Son of the Hero

13 – The Mist

None of us slept much that night.

A bugle call at dawn heralded our next threat. The call was barely audible, smothered by another heavy fog. We got on the trail and pushed on as fast as we could, making more mistakes with the footing in our hurry. We heard horns several more times, tooting sometimes intricate melodies. One horn would answer another. It didn't take too long to deduce that it was more than standard military calls. The music was a telegraph system, and I had no way to read the messages. I assumed that they were about us.

We aimed as close to north as the terrain permitted. If my dead reckoning was working, we would be level with the first of the beaches where the sea-silver grew early that afternoon-if we weren't held up too long by the swamp or by the patrols looking for us. Every time I heard the horns, I cursed Annick silently. Once in a while, I couldn't restrain an angry glance her way. She didn't seem to notice.

Despite the inconvenience they caused, the persistent fog and intermittent drizzle may have helped us, may have concealed us from the hunters. The rain certainly washed off some of the stink remaining from the swamp and the trolls. We continued to hear horns, quite close a couple of times, but we got through the morning without seeing any of the musicians.

Near noon, a new force entered the hunt, a presence. It had to be the elflord himself, casting a magic eye about for us, quartering the land to find the intruders who had killed his minions. The first time I felt the probe, I tried to think a blanket of invisibility over us. We stopped, and I concentrated on making us the little people who weren't there. Maybe I couldn't put up an actual shield like Parthet, but I didn't have anything to lose by trying. I felt the probe pass. My danger index lowered fractionally. But I didn't know whether or not we had been spotted.

"Someone's using magic to find us," I told my companions.

"I felt it too," Annick said.

"We may have escaped detection, but we can't count on it," I said. Annick nodded. She seemed almost tranquilized. Perhaps it was just that she was as worn out as the rest of us from fighting the swamp and the trolls, but I still felt that it was the killing that had relaxed her. "I'm going to start looking for a path over to the coast. We should be almost far enough north to find the sea-silver. We may have to hide in the swamp until dark before we cross the beach, though." I stopped when Annick shook her head.

"If the lore is right, sea-silver can't be seen in the ocean at night. We have to harvest it during the day." When it was most dangerous-but it wasn't something I could argue. Annick might be wrong, but she probably wasn't.

"Then we'll have to make do," I said. "We'll get lined up near a patch of the silver and wait until the coast is clear." The phrasing was accidental, but I had never heard the cliché used so literally before.

We started bearing left whenever the swamp offered a choice. It was still slow going, especially since I knew that we might hit a dead end at any time. There was no way to swim our horses across open water in the swamp. Even the most placid-looking ponds were inhabited by the giant crocodilians and other nasty beasts. Once I judged that we were heading just a little north of west, I tried to keep us as close to that heading as possible. The sky cleared about noon, so I could get a better idea of the time and our course. The last of the ground fog evaporated. The temperature climbed. We continued to hear horns now and then, but farther off. And finally we heard the sea.

The sounds of surf hitting the shore drew us on like a magnet. We hit a long stretch of firm clay within the swamp and then picked our way through a final marshy patch. The trees were smaller, pathetic-looking, all bent east, away from the sea breezes. We stopped in a tight copse of the dwarf trees and dismounted. Looking through the grayish greenery, we could see the Mist. Just then, it looked beautiful.

Beyond our trees there was a narrow stretch of grass and hard-packed dirt. The line of a wide trail road was visible, wagon tracks and signs that many horses had used the trail-recently. The beach beyond the road was of dark gray sand that stretched off in an arc in both directions. The beach was wide, maybe an average of five hundred yards. It went south as far as I could see, but ended a mile to the north. A massive outcropping of rock rose two hundred feet above the sand and stuck out into the Mist like a swollen thumb. Sheer bluffs dropped to the sea. The waves weren't hitting the beach itself, but a sandbar farther out. The water near the beach was relatively placid at the moment, but from the driftwood scattered higher on the shore, I could see that it wasn't always so serene.

The sun came out from behind a cloud and set shards of crystal in the sand to sparkling in an almost blinding display. Far out over the Mist we could see a weather front coming in, a line of thick, dark clouds that towered from sea to sky. But in the middle, I could see the silver seaweed gleaming in the lagoon, a thick band of bright silver that followed the arc of the beach from almost directly in front of us north toward the cliff.

Annick pointed. "That's what you came for."

"That's what I came for," I agreed. I looked at the sky and guessed that we had a little more than two hours of good light left. "It would be nice to get a full night's sleep and collect the silver in the morning, but if that storm front keeps coming, the surf may be too rough in the morning." Parthet had told me that the sea-silver grew in water between four and twelve feet deep, allowing for rather modest tides. Even staying at the shallow end of the patch, it wouldn't take much surf to complicate our harvest.

"I don't think we can chance it now, either," Annick said. "Look at the headland." Her eyes were sharper than mine, but I did catch a glint of light on metal and saw tiny figures moving. The movement must have been horses. At more than a mile, I don't think it was the riders.

"There must be a dozen or more of them," Annick said, squinting for a better look.

"Let's get comfortable," I said, suppressing a sigh. "Maybe they'll leave." If not, we would wait till as near sunset as possible, then try to sneak across the beach to get our silver. I slipped my pistol into a saddlebag and took off my sword belt.

"Harkane, help me strip off this tin shirt. I can't wear twenty pounds of metal in the water." We got the mail off. It was a relief. I felt almost light enough to float away. Harkane rolled the mail and strapped it behind my saddle. I put my sword belt back on.

We watered the horses, using the last of the water in the two oversized bags that I planned to carry sea-silver in. When I cut the weeds, I would fill the bags with sea-water. Parthet had said that salt water would keep the silver usable longer, but that fresh water would do in a pinch. Since replacing the sea-silver would mean another trip like this one, I wanted to keep what I got in top shape.

The riders came down from the headland and rode our way, spread out across the beach in a loose skirmish line. They weren't riding very fast, so I thought that it might be just a routine patrol, not an attempt to catch us. A long horn call sounded just before they passed our hiding place, but I didn't hear any reply. There were fifteen riders. The one in the center looked like a giant. He wore a long two-handed sword like a claymore, sheathed across his back. I held rny breath, but the riders went by without a second look our way.

"Their leader is an elf, or at least halfelven like me," Annick said after the riders were well past us. I assumed that she meant the big guy. One of the bits of lore I had picked up in Varay was that real elves weren't cute little fairy-tale creatures who made shoes at night or any of that nonsense. The elf warriors who rode out of Fairy were neither cute nor little. Parthet had suggested that three hundred pounds spread over seven and a half feet of height was a good average. "None of it fat," he had added.

"Mount up," I said. "If they keep going south, we'll ride for the sea, about halfway to the headland. I'll go in for my silver and we'll get out of here as fast as we can."

"I'll help in the water," Annick said. I just nodded.

We watched the riders. They rode at a slow trot, casually scanning the beach ahead of them. We waited until they were just dots, almost invisible in the distance, before I started riding toward the water. The others followed. On the sand, I prodded my horse into a canter, aiming for the section of shore I had chosen. After the tortuous going of the swamp it felt good to let the horses stretch out for a moment. Breeze in my face, the sea ahead. The horses seemed to enjoy the change too.

"Keep a sharp watch," I told Lesh and Harkane when we dismounted at the water's edge. "Give us all the warning you can if they come back." I handed Harkane my sword and its sheath. They would just get in the way in the water. I kept my knife to work with.

The near edge of the seaweed bed was thirty yards out. The top of the sea was brilliantly reflective. The silver gleamed like polished metal. Even when the sun ducked behind another cloud, the sea-silver gleamed. Annick and I each carried a water pouch. She had taken off her sword too.

"Ready?" I asked. Annick nodded. We waded in.

The water was frigid. Cool would have been a blessing, but the Mist felt like ice. We waded and floundered toward the sea-silver, moving slowly in the lash and recoil of the current. The undertow threatened to drag our legs out from under us at every step. By the time we reached the seaweed, my knees felt ready to buckle from the strain.

"Cut as low as you can," I told Annick. I pulled my knife, took a deep breath, and dropped beneath the surface.

The cold seemed less pressing once I submerged. I could see well enough, though the salt water stung my eyes badly. I needed a few experiments to find the best way to reap the silver. Then the harvest moved quickly. I gathered in an armful of silver and crammed it into the mouth of the sack, then cut the weed as close to the roots as I could-up for a quick breath and a glance at the shore, then down to gather the next sheaf. It didn't take long. Annick and I finished and were standing there catching our breath when Lesh whistled and pointed south. The patrol was returning.

Annick and I tried to hurry back to shore, but that made it more difficult. We stumbled and fell. Maneuvering the filled pouches of sea-silver and water complicated matters too. We had to keep them submerged so we weren't carrying all that extra weight, forty pounds or more per bag.

Lesh had the two largest horses, his and mine, ready for the pouches. All of the paraphernalia those animals had been carrying had been transferred to the other horses. We got the bags of sea-silver tied behind the saddles and covered with blankets. Harkane returned my sword. I didn't bother with the chain mail. There wasn't time and I didn't want the weight over my wet clothes anyway.

The fifteen riders in the south were clearly visible against the distant sand, but they were still a few minutes away. We mounted and I stared south for a moment, discouraged at the chances of holding our own against so many… or escaping from them. I was surprised when my extra sense signaled closer danger from the other direction, but I turned quickly. Another half-dozen riders were coming toward us at a gallop, down from the headland, and they were a lot closer.

I pointed at the six and said, "Head for them," and we did, spurring our horses to a gallop. I drew my sword. I had no intention of wasting arrows trying for an impossible shot from horseback. Annick did try one shot, and her arrow pierced the shoulder of the nearest rider. Luck, blind luck. No archer can guarantee that result once in ten tries when archer and target are both galloping hard at each other. Annick must have realized it too. She didn't try a second arrow. Lesh and Harkane had their spears tucked firmly under their arms. They weren't the fancy lances of medieval movies but they would be effective weapons-sharp metal points on the end of ten-foot long hardwood shafts.

We had no choice but to fight the closer riders, and unless we disposed of those six-five after Annick's lucky arrow-damn fast, the fight would give the larger band time to catch us on the beach. There were simply too many in that group. I wouldn't have been happy with four of us facing just the elf warrior who led the group. His claymore could slice through spears and shatter our smaller swords. The only realistic chance I could see was to get to the swamp and hope that we could lose the elf and his cohort.

Only one of the first five riders looked less than human. His grotesque face looked akin to the swamp trolls, but this one was wearing clothes and armor. Annick skewered him as our groups collided. He wasn't nearly as fast as she was… or maybe he just didn't have the motivation. That evened the immediate odds, but none of the others were so cooperative.

It was something more than paranoia that made me think that these riders, like the swamp trolls and the weird flying creature we met on our way north, were all aiming specifically at me. You're paranoid if you think "they" are out to get you and "they" aren't. Well, you may still be paranoid if "they" are out to get you, but it's not a delusion then. It's real. I wasn't wearing a sandwich board that said "I'm the Hero of Varay" on one side and "Come and get me" on the other, but I didn't have to make any great mental leap to decide that these creatures of Fairy must somehow be able to sense that I was the one to focus on.

The four riders who were left after Annick got rid of two of their comrades certainly seemed determined to reach me. My companions were just a distraction-though a deadly distraction. But we were evenly matched, thanks to Annick, so I only had to face one enemy right off.

I had never attempted fencing on horseback. A gap in my education as a swashbuckler. And all of those years of learning what to do with my feet and body while I parried and feinted and lunged, all the wild language of formal fencing, were wasted when I crossed swords on that beach.

Maybe that's going a bit too far. The situation was novel, but I did manage to get my sword up to block the blade that was swung right toward my nose. The other guy might not have known from quarte or sixte, so we started out fairly even. He was more a hacker than a fencer, and I don't mean that he played with computers. All I had to do was keep getting my sword in the way of his until our horses danced around enough to let me get past his guard. I didn't worry about style either. And I didn't wait to see him fall. As soon as I pulled my blade free, I kneed my horse and pushed past to reach Harkane. He was in trouble.

Harkane backed away as I caught his opponent from the side. There was no trouble with elegant form this time either. My first swing bit about halfway into my foe's upper arm. He turned toward me but couldn't do much to defend himself. He managed to block my next blow, but not the lunge that caught his throat after that.

I didn't waste time looking south for the other group of riders. I didn't need to look. I could feel the elf warrior and his band getting closer, and, near the end of my second duel, I could feel something more deadly than a host of elf warriors.

Harkane and Lesh combined to dispatch the last member of the small patrol. I looked south and then up finally… and saw death overtaking the elf's band. An immense shadow drew my eyes upward. A dragon was swooping down toward the galloping riders.

"To the swamp!" I shouted at my companions. We raced northeast, but we kept looking back over our shoulders toward the group pursuing us and the dragon pursuing them. The elf drew his six-foot sword, looked back, and kicked at his horse's flanks, looking for more speed from the already-overtaxed steed. The elf's head turned left, then right. Maybe he was shouting at his men. He was still too far away for me to be certain. His men spurred their mounts on, hardly needing encouragement, trying to outrun the flying death behind them.

It was an impossible flight.

"Hold up!" Annick shouted behind me, after we had crossed about half of the beach. "The dragon chases motion."

I reined in quickly. There wasn't time for a round-table discussion on the subject, but it made a certain kind of sense. We dismounted and moved to our horses' heads to hold them as still as possible. The horses weren't happy about sticking around.

I saw a large blob fall from the dragon.

"What's it doing, bombing them?" I asked softly. It wouldn't have surprised me.

"Just lightening up, I expect," Lesh said. "Dropping a load of crap from his last meal." Lesh's snort wasn't quite a laugh. "I've seen dragon droppings. Must drop more'n ton at a time. One of those turds hits you, you've had it." He was serious. That was obvious, but the image he conjured up almost sent me into hysterics. I managed to hold back the laugh that was trying to get past my fear, but it was a struggle. Still, there was nothing at all funny in what was going on.

The dragon struck. There was nothing the four of us could do but watch. At the moment, that dragon was saving our bacon, but I couldn't help but feel for the men-and even the elf-that it was attacking. Each massive front talon grabbed a horse and rider. The dragon's jaws opened and bit off the top half of another rider as it pulled out of its dive. The elf stood in his stirrups and took a full swing at the beast. He connected with the dragon's shoulder, just in front of the left wing, but the blade bounced back and the elf nearly tumbled to the sand. He might as well have tried to slice the wing off a 747 with a Swiss Army knife. The dragon climbed quickly. One of the men in its grasp fell, still on his horse. That was from about two hundred feet up. Then the dragon dropped the rest of his grisly cargo and dove again. And again. Each time, he got one or two riders and horses, until only the elf was left.

The elf jumped off his horse and slapped its rump to run the animal off. I couldn't guess if he hoped that the dragon would chase the animal and leave him alone or if he just wanted to get the horse out of the way. The dragon circled and dove again, not at all distracted by the panicked horse racing north. The elf faced the dragon, his claymore out in both hands, ready for his last stand. It couldn't be anything but a last stand. The dragon came low, then climbed and circled again, surveying the carnage he had already caused. He eyed the elf, then climbed to make another power dive, pulling up just as he reached his target, stalling to a stop.

As they met, the elf sliced at the bottom of the dragon's jaw and black blood spurted down on him. As far off as we were, I heard the thud of the blade biting into the dragon, the rushing sound of blood gushing out-like water from a fire hose. The dragon reached out with a talon that was bigger than the elf… and the elf sliced it off cleanly. More blood spurted. I wondered how sharp that blade was. It seemed incredible.

The dragon folded his wings and dropped on the elf. I figured that that was the end of the affair, since the dragon had to weigh hundreds, maybe thousands, of tons. But after a long moment of the dragon thrashing about, we saw the elf crawl out from under one wing. The wing flailed and knocked the elf face first into the sand-hard. Almost at once, the elf started crawling forward again, dragging himself a few feet farther from the dragon. The reptile was still thrashing, its head weaving like a cobra rising from a snake charmer's basket. Thunderous groans came from its slack jaw. It was hurt, but still very much alive.

Incredibly, the elf was also still alive. Somehow. He got to his knees slowly, in obvious pain. I shook my head, marveling that anyone could take that amount of abuse and not only survive but be able to get to his feet afterward. But the elf couldn't walk. He stumbled and fell back to his knees and crawled toward his sword. He had to inch his way, and he collapsed twice before he reached it. The dragon started waddling after the elf, moving just as slowly. The missing foot was hampering him, I guess, as much as the blood he had lost.

Without warning my companions, I mounted and kneed my horse, aiming him toward the combatants and giving him a slack rein. Annick and the others followed as soon as they saw what I was doing. They were as captivated as I was by the duel. Even our horses had lost some of the fear they had displayed before.

The elf used his sword to help him get to his feet, though it was a clumsy crutch, digging into the sand. When he picked up the sword to hold it out toward the dragon, he swayed, obviously unsteady, but he managed to raise the sword over his head, and he sliced forward, biting into the dragon's snout-but that snout butted the elf and hurled him and his sword away. The blade stuck in the sand, a cross to mark its owner's grave… but not yet. The elf crawled toward the sword again, determined and somehow able to move, however slowly. But this time, he just couldn't make it all the way. He collapsed eight feet short of the mark. His face flopped into the sand. Then he lifted his head a little and looked at the blade, a hopeless distance away.

But the dragon wasn't ready to continue the fight immediately either. Its head was also down in the sand, one open eye watching its quarry while it tried to gather strength to finish the battle.

I reached the elf and dismounted a few feet short of where he lay sprawled. My plan was to carry him away from the dragon, do what I could for him. After the fight he'd put up, I didn't want to leave him to be part of the monster's supper. The elf warrior was fair of face and hair, his skin as pale as Annick's, his eyes the palest blue I had ever seen. Mortally wounded, he still looked like a movie star. I knelt down to him in unconscious homage to his valor. I could feel his magic. He could feel mine.

The elf opened his eyes and looked up at me. "Take my sword, Hero," he said, struggling with the words, "and slay me this dragon that I may die in peace."

I looked from the elf to the sword that was as tall as I am, then on at the dragon that was the size of an airliner. Sure thing, I thought. I recalled hearing someone say that dragons couldn't be killed by a mortal, and Parthet's inability to name one who had. But when I looked at this dragon, I thought that-maybe-most of the work had already been done.

"If I can," I told the elf as my companions arrived.

"Highness…" Lesh started, but I waved him quiet.

I pulled the claymore from the sand. It was the largest sword I had ever held, but it didn't feel nearly as heavy as I'd expected. I had handled a couple of claymores once, but I'd never had the chance to practice with them. I held the blade straight out in front of me and walked back to the elf. If he was concerned that I might use it on him instead of on the dragon, he didn't show it.

"A deep thrust, straight through an eye," he said. The words came out singly, labored. A little blood flowed from the corner of the elf's mouth. "Aim for the middle of the back of its head." I nodded. The elf closed his eyes for a second. As I stalked closer to the dragon, though, the elf lifted his head to watch.

The dragon was also watching me. One amber eye stared, tracking my movements. The head waggled weakly. The dragon couldn't raise its head out of my reach, though it tried. Its wings fluttered weakly. It tried to turn away, tried to interpose a wing between us, but it couldn't move fast enough to avoid me. I hoped it was too weak for one last burst of defiance.

This all seemed to be happening in slow motion. I guess my mind was running a little faster than usual. But stalking from the elf to the dragon, I had more than enough time to consider that the dragon's relationship to the reptiles of the real world had to be pretty ancient, if there was any direct link at all. It had a huge bloated body and a head that looked positively puny in comparison. A pinhead. Still, that head was big enough to cause problems without half trying.

I slashed at the dragon's snout when it opened its yap-a gaping food hole that I could have walked into without bending over. The mouth slammed shut again.

An eye was going to be quite a reach for me. Maybe the dragon had a pinhead in relation to his size, but the head was still bigger than an elephant. I moved around to the side. The eye, about the size of a soccer ball, looked down at me from just above the top of my own head. I took a deep breath and tightened my grip on the elf's sword. Behind the head, the dragon's thin neck curled back to a body that was taller than a two-story building. The head tilted my way, bringing my target a little closer. I stepped forward and thrust the sword into the eye with every bit of my strength (and whatever "strength of Vara" being Hero of Varay was supposed to give me), leaning into the hilt with my shoulder, pushing until the dragon's renewed thrashing around pulled the sword out of my hands-and out of my reach. I backed off fast, almost tripping over my own feet in my hurry to get out of the way. Black blood and purple goo spurted from the eye. The dragon flopped and twisted for minutes before it was finally still. The head lolled over, the wounded eye staring blindly into the sand.

"I think it's dead," I mumbled-too softly for anyone to hear, I think. Then I pulled the sword out of the eye, cleaned the blade in the sand, and carried it back to the elf.

"Well done, Hero," he said. Then his eyes closed for the last time. I knelt and felt for a pulse in his neck. Nothing. It was strange-not that he was dead, but the way I felt. Not long before, I had been ready to fight him, but now I was mourning his death. I looked up at Annick as I stood.

"He wasn't your father by any chance, was he?" I asked.

Annick shook her head firmly. "No, he can't be. I'm sure I would know if we met."

I wasn't about to get into a discussion about that.

"I guess we should bury him," I said instead.

"Even I wouldn't dishonor him so," Annick said. "An elf warrior belongs out in the open air." I wasn't going to argue. I knew zip about elf customs and I wasn't at all sure I wanted to learn.

"Whatever you say." I felt tired suddenly, fatigue just trying to swallow me whole. I stabbed the claymore into the sand at the elf's head. "I wish I knew his name. He was really something fighting that dragon." A true hero, I thought. I looked down. The magic I had felt from him before was gone. A supposed immortal had found that he wasn't, not by a long shot. I shook my head and started to walk toward my horse.

"You're not going to leave his sword, are you?" Harkane asked. His voice actually sounded pained.

"Why not?" I asked.

Annick answered. "To leave an elf warrior's sword would be disaster. It would return to kill you."

"Why? I didn't kill him."

"It will seek you out if you abandon it, though. That is the way of such weapons."

Again, I couldn't argue the point. I didn't know what I was talking about. I pulled the blade from the sand. Harkane pulled loose a heavy sash from the elf's body. The claymore hadn't been in a normal sheath. Two spring-loaded C-clamps closed over blade and guard. I strapped on the rig and tried it. With proper pressure, the clamps freed the blade-very smartly.

There were a bunch of fancy characters etched high on the flat of the blade, above the blood channel, near the guard. Annick looked at them and said, "The runes name this sword Dragon's Death." For one dragon at least, I thought. I looked at the runes, traced them with my finger. I had thought that the translation magic was supposed to handle writing too-I had been able to read that Chapbook once I got to Varay-but I couldn't make out anything at first. But when I looked closer, I could read the inscription. The script was just very convoluted, worse than my mother's handwriting.

With the sword in my hand now, I could feel its magic.