Quazelzeg watched the group without expression, seeing every flick of an eyelid, every movement of hand and turn of head. He was a tall, heavy figure who seemed not made to bend, with pale, tight skin over his heavy-boned face.
“I expect, Captain Vighert, that the present expedition is going better than the last. Better than your expedition.”
A nerve at the side of Vighert’s left eye twitched.
“I do not want another dragon killed.” Quazelzeg studied Vighert. “I want them captured. I would not want this to happen again. I plan to use these dragons. You would know that, Vighert, if you paid attention. These dragons are very important. Do you understand me?”
Vighert nodded, stiff and reluctant.
The child slaves along the wall watched the men with blank faces, hiding whatever emotion might be left in them. As Quazelzeg moved around the room, he shoved a dark-haired child out of his way. She fell and did not rise until his back was turned.
“Soon these dragons will belong to us, Vighert. They will bring our visions, our truth, to Tirror’s masses.” Quazelzeg smiled, a mirthless stretching of his pale mouth. “And then, gentlemen, we will hold Tirror as powerfully as we hold these slaves.” He took up a stick and hit the dark-haired child across the face, for rising before he gave permission. She knelt and kissed his boots. The fingers of a red-haired boy trembled.
“Then we will be their ancestors, gentlemen. We will be the ancestors of all Tirror, and they will understand that our pleasures with them are a privilege—that terror is a rare privilege!”
The dark-haired girl and the redheaded boy did not look up, but something subtle passed across their faces. Quazelzeg did not see; he was watching Vighert. He returned to humiliating the captain. “Let us hope that those now on Yoorthed—and Captain Shevek, who is about to go there—are more skilled at capturing dragons than you were, Captain Vighert.”
Vighert’s face seemed to fold in on itself. Shevek’s pock-scarred face looked colorless. The pulse in his neck pounded.
Quazelzeg fixed his eyes on the four who would accompany Shevek. “The dragons are to be chained. Their wings are to be clipped. I want their mouths chained shut so they can’t use fire to cut their bonds. I want them drugged and tamed and obedient. Now, does someone wish to express an opposing opinion on the best way to handle young dragons?”
No one did.
“Once the dragons are captive, gentlemen, we will train them with the two bard children.”
Vighert said, “No one knows if these children have the skills.”
“Of course they have the skills. They have the blood. Both have the mark of the bard.” He beckoned the dark-haired girl to him. A tiny brown, three-clawed print marked the inside of her left thigh. He parted the boy’s red hair so his neck shone white, and pointed to the same birthmark. “They have the power. With these two, we will create a new history for Tirror—a history that will become more narcotic than cadacus in its power.
“And if this Tebriel and his tribe come here searching . . .” A chilling smile stretched Quazelzeg’s face. “If they are drawn here by our powers, we will welcome them.
“For then, gentlemen, we will have all the bards we could want.”
“How,” said a voice from the second row, a small man with stringy hair tangled across the shoulders of his yellow tunic, “how do you keep a dragon captive?”
“In the caves, of course, Captain Flackel. In the marble caves. No dragon can melt marble.”
Flackel stared. “Sivich tried to put a dragon in a cage.”
“They tried to trap it in a cage, Flackel. You can’t trap a grown dragon; you have to capture it in other ways. For instance, with the help of my new pets. Then you put it in the cage. A cage it cannot melt.”
“It was this Tebriel,” said Captain Flackel, “that they used for bait in that trap. He escaped from it.”
Quazelzeg gave Flackel a deeply irritated look. “When I capture Tebriel, Captain Flackel, he will not escape. Unless, of course, I wish him to do so.”
Chapter 7
The seers among the speaking animals were rare and wonderful. I fear there are no more animal seers left on Tirror; I fear the dark has murdered them. I weep that my own children will never know the friendship of such a one.
*
It was the night after the dragonlings were found that two of them discovered the dark ship lying hidden in the marsh to the south, and Teb sensed the captive animal chained there.
The bards had lingered at Stilvoke Cave, waiting for Iceflower to grow stronger. The dragons fished for salmon for the dwarfs to roast; bards, dragons, and dwarfs spent the evening around a campfire built under the cold stars, swapping tales. The dragonlings told how their mother had died, and how, in a last act of closeness with her, they had named themselves in the time-old ritual.
Rockdrumlin had chosen his name for a hill formed by ice glaciers. Red-black Firemont took his name from Yoorthed’s smoking volcanoes.
The three females found their names in the icy mountains, Iceflower and Snowblitz—and Snowlake, who had been killed in the marsh.
Bluepiper chose his name from the blue snowbird that pecked for worms among the ice floes, its song like the breaking of crystal.
Late in the evening, Teb sensed something amiss, but no one else did. He could not put a direction or shape to it, and as he puzzled over it, it was gone.
Not until well past midnight did the dwarf folk slip off to their sleeping alcoves. The bards and Iceflower stretched out beside the fire. Outside, in the cold night, the other dragons bedded down close together and slept. But Firemont and Bluepiper woke very soon, sensing what Teb had sensed.
They went to investigate. They circled over the ice mountains, puzzled by the pressing sense of terror, and of cruelty, then headed south. They circled the volcano, their nostrils filled with the smell of sulfur that clung around the smoking mountain. The warm swamp lay beyond, sulking in its own heavy steam. They approached it, shivering with the evil they felt there.
They came storming back to Stilvoke Cave just at dawn, wild with shouting.
“There’s a ship in the swamp,” bellowed Firemont.
“It stinks of dark warriors,” cried Bluepiper.
“If you yell any louder,” Teb growled, coming awake, “they’ll have set sail before we reach them.”
The dragonlings lowered their voices, eyeing Teb with respect.
The bards dressed quickly. Teb convinced Marshy to stay in the cave with Iceflower. The rest were soon winging south in the icy dawn, the four bards yawning, trying to come awake, checking again for swords, pulling their hoods around their ears. Kiri looked, sleepily, across the frozen air at Teb. Already a rime of ice crystals covered her hood and the escaping wisps of her hair. Below them, the white mountains caught light from the sun still hidden beyond the sea, the volcano’s face stained by the sun’s fire. Beyond shone the marsh, its brilliant green shocking against the endless white.
The ship is hidden beneath the trees, said Bluepiper. They circled low. The oaks spread a protective leafy roof over the steaming waters.
Yes, there, cried Seastrider. There . . .
They could see, beneath the moss-hung trees, part of the ship’s bow. They could sense the dark warriors and could sense a terrified captive. Their minds were filled with its silent cry for help.
Someone small, Kiri said, someone young. She looked across the wind at Teb.