Ireheart had not noticed. “That won’t work. He’ll destroy us if we get close!! He has vowed to become the sole ruler of Girdlegard. He’ll never help us voluntarily.”
Tungdil replaced Bloodthirster in its sheath. “Then we will have to defeat him and force him to serve us.” His smile was colder than frost.
“You’ve gone mad, Scholar!” the dwarf-twin exclaimed. “By Vraccas, you’re talking about Lot-Ionan, the magus! Your foster-father! Do you remember what power he possessed when you left us? Can you imagine what he is capable of now?”
“We’ll get a nice little army ready for him. An army of his enemies.” Tungdil remained calm. “That would be, if I’ve understood you correctly: A dragon, a kordrion and Aiphaton with his alfar,” he said, counting on his fingers. “Perhaps we can get the thirdlings to join in as well. If they can dig up a magus or maga in Girdlegard that hates Lot-Ionan as much as your Goda does, then we’re well away.”
Boindil gave a hollow laugh, fell silent, then he laughed again a couple of times, raising his arms in a gesture of mock despair. “We are lost. I have a madman here who believes in all seriousness that his ridiculous project will succeed,” he cried, grabbing hold of his crow’s beak. “Vraccas, you are cruel!”
“Stop complaining, Ireheart,” Tungdil laughed at him. “Perhaps I’ll have another idea, a better one. And anyway, it was you who always liked a challenge.” He nodded to the dwarf-woman. “Goda and your children will stay here to help the soldiers should the beasts attack before we get back.” He looked deep into his friend’s eyes. “I need to meet with the remaining dwarf-rulers. And don’t forget the freelings.” He looked at the sun. “We’ll leave at first light.” Without waiting for an answer he returned to the battlement walkway, where the soldiers cheered him anew.
“Tell us who it is that’s opposing us, and why you thought he was dead!” Goda called after him.
Tungdil looked back over his shoulder, revealing his golden eye patch, as though he could see with it. “His name wouldn’t mean anything to you. And I thought he was dead because my sword ran him through and I took his armor.” He walked on.
Goda followed him with her eyes. “I don’t trust him,” she said. “It could be a trick to get the worst of the magi together after we’ve wiped out all the other opponents in Girdlegard…”
Ireheart whirled round. “Stop it, Goda!” he snapped at her. “I’m going to Girdlegard with the Scholar and I’ll do whatever he suggests. Because I,” and he placed his right arm across his breast, “trust my heart.”
He left her standing there and went after Tungdil to see to the soldiers who had been wounded in the fighting with the spider monsters. Beside them, the dead had been laid on their shields. One of them was Yagur. The injuries he had sustained were strange: His forearm had been pulled off and there was a stab wound to his throat. Not what you would expect if you were fighting a spider.
His astonishment grew.
Next to the ubari lay three of his closest friends, their armor pierced by something very sharp, judging by the smooth edges of the lacerations. They did not look like mandible bites.
The vague doubts within him were starting to turn into a mass chorus, fighting to be heard. They grew so loud that he decided, against his initial firm intention, to ask a few questions of the Scholar as they journeyed.
Girdlegard,
Former Queendom of Weyurn,
Lakepride,
Winter, 6491st Solar Cycle
Coira had not thought it possible, but somehow she had managed to throw off her pursuers. She had acquired three extra horses, loaded them up with heavy weights, and led them alongside their own group for some time. After half an orbit’s journey riding along the bed of a stream, she had let these three animals go free, while she herself rode on toward Lakepride. That had foxed whoever was following her. For now.
But her name was on the list of Weyurn folk with a high price on their heads, should anyone think of betraying her and taking hers to the Dragon. That had not made her journey an easy one.
She looked at Rodario riding beside her, bravely clinging on to the horse’s back. They’d had to stop and wait four times already for him to remount after a fall.
“Not long now and we’ll be safe,” she said, to encourage him. “Can you see the island? It’s one of the few proper islands left in my mother’s realm. We’ll have to go by boat.”
A cry of dismay escaped his lips. “Deep water? I can’t swim.”
“In the old days every child in Weyurn could swim,” tutted Loytan disapprovingly.
“That must have been a really long time ago. I’d say about a hundred cycles, at least? And anyway, I’m not from Weyurn,” Rodario returned, sharply. “There was never any need for me to get to grip with the waves. A stream is quite sufficient for a good wash, and for rivers there are always bridges and ferries.”
“This time we don’t have a bridge to offer you,” laughed Coira. “It’s only a short boat-ride. But, of course, if you can walk on water, please go ahead.”
“Very funny, Princess,” said Rodario, sounding hurt, though whether he really meant it or was just pretending it was impossible to tell.
They rode to the top of a sand dune, the sparse vegetation of which waved in the wind. There was hoarfrost on the grass stems, giving the appearance of glass; they rustled against each other, shimmering in the sunlight.
“Oh, how beautiful!” said Rodario, enchanted. “I wish I had pen and paper right now to write about it!”
Loytan groaned. “If you write stuff as bad as that act you did in the market square, give it a miss, for goodness’ sake.”
Coira threw her companion a reproving look but said nothing.
Rodario’s eyes narrowed. “One of these orbits you’ll get a surprise when you see what I can do, Count Loytan,” he prophesied. “And I bet you’ll come running to apologize.”
As he spoke, something in the actor’s gaze brought Loytan up short. Was it a sudden manliness? Probably just imagination. “And you’ll probably save my life and then marry the princess, I suppose?” He laughed, startling the seagulls.
“Why not?” The actor grinned at Coira and rubbed his ungroomed beard. “Do you find me so ugly, or may I dream of a life at your side…?”
She raised a finger in warning. “You are speaking out of turn, Rodario the Seventh! Consider who it is that you are addressing.” She rode down the dune, heading for a narrow quay where a skiff lay moored, its small sail furled.
Rodario looked over to the island. It had to be a good mile from the shore.
But island was not really the expression to use. Ever since the water level in Weyurn’s lakes had started to drop, cycle after cycle, many of the islands stood high above the surface, while others had been left completely isolated, far from the waterline. The inhabitants had installed pulley lifts and built flights of stairs to enable them to leave their islands. Fishermen had been forced to become farmers, turning the lakebed into agricultural land-not always very fertile land, at that.
The situation for Lakepride was not so critical. It seemed to float above the lake maybe sixty paces up, balanced on a stone pillar, resembling a tulip flower on its stem.
Rodario noted seven barges, three ships and eighteen smaller vessels moored at a landing stage below the island; the landing stage was secured by heavy chains and there was a precarious-looking spiral staircase leading up to where the people lived. He could see windlasses and pulleys among the equipment on the landing stage. The residents of Lakepride had made the best of their predicament.
“The island looks as if it might break off at any moment and come crashing down into the lake,” said Rodario to Loytan, who nodded.
“Yes, you’d think so, but the pillar of stone it rests on is volcanic rock. Nothing can bring that down.” He urged his horse onward down the side of the dune, more sliding than walking down. Rodario followed suit. “The people of Lakepride are lucky; at least they can still work as fisherfolk.”