Dragon Sword Series - Dragon Sword Part 28

Marrget's gasping increased, and a single tear traced a path down her cheek. Her eyes stared as though they saw the life of a woman of Gryylth, as though she felt her own proud head bent unwillingly under the weight of custom. "My life . . . has been that of a warrior." She spoke in small rushes, the words tumbling over one another in their haste to get out. ' 'If I encountered an obstacle ... I could fight."

"You still can."

As though to indicate her body, Marrget spread her hands. "I cannot fight this. " Her eyes were desperate, bleak.

Alouzon could not meet her gaze. Gently, she lowered the captain to the ground. "If you can't fight it," she said softly, "you don't bother. You can't fight a mountain, or a river, so you just don't." She mustered the courage to look Marrget in the eye. "You said once that you'd wept for the men you'd lost in battle. Show some strength: cry for yourself. But don't waste your time fighting it. You're still Marrget of Crownhark. That's all you need. The rest we can take care of, one way or another."

"I ..." Marrget shut her eyes. "I am a woman."

"Yeah." Alouzon decided to treat her words as a simple statement of fact. She spoke low, as gently as she could. "You are."

Minutes went by, and Marrget said nothing. Aside from the crackling of the distant fire, there was silence. Alouzon began to think that she had fallen asleep.

But Marrget stirred. "I cannot fight this."

"No." Again, a statement of fact. "You can't."

"But I have no wish to die."

"That's good." Alouzon held to the image of the Grail. Please ...

"Therefore. . ." Marrget lifted her head, her brow furrowed with uncertainty, and looked off into the darkness as though she contemplated her future. Her mouth worked soundlessly, then, with an effort: "Therefore I will go on. I will not continue in this fas.h.i.+on. I am Marrget of Crownhark: I will not grovel in the sand like 244.

an ign.o.ble beast." She pulled herself up until she was sitting, and there was bleakness in her eyes still, but there was also the steel of an innately prideful will. She looked down at herself, confronted her nakedness as though it were a hostile army and she alone and weaponless. After a minute, she found her robe and covered herself. "What do you want of me, Alouzon Dragonmaster? Why do you press me so?"

"I want you and the wartroop to help fight the Corri-nians."

Marrget smiled grimly: the expression with which she habitually faced a battle. And Alouzon took that as a good sign. "Thirteen women against the ma.s.sed phalanxes of Corrin?'' The despair was gone from her voice. There was instead a certain amus.e.m.e.nt.

Alouzon shrugged. "I'll admit, I've heard of better odds."

The other women were cl.u.s.tered at the fire, still watching. They might not have moved since the fight had begun. Marrget examined them. Alouzon had seen the look before. What can I make out of this? Is this fighting material? "Or worse, Dragonmaster," she said after a time. "Much worse." There was a note of pride in her voice, faint but distinct. "They are the First Wartroop."

"Can we save them?"

Marrget's gaze flicked back to Alouzon. The unspoken question had been: Can I save you ?

The captain dropped her eyes, pressed her lips together. "I can fight," she said. "You showed me that, friend Alouzon. And the First Wartroop would ride into a pit of fire if I gave them word. They will live, and they will fight. I have no laggards in my company."

They sat together in silence for some minutes. As Marrget's breathing returned to normal, the captain pulled herself up straight, as though she had sucked in strength along with the air. With a sigh, she pushed her ash-blond hair back with both hands, and she stretched like a sleeper who had awakened from a night of evil dreams to find at least a reasonably bright morning.

The wartroop's fire crackled as someone added wood .

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to it, and Marrget rose and picked up her sword. "My warriors have need of me, Alouzon." Her voice was calm.

"You go ahead, Marrget. You can do more for them than I can. I'm going to sit here a while longer: I need the rest." Marrget looked at her, puzzled. "I'm not used to this," Alouzon explained. "Where I come from, I'm just a student."

Marrget smiled faintly. "What? In Gryylth already six days and not a fighter yet?'' She turned and went toward the fire. There was grace in her movements-a sway of the hips and a set to her arms that bespoke femininity- but her back was straight, and determination was in her step. If any man were foolhardy enough to demand a bow from Marrget of Crownhark, he would get precisely what he deserved.

She moved among her women, sitting with them, talking with them, conjuring responses and even laughter. Wykla stirred at the sound of voices, and Marrget drew her to the fire and cast a blanket about the girl's shoulders with her own hands. The firelight glowed on Wykla's amber hair, and she looked to her captain with a face full of renewed hope.

Marrget's words did not carry, but her tone did, and though it bore a resemblance to that with which she had comforted the wartroop after the deaths in the Heath, there was a difference. The gruff, half-hostile affection of soldiers was eclipsed now by a sense of urgent unity. In the past, they had needed one another's presence, swords, and protection in battle; but now they needed, in addition, the kind of unconditional loyalty that would greet any temporary weakness with help and support.

Some grimaced, fetched their swords, and began to sc.r.a.pe together what bits of pride they could find. Others wept and were comforted. And Marrget stood among them, determined, strong, an example of what lay on the other side of despair.

Alouzon closed her eyes and sighed with as much relief as she could summon. The warriors loved Marrget. They would follow her. The emotional stability that the captain 246.

could give them might not last forever, but it was a start, something to pull them back from the abyss that had opened at their feet.

The Corrinian sorcerer had executed a very clever plan: in a society in which women were seen as valueless, he had transformed the best troops into women. What could be more psychologically devastating to Gryylth? Vorya's armies were already slipping away in fear, and, confronted with the ultimate horror, even the king might break.

Fatigue was making her thoughts wander in preparation for sleep, but she snapped awake. Thirteen women against the ma.s.sed phalanxes of Corrin, Marrget had said. She might turn out to be right.

One thing at a time. Marrget and the wartroop had to be saved first.

When she looked back to the fire, she saw that Marrget had the women preparing for sleep. It was the best thing they could do, she supposed, and she wished that she could join them.

In another few minutes, Marrget returned, carrying the water skin. She knelt before Alouzon. "I have wounded you."

"I can dish it out, and I can take it, too."

"Wash." Marrget smiled and poured the water herself. Cupping it in her hands, Alouzon splashed her face. The cut on her jaw stung in protest.

She winced. "Did you get me that good?"

Marrget shrugged. "I am a warrior. When I fight, I fight well or not at all." Dampening a cloth, she swabbed at Alouzon's bruised arm. "If we had not fought as we did, I would have found less confidence in myself. You would not have been able to . . ." She shrugged again. ". . .to revive me. I have my own wounds."

"Sorry."

"I attacked first." She looked at Alouzon carefully. "There is a river nearby. We can bathe there tomorrow before we leave."

"Leave?"

"If the king will still have my counsel, I would advise .

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him to take what soldiers he has remaining to the Circle. It is more easily defended. Mernyl may be able to help, also. With as few fighters as we have, and with the presence of the Tree, we will need what he can give us."

"What about Dythragor?"

Marrget snorted in contempt. "I judge the advice and actions of Dythragor now only by their profit to me and to Gryylth."

"Do you think we've got a chance?"

Marrget fell silent and seemed to be contemplating the phalanxes that lay, encamped, somewhere to the east. "Given what they can do . . ." She looked at herself. "I know not, Alouzon. I fear the worst. If Mernyl can command the powers of the Circle, that might give us some hope. Otherwise, we will have to die fighting. Or hope that we are allowed to."

"Can we settle with them, do you think?"

"Settlement would mean subjection, and Corrin now has just reason to treat us with the utmost cruelty." Marrget's mouth tightened. "I wish that Dythragor had not indulged in such foolish vindictiveness with their grain. Such an action was not wise. I am surprised."

"I'm not."

The bluntness of her words seemed to shock Marrget, but, after considering, she nodded. "Perhaps you are right."

Sleep was tugging at Alouzon's sleeve, but she had further work that night. Silbakor was just across the rise. "It's late, Marrget," she said. "Go to bed."

"Someone needs to watch."

"I'll do it. You trust me?"

Marrget took her hand, then, on impulse, put an arm about her neck. Her long hair swept along Alouzon's shoulder. "I will tell you, Dragonmaster," she murmured into her ear, "I trust you with my life." She stood up. "Wake me when the moon tells you the hours are half done. You need rest also."

"You got it."

The captain went off to the fire, and Alouzon waited for a few minutes. The wartroop slept, Vorya and his 248.

army slept . . . and probably the Corrinians slept, too. The fire burned low. She might have been the only conscious human being in a land of night and shadow.

She sat, hugging her knees, watching the failing fire. Gryylth seemed exactly that: darkness, the unknown, the inexplicable. Where was Gryylth? What was Gryylth? Propelled by the immediacy of the threat to those she loved, the questions threw themselves at her again, and she cursed her ignorance.

If she had known more-about Gryylth, about Dythra-gor, about herself--lives might have been saved. As it was, she had groped blindly, trying to patch by feel and instinct the holes in Gryylth's insubstantiality. But more holes were appearing, and ahead gaped the ma.s.sive rent that was the Tree.

If there was madness in her life, there was more madness in Gryylth. Only the Grail promised anything that approached the whole and the rational, and it itself was a fantasy made real.

She picked up her sword, and the stars glittered along its keen blade and on the double-dragon hilt. Of Celtic design, so magical that it could kill and heal both, it did not make sense. Nothing made any sense. But she was determined that explanations would be hers. She would demand knowledge, and whatever the consequences, she would accept it.

With both hands, she swung the sword above her head and faced the ridge. Her voice was a harsh whisper: ' 'Sil-bakor! I call you!''

* CHAPTER 17 *

Alouzon expected an acknowledgment, but the Dragon came instead. Rising above the hills on noiseless wings, it slid across the stars and glided toward her, a dark blot unlit by the hard-edged gibbous moon.

Silently, it settled to the ground before her like a living shadow. "You called me, Alouzon, my lady," it said. "I am come." There was something almost penitent in its tone, as though it were a small boy caught in a lie. It rested with its head low. Its eyes burned yellow beneath its brow ridges.

The backlog of fatigue that she had been ama.s.sing since the Heath was a wall as black and as large as the Dragon. She was tired enough that she simply wanted to kick the beast, swear at it, tell it to fly into a mountain . . . and then go to sleep. Morning was a good enough time for rational thought. No more midnight psycho-drama and conversations with zoological' impossibilities for Suzanne h.e.l.ling, B.A. She was done.

But Suzanne was gone, and Alouzon Dragonmaster had things to do that did not include sleeping at present. Standing before Silbakor, she let the silence build until it was pregnant with irritation, and at last sheathed her sword with a clang.

"I think it's time you told me what the h.e.l.l's going on here," she said.

"Ask."

"Uh-uh. You tell."

The Dragon almost squirmed. "Lady . . ." 249 250.

"There's a whole s.h.i.+tload of stuff you could have told me right from the beginning, Silbakor, and it would have saved me a h.e.l.l of a lot of trouble and grief." "I_"

"Shut up and listen." Could Silbakor become angry? She was no longer concerned. Marrget had fought because of her pride, her motives floating at the top of her will, easily stirred, easily comprehended. But Silbakor, she sensed, had hidden agendas, among which was one dealing with a certain Alouzon Dragonmaster, erstwhile student of medieval archaeology. For whatever reason, it needed her, and had all along. She could afford to do a little shouting, vent a little steam. "Marrget and the war-troop are in deep kimchi, I cut a swath through Bandon that I still can't believe, a woman I hardly knew died for me, most of the men Vorya sent into battle are history, and now Corrin has us by the f.u.c.king short and curlies because Dythragor went out and started playing with matches. How much of all of this did you know was going to happen?"

"I know very little."

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

"My lady, you have but to ask."

The Dragon persisted in its studied, formal manner, as though it were a voice out of a burning bush. She would have to play its game. "OK, let's get started with the twenty questions. What the h.e.l.l is Gryylth?"

"It is a land bounded by water on four sides. Most of it is under the nominal rule of King Vorya."

"I don't need geography lessons, Silbakor. What's beyond it?"

It hesitated. "There is ... nothing beyond it."

"What? Just water?"

"No. Nothing."

Her patience, thin and stretched, buckled. "Come on, guy. You're not dealing with a fifth-century savage. I suppose now you'll tell me the whole shebang is balanced on the back of a turtle."

Silbakor did not speak. As though it had been annoyed .

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by her tone, it lifted its head from the ground, looked at her for some time.

' 'Well?'' In spite of all its apparent violations of common sense, Gryylth had to have some foundation in the mundane world of logic. For it to be otherwise was madness. She awaited an explanation.

She received what she did not expect. "Gryylth, as a world, is fragmentary," said the Dragon. "It exists only in part."

Alouzon stared, uncomprehending.

"Forces of prolongation that you do not understand hold it together, hold its waters upon its surface and its air about it."

She found her voice. "What's . . . what's beyond it?"

"Mist."

"Yeah, and ... ?"