It was a three-story tower that looked something like a tree, individual trunks of white and gray swamp oaks bound together in a circle to make one great, false trunk. Instead of branches arms like cargo cranes emerged from the top and splayed out in every direction, some reaching clear to the ground while others contacted neighboring buildings. Flying buttresses designed by the maddest of Magdetchoi architects, if there was any design at all.
“That is distinctive,” Dugan said. He held his horse’s reins out toward Tilda and dropped them as he resumed walking with his long stride, saying only “Wait here.”
Tilda grabbed the reins before the horse got any ideas. “Where are you going?” she called after Dugan, and he answered without turning around.
“I need to talk to someone. Make sure our boys have not been here yet.”
There was a gap in the front of the tree-trunk tower and torchlight flickering from within. While Dugan strode straight at it Tilda looked more carefully at the odd construction and saw with a start that things were looking back at her. Among the crazy crane arms draped with netting instead of foliage there were plank platforms and small cupolas. Many of them were occupied by forest-green creatures, smaller than dwarves, that blended with the netting so well details were hard to perceive. Tilda saw spherical bodies, big yellow-white eyes, and here and there the dull metal glint of an arrow head or a short blade.
Tilda looked back down at the street and saw that Dugan had stopped short of the tower, not looking up at it but rather sideways at one of the buildings on the empty half block, one of only two storefronts with an open door. He turned and crossed to a window, then stood staring.
There was no sign of any hostility from the things in the tree, so Tilda slowly led both horses forward and over to Dugan, glancing up at the little creatures all the way. She supposed they must be bullywugs, the small, amphibious Magdetchoi race that along with hobgoblin tribes constituted the “Shugak” of the Vod Wilds. Moving closer she could see they did indeed look like frogs, with spindly arms and bent legs on round bodies with no necks joining torsos to heads. They had wide mouths and their bright eyes were top-mounted, with slit pupils that followed Tilda as she stepped uncertainly over toward Dugan. They had knives and bows, but none held at the ready. Rather, their weapons were sheathed and hung from the straps and harnesses that were all they wore for clothing. One raised a webbed hand and waved, and Tilda dully waved back.
She hurried the last few steps over to Dugan, pulling the horses along. He stood staring into a window covered with an intricate cross-hatch of narrow wooden slats so that the objects on shelves within could be seen but not touched. The display window was full of jewelry, and Tilda had a bad feeling.
“Yours?” Tilda said, though she really did not have to ask. Dugan just went on staring at a amethyst pendant on a fine silver chain.
When he spoke, he said only one word. It was a Codian expletive generally not put down in the more decent sorts of writing.
*
Dugan did most of the talking inside, as the Chengdean counterman spoke serviceable Codian. The shop was one of two fences on the block in which the Shugak employed humans who bought up jewelry, weapons, supplies, and anything else from groups desperate to raise enough cash to pay the bullywugs for transport into the Wilds and to buy permits to enter Vod’Adia itself. Business looked to have been good for the shop was stocked to the rafters with all manner of items, and the counterman was richly decked out in an embroidered waistcoat with the frills of a silk shirt at collar and wrists. He had at least one ring on every finger, a gold tooth, and his dark, longish hair was slicked back with something that smelled faintly of musk. Two hulking hobgoblins framed the front door, large creatures built similar to bugbears though a bit smaller and with shorter limbs. Rather than fur they had rubbery-looking hides of mottled oranges and reds, and the two in the store wore splint mail and helmets with curving animal horns on the sides. They narrowed their small, piggy eyes at Dugan and Tilda and fingered the morning stars resting on their broad shoulders.
The counterman remembered the group who had sold the necklace in the window well enough, though only one of the fellows had come inside while the other four waited on the street. All five had worn the steel-and-chain armor of Codian legionnaires, though the plumes had been taken off of their helmets and those with tower shields carried them with cloths draped over the bosses and devices. They exchanged the necklace and two matching silver bracelets which the man produced from under the counter, for forty-two pieces of gold and six silvers. Passage for five into the Wilds via Shugak raft was going for about thirty gold, as of three days ago.
“The man who came into the store,” Tilda asked. “Did you notice if he had green eyes?”
The counterman grinned. “Indeed I did, rather striking they were. They matched a great emerald in a ring he was wearing. Made him an offer on the ring, a good one, but he refused to part with it. Said it had sentimental value.”
When John Deskata had been born, his eyes had been as green as the emerald pennons of Deskata House. People had said it was a good omen.
“What about a permit for Vod’Adia?” Dugan asked. “Did they buy one here?”
The counterman shook his head. “I don’t sell those, nor arrange transport. The wugs on the docks handle the rafts but if you want to buy a license, as they call it, you have to deal with the hobs in that ‘tree’ out there.” The man sighed and looked out his front window at the ramshackle construction. “When that thing goes, I hope to hell it falls the other bloody way.”
“Is that where the men went?” Tilda asked.
“Not that I saw, and I doubt they could afford a license here. They are selling at around fifty gold a head, and there is no way that bunch had a quarter-thousand gold among them.”
“But they were buying passage to Vod’Adia,” Dugan said, not really as a question.
“To the Camp Town around it, at any rate. Lots of sell-swords do that and hope to merge or hire-on with other likeminded sorts once they are there. A group of five, they might have to split up before entering. Now, if your man had been willing to sell me that ring of his…”
The counterman sighed and looked wistfully at his bejeweled fingers.
Tilda followed Dugan back outside, passing between the hobgoblins that gave them another glare. The horses waited at a hitching post but Dugan walked past them before he stopped. For the first time he did not seem to know what to do with himself, and he plopped to a seat on the curb.
Tilda stood behind him. “Apart from the necklace and bracelets, how much more of your belongings do the legionnaires still have?”
Dugan sighed. “The necklace was the main piece, the rest is mostly trinkets. Loose stones and some earrings. Probably not another twenty gold, all told. Considering the time the sons of bitches made getting here, they may have hawked those already for river passage. They did not beat us here on foot, that is for certain.”
Dugan’s shoulders were hunched. Tilda looked at his back and took advantage of his mood to allow herself a moment to think. This might not be all bad, for her. If Dugan was unwilling to go on after Deskata and company now that his money was lost, and if she could go ahead and find them herself, the eventual confrontation would be far simpler. Of course that meant Tilda would be going alone into the Wilds and the hazards of Camp Town, but she resolved not to think about that for the moment. Right now the issue was Dugan.
Tilda had taken to wearing Captain Block’s kitbag by the strap over a shoulder on her right side, as she did not have a sword there anymore. She slid the bag to her belly and opened the top, and nimble fingers rifled through the contents. She counted out enough Miilarkian bank notes to trade for at least sixty gold pieces, which was almost a third of those remaining. The notes made a sizable sheaf she bound around with a length of twine. She stepped around Dugan into the street and dropped the pile at his feet. He stared at it before looking up at her.
“That is enough to cover your los
s,” Tilda said. “Consider it payment for getting…me…this far.”
Dugan looked back at the pile, then narrowed his eyes at Tilda.
“How do you know the ring isn’t mine, too?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the store. “The one the man would have paid at least two-fifty for?”
“That was a House Ring,” Tilda said. “The emerald is worn by every blood Deskata. It was not yours and it is worth a great deal more than a quarter-thousand gold. It belongs to the man wearing it.”
“Well, what if he lost it to me in a dice game some while back? John was a terrible sort for the gambling. His third favorite vice after whiskey and whores.”
Tilda shrugged. “Then the Ninth God used you ill, and it’s not my problem.”
Tilda stepped back to the horses, feeling a tremulous emptiness in her stomach. She was really going to do this, go on alone through swamp and murk toward the most deadly place on the continent of Noroth, and a shabby town presently populated by the most dangerous people in the world. John Deskata and his men would be five needles not in a haystack, but in a stack of needles. Yet the only other option would be to go home, alone, having failed. To tell Rhianne Deskata that the Corner Stone of the House was dead, and with him their last hope.
“I am selling the horses,” Tilda said, relieved that her voice did not quaver despite her feelings. “You can take your packs and bedding as you wish, but the rest is mine.”
“Wait,” Dugan said, as Tilda began to unfasten the saddle bags from the tired horse the man had been riding. She stopped and looked back. Dugan still sat on the curb with the stack of notes between his feet, scowling at her.
“You are going on? Alone? What’s the point, girl? Say you get to Camp Town even before Vod’Adia Opens, and you actually find the boys. Before some cash-strapped adventurer cuts your throat for pocket money, I mean. John is not going to be any happier to see a Miilarkian than he would have been to see me. And believe me, even without his four fellows…the man is a worthless piece of excrement in a lot of ways, but he is good at what he does with a blade. You couldn’t take him by himself, let alone outnumbered.”
Taking him was never the point, but Tilda bristled at more than that.
“I am a Miilarkian Guilder,” she said, and Dugan threw back his head and laughed. Some of the bullywugs in the weird structure at the end of the block croaked in return.
“You’re a child,” he said. “Now Cap’n Block, that crusty old pirate, he might have had a shot. But John will cut you up for bait, and no fooling.”
Tilda thrust out her jaw and planted her hands on her hips.
“Do you think I am daft? Skill with a blade counts for little if someone you don’t see puts a slug in the back of your head.”
Dugan snorted. “Ah, the honor of the Islanders.”
“It has gotten us this far,” Tilda said, trepidation for her future washing away on a hot spurt of anger. Something dark had been simmering in Tilda’s silence since she had climbed out of the chasm in which Captain Block lay. She could taste it now in the back of her throat like bile, but had nowhere to go with it.
Tilda turned to the horses, and undid the last buckle holding Dugan’s saddle bags. He stood and she heaved the bags at him harder than was necessary, but he caught them easily and draped them familiarly over one shoulder. He held the bound bank notes in one hand and ran a thumb hard with calluses over the edge, counting.
“There is enough here for one ticket to Vod’Adia,” he said, almost but not quite like he was not even talking to Tilda. “And for a license to enter the city, besides. Still with five or ten gold left over. Probably ought to buy a helmet if I‘m going in there…”
“I do not want you to come with me,” Tilda said slowly, enunciating every word so there was no lack of clarity though she knew she was saying them for herself as much as for Dugan.
“I am not talking about you anymore,” Dugan said, holding his money in one open hand to feel the weight of it. Tilda had noticed at an early age that cash always felt heavier than just the paper and ink of which it was made.
“You will do what you want, or what you feel you must,” Dugan said. “As for me…it looks as though I am a man without a country now. A soldier without an army.” He met Tilda’s eyes, and winked. “Seems like Vod’Adia is the place to be for a man like that, in this season.”
He stuffed the notes into a trouser pocket.
“Today is Eighth of Ninth. Blackstone is due to Open in three weeks and I imagine it takes most of that to raft there. If you want your shot at John, I would suggest you take the next boat out. I’ll see you on it, most likely. Otherwise, fare thee well, my Island girl.”
With that Dugan stood to attention and struck his chest with a balled fist, in the manner of a legionnaire’s salute. He turned on his heel and marched for the gap in the front of the tree-like tower. Some of the bullywugs in the branches were still croaking, and Dugan snapped “Ribbit!” as he passed beneath them. They fell into a sulky silence.
Tilda watched Dugan step into the bound-log tower and heard him boom a hearty “Good evening, Gentlemen. Hobgoblins.” She turned away to the horses and snatched their reins free of the hitching post. She stood there in the street for a moment with the tired horses looking at her. The counterman from the store was leaning in his doorway, smoking a pipe and watching her with no particular expression on his face.
Tilda spoke one word under her breath, a Miilarkian expletive generally not put down in the more decent sorts of writing. She turned and jerked on the horses’ reins, leading them toward the docks beyond the tower.
Chapter Eighteen
Duke Cyril II, lord of the city and province of Chengdea, had a headache. It had been with him off-and-on for months, ever since word had come up the river that the Ayzant forces had broken out of the Larbonne waterfront and set siege to the remaining Daulic defenders in the old citadel.
Sometimes if the Duke slept well the headache would be gone in the morning. But it would ooze back into his skull over the course of the long days spent in his throne room. The room had changed now to the point that it was in no condition to receive visitors nor to host any banquet or ceremony. The twin thrones of mahogany inlaid with silver and upholstered with silk still sat on their dais, though Cyril hardly ever sat in his and his wife’s had been empty for twelve years now apart from the jeweled circlet sitting untouched on the pillow, which the Duchess’s staff still dusted and fluffed every day.
The throne room was vast and church-like with stone columns running down a central aisle and wide windows of stained glass high in the tall walls, facing due east and west to dapple the parquet floor with pink light at dawn and somber purple in the evenings. Beneath the windows the paneled walls were covered with adornments, primarily the Chengdean banners of a gold flower on a green field. The blossoms were a species of lotus with four curving petals native to the banks of the Black River, and thus commonly called the Black Lotus despite being a deep yellow bordering on orange. The ancient Ettacean name for the flower was the chengde, and it had given this place a name nearly fourteen centuries ago.
Between the banners, murals and torch brackets were dozens of decorations of a classic Daulic type; embossed shields mounted over crossed swords. The shields displayed the heraldry of prominent provincial nobles with the family names etched in flowing script on fired clay tablets mounted beneath them. The tablets and even a few of the names such as Gaehei, Vracchi, and Chirobbi hearkened back to ancient times when Chengdea was the twelfth and last province of the Ettacean Empire. A mixture of modified Ettasi names and old Leutian families such as Dolmonum, Towsan, and Orbachauer had become part of this land’s history during the long centuries when Chengdea had survived as an independent successor-state to the fallen empire, ruled by Dukes who still modeled their authority on the defunct Imperial writ.
Most of the shields and the family names were newer and purely Daulic, for the Nan River Kingdom had held sway here for some three-hundr
ed years since its knights had poured into the Duchy to battle the unholy monstrosities that had scuttled out of Vod’Adia and the Wilds at the Second Opening. The Duchy was saved but at the price of independence, for the knights had not gone home after the last wight was hewn asunder, the last shadowy wraith banished. As the shields told, the descendents of men who had been but squires and knights in the Dead War were barons and earls of Daulic Chengdea to this day.
There were two shields above the thrones, that above the circlet in the empty chair was the ancient sigil of the Halvalons of eastern Daul. Cyril’s wife had detested her family banner for while from a distance it just looked like a white dove flanked by two sets of three wheat sheaves, once you got close you could see that the dove was holding an eyeball in its beak, hanging by a red nerve. Duchess Jasmine Halvalon Perforce had been a women of refinement whose sense of decorum did not embrace severed body parts on banners, and especially not on tableware.
The last shield, mounted above the ducal throne, was such a simple design as to have been an afterthought, consisting only of a diagonal gold band on a green background. The design, and Cyril’s family name of Perforce, had only been in existence since the ongoing Ayzant war began with the catastrophic battle of the Icheroon. There on an insignificant stream in the bad borderlands between the Kingdom of Daul and Ayzantium the cream of Daulic chivalry had ridden their heavy horses downhill into sucking marshes that must have looked dry from above. They had been butchered by Zantish peasants with scythes and threshing flails. A line of Dukes who had ruled Chengdea for a century was ended there, as were many much older Daulic families. In the chaos that followed thrones and fiefdoms across the provinces changed hands until seized by someone strong enough to hold onto them. In Chengdea the last man standing had been a minor knight whose lineage dated from Daul’s occupation of the Winding River lands, across the Girdings in Orstaf. Sir Cyril Balabushevych had been crowned Duke Cyril I in this very throne room, with a horse saber in one hand and the dead Duke’s widow in the other. The new Duke had lost the old Kantan mouthful in favor of Perforce, which was both Daulic and indicative of the manner in which his line had come to power.
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