Dragonslayer: A Novel (13 page)

The next instant they had both surfaced and Valerian, sputtering, was paddling away from him. "Well," she said. "Now you know."

"Sorry!"

Her upflung hands broke the surface. "Why sorry? It's not your fault." She rolled over and began a leisurely crawl toward shore. Treading water, Galen watched fascinated as she drew herself out of the stream, wearing nothing but a glinting band of silver around her neck, and began to dress. After a moment he followed her; she waited on the bank. "So," she said, defiantly, hands on her hips. "What are you going to do?"

"Wha—what do you mean . . . do?"

"Well, are you going to tell?" Her wide-spaced eyes held him steadily and he could not look away. He noticed for the first time that they were green. She shrugged. "I don't mind if you do. As a matter of fact, it would be a relief. It's been a strain all this time, having to pretend, especially the last year or two, since . . ." She gestured toward her chest, tightly constrained inside the leather jerkin. ". . . Well, you know. I used to be able to
feel
like a boy but I can't anymore." She picked up a stick, switched the ground with it, and tossed it into the current. "So go ahead. Tell. If you don't, I probably will anyway."

"But. . .butwhy?"

"Why the disguise?" She laughed harshly and then caught herself. "Sorry. I forgot you're not from Urland and haven't grown up with a dragon and with the same stupid traditions."

"Girls," Galen said, punching his palm. "Of course! The Lottery!"

"Exactly. If you live in Urland, and if you have the misfortune to have been born a woman, and if you are over thirteen, then the law says, or Casiodorus says, or
tradition
says—" She glanced heavenward, "—that you must take part in the Lottery."

"No exceptions?"

She shook her head. "None. There are only three ways out: First, if you're so sick that you're obviously dying—and don't think that people
haven't
tried to get out by poisoning themselves; second,, if you have a very rich father who can cross palms with gold and see to it that your name never goes on a lot; or, third, if you have poor parents who do something else, like—
¹
" She shrugged, "—like disguising you as a boy when you're born."

"But that's awful!"

Again she shrugged. "It's only awful because it's new to you. When you've thought about it long enough it'll just become a fact. A fact of life."

"But. . . but it
twists
everything."

"Yes. That's what fear does when it's been around for a long time. It perverts everything and everyone. Believe me, I know. That's why I
hate
it." She pounded her knee. "That's why I organized this expedition."

"You
organized . . ."

"Of course. Who did you think organized it—Greil? Malkin? Oh, I see. You're surprised because I'm a woman, not just because I'm young. Well, it shouldn't surprise you, that fact. After all, I've pretended to be a man all these years, and isn't that what men do, go around organizing things, keeping order, being efficient?"

Galen did not reply. He laced his boots.

"Sorry," she said, after a moment.

"What for?"

"For being rude. It's hard, you know, when you're afraid all the time. Sometimes you just. . . strike out."

"I know."

"How would you know? How could you know what it's like, twice a year, seeing another woman die?" She stood up suddenly. "Anyway, let's get back. We should be moving. Besides, you have news to tell."

Galen shook his head, also standing. "Not me."

"But . .

"Look, Valerian, I'm just a simple magician. I
have
something special, something that might help with the dragon. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that it
will
help with the dragon; it's just

something I have for a little while, something I can use. But after this is all over I'm going away. Maybe to the Western Isles. Maybe even farther." He waved his hands in a stay-off motion. "So I don't want to get involved. I don't care if you're a woman. I don't even want to
know."

Valerian laughed abruptly, incredulously. "But you already
do
know. So what are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing. It's not my responsibility, it's
yours.
You've pretended that you're something you aren't, and nobody else can put it right. Don't ask
me
to do it. I'm just along to deal with the dragon. Maybe." They were both standing. Valerian stared at him for a long minute, and it seemed to Galen, looking into those odd, wide-spaced green eyes, that he had passed a test that had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman, or whether he would tell. She was looking at him as if she had just discovered him, and as if he had pleased her. Then she turned, and in the mannish walk that she had perfected over the years, followed the path back toward their camp.

"No man, woman," said a reedy voice in a fir tree just above Galen's head.

"And don't
you
tell, either."

"Warn! Warn!" said Gringe, launching himself softly off the branch and gliding through the tunnel path. "T
ee-riam!"

"What?"

"Hodge! Warn!"

"Hodge!" A dreadful vision had suddenly flickered with the sunlight on the rippling surface of the pool, and Galen had seen it clearly: There was Hodge, rising stiffly from his night's sleep, muttering to himself, reaching back into his robe and withdrawing very gently the pouch of ashes that he had brought from Ulrich's pyre; there he was, beginning to open it, to ensure the safety of its contents; and at the same moment, elevated slightly—Galen could not tell how far distant because the vision was dreamlike—there was Tyrian, a black radiance in the sun, notching a war arrow into his great yew longbow, drawing it with terrifying ease, and bringing it down as he sighted along the shaft, until. . .

"Hodge!" Stumbling and slipping on the mossy rocks, Galen broke into a full run along the path toward the camp. In a few moments he was there; for an instant as he burst into the clearing, he thought that he had no cause for alarm, that the vision in the water had been false. Everything seemed calm. Two or three men squatted at the fire, others were dressing, others just beginning to pull themselves from their sleeping robes, and Valerian stood in the center, near the fire. Old Hodge, one hand raised in greeting, was beginning to move toward him across the clearing. Everything seemed to be in order—except that those in the clearing were frozen in thejj various postures, and the air was filled with the sudden whinnying of startled horses; except that on a knoll fifty yards behind the camp stood Tyrian, his bow a diagonal slash across his body and his right hand beside his ear; except that Hodge's arm was not raised in greeting, nor was he looking at Galen. He was looking in astonishment at a glistening arrowhead protruding three inches out of his chest.

"Hodge! No!"

He fell before Galen could reach him. At the same moment the camp broke into frenzied activity, a melee of shouting men and crying horses. Tyrian notched another arrow into his bowstring and, with a jerk of his head, signaled his men to do the same. His voice rang clearly above the tumult. "No nonsense there! All that's happened is that another fake sorcerer has failed to pass his test."

"But the old man wasn't . . ." Greil began, before Valerian's foot on his instep silenced him.

Gradually the uproar subsided, the horses calmed. Very slowly, as it became obvious that there would be no protest nor resistance from the cowed Urlanders. Tyrian lowered his bow and replaced the second arrow in his quiver. Then he and his men began to move forward, leading their horses the fifty yards toward the corpse.

Hodge was not yet dead. When Galen reached him, he was breathing through a froth of blood. With great difficulty, he raised himself on one elbow, fumbled inside his jacket, and pressed the leather pouch of ashes into Galen's hands. "Lake ... of fire . . ." he said. "Don't . . . for . . . forget. You . . . Hodge . . . just mes . . .
messengers!"
This last word he uttered with a particular urgency, staring fixedly into Galen's eyes even as the life left him and his head slumped against Galen's supporting arm.

"No! Hodge! You can't die! Not you, too! You can't!" Desperately, gripping the amulet at his throat, Galen ransacked his repertoire of charms.
"Excede mors! Reveni vita!"
But it was no use. Hodge had passed beyond the reach of any charm, and the amulet, in a warning that the impossible and unnatural was being asked of it, burned Galen's hand. He dropped it and gripped the pouch of ashes.

"Little treasure there? Let's have a look at it!" The shadows of Tyrian and his men fell across Galen and the corpse; their horses snorted. Galen lowered the old retainer to the ground and stood up, clutching the pouch to his chest. His face was wet with tears and he was trembling violently. He was so frightened and so furious that he choked when he tried to speak. "You'll get no . . . nothing from me! You're not a wa—warrior; you're a
killer!
You ki—kill old men and wo—women!"

Tyrian's hand dropped on the hilt of his great sword, and Galen was close enough to read the engraving on its hilt:
Cave! Tendrun sum!
I am Tendrun. Beware! "Yes," Tyrian said, his mouth un-moving, "and impertinent boys if need be, for I do what is necessary to keep the peace in Urland. The bag!"

Galen retreated, but only half a pace, for the point of a dagger had pierced the skin at the base of his skull and he felt a trickle of blood on his neck.

"Make no mistake," Tyrian warned. "Jerbul will kill you where you stand. He would like nothing better."

Guttural laughter sounded behind Galen, and he was enveloped by the stench of rotting teeth and rotting meat, palpable as fur.

"For the last time," Tyrian said. "The bag."

Eyes shut tight, Galen yielded, held the bag out, felt it taken.

"What's this-ashes? Bits of . . . bone?" Tyrian laughed harshly. "If
that's
what the old fellow was going to use on Vermithrax I
have
made a mistake. Why, that's what he'd
be.
Here you are, lad. Take the keepsake if you must."

"No kill him?"

"No, Jerbul. Not now. Back off, now! What is your name?" There was a moment's pause, and then the tip of the polished yew bow probed under Galen's chin and lifted his head. "I'm speaking to
you,
boy."

"Galen."

"Well, Galen, since you seem bound for Urland with these citizens, let me tell you what they already know very well. In Urland, King Casiodorus's word is law, and I am the executor of that law. I do what I must to keep the peace, and to keep Vermithrax at peace." He indicated the corpse of Hodge. "Sometimes I am wrong. I thought I was killing a sorcerer, a man dangerous to Urland, but I have killed an old fool. But I
act,
and I am alive. It is those who would have opposed me and opposed my duty who are dead. Now listen well, young Galen." Again the tip of the bow hovered at the boy's throat inches from the amulet, and Galen felt, through his pain, and anger, an increased heat from the stone. It seemed to be responding to the red dragon emblem on Tyrian's chest. "When you enter Urland, you enter a land that has made its accommodations with its fate. We are realists. Occasionally we have troublemakers from outside who disrupt our arrangements, arguing from principle. Usually they are young, like yourself, and usually they do not . . . stay long. See that you are not one of them and you will be welcome enough; trouble the peace and you shall have me and my men to reckon with. Do you understand?
Do
you?" The bowtip probed upward.

"Yes."

"Good. I trust in that case that we shall not meet again." Still watching Galen, Tyrian mounted his horse, a magnificent black stallion gleaming with sweat. His men also mounted, and he gestured the way forward with his bow, saying nothing more. Jerbul was the last to mount and leave, and he looked back with distinct regret, not sheathing his dagger until he was well down the road.

Clustered around the body of Hodge, the Urlanders watched them go. "I'm sorry, lad," Greil said, laying a hand on Galen's shoulder. "The old man didn't have to die. It was just a stupid wilful action. It's the way Tyrian is. Such things happen all the time."

"Brutish," Malkin said.

"I hate him!" Valerian said with such vehemence that a strand of spittle fell across her chin. She wiped it off with a sleeve. "I hate him and his rotten little army, and the rotten king that pays him!"

"Shh, careful, lad," Malkin said softly, glancing fearfully around at the others. "Word might get back."

"I don't care! You all know that what I say is true. Casiodorus is no fit king to keep on traditions that make no more sense, and to let the land sicken and die. You
know
that, and you hate him too, as much as I, and silly Elspeth too! Do you think
her
name goes on those lots? Ha! Not bloody likely! I hate them all!" She spat and would have gone on had she not at that moment caught sight of Galen watching her. He was massaging his bloodied neck where Jerbul's knife point had pricked him, and the look she caught from the corner of his eye as he turned away said,
No, her name does not go on the lots, nor yours either!
She flushed and then, to cover her embarrassment, said gruffly, "Well, let's go to work. Thanks to Tyrian and his louts, we have a burial to do before we move on."