When Dragons Rage

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “I have not the time.”

  The Zhusk shaman shook his head. “Until you do, all time is wasted.”

  Adrogans drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes to concentrate. The Zhusk, a primitive people who lived on a plateau in southeast Okrannel, cared little for the gods of the modern era and instead allied themselves with the primal and elemental spirits of the world. The Zhusk, through arcane rituals, bound themselves to these yrûn, as the spirits were called. The talismans that Phfas wore indicated his alliance with the yrûn of the air, and that spirit often brought information or wispy hints of it, trading speed for weight of information.

  Adrogans had grown up in Jerana not knowing he was a half-Zhusk bastard until Phfas had recognized it and had invited him to enter into the Zhusk community. Adrogans had based many of his anti-Aurolani operations in the Zhusk Plateau, with his adopted people supporting his efforts. He had not, however, undergone the rituals that bound him to yrûn until the first battle on the plains of Svoin. While the battle raged, he underwent an agonizing ritual that bound several yrûn to him.

  Turning within, he found a calm place and shut out all sound and sensation. He ignored the wind and the sound of Phfas’ breathing. He closed his ears to the shouts of the training refugees, the barking of dogs and the lonely cry of a soaring hawk. He pushed past physical sensation, which allowed him to focus on his spirit and the yrûn who were his companions.

  Earth and air, water and fire were there, but their fast strength denied them the delicacy he needed. Others he swept his mind past until he came to his mistress, the single yrûn to whom he was most tightly bound. She appeared as naught but a mere slip of a girl, with soft new-budded breasts, barely past the gangly stage that presaged her womanly beauty. She took form in luminous white, almost a ghost, save that as he drew closer her body hardened and ragged, tearing edges, as serrated as the teeth she flashed in her mirthless smile, defined her. Those edges glittered coldly, and he felt the nibbling of frostbite on his toes and face.

  He pushed that sensation away. I will not be distracted.

  She knew his thoughts and reached for him, her hands clawing sharply into his scalp. She drew him to her, crushing her body to his. Where she touched him, pain ignited in his piercings. Then she raised her face to his in a kiss that stung. She parted her lips and sucked his tongue into her needle-filled mouth.

  A jolt ran through him but he fought past the pain. Beyond it, he got a sense of the whole of Okrannel. It was not as if he were a distant hawk, soaring, able to look down on the nation. That would have been very helpful, but his mistress—the yrûn of pain—instead gave him a sense of being a layer of thunderheads covering the nation. Where lightning struck, there pain dwelt, and certain loci had more than their share.

  Laughing, he pulled himself from her torturous embrace and flowed out into his own flesh again. His eyes flicked open, then he raised a hand to cover them as the light from the snow blinded him. “So he has moved troops south?”

  “As you said.” Phfas nodded so emphatically his talismans shook and rattled. “Spring will come early.”

  The white-haired general shook his head. “Not as quickly as you would like, Uncle.”

  Adrogans detested any parallels between warfare and games—precisely because a game was an abstraction that in no way encompassed war’s frightful cost in lives. Still, a certain amount of playing at warfare had to be done. Each side needed to conceal their strength, while retaining the ability to strike at the enemy or counter his moves. A game of cat and mouse it could be, in which both sides hoped their cat would not run into a hundred-pound mouse with sharp teeth and a scorpion’s sting.

  In the battle for Svoin, Adrogans had succeeded in concealing just such a sting. He’d hidden troops from the Aurolani scouts and from his own people, then brought them in at a crucial moment to strike at the Aurolani rear. The surprise shattered the Aurolani host. Princess Alexia had slain the sullanciri that led them, and his troops crushed the Aurolani. The victory, in which he had been aided by his yrûn allies, had given him the time he needed to liberate Svoin.

  Common wisdom concerning warfare indicated that nothing could happen during the winter. Snows made travel difficult, both because roads and passes would be impassable; and because the snow would cover any forage for man or beast. Even if an army were to venture into the field and survive the frostbite and desertions that would come from hardship, a single blizzard could swallow them whole. Worse yet, a storm or avalanche could wipe out a supply caravan, leaving the army to starve.

  Adrogans could not take refuge in the common wisdom, however, because the Aurolani troops were bred in a boreal realm where the worst winter in the south would be considered a mild spring day. While gibberers, frost-claws, and vylaens might not have been the most mentally flexible of troops, they did come in large groups, were used to the cold, and had a casual disregard for their own lives. Nefrai-kesh, therefore, had the ability to move troops down from Svarskya, infiltrate them into the highlands, and cause trouble.

  The Jeranese general had predicted Nefrai-kesh would do just that for two reasons. The first was to sow terror in the countryside and erode any confidence won during the victory at Svoin. Besides, the Aurolani seemed to revel in cruelty for the sake of cruelty. The sullanciri had the troops, he could make use of them, and therefore he would.

  Second—and of greater strategic importance, as long as Nefrai-kesh was on the offensive—was that he forced Adrogans to react. With hamlets scattered all over the highlands, there was no way to protect everyone. Adrogans would have to field a force that could be kept traveling hither and yon, trying to catch up with raiders who could fade away like ghosts. The effort to stop the raiders would exhaust his people, destroy morale, and possibly even build up resentment among the highlanders for his inability to stop the attacks.

  Nefrai-kesh was operating under two disadvantages, though, and Adrogans was certain the Aurolani leader would have acknowledged neither of them as significant. The first was that while he was still human, he had been a formidable military commander. Adrogans knew that Kenwick Norrington had not been his equal even at the best of times, but he did accept that Norrington had known a great deal about warfare. This meant that Norrington might well accept the common wisdom about winter warfare. He would expect Adrogans would retire for the winter, and this gave the Aurolani an advantage since his troops could fight in winter.

  The second fault compounded the error of underestimating his enemy. Nefrai-kesh likely knew nothing of the yrûn, and certainly knew nothing of Adrogans’ connections with them. Wizards—as evidenced by the Vilwanese warmages in his army—tended to view the Zhusk as magickal curiosities, and Chytrine likely shared that view. Had she seen the Zhusk as any sort of a threat, she would have tried to wipe them out over the last quarter century.

  Because his enemy was assuming his troops could not fight in winter, and because Nefrai-kesh was unaware that the yrûn gave him enough information about where enemy troops were moving to position his own forces, Adrogans had no choice but to find a way to fight in the winter. The road to Svarskya had several key points that would cost him dearly to take, were they defended. By spring they would be, so if he could strike quickly and deep into Aurolani-occupied territory, he would save troops without which he could not possibly lay siege to Svarskya.

  While the vast majority of his army was not well suited to operations in snowy highlands woods, he did have two groups who excelled at just that sort of thing. The Nalisk Mountain Rangers came from the central mountains of Naliserro and had even impressed the highlanders with their stoicism in the face of hardship. And the Loquelven Blackfeathers had fought hard and well at Svoin. Their leader, Mistress Gilthalarwin, still smarted from a disagreement with Adrogans, so she and her troops would take any opportunity they could to prove their worth.

  Adrogans nodded slowly. He would use the Rangers and the Blackfeathers to track and destroy the forces Nefrai-kesh sent into the highlands. Strik
ing out from there would be more difficult, but it could be done. If he could take the northern ford of the Svar River and then the Three Brothers Citadel guarding the road through the South Gorge, he’d be at the doorstep to Svarskya before spring rains came.

  Phfas cackled. “If not early spring, a mild winter?”

  “Not mild in terms of trouble, Uncle.” Adrogans slowly smiled. “Just one full of surprises for those who hate us.”

  CHAPTER 16

  W ill smiled as Crow unwrapped the parcel and revealed the sweetcake. “And I didn’t steal it, neither.”

  Crow glanced up and raised an eyebrow. “But you didn’t pay for it, did you? The baker thought he was giving to the Norrington as a gift.”

  The thief blinked. “How did you know?” No one could have told Crow, since Will’s visit to the gaol had been unannounced. Will had assumed that arriving by surprise would allow him to use his status as the Norrington to bluff his way past guards, and it had. None of them were prepared to stop him, especially after he promised he had no weapons and said that his visit was vital for the defeat of the enemy.

  The sweetcake had been obtained in a nearby shop where Will had loitered while studying the gaol and its guards. The shopkeeper, an older man with rosy cheeks and a roundness that made him waddle as he walked, had wrapped the sweetcake up and presented the parcel to Will with a touch of ceremony. Since they had been alone in the shop, Will knew the formality was sincere, not meant as a show that might impress others.

  Will had thanked him, then headed to the gaol. A couple of guards questioned him, but armed with an imperious tone and a mask that he’d received from the hand of the king, he was not seriously hindered. He’d been ushered up rather than down, which surprised him a bit, and found Crow in a small room, but one that was clean, warm, and had a window that—despite being barred—admitted sunlight. The minimal furnishing consisted of a cot and straw mattress, a chamber pot, a single small table, and two chairs, but everything was in good repair and the chamber pot had a lid.

  Crow smiled at him. “Well, I could tell you that it was the knot in the string, which was a gift-knot, but it could have been that you’d retied it that way by accident.”

  Will raised an eyebrow. “So, what was it?”

  “You have no purse. You carry no money.”

  The thief’s mouth opened in an O, then he closed it. “Guess old habits die hard.”

  “It matters not, Will. The gift is appreciated.” Crow set it on the table. “I heard that you had a talk with King Scrainwood.”

  “The princess must have told you about it.”

  “On her last visit, yes.” Crow smiled brightly. “I got the impression it did not go well.”

  Will shifted in the chair, then leaned forward. “He wanted me to lie about you and say evil things. I told him no.”

  The older man’s smile contracted into a sharp look. “Only told him?”

  Will shrugged. “He hit me. He’s stupid. I couldn’t help it. I was defending myself and things got out of hand.”

  Crow frowned heavily, then rose from his chair to look down at the boy. “He’s not as stupid as you think, and if you assume he is, he will hurt you. Up to now he thought he could control you, so he didn’t have to worry about you. Now he does. He is not a good enemy to have, as is evidenced by my present situation.”

  “I know, I know.” Will held his hands up. “It’s been a week since all that happened . . .”

  “But you only told the princess two days ago.”

  The thief winced. “Well, I was lying low, being good and everything. The king has calmed down; otherwise, they’d not have let me in here.”

  “They may not let you out.”

  That sent a shiver through Will, but before he could protest that he could get himself out pretty easily, a key ground in the lock. The thief turned to look and gasped.

  The barred door swung open, and through it walked a tall man in simple huntsman garb save for a silver gorget worked with a half-horse, half-fish ensign, and a slender gold band around his balding head. The man’s sun-kissed flesh had gathered into wrinkles at his eyes, and white predominated in what hair he still possessed, yet he moved with an economy of motion that suggested he was younger than his years.

  Crow dropped to a knee and bowed his head. “Highness.”

  Will, blinking, slipped off his chair and to a knee as well. “Highness.”

  “Rise, the both of you.” King Augustus of Alcida turned and looked at the gaoler. “That will be all; you may retire.” The two bodyguards who had accompanied the king waved the gaoler further down the hallway and out of earshot.

  Crow brought his chair around for the king, then pointed to the sweetcake. “I have not much to offer, Highness, but it is yours.”

  “No, my friend, that is all right. You have given much already to the world, with no thanks. I’ll not rob you of even the smallest pleasure you could find here.” The king waved Crow to the cot, then leaned heavily on the back of the chair. “I have been greatly remiss. I have owed you an apology for a quarter century.”

  Crow looked up at him but said nothing. The man’s eyes tightened and Will saw a quiver in his lower lip. The king’s words had clearly had an effect on Crow.

  Augustus looked up and focused distantly. “What I tell you now, Hawkins, will seem self-serving. If you judge me harshly, I can accept that, for I deserve it. I played you false, and while I could protest that I was not on the spot to defend you, I should have been. What was done to you in Yslin was unforgivable, and I should have been there.”

  Crow looked down at his open hands and slowly shook his head. “You were with the army in Okrannel, saving people. That was more important than dealing with one man. You had other things to think of.”

  “You forgive me too easily, Hawkins. Arcanslata were able to inform me of your situation. I didn’t know all the details, but I knew that you had not betrayed the others. I remember that last night around the campfire. What I said then was true; I would have been happy to have you with me in Okrannel. I was very happy to have your brother, Sallitt. I didn’t know, though, that the charges against you were manufactured.”

  The king sighed. “When I returned from Okrannel I married, and there was much fanfare. And then in setting up the Okrans court in exile and starting a family, there was much I had to do and there was no sign of you. I did not want to forget you, but I was not reminded.”

  Crow nodded and started to speak a couple of times before words actually came. When they did, they were soft despite the strain in his voice. “After they took my mask, I, well, I don’t remember much of what I did. I wandered. The Vorquelves, because of the prophecy, harbored me in the Downs. If I drew a sober breath, it was by accident. If words came without tears . . .”

  The king dropped to a knee before Crow and rested his hands on the other man’s sagging shoulders. “Had I known, my friend . . .”

  Crow weakly patted the king’s right hand. “Highness, you had the world to worry about. I was beneath your notice and unworthy of your concern. I was no one. I was nothing. Then Resolute returned to Yslin and found me.”

  Augustus nodded. “I know. After he found you, he came to find me. He explained many things to me, and I questioned my father, who told me what had happened. I protested that what had been done to you was as evil as anything Chytrine had done. He said to me, ‘One man’s blood is a puddle, but Chytrine would drown us in oceans.’ Sacrificing you seemed a small price to pay to preserve the stability of the world.”

  Crow’s head came up. “Then you have known for twenty-five years who I was?”

  “Yes.” The king drew in a deep breath. “As prince there was not much I could do, but I did what I could. I arranged favorable trade status for your friend Playfair’s trading company, and Resolute was named as my representative to collect the fees needed to keep these arrangements in force. You renewed acquaintance with your friend, and his company provided you with transportation and money. Playfa
ir does not know that I know who you are, so he could never tell you of my patronage.”

  Crow slowly nodded. “Things begin to make sense. Rounce was more than generous, and there were times I feared for his ruination. He would have given me anything, I know that, but it is good to know that he was amply rewarded for his action.”

  “He has not suffered and you are right; he would have done anything for you. You do know that he is a patron of a number of bards who sing of Crow’s exploits?” Augustus rose and seated himself in the chair. “I have followed those songs keenly, often wishing to hear the true story behind them. You and Resolute were able to continue a war I wished we had never abandoned. I could do little save support the Draconis Baron.”

  “It is well you did.” Crow frowned. “He knew who I was. I don’t know for how long, but he recognized me at the end. He gave me a sign.”

  The king nodded. “He did know, though we never spoke openly of you. Whom else he might have told, I do not know. Secrecy was the best way to keep you safe.”

  Will, who had been sitting and listening, began to twitch. “How can you say that?”

  Augustus glanced at him. “Those were dangerous times, Will.”

  “And that excuses you?” Will stood up and glared at the king. “You come in here and tell Crow that you’ve known for years and years and years that he was unjustly accused? You knew it destroyed his life, and you didn’t do anything?”

  “Will.” Crow’s nostrils flared. “This is the king!”

  “I don’t care.” Will planted his fists on his hips. “King Scrainwood wanted me to lie for him, and here you are saying you didn’t say anything to counteract the lie that hurt him? You call him friend? And you, you let him call you friend?”

  Both men stared at him wide-eyed.

  “Everyone makes things so complex. Everyone plays at manners just to hide their true feelings. I see people out there who would have beaten me to death for being a thief, but because I’m the Norrington, they’d give me everything I’d have stolen. And they still hate me for being a thief, but they lie and say they don’t in case I won’t save them when it comes down to it.