Dragon Avenger

She waited for an evening that promised rain to approach Galahall. She sneaked onto its lands, circled wide of its herds and flocks, trotted through ditches bordering its fields, and eventually came upon the Thane’s Hall.



It had grown over the years, ever larger, she guessed by the quality of the stonework. The oldest, blockiest, and worst-laid stones were in a tall square tower that stood at its corner. The tower, higher than an oak, had narrow windows and an overhanging platform at the top. A building had grown up around it, extending first north and then west and then south again so it turned back on itself, with the tower watching a wide courtyard. The north and west buildings were rough-hewn as the tower on their first level, almost windowless, but the level above was fancier and decorated with flourishes that Wistala thought looked like leaves and faces of woodland creatures.



The south part of Galahall had a huge door facing the tower with a grand balcony above, and windows filled with tinted glass bigger than any door in Mossbell. Smaller supports helped hold up the high, smooth walls of that part of the hall, and there were beds of flowers and shrubs in between under the windows.



If Wistala didn’t know better, she would think that a truly splendid fellow lived inside.



The whole of Galahall was surrounded by a wide ditch filled with water, bridged under the tower. She approached the moat and sniffed at the water. It smelled faintly of sewage, but the bottom-feeding fish living in it didn’t seem to mind.



She paid close attention to the windows of the tower. Unless the rooms were very small, each level of the tower would probably have only one room. The stairs must be on the inside.



With that, she left, angling for the ridge marked by its single line of trees.



She came home to Mossbell with her bags full of pheasants and rabbits, and her mind full of paths and stream-crossings, thorny runs and thick stands. Crows followed her intermittently on her way home, as if hoping that she’d drop a tidbit, but she arrived at Mossbell with a week’s worth of dinners and stews to receive hearty words of welcome and praise from Rainfall.



Even Stog seemed pleased to have her back in the stable. He trotted up to her on healthy hooves. “The mice and rats ran wild while you were hunting,” Stog grumbled.



“Next time you’ll come along. We’ll see if you’re a match for the thane’s horses.”



Chapter 14



Wistala planned her venture all the next week, as the pheasants and rabbits made the transition from the cool room to stews and pies and soups. She brought up the subject to Rainfall as he worked in his garden, mentioning that she’d seen deer tracks in the thickets and had a mind to bring back a tender young yearling.



She explained her plans for the next day to him, all the while hugging her real intent to her breast.



“I’ve found some hollows even the hunters avoid. Stog seems willing to carry a deer home.”



“I’m sure he’d enjoy the exercise.”



“I’ll need a harness for Stog, of course, and a bag of meal.”



“I’ll rise early and put the harness on,” Rainfall said. “If that suits you.”



“You’re too kind,” Wistala said. Her host’s pleasant manner inspired frilly language in return. Though she stifled a prrum only with difficulty, imaging Lada’s arrival at Mossbell atop Stog’s back, and Rainfall’s delight at having her returned to him.



She stayed in the house that night, too excited to sleep, and studied Lada’s sketched portrait by candlelight long after Rainfall had turned in. Finally she sniffed the doll from the little chair under the musical instruments until she knew the odor, then wrapped it in a clean cloth from the larder.



On her way out, she noted that the house looked even more bare, if that were possible. The cloak room was bulging with a last few treasures Rainfall doted on: everything from furniture to rolls of heavy draperies to a jeweled belt his grandfather had been awarded for a victory to a silver music box that played a tune his mate had been fond of. Rainfall was sacrificing yet more of the home’s interior to raise funds to bring tenants and livestock to his lands. Perhaps matters had gone ill with the dwarves.



The doll was hidden in with a few game bags by the time Rainfall entered the stable the next morning. He wished them both farewell and a fortunate hunt.



“All the spits will be cleaned in expectation of a successful return,” Rainfall said as he waved them off. “Rah-ya! for an increase to your summer’s tally!”



Wistala capered around Stog as soon as they were out of sight of Mossbell, trickery and adventure in her blood. “We’re finally off for Galahall.”



“Where I get to show up those oat-stuffed horses.”



“Yes. When we get to the ridge, you’ll have to show me what you can manage. That’s the only path I couldn’t pick for you.”



They passed through the Thickets easily enough. Stog was both strong and sure-footed, following her in and out of the network of thorny hollows with nothing more than a few bitter oaths when a thorn got him. It was a bad place for flies, too, as it turned out. They ignored Wistala, but they clustered around Stog’s eyes, ears, and tailvent.



They paused for grain and water at a muddy hole. The flies grew thicker than ever as Stog pawed up mud to gather drinkable water.



“I was bit by a centipede the size of a snake once,” Stog said, his teeth working in their strange sideways fashion. “Burned like dragonflame. I’ve never much minded flies since then.”



They rested for an afternoon in the shadow of the ridge with its strange line of sentinel trees. It promised to be a fine night, but they couldn’t wait forever. Stog found a path up as the sun set. The other side was steeper still.



“We’ll be crossing this again in a hurry, and at night, so keep that in mind when you pick your trail,” Wistala said.



The soil was summer-dry and tended to slide as they went down and entered the grounds of Galahall. They cut through fields, watched only by scarecrows.



“I remember the smell of this grass,” Stog said as they came within sight of the hall. They stood in a mass of oaks hugging a stream, immature acorns in the boughs above. They rested again until the lights began to go out in the hall’s second-floor windows.



She poured out more grain for Stog. “Wait here. I may be coming back in a hurry,” Wistala said, checking the fitting of her game-harness. “Wish me luck.”



Stog didn’t wish her luck. He was chewing.



Wistala kept low as she approached Galahall, making for the old tower that came close to closing the near circle of buildings. She passed through the foul-smelling moat and emerged slimy with duckweed.



Then she began to climb.



She peeked in the first window, open to the warm night, perhaps three lengths up off the ground. Here Wistala had her first doubt: the window was barred, though not reinforced with crosspieces. Oh, why hadn’t she climbed the tower before!



Through the bars she could see that this floor of the tower looked to be one big room, with a stairway running up the side and a stout door set into the ceiling—or the next room’s floor, depending on how you looked at it. Laundry hung off lines everywhere, and she smelled an odor like boiled cabbage.



The floor above looked more promising from the window: two beds with drawn-back curtains held sleeping figures. She peered carefully inside until her eye adjusted to the gloom. Both had similar reddish curly hair—not Lada, who according to her portrait had straight hair.



There was no connecting door between the two levels; the lower’s stairs just ran into the upper. She climbed up the outside to the next level. This one had a single bed, with a miniature bed beside that Wistala recognized as a place for hominids to lay their freshly hatched—No, they didn’t hatch; they popped out live in considerable pain and confusion, she corrected herself. There were numerous windows on this floor, all ancient and narrow, perhaps for the firing of arrows. The woman sleeping here was round-faced. She and her infant had fallen asleep together, the child attached to her like a suckling pig. Something about the set of her eyes and nose made Wistala discount this one as a possibility.



She tried to guess if there were two floors above or just one as she climbed.



The next floor marked the end of the stairs. It was cramped and low, with a short ladder propped up at the wall near another hatch. The windows here were round, with one on each side of the tower, and the glass pivoted on a central column to admit the breeze. Wheels edged with gears and pegs stood in a cobwebbed pile on one side of the room, taking up much of the space.



There wasn’t a bed such as she’d seen at Mossbell or the floors below, just a fabric mass on the floor with bits of straw coming out at the seams. Someone slept there under a wool blanket, with an oily-smelling dip beside the bed upon a pile of books. The sleeping figure had drawn the thin covering up to her nose.



Wistala examined the fixture in the window. It would break easily enough; nothing but wooden pegs held it in place. Hooks at either side of the round would help hold it against a wind.



She guessed there to be nothing but a watch-platform above, though one of Galahall’s owners had added a wooden roof. If another one of this Hammar’s wards slept up there, it would be quite cold in winter. The girl in the bed was the most likely candidate, as the others had been eliminated.