Dragonbards (10 page)

“Most of the children want to train as
soldiers,” Garit said as he cut bread and cheese and cold meat.
“We’re still rounding up the horses that ran off during battle.
We’re going to get the farms working again. But come, the hot tea
will warm you. Put that pie on the tray, with the seedcakes. I want
to hear all that has happened. I want to hear how you found the
young dragons. How many are there? Oh, I have a hundred
questions.”

Back in the hall, the little owls crowded
around the hearth, chattering, waiting eagerly to pick seeds from
the round, flat cakes. Garit and Kiri set down their trays on a low
table before the fire. “Come,” he said, “make yourselves
comfortable.” He put his arm around Kiri, laughing down at her.
“You’re as fidgety as a colt. Some owls have gone to fetch Gram. Go
on, Kiri— go meet her.”

Kiri hugged him and ran out, her eager mind
filled with Gram. It had been only a few days, but it seemed like
forever. She ran across the courtyard and through the main gate,
and was halfway down the path when a flight of owls burst out of
the darkness. Right behind them was Gram, her cloak blowing away
from her thin body as she hurried along into the flickering
torchlight.

“Gram! Oh, Gram . . .” Kiri
grabbed Gram up in a wild hug, swallowing back tears. Gram squeezed
her so hard, Kiri forgot how frail the old woman was. Then Gram
held her away, to look her over.

“Only a few days,” Gram said, “but you look
different.” She studied Kiri’s face. “You look—oh, Kiri— all grown
up. You look wonderful.” Gram’s tears started, but she was smiling.
“You look very like what you are. The power—the power of the bard
shows, Kiri.” Gram’s eyes were bright and laughing. “The power of
the sky is in you. And the magic.”

*

When Marshy was warm and fed and yawning,
Teb sat down close to him and studied his serious face. Garit left
them, to brew more tea.

“Well,” Teb said, “let’s hear it.”

“I mean to go with you, to Aquervell.”

“You didn’t say anything when we were making
plans.”

“You wouldn’t have listened. You wouldn’t
have let me. You would have said I am too small and Iceflower is
too weak.”

“There is some truth in that.”

The little boy looked evenly at Teb. His
fists were clenched. “I must go. I am needed.” Teb remained still,
caught by Marshy’s urgency.

“I am a child, Tebriel. And that is why I
must go.”

Teb waited.

“If I were chained among the slave children,
I would look just like one of them.”

Teb’s jaw tightened.

“It might be the only way,” Marshy said.

“It’s too dangerous.” Teb studied Marshy’s
set face. “Think of this—if Kiri and I die there, or are captured,
there must be other bards to carry on in our place.”

“Camery and Colewolf.”

“And if they die in battle . . .
?”

“There is always that chance, wherever we
are.”

Marshy looked at Teb with a seriousness that
made Teb forget how young the child was. “I must go. I might get
hurt, Tebriel. But I am a bard. I have as much right as you to go
against the dark.”

Teb held Marshy’s shoulders, looking at him.
Marshy’s gray eyes stared back, steady and earnest.

“There’s something else,” Marshy said. “I
know something that neither of you know. I know where the slave
children are caged.”

“How do you know?”

“Hanni made a vision, just for the two of
us. We saw the children sleeping in cages.”

“And you mean to trade that information for
permission to go with us?” Teb shook his head, trying not to
smile.

But he knew he didn’t, truly, have the right
to stop Marshy. One bard did not hold authority over another.

Marshy looked back, waiting.

“Get to bed early,” Teb said. “Who knows
when we will sleep peacefully again in a safe country.”

Marshy hugged him, took a lantern from the
table, and went obediently to find an empty bunk. Teb knew that
once he was alone, he would speak in his mind to tell Iceflower.
When Teb turned from watching him, he saw Gram and Kiri standing in
the doorway, framed by an aura of torchlight. He went to them and
held Gram in a tight hug. She hugged him back, laughing. Gram had
helped him once, risking her own life, when he badly needed help.
He felt a special tenderness her courageous ways. And because she
was so dear to Kiri.

The little group had hardly settled before
the hearth when the hall doors burst open and three great cats, big
as wolves, came bounding in, surrounded by the little owls. Elmmira
leaped at Kiri, nearly knocking her down. The pale buff cat
pummeled her, growling and licking her face until Kiri doubled up,
laughing. When Elmmira backed off to look at her, her long whiskers
twitched. “You look fine, Kiri wren. Not too grand after all, even
if you do travel with dragons.”

Kiri hugged her. “Oh, Elmmira, it’s lovely
in the sky.”

Chocolate-brown Mmenimm snuggled close to
Garit, then reared up and began licking his neck. Black Jerymm
rolled over before Teb, his great paws waving in the air. But soon
the cats settled down, and everyone began asking the bards
questions.

Teb and Kiri told them everything that had
happened since they left Dacia. When they got to the part about
Sivich marching to attack Nightpool, and his soldiers being cut
down by Ebis the Black, everyone knew. An owl had brought the news
the night of the battle.

Teb said, “Sivich has sent for
reinforcements, to attack again. Camery and Colewolf are assembling
an army; there are owls on the way to tell you.”

“Then why are
you
here, if not to
bring the message?” Garit said. “What could be so urgent as to take
you away from destroying Sivich and winning back Auric?”

“We have learned that there are two more
bard children,” Teb said. “Thakkur brought a vision of them. They
are held as slaves, in the palace at Aquervell.”

The great cats stopped purring. No one moved
or spoke.

Teb described the white otters’ vision of
the drugged children.

“And you are headed for Aquervell,” Garit
said. ‘To free them.”

The owls were very still. Deep in their
round eyes, fear shone. The great cats stared unblinking at Teb and
Kiri, their eyes, too, filled with concern.

Those who enslave our nations come from
other worlds. What creatures might they bring through to help
them?

*

“What is it?” Teb asked. “What frightens
you? We know there is danger in Aquervell, but you look
. . .” He watched the owls shifting uneasily. And what
could frighten these great cats, who were such courageous
fighters?

Neeno folded his wings close to his body,
and looked back at Teb with round, serious eyes. “Quazelzeg has
brought a monster into Aquervell, from some distant world.”

“Ooo-ooo, something terrible,” said his
mate, Afeena. “A monster from beyond the Doors.”

“What kind of monster?” Teb said.

“We don’t know,” said Afeena.

“No one has seen it,” said Neeno. “It is
locked in a cave in the old quarry.” The little gray owl sat rigid.
“Quazelzeg’s soldiers have sealed the entrance with boulders. They
feed the monster through a hole at the bottom. Oooo, its smell is
so vile that even the winged jackals will not go near—though the
guard lizards do; they are drawn to the stink. We can hear the
monster through the wall of boulders, scrabbling at the stone.”

“We can hear it breathe,” said Afeena. “We
can hear its screams when it feeds. In another cave, behind iron
doors, they raise the food for it.”

“What is the food?” Teb said.

“They raise rats for it,” said Afeena.
“Thousands and thousands of huge rats, each as big as six of us.
They chase them into barrels and roll the barrels to the creature’s
cave door. They pull only one stone away, and chase the rats
through by banging on the barrel.”

“Ooo-ooo, it must be immense,” said Neeno,
“the number of barrels full of rats it eats.”

“When do they feed it?” Kiri asked.

“In the morning,” Neeno said. “At first
light.” The tiny owl walked around Kiri’s tea mug and flew to perch
on her shoulder. When Elmmira, sitting close to Kiri, lifted her
nose to the owl, he rubbed his beak against the tan cat’s
whiskers.

“Where is the quarry?” Teb said.

Garit took a clay pot from a shelf and
poured fine white sand onto the hearth for mapmaking. With a dulled
arrow from his quiver, he began to draw the coastline of Aquervell,
the city and harbor, the palace north, the old quarry beyond. North
of that lay a newer, open quarry, below the mountain where the big
flanged lizards lived. At the foot of the mountain was the cave of
the monster.

Neeno said, “The monster’s cave is perhaps a
mile north of the palace. The slave children are caged in the
palace courtyard. They are kept mind-dulled with cadacus.”

Teb nodded. “And it is with cadacus that we
will free them.”

The owls’ eyes widened.

“We will drug the monster,” Teb said, “and
drug the winged jackals that guard the palace.”

“And how will you avoid Quazelzeg’s
soldiers?” Garit said.

“Let’s hope the human ones are sufficiently
drugged on their own—and hope all of them are in the middle of
their orgies. How many slave children are there?”

“Maybe thirty,” said Neeno. “Ooo, maybe
more.”

“We’ll help any way we can,” Garit said. “We
have plenty of cadacus from King Sardira’s stores. We can work it
into raw meat for the jackals.”

“Well need a barge,” Teb said, “to get the
children away. The dragons can’t carry so many.”

“We’ll have a barge,” Garit said, “when and
where you say. And wagons to meet it.”

“Off the tip of Aquervell. From the night we
leave until . . . until we meet you.”

“How will we drug the monster?” Kiri
said.

“We’ll drug the rats they feed it,” said
Teb. “They should like cadacus cakes.”

Garit woke three of the ladies who helped in
the palace kitchen. They came out yawning, to set about making a
paste from flour and water, well laced with the white drug. They
spread this out on boards to dry, while the bards prepared drugged
meat for the jackals. The next morning, the drugged wafers were cut
into squares and packed into two leather bags. It was dawn when
they were finished. Musty old clothes had been found for all of
them. The owls said the winged jackals sniffed everyone, and that
was the smell they were used to.

Neeno chose four owls to fly with him and
Afeena, to serve as messengers. The bards could not rely on silent
speech, so close to the dark powers.

“The stone gate that closes the palace
courtyard is locked at night,” Afeena said. “The lock is made of
stone. Quazelzeg sleeps with the key on a chain around his throat.
The key to the children’s cage and their chains hangs somewhere in
the palace, perhaps the scullery.”

The bards meant to leave Dacia just at dark,
to come down over Aquervell late enough so Quazelzeg and his
captains would have turned their thoughts to their evening’s
entertainment. They made two plans, both depending on Neeno and
Afeena. If the two bard children were in the outdoor cage, the
dragons had only to melt the bars. They would be out of Aquervell
within an hour.

If the bard children were not there, the
owls would slip into the palace beneath a loose shutter and steal
the key, and Marshy would be locked in, chained among the slaves
with the key in his pocket. He would wait there until the bard
children were returned, then release them. If they were not
returned, the plan grew more difficult.

“How do we know there will be extra chains?”
Kiri said.

“There are always extra chains,” Neeno said.
“Many children die there.”

As we could die, Kiri thought. She could see
the worry in Gram’s eyes, but Gram always smiled brightest when she
was concerned. The great cats were very quiet as they rubbed
against them in a gentle farewell. The cats would leave at dark for
Nightpool, to join the other speaking animals in the raid on
Sivich.

Garit said, “You promised me once, Tebriel,
that I would be with you when you took Auric Palace.”

“But I won’t be there, either.” Teb cuffed
Garit’s shoulder. “I’ll make it up to you. You’ll be back in Auric
one day, training colts and youngsters there.” He hoped nothing
happened to Garit, waiting on that lonely barge.

When the bards loaded their bundles onto the
dragons’ harness, both Seastrider and Windcaller complained that
they felt like pack horses. Iceflower and Marshy remained silent.
They
carried no extra weight, only six small owls who, all
together, couldn’t weigh a full pound.

The dragons rose into the evening sky, the
owls clinging to Marshy’s shoulders, their feathers blown back.
They stared up with awe at the dragon’s huge, beating wings.

A thin moon was beginning to rise; the sky
was not yet dark. Before long they could see Aquervell, a wide
black smear of land spreading across the pale sea. The wind grew
cold. The little owls huddled down inside Marshy’s tunic. By the
time they reached Aquervell’s coast, the sky felt like ice. The
harbor lay below, dimly lighted.
When we leave Aquervell,
Teb said,
we’ll burn the ships, to keep them from following
us.
Beyond the harbor, Quazelzeg’s castle rose into the night
sky, lit by torches set along the high wall.

Pray that the children are in the
cage,
Teb said.

I am praying.
As they circled, Kiri
looked down at the slave cages and the little heaps of blackness
huddled inside. The jackals stared up at them from the courtyard
and the wall, their wings spread for attack. Teb undid a bag of the
drugged meat. As Seastrider dove, he dropped the pieces into the
courtyard. The moment the jackals smelled it, they began snarling
and fighting over it, their inky shapes thrashing among the
shadows. When two jackals flew up at Seastrider, she spit flame at
them. They dropped back, but others came. Teb knocked them away. He
didn’t want to use his sword, and have them dead or wounded for
Quazelzeg to see. One grabbed his arm and hung on. He hit it in the
face, then pulled its jaws open. It fought him, twisting in the
air. He freed his arm and threw the beast down to the pavement,
clenching his teeth with the pain of the bite. The owls hissed and
dove around him.