Christopher Rowley - Bazil 03 - Dragons of War

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Dragons of War by
Christopher Rowley
To Veronica Chapman with thanks for her help and advice.
CHAPTER ONE
The sun burned down on the heart of the continent, the ancient land of
Padmasa, but there was no warmth in it. Instead a chill wind from the
northwest sucked the heat out of the day, leaving the dun-brown hills and
withered meadows of lichen as mute testimony to its power. This was a
place ruled by winds. A glance at the fantastic shapes carved from the rock
pinnacles could tell the traveler that in a second.
Sandstorms blew in from the west, snowstorms came from the north,
and desiccating chinooks came down from the mountains to the south.
Vegetation of any sort struggled to survive here, and yet this was the
center of the greatest power in the world.
Coming over the pass at Kakalon, looking down into the widening
valley, the magician Thrembode the New saw the mass of the Square
clearly outlined on the dominating, central rise. The jarring straight lines
and white stone informed the world that this was the work of men. The
smooth-sided walls, two hundred feet high, frowned down like bluffs of
pure adamant. The sight chilled the magician and awakened a deep
foreboding. This was a place where only wild goats uould choose to live,
and yet there stood the great slab, one mile on each side, a single vast
building thronged by more than a million people, all of them servants of
the power that ruled here.
The magician marveled to himself, for he knew that the Square, for all
its majesty was but the anteroom to the Halls of Padmasa, which lay deep
below, carved into the rock of the craton by an army of slaves, none of
whom had survived the ordeal. Indeed, their very bones had been ground
into the mortar holding together the stones.
Coming through the pass and into the valley brought Thrembode back
into the full force of the wind, which tore at his clothing. He shivered as he
fastened his coat all the way up and tightened the belt. It was always cold
here, one reason the great ones liked it. The wind shrieked as it honed the
rocks into bonelike shapes, eroding the world's flesh and exposing its very
vertebrae.
Thrembode thought of the coming ordeal, and would've prayed to the
gods if he thought it would give him strength. After what he'd seen
through his service to the Masters, however, the magician could no longer
believe in gods. Gods would have stopped the Masters, before they became
veritable gods themselves. And no thing, no one, could stop them now.
His horse continued down the slope on the great road. Nine of these
roads converged here, two hundred feet wide, all running perfectly
straight across the valley and up to the Square. Caravans of camels and
mules, bearing tribute from half the world to the buried city of the
Masters, crowded these roads.
Thrembode approached the East Gate. A long line of slaves trudged
ahead of him, Ourdhi men, chained at the neck, driven by the lash of burly
imps in the black uniform of Padmasa. Slaves were necessary to every
function within the strange city of the Square. It was, indeed, a city like no
other in the history of the world Ryetelth, for it was city as ideological fact,
with no natural reason for its existence in this cold desert.
On either side, before the gate, stretched row upon row of gibbets. Most
were empty, but on a few set close to the road, rotting bodies swayed in
the chill wind, a constant reminder that in Padmasa the punishment for
most crimes was death. Drawn up by the gate was a regiment of
savage-looking imps, armed with scimitars and shields. These imps had
the heads of apes, squat manlike bodies and powerful legs. Lurking
nearby, he knew, were teams of great, nine-foot-tall trolls, ready to back
up the imps in moments if required.
Thrembode was waved through the great gate and into the teeming
world of the Square where his pass was stamped as obsequious officials
bowed. He was a magician, an Adept and a member of the inner
hierarchy. Passed through the security screen, the magician went on down
the central internal avenue of the Square.
Above the avenue, the roof rose two hundred feet high and the walls on
either side were filled with windows. On the street were shops and
storehouses. It was a bustling scene, filled with hundreds of thousands of
busy workers, attending to countless menial and clerical tasks. They
provided the support structure, even the very feeding, for the real city,
which lurked below, far underground. Thrembode's business lay there, in
the cold warrens of the Tetralobe.
In the heart of the Square was an empty space open to the sky. In the
center were the statues of the Great Ones, the Five. Each was a hundred
feet tall and sculpted as a giant of heroic build and noble visage. They
dominated the space, ruling it just as they ruled everything in Padmasa.
At the corners of the open space were four distinct towers, each
connected to the main structure at every floor by covered corridors that
stuck out like ribs joined to a backbone. These were the staircases to the
underground city.
Below, down many turns of these stairs, cut into solid rock, lay four
distinct labyrinths of passages and caverns, with rooms beyond number.
The four labyrinths or lobes were thrust out in a cross on the points of the
compass. They were quite separate from one another except for the
central hub where they met in the Nexus Halls. The stairs connected the
Nexus Halls to the Square and the outside world.
This underground world was the Tetralobe, the heart of the empire of
the Masters, an empire of fear, an empire that bestrode Ryetelth and
threatened to overwhelm all opposition and bring the entire world under
its dominion.
From this place went instructions to a dozen provinces of the power,
including such vast fortresses as that of Axoxo in the White Bone
Mountains. From here came and went an army of spies and their
messengers. From here went messages for men of influence in every land,
messages to win favor or demand it. One way or another, the Masters of
Padmasa were able to reach any ruler's ear and command his attention.
Thrembode descended the red staircase and climbed down the two
hundred steps to the Nexus Hall on the fourth level. His pass was checked
by a team of specially bred imps with heads like those of weasels and
black, beady, inhuman eyes. They examined him carefully with those eyes,
but found nothing to concern them.
He was directed with curt gestures to the exit to the South Lobe, which
housed the offices of the Intelligence Apparatus.
He was aware of a fierce scrutiny on all sides, and an underlying field of
tension on the psychic plane. With a tremor he realized that his presence
on the psychic plane had been noted by those who created the field,
Mesomasters in the cells far below in the Deeps. To them he was but a
small blip, a young node of powers, infinitesimal compared to the entities
below themselves, but they had taken notice of him nonetheless and
passed on the news to the greater minds below in the Deeps.
The Deeps, the very name brought an uncontrollable creep of the flesh,
a raising of the hairs on his body. In those hidden sepulchres, under dim
light, dwelt the Great Ones, and it was there you went if you were to be
interviewed. It was an experience no man ever forgot.
On this occasion, however, Thrembode's first interview was with
Administrator Gru-Dzek, a tall, hatchet-faced man with grey hair shaved
to stubble. He wore the black robe of the Intelligence Apparatus, with
purple fringe and a single slash of scarlet to denote rank.
Thrembode was shown a bare, uncomfortable chair, set before a
massive desk. Administrator Gru-Dzek took out a scroll, unrolled it, and
studied it for a long minute. Then he clapped his hands. The door opened
and a mutilated slave, blinded, tongue removed, came in and set up a
scribe's equipment at a small table in the corner.
Administrator Gru-Dzek looked up and fixed the magician with pale,
unfriendly eyes. He cleared his throat.
"Magician Thrembode, this interview will be recorded in the official
record. I must therefore note officially that you are under provisional
sentence of termination."
"Termination?" said Thrembode, aghast.
"In the light of your several failures, it was deemed an advisable
sentence."
"Several failures?"
"In Kadein, you allowed an entire network to be rolled up by the
witches. In Marneri, you bungled a well-prepared assassination attempt.
Our choice as heir for the Marneri throne was subsequently killed by the
witches. To compound this disaster, you then led a war party of witches
directly to Tummuz Orgmeen and allowed them to destroy the Doom
there."
Thrembode felt his toes clutch at the soles of his boots.
"Led them? Allowed them," he sputtered. "This is a mistake. This is a
grotesque rendering of events."
Administrator Gru-Dzek stared at him coolly.
"Is it not true that the Doom had ordered your arrest?"
"I did my best to warn the Doom, but it would not listen! It had grown
contemptuous of all men by then."
"You criticize the fallen Doom?"
"It fell, didn't it? It was flawed."
The administrater's eyes widened. That was a bold statement for the
record. It implied criticism of they who had made the Doom.
"In Ourdh last year, you were part of another disaster."
"I must protest. The witches created some sort of counter-stroke to the
life-giving spell used to invigorate the mud men myrmidons. The
Mesomaster Gog Zagozt was perhaps out of his depth in dealing with the
witches. I tried to advise him, but he would not listen to me. Of course, I
have had considerable experience with them."
"Yes, you have. Perhaps a little too much. You have been scheduled for
a detailed inquisition. It must be determined whether they have addled
you or turned you traitor."
Thrembode felt his face flush with fury.
"I can reliably inform you that they have not. There is no need for such
an inquisition."
Administrator Gru-Dzek smiled thinly. "That is not for you to decide,
Magician. I am sure you understand."
Thrembode shrugged, and offered a wan little smile.
"I will be happy to face the inquisition."
The administrater's smile cracked for a moment, then he recovered
himself.
"Good. Now, as I was saying, this sentence of termination is
provisional. You have an opportunity to keep it that way."
"I am so glad."
"You have a certain knowledge of the cities and the countryside of the
Argonath."
"Yes, of course, I have lived in most of the nine cities."
"And so you have been chosen to accompany General Lukash on an
expedition."
Thrembode's eyebrows rose. An expedition? With a general?
The administrater made a scarcely perceptible signal, and the door
opened again. In came a squat, full-bellied man in the black and maroon
military uniform of Padmasa, but bearing a white stripe on the shoulders.
His face had the consistency of boiled leather.
Thrembode rose and saluted the general with his palm out, hand thrust
out straight in front of him.
"General Lukash," said Administrater Gru-Dzek.
Lukash nodded, but did not return the salute. His features were utterly
impassive, walled off within the leathery carapace.
They were all seated.
The administrater began to outline the mission ahead. As he spoke,
Thrembode realized with a certain amount of awe that this time the Great
Masters intended to throw their full strength against the upstart cities of
the eastern coast. Nothing would be left, not one stone atop another,
except for the gibbets and the pyramids of skulls.
CHAPTER TWO
It was Summer month in the land of Kenor, the time of flowers. The
wild poppies were in bloom along the hedgerows and on the hillsides. A
bumper crop of winter wheat had been harvested, and turnips, rye, oats,
and barley were ripening in the fields. Fruit growers in every vale were
ecstatic about the possibilities of the harvest. In fact, farmers all across
Kenor were enjoying one of the best years in a century.
An atmosphere of celebration was evident throughout the province,
from the cheerful singing in the fields to the unusually generous sacrifices
placed on the altars in the temples to the Great Mother.
And thus, under blue skies and bright sunshine, people gathered from
every quarter to the summer games, which this year were being hosted by
the Marneri Second Legion at Fort Dalhousie.
The games were already a success. A crowd of nine thousand had
packed the stands to watch an unusually strong field compete on the first
day of the All-Kenor Archery Championship. In the evening there had been
singing and dancing while the craft fair did roaring business along the
road from the town to the fort.
Competitors from the other legions in Kenor, plus contingents of troops
who'd found a way, by hook or by crook, to get to Dalhousie to support
their own, thronged the alleys and avenues of the fort. A lot of beer had
been sold, and the afternoon was but getting into its stride. The green
outside the fort was gay with colors and loud with the cries of barkers and
the general rumble of the crowds.
Over it all came another sound, the distinctive clang of sword on sword,
steel whining off steel, accompanied by the rhythmic thwack of heavy
shields clashing. Every so often came a thunder of applause. Indeed, while
the archery and athletic competitions were very popular, it was the dragon
fights that always drew the biggest crowds of all.
One on one, the best of the great dragons were matched against each
other with specially dulled blades. They wore heavy armor, padded
helmets, and chain mail over their tails. As a result, they were a little
slower than normal and less inclined to wield the tail mace.
Still, it was a mighty spectacle, and the crowds always loved to see them
fight. Great beasts ten- to twelve-foot-tall, weighing up to five tons,
pranced and bounced around each other in the ring with whirling swords
and massive shields in play. In truth, the dragons enjoyed it as much as
anyone else. Something in the spirit of the wyverns of Argonath was
naturally combative. They liked to fight, and they liked to watch the
fighting, too.
Of course, this was not like true combat. This was for sport, and under
all the armor, the dragons were scarcely visible and seemed sometimes
more like mountains of metal plate than actual living things. But the
crowds knew the strengths and weaknesses of every champion, and were
constantly uttering opinions and questions.
Would Gasholt of the Ryotwa Legion be champion for the second year
in a row? What was the status of the strange, wild dragon that served in
the Marneri Second Legion? And what about the legendary Bazil
Broketail? Ever since his exploits in Tummuz Orgmeen, his reputation had
been growing. Could he possibly live up to it? The previous summer, the
Marneri Second had been away, in the distant land of Ourdh, and so the
broketail dragon had missed the summer games. Now he would be tested
by the likes of Gasholt the Great. Aficionados of the games were eagerly
anticipating that particular bout.
The afternoon was young, but already the dust flew in the combat rings,
of which there were four at this stage. Each was surrounded by a tight
circle of wooden bleachers, thrust up far too high in the air and packed
with thousands of spectators. Along with the noise and the rising dust
came the smell of dragon as the wyverns exercised themselves at combat.
The bouts were relatively brief, ten minutes in all, with a break at the
fifth minute. The winner was decided by a panel of six judges, all
dragonboys, drawn by lottery. They scored for stroke combinations,
touches, falls, and stumbles. Thrusts and slashes to the head were
forbidden.
In the second ring waited Bazil of Quosh, known widely as "the
broketail" dragon because of the strange angle at which the end of his tail
jutted out and away. So different was it that it seemed almost the tail of
some other kind of creature. Legend had it that this bizarre tail was the
result of witchcraft.
His opponent that day was Burthong of the 33rd Kadein. Burthong was
a mighty brasshide, a dragon at the bulkier end of the scale.
Normally a heavyweight brasshide would not be in the sword
competitions; they were just too slow. Lean leather-backs, gristles, and
hard greens dominated the competition.
Relkin, Bazil's dragonboy, had chortled when he'd read the match lists.
"You're through the first round. They've given you the Kadein
brasshide."
Bazil had not been so sanguine himself.
"Burthong? They match me against Burthong?"
"Right," said Relkin. "Burthong, he's a brass, must weigh four tons.
You'll take him easily."
Bazil was not so sure.
"This is an unusual dragon, not like most of the heavies. He is said to be
pretty quick with the sword."
Relkin couldn't believe his ears, or so he professed.
"You're talking about a brass, Baz. He's twice your weight, or almost, a
brass! Big lumbering brute, you'll be dancing around him."
"Fool dragonboy. Brasshides are usually slow, I admit, but this one is
different. I have heard all about him. He has a powerful backhand trap, he
spins well, and he's sharp with tail mace."
Relkin had suppressed any further comment. It was ridiculous. Why
they had even bothered with this matchup, he couldn't imagine.
Now, as he watched Burthong emerge from the opposing dragon door,
he noted with misgiving the ease with which the Kadein champion moved
his bulk. Burthong drew the dulled, practice blade and made a few smooth
moves. The sword whistled through the air. Burthong next worked the
kinks out of his tail, slicing the tail mace through the air to make it sing.
Despite himself, Relkin was impressed.
"Watch the tail mace," he said to his dragon.
Bazil did not answer, having already noted the facility with the tail
weapon displayed by his opponent. He hefted the dulled sword, a clumsy
thing, standard legion issue. It had none of the snap, the crackling life that
his own blade, Ecator, possessed so fully.
Burthong stood ready. The cornets blew. Bazil stepped forward
carefully. The brasshide was huge, half a head taller, and considerably
wider than the leatherback.
They circled slowly, swords ready, eyeing each other carefully.
Bazil was about to try a ruse involving a low cut at the legs and a
simultaneous strike with the tail mace when Burthong moved instead. Tail
mace came around with a shriek, and Baz lifted his shield to deflect it.
Burthong's sword was in motion, and Baz parried, only just in time.
Burthong's arm was strong, the next blow came quickly. Baz was on the
defensive, the Kadein brass lived up to his reputation.
Burthong came on with an overhand while he sought to crack aside
Bazil's shield with his own. The shield charge was as strong as any Baz had
ever felt; he came off the soles of his huge feet for a moment and then felt
himself driven down an inch or two by the power in Burthong's overhand.
He had to do something to get off the defensive or he would be battered
to the ground by the bigger, stronger dragon. Bazil spun, whipping his tail
mace across Burthong's front, earning himself a yard's clearance when he
faced Burthong once again. The brasshide came on, a little ponderously it
was true, but still quickly. Bazil shifted sideways and tried a combination,
a waist-high cut, an overhand, and then a back overhand. Burthong met
him each time and then surged, cracking into his shield and swinging his
own overhand and almost getting through for a shoulder score.
Baz evaded, ducked away, and felt Burthong's side trap cut clip the
edge of his shield. But for the luck of his trailing shield being there, it
would have taken his legs out from under him. Truly this was an unusual
brasshide!
Their swords rang out again as Burthong pressed him. Baz could not
regain the initiative and was growing desperate, backpedaling around the
arena. Again and again Burthong's sword slammed down, and the
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ScannedbyanElfScanner.ProofedbyHighroller.MadeprettierbyuseofEBookDesignGroupStylesheet.DragonsofWarbyChristopherRowleyToVeronicaChapmanwiththanksforherhelpandadvice.CHAPTERONEThesunburneddownontheheartofthecontinent,theancientlandofPadmasa,buttherewasnowarmthinit.Insteadachillwindfromthenorthwestsu...

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