Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3)

by Lauren Gilley

  “I thought,” the furious Grand Vizier hissed, voice low though they were alone, “that I could at least depend on you to echo my reasoning. And here you are encouraging his delusions!”

  Val halted and turned to face the man, surprised to see that, at some point in the last few years, he’d grown a good head taller than him. He had to look downward now to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry. Were you under the impression that you and I are allies in some way?”

  The Grand Vizier bit his lip, visibly holding back a retort. He lowered his voice again; Val wouldn’t have been able to hear it if not for vampiric hearing. “This siege is a fool’s errand. It can’t be done! And he’ll die throwing himself against those walls. Then where will the Empire be? Who will take control? His sons are mere babes at the teat!”

  Val shrugged.

  “You’re encouraging him!”

  “On the contrary. I’m his favorite whore. I have no influence.”

  He fumed. “You have his ear–”

  “I have his cock,” Val corrected.

  The Grand Vizier’s face purpled with impressive speed. “You can’t – can’t just say that!”

  “Why not?” Val shrugged. “It’s the truth. I’m only trying to be honest.”

  The vizier stood up on his toes and thrust his face into Val’s, flecks of spit landing on Val’s cheeks as he spoke. A low, furious whisper, veins standing out along his temples. “You are an abomination. A filthy temptress with a cock swinging between your legs – and you’re not even human. You’ve enchanted him, haven’t you? Bent him to your sick perversions? You’re a creature born of no god, and you’ll drive him, and our whole empire, into ruin to satisfy your lust.” Chest heaving when he was done, body vibrating with barely checked fury.

  Val held his gaze, unblinking, until the man’s ankles began to shake and he lowered back down, flat-footed on the stones. And then Val chased him, ducking low, hair swinging forward. He opened his mouth and activated that untouchable muscle in his jaw, that tiny flex, so that his fangs descended, long and proud, so they gleamed in the afternoon sunlight that spilled through the window, unmistakable.

  “On the contrary.” He let the growl come into his voice, a low purr that ribbed every word. “My father was born of a very particular god. And if you’re so curious about what’s between my legs, you could always ask to see it. Or grab a handful for yourself.” He made an exaggerated lunge with his own hand, straight for the vizier’s crotch.

  The man jumped back with a yelp, and Val pushed out a laugh. “You’re the one who sent that letter,” Val reminded, as Halil Pasha whirled around and went charging back down the corridor. “You wrote to Emperor Constantine and told him to release Orhan! To send the Hungarians! To send all of them!” He chased him around the corner with another loud, braying laugh, and then he was gone.

  Val snapped his jaw shut, retracted his fangs; the aftereffect of forced laughter tasted like bile on his tongue, and he swallowed it down.

  He whirled and continued on his way.

  Nestor and Arslan waited for him, as instructed, in his bedchamber. Arslan sat on a low stool, polishing Val’s spare boots, but Nestor-Iskander sat uneasily on the trunk at the foot of the bed, and leaped to his feet when Val entered.

  Arslan looked up with a small smile for Val, silently laughing at Nestor’s nervousness.

  “Sit down, sit down,” Val said with a wave, and shut the door. He pressed his ear to it a moment, listening, but could detect nothing out in the hallway. “Arslan, stop working, come sit.”

  Both boys settled on the trunk and Val pulled out the bench at his dressing table and sat across from them. Energy coursed through him, and he wanted to pace – but he also didn’t want to make them anxious. And he wanted to be looking at their faces, to really press his point home and judge their reluctance for himself.

  “Alright, you two.” Serious glance between them. “I trust this is a given. But. You know what I am, don’t you? What I really am?”

  Arslan’s eyes got big, and he bit at his lip, but he nodded.

  Nestor’s eyes got even bigger. “Oh. Um. I. Your grace…”

  “You’ve suspected, at least? Or there’s been gossip?”

  The Russian scribe blushed. “A little, your grace.”

  Arslan turned to him. “It’s not like the stories,” he said with uncharacteristic boldness. “He’s not evil. He’s not a demon.” Almost scolding.

  “I know that,” Nestor huffed. But he looked at Val with uncertainty. “I know that you drink…I’ve seen it put into cups, and I…” He gulped.

  Val chuckled in spite of himself. No one around here was frightened of him; this boy’s nerves were refreshing, actually. “Here, look.” He lifted his lip with his thumb and pushed his fangs out again.

  Nestor startled.

  Arslan snorted a quiet laugh.

  Val dropped his hand. “Lots of creatures have fangs,” he said primly. “Wolves, and bears, and foxes, and even bats. It’s how they eat. Well…in my case. Drink.”

  Nestor swallowed with obvious difficulty. “But you eat food. I’ve seen you.”

  “Yes. I need both to survive. Arslan’s right: it’s not like in the stories.” He held out his hand. “I’m real, I’m alive. I’m warm. I’m not the undead.”

  Nestor looked at his hand a long second before he took a breath and squared his shoulders, like he was preparing to go into battle.

  “It’s a good thing you told me about all your languages,” Val said, “because you’d make a terrible soldier.”

  Nestor frowned, and reached to lay his hand over the back of Val’s.

  “See? Warm,” Val said, and withdrew. “You should also know that your sultan is a vampire as well.”

  Nestor’s brows jumped.

  Arslan said, “He’s not my sultan.”

  “Hush, you,” Val said. “But, listen. The reason I speak of it now, is that I need to explain something to you. I need you to understand it because I’m going to get you both away from here.”

  They started to protest, together, and Val held up a hand. “No. I can handle this life. My future is already set here, but I won’t have you two suffer similar fates. I can’t…” He took a tight breath, and his gaze strayed to Arslan, memories of his bruises and his terror flooding back, painful. “Let me protect you,” he said, softly, and Arslan looked away with guilt. “Let me, please.”

  And he told them of his dream-walking.

  He explained it in limited terms, to protect them, should they ever be questioned about it – and to protect himself. He left out Constantine, and any specific destinations.

  “In the chaos of the coming battle,” he said, “I think I can get you both away. But I’ll need your secrecy, and your cooperation.”

  Arslan nodded straight away, though his big gold lion’s eyes brimmed with sadness. He’d grown attached, Val knew, just as he knew it would pain him to no longer see the boy’s sweet face once he was gone. But he was determined now.

  Nestor looked less convinced. He fidgeted, knocking his boots together at the ankles. “It sounds…forgive me, but it sounds impossible.”

  “So does everything, at first. For instance, I’ve just told you I can send my mind across continents.”

  A shaky breath. A nod. “What would happen to you? If the sultan knew you’d helped us escape?”

  Val offered a smile. “You let me worry about that. There’s nothing he can throw at me that I can’t take.”

  ~*~

  Constantine picked his head up – he’d been sitting with his chin in his hand, gaze growing distant as a cardinal wheedled at him about the Schism yet again – and noticed Val standing at the back of the room. He nudged George Sphrantzes with his elbow and flapped a hand at the cardinal and his retinue. “That’s enough, Paul. No more for now. Leave us.”

  The cardinal let out an aborted sound of frustration, a bitten-back protest he thought better of, and jerked to his feet. His retinue, all of the gilded church
set, stood and together they trooped out of the room, surly-faced as a bunch of wet nurses with ill-tempered charges.

  None of them noticed Val because he didn’t allow them to.

  Sphrantzes blew out a relieved breath when they were gone. “You should pop in more often,” he told Val. “How about every time those pompous windbags show their faces?”

  “I’d like nothing more, sir,” Val said, gliding forward and projecting himself down into one of the vacated chairs, legs crossed at the knee so that the candlelight flashed off his polished boots. “But my own windbag keeps me busy, I’m afraid.”

  Sphrantzes snorted in disgust – disgust and solidarity. Val found that he appreciated it.

  “We thank you for the interruption,” Constantine said. “But I’m assuming you’re here on business.”

  “Now, that stings,” Val said, and meant it.

  Constantine smiled, soft and chagrined. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m always glad for your company.”

  It shouldn’t have warmed him – it was a pathetic thing, really, someone enjoying his presence, spectral though it may have been. But, well, Val was a pathetic thing himself. So he smiled and was thankful.

  “No, you’re right. There’s business to be discussed.” Arslan was watching the door for him, but he didn’t have any idea how long it would be before Mehmet came knocking. “I came to tell you that we’ve arrived at the fortress, and it’s full speed ahead on the battle plans. Mehmet intends to conquer all the lands between here and the Bosporus, and likely will either capture the people there, or put them to the sword to send you a message.” He was a little appalled by his matter-of-fact tone. He’d grown jaded with Mehmet’s practices at this point.

  Sphrantzes swore, but Constantine stroked his beard and took a measured breath.

  “I have to, by all outward appearances, support the sultan.”

  “Of course.”

  “But I will help you when I can, coming here and giving you information.”

  Sphrantzes said, “Doesn’t Mehmet know that sacking this city is impossible?”

  Val felt a bitter smile touch his mouth. “Impossible is the theme of the day, don’t you know?”

  ~*~

  Val stood – or gave the impression that he did – beside the emperor on a dangerous little ledge that ran around the topmost dome of the St. Sophia cathedral; one of the highest points in all of Constantinople. Hands shading their eyes, for all the good it did Val, they could just make out the bustle of activity six miles away, across the deep-water inlet of the Golden Horn, up the rise toward the site of Mehmet’s Throat-Cutter.

  Below them, heat mirages shimmered in the narrow, twisting streets and alleys of the city, a deep-baked summer heat that Val could neither feel nor smell, but which he imagined. Back in his bedchamber, those six miles distant, doubtless his unconscious body sweated through his clothes.

  “The walls have gone up quickly,” Constantine said with deceptive mildness. He rested his hand on a thin metal railing, the breeze tugging at his curls, and the long lines of his royal tunic. He turned to Val. “How is this possible?”

  I warned you, Val wanted to say. I told you he could accomplish this. Instead, he said, “The Ottoman Empire is vast, densely populated, and diverse. Mehmet pays well, and he punishes severely. His workers are motivated, and there are plenty of them.”

  Constantine wiped a hand down his face, and he looked exhausted. “Meanwhile, we’ve slowly bled dry. The religious divide is crippling us.”

  As was the city’s economic downswing, one which seemed to be a lasting condition, and not a momentary trend.

  “I’ve sent missives,” Constantine said. “He’s building that fortress on land that doesn’t belong to him. This is a breach of our treaty.”

  “The treaty hangs by a thread,” Val said, as gently as possible. “Threatening to turn Orhan loose again…”

  Constantine groaned. “We underestimated Mehmet. When his father died, all of Europe rejoiced. Mehmet was young, and we’d all heard the stories that his head was turned by, well…” He trialed off, and Val looked away from his pointed glance.

  Constantine had never come outright and asked Val about his relationship with the sultan. Val wasn’t going to start offering that story up freely now.

  “You thought,” he said, “that the threat of Orhan’s existence, him free to rally a force of his own and challenge for the throne, would distract Mehmet for a time. I’m telling you” – as he’d told him before – “that Mehmet thinks he’s the second coming of Alexander. Nothing will keep him from attempting to take this city. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “He’ll try to draw you out. He likes that – playing games. He’ll do something to provoke you.”

  “I won’t respond to it.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Val,” the emperor said. “Have you ever thought of…can you not slip away? At night? It’s only that you’re so close now.” He gestured toward the distant activity, a bustle like a disturbed ant hill. “If you could get away from Mehmet…”

  Val shook his head. “No. No, that won’t…no.” A bare smile. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

  ~*~

  The next morning, Mehmet’s eyes had that glazed, feverish look to them after they’d looked at the map. A runner came to tell him about the latest fortress developments, and Nestor came to give a quiet word to Val about Arslan: he was up and nibbling on flatbread and honey for breakfast.

  Val felt lighter. Comparatively. A faint nausea still tinged his belly, but that was normal by now; he wasn’t sure what he’d do without that sensation, truth told.

  “Have our horses saddled,” Mehmet said to one of his slaves. “And gather our clothes. We’re going riding.”

  “Riding where?” Val asked with raised brows.

  “You’ll see.” He sounded far too pleased with himself.

  An hour later saw them riding up to the tiny square of one of the little farming villages that lay between the Throat-Cutter and the outpost of Galata, just across the straight from Constantinople. Ottoman soldiers lined both cross streets – no more than dirt footpaths – that met at the square, and at the center, a huddle of village men, farmers in roughspun with falling-apart shoes. They ranged in age from barely ten, to barely alive, white-haired and stooped. Val thought it might be the entirety of the village’s male population.

  He reined his horse up and turned a dark look toward Mehmet. “What is this?”

  Mehmet smiled at him. “A bit of sport. Come, Radu.” He slid out of the saddle and tossed his reins to the soldier who’d stepped up to hold the stallion’s bridle.

  Val’s chestnut mare fidgeted beneath him, and he laid a quelling hand on her neck.

  “Radu,” Mehmet called over his shoulder, sing-song – he never liked to shout or scowl at him in front of witnesses.

  With a bitten back groan, Val dismounted and handed his reins off; followed the sultan the short distance to the knot of men.

  Mehmet’s janissary guards fell in around the two of them as a physical barrier – not that any of the villagers seemed wont to launch an attack. They all cowered, big-eyed, shaking, fathers held the shoulders of young sons, keeping them tucked in tight against their bodies, as if they could spare them. Most were rough-featured, but a few of the teenagers bore softer profiles, almost pretty under the dirt of farm work.

  Val’s breakfast curdled in his stomach.

  Mehmet stepped forward, janissaries clearing a path with gauntleted hands and upheld spears. He leaned in to expect the most beautiful of the boys, the one with a cap of tight black curls and big amber eyes. He was maybe fourteen or fifteen, with an elfin face and thin, shaking shoulders.

  Mehmet smiled to himself. “Yes, this one.”

  Two soldiers reached in and seized the boy by the arms.

  “No!” A man – his father; he had the same eyes – shouted, trying to shove forward through the crowd. His friend
s held him back, though he clawed and scrabbled to get loose. “No! Please! He’s my only son!” Tears shone in his eyes.

  “You’re spirited,” Mehmet told him. He jerked his head to another pair of soldiers. “He’ll make a good slave. Put him in irons.”

  “No!”

  The boy began to cry as he was led away, and a clanking set of chains and cuffs was hauled from a saddlebag for his father.

  “That one,” Mehmet said, pointing out another boy, who was grabbed and pulled from another pleading father. He turned to Val. “I’ll give you your pick, Radu. Any of the rest to replace your boy who was damaged.”

  Val clenched his hands until his nails bit into his palms. “No. Arslan is all I need.”

  Mehmet shrugged. “Suit yourself.” And went back to his sorting.

  Three other young ones joined the first two, and the able-bodied fathers and husbands were shackled and smacked into submission with spear butts.

  Val was just starting to wonder where the women were hiding when the door of a homely little cottage flew wide, and a plump woman in a white apron came flying out, skirt flaring all around her, face red and wet with tears.

  “No!” she cried. “No, my baby–”

  A soldier tripped her with the end of a spear, and she collapsed in a pitiful sprawl, sobbing.

  Mehmet turned to the captain of his janissary guard. “Take these back. Keep the men chained. The boys will be castrated. Kill the rest here.”

  Val rode ahead, grinding his teeth together, body drawn so tight he ached. His mare danced beneath him, and though he patted her, he couldn’t calm himself.

  Mehmet caught up to him, probably much to the relief of the two guards who’d felt the need to flank Val, wide-eyed and worried; having their noble charges split up left them on-edge.