Dragonslayer: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

." He paused, listening, and at the same instant the sound reached the three of them at once, a querulous raising of voices. ". . . they were chanting, sir."
    They all turned to the window, then. Across the river, they saw a twisting line of torches winding through the mists and along the path toward the castle, their fires, like fallen bits of the great orange dawn, lighting the horizon beyond the hills. Indeed the pilgrims were chanting; first, a clear and youthful voice like quick water on rocks, and then the responding chorus, more muddled and weary, milling and eddying behind. It was a fearful, small, and human sound, a sound to keep back the surrounding night.
    Gringe muttered on the window beside the three watchers.
    Slowly, with what Galen thought was a trace of a smile, the smile of the warrior who welcomed an approaching battle although he knew it would be his last, Ulrich waved his hand. The raven launched itself soundlessly from the ledge, and drifted out into the cool dawn, vanishing and reappearing against the white and dark of the landscape, gliding down toward the frightened travelers.
    CHAPTER TWO
    Journeys
    Gringe glided low above the heads of the startled pilgrims, so low that their torch smoke smudged his feathers. There were thirteen. A few were singing, but most slept on their trudging horses. "What? What?" he heard them asking, waking, as he raced over the trees, "What bird? What white bird?"
    "Foul!" he answered, sweeping back, "Follow!" And he was gratified by nervous laughter.
    "Why," someone said, "it's only a raven! A white raven! A freak!"
    Within a few yards the tunnel of trees broadened, opened, and the crumbling battlements of Cragganmore loomed ahead, silhouetted by the first of the dawn. Candlelight spilled from one of the upper windows, and the Urlanders, arriving at the edge of the moat, could plainly see the silhouettes of a watching man and a boy. They went no farther than the moat, for a querulous challenge halted them: "Who are ye?" It was old Hodge, bristling in rusted armor, brandishing a spear which—though they could not see this—was bent and woefully dull. He was peering through a crenellation directly above the drawbridge. "What seek ye at Cragganmore?"
    There was a flurry among the pilgrims. Those who had remained asleep suddenly awoke and began mumbling and asking foolish questions. A great deal of milling ensued, during which a single name was spoken more often than any other—"Valerian? Valerian?"—at first questioningly, and then assertively: "Valerian! Valerian will speak for us!" A slim youth was brought forward through the little crowd. He stood on the grassy edge of the moat, swatting at the clouds of mosquitoes the steamy horses had aroused, and peering up at the indistinct, dome-topped figure of old Hodge among the battlements.
    "We are Urlanders," he said, "from the town of Swanscombe, three weeks' journey beyond the mountains. We seek Ulrich, Ma-gister Ipissimus, if this be Cragganmore, for we have a petition for him alone." The clear young voice sang like a flute in the dawn, and in the window far above Ulrich heard clearly.
    "Humph!" he said. "I guess at it!"
    "Ye be men of peace, then?" Hodge asked from below.
    "Oh yes . . . yes of course . . . wouldn't be here otherwise ..." A chorus of similar comments ran through the crowd. "Yes," answered the young voice again, suppressing a cough, "we are men of peace."
    "Yer never know," said Hodge, his helmet beginning to bob slowly as he worked an unseen turnstile, and the bridge, creaking, began to descend. "Yer just never know. Countryside teeming with rowdies. Charlatans! Imposters! Aye, and vagabonds and vandals too! But ye look peaceful enough, and too foolish to have harm in ye, comin' up through a night forest where there might be a dozen to cut yer throats for the clothes on yer backs. There be some force protectin' ye, is the way I see it!"
    "Well, we're not Christians, if that's what you mean," said an