The Dragons of Argonath (56 page)

Bazil and Relkin looked to each other with wonder in their eyes.

They knew the perpetrator of that particular noise.

"How?"

"Who care how?"

Bazil roared back, and there came a chorus of roars from beyond and an immediate sound of battle. Tremendous blows were being delivered. Screams and roars became indistinguishable above the clatter of weapons.

The sorcerer hesitated a moment, and then pulled Eilsa behind him and summoned his mount. The steed knelt, and he climbed into the saddle, hauling Eilsa up behind him.

Relkin sprang forward, dodged a bewkman's blade, rolled under another swinging sword, and scrambled up through the ruins of the door. The steed was accelerating to a gallop down the passageway.

Meanwhile in the other direction all hell had broken loose. Down the wide passage came dragons, the whole 109th Fighting Marneri from what he could see, with the Purple Green in the lead.

Ahead of them fled a mass of men, imps, and bewkmen.

And far ahead of it all sprang the great white steed.

Relkin didn't hesitate, but simply joined the rout of men and imps that was already in full flight down the passage. Behind lumbered the Purple Green and behind him was everyone else. The huge passage had suddenly become very full. Relkin reminded himself not to trip and fall. The dragons wouldn't be too choosy about what they stepped on in a situation like this.

The passage split in two. To the right were lights and a line of guards. To the left was dim light and a strange, earthy smell. Relkin sensed that the knight had gone to the left and took that passage. He immediately found himself alone. The imps and everyone else were running to the right.

He shrugged. He knew the enemy had passed this way. He ran on and emerged into a large chamber. A tiny spark of hot blue energy blazed in the center of the high ceiling, and lit the place with an eldritch glow around every edge.

Here grew a forest of plants with wide, round leaves and thick bulbous stems. Things that looked like enormous melons were spaced out around the room. Through the melons ran a path. Relkin felt certain that his foe lay nearby. He didn't know how or why, but he was damned certain he could sense the Dominator.

The path led to a stoutly build door guarded by a bewkman with spear and shield. Relkin noticed with a thrill of unease that the melon things were actually carnivorous pods, and they were feeding on men. Several men half-devoured, projected from the pods, some feet first, some headfirst. A few moved weakly.

Relkin got within range, knelt down, and took aim. The guard charged him. He released and his first arrow nicked the side of the bewkman's cheek, but bounced off the helmet. The critter was still coming. Relkin fumbled another arrow out, drew, and took careful aim. It wasn't his crossbow, of course, but he practiced with simple bows of all styles. It was just a matter of ignoring the huge, hog-faced brute that was a second or so away and aim. A miss now was likely to be fatal.

This release found its target. The guard pulled up all of a sudden and toppled over with the arrow through the eye. Relkin dodged out of the way.

Back on his feet, he ran to the door. An iron ring controlled the mechanism. He reached up to turn it and grasped hold.

Abruptly his hand was gripped by the iron, pulled in close to the metal, and then pulled in harder yet. Heat began to seep up from the iron, that heat intensifying quickly. He tried to pull his hand free, but found it glued to the iron. He got both feet up on the door, heaved till the veins throbbed in his temples and his arm turned numb, but could not pull it free. The heat was rising now into the discomfort level, soon it was extreme.

With his feet back on the ground, he tried to study the situation, while the heat rose to the unbearable level. He was close to screaming. It felt as if his hand was wrapped around a red-hot piece of steel.

"Open the door," whispered a voice in his ear.

He took hold of the iron with his other hand, and felt that too sucked in tight against the burning hot metal. While a shriek fled from his lips, he yanked down hard on the iron ring, turned it, and the door swung open.

The spell was broken, and his hands fell free. He stumbled through, tripping and falling onto his hands and knees. He put out his palms to absorb the shock and was amazed to find that they did. What should have been crisped flesh and smoking bones were unharmed.

Relkin made a note to think carefully before touching anything else while he was down here in this gloomy labyrinth.

He entered a curving gallery, with doors on the right-hand wall that opened into rooms which appeared to be filled with stores. He picked up his pace and ran.

At the end of the gallery was a final room, and here he found the white steed. He skidded to a halt in front of it, and it rose up from a crouch with a venomous hiss. Relkin darted a few steps back, notched an arrow, and brought up the bow. The huge white horse sprang forward, reared, and flailed at him with those immense, steel-tipped hooves. He shot for the eye and missed, his arrow going clean past the brute's head. The hooves swept past less than an inch from his nose.

He ran for it, dropping the bow and drawing his sword. The hall came to an end, and he skidded to a stop. The steed was on him. It reared up to crush him, and he drove his sword into its belly.

It gave a scream, and its eyes flashed red fire. Relkin was knocked to the ground, getting back to his feet just in time to save himself from those hooves, and he raked the sword across its face. Again it rose up to crush him, and he leapt in and thrust home with the sword once more, this time into the chest cavity. The beast screamed, then gurgled suddenly on black blood, toppled sideways, and fell. It twitched and shuddered, and an evil smoke filled the air with an excremental stench. The deadly glow in its eyes went out. The flesh withered quickly, right before his eyes, to reveal the gleaming white skeleton.

Shaking, Relkin got to his feet, then pulled the blade out of the huge, empty rib cage, and turned back to the room at the end of the hall with murder in his eyes.

There he found the sorcerer in the middle of conjuring, while Eilsa was slumped on the floor at his feet. The long hands wavered through the air and thick syllables warped the very fabric of the world. A moment later a black mirror sizzled out of the air. The bizarre flickering glare threw crazy quilt shadows across the room. It sounded as if a side of beef had been dropped into boiling oil.

The last time Relkin had seen one of these things was in Heruta's foundry on the Isle of the Bone in the heart of the dark continent, Eigo. On that occasion some kind of monstrous creature had come to the mirror and seized men, trolls, imps, and anything else it could catch with its tentacles of green fire. That memory made him keep a watchful eye on the weird disk.

Relkin's presence in the room had not gone unnoticed. The tall knight whirled around. Eilsa was bound in chains and unable to move.

"You!" An evil smile spread across the ancient face with its perfect elfin features.

"So you dog my footsteps still. But this time you are without your dragon. A mistake, I think. Well, well, I will take you with me as well. You can amuse me by torturing the girl to death. Then I will start on you."

Relkin made no response, but edged closer. He had lost the bow, but he still had the sword. If he could just get close enough.

The sorcerer's hand came up and another blue bolt of fire shot from his fist.

Instinctively Relkin put up a hand, as if to ward off a thrown weapon, but instead of being blown off his feet, there was a green flash and a pleasant tingling sensation on his chest and arm.

Instantly he felt imbued with tremendous strength. He thrust forward with the sword and almost caught the knight napping. Waakzaam the Great was forced to dodge a dragonboy's sword lest it take him in the throat.

Waakzaam hurled a second bolt of blue fire. The green flash followed in the same moment, and Relkin absorbed the bolt. He thrust again and slashed and cut with inhuman speed and power. Waakzaam was forced to draw sword and defend himself.

"You have come to die, then. So be it."

Relkin brought his sword up and met the stroke from the mighty sorcerer. His sword was notched, but his arms held and turned aside the blow from the Dominator of Twelve Worlds. Again and then again Waakzaam swung, and each blow was parried. Filled with the strength of a giant, Relkin thrust back at him and forced him to dodge aside.

Waakzaam hissed and leveled a look of hatred at him.

"What are you?" he snarled. "You are no man!"

"Just a dragonboy of the legion, that's all."

"You think I will believe that?"

Blades clashed again.

"He is a man," said a voice from the door, quiet but inescapable. Lessis had entered the room. Beside her was Mirk, a throwing knife in his hand. The mirror continued to float nearby, casting the flickerings of chaos.

"He is a man, and he is greater than you, with your foul habits and your contempt for the beauty of the world you helped create."

"The damned hag too! Will nothing cease your infernal bleating?"

"Why not ask that question of yourself? You ignore your duty and diminish yourself with every stroke. Why do you refuse to see the truth?"

"Bah, I will not trade words with such as you!" A bolt of blue fire was hurled at Lessis, and she put up her arms expecting to be hammered flat, but the blue fire was deflected.

Mirk's throwing knife flew by in the other direction and caromed off Waakzaam's great helmet the next moment.

Relkin darted in, and Waakzaam was forced back to the edge of the mirror, the glare of chaos flickered madly.

Waakzaam spoke thick syllables of power, and Relkin felt himself freeze. Glued to the ground, unable to even move an eyeball.

Waakzaam relaxed. This youth had exhibited most unusual powers. He would have to be investigated most closely.

He seized the chains and hauled Eilsa to her feet.

"And now we shall take our leave."

Lessis tried to disable him with a potent little spell. Waakzaam shrugged it off.

"You have no power over me, hag!" he snarled.

Relkin's hate blazed enormous. He felt it reach down to his toes and shake in his bones. Something snapped, he knew not what, but the next moment he was free of the Dominator's spell.

"Awake!" cried a voice in his mind. "As ye called unto Us, so We call unto You. Awake!"

Relkin felt the difference in the chamber the very next moment. They were joined by another presence, enormous, many-eyed, deep as the seas, the forerunner, the speaker of souls. Its presence wafted over them like a gentle breeze, but it brought with it a stinging spray of awareness. He sensed ten thousand minds linked in one great purpose, the very thing he had set free in faraway Mirchaz. It was with them now, at least in part, for Relkin sensed that it was also active in other places, even other times. Wherever the great dance went on.

Waakzaam sensed the lofty vastness of the intruder. He snarled with rage and strove with it for mastery, and the room filled with enormous expectant energy. Rage lines crawled slowly up the walls of the dark chamber. Sudden noises exploded in the walls.

A glowing mass, roughly the size and shape of a man, began to form in the room. Waakzaam struggled to prevent it, but could not. It grew remorselessly, and with it came more power. In desperation he concentrated everything on it once more. Thus he lost any control over Relkin.

Completely free now, Relkin dove across the space and brought his sword down on Waakzaam's wrist. The sorcerer jerked back his broken limb with a howl. The chains fell free.

The glowing presence intensified dramatically. Waakzaam gave a scream of rage mingled with fear. Relkin drove him back again with another thrust at his face.

At that point the great Dominator of Twelve Worlds looked up and saw that another figure had entered the room, the battledragon bearing that fell sword. The sword sparkled with hate, and he knew it thirsted for his soul. The dragon was just three steps away.

Waakzaam realized he had lost. This situation was untenable. The fact that it was unthinkable was beside the point. Analysis could come later, but first there had to be escape. He tottered toward the mirror.

Relkin saw the move and put himself in the way. Bazil was coming. The perfect elf features were contorted in a scream of hatred. Despite his broken wrist, Waakzaam swung two-handed with his mighty sword, and this time Relkin's sword broke asunder. Waakzaam pulled back for the killing stroke, and Relkin rolled forward in desperation, slid under the sword, and came up against the giant's steel greaves with a thump that knocked the breath out of him.

Waakzaam couldn't spare the time to kill him. The giant stumbled over his legs, and in the split second before Ecator could cut him down, hurled himself headfirst into the mirror and vanished into the seething matrices of chaos.

Instantly the mirror snapped shut with a final blast of harsh scraping noise. They were left with a deafening silence.

"It is done," said Lessis in a small voice.

Relkin wrapped Eilsa in his arms. Lessis stood behind them and put her hands on their shoulders.

The glowing mass began to diminish.

"No, don't go," said Relkin. "There are questions."

The enormity was unmoved by this plea. Relkin sensed coolness, detachment, almost amusement, but no further response. There were other events that were more interesting to it elsewhere.

The glow dwindled swiftly and was gone. For a long moment there was silence in the chamber.

"So that was what you released from Mirchaz," said Lessis. "The world is a different place as a result."

Relkin stared at her and groaned. They were going to ask him questions until hell froze over after this.

He felt the heavy tread of the dragon and looked up. Their eyes met.

"Boy's trouble only just begin."

After a huge meal out of the kitchens of Deer Lodge, the 109th turned about and began the march back to Posila. With them they took Wexenne of Champery, who'd been winkled out of a closet dressed in a washerwoman's smock, and also Kosoke, who was captured on the roof. They did not apprehend Porteous Glaves, who escaped during the fighting in the house when the dragons first surged up from Waakzaam's subterranean realm.