The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2) (53 page)

Arlian hurried over and looked at the silver bowl.

"That might be enough," he said.

Black nodded, and reached for a waiting bandage.

Arlian lifted the silver bowl carefully and hurried back to the bedside, where he proffered it to Oeshir.

She looked at the quantity critically, then nodded and accepted it. She poured it into the blue bowl and began chanting again as her hands massaged Rime's heart.

Arlian did not want to watch this, and his eyes roamed, searching the room for something else to look at. His gaze fell upon the clear bowl, now sitting on a bedside table, out of the way.

The blood was swirling in it, beneath a mirror-smooth surface.

Arlian blinked.

The motion was not natural—but he had seen it before. "By the dead gods," he said, as he stepped over to it

The image took shape.

This was not a dragon he had ever seen before, but it was nonetheless a dragon, and Arlian could understand its thoughts as clearly as he had the others. He could feel its anger and hatred.

And then he heard its thoughts.

"You have killed my child!"
it said.

Isein and Oeshir started; they had plainly heard the dragon's thoughts, as well. Oeshir's chanting wavered, but continued uninterrupted.

"You have killed my child!"
the dragon repeated.

"As you killed Lady Rime's husband and children,"

Arlian replied, meeting the intense stare of the image in the bowl.

"As I will
kill you. I was awakened by the pain of my
child's death cry, and you shall pay for that agony. You
cannot be permitted to teach others how to do this. To
kill my child and let its host live is wrong."
The amount of disgust and loathing it conveyed in the concept

"wrong" was overpowering.
"It is obscene."

Arlian marveled at how completely the dragon had forgotten its own presumed human ancestry, and how little it comprehended human values.

Or perhaps it understood human values, but rejected them.

"Dragons have threatened me before," Arlian said.

"I still live."

"You have not faced me,"
the dragon replied.
"Now
you will. You will die, your palace burning around you.

That abomination that performed this obscenity will
die with you, and all the outsiders who dare to intrude
in the lands of dragons with their mockery of wizardry
as well. The creature who permitted this to be done to
her will die. Even now, I am on my way to destroy
you."

Arlian opened his mouth to speak fresh defiance, but before the words came the image in the bowl shattered—and the bowl itself shattered an instant later, showering blood and water and venom across the table and the floor beneath.

He turned to see what was happening on the bed.

Oeshir had placed Rime's heart back in her chest and was frantically working to close and heal the wound; her hands and voice trembled, but she continued the gestures and incantation.

Isein was staring in horror at the broken bowl.

Rime's hps were drawn back from her teeth in a hideous grimace; her hands gripped the coverlet beneath her so tightly the knuckles were white. Her eyes were focused on the canopy over the bed.

Arlian turned again and saw Black in the sitting room door, a dagger in his hand.

"What was that?" Black demanded. "What spoke?"

"A dragon," Arlian said. "The one whose venom flowed in Lady Rime's veins. It would seem our little experiment succeeded."

"It's coming here?"

"So it says."

'1 can have the coach ready in ..."

"I'm not fleeing," Arlian interrupted. "I've been looking for a way to fight these monsters since I was a child; now that one is finally coming here to face me, I am not going to run away!"

Black nodded. He started to speak, but Arlian interrupted him again.

"You should get the women out of here, though—

coach
,
wagon, whatever you can find. Alert the household, tell anyone who wants to flee to go
now.
Anyone who stays should be armed with obsidian." He smiled tensely. "And see that someone loads spears into that machine out front"

The chanting stopped. Arlian turned.

"It is done," Oeshir said, stepping away from the bed, the red talisman in her hand. Then she spoke to Isein in rapid Aritheian.

"She cannot be moved for a day and a night," Isein translated. She hesitated, then asked, "When will the dragon arrive?"

"I don't know," Arlian said. "I don't know where it lairs, or how fast a dragon can fly. It could be days, or it could be mere minutes."

Isein looked unhappily at Rime. "If it is less than a day and a night, our work was for nothing."

"I'll see to it that it wasn't," Arlian replied. He, too, looked at Rime.

Her naked body was drenched in sweat, and from throat to crotch she was smeared with blood; blood saturated the coverlet on which she lay. She was trembling uncontrollably, despite the herbs.

The wound in her chest was closed, though, and her eyes were alert.

"Do whatever you can for her," Arlian said. A thought struck him. "And can Oeshir heal those two women who provided the blood?"

Isein quickly translated the question into Aritheian; Oeshir did not bother to answer, but hurried to the sitting room. As she did Isein fetched a cloth and pitcher, and began to wash Rime.

Arlian wanted to stay, to see that Rime was cared for, to reassure her—but he had more urgent matters to attend to.

A dragon was coming to kill him.

"If I live, I'll be back for you," Arlian told Rime quickly; then he turned and ran for the door.

Two hours later the spear-throwing device was prepared, standing in the forecourt with six of Arlian's longest and best obsidian-tipped spears loaded, ready to be launched by tripping a single lever. Arlian stood beside it, scanning the sky, another spear in his hand and two obsidian daggers in his belt

Kitten, Brook, Cricket, Hasty, Vanniari, Lily, Musk, and most of the servants had been hastily packed up and sent off to the Grey House—Black had seen to that, and had accompanied them to ensure their safe arrival. Messengers had been sent to the Citadel, and to Toribor, Spider, and Shard, warning them that a dragon was on its way. Everyone remaining in the Old Palace was armed with at least an obsidian dagger.

Everyone, that is, but Rime, who could not yet close her hand to hold a knife. Isein and Oeshir and Rime were all still in the upstairs rooms; Rime could not be moved, and the two magicians would not leave her, though they happily accepted the stone knives.

Arlian was unsure where Qulu, the third magician, was; he had not happened to cross his employer's path.

Arlian hoped that the dragon had no special means for locating the Aritheians, and that Qulu was somewhere safe.

Arlian had considered sending a message to the remainder of the Dragon Society, but had dismissed the idea; after all, they might well decide to
help
the dragon.

Everything was as ready as Arlian knew to make it, and as yet there was no sign of the dragon.

That meant that Arlian had time to think, and to see just how feeble his preparations really were. Yes, he had his spear-thrower—but the thing was too big and heavy to be moved by a single man, and even a team of four could not turn it quickly enough to have any hope of hitting a moving target. The only way Arlian could hope to hit a dragon with it would be if the monster walked or flew directly into its path.

Of course, he might be lucky. The dragon might do exactly that. Arlian remembered that Rime had come from the northwest, and had guessed that the dragon's lair lay beneath the western mountains; he had therefore, before Venlin and the other footmen left, had the spear-thrower turned to point west, almost directly toward the front gate.

If the dragon came from the east or south or north, the spear-thrower would be useless—but Arlian could not see anything he could do to remedy that.

The general commotion in the Old Palace had not gone unnoticed by the rest of Manfort; curious crowds were beginning to gather at the fence, staring at the spear-thrower and at Arlian standing beside it with his strange stone-headed spear. People of all ranks, in homespun or velvet, wandered by and watched for a while, perhaps shouting an insult or two before growing bored and moving on.

Horn appeared, watched Arlian for a moment, then departed again.

Arlian ignored them all and watched the sky, which was growing dark. The sun was still high, but thick clouds were gathering, blocking the light. The day, warm to begin with, seemed to be growing unnaturally hot.

It was not true dragon weather yet, but that was clearly coming.

Arlian had thought since the previous summer that the dragons somehow
created
dragon weather, rather than waiting for it to occur naturally—that long period of time when they had roamed freely had been too convenient to be mere coincidence—but he had never imagined a single dragon could bring it about so swiftly.

The dragons were powerfully magic, no question about it—like the things beyond the border, the wizards and demons and monsters, they could manipulate their environment in unnatural ways.

But they did have limitations. Perhaps they did not merely prefer hot, dark weather, but
required
it. He scanned the sky, west to south to east to north.

Then his thoughts were interrupted as a voice called from the gate, "Obsidian! What is this all about?"

Arlian turned, dropping his gaze from the clouds, and recognized the bald, eyepatched figure standing just outside the fence. He smiled. "Belly!" he called.

"Come in, come in, the gate's open."

It was odd, perhaps, that he should be so pleased to see a man he had once sworn to kill, a man he had twice dueled, but nonetheless he was very glad to see Toribor. This was at least one man who shared his hatred of dragons.

Toribor entered the forecourt, looking up at the spear-thrower in bemusement. "I knew you were working on machines, but I had not gotten a good look at one before. Is that thing supposed to kill a dragon?"

he asked.

"I hope it will," Arlian said. "If I can get one in position."

"You can't aim it?"

"No."

"You could probably rig up something with ropes and pulleys that would let you aim it however you please."

"If I had more time, perhaps," Arlian said—though in fact, he had not thought in terms of turning it with ropes and pulleys, and he now realized he should have.

"Alas, a dragon is on its way even as we speak."

"So your message said. You neglected to explain how you know this."

"The dragon told me," Arlian said. "In a bowl of bloody water."

Toribor turned his one good eye on Arlian. "I thought they no longer spoke to you."

"This one was provoked," Arlian said. "I believe we may have found a way to remove the heart of the dragon without killing a person." That description was uncomfortably literal, though Toribor would not yet know it.

"I take it you tested this method?"

Arlian nodded. "On Lady Rime. The dragon that spoke to us is the one that killed her family four or five centuries ago; it did not take the death of its unborn child well."

"Ah," Toribor said. "But you weren't deliberately luring it here?"

"No, of course not. If I were going to lure a dragon deliberately, I wouldn't do it in the middle of Manfort."

Toribor shrugged. "There are probably worse places."

He looked up at the spear-thrower again. "So you don't have a way to guide the dragon into that thing's path?"

"Suggestions would be welcome."

"Is it coming specifically to kill
youl"

"And Rime, and the Aritheian magicians, yes."

"You'll have to tell me about this method of yours sometime."

"Of course; I certainly wasn't planning to keep it secret. At the moment, though, I have other concerns."

"Do you know when the dragon will arrive?"

"No."

"If you stand right where you are, the most direct path to you takes it in front of this infernal device of yours."

"If it comes from the west, yes. If it comes from north or south, no. And I need to strike it in the heart, not the face, which complicates matters "

"Indeed." Toribor studied the situation thoughtfully.

"Can those magicians of yours do anything? Steer the spears, perhaps? Use illusions to guide the dragon into range?"

"I don't know," Arlian admitted. "Two of them are upstairs with Rime; the third . . H i s voice trailed off.

Qulu might be useful here after all; using illusions to lure the dragon to the right position might work.

Then he heard the first screams. Startled, he looked past Toribor at the little crowd in the street beyond the fence.

Several of them were staring at the sky, pointing upward—to the north. Arlian turned and stared.

A thin black shape was visible against the overhang-ing gray clouds, a shape like a winged serpent, long and narrow, tail waving, crossed by broad, flapping wings. It was growing larger at an alarming rate.