“I do,” Arlian said, “but I want Drisheen, too.” The image of Ferret and Sparkle hanging in Drisheen’s library loomed large in his memory, and his hand tightened on his mug until his knuckles turned white. “And Toribor—but I want Drisheen more. I believe I might even be willing to let Toribor live if it meant I could kill Drisheen, but I don’t think Toribor will agree to that, do you?”
“I doubt the guards will, either,” Black remarked dryly.
“And that’s your job,” Arlian said. “Keep them away long enough to give me a chance.”
“To kill both of them? Skilled swordsmen far older than yourself?” Black threw up his hands. “Why don’t the rest of us just turn back now, if you’re so determined to die? This whole thing is pointless—I don’t know why I came!”
“I’m not determined to die,” Arlian said quietly.
“But you’re going to give them a chance, aren’t you?” Rime said disgustedly. “You won’t just cut their throats while they sleep, will you?”
“No, I won’t,” Arlian admitted. “But I’m not planning on duels, either. They had their chance to meet me honorably. They had their chance to make peace with me, as Nail did. And you’re all sure they’re planning to ambush me. I intend to kill them both.” He bared his teeth in an ugly expression. “I intend to give them a chance—more than they gave Rose, or Sparkle, or Ferret, or the rest—but not an even chance.”
Black and Rime stared at him, then exchanged glances with one another.
Then Rime smiled.
“That’s better,” she said.
52
Ambush
“We have just passed a ward,” Thirif announced. Arlian looked at him, startled, and was startled anew by the unfamiliar face he found—he had momentarily forgotten the glamour Shibiel had cast on her companion the night before.
They were roughly a day’s journey north of Cork Tree, and had made preparations the night before for the ambush they expected to encounter later. That was for later, though, perhaps even the next day if they did not reach Cork Tree by nightfall; right now it was early morning, and they had just broken camp half an hour before.
Up until now, Thirif had only sensed wards in towns or at easily remembered landmarks; no such feature was anywhere in sight.
“Out here?” Arlian asked.
Thirif nodded.
Black, on the driver’s seat, had overheard; he leaned back through the wagon’s door. “It’s to let them know to ready the ambush,” he said.
It was odd for Arlian to hear Black’s words coming from the scruffy, long-haired, gray-clad figure that drove the wagon. “But Enziet set the wards, didn’t he?” Arlian asked. “And he’s in the Desolation by now…”
“Drisheen is as practiced a sorcerer as Enziet,” Rime pointed out. The glamour had subtracted a dozen years from her already-deceptive appearance and transformed her wooden leg to a clubfoot—the limp could not be hidden, only disguised.
“Oh,” Arlian said. “Thirif, how do I look? Is the glamour holding?”
“Of course,” Thirif said.
“Good,” Arlian said. He looked around at the others.
He would certainly not have recognized them. The Aritheians’ exotic southern features had been replaced by utterly ordinary faces; Rime’s intensity was hidden beneath a moon-shaped visage and mousy brown hair; Black’s distinctive leather clothing and close-cropped black hair had been replaced by homespun wool and shaggy brown locks.
A sorcerer of any talent would be able to see through the disguises, if he were close and made an effort—but why would Drisheen, or even the less-skilled Toribor, bother to look closely?
“Good enough,” Arlian said. “Black—I mean, Gall—when do you expect we’ll reach them?”
“Midafternoon would be my guess,” Black replied, “but I can’t be sure.”
“Good enough,” Arlian repeated. “Drive on.”
They stopped to eat lunch and water the oxen at midday, but otherwise pressed on as quickly as they could. “If we arrive sooner than they expect us, they’ll be that much more likely to believe our disguises,” Arlian explained to Shibiel, who was nervous and unsure just what to expect.
“But they’re expecting us on horses,” Rime said. “On horseback we’d get there even earlier.”
Arlian frowned at that. “But they won’t expect us to arrive by wagon as soon as we will,” he said.
As the day wore on and no ambushers appeared Arlian grew ever more nervous; he began talking compulsively to Rime in an attempt to calm himself. His chatter became sufficiently annoying that the Aritheians got out of the wagon to walk; Rime, with her wooden leg, could not practically avail herself of that option.
She did not seem to mind, however, and when he began to run short of things to say was willing to oblige him with a few stories of her own centuries of life; she had roamed extensively, for more than a century, before finally reaching Manfort and discovering the Dragon Society. She had dozens of anecdotes to tell about those years of wandering.
She told him about being pursued through the streets of Clearpool by a pack of hounds after she cut the throat of Lord Water’s son, who had raped her. She described how she came to be snowbound in the Sawtooth, where she smashed her leg in an avalanche and became so desperate for food that she amputated, cooked, and ate the ruined portion, saving the bone as a reminder. Despite his nervousness, she rendered Arlian helpless with laughter with her account of how it had once taken her three days to catch a cat that had stolen her favorite gloves.
During a lull in the conversation, though, Arlian realized that she had not mentioned one incident he was curious about.
“You once said you had your own reasons for wishing Enziet ill,” he said. “What are they?”
She glanced sideways at him. “Why do you ask?”
“Mere curiosity,” he said, realizing a trifle belatedly that he was being a shade more inquisitive than was entirely polite. “If you would prefer not to say…”
“I generally would,” she said, “but today, when we may all die in an ambush at any moment, I find myself willing to speak. You will recall, I trust, that I said I had a husband and four children when a dragon destroyed our village. I told you that my husband died, and let you think that my children died, as well—but in fact, my eldest daughter was not at home. She had married and moved away the year before, and when I had climbed from the well I made my way to her home and threw myself on her mercy. She took me in and cared for me, and I lived there for quite some time—but when her neighbors began to notice that she looked older than I did, I departed, before accusations of black sorcery arose. Still, I returned anonymously now and then to visit my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren, and on through the generations.” She sighed.
“The family survived, but did not particularly thrive; I have perhaps thirty living descendants today, hardly a large number after four hundred years. I would probably have several more, however, had not one branch of the family fallen into the hands of Lord Enziet’s hired slavers.”
“But didn’t you…” Arlian began.
“Protest?” She shook her head. “By the time I found out what had become of them it was too late—all but one were dead, and the last was mutilated, no longer fit for anything but the life to which Enziet had consigned her. I had told everyone that like the other dragonhearts I had no family, so that no one could use them against me, or gain a hold over me by threatening them, and yet they had died nonetheless; once that had happened, and was over and done, what was the point in admitting my lies? No one would care that Enziet had destroyed half a dozen innocent lives—they were only mortals, whatever their ancestry, and Enziet is the senior member of the Dragon Society.”
“I’m sorry,” Arlian said.
“You knew the last of them, I think,” Rime said. “I believe she was called Rose, and was the Rose you knew.”
Arlian sat in stunned silence for a moment, then swallowed. “Oh,” he said.
&
nbsp; “I don’t even remember how many generations lay between us,” Rime said. “In truth, I don’t suppose she shared any more of my blood than any of a thousand others, and the ties have grown weak over the long years—whether by nature or because the taint in my blood has turned my heart cold, I can’t say. Still, I had looked after my family as best I could for a very long time, and from the time I came to Manfort until Enziet’s actions, none of them had ever known any real want or serious hardship that wealth or influence might spare them.”
“Oh,” Arlian said again.
“I’d be glad to see Lord Enziet taught a lesson in arrogance and humility,” she said. “I had not thought I would ever be fortunate enough to see it.”
“Well, it hasn’t happened yet,” Arlian said.
“It’s begun,” Rime insisted. “That he is making his way into the Desolation in pursuit of dragon venom, rather than sitting safely at home plotting the governance of Manfort, is a beginning. You’ve uncovered his secrets, or at least a taste of them.”
“Well, we know that he knows more about the dragons than he’s told the Society,” Arlian agreed, “but we don’t know what he knows.”
“He can apparently speak to a dragon,” Rime said. “We know that much. And a black dragon, at that.”
“Is there some significance to its color?” Arlian asked.
“Don’t you know?” She looked startled. “The black dragons are the eldest, the wisest and most powerful. A dragon’s color darkens with age. The youngest ever seen by men were said to be golden, though those were mere striplings by dragon standards, and never ventured out into the open air—they were reported by people who had been down into the caverns in the old days, when the dragons ruled the world. No one has seen one in … well, in a thousand years or more, I would say. The mature dragons are green—it’s said the green color appears first at the spine and then spreads until the entire beast is bright green. But then the color continues to darken, until at last the ancients of the dragon realm are utterly black, as black as their monstrous hearts.”
“The three who destroyed Obsidian were black,” Arlian said. “One still showed a trace of green, I think, but they were black.”
“Then they were old,” Rime said. She frowned. “That’s curious, you know,” she added. “The one that destroyed my home was very dark, as well, though some green still showed. In all the old tales, though, the beasts that ravaged the countryside or fought against the liberators of humanity were green, and the black ones were said to lurk deep beneath the earth, directing their younger kin from afar.”
“Perhaps there are no more green dragons,” Arlian suggested. “Perhaps only the black ones survive, down there in the dark, and that’s why they wearied of the fight and left the surface world to us.”
“But what would have become of the young ones?” She shook her head. “I doubt it’s anything so simple as that.”
“I suppose not.” Arlian lapsed into silence, having finally exhausted his urge to babble, and having found things to think about other than the impending ambush.
Just then Black called quietly, “They’re in the grove ahead of us, on both sides of the road.”
Arlian and Rime exchanged glances; then Arlian turned and clambered toward the front of the wagon, so that he could see out the door.
A big man had just stepped out into the roadway and was holding up his hands, signaling Black to stop. Black reined in the oxen.
“That’s Shamble!” Arlian whispered, as he recognized that ugly face.
“Shut up,” Rime hissed back.
“What do you want?” Black demanded. “Why are you stopping us?”
“We just want to see who you’ve got in there,” Shamble replied, in his rumbling growl of a voice. As he spoke two other men stepped out of the trees, swords drawn and ready—one of them was Lord Toribor, and the other looked familiar as well.
The two Aritheians, their disguises intact, ambled up beside the oxen, as well—the road was becoming almost crowded.
“We want to get to Cork Tree before dark,” Thirif said.
“Then let us look, and we’ll let you go,” Shamble said.
“Look for what?” Black asked.
“A sorcerer,” said the unidentified man, and the voice was the clue Arlian needed—he recognized him now as Stonehand. Three of his enemies stood here before him!
He resisted the temptation to say anything.
“An outlaw sorcerer, fleeing from Manfort,” Stonehand elaborated. “He’s said to be heading this way. Have you seen him? He looks like a young man, fairly tall and strongly built; he’s probably on horseback.”
Two more swordsmen had appeared now, but these two were strangers. Arlian could also see archers still more or less in hiding.
“Haven’t seen anyone like that,” Black said. He asked Thirif, “You seen anyone like that?”
Thirif shook his head.
“Mind if we take a look in your wagon?” Shamble growled.
Black looked at the four drawn swords and shrugged. “I can’t stop you,” he said.
At that, three of the swordsmen approached the wagon. Shamble stayed where he was, though, and Toribor came more slowly, hanging back behind the others.
Black slid aside to let the three climb aboard.
“Good afternoon,” Arlian said, tipping his cap to the first guardsman.
“Anyone else in here?” the intruder demanded, waving the blade of his weapon back and forth across the wagon’s interior.
“Just the two of us,” Arlian said. “So who is this sorcerer? What did he do?”
“Killed a man,” Stonehand said, as he squeezed inside and looked about. “He calls himself Lanair, but he may use other names, as well.”
“Who did he kill?” Arlian asked. “Anyone important?”
Stonehand shrugged. “Important enough. A man called Lord Iron. He had the concession to supply equipment and training for the Duke’s guards.”
“The Duke is involved?” Arlian said, trying hard to look impressed.
As they spoke the first swordsman was pawing through the supplies, moving the bundles and boxes about to be sure no one was hiding among them. Now he turned and said, “There’s no one here.”
Stonehand frowned, and looked at Arlian and Rime. “If you two would be so kind as to step outside, where Lord Belly can have a look at you?”
Arlian glanced at Rime, then shrugged. “Why not?”
Actually, as he climbed out of the wagon he realized why not. If Toribor, who knew at least a little sorcery and knew both Arlian and Rime, stared at them closely enough with his one good eye he might penetrate their disguises.
Arlian couldn’t see any way to avoid that risk, however. He dropped to the ground and waited.
Toribor approached cautiously and looked at Arlian and Rime.
“Know them?” Stonehand asked from the wagon door.
Toribor shook his head. “The woman might be a bit familiar,” he said, “but it’s probably a chance resemblance. Certainly neither of them is Lord Obsidian.”
“Who?” Arlian asked—and he immediately regretted it, because the timing of his question had been just slightly too slow, not quite natural.
No one else seemed to notice his slip, however.
“The man we’re looking for,” Toribor said. “It’s none of your concern.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Get back in your wagon and go on.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Arlian said, doffing his cap and bowing.
A moment later they were rolling again, with Thirif and Shibiel back in the wagon along with Arlian and Rime, while Toribor, Shamble, and the others had stamped back into the trees, out of sight.
No one in the wagon dared speak at first, but when they had put a hundred yards or more between themselves and their enemies Arlian said, “I wonder where Drisheen was?”
“In the trees to the left, I think,” Rime replied. “I thought I could sense him. I just hope he couldn’t sense us—if he felt
the presence of sorcery he’d suspect something.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Arlian said. He frowned worriedly.
“What could you have done if you had thought of it?” Rime asked.
Arlian had no answer for that.
“Should I remove the glamour?” Thirif asked.
“No!” Arlian said. “No, no. We’ll need it. After all, we’re staying in Cork Tree tonight—and I’m sure they are, too.”
“Once they give up waiting for Lord Lanair,” Rime agreed. She smiled. “This could be very interesting.”
53
The Inn at Cork Tree
There were no rooms at the inn in Cork Tree; Lord Enziet’s party had taken them all. Arlian and his companions were allowed to park their wagon in the stableyard, however, and to purchase the ordinary supper. The five travelers had eaten and drunk their fill when the disgruntled ambushers finally came straggling in.
“… sorcery, I tell you,” one man in Enziet’s livery was saying as he entered.
“It probably was,” Lord Toribor agreed wearily. “He probably knew we were there and went around us, and is well on his way to Stonebreak by now.”
Arlian turned to look at the new arrivals.
“Shall we go after him?” Stonehand asked.
“I don’t know,” Toribor said. “I’ll need to talk it over with Drisheen. For now, though—innkeeper!”
The innkeeper appeared, a tray ready in his hands. “The ale’s still cold,” he said, “and I’ve kept your supper warm, but it may be the worse for the wait.”
Arlian looked at his own empty mug. The ale was not exactly cold—the innkeeper presumably stored it in a deep cellar, so it was reasonably cool, but it was clear no magic was used, nor even a proper icehouse. It was not cold. It was good enough ale, but it would have been better were it somewhat colder.
Arlian remembered wryly that less than three years ago he had never tasted ale, yet here he was casually passing judgment on the stuff. He thumped the mug down on the table and looked around.
The dining room, which had been mostly empty moments before, was suddenly almost full. Most of the available chairs were occupied. Toribor and Stonehand were side by side at one table; Shamble was at the next. The inn’s entire staff—the innkeeper, his wife, and three young people who might have been either his children or hired help—was busily serving out mugs of beer and plates of gravy-soaked ham.
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