Elsewise it was a sullen, silent column that trudged through the gates of Whitewalls to toss their weapons into a glittering pile before being bound and led away to await Lord Bloodraven’s judgment. Dunk emerged with the rest of them, together with Ser Kyle the Cat and Glendon Ball. They had looked for Ser Maynard to join them, but Plumm had melted away sometime during the night.
It was late that afternoon before Ser Roland Crakehall of the Kingsguard found Dunk among the other prisoners. “Ser Duncan. Where in seven hells have you been hiding? Lord Rivers has been asking for you for hours. Come with me, if you please.”
Dunk fell in beside him. Crakehall’s long cloak flapped behind him with every gust of wind, as white as moonlight on snow. The sight of it made him think back on the words the Fiddler had spoken, up on the roof. I dreamed that you were all in white from head to heel, with a long pale cloak flowing from those broad shoulders. Dunk snorted. Aye, and you dreamed of dragons hatching from stone eggs. One is likely as t’other.
The Hand’s pavilion was half a mile from the castle, in the shade of a spreading elm tree. A dozen cows were cropping at the grass nearby. Kings rise and fall, Dunk thought, and cows and smallfolk go about their business. It was something the old man used to say. “What will become of all of them?” he asked Ser Roland, as they passed a group of captives sitting on the grass.
“They’ll be marched back to King’s Landing for trial. The knights and men-at-arms should get off light enough. They were only following their liege lords.”
“And the lords?”
“Some will be pardoned, so long as they tell the truth of what they know and give up a son or daughter to vouchsafe their future loyalty. It will go harder for those who took pardons after the Redgrass Field. They’ll be imprisoned or attainted. The worst will lose their heads.”
Bloodraven had made a start on that already, Dunk saw when they came up on his pavilion. Flanking the entrance, the severed heads of Gormon Peake and Black Tom Heddle had been impaled on spears, with their shields displayed beneath them. Three castles, black on orange. The man who slew Roger of Pennytree.
Even in death, Lord Gormon’s eyes were hard and flinty. Dunk closed them with his fingers. “What did you do that for?” asked one of the guardsmen. “The crows’ll have them soon enough.”
“I owed him that much.” If Roger had not died that day, the old man would never looked twice at Dunk when he saw him chasing that pig through the alleys of King’s Landing. Some old dead king gave a sword to one son instead of another, that was the start of it. And now I’m standing here, and poor Roger’s in his grave.
“The Hand awaits,” commanded Roland Crakehall.
Dunk stepped past him, into the presence of Lord Brynden Rivers, bastard, sorcerer, and Hand of the King.
Egg stood before him, freshly bathed and garbed in princely raiment, as would befit a nephew of the king. Nearby, Lord Frey was seated in a camp chair with a cup of wine to hand and his hideous little heir squirming in his lap. Lord Butterwell was there as well . . . on his knees, pale-faced and shaking.
“Treason is no less vile because the traitor proves a craven,” Lord Rivers was saying. “I have heard your bleatings, Lord Ambrose, and I believe one word in ten. On that account I will allow you to retain a tenth part of your fortune. You may keep your wife as well. I wish you joy of her.”
“And Whitewalls?” asked Butterwell, with quavering voice.
“Forfeit to the Iron Throne. I mean to pull it down stone by stone, and sow the ground that it stands upon with salt. In twenty years, no one will remember it existed. Old fools and young malcontents still make pilgrimages to the Redgrass Field to plant flowers on the spot where Daemon Blackfyre fell. I will not suffer Whitewalls to become another monument to the black dragon.” He waved a pale hand. “Now scurry away, roach.”
“The Hand is kind.” Butterwell stumbled off, so blind with grief that he did not even seem to recognize Dunk as he passed. “You have my leave to go as well, Lord Frey,” Rivers commanded. “We will speak again later.”
“As my lord commands.” Frey led his son from the pavilion.
Only then did the King’s Hand turn to Dunk.
He was older than Dunk remembered him, with a lined hard face, but his skin was still as pale as bone, and his cheek and neck still bore the ugly winestain birthmark that some people thought looked like a raven. His boots were black, his tunic scarlet. Over it he wore a cloak the color of smoke, fastened with a brooch in the shape of an iron hand. His hair fell to his shoulders, long and white and straight, brushed forward so as to conceal his missing eye, the one that Bittersteel had plucked from him on the Redgrass Field. The eye that remained was very red. How many eyes has Bloodraven? A hundred eyes, and one.
“No doubt Prince Maekar had some good reason for allowing his son to squire for a hedge knight,” he said, “though I cannot imagine it included delivering him to a castle full of traitors plotting rebellion. How is that I come to find my cousin is this nest of adders, ser? Lord Butterbutt would have me believe that Prince Maekar sent you here, to sniff out this rebellion in the guise of a mystery knight. Is that the truth of it?”
Dunk went to one knee. “No, m’lord. I mean, yes, m’lord. That’s what Egg told him. Aegon, I mean. Prince Aegon. So that part’s true. It isn’t what you’d call the true truth, though.”
“I see. So the two of you learned of this conspiracy against the crown and decided you would thwart it by yourselves, is that the way of it?”
“That’s not it either. We just sort of . . . blundered into it, I suppose you’d say.”
Egg crossed his arms. “And Ser Duncan and I had matters well in hand before you turned up with your army.”
“We had some help, m’lord,” Dunk added.
“Hedge knights.”
“Aye, m’lord. Ser Kyle the Cat, and Maynard Plumm. And Ser Glendon Ball. It was him unhorsed the Fidd . . . the pretender.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that tale from half a hundred lips already. The Bastard of the Pussywillows. Born of a whore and a traitor.”
“Born of heroes,” Egg insisted. “If he’s amongst the captives, I want him found and released. And rewarded.”
“And who are you to tell the King’s Hand what to do?”
Egg did not flinch. “You know who I am, cousin.”
“Your squire is insolent, ser,” Lord Rivers said to Dunk. “You ought to beat that out of him.”
“I’ve tried, m’lord. He’s a prince, though.”
“What he is,” said Bloodraven, “is a dragon. Rise, ser.”
Dunk rose.
“There have always been Targaryens who dreamed of things to come, since long before the Conquest,” Bloodraven said, “so we should not be surprised if from time to time a Blackfyre displays the gift as well. Daemon dreamed that a dragon would be born at Whitewalls, and it was. The fool just got the color wrong.” Dunk looked at Egg. The ring, he saw. His father’s ring. It’s on his finger, not stuffed up inside his boot.
“I have half a mind to take you back to King’s Landing with us,” Lord Rivers to Egg, “and keep you at court as my . . . guest.”
“My father would not take kindly to that.”
“I suppose not. Prince Maekar has a . . . prickly . . . nature. Perhaps I should send you back to Summerhall.”
“My place is with Ser Duncan. I’m his squire.”
“Seven save you both. As you wish. You’re free to go.”
“We will,” said Egg, “but first we need some gold. Ser Duncan needs to pay the Snail his ransom.”
Bloodraven laughed. “What happened to the modest boy I once met at King’s Landing? As you say, my prince. I will instruct my paymaster to give you as much gold as you wish. Within reason.”
“Only as a loan,” insisted Dunk. “I’ll pay it back.”
“When you learn to joust, no doubt.” Lord River flicked them away with his fingers, unrolled a parchment, and began to tick off names with a quill.
Lord Bloodraven looked up from his parchment. “That is for King Aerys to decide . . . but Daemon has four younger brothers, and sisters as well. Should I be so foolish as to remove his pretty head, his mother will mourn, his friends will curse me for a kinslayer, and Bittersteel will crown his brother Haegon. Dead, young Daemon is a hero. Alive, he is an obstacle in my half-brother’s path. He can hardly make a third Blackfyre king whilst the second remains so inconveniently alive. Besides, such a noble captive will be an ornament to our court, and a living testament to the mercy and benevolence of His Grace King Aerys.”
“I have a question too,” said Egg.
“I begin to understand why your father was so willing to be rid of you. What more would you have of me, cousin?”
“Who took the dragon’s egg? There were guards at the door, and more guards on the steps, no way anyone could have gotten into Lord Butterwell’s bedchamber unobserved.”
Lord Rivers smiled. “Were I to guess, I’d say someone climbed up inside the privy shaft.”
“The privy shaft was too small to climb.”
“For a man. A child could do it.”
“Or a dwarf,” Dunk blurted. A thousand eyes, and one. Why shouldn’t some of them belong to a troupe of comic dwarfs?
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Michael Aronovitz is a Professor of English at Widener University. He has published short fiction in Midnight Zoo, The Leopard’s Realm, Slippery When Wet, The Nighthawk, Crimson and Gray, Fiction on the Web, Philly Fiction, Studies in the Fantastic, Metal Scratches, Demon-minds, Weird Tales, The Weird Fiction Review 2010, The Turks Head Review, and Death Head Grin. He has stories forthcoming in Black Petals, Kaleidotrope, and The Weird Fiction Review. He is the author of the collection, Seven Deadly Pleasures (Hippocampus Press, 2009) and his first novel, Alice Walks, is slated for publication in 2013. Aronovitz lives with his son Max and his wife Kimberly in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.
Peter Atkins was born in Liverpool, England and now lives in Los Angeles. He is the author of the novels Morningstar, Big Thunder, and Moontown and the screenplays Hellraiser II, Hellraiser III, Hellraiser IV, Wishmaster, and Prisoners of the Sun. His short fiction has appeared in such best-selling anthologies as The Museum of Horrors, Dark Delicacies II, and Hellbound Hearts. He is the co-founder, with Dennis Etchison and Glen Hirshberg, of The Rolling Darkness Revue, who tour the west coast annually bringing ghost stories and live music to any venue that’ll put up with them. A new collection of his short fiction, Rumors of the Marvelous, is to be published this fall by Alchemy Press.
Laird Barron’s most recent story collection, Occultation, was published in 2010 by Night Shade Books. He’s also the author of an earlier collection, the Shirley Jackson Award-winning The Imago Sequence and Other Stories (Night Shade, 2007). His fiction has appeared in Sci Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and numerous anthologies and is frequently reprinted in various “year’s best” anthologies. He is now at work on his first novel.
Holly Black is a best-selling author of contemporary fantasy novels for teens and children. Her first book, Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale (2002) was included in the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults. She has since written two other books in the same universe, Valiant (2005) and Ironside (2007). Valiant was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award for Young Readers and the recipient of the Andre Norton Award. Black collaborated with artist Tony DiTerlizzi, to create the Spiderwick Chronicles. The Spiderwick Chronicles were adapted into a 2008 film. Her first collection of short fiction, The Poison Eaters and Other Stories, was published in 2010. She has co-edited three anthologies: Geektastic (with Cecil Castellucci, 2009), Zombies vs. Unicorns (with Justine Larbalestier, 2010), and Welcome to Bordertown (with Ellen Kushner) was published earlier this year. Red Glove, the second novel in The Curse Workers series, was released in April. The third book in her Eisner-nominated graphic novel series, The Good Neighbors, will be published in October. The author lives in Massachusetts with her husband, Theo, in a house with a secret library.
Steve Berman’s novel, Vintage, was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award. He’s author of more than eighty short stories and two collections, Trysts and Second Thoughts. Berman has edited anthologies including Magic in the Mirrorstone, So Fey, and several editions of Wilde Stories. The founder of Lethe Press and publisher of Icarus: The Magazine of Gay Speculative Fiction, he lives in southern New Jersey.
Steve Duffy’s third collection of short supernatural fiction, Tragic Life Stories, was published in 2010 by Ash-Tree Press. It was, appropriately, launched in Brighton, England, at the World Horror Convention. His stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies in Europe and North America. A fourth collection, The Moment of Panic, is due to appear in 2011, and will include the International Horror Guild award-winning short story, “The Rag-and-Bone Men.” Duffy lives in North Wales.
Neil Gaiman is the New York Times bestselling author of novels Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book, and (with Terry Pratchett) Good Omens; the Sandman series of graphic novels; and the story collections Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things. He has won numerous literary awards including the Hugo, the Nebula, the World Fantasy, and the Stoker Awards, as well as the Newbery medal.
Simon R. Green is the bestselling author of dozens of novels, including several long-running series, such as the Deathstalker series and the Darkwood series. Most of his work over the last several years has been set in either his Secret History series or in his popular Nightside milieu. Recent novels include The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny; From Hell With Love; A Hard Day’s Knight; For Heaven’s Eyes Only; and the second of the new The Ghost Finders series, Ghost of a Smile. Green’s short fiction has appeared in the anthologies Mean Streets, Unusual Suspects, Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, Powers of Detection, Living Dead 2, and The Way of the Wizard.
M.L.N. Hanover’s forthcoming novel, Killing Rites, is the fourth in the Black Sun’s Daughter sequence. An International Horror Guild Award-winner, Hanover lives in the American Southwest.
M.K. Hobson’s short fiction has appeared in many fine publications, including Realms of Fantasy, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons. Her debut novel, The Native Star, is available from Ballantine Spectra. You can find out more at her website, www.demimonde.com.
Stephen Graham Jones is the author of eight novels and two collections. His most recent books are Seven Spanish Angels, It Came from Del Rio, and The Ones That Got Away. His next two are Flushboy and Not for Nothing. Stephen’s been a Shirley Jackson Award finalist three times, a Bram Stoker Award finalist, a Black Quill Award finalist, an International Horror Guild finalist, a Colorado Book Award finalist, and has won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction and been an NEA fellow in fiction. His short fiction has been in Cemetery Dance, Asimov’s, Weird Tales, and multiple best-of-the-year compilations, textbooks, and anthologies. Born in West Texas, PhD’d at Florida State, Stephen now lives in Colorado, where he teaches in the MFA program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. More at demontheory.net.
Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of several novels, including Low Red Moon, Daughter of Hounds, and The Red Tree, which was nominated for both the Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy awards. Her next novel, The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, will be released by Penguin in 2012. Since 2000, her shorter tales of the weird, fantastic, and macabre have been collected in several volumes, including Tales of Pain and Wonder; From Weird and Distant Shores; To Charles Fort, With Love; Alabaster; A is for Alien; and The Ammonite Violin & Others. In 2012, Subterranean Press will release a retrospective of her early writing, Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume One). She lives in Providence, RI, with her partner Kathryn.
Jay Lake
lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His most recent books are Pinion (Tor), The Specific Gravity of Grief (Fairwood Press), and The Baby Killers (PS Publishing). His short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre publications worldwide.Jay is a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
Margo Lanagan is an internationally acclaimed writer of novels and short stories. Her fiction has garnered many awards, nominations, and shortlistings. “Sea-Hearts,” published for the first time outside of Australia in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2010, won the World Fantasy Award last year as best novella. Black Juice was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, won two World Fantasy Awards and the Victorian Premier’s Award for Young Adult Fiction. Red Spikes won the CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Horn Book Fanfare title, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her novel Tender Morsels won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Margo lives in Sydney.
Sarah Langan is a three-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award. She is the author of the novels The Keeper and The Missing, and her most recent novel, Audrey’s Door, won the 2009 Stoker for best novel. Her short fiction has appeared in the magazines Cemetery Dance, Phantom, and Chiaroscuro, and in the anthologies Darkness on the Edge and Unspeakable Horror. She is currently working on a post-apocalyptic young adult series called Kids and two adult novels: Empty Houses, which was inspired by The Twilight Zone, and My Father’s Ghost, which was inspired by Hamlet.
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