Son of the Hero (33 page)

The battlefield didn’t look like any I have ever seen in the movies or in my mind. There was no colorful medieval pageantry, no bright tunics and pennons, no brilliantly reflective armor to catch the sun in blinding moments. Once the armies started fighting, it was all earth colors—dust and blood. Blood red was the only bright color around, and even the blood faded as it soaked into the dirt.

We trotted toward the center of the Dorthini line. They didn’t react to our approach at once. They must have assumed that we were their comrades, eager for a taste of the anticipated slaughter. That was what they were supposed to assume. It was the whole point of the charade. Then there was a commotion in the knot of warriors around the Etevar and his wizard. I could make a shrewd guess at what had them stirring. Someone who didn’t have to take his boots off to count past ten had figured out that too many of us had come out of the castle, more men than the Dorthinis had quartered there. Or maybe someone had spotted my elf sword. I hadn’t drawn it yet, but I did then, and extended my arm to point the blade at the Etevar. That was the signal for my troop to charge, and for our main force to stop their slow withdrawal and push forward again.

That eerie tune started to come out of my mouth again, the same tune that the elf sword had drawn from me every time I used it, but louder and more intricate than ever. I led my sixty people directly toward the Etevar. He had been commanding his army from just behind the center of the battle line.

Urging our horses to a gallop once the Dorthinis figured out that we were Varayan, I hoped to reach the Etevar’s tight little group before any other Dorthini contingents could interpose themselves. I figured that if I could get rid of the Etevar in a hurry, that would stop the battle. It didn’t work, though. Dorthini troops seemed to flow into the space in front of us as easily as marchers on a drill field, and once the fighting started on our side of the main battle, our progress slowed to almost nothing. I kept pressing toward the Etevar but couldn’t get any closer.

Even though I didn’t manage the shortcut to end the fight quickly, our rear attack did surprise the Dorthinis. Homer’s Trojan Horse was still a workable concept. Trying to face threats on both sides of the line sapped the effectiveness of the Dorthinis to a greater degree than I would have dared hope. The confusion was something. Although our sortie didn’t significantly alter the immense manpower advantage the Dorthinis had, the time they lost regrouping to protect the Etevar from my band stopped their advance to the west and let our main force take the offensive. Then we sprang one more surprise. Baron Dieth brought his cavalry in from the north, another 150 men, putting pressure on the Dorthinis from three sides.

It wasn’t easy to fight my own battles and try to keep track of the fray as a whole at the same time. My first priority had to be to keep myself from being folded, spindled, or mutilated. Or anything else. I seemed to have Vara and my father at my side, more as vultures than as protectors, waiting to collect me when I fell. I hoped that it was just combat jitters, but I was having trouble believing that.

Right at the beginning, my elf sword moved most of the Dorthini soldiers away from me. It must have convinced them that the better part of valor was to let somebody else deal with me. Maybe they thought I was an elf and way out of their league. But then I started to feel static electricity around me and I knew that I was the focus of hostile magic. The Etevar’s wizard was trying to reach me. His lack of significant success made me think that Parthet must be doing something to interfere. I heard distant thunder and guessed that it was Parthet’s.

I couldn’t afford to give the interplay of magic too much attention, though, because a pair of Dorthini riders chose that moment to come at me together, one on each side. If it hadn’t been for Lesh and Harkane, the ploy might have worked. As it was, I deflected the first Dorthini to my companions and concentrated on the second.

We didn’t fight just with our swords. Our horses became weapons too, and the Dorthini was more adept at that part of the job. Maneuvering animals took more concentration and effort than swinging blades. The horses had ideas of their own, and they didn’t always agree with the riders’. Horses sometimes have more sense than people. The only thing these animals wanted to do was get away from the melee.

With the longer reach Dragon’s Death gave me, I could have cut the Dorthini’s horse down, but I was loathe to attack any animal that didn’t have its own designs on my health and well-being. That inhibition dragged out the fight—almost as if it tied one hand behind my back. The Dorthini had a good hacking sword, with a blade nearly as broad at the hilt as my elf sword. I couldn’t snap his blade, and he was good enough to keep me fully occupied for several minutes.

More Dorthini riders pushed in toward us. For a moment, the press of numbers forced my troop back a few paces in the direction of the castle. Then I got a clear shot at the Dorthini who was trying to get right in my face. I flashed a one-handed slice across, skipping my blade off the tip of his. Dragon’s Death caught him solidly between helmet and eyebrows. Blood welled out like red wine overflowing a mug before he fell and dragged his horse down with him.

I had a little clear space in front of me. Through a break in the dust, I saw the Etevar’s wizard staring at me. At the moment, he looked to be no more than a horse’s length away. I knew it was a trick of perspective or magic, though, since he was actually fifty yards or more from me. But I could see him as if he were right there. He had a pale face and black beard and sideburns. A single eyebrow covered both eyes, a thick black line that looked as phony as Groucho Marx’s greasepaint mustache and eyebrows. The wizard grinned, and toothpaste-ad-white teeth showed in the middle of the beard.

There was no time to think it through. I spurred Gold toward the wizard, impatiently cutting two Dorthini foot soldiers out of my way with a single swing of Dragon’s Death. The battle couldn’t end until I got rid of either the wizard or the Etevar, maybe both. The dust closed in again as I forced Gold between the panicked horses of two men I had just wounded, who were trying to escape. I lost sight of the Dorthini wizard, and when I spotted him again—after I sparred inconclusively with several more soldiers—he was farther away, as was the Etevar, a rougher-looking man, swarthy-skinned, with hair as black as his wizard’s.

The battle flowed toward the castle again. My troop had to give some ground, but we had shown enough power that the bulk of the Dorthini army broke around us. The drawbridge of Thyme was up, so the Etevar couldn’t reclaim the castle as a quick refuge—though why he might look for refuge when he still had us vastly outnumbered didn’t occur to me at the time. I had my hands full, trying to keep my people together and dealing with those Dorthinis who couldn’t avoid us.

One encounter in that phase of the battle will stick with me through eternity, I think. A Dorthini foot soldier, armed with a long spear and a short sword like a Roman legionnaire, came running at me. His face was distorted as he screamed some battle cry or oath, making him look almost like one of those troll soldiers out of Fairy. Defending myself was instinctive by then. I whirled Dragon’s Death left and right, cutting the spear into three pieces. The Dorthini threw the remaining piece of his spear at Gold’s face and drew his sword while he rolled under my horse and came up on the other side—too close for me to finish him off quickly. I turned and brought my sword down, but it was my fist that hit his head—his helmet. I kicked out, moving the Dorthini back, and brought my sword down again. He got his short blade in the way but couldn’t parry the full force of my blow. Dragon’s Death skidded along the side of his head, knocked his helmet off, sliced off his left ear, then bit into where his neck and shoulder met.

He couldn’t have been any older than Harkane—fourteen, maybe fifteen. Blue eyes opened in wide surprise. The muscles in his face relaxed. Blood spurted from his neck and he died. For a moment, all I could do was stare down at him. He was just a kid. I gagged and almost threw up.

I backed Gold around, trying to see how things were going around me. Horns sounded near the Etevar, and his army moved farther east, clear of Castle Thyme. The Dorthinis marched into what little was left of the village’s spring crops. Suddenly, the Etevar and I were in the open, between our armies, with only our own guards to support us. I spurred Gold forward again, knowing that I had to take a chance to reach the Etevar before he got behind another wall of soldiers—and before the Dorthinis could cut me off from
my
support.

Then my danger sense went berserk, and so did my horse, but the Dorthinis weren’t the cause. It was a distant shadow, first in my mind and then in the sky, and a cry like metal ripping in an auto wreck. A familiar feeling, a familiar shadow. A dragon—a mother-huge dragon—was heading straight for me.

While I fought to control Gold, the two armies moved farther apart—and away from me—as though I had just broken out with the stigmata of every infectious disease ever known or imagined. Even most of the troop right with me decided that they belonged somewhere else. All I had left were the people I would have bet on to stay—Annick, Lesh, Harkane, Hambert—and a very few others. Annick sheathed her sword and got out her bow. She dismounted when I did. So did Lesh and Hambert. Lesh had his battle-axe. We passed our reins to others and got ready to meet the new threat.

This dragon was coming specifically for me, just like all of the threats in Fairy. My danger sense was very definite about that, and there was more. The Etevar’s wizard loomed in my sight again, appearing much closer than he actually was. His hands—delicate-looking, with long, pointed fingers—grasped a broad medallion that hung from his neck on a heavy gold chain. I could see each link in the chain, but his hands covered whatever device the medallion bore. The Dorthini wizard squinted, concentrating on me. I saw his mouth move as he chanted, flashes of white teeth and almost purple lips and tongue.

This is it, I thought. I looked around for Dad and Vara and the rest of the congregation of Heroes. This dragon was much larger than the one the elf warrior had died fighting on that beach by the Mist. Even if I somehow managed to drop this beast, I had to expect to go the way of the elf. And there was nowhere to run.

I stepped several paces in front of my companions to get room to swing the elf sword. Dragon’s Death—a meager hope. My mouth was moving too. The whistling that came when I used the long blade got louder and louder until there were almost words to it, a magical chant of the incoherent sort I had heard Parthet use. And Annick was humming some kind of counterpoint as she raised her bow. The air fairly crackled with all the magics. I wondered if they were subject to static, interference, the way radio signals are.

What did the elf think about when he faced this? I asked myself. The dragon was coming on fast, but I still seemed to have plenty of time. There was even time for me to feel amazed at how calm I felt. I accepted the outcome … as long as I could reach it with the fortitude that the elf warrior had shown.

“Steady, lad. Keep your wits about you,” sounded right next to my ear. It was Parthet’s voice, but he was still standing on the castle wall. I glanced that way. The same sort of alteration of perspective that had made the Dorthini wizard appear close let me see Parthet up close too. Then I recalled—from our first ride east—that Parthet had said that there had been so much magic used around Castle Thyme that it was unpredictable.

“Put on a good show, Uncle,” I whispered. He nodded as if he heard me. I turned and stared at the Dorthini wizard and made a short cutting gesture with my sword—something like drawing a bow sharply across a violin—as my whistling reached a peak. The Dorthini wizard frowned and clutched his medallion tighter. I felt a trickle of exhilaration. I
could
reach him, touch him. I remembered that Parthet had suggested that I might have some gift toward wizardry. And there were the magics of the sword and the Hero that I still didn’t know everything about …

… in an arena where magic wasn’t predictable anyway.

What do I have to lose? I asked myself. The answer was an easy
nothing
.

I attempted to use magic that I didn’t know I had—that I didn’t know that
anybody
had. While the dragon folded his wings for a fast glide, I concentrated on the Dorthini wizard, trying to superimpose my image over his, hoping to confuse the dragon and deflect it toward the wizard who—so far—appeared to be controlling it. The wizard fought back, stabbing deeply into my mind, loosing a flash of light in my head that made him invisible for a dangerous moment.

I blinked over and over. There were spots in front of my eyes … spots large enough to hide a dragon. I looked up quickly, squinted against the light and the sky.

The dragon wasn’t deflected even for a second. It swooped toward me, suddenly appearing to be as fast as a jet. Its talons were stretched open, its jaws gaping wide. It had all its weapons ready, just like the dragon in Fairy. I thought back to the way the elf warrior had met that dragon’s attack. I replayed it in my mind—except for the way it ended for the elf.

And then the dragon was on me.

I swung Dragon’s Death and dove to the left, rolling and coming back to my feet in time to take a whack at the dragon’s tail. I connected with its hide both times but didn’t do much damage. Lord, was that sucker
big
. It made the one on the beach look like a runt.

No mortal can kill a dragon and live!
Those words burned themselves into my mind the way the hinges had burned into Thyme’s postern.
No mortal can kill a dragon and live!
The Etevar’s wizard showed his face—and a malicious grin—behind the words.

As I turned to keep facing the dragon, I beamed, I
have killed one dragon and lived!
straight at the Etevar’s wizard with all the force I could muster. I felt Parthet strengthening my boast. The Etevar’s wizard wavered in an instant of doubt.
And I turned the Elflord of Xayber out of Varay!
I added.