Dragon Blood h-2

by Patricia Briggs

  "My brother has no care for his kingdom. He collects tithes that are supposed to go to his armies, that he might defend the kingdoms. Where were those armies when the Vorsag attacked Oranstone? What has he done to help the nobles recover after they fought the Vorsag off themselves? Has he allowed the Oranstone nobles to return to their lands? Haverness holes up in Callis because if he returns to Estian—as by the king's law he was supposed to—he knows he will fall afoul of the king's assassins. Why? Because he saved Oranstone when the king would not and made my brother look foolish in the bargain. Haverness's Hundred will be remembered in the history of our people long after our grandchildren are telling the story to their grandchildren. And my brother cannot tolerate that."

  The land tugged at my attention, like a small feather of magic running up my spine. A person had crossed onto Hurog land, a person ill-touched. I sent my magic out for a closer look and knew that it was a lone foot-traveler. The ill-magic he bore was small—he would not cause much harm, if any. As long as he passed through Hurog, I wouldn't trouble him.

  Kellen gathered his audience in the palm of his hand and I turned my attention back to him.

  "My brother," continued Kellen, "has failed in his duties and I must oppose him—as Aethervon warned him would happen a decade ago. He has chosen to walk dark paths, and so I must stand in opposition to him. Ward of Hurog stands behind me, who of you will do likewise?"

  It wasn't just the words he spoke, but the way he said them. At his last words, men stood and fell to their knees. Until only an old man stood alone in the hall. Orvidin walked up the center aisle until he was only a few feet from Kellen. I saw Rosem's hand twitch surreptitiously toward his sword.

  "I don't know you," said Orvidin, his voice thick with some emotion. "But I know this pup, here." He threw a jerky gesture toward me. "And I know that what you say of Jakoven is true. And I know that this" — he held up the glittering thing he'd picked up off the floor, which was not a knife after all, and I saw tears slip slowly down the worn skin of his face—"this scale is no illusion. If there are dragons in Hurog, I will follow the Blue as Shavigmen have done as long as there has been a Shavig. And if the Hurogmeten follows your banner, I can do nothing else."

  The drama of the moment couldn't last, of course. But it seemed to satisfy everyone. All of Shavig, as represented by the men under my roof, would support Kellen's bid to take his brother's throne whether in the cause of right, in search of a place in legend, or just to have a reason for a good battle.

  The kitchen produced more food, mostly small cakes and sweet bread, and the servants brought in ale. Tosten took a seat before the fire and spent a while spinning music. With his usual good instincts, he avoided legendary tales and stuck to romance and war. We all needed a good dose of the normalcy a few sobbing tunes about dying lovers and soldiers could provide.

  My uncle Duraugh set about charming and cementing the details as he drifted from one small group of Shavigmen to the next with Kellen by his side. Beckram clapped me on the shoulder in congratulation and then slipped away to tell Ciarra and Tychis what had happened.

  When I'd first sent Tychis to be Ciarra's errand boy, he had been less than enthusiastic. But Ciarra had a touch with fragile spirits, and he was now her loyal slave—as were most of the other male Hurogs, including Oreg.

  Hurog's dragon slipped back into the room in human form sometime after we'd all sworn to Kellen's cause. I hadn't seen him do it, so I hoped that no one else had either. I needed Oreg beside me, but I didn't want anyone exploiting what he was. What help he chose to give was enough.

  Tisala stayed beside me. As I had noticed once before, she was as at home in feminine frippery as in hunting leathers. The dress she wore was one that Oreg had made her—I recognized the embroidery style. Oreg liked to embroider bright-colored animals on sleeves or shoulders. The making of clothes was a hobby of his, and he shared the results with only a few of us. The colorful tigers that ran up the black silk sleeves suited her, fierce and strong. The dress clung to her curves and celebrated the strength of her body, but I was too smart to tell her so.

  Over the past few weeks she'd been pleasant and helpful, but any hint of passion sent her scurrying away. So I didn't tell her that I loved the way the firelight touched her hair, or that I dreamed of her naked in my bed. But I thought it a lot, and made certain she knew it. I'd learned from my sister, who'd been mute until a few years ago, that there were other ways than speech to convey information.

  "Impressive," said Garranon quietly on my other side.

  "What?" I asked.

  He shrugged. "Dragons and legends … It would have been difficult for any man not to want to fight beside a dragon."

  "I'd have rather kept him secret," I said. "But if Orvidin had walked out, we'd have lost most of the rest. However, it was Kellen who took them and made them his."

  Garranon gave me an odd smile. "Ah, yes. They are Kellen's men. As long as you are—" he broke off as magic flared wildly, and I drew my short ceremonial sword in reflex to the attack on Hurog. It was the sword that cut off Garranon's words, not the magic, for the gates that were torn apart were on the curtain wall, too far away to hear.

  The crowd, most of whom felt nothing at all, looked at me and fell silent—I think they thought I was going to attack Garranon. Even Tosten stilled the strings of his harp.

  "Away from the door," I said. When I opened my senses to Hurog, I knew the curtain gates were wide open, and the bars that held them closed were splintered.

  The man my Hurog magic had warned me of earlier was even now approaching the keep while the guardsmen on duty tried to reclose the gates. Magic, Stala'd told them, was best dealt with by mages, not soldiers. They were to stay at their post and let Oreg and me deal with it.

  I could detect no sign of the power that had opened the outer gates of the walls surrounding the keep, nothing but the residue of ill-magic and the remnants of the spell that had thrown open the outer defenses.

  I felt the man touch the keep doors lightly, and they sprang away from his skin as if they had been hit with a battering ram. They hit the walls hard, knocking dust from the stones. If anyone had been standing next to the door, they would have been crushed.

  I could see the man quite clearly as he stepped into the room. I don't know what I expected, Jade Eyes, or Arten, or even one of the lesser court wizards—not Jakoven, surely. But it was none of them.

  Instead I saw a man, neither large nor short, clad in rags and boots that were more hole than leather. The air that blew in was chill, but he seemed not to feel the cold. He walked hunched over and he moved strangely: not loose-limbed like a drunkard, nor with the clumsiness of exhaustion, but near to both. His skin, where it showed through the rags, was mottled dark with bruises, frostbite, or maybe dirt; but the dark patches seemed to grow as he drew closer. For he looked neither right nor left as he shuffled down the aisle toward me.

  I didn't recognize him.

  "Can I help you?" I said at the same time Garranon pushed around me and took several steps forward.

  "Valsilva? What are you doing here?"

  Once Garranon used his name, I could see that the shuffling figure was indeed Jakoven's stable master, but so changed from the jolly man I'd met that he could have been a different species. Abruptly I remembered dreaming of Jakoven calling for the stable master who had let Garranon ride out of the castle with my brother.

  I caught Garranon's shoulder when he would have continued forward. "Wait," I said. "There's something wrong."

  Other people started feeling the wrongness, too. The space around the stable master grew larger as he continued up the walkway toward Garranon and me. Something fell from his hand and rolled into a brightly lit area so I could see clearly it was a finger. Someone swore.

  I pulled Garranon back a few steps.

  "Valsilva? What do you want?" asked Garranon.

  It stopped where it was, close enough for me to see its face clearly. The dark spots weren't dirt o
r even bruises, but rotting flesh, the smell of which began to seep from the body into the air of the hall. I heard someone gag.

  "Garranon," it said clearly.

  Garranon's shoulder stiffened further under my hand because he heard it, too. I don't know that I would have recognized the voice of the king's stable master, but I would recognize the voice it now used anywhere.

  "Jakoven," Garranon replied steadily.

  I caught sight of Tisala, someone's sword in her hand (she hadn't been wearing one), stalking around behind the thing. Her sword looked more useful than the ceremonial short sword I held.

  The body of the stable master shook its head dolefully, and as I watched, the rot began to spread across its left cheek. "Twenty years, Garranon. I gave you twenty years and you betray me."

  I watched its eyes carefully. It saw only Garranon. I doubted if Jakoven even knew where his creature was.

  "Yes," agreed Garranon.

  The thing began shuffling forward again, saying, "See what happens to those who betray me? See what you have done to this man?"

  Before it could touch Garranon, I threw up a shield of magic. After seeing the trick with the door, I shouldn't have been taken by surprise at what happened—though in my defense, watching the accelerated rotting of the stable master was distracting me.

  The pulse of magic that hit my shield was stronger than anything Oreg had ever hit me with. Red sparks flew up and ignited small fires on the great timbers that arched three stories over our heads. Tankards of alcohol burst into flame around us, lighting the hall as if it were daylight.

  I cried out with the flash of pain it caused and lost hold on my spell. But Tisala ran the creature through with her sword and knocked it off balance, so it stopped short of Garranon. Instead, it stumbled to its knees and gasped in pain.

  She'd struck right through the spine, but it began pulling itself toward Garranon anyway. Tisala jerked her sword free for another try, but stopped when it began speaking again.

  "I'm all right," it said in another voice that must have been the stable master's own. "I'm just very hungry. I'll eat and be just fine." As it talked, great clumps of hair fell off with bits of scalp still clinging to it.

  I tugged Garranon back onto the dais because he stood frozen in horror or guilt. I could feel that breaking my shield changed something, with the creature. The magic that held it wasn't quite as focused. It stopped to eat a crust of bread that lay in its path. Crumbs fell like snowflakes out the sides of its face where the muscles of the jaw had rotted away. If I lived to see this finished, I'd have other things to dream of than the Asylum.

  "Stay back," commanded Oreg from the far side of the room, near the open doorway, and the men who'd drawn their weapons as Tisala attacked halted where they were. "If you touch it, your flesh may well rot way as quickly as his is. Let Ward and me deal with it."

  "What is it?" I asked Oreg, but it was Orvidin who answered, his face gray and drawn.

  "A golem," he said, spitting on the floor to ward off evil spirits, a habit that leads the Oranstonians to call us Shavig barbarians. "I haven't seen one of these since my father offended the Acholynn in Avinhelle, and I hoped to never see another."

  "Perhaps," said Oreg, who'd circled the thing and took his place beside me, staring all the while at the remains of the stable master, which finally finished the food on the floor and started to slither forward with legs dragging behind it.

  "Garranon?" The thing sounded bewildered, but its advance was steady, if slow. "The king said I shouldn't have let you go. Did I do wrong?"

  Tisala lifted her sword again, but Oreg waved her off.

  "Fire, Ward. Not the kind you use to light the kitchen fire, but what you did at Silver Fells."

  What I'd done at Silver Fells was to call down Siphern, God of Justice, to carry away the souls of the villagers slaughtered by the Vorsag. Not something I'd repeated often enough to know how to do it at a moment's notice.

  I tried calling the god as I flung my magic at the stable master. Flames leapt off the animated corpse as if it had been doused in brandy, but I knew that nothing had answered my call.

  Alight with the fire eating away at the flesh that remained on the skeleton, the creature hesitated. It shook its head and muttered—this time in a broken whisper. "Hungry," it said.

  Tisala stepped in and thrust her sword past the flames and through the blackened head where it slid through the temple and into the eye and stuck there. It was a metal-handled sword and she had to let go as my magic-fueled flames shot up it as if it were a branch of wood.

  The golem shifted away from Garranon for the first time. It looked right at Tisala with its good eye.

  "Hungry," it said.

  "Jakoven's lost control of it," said Oreg, adding his fire to mine, but it continued after Tisala. Tisala backed down the aisle way, keeping her face toward the thing. The golem, far from being affected by the sword sticking out of its skull or our fire, moved faster until Tisala was trotting backward as Oreg and I followed.

  The crowd of Shavig nobles swirled in tension, barely held in check by Oreg's command. I caught a glimpse of Rosem's firm wrestling grip holding Kellen back, and I blessed him for it. All that was needed was for Jakoven's plaything to run amok amongst all the Shavig nobles. There was none—except maybe Charva, the wizard, who even stood a chance against it.

  Orvidin, who'd managed to get one of the decorative pole arms off the wall, pushed through the crowd and shoved the pike under the crawling stable master and flipped it on its back. It twisted around as quickly as a snake and began to stalk Orvidin.

  "Gods," muttered Garranon beside me—I'd thought he'd stayed sensibly behind on the dais.

  "Valsilva," Garranon called, trying to attract the creature's attention.

  Floor coverings smoldered near the burning monster. A spilled mug of ale poured fire like water down the side of a table.

  "Ward, that's not working!" snapped Oreg though his magic poured through me to aid my efforts.

  I called out to Siphern and reached—Hurog, not Siphern answered my call.

  Power flooded into me and had not I immediately sent it away it would have reduced me to ash the way it consumed the poor thing that had once been a man. Still frantically dumping the magic I doused the fires in the hall.

  "Oreg!" I called and, bless him, he saw what was happening. His hands closed over my shoulders and he began to absorb the magic I had no good place left to send.

  The power stopped as quickly as it had come, leaving my limbs as weak as water. The smell of rotting flesh was gone, leaving only a sour smoky smell and a strange quiet that Orvidin broke.

  "Siphern bless him," he said, leaning on the old pike. He spat on the floor again. "I knew Valsilva."

  "Jakoven sent him all the way from Estian," said Oreg. "To give a message to Garranon—and kill him if possible. A punishment for saving Ward's brother."

  Kellen pushed forward looking angry and ruffled, followed by Rosem, who had seen to it that Hurog's hope of salvation had not thrown himself onto the first of Jakoven's monsters. I owed Rosem.

  Garranon looked at the ashes that were left on the floor and swallowed hard. "He was a good man," he said, then turned on his heel and left the room.

  The anger left Kellen's face as swiftly as a slate wiped by a cloth. "I'll go talk to him," he said. "He might listen to me. Ward, talk with your wizard and be ready to tell me what just happened before we, any of us, seek our beds tonight."

  Kellen followed Garranon and I silently wished him luck.

  Oreg released my shoulders with an absent pat and said, "I don't need to consult—I know what this is."

  "Golem," I said. "But why didn't a normal fire kill it?"

  "Not a golem," said Oreg. "At first I thought so, too, but it breathed—did you notice? A golem is, by definition, nonliving. It was a geas."

  "A geas that could cause a man to walk all the way from Estian and cast aside barred doors in the process?" said Charva the wiza
rd. He sounded tired and I realized that some of the power Oreg had fed me had been Charva's. "He sounded like Jakoven. Geas doesn't provide for that."

  Oreg smiled, "If you'll excuse me for disagreeing with you—I'll tell you that geas can do all of this, if there is sufficient power behind the spell. And right now, Jakoven has sufficient power to lay waste to cities if he chooses."

  So Jakoven has managed to activate the Bane, I thought, chills shaking down my spine.

  "So you say," said Porshall, a western landholder I didn't know well. He seldom came to Councils, as his lands were in disputed territory and he needed to protect them. "I say that the timing of this attack was interesting."

  "Are you accusing my nephew of this?" said Duraugh with icy politeness.

  Porshall held his hands out as if to forestall offense. "I merely observe that as your nephew has so clearly demonstrated, he is a wizard. And that, if any Shavigman here was harboring thoughts of supporting Jakoven, this demonstration would cement their support of Kellen."

  Orvidin, still playing with his pike, let out a bellow of laughter before saying, "Only someone who didn't know Ward could even think that. Half the problem we've had with the pup in the Council is that he's too honest … No, that's not quite the word." He narrowed his eyes at me. "Too honorable. He'll lie if it furthers his aim, but his aim, and his means, never lie in foul waters. He might create an illusion of a dragon, but you'd not catch this pup hurting an innocent man."

  Porshall abruptly shook his head. "I still say—"

  "Enough," said Charva. "This was no magic of Ward's. Those of you without magic will have to take my word that Ward's magic has an unmistakable signature—and this was done by someone else. Jakoven is the most likely source." The wizard looked around the room. "I'd pay attention to this, all of you. If we don't stop Jakoven, the stable master's fate might be kinder than anything we face."

  13—WARDWICK

  Action is the best cure for despair.

  "I thought you swore you'd never fight another war, Orvidin," said someone just beyond my view.