Dragon Sword Series - Dragon Sword Part 24

"It's OK, Cvinthil. Just hang in there, huh?"

She looked up at the sky. Silbakor, where the h.e.l.l are you? You better get your a.s.s back here and quit playing around with that Marvel Comic refugee.

At once, Silbakor's voice thrummed in her head: / am coming.

She glanced around, but the blue sky remained blank. "In your own good time," she muttered.

As they approached the army, she felt the ma.s.sed eyes of the men watching them. Vorya rode with a studied ease; covering the strain he felt. He nodded to Santhe. "Thank you, councilor. You have done great service to Gryylth. What of your own wartroop?"

Santhe shrugged, hollow eyed. "Some eight or nine are left, some of them badly wounded."

"Like . . . ?" Vorya's eyes flicked toward the ridge.

"Nay, my lord. Their injuries are from spears and flying rocks. They are some distance away, and very weak. I came to meet you."

Vorya gestured to his Guard. "Attend to them," he said. "Give them aid. Santhe will lead you."

a.s.sisted by two soldiers, Santhe showed the way across the fields. Vorya watched him, then turned to look back over his shoulder at the crest of the hill that hid the First Wartroop.

One of the captains of the wartroops dismounted and approached on foot. "My lord king," he said. "Is what Santhe said true?" His voice sounded thin in the late afternoon sun.

Vorya did not meet his eyes. Cvinthil conferred with a captain of the King's Guard, but the others remained silent, waiting.

Alouzon glanced back up the hill, wondering what was happening on the other side. Following orders, probably. Not thinking. That was the way it was done. After the deaths at Kent, she had gone home and cleaned house for days, occupying her mind with lesser things so that she would not see the staring eyes, the torn flesh.

Buying time. But there was always leisure eventually, always time for the fatal reflection.

Abruptly, Vorya nodded. "It is true."

The men stirred. She knew what was going through their minds: if Marrget and the cream of Gryylth, then what of themselves?

Vorya allowed no time for the thoughts. "Evening draws hard upon us," he said. "We will encamp here.

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My pavilion shall be to the side closest to this hill. Aside from those whom I designate, no one shall cross the ridge under penalty of death."

Cvinthil had finished his conference, and a rider dashed off to the north. The men began making camp. Vorya dismounted and went to Alouzon. "Dragonmaster," he said, "is this possible? Can sorcery do this?"

She shrugged. "I'm not surprised by anything that sorcery can do anymore."

Vorya nodded his white head. In the failing light, he looked much older. "I will see Marrget tonight, after dark. I must find out ..." His eyes were dull, lifeless, as though he had gone blind. "Alouzon, my lady," he said, "can you . . . will you help us?"

Without thinking, she put a hand on his shoulder.

"Marrget was . . . Marrget could do anything."

"Marrget still can." She hoped that she was right. "I'm surprised even less by Marrget and the wartroop than I am by magic. It's the others that you'll have to worry about."

He examined the men for a long minute. "I am afraid that this is the end of Gryylth.''

The night was warm, but there was enough of a cool snap in the air to make the campfires burn brighter. Their light, though, did not reach far, and the darkness concealed the unburied dead save where a flame was reflected on a sword hilt, or a spear blade, or, dully, in a staring eye.

The men of Gryylth took what rest and refreshment they could in such surroundings, but from what Alouzon heard of their m.u.f.fled conversations, they were less concerned about the slaughter than with the fate of those who remained on the other side of the hill, guarded by Vorya's pavilion and by the careful watch of his personal attendants. Even the tales brought back by the survivors of Santhe's wartroop did nothing to s.h.i.+ft the talk to questions of mundane battle, and the undercurrent of fear ran like a steel thread throughout the entire carnp.

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' 'What do you think you will do?'' said one soldier to another. "If . . .if the Dremords come again?''

"Oh, they will come ..."

"But, what will you do?"

The moon, some days past full, was swinging midway to the zenith, and its light, added to that of the fires, began to allow disturbing glimpses of the battlefields and the dead. But the soldiers paid no attention.

"I have no wish to be a woman."

"But-"

"I wish Dythragor were here instead of that other one. If he could face this without cowardice, then so could I."

"Maybe he will come."

Alouzon listened, then went on her way> stepping softly so that the men might not know that they had been overheard. "I'd like to punch out his lights," she muttered as she mounted Jia.

She turned his head up the slope and nodded to the guards as she pa.s.sed them. Hoping that she might seern less of a threat than a man of the company, she had taken upon herself the task of fetching Marrget. The captain's conduct during the short time she had been in Gryylth had won her, unwilling though she was to be won, and if there was any way in which she could lessen the pain and shock, she was eager to find it.

At the crest, she looked down to see one small fire burning in the darkness. Dimly, she made out figures surrounding it, their gender disguised by distance and the flickering of the flames.

She started down, but had ridden only a few yards before she was brought up short.

''Halt. "

It was a woman's voice, high and clear, but holding nonetheless enough of a threat to make her stop instantly. "Alouzon Dragonmaster is sent by the king to request the presence of Marrget of Crownhark," she said.

A slim form stepped out from the cover of the shadows. "You are Alouzon Dragonmaster," she said. "Pa.s.s."

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The moonlight gave Alouzon a glimpse of finely molded features as she rode on. She had known the men of the wartroop by sight if not by name, but Tireas had transformed them utterly, leaving nothing unchanged. Height, weight, hair, voices-all were different. She could not recognize them. She doubted that they could recognize themselves.

When she reached the fire, the women regarded her quietly. Their oversized clothing hung on their slender frames as though they were girls dressing up in their fathers' suits, and their expressions were earnest, almost fearful. For a moment, she was reminded of the girls of Bandon-kirtles and skirts, ringlets and ponytails-their faces all the prettier for the intensity with which they had regarded the armed woman who had come to them.

The thought made the sweat break out on her forehead. "Is Marrget here?"

"Behind you," came the unfamiliar voice. Marrget rode up out of the darkness. Her gray eyes examined Alouzon. "You did not have to come."

"I wanted to. For the sake of our friends.h.i.+p."

"I am sorry that you must a.s.sociate with the vanquished." Marrget made for the ridge, and Alouzon followed.

They rode in silence, side by side, and Marrget sat stiffly and kept her gaze straight ahead, as though she were a prisoner under escort instead of a friend. In the clear moonlight at the crest of the ridge, Alouzon saw that she was wearing neither armor nor sword.

Feeling her gaze, Marrget stopped. "You could have looked better when the sun was high."

"You're unarmed."

She shrugged. "It is unseemly for a woman to carry weapons."

The bald statement was nothing more than what she would have heard from any inhabitant of Gryylth, but it struck Alouzon like a fist of ice. It had started. Marrget was a woman, and as such she was bound. The whole country could not but reinforce the devastating impact of the transformation.

21S.

But it did not have to be that way. She would not let it. She was a Dragonmaster. "I ... I hope you don't believe that, Marrget," she said. "Have you taken a look at me?"

"Your customs are different." Marrget stared down at Vorya's pavilion. ' 'I am not sure that I know how to bow properly to a man. Do you think ..." Terror clawed at her face for a moment, but she mastered it. "Do you think that I wili cause offense?"

"Marrget . . . don't . . . please ..."

Marrget blinked, s.h.i.+fted her eyes to Alouzon.

"You're a warrior of Gryylth."

"Do not torment me, Alouzon." Marrget shook her head, and her long hair rustled down her back. She plucked at it. "Am I supposed to braid this?"

Alouzon felt like screaming, but she fought to form words. "You are Marrget of Crownhark."

Marrget said nothing in reply. She turned her horse down the slope.

Vorya had pared the number of his attendants to a minimum in an effort to keep Marrget's interview as painless as possible. In his tent were, besides himself, only Cvin-thil, Santhe, two trusted officers of his guard, and a scribe. Still, Marrget paused at the flap and looked around the room as though it were a trap.

"Enter and be welcome, Marrget of Crownhark," said Vorya. "Sit before me and refresh yourself. You have done hard service for Gryylth and deserve honor."

Marrget advanced to the center of the tent, and hesitated as though considering a woman's bow of subservience. She looked for a moment to Alouzon, then gritted her teeth and gave a slight nod to Vorya in the manner of a councilor acknowledging a king. "I do not know what service I have done, my king, but I am certain that it is not deserving of honor. You see that the battle is lost, and there are many dead men who, if they could speak, would tell the troth of my words."

It was all very formal, the little courtesies of heroic culture smoothing the raw edges of fear. A chair was brought for Marrget and, still with a hesitation, as though 216.

she wondered what rule of women's etiquette she was breaking, she sat. She was wearing a rough robe girt with a piece of rope, and the garment was too big for her: it gaped open at her breast. Grimly, she pulled it closed.

Alouzon filled a cup and brought it to her, but she waved it away. "My lord, you sent for rne."

"I would hear something of the battle. Santhe has told me what he could. I would hear more."

Santhe nodded slowly. "I will always defer to Marrget in matters of combat," he said, his pain weakening his voice. "And in others, too." His face was worn, blasted with what he had seen, but he mustered a smile for her. "Surely, my dear comrade, you have nothing to fear from me."

Marrget bit her lip and looked down at her lap suddenly, as though suppressing tears. "My thanks, Santhe." Her thin face was soft and frail, and her hair shone in the lamplight like a swirl of gold as she began her report. "When we arrived," she said, "the slaughter had been great, but the wartroops were slowing the Dre-mords, and it was my opinion that the First Wartroop would turn the tide easily. The Dremords had been preparing this attack for some time, I think, gathering men and supplies in hopes of breaking through to the Circle quickly, before our forces could be brought up."

Speaking of those things that she knew, Marrget was relaxing, her voice falling into the cadences of a soldier: matter-of-fact, firm and definite. "They did not count on our strength, though, and, as I surmised, the First War-troop held them where they were. But there was always the darkness, summoned by the unnatural sorcery of Ti-reas-" For a moment, she stared, s.h.i.+fted in her chair as though acutely conscious of her body, then plunged on.

"It looked as though clouds had gathered for a rainstorm, but these clouds brought no rain, only fear. And there was lightning that struck amid our troops, and it brought death. Still, we did not quail. A short distance from here, we planted ourselves and vowed that the men of Corrin would come no farther into Gryylthan terri- .

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tory." She considered, looked at her hands. "It would perhaps have been better had we given way."

"What happened, Marrget?" Alouzon kept her voice gentle.

"Early this afternoon," she continued, "there came an easing of the Dremord press, and a further darkening of the skies. The air seemed full of strange noises-a humming, or a singing-and we saw that the Dremords were bringing up a wain. In it was a tree."

She looked at Alouzon. "It seems you were right, Drag-onmaster. It was a tree, but it was truly an awful one. It was as high as two men, and its trunk was gnarled, with many branches bearing withered leaves and fruit that glowed in the darkness. Tireas stood beside the wain, and he seemed to have charge of it. He placed his hands on the tree and began a conjuration."

Falling silent, she s.h.i.+fted in her chair again. "My body . . . went numb. I had not felt real fear in a long time, but I felt it then. It was as though serpents were crawling over me, tightening their coils. Seeing that the phalanxes were falling back, I gathered the wartroop, thinking that perhaps we could interfere with the magic."

A soldier of the King's Guard entered suddenly, followed by a man wrapped up in a thick cloak. The latter carried a pale staff, and Marrget glanced curiously at him before she continued with her tale.

"We did not stop the magic," she said. "We ran into it. The entire wartroop was unconscious for some hours, and when we came to ourselves, we became aware of the . . . changes." She clenched her jaw. "It would have been better had they killed us."

"That wouldn't have fit their plan, Marrget," said Alouzon. "They wanted you alive."

"For what? To live in disgrace?"

Vorya spoke. "No, to destroy the will of Gryylth." With his good arm he beckoned to the soldier who had entered. "You return sooner than expected."

"My king," he said, "I met him on the road. He said that he knew of our need already and had not waited for your summons."

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"Mernyl?"

"I am here." The sorcerer dropped his cloak on the floor and stepped forward.

"Am I to be made the b.u.t.t of a magician's fancy?" said Marrget. "Have you come to laugh at me?"

Mernyl approached her with deference. "Do I laugh at the moon when it changes shape, captain?" He bowed deeply. "I come only to oifer service, and, if possible, aid."

His voice was kind, full of compa.s.sion, and Alouzon almost turned away to hide her tears. Marrget had never liked Mernyl, but the captain, broken, defeated, was now at his mercy, and she bent her head slowly as though in acknowledgment.

"No, captain," he said gently. "Do not bow your head to me. Though you have never believed it before, I have been your friend, and I remain so now.''

She lifted her eyes. "So be it."