Dragon Weather (27 page)

Everyone knew now that they had lost the first round of the gamble every caravan faced. Bandits had found them. They were walking into an ambush—but what choice did they have? They couldn't turn back. To the west lay mile upon mile of empty, lifeless sand; to the east the terrain grew ever more rocky and broken until it ended in immense cliffs above the Ocean Sea, where waves twice the height of a man smashed relentlessly against the jagged stone.

Bows were strung, oilcloth bundles of arrows unwrapped, swords polished, swordbreakers readied, helmets and breastplates donned, and maces brandished.

Arlian was annoyed to discover that his hat would not fit over his helmet, and the helmet provided no shade for his eyes. After some debate he settled on wearing the helmet.

As the others readied themselves, poor Knobs lay on his bedding in the masters' wagon; his mare followed wretchedly behind, at the end of a long tether. Every trace of the previous evening's jubilation was gone.

They trudged on much later than usual as the sunlight faded in the west, in an attempt to make up for lost time; there would be no chance to practice swordsmanship unless Black wanted to see what his pupil could do by firelight.

Arlian scanned the horizon, shading his eyes with his hand, when the call to stop was finally passed forward from the masters. “Where do you think that tunnel comes out?” he asked Quickhand.

The guard looked at him blankly. “I don't know,” he said. “Does it have to come out somewhere?”

“Well, of course…” Arlian began.

Then he stopped. What if it
didn't
come out anywhere? What if it were just long enough for the archer to hide in? They might have trapped him, had they known.

But no—that made no sense. Who would have built such a trap?

But where could the tunnel go? Not the southern slopes, surely; the bandits couldn't have burrowed under ten or fifteen miles of stone. The archer must have come out somewhere not far from the caravan—yet they had seen no sign of him.

Arian frowned. He didn't like any of this. These bandits were being altogether too clever.

He slept in his own wagon that night, despite the heat; no one was inclined to risk bedding down on the stone. It took him an unusually long time to doze off.

He was awakened in darkness by a shout and the bellow of a wounded bull; he knew instantly that dawn had not yet come, yet he heard voices calling. He climbed to his feet and made his way out of the wagon by touch.

The moon had risen while he slept, and its light was eerily bright on the sand to the west; to the east the occasional patches of drifted sand shone palely against the dark stone, and shapes were distorted and hard to recognize in the maze of light and shadow, but he could see someone running.

Then the running figure vanished, just as two more figures appeared, pursuing the first.

Arlian leaped down, sword in hand.

The two figures slowed to a walk, moving forward cautiously; Arlian could see that they, too, held drawn swords. They came to a stop near the point where the first had vanished and conferred inaudibly, then turned and headed back toward the caravan.

“What happened?” Arlian called quietly.

One figure veered toward him, and he recognized Black.

“The bastard picked off two of our oxen,” the head guard said in disgust. “The sooner we get off this plateau and out of these rocks and meet these blackguards openly, the better I'll like it.”

“Another tunnel?” Arlian asked, pointing toward the spot where the fleeing figure had disappeared.

“So it seems,” Black said. Then he realized who he was addressing. “Go back to bed, my lord,” he said. “We should reach the southern slopes tomorrow afternoon, and that's when we can expect to face something more than a few arrows. You'll want to be rested.”

Arlan looked at the colorless landscape, at the black emptiness where the bandit had vanished. There was nothing useful he could do; reluctantly, he obeyed Black's command.

He awoke at dawn, as usual, and the caravan was rolling again before the sun had cleared the horizon. One ox was bandaged but mobile; another was dead, and was unceremoniously dumped atop the opening where the archer had vanished.

The ground was sloping downward now, and treetops were visible in the distance—but trees unlike any Arlian had ever seen before, with long, slender trunks supporting clusters of immense fronds. They grew steadily nearer as the day wore on.

The rough stone turned gradually into something resembling a real road as the morning progressed—they were moving down a gravel-bedded wash between two stony ridges. The sand was no longer visible to the west.

Around midday a man appeared, strangely dressed in a flowing robe, strolling easily across the gravel toward them; Black beckoned for a horseman to go meet this new arrival and report back.

The rider conferred briefly with the stranger, then rode back to report. Arlian handed the reins to Quickhand, jumped down from his own wagon, and ran forward to hear what was said—not merely for his own information, but so he could pass the word to the other merchants while the rider reported directly to the masters.

“He's offering us safe passage,” the horseman explained. “For one-fourth of everything we carry.”

Black nodded. “Go tell the masters,” he said. The rider saluted and rode off.

“One-fourth?”
Arlian exclaimed, shocked, still walking alongside the guard wagon.

“That's the point of those archers,” Black replied. “If we'd come this far unmolested we would have just laughed at such a demand. Now at least some of us will want to consider it.”

“
I
won't,” Arlian said.

“And of course that settles it,” Black said. “I hadn't realized you were the caravan master; when did that happen?”

Arlian flushed, and said nothing more. Instead he turned and began walking back, calling out the news to each wagon as he passed.

At last he came to the masters' wagon; the side shutters were open, and the masters were arguing in the center. Knobs lay abed at the rear; two guards were on the rear platform, and two—one of them driving the oxen—on the front bench.

“I've passed the word,” Arlian said.

Lord Sandal turned to look at him. “And what are the sentiments of our fellow merchants?”

“I don't know,” Arlian admitted. “I didn't take time to ask.” He hesitated, then added, “
I
don't want to give in to extortion.”

“That's one,” Lady Thassa said.

“Out of forty-two,” Lord Drens said. “It proves nothing.”

“Are you proposing we take a vote?” Sandal demanded.

“No, of course not,” Drens said. “But it would do no harm to know what the merchants think.”

“Might I remind my lords,” Arlian said, “that my cargo is primarily fine weaponry. Turning one-fourth of it over to outlaws does not strike me as wise.”

“I
told
you we shouldn't have allowed him to bring those things!” Drens exclaimed.

“Sometimes,” Thassa said angrily to Drens, “I wonder why we brought
you.
”

“As the voice of caution, as I recall,” Sandal said wryly.

“A role I do my best to fill,” Drens retorted, “since neither of
you
seems to have any sense of self-preservation!”

Sandal sighed. “I had hoped we would be able to preserve the appearance of unity,” he said, “and present everyone with a unanimous decision. I take it, however, that this isn't going to be possible.”

“Not unless the two of you suddenly regain your sanity,” Drens said. “One-fourth of our goods is not worth my life.”

“You put little faith in Black and his men,” Sandal said dryly. “Not to mention our own capabilities with missile and blade.”

“I
know
my own abilities,” Drens said. “And one of those abilities is the ability to die if struck through the heart by one of those arrows!” He gestured at Knobs.

“And you seem far more able than I to trust these bandits to keep their word,” Thassa replied. “Why should they settle for a fourth, when by a simple betrayal they can have all? These are men who have already fired upon us from ambush, after all. I vote to refuse.”

“As do I,” Sandal agreed.

“Shall I tell Black?” Arlian asked.

“That's my job,” called a horseman. He urged his mount forward.

By the time Arlian reached his own wagon Black and the other guards in the lead vehicle were in their full armor, helmets, breastplates, and mail, their weapons at ready. Out ahead of them the bandits' representative was walking, pacing the advancing caravan at long bowshot.

“Give him our reply,” Black ordered, pointing.

Half a dozen men raised bows, and half a dozen arrows flew.

“But he's unarmed!” Arlian protested—too late. The outlaw fell, screaming, with an arrow in his thigh.

“By all the dead gods!” Black exclaimed. “You
hit
him! Good shooting!”

Arlian ran up alongside the lead wagon. “But he was just a messenger!” he called.

“He's a bandit,” Black said. “Besides, I just thought we'd scare him away—I didn't expect a hit at this range!” He marveled again at the sight of the wounded bandit lying on the gravel, clutching his leg.

“He can't take our response back to the bandits now,” Arlian said.

Black turned to stare at him. “And you think that's
bad?
” he said. “You
want
them to be warned?”

Arlian opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stopped walking, letting the wagon pull away.

Black turned to the horseman, ignoring Arlian. “Go see if he wants to surrender,” Black ordered. “And kill him if he doesn't.”

“Should I retrieve the arrows, if I see them?”

Black shook his head. “You'd have to dismount. We'll get them when the caravan reaches them.”

Arlian's own wagon came alongside him, and he jumped aboard. He hesitated, and then instead of seating himself next to Quickhand he ducked inside and found his helmet and mail.

The bandit surrendered and was lifted aboard the lead wagon, where Black questioned him intently—but quietly; Arlian could not overhear anything of the discussion.

Word was passed, though.

“They'll attack tomorrow,” Stabber told Arlian and Quickhand. “He swears he doesn't know exactly when, but Black says it'll probably be right after dawn, before we get out of this defile into open country. They've got plans to trap us and disable the wagons, but this boy didn't know any details.”

Arlian nodded, and Stabber moved on to the next wagon in line.

Quickhand sighed with relief. “Tomorrow,” he said. “That gives us time to prepare a little.”

Arlian nodded—but frowned.

When the messenger didn't return, wouldn't the bandits realize their man might have been captured alive? Would they really expect him to have kept his mouth shut?

Arlian knew that had he been the bandit leader he would have had an alternate plan. He would attack
tonight.

But Black and the others must surely have thought of that.

For the next half hour they rode on in silence, but the thought that they were riding into a trap nagged relentlessly at Arlian, and finally he could stand it no more. He dropped to the ground and ran forward to catch Black's wagon.

Black listened calmly to Arlian's concerns, then nodded.

“You may be right,” he said. “But if they're planning to
trap
us, then they must have set it up well beforehand, and I doubt it could readily be moved. Still, we'll want to be very careful tonight.”

That did very little to allay Arlian's worries, but he reluctantly returned to his own wagon. He couldn't tolerate doing
nothing,
though, so despite the sweltering heat he again donned his mail shirt and helmet.

It was less than an hour later, while the sun still hung high above the western ridge, that the trap was sprung.

The gravel road had turned into the bed of a steep-sided canyon, sloping steeply downward between jagged, uneven stone walls; even with brakes set the wagons tended to slide forward on the loose gravel, and the oxen were holding the wagons back as much as pulling them, squalling unhappily about it. The animals could undoubtedly be heard for a mile in either direction, Arlian thought—and perhaps that had been what allowed the bandits to carry out their attack with such perfect timing.

Arlian had been watching his own oxen struggling to keep their footing, and keeping an eye on his wagon to make sure it wasn't going to slide out of control, when he happened to catch sight of a rock on the canyon wall that appeared to be moving under its own power.

He started to say something, to call a warning or a question, but then the rock tumbled free and a rope sprang up from beneath it, snapping taut.

More rocks tumbled, and more ropes appeared, and the gravel ahead of Arlian's oxen suddenly showered upward as an immense net burst up from concealment—
between
Arlian and the lead wagon.

Even as the oxen struggled to turn aside before plunging into this unexpected barrier, and the wagon slewed sideways on the gravel, Arlian saw what the bandits had done. Heavy ropes had been run up either side of the canyon, hidden behind outcroppings, stuffed down into crevices, or covered with loose stone, and on cue these ropes had been pulled, hard, snapping them up out of their hiding places.

And these cables supported a gigantic rope mesh extending the entire width of the canyon; when the ropes were pulled the top of the net sprang up to a height of ten or twelve feet, while the base remained hidden in the gravel. This net had been completely buried under the loose stone of the road, impossible to detect until it was too late.

On the other side of the net most of the guards had leaped from their wagon, which Black was struggling to stop; now they ran up to the net, blades naked in their hands.