Deverry - A Time Of War Part 44

'My friend and I are going out now. By your name, Arzosah, I command you to follow where I lead.'

'Ych, you're a clever one! Follow I shall.'

As they walked back up through the tunnel, Rhodry could hear hei, scrabbling and sc.r.a.ping behind, shoving her way through to the wider reaches, where she could pad along after, her feet slapping the rock. Enj seemed to have recovered himself, but even though he and Rhodry would look each other's way every now and then, neither of them could speak in the dark and dreamlike tunnel. Once they reached the open air and stepped out onto the ledge, Enj turned to him and grinned.

'We did it. Against all odds and hope, we did it.'

Rhodry laughed just as the dragon stuck her enormous head out in the sun, blinking furiously at the glare.

In the sun she shone black, as smooth and fine as a piece of obsidian.

'Do you mock me?' she snarled.

'I don't, no, but my own fears, that never would I find you and fulfil the geas laid upon me.'

'A geas?'

'Just so, laid upon me to find you by the greatest master of dweomer in the kingdom of Deverry.'

'Ah.' She considered this. 'Well, then, that pleases me. If there's dweomer at work, no doubt there was naught I could do to turn aside my Wyrd. Shall I carry you down to the valley floor?'

'You shall carry us safely to the valley floor.'

"Clever and twice clever. So be it.'

Never had Rhodry felt as solemn as he did then, not even when he'd been invested as gwerbret of Aberwyn up in the king's palace of Dun Deverry, not even when the High King himself had taken his hand to bid him rise. He set one foot on her bowed neck and sat between her wings, clutching the rigid scale of a raised crest. With tears in his eyes Enj found a spot behind him.

'If only my father could see this,' En j whispered. 'If only he were here.'

Arzosah inched forward onto the ledge, then leapt, spreading her wings with a clack like an enormous fan. Wind rushed round them like a slap. Down they glided, circling the caldera once, then landing near the trees and the stream. Rhodry slid down and helped a white-faced Enj to solid ground. He was willing to guess that he looked more than a little pale himself.

'That wasn't the most sanguine ride I've ever taken,' Rhodry said in Deverrian, then switched to Elvish.

'Arzosah, we'll have to rig up some sort of riding harness with ropes.'

'A rope? A rope round my belly as if I were some smelly mule? No! I shan't allow it!'

Rhodry held up his hand and made the ring glitter. Her head drooped, and she rolled her eyes, hissing under her breath.

'Rhodry, please, spare me that, oh please, Dragonmaster?'

'I can't or I would. I can see what an indignity it is, and I might risk my own death, but I won't have Enj falling to his.'

'Oh very well, then. You're a harsh man, though.'

'So I've always been told, and so I've always needed to be.'

By piecing together the rope they'd brought with them, they managed to make a primitive harness, one loop round her belly, just behind the wings, stabilized with another round her chest, rather like a crude martingale. Rhodry used the ring to reinforce his command that she fly as smoothly as possible.

'And where, pray tell, O master of mine, are we going? I can't fly night and day, you know. I shall have to hunt for a deer now and then as well.'

'Fair enough, as long as you promise upon your name to come back when you've made your first kill.

You can finish it where we camp.'

'So harsh!' She stamped a clawed foot. 'Oh very well then.' 'Good. We fly east first, to a place called Haen Marn. Do you know it?'

'No.'

'Then I'll guide you there. It's a long journey, so fear not. We'll all rest often, and you shall hunt. And then, after Enj is back home again in Haen Marn, you and I shall fly south, and this time we'll be hunting Meradan.'

She gaped her mouth and hissed in murderous joy. With the rope to cling to, Rhodry and Enj learned, after an uncomfortable while, to adapt to the dragon's flight. Each wing beat thrust her forward in a rolling sort of motion, at times close to a jump, especially when she was gaining height. Sitting on her neck or shoulder felt like standing on the prow of a small boat heading out from sh.o.r.e against the waves.

After some hours, though, Rhodry at least found a new balance. He'd been trying to straddle her like a horse, he realized, while he needed to sit forward, steadied by his knees, resting as much on his own heels as her flesh so that he could roll with her wing beats. Bracing himself against them was futile.

When he tried to explain this to Enj, the young dwarf merely rolled his eyes and went on clinging for dear life to rope and crest alike. In the rush of wind and the thwack of the dragon's wings against air, it *was impossible to hold any sort of conversation, anyway. At the most Rhodry could bellow orders to the dragon or yell back a few words to Enj during those intervals when she glided rather than beat the air.

For both their sakes he ordered her to fly low. Seeing the ground rush by fast scared them less than seeing it unroll slowly from some great height. He supposed that she must be bitterly amused at their clumsiness and weak stomachs, these pitiful creatures who had nonetheless -tracked her down.

By late light they left the fire mountain and the G.o.ds' Soup Bowl far behind. With each beat of her wings or long glide Arzosah covered as much ground as they could have by running till they were winded.

She also soared over those petty obstacles, valleys and crests, rivers and broken ground, that had claimed hours of Rhodry and Enj's effort and sweat. After only an afternoon's travel, they'd gone long past the outcrop that may or may not have been shaped like a hound's head. When they camped that first night, Arzosah found them a shallow valley with a stream and set down gently. As soon as they slid off, Enj took a few steps, knelt, and kissed the ground, making Arzosah roll a scornful eye.

'Master?' she said. 'May I hunt?'

'You may, as long as you make a fast kill and bring it back here.'

'Will you take these wretched ropes off?'

He could, he supposed, with little effort, but always he was aware of the danger they rode by riding a dragon, this creature of air and darkness, so reluctantly tamed.

'No. You need to get used to them.'

She snarled and thrashed her head, but when he held up the ring, she quieted immediately. Whatever dweomer Evandar had put upon that ring, Rhodry realized, it must have radiated true power to those sensitive to such things.

'Go hunt,' Rhodry said. 'But return with your supper.'

With a rustle of wing she flapped and flew, circling off to the north. Enj shook himself all over like a wet dog.

'Ye G.o.ds, Rori! Never did I think I would see a dragon and finish my father's dream for him, much less ride upon one's back.' Enj grinned broadly. 'I think me, though, that Da would have had a better stomach for it than his son.'

'Well, you know what they always say. Be careful what you wish for.'

'Or you may get it. Truly.'

It was just growing dark when Arzosah returned, carrying a dead doe in her front claws as easily as a falcon carries a dove. She flew low, dropped it, then circled to settle next to it.

'Do you wish some of this venison, Rhodry Dragon master?'

'We have our own kill, my thanks. Enjoy yours, my lady.'

'Ah, I do like a courtly man.'

Although Rhodry and Enj both had been rather dreading watching her eat, she was a courtly feeder herself, ripping off small pieces of flesh with a delicate fang and turning her head away when she needed to gulp. The bones she cracked, laying one paw upon them and pressing till they snapped, then sucking the marrow with the corner of her mouth. Once done, she buried the hide and other remains with a few sc.r.a.pes of a paw, then went to the stream and bathed her head and chest.

'Right you were to order me back with that,' she remarked. 'I'm so sleepy now. A good night to you both.'

Without further ado she curled in a gra.s.sy hollow like a cat and fell sound asleep.

'Ye G.o.ds,' Enj whispered. 'Ye G.o.ds! I wish I spoke the elven tongue, to know what she does say.'

'Well, to tell you the truth, my friend, it's all rather ordinary. I doubt me if she's got a large wit, when you come right down to it, or maybe it's just that her concerns are on the simple side.'

Enj laughed.

'Very well, then, I won't bother regretting it. I wonder if my sister's scried us out? A fine sight we must be, riding on a dragon.'

'You're forgetting about the talisman.' Rhodry laid his hand on his shirt over the stone. 'And I don't dare take it off to allow her a look at us.'

"That's true. Ye G.o.ds, Ron. I keep forgetting the grim truths, don't I? About your enemies, and the siege down in Cengarn.'

'Well, war or no war, I think me we've a right to gloat.'

Although both men woke as stiff and sore as if they'd been in battle, on that second day they learned even more about the proper way to fly. By the end of the day's travel, Rhodry felt nearly as comfortable as he did on a horse - not that he would have wanted to try fighting on dragonback, mind, with all the swoops and tight turns such would have called for. Enj seemed more relaxed as well, sitting upon rather than clinging to Arzosah's back. When they camped that evening, Arzosah flew out and caught herself another doe, then fell straight asleep again. They were probably tiring her, Rhodry decided, with all this long travel, but soon they would be back at Haen Marn, the place he'd come to think of as home, a.nd the dragon would be able to rest.

'I wonder what she'll think of the beasts in the lake?' Rhodry said.

'Oh, they're not half elegant enough for her, I'm sure.'

They shared a laugh at their own jest. Later, of course, they would *wonder how they could have been so at ease, so ignorant, when the dweomer that lay all round them should have at least given them some small hint of danger.

On the third day they left the white peaks behind, swooping lower to fly over the hills that had cost Rhodry and Enj so much time to cross. By Enj's reckoning they would reach Haen Marn before sunset, but long before then they saw their first evil omen. Arzosah was flying along a gra.s.sy valley when Rhodry glanced down and saw a peculiar mark, a gash in the gra.s.s that stretched east like a road. Without waiting for a command Arzosah dropped some twenty feet to skim the earth, from this height Rhodry could see clearly enough to call her to land. She circled back and settled gracefully to earth at the spot where the trampling began.

Whatever had pa.s.sed by had cut a wide swathe indeed, some hundred feet of gra.s.s become mud, hoof-prints and horse droppings, wagon ruts and the abrasions of booted feet. Rhodry slid down from her shoulder and ran, dropping to one knee at the edge of the damage where some of the prints separated themselves out. Enj came trotting after.

'What be this?' Enj said, utterly puzzled. 'Never have I seen such a thing in my life.'

'In your lucky and sheltered life, lad. An army's pa.s.sed this way, and not long ago at all. Yesterday, I'd say.'

'But where did they come from? The tracks just start out of nowhere.'

'Dweomer,' Arzosah cried in Elvish. 'I can smell it!'

Rhodry got up, turning to look at the dragon. She was crouched tense, breathing hard, her great head flung up, her coppery eyes rolling. Her wings trembled as if only sheer will kept from her flying.

'You're right, no doubt,' he said. 'And from the size of these hoof-prints, the horses were as big as plough stock. That means the riders had to be Meradan.'

Her claws shot out to dig the earth in hatred.

'Let's go,' Rhodry said to Enj. 'And pray that Haen Marn's dweomer held.'

Once they were settled on her back, with a flap of wings she leapt up to fly the faster, following the track like a road. Rhodry felt as if the season had changed to winter, and he'd swallowed rocks of ice. Toward mid-afternoon, when by Enj's reckoning they were close to Haen Marn, the tracks turned south.

'Shall we follow and kill?' Arzosah bellowed.

'Not yet! Keep heading east.'

'I want to kill some.'

'Arzosah, by your name -'

'Oh I know! East it is!'

A few moments more brought them their second omen of evil. Off to the south a thin plume of smoke rose at the horizon, as if some large thing burned. Rhodry would have thought that someone had fired a dun, if there'd been a dun there to fire, As it was, the smoke lay dead south, the wrong direction for Haen Marn. Since calculating distances from the air lay beyond him, he could only guess that the souce of the smoke was a burning farm, down near Lin Serr's plateau, perhaps. Enj yelled out something incomprehensible, but the fear in his voice spoke as clearly as words, Arzosah put on a burst of speed; he'd seen the smoke as well.

Under them the hills sped by, a dusty green carpet of forest where here and there a stream winked silver. The dragon began to sour, slowing now and then or catching a current in the air to ride and rest.

Finally they flew over the last hill to the valley that should have held Haen Marn. Rhodry saw nothing but more hills, stretching green and placid, on either side the river, the recognizable river that once had sprung from Haen Marn's lake. Now it ran through a narrow valley, not a broad one, and the land was dotted with pines, not oaks.

Behind him Enj howled in grief and rage both.

'Land!' Rhodry called out. 'Down by the water, so you can drink.'

With a long glide and flap the panting dragon settled to earth, slid off, then helped Enj down. For a moment neither of could speak.

'Are you sure I didn't guide Arzosah wrong?' Rhodry said at last, Enj merely shook his head no and strode off, heading for a familiar looking pile of boulders by the riverbank. Rhodry followed and helped him lift the rocks, shoving them out of the way, rummaging round a kind of desperate hope that they'd find nothing. He was aware of the dragon crouching behind him on the riverbank, her sides heaving hot in the sun. All at once Enj keened, just one wail, bitten off fast. He held up a black and twisted thing, all flattened, tarnished and worn as if by the pa.s.sage of a thousand years - the remains of the silver horn that once had summoned the dwarven longboat.

'It's been withdrawn,' Enj choked out. 'Haen Marn.'

'Withdrawn? What do you mean?'

'To its own world. It doesn't truly belong in ours. In times of trouble, it can withdraw. That's the dweomer I was speaking of, when you'd marry and such.'

'Speaking of? A bare hint, lad, a bare hint.' Rhodiy wondered what wrong with him, that he'd feel so calm, feel nothing, truly, but strange and distant curiosity, don't dare speak plainly! What if it heard? Or they heard? The spirits, I mean. Whatever guards the place, You could find yourself gone in an eye blink.'

'And when, then, will it return? When the danger's past?'

Enj shook his head. His eyes glistened tears.

'I don't know. Maybe never,' he whispered. 'My grandmother, my father's mother, the Lady of Haen Marn, the true lady, the one Avain should have replaced if she'd not been born a mooncalf- she told me always, when I was a lad, that we ran that risk, living in Haen Marn, that someday it would withdraw, and there we'd be in its true world, whether we wanted to bide there or no.'

It be a baleful thing, the hefting of this shield. Pray, Rori, pray that never it be needful.

The thought sounded so loud in his mind that Rhodry turned, thinking Angmar stood behind him, started to ask her a question, in fact, and found he couldn't speak. No one stood there. Only wind sighed in gra.s.s. He took a few steps north, toward the spot where the river had once poured from a crack in the cliffs. He was thinking that he really should say something comforting to Enj, seeing as the lad had just lost his mother, when suddenly the view blurred and began to dance in front of him. He dropped to his knees, but he never quite wept, fought himself cold, rather, beside the fast-flowing river, while Arzosah turned her enormous head his way and watched unblinking.

'They slew my mate,' she said at last. 'And now they've driven yours away. We shall kill many Meradan together, Rhodry Dragonmaster.'

'So we will.' He smiled, felt that smile burn itself into his face. Together, so we will.'