Roland Green - Knights of the Crown

The black dragon soared and made a tight circle around the tower, his wings almost vertical. Ancient battle joy flowed through him for the first time since waking, giving him strength he could not remember since his youth. So it had been when he had flown in the dragonarmies of the Dark Queen. So it could be again, if he served Fustiar.

He had a stray thought or two, that this state of mind was too useful to the mage to be natural. But the thoughts departed as quickly as they had come. The black dragon gave his war cry as he saw the ruined bodies strewn across the courtyard. Hardly one of the mutes had escaped, and when the battle joy had entered him he had killed even the pirates with less reluctance than before.

He circled twice for the sheer joy of being able to fly to battle again. On the third circle, he saw a man standing at the head of the stairs to the tower. He broke out of his circle and made ready to use his breath weapon against a man standing where none ought to.

Just in time, he recognized Fustiar.

With great care, one step at a time, the mage came down the stairs. Over his shoulder he carried a second Frostreaver. The dragon tried to remember if there were more, but thought Fustiar had said once (as usual, while drunk and not speaking too clearly) that he had made only two of full power, with all the magic he had used bound into them.

One of those now seemed to lie shattered in a tower that might soon fall and bury the fragments in the stones. Fustiar must be seeking to flee the Crater Gulf coast for another refuge where he could find a new ally and resources to perfect the making of Frostreavers.

If he was not doing that, the black dragon intended to persuade the mage otherwise. If Fustiar did not flee, either the dragon must remain and face Synsaga’s wrath with him, or flee and leave a sworn master behind. The Dragon Queen did not look kindly on the second course of action.

Or perhaps Fustiar could be persuaded to turn his dragon loose on Synsaga’s entire company. That was a pleasant thought, and the black dragon felt his blood rush and his eyes bulge with excitement. His battle fury was not yet spent, and if the battle was only begun …

The dragon landed at the foot of the stairs just as Fustiar reached them. Then he held out a foreclaw to keep his master from falling under the weight of years, wine, weariness, and the Frostreaver. With the other foreclaw he picked up the dead guard creature by one foot and flung it like a dead rat far into the shadows.

“Welcome, friend,” Fustiar said, aloud and in Common. He had never inquired the black dragon’s name. The black dragon had enough dignity that he would not offer such knowledge, even to a sworn mage master.

“Do we voyage tonight?” the dragon asked. “The castle is yours, and all who betrayed their trust are slain or fled beyond my reach. Should I pursue them?”

“Unnnnh,” Fustiar said, which was not a word the dragon recognized and which he had long suspected was not a word at all. “We go south. The Frostreaver, my books, and I.”

For the first time, the black dragon saw that Fustiar had a leather sack slung across his back. From the way it bulged, it must be filled, and if it held books, it must be heavy.

“I have no saddle or harness,” the dragon said. “Perhaps I should drive our enemies back still farther, even raid the camp itself. Then you can make a proper harness to be ready upon my return.”

It was a polite but foredoomed suggestion; the dragon knew it at once. Fustiar fell to his hands and knees and spewed up a great deal of matter that smelled worse than the corpses. It would be a gift from Takhisis if he could as much as lace up a pair of sandals.

“Very well,” the dragon said. “Stand still. I will carry the Frostreaver in one claw, you and your sack in the other. But we shall not go far to the-”

“South,” Fustiar said. “S-South.”

That made as much sense as anything that the black dragon had heard tonight. It would also make sense to halt as soon as they were clear of Crater Gulf, to make that harness and allowed Fustiar to clear the rest of the wine from his body.

He would, however, say nothing about that plan to Fustiar.

The last thunder of dragon wings had long faded into the night. The night sounds of the jungle were returning. Pirvan slapped at an insect whining in his ear, taking pleasure all over again in being able to slap with his left hand.

Then he began going through their packs to see what was left, with their quest so nearly at an end. Not the danger-the black dragon or Synsaga’s men might yet make an end of them-but any need to do more than stay alive had passed. Gerik Ginfrayson was beyond ransoming, they knew as much about Fustiar as they were likely to learn, and life suddenly seemed considerably simpler.

Pirvan knew that was more seeming than otherwise. What Haimya saw when she looked within herself, he did not wish even to try guessing, lest he guess wrongly and give mortal offense.

Also, healing would not be enough to keep them alive even if unpursued. They would have to make a secret camp, or even better, several, set snares for small game and lines for fish in the hill streams, find edible fruits and roots, and otherwise prepare to wait out the arrival of friends, who might then take a good long while finding them in this wilderness forsaken by all gods anyone ever cared to pray to.

“Pirvan,” Haimya said. “Are you as healed as you seem?”

“I could ask you the same.”

She stood on one foot-the foot of her wounded leg. Pirvan reached out and took the free foot with his left hand. Then Haimya twisted, throwing them both off balance. They fell beside each other on the muddy ground, then burst into laughter.

“I did not-I had not thought to laugh again,” she said. “Not this soon. Gerik, forgive me.”

Asking for his forgiveness every time you sneeze will not heal you, was what Pirvan wished to say. Instead, he shaped on his lips, “Haimya, I will stand far off or close by as you wish. But you need fear nothing from me if you allow me to stand close.”

Haimya blinked tears out of her eyes and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, which left her as black-snouted as any pig. “What you have not said is that we had best stand close together until we leave the Crater Gulf. This is true. Likewise it is true that I am the soldier, who should know better how to live here than a city-born thief.”

“I was not city-born, but as for the rest-”

Haimya rose, with much of her old grace and assurance. “Then the first thing we do is gather up all loose gear, and the second is hide ourselves.”

Hipparan saw the black dragon climbing away from the tower long before he saw that the dragon was burdened. He saw that the other was encumbered long before he saw that his teeth and claws were bloody. And he saw the blood long before he recognized the scent of human gore, and realized that the burden was Fustiar in one claw and a Frostreaver in the other.

“Do we have a quarrel?” the black dragon called. If it was a challenge, it was phrased so politely that Hipparan knew he had the freedom to refuse it.

If he did so, the only two dragons awake in all the world would not fight each other.

Not now, at least. But what about later? The black dragon was sworn to an evil mage, and the mage was not going to abandon his perverted work. Filling the world with Frostreavers might be only the first of his works.

“I have a quarrel with Fustiar the Mage,” Hipparan said. “I owe that much to my friends, who have suffered at Fustiar’s hands.”

“Argggh!” Fustiar snarled. His words were barely coherent, but the venom in them made Hipparan want to flinch away. “It was good work, freeing the woman of that lout! She wrought better than she knew, even if she ruined my Frostreaver. “Now she can seek a proper mate. Show me where she is, little copper dragon, and I will offer for her. She can stand beside me-”