The Dragons of Argonath (6 page)

"I thank you for your words, Farmer Pigget," said Relkin.

"And I was especially glad to hear that we were wrong to have written you off. We should've known that the Broketail and his dragonboy would survive somehow, even on the dark continent."

"Well, it was close, I can assure you. I called on the old gods, though I don't know whether they still listen."

"Ach, you young devil," said Tomas Birch. "Put away those ancient gods. The goddess is all there is. All there ever has been."

"So they say, Farmer Birch," said Farmer Pigget. "But whatever it was, whether the gods or the goddess, they brought our prodigies home, and we are thankful!"

They drank to that.

Relkin would have slipped away, but Ivor Pigget insisted on a toast in his honor, and they drank it off. Then Trader Joffi suggested a toast in honor of the 109th Marneri Dragons! And they drank that off too.

"Some day, young Master Relkin, I'd like to talk with you about what you plan to do come retirement," said Farmer Pigget.

"No secrets there, sir. We plan to retire in Kenor and take up land grants. I even know where."

Pigget chuckled. "Remarkable. And your investments, they will help you there."

"We plan to buy as much as we can afford. Land is still not expensive in the Bur Valley. The soil is good, but there's no way to ship downstream yet. It's still wilderness there, so we will clear land and supply the hill tribes with wheat and barley. They can only grow oats on the fells."

"You've thought it all out, have you?" said Pigget.

"Well, sir. I happen to know that there's a plan to put in an Imperial chute system on the Bur. Take heavy goods quickly down the rapids at the Lion's Roar."

"Oh-ho, and so you'd be sitting pretty…"

"We hope so."

"Have you thought about taking a wife, Dragoneer Relkin?" said Haleham.

"Oh yes, Farmer Haleham. In fact, I am affianced. With a young lady of fine family in the south of Kenor."

"Oh, are you now? Well, well, and might we know the young lady's name?"

"Surely, Farmer. 'Tis Eilsa Ranardaughter of Clan Wattel."

"The clan that stood at Sprian's Ridge?"

"The same, sir. Eilsa was there that day. She fought beside her father to the end."

Farmer Haleham's eyes grew round as he listened to this.

Just then there came a commotion at the door, and the Pawler brothers burst in. They were huge men, with wild hair and wild expressions, their skin reddened from a life spent on the hillsides with the sheep. Ham Pawler and his even huger brother Roegon stood in front of the bar. Ham was distraught, there were the marks of tears on his face.

"Something's been worryin' the sheep!" he hissed. His eyes were filled with pain.

"By the Mother's Hand, but it's terrible up there," said brother Roegon.

"What has happened?" said Pigget.

"Forty, fifty dead, just torn to pieces."

"Torn? Not cut?"

"Torn, twisted, as if they were killed by giants, maybe trolls."

There was a collective intake of breath. Feral trolls had long been feared in Blue Stone, ever since the Baron of Borgan had employed some on his property. Some had run off up into the hills back then, and not all had been recaptured.

"Mother preserve us."

"The dogs?"

"Gone. Not a trace."

"That is weird. It'd be a quick troll that could catch a dog."

"I left my dogs, Tonko and Trot, up there last night. Good hounds, will kill a wolf if it comes too close. But they were gone today."

"Off chasing wolves?" said Tomas Birch.

The Pawlers frowned and shook their heads.

"The Borgan pack sometimes roams this far south," said Farmer Haleham.

"We've not heard from them in years," protested Pigget.

"There's a pack in the Ersoi," said Ham Pawler, "but we've not had trouble with them in many a long year either. This is new, and I don't think it's wolves. They'd never take the trouble to kill so many."

"Are trolls that avid?" said Bernarbo.

"Who can say?" replied Haleham. "Who has studied the creatures?"

"Not me, that's for sure," said Trader Joffi.

"Not an occasion for mirth, Trader," murmured Pigget.

"By no means, Farmer, by no means."

"Come," Pigget was decisive, as he generally was. "There's no help for it, even with our two prodigies celebrating their return, we shall have to rouse ourselves. We must look into this at once. I will fetch my hounds. Birch, will you bring yours?"

Birch nodded and set his ale pot down.

"Call the constable," Pigget directed Benarbo. "We should send word down to Brennans tonight. Let the sheriff know and get out the alarm across the hills."

"I'll send my boy Lenott, he has a fine horse."

"My apologies, Dragoneer Relkin, I hate to leave at this point when there's still some dancing to be done, but this matter does sound rather serious. I'm sure you would agree."

Farmer Pigget set down his glass and left the inn.

In ones and twos the others soon left as well, and Relkin was finally set free to take his mug, refill it, and slip back into the big inner courtyard, where the dragons had dined. They were still sitting there in a happy circle, drinking from a keg of mild ale. From the sound of it they were gossiping. Relkin smiled fondly at the sight. Bazil was now the acknowledged champion of the legions, and he was overdue some company with his kin and old friends. Bazil and he had been through some hard times together. Relkin hoped this celebration was a taste of the sort of life they would eventually live. Just a few more years, and they'd be free.

Relkin quietly climbed the outdoor steps that lead up to the first-floor gallery. Out in the street was the roar of the party, down below in the kitchens and saloon room there was further noise, but up here it was cool and peaceful.

Relkin scratched his face, stretched his leg muscles. It was a moment for reflection. Here in the old village there was the illusion of safety in a normal world. Here was everything that he'd left behind when he joined the legions. But Relkin knew too well that the illusion rested on the strength of the Imperial Legions. And he also knew that he and Baz didn't belong here anymore, not really. They were battle-hardened veterans, indeed they were heroes. For some reason this thought didn't mean as much as he might have expected. You could be a hero and still have a stomachache. He was still Relkin of Quosh, still just an orphan boy with no one in the world except that big dragon over there. He was still the same person he'd always been.

Or was he? He felt a little shiver of unease. Since the last days of Mirchaz, since that strange and terrifying experience as the anointed agent of the Mind Mass, he had had to face the thought that perhaps he wasn't who he thought he was. Something had stirred within him that he didn't understand, and it might lead him to places far from anywhere he wanted to be.

One day he'd tried to will a strand of hay to move by his thought alone. Of course, nothing had happened. He had no magic powers. Only… right at the end, when he was about to give it up, he thought he saw the blade of straw give a shiver and twitch.

The wind, of course, it was just the wind. Except there was no wind that day.

He felt that shivery cold feeling again. That way lay the path to sorcery, and everything he'd seen about sorcery had shown him that it was dangerous and corrupting and led men to become most foul and hateful. One would start off doing only good. Being just and kind to the world, a good wizard Relkin. But then would come the thirst for power and control over whole worlds, and with that would come the corruption of the heart until all was black and stinking and dead inside.

He wanted none of it. He spat on the step as if to exorcise the thought, then sipped his ale. The Grey Lady had gone into retirement. Things were relatively quiet on the military front. With a little luck, maybe he would be spared any further exposure to the eerie world of magic.

That turned his thoughts away to Eilsa, and the Clan Wattel. He'd hoped for a posting in the Lis Valley, or Dalhousie at least. From there he could hope to visit Wattel Bek once in a while and work at demonstrating to Eilsa's family that he was more than just a dragonboy.

After Mirchaz, he and the dragon were set up pretty well with gold. Part of it was banked, part of it was hidden, and one way or another they were both set for a good life in retirement when their legion contract expired. Gold wouldn't make all the problems of life disappear, but it sure made them easier to bear.

During their four months of special leave, Bazil and Relkin had spent time with the Wattels, and he was more keenly aware than ever of the peculiarities of their position. Eilsa remained Ranardaughter and had to perform her function in the clan, until she was wed. The pressures on her to wed within the clan were strong, but so far she had fended them off and remained true to Relkin. Others in the clan were obviously unhappy about this.

Eilsa had made no demands on him, nor quizzed him overmuch about his adventures on the dark continent. She had seen that there had been a great change in him, he had been exposed to things that had altered him forever. And yet there was still the feeling between them. That had always been there since that first moment they'd met, on the fells near the Bek. One day they would be together, somehow.

Relkin sat there quietly until the dragons finished their keg. They lifted their huge bodies and moved off to their beds at Macumber's Dragon House. Bazil shifted to a bed of straw that had been made for him in the stables, and Relkin joined him there for a sound night's sleep. Relkin had been offered the best room in the inn, but a dragonboy never leaves his dragon.

In the late afternoon of the following day, there came an astonishing sight on the road to Ryotwa, just seven miles southwest of Quosh. With hooves and wheels rumbling, a swift moving column of cavalry surrounded two sleek coaches, each drawn by a team of eight horses. A string of sixty spare horses brought up the rear. Everything about the column spoke of speed and haste.

First came a pair of scouts, men in grey mouse skin with visored caps riding fiery grey horses, a breed known as Talion Runners. Then pounding along at a steady trot were twelve troopers from a crack Kadein cavalry regiment in green field uniforms, flat black hats and boots. Behind them came a dozen other men, in soft greys and blacks, who just by a certain presence in voice and manner gave hint that they were dangerous. All rode superbly, as well as the troopers. These were the private guard of the Emperor of the Rose, Pascal Iturgio Densen Asturi.

In the center of the column came the two coaches, jet-black, with curtains at the windows. A driver and guard rode on top. The teams kept up a steady quick trot that ate up the miles between Kadein and Ryotwa.

In the leading coach the emperor had put his feet up on a cushion on the front seat and was looking out the window in a relaxed manner. The countryside here was charming. The late afternoon sun had bathed everything in a golden glow. Neat fields of green, tidy woodlots, and occasional stone-built farmhouses covered the lower ground. The use of poplars to line the roads gave many intriguing quirks of perspective to the landscape.

The emperor enjoyed the view and went over in his thoughts the events of the last few days. Things had gone well. He had arrived in the Argonath quite suddenly, with just three days notice of his arrival. This was by careful design. In the city of Kadein, the greatest of the nine cities of the Argonath, he had ridden in state up the Grand Avenue and then greeted the crowds from the balcony at the palace. King Neath and the Kadeini royal family held a grand dinner and ball in his honor, all organized at short noticed by the king's impeccable staff. He had gone on daylong rides through the provinces surrounding Kadein including Arneis, where he had visited the battlefield on Sprian's Ridge, which had become a shrine of sorts. He had then visited the smaller city of Minuend and toured its fruitful provinces before swinging back through Kadein for one more parade in state. He then made a secretive exit for the next city on his Imperial Progress through the Argonath.

Everywhere he'd received the same ecstatic response, instinctive and openhearted. The surprise of his sudden visit seemed to bring out the best in the folk of the Argonath. In their hearts they knew full well that the Empire of the Rose underlay the success of the great cities, even that of Kadein, which had become by far the greatest of them. The emperor was sometimes thought of as remote, a distant figure always demanding more for the war effort in distant lands. But here he was, among the people, moving out to greet them and speak to them as if he were one of them, truly an emperor with the common touch. The Empire of the Rose was a new thing in the history of the world, an empire that was not imposed from the beginning by conquest. The emperor was showing them that not only did he claim to feel their pain, but he was here among them in person. Pascal had found the experience uplifting. The feelings of fear and delusion he'd suffered in the past had faded. It was good to get out and walk among the people and share a mug of ale with them in the town squares.

Among the nobility too he had found a healthy, good-hearted response. Of course there were the holdouts, like those who wanted independence for Arneis, but for the moment these had been thrown back on the defensive. Their grumpy faces were hardly noticed among the joyous crowds.

While the Emperor toured Arneis, the Imperial Party made sure that the benefits of belonging to the empire were enumerated to the common people. They had no vote except in local elections of mayors and sheriffs, but their broad opinion was in the end vital in the equations of power.

Many people were aware that the empire restrained the power of the wealthy merchants of Arneis, a group that thirsted for vast riches and influence. The common folk were apprehensive when they thought of this small group taking Arneis into independence.

In the gloom-ridden aftermath of the mission to Eigo, where so many men had died, such things had been forgotten. The divisive campaign for independence had gained influence. Now Pascal was doing something to restore morale to the other side of the argument. He contented himself with the thought that it was a much better approach than just sitting out there at Andiquant, safe but remote.