Wardragon by Paul Collins Page B

owners craftily indentured all those in the town so that now they were virtual slaves and could never hope to pay off the debts they had apparently incurred. Taggar himself was indentured but had managed to escape.
    ‘There is now a bounty on my head,’ he said and Zimak perked up at this, eyeing the man with new interest.
    Taggar went on to say that the current mining operations were also much deadlier than the old: some of the new metals glowed in the dark and killed those who stayed near them too long. Daretor said they’d heard recruiters in the marketplace calling for workers for Argentia and offering substantial wages and bonuses. Zimak said they had been recruiting like that for weeks and by now hundreds were heading that way for work.
    Taggar sighed. ‘Then they go into slavery and death.’
    ‘Why come to us?’ said Jelindel. ‘Do you wish to hire us?’
    ‘Alas, I am but a poor escaped bondsman.’
    Jelindel laughed. ‘Somehow I think you’re more than that.’
    Taggar acknowledged this with an almost imperceptible bow. ‘Do you know Argentia?’
    ‘We’ve been there,’ Jelindel said.
    ‘And do you know the meaning of the name?’
    Jelindel’s voice faltered. ‘The place of light.’
    ‘What’s in a name?’ Zimak said impatiently.
    Jelindel waved him quiet.
    ‘I think you know the man who now runs Argentia,’ said Taggar. ‘He certainly knows you and even as I speak he is seeking you with all his might and cunning, and his intent is ill.’
    ‘Does this man have a name?’
    ‘He calls himself the Preceptor. Only he is no longer the person you once defeated.’
    Jelindel sat very still. Finally, she said, ‘And what does he want with me?’
    ‘Nothing less than the complete annihilation of magic …’

    The Wardragon, now sheathing the Preceptor’s body, strode confidently along a metal walkway high above the floor of the steel works. Choking sulphur-laden fumes and red hot dust particles from the crackling arc-melting furnaces filled the air. Kaleton followed closely behind.
    ‘More,’ the living machine said in monotone, ‘we need more. You have to double the output.’
    ‘The workforce is insufficient,’ Kaleton said patiently.
    ‘Then get more workers. Press-gang them if you have to.’
    ‘We’ve tried that. The fact is, you keep taking the bulk of the new labourers for – the other project. You also take the best. What’s left isn’t worth feeding. I need skilled artisans, not farm boys and fishermen.’
    The Wardragon turned. It was finding it exceedingly difficult to converse with the illogical, devious mortals, yet for the time being it needed them as an admiral needs a fleet. Nonetheless, at times it felt an overarching compulsion to completely absorb the Preceptor’s personality so that not one shred of the man’s self remained. Still, to prematurely announce itself to this puny world that it had arrived might unify its enemies. It could annihilate the lot of them of course, but that would destroy much of what it hoped to conquer. What value was there in an empty world? No, it needed labour and a base from which to move on to other worlds.
    It conceded at length that it still needed the Preceptor’s illogical perspective until the last drop of pretence was gone. After that, Kaleton, weakling that he was, would be its next host.
    ‘M’lord?’ Kaleton persisted. He was becoming accustomed to the Preceptor’s long silences. Almost as though he were consulting the Wardragon. And then sometimes it appeared as though the last vestige of the Preceptor had long since fled the body.
    ‘I need results, not excuses. If you are unable to perform the function I require of you, then I shall replace you.’
    Kaleton considered his reply, knowing he must tread carefully here. ‘It shall be done, of course.’
    ‘See to it then.’
    Kaleton followed the Wardragon’s gaze. Huge brick-lined ladles of molten metal rolled along on low drays, hauled by sweating ragged men to the