Ширли Мерфи - The Dragonbards

From the reviews of The Dragonbards

“Once again Murphy demonstrates a fine sense of storytelling, high adventure, scene setting, and characterization—human, animal, and evil monster. And her dragons remain some of the most appealing in contemporary fantasy.” — ALA Booklist

“The concluding volume of the author’s generally acclaimed Dragonbards trilogy . . . assumes a harrowing narrative pace that builds to a grand, good-over-evil finale. . . . This is rollicking high fantasy.” — Christian Science Monitor

The Dragonbards

(Dragonbards Trilogy, Book Three)

by

Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 1988 by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

All rights reserved. For information contact webmaster@joegrey.com. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be resold, given away, or altered.

This is the third book of a trilogy. It is preceded by Nightpool and The Ivory Lyre .

Harper & Row edition (hardcover) published in 1988

HarperPrism edition (paperback) published in 1989

Ad Stellae Books edition, 2010

Author website: www.joegrey.com

Cover art © by Fernando Cortés De Pablo / 123RF

Chapter 1

I think there are no more singing dragons on Tirror. I have searched with my restless thoughts as surely as if I flew, myself, across Tirror’s winds.

— From the diary of Meriden, Queen of Auric, written ten years before the battle at Dacia.

*

The swamp shone dark green, a steamy tangle of knotted, ancient trees thrusting up from sucking mud. It stank of rotting leaves and small decaying animals. Heavy moss hung down, and between the twisted trees, small pools of water shone. All was silence, the only sound the hushing whisper of insects, as if this land had lain untouched for a thousand years.

But suddenly screams shattered the stillness. The shadows flew apart and the quiet water heaved as a white dragon came plunging through, bellowing with terror.

Her iridescent scales shone with sky colors, and her wings were sculptured for flight. But she could not fly. One wing dragged, bloody and broken. Blood coursed down her gashed neck and shoulder staining a trail on the mud. The shouting behind her grew louder. She could hear the pursuing horses splashing and heaving. She fled between trees so dense that the arrow shafts sticking from her sides caught at them, jarring her with pain. Her broken wing pulled her sideways, and her great head swung as she reared to free herself from sucking mud. The shouts of the riders thundered just behind her. She tried again to fly, beating her wings in despair. Then she spun to face her pursuers, belching flame at the dark warriors.

They did not fall back; they fired—their arrows pierced her face and throat. Floundering, screaming with pain, she tried to bring a vision to frighten them, tried to fill their minds with full-grown dragons swooping at them spitting sheets of fire.

But no vision came. She was too unskilled, and the dark powers were too strong. She fled for a small lake between the trees, dragging her torn wing. Dizzy and seared with pain, she crashed heavily through a tangle of willows and dove deep.

She stayed under until her breath was gone, feeling her blood wasting from her, her mind calling out to her nestmates and to a power greater than theirs.

The horsemen drove their mounts belly deep into the lake. When the white dragon surfaced, gulping air, they had surrounded her.

They made quick work of killing her.

The young dragon floated on the bloody lake, her broken wings spread white across the red water. The cheering soldiers raised their fists in victory, their faces twisted into cold smiles. Three of them put ropes on her body and whipped their horses until they had pulled her to a rise of earth.

They cut off her head and strapped it to the back of a packhorse, to carry as a trophy to their dark leader. Finished with her, they wheeled their mounts and stormed away through the mire.

The soldiers were disciples of Quazelzeg, master of the unliving. Three of them were un-men, soulless creatures alien to Tirror. The other five were human men warped to the sick ways of the dark—all of them hated the singing dragons and the human bards they paired with.

Chapter 2

Perhaps I am the only dragonbard left, except Teb and Camery. I haven’t told them they are dragonbard born. They are only small children, and it would break their hearts to know.

*

The four dragons fought the wind across the open sea, rising and dropping as the icy blasts beat at them. They had passed over no land since morning. It was now past midnight, the freezing black sky pierced only by cold stars. Below them, the ocean was invisible except for the shine of whitecaps. The two white dragons shone sharply in the blackness, their sweeping wings hiding their riders. The two black dragons were nearly invisible.

Teb slept sprawled along Seastrider’s white back, absorbing the big dragon’s warmth. When she banked across the wind, he jerked awake suddenly, drawing his sword. But he saw they weren’t in battle, and sheathed his blade again, smiling sheepishly.

The battle is over, Tebriel, Seastrider said silently.

I guess I was dreaming. He cuffed her neck affectionately. We’re alive, he thought, grinning. This time two days ago, I wasn’t so sure.

Nor was I. She changed balance with a subtle twist of her long body and wide wings, and swung her head to look at him. He could feel her excitement, knowing there were young dragons ahead. Somewhere on that frozen land they would find the dragonlings.

They will more than double our number, Tebriel. We will soon be a respectable army.

He stroked her neck, sliding his hand down her gleaming scales. He hoped the four dragons would sense the dragonlings, once they reached Yoorthed’s bleak coast. They could never be sure, with the dark so strong, how much their powers would be crippled.

Near to dawn a thin moon lifted out of the sea ahead, reflecting in the blocks of ice that now churned across the restless sea—ice that meant land was near. Teb could not sleep; he stared ahead searching for the first thin line of mountains and trying to sense a hint of the dragonlings.

He was Tebriel of Auric, a prince exiled from his own land by his father’s murderer. He had not seen his home in four years. He was young and lean, his skin brown from flying close to the sun. His dark, serious eyes could laugh, but always with a hint of pain, or of anger deep beneath the joy. His dark hair was hidden under a leather hood; his lean hands were muffled in leather mittens. A white powdering of ice had collected along the edge of his hood and across his shoulders, and on the edges of Seastrider’s wings.

As he turned to look back at the other four bards, his eyes lost their angry loneliness and his smile came quickly, with a terrible love for them—with a deep love for his sister, Camery. She was nodding between Nightraider’s black wings, trying to keep awake. Her long pale hair was tangled around her shoulders and around Marshy. The little boy rode securely in front of her, held tight and sound asleep.

The other white dragon, Windcaller, drew even with Seastrider. Kiri lay sleeping along Windcaller’s neck, her arms through the white leather harness, her mittened hands tucked beneath her cheek, her dark hair spilling out of her hood. The two dragons stared ahead searching for land.

Teb watched Kiri stir. Are you awake?

Just barely, she thought, looking across the wind at him, yawning. When she turned to look out across the sea, she rose up suddenly, to look. “There’s an island! A rock—there among the icebergs.”