Dragon Rescue (25 page)

They crossed wide Cristol River during the middle afternoon.

This great stream almost divides Carolna into northern and southern halves, Findles explained to the boy. Retruance turned to follow its course eastward until they reached the confluence of the Cristol and Overhall Stream some time well after midnight. The Prince had fallen into a deep, child’s sleep. Manda had tied him to Retruance’s forward right ear for safety.

“What are you thinking about, my love?” Manda asked Tom.

They watched dawn come up off toward Lexor and Rainbow.

“Water,” he answered. “A major concern for those of us who live on the edge of a desert.”

“Oh, you mean Findles’s ideas about water flowing deep under Hiding Lands? What use is it to us at Hidden Lake Canyon?”

“Not so much at Hidden Lake, but it was never my intention that we should live alone and isolated, always, there. How to get farmers to take up our land and make it green and grow? What if we were to draw up water from below the desert itself?”

“It would all evaporate away in the heat,” she replied, quite reasonably.

“Maybe...and maybe not. In my home world, men cleverly dug wells or diverted rivers and made dry deserts bloom. Given a reliable, year-round supply of water, we could grow crops right in the middle of Hiding Lands and attract good, practical farmers like Ffallmar’s to come and establish their own Achievements near us.”

“A very pleasant thought, even if it’ll rather spoil the peace and quiet I love so at our lake,” murmured his wife. “If it’ll work, that is.”

“Worth trying someday. First, we want to build our house. Murdan says Clem and Mornie are already at Ramhold. When we finish with the Rellings I’d like to go back to the canyon with Clem and begin building. Start digging and pouring foundations before springtime...if you can be there, Retruance.”

“Papa will be completely well by then, yes,” answered the Dragon, who had been listening, as Tom knew he would be. “I’ll come with you, of course! Probably Furbetrance and his Hetabelle, too. More hands, quicker done!”

“It’ll be nice having Mornie and the boys with us. We have Fall Sessions first, of course,” Manda reminded him.

“I’d forgotten! It’ll be a long and busy Sessions this year, what with the war and all.”

Murdan called over to them to look ahead where Overhall had just come into view as the sun rose out of the distant Blue.

“It’s a special pleasure to see home after a long, arduous adventure,” he said to the Ice Dragon sentimentally.

“So it is,” agreed Hoarling. “I look forward to deep summertime sleep myself. Winter’s
my
kind of time and place.”

Manda began pointing out the local sights to her just-awakened half brother, who fairly jumped with excitement as they gazed down on farms and fields, orchards and woodlots and trout streams, and the magnificent castle towers, gay with pennants and flags and banners.

“There are three towers,” she told him. “Fore-tower—that’s where Uncle Murdan has his apartments. Middletower—that’s where we have our place, me and Tom...”

“Tom and I,” the Librarian corrected her.

“Well...and that’s where the nursery and library are, and the work-room of the late, great Dragon architect, Altruance.”

“My own grandfather,” put in Retruance proudly.

“What’s in the third tower?” the boy asked.

“Aftertower,” said Manda. “Uncle Murdan uses it for storage and as a prison, sometimes. Your great uncle Peter is living there just now.”

“Ugh! I was hoping he’d stay in exile for a century or so,” said Tom, making a face.

Ednoll thought this very amusing, and wanted to know what else was housed in the wonderful tall towers. Tom told him of the time he and Retruance had sneaked into the castle after it’d been captured by Mercenary Knights to find Altruance Constable’s construction plans—

and a way to drive the Mercenary Knights from Overhall by diverting Gugglerun into the castle itself.

Overhall was fairly brimming with people and excitement.

Word from the front was of sharp skirmishing near the northern city walls between Carolna’s forces and the Relling invaders. The Rellings and their remaining allies had concentrated to the north of the city and at first refused to give way. At the moment they had begun to retreat, according to daily messages received from Eduard by pigeon post.

The smaller force that had attacked Overhall was slowly retreat-ing also, raiding and marauding as they fled, burning farms and villages whose men had gone to fight around Lexor. The womenfolk had run from their homes, many of them coming to Ffallmar Farm and Sprend, and even to Overhall Castle, for safe refuge.

“They need a second lesson in Dragon war,” decided Retruance, a hard gleam in his eyes. “I think I’ll see if I can convince them to go away quickly and permanently.”

“They fight on because they’ll never make it back to their own country before the northern winter sets in,” said Murdan. “I’ve a plan.

It’ll serve two purposes.”

He sent Tom and Retruance, accompanied by Hoarling, who was going that way anyway, loaded down with his fee for assisting them, to herd and harass the raiders to Plaingirt, the deserted log-walled town that had once been the stronghold of Basilicae’s soldiers for hire.

Isolated here, they’d be allowed to settle in for the winter, unable to rejoin the main Relling force in their own withdrawal. In spring they would be allowed to return to their frozen Northlands homes, never to return again.

Murdan guessed that a number of them would elect to stay in Plaingirt. A deserted town was always a temptation to soldiers weary of fighting. True, he admitted, they might be a problem in the future, if the wrong sort took the leadership there.

“We’ll have to see to it that the ‘wrong sort’ doesn’t get control.”

said the Historian. “The Rellings as a whole are not a wicked people—

just adventurous and restless at times. A few of them in a nice, solid little town like Plaingirt might be a welcome addition to that part of Eduard’s kingdom. They might even appreciate good government, for a change.”

“You’re far too lenient with them,” complained Retruance. “They started this war. They deserve to be punished more than just a little for it. We can drive them right into the North Blue, if you and the King but say the word.”

“Only Eduard Ten is empowered to make such decisions. The important thing is, the King and Ffallmar can use you at Lexor. Men are being hurt and killed there, yet. Secure this raiding party at Plaingirt, leave some of Manda’s foresters to watch them over winter, then report to the King at the capital.”

After seeing the Relling raiders, short on weapons and nearly out of food, safely holed up and snowed in at Plaingirt, Tom and Retruance flew to Lexor to find the King and Ffallmar.

“We’re preparing a major counterattack against the remaining enemy in the hills just to the north of the city,” Ffallmar told Tom.

“Do we call you general, now?” Tom teased the Historian’s solid, bucolic son-in-law.

“No, no! I’m but a patriotic countryman,” answered Ffallmar, blushing. “I just did what I could to relieve the capital and assist the kingdom. Somebody had to take charge.”

“No matter what he says, I’ve made him a Baron-Knight and commander in chief of all my forces, outranking everyone except me,” said King Eduard. “He’s superb in the field, understands his enemy almost as well as he does his own men. Never has the Carolnan militia fought better or served so willingly, even against great odds.”

“They fight for their families, homes, and lands, just as I do,” said the modest farmer-soldier. “I admit it’s nice to hear people call me

‘Lord Ffallmar’ once in a while. It’ll sound nice when they introduce My Lord and Lady of Ffallmar at the Sessions Ball next month.”

rs

The Battle of Near Hills proved sharp but mercifully short.

With the Dragons appearing early in the day, striking justifiable terror in many Relling hearts, the forward works were stormed and the makeshift defenses scaled and breached in double-quick time.

“I suspect,” said Tom to Eduard during an afternoon lull in the attack, “that they have already made their plans to escape.”

“I have that feeling, also. What can our Dragons tell us?”

Retruance and the Ice Dragon went aloft to have a look behind the Rellings’ ragged lines and returned to say that it was packed to overflowing with armed men, moving off to the north.

“And they’ve packed wagons with all sorts of loot,” Hoarling added.

“Their stolen horses are in the traces, even now!”

“Then you’re right,” said the King to Tom. “They’re preparing to break off, taking at least some of their spoils home with them.”

“That’ll be their downfall, then,” exclaimed the Librarian. “Order the final assault, Lord King. Leave the wagons to us Dragons and Companions!”

When the Carolnan soldiers burst into the inner fortifications, hastily thrown up by much hard digging, they found the Rellings were even then escaping in good order, taking the heavily loaded wagons with them.

Soldiers spent more effort pushing the carts through the drifts still blocking the woodland road north of Lexor than they did fighting Ffallmar’s cheering troops pouring into their camp in triumph.

Grand Blizzardmaker rode in one of the first carts, chuckling over the thick, soft robes and blazing gold, silver, and rare jewels he’d assigned to his own account, trusting his own loyal bodyguards to avoid pitched battie.

“On! On!” he screamed. “Whip those nags harder! Clear the way.

Head for home!”

Seeing all of their hard-won loot disappearing northward with their fat War Chief, many Rellings threw down their weapons, found dry places to rest from running and fighting, and waited to be captured.

Still, Blizzardmaker had a good chance to make his escape, moving quickly over roads his men had shoveled clear, working feverishly all the night before...until a dark-winged shadow fell over the sixty-odd horses, straining, cruelly lashed, pulling the ten remaining wagons filed with heavy plunder.

One sensible lead mare stole a glimpse upward.

Barely ten feet over her head she saw gleaming emerald claws, long and curved and thin and sharp as scythes. She felt a fiery breath on her neck.

Before her wild eyes, a deep snowbank melted to steaming, stream-ing water in a flash.

Screaming in abject terror, she bolted sideways into her off-side teammate, who slipped on the icy road and fell on her side, tangled hopelessly in the leather harness.

The following pair pulled up to avoid piling into the tangled heap of struggling legs and screaming horseflesh.

The wagon they had been pulling lurched wildly, and the enormously fat Relling War Chief pitched headfirst into the snowbank on the right-hand side of the road.

He never touched frozen ground. When he opened his eyes and shut his mouth from a long, drawn-out scream, he was being carried aloft by shiny green talons, high into the cold air, away from the city he’d hoped to sack and burn and rule.

No one ever really discovered what became of Grand Blizzardmaker.

He was never seen again in Carolna or in the Northlands.

Retruance told Tom years later that a certain floating iceberg had been washed ashore on a rocky island in the central Blue, a lonely, stormy place in the widest part of the eastern sea.

The island fishermen found a crazed, all-but-frozen man clinging to a last bit of shattered, wave-washed sea ice. They kindly nursed him back to health, if not complete sanity, the Dragon said. The crumpled, wizened old derelict couldn’t even remember his name.

The self-reliant fisherfolk gave him a new name, and healthful, useful work drying and mending their nets and packing salt herring.

They thought his great rolls of fat had kept him just barely alive in his months adrift. He slimmed down considerably while a cast-away, Retruance had heard.

“Heard rumors also that the Relling Allmoot proclaimed the Grand Blizzardmaker an outlaw. Not for his failing of victory in battle, but for deserting his men and attempting to steal away with their loot,”

Retruance snorted in disgust. “Hoarling listened in and had a great laugh about it.”

The King’s homeward way was a triumphal progress. Everywhere the women and children and the jubilant veterans from all the Small Achievements and farm villages lined the road to cheer their King and Queen, the little Prince and Princess, and their soldiers.

The route, which had taken but five days westbound, took them nearly twelve on the return trip. Every village and farmstead wanted to share the moment
of glory and
bask in the King’s warm smiles of gratitude.

In places, of course, there were solemn memorials to be observed, and the King’s royal presence made many a wife and child feel comforted for having lost their soldier in brave and worthy battle for King and Carolna.

Each of twelve nightly bivouacs called for a gala banquet, and every stop along the road to Lexor meant a speech or two or more.

Tom sent messages back to the few who remained at Overhall, describing the slowness of their march and the joy of the people, but promising to return to Overhall as soon as Fall Sessions were over.

The last day of their eastward progress was blustery with a soft and lovely fresh snowfall. The soldiers still under royal arms were those from Overhall, Morning-side, and Manda’s foresters of Greenlevel Forest, and the Royal Army, stationed at Lexor or at Frontier, a mere handful compared to the entire force that had responded to the call to arms.

All the same, they made an impressively long four-abreast line as they wound through Lexor’s west gate; tramped along broad Trusslo Avenue, lined with cheering citizens; and passed at nightfall into the bright, torch-lit and banner-decked Palace Square, which was located between Alix Amanda Alone Palace, with the great Sessions Hall opposite.

Little Prince Ednoll at once described his adventures all over again to anyone who would listen.

“Obviously, it didn’t harm him at all,” Eduard said to Beatrix.

“Oh, he had a
marvelous
time!” she said, laughing. “It was you and I who suffered, my beloved! Now, our Amelia wants to go spend the summer with Arbitrance Constable on his swampy redoubt island! She’s a little jealous of her brother’s adventuring, I’m convinced.”