Chapter 26
Wistala flapped in the night sky above Galahall, a cold fall wind from the northwest helping keep her aloft as she turned circles, falling in a glide and then rising with a few hard wing-beats, wondering what transpired within.
Hammar had new hutments on the edge of his lands, the round structures of the northern barbarians with their roofs like a single-pole tent.
She accompanied the expedition at King Fangbreaker’s request. He was nervous about Lord Lobok, who’d set out from Thul’s Hardhold with an armed force some of the dwarvish lords laughed at as being oversize, especially considering the small amount of money borne as the agreed price for the youth.
“He never was the steadiest warrior, and always called for more axes and artillerists, whatever his situation,” Fangbreaker said, watching the barges set out from his balcony ten days before.
“But the feather fell on his doorstep,” Wistala said. She’d seen the purple feather, produced after some delay for the King’s court; it smelled like a white one freshly dyed. “In case of treachery, would it not be better to have a large, well-arrayed force at hand?”
“This is the simplest of transactions. Why the word treachery?” King Fangbreaker asked.
“I cannot say. I speak what comes out of my mind; why it was that word instead of another is as much a mystery to me as to you.”
“Hmpf,” he said in return.
“Are there commanders to see that the force is well handled, whether it is a peaceful march or a warlike one?” Wistala asked.
“From anyone else I’d call that an insult, Tala,” he rumbled. “But you’ve little opportunity to learn decent manners.”
“May I hazard my manners with another question?”
“Of course.”
“What happens to those gift baskets of food given to you in your throne hall? Do you eat them all?”
“I eat not a one,” King Fangbreaker said. “I’ve a queer stomach, and mostly eat gruel a-mealtimes, which is easily digested and nutritious. And I have a terrible sweet tooth at night, which is responsible for this,” he patted his paunch. “The baskets go to the poor of our city. There are many widows and orphans without a dwarf in a guild to support them. Can’t have young dwarves growing up all stoop-backed and knockkneed, coughing and feverish from malnutrition.”
Wistala felt the lordly dwarves moving about her flanks, some were pointing to her underside and talked among themselves, perhaps discussing assorted methods and tactics of dragon-killing.
“How did you get the title Fangbreaker, my king?” Wistala asked.
“I was cheated by a pair of dragons,” he said. “They were a wretched, misfortunate pair, who we helped restore to health and vitality with foods and metals. In return they fought for us, as some of the mercenary Ironriders do on the eastern side of this mountain, but they abandoned us to start their family without taking proper leave and asking permission to bear eggs. For we had a market for those eggs, a rich market, and they’d agreed that their bodies would be ours for a period under contract.
“Now I was not unreasonable. I just asked for one clutch. After that, they would be free to go where they wished, to the ends of the breaking earth in the west or the jeweled kingdoms of the east for all I cared, and hatch as many eggs as they liked. But I’d promised a full clutch of eggs to a buyer, and he would have them.
“The dragons argued that their services included only flying and fighting, not eggs, and when I stood firm, they fled. The laying time must have been close, for they did not flee far, though they turned up in an unexpected cave, one we’d gone to much trouble to seal from below to cut off the blighters within from the darkroads.
“I caught up to them in the end, so that I might turn over hatchlings to my buyer, if not eggs. Though that Dragonblade got overzealous in the fight and in attempting to pinion a hatchling killed it. I poked a hole in the female who’d lied to me, spilling her fire bladder and rendering her harmless and gasping, and smashed in her lying mouth with my gauntlet for defying me, turning her teeth into bloody ruin. She died cursing me through a broken jaw. Does this talk sicken you, Tala?”
Wistala, wondering how King Fangbreaker’s body would dance as flame consumed it, took a deep breath. “There are good dragons and bad dragons, just as there are good and bad dwarves, Dread King.”
“But so I was titled and given a place at the council table, for we managed to hunt one hatchling down and the Drakossozh killed another with his dogs.”
“Bad luck, for the Dragonblade to kill two while trying for capture.”
“You’re a dragon yourself. You must know that it is not the easiest of tasks. But I feel for you, at the unfortunate loss of others of your kind. Would that more dragons grew up to live useful lives!”
Would that more dwarves did the same, Wistala thought.
“How can I ease your mind about Lobok?” Wistala said. “I can go to my tower and try to force a vision. Perhaps if you gave me some personal tokens—”
“No. I wouldn’t care to force a wrong reading from you. But hear! You could act as a courier between my throne room and Lobok’s camp. You can bring a message in a few hours over a distance that a rider would take a day to cover.”
“Nothing that would make me happier,” Wistala said. “Than to be able to set your mind at ease.”
So she’d gone to Lobok’s camp twice carrying messages from the mountain king, carrying reassurance that all was going according to plan—and made a side trip or two to the vicinity of the Green Dragon Inn to speak to Forstrel among his honeycombs.
“I wonder why he asks for word?” Lord Lobok asked. His hands kept coming together and then running up his arms and back down again as he paced and thought, as though the right was worried that the left had eloped with an elbow.
“I do not know all the messages King Fangbreaker, high may he remain, receives. I only do my duty,” Wistala said. “You have ample dwarves for a march through enemy territory.”
“Enemy?” Lobok asked. “Lord Hammar is a good friend, we’ve had much commerce with him. The dwarves just come to guard our prize on the way back.”
“I’ve heard he’s been calling himself King Hammar,” Wistala said, and flew off back to Fangbreaker with Lobok’s reply.
 
So as she hung in the darkness over Galahall, seeing the lights go on within and the carpets laid on the doorstep, she turned and made a careful approach to the nearby stream where the dwarves were camped at the base of the ridge she’d crossed so many years ago in the company of Stog.
She asked for a meeting with Lord Lobok, busy dressing for the court dinner celebrating another successful transaction, for the boy Rayg waited at Galahall to be sold to the dwarves. She was admitted with the expediency one would expect of a courier from King Fangbreaker, and found him buttoning a formal robe over a chain shirt. He wore a mask of red silk stretched under and over a decorative wooden frame, like a child’s kite.
“Lord Lobok, are you going yourself?” she asked, putting her head in his tent so as not to crowd him and the servant-dwarf helping his lord dress.
“Of course. It’s a welcoming dinner, and as leader and emissary I’m expected. You don’t—”
“The night feels wrong to me,” Wistala said. “Are your soldiers arrayed well?”
“We’re on the thane’s land,” Lord Lobok said, fingers fluttering against his chain shirt. “There’s nothing to fear here.”
“As long as the thane is true. I’ve had horrible dreams, but they must be wrong. They must be.”
Lobok left off dressing, turned his silk-masked face to her. “Why do you say your impressions must be wrong? You are King Fangbreaker’s, honors upon his name and so forth, famous Oracle.”
“Who could mistake such omens? The feather landed on your doorstep. The Fates have chosen you.”
Lobok and his servant exchanged a glance. “Of course.”
“Yes. I am overwrought, seeing those barbarian encampments around the thane’s hall. I’m imagining things.” She began to shake. “But beware, O lord; if anyone speaks of a blood relationship between Hammar and the child you are receiving tonight, blood will be shed. A dagger at your back.”
She let her eyes roll wildly and then flopped over, closing the water-lids over her so that she would look glassy-eyed.
“Oh! Oh! Oh, no,” Lord Lobok said, his hands clasping and unclasping, then gripping elbows tight. “Someone. Ummm. Is it safe to dump water on dragons?”
Wistala rattled her sii and lifted her head. “Nur . . . what am I doing here? Ia, I’m happy for you, Lord Lobok, you live again . . .” She blinked, shook her head. “I beg your pardon, my lord, were you saying something? I seem to have fainted.”
Lobok gestured to his servant, took a quavering gulp of wine from a proffered cup. “You didn’t have another vision, did you?”
“Oh. No, I don’t think so. Hazy, so hazy. My eyes vex me. There’s a mist about you, my lord. It must be the scented candles. Excuse me, I am obliged to fly back to the throne room.”
She left Lord Lobok calling for more wine.
 
Three days later King Fangbreaker’s throne room was lined with many of the most noble families in the mountains, hearing the report of Field Commander Djosh. Wistala waited for it to be read again in Parl, having begged to know what the message she carried read:
 
Noble King and Assembled Select and Lordly Dwarves,
 
I write you to report a most satisfactory outcome to an attempted treachery by Lord Hammar and his barbarians on the two hundred ninetieth of this year. I thank the Fates for the eagle and his feather landed upon Lord Lobok’s door, for were it not for him not a dwarf of this expedition may be returning.
 
Lord Lobok insisted on our arrays being placed within hearing distance of Galahall, ready to answer a cry for assistance, and I can only marvel at his foresight, inspired, I’m told, by our lucky dragon, who sensed matters amiss.
 
I am told that during dinner an unusual number of barbarian leaders were present, as the infamous Hammar was building around himself a court of scoundrels. As the servants poured wine for a toast, Hammar gave some sort of code word that he was letting his illegitimate son—I shall not sully the throne room with his coarse discourse—be sold for little more than the song that wooed his mother. At this there was some stirring at the priests’ end of the table and Lord Lobok let out such a shriek of warning that we would have heard it were we camped two vesk away. Lobok drew blade and flung himself sideways behind the table, knocking over a server who was making to bring the cask of wine down on Shieldmaster Dar’s head, Lord Lobok’s bodyservant tells me.
 
At the calls of alarm and assistance from Lord Lobok I sent my hardhanded dwarves forward and they stormed through the windows of Galahall in good order. The barbarians made some semblance of a fight but clearly intended for the dinner to be a slaughterhouse, not a battle hall, and seemed not much experienced at close quarter fighting under roof and among furniture. Our dwarves, used to such environs, secured the boy with some loss of blood, almost all of it on the part of our opponents, and no loss of the treasure we brought to purchase him, for treachery abrogates any deal. I hope the throne will approve.
Barbarian cavalry, long prepared to finish off the villainy indoors, made an effort to harry our retreat, but our catafoua made them fall back with loss.
 
Wistala smiled, for she’d had Lessup’s mead-deliverers start rumors of warlike preparations in the dwarf camp where they’d just sold their honeyed brew.
 
I close this dispatch by saying we have lost few dwarves as we retreat in good order for the Ba-drink. I write to you in Lord Lobok’s stead, for he travels with the healing wagons, and is so dosed with medicines after his experiences he is currently unable to write legibly. If you have any orders beyond returning to the Hardhold with our young prize, they will be immediately carried out by
 
Your faithful Field Commander,
Djosh Scarchin
 
As the words were read in Parl, the dwarves grumbled and swore all over again, and King Fangbreaker paced before his throne.
“What do you say, Oracle?” a dwarf called.
Fangbreaker glowered. “This is a military matter, Guildmaster Cyoss.”
“Great King, though we would hear the dragon, you must decide, of course,” another called.
Fangbreaker turned to Wistala. “What do you think, Oracle?”
“I have not a military mind. But shouldn’t this sort of treachery be punished?”
The assembled select dwarves growled in agreement.
“I am very tired from my flight, and you all have weighty matters to long discuss,” Wistala said. “May I be excused from council of war?”
“Of course,” Fangbreaker said.
“Three cheers for the lucky dragon!” a dwarf at the back shouted.
Wistala bowed backwards out of the throne room, but she saw the fixed stare in Fangbreaker’s eyes, and trembled.
 
Lord Lobok’s expedition returned with Rayg in triumph and glory.
It must have been strange to the thin little youth, to be borne across the Ba-drink in a garlanded boat, flanked by lordly dwarves and rowed between Thul’s Hardhold and Tall Rock, under a rain of tiny white mountain flowers—and bits of paper and wax wrapping—thrown from the balconies and the Titan Bridge.
Even as they returned a new expedition set out, under three of the Wheel of Fire’s greatest generals.
Wistala heard from the star-guild that King Fangbreaker had decided to launch a “punitive expedition” into the barbarian lands, to teach the barbarians a real lesson for the treachery at Galahall. They were keeping their exact plans secret, but the star-guild had provided detailed maps of Kark and the Blacklake area, for barbarians from that region had been identified as among the slain around Galahall.
Wistala hung about, asked if she’d be needed to relay messages, and was told that the sight of a dragon in the sky might give away the column’s presence.
When night fell, she flew away from the Wheel of Fire with all the speed she could manage and almost tore her wings off making it to the Green Dragon Inn. There she dictated a letter to be given to Hammar, and a much longer one to be sent to Ragwrist.
 
Lord Hammar,
 
You and I have had our differences in the past, but the enemies of my blood, the dwarves of the Wheel of Fire, are marching on Blacklake and Kark, intent on destruction and murder. Whether you tell your barbarian allies to move their women and children away from those areas or plan an ambush is entirely up to you.
 
A Daughter of Hypatia
Jessup looked at the note after he finished writing it in his chicken-run hand. Wistala pressed her librarian medallion into some very ordinary red wax he helpfully dribbled at the bottom.
“This is a dangerous game you are playing, Wistala.”
She stretched her aching wings and back muscle. “It’s no game, I assure you, and the stakes are beyond anything that can be placed on a table or dice-rug.”
“Mod Lada would like news of her son, if you have any. She saw him seized up from table after that treacherous dwarf-lord started attacking the wine stewards and signaled his ambush.”
Wistala told what she’d heard from the astronomers’ guild: “I have not spoken to Rayg, but I am told he’s been apprenticed to the Guild of Inventors. Evidently he showed some intelligence in the Hall of Inventions as he passed through it, and recognized some piece of artifice and its use, which much impressed the keepers there. It is a high honor, only the brightest dwarves gain an apprenticeship in that guild. I can assure her those dwarves are the best-treated of the Wheel of Fire.”
Jessup pulled back a lock of his remaining hair. “It is a strange road we’ve traveled since that day we buried Avalanche.”
“And there are still more trolls to slay.”
“I’ll let you deal with the trolls. I’ll keep my inn and tell your story to anyone who asks about the sign.”
“May it not have an end for a long time,” Wistala said.
Jessup reached up, tickled her under the chin. “I’ve always wanted to do that. I never tire of looking at you, Wistala. There’s something about dragons. All power and dread symmetry.”
“I must be off. I have much more flying to do, yes, all the way to the Imperial Library at Thallia. I hope they don’t panic and think I’ve come to burn it. I need to speak to a librarian.”
“What will you do there?”
“Learn about dams.”