Darkwalker on Moonshae - Douglas Niles [56]
His nerves on edge, the prince called Canthus to him and walked slowly around the perimeter of their small camp. Tristan had always felt that, somehow, he led a charmed existence, that he need fear nothing – except his father. But now, more than ever before, he felt a sense of apprehension – a certainty that something, or someone, watched from beyond the circle of light.
And he didn’t like it!
Gripping his sword, Tristan strode back and forth, staring into the encloaking darkness. Even the stars seemed dimmed, as if a thin haze filtered their light on this nervewracking night.
Then he saw a flicker of movement.
Freezing, he stared at the spot, and again saw a glimmer of light. Canthus, too, saw it, and growled deep in his chest. Tristan, his sword drawn, moved toward the spot, feeling a strange attraction. As stealthily as he could, he picked his way across the wet ground, He seemed to draw close to the light, but then it moved away, drifting deeper into the fens. Hurrying, he followed. The light dipped and floated through a thicket, and the prince tore at the brush in his eagerness to get through. Canthus, whining, followed.
Tristan burst free from the thicket and lunged into a clearing, Canthus bounding beside him. Suddenly, he felt clutching mire close around his ankles, then his knees, then his waist. With a strangled gasp of panic, the prince turned to flee, but felt the clutching muck rise across his stomach toward his chest.
Canthus, surprisingly, bounded across the surface of the mire, only to pause and look back curiously at the prince. Dropping his sword, Tristan tried to swim, clawing desperately with his hands, but they moved too slowly to help. The apprehension he had felt had changed abruptly to fear, fear that the charm of his life had ended. Choking, he felt cold slime enter his mouth.
The prince’s mind noted, as if it were a matter of no import, that the muck had no taste, nor could he smell it. Squeezing, he felt it slide through his fingers, and then fade. He reached around freely, and realized that he was not sinking in some stinking bog. Instead, he lay upon a patch of dry ground.
Suddenly a chittering voice, sounding only a few feet away, broke into a volley of giggles. Overcome with laughter, the creature nonetheless managed to spit out a few words,
“Oh my… that was splendid! Hee, hee – Oh, perfectly marvelous!”
Looking around, the prince could not see the speaker.
“Oh, oh! If only you could have seen the look in your eyes! I say, I have never seen anything so funny in all my seven hundred and eighty four-years!” With a soft pop, the creature suddenly exploded into view, still convulsed with laughter.
“Can you do it again? Oh, I’d love to see it again!”
In shock, Tristan stared into the eyes, less than an arm’s length from his face, of a tiny dragon. The creature’s toothy mouth was spread into a wide grin.
*****
Grunnarch looked with foul temper at the Iron Keep. Whatever business one of his captains had meeting Thelgaar Ironhand, it was now getting in the way of the loading.
“Send Laric to me when he returns,” the Red King commanded.
The men of Thelgaar Ironhand, meantime, spent the day desecrating the sleek lines of their longships by attaching heavy iron rams to the prow of each ship.
Grunnarch heard that Thelgaar himself would inspect the attachment of each ram. Already there were rumors of the Iron King caressing the rusted metal, muttering some sort of mysterious chant as it was affixed to the hull. Who could see the point of such long and heavy beams, sure to throw off the balance of the seaworthy longships? Perhaps, if the Ffolk possessed a fleet capable of resisting the invasion, the rams might render some useful purpose. But the Ffolk would choose to fight on land, so no one could see the point of naval armament.
Nonetheless, Thelgaar gave his orders with a fiery intensity that allowed no man to question his authority, and