Dragon Hunters

by Marc Turner

  Two dragons that both swam west along the cliffs rather than heading for the deeper waters to the north? Agenta looked east again. The Majestic had come to a stop, and soldiers were taking up positions along its rails. Beyond, a single-masted galley was running north away from the Dragon Gate—

  “Gods below!” Farrell breathed.

  Agenta’s skin prickled. A third dragon, bronze-scaled this time, rose from the sea off the galley’s port beam, shattering the oars on that side. Screams sounded across the waves. From the Storm Guards around Agenta a murmur went up, but it died down at an order from an officer. Gerrick Long, who moments before had been demanding Orsan take the Icewing forward, now called for the ship to flee north.

  “Eyes to port!” someone cried, and Agenta looked left to see the silver dragon lift its head from the waves. Sunlight glittered off its scales. It studied the ship through slitted eyes, then trumpeted a challenge that sent water spraying from its nostrils.

  Agenta was shouldered aside by a pikeman rushing to join his companions at the port rail. As one, the pikemen lowered their weapons to form a line of steel.

  “Archers!” an officer shouted, and there was a creak of flax fibers as the bowmen drew back on their bowstrings.

  “Fire!”

  A hail of arrows whipped out.

  The dragon was already sinking beneath the waves, though. Most of the missiles sailed past. A handful clipped the top of its armored head. The invested arrows among them exploded with a booming hiss as if a crate of tindersparks had ignited.

  The sea rippled silver as the dragon swam beneath the Icewing to the starboard side.

  All eyes followed its passage, but the beast did not resurface.

  From the east Agenta heard screams, wood splintering, the trumpeting of dragons. A dozen of the creatures now prowled the Sabian waters, and a chorus of voices joined Gerrick Long’s in calling for the Icewing to retreat. Still the kalischa could see no sign of Orsan. From Dian a horn started up again, shrill and insistent. Then above that …

  “What’s that noise?” Agenta said to Farrell.

  The merchant stared at her blankly.

  She cocked her head. Had she imagined it? No, there it was again. A rustle of water building to a roar.

  And now she was not the only one to have heard it, for cries of warning went up from the Storm Guards at the port rail.

  Agenta swung round to see a wave half a dozen armspans high rushing toward the Icewing from the north.

  * * *

  Tears stung Karmel’s eyes as the soldier unbarred the door to the citadel. So this was it, then. Her first mission, and she had failed. When the Dianese reinforcements burst in, all that would be left to her was to take as many as she could with her through Shroud’s Gate. Shuffling back, she wondered at the despair that gripped her. She’d known all along that nineteen guards would be too many—that was why she had resolved to sell her life dearly rather than be captured. And yet she’d come so close! Just one opponent fewer, and she would have fought through to the capstan by now. One Shroud-cursed opponent! She wanted to scream at the injustice of it.

  The guard who’d thrown back the bolts made to open the door. Before he could do so, though, the door must have been pushed from the other side because it hammered into him and sent him stumbling back. Light spilled into the chamber. Then a Dianese soldier appeared in the doorway, sword in hand. It took Karmel a moment to register he was facing not toward her but away from her. And that he was bleeding from a cut to his scalp. As he retreated into the room, he brought his blade up to a guard position …

  Just as a sword thrust from some unseen assailant punched through his chest and emerged from his back. The killing weapon was tugged free.

  The soldier crumpled to the floor.

  A stillness fell on the control room. Even the whisper of the Dragon Day crowds seemed to recede. Beyond the door to the citadel, shadows swelled. Then darkness descended on the chamber as a man stepped forward to fill the doorway. Silhouetted against the light as he was, Karmel could make out nothing of his features, but where the glow of the torches caught the edges of his face, his skin sparkled as if there were diamonds set into it. Not a Dianese soldier, that much was clear. He carried a broadsword that dripped blood to the ground.

  He surveyed the chamber, his gaze lingering on Karmel for longer than she liked.

  Then he attacked the soldier who’d been knocked back by the door. The guard parried a slash from the newcomer’s weapon, but such was the power of the stroke that he was spun around by the impact. The stone-skin didn’t stop to dispatch him. Instead he surged past to engage the soldiers at the stays.

  Karmel switched her gaze to the Maru and Smiler before treating Smiler to a grin of her own. Well, well, this changes things. The two Dianese seemed more shocked than even the priestess was at the stranger’s entrance, and when she lunged with her sword at the Maru her stroke was only half blocked. She scored a cut to the man’s right wrist. His hand spasmed, and he dropped his blade. Smiler hesitated before advancing to cover his companion—a brave move, but Karmel could see the defeat in his eyes. Sidestepping a thrust, she kicked out at his lead leg just as his weight came down on it, catching him below the knee. The leg gave way, and he fell on his side, bellowing like a hamstrung lederel.

  Karmel’s backhand swing opened his throat.

  The Maru had more sense than his friend. Abandoning his fallen sword, he bolted for the door to the fortress. Oh no you don’t. The throwing knife Smiler had batted out of the air earlier lay on the ground a pace away from Karmel. She scooped it up and hurled it at the retreating soldier. It took him in the back of the neck. For an improbable heartbeat his legs continued to pump. Then he collapsed.

  Veran had dispatched his final opponent. He moved to guard the door. A glance at the priestess, then he began dragging into the room the corpse of a soldier lying across the threshold. Karmel scanned the room, hardly able to believe she was still alive. Alive! Not a single Dianese soldier remained upright.

  A distended arch of light reached from the citadel door toward the capstan. At its edge was the stranger with the broadsword, standing next to the bodies of the guards who’d been lifting the stays. His skin was gray, as if he’d been carved from granite—like a statue come to life. Judging by his lurid green silks he had been Governor Piput Da Marka’s guest for the Dragon Day festivities, yet so absurd did the hulking warrior look in his finery it was a wonder how anyone had mistaken him for a dignitary.

  Veran closed and bolted the door. The control room was plunged into near blackness.

  A pounding started up from the door to the battlements, but Karmel did not take her gaze from the stone-skin. On entering the chamber his first concern had been to stop the Dianese raising the stays. Did that mean he was on the Chameleons’ side? Could he have been sent by the emira as insurance in case Karmel and Veran failed? If so, though, why hadn’t he made his allegiances known to them by now? And why did his look say he was as puzzled by Karmel as she was puzzled by him?

  Not a friendly look, it had to be said, but then she hadn’t yet sheathed her sword.

  Neither had he.

  Veran crossed to join her. The cooling coals gave off enough light for Karmel to see that he left bloody footprints behind. His sleeves were sliced to ribbons over his armguards, and he had gashes to his forehead and chin.

  “More scars to add to your collection?” Karmel said.

  A grunt was Veran’s only response.

  The Dragon Gate’s chain, stretched taut across the floor, shifted a hairbreadth. Two stays remained in the chest. The stone-skin bent down and lifted another off the ground as easily as if he were picking a dewflower. He slammed it into the chest.

  “Who is he?” Karmel murmured to Veran. “What is he?”

  “A witness.”

  The priestess didn’t like the sound of that. Now that the immediate danger had passed, the sting of Caval’s betrayal was coming back. All Karmel wanted to do was pu
t this place behind her and return to Olaire. “Let’s get out of here.”

  A shake of Veran’s head.

  The fourth stay lay on the floor in front of the stone-skin. He went to pick it up.

  “Get ready,” Veran said to Karmel.

  “For what?”

  The swordsman attacked.

  His first strike was directed at Veran, and the priest leapt back from a cut that narrowly missed his chest. Such was Karmel’s surprise it took her an instant to gather herself. The fool wanted a fight? Did he really think he could defeat two Chameleons? Even over her disbelief, however, she felt a stab of indignation. The stone-skin had attacked Veran first, meaning he considered Karmel the lesser threat. He would soon come to rue his error, though, because his last stroke had left his flank exposed. It was the simplest thing in the world for the priestess to lunge forward—

  Her blade met thin air. Somehow her opponent had twisted to evade the blow. He countered by thrusting his sword’s crosspiece toward her face. She tried to sway aside—

  Stars exploded in her head.

  The next thing she knew, she was lying facedown in a pool of blood—not her blood, fortunately, yet for some reason that came as scant consolation. She sat up hurriedly, only for lights to start dancing before her eyes. The right side of her face felt as if she’d been hit with a hammer. When she tested her swollen flesh, though, she found she’d escaped with nothing worse than a loose tooth. Her right ear was ringing with a high-pitched note like the whistle of a kettle. Over that she heard a man’s grunt, the grating whisper of metal sliding off metal.

  Looking up, she saw Veran and the stone-skin circling each other. The coals scattered across the floor had dimmed to a smoldering gray, and the combatants were mere shadows in the gloom. Karmel saw Veran land a kick to the swordsman’s midsection. Any normal opponent would have been winded by the blow, but the stranger merely took a half step back before coming on. His sword was a band of dull crimson light as it cut through the darkness. Veran dodged easily, but Karmel wasn’t about to sit back and watch the duel play out. In a contest like this, her money was always on the man holding the sharp pointy thing.

  She pushed herself to her feet.

  Her vision blurred once more, and she staggered to the capstan. Vomit burned the back of her throat. Checking the ground, she saw her sword a few paces away …

  The blade had been snapped a handspan from the hilt.

  Karmel unleashed a stream of curses. Had the stranger stamped on it after she’d dropped it? Or had it snagged on something as she fell? Either way, she needed a new weapon, and quickly. Baldy lay at her feet, his shirt bloody round a throwing knife buried in his stomach. Karmel crouched to tug the blade free before straightening. She hefted the dagger. Disorientated as she was, she risked hitting Veran if her throw went awry.

  Then I’d better make sure it doesn’t.

  Drawing back her throwing hand, she waited for an opening.

  She’d never admit as much to Veran, but she had to concede he showed a certain skill in defending himself against the stone-skin. The strength of the stranger’s attacks was such that if they had landed plumb on Veran’s armguards the broadsword would have sheared through metal and flesh. Veran, though, was twisting his wrists at the point of impact to deflect his enemy’s blade. But his resistance couldn’t last much longer. With the gloom about the room deepening, it was just a matter of time before he misjudged a parry or stumbled over one of the bodies on the ground.

  Even as the thought came to Karmel, Veran stepped on a corpse’s leg and staggered back. The stone-skin surged forward.

  Karmel’s hand holding the knife shot out. A smudge of black went streaking through the darkness.

  The stranger leaned out of the dagger’s path, and it clattered into the wall behind.

  Karmel blinked. How was that even possible? The stone-skin would have had a mere heartbeat to see the knife coming, yet he’d moved out of the way like its flight had been a thing preordained. At least her throw had given Veran time to recover, though. Closing on the stone-skin, he landed three punches to his opponent’s solar plexus.

  The man shrugged off the blows like he’d been hit with a pillow. His sword whistled round in an arc and glanced off one of Veran’s armguards.

  Sparks flew.

  Karmel looked round for another knife.

  “The battlements!” Veran shouted. “Open the door!”

  It was a moment before Karmel understood his thinking. Of course, the Dianese soldiers who relieved us at the eighth bell! The men had been hammering at the door since the Dragon Gate failed to go down. If she let them in, they were sure to mistake the uniformed Veran for one of their own and come to his aid.

  Karmel strode to the door and threw back the bolts, before realizing it might be better if the Dianese didn’t see her—the sight of a woman in a room where there had been only men might give them pause. Stepping to one side, she stilled her movements.

  The door swung inward.

  Daylight flooded into the chamber, and Karmel squinted against the brightness. A gust of wind washed over her, moist and warm, yet still invigorating after the bruising heat of the control room. On the threshold stood the two Dianese soldiers with swords in their hands. The man in front had his fist in the air, frozen in the act of knocking. He peered into the gloom before tearing off his helmet to reveal a flushed face and a drooping mustache. His eyes widened as he took in the devastation.

  Come on! Karmel wanted to shout to him. What are you waiting for?

  From behind her came the retort of the stone-skin’s sword striking one of Veran’s armguards. Then Veran yelled to the Dianese, “Get in here, damn you!”

  The soldiers lurched into motion.

  Shouts sounded from along the battlements. Karmel looked across to see the dragon’s skull on the walkway rise a handspan into the air. The Natillians. If they succeeded in lifting it and gaining access to this end of the gate—

  A hand shoved her from behind, and she stumbled onto the ramparts.

  “Keep moving,” Veran growled.

  Move where? Karmel tried to ask, but with her aching jaw, she managed only a strangled grunt.

  She would have been wasting her breath anyhow, for Veran had already disappeared inside again. What, had his conscience pricked him that he wanted to help the Dianese soldiers? And why push her out here? Her gaze took in the dragon’s skull blocking the battlements, the sheer cliffs above the door to the chamber. Where was she supposed to go? Without rope and a grappling hook there was little chance of her climbing down to the gate. And even if she managed it, what then? Hail one of the dragons and hitch a ride?

  Bells rang out across Dian and Natilly. From the north came the noise of wood splintering, screams, a dragon’s trumpeting. When Karmel looked that way she saw a ship flying the Rastamiran flag being lifted into the air by a rust-scaled dragon that had surfaced beneath it. The vessel slid off the creature’s flank before hitting the sea. A score of its passengers were pitched shrieking into the water. All about, the waves were covered with fragments of wood, scraps of sail, broken bodies.

  Just then an oath in Dianese came from the control room, followed by a shriek—not Veran’s, for the priest had just materialized on the threshold, his back to Karmel. The priestess retreated to give him room.

  A second cry sounded. Both Dianese soldiers were down.

  The stone-skin emerged from the gloom.

  Veran attacked. The narrowness of the doorway hindered the stone-skin’s sword strokes, and the priest was able to bat aside a thrust before countering with a kick that sent his opponent reeling back. In Veran’s left hand was Karmel’s broken sword—the Chameleon’s blade. The priestess grimaced. Of course, that was why he’d gone back into the control room—to retrieve the one thing that could have tied the Chameleons to the scene. She should have thought to recover it herself.

  “Jump!” Veran shouted to her.

  Karmel thought she must have misheard. “
What?” she croaked.

  The stone-skin reappeared, and Veran parried a slash with an armguard. “Do it! There’s no other way!”

  No other way? A short while ago Karmel had resolved to die by the sword rather than let herself be thrown to the dragons, yet now Veran wanted her to jump of her own accord?

  “Jump!”

  The priestess looked over the battlements at the sea below. A silver-colored dragon glided through the surf, displacing waves of water that thundered into the cliffs. In Karmel’s mind’s eye she saw yesterday’s spider-tattooed prisoner. If she jumped close to the rock face, maybe the dragons wouldn’t notice her in their eagerness to get to the ships in the Sabian Sea. More likely, though, she would crack her skull on a submerged rock, or be picked up by a wave and smashed into the cliff.

  This wasn’t about escaping, it was about choosing how she wanted to die. Or how she least wanted to, rather.

  More shouts sounded from along the battlements. A helmeted head appeared over the dragon’s skull. The Natillians had given up on trying to raise the skull and were now clambering over it instead. Perhaps Karmel should wait for them. When they reached her they would see Karmel’s and Veran’s uniforms and help them as the two Dianese guards had done before. And yet, there would be no slipping away once the stone-skin was dead. The Natillians, and later the Dianese, would have questions about what had happened in the control room, and they were questions to which the Chameleons would have no good answers.

  Karmel made a sour face. Like as not she’d end up taking a dip with the dragons anyway. Might as well get it over with.

  A curse from Veran made her turn. She watched the stone-skin drive him onto the walkway. The slump of the priest’s shoulders betrayed his weariness. When his opponent’s blade next came scything round, Veran lifted his left arm to block, but a heartbeat too late. Instead of deflecting the strike, he took it near full on the armguard.

  There was a crack of bone.

  Veran gasped but still managed to duck under a decapitating swing. The broken sword he’d been holding had been torn free of his grasp by the stone-skin’s last attack and came skittering along the walkway toward Karmel. She scooped it up. Should she go to help Veran? With a broken blade? She couldn’t abandon him, of course, but what if he was just waiting for her to jump so he could disengage from his opponent and follow her over the parapet?