SWORD AND SORCERESS XVI, page 5
bolts, then armed everyone with several of them. She instructed the others to aim for the dragon's eye or the soft membranes of its mouth, for any other place would be guarded by stone-hard scales.
The cavern twisted downward into darkness so pressing that the torchlight barely reflected off the coal-black stone. Clanking armor, footfalls, and the occasional shifting of a shoulder bag broke the otherwise pure silence. Amaryl occasionally heard Fenya sniff the hot and stagnant air. "Burned," said Fenya at last, with an ancient, yet childlike voice. "It's a firebreather."
Not all dragons breathed fire, but Amaryl had come prepared for the worst. After twenty years of losing the best warriors to the unconquerable foe, Amaryl knew this was an unusual dragon. All the fireproof salves, shields, and armor had not saved the previous champions. There was something else, something worse, some terror that not even knowledgeable Fenya could guess. Gwyneth knelt down. "Footprint." Fenya bent closer and held the torch close to the ground. An enormous five-clawed gouge was torn through the rock.
"Interesting," said Fenya, "Most dragon prints are uneven, with the middle two digits extended well beyond the others. See, there are four even digits, with the fifth significantly shorter and bending off to the side, like a thumb." Amaryl asked, "What does this tell us?" "We're facing a completely unknown species." "Why didn't we see any prints outside the cavern?" Olaug answered, "Dragons sleep for months at a time, and any prints near the entrance would have been weathered away or grown over."
Amaryl said, "Perhaps we can kill it while it sleeps." Gwyneth added, "And if it isn't, we'll still kill it."
The cavern eventually opened to a large space, but how large, Amaryl could not guess. The torchlight no longer fell on the walls, and their footsteps began to
echo. They followed a path of unusually smooth stone, interrupted by occasional claw gouges, for some time. Then Amaryl heard a quiet scrape as if something slid against stone.
"Halt," she whispered.
There was a rush of wind, and the torches went out. Amaryl held up her shield, sweating as she waited for the incinerating rush of fire that was sure to come.
The cavern suddenly lit up as if in daylight. A globe of light rose into the air from Fenya's outstretched arm. In that light, they found themselves near the brink of an abyss of unimaginable size, with walls honeycombed with hundreds of cavern openings. They were standing on one of the balconies, facing a mammoth, winged firebreather sitting on its hind legs, holding one of its forearms out in front of it, with its clawed paw closed like a fist. Suspended on the end of a long, sinuous neck was a most unusual head.
Unlike its reptilian cousins, there was something feline about this dragon's face. It had broad cheeks, a high forehead cresting its whiskered snout, and large golden eyes under feathery eyebrows. Tufted ears poked out of a mane of silky golden hair. The only thing unmistakably dragon about it were the silvery-green scales covering the rest of it, and a triad of pearly horns over the eyes and nose.
Gwyneth was the first to aim her crossbow at a blinking golden eye. Amaryl did the same, wanting to be the one to kill it. She tensed her finger to shoot, but the massive paw opened like a hand, and something small dropped out of it and rolled toward them. A perfectly round stone, blacker than ebonite, and smoother than a polished blade, stopped inches from her feet. The Dragon's Tear.
The dragon opened its mouth and spoke in a rumbling, grandfatherly voice, "I'm glad you have that light with you because so many lost their way in here and have fallen into my den. For creatures as small as you, it's a deadly drop. I can't tell you how many times I
awoke and found another little one broken on my back. If I had known that these worthless rocks were what you came for, I would have been leaving them at the entrance all along for you. My den is littered with them from all the times I cried over the poor little creatures that fell."
Fenya exclaimed, "A talking one!"
Gwyneth demanded, "How do we know you're not lying! You could have eaten them, like you plan to eat us."
The dragon replied sadly, "Please take your rock and go before you get hurt in here."
Amaryl asked, "How did you know this is what we came for?"
The dragon replied, "The last little one who came here told me that others would come after him. He told me all about your island, and how these rocks help keep it safe."
"What happened to him?"
"He slipped on the edge of my den and fell on my back. He survived for a short time, and he told me that he had made a promise to someone that he would get the rock to his people. If I were to deliver it to the next one who came, then his promise would be fulfilled. When I told him that I would do this for him, he died. After he was gone, I cried for days until I nearly buried my head in these stones."
Amaryl stared at the black gem at her feet.
Fenya aimed her crossbow at the dragon and said, "Shall we finish, Amaryl?"
Gwyneth blocked Fenya, "No! This dragon is no murderer!"
Fenya replied, "It's a rare specimen whose parts might make some out-of-date potions work!"
"I'll kill you if you shoot!"
"Amaryl deserves her vengeance!"
Amaryl knelt and picked up the Tear. The sphere fit perfectly in her hand.
Gwyneth looked pleadingly at Amaryl, "If we rid the
world of this good beast, which may be the last of his kind, we will be the ones who lose. Search your heart and find peace in Daneloth's sacrifice."
Leave it to a race bent on exterminating as many other life-forms as possible to have a heart for one miserable dragon, thought Amaryl. But wasn't this why she had chosen a human for this quest—to have the strength of a heart more impassioned than her own?
Fenya snarled at Gwyneth, "How about I shoot you and then the dragon! A few rare potions I know of call for human parts!"
Gwyneth replied, "I'd like to see you try, you three-foot-tall toad!"
Amaryl stood and said to Olaug, "Get those two and let's get out of here."
Olaug nodded, then grabbed Fenya and Gwyneth and carried their kicking and hollering forms under each arm back the way they came. Before turning to go, Amaryl looked at the dragon. It bowed its head politely, then turned and shuffled down to its den where it planned to sleep for a few more months.
A SISTER'S BLOOD
by Patricia B. Cirone
I have met Patricia Cirone at a couple of conventions, I think. She either failed to update her biography or Lisa failed to pass it on to me, but Pat has been in these collections often enough that you can look her up in earlier volumes as easily as I can.
This is a story of a pair of sisters, one of whom is a sorceress. Very often we get stories of swordswomen paired with sorceresses, but I don't remember getting one as good as this for a long, long time. Pat lives presently in Maine.
"Sing to the Maiden
of hard choices to be made
Sing to the Maiden of love.
Sing to the Maiden
of life and death,
in Circle, all are One."
refrain, Circle song of Power.
Tess strained against the bonds that held her, but only succeeded in rubbing more flesh off raw wrists. She felt rivulets of warm blood slide down the back of her hands and drip onto the dirt floor.
"Drane's teeth," she muttered.
"Don't swear," her sister whispered.
"You think the gods are paying any attention to us down in this hellhole?" Tess demanded.
Her sister just looked at her silently.
Tess subsided, muttering under her breath softly
enough so her sister couldn't hear. She twisted, digging her heels into the floor and managed, finally, to push her buttocks through her bound arms. Grimacing, she thrashed about until she was able to draw her legs through and lay, panting, her cheek digging into the dirt and pebbles, but with her arms in front of her instead of behind. She had tried that maneuver uncountable times in the twenty-four hours since they had been captured—either a day's worth of starvation had lost her enough weight to manage it, or desperation had managed to overcome the growing stiffness in her limbs. Or maybe Drane had decided to punish her for blaspheming with his name by adding the exquisite pain of nearly dislocated shoulders to the already considerable tally of bruises, bumps, blood, and hunger she had accumulated. Whatever.
She lay there and gradually caught her breath, grimly ignoring the waves of pain. Not too bad. No worse than the time Master Broda had decided to take her arrogance down a peg and given her his personal attention for a full hour of sword work, back when she was a pup in training. Or the time . . . no, she wasn't going to remember that. Think of Master Broda, she thought to herself. Those were happy times, for all she had complained about him and the hours of weapons cleaning, footwork practice, stomach exercises, and all the other things she and her fellow trainees had felt were sadistic excuses to make them suffer. Lying on the floor of her cell, Tess smiled, thinking that the times she had had cause to thank Broda and his rigorous training must, by now, outweigh her adolescent complaints two to one. Even the excruciating maneuver she'd just completed had been learned at Master Broda's feet, amidst a rain of pointed, sarcastic comments and the thrashing of twenty similarly bound trainees. Thank you again, Tess thought silently.
Where before, they had no chance, now she thought they might at least have a slim one. With her arms in front of her, she might be able to untie the ropes that
bound her feet or strangle the guard when he came into the cell or ... or staunch the slow but steady flow of blood that was draining the life out of her sister.
She thrust her nearly numb hands into the dirt and levered herself up into a sitting position. Then she hunched her way over on her butt to where Sasha lay. Her sister's eyelids flickered and opened in the dim light filtering down from the barred hole high up on the wall. She smiled at Tess weakly.
"I'm glad we've had these last few weeks together," she said faintly. "Growing up, we were always together. I've missed that, first training in separate ways, then all the years of assignments in opposite ends of the kingdom. At least we got one mission together, for all it's ended like this."
"Don't speak like that," Tess said curtly. "We'll have lots of time together. All we have to do is get out of this blasted dungeon."
A sudden clang and the sound of footsteps on stone made her freeze. The sisters looked at each other in silent fear. They began to breathe again when the footsteps passed the cell door. Tess began to work on the knots on her ankles a little more vigorously.
"How long before they begin to torture us?" Tess wondered out loud.
"I don't like it that they haven't even questioned us," Sasha said.
"What do you mean?" Tess had been glad of the reprieve. Her biggest worry was wondering how badly Sasha was hurt, and what would happen to her if Korl's torturers so much as moved her.
"It's as if they've already made up their minds about us," Sasha replied.
"Uhhh." Tess thought about that. She didn't like the sound of it either. "Maybe they're just too busy," she said with false, automatic optimism. Sasha just gave her a look.
Daylight faded into night, and still no one came to their cell. Tess managed to free her feet and hobbled
stiffly over to the corner where she spied what looked like a water jug. She bent and sniffed. Smelled all right. She managed to grab the lip of it with her still bound hands. She dragged it over to Sasha.
"Here," she said, tipping it enough so some ran onto her hands. "This smells like water."
Cautiously, Sasha licked some off Tess' hands. "Even fairly fresh," she confirmed. "I wish I could use my Power to make sure there's no sleeping potion or other drugs in it. But there's no bitter taste. It should be safe."
"At this point, we need water, drugged or not." Tess tipped the jug to where Sasha could lap more directly from the edge. That need taken care of, she began to work on the ropes binding Sasha's hands. When those were freed, Sasha was able to gather enough energy to loosen Tess' hands. The first thing Tess did, even before freeing her sister's feet, was to check the wound in her side. With a sick feeling, Tess noticed it was deep, too deep, and there was a slight whiff of decay. Carefully she bound her sister's side with strips torn from her shirt, and tried to block out the knowledge it was her little sister she was bandaging so carefully.
As dawn lightened the square of black above them, Sasha began to shiver. Tess held her close, trying to give her what little body warmth she had. But as the hours wore on, Sasha shivered harder, fever making red spots on her pallid cheeks.
Tess got up and pounded on the cell door. Anything was better than this.
"Don't," Sasha pleaded weakly.
"You need help!"
"But not their type. Don't bring us to their notice."
"I'm not going to rot away in here!" Tess gave the door a savage kick, then muttered an imprecation and rubbed her toes. Despite the noise she made, no one came. She didn't know whether to be glad or sorry.
Sasha got steadily worse.
It had been nearly two days since they had been captured, flung into this hellhole, and then ignored. And
during that time, Lord Briedan's forces moved steadily closer to the trap only she and Sasha knew about. If they didn't get out of here soon, all the risks they had taken, all the misery they had suffered, would be for naught. If Lord Briedan's forces were overwhelmed, Korl's forces might well sweep right over the border and endanger the capital. They had to get out of here!
Tess began to pace up and down the cell, prying at the stone walls, and the edges of the door; trying to jump high enough to grab hold of one of the bars on the high, small window. Nothing.
"I'm not going to make it out, Tess," Sasha said weakly.
"Don't talk like that. I'll figure a way out," Tess said, trying once again to jump up to the window.
"Tess. I mean it. Pretending only wastes time, and I have precious little of that left."
Tess stopped trying to jump and walked over to her sister, crouching beside her. Gently she stroked back Sasha's hair from her face. "Please, Sasha, just hang in there a little longer. I'll figure a way to get us both out, I will." She bit her lips hard to keep tears from falling.
"The only way one of us is going to get out of here alive is by using Power, and I can't do anything right now, not with this festering gash in my side."
"You'll get better, and then you'll be able to . . ." Tess began unconvincingly.
"You'll have to kill me, Tess," Sasha said quietly.
"Never!" Tess said vehemently. "If ... if it comes to ... I'll stay with you . . . I'll stay with you until . . ." her voice choked with sudden tears.
"Tess. Just listen to me," Sasha said weakly. "You know that I'm Circle-trained, that I have powers."
"Of course," Tess said, wondering if her sister was beginning to wander in her thoughts. She could hardly have forgotten her sister had been chosen to Circle! They had been apprenticed at the same time, she to the Guild of Swords, and Sasha, at an unbelievably young age, to Circle. Their parents had not known whether to
weep with joy or heartbreak as the two of them had marched off together for their long, seven-year apprenticeships away from home.
"Of course, you have powers—enough to get us both out of here, I daresay, if you weren't wounded."
"Whole body, whole spirit," Sasha whispered hoarsely. "You're bruised, but not wounded, are you Tess?"
"Just scratches—but I'm not Circle, Sash. I don't have even a predisposition to Power, you know that. Not a magical bone in my body."
"You don't need predisposition for Death Gift, Tess."
Tess felt her entire body freeze in coldness—even her brain felt cold and motionless. Then, with a rasp that shook her body, her breath started again, a harsh, sudden sound in the silence. "You're not dying," she choked out.
"Tess! Don't let all we've worked for, all I've suffered for, go in vain!" Sasha said, with more strength than she had had for the past two days. "If I die, here, now, of these wounds, then Lord Briedan will never find out that Korl's allied with the mountain tribes and that they're waiting to pin him in the pass. Even if you escaped these walls, you'd never make it back across a week's worth of territory and a guarded border without the disguises my magic gave us all the way here. I would be dead, you would be dead, and, without that information, half Lord Briedan's forces will be dead! You have to, Tess. You have to sacrifice me before I die on my own."
