to be a cavalry patrol.
The dragon keened loudly.
'Halt, there, the wagon!'
From somewhere a whip had come into Nestor's hand, and he cracked it now above the loadbeasts' backs, making a sound like an ice-split tree. The team started forward with a great leap, and came down from the leap in a full run. So far today they had not been driven hard, and their panic had plenty of nervous energy for fuel.
'Halt!'
The order was ignored. Only a moment later, the first arrows flew, aimed quite well considering conditions. One shaft pierced the cloth cover of the wagon above Mark's head, and another split one of the wooden uprights that supported the cloth.
'Fight 'em!' roared Nestor. He had no more than that to say to his human companions, but turned his energy and his words, in a torrent of exhortation and abuse, toward his team. The loadbeasts were running already as Mark had never known a team to run before. Meanwhile inside the wagon a mad scramble was in progress, with Ben going for the crossbow and Mark for his own bow and quiver. Mark saw Barbara slipping the thong of a leather sling around one finger of her right hand, and taking up an egg-shaped leaden missile.
Looking out from the left front of the wagon with bow in hand, Mark saw a mounted man swiftly materializing out of the mist. He wore a helmet and a mail shirt, under a jerkin of white and blue, and he rode beside the racing team, raising his sword to strike at its nearest animal. Mark quickly aimed and loosed an arrow; in the bounding confusion he couldn't be sure of the result of his own shot, but the crossbow thrummed beside him and the rider tumbled from his saddle.
The caged dragon, bounced unmercifully, screamed. The terrified loadbeasts bounded at top speed through the fog, as if to escape the curses that Nestor volleyed at them from the driver's seat. It seemed to Mark that missiles were sighing in from every direction, with most of them tearing through the wagon's cloth. Someone outside the wagon kept shouting for it to halt. Ben, in the midst of recocking his crossbow, was almost pitched out of the wagon by a horrendous bounce.
Mark saw Barbara leaning out. Her right arm blurred, releasing a missile from her sling in an underhand arc. One of the cavalry mounts pursuing stumbled and went down.
The patrol had first sighted the wagon across a bight of the meandering road, and in taking a short cut to head it off had encountered some difficult terrain. This had provided the wagon with a good flying start on a fairly level stretch of road. But now the faster riders were catching up.
'Border's near!' yelled Nestor to his crew. 'Hang on!'
We know it's near, thought Mark, but which direction is it? Maybe now Nestor really did know. Mark loosed another arrow, and again he could not see where it went. But a moment later one of the pursuing riders pulled up, as if his animal had gone lame.
Another bounce, another tilt of the wagon, bigger than any bounce and tilt before. This one was too big. Mark felt the tipping and the spinning, the wagon hitting the earth broadside, with one crash upon another. He thought he saw the dragon's cage, still intact, fly past above his spinning head, all jumbled' with a stream of bedding, and a frog-crock streaming frogs. He hit the ground, expecting to be killed or stunned, but soft earth eased the impact.
Aware of no serious injury, he rolled over in grass and sand, the ground beneath him squelching wetly. Nearby, the wagon was on one side now, with one set of wheels spinning in the air, and the team still struggling hopelessly to pull it. Meanwhile what was left of the cavalry thundered past, rounding the wagon on both sides, charging on into thickets along the roadside just ahead. Mark could catch just a glimpse of people there, who looked like Ben and Barbara, fleeing on foot.
The dragon was still keening, inside its upended but unbroken crate beside the wagon.
On all fours, Mark scrambled back into the thick of the spilled contents at the wagon's rear. He went groping, fumbling, looking for the sword. He let out a small cry of triumph when he recognized Townsaver's blade, and thrust a hand beneath a pile of spilled potatoes for the hilt. He had just started to lift the weapon when he heard a multitude of feet come pounding closer just behind him. Mark turned his head to see men in half-armor, wearing the Duke's colors, leaping from their mounts to surround him. A spearman held his weapon at Mark's throat. Mark's hand was still on the sword, but he could feel no power in it.
'Drop it, varlet!' a soldier ordered.
And overhead, out of the mist, great wings were sighing down. And the caged dragon's continuous keening was answered from up there by a creak that might have issued from a breaking windmill blade.
Another inhuman voice interrupted. This one was a basso roar, projecting itself at ground level through the mists. Mark's knees were still on the ground, and through them he could feel the stamp of giant feet, pounding closer. A shape moving on two treetrunk legs, tall as an elder's house, swayed out of the fog, two forelimbs raised like pitchforks. Striding forward faster than a riding-beast could run, the dragon closed in on a mounted man. Flame jetted from a beautiful red cavern of a mouth, the glow of fire reflecting, resonating, through cubic meters of the surrounding fog. The man atop his steed, five meters from the dragon, exploded like a firework, lance flying from his hand, his armor curling like paper in the blast. Mark felt the heat at thirty meters' distance.
Without pausing, the dragon altered the direction of its charge. It snorted, making an odd sound, almost musical, like metal bells. Once more it projected fire from nose and upper mouth. This time the target, another man on beastback, somehow dodged the full effect. The riding-beast screamed at the light brush of fire, and veered the wrong way. One pitchfork forelimb caught it by one leg, and sent it and its rider twirling through the air to break their bodies against a tree.
All around Mark, men were screaming. He saw the Duke's men and their riding-beasts in desperate retreat.
The dragon changed the direction of its charge again. Now it was coming straight at Mark.
Nestor, at the moment when the wagon tipped, had tried to save himself by leaping as far as he could out from the seat, to one side and forward. He did get clear of the crash, landed on one leg and one arm, and managed to turn the flying fall into an acrobat's tumbling roll, thanking all the gods even as he struck that here the earth was soft.
Soft or not, something struck him on the side of the head, hard enough to daze him for a moment. He fought grimly to stay free of the descending curtain of internal darkness, and collapsed no farther than his hands and knees. He was dimly aware of someone, Ben, he thought it was — bounding past him, into nearby thickets promising concealment. And there went a pair of lighter, swifter feet, Barbara's perhaps.
In the thick fog, cavalry came pounding near. Beside Nestor in the muck, partially buried in it even as he was, there was a log. He let himself sink closer to it, trying to blend shapes.
The cavalry swept past with a lot of noise, then was, for the moment, gone. Nestor scrambled his way back toward the tipped wagon. He had to have the sword. Whatever else happened, he wasn't going to leave that for the Duke.
When he reached the spill, he found the sword at once, as if, even half-dazed, he had known where Dragonslicer must be. With the familiar shape of the hilt tightly in his grip, and the sound of the returning cavalry in his ears, Nestor moved in a crouching run back toward the thickets. He hoped the others were getting away somehow.
Once among the bushes, Nestor crouched down motionless. Once more, in the fog, cavalry went pounding blindly past him, towards the wagon. He jumped up and ran on again. A moment later, a hideous, monstrous bellowing filled the air behind him. It sounded like the grandfather of all dragons, and the noise it made was followed by human screams.
Nestor ran on. He had his dragon-killing sword in hand, but he wasn't about to turn back and risk his neck to use it to save his enemies. Now, with the dragon providing such great distraction, he could calculate that his chances of getting away were quite good. Behind him the sounds of panic and fighting persisted. Possibly the Duke's patrol could be strong and determined enough to fight a dragon off. Nestor kept going, angling away from the direction he thought he'd seen Ben and Barbara take — time enough, later, to get his crew back together if they'd all survived.
In the fog, the bank of the creek appeared so suddenly in front of Nestor that he almost plunged into the water before he saw it. He hadn't been expecting to encounter the stream right here, but here it was, across his path, and maybe he was getting turned around again — small wonder, in this pea soup.
