Dragon Hunters

by Marc Turner

  Darbonna was still staring after the Storm Guard.

  “Mistress Darbonna!”

  “What’s that?” the old woman said, turning. She seemed to remember suddenly what company she was in, for she attempted a curtsy. As she struggled to straighten afterward, Senar offered her an arm. “Bless you, my dear,” she said as she took it.

  Pernay rose from his throne. “Mistress Darbonna, I am Chief Minister Pernay Ord. We are grateful to you for coming at so late an hour.”

  “Oh, think nothing of it. In truth I had expected your summons much sooner. You are curious, no doubt, to know what I and my associates have been getting up to these past few months.”

  A pause. Even Senar watched her closely.

  “What you’ve been getting up to?” Pernay said.

  “Yes, indeed. Work on the library continues apace. There is much still to do, of course, for while every scroll has been logged, and many translated—”

  “You misunderstand.”

  “—just last week all six of Abologog’s Treatises on Reverence were found in a chest washed up on—”

  The chief minister held up a hand. “You misunderstand,” he said again. “We did not call you here to talk about the library. We wish to discuss the quake.”

  Darbonna’s eyes brightened. “Cake?” she said, looking round. “Most kind.”

  “Quake, I said! You must have felt the tremors yesterday.”

  “Oh, the tremors,” the old woman said, her face falling. “I should not worry about those. True, they are becoming stronger, but as yet the citadel has suffered no ill effects.” She frowned. “Though Master Barlaby did have an unfortunate fall—”

  “We are more concerned with what the tremors are doing to the rest of the city.”

  Darbonna waved away the fate of thousands with a casual hand. “Oh, I rarely leave the citadel. So much work to do, yet so little time to do it in. Even I cannot go on forever, aha.” This last was an attempt at humor, Senar realized. Darbonna shot him an expectant look, and he forced a smile. Entertaining though it was to see the chief minister struggle with the old woman, Senar was too busy readying himself for his imminent showdown with Imerle to appreciate it.

  Pernay said, “From where in the citadel do the tremors originate?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The tremors! Where do they come from?”

  “I really couldn’t say. There are leagues of passages, you understand, and thousands of chambers. My assistants have explored only a fraction of them.” Her look became thoughtful. “Although…”

  “Yes?”

  “In the East Wing there is a ramp that leads down to a lower level. The way is blocked by a sorcerous barrier.” She looked at the faces about her. “These are earth tremors, are they not? Perhaps something under the fortress is causing them.”

  Mazana snorted. “Yes, perhaps there is a titan blundering about in the basement. Maybe we should call down and ask him to stand still.”

  Senar suspected he was the only one to see Darbonna’s eyes narrow in response to the Storm Lady’s words.

  “Whatever the cause,” Pernay said, “it needs to be investigated.”

  “I’d have thought,” Mazana said, “we have more immediate things to worry about. Earlier today I was speaking to our irascible Master of Coin, and he told me of a rumor of the treasury borrowing from merchants in Olaire—perhaps to finance the payouts to mysterious owners of mysterious disappearing ships that Thane told us about.”

  “We have already discussed Thane’s groundless—”

  “As I recall, the issue was just put to one side after Gensu’s death. Perhaps now is the time for a meeting of the full Storm Council to discuss these matters.” A twinkle in Mazana’s eye made it clear she believed Imerle had something to hide.

  The emira exchanged a look with Pernay, and Senar wondered at the strength of their bond that they seemed able to communicate with a mere glance. The chief minister’s slow smile suggested Mazana was about to regret goading Imerle.

  “Mazana,” the emira said, “maybe you should investigate this ramp.”

  The Storm Lady stared at her. “Me?”

  “It was you who suggested Jambar speak to us about the tremors, wasn’t it? Clearly you thought them a cause for concern.”

  “In case you had forgotten, Imerle, tomorrow is Dragon Day. The Gate rises at the ninth bell—”

  “Then you’d best make an early start. We are sure Mistress Darbonna would be delighted to show you around the citadel.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Imerle—” Mazana began.

  The emira spoke over her. “Chief Minister, perhaps you would arrange a suitable escort for the Storm Lady.”

  “At once,” Pernay said, already striding toward the underwater passage.

  “I hardly think—” Mazana tried again.

  “Guardian,” Imerle said, looking at Senar, “would you stay with us.” Then to the Storm Lady, “Don’t let us keep you.”

  Senar couldn’t see Mazana’s expression, but he sensed her anger in the pause that followed the emira’s words, then in the clicking of her heels as she retreated from the chamber. Darbonna glanced from one woman to the other, her look bemused. She made to speak before appearing to think better of it. She shuffled after Mazana.

  Their footfalls faded.

  Imerle’s mouth was a thin line as she regarded Senar. The flames in her eyes had not subsided. “Tell us again what happened this evening,” she said at last.

  The Guardian took a breath. Now was the time, he knew, to fill in the gaps Mazana had left in her account. Something made him hold back, though. He found himself questioning his hesitation. Why should he protect Mazana’s secrets? Earlier he’d saved her life, and she’d repaid him by dropping him in the brown stuff from a great height. And while the emira had done nothing to earn his loyalty, the same was true of the Storm Lady. Admittedly there was a certain vulnerability in Mazana he felt drawn to, but that just made it more important that he maintain his distance. His concern here was not to commit himself to either woman, but rather to keep his head down until he could return to Erin Elal.

  He could only hope that by refusing to choose sides he didn’t make himself an enemy of both.

  In response to Imerle’s words he shrugged. “What more do you wish to know?”

  “You can start by answering the question Mazana did not. What was she doing out at this time of night?”

  There was nothing to be gained by withholding the truth, since the belligerent Watchman would be reporting to the emira soon enough. “She was visiting the temple of the Lord of Hidden Faces.”

  “You followed her to the shrine but did not enter?”

  “Correct.”

  “And the assassin attacked as she came out?”

  The Guardian nodded.

  “Then why,” Imerle said, articulating each word clearly, “did you intervene?”

  Senar did not respond. In his world, you didn’t need a reason to help someone against an assassin. Unless you were the assassin, of course—and that had been Senar’s job on more occasions than he cared to remember: that Falcon krel in Pagan; the Arapian sacristen; a dozen minor lordlings in the estates around Kal Kartin. But killing in cold blood was something he’d always done with a sense of regret, and never to further his own ends. As a Guardian you didn’t get to choose what missions you were given. And Senar trusted the Council to know when a death was necessary, even if he didn’t agree with their judgment.

  Not the emira, though. He would not kill for her, whatever was at stake.

  His skin prickled, and he looked at the executioner. As ever the giant was staring at some point in the distance. It just so happened, though, that that point was now between Senar’s eyes. Was saving Mazana’s life about to cost the Guardian his own? He looked back at the emira. “You told me to watch her.”

  “That is right, we told you to watch her.”

  “Was the assassin yours?” he aske
d to buy time.

  “Did you stop to consider she might have been?”

  “If that were the case, I’d like to think you would have warned me beforehand.”

  “And if we had warned you?”

  Senar drew himself up to his full height. For what that was worth. “My sword is yours, Emira,” he said. He spoke the words with as much conviction as he could muster, yet they sounded hollow even to his own ears. The lines about Imerle’s eyes tightened, and the Guardian wondered again what Jambar had seen in his future that could make her overlook her obvious mistrust of him. The shaman would not want to tell him, of course, but if Senar made it out of here alive he would track down the old man and shake him until he rattled like that bag of bones of his.

  The emira broke the silence. “Perhaps you should go with Mazana to the citadel.”

  So he could have the same accident she did? “As you command.”

  Imerle closed her eyes once more, and for a while the only sound was the hiss of waves breaking against the seawall. Senar was beginning to think he was dismissed when she spoke again. “This assassin was not ours, Guardian.”

  But the next one might be—was that what she was saying?

  Senar studied her, then nodded. “I understand.”

  * * *

  The buzz of the crowds grew louder as Karmel swam round the cliff toward the Dragon Gate. When she entered the Cappel Strait a wave of feverish noise rolled over her. The gate was a stone’s throw to the south, and through its links she could make out the Dianese and Natillian terraces bathed in torchlight. Midway between the two cities a wooden platform invested with air-magic hovered high above the sea. On it, Veran had told her, a champion brawler from each of Dian and Natilly would be battling to pitch his opponent over the edge and into the dragon-infested waters below. The fight had been going on since Karmel set out from the boat, yet a resolution still seemed some way off. For while the priestess could see nothing of the combatants from her vantage point, she could hear their seesawing fortunes in the alternating cheers and groans of their supporters.

  Karmel’s hand brushed something as she swam, but it was only a sandal floating on the greasy waves. The strait smelled as foul as an open grave, yet that wasn’t surprising considering how many bodies the priestess had spied in the water during her swim. Victims of too much revelry, no doubt. Beyond the gate there was no sign of the dragons that had whipped the channel to froth this morning, but they would be out there somewhere, she knew, waiting to claim whichever fighter fell from the platform. And while the priestess kept reminding herself the creatures were on the other side of the gate, still she found herself expecting the sea in front of her to erupt as one of the beasts rose from the depths.

  Suppressing a shudder, she quickened her pace.

  Ahead Veran pulled himself through the water with powerful strokes, staying close to the cliff to lessen the chance of being seen from above. When he reached the gate his shadow seemed to dissolve into the rock face. Karmel blinked, then remembered the groove in the cliff he’d told her about. Three more strokes and she saw it—a vertical indentation perhaps two armspans wide and as many deep. Within the recess Veran had hauled himself onto the lowest of the gate’s horizontal bars. As Karmel drew near he offered her a hand, but she did not take it, for at that instant a collective gasp had escaped the people on the terraces. Curious, she looked south.

  In time to see a figure fall from the platform. No, two figures, she realized: one short and thick-necked and naked but for a loincloth, the other tall and long-haired and wearing silver bands round his wrists and ankles. It seemed the result of the contest would be a draw, though Karmel doubted the two fighters would get a chance at a rematch.

  The fools were still grappling as they hit the water.

  Veran growled something at the priestess. She ignored him. What would happen if one of the champions swam to the gate and saw her? The dragons would have been alerted to their tumble by the splash, but the men were only fifty armspans from the portcullis. Surely one of them …

  Her thoughts trailed off as a vast shadow materialized from the darkness at the end of the strait—a shadow that burst into golden light as it entered the waterway and caught the glow of the torches on the terraces. The dragon glided forward, silent as moonlight yet swift as a landslide, and Karmel watched transfixed as jets of water spurted from its nostrils to strike one of the champions where he’d surfaced. The man had time only to voice a strangled cry before he was plucked from the sea.

  Crunch, crunch.

  Another growl from Veran. This one had a note of warning in it, and Karmel noticed rushing toward her a wave of water displaced by the dragon’s coming. It would be on her in moments. She cursed and twisted round, snatched for her companion’s hand.

  Missed.

  Veran, though, did not. His fingers closed round her wrist like bands of iron, and he heaved her into the recess just as the wave came hissing through the gate’s links. She collided with the priest before slumping down to sit astride the rusty bar on which he stood. A groan escaped her lips. Her arm felt as if it had been wrenched from its socket, yet she’d escaped lightly, she knew. Another heartbeat and she would have been swept by the wave along the strait and into the Sabian Sea. She could feel Veran’s glare on her back, but she did not turn to look at him. Instead she massaged her shoulder and listened to the clink of bottles bobbing on the sea outside the recess.

  A second shriek sounded from the strait, quickly cut off.

  A grunt from Veran brought Karmel’s head round. Evidently he was keen to make a start on climbing the gate because he had unslung a length of rope from his shoulder and was coiling one end to form a noose. The distance between the horizontal bars of the portcullis was such that he could not simply reach up and grab the link above. But the end of each crosspiece stood out from the gate, allowing him to cast his noose up and over the bar immediately overhead. That done, he tugged on the rope to secure it before shimmying up like a deckhand up a ship’s rigging. Karmel watched him repeat the maneuver once, twice, three times.

  He vanished from sight into the gloom above.

  And not so much as a word of farewell, either.

  She leaned back against the cliff to wait.

  The recess was as cool as a cave. Karmel’s wet clothes were plastered to her body, and she moved her hands along her arms to rub some warmth into them. Then she stood up. It would take Veran half a bell of muscle-numbing toil to make the ascent, but after a day spent prowling their basement lodgings, Karmel would happily have exchanged his role for hers. If there’d been room to pace in the recess she would have done so. Instead she had to settle for rocking backward and forward on her feet. Why could she not stay still?

  There was a splashing sound, and she stiffened. It came from the south—the dragons’ side of the gate. Looking out of the recess, Karmel saw the golden-scaled beast swim close to the portcullis and dip its snout into the sea. When its head next rose, its luminous eyes seemed to fix on Karmel’s position. She drew back. There was no way the creature could see her in the recess, and even if it did it wouldn’t be able to get to her. If it came sniffing round, though, might it attract the attention of someone on the terraces?

  The priestess waited, senses straining for the ripple of water or the rustle of scales that would signal the dragon’s approach.

  After a hundred heartbeats she risked another look out.

  The dragon had retreated to the cliff below Natilly and was now rubbing the top of its head against the rock face.

  Just then a fizzing crackle sounded, and a curtain of fire roared into life in the sky to the south, momentarily blinding Karmel with its flash. When her vision cleared she saw flames coalescing over the Ribbon Sea to form an image of ships on a turbulent swell. She realized she was about to witness a sorcerous reenactment of last year’s Dragon Hunt. There was the fiery Dragon Gate, its lower half streaming water as it lifted clear of the waves. Beneath it kindled a spark that grew in siz
e to become a dragon. Wreathed in flames, the creature hurtled like a comet toward the waiting ships. A hail of arrows and spears arced out to meet it, only to deflect off the beast’s armor.

  Karmel’s skin tingled as she watched the drama unfold. What with the cold and the wet, she’d managed to forget that tomorrow was Dragon Day. Earlier Veran had wearied her ears with his endless retellings of the plan to reach the control room—or, at least, those parts of the plan he’d confided in her. As Karmel had expected, he’d kept his pack with him at all times to ensure she couldn’t look at what he’d brought to disable the capstan. With little else to occupy her mind, the priestess had spent much of the day thinking on what his secret might be, but the riddle had defeated her. If that secret had been cause for alarm, though, wouldn’t Caval have told her about it in Olaire?

  Like he told you about the plan to climb the Dragon Gate?

  A memory stirred of her brother’s remoteness when they’d parted on the beach. A distance had grown between them of late—a distance that had first opened when Caval was made high priest at a secret meeting of the temple’s elite last summer. The events of that day remained fresh in Karmel’s mind. Her brother had come to her to break the news of his accession, and they’d walked arm in arm to their father’s quarters to tell him of his ousting. Afterward Caval had wept, and Karmel had held him until the sobs subsided. It was the only time she’d ever seen him cry. Even after the beatings he’d taken from their father, it had always been Caval consoling her. Looking back, she’d hoped that by gaining some measure of revenge over their father, Caval might have exorcised the ghosts of his past. If anything, though, his gaze had grown more haunted than ever.

  Then came the contest to become Honorary Blade. When Vallans had died, Caval had defended Karmel against the people who’d said she had killed him on purpose. Afterward, though, they had argued. Karmel had said things she regretted. As tempers rose, Caval had raised his hand like he meant to slap her. For an instant it had seemed to Karmel as if she were looking not at her brother, but her father. The episode had sent Caval into a despair from which it had taken him days to surface. After that he’d avoided Karmel for a while. He had hidden from her—or so it had felt.