Not Quite Scaramouche

by Joel Rosenberg

  Well, at least it hadn't gone over everybody else's head that that challenge had come from Tyrnael.

  Would you do me the favor, Lord Baron, Walter Slovotsky thought, of falling down the stairs and breaking your neck immediately upon your arrival home? It wouldn't do to arrange an accident for him here, as even a real accident under the emperor's roof would be perceived by the other barons as a successful assassination – but if it were to happen back at the barony, that couldn't be held against the emperor. Or the imperial proctor.

  Tyrnael nodded, conceding either the point or that his manipulation of Niphael had been noted. "As, indeed, it should be. As, indeed, the absence of Baron Cullinane is."

  The emperor shook his head. "Jason Cullinane has been summoned; he will be here. I've no doubt that he simply has run into some difficulty, and were Ellegon here, I'd ask the dragon to go investigate." His crooked smile reminded everybody in the room that while the dragon belonged to himself, Ellegon could reliably be counted on to run an errand for the emperor, and wouldn't much mind if that errand involved stomping on somebody.

  Unspoken was the question of whether Ellegon would be more loyal to the Cullinane family than he was to the throne, but there was little political profit in trying to exploit that, even if – as Walter Slovotsky certainly hoped – it was indeed the case.

  Bren Adahan leaned forward. "I hardly think that simply because a baron is late for Parliament any sensible person would wish to take away his barony."

  Slovotsky wasn't sure why, but that was the wrong thing to say: Tyrnael sat back, trying just a little too hard not to look smug.

  Chapter 14

  The Road to Nowhere

  Pirojil frowned, while ahead of him, his tunic flapping manically in the wind, Jason Cullinane stood on the dragon's back, nothing between him and the ground but leagues of clear air and a too thin safety line.

  And, worse, when he turned to look behind him for a moment, the young baron had a grin on his face. It was bad enough that he was doing something so risky and stupid; it made it worse that he enjoyed it.

  Pirojil would have to keep him as far away from Kethol as possible; Kethol's mindless bravery was apparently contagious. No, that was unfair, and Pirojil wanted to be fair. The Cullinanes seemed to pass along that sort of pointless courage with their blood.

  Pirojil hated the whole idea. Not that it mattered. There were good things and bad things about being an ordinary soldier, but having your opinions count wasn't on the table as either.

  But that didn't matter. Pirojil was used to doing his job, and his job was to obey orders, and the orders right now were to keep the baron alive without interfering with this silly idea of his.

  Looking for the assassins made sense – although just barely; getting any profit out of it was a slim possibility at best – but having the baron along while they were doing that made none at all, except maybe to the baron.

  Pirojil swore under his breath. It was bad enough having to watch his own back, and Kethol's, and Erenor's – watching out for the baron and his mother would make it worse.

  It wasn't that he objected to protecting them. Pirojil would have waded through fields of soldiers' guts to protect the dowager empress's little finger from a slight scratch, or hacked his way through walls of innocent peasants to make his way to the baron's side, and if that made him a bloodthirsty murderer, well, then that's what he was, and the best he could do would be to not think about it any more than he had to.

  What bothered Pirojil was that he couldn't do two things at once, and this was going to call for about four, maybe five. There was no way he could properly watch out for both of them at the same time, much less do that and simultaneously protect not only Erenor and Kethol but himself.

  And adding in trying to search for some assassins? That was lunacy.

  Up here, high in the sky, it didn't all matter.

  *Karl used to call it 'the morality of altitude.'*

  Eh?

  *I'm not sure what he meant, not exactly,* the dragon thought, as he banked into another turn. *But there is something about being high above it all that gives you a sense of detachment.*

  Right. And you could conceal a gold coin at midnight by tossing it high up in the air – for a short while.

  But it would come down, and so would the dragon. You couldn't stay up here forever, as tempting as it was. Still, maybe the dragon had a point, as –

  *Thank you so very much for admitting the possibility. I'm touched, I am.*

  – as the ground was far away, and anybody or anything that could reach this high was something that Pirojil sim-Ply didn't have to worry about because it could kill the baron and the dowager empress as easily as Pirojil could a swat a fly or stab a man.

  So, it was best not to worry about that, but to relax and rest for a moment. Which didn't explain why Pirojil's eyes kept scanning the sky as well as the ground.

  Silly thing to do. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the straps.

  You couldn't do everything at once, and to try to was to guarantee that you couldn't do any one thing really well.

  Changing the baron's mind wasn't one of those things that he could do. Making sure that the baron and the dowager empress had been strapped in properly before Ellegon had taken to the air was something he could do; keeping the baron properly strapped in wasn't one of those things.

  Divide the world into two piles, and keep the piles separate.

  What mattered was making sure that Kethol was strapped into the rearmost position on the dragon's back, well back of where Jason Cullinane stood – not sat, despite Pirojil's request, but stood – just ahead of the dragon's shoulders, the rush of wind whipping his hair as he braced himself by clinging to the long rope that ran down the center of Ellegon's back, his feet jammed in between two scales.

  There was nothing to keep Jason Cullinane from falling except his grip, and a single safety rope tied around his waist, the other end made fast in a hole in one of the dragon's impossibly tough scales.

  *There is also the fact that I've known and loved the boy since before he was born,* the mental voice said. *I'd no more let him fall to his death than I would have his father. Surely, Pirojil, you should know something of loyalty.*

  It would have been nice if there was some way to keep the dragon out of his mind. There was something indecent about the way that his private thoughts weren't private around Ellegon.

  *You need not worry so much.* The dragon snorted, a gout of flame that would have crisped the six of them had Ellegon not craned his long neck to one side. *I find no pleasure at all in looking deep into what passes for a human mind, and avoid it as much as possible. Your deep, dark, and dirty secrets are safe from me, Pirojil.*

  The dragon banked sharply, and Pirojil's head spun. It didn't feel like the dragon was turning as much as it felt like the whole world had turned on its side, the greenery below now a wall instead of a distant carpet.

  *That is the clearing where you killed the assassin?*

  Either it wasn't, or they were coming upon it from a different angle.

  Why ask me? Pirojil wasn't the woodsman, and didn't pretend to be able to –

  *Because even when he isn't busy puking, Kethol can't keep a map in his head, unless it's practically a tree-by-tree map of some place he's been on the ground. And because Erenor has me thoroughly blocked out of his mind, which disturbs me not at all, because if he meant the family any harm he would have committed that harm by now.*

  Pirojil tried hard not to think about why Erenor would have blocked the dragon out –

  *And I shall try, although not very hard at all, to care about why, or about why you or he wish to keep your little secrets – such puerile little secrets – but I think I shall fail utterly, and shall end up caring not one little bit.*

  The dragon leveled out for a few moments and then banked sharply, again. Even over the rush of wind, the sound of Kethol's retching carried, although, thankfully, the smell did not.

&n
bsp; This time, Pirojil could easily make out the buildings of Kelleren's farm – and even the tiny forms of the people out working in the fields. He could imagine that he saw wide eyes and open mouths as the dragon passed overhead, but that was surely just his imagination, as they were far too high for that.

  "There." Jason Cullinane's voice carried, although just barely, over the rush of wind. "You can't see it from the ground, not until you're just on top of it, but there's an old road over there."

  *Hold on.* The dragon banked even more steeply than before, and went into a dive. The pressure of the wind against Pirojil's face increased, and covering his eyes with his free hand – to free both hands would have been to trust the harness straps far more than he had any wish to – he tried to look out between two barely parted fingers ...

  But it was no use. The dragon was falling – flying, he hoped – too fast for him to be able to see.

  *And if you want to take the chance of archers waiting, their arrows' heads dipped in extract of dragonbane, you are welcome to it. Me, I've come more than too close to that of late, and I'm not terribly eager to repeat that.*

  Pirojil smiled. It wasn't everybody who would admit to what sounded like cowardice. Pirojil had a strong streak of it, himself, although keeping it under control was simply part of the job. Truth to tell, one of the reasons he thought Kethol was not the brightest of men was that Kethol appeared to have little or no fear in his makeup, and would rush in without thinking of the danger.

  Facing danger was often – too often – part of the job, but not-thinking wasn't.

  *Thank you so much for the faint praise.*

  Well, there was no sign of any archer – or anybody else – along the old road, but it made sense to check it out. All they had to show there, right now, was one dead body, rotting away in an unmarked grave. There wasn't much you could do to make a dead man talk.

  It would be convenient to know who had sent the killers, and why. But in a fight for your life, fighting for your life was more than enough to occupy the mind; leaving an enemy alive was something to muse about later.

  Are you willing to make a quick drop-off? Pirojil thought.

  *Yes. As long as it's not Jason. I promised his father I'd look out for him, and his mother.*

  That wasn't a problem for Pirojil. The last thing he wanted at his side was somebody he had to protect. With any luck the assassins would be long gone, leaving behind nothing that could be used to send Pirojil, Kethol, and Erenor on their trail – but it would be foolish to count on luck.

  *Particularly when you are using yourself as bait.*

  Pirojil hadn't wanted to think of it that way, but there was that. If he and the other two could draw attention to themselves, maybe even draw an attack, that would give Ellegon an opportunity to drop Ahira and Toryn in behind the attackers, and surprise them.

  Very well, he thought. Let's make it quick.

  The dragon dropped into a steep dive that left Pirojil's stomach somewhere high in the sky.

  *Ask and ye shall receive, although not necessarily just what ye ask for.* Ellegon came to a bumpy landing at a wide spot in the road. Pirojil didn't bother with the knots that tied him to the rigging on the dragon's back; he drew his belt knife and slashed himself free, then did the same for Kethol, who was too busy with his dry retching to focus on anything. That wasn't his fault, any more than it was Pirojil's fault that women shuddered at his face. It was just the way he was.

  But Kethol would stop being airsick shortly.

  "What is – what are you – just wait a moment," Jason Cullinane's fingers scrabbled at the knots on his own safety line.

  *Be still, Jason.* The dragon was already rising to his feet, as Pirojil landed heavily on the ground, Erenor and Kethol beside him.

  Ellegon took three lumbering steps, then leaped into the air, his wide, leathery wings beating air so hard that the dust from the road would have blinded Pirojil if he had not covered his eyes. And then the dragon was climbing away, heading east.

  Kethol straightened himself, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It wasn't cowardice that made his fingers tremble visibly; he could no more control the shaking than he could have the vomiting that left him weak.

  "Well," Erenor said, "here we are."

  The road had been built of stones, either flat or with a flat cut into one side, long ago. The spaces between the irregular stones should have been overgrown with grasses and other plants, and surely there was enough room for a tree seed to have found purchase.

  But, just as on the Prince's Road, either the construction or more likely some spell had prevented that from happening.

  Kethol, despite his weakness, already had his longbow strung, an arrow nocked, and his quiver slung hunting-fashion over his shoulder, leaving the sword on his left hip free of obstruction.

  He sniffed the air.

  "Do you smell something?" Erenor asked. "Besides me, that is – I'm more than due for a bath, and – "

  "Shut your mouth," Pirojil said. They were already a target; there was no need to be a babbling target.

  "Nothing." Kethol shook his head. "If there's anybody within a solid league of here, I'll be surprised." He sniffed again.

  "It must take quite a good nose to be able to smell nothing," Erenor said, smiling. His tone was ever so slightly mocking, but the lack of tension in his shoulders said that he was relieved. And, for that matter, it said that he believed Kethol.

  "It isn't that," Kethol said. His brow furrowed. "Follow me." He un-nocked the arrow and set off down the road at a quick jog, Pirojil quickly catching up, Erenor unsurprisingly trailing far behind.

  The road to nowhere – although it obviously had gone from somewhere to somewhere else – twisted, snakelike, through the woods, lifeless but surrounded by forest. A thicket of blood-red fundleberries grew right up to the edge of the road; when Kethol dropped from a trot back to a slow walk, Erenor reached out and snagged one.

  Pirojil slapped it out of his hand. "We're not here to graze like a bunch of cattle," he said. "Pay attention to what we are supposed to be doing."

  "So. It's 'pay attention,' is it?" Erenor rubbed the back of his hand against his chin, and for a moment his smile left him. "It's not my fault I'm not Durine, Master Pirojil," he said. He ran his hand down the front of his tunic until it rested on the hilt of his sword, a vain and empty boast if ever there was one. "I make no pretense – none to you, that is – that I'm anything but what I am, but I do the best that I can," he said. "As you've had occasion to see, more than once, Master Pirojil." Slowly, deliberately, he reached out and picked another berry. "Call me swindler, illusionist, deceiver, and trickster, if you'd like – but you've no cause to call me faithless, sir." He drew himself up straight.

  Kethol stood between them. "Would the two of you please just stop this?" His eyes didn't meet Pirojil's; they were too busy scanning the surroundings. "There's a smell of woodsmoke up ahead, and while I'd swear that there's no scent of horse or human, I'd rather not bet my life on my nose, and hope both of you would have more sense."

  There was a slight emphasis on both.

  Pirojil grunted. They were both wrong. He was irritated with Erenor because Erenor was irritating. Too clever by half; too pretty by more than half. And more smug than pretty.

  "Let's get going, then," he said. He reached out and grabbed a handful of berries, ignoring the way the thorns bit at his fingers.

  He bit into one. It was sweet, and cool, almost meaty in its intensity. And the fundleberry brambles would make it impossible for anything larger than a small mouse to make its way through to the road, at least there.

  He felt some of the tension drain from his shoulders. Pirojil trusted Kethol's abilities, certainly, but he trusted thorns even more.

  Pirojil shook his head. That shouldn't have made him feel disloyal.

  Should it?

  Pirojil stood over the remnants of the campfire. It was wet and cold, easily a day dead. Over on the other side of the roa
d, three sets of hoofprints showed that there had been three horses, although he could have worked that out himself from the three places that soft grasses had been laid down for bedding.

  Three men, there had been, the second part of the ambush. But they were a day gone, and you could go far in a day, if you were of a mind to.

  Pirojil shook his head. "I don't suppose you want to try to trail them."

  Kethol shrugged. "We could."

  The three of them, on foot, trying to catch up with three men on horses? Three men with most of a day's start, at the very least?

  And what if they did find them? To make that worthwhile, they would have to capture at least one, and hope that he was one who knew who had sent them, and why. You didn't put up three against three and expect to be able to capture – just winning would be quite difficult enough.

  Yes, they had been sent to kill the baron, and Pirojil was willing to put his body in between the baron and any sword, arrow, bolt, or bullet seeking it, if need be.

  Erenor shook his head. "I don't think so," he said.

  Pirojil turned quickly, and started to say something, but stopped himself. "Very well," he finally said, his jaw tight. "Why don't you think so?"

  "Because I think there's a danger to the baron – if we take him with us, and another to him if we let him go to Biemestren alone."

  Pirojil was inclined to dismiss Erenor out of hand, but Kethol cocked his head to one side.

  "What do you mean," Kethol said, " 'let him'? The baron does what he will, without any permission from us."

  "What I mean is obvious, even if it isn't obvious enough for the two of you," Erenor said, shaking his head. "You two – to you everything is always so simple and straightforward. Either somebody is your friend, your ally, or your enemy. People are either utterly trustworthy, or ready to sell you to the nearest slaver at their next opportunity. Something is either magical, or mundane." He shook his head and made a tsking sound. "Pirojil, give me a gold mark, please."

  "Why?" Pirojil shook his head. "I don't see the point."

  "You will," Erenor said, his palm outstretched. "A gold mark, if you please."