The Golden Shield of IBF (36 page)

“Oh! Really, Champion? Prithee, why, then?”

“Simple. All the hand movements and gentle touching and stuff like that?”

“So?”

“If a guy did that, he’d look like a sissy.” Erg’Ran obviously pondered the meaning of the word for an eyeblink or so, then slowly responded, “That is an interesting observation, Champion. I’d prefer to consider the full implications of your remarks before commenting, if I may.”

“Hey. Not a problem, Erg’Ran. We can talk about it later.”

They were nearly at the bow. No volleys of arrows were being fired. Men stood on the deck, some with spears ready, some with hands on the hilts of their still sheathed swords, some with the prods of their crossbows cocked, all waiting for the dragons to strike. Garrison looked toward the
Storm Raider.
He thought that he made out Gar’Ath and Mitan on the afterdeck, but was certain that he saw some of the Gle’Ur’Gya setting their massive deck-mounted crossbows, preparing for the ice dragons’ imminent assault.

The little dark cloud Garrison had spied to the north was larger now, growing noticeably even as he watched it, expanding in height and width along the horizon. The wind was picking up. The icebergs seemed to be moving, too. From within the darkening cloud, Garrison saw a flash of light.

Swan was building her weapon, one which would destroy the ice dragons, and just possibly might destroy them. Her hands moved still more rapidly, as they had when she summoned the winds which saved them from the cyclonic wave, but somehow differently, as if each manifestation of her magic had subtle differences, like the intonations in speech or song.

Her hands moved with a flourish which Garrison had never witnessed before, palms outward, willowy fingers splayed. Yellow-white chain lightning crackled from the ever enlarging cloud bank in rhythm with the movements of her fingers, firing right and left, striking into the sea. The booms of thunder eyeblinks later were louder than any thunder Garrison had ever heard.

A gust of wind, colder than cold, swept across the ship, and Garrison’s bones all but rattled with its icy touch.

“Prepare you!” Erg’Ran shouted out across the deck. “Send forth signals to the other ships, Bin’Ah. Make it known to all the Company of Mir and to our Gle’Ur’Gya allies that a storm, in its relentless intensity unlike any that they have ever endured, is visited upon us! Its lightning will smite the ice dragons, ripping them from the sky, plunging them to their destruction in the icy deep!”

“Whew,” Garrison whistled under his breath. Erg’Ran’s speech struck him as awfully long to send as a semaphore style message, but Garrison kept that opinion to himself.

He turned his attention, instead, toward Swan, her hands and the weather that she undeniably, masterfully commanded.

The dark cloud totally obscured the horizon and seemed to cover half of the ocean itself. Inexorably, it devoured the distance still dividing it from the armada, rolling across the sky and sea, engulfing all before it.

Lightning. Thunderclaps. And the fair wind which had propelled them so faithfully over Woroc’Il’Lod was risen into a howling gale. The very air surrounding their vessels turned to luminescent green, electrical energy flickering everywhere around their ship and the other ships of the armada. The suddenness of the storm’s grip closing on them nearly robbed Garrison’s breath, sending a shiver along the full length of his spine.

Rain fell, at first a mist, an instant later a downpour, and an instant after that wind-lashed torrents, each enormous frigid drop stinging the skin like a needle prick.

The ice dragons, all nine of them, chose this very moment to strike, vectoring their attack against the flagship. Garrison had no idea of the ice dragons’ level of intelligence, but they clearly realized in some element of their consciousness that the female standing in the prow of the flagship had something to do with the storm. That was obvious as the ice dragons started their dive. Erg’Ran cried out over the keening of the wind. “Concentrate your arrows and bolts on the leader! Fire, lads! Fire now!”

Garrison’s pistols were still empty and there was no time to reload. The .32 in his pocket would be useless for such work. Summoning all of his strength to ascend the steps to the bow pulpit and stand beside Swan, Garrison unsheathed his sword and raised the Golden Shield of IBF.

“Can you still command the storm if I shield you, Swan?”

“Yes, Al’An.”

“Then be ready!” The exertion required to ascend the steps and bring sword and shield to bear had, rather than exhausting Garrison, somehow reinvigorated him. And he had confidence that the shield would protect them from dragon fire.

Strange words—the Old Tongue, Garrison assumed—issued from Swan’s lips like a cry, yet unmistakably a command. A bolt of lightning, brilliant yellow-white, streaked from the nearly black clouds. One of the nine ice dragons diving toward the flagship was struck. The rumble of thunder was deafening. Garrison’s ears pulsed with it. The colossal winged beast’s vile grey body exploded into flame, a rain of blood and tissue and fire cascading from within the explosive cloud, and an eyeblink later the fireball itself totally dissipated on the driving wind.

Cheers rose from the flagship, hurrahs echoing across the water from the other ships as well. But any human sound was barely discernible as little over a whisper. The relentless shrieks of the ice dragons, the nerve-shattering rhythmic thrum of their mighty wings and the howl of wind and roar of waves vanquished all other sound, penetrated the human soul to its innermost redoubt.

Soaked, freezing, the enormous breakers which crashed over the prow of the flagship pummeling him, Garrison braced himself and stood, offering what protection he could to the Virgin Enchantress whom he loved and served. The nearest ice dragon made what Garrison mentally classified as a strafing run, soaring over the flagship’s deck, fire rolling from its wicked mouth. Garrison wheeled, lifting his shield higher, drawing Swan close against him. The flame washed over them, stealing their breath for a microsecond, the beast’s left wing grazing Garrison’s left cheek, ear and shoulder.

Garrison felt the slick hotness of blood. Shoving Swan aside, but still shielding her, Garrison stabbed upward with his sword. His blade skated over the creature’s scales, its tip finding a spot of flesh. As the great monster passed, a spray of gore spewed from beneath its wing.

Garrison staggered, his sword hand shaking, his blade dripping a greenish yellow puss-like liquid onto the deck. The next wave to crash over the ship’s bow washed the ichor away. The whole left side of Garrison s face and upper body ached beyond any pain he’d ever known.

The ice dragon had gained altitude, was cutting a tight arc, its wings flapping incredibly rapidly. In an eyeblink, it dove toward them, slavering spike-toothed jaws open wide.

Fire.

Garrison raised the Golden Shield, drawing Swan into his sword arm.

The decking around their feet was aflame. Swan didn’t scream, but shouted, “Al’An!” Her skirts had caught fire. Garrison cast his shield against the bow rail, threw himself to his knees and smothered the flames with his body.

“I am all right, Al’An!”

Garrison looked up from his knees, saw her hands moving again. His eyes were blinded by the flash as lightning forked from the black cloud across the green air. There was a dragon sound louder than any Garrison had yet heard, and as his eyes recovered from the flash, he saw the creature spiraling down in flames just off the port bow. His ears rang from the thunderclap.

Seven ice dragons remained.

Bleeding heavily, Garrison staggered to his feet. Magic might not help these wounds, if Swan had any magic left after this, if they survived at all.

Garrison’s left arm was numb, and he refused to look at it. He thrust his sword deep into the decking, keeping it to hand while he once more raised the shield.

Hails of arrows and crossbow bolts filled the air overhead, ice dragons circling there. If the creatures were hit, Garrison couldn’t tell.

Swan had inched forward to the very prow once again, her body wedged into the apex of the port and starboard rails. Her cape was gone. Her auburn hair wildly tossed in the wind and spray, her arms at maximum extension, Swan’s splayed finger tips drew electricity from the air, A halo of light and energy surrounded her, glowing all about her.

“Swan! No!” Garrison shouted, starting to reach for her.

Swan’s arms moved, describing ever enlarging concentric circles. Her left hand flung suddenly upward, outward, palm upraised, a ball of electricity firing from her fingertips, striking the nearest of the remaining dragons.

Thunder reverberated around the ship, shields ringing like bells, swords like tuning forks.

Her right hand. Light and energy. A ball of lightning streaked from her fingers to its mark. Again and again the energy soared from her fingertips and again and again the ice dragons were struck and incinerated.

The last ice dragon, the great horned male, quit the attack.

If it got away, Garrison told himself, it would find other Creathans to feed on.

Swan clapped both hands together, then flung her palms open, the halo of energy surrounding her pouring into her, through her, spewing from her fingertips in a streak of blinding light and an explosion of sound.

Garrison shielded his face, but risked his eyes to look.

Somehow, the great male ice dragon must have sensed that the frail girl on the pitiful ship was not through with him.

The ice dragon looked back.

The energy summoned through the body of the Virgin Enchantress flashed round the beast and devoured it.

They were through now, the final ice dragon accounted for and dead. Alan Garrison turned his eyes to his left shoulder and arm.

The sleeve of his jacket was gone. A dragon scale had completely pierced his upper arm. He could see bone when a wave crashed over the bow and washed the blood away. He didn’t want to feel the left side of his head, because he was certain that his ear had been torn away.

Swan turned away from the prow. Even if his left ear was still where it belonged, Alan Garrison couldn’t hear her because of the thunder which still rang within him. But her lips formed a word he was certain he recognized, “Al’An?”

“I love you.” Garrison didn’t know if Swan could hear him, either. A wave crashed over the bow and brought blackness with it which engulfed him. There was nothing left to worry about.

Chapter Thirteen

When he folded back the blanket covering him and looked at his left shoulder and upper arm, he asked Erg’Ran, “Did she do as good a job on my jacket as she did on me?”

“Oh, yes, Champion. When you have the chance, you won’t see a thing wrong with your left ear, either. It was partially torn away.”

Garrison raised his left arm. It was a little stiff, but worked. He held his Rolex next to his left ear. He could hear it ticking.

“We are where?”

“Edge Land. Just off shore. It will soon be dawn.”

“Swan, I take it, is—?”

“The Enchantress’s magical energy is very much depleted, and she’s a very physically exhausted girl. There were more than fifteen seriously wounded to whom it was necessary to attend.”

“How many dead?”

“Just the one of whom you know, Champion—Lii’Ku.”

“Any sign of a reception committee?”

Erg’Ran puzzled over the phrase for an eyeblink or so, then answered, “So far, we are unmolested. Either the magical energy of my sister is still very much depleted, or she has lain a trap for us.”

“Could be both,” Garrison noted. “You’re good with this sort of stuff, I imagine. Am I okay to get up and around?”

“You may feel a tad debilitated, lacking in strength for a short time, but you will soon feel your normal self.”

“Nothing has been normal at all since I came to Creath, Erg’Ran.”

The older man’s face seamed with laughter. “True enough, I suppose, Champion. True enough. It hasn’t really been a happy time for any of us.”

“I disagree. I’ve been happier here than I’ve ever been where I come from. I know; I’m strange.”

“You love the Enchantress a great deal, Champion.”

“You’re supposed to be the resident smart person, Erg’Ran. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I’m nuts about your niece. By the way?”

“Yes, Champion?”

“When I get around to asking Swan to marry me, you being her uncle and all, do I need to ask your permission?”

“Swan is the only one who can give the permission you will seek. But, for what it is worth, you already have my blessing, Champion.”

“Jeepers! Can I call you Uncle Ergy? Huh?!”

Erg’Ran’s hearty laughter filled the room. Garrison suddenly thought to ask, “Where the heck are we, anyway?”

“The Enchantress felt that you would rest more soundly aboard the
Storm Balder.
And, your Gle’Ur’Gya host provided you with his personal quarters, Champion.”

Garrison looked about the room, correcting himself to think of it as “the captain’s cabin.” As one would have supposed, an enclosure which would comfortably house a Gle’Ur’Gya was proportioned about ten or fifteen percent larger than ordinary human scale. A backless chair by a chart desk at the center of the cabin seemed halfway between the height of a normal chair and a high chair, and the desk itself was closer in height to a kitchen counter than a table.

There was no knock, but the oversized door opened and Bre’Gaa entered, ducking his head to avoid the top of the doorframe. “Al’An! You have returned to the living!”

“Apparently so.”

“Excellent. I am personally glad that your Enchantress is so skilled in her healing. I would have missed having you as someone with whom I might confer.”

“I’m flattered, Bre’Gaa, but I don’t follow you.”

Erg’Ran smiled. “What the good Captain Commander Bre’Gaa means, Champion, is that as someone from the other realm, he considers your opinions a little more evenhandedly arrived at.” And, Erg’Ran stood and faced Bre’Gaa. “Is that not true, Captain Bre’Gaa?”

“Quite true, brave and learned ally. Quite true, indeed.”

“Thank you for the loan of the cabin, Bre’Gaa.”