The Blood of a Dragon

Chapter Nine

Dumery awoke at the sound of rattling harness; a traveler was fetching his mount from the inn’s stable.

The boy blinked up at the bright blue sky, and then panicked. He leapt to his feet, sending the scrap bowl spinning and knocking aside the spriggan that was curled up against him, and he ran for the gate, spooking several horses. The traveler shouted at him angrily, but Dumery paid no attention. He was too worried.

It was morning, and none too early. What if the dragon-hunter had already gone? Dumery didn’t even know which fork of the road the man in brown would be taking, north or west.

He paused at the door of the inn to catch his breath. Looking up, he saw that the torch above the door had burned away to a blackened stub. The sun was still low in the east, but it was clear of the horizon.

If the man in brown was gone Dumery would have no way of finding him again. He would be left with little choice but to give up and head home to Ethshar.

That would mean giving up his dream of becoming a dragon-hunter himself, though, and he wasn’t going to give in that easily if he could help it. He wasdetermined to be a dragon-hunter and rub Thetheran’s nose in it.

He opened the door, and, suddenly nervous about being spotted, peered carefully in.

The man in brown was there, sitting at one of the tables, eating grapes, carefully plucking out the seeds as he went. He wore a different tunic, this one tan wool rather than brown leather, but Dumery was sure it was him. The man’s size and slovenly hair were distinctive enough to make a positive identification.

A sigh of relief escaped the boy. The man was still here. He hadn’t left yet.

Dumery hadn’t lost him.

His ticket to a career in dragon-hunting was still in reach.

Dumery stood in the doorway for a moment, trying to figure out what to do next.

As he stood, it registered with the boy that the man in brown looked clean and well-rested and well-fed and was finishing up a leisurely and generous breakfast. He had undoubtedly slept in a fine bed paid for with Thetheran’s gold, while Dumery had spent the night freezing in the stableyard mud, with nothing to eat but a few nauseating scraps. He was filthy and stinking, his feet still ached, his back was stiff, and his stomach was so empty it was trying to tie itself in knots.

This journey was no great hardship for the man in brown, who was well-prepared and well-financed, but it was clearly going to be torture for an ill-equipped boy who didn’t even know where he was going.

Dumery turned and looked down the road, back toward Ethshar. He couldn’t see any sign of the city, but he knew it was there, and in it his parents’ house.

Should he turn back?

He chewed on his lip as he thought it over.

Back in Ethshar, somewhere over the horizon, he had a home and a family and a fine soft bed, regular meals and a warm fire every night. He had a mother who loved him, a father who treated him fairly well, and three reasonably-tolerable siblings who usually left him alone.

He also had no prospects of any interest for the future, however, and the city was home to a dozen wizards and other magicians who had rejected and humiliated him.

That decided him. He would go on.

He would continue on until he reached the dragon-hunter’s home base, and then he would present himself again anddemand an apprenticeship.

He looked back into the main room of the inn, just as the man in brown pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

The serving maid, Asha, hurried up as the man dropped a heavy coin on the table-a silver piece, by the look and sound of it. The two exchanged a few words that Dumery didn’t catch.

Worried that he might be missing something important, he slipped in the door as they were talking and crept closer.

“So the boat’s there now?” the man asked.

“I think so,” the girl replied.

“Well, that’s fine, then. I might as well wait there as here. My thanks, to you and to Valder.” He reached down and picked up his pack as the girl pocketed the coin-a silver round, all right. That would cover his entire bill, Dumery was sure, and probably leave a bit or two over for the maid.

Well, with a purse full of wizard’s gold, the man could afford to be generous.

Dumery realized suddenly, as the man in brown shouldered his pack, that the man was about to leave.

Not wanting to be seen, the boy ducked back out the front door as the man in brown turned. He scurried back to the stableyard and through the gate; then he turned and watched, peering around the wall as the dragon-hunter emerged.

The man in brown wasted no time in looking around at the scenery, or admiring the weather; he marched around the far corner of the inn and up the northern fork of the highway, out of sight.

Dumery started to hurry after him, only to trip and fall headlong in the mud.

Blinking, he got to his knees and looked around, trying to figure out what had tripped him.

The little monster that had called itself a spriggan was sitting there, looking as dazed as Dumery felt.

The thing was green, as he had guessed, and would have been about eight inches tall standing upright. It looked like a frog that had started to turn into a man and then changed its mind; it was sitting in a human pose, rather than a batrachian one, its hind legs stretched out before it, its forelegs-arms, really, with hands, fingers, and even thumbs-dangling to either side. It had broad pointed ears, far too large for it, and great protruding eyes.

“Ooooh!” it said, in a piercing, squeaky little voice. “We bump!”

“Yes,” Dumery said, “I guess we did.”

The creature looked harmless; Dumery decided to ignore it. He got to his feet.

“Ooh, wait!” the spriggan said. “Where we going?”

Dumery looked down at it. “I don’t have any idea whereyou’re going,” he said, “butI’m goingthat way!” He pointed to the northern fork, where the man in brown had vanished.

“Come with you, yes! You feed, I come!” the spriggan announced enthusiastically.

“I’m not going to feed you,” Dumery said, annoyed. “I don’t even have food for myself.”

“You feed me last night. I come with you,” it insisted, stamping a foot ludicrously.

“Right,” Dumery said. “Try it.” He turned and marched off briskly, almost running.

The spriggan let out a piercing shriek, hopped up, and ran after him.

Dumery’s longer legs made the difference; he easily left the little creature behind as he topped the low ridge that ran behind the inn.

As he did, he suddenly saw why the place was called the Inn at the Bridge.

From the ridgetop the road sloped steeply down toward a river bigger than Dumery had ever imagined rivers could be. He had never seen a real river, of course, just drainage ditches and canals; the broadest canal he had ever seen was the New Canal, between Shiphaven and Spicetown, which was two hundred feet wide for much of its length, big enough for the ocean-going ships to use freely.

The lower part of the Grand Canal, between Spicetown and Fishertown, was about the same.

The two of them could have been put side by side and still not equalled more than a tiny fraction of the river before him now.

And the really amazing part of the view wasn’t the river at all; it was the bridge across it. It was stone, soaring arches of stone supporting a roadbed higher and broader than Ethshar’s city wall-and built across water, rather than on solid ground!

Dumery stared at it in amazement.

Soldiers, four of them, in the uniform of Ethshar’s city guard, stood at the near end, chatting quietly and watching half-heartedly for approaching traffic. Just now no one was crossing, but on the far side, in the distance, Dumery thought he could see a wagon on the road.

What he didnot see was the man in brown, and he looked about worriedly as he hurried on down the long slope.

Then Dumery spotted his quarry; he wasn’t on the main road at all. Rather than approaching the bridge, he had turned aside onto a smaller and even steeper road that branched off inconspicuously to the left, just where the approaches of the bridge parted company with the natural contour of the land.

This little branch road followed the slope down to the river and a dock.

It wasn’t a particularly impressive dock compared with the great trading wharves in Spicetown or the shipping piers in Shiphaven, but it was undeniably a dock. What’s more, there were boats tied up there, and the man in brown was heading straight for the biggest one, which waited at the end of the dock, its gangplank out.

Forgetting about any need for secrecy, Dumery broke into a run, chasing after the dragon-hunter, lest the boat leave with the man aboard before Dumery could reach it.

The boat was long and square, without masts or rigging, and with little freeboard. Sweeps were racked on either side of the deck, their blades poking up at a steep angle, giving the whole craft something of the appearance of an overturned beetle with its legs in the air.

Despite its rather ugly shape, the craft was gaily painted; the hull was a deep rich red picked out with gold, the deck and superstructure a gleaming yellow, with predominantly-green fancywork around the ports and hatches. Green and gold banners flew at bow and stern. The sweeps were painted green, with gold scrollwork on the shafts.

This was not, Dumery realized, a sea-going ship, nor even a harbor boat. It bore more of a resemblance to the flat-bottomed barges that were used to haul materials around the waterfront, especially in the shipyard, than to anything else Dumery had often encountered. He thought he might have seen a few such craft here and there along Ethshar’s waterfront, but he wasn’t really sure; he had certainly not seen many, and never at the deep-water piers.

It had to be a riverboat.

The man in brown marched up the gangplank without slowing and waved a greeting to the handful of brightly-dressed people on the boat’s deck. Two of them waved back; a third stepped forward and exchanged a few words with the dragon-hunter.

Dumery wished he could hear what was being said, but he was still much too far away.

He was running as fast as he could on the downgrade, but the man in brown’s head start and longer legs had given him a sizable lead, and the slope made running difficult. Dumery’s feet thumped onto the dock’s first plank as the man in brown vanished through a low doorway, his business with the man on deck completed.

Dumery ran out the dock’s length and up the gangplank without slowing.

At the sound of his approach-which was easy to hear, thanks to the dock’s loose planking-the party on deck turned and looked at him. The man who had spoken with the dragon-hunter, a man in a white tunic and sky-blue kilt, stepped over to the gangplank.

Dumery ran straight into his outstretched arms.

“Hai,there,” the man said, grabbing Dumery’s arms. “What’s your hurry?”

Dumery realized he had made it; he was aboard the boat, with the man in brown.

“I didn’t want to miss the boat,” he said, panting.

“No danger of that,” the man in the white tunic said. “We won’t be leaving until noon.”

“Oh,” Dumery said, feeling foolish. “I didn’t know.”

“Ah,” the man said, releasing one arm. “Well, now you do.” He looked Dumery over, and Dumery stared back defiantly.

He knew he looked terrible, after sleeping in his clothes in the mud and then tripping over that stupid spriggan, but he didn’t care, and he waited for the man to criticize him, ready to reply.

“I take it,” the man said, “that you’d like to stay aboard for the ride north?”

Dumery blinked and looked around.

No, he wasn’t confused; there the sun was on the far side of the bridge, which meant that was east. The other direction on the river was west. Was this boat just a ferry, then?

If so, he could have just walked across the bridge!

“North?” he said.

“Yes, north,” the man replied. “Didn’t you know, then?” He pointed due west.

“We’ll be cruising upstream, all the way to Sardiron of the Waters.”

“Oh,” Dumery said.

Either the entire World was confused somehow and the sun was rising in the south, or else the river to the west turned north somewhere along the way.

This was no local ferry-Sardiron of the Waters was hundreds of miles away.

In fact, it wasn’t even in the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars. It was the council city of the Baronies of Sardiron, a land Dumery had heard described in countless tales as a barbarous foreign realm of gloomy castles, deep dark forests, icy winters, hungry wolves-and marauding dragons.

Wasthat where the man in brown was going?

It made sense, of course. There were no dragons left in the Hegemony, so far as Dumery knew; certainly not anywhere near Ethshar of the Spices.

He should have thought of that sooner. A dragon-hunter could scarcely ply his trade in such quiet, civilized country.

He might have to pursue the man in brown for sixnights, even months.

He hesitated.

“Were you going to Sardiron, then?” the boatman asked.

Dumery nodded. “Yes,” he said.

“Ah,” the boatman replied, nodding. “And you have the fare?”

Dumery’s heart fell. “Fare?” he asked.

“Of course,” the boatman said. “Did you think we man this boat for the sheer delight of it?”

“No, I... how much?”

“To Sardiron?”

“Yes.”

“The full fare, lad, is five rounds of silver, but for a boy your size-call it three.”

“Oh,” Dumery said. While that discount meant that the price was actually negotiable, Dumery knew there was no way in the World he could haggle three silver pieces down to a few copper bits.

And all he had was a few copper bits.

“Haven’t got it, have you?” the man asked, glaring at him.

“No, I...” Dumery began. Then he caught the boatman’s gaze and just said, “No.”

“Off the boat, then,” the boatman ordered, pointing ashore and using the grip on Dumery’s arm to turn the boy.

“Could I work...” Dumery began.

“No,” the boatman said, cutting him off. “TheSunlit Meadows is no cattle barge, boy, to be hiring anyone who comes aboard with two hands and a strong back-and your back doesn’t look that strong, for that matter! This is the finest passenger boat on the Great River, and we’ve had a full crew of trained professionals working her since before we left Sardiron of the Waters; we’ve no need for a fumble-fingered farmboy.” He put his other hand between Dumery’s shoulders and began pushing the boy down the gangplank.

“I’m not a farmboy!” Dumery protested. “My father’s a wealthy merchant in the city...”

“Then have him buy you passage, boy!” He gave Dumery a final shove, not particularly hard or vicious, that sent the lad staggering onto the dock. Then he stood there, astride the gangplank, hands on hips, and stared.

Dumery stared back for a moment, then turned away.

He was not going to get aboard theSunlit Meadows easily, that was plain.

All the same, he was not about to give up. The man in brown was aboard that boat, and wherever he went, Dumery was determined to follow.

He had no ideahow he would follow, just now, but he’d find a way.

He had to.