Dickson, Gordon - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earll

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Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html

CHAPTER 1

The Hobgoblin had come out into the kitchen again. "I can't understand it!" Jim

said. "Fleas, lice, rats, hedgehogs looking for a warm place to sleep—but

hobgoblins!"

"Calm down," said Angie.

"Why do we have to have hobgoblins?" demanded Jim.

All hobgoblins lived in chimneys. They were small, harmless, sometimes

beneficial Naturals. You left out a bowl of milk—or whatever you had to share

with them—every night.

The Hobgoblin would drink or eat that, and not bother anything else. But the

Malencontri kitchen Hobgoblin apparently went on periodic binges. He did not

drink anything, unless it was milk; but when on a binge he took one bite only out

of everything else that was eatable in the kitchen—and after that the kitchen

workers would not touch anything he might have touched, for some superstitious

reason.

"Calm down—" said Angie…

"—Remember?" said Angie now. "And that was just the day before yesterday."

She nestled a little closer with her head in the hollow of Jim's shoulder as they

stood together, the only people awake and on their feet along the wooden

walkway just behind the top of the curtain wall—that later centuries would rush

to call "the battlements" of a castle—of their home, Malencontri.

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Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html

A December dawn, icy under a cloud-heavy sky, was just breaking. In its gray

light they looked out on the trampled open space before the wall, to the thick

surround of forest, some hundred yards away, from which a few pencil-thin

ghosts of gray smoke were beginning to rise, back a small distance behind the

first treetops.

Yesterday's blood had turned black on the snow and become indistinguishable

from the blackness of the miry ground, where snow and bare earth had been

ground together into equally black mud, under heavy boots and iron heels.

A little snow had fallen during the late afternoon of the attack, and had to a

certain extent hidden the dark shapes that lay still on the ground—those of their

attackers who had been left to the crows and other scavengers that would follow

after Malencontri had been taken. As taken it would be, today.

Its defenders were too few, and now too exhausted. Along the walkway to the

right and left of where Jim and Angie stood, worn-out archers, crossbowmen and

men-at-arms—those still able to fight in spite of their wounds—had fallen asleep

where they had stood to push back the attackers that tried to climb in from

scaling ladders on the outside of the curtain wall.

Given sufficient defenders inside her walls, Malencontri could have held off an

army, let alone this small force of two or three knights with perhaps a hundred

and fifty trained men-at-arms and archers and a couple hundred ragtag and

bobtail of the lower classes, armed with whatever they had been able to bring or

acquire on their raid into this part of Somerset.

But Malencontri had had no warning—not even time enough to call in the people

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Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html

who belonged to it from the surrounding forest and fields that were part of the

fief, who might have swelled their force to the point where the attackers would

have no chance.

As it was, the attackers must clearly be in ignorance of the fact that Jim was in

the castle. Otherwise they would never have had the courage to attack a

fortification owned by any low-ranking magician—let alone one who had the

notoriety that Jim had gained as the Dragon Knight.

"They'll be waking up now out there," murmured Angie.

"Yes," said Jim. He, too, had been watching the fingers of smoke from the

remnants of the overnight fires of their attackers; watching for an increase in the

smoke they sent up, as new fuel was added and some kind of food was cooked or

wanned for those who would attack again today.

"At any rate," said Angie, squeezing Jim's waist with the arm she had around it,

"this ends all hopes for the baby." She was silent a moment. "Was I really

unbearable to you with all my worrying about her?"

"No," Jim said. He kissed her. "You've never been unbearable. You know that."

The baby, as it had come to be referred to, had been Angie's particular concern

for the last year or so. She was only in her mid-twenties; but here, history was

still in the Middle Ages, and all around her much younger women—girls even—

were having children. She had been torn between her desire for a child and her

feeling, which she shared with Jim, that it would be unfair to have it here.

Let alone bring it up in this medieval time, which was still in the equivalent of

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Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html

what had been the fourteenth century, in contrast to the twentieth-century

version of Earth from which they had come.

So they had simply put off having children. Now, it was too late—which was

probably just as well, given the fact that the attackers would kill everything

living in the castle, once they had got inside.

"In fact," said Jim, "I should have found a way back for us before this."

"You did once, in the beginning," said Angie. "I talked you out of it."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

They were both right, in a sense. For a brief time, after Jim had come here to

rescue Angie from the Dark Powers that strove to upset the balance of Chance

and History in this medieval version of Earth, Jim had possessed enough magical

credit to send them both back to the twentieth century.

Angie had said then that she wanted to do what he wanted to do; and the truth

was, he had wanted to stay. They both had—they still would have, if it had not

been for the matter of the baby.

But then, neither of them had looked ahead to the fact that they would go on

living, go on aging; and that a day like this day might dawn, in which it was

practically certain that they both would die—hopefully before they could be

captured; because if so they could only look forward to being crucified, impaled

or tortured by those who would overrun and pillage their castle; as the attackers

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Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html

could hardly be stopped from doing before the sun set again.

In what the Middle Ages considered a "legal war," Jim and Angie and any

children of theirs would have been held to ransom. But not in a raid like this,

which was itself "illegal."

Jim looked again at the wisps of smoke. It was impossible to say whether they

had started to thicken or darken at all; but the day was definitely brightening, and

it could not be long now before those out there would be up and stirring. Some

of Malencontri's men-at-arms had recognized some of those who were trying to

get into the castle. They were retainers of Sir Peter Carley, a knight formerly in

fief to the Earl of Somerset who had come to a parting of the ways with the Earl

and now was in fief to the Earl of Oxford.

Since his violent parting with the Earl, Sir Peter had, in common fourteenth-

century fashion, regarded all those in Somerset as legitimate prey; and he had

used the recent march of a mob of peasants in revolt to London as an excuse to

raid into the Somerset area—and it was this that had brought him to Malencontri.

"I hate to rouse them," said Angie, looking at the archers and men-at-arms that

lay huddled against the inner stonework of the wall, curled up to conserve as

much body heat as possible while they slept. "I don't know why most of them

haven't simply frozen there, lying in the open like this."

"Some may," said Jim.

"Maybe it'll be easier on them, that way," said Angie. "I can't believe that none

of our messengers got through. We had so many friends…"

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Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html

Indeed, they had many friends. It was one of the things that caused them to be

attached to this fourteenth century, in spite of its hobgoblins, hedgehogs, rats,

fleas, lice… Naturals, magicians, sorcerers, Dark Powers—and everything else

that made life here either interesting or perilous.

In fact, some of those they knew were almost more than good friends—

incredibly loyal, trustworthy, back-you-up-and-come-to-your-rescue-at-any-time-

without-question sort of friends. The mysterious thing was that none of these had

come to help them this time.

It was true, Jim thought, that the messengers to these friends for help had been

sent out, literally, within minutes after their attackers had been discovered less

than half a mile from the castle. It was possible that all the messengers had been

captured by those now trying to take Malencontri; and at this moment they were

all very dead. But some should have got through.

True, both Dafydd ap Hywel and Giles o'the Wold were far enough off so that

they might have not heard from the messenger and been able to get back here, in

the two days since the attackers had first arrived.

But Sir Brian Neville-Smythe's castle—Castle Smythe—was less than a fifteen-

minute gallop from Malencontri; and Malvern Castle, the fortress of which the

Lady Geronde Isabel de Chaney was Chatelaine—she to whom Sir Brian was

betrothed—was not an impossible distance off. Sir Brian should have come, and

Geronde have sent fighting men to their rescue, if messengers had been able to

reach them safely. But no assistance from either one had shown up.

Most curious of all was the nonappearance of Aargh the English wolf, who

invariably knew everything that was happening in the land for miles around.

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Aargh might have been expected to show up on his own initiative; certainly he

would have done so if he had known what was going on. He had come to join

them in their beleaguered castle, earlier this same year, running literally over the

backs of hundreds of closely packed sea serpents to do so, and needing to be

hauled up from the moat with his teeth clenched in a rope dropped from the

curtain wall to him.

For that matter, the failure of Carolinus to show up was also mysterious. True,

Jim had foolishly overspent his magic reserve— this time in what even Angie

would consider a good cause (but Carolinus would not)—helping to get the

harvest in, this fall, and the castle prepared for winter.

But none of them had appeared.

"Most likely, the messengers didn't get through," said Jim, avoiding the fact that

Angie would know as well as he that neither Aargh nor Carolinus should have

needed to be summoned. They should have known when Malencontri was under

attack; and then both would have come out of friendship—though neither of

them would admit to such a weakness; and Carolinus additionally would have

appeared out of a sense of responsibility to his apprentice in magic, which Jim

happened to be.

"It doesn't matter," murmured Angie into Jim's chest.

"GREETINGS!" boomed an enormous voice.

Jim and Angie looked up, startled, to see a giant—a real giant, thirty feet if he

was an inch—approaching the curtain wall from the woods with twenty-foot

strides.

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Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html

CHAPTER 2

Rrrnlf!" said Angie. It was indeed the sea devil, whom they had met earlier in

the year when the sea serpents had attempted an invasion of England in

collaboration with the French. The most unlikely of rescuers—if he was indeed

that.

Jim's gaze flew to the smoke streams above the treetops. Rrrnlf was advancing

from an area of the surrounding trees not at all far from where the smoke

streamers had been ascending. Now, Jim saw they were still there, but they were

certainly no thicker or darker—implying the fires underneath them had not been

refueled—and in fact if anything they were more thin and ghostlike than ever, as

if those same fires were dying out.

Jim looked quickly back at the sea devil. Rrrnlf was almost to the curtain wall

now and seeming to loom above them already.

Rrrnlf was not only a Natural, but one of the largest inhabitants of this world's

oceans; though he also was apparently quite comfortable not only in fresh water

but in the open air as he was now. However, aside from his thirty feet of height,

his body had a strange construction.

Essentially, he was wedge-shaped, the point of the wedge being downward. He

literally tapered from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. His head was

large even for the rest of him. His shoulders were somewhat smaller than they

should have been, according to human proportions, but only a little. However,

below those shoulders not only did his body taper toward the waist, but his arms

narrowed down toward his hands—though not excessively, for his hands were as

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Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html

large as the shovel ends of a derrick. But from his waist he continued tapering

down to feet that were only several times as large as Jim's. It was remarkable

how those relatively tiny feet bore the weight of the rest of him about so briskly

and without complaint. But of course, like all Naturals, there was a touch of

innate magic in him; though, again like all Naturals, he had no real control over

it.

He had reached the wall now. He put one massive hand on the top of it and

vaulted over its twenty-foot height, landing on his feet in the courtyard. The wall

shook, waking up all the sleepers along it, while the impact of his massive

weight on the packed earth of the courtyard probably produced enough sound to

wake up most of the rest of those exhaustedly slumbering inside the castle

buildings.

"Thu ne grete—" he began, slipping into the Anglo-Saxon speech of a thousand

years before. He checked. "I mean—you didn't say greetings to me!" he accused,

looking down on them, with a reproachful frown from his heavy-boned, blue-

eyed face, some dozen feet above them as they stood on the walkway.

"Greetings!" said Jim and Angie hastily and simultaneously.

Rrrnlf's visage cleared. It became a rather simple, friendly face, with nothing

really terrifying about it except its size.

"My mother always told me this was the season for greetings amongst you wee

folk," he rumbled, "or have I lost track of time and customs changed since I was

here last?"

"No, Rrrnlf," said Angie, "you were here only five months or so ago."

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"So I was!" said Rrrnlf. "I didn't think it had been too long. I've just had time to

find some gifts for you. My mother—did I ever tell you about my mother?"

"Yes," said Jim, "you did."

"I had a beautiful mother," said Rrrnlf almost dreamily, paying no attention at all

to what Jim had said. "She was beautiful. I can't remember exactly how she

looked; but I remember she was beautiful. She took care of me for the first four

or five hundred years while I was growing up. There never was a mother like

that. Anyway, she told me lots of things; and one of them was that around this

time of the year when the deep-sea currents change, you wee people greet each

other and some of you give others gifts. Because you helped me so much in

getting back my Lady, I wanted to be sure I gave you gifts this year. I had some

trouble finding them, but I've got some."

Rrrnlf's Lady, Jim had discovered earlier, had been the demountable figurehead

of a ship, like the dragon figureheads that the Vikings took down from their long

ships when putting in to land; because the land trolls were supposed to feel

themselves challenged if the dragon heads were brought into their territory. But

in this case, it had been a wooden carving from a sunken ship, intended to

represent the ninth wave.

The folk saying was that "the ninth wave always came farthest up the beach,"

and the Norse people had called the ninth wave Jarnsaxa—'the Iron Sword'.

Jarnsaxa had been the daughter of Aegir, the Norse sea god, and Ran, the

giantess. Those two had been the parents of all nine daughters who were the nine

waves. Last and greatest of these was Jarnsaxa; and Rrrnlf had claimed that—

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Dickson,GordonR-DragonKnight05-TheDragon,theEarl,andtheTro\ll(v1.0)(html).htmlCHAPTER1TheHobgoblinhadcomeoutintothekitchenagain."Ican'tunderstandi\t!"Jimsaid."Fleas,lice,rats,hedgehogslookingforawarmplacetosleep—buthobgoblins!""Calmdown,"saidAngie."Whydowehavetohavehobgoblins?"demandedJim.Allhobgobl...

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