Dragon Sword Series - Dragon Sword Part 32

"So you won't tell me?"

He was almost afraid. "Please, Dragonmaster, do not press me."

"I get this same s.h.i.+t from the Dragon!" She was shouting, unconcerned with who might hear her. Wykla started, turned wide eyes on her, and Alouzon caught hold of her temper. She was a Dragonmaster: she had to set an example, particularly to Wykla and the wartroop. Their survival depended on her stability.

But what good was her example if Gryylth was gone?

"OK, Mernyl," she said. "I'll leave it with you. You do your best, and I'll do mine. Maybe we can pull this out of the fire."

'' My thanks, Alouzon.''

The interview was over, and she felt drained. But she could not even afford to cry. Wrapping an arm about Wykla's shoulders, she guided her toward the tent flap. "Come on, Wykla. Let's go get you some clothes and some sword practice. Looks like we'll be hacking meat again soon. Marrget said something about a bath in a river, too."

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"Aye, my lady. Although ..." Wykla looked at herself, held up her hands, still unbelieving. "I am not sure I can face a bath."

Alouzon tightened her grip on her shoulder. "I'll help you." She looked at Memyl again. There's got to be some way out of this. I promised her. I promised them all. I'm not going to let it go to h.e.l.l.

But the sorcerer stood stolidly, as though contemplating his own death. And Alouzon realized that he was.

* CHAPTER 19.

Vorya ordered that camp be broken that morning without the careful packing up and shouldering of burdens that normally characterized the movement of large numbers of men. Speed was important, and excess and unusable gear would only weigh down the soldiers that remained to him. Instead, casting aside all but what was necessary, they would travel quickly and lightly, more an expanded troop than an army, and what they left behind was burned in hastily built bonfires that sent plumes of black smoke stretching westward across the blue sky.

The dead were left unburied, for there were too many of them to attend to, even with the leisure of several days. But their constant presence throughout the night had turned them from shapeless ma.s.ses of color and texture into discrete presences that, though voiceless, testified to the force of the weapon that had been turned upon them. Several corpses had been literally dismembered and scattered across tens of square yards. Others had been crushed as though heavy weights had fallen on them.

And Alouzon noticed something else about which she said nothing: though crows and ravens circled above the fallen and occasionally alighted, they did not eat. She watched them for some time as the men a.s.sembled near the smoldering ruin of the king's pavilion, and their lack of appet.i.te was as unsettling as it was unnatural.

"Dragonmaster? Is something amiss?"

Wykla was still with her, bathed now and in fresh garments that fitted her tolerably. Alouzon jerked her gaze 279.

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away from the birds: she did not want the girl to notice. "It's nothing, Wykla. You ready to roll?"

Wykla put her hand to her sword and nodded, forced a trace of a smile. The dry wind had taken the moisture from her hair and left it a mane of amber and gold, and if she caught it now and tied it back, she did so as though performing a common task, with unshaking hands and an air of familiarity.

But she still kept close to Alouzon, putting the Dra-gonmaster between herself and the curious and sometimes frightened eyes of the men who had remained loyal to Vorya throughout a terrifying night and a dubious morning. Simply in being present, though, she showed great courage, for the rest of her wartroop was still on the other side of the ridge, Marrget deeming it wise not to attempt to force matters any more than necessary.

Vorya waited at the head of the columns, Cvinthil at his side. Santhe had elected to stay with the surviving men of the Second Wartroop, and they kept to themselves, forming up at the rear of the main body as though their experiences the previous day had isolated them as effectively as had those of the First Wartroop.

The day seemed raw and unfinished, the sky achingly bright, as though the world had been worn thin with overuse and threatened now to begin to fray in sight of all. The downs, undulating to the horizon, seemed bare and lifeless despite their thick gra.s.s, and their faint transparency was a constant reminder to Alouzon that Gryylth was anything but natural, that tenuous laws and the good will of an impossible beast glued it together.

Vorya was looking at her. Time to resume the mask of competence. With Wykla keeping to her side like a golden-haired shadow, she trotted over to the king. "G.o.ds bless, Vorya," she said.

"G.o.ds bless, Alouzon. Is the First Wartroop ready?"

"The last I saw, they were just finis.h.i.+ng up. They should be mounted by now." She glanced up the ridge to a slight figure just visible in the shadow of some stunted trees. She waved, and the figure waved in return.

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"That's Timbrin. Marrget's waiting for the order to move."

"Then I shall give it." But Vorya sat still for a moment more, his red rimmed eyes scanning the sprawled heaps of dead as though he searched for his only son.

The crows stalked among the bodies like the priests of a necropolis, their beaks shut tight as though padlocked. One cawed harshly, was answered by another. The wind was dry and warm. The odor of death was strong.

"Dragonmaster," he said desperately, in a voice low enough so that not even Cvinthil could hear. "Tell me something to cheer me. Advise me. Will Gryylth perish?"

She glanced behind for a moment. Off to one side, Memyl was on a gray horse, his hood thrown up in spite of the heat. She could not see his face, could barely make out the glitter of his eyes.

He would not tell her what hope there was. How slight, then, was it?

' 'Dragonmaster?''

"You're asking me?" M-ls, and now the Tree. Gryylth might as well have been threatened with a plutonium bomb. "I told you what I thought. We can't win this war in the old way. It just won't work.''

He looked frail and broken. "I see no alternative."

"Vorya," she said quietly, knowing that her words would bring little comfort. "They're dead. We lost almost everyone who came out here."

The king groaned at the names. "There are only aged men and small boys left in the towns. Those who could bear arms were sent ahead with haste." He swept his good arm out. "To this."

"What are you going to do about it?" She felt the cramp of guilt as she spoke, for she herself had nothing to offer, and her words could only torment an already pained old man.

He did not reply for a moment. Finally: "I will try to save the rest. I believe that fighting bravely will give them a greater chance than meek surrender.'' He lifted his arm to give the signal to start.

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But the men were not looking at him. Their eyes were directed instead to the top of the ridge where, silhouetted against the sky, Marrget and the wartroop were waiting. They were mounted, in column, and though distance blurred details, their long hair and slender forms made it obvious that this was nothing like the First Wartroop that had set out from Kingsbury five days before.

The king lifted his sword in salute, and Marrget returned the gesture in silence, her blade flas.h.i.+ng in the sun. "Forward, then!" cried Vorya, his voice strong in spite of the strain. "To the Circle!"

The men moved reluctantly, as though what they saw on the ridge had shaken their resolve. Only the Second Wartroop set out briskly, and Alouzon guessed that Santhe's revitalized smile was bright enough that Marrget could see it easily, even at such a distance. She thought she saw the ash blond woman return it, but the wind gusted and her face was lost in a swirl of blond hair.

Vorya and the King's Guard rode in the lead. The rest of the force followed after, marshaled by Cvinthil. Mer-nyl kept his head down as though he thought of things other than the movement of the army, and he eventually straggled out so far to one side that Santhe had to ride out and bring him back.

The First Wartroop, though, did not fall into the lines, but kept a course parallel to them at a distance of some fifty yards. The women rode easily, comfortably, and Alouzon hoped that the reason she counted only ten riders was that Marrget had sent out scouts. If the women could endure these first frightening days, they might find their path smoothed. With luck, with persistence and work and change, their society might prove bearable to them.

For whether the Dremords won, lost, or settled, Gryylth as the First Wartroop knew it-as everyone in the land knew it-was going to vanish. The sanctuary created by Solomon Braithwaite in an unknown burst of obscure power was finished. He had built a world in which his dreams could live, and he had built it to be changeless. And yet it was changing out from under him.

She wondered where Dythragor was now, what he was .

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doing. She almost pitied him. But she had other concerns.

"Wykla," she said. "Attend the king. I have to leave for a while."

"My lady, I . . ." Wykla glanced at the big men who accompanied Vorya, swung back to Alouzon. "I. . ."

Alouzon waited. For all her girlishness, Wykla was anything but weak. During the few minutes of sword practice that she had managed to give the girl that morning, Wykla had shown herself Marrget's equal. And, driving herself as Marrget had been driven, flushed with her exertions, she had found that her body obeyed her, that it sweated and fought and gasped for air just as effectively as ever. She had smiled openly when they were through: she was a warrior still.

But her uncertainty had not been entirely banished. It was one thing for Wykla to know herself, but it was another to present herself, unsupported and female, to others. "You have to start somewhere, Wykla."

"Aye, my lady." Wykla took a moment to gather her courage, then fell in beside Vorya. The old king nodded graciously to his new attendant and rode on, but one of his guards was staring. Wykla stared in return, her eyes large and blue in her fair face, her lips half parted in the manner of a woman confronted with something as timeless as it was incomprehensible. In a moment, she caught her breath and looked away, but Vorya's guard had already reddened and dropped his eyes. He swallowed as though something had caught in his throat, but his discomfort did not seem to be grounded in fear.

It's going to be a long haul. For everyone. Alouzon shrugged inwardly and cantered out to Marrget. "What's the story on the Corrinians?" she said. "Do you have scouts out?"

"I do." Marrget caught the additional meaning to the words and added: "Nay, Alouzon. There have been no more lives lost."

Alouzon waved to the wartroop and received a scattering of greetings in return. "How are they?" she said to Marrget.

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"They are loyal to me and to you. We attempt at present to ... ignore the changes, though that becomes difficult at times." She stared past Alouzon to the slowly moving army. Wykla's hair shone golden. "How is Wykla?"

' 'd.a.m.ned good fighter.''

Marrget smiled. "That is a needless statement, Alou-zon. She is one of mine. I noticed though that Pas of the Guard seemed to think her attractive."

"Yeah . . . uh . . .it sure looked that way, didn't it?"

Marrget's brow furrowed, her smile departed, and she s.h.i.+fted in her saddle as though momentarily unsure of what to do with her body. "A strange turn of events for the First Wartroop. I am not sure how to accept this."

"Give it time, Marrget."

"Aye, Dragonmaster, that is all we can do for now." She shook herself away from the subject. "But time is not being kind to us, it seems. My scouts report that the Dremord phalanxes are closing the distance between us."

"Can we make it to the Circle?"

"We can, but only by forced march, and that will have us reaching the Circle with the spears of the phalanxes p.r.i.c.king our backs. Not a particularly hopeful beginning for a battle."

The Roman road lay straight as an arrow across the downs, ignoring landscape and contour, and the march of men and horses stirred a thin cloud of dust from its stone surface. Alouzon squinted into the distance. "We've got to slow them down, then."

"Aye. Could Mernyl take a hand in this?"

"I think we'd both rather do something without magic for the time being, Marrget. We'll save Mernyl for later."

"You are wise, Alouzon."

"Nah ... I just need some rea.s.surance that physics still works."

Marrget looked amused and puzzled both. "What do you suggest, my friend?"

The horses' hooves clopped evenly on the stone pavement, the tread of the men was measured and steady. No Roman slaves had ever built this road, since it had been .

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created along with the rest of Gryylth, but its duplicates existed all over Europe. The Empire had used them for communication, commerce, and, most important of all, quick movement of its legions. They were an ideal surface on which to travel, and some of them were still usable in the twentieth century.

"Could we disrupt the road?" said Alouzon.

Marrget's eyebrows lifted at the thought. "With so many men," she said, "Tarwach undoubtedly finds the road invaluable."

"So what if we f.u.c.k it up real good?" Her thoughts were reverting to images of a past decade. In Vietnam, small groups of guerillas had managed to disrupt sophisticated technologies with comparatively primitive means. b.o.o.by traps, punji stakes, pitfalls, man traps-not all would translate effectively to this temperate and open environment of rolling downs and lush gra.s.s, but the objective was to slow the Corrinians, not stop them.

The destruction of the road at key points would deprive Tarwach of his most efficient means of transport, and a thin scattering of crude but effective traps throughout the gra.s.s would make him wary of striking off across country. Quickly, she outlined the plan to Marrget. The captain listened, nodded. "That is a good idea, Dragonmaster. But I am not sure that we have hands enough to pursue it. Even under ideal circ.u.mstances, with the men ..." She paused, sighed. ". . . and women rested and fresh, it would take time. As it is ..."

"So what if we got more?"

"More men?"

"Uh-uh. More women." Marrget opened her mouth, but Alouzon went on. "There are villages everywhere, and I've seen some around here that can't be farther away than a half-day's quick walk. Vorya told me that there are only old men and boys left, but he's forgetting about the women because you people aren't used to thinking of them as a fighting force."

Marrget was smiling thinly. ' 'I have . . . had my thoughts altered somewhat on that subject, Alouzon.''

"I know. And you're doing just fantastic. But if I could 286.

get the women out here to help, we could screw things up good for Tarwach. We could gain . . . what do you think?"

Marrget was calculating again. "A day, maybe a day and a half. But we do not have much time. How shall we raise the women quickly enough?''

"Leave it to me." She had attempted to flense her vocabulary and her thoughts of the inflammatory but empty rhetoric she had used so casually during the antiwar years. But she had been unsuccessful: she had lapsed into it automatically when confronted by the hapless library clerk and when dealing with Dythragor. Obviously, it still lay just beneath the surface, waiting to be tapped.

If she could muster such conviction for intangibles that she could incite herself and others to brave the police and the tear gas, she could certainly fan those same flames for something as real as survival. When she had first corne to Gryylth, she had received the impression that the women of the land were frightened, craven things who would shrink at the thought of leaving home. But since then she had met the girls of Bandon, who chafed under the restrictions imposed on their s.e.x, and Adyssa, who had been willing to give her life to save a woman she hardly knew. There was fear in the women of Gryylth, but she was willing to wager that it was a brittle fear, easily chipped away under the right conditions to reveal a generous helping of steel beneath.

The ma.s.sed phalanxes of Corrin lay behind, advancing, out for revenge, and with them was the Tree. She did not have much hope that she could preserve Gryylth for anything more than a few days, but given the fact that the land had only existed for ten years, a few days was a long time.

"Hang on, Marrget," she said. "I'll be back." She galloped Jia out across the downs, and the Dragonsword was a shaft of gold as she swung it over her head. She was already shouting with the voice of one used to command: Silbakor!

Dythragor had not slept or eaten. Neither had his horse.

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The animal was beginning to protest his treatment, stumbling through the forest as though blind, stopping refractorily to s.n.a.t.c.h a mouthful of herbage in spite of his rider's stubborn insistence that he continue on his way.