Dragon Avenger

“Sir?” Wistala asked, lowering and raising her head.



“There are airing windows up under the overhang of the roof on the side walls of this building. Climb up and see if you can get through one, and open the door.”



Wistala didn’t like leaving Rainfall perched on Stog at the big doorway; it seemed the whole town was laid out to look at the stairs leading up to the Hypatian Hall. She couldn’t imagine what danger to expect, surrounded by paved streets and rain-collectors in the quiet of the night, but she didn’t like it.



The columns were fluted, which served her claws admirably, and alternating grips between sii and saa, she gained the roof despite the slick mist-wet. The roof tiles were long and thicker than her sii, chevron-shapes interlocking as they descended from the peak, and spotted with generations’ worth of bird droppings.



She lowered her head to look under the cornice at the side of the building and saw the gaps Rainfall had mentioned. They were recessed so that it would be hard to see them, let alone shoot arrows or other projectiles into them from the street. Wooden shutters filled the intermittent gaps.



Gripping the roof with one saa and her tail, she managed to poke one open. It gave way on a horizontal pivot-point with a loud—to her—squeak. Flattening herself, she crept in under the shutter.



An entrance gallery yawned below her. She looked down on a row of frozen head tops—larger-than-life busts were on display on the inner side of the walls, and there was little to see beneath but a few benches. The back two-thirds of the building was blocked off by a wide staircase leading up to a semicircular forum, with banners on display above wooden doors.



Wistala heard voices from a smaller half-door set beneath the great stairs.



She lowered her tail and managed to test one of the busts below. It seemed solid enough. She jumped down to it and perched for a moment atop the great man’s head—he had a heavy brow and a nose of a size to equal the fame he must have gained in life to be so immortalized—and from there leaped down to the floor.



The floor was smooth but a little dirty, and had a series of strange divots and channels carved into its surface, not deep at all and useful only in collecting dirt, as far as she could tell. But the object of this exploration was the door.



Or door within a door, rather. There was a smaller portal set in the mighty wooden doors, barred by simple iron bolts set into tubes. She drew back the bolt on the smaller door and opened it.



“Daughter, you are a wonder,” Rainfall said in his elf-tongue.



Wistala took pleasure in hearing the familiar, but wondered if she could ever call Rainfall father—even in elf-tongue.



“I do not think you can ride Stog within unless I open the larger doors,” Wistala said.



“I’ll have to ask you to bear me inside.” He slid off Stog, using a leather strap to lower himself by the hands in the manner of a laborer she’d once seen come down from Jessup’s roof by taking a rope hand-under-hand. Then he switched to his rough beast tongue: “Stog, this shall only take a moment. Don’t befoul the steps, please.”



Once he was seated upon her and holding on to her fringe, she took him through the door.



“Take me to the ingress under the stairs—that’s the attendant-judge’s office.”



Wistala bore him into the hall.



“Locks on a Hypatian hall door. Where are late-riding couriers supposed to shelter, or impoverished travelers? And what’s this . . . the design on the floor’s been taken up!” Rainfall said as they passed the channels in the floor. “Where had the poor gold gone, I wonder . . . gilding the cornices at Galahall, no doubt.”



Flickering light and voices came from beneath the stairs.



Rainfall sighed. “This hall has become a tomb to old ideals. In my grandfather’s time, at this hour there were travelers sleeping beneath the gaze of Iceandler, or Torus the Elder, the smell of pine knots burning in the braziers. I suppose the only crowds nowadays come on Taxing Day.”



Wistala saw at the base of the ingress another door, half wood and half bars, with a sort of cut-off table in the middle and a space just big enough for a man to put his fist through above the table. On the other side, Wistala caught a glimpse of shelving, divided and subdivided into cubbyholes filled with tied scrolls.



Voices and moving shadows came from the other side of the door.



“Careful with that light, there. You’ll burn my ear off. Oh, now I can’t see anything,” Sobyor’s voice echoed out into the hall.



“Take me to the grate,” Rainfall said.



Wistala went down the eight steps to the area before the barred door. Some old, dirty quill-feathers lay on the floor.



“Ahem,” Rainfall said.



Wistala heard quick startled steps inside, but kept her head down and out of sight.



“How did you get in?” a rough voice barked.



“The more interesting question, firewarden, would be by what power you kept me out of a Hypatian Hall.”



Rainfall’s voice returned to its usual soothing melody: “I just need the court’s seal on the two small matters we spoke of earlier, Sobyor,” Rainfall said.



“Prepared, and here’s the logbook, as well,” Sobyor said. “Just as well to have all neat and proper.”



“We’re not to have any business with him,” a shriller voice cut in.



Wistala heard a heavy tread step up to the grate, and smelled gar-locque and onion. The light from inside the room was almost shut off entirely. From seemingly atop her, Sobyor’s voice said: “Best sign it fast, sir. The wardens are restless tonight.”



“Judge Kal will hear every particular!” the shrill voice warned.



“Certain particulars will catch up to the high judge, one of these days,” Rainfall said. She heard him writing. “Wistala, your penny, please.”



She passed it up to Rainfall. “The transaction is witnessed by the court,” Sobyor said. “Make a record of Nuum Wistala’s credentials.”



Sobyor again, quieter: “Is that the—?”



“I must make do as best as I can,” Rainfall said.



“What are you doing, there?” the rough voice said.



“Completing a little court business,” Sobyor said. “You could read it yourself. If you could read.” Wistala smelled a candle and hot wax. “There. Signed, sealed, and seconded in the log.”



“Thank you, Sobyor,” Rainfall said. “You always were the best of men. I’ll leave you to this gloom and the barred doors.” He tapped Wistala.



“This will really get up the thane’s nose,” Sobyor cackled.



As she climbed the stairs bearing Rainfall, Wistala glanced back and got her first look at Sobyor. He was an enormous man, both tall and fat, with thick curly hair. No wonder the firewardens protested his behavior with words only. Sobyor closed one eye at her; then they were back in the entrance hall under the statues.



“That went better than expected,” Rainfall said. “Had there been a hostile low judge on duty, I would have had to submit petitions and so on, which could have slowed us up.”



It seemed a slow enough business to Wistala, who was beginning to wish she’d burned Galahall down with Thane Hammar in it, saving trouble all around. Except that would have brought a frown to Rainfall’s face. He set such a store in his legal niceties.



They walked the road a good deal slower on the trip home. Wistala trudged along ahead of Stog to keep the pace comfortable, but even Stog seemed tired. Rainfall passed the time by explaining to Wistala about the importance of the Thanes to the Hypatian Order: they could more effectively lead troops from their thanedom when gathered under a general than strangers and were supposed to be the shield and sword of the other elements of the Hypatian Order, the priesthood and the judges. But military power, pomp, and panoply went to some men’s heads like wine.



Wistala was happy to see the twin hills at the edge of Mossbell’s lands pop out against a suddenly pink sky. The far-off chain of snowy mountaintops to the east glowed orange as the dawn crept up.



Then she heard a frighteningly familiar sound from ahead.



“I hear hoofbeats,” Wistala said. “Many riders.”



“What’s that?” Rainfall asked, waking. Stog halted.



“Riders ahead,” Wistala repeated.



Rainfall looked down at her. “Get off the road, Wistala. I’ll handle them.”



“I hope there’s a few horses from the Galahall stables,” Stog said. “I’ll give them—”



“I’m not leaving you alone,” Wistala said.



“Oh, I suppose your existence is public now. I’d hoped to wait until you were a little older and stronger.”



Wistala sat in front of Stog and waited.



There were seven riders, two riding close to the edge of the road on either side, and the rest in back in a bunch that expanded and contracted as the horses trotted close to each other and then veered away.



The riding party spotted Stog, and the five in back formed into a line, blocking the road.



“Rah-ho,” Rainfall said quietly to himself. “The thane himself rides. This should be an interesting interview.”