Dragon's Trail

by Joseph Malik

  “I guess that’s me,” Javal grumbled. “I’ll be right back. Your turn to watch the gear. You want a drink?”

  “Something strong,” said Jarrod.

  Sir Dahl was in the room a moment after Javal left, in warrior blacks with a sword belt. “Is this it?” he asked.

  “That was fast. And yes.” Jarrod spread the armor out on the table and the knight began picking through it.

  “Mail, coat of scales . . .” he shook his head. “Gavrian armor. Pretty amazing.”

  “Yes,” said Jarrod. “It is.”

  “How’d you take him down?”

  “Took a hand, and then stabbed him in the eye.”

  “With what?”

  Jarrod tapped the handle of his arming sword.

  “May I see that?” said Sir Dahl.

  Jarrod drew it. Blood and brains had caked it into the scabbard and it came free with some effort. Gore coated the fuller.

  “Wow,” he said. “I need to clean this.”

  “No worry,” said Sir Dahl.

  “Careful,” said Jarrod. “It’s sharp.”

  Sir Dahl pointed it at him. “Good.”

  Jarrod looked down the blade of his own sword.

  That was really stupid.

  “I can’t believe you fell for that!” Dahl laughed. “You’re an idiot! After all that, you’re just an idiot.”

  “You’re gonna die,” he told Sir Dahl.

  “I doubt that,” said Sir Dahl. “My men will be here in just a moment, and they’ll dispose of this. And of you.”

  Jarrod stepped back. “You know, you better get rid of everything, then.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of brass knuckles. “We also found these.”

  Jarrod flicked his wrist and the knuckles hit Dahl in the face, causing just enough of a startled response that Jarrod could knock the sword away with one hand and smash Dahl in the eye with a savate fouétte, whipping his foot into a wrecking ball. Sir Dahl collapsed, squirming and holding his face.

  “Sorry, man,” said Jarrod. He toed the sword into his hand and bent to pick up the knuckles. “I hated to do that. But, you know. You were kind of being a dick.” He’d gashed his hand on the blade and blood dripped from the pommel and ran down his arm.

  Two more men with swords, men Jarrod hadn’t met, charged through the door. Jarrod had them at swordpoint as they entered, working his right hand into the brass knuckles. “I will kill every one of you. Lie down on the floor, with your hands on your heads.”

  “Can we attend to him?” asked one.

  “No.”

  Albar came into the room just as they got into the prone. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  “Yeah, about that,” said Jarrod.

  “You’re under arrest!” Albar screamed.

  “Draw, you fucker,” Jarrod suggested. “Let’s go.”

  Javal appeared behind Albar. “Jarrod, don’t kill the heir presumptive.”

  “You keep saying that,” said Jarrod. “But I don’t think you mean it.”

  “What the hell just happened?” asked Javal.

  “Sir Dahl pulled my own sword on me. So I kicked him.”

  Sir Dahl was unconscious and blood was spreading near his head; Jarrod was pretty sure he’d blown apart his eye socket.

  “How the hell—” Albar began, looking at Jarrod’s sword. “If he had your sword, how did you—”

  “Shut up,” Javal said, and yelled out the door for a healer. Jarrod knelt next to Dahl and checked his pulse at the throat. Dahl grunted.

  “He’s alive,” said Jarrod, “but he’s going to lose the eye.”

  Albar was incredulous. “From a kick? How is that possible?”

  “Come over here,” growled Jarrod, “I’ll show you.” He felt like throwing up again.

  “Jarrod, tell me again. From the beginning,” said Javal.

  Jarrod stood. “Sir Dahl came in right after you left. He looked at the armor. He asked me what we killed the sheth with. I told him I killed it with my sword. He asked to see my sword. I gave it to him.”

  “You’re an idiot,” said Javal.

  “Yes, sir, we covered that. He pointed my sword at me and said his guys were coming to take this stuff away, and me with it. So I kicked him.”

  “In the eye.”

  “Really hard,” Jarrod added.

  “Apparently,” said Javal. “Any witnesses?”

  “No.”

  “And these two?”

  “Sir Dahl said his guys were coming. I figured these two were them.”

  Albar looked at the armor on the table. “What is this? It stinks!”

  “That was on the sheth we killed,” Javal said. “So it seems you have a problem, Albar.”

  A knot of people had gathered around the door.

  “All of you!” Albar shouted. “Out!”

  Durvin pushed his way through the crowd and knelt beside Jarrod and Sir Dahl. “He might die, sir, if I don’t get him into my chambers immediately,” Durvin told Albar.

  Durvin brought in two fairly big guys to carry Sir Dahl. Javal ushered them out, closing the door. Dahl’s seconds were still on the floor.

  “You might have just killed a knight,” said Albar, pointing at Jarrod.

  “Yes,” Javal said, turning on Albar. “He might have. A knight from a border castle, who threatened to kill a rider who’s here on special orders from the king.”

  “What orders?” Albar accused.

  “If it was your business,” said Javal, “you’d know.”

  “You will tell me,” Albar pointed at Jarrod, “who you are, and what you’re doing here.”

  “Sure,” said Jarrod. “You want to discuss it closer to the window?”

  “Jarrod,” Javal warned. He turned back to Albar, continuing, “Sir Dahl threatened to kill Jarrod in order to destroy evidence of what amounts to a Gavrian act of war. That makes Sir Dahl a traitor, and that still leaves the question of these two.” He nodded to the two prone knights, who still had their hands on their heads. “If anybody is to be arrested and interrogated, I’d suggest we start with them.”

  “I don’t know these men,” said Albar.

  “Neither do I,” said Javal. “But I’m sure we will.”

  “We need to get a message to Gateskeep,” Jarrod suggested. “They need to know what’s going on.”

  Javal looked at Albar, then at Jarrod. “I’ll see that it’s done.”

  VI

  MOLTO ALLEGRO

  “In truth the science of arms is merely the science of deceiving your enemy with skill.”

  — Salvator Fabris, 1606

  You built Gavrian armor?!” Loth threw his chalice off the table and two warlords restrained him as he pulled for Ulo.

  Ulo addressed the War Table. “Come spring, we move north.”

  Loth shook them off. “We have to,” he said. “We’re lucky they haven’t declared war, yet. Gbatu, in our armor. That’s war.”

  “They won’t move on us,” said Ulo. “They can’t. Their troops are going to be tied up, chasing down the gbatu. We mass our troops now. Right now. And we start moving them through Ulorak, and into the Shieldlands from the east, at the end of winter.”

  “That puts our attack out for at least two moons,” challenged Commander Gar, who headed a large mercenary company out of Axe Valley. Gar was large and enormously fat with a heavy beard. His scarred, powerful hands still spoke of years on the battlefield behind an axe.

  Loth said, “Two moons during which your boys can pick up a fine coin or two running weapons and armor through the canyons of Falconsrealm. You should be the last one complaining.”

  “Why should we move north?” asked Hanmin. “If Albar comes around to our way, we can sit back and watch the civil war unfold. Let him do the fighting.”

  “The Hillwhites will not rise against Riongoran-Thurdin,” said Ulo. “Why do you think I did it this way?
”

  “Because you’re an idiot,” said Rute.

  “No,” said Ulo. “This is sound.”

  “To what end?”

  “We continue to arm the gbatu,” Ulo repeated calmly. “When we get there, we enlist them as an auxiliary force.”

  The room erupted again.

  Mukul lit a pipe at the window. He was tapping out the bowl over the sill before everyone had finished yelling at each other.

  “Soldiering is a calling,” Loth snarled from the far window. He was so infuriated he wouldn’t even sit at the table. “Those animals have no business on the field beside us.”

  “Their business,” Ulo insisted, “is to harass and attrit. My word, gentlemen—if ten armed sheth can tie up ten knights—”

  “What’s to keep them from attacking us with the weapons we’ve given them?”

  “The promise of more,” said Ulo. “If they attack Gavrian forces, we start arming their tribal enemies instead.”

  “You’ve worked this all out,” growled Loth.

  “Of course.”

  There was silence for a long minute.

  “Assuming we adopt this plan.”

  “Oh, it’s adopted,” said Ulo. “It can’t be undone. We must go forward.”

  “Must we,” said Loth.

  “Yes,” said Ulo. “Because they’ll solve their gbatu problem—eventually—and once they do, they’ll be coming for us with everything they’ve got.”

  “You’re mad,” said Marghan. “This is insanity. You’ve started a war.”

  “You wanted a war,” said Ulo. “You wanted Falconsrealm. It’s hanging, ready to be plucked. But you must commit. You must strike. Now. You will never have another chance.”

  “What of strategy?”

  Ulo shrugged. “Move into the Shieldlands and take Falconsrealm.”

  This brought a spiteful laugh. “It’s that easy, is it?”

  “You said you could take Falconsrealm if you had the manpower. I delivered. Now you deliver. Because if you don’t hit them, and hit them hard, next summer they’ll turn Gavria into Gateskeep South.”

  Grunts and shaking of heads.

  “Is there another difficulty?” growled Ulo.

  A warlord admitted, “Only that High River Keep is one of the best-defended castles in the world. Once we get there, how do we take it?”

  Ulo and Mukul had thought that one out weeks ago. “From within,” said Ulo. “With spies, and bribes, and assassins, and by sneaking our finest warriors in on scutage, and offering commissions in our armies for all the Falconsrealm chivalrics who cooperate.”

  “There’s still the question of Albar.”

  “He’s an ore baron,” said Ulo. “We have something he needs; he has something we want. The Hillwhites want Falconsrealm. They wouldn’t be marrying into royalty otherwise. I say let’s give it to them. They side with us, and we roll them into Gavria the way you did to Ulorak, and then we tax them. What’s the difference if the Hillwhites run Falconsrealm or we run it? The morning of the siege, he’ll open the gates for us himself.”

  All agreed, though there was much chin-rubbing and grunting.

  Ulo stood. “First, though, we use the gbatu to draw out troops from the castles and forts along the main road to High River. The local lords will have to side with us.”

  “They could make us starve them out. It could take moons.”

  “If they hole up,” said Ulo, “we massacre the town.”

  There was swearing around the table.

  Rute stood up. “I will have no part of this!”

  “Do you want to know how I defeated the Eastern Freehold?” Ulo asked. “This. The willingness to wage absolute, comprehensive warfare. This is why I have the foundations of an empire if I so choose, and you do not.”

  Marghan’s words were deliberate. “Choose your next words carefully, wizard.”

  “I chose to ally myself with Gavria,” said Ulo. “Make no mistake. You saw what I’d done, and you wanted my expertise. This is what I bring you.”

  “You’ve brought us a war.”

  “Yes. And I’ll win it for you. But we win it my way. Surround them. Starve them. Hit them with what they fear—armed hordes of gbatu—and then if they don’t cooperate, burn the villages to the ground. Leave the limbs and heads of their children in piles outside the front gates.”

  “You’ll never find a Gavrian warrior who’d do it,” said Loth.

  “If they won’t, I’ve got men in my own army who will. Men who make Lord Elgast of Skullsmortar look like a generous and kindly benefactor.”

  “He’s insane,” someone said. “We’ve brought a madman to the War Table.”

  Ulo bristled at him. “I would think you’d rather have a man like me on your side.”

  Gar stepped in. “Once we’ve manned the other strategic points along the mountains, we launch one massive assault. When we get to High River, we make them the same offer.”

  “What’s to keep Gateskeep from coming in behind us?” offered someone.

  “Look at those mountains,” Gar stabbed his finger down on the map. “There are only two roads out. Long Valley and Axe Valley. If the western side of Gateskeep was passable we’d have taken Gateskeep eons ago. No one travels there. When they come around the mountains, we’ll see them. And we’ll hold the Princess as our insurance against a coup, or a full-on assault.”

  “Albar will never go for that,” said Loth.

  Gar’s voice was low and cold. “Please, let him argue.”

  Ulo was quiet for a moment. “Fine,” he decided.

  Loth spoke. “Once we’ve taken High River Keep—which, as you say, Albar may do for us—we’ll have our new base of operations. So let’s get some men inside working for us—Commander Gar is on that, already—and then let’s get there. The minor details will sort themselves out as we go. Right?”

  “You know that if we start leveling towns, Gateskeep will fight an all-out war.”

  Ulo smiled a slow, wicked smile. “That’s coming, regardless. This way, they fight us on our terms.”

  Gar’s smile mirrored his. “Now, he’s thinking like a warrior,” he commended to the rest of the table.

  Loth grumbled, “And not a moment too soon.”

  Two days later, Jarrod rode beneath the barbican into the village of Horlech. It was noon, and they’d been riding since early morning.

  Both knights of the Stallion assigned to Edwin’s Keep had vanished.

  To be fair, people vanished all the time around here, Jarrod found. It unnerved him. It wasn’t like anyone traveled the countryside with a GPS tracking system in their phone. However, with the disappearance of the two knights, the joke circulated in High River that there had been another pitchfork accident.

  The issue, Jarrod had learned, was that the knights had been assigned to Edwin’s Tower to curb Edwin’s predilection for procuring bedmates from the townsfolk, something that wouldn’t have been a big deal in sex-positive Falconsrealm except that Edwin preferred to have his men bring him prospective bed bunnies at swordpoint.

  In a culture so awesomely sexually empowered that getting your sword waxed was practically the national sport, Jarrod figured it would take a special kind of illness to resort to rape.

  It wasn’t unthinkable that these guys had been offed for getting in the way of the duke’s recreational activities. They’d specifically been tasked with cramping his style at every turn. And not just to fuck with him, but to prevent an insurrection in the town, which consisted of a large garrison of Gateskeep and Falconsrealm soldiers.

  He cracked his knuckles again. He’d been cracking them a lot as they rode. He looked forward to meeting this guy.

  Javal was ahead of him, on a black mare with a white blaze that Jarrod had heard was one of the most expensive horses in Falconsrealm. These were well-patrolled roads, so they wore simple clothes and led a single pony with their armor.

  This was
Jarrod’s new riding horse, a sleek black mare like Javal’s that he’d named Lilith. She was light-footed and fast and had a smooth, rolling single-foot gait that took little effort from him to ride; he’d fallen asleep in the saddle just this afternoon. And best of all, she was small enough that he could backflip into the saddle, even in his light shirt of mail. That had impressed the living shit out of everyone who’d watched him struggling with Perseus for the past quarter moon.

  His helmet hung from his saddle beside the gran espée de guerre.

  He was hungry.

  At the top of the hill ahead of them slouched Edwin’s Keep, the nearly-fallen tower on the Gateskeep border.

  Jarrod had gotten the skinny on Edwin during the ride. Edwin was Albar’s eldest brother, a patrician and ridiculously rich. His title of duke was honorary and for all intents and purposes, bought.

  Jarrod was beginning to loathe politics the way Javal did.

  Most of the nobility contributed in a measurable capacity—hunting, breeding horses, negotiating trade, managing the affairs of the castle, mediating affairs and disputes—which is where the local feudal model broke down from its Earth counterpart. Everyone worked, it seemed. Except guys like Edwin. Tall, handsome, moneyed, and thoroughly superfluous. He’d been given a sagging tower on the Gateskeep-Falconsrealm border mostly to keep him occupied. Plus, he had the money to keep fixing it.

  With no real power or position, Jarrod had pointed out to Javal—and correctly—that Edwin would have a tremendous amount to gain by siding with Gavria. The fact that the Hillwhites had made their fortunes in the ore trade amplified this. If there was a war, they stood to gain tremendously.

  They stopped for lunch at a tavern whose door opened onto the road between Horlech and the great tower. It was a soldiers’ hangout, and Javal was on good terms with the owner and a couple of the servers. Lunch was fried turnips with yellow tomatoes and bacon, and quart-sized steins of beer. Lots of steely-eyed guys lounging around and drinking. Quite a few offered them salutes with their steins. Jarrod felt better. These were his people.

  They armored up outside, Jarrod in his heaviest mail—he’d brought three shirts of it from Earth in varying weights and this one was heavy-gauge wire from welded, case-hardened steel—his coat of plates, and a Damascus steel gorget and mantle with matching grand pauldrons, the metal rippled in a spectacular tree-ring design. Over this he threw his black titanium coif and donned his huge steel Barbute, clipping his custom bite guard to a tether around a small bar inside the locking visor.