Not that they were grateful. They were furious, in fact, especially when he and she proceeded to have a vast brood of very mixed children. Said it was sacrilege.”
“A demon and a saint having kids?” Smith pondered it. “Funny.”
“Not to the Yendri, it isn’t,” said Mrs. Smith.
“Let’s talk about something else,” begged Burnbright.
So the subject was changed. Not long afterward the fire was banked, and everyone retired for the night, with the exception of the Smiths’ baby, who cried for a good hour.
The next day, once camp was broken, proceeded in much the same way as the previous one had. Endless hours they rumbled across the empty fields, and though Smith watched the horizon, he saw no threatening darkness there, not that day nor on the next few to follow. The Smiths’ infant cried, the Yendri kept himself aloof, Parradan Smith killed no one, and Lord Ermenwyr did not die, though he remained in his palanquin as they traveled and the purple fume of his irritation streamed backward in the wind.
“Mama!” shrieked the Smiths’ younger boy, pointing behind them. “Dragons!”
It was the fifth day out, and the Smith children were reaching critical mass for boredom.
“Don’t be silly, dearest,” his mother told him wearily, jogging the screaming baby on her shoulder.
“I’m not! They’re flying up behind us and they’re going to get us! Look!”
Nobody bothered to look except Smith, who turned on his high crate to glance over his shoulder. To his astonishment, he saw some five or six winged forms in the air behind them, at a distance of no more than a mile or two. He turned completely around, bracing his feet on the edge of the cart, and shaded his eyes for a good look.
“The dragons will get us!” chorused the Smiths’ other children, beginning to wail and cry.
“No, no, they won’t,” Smith shouted helpfully, looking down into their cart. “Dragons won’t hurt you. And anyway, I don’t think—”
“The lord in the black tent says they do,” protested the little boy. “I went in when the big lady came out to eat so I could see if he was really a vampire like the runner said, and he told me he wasn’t, only he’d been bit by a dragon when he was a little boy for making too much noise and it made him half-dead forever but he was lucky ‘cause most dragons just eat children that make too much noise, they fly overhead on big wings and just catch them and eat them up like bugs!”
“Now, Wolkin—” said his father.
“I told you not to bother that man!” said his mother.
“Well, that just isn’t true,” yelled Smith, mentally damning Lord Ermenwyr. “Dragons don’t do that kind of thing, all right, son? They’re too small. I’ve seen ‘em. All they do is fly over the water and catch fish. They build nests in cliffs. People make umbrellas out of their wings. No, what we’ve got here are gliders.” He pointed up at the winged figures, who were much nearer now.
“Yes, Wolkin, you see? Perfectly harmless,” said his father.
“Just people with big wings strapped on,” explained Smith. “Sort of. They carry letters sometimes.”
“And they have, er, flying clubs and competitions,” added his father. “Nothing to be afraid of at all.”
“Of course not,” Smith agreed. “Look, here they come. Let’s all wave.”
The children waved doubtfully.
“Look,” said the Smiths’ little girl. “They’ve got pistol-bows just like you have, Caravan Master.”
“What?” said Smith, as a bolt thunked into his left thigh.
The gliders were raking the caravan with boltfire. The result was screaming confusion and an answering barrage of shot from the caravans. Smith, firing both his weapons, glimpsed Parradan Smith standing, snarling, balancing as he sent boltfire from an apparently inexhaustible magazine into the nearest gliders. He saw Balnshik hanging out the side of the palanquin, bracing her feet on an immense old hunting weapon, and firing with deadly accuracy.
It was over in seconds. The closest of the gliders veered off, dropped something beside the road, and went down in a tangle of snapping struts and collapsing green fabric. The others wheeled. They lifted and floated off to the east, rapidly vanishing. The thing that had been dropped coughed, spurted dust, and exploded, throwing liquid flame in all directions. Fortunately the carts were well clear by the time it went off.
“Stop,” gasped Smith, but the keymen were already applying the brakes. The carts shuddered to a stop, their iron wheels grinding in the stone ruts and sending up a flare of sparks the