Ширли Мерфи - The Dragonbards

“But I won’t be there, either.” Teb cuffed Garit’s shoulder. “I’ll make it up to you. You’ll be back in Auric one day, training colts and youngsters there.” He hoped nothing happened to Garit, waiting on that lonely barge.

When the bards loaded their bundles onto the dragons’ harness, both Seastrider and Windcaller complained that they felt like pack horses. Iceflower and Marshy remained silent. They carried no extra weight, only six small owls who, all together, couldn’t weigh a full pound.

The dragons rose into the evening sky, the owls clinging to Marshy’s shoulders, their feathers blown back. They stared up with awe at the dragon’s huge, beating wings.

A thin moon was beginning to rise; the sky was not yet dark. Before long they could see Aquervell, a wide black smear of land spreading across the pale sea. The wind grew cold. The little owls huddled down inside Marshy’s tunic. By the time they reached Aquervell’s coast, the sky felt like ice. The harbor lay below, dimly lighted. When we leave Aquervell, Teb said, we’ll burn the ships, to keep them from following us. Beyond the harbor, Quazelzeg’s castle rose into the night sky, lit by torches set along the high wall.

Pray that the children are in the cage, Teb said.

I am praying. As they circled, Kiri looked down at the slave cages and the little heaps of blackness huddled inside. The jackals stared up at them from the courtyard and the wall, their wings spread for attack. Teb undid a bag of the drugged meat. As Seastrider dove, he dropped the pieces into the courtyard. The moment the jackals smelled it, they began snarling and fighting over it, their inky shapes thrashing among the shadows. When two jackals flew up at Seastrider, she spit flame at them. They dropped back, but others came. Teb knocked them away. He didn’t want to use his sword, and have them dead or wounded for Quazelzeg to see. One grabbed his arm and hung on. He hit it in the face, then pulled its jaws open. It fought him, twisting in the air. He freed his arm and threw the beast down to the pavement, clenching his teeth with the pain of the bite. The owls hissed and dove around him.

“The drug is beginning to work,” Afeena said. “They are beginning to stagger.”

“Did you find the bard children in the cage?” Teb said.

“No,” Neeno said. “We did not.”

“Look again. The boy has red hair, the girl is dark.”

“Yes, Tebriel. You told us.” They dove away, but returned shaking their heads. “We do not think they are there.”

Seastrider dove. Teb slipped from her back to the wall, slung his rope over the spikes, and dropped down to the courtyard. In deep shadow, he moved along the cage, looking in. He didn’t want to whisper—children trained to drugs could not be trusted. He searched the cage for some time. He could see the children well enough in the torchlight to know the owls were right. The two bards were not there.

Were they in the cellars? He could slip into the palace. There was not a stir of life, no human guard. It would be easy.

Yes, and foolish, Seastrider said. Your anger must not make you foolish.

She was right. A foolish risk, with too much at stake. But he burned to go, burned for action, burned with hatred of the dark. He went along the cage again, then swung to Seastrider’s back as she lifted straight up with a powerful sweep of wings, to join the others.

Kiri knew Teb’s hand was hurting where the jackal had torn it; she could feel the pain making him irritable. She was seared by his impatience that the children weren’t in the cage, and by his terrible hatred of the dark. It frightened her to see him so angry—that kind of hatred could lead him into some fatal mistake. And the plan they must now use would put Teb and Marshy alone, among the soldiers of the unliving.

Chapter 14

In the palaces of the dark, the unliving replenish their powers by torturing their captives. They sustain themselves by breaking the human spirit—oh, I pray to the Graven Light for my children. The unliving must be driven from Tirror.

*

The little owls darted through the moonlight, leading the dragons over a deep, shadowed chasm. Ahead rose the mountain, its rocky face pale in the moon’s glow and alive with giant lizards oozing over its ledges. Lizards were crowded at the foot of the mountain, too, around the wall of mortared stone that sealed the monster’s cave. When the dragons dove at them, spitting flame, the lizards fled.

The dragons settled before the mortared wall, and the bards slid down and stood looking. The stink of the monster was like rotten meat. The door at the bottom was just large enough to herd a few rats through. Next to the wall was the cave where the rats were kept—the bards could hear them squeaking and fighting behind the iron door. Two dozen wooden barrels stood waiting to be filled.

“How do they get the monster out?” Kiri said.

Teb examined the wall. “Maybe there’s another way, back in the caves.”

“Whatever that creature is,” Seastrider said, “it is certainly no dragon. No dragon ever smelled like that.”

The bards unstrapped the bundles of cadacus wafers from the dragons’ harness and began to empty them into the barrels. They sprinkled handfuls of dirt on top, so the wafers wouldn’t be seen. The rats would stir them up, seeking the smell of food. As the bards filled the barrels, they could hear stirrings behind the monster’s wall, as if the creature was snuffling and scraping along the stone. Suddenly it began to scream. The dragons leaped at the wall, belching flame.

“Get back,” Teb shouted. “Do you want to free that thing?” He tried to imagine the shape of the creature, but it touched his thoughts only as writhing darkness. “Come on. Before we all throw up.”

Marshy, Kiri, and Teb mounted up, and the dragons leaped skyward, sucking in fresh air.

They circled the highest peak and found a lizard cave. When the giant lizards attacked, the dragons killed them. For over an hour they battled the creatures, pushing the bodies down the mountain into the ravine. The bards swept lizard dung and trash from the cave and laid out their gear. Two pairs of owls went to steal the key to the slave cage and to search for the bard children. Kiri cleaned Teb’s arm where the jackal had bitten it; then she put on salve and bound it.

The owls were gone perhaps an hour; then Theeka and her mate swept in on the wind, to drop onto Teb’s arm.

“What happened?” Teb said. “Where are Neeno and Afeena?”

“Ooo, on the wall, Tebriel,” Theeka said. “Waiting for you. They have the key to the slave cage. It was not in the larder, ooo-ooo, but deep inside the palace, beside the door to Quazelzeg’s chambers. Ooo, what a tangled warren of halls.”

“Did you find the children?”

“We could hear children,” Theeka said. “There were lights in a cellar. Ooo, we heard ugly laughing, and a child screamed. We tried to get in, but there was not a hole big enough. We could see the children through a crack. We could not see the bard children. You will have to use the other plan.”

Kiri glanced at Marshy.

Teb laid a hand on the little boy’s shoulder. “You can change your mind. No one would think the less of you.”

“It will be best if I go right away,” Marshy said. “I’m ready—old clothes, musty smell, and all.” The little boy squeezed Kiri’s hand and climbed onto Iceflower’s back.

Teb put on the hooded cloak Garit had given him, like those worn by Quazelzeg disciples. He hugged Kiri and held her. “You have the rope and the rest of the drugged meat. Don’t leave here until the owls come for you. It could be a few hours, it could be tomorrow night.” He cupped her face in his hands. His look was deep and searching. “It will be all right, Kiri. Be careful . . . for me.” His eyes darkened, and he held her to him fiercely. “You . . . it will be all right.” He held her tight for a long moment, then turned away as if it were easier to leave her quickly. He leaped to Seastrider’s back, Theeka and Keetho swept up to his shoulders, and Seastrider beat up into the night with Iceflower close behind.