The Sword and the Chain Page 3

  Chapter Two

  "That Isn't Much, Is It?"

  We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

  —Mark Twain

  Back when he was in school, pursuing one of his many majors, Karl Cullinane had avoided the sunrise religiously; he saw the dawn only accidentally, unintentionally, through cigarette-smoke-tearing, caffeine-aching eyes after a night spent among a pile of books and papers, throwing together a last-minute term paper, or cramming for a final exam.

  Whenever he could, he arranged his classes—the ones he didn't intend to skip regularly; the others didn't matter—to let him sleep as late as he could. Often he rose at the crack of noon.

  Back then, he could sleep through anything.

  Seems there've been some changes, he thought, sitting tailor-fashion beside Andy-Andy's sleeping form, blankets piled around him as protection against the dawn chill.

  The sun rose across the Waste, touching the sky with pink and orange fingers. When he looked at the Waste through half-closed eyes, it was almost beautiful.

  *I see you're awake,* the reedy voice sounded in his head. *Finally.*

  "I'm awake," he whispered, rubbing at the middle of his back. No pain; none at all. It wasn't pain that kept him awake. When a distant breeze had wakened him, Karl had been afraid to let himself fall asleep again; his sleep had been filled with visions of himself as half a person, chopped off at the middle of his stomach. And nightmares of wading through unending pools of blood and gore.

  "Just leave me alone, Ellegon." He lay back, pillowing his head on his hands. The dragon had deserted him yesterday; Karl felt no inclination to talk to him now.

  *You're being very immature about this,* the dragon said petulantly.

  "Leave me alone."

  "What is it, Karl?" Andy-Andy whispered, her breath warm in his ear.

  "Nothing. Go back to sleep." He closed his eyes. "That's what I'm going to do."

  *But I have to talk to you.*

  No.

  Andy-Andy cuddled closer, her long brown hair covering his face with airy, silken threads. Karl put his arms around her and held her to him.

  He drew in his breath to sigh, then spent several long seconds trying to spit out her hair without waking her.

  God, how I hate mornings. He opened his eyes. Then again . . .

  Andy-Andy lay sleeping, the blanket's ragged hem gathered around her neck, her features even more lovely in repose. Her long lashes, the olive tone of her skin, the slight bend in her slightly too-long nose—an inventory of parts didn't do her justice.

  Then again, maybe I'm prejudiced. He reached out a hand to pull the blankets down—

  *And, then again, maybe you should give both your hormones and your mammary fixation a rest, and talk to me. You don't understand. Maybe I should make you understand.*

  Don't. Ellegon's mindlink could carry more than the dragon's phantom voice or images; it could also transmit feelings, experiences. And not just pleasant feelings, either.

  *Will you listen to me, then?*

  Carefully brushing her hair away, Karl sighed. Just give me a minute. He untangled himself from Andy-Andy's sprawling limbs and slipped out of the blankets, taking a moment to slip his breechclout on, step into his sandals, and strap their laces around his calves. He eyed his leggings and tunic, debating with early-morning laziness whether or not to put them on now.

  Later. After coffee.

  Absently, he picked up his scabbarded saber and slipped the belt over his left shoulder, resting his right hand for just a moment on its sharkskin hilt. Karl had a tendency to lose things, one way or another, but here, in this world, losing his sword could quickly mean losing his life.

  Near the downhill edge of the clearing, Riccetti and Slovotsky slept under their blankets, their snores barely reaching Karl's ears.

  Beyond them, on a flat stone next to the smoldering remains of last night's fire, Ahira sat, drinking a cup of coffee, keeping watch over the sleeping form of the captive bowman. His head turned, and he lifted an aluminum Sierra cup in a silent invitation.

  Nodding gratefully, Karl walked down the gently sloping clearing, the morning dew clutching at his feet with damp, chilly fingers. That felt good, in a strange way; the clammy cold was a physical confirmation that his legs weren't numb.

  He glanced at the ashes of the fire as he seated himself on a flat rock, silently accepting a hot cup of coffee from Ahira.

  He shook his head. Ahira shouldn't have been so careless with the fire. Maybe, by adding enough tinder and kindling, they could tease the embers back into a roaring fire, but maybe not. And they had only a couple of books of matches left. Once those were gone, the only way they would have to light fires would be with flint and steel. Which was a pain, no matter how easy his old Boy Scout manual had made it look.

  *I imagine it is. But if I were you, I wouldn't worry about it. Consider for a moment the fact that the fire is dead, but the coffee is hot.* Beyond a stand of trees, a gout of orange flame roared skyward. *Think it through.* Another blast of fire cut through the lightening sky.

  Karl sipped his coffee. It was just the way he liked it: too sweet for most people to stomach, with just a touch of creamer. "Ellegon? Just take it easy on me, please? I don't think all that well in the morning."

  Ahira chuckled. "Who does?" He sobered. "Sleep well?"

  "No." He looked down at his right hand. Somebody had washed the blood from it while he slept, but there were dry, reddish-brown flecks under his nails and in the hairs on the back of his hand. "Had a few bad dreams."

  "I can't feel too sorry for you; I was up all night."

  "Slovotsky didn't relieve you?"

  The dwarf shrugged his improbably broad shoulders. "I didn't wake him. He's going to need his sleep. You too—you've got a long trip ahead of you. We're short of almost every kind of supply, and somebody's going to have to go into Metreyll and do some shopping." He furrowed his heavy brows, peering up at Karl. "And scouting—we've got to figure out what to do when the armsmen are missed. To do that, we've got to know what the situation is, in Metreyll. Yes?"

  "Not really. We really have a way to fix things so we don't get blamed: We leave the dead men where they are, and put a sword in the hand of the dead slave." I wish I knew your name. I'm sorry, whoever you are, but you don't have any further use for that body. As a decoy, it might help to save our lives. "If anyone comes around to investigate, he'll have to decide that the slave had turned to fight, driving one off, killing the other three; their horses just wandered away."

  Ahira snorted. "You do wake up slow—the locals are going to think that an unarmed, half-starved slave killed three swordsmen?"

  "As long as there aren't any other suspects around, they will. Either that, or they'll have to decide that somebody, for no apparent reason, came from God knows where to the slave's defense."

  "Hmm. That doesn't sound likely."

  "No, it doesn't. Happens to be true, that's all. Occam's Razor, Ahira. Most people use it all the time, even if they can't tell you what it is." Karl drank some more coffee. "Got another idea?"

  "No."

  "Then let's give mine a try."

  "Agreed." The dwarf nodded. "Andrea, Riccetti, and I will take care of it. We'll keep their horses, yes?"

  "Yes." Not that the poor assortment of fleabags would be of much use. "But there's something you're missing," Karl said. "We're low on healing draughts. Someone has to go over to the tabernacle and see if we can pry some loose. Besides, I want to see how Doria's doing."

  Ahira nodded. "I'll give it a try. Tomorrow. Although . . . the Matriarch did say we're on our own. No more help. And that could mean—"

  "That they won't give us any. Not that they won't sell us some. We do have the coin Walter and I took off Ohlmin—"


  *Only because I brought it here. You abandoned it near the Gate Between Worlds.*

  Karl ignored the dragon and spoke to Ahira. "We should be able to meet their price."

  "You hope. I'll check it out. And see how Doria is. If I can. You get the Metreyll shopping trip."

  "Agreed." Karl stood. "I'd better go saddle up my horse and get going."

  "No." Ahira shook her head. "Not until dark. You're taking Walter with you."

  "I know," Karl said, irritated, "that you don't know much about horses, but putting two men our size on one isn't good for a horse, even when there's no hot sun beating down. And we can't take one of the new horses; they might be recognized. So I'd better ride in alone, just me and my horse. I like her. She did good, yesterday."

  *Meaning that I didn't.*

  Exactly.

  Ahira scowled. "First of all, you're not taking your horse; Ellegon's going to fly both of you over tonight, and drop you off outside Metreyll. I want Walter to go along, to keep an eye on you. You've got a tendency to get into trouble." He swigged the last of his coffee, then set the aluminum cup down gently on a flat stone. "As far as Ellegon goes, Karl, I wish you'd learn to be a bit more patient with the people you care about.

  "I had a long talk with Ellegon last night. He had his reasons. Dammit, Karl, that dragon may be more than three centuries old, but by dragon standards, he's still a baby. You don't expect a child to do the right thing, not when he's scared out of his wits."

  "And what the hell did he have to be scared about? All those soldiers had were bows and swords. Nothing for him to be afraid of."

  *There was so. I'll show you.*

  "Don't." Karl stood. "Stay out of my mind." Ellegon had opened his mind to Karl before, letting Karl feel what it had been like to be chained in a Pandathaway sewer for three centuries. A dragon's mind couldn't edit out familiar smells the way a human's could. Three centuries of stench . . . "Maybe you had a good reason. Just tell me, for God's sake."

  *Very well, then—*

  "No." Ahira shook his head slowly. He lowered his voice. "Karl has to learn not to make snap judgments, Ellegon. It could get any number of us killed. Show him. Now."

  Don't—

  Ellegon opened his mind . . .

  * * *

  . . . and flew. That was the secret, after all: Alone, his wings weren't strong enough to lift him; he had to reach inside and let his inner strength add itself to the lifting power of his fast-beating wings.

  Slowly, he gained altitude, as he circled around the craggy vastness of Heiphon's reaches until the ledge where he had been born was far beneath him, the hardened shards of his shell only vague white flecks, barely discernible.

  Ellegon worked his wings more rapidly, until the wind whistled by him. He began to tire, and let the frantic beating of his wings subside until they barely kept him flying. Then it occurred to him that if his wings weren't sufficient, possibly they were superfluous; perhaps his inner strength alone could support him in the air. So Ellegon curled his wings inward, and lifted even more with his inner strength.

  And dropped through the sky like a stone.

  In a panic, he spread his wings against the onrush of air and worked them, scooping air from in front and above, whisking it behind and below.

  For a moment, it seemed as though his frenzied effort had no effect, but then the craggy peak slowed its menacing approach, stopped, and began to fall away.

  Another lesson learned, he thought. It seemed that his inner strength couldn't support him all by itself, either. It would have been nice if there were someone to tell him that, instead of letting him learn by trial and error.

  But that is the way it is for dragons. We have to learn for ourselves. It didn't occur to him to wonder how he knew that, or how he knew that he was a dragon.

  A mile below him, a gap in the clouds loomed invitingly. He eased the frantic beating of his wings until he started to lose altitude and dropped slowly through the gap, letting the cottony floor of clouds become a gray ceiling.

  Below him, lush greenery spread from horizon to horizon, broken only by the brown-and-gray mass of the mountain called Heiphon, a blue expanse of water to the south, and a dirty brown tracing that wormed its way across the grassland, through the forest.

  What was that brown line? It cut across the forest and dirtied the tops of the rolling hills, sullying the greenery. It had to be unnatural, as though someone or something had deliberately chosen to make the land ugly.

  He couldn't understand that. Why would anyone spend time on the ground soiling the greenery, when one could fly above it and enjoy it?

  Ridiculous. He eased back with his inner strength, spreading his wings as he glided in for a closer look. There was something moving on the dirt line . . .

  There. A strange sort of creature, indeed. Six legs and two heads; one head long and brown and sleek, the other pasty flesh only partly hidden by greasy fur.

  No, he was wrong. It was two creatures, not one. Both four-legged, although the smaller one's forelegs were stunted. If it got down on all fours, its backside would stick up in the air. No wonder it chose to ride on the back of the other; even a creature as ugly as that would not want to look more foolish than necessary.

  But why did the larger one carry it? Perhaps the smaller was the larval form, and the larger its parent.

  He flew closer, and as he did, their minds opened before him. Ellegon began to understand. The smaller creature was a Rheden Monsterhunter; at least, that was what its small mind said. And the larger had no choice about carrying it; it was compelled to, under threat of leather and steel.

  Another absurdity. No matter; Ellegon would end the silliness, by eating them both.

  As he stooped, the Rheden Monsterhunter's head snapped up. It reached for a strange contraption: two sticks, one bent, the other straight. That was a bow and arrow, but what was dragonbane?

  The Rheden Monsterhunter pulled back the arrow, and then released it. The stick flew toward Ellegon.

  He didn't bother flaming it, and there was no point in dodging it. He was a dragon, after all; surely this puny stick couldn't hurt him.

  Its oily head sank into his chest, just below the juncture of his long neck. A point of white-hot pain expanded across his torso.

  Ellegon fell.

  He crashed through the treetops, branches snapping under his weight, not slowing his fall. The ground rushed up and struck him; his whole body burned with a cold, cruel fire that faded only slowly to black.

  When he awoke, a golden cage surrounded his face, a golden collar clamped tightly around his neck. He lay on his side on the hard ground, his legs all chained together. Tentatively, he tried to flame the chains, using just a wisp of the fire of his inner strength. He screamed as his neck burned.

  Safely beyond his reach, the Rheden Monsterhunter stood smiling. "It'll take me some days to rig a cart for you, dragon. But it will be worth it; they'll pay a fine price for you in Pandathaway."

  * * *

  Karl shook his head, trying to clear it. So, that was why Ellegon hadn't helped him. It wasn't really cowardice. It was sheer, unreasoning terror. Definitely unreasoning; if Ellegon had looked into the bowmen's minds, he would have seen that none of their arrows were tipped with extract of dragonbane. Dragons were nearly extinct in the Eren regions; the cultivation of dragonbane was a dying skill.

  But he couldn't. As a young dragon—no, as a child—he had been so badly hurt by that crossbow bolt that the thought of facing another dragonbane-tipped arrow chased all rationality from his mind. The pain of the bolt cleaving through his chest . . .

  *Yes. It hurt.*

  Karl looked down at his own chest. A wicked round weal over his heart stared back at him like a red eye.

  *Karl, I'm . . . sorry. I was just so scared.*

  It hadn't been fair to expect the dragon to leap to his aid. Ellegon wasn't an adult, not really. Applying adult standards to him was wrong. The dragon was a curious mix of infant and anc
ient: By dragon standards, three and a half centuries of age put Ellegon barely out of babyhood, but Ellegon had spent almost all of that time chained in a cesspool in Pandathaway.

  How do you handle a child who's frightened? Not by shutting him out of your life; that was clear. Maybe there wasn't a hard-and-fast rule, but the answer had to start with listening.

  Karl nodded. So I'll start listening now. "It's okay, Ellegon. My fault; I should have known you had your reasons. Are you sure that you're willing to fly us into—near Metreyll, once it gets dark?'"

  "I'll try, Karl. I'll try to do better, next time. I will."

  He sighed. "See that you do," he said out loud, while his mind murmured, I know you will.

  Ahira stared up at him, his heavy brow furrowed. The dwarf sat silently for a moment. "I've written down a shopping list, some of the things we're going to need. All of us had better go over it."

  "No problem. Something else on your mind?"

  Ahira nodded. "What are we going to do about Riccetti? He's practically helpless in a fight, and I'm willing to bet that we're going to go through more than a couple before this is all over."

  "Sorry, but there's no easy solution to that one. As soon as I get back, I'll start him on swordsmanship. But I can't make a swordsman out of him overnight. At best, it'll be months before he develops any kind of proficiency. Mmm . . . he's not left-handed, is he?"

  "No. Why?"

  He sighed. "It doesn't matter, then. Lefties have an edge in swordplay, just as they do in tennis, back home. The rest of us aren't used to having the blade come from the other side. It's—" He stopped himself. Of course. An opponent's unfamiliarity was a huge advantage; it had helped a Japanese police society disarm numerous samurai at the end of Japan's feudal era. But the name of the weapon they carried—what the hell was it called?

  It hovered just at the edge of his mind. A length of chain, weighted down at both ends—

  *Manriki-gusari.*

  Thanks. But how did you know?

  *I read minds, fool.*

  Ahira laughed. "Get some breakfast. And take it easy for the rest of the day; you'd better be on your toes in Metreyll. Karl?"