King's Dragon

  “But surely you do not wish to ruin that fine cloth?” Alain could just imagine what Aunt Bel would say if she saw silk of that quality being used to sweep floors, however holy.

  “The riches of Earth are as dust to the glory of the heavens and the Chamber of Light. So did Frater Agius preach.”

  “You heard Agius preach?”

  “Did you not hear him as well?” she asked timidly. She came forward, still on her knees, and clasped Alain’s hands in hers, almost in supplication. “You were his companion. He saw that you were of noble birth before any other did, is that not true? Was his vision not a gift to him from the Lady Herself? Did he not preach the true Word of the blessed Daisan’s sacrifice and redemption?”

  “That is heresy,” Alain whispered, glancing around, but they remained alone in the chapel. Sorrow sat panting by the door, and no man dared enter because of him.

  “It is not heresy,” she finished, her pale face taking color as she took heart from whatever memory she had of Agius’ preaching. “You must acknowledge it. You heard him. You must know it is the truth.”

  “I—” It made him deeply uncomfortable to have a princess who wore the gold torque marking her royal kinship kneeling in front of him—and speaking of heresy, in a biscop’s palace. “You must rise, Princess.” He tried to tug her to her feet, but she was either stronger than she looked or holding fast to her purpose. Her hands were warm on his, warming his, and he looked into her face and did not understand what he saw there.

  “I pray King Henry will put me in the church,” she said, staring up at Alain.

  Or marry her to me. The thought popped unbidden into Alain’s mind. He was so stricken by it that he let go of her hands and sat down on the nearest bench. Ai, blessed Lord and Lady. He was a lord, now, heir to the count of Lavas. He could think about marriage.

  “Then, when I am made deacon, I will preach,” she said in a fierce whisper. “I will preach the Holy Word Agius taught me, though the skopos calls it heresy. If they condemn me for it, then I will be a martyr, as he was, and ascend to the Chamber of Light where the saints and the martyrs live in the blazing light of Our Lady’s gaze and Her Son’s sweet glory.”

  Alain almost laughed, not at her but at the strange path that had brought him here to this chapel on this night.

  Serve me, the Lady of Battles had said, and she had given to him a blood-red rose as her token, as the sign of her favor. He had served, as well as he was able. He had ridden to war. He had broken the compulsion laid by sorcery on Lavastine, and he had killed the guivre, though only because of Agius’ sacrifice. He had tried always to do what was right, though sometimes he had failed. He had not saved Lackling, but he had saved the Eika prince, although perhaps the life of the savage had not been worth the life of the poor simple boy. But it was not his place to judge the worth of their souls.

  And Alain knew that although he had been raised from freeholder’s son to count’s heir, a huge leap in the world of men, such fortune could only have come about because of the presence of divine favor.

  “Come, Tallia,” he said, bold enough to use her name and hoping he would not be judged proud and insolent for doing so. “It is not fitting that you kneel. Sit beside me, I pray you.” He gave her his hand and helped her up and, after a hesitation, she deigned to sit beside him on the bench.

  She glanced past him toward the door and shuddered.

  “What is wrong?”

  “The hound. It scares me.”

  “I won’t let it hurt you.” He snapped his fingers. “Sorrow, come, boy.” Sorrow padded dutifully over to him, and as if pulled along behind it on a string, his distraught servant crept into the chapel where he could observe safely, from a distance. Tallia shrank back from the hound’s massive presence, but he bade the hound sit and then he took her hand in his and, whispering softly, let her touch the hound’s head. “You see,” he said, “they are like any soul that wishes only to be touched with compassion and not with hatred or fear.”

  “You are very wise,” said Tallia, but after a moment she withdrew her hand from Sorrow, though the hound made no move to snap or growl at her, obedient to Alain’s command.

  Alain smiled wryly. “I’m not wise. I’m only repeating what my fa—” But Henri was not his father. Lavastine was his father. Yet at this moment it did not truly matter. Henri had raised him as well as he was able. “I’m only repeating what others have taught me.”

  There was a sudden flurry of movement by the door. Rage bounded in, followed by Lavastine. Tallia shrank away, but Rage sat down firmly on Alain’s slippered feet, as if to make sure he did not run, and ignored the girl.

  Lavastine ran a hand through rumpled hair and glared at Alain. “What do you mean by this?” he demanded.

  “I—my lord—I—”

  “Well! Out with it!”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I just came here—” He gestured, half terrified that he had offended Lavastine, half confused by the expression on Lavastine’s face, which he could not interpret.

  Lavastine caught himself and made a simple bow. “Princess Tallia. I beg your pardon.” He called to a servant. “Escort the princess back to her chamber.”

  Given no choice, Tallia left, but she cast one look— pleading or grateful, Alain could not tell—back at Alain before she was led away.

  “She’s in disgrace now,” said Lavastine, sitting down on the bench beside Alain and absently letting Sorrow chew on his hand. “And her mother certainly is.” He rubbed his beard, then fingered the silver Circle that hung at his chest on a gold chain. “Henry might be willing to marry her off, if the right bargain was offered. Any lineage is strengthened by royal blood.” He stared at the Hearth for some moments longer, though he was obviously not viewing the fine reliquary or meditating on its holy contents. Then he shook himself, this stillness as much as he could muster in the course of one day. “Come, lad. It is almost dawn, did you not know?”

  Alain had not noticed, but now through the glass he saw the faint glamour of light. He shook his head.

  “I had a terrible fright when I woke and you weren’t in the room. I thought I’d dreamed it all, the Eika prince, Sabella, the campaign, and you, my son.” Lavastine stood and beckoned to the servants. “Go on, then! I see no reason to wait. Henry has pardoned us and I for one do not intend to wait in this dark palace and intrude on his grief. Nor remind him of what I have gained that he has lost.” He took hold of Alain, his hand closing over Alain’s wrist as if he meant never to let go of him.

  “Come, son,” he said, relishing the sound of the word on his tongue.

  “Where are we going?” asked Alain. Beyond, through the glass windows of the chapel, he saw now the enclosed garden, its flowers and hedges rising from the gloom into the light of a new and fine day. Distantly, he heard a woman’s voice intoning the mass for the dead.

  Lavastine smiled. “We’re riding home.”

  EPILOGUE

  AT first he did not realize he was still alive. Caught in the middle of a waking sleep, his mind awake but his limbs as leaden as a corpse’s, he became aware he rested half on cold flagstone and half on another body. His spine was aflame with agonizing pain, but even as it flared through him it began to dull down into a throbbing ache.

  He could not quite manage to open his eyes. But he knew he was surrounded by bodies, strewn about him like so much refuse. Some few were still alive. He heard the muffled thunder of their heartbeats, felt their shallow breathing on the air, though he did not touch them. The body he lay on was, certainly, dead, but only recently so. Warmth pooled out from it, turning cold as he fought into full wakefulness.

  It was so hard to wake up. And perhaps better not to.

  No. Never let it be said that he did not fight until his last breath.

  He heard the snuffling of the dogs. He began, then, to be consumed by dread: that the dogs would reach him before he could move and defend himself against them. There were few worse fates than being torn to pieces by dogs, l
ike some dumb passive beast caught outside the stable.

  He heard their growls and the way they shoved their muzzles against cloth and skin and metal, smelling for the ones who still lived. He heard the low rumble of voices, farther away, speaking words he did not know but in a guttural language he recognized—that of the Eika savages. Now and again these unseen speakers laughed. Now and again the dogs barked in triumph, and then he would hear a man’s grunt or a scream, cut off, and then he would hear—and now he cursed his keen hearing—the flow of blood and the rending of flesh from bone. Once he recognized, however briefly, the voice of one of his own men.

  Still he could not move.

  A nose nudged his slack left hand and a hard fang traced up the sleeve of his mail shirt. The dog growled. Its hot breath, rank with fresh blood, touched his cheek.

  He struck.

  Miraculously, he twitched. His right hand moved. And then, throwing himself on his side, he slammed his mailed glove into the dog’s muzzle. It staggered back, and he shoved himself up. He had gotten to his knees when two more dogs hit him, snarling and bitting, from behind. He threw one of them bodily over his head and jabbed his elbow into the ribs of the other, groped at his belt for his knife but found no weapon.

  His left hand had lost its glove. One of the dogs caught it and sank teeth into flesh. He hammered the creature’s jaw down onto the stone floor. Stabs of pain lanced up his left arm, but he pried the beast’s mouth off his hand, heaved up its stunned body, and threw it at the other two.

  Now more came and more yet. They closed in, circling. He waited, panting, and licked the blood from his mangled hand.

  One jumped in and snapped at his mail shirt. He swung and struck it, and it leaped back, but now behind him another broke in and nipped at his heel. He kicked. It yelped and bolted back.

  He spun, staring them down. But they were only waiting, only testing him, to see how quick, how strong, how determined he was.

  Beyond the dogs he caught sight of other shapes, but this fight—with the dogs—was to the death, and he did not have time to look. He had no helmet, no tabard, no protection on his bleeding and torn left hand, but he still had a mail glove on his right hand and the good mail shirt covering his torso and upper arms. He still had the dogs themselves, and though they were terrible to look upon—eyes sparking fire and tongues hanging out, saliva dripping from their fangs—they were yet mindless rage-filled beasts and he was smarter than they were.

  He backed up, stepping and stumbling over the dead, found a wall at last, and with this at his back he stared them down. A few sat down on their haunches and growled, unsure now. He singled out the biggest and ugliest one and darted out before any of the dogs could leap in upon him, grabbed the beast with a hand on each side of its thick neck, and with every ounce of strength he possessed swung it round and smashed it against the wall. It fell, limp, to the ground.

  They erupted into a deafening chorus of howls and swarmed him, all leaping in at once. Their weight carried him down until he was trapped under their bodies, his arms and legs pinned. He was helpless. He was, at last, going to die.

  One—the biggest yet—fought through the pack to stand over his chest. Its head loomed over his face, its great muzzle yawning wide as it howled its triumph before the death strike.

  And he saw his chance.

  It bit down—he slammed his head up under its jaw and lunged for the creature’s throat. Clamped down.

  Ai, Lady. He could not rip its throat out, but, by the Lord, he could crush its windpipe until it suffocated. The big dog thrashed above him as he bit down. Its iron-gray hide tasted like metal. Blood leaked down his own throat. Its paws scrabbled at him, slowed, and then went lax. He felt the windpipe crack and, finally, jaw aching, he dared let go.

  The beast collapsed on top of him.

  The other dogs, worrying at his arms and legs, backed away. They snarled at him as he struggled to his feet. He spit out hair from his mouth and wiped his teeth. He ached everywhere. But he had killed it.

  Movement coursed through the lofty space, and just before the Eika came, he finally realized that he stood in the great cathedral of Gent. Had they dragged every one of his Dragons in here? He did not even know how much time had passed since the fall of Gent. It could have been an hour or a day, or perhaps the enchanter had other spells surpassing even his illusions by which he could change the course of the stars.

  “What have we here?” A huge Eika moved into his line of sight, shoving dogs aside, striking them back with clawed hands.

  “Bloodheart,” he whispered, because he had long since learned to mark his enemy by name.

  The Eika enchanter laughed, a rasping sound like a file sharpening iron. “A prince among the dogs! This is a fine prize to have in my pack. Better even than this—” And Bloodheart tapped his left arm. There, wrapped around his upper arm like an armlet, Bloodheart had fixed the gold torque that signified royal kinship.

  Sanglant could not help himself. He growled, low in his throat, to see his father’s gift to him made mock of in this way. He sprang forward and flung himself on the Eika chieftain.

  Bloodheart was strong, but Sanglant was faster, and he had already marked with his gaze the sheath that held Bloodheart’s dagger. He found the hilt, wrenched it free, and with Bloodheart reeling backward, plunged the dagger into that hard skin, through it, up to the gold and jeweled hilt, right into the Eika’s heart.

  Bloodheart threw back his head and howled in pain. Then he grabbed Sanglant by the neck and shook him free and threw him hard to the floor. The dogs swarmed forward, but Sanglant struck wildly around with his fists and his hopeless fury drove them back. That fury was a companion when all his other companions were dead or dying. The dogs sat again—except for two more who lay still—and with saliva rolling down their tongues they stared at him, ringing him so he could not move without coming within range of their teeth.

  With a grunt, Bloodheart yanked the dagger out of his chest. He cursed and spit toward Sanglant, then laughed, that awful rasping sound. He handed the dagger to a small Eika who was naked except for a dirty cloth tied over his loins, a wizened creature made grotesque by the strange patterns painted on his body, by the sight of his body, so like a man’s body except for the sheen of scales that was his skin. The small Eika spit on the blade and licked it clean. The blood hissed and bubbled, and then the small Eika pressed the blade against the wound on Bloodheart’s chest and with some unseen sorcery burned the gash closed.

  Sanglant winced at the acrid scent, but that wince sent a dog nipping forward toward his legs. He cuffed it hard, almost absently, and it whined and slunk back. He stared as the knife was lifted to reveal a thin white scar on the bronze sheen of the enchanter’s hide.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Bloodheart said, taking in a deep breath and puffing his chest up. The girdle of tiny gold links, interlaced into a skirt of surpassing beauty and delicacy, shifted around his hips and thighs as he moved, a dainty sound quite at odds with his bone-white hair and the blood that spattered his arms and knees and the one last streak of blood that trailed down his bare chest.

  He grunted, grabbed the biggest of the dead dogs, and dragged it backward. Then, looking again at Sanglant, he bared his teeth; jewels winked there, tiny emeralds and rubies and sapphires. “You’ll not kill me that way, prince of dogs. I do not keep my heart in my body.”

  Sanglant felt a warm trickle running past his right eye. Only now did he feel the gash, whether opened by Bloodheart’s claws or one of the dogs he could not know; he did not remember getting it. He only hoped it would not bleed too profusely and obscure his vision.

  Several of the Eika warriors came forward now, grunting and pointing, rasping out words in their harsh language. He could guess what they said: “Shall we kill him now? May I have the honor?”

  He braced himself. He would go down hard and take at least one with him, in payment for what the Eika had done to his beloved Dragons. There was nothing else
he could do for them now. Under the voices of the muttering Eika he heard no faint breathing, no catch of air in a throat, no gasp of a loved one’s name. He risked one look, then swept his eyes across the vast nave of the cathedral. Light shone in through the huge glass windows, cutting light into a hundred shafts that splintered out across the carnage within.

  There was Sturm, his company heaped around him in death as they had been in life. There was Adela, a woman as fierce in her own way as the Eika were in theirs, but she was dead and—he had to look away— ravaged by the dogs. There, where he had come to his senses, lay the Eagle, poor brave soul, who had stood with them to the bitter end. Dead now, every single one of them. Why did he still live?

  With his other senses he remained painfully aware of each least shifting of the pack of dogs as they twitched their shoulders or shifted their flanks or closed their mouths and then opened them again to bare teeth, a threatening smile much like Bloodheart’s. Better to go down fighting against men, even if they were Eika, than to be thrown to the dogs. There was no honor among the dogs.

  “Shall we kill him?” the Eika warriors demanded, or so he supposed by the way they pointed at him and hefted their axes and spears, eager to swarm him and bring him down, the last, the prize of the battle.

  “Nay, nay,” said Bloodheart in the tongue of Wendish men. “It is our own way, is it not? See how the dogs obey him. See how they wait, knowing he is stronger and smarter than they are. He is First Brother among the pack, now, our prince. He has earned that right.” He leaned down and unfastened from around the neck of the dead dog its iron collar. Rising, he barked out words in his own language.

  The Eika soldiers laughed uproariously, their harsh voices echoing in the nave as hymns once had. Then they threw down their weapons and swarmed Sanglant. Because they were smarter than the dogs and stronger then he was, they pinned him finally, though he did some damage to them before he went down.

  They fixed the iron collar around his neck, dragged him along the nave, and fettered him by a long chain to the Hearth, so massive and heavy an altar that though he strained he could not move it. The dogs loped over to him. A few worried at his feet but in a curious way, not precisely hostile. One bit at him, and he slapped it hard across the muzzle. It whined and backed away, and it was at once jumped by another; they fought for a moment until one turned its throat up to the victor.