Dragonmaster (2 page)

Even more memories began to surface as he hunched in the poor shelter. He remembered his journey to the north to seek work when he was just a boy. Far too young, but desperate for some way to earn his bread. He remembered
the terror that had awaited him there. He remembered the first time he had seen Caulda attack, the fear and horror that followed it. He shivered again, but not from the cold this time.

What had he done?

C
atryn burst into the throne room where Dahl held court.

“He has gone, Dahl!” she cried. “Too soon! Too early! And it is my fault. I let him see my doubts.”

Dahl stayed her with an upraised hand. He turned to Coraun, his most trusted adviser, who stood at his side.

“Hear the rest of these requests, Coraun,” he ordered. “I will deal with them later.” Then he took Catryn’s hand and led her out of the room and up to his private quarters.

“Now we can speak,” he said, as Catryn paced frantically from one end of the small room to the other and then back again.

“I sensed it early this morning,” Catryn said, not breaking her stride. Her flame-coloured hair glowed as if on fire in the sunlight that fell through the window. “I felt his absence the moment I awoke. I looked for him in my seeing bowl and saw him in the forest, already far out of the safety of the Domain. He has gone to Caulda. I must stop him, but the Elders and the Protector will not allow it.”

“They are right, Catryn. You cannot interfere. Come, sit by me,” he entreated.

Reluctantly, Catryn stopped her pacing and threw herself down onto the couch beside Dahl. He let his hand rest briefly on her head, smoothing her hair, trying with the gesture to soothe her heart. There was much love between them. An impossible love. Dahl was King of Taun, but Catryn was Seer. Immortal. Not for her the love of a mortal man.

When Dahl ws a babe, the evil mage Launan had killed Dahl’s parents, the rightful King and Queen of Taun, and placed the newborn Usurper in Dahl’s place. Dahl was hidden by the Elders on a distant world, living in an inn, until he was old enough to return to battle the Usurper for his rightful legacy. The Usurper, guided by Launan, had developed into a cruel king who dominated Taun and ruled with a merciless hand, while Dahl had come into his manhood abused and neglected by the innkeeper, who had not known his true identity.

Catryn, the kitchen maid, had been the only person who was kind to him. When the Protector had told him it was time to return to Taun, Catryn had refused to let him go alone. Despite the Protector’s anger at her interference, she had clung to him and followed him into his world, and Taun had become her world, too. Without her help, he could not have overcome the Usurper. Her reward had been the gift of magic. It was a gift that she had desired, the whisperings of magic had always been strong within her, but it was double-edged. With it had come immortality—a barrier between Dahl and herself that could not be crossed, no matter how much they loved each other.

Catryn turned to Dahl now. “Caulda will kill him, Dahl. Every fibre of my being wants to follow him. To protect him.”

“That would be wrong,” Dahl answered, “and you know it. Else you would have gone already, even without the permission of the Elders and the Protector. You have never been one to obey where you felt you need not,” he added with a small smile. The smile faded as he went on. “Norl is a child no longer, Catryn. It is up to him to find his own fate.”

“But I have failed him,” Catryn cried. “I know there is magic within him, but I could not find the way to bring it out.”

“Perhaps it is up to Norl to find the way himself,” Dahl said. “You must leave him alone, Catryn.”

Catryn dropped her head, allowed it to rest briefly on Dahl’s shoulder. “Am I always to lose those whom I love?” she whispered.

“You have not lost me. I am here. I will always be here for you,” Dahl answered, but his eyes were troubled.

Norl dozed fitfully. With the first light of dawn he was wide awake again and now he was hungry. He ate some of the cheese and bread, took a few swallows of the strong ale and then shouldered his sack and left the shelter. The rain had stopped, the woods were bright with sunlight and birds filled the air with their song. Norl found himself enjoying the dark, rich smell of the earth underfoot and the wind
sighing in the tree branches above. Small animals darted out of his way and squirrels chittered at him indignantly. In the Domain of the Elders, where summer ruled everlastingly, flowers bloomed and the river ran smooth and pure, but the flowers gave forth no scent and no birds sang. No bitter winds blew, no icy rain fell. Here, in Taun itself, the world was imperfect. It was cold and often dangerous, but it was alive, full of life. Perhaps this was where he belonged after all. With ordinary people. Away from magic.

But hard upon that thought came another.

It will not be for long.

He began to walk. By late afternoon he had reached a village and he paused to take stock. A house on the edge of town had a small orchard beside it and a boy was up in one of the trees, picking the apples that grew in it. A woman stood below with a basket, calling up instructions. Even from where he was, Norl could see that she was red-faced and exasperated. Perhaps she would welcome a helping hand in exchange for supper and a night’s shelter; his bones still ached from the night he had spent on the forest floor.

I’ve been spoiled these past three years,
he thought ruefully. He made his way over to her.

“Good morrow, madam,” he said.

“Good morrow to you,” she replied, not taking her eyes off the boy in the tree.

“Could you use some extra help in exchange for food and a night’s lodging?” Norl asked.

Now she did turn to look at him. “That I could,” she said. “Can you climb a tree, young man?”

“Most certainly,” Norl replied. “When I was a child my mother could not keep me out of them.”

“Then join that devil’s imp in the top branches,” she said. “You can toss the fruit down to me.”

At that very moment a shower of the round, hard globes came cascading onto his head. The woman looked back up, her mouth twisting in exasperation.

“Have a care!” she cried. “Bruised fruit will spoil this winter.” She turned to Norl. “That child is the bane of the village.”

Rubbing his head, Norl was surprised to see the woman surreptitiously make the sign against evil. He peered up into the branches. A dirty face with bright, oddly-shaped eyes peered back down at him. The child wore a cap upon his head and scraggly curls stuck out from under it. The light filtering down through the leaves gave a curious greenish cast to his hair. Norl turned his attention back to the woman as she spoke again.

“I am Gudruna,” she said. “I will give you an evening meal and a blanket by my hearth for the night in exchange for a day’s work. The trees are mine and I earn my livelihood from the sale of the fruit. At least that devil’s imp up there costs me nothing for the work, slovenly though it is.”

Norl smiled at her. “I will work for you with pleasure,” he said. He doffed his cloak and threw his sack down on the
ground, then grasped the lowest branch and swung himself up. With a skill that depended not a whit on magic, he climbed handily up to where the child sat astride a branch.

“Who are you?” a defiant voice asked. The voice was high and clear.

Looking at the child more closely, Norl realized two things: the child was not as young as he had thought, and he was not a boy. This was a young maid gazing back at him with a curious, almost hostile look. Norl saw with a shock that her eyes shone strangely golden in the sunlight. For some reason, he felt a shiver of apprehension. Nevertheless, he gestured to the apple-laden branches.

“Would you like some help?” he asked. He dismissed his sudden misgivings as unreasonable. The maid could not have seen more than eleven or twelve summers—there was nothing to be afraid of here.

“No.” The girl’s mouth was set, lips thin. Then she looked down at Gudruna.

“Get to work or be off with you,” the woman shouted up at her.

“Here, let me show you how to toss the fruit down more gently. I think Gudruna would appreciate that,” Norl said, but even as he spoke he wondered why he bothered. He could do the job himself; why should he offer to help this disagreeable child?

The girl looked once more at Gudruna, then shrugged her shoulders. “If you wish,” she muttered.

Norl raised an eyebrow, then shrugged in his turn and they set to work. They picked until the tree was clean and Gudruna had filled two more baskets, then they moved on to another. By sunset Norl’s muscles were aching with the unaccustomed work, but he was more content than he had been in a long time. This was work that was familiar to him. Work that he could do and do well. He had tried to talk to the girl but she was a suspicious maid and would not answer him. Once she had settled down, though, she was a quick and efficient worker and they harvested a goodly amount.

“I thank you,” Gudruna said as he climbed back down from the last tree. The girl leaped out of the branches and landed beside them lightly and with surprising grace.

Gudruna picked two bruised apples off the ground and held them out to her. As the child reached to take them and her fingers were about to touch Gudruna’s, the woman dropped the fruit. She took a step backward and waved her hand at the apples.

“Take them,” she snapped. “And begone with you.”

The girl snatched up the apples, gave an angry, sideways glance at Norl and then disappeared into the trees behind Gudruna’s hut.

“Spawn of the devil, that child is, I’m certain of it,” Gudruna said as she led him to the door. “She should be run out.”

“Why?” Norl asked.

“There’s something not right about her. A whiff of evil itself.”

“But you let her work for you,” Norl said.

“Because I do not have to pay,” Gudruna answered defensively. “I’m a poor woman. I have to save where I may. Come in with you, then.”

Norl paused for a moment and stared into the trees, but there was no sign of the strange child.

Nor was there any sign of her when he took his farewell the next morning. Gudruna’s supper had been meagre and she had offered him nothing to break his fast this morning, but at least he had slept warm and dry. As he made his way out of the village, he thought once of the girl, then forgot about her. Every step was taking him nearer to Caulda. That consideration filled his mind to the exclusion of everything else.

G
udruna had given him a few apples—bruised ones, he noted—and he munched on those as he made his way along a path that rose through the trees. He did not stop until late that afternoon, when he came upon a clear, fast-running stream. He drank deeply, then dropped his pack beneath a tree near a clearing and went back into the woods to set about snaring a hare for his dinner. He had not forgotten how to accomplish that, but by the time he had succeeded, the sun was setting and the shadows were growing long.

He made his way through thick underbrush back to where he had left his pack, his mind so full of the doom that almost certainly awaited him that he hardly noticed where he placed his feet. As he broke out of the woods and reached the stream, he heard a cry that startled him out of his thoughts. There, beside the stream, crouched the girl from the village, shouting at something or someone.

At the same moment he heard a snort. A boar peered
out from the edge of the trees at the other side of the clearing. It was pawing the ground, challenging her. Even from this distance, Norl could see its blood-red eyes, inflamed with fury. As he watched, it lowered its head and raked at the ground with wickedly pointed long tusks. Then it snorted again, raised its head and charged.

Norl did not stop to think, did not even realize he had moved, but suddenly he was in front of the girl, braced to meet the crazed animal. He staggered as a wave of rage surged toward him. It enveloped him, clouded his mind—he felt his head fill with the insane red frenzy. Then, without willing it, he felt his mind gather the fury, bind it and hurl it back.

The boar stopped in its tracks as if it had been speared. For one long moment the animal stared at Norl and Norl stared back, keeping the wall of fury between him and it. Incredibly, the boar turned and melted back into the trees.

Norl stood frozen for one long moment more, then his knees buckled and he sank to the ground.

“How did you do that?”

The girl was staring at him, wide-eyed and incredulous.

Norl could not answer. His stomach churned and he knew if he spoke he would be sick. He motioned her away.

She backed over to the tree where he had left his pack, not taking her eyes off him for a second.

When he had himself under control, he dared to stand again. He stumbled over to the stream, knelt and plunged his head into the icy water. Then he sat back and shook his head like a dog to clear it. His mind felt bruised. Finally, he looked to where the girl stood, still staring at him.

“I did nothing,” he said. He refused to believe what had just happened. “The animal backed off.”

She shook her head. “No,” she insisted. “I saw it. I saw you command it to go.”

“I did nothing!” Norl repeated, but the words came out loud and shaking. He jumped to his feet. “What are you doing here? Did you follow me?”

The girl lifted her chin. “I did,” she said.

“Why?” he demanded.

“I had to leave the village,” she said.

“Why?” he demanded once again. His voice was rough—angry—but he could not yet master it.

“They will do me harm if I stay.”

“Why would they want to do that?” But even as he asked the question, Norl remembered Gudruna making the sign against evil.

“Because I’m different,” the girl said.

Norl shook his head again. He could not think. Could hardly make sense of what she was saying.

“I want to come with you.”

The words had no meaning for him.

“I want to come with you,” she repeated. It sounded more like a demand than a request.

This time Norl understood. This ill-tempered maid was actually expecting him to take her with him?

“No,” he snapped. “That is impossible. You know not where I go—what I must do.”

“That doesn’t matter. I will be better off with you than if I return to the village. Besides, it might be that I could help you.”

“Help me?” Norl snapped. “Help me?” he repeated. “How could
you
possible help
me?
”

“Be that as it may, I cannot go back to the village. Two boys stoned me yesterday.” She pulled up one sleeve of her tunic. Norl saw purple and yellowish-green bruises that extended from her elbow up to her shoulder and disappeared into the fabric that covered her thin chest.

Norl was shocked at the sight. “Did Gudruna not come to your aid?” he asked.

“Come to my aid? It was she who set them onto me. I went back to the orchard to pick up some windfalls and she caught me at it. If I return she will set the whole village against me. It would not take much—they distrust me already.”

Then the defiance went out of her voice and she sagged. For a moment she seemed naught but a child again. A frightened child. Norl found himself weakening. As if she sensed it, she hurried on.

“Just a little way. I will be no trouble to you.” The defiance had disappeared; there was a desperate note to her voice now.

Norl could not hold out against it. He looked again at the bruises. He could not, in truth, send her back to that village. Nor could he just leave her in the forest.

“Come with me, then,” he said reluctantly. “But only for a little way…Perhaps you might find work as a maidservant in another village—”

“It would not take them long to turn against me as well, but that will be enough for now,” she said, cutting off his words before he could say anything else. “Will you stay the night by this stream?” she asked. “Will you make a fire?”

“I…I do not have flint or steel…” Norl answered, taken aback.

“Where have you been living, then?” she asked. “By the look of your soft hands you haven’t been using them much, have you?”

Norl glanced down at his hands and then hid them quickly behind his back.

“No point hiding them now,” the girl teased, suddenly laughing. “I had too good a chance to see them up in the trees. Stay, then. I’ll make the fire.” She began to busy herself with gathering twigs and branches. As Norl watched, she made a small cone of finely shredded twigs and some dried grass, then pulled out a flint stone and steel from a pouch tied at her waist. She struck the flint on the steel to produce a spark, and after only a few tries the twigs ignited. She added more twigs and then larger branches. Soon, she had a fire burning merrily. She looked up to where Norl stood, watching uselessly.

“Did I not say I could be of help?” she taunted.

Norl was abashed. So used was he to the world of magic in which he had been living that he had not even thought of how he would make a fire to roast the hare. To cover his embarrassment, he spoke curtly.

“Where did you get those?” he asked, pointing to the pouch where the girl had carefully replaced the flint stone and steel.

“I stole them from Gudruna,” she answered calmly. “She is amply supplied and will not miss them. She is by no means as poor as she makes out.”

“So you are a thief,” Norl said. “Perhaps that is why the villagers turn against you.”

The girl scowled. All traces of laughter gone now, her eyes glowed like sparks in the firelight.

“I steal to survive only,” she said. “If no one will help me, I must help myself.”

Norl had no answer for that. He remembered only too well how it felt to have the claws of hunger gnawing at his innards. For years he and his mother, Mavahn, had barely had enough to keep them alive. He would have stolen, too, had it come down to that—he had to admit it.

Shamefaced, he began gutting and cleaning the hare. Then he spitted it on a stick and set it to roasting. The fat sizzling down into the flames and the aroma of the cooking meat made his mouth water. The girl, too, watched it, licking her lips.

“It is long since I tasted freshly roasted meat,” she said.
“Bruised apples do not fill my belly near so well.”

Norl had time now to look more closely at her. What she was, he did not know, but this was no ordinary maid, of that he was certain. As he watched her, she reached to tuck a stray tendril of hair back up under her cap. In the firelight the lock gleamed oddly. His earlier feeling of apprehension rose within him again. His skin prickled. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Hhana,” the girl replied.

An unusual name, Norl thought, the way she pronounced it. She did not say “Hana,” as he had heard the name before, but spoke the word with a kind of extra breath at the beginning.

“Did your parents give you that name?”

“I had no parents. I named myself.”

“Hhana,” he repeated, trying to copy her.

She smiled a sudden, unexpected, fleeting grin.“Exactly so,” she said. “You are the first to say it properly.”

“Did your parents die, then?” he asked.

“I told you,” she replied, the smile fading. “I had no parents.”

“You must have…” Norl began.

“Why?” Annoyed again, there was an edge to her voice. “I have cared for myself for as long as I can remember.”

“Have you always lived in that village?” Norl’s questions were angering her, he could tell, but he could not help asking them.

She glared at him now, her eyes flashing. “I was found
there as a babe, Gudruna said. One of the village women cared for me for a while, but she turned me out as soon as I was able to fend for myself. When she realized…” She caught herself. “Beyond that, I know nothing and I do not care to know anything,” she finished defiantly.

“Who was she—the woman who cared for you?” Norl asked. “Would she not help you now?”

“Did you not hear what I said?” Hhana demanded. She picked up a small branch and threw it on the fire with such vehemence that sparks flew and the hare almost fell off its stick. “That woman turned me out when I was so small I could barely make sense of things, and she’s never lifted a finger to help me since. In fact, she’s one of the ones who whispers against me the most. Do you really think I would go begging back to
her?
”

Norl fell silent. She was an orphan, then. Just as he was. But she had not been lucky enough to find a foster mother. No one had helped her as he had been helped. He was surprised by a sudden surge of sympathy, but quickly turned away to hide it. No point letting her see it. Sorry for her or not, he had the distinct impression that she would grasp any advantage he gave her without mercy.

They set to eating, both so hungry that they did not speak more. When they had finished, Norl handed Hhana his cloak.

“Wrap yourself up in this,” he said. “The night will be cool.”

At first he thought she would refuse the offer, then,
to his surprise, she accepted it and curled up in it in the shelter of a tree. Norl sat by the fire until the flames died down to embers. He put the girl out of his mind and allowed his thoughts to run on past the actual moment of facing Caulda. That the dragon intended to kill him in revenge for her son, he had no doubt.

The only uncertainty was for how long he could fight her off.