The Fire Dragon

‘Over here,’ Owaen called out. ‘I can guess who you’re looking for.’

Maddyn joined him. Owaen had cast off his mail to reveal his rust-stained and filthy shirt; his hair lay plastered against his skull with sweat. Branoic lay on the ground, stripped of his mail and sword. Maddyn swore at the sight of the wound, a ghastly gape of red as if Death herself smiled up at them. When he knelt, he threw the blanket over Branoic’s face first. With Owaen’s help he wrapped Branoic up. For a moment they knelt at his side.

‘Remember us in the Otherlands,’ Maddyn whispered. ‘The gods all know we’ll be joining you soon enough.’

Together they rose, then stood together, shoulders touching. Maddyn looked down at the old blue blanket wound round what was left of a man he’d known for more years than he could remember. He felt his grief like a blanket pressed into his face, smothering him. Involuntarily he shuddered, tossing his head as if to throw it off. He heard Owaen step back.

‘Did you see it happen?’ Maddyn said.

When Owaen didn’t answer, Maddyn looked up to find him staring off at the sunset, his head thrown a little back, his jaw set tight.

‘Ah well,’ Maddyn said. ‘See that stone wall over there, across the pasture? On the morrow, when they bury him, I’ll be wanting to haul some stones to set up a cairn. Will you help?’

Owaen nodded.

‘And what about his poor lass?’ Maddyn went on. ‘It aches my heart, thinking of her praying he’ll ride home soon, and here he’s already ridden through the gates of the Otherlands.’

‘Just so.’ Owaen kicked the ground hard with the toe of his boot. ‘Oh horseshit and a warm tub of it!’ He turned and ran, trotting down the long line of their dead.

Despite the warmth of the night, Lilli had her maid build a small fire in the hearth in her chamber. She wanted light, and lanterns would, she felt, cast only shadows. As she sat in her chair and tried to read, her mind kept turning to the war and to Branoic. No matter how hard she concentrated on the book in front of her, the horrors she’d seen earlier kept breaking into her studies. Finally she laid the book aside and stared into the flames. She found herself thinking of Branoic, remembering the blood sheeting from his face. Nevyn will save him – she told herself this repeatedly but didn’t believe it once.

Suddenly in the glowing coals she could see Nevyn, a tiny figure, it seemed, walking among the ashes. She leaned forward in her chair, concentrated on the image, saw the embers turn into the image of another fire as the darkness of a night camp appeared through the flames. The fire faded away, and it seemed to her that she walked beside Nevyn, who was carrying a cloth sack as he threaded his way through the tents. At length he returned to the tent she recognized as his from the past summer’s expedition. In a stone circle a tidy stack of wood waited for him. When Nevyn snapped his fingers, salamanders rushed forward to light it. He tossed the sack into his tent, then sat down on a stool in front of the fire. Lilli saw him lean forward – the view changed. It seemed to her that she sat on the other side of the fire and looked across at him.

‘Lilli!’ Nevyn’s voice sounded in her mind. ‘How did you reach me?’

‘I don’t know, my lord.’

‘Think to me, don’t speak aloud. I can’t hear you when you actually talk.’

‘Well and good, then. I was looking into the fire, and then I saw you. Can you hear me now?’

‘I can. You must be badly troubled, to reach me this way.’

‘It’s Branoic. I saw it – I mean, I had one of my visions, and I saw him take that wound. How does he fare?’

‘Oh my poor child! I’m afraid he died soon after.’

A flood of tears washed the vision away. Lilli covered her face with her hands and sobbed, rocking back and forth on the edge of her chair.

Although Nevyn tried for some while to reach Lilli again, he failed, picking up only her grief like the sound of distant keening. Finally he broke the link and threw a few more sticks onto his sputtering fire. As the flames leapt, he became aware that someone was standing in the shadows beyond the pool of light and watching him.

‘Who is it?’ Nevyn snapped. ‘How long have you been standing there?’

‘Owaen, my lord, and not long at all.’ The silver dagger captain took a few steps forward. ‘I – er, well – I wanted a bit of a talk with you.’

‘Very well. Come sit down.’

Owaen sat down on the ground about an arm’s length away. For a few moments they stared into the fire together. Owaen’s face was as expressionless as a mask.

‘Ah well,’ Owaen said at last. ‘It’s about Branoic’

‘I see. You’re surprised that you’re sorry he’s dead. You thought you’d be glad, but you’re not.’

‘Just that!’ Owaen looked up sharply. ‘Ye gods, you truly can see into a man’s soul, can’t you?’

‘Only when his feelings are obvious.’

Owaen tried to smile but failed. ‘He got that wound saving my worthless life. I got cut off at the head of our countercharge, and he came up to pull me out of a mob. Ye gods! I thought he hated me. Why would he do it?’

‘You’re a silver dagger and the captain,’ Nevyn said. ‘That’s reason enough.’

Abruptly Owaen raised one arm and buried his face in the crook, but in a brief moment he lowered it again. His voice shook. ‘I was thinking about his woman. She’s left with no one to protect her, if our prince tires of her, I mean. Do you think I should offer to marry her?’

Nevyn’s first impulse, quickly stifled, was to laugh.

‘That’s an honourable thought,’ he said instead. ‘But she has me and her studies. The prince would know better than to try to send her away from court or some such thing.’

‘True spoken.’ Owaen smiled, relieved. ‘I wouldn’t have made her much of a husband, anyway. But I felt I should offer.’

It seemed that the prince was worried about Lilli as well. The next morning, when the army was digging trenches to bury its dead, Maryn summoned Nevyn to his side. They escaped the noise and confusion by walking clear of the encampment. Out in the middle of what had once been a field, they could see a pair of men pulling stones off its boundary wall and carrying them out onto the grass.

The prince shaded his eyes with one hand. ‘That’s Maddyn and Owaen. I wonder what they’re doing.’

‘Building Branoic a cairn, most like,’ Nevyn said. ‘I saw Maddo earlier, and he said that he and a couple of the lads had dug him a proper grave.’

‘Oh.’ Maryn lowered his hand and looked at him with bleak eyes. ‘I thought I’d got used to men dying for my sake. I was wrong.’

‘Well, your highness, this particular death –’ Nevyn let his words trail away.

‘Indeed. Do you want me to find Lilli some other husband?’

‘I don’t. I think me the dweomer will give her all the position in court that she’ll need.’

Maryn nodded, staring at the ground. ‘I’m sending messengers back this morning. I tried to write her a letter, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I don’t know why. I felt as if I’d never known how to read and write.’

Nevyn choked back his own words: it’s because this death gladdens your secret heart. ‘Well, you could send a special messenger,’ he said instead.

‘Good thought. I know! Maddyn. He’s still blasted weak from that spoilt pork. We’re sending the wounded back to Dun Deverry, and he can join the escort.’

For a moment Nevyn felt struck dumb. The dweomer cold seemed to freeze his lips and fill his mouth with ice. Maryn glanced his way and considered him with narrow eyes.

‘What’s so wrong?’

‘My apologies, my liege.’ Nevyn had to force out the first few words; then his voice steadied. ‘That escort? Will it be substantial? I have the oddest feeling that Maddyn and the wounded will be in some sort of danger.’

‘I’ll double it, then.’ Maryn smiled briefly. ‘I know those odd feelings of yours by now.’

Lilli woke and found her chamber filled with cold grey light. For a moment she lay in bed. Her eyes burned, and her head throbbed with pain. Did I sleep? she wondered. Did I sleep at all? I must have. All at once, she remembered.

‘Branno,’ she whispered.

Her hot and swollen eyes refused to deliver more tears. She sat up, pushing the blankets back. She had wept for half the night, or so it seemed as she looked back upon it. In her hearth a pile of ash testified to the fire in which she had seen Nevyn’s face and heard him speaking. It was odd, she realized, but never once, not even in the depths of her grief, had she tried to pretend to herself that the vision had been merely some unreal dream. She knew it beyond doubting. Branoic was dead.

Someone pounded on the door.

‘Who is it?’ Lilli called out.

‘Just me, my lady.’ Clodda’s normally cheerful voice trembled. ‘You’ve barred the door, and I can’t get in.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Lilli got up and went to the door. ‘I didn’t mean to worry you.’

She unbarred the door, opened it wide, and let Clodda come in. The maidservant dropped her a brief curtsy.

‘I was ever so afraid you’d been taken ill,’ Clodda said.

‘Not ill, truly.’ Lilli hesitated. Telling someone about Branoic’s death would make it horribly real – but it’s real anyway, she told herself. ‘Branoic’s dead. Nevyn told me last night. He used dweomer.’

Clodda’s face turned pale. ‘Oh my lady!’ Her voice shook with tears. ‘That wrings my heart.’

‘Mine, too.’

‘No doubt.’ Clodda pulled up a corner of her dirty apron and wiped her eyes. ‘Oh, it’s so sad. My poor lady.’

With a sigh Lilli sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘It must be well into the morning. Why is the light so cold?’

‘Clouds, my lady.’ Clodda looked at her sharply, as if wondering if Lilli had gone mad with grief. ‘It’s going to rain, I wager.’

‘Oh. Rain. Could you go to the great hall and find me somewhat to eat? Bread would do.’

‘I will. Lady Elyssa has been asking for you. That’s why I came up and knocked.’

‘I’ll dress, then. If you see her, ask her if she’d just come to my chamber.’

Clodda must have seen the lady in the great hall, because Elyssa herself brought Lilli a basket of bread and butter in but a little while, just as Lilli had finished combing her hair. Elyssa set the basket on the table and considered Lilli for a moment in the harsh grey light streaming in the window.

‘Clodda’s right,’ Elyssa said. ‘You do look ill. Your cheeks – they’re all red and raw!’

‘I’m always a little bit ill.’

‘Or is it from tears? She told me that you’re convinced Branoic’s dead.’

‘Don’t you believe me?’

‘It was Clodda I was doubting, not you. I suppose you must have been – er, what does Nevyn call that?’

‘Scrying.’

‘My heart goes out to you, lass.’ Elyssa looked away, biting her lower lip. ‘Another good man gone.’

‘Oh ye gods, I wish I could weep some more. I feel like a bit of old rag the cook used to scrub a pot or suchlike. All soiled and wrung out and twisted.’

Elyssa nodded. She seemed to be searching for words, then sighed and held out the basket of bread.

‘Here. Do eat.’

Lilli took a piece of bread and bit into it. Her grief robbed it of all its savour, but she forced herself to keep eating to reassure Elyssa.

‘You look more than a little unwell,’ Elyssa said, watching her. ‘I was going to ask if you’d like to visit us up in the women’s hall, but I think me you’d best stay here and rest.’

After Elyssa left, Lilli threw the half-eaten chunk of bread back into the basket. She went to the wooden chest at the foot of the bed, knelt down and opened it. Right on top lay the pieces of Branoic’s wedding shirt, which she’d not quite finished embroidering. He’d never wear it now. He had died too far away to even be buried in it. Next to it lay the little knife she used for cutting thread, a short blade but sharp. She took it out and her little mirror with it.

She propped the mirror up on the mantel, and by twisting this way and that, she could see well enough to chop off her hair, a twist at a time, sawing it short with the sewing knife as a sign of her mourning for her betrothed. She’d heard bards recite old tales from back in the Dawntime, when mourning women gashed their faces as well. For a moment she was tempted – not to mourn Branoic but to keep Maryn away. With a shudder she laid the knife down. In the mirror her face looked back, puffy-eyed, pinched, the short hair all ragged. She turned away, remembering how he looked, sitting on the edge of her bed.

‘I did love you,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll pray to the Goddess that you believed me.’

Lilli put the mirror and knife away, then wrapped up the cut-off hair in the sleeve of the shirt that would have been Branoic’s. She put the shirt away, then returned to her chair and stared out of the window. Every breath she drew made her chest ache, as if her grief had filled her lungs and turned them heavy.

The sun had barely started to climb into the sky when Nevyn left his tent and went to tend the wounded. He found Caudyr there ahead of them, and as they started their work, other chirurgeons came to join them and some of the servants as well. As Nevyn had feared, several men had died in the night. The servants wrapped them in blankets and carried them away. Nevyn had finished his rounds and was just washing the gore off his hands and arms when Gavlyn, the prince’s chief herald, came running, carrying a long staff bound with ribands.

‘My lord Nevyn!’ Gavlyn called out. ‘Lord Braemys wants to parley.’

‘Indeed?’ Nevyn said. ‘Well, that’s welcome news!’

Together they hurried across the camp. The night before, servants had pitched Maryn’s tent apart from those of the other noble-born; a good ten feet of bare ground surrounded it. Out in front a groom waited with Gavlyn’s dun gelding, saddled and bridled. In the horse’s black mane hung ribands of red and yellow. Maryn himself came out of the tent just as Nevyn arrived; he wore the red and white plaid of Cerrmor, pinned at one shoulder with the huge silver brooch that marked him as a prince.

‘This is good news,’ Maryn remarked to Nevyn. ‘I’m hoping and praying that Braemys wants to swear fealty and end this thing.’

‘So am I, your highness,’ Nevyn said, ‘so am I.’

‘We should know soon. Gavlyn, you have my leave to go.’

But in the end they waited a good long while to hear Lord Braemys’s decision. All that morning, while Maryn paced, stewing with impatience in front of his tent, the heralds rode back and forth, negotiating the conditions for the meeting between Prince Maryn and Lord Braemys. Each side suspected the other of having treachery in mind, and as Maryn remarked to Nevyn, he could understand why.

‘The war’s been hard enough fought,’ the prince said, ‘and my men did kill his father.’

‘And his men did his best to kill you,’ Nevyn said, ‘by a ruse.’

Over the next long while, Maryn’s vassals strolled over to join him in ones and twos. Daeryc and Ammerwdd paced up and down with him. The lower-ranked men sat on the ground and talked among themselves in low voices. Finally, not long before noon, Gavlyn returned, leading his horse with one hand and carrying the staff in the other. Everyone got up fast, but no one spoke, not even the prince. The groom trotted forward and took the dun gelding’s reins, but when he started to lead the horse away, Gavlyn stopped him.

‘I’ll be going back out, lad,’ Gavlyn said. He turned to the prince and bowed. ‘Your highness, this is going to be a long slow thing. We spent what, half the morning? And we’ve only got this far: Braemys wishes to discuss terms, but he’ll only do so under certain conditions.’

A good many of the lords swore, muttering among themselves. When Maryn raised a hand, they fell silent.

‘Oh ye gods!’ Maryn said. ‘And does he think he’s in any position to dictate these conditions?’

‘He doesn’t, your highness,’ Gavlyn said. ‘There’s no arrogance here, just fear. Their herald’s going to ride back to their camp when he gets my answer. A long ride, he said, but he refused to tell me the slightest thing that might tell me where the camp was. I take it that Lord Braemys’s army is much depleted.’

Everyone turned to look at Nevyn. Since he’d scried on the etheric during the night past, he had answer for them.

‘It is,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’d say he has no more than a thousand men, and that’s a very generous guess. A good many of his allies must have deserted him.’

‘Indeed?’ Ammerwdd stepped forward. ‘If we were to hunt him down, we’d have an easy victory and end the Boar clan forever.’

‘Your grace!’ Gavlyn turned dead-white. ‘The man’s asked for parley.’

‘Just so.’ Maryn smiled in a wry sort of way. ‘We’ve done our best to conduct ourselves honourably all through the war, and I’ve no desire to dishonour myself and my vassals now.’

Ammerwdd started to speak, then caught himself with a shrug.

‘Very well,’ Maryn went on. ‘What are these conditions?’

‘I’ve no idea, your highness. We’ve not got that far.’

‘Ye gods!’ Ammerwdd muttered. ‘How long will the little bastard weasel? It’s an insult, your highness, for a man to drag these things out. How long are we going to put up with him mocking our honour?’

‘Consider this, your grace,’ Maryn said. ‘Suppose we cut the parley short. Braemys and his men will flee. If they reach Cantrae safely, we could spend a year digging them out of it.’

‘True spoken.’ Ammerwdd gave in with a bow in the prince’s direction. ‘He won’t talk as long as all that.’

‘Just so.’ Maryn smiled, then turned to Gavlyn. ‘Tell the Boar clan’s herald that we’ll parley till we reach an honourable conclusion to the matter.’

‘My thanks, your highness. I’ll just be on my way, then.’

To pass the time till Gavlyn returned, Nevyn organized the wagon train that would carry the wounded home to Dun Deverry. Maryn designated fifty sound men for an escort, and Oggyn handed over supplies for everyone. By then the army had eaten enough of their supplies to free up six wagons. Others of the wounded men would be able to ride.

‘Just keep the pace slow,’ Nevyn told Maddyn. ‘Not that you’ll have much choice in that.’

‘True spoken,’ Maddyn said. ‘Do you have private letters you want delivered, my lord?’

‘I do.’ Nevyn reached into his shirt and handed him two silver message tubes. ‘One for Bellyra, one for Lilli. Go to Lilli first. She’ll read the headings and tell you which is which.’

‘The princess can read, too.’

‘I know, but I don’t want her getting a look at Lilli’s letter.’

‘I see.’ Maddyn smiled briefly. ‘Very well, my lord. Lilli first it is.’

Maddyn put the letters into his own shirt for safekeeping. Nevyn considered him, still pale and visibly thinner, but he had managed to keep some porridge down that morning.

‘Be careful of what you eat and drink,’ Nevyn said. ‘No dried beef and suchlike for you, bard.’

‘Oh, have no fear of that, my lord! One round of spoilt food is enough to last me for life.’

The wounded men left camp at noon. Nevyn stood in the road and watched them go until the dust cloud shrank to a smear on the distant view. He could only hope that they’d all reach the dun alive, but for many of them, he feared.

All that afternoon Gavlyn and the Boar’s herald held their talks out in a green pasture to the north of the camp. By evening, nothing had been truly settled, but Gavlyn felt confident that the herald was bargaining in good faith.

‘We’ll reach an end to this eventually,’ Gavlyn told Nevyn. ‘Not soon, but eventually.’

‘What exactly is Braemys so afraid of?’ Nevyn said. ‘Do you know?’

‘From what his herald told me, I’m guessing he fears capture more than death. He suspects our prince of wanting to hang him.’

‘Ah. That would explain it, then. It’s a terrible death for a fighting man.’

‘I don’t know how convincing I am, but I’ve tried to make clear to the herald that Maryn is the soul of honour.’

‘Well and good, then. There’s not much else you can do.’

On the morrow the negotiations started again. Soon after Gavlyn rode out, Nevyn noticed a few wisps of cloud streaking the western quadrant of the sky. A west wind picked up, and all morning the clouds came in, a few stipples at first, then a sky-spanning reach of them, like a spill of clabbered milk against a blue dish. Oh splendid! Nevyn thought. The most important parley in a hundred years, and it’s going to rain! Unless, of course, he did something about it. He left the prince to his vassals and hurried to his tent.

Outside, the noisy life of the camp strolled by: men laughing and jesting, or mourning some dead friend in an outburst of rage. Thanks to long practice Nevyn could withdraw his attention from it all. He sat down cross-legged, let his breathing calm, then visualized a ray of silver light circling him deosil, that is, in the direction of the sun’s travel through the sky. At each cardinal point he placed, again in his imagination, a five-pointed star of blue fire. When he spoke a word of power, the imaginary circle sprang into life on the etheric plane. While he couldn’t see it with his physical eyes, he could feel its energy trembling and surging all round him.

With the place of working prepared, Nevyn called to the Lords of Water. Streaks of silvery-blue light appeared in front of each pentagram, wavering at first, then solid, turning into pillars of light. Within each swam a vaguely human form. Nevyn could hear them as a chorus of thoughts within his own mind. How they might hear him lay beyond his knowledge. Yet they understood when he asked them to prevent the storm, and he understood when they told him it was impossible. They could, however, bring the storm to a head early, so that after a night’s rain the next day would dawn clear.

‘I thank you for that,’ Nevyn told them. ‘It will do splendidly.’

With a murmur of assent, they disappeared.

By sunset the iron-dark clouds seemed to hang so close to earth that it seemed one could reach up and touch them. The setting sun could do no more than stain the west with a sullen orange. Just before the night smothered even that faint glow, a weary Gavlyn returned to camp. After the evening meal, when Maryn’s vassals joined him around the fire in front of the royal tent, Gavlyn delivered his report.

‘Lord Braemys insists that Prince Maryn meet him in open country. He suggests that each side bring a personal guard of twenty men, a councillor, and a herald. The guards must stay some thirty yards away from the parley itself. Braemys has a field in mind, some ways from our camp, that’s free of trees and suchlike. He says that each side will be able to see the surrounding countryside clearly and thus be assured that no ambuscade has been laid by the other.’

‘Very well,’ Maryn said. ‘This all sounds fair to me. Nevyn, will you be able to tell if he has some treachery in mind?’

‘Most likely, your highness,’ Nevyn said. ‘But truly, think of the situation. Braemys is badly outnumbered. If he chose treachery, he’d lose the subsequent battle and his life.’

‘True spoken. Gavlyn, meet the herald tomorrow as early as you can and tell him we accept these conditions.’

‘I’ll ride out at first light, your highness.’ Gavlyn bowed to him. ‘I think he’s as eager to get this done as I am.’

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