Lord Valentine's Castle

And great the blows that fell.
But dragon-kings are old and sly,
And rarely are they beaten.
Lord Malibor, for all his strength,
Eventually was eaten.
All sailors bold, who dragons hunt,
Of this grim tale take heed!
Despite all luck and skill, you may
End up as dragon-feed.

Valentine laughed and clapped his hands. That brought an immediate fierce glare from Zalzan Kavol, who strode toward them looking huffy with indignation.

'My lord!' he cried. 'Will you tolerate such irreverent—'

'Not so loud on the my lord,' Valentine said crisply. 'Irreverent, you say? What are you talking about?'

'No respect for a terrible tragedy! No respect for a fallen Coronal! No respect for—'

'Zalzan Kavol!' Valentine said slyly. 'Are you such a lover of respectability, then?'

'I know what is right and what is wrong, my lord. To mock the death of Lord Malibor is—'

'Be more easy, my friend,' Valentine said gently, putting his hand on one of the Skandar’s gigantic forearms. 'Where Lord Malibor has gone, he is far beyond matters of respect or disrespect. And I thought the song was a delight. If I take no offense, Zalzan Kavol, why should you?'

But Zalzan Kavol continued to grumble and bluster. 'If I may say it, my lord, you may not yet be returned to a full sense of the rightness of things. If I were you, I would go to those sailors now and order them never to sing such a thing again in your presence.'

'In my presence?' Valentine said, with a broad grin. 'Why should they care dragon-spittle for my presence? Who am I but a passenger, barely tolerated at all? If I said any such thing, I’d be over the rail in a minute, and dragon-feed myself the next. Eh? Think about it, Zalzan Kavol! And calm yourself, fellow. It’s only a silly sailor- song.'

'Nevertheless,' the Skandar muttered, walking stiffly away.

Carabella giggled. 'He takes himself so seriously.'

Valentine began to hum, then to sing:

All sailors bold, who dragons hunt,
Of this —
Of this sad tale? —
Of this sad tale take heed!

'Yes, that’s it,' he said. 'Love, will you do me a service? When those men are through with their work, draw one of them aside — the red-bearded one, I think, with the deep bass voice — and have him teach you the words. And then teach them to me. And I can sing it to Zalzan Kavol to make him smile, eh? How does it go? Let’s see—'

'I hear, my lord,' the dragon cried,
And came across the sea.
Twelve miles long and three miles wide
And two miles deep was he —

A week or thereabouts passed before they sighted dragons again, and in that time not only Carabella and Valentine learned the ditty, but Lisamon Hultin as well, who took pleasure in bellowing it across the decks in her raucous baritone. But Zalzan Kavol continued to growl and snort whenever he heard it.

The second school of dragons was much larger than the first, and Gorzval allowed the taking of some two dozen small ones, one mid-sized one, and one titan at least a hundred thirty feet long. That kept all hands busy for the next few days. The deck ran purple with dragons’ blood, and bones and wings were stacked all over the ship as the crew labored to get everything down to storable size. At the captain’s table delicacies were offered, from the most mysterious inner parts of the creature, and Gorzval, ever more expansive, brought forth casks of fine wines, quite unsuspected from someone who had been at the edge of bankruptcy. 'Piliplok golden,' he said, pouring with a lavish hand. 'I have saved this wine for some special occasion, and doubtless this is it. You have brought us excellent luck.'

'Your fellow captains will not be joyed to hear that,' Valentine said. 'We might easily have sailed with them, if they had only known how charmed we were.'

'Their loss, our gain. To your pilgrimage, my friends!' cried the Skandar captain.

They were moving now through ever more balmy waters. The hot wind out of Suvrael relented here at the edge of the tropics, and a kinder, moister breeze came to them out of the southwest, from the distant Stoienzar Peninsula of Alhanroel. The water was a deep green hue, sea-birds were numerous, algae grew so thick in places that navigation was sometimes impeded, and brightly colored fish could be seen darting just below the surface — the prey of the dragons, who were flesh- eaters and swam open-mouthed through swarms of lesser sea-creatures. The Rodamaunt Archipelago now lay not far away. Gorzval proposed to complete his haul here: the Brangalyn had room for another few large dragons, two more of mid-size, and perhaps forty of the small, and then he would drop his passengers and head for Piliplok to market his catch.

'Dragons ho!' came the lookout’s cry.

This was the greatest school yet, hundreds of them, spiny humps rising above the water everywhere. For two days the Brangalyn moved among them, slaughtering at will. On the horizon other ships could be seen, but they were far off, for strict rules governed impinging on hunting territory.

Gorzval seemed to glow with the success of his voyage. He himself took frequent turns in the boat-crews, which Valentine gathered was unusual, and once he even made his way to the cupola to wield a harpoon. The ship now was settling low to the waterline with the weight of dragon-flesh.

On the third day dragons were still close about them, undismayed by the carnage and unwilling to scatter. 'One more big one,' Gorzval vowed, 'and then we make for the islands.'

He selected an eighty-footer for the final target.

Valentine had grown bored, and more than bored, with the butchery, and as the harpooner sent his third shaft into the prey he turned away, and walked to the far side of the deck. There he found Sleet, and they stood by the rail, peering off to the east.

'Do you think we can see the Archipelago from here?' Valentine asked. 'I long for solid land again, and an end to the stink of dragon-blood in my nostrils.'

'My eyes are keen, my lord, but the islands are two days’ sailing from here, and I think even my vision has limits. But—' Sleet gasped. 'My lord—'

'What is it?'

'An island comes swimming toward us, my lord!'

Valentine stared, but with difficulty at first: it was morning and a brilliant fiery glare lit the surface of the sea. But Sleet took Valentine’s hand and pointed with it, and then Valentine saw. A ridged dragon-spine broke the water, a spine that went on and on and on, and below it a vast and implausible bulk was dimly visible.

'Lord Kinniken’s dragon!' Valentine said in a choked voice. 'And it comes straight at us!'

—4—

KINNIKEN’S IT MIGHT BE, or more likely some other not nearly so great, but it was great enough, larger than the Brangalyn, and it was bearing down on them steadily and unhesitatingly — either an avenging angel or else an unthinking force, there was no knowing that, but its mass was unarguable.

'Where is Gorzval?' Sleet blurted. 'Weapons— guns—'

Valentine laughed. 'As easily stop a rock-slide with a harpoon, Sleet. Are you a good swimmer?'

Most of the hunters were preoccupied with their catch. But some had looked the other way now, and there was frantic activity on deck. The harpooner had whirled round and stood outlined against the sky, weapons in every hand. Others had mounted the adjoining cupolas. Valentine, searching for Carabella and Deliamber and the others, caught sight of Gorzval rushing madly toward the helm; the Skandar’s face was livid and his eyes were bugging, and he looked like one who stood in the presence of the ministers of death.

'Lower the boats!' someone screamed. Winches turned. Figures ran about wildly. One, a Hjort black-cheeked with fear, shook a fist at Valentine and caught him roughly by the arm, muttering, 'You brought this on us! You should never have been allowed on board, any of you!'

Lisamon Hultin appeared from somewhere and swept the Hjort aside like so much chaff. Then she flung her powerful arms around Valentine as if to protect him from any harm that might come.

'The Hjort was right, you know,' said Valentine calmly. 'We are an ill-omened bunch. First Zalzan Kavol loses his wagon, and now poor Gorzval loses—'