The Fanged Crown

by Jenna Helland

  “Ysabel!” Tresco said, choking on her name. He knew all the cousins by name, and they all referred to him as Uncle, a familiarity he begrudgingly permitted. “What are you doing here!”

  “Looking for Cousin Daviel,” she said, peering up at him intently.

  “As am I,” Tresco said. “But this is no place for a child. Go back to the main corridor and wait there. I will continue to search for Daviel.”

  “It’s no matter, Uncle,” she said quietly, her blue eyes unnaturally wide. “I’ve found him already.”

  Evonne Linden was killed in Celleu the same night that the children were massacred in the Winter Palace. After a lengthy discussion in their private chambers in the palace at Darromar, the men of the Inquiry settled on “unbelievable irony” over ”unprecedented coordination.” Their official position was that a bandit climbed up the trellis to Evonne’s second-story window, unlatched the shuttered window, and suffocated her as she slept. Then he stole an embroidered bag that servants had seen her carrying earlier in the day—it was the only thing missing from her quarters— and disappeared into the night without the guards in the hallway ever hearing a sound.

  The explanation satisfied Queen Anais’s followers, but left Evonne’s supporters screaming for the queen’s blood. There was a door connecting Evonne’s quarters and the queen’s quarters, and many believed that Queen Anais had killed her own sister. Anais had reason to hate Evonne, of course. Had Evonne’s revolt against Anais been successful, she would have seized the crown for herself. Evonne’s husband, Garion, had been a powerful man with many secret followers. When he died, his substantial network switched its allegiance to Evonne and was ready to take up arms at her call.

  After Evonne’s death, there were several skirmishes between the queen’s regiments and Evonne’s die-hard proponents, who had begun calling themselves the Branch of Linden. After a particularly bloody skirmish on the black rocks of the Ebenspy Plateau, the Linden fighters were driven into Ebenspy Keep, an ancient castle on a rocky spike of land jutting out of the obsidian encrusted flatlands. With strong wards protecting the walls, the fighters held out for days before a coughing sickness killed half of them, and the queen’s soldiers successfully blasted under the thick walls of volcanic glass and took control of the Keep. With the ringleaders swinging by their necks in front of the High Palace at Darromar, Queen Anais was satisfied that the Branch of Linden had been eradicated.

  Still beautiful in death, Evonne was buried with state honors in the hillside mausoleum with a view of the sparkling ocean in the distance. The guardianship of her daughter, Ysabel, was given to Queen Anais, in trust of Tresco Maynard. The child would live at Tresco Maynard’s ancestral home, Kinnard Keep, on the edge of Kinnard Heath, a desolate expanse of gorse and heather.

  CHAPTER TEN

  29 Kythorn, the Year of the Ageless One

  (1479 DR)

  Chult

  A leaf-strewn path led them out of the grove and up a vine-tangled slope toward the heart of the island. They left the corpse tucked in the tree hollow because it seemed a better grave than a shallow hole on the open floor. Although he couldn’t see the sky through the leaf canopy, Harp judged it to be late afternoon. He found it hard to breathe in the heavy, moist air, and soon his clothes dripped with sweat and his flask was empty.

  Their previous plans of a quick survey—in and out before nightfall—were looking less and less likely with every step through the brush. They would have to find a place to camp soon. The heat under the trees was rising, and the sunlight beat down through the green of the leaves, casting the world in a pale yellow glow. As the temperature rose, an eerie silence fell as if the jungle’s creatures had retreated into a quiet, shady spot to wait out the worst of the heat.

  Beside Harp, Kitto was whistling a tune softly to himself. It was a tune Harp recognized from the Marderward, and the words had stayed with him all these years: “Bitch Queen take my soul away to the depths of the sea. Don’t make me stay one bleeding day. This world is not for me.”

  “So what do you think of the jungle?” Harp asked. “Lots of plants, huh.”

  Kitto stopped whistling and smiled down at his boots. Since Kitto never had much to say, it had become a joke to talk to him about mundane things, topics that other people would consider normal conversation, but Kitto seemed to think were hilarious. But then, most things that were normal to other people amused Kitto.

  “Quite the weather we’re having,” Harp continued. “Did I tell you about the mule? She’s got the mange. We had to put her out of her misery.”

  Boult piped up from behind them. “Got a bit of the ache in my neck. Oh, but the crops are quite good.”

  “Can you believe the price of eggs?” Harp asked. “And did you hear about Lady Arello and the Captain of the Guard? Scandalous!”

  “You’re all insane,” Verran said. “Kitto, you should just tell them they’re all insane.”

  They settled into an amicable silence. But their easy trek along the open floor didn’t last long. As the incline became steeper and the vegetation grew thicker, the men spread out as they struggled up the hill, their feet slipping on loose stones that seemed to be only held together by a mat of roots on top of very shallow soil. Kitto stayed close to Harp, which meant the boy had something that he wanted to say.

  They were at the back of the group, and Harp found himself breathing uncomfortably hard. Kitto waited with him as Harp paused to catch his breath.

  “I need to take better care of myself,” he said, taking a drink of water from Kitto’s waterskin. “Maybe I’m getting too old for this.”

  Kitto didn’t look tired at all. The wiry boy was all lean muscle, athleticism, and startling grace. Sometimes Kitto and Boult would have rope-climbing contests up the shroud ropes on the Crane. Boult was agile for a dwarf and much stronger than Kitto, but he couldn’t best the boy’s unparalleled displays of dexterousness.

  “Too much ale,” Kitto said in his soft, lilting voice. “And not enough sleep.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry about that. But don’t give me too much trouble. That’s Boult’s job.”

  Kitto tipped his head back and looked up at the sky, and for the millionth time Harp wondered why the boy chose to tag along with him when there were thousands of people of better quality than Harp could ever hope to be. Kitto was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He just didn’t seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere.

  “I told you that Liel was one of the colonists and that her father was worried that something had happened to her. I just want to make sure you’re all right. I know you and Liel were friends.”

  “I’m all right,” Kitto replied flatly. Harp tried to gauge the emotion in the boy’s face, but Kitto was unreadable. With Harp breathing easier, they resumed climbing up the hill after Boult and Verran.

  “She took care of you, right? After you left Gwynneth Isle and went to the Wealdath with her.”

  “She said I could stay in the Wealdath.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I hated Cardew.”

  “That makes three of us,” Harp said wryly as they scrambled up a rocky embankment.

  “He knew you were in Vankila,” Kitto said. “I heard him say he was going to make you pay.”

  That wasn’t news to Harp, who was fully aware how Cardew had directed the events that transpired during his imprisonment at the Vankila Slab. With a single directive, Cardew had altered the course of Harp’s life irrevocably.

  “I tried to make Cardew tell me where you were. But he wouldn’t.”

  Harp laid his hand on Kitto’s shoulder. “You couldn’t have gotten me out by yourself. It was better you didn’t know.”

  “I should have been there too,” Kitto said softly.

  “No, that’s the last place in the world you should have been. Come on, or I’ll make you talk about the latest dress fashions. Ribbons or bows, Kitto? I just can’t decide!”

  By the time they caught up to Boult and Verran, it wa
s obvious they had lost the path, or maybe they’d been following the wrong one all along. The ground flattened out again, and they trudged through stands of massive fernlike plants, their leaves covered with a white fuzziness that looked deceptively soft, but on closer inspection was actually made of razor-sharp barbs.

  Even the flowers impeded their progress through the jungle. The ground had been overrun with a variety of pinkish blooms that grew on reedy stalks and sent out crimson tendrils to envelope whatever vegetation surrounded them. The tendrils from a single plant could overtake entire sections of jungle floor, engulfing everything in a lumpy red mesh. When the back of Harp’s hand brushed against one of the crimson tendrils, his skin puffed up painfully.

  “First lesson of the jungle,” he told his crew as he rubbed salve on the rash and wrapped his hand in cloth. “If it has color, avoid it.”

  “Second lesson of the jungle,” Boult replied, picking thorns out of the leg of his pants. “Avoid the jungle.”

  “And miss the glorious views?” Harp joked, gesturing ahead of him at the dense wall of thorns that formed a barrier to the north and west. The eastern route was no easier because of a steep vine-covered embankment.

  “Have you noticed how the flat land is always followed by a sharp rise?” Verran said. “We’ve been climbing higher since we left the beach.”

  “Like we’re climbing a massive staircase,” Kitto said. His comment was followed by a long moment of silence. Harp tried to imagine what such a land formation would look like from a bird’s eye view.

  “Or maybe it’s like a pyramid with the steps on all sides,” Kitto continued.

  “Either way begs the question,” Boult said. “What’s at the top?”

  Although it wasn’t very high, the embankment was nearly vertical. Ropey yellow vines draped the length of it, making it easy to climb. About halfway up, Harp reached for a handhold. His hand touched something reedy, and a blast of orange exploded into the air. Startled, Harp lost his grip on the vine, slid down the embankment, and crashed into Boult. The dwarf managed to keep hold of the cliff despite the weight of his captain and the flock of orange birds that flapped into the sky, screeching their indignation at the disruption.

  “Hullo, Boult,” Harp said, who had landed across the dwarf’s arms. “Your assistance is most appreciated.”

  “Get off me, you lout,” Boult grumbled. “You’re the worst climber I’ve ever met. You could break your neck walking across a field.”

  “Nonsense,” Harp replied, hauling himself upright and resuming his climb past the deep hollow where the cliff-dwelling birds nested. “I’m very agile.”

  “Agile like a cave slug,” Boult retorted. “Is there anything you do well?”

  “He makes good soup,” Kitto called from below them on the cliff.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Boult said. “Didn’t you eat dinner last night? What did you do, Harp? Boil oranges in dirty water and call it food?”

  Verran laughed. “I glad that’s not the normal fare on the boat. I was worried I’d starve to death.”

  “Kitto liked it,” Harp said as he reached the top of the cliff and pulled himself onto a small rock plateau. “The rest of you have no taste.”

  “Not after years of eating your cooking,” Boult said, climbing onto the rock beside Harp.

  “Damn, that’s beautiful,” Harp said as they stared out across the horizon at their first unencumbered sight of the open sky since they had left the Crane earlier that morning. In the gathering twilight, the ocean was a deep dusky blue, and they could see the two ships in the cove, surprisingly small in the distance.

  “It’s getting dark,” Harp said. “We need to find a place to sleep.”

  “I doubt the jungle floor is a good spot for napping,” Boult replied.

  “What about here?” Harp asked, looking around. The flat rock was surrounded on three sides by tangled undergrowth. The side that opened to the ocean was level with the crowns of the towering trees they had walked under earlier that day.

  “We’d never see anything coming up on us,” Boult said shaking his head. “We might as well slice open our bellies and ring the dinner bell.”

  “You’re so dramatic,” Harp sighed. “How dangerous could it be?”

  “In a place where the vines can eat you, I think the meat-eaters can probably kill you with a sneeze,” Boult said dryly.

  “Poor, delicate Boult,” Harp said, as Verran and Kitto reached the top of the cliff, climbed on the plateau, and laid down their packs gratefully. “Take a rest. I’ll look around.”

  Harp pushed his way into the undergrowth on the far side of the plateau. Once he was inside the thicket, he followed a finger of rock that stuck out among the treetops. The rock jetty ended just a few feet from the top of one of the soaring trees. The wide leaves and thick branches above him hindered his view of the sky, and it was a substantial drop to the ground. But from where Harp stood, he was close to the thick woody vines that he’d noticed from the ground. They grew between the trees, lacing the branches together and forming paths in the air wide enough for a man to walk more or less comfortably, if he had any sense of balance.

  Harp squatted down and held very still; soon wildlife began emerging from the tree cover. A little monkey-like creature with dark golden fur and an extremely long tail moved slowly along the vines, sniffing the air as if he knew that something wasn’t quite right. The creature reached one of the wide, rough-barked trunks, gracefully scampered up into the leaves, and disappeared overhead.

  Maybe it knew a safe place to spend the night. Harp stretched out to grab the nearest vine. Grasping it with two hands, he swung over the expanse. He kicked his legs, trying to get a footing on a wider vine below him. His shoulders aching, he overshot it twice and was very glad that Boult wasn’t there to see his clumsy moves. When he finally found his balance, he walked carefully along the springy vine. The leaves were mere inches from his head, but the distance to the ground made him surprisingly dizzy. Harp had spent a good portion of his life working the tall sails of ships and had never had a problem with heights. Maybe the heat of the jungle was getting to him.

  When he reached the trunk where the golden monkey had disappeared, Harp had a harder time climbing up the trunk, but he shimmied up and poked his head unceremoniously through the leaves. In front of him was a natural floor formed by a tight mat of branches interwoven as they sought the sun and tangled on the roots of canopy ferns. Holding onto a vine, Harp jumped up and down on the floor to see if it would break under his weight. But jumping on it did nothing but sway the branches and disturb a few birds.

  The natural platform was surrounded on all sides by leaves, and on one edge was a white flower the size of a boulder. With the palm of his hand, Harp scooped up some of the water that had collected in the petals and refilled his flask. The sky had dimmed from blue to purple. As for places to camp in the jungle, the leafy platform was more comfortable than they deserved.

  As he made his way back to collect his friends, Harp could see a band of blue river cascading down from the inland mountains. Based on Avalor’s information, he knew that the colony was less than half a mile from the river and only a mile inland from the cove. From his vantage point, Harp had a sense of where the colony should be. They must have taken the wrong path out of the grove. After a night’s rest they would make their way to the river and head up the northern bank. The colony should be easy to find from there.

  “You got lucky,” Boult said, when he saw the treetop hideaway that Harp had found for them.

  “Nah, I’m just smarter than you.”

  “What did you do? Follow a monkey?”

  “Shut it, dwarf,” Harp said. “You would have just shot it. And then where would we be?”

  “Eating dinner,” Boult replied.

  In the gathering twilight, they ate a quick meal of hard bread and dried meat. No one talked much as they stretched out to sleep on the springy branches. As the moon rose above them, none were prepared fo
r what the jungle became after darkness fell. It was the noisiest night any of them had ever experienced. It seemed as if every creature in the jungle was agitated, angry, or just generally homicidal. Harp wasn’t sure about the other men, but every time he dozed off, a sound of crashing, hissing, or gnashing startled him awake. It happened so many times, it was almost amusing, except for the fear he felt when the treetop shook under the heavy footsteps of some night wanderer who prowled the jungle below.

  At some point in the night, Harp dozed off and rolled on his side. Awakened by a growling noise that sounded inches away from his ear, he opened his eyes. Through the gaps in the branches under him, he could see a black shadow lumbering across the forest floor below. In the faint light from the moon, the creature looked like it was tall enough to reach up and grab him through the canopy if it wanted to. Ambling between the buttress roots, it suddenly stopped and took several raspy breaths, as if it were tasting the air. The dark shape twisted, and Harp could see two yellow eyes glowing through the gloom. Still half-asleep, Harp reassured himself that getting eaten by a forest beast wasn’t the worst way to go.

  “Put me out of my misery,” he whispered to the monstrosity below him. “I haven’t had the guts to do it myself.”

  But the monster seemed to lose interest and moved into the shadows. The way it vanished from sight made Harp wonder if it had been more spirit than flesh. In the last moment before dawn, the din of the jungle finally ceased. The nighttime chaos was banished with the dawning of the sun, and a serene quiet accompanied the first rays of morning light. Finally, Harp dropped off to sleep.

  And then the screaming began. Harp jerked awake, as the high-pitched wails rang across the jungle, reverberated against the mountains, and echoed back across the valleys. A call of feral pain, it was loud enough to leave a ringing in his ears and primal enough to make his blood run cold. He heard the splintering of wood as something massive crashed through the undergrowth, followed by a thud that rattled the ground and jostled the branches under them.