Dawn of the Ice Bear

by Jeff Mariotte

  “We do not plan to hurt him,” Kral said. “But I will do whatever is necessary to get my people’s crown back.”

  “Oh, the crown? That’s what you seek?”

  “You’ve seen it?” Kral inquired, excited.

  “No. No one has, yet. But I have heard it discussed. Al Nasir’s acolytes have arrived here in Kuthmet with it, and they plan to present it to him in a ceremony this very night.”

  “Then there is no time to waste,” Kral said. “If we can get it away before he gets his hands on it, so much the better.”

  Tarawa glanced toward one of the windows. Outside, the sky was a deep indigo, shading toward black. “Better, indeed. But night falls. It is not a safe time to be on the streets.”

  “Safety is not my chief concern,” Kral said. “The crown is.”

  “But Kral, the snakes . . .” Mikelo put in.

  “Yes, the snakes,” Tarawa agreed.

  Kral remembered the strange smell he had noticed earlier. Still, what harm could a few snakes do anyone? “No matter the snakes,” he insisted. “I will go alone, if need be.”

  Alanya shook her head. “We will accompany you, Kral,” she promised.

  “As will I,” Tarawa said. “You would never survive in al Nasir’s temple without my help.”

  “Very well, then,” Kral said. “Gather whatever you need, Tarawa. As for us, we’re ready to face whatever waits out there.”

  “Or so you think,” Tarawa said. Alanya didn’t like the look on her face, a look of concern, close to terror. Didn’t like it a bit.

  7

  THE ATTACK CAME at dusk. Sharzen was not expecting it. He thought that when it happened, it would be a morning attack—never dreamed the Picts would begin a battle as night shrouded the settlement of Koronaka. So, while he had never really relaxed since the drumming began, when the day drew to a close he was as close to relaxed as he was likely to get.

  Then suddenly the drums stopped pounding. Virtually at the same moment, a piercing scream ripped the evening gloom. Sharzen ran outside. By torchlight, he saw one of his soldiers on the ground below the wall’s parapet, an arrow in his gullet. Other soldiers were already running about in response, filling the gap in the wall left by their fallen comrade and preparing to return fire.

  “I can’t see a blasted thing out there!” Sharzen heard one cry. “It’s pitch-black in those woods!”

  The only response was an arrow that whistled through the dark and slammed through his helm. The soldier spun around on one foot, then he, too, dropped from the parapet. Sharzen was about to call out an order when there was a noise almost like an oncoming flood, and then the air was full of arrows, thick as gnats in the summer. He ducked back into the relative safety of his mansion’s arched doorway. Arrows clattered off the walls, bounced on flagstones, stuck quivering in dirt.

  They seemed to come from every direction. Soldiers fell right and left, some screaming out horrible death cries, others dropping silently in instantaneous death.

  “To arms!” Sharzen managed to shout. “Fill your hands, men, the Picts are upon us!”

  Even as he screamed, he saw Gestian running toward the wall, tugging on his helmet as he did. The captain had a shield strapped to his left arm and a broadsword clapping against his hip as he scurried. The expression on his mustached face was a bit more frantic than Sharzen liked seeing on the commander of Koronaka’s troops.

  He knew that standing here, even protected by the arch over his doorway, he was in danger. He should go inside, don some armor. Or just stay in, defended by his guards. But his men seemed to have abandoned their posts—they were probably on the wall, or on the way to it, each one assuming that other guards would take care of his safety.

  Or, he thought, looking about him at the carnage that had already occurred, they were dead, victims of the earliest arrow volleys that had hit the courtyard.

  He went inside the residence, slamming the door against the awful sounds from without.

  GESTIAN HAD BEEN on the wall since daybreak. He had spent the day encouraging the men, cajoling them, persuading them to ignore the infernal drumming and keep their eyes on the trees, alert for any potential trouble. He had been moving all day long, from one group of soldiers to the next. Finally, as the sun dipped below the western tree line, he had retired to his quarters and removed his armor. A young woman named Malina would come by in a short while to massage his aching muscles.

  He was waiting for her when he heard the first scream, followed by shouts of alarm and a volley of Pictish arrows raining down into the fort. With an angry curse he had grabbed his armor and strapped it back on as quickly as he could, then buckled his sword belt around his middle and dashed back out to the wall.

  What he found was a catastrophe.

  His troops had taken dozens of casualties, without—as far as he could tell from here—dealing any serious blows in return. The Picts seemed to have the fort surrounded. Arrows flew from every direction. Beyond the walls, the drumming had stopped but now he heard Pictish war cries and other strange noises: birdcalls, animal growls, and so on. He assumed the Picts were using these sounds to communicate. Some kind of code.

  He raced across the eastern parapet in a stooped crouch and stopped beside a lieutenant named Alignon. “What news?” he asked, panting for breath from his desperate run.

  “I never imagined they would attack at night,” Alignon said. “Or even dusk. In my experience, they always make major assaults in the morning.”

  Gestian risked a peek over the wall. In the shadowed forest he thought he saw a pair of dark eyes regarding him from a blue-tinted face. Before he could really focus on it, however, it vanished into the woods. “I never imagined they would band together to attack us,” he said in return.

  “You think the Picts have united?”

  “The Bear Clan would never have been able to mount an offense like this one,” Gestian pointed out. “I doubt any other individual clan would either. No, there are too many of them now—you can see it just by the sheer number of arrows they have sent our way. This is a united effort.”

  Alignon shivered. “I wonder how many they have.”

  “Pray to Mitra we never find out.”

  CONOR WAS ALMOST home to Cimmeria, but the journey wasn’t working out quite as he had planned. He had hoped to sell the bizarrely huge teeth along the way, as he was certain they would bring a much better price in Aquilonia than at home in Taern. But while many of the people he showed them to remarked upon their immense size and unusual appearance, no one had any interest in buying loose animal teeth, however large. Conor had threatened a couple of them, to no avail, and had resorted to robbing others of what treasure they did have. In this fashion, he financed his meals and lodging for the nights.

  He had traveled virtually due north from Tarantia, to avoid the Border Kingdom. The fewer borders he had to cross, the better he liked it. There were likely to be brigands along the road, but none more ferocious than he. Now he believed he was about two days’ journey from Cimmeria if his stolen horse held up. The horse was currently stabled in back of an inn, and Conor was parked inside it, sitting at a table with most of a meal inside him and a few drinks in there with it.

  Seated at the table next to his was a traveler who, Conor guessed, had far more wealth than he did. He based this speculation on the man’s clothing—blue silks and red satins were prevalent; impractical for the road but attention-grabbing just the same. The man had a thick body and a pudgy, florid face, with bright orange hair like a Vanirman’s, only cut shorter. Anyone could see at a glance that he was a civilized man, not one of those northern rogues. A Nordheim winter would probably kill this one, Conor thought.

  But that didn’t mean he might not be interested in parting with some of his gold in exchange for rare and unusual teeth. Conor had struck up a conversation shortly after the man had sat down. Now that he was nearly done, he leaned over to the fellow, who had said his name was Sarapan, of Tauran. “I’ve something you mi
ght be interested in,” Conor whispered melodramatically. “If you’re the sort of man I think you are.”

  Sarapan wiped meat gravy from his lips with the back of one hand. “What sort of man is that?” he asked.

  “The sort who can appreciate a bargain,” Conor said. “Who knows when he sees something of value and is willing to pay a fair price for a sound investment.”

  “I am a businessman by nature,” Sarapan said. He puffed his chest out and picked stray bits of beef from between his teeth. “So I am not surprised you could recognize that quality in me. I admit, however, that I would not have thought of you the same way.”

  Conor nodded slowly. “I am but a simple barbarian,” he said. “Trying to make my way home. This civilized land is not for me. Too many people willing to take advantage of us more simple folk. I can tell that you, though, are too honest for that sort of thing.”

  Sarapan’s face turned even redder. “Yes, honesty is important. Crucial, in my trade. What is it you have?”

  “I would rather not show you in here,” Conor said. “But if you have a private room . . .”

  Of course, the traveler did. Conor had settled for a room shared with three others, one of whom, if judged by odor, might have been a month-dead yak. Sarapan paid for both their meals—part of Conor’s plan from the beginning—and they both went upstairs to his private room.

  The place was not much to speak of. Straw ticking for a bed, a few iron hooks mounted on the wall where a person could hang clothes to keep them off the dirty wood floor. Sarapan had stacked a few bags against a wall, as if willing to let the bottom one get fouled but not the rest. But the room had a door, which was the important thing. Sarapan closed it and looked expectantly at Conor. “Well?”

  Conor drew the teeth from the pouch that dangled from his belt. He held out his closed fist, then opened it, inches from Sarapan’s face. “Have you ever seen their like?”

  Sarapan blinked. His mouth opened, then closed. He shook his head. “I cannot say that I have. What are they?”

  “Who knows? The teeth of a god, some say,” Conor bluffed. No one had said that, except he himself once it had occurred to him.

  “Quite odd,” Sarapan said.

  “Do you like them?”

  “I don’t know,” Sarapan replied. “I am not sure what I would do with them.”

  “If they are truly a god’s teeth, then the market for them would be limitless,” Conor said. “Not where I am headed, but back in Aquilonia.”

  “But how would one prove that?” Sarapan queried. “They could as easily be from some oversized hound.”

  “Never has there been a dog with jaws so huge,” Conor protested.

  “Well, some other creature then. Even a dragon or some such. Without the rest of the head, who can say?”

  “I’ll let you have them for a good price,” Conor pressed.

  “There is no price I would pay, without knowing what they are,” Sarapan said. His fat face was flushed again, this time edging toward purple.

  Conor felt anger swelling in his breast. “Do you think I would cheat you?”

  “I said nothing of the sort. But I am not buying those teeth, so you might as well put them away.”

  The futility of the whole thing suddenly struck Conor. He had not been able to sell the teeth in Aquilonia. In two days he would be in Cimmeria, then he would head west a for a few days, to Taern. No one there would care about them, or have any treasure to part with anyway. He had gone to considerable trouble, and put his own life in jeopardy, and for what? He had been sure that the Pictish crown was valuable, so therefore these parts of it were worth something, too. But if no one wanted them, then all they were was a nuisance.

  He hated the way Sarapan stared at him. The miserable, pudgy merchant considered him some kind of fool, or worse. Conor had tried to give him an honest deal, a fair price. But the rage built in him as Sarapan stared, obviously trying to find a diplomatic way to get the barbarian out of his room. Now Conor couldn’t tell if the man’s face was even more red, or if it was just the bloodlust clouding his vision.

  Without even thinking about it, he drew his broadsword from its scabbard. Sarapan’s mouth worked soundlessly, but Conor knew he was trying to give voice to a terrified scream. He closed the distance between them with a single step and swung the sword. Sarapan’s body crumpled to the floor, lifeless, the scream dying inside his throat.

  Conor knew he had to hurry. Someone might have heard the altercation, recognized the sound of a body hitting the floor. The merchant had gold, he was certain. He wouldn’t have taken a private room in the inn if he hadn’t. He checked the man’s body first. No luck. Turned to the rest of the room. The bags. Digging through them, he came across clothing—more of the same silks and satins, for the most part. No loot.

  Conor rose, surveyed the room again. If there were a hidden panel or something, he would not find it. The fury in him was so great that he moved to kick Sarapan’s lifeless husk, but when he did, he noticed a slight mound beneath the straw. Instead, he kicked that, revealing a velvet purse.

  Two dozen golden lunas spilled into his hand when he upended it. He felt their weight for a moment, smiling. Poured them into his own purse.

  Everything he owned he had on him. But he wanted the horse from the stable. Maybe even a fresh one, if it didn’t cost more than one of his gold pieces.

  After all, he had ridden his most of the day. Now he would have to ride all night, as well. Maybe he could be across the border before anyone found the dead man.

  If not, at least he’d be well out of the reach of the local law.

  And now, finally, he had a stake that would serve him well in Taern. He had accomplished what he had gone to Aquilonia for. He’d seen the civilized world, and he had gained his treasure.

  Time to go home, Conor thought. More than time.

  8

  THE STREETS OF Kuthmet were much quieter now that the sun had gone. Darkness ruled the quiet hours; darkness and the Sons of Set, the serpent god. They had barely left Tarawa’s house when Donial saw the first snake. It was about four feet long, black with red stripes. Torchlight gleamed off its sinuous back as it writhed its way up the road.

  He noticed Tarawa glance at the thing casually, then turn her head as if it was beneath her attention. Kral, however, cringed away from the serpent. Picts hated snakes, Donial knew, and Kral was no exception. The savage’s hand had dropped to his knife hilt, ready to strike at the beast. He didn’t like snakes, but it was distaste, not fear, that ruled his reaction. Donial continued watching the snake until it reached a corner and slithered out of sight. He had to step quickly to catch up with the others, who kept pace with Tarawa. Before they had gone another block, he saw two more serpents, one twice the size of the first.

  Even as large as that snake was, it was not as fearsome as the one they saw on the next dark block. Tarawa gasped and pressed them all back against the nearest stone wall. “Now you see why we seldom venture out in the dark,” she hissed. “Remain still—their eyesight is poor, but they can detect sudden motion.”

  The snake she shied from was at least thirty feet in length, Donial judged, and as big around as a barrel. Its tongue flicked from its mouth as it slithered along the road toward them, darting out to taste the air. With a slow, smooth motion, Kral slid his sword from its scabbard. Donial did the same. He didn’t want to attract the thing’s attention, but if they did, he wanted to be ready to defend against it. He only caught glimpses of its fangs, but they looked like daggers.

  Mikelo had told them stories about the huge snakes that were allowed to roam the streets of some Stygian cities, taking any unfortunate passersby for victims. He had heard rumors of such things even back in Tarantia. But he had never quite been able to believe it. Why would anyone allow such grotesque beasts free rein?

  Tarawa spoke softly, almost as if reading Donial’s mind. “The priests worship Set,” she explained. “The snake god. No one denies the snakes anything, for fea
r of enraging Set. Or at least his priests.”

  The thing came closer as she spoke, but it did not seem aware of their presence. It writhed past them, searching out some tastier treat. Donial breathed a sigh of relief once it had disappeared down the dark street.

  “That was close,” Tarawa said. “We were lucky, or blessed.”

  “Surely it can’t eat everyone it comes into contact with,” Alanya suggested. “It would not always be hungry, would it?”

  “Perhaps not,” Tarawa said. “But there are more than one that size.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Kral said.

  “Be that as it may, it is true,” Tarawa insisted.

  “I have seen more than one during my brief time in Stygia,” Mikelo said.

  Kral shuddered visibly. “Once I have the Teeth, I will never again set foot in this cursed land.”

  “I have said much the same thing,” Tarawa said, “nearly every day since I was brought here. And yet, here I am.”

  She was a slave, and Donial doubted that escape was an easy option for her. But he was sure that Kral would make good on his pledge. This place was as alien to the Pict as the surface of the moon, and probably less appealing.

  “Have no doubts,” Kral assured her. “I will not tarry here a moment longer than necessary. Now, can we get to al Nasir’s place?”

  Tarawa looked back toward the big snake, now completely vanished down the street. “Hurry,” she urged, leading the way again. “Before we encounter another one.”

  A short, brisk walk later, they stood on the outskirts of an enormous compound of large, dark buildings. All were dark, hunched against the sky like crouching warriors waiting to spring. A wall surrounded the whole compound, which seemed almost as large as the entire rest of the town, but it was barely more than a man’s height, as if Shehkmi al Nasir was not truly worried about intruders.

  In a way, that scared Donial more than anything else.