Polo Shawcross: Dragon Soldier Read online

  The waterfall was some distance off, nearly invisible in the fog generated by the warm water in the cold night, but the roar still deafened me. The sewage ponds were all on one side of the highway, the palace side. Logically, if I kept the falls behind me to my right I should reach a bank somewhere near the highway on my left.

  A slight breeze briefly lifted the mist, and the half-moon shed enough light to see a shoreline to the left. I struck out, feeling feeble, as the half-moon promptly went behind a cloud. Swimming blindly in the fog again, my head as far out of the water as I could manage, I kept bumping into stuff I didn’t want to think about.

  Suddenly I swam into something large and confess to crying out, panicking. In my funk I remember wondering if there were crocodiles in the Malion Moat. I wouldn’t have realised what the crocodile really was but the breeze and the half-moon conspired to let me see a body and the shore, just as one of my hands caught in the body’s clothing. Someone I threw in? I rolled him onto his back.

  I wasn’t sure who it was but he was unconscious, possibly dead. I had better take him to the bank. I kicked down with my feet, thinking to jump up in the water to see if I was still on track, and discovered it was shallower. I could stand. My feet slipped a bit on the bottom as I grabbed the body by the shirt-collar and towed him along.

  Soon the water was only knee-high, mist bizarrely hanging to my hips. To see any distance required one to squat down to spot landmarks. I tried to lift the body to one shoulder, but my own body wasn’t working properly. Shaking with cold, using both hands to drag him by his shirt, I began to move backwards towards the shore. I kept falling over and losing the body then finding it again. Though I was warming up the shore seemed as if it wasn’t getting closer.

  Finally I reached a place where the bottom shelved up to a bank. I dragged the body with me, through a thick bed of reeds, up another bank. I fell straight into another pond, still with one fist knotted in the clothing of what I had begun to think of as ‘that bastard’. Cursing, and stinging from the reeds’ sharp edges, I floundered away from the vegetation.

  Another shore, this time wider, and I flopped there. Off to my right I could see the lights of the palace walls, so the town was somewhere behind me to the right, out of sight behind the palace. The road should be that way.

  I kept losing my train of thought then remembered the bastard, who I’d left in the shallows, fortunately face-up, and dragged him out too. He seemed to be dead. I marshalled my first aid training and thumped on his chest a few times then tried to puff some air into him, but after only one attempt I had to stop to throw up. I barely finished my first big heave when he began coughing, which scared me half to death. I put him on his side and resumed bringing up my lungs.

  When I could, I stood up and tried to see where we were. Then I saw torches and shouted out. The torches began heading towards us. It started to snow. I was shivering.

  “Come on, b-bastard,” I said, “the c-cavalry is here.” I picked him up, got him onto my shoulder this time, and walked carefully along the top of the levee until I found a way back to the main bank. That was where the search party found us.

  ****

  Chapter 6 - Crime and Punishment

  I floated through the hospital my body was in. It was weird, all kinds of objects on top of every cupboard. Doll’s clothes, teaspoons, and what looked like a selection of toffees. I laughed. There was a note, to see Dr Keller.

  In the meadow in the mountains, Lilith was there in human form. She shook her head at me, called me an idiot, and said to stay alive a little longer. Someone was on their way to help me. Again a dragon turned up to save me.

  “Third time lucky,” said Stefan, cutting his skin. “Drink, lad. Herself sends her regards.”

  “Come to Malion, look after Azrael,” I said, mimicking him but sounding weak and sour. I was definitely sour. I was in some hospital, somewhere, again.

  “Drink,” he said, “stop bitching.” I drank, mumbling cranky things at him. I hurt all over and hated everyone. I drank though, knowing the draconium in his blood would give my exhausted body the strength to heal.

  “Nobody forced you to go swimming in the castle moat.” I got past cranky into trying to shout. A nurse came, a man, and I had to explain it was fine, just my cousin Stefan and I horsing around.

  “You shouldn’t be alarming the patient,” he said, in that pointed, prim way nurses have. He was wearing a facemask.

  “I’m fine,” I said, “I’m not alarmed.” We had wiped my mouth quickly as the man arrived but I didn’t dare risk a full smile, sure I had blood on my teeth. Stefan was casually applying pressure to the wound on his forearm.

  “He shouldn’t be here,” said the nurse, looking at Stefan as if he was something a dog laid.

  “He’s my cousin,” I said, “he’s visiting me. Have I had many visitors lately?” The nurse glared at us.

  “You’ve been infectious, nobody allowed in. I’m going to have to ask you-”

  “No,” said Stefan, smiling. “Thank you, nurse, but you don’t have to ask me anything. The lad’s awake, first time in a week.” A week? It wasn’t fair. There were all these lost weeks of my life. “I know,” Stefan was telling the nurse, “I looked at his chart. I’m Dr Stefan Westwych, by the way.” The nurse’s eyes widened a bit.

  Stefan was rather famous in medical circles. Seeing I knew him to be about three thousand years old, I wondered how he managed that. Did he make himself re-famous every few generations or did the fame renew itself without help because by now he must know an awful lot about an awful lot of things?

  I looked at that thought and wondered what was in the drip I was hooked up to. Stefan looked at me, his lips twitching as if he was about to laugh, and I wondered if I had spoken aloud. I hoped not. Stefan shook his head and looked back at the nurse.

  “I see Dr Biswell’s been treating the lad. Tell him Stefan Westwych has helped him out. I’m sure he’ll be fine with him.” The nurse took my temperature and blood pressure, huffing and puffing but, as Stefan said once he was gone, the nurse wasn’t going to get Dr Biswell out of bed because a patient was better. The news could wait until morning. “Now,” he said, “you can feed again.”

  “I don’t want to drain you,” I said. He shook his head.

  “I’m not about to run a marathon or fight in a war. Any ordinary human can replace a pint of blood within a day or so without really feeling the effects. You’re not taking anything near that. Moreover I’m no ordinary human. Dragon is built to deal with a few tablespoons.” I took another mouthful then he talked me through healing meditations and stayed until dawn.

  While he was there, we discovered I had a dislocated little finger, which explained why it was hurting so much. While I bit my pillow to stop from screaming, Stefan popped it back with a brisk callousness, but I still yelped. When I looked in the mirror my facial bruising was in full glorious purple, green, yellow and blue display. I looked dreadful. I was surprised my nose wasn’t broken too, or something. Even all my teeth had survived. My hair was a mess and the bioplas band was still in it, which Stefan cut out. With that gone I could comb it out.

  I kept getting wafts of the smell of the sewers, which was decidedly unpleasant. I was sitting up in bed by then, drip out, desperate for a shower or something else to eat - having cleaned the nurses’ station out of toast and coffee – then been told I had to wait until Dr Biswell did his rounds before I could shower.

  Stefan listened to what I remembered of how I ended up in the moat while he tsk-ed over young men and their high spirits. I wasn’t having it described as that.

  “High spirits?” I said. “They tried to kill me but the polis came so they threw me in the moat thinking that would finish me off.” It occurred to me that others might think like him. “Have they been charged?” I said, “I mean, thirty on one, surely they don’t think I was fighting willingly?”

  “I don’t know,” Stefan said, “I’ll find out later. All I heard was you were in a f
ight and were in hospital. I was closest and Lilith said go to Polo, see if you can save his life. I must admit I was expecting some kind of awful injury, maybe a stabbing, or a crushed skull. River-fever is a doddle compared to that.” I was looking under my bedclothes. I still had spectacular bruising there too. “I can see,” he said, “you have no broken ribs.” I remembered being able to see like that, the one time I was truly Dragon.

  “It’s a miracle judging by these bruises,” I said, covering my welling disappointment up with crankiness.

  Surely, that night of all nights, if again under stress I was going to change into a dragon, I should have done so. “Did you say I’ve been here a week?”

  “Aye,” he said. I scowled.

  “A week of the holidays gone. And for your information, I have boot-prints on me. I’m surprised I’m alive. At the end I was on the ground and there were a bunch of them kicking me.”

  “Kicking a man when he’s down,” said Stefan, looking genuinely disgusted, “especially in a mob, that’s low.” I thought about it.

  “Aye,” I said, “but it does cheer me that I hurt a number of them badly. Some of them won’t be back at school in a week. When they were expecting an easy beating. Mine, not theirs. The fight started when one of them came at me with a knife.” I sank back on the pillows. “I know I got some good blows in. I broke Indigo bloody Sutherland’s nose.”

  Good blows didn’t cover the damage I did. It was impressive. Not counting Indigo’s nose, I broke eighteen bones over seven separate lads, top to toe. I had culled some eight cadets including two third-years and three second-years who, as Stefan said, should have known better. I had crippled and killed. Two boys drowned in the moat and another died from the river-fever before I woke up.

  I felt uneasy. Three boys dead. Did they have to die? Could I have done something less than I did? How? I couldn’t see a way. I supposed I could have stood there and let them beat me to death.

  The one I pulled out of the dam was still in hospital.

  “Bailey Westwych,” said Stefan, when he returned later, still quite early in the morning, “is still in the hospital. He’s the one you dragged out of the sewage ponds. He’s very ill with river fever. You know him? Crown Prince of Gyr.” I nodded.

  “Aye, he’s one of Indigo’s pals but we get on fine. I’ve no quarrel with Bailey. I thought he was trying to stop the fight. Did I throw him in?” I didn’t remember that at all. Stefan shrugged. “I might have,” I said, “it’s a bit of a blur.”

  “Your training kicked in,” said Stefan. I nodded. I killed three boys. Crippled an unknown number, as some might yet walk or regain use of their limbs. I remembered the first smash of my forearm, knowing the blow was delivered exactly as planned, taking pride in that. Before that I was feeling fear, sadness, regret, knowing I was heading into pain but knowing also this way led to survival. It was what all the training was for.

  “The polis report is a bit confused,” Stefan went on, “Bailey’s unconscious so he’s not told his story, but what they have reads like fiction. The other lads just happened to be walking along the towpath when you attacked them unprovoked. You attacked ten of them, another twenty who happened to be out in several small groups along the river came to their aid.” I shook my head. It was unbelievable.

  “Send the polis in,” I said, “I’ll give them a bloody report.” He gave me one of those uncomfortable looks. It reminded me of when he suggested I go to Malion to look after Azrael.

  “The guild would rather you didn’t,” said Stefan. I thumped the bed angrily. It creaked so much I thought it was going to collapse. For a few seconds, Stefan and I paused, waiting for the frame to give way. When it didn’t I launched into what I was about to say,

  “Is that all you do, carry messages from people who want me to do favours for them? I don’t give a freaking toss what the guild wants. Those boys tried to kill me. They shouldn’t be loose on the street.” Stefan smiled.

  “They’re perfect army fodder,” he said. I wasn’t going to be distracted from my anger, whether by jokes or the imminent collapse of my bed.

  “So I’m supposed to be charged with affray,” I said, “to keep the guild happy? While it protects young men who are dangerous to anyone who looks at them funny?” He held up his hands.

  “No,” he said, “you won’t be charged, they’re using their influence on your behalf too. It’s a bit more serious than affray, Polo. The ones who’ve given statements have led the polis to believe you need to be charged with several counts of murder and another multitude of attempted murders and actual bodily harm. The guild is making sure the polis doesn’t do anything so stupid.” I thumped the mattress with my fist again, but more carefully and the bed didn’t sway.

  “Freaking cowards!” I said. “How dare they accuse me? At least have the guts to own up to what they did. And how stupid are the polis that they believe their cock-and-bull story?”

  “Fairly stupid,” said Stefan, “at least, a number of them are.” He sighed. “It’s a bit like the army, or government. The stupid ones make up the numbers, though ideally the bright ones run it. Unfortunately a certain percentage of the command structure will always be stupid. The forces of law and governance attract stupid bullies. And,” he said and smiled, “let’s be fair, some of the best of every generation.”

  “Those boys should be gaoled,” I said, curling my lip, “and probably gelded. Not put in the army.” He spread his fingers.

  “Probably, or at least in an asylum, but it’s not going to happen. Oh, I’m sure with your influence you could get charges laid. The king here thinks you’re a fine lad, as does the King of Sendren. You could get Indigo Sutherland thrown out of the guild too. However let’s remember who Indigo is. One of Theo’s favourites. Son of one of his oldest friends. As you’re one too, and a duke of that realm, I advise against making a king choose unless it’s really a life or death matter. Yours, I mean.” I breathed out. There was a lot of sense in that. Even through my anger I could feel it.

  “It would make it hard for Theo,” I said, and sighed. “So Bailey’s in here?”

  “Aye, still in a bad way,” Stefan said. He paused. “I was thinking it might be a good idea for you to reinforce that he owes you his life. By saving it again.” He mimed cutting his arm. I raised my eyebrows. The action made the bruises around my eyes throb.

  “Me?” I said, rubbing my face. Stefan nodded.

  “Doesn’t hurt to have a future king beholden to you,” he said, grinning. “Another one.” I refused to smile.

  “I already dragged him out of the water,” I said, then realised I sounded about twelve and sulky with it. Stefan looked levelly at me. “And I made him breathe again,” I added, sounding eleven and petulant. I scowled. “Alright, alright, I’ll help him. He always seemed the best of the bunch.”

  “I know his father,” said Stefan, “they’re good people.”

  ****

  While Stefan distracted the nurses I slipped into Bailey’s room. Stefan overdid it a bit. He went out and came back with a massive box in his arms that smelled divine, full of just-baked pastries. The great Dr Westwych arrived at the nurses’ station with treats for everyone. The entire hospital staff were trying to get in there.

  Bailey was in isolation, thinner than I remembered, but then I was thinner too. Again. I sighed and moved over to the bed. When had life become so complicated? When had it become more than cleaning the barn, rescuing sheep, feeding the chickens, and hoping Mother would buy me a new horse? I used to try to avoid Father in the mornings, now I avoided assassins at all hours.

  Bailey was breathing hard, his skin beaded with sweat. I wiped the past from my mind and focused on my present.

  “Bailey?” I said softly. “Bailey, can you hear me? It’s Polo, Polo Shawcross. From Sendren.” I touched his chest and felt how weak his heart was. He was so hot. I knew how that felt, to be burning with fever. “Bailey, I need you to drink something. It will make you feel better and give you
some strength. Then we’ll work on your fever.” His eyelids flicked open then closed slowly, as if that tiny action had exhausted him. At least he could hear me.

  “Hey, there you are, Bailey. Don’t worry, mate, you’re going to be alright.” I thought about where to cut, thinking a finger or thumb instead of the forearm, then realised the forearm was probably best, out of the way, easily bandaged, and unlike the hands, not likely to be bothered every time I reached for something. I had a scalpel and made a small shallow cut down the inside of my left wrist, careful to avoid tendons. The blood welled up. “Bailey, here, drink this then I’ll give you some water. You’ll feel better.”

  He wasn’t quite conscious so I dipped a finger in the blood and pressed it into his mouth. It was how we got calves or lambs to feed. He licked at that and I replaced my finger with my wrist, which he began to suck. I found the sensation strangely erotic but pushed that thought from my mind. Once I guessed he had enough I gave him water and began the lecture. It was slightly adapted, depending on the injuries or illness, but thanks to all my mishaps I knew several versions.

  “Bailey,” I said, beginning my own measured breathing sequence, “hear me. Hear your blood call you. You are Dragon. You can heal yourself. Imagine your body recognising the intruders in your blood.” It went on, like inducing hypnosis, which was exactly what I was doing.

  By the time I left the fever was broken. Bailey could talk and was breathing better. His heart wasn’t labouring so hard. He managed to say my name and to smile a bit, then fell asleep. I was exhausted. The male nurse caught me coming out and shooed me back to my room.

  “The Crown Prince of Gyr is infectious! Like you probably still are!”

  “I’m fine,” I said, “just tired. Bailey’s much better. You need to check on him.” The man looked at me, suspicious. “I talked to him, he’s a friend of mine from-” I began, then decided not to say the guild, “-Peterhaven.” The man bolted for Bailey’s room then came out quickly, obviously relieved the heir to Gyr wasn’t dead.