The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [63]
Down near the town gates he found a temporary tavern, a round canvas roof on poles sheltering a cluster of ale barrels in the center. Men stood around, drinking from pottery stoups chained to the barrels, but one white-haired fellow was sitting on a three-legged stool and holding an unchained mug. Salamander stood everyone a tankard, a good investment, since he at last found the informant he’d been hoping for.
“Dragons, eh?” One of the drinkers pointed to the seated elder. “Now, if it’s talk of dragons you want, our Mallo there’s the man to ask.”
When Mallo raised his mug in a friendly way, Salamander hunkered down in front of him.
“So you know a bit about dragons, do you?” Salamander said.
“I do, and more than a bit. I was captain of the town watch when the Horsekin sieged our town, and the black dragon was part of the relieving army. Arzosah, her name is.”
“Were you now? Well, I’ve had a bit of luck, then. How big is she?”
“Big as a house, I’d say. Not so big as the gwerbret’s broch tower, though there are some as will tell you so. But a good twenty-odd feet long, she were.” Mallo paused to grin, revealing a few black stumps of teeth. “Oh, it were a sight, gerthddyn! There were them there filthy Horsekin, arrogant as all get out, riding their cursed big horses. Parading around the walls, they were, thousands of ’em, thinking they were going to storm our gates.” Mallo leaned over and set his mug on the ground to free both hands. He crossed them, hooked his thumbs together, and waggled his spread fingers for wings. “Swoop! Down she comes, and that berserker silver dagger riding her. Oh, it were a sight and a half! The horses, they panicked and threw their blasted riders right off. I leaned against a merlon on the wall and laughed till I cursed near shat, I tell you. A beautiful sight, it were.”
“I wish I’d been there to see it.”
“Huh! You wouldn’t have wanted to have been trapped there, gerthddyn.” Mallo paused for a strengthening swig of ale. “Thought we were all doomed, we did, with them filthy dogs of Horsekin swarming round the walls, and their bitch of a goddess.”
“I think I’ve heard of that goddess,” Salamander said. “Alshandra’s her name?”
“It is. Or was, I should say. Heh, no goddess at all, truly. Some sort of trick, is what she was.” For a moment Mallo’s expression clouded, as if he were remembering something puzzling. “Don’t know how the filthy Horsekin did it, but some sort of trick.” He shrugged the puzzle away. “Some of the folk farther out believed in her, though, and them two traitor lords did, too.”
Dallandra had told Salamander about the two noble-born brothers who had worshiped Alshandra, but she’d never given him a clear idea of the geography around Cengarn. “These lords,” Salamander said, “they held demesnes off to the west, did they?”
“North, not west, up in on the edge of the wild country. A good thirty mile, I’d say, if not a bit more.”
“Near the foothills,” a skinny red-haired fellow put in. “The ones that rise up to the Roof of the World.”
“But not so far as all that,” Mallo said. “Now, the river that runs hard by Cengarn? Follow it, and it’ll take you there. Well, should you be a-wanting to go, of course.”
A few more well-phrased questions on Salamander’s part brought him to the captured priest of Alshandra. He’d died recently enough that all the men in the tavern knew the story.
“His name was Zaklof,” the red-haired fellow said. “A miserable excuse for a man, if you ask me, but he died bravely enough. The gwerbret’s men kept offering him food, more to tease him, like, than to save him, but he turned it all down. My daughter was working in the kitchen up at the dun, and she saw it all.”
“You know,” Salamander said. “Zaklof’s tale could be profitable for a man like me. I’ve heard somewhat about it, but not enough, truly. Did your daughter ever discuss this goddess of his? Or what he believed about her, truly?”
“She did. She was impressed, like, that he’d hold so true.” He rolled his eyes. “Easily