But it gave him no pleasure, and as he grew older the golden rings began to pinch his belly as he lay on them, and the silver swords pricked him as he moved. He became stiffer as he grew older so that flying was more difficult, but he never stopped growing until he stretched five hundred feet long. So he went no more in search of greater treasure, but every week flew a short distance to a nearby village and ate one of the villagers.
Then the king of that kingdom, a man named Thaar, heard of the dragon. “I shall no more allow this serpent to eat my people,” he said, for he was a young and strong king, the descendant of a line of glorious kings, and he desired honor more than wealth or even life. So he strapped on his helmet and shield, put his good sword Irontooth at his belt, and gave his crown to his queen for their infant son.
He sailed his ship alone along the coast to below the dragon’s lair. “Come out, bloody-mouthed serpent!” he called. He held up his sword with its long, triangular blade and rubies set into the hilt. “Come out and see what dragon teeth can do against Irontooth!”
And deep within his lair the old dragon heard him and stirred. He shook off the coins and jewels that clung to his scales and burst out of the mountainside. Like a whirlwind he descended on King Thaar’s ship, breaking the mast and smashing the timbers.
But when he poked around with his long snout in the sea, he could not find the king. Puzzled, he was pulling himself back up on land when he felt something sharp against his belly, something that bit deeper than he had ever been bitten. The dragon lifted himself into the air with a roar but it was too late. For King Thaar, swimming deep, had come up below the dragon, and the triangular blade of the good sword Irontooth had thrust into his belly. And as the dragon tried to fly all his guts writhed free.
Thaar stood on the shore, dripping wet and holding his sword high in triumph, but only for a second. For the dragon, dying and in fury, descended on him, racking him with his claws and crushing him beneath his bloody body; and, just before his serpent eyes closed for the last time, his teeth bit through the mail and into the king’s heart.
They buried King Thaar with his sword in a great mound that still stands by the sea, but the dragon they burned in a pyre whose flame could be seen for a hundred miles. Some of the treasure, the armbands and jeweled collars, they buried with the king; some, the golden chalices and unset gems, they offered at the Weaver’s cave to the lords of voima; but to keep away the curse of dragon’s gold, the rest they buried deep within the mountain. And there the treasure has remained ever since, untouched by dragon or man, for never since those days has there been a dragon so huge and fearsome, or a king so brave and full of honor.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1
“Roric has never taken my advice on anything yet,” said King Hadros. He paused for a long pull of ale, ruffled the ears of the hound that lay at his feet, then glowered at Kardan from under his eyebrows. “But it is the only lead we have. We know at any rate that he went north.”
“The Hot-River Mountains,” said Kardan slowly. “That is where the king we outlawed at the All-Gemot has his kingdom.” Hadros was back sitting drinking at the head of his own hall, with Kardan seated in the place of honor on the bench facing him. Both kings’ warriors crowded together on the rest of the benches. Firelight flickered across their faces.
Queen Arane sat beside Hadros, looking completely out of place yet also completely at ease, wearing a blue silk dress and sipping delicately from her ale horn. Hadros’s warriors and housecarls kept shooting the pair of them surreptitious glances and whispering whenever the king’s eye did not fall on them.
“The Princess Karin’s welfare must come before any concern for outlawed kings and their kingdoms,” she said in a friendly tone, patting Hadros on the arm. Her own warriors were drinking too, but they stayed constantly on the alert. “Even kings need to think about the relations of men and women sometimes as well as about battle and glory.”
Before eating, Hadros had ridden away from the castle, saying he would ask the Weaver where Roric had gone, “And I hope for once to get a straight answer!” He returned in half an hour glowering but in a fierce good humor, and with nothing to say about the Weaver. Kardan, who had learned already that the other king used humor to face situations he could not control, wondered what answer he had really gotten.
Kardan had drawn his sword casually as they sat down on the benches and had had it across his knees all evening. When the warriors were not speculating about Hadros and the queen, they appeared to be watching him. The only person there who seemed oblivious was Gizor One-hand, who had been using his bandaged arm to raise his ale horn unsteadily but continuously. No one sat within ten feet on either side of the old warrior.
Hadros looked across at King Kardan as though noticing his sword for the first time. “After what we’ve learned this evening,” he said conversationally, “I hope you realize that Roric did not carry your daughter away by force.”
Kardan drummed his fingers lightly on the steel. “And I hope you realize that he must have a powerful hold over her, for her to flee both her own father and the court here where she was raised.”
Hadros looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then worked the golden armband off his arm, drew his own sword to slip its tip through the band, and reached it across the firepit.
But King Kardan carefully pushed the proffered armband away. It was made of solid gold and was heavily worked and decorated, with tiny bearded faces peeking out through intertwined vines and bunches of grapes-not a product of the northern kingdoms, this, but surely something won by looting in the south. It was probably worth as much as a small manor. “Like you, Hadros,” Kardan said quietly, “I do not take compensation for the life of my child. If she is dead, her killers will pay for their blood-guilt in their own blood.”
Hadros pulled down his eyebrows. “Do you suggest that I would consider this sufficient compensation for someone’s life, even a woman’s?” His tone was brusque, but to Kardan he seemed to be mocking him. He retrieved the armband and slid it back on. “I was merely making you a guest-gift. When I pay compensation, I pay it royally.”
His eyes narrowed further, and his next words came out measured and cold. “But while we are speaking of compensation, think of this: The only reason Roric and Karin would flee together, slaying good men in the process, is if they shared a guilty secret, such as having killed Valmar.”
The hall went completely silent except for the hissing of the fire. Kardan’s hand tightened on his hilt. The queen’s warriors stood up, as though casually, and moved toward the head of the hall. King Hadros’s two younger sons looked up sharply, their hands on their own swords, but their faces were anguished rather than angry. Good boys, Kardan had thought when introduced, reminding him of his own dead son when a few years younger.
Queen Arane laughed into the silence, a light, almost musical laugh. “Are the two of you then more interested in blaming each other than in finding Roric and Karin?” There was a brief pause when no one answered her, and the two kings kept their eyes locked on each other. Her warriors, Kardan realized, would tip the balance if it came to a fight. “Would you rather see each other dead,” she added as though the question was an amusing one, “or have your heirs back again?” The kings turned slowly to look at her.
“I realize Valmar is not here,” Arane said, “but from what you have told me there must be something to this story of his having left with the Wanderers. And you, Hadros, should know well there is a much better explanation for why Karin and Roric have fled. You yourself sent the message to capture them when they reached here-they are fleeing for their lives, probably thinking you have gone berserk, killed Valmar yourself, and are planning on finishing them off next.”
The suggestion was so outrageous that Kardan’s reply died on his lips, and he saw Hadros too struggling to find something to say.
The queen laughed again, squeezed Hadros’s hand affectionately, then sprang up to come around the fire pit with a swish of her skirts and do the same to Kardan. Gizor roused himself as though about to speak but did not.
How did she do that? Kardan wondered. He found himself sliding his sword back into its sheath. The two kings’ warriors, who had been reaching for their weapons a moment earlier, now had their ale horns in their hands again.
