent's brain, or some vital nerve center. It sounded as if Gleingul had killed his sea serpent by hitting the same spot with his claws.

  "Thanks, Secoh!" he said. "I think maybe that's just what I needed to know. Now, stay clear. I want to climb a little more and then dive—I mean stoop. You might tell the dragons above that's what this whole maneuver is about. Will you do that?"

  "Oh yes, m'Lord…" Secoh's answer floated back vaguely to Jim's ears as he mounted yet higher, the dragons above him moving sourly aside as he reached their altitudes.

  At a height he thought would do, he turned about. Using his telescopic dragon-sight, he picked out Essessili far below. He turned down; and, pumping his wings strongly, dove.

  It was strange. He could feel the pressure of the air against him as he picked up speed. At the same time, he seemed to be hanging in space with the ground below growing before him.

  There was a last moment when it suddenly leaped at him; so suddenly he barely had time to clench his claws, come out of his dive and feel the terrific impact of the fists against the back and side of Essessili's head—before he beat upward for altitude again.

  At a hundred or so feet above the ground he checked, turned and looked. Essessili, he saw, had been knocked over; and in fact was still rolling. But apparently he had not done any great damage to the serpent leader. Stopped rolling, Essessili got to his feet with only some slight evidence of grogginess, and turned to look up for Jim.

  Nothing to it, Jim thought, wit
h a sudden uprush of optimism. For the first time he began to feel some hope that he might be able to win this one-sided encounter.

  But even as he thought this, he was busily climbing for altitude again. In his head was the idea that enough hits like that and he might make Essessili dizzy enough to become an easy prey. He reached sufficient altitude, turned and dived.

  He whistled downward, still thinking that this was an excellent way of fighting, when he suddenly woke to the fact that Essessili was not in the same position as before.

  Now Jim saw that the other had curled himself up, as any snake might. Being thicker and shorter in proportion to his thickness than any snake, he had not been able to coil as gracefully as a rattler or cobra might. But still, most of his body was now tucked below him. Above it, guarding it, and threatening Jim's attack at the same time, were his enormous, toothed jaws, yawning wide open.

  It was directly into those jaws that Jim was now diving.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Jim jinked aside at the last moment, icy with sudden fear. He slipped past the waiting jaws; but out of sheer clumsiness, nothing else, his right wing struck across Essessili's neck below the serpent's head as Jim turned.

  Scrambling for altitude, and looking back down, once he had gained enough to feel safe, he was surprised to see Essessili rubbing the side of his neck against the earth, as if to take away the effects of Jim's blow. Secoh's words came back to him then, the advice from Gleingul's story of his fight with the sea serpent on the Gray Sands, about the power in a dragon's wings. A lesser creature than Essessili might have had his neck broken, if not torn right off.

  For a moment the fear left him. Then it returned. He had been no more than lucky in avoiding Essessili's gaping maw on that last dive.

  He had not climbed as far this time and he circled for a moment, quickly trying to think what advantages he and Essessili each had. Essessili was larger, more powerful, and had a much more dangerous set of jaws and teeth.

  Also, he was able, at least partially, to move like a snake. He was not quite as agile as the ordinary snake. But he still had that ability, plus his teeth.

  Jim himself, on one hand, was lighter. His own powerful jaws and teeth were still no match for Essessili's. On the other hand he had his claws, and had made good use of them as fists on that first dive.

  He was probably quicker than Essessili; and he could fly; which gave him more mobility than the other.

  Plainly, he was ahead darting in and out, trying to do as much damage as he could with his wings. The only drawback was that he could strike much harder if he was standing firmly on the ground. But on the ground, Essessili would be able to coil around him.

  Still, he had to try being airborne around Essessili while he battered the serpent. Maybe he could get Essessili into a state where he was less dangerous. Jim decided to try.

  He dived, swung aside just before he reached Essessili and tried to get behind the serpent's head. But Essessili was there to face him, no matter how quickly he jinked and dodged.

  Jim went back to making quick dashes in, striking one blow and one blow only, then out again, hitting either with his right wing or his left at Essessili's neck.

  This, he found, he could do. Occasionally, Essessili swayed aside in time so that the blow hardly grazed him. But usually, Jim hit hard.

  But it began to dawn on Jim that Essessili was absorbing the punishment too well. Meanwhile Jim, himself, was getting wing-tired and out of breath.

  As he had learned almost immediately on finding himself for the first time in his dragon body, a dragon was built not so much to fly as to soar. It was capable of some remarkable movement for a short length of time—rather like a lion in its charge. But it was limited in the amount of time it could keep up the effort. Normally a dragon flew for only a few minutes, then coasted in soaring position, with wings stiffly outstretched, until it was necessary to put in another spurt of effort.

  Here, in this particular combat, he had been on-wing almost steadily; and it was beginning to tell.

  In desperation, he landed facing Essessili, thumping down far enough back to be out of the serpent's immediate reach. He began to use his wings at full extension to batter Essessili's neck.

  For a moment he saw a look of surprise in the serpent's eyes, on finding him suddenly a stationary target on the ground.

  If that look was there, however, it was wiped out by Jim's first wing-blow with his right wing at Essessili's neck. The serpent's head went almost over to the ground, and he had barely recovered when Jim's left wing caught him from the other side.

  Jim pounded away with his wings, as if he was a boxer with an opponent in a corner where he was trying to batter the other to the canvas.

  Then suddenly Jim found himself knocked a good twenty feet backward. Even his powerfully muscle-protected dragon's chest felt smashed in. Instinct, and instinct alone, saved him. He had taken to his wings without thinking on being hit. He scrambled aloft to get space and a moment to breathe.

  He climbed high enough to catch a thermal that would let him soar and catch his breath.

  Essessili had suddenly uncoiled. The sea serpent had struck at him, serpent fashion. His jaws had missed their grab for Jim's own long dragon neck; but the force and weight of the head-blow against Jim's chest had almost won the fight. All of Essessili's strength had been brought into play from his coiled position, which anchored him for that effort.

  Circling, Jim looked down and saw the serpent, apparently unhurt and waiting for him.

  This could not go on much longer. Once more he climbed and dived. Once more Essessili coiled himself and opened his jaws above his coiled body, both as protection for it and as threat to Jim.

  Jim whistled downward. But while Essessili waited for him to come directly toward the jaws and jink aside as he had done before, Jim slanted off imperceptibly at an angle so that he actually approached the ground a good forty yards off, pulled out of his dive early and drove straight at the coiled serpent in a shallow swoop with much of the speed he had accumulated in his dive.

  It worked. He had deliberately come down a little to one side of Essessili but in view. He shot forward and just before he got to the serpent jinked slightly away from the upheld head so that for a second he was behind the other. In that second, he hooked his right claws into the side of Essessili's neck, let momentum swing him around so that he could hook the claws of his left fist in on the other side and held; at last behind the serpent's head and mouth, where Essessili's jaws could not reach back to get at him.

  Essessili made one effort to tilt his head back far enough to bring his jaws into play against Jim; but Jim was pumping with his wings and holding his body out at arm's length. In fact, he was also holding Essessili's head off the ground—so that when Essessili tried to put it down a moment later so as to roll his whole body and get the weight of it on top of Jim, he was not able to do so.

  The power of Jim's wings was not enough to lift an adult human being. Certainly it was nowhere near enough to lift even part of the sea serpent; but it was enough to keep the head, jaws and the somewhat narrower neck just behind it up off the ground. It was as he had hoped, and as he had more than half expected. The serpent had to put his head down in order to roll over. That had been obvious when he had seen how the serpents had all lowered their heads and rolled on their side when it became necessary for them to look up enough to see the dragons overhead.

  It became a battle of wills, where strengths were almost equally matched: Jim's dragon strength against the strength of Essessili's neck. The neck was indeed narrower, but not so much so that his six-inch claws, and the ten-inch bony fingers to which they belonged, could dig deep enough into the neck to touch any vital spot. Plainly, thought Jim, he was not forward enough on the neck.

  On a sudden inspiration he used his wings to cover Essessili's eyes so that the serpent was temporarily blinded; and in that moment in which Essessili stopped struggling to figure out what was going on, he moved
one grip forward and was just about to move the other when Essessili woke up to what was going on and shook himself violently.

  Jim clung desperately, so as not to be thrown from his hold. Essessili continued to shake for several minutes, but evidently he could not keep it up indefinitely. The shaking slowed, and Jim took a chance during a slight pause to move his left claws forward also. Now they were almost side by side at the front of Essessili's throat. He put all his strength behind them and tried to drive them in as far as he could.

  Essessili went into a frenzy. No longer trying to roll over on Jim but merely thrashing himself around as if to shake Jim free by any means whatsoever. Jim felt his grip weakening in spite of himself. He closed his eyes and concentrated. For Angie, he thought; and put all he had into one last thrust to get the claws in even a little bit deeper.

  Essessili's head suddenly thumped to earth and his body lay still.

  For a moment Jim stayed as he was, claws still in the throat of the sea serpent, dazed by what he had been through and the sudden termination of the fight. Then he came back to himself enough to pull his claws loose. He stepped off the body and looked around.

  He looked behind him—and saw the great wave of sea serpents all around coming at him and at the castle as fast as they could.

  So much for a sea serpent's word—he could hear Rrrnlf's voice saying those words inside his head right now. He was worn out; but he mustered up enough strength to take to the air, at least to lift himself enough so that he would be out of reach of the oncoming serpents. Then, turning, he flapped slowly and painfully to the wall and clung to the top of it, like a swimmer who has crossed some great expanse of water and comes at last to the outcropping of a shore.

  Chapter Forty

  He clung for a moment, and then two massive hands—Rrrnlf's hands, holding him delicately so as not to hurt him—lifted him over it to safety and deposited him on the platform.