The Dragon Round

by Stephen S. Power

  Ject hears a tap from the center of the room, an area walled off by canvas. He holds his hand up. The guards form two lines behind him. The tap comes again. Ject points and stands aside. His men enter with crossbows drawn, one line curling left, the other right. At the head of the left line Ravis sights his crossbow over the pew nearest the sound, then waves Ject to him.

  A body lies in a pool of blood, its legs bent along new joints, its face smashed. Nonetheless, Ject says, “That’s Skite.” He carefully digs a house shield from the body’s pocket to confirm this. “Why was he up here?”

  “Up there,” Ravis says, pointing. “He must have fallen.”

  Ject looks at the top of the dome and notes the dark stain outlining the trapdoor to the cupola. A drop of blood falls from it and taps the pool around Skite.

  “I think I know where we’ll find Chelson’s other men,” Ject says.

  Last night, Ject thinks, their only mission would have been finding Chelson’s daughter. Could they have tracked her here? Was her abductor also the tower thief? Did he drive off the ravens? He couldn’t have come through the main doors, though. They were locked and stiff. He looks toward the servants’ stairs and notices the door is slightly ajar. That’s how he came and went. Ject’s heart sinks. Well, he thinks, if there’s no dragon, at least he can catch the bad guy and maybe rescue the princess.

  “Let’s take a less direct route,” Ject says. “The widow’s walk.” Ject looks from the door outside near the servants’ stairs toward the one leading outside from the foyer, and that’s when he sees the shadowy face staring at them through a window near the latter.

  Peeking through the cracked door from the servants’ stairs, Herse watches Ject’s men open the brass doors across the old council chamber. They check the body as he had been doing a moment ago before hearing them approach and hiding.

  He was not surprised it’s Skite. Herse heard about Tristaban’s abduction last night from a friend in the guard. Chelson’s men must have tracked the abductor here. He can’t imagine why here, but why he fell is obvious. The stairs and catwalk are very defensible. And it would be easy to slip in the dark, especially if pushed from above.

  Ject looks at the servants’ stairs, Herse slides into the darkness, then Ject races with his men back to the foyer. Herse would have been leery of climbing to the trapdoor, but as the guards pour onto the widow’s walk, their distraction makes that approach less complicated. He loads his crossbow and holds the dirk along the stock. If the girl is up there, he could save the day.

  As he slips past the servants’ stairs door, he notices that the bar for the door beside it, which leads to the widow’s walk, is lying on the floor. Wanting to protect his rear, Herse replaces the bar.

  3

  * * *

  Earlier, after Skite fell, Jeryon flew down the servants’ stairs to hide Derc’s body more thoroughly. By candlelight he stuffed him into the cesspit with a broom and replaced the seat.

  He wiped up the blood in the hallway with a rag and water from the kitchen then cleaned up the broken jar and dried the floor. Having covered his tracks, he browsed the pantries for some breakfast. As famished as he was he knew he was really just killing time. He couldn’t bring himself to return to the cupola. He only admitted this to himself when he heard footsteps on the stoop. He doused the candle and went up the kitchen stairs, but as he reached the door to the service hallway, the tower’s backdoor was unlocked.

  Jeryon peeked out. A scullery in a ratty tunic entered from the back stoop. She cradled a stub of candle to light her way. Jeryon drew his knife. He didn’t want to kill her, but others would arrive soon, and she was between him and the servants’ stairs. She was so scrawny he wouldn’t need the broom to get her into the cesspit.

  The scullery closed the back door and walked toward the kitchen stairs. Jeryon moved the knife to his left hand so he could take her without exposing himself. She stopped. He bent his legs and waited to spring. She hung her head and tears fell into her hands, so many they nearly put the candle out.

  Is this how all her mornings began? What had she done? The men upstairs, he’d recognized them as Chelson’s guards. He’d known what they were and what they would have done to him. Tuse and Solet, their crews, they were all soldiers in a war the Shield had started. The girl with the knife he’d dumped in the sea, he probably shouldn’t have let her live. Who knows how she’d come back to haunt him. Foolish sympathy. But this scullery, she was no one. She might have welcomed his knife, but she hadn’t earned it.

  Jeryon tiptoed down the stairs and hid in a corner. Is this how all his mornings would begin? Hiding and waiting and making excuses the poth couldn’t hear? He was so close to what he wanted, but it felt further away than her.

  The girl came down a moment later, and as she kindled the stoves and ovens he tiptoed up and ran down the hallway to the servants’ stairs. At the door to the empty stories he put his candle back in its sconce and rigged the door to make it appear locked.

  In the old council chamber Jeryon stood over Skite until dawn illuminated the stained glass and the trapdoor above stopped thumping. Gray isn’t gentle with her food, especially long pig, which she’s favored since Tuse. She barely nibbled the meat he stole.

  Jeryon hoped the girl stopped screaming because she’d been obedient.

  When the thumping started again, Jeryon decided he needed some fresh air.

  The door in the council chamber to the widow’s walk was locked and barred, but he found a dusty key hidden atop its arch. He crawled outside so he wouldn’t be seen from below, and closed the door behind him. He heard chanting and arguing in the plaza, so he looked through an iron balustrade painted cream to match the tower. He was astounded by its size and the fact that the guards weren’t arresting anyone.

  Jeryon considered how he could work the crowd into his plans. Being discovered by Chelson’s men meant he would have to accelerate matters. Surely others knew where they went. If he were to expose Livion and the Shield for what they’d done, simply flying into the plaza might have made his case. Of course, he might have also caused a panic and caught a dozen crossbow bolts before he reached the ground.

  He could make his case directly to Ject, but Jeryon can estimate his price: the dragon.

  While he waited in the Round Square to see Livion yesterday, Prieve walked by, and Jeryon thought about making his case to him. The old man would have been sympathetic; their interactions had always been enjoyable, but unlike Ject Prieve couldn’t have overlooked the guard and maid that Gray plucked off Quiet Tower.

  The crowd roared, and Jeryon crawled to the north side of the tower for a better view. The people swirled and clashed. Soldiers entered the plaza, but few and in danger of being overrun. Jeryon doesn’t know this city anymore.

  And they didn’t know him. He must have seen a dozen acquaintances in the square and none recognized him. He was glad at first, not wanting his plan disrupted, then increasingly sad. When his father appeared and put a few poorly made pieces of scrimshaw on the cobbles, he stood up so his father could get a good look at him. Nothing. His eyes were blank.

  The sun crowned on the horizon. The glare reminded him of how his father’s eyes used to be and what drove him to the tower when he was a boy.

  His father had been reduced to making penny bets to pay for his beer, bets he always lost for pennies he never had, which saw him paying off his debts with scars and bruises. People would bet him just to beat him after he lost. One day someone in the Salty Dog with rare pity slipped Jeryon some pennies. His father noticed and told him to turn them over. Jeryon refused. So his father went after him with a knife and glass. A man doesn’t get in the way of another’s business, plus the betting favored Jeryon, so no one stepped in. Jeryon couldn’t do what had to be done. He flung the pennies at his father and fled to the tower. If he hadn’t been lured by the sea he might have jumped.

  The t
humping in the cupola diminished. He decided to give Gray a few more minutes to digest before going up. In the meantime, he watched the crowd. He pillowed his head on his arms. He hadn’t had a decent hour’s sleep in weeks. His legs were full of sand. His head was too. The walk was cool. The breeze was soft. He’d deal with Skite later.

  Jeryon’s startled awake by a sound inside. So used to worrying about the blue crabs, he leaps up, draws his knife, peers through the stained glass beside another door, and finds several shadows peering back.

  4

  * * *

  Ravis unbars and unlocks the door to the widow’s walk from the foyer and Ject’s detail surges through. Two run left around the northwest arc of the tower, and two run right. Ravis and Oftly turn and scan the dome, the short eave two feet above their heads. Both spy the man crawling toward the cupola. “Got him,” Ravis says. “You. Stop.”

  Ject shouts so all his men can hear, “You. Stop. You’re surrounded.” The man looks back through goggled eyes and a scraggly beard, but keeps climbing. “Wing him,” Ject says.

  Ravis leans back over the balustrade, aims, and lets fly. The bolt hits the man on the side of his buttocks, but it skips off his odd black leather pants and clatters over the dome.

  Oftly aims for the man’s sandaled foot. The bolt hits him in the heel with a clank and bounces away.

  Ject says, “What the—”

  The man whistles. In the cupola, a sinuous silhouette rises over the chest-high walls stretching between its pillars. Ravis and Oftly reload, trying not to look.

  Who is this man who can command a dragon? Ject thinks. How is that possible? He could try to capture them, but generals who overreach generally fall.

  Bolts twang from around the walk. Two hit the cupola, one chips off some cream-colored marble, the other lodges in its tiny blue dome. Two others sail through the cupola, past the shadow, and disappear into the city. Ject doesn’t want to know where they land.

  A gray head emerges, flecked with golden light and gore. A long neck follows it then two little claws pull two wings over the wall.

  “Tiny,” says Ravis, “as dragons go.”

  “Big enough for me,” Oftly says.

  “Is that a pack on its back,” Ject says, “or a saddle?”

  The rest of the dragon pushes out of the cupola, and it picks its way toward the man, tail waving for balance, claws grating on the dome’s tiles. Clay scree showers the guards. The man mounts the dragon and faces Ject.

  Ject sees through the beard, the goggles, and time. “Impossible,” he says.

  As the shadows of Ject’s detail dance across the stained glass windows, Herse mounts the iron stairs. Halfway up, he grabs the railing as they’re rattled by something heavy banging on the dome. Several different thoughts assemble into an unexpected whole.

  Was that feet? The person who snatched Chelson’s daughter must be hiding above. What creature that large could get on top of the tower? Someone riding a dragon destroyed Tuse’s ship. Solet’s wolf pack was destroyed by a dragon. Is there a dragon up there? Is the abductor its rider? Could he be responsible for all three attacks and the body here? If so, Herse doesn’t care what the rider must have against the Heroes of Hanosh. He wants the dragon.

  He crawls along the catwalk lest he be shaken off. He doesn’t touch the severed hand resting there. He climbs the ladder, which smears his hands and clothes with blood, which can’t all be Skite’s. Holestar and Derc must be above. That would explain the stain around the trapdoor.

  Footsteps move down the dome toward the widow’s walk. Ject is standing tough, Herse will give him that.

  He pushes the trapdoor. Blood rains down his arm and over his face. Something’s blocking the door. He climbs higher and rams it open with his shoulder. A weight slides off it; he whips his crossbow up and points the bolt at the wide, icy eye of Tristaban.

  Ravis steps in front of his general and raises his crossbow, but he can’t bring himself to fire. His face loses all color; his eyes, all focus; his heart, all warmth. He wishes the eave offered more cover. The dragon’s teeth are so white.

  Ject looks into the dragon’s lacy eyes and sees the future: the creature biting off Ravis’s face, grabbing Ject’s head, tossing him over the balustrade. This is not the victory he imagined by discovering the dragon.

  “Hold your fire!” he yells. He puts his hand on Ravis’s shoulder, and the first guard dips his crossbow. Oftly does too. Then Ject says to the man, “I remember you. Before the beard.”

  The man guides the dragon to the lip of the dome. It’s ungainly on all fours, head bobbing, tail swishing, like a horse whose legs were cut off at the knees. Ject is terrified it will slip and fall and carry them to the plaza. The dragon sniffs Ject and Ravis. Its breath is a miasma of fish and fresh meat.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says.

  “I don’t want to hurt you either,” Ject says. “I need your help. To save the city. Again.”

  “You can help me too.”

  “I’ll do what I can. You can trust me, Jeryon.”

  The cupola is disturbingly well organized. On one side a canvas tarp, rolled and tied, sits beside crude woven baskets of food and black skins full of water or wine. On the other, a neatly collected pile of scat, bones, and the remains of a city guard, probably the missing man from Quiet. The floor glistens as if recently mopped. In the middle lies Tristaban, wrists bound behind her, mouth gagged, body bruised and bloody. Holestar’s head sits nearby, as does his body, the belly torn open.

  Herse smiles, lowers the crossbow, and puts a finger to his lips. Tristaban shivers a nod. He climbs all the way into the cupola, keeping his head below its low walls. He lifts her onto her knees, pulls her gag loose then plucks a ball of dirty cloth from her mouth. She coughs and spits. He shushes her soothingly, and she remembers how to act alive.

  “Are you all right?” he says, pointing at several aloe leaves tied on like bandages with thread.

  “It ate him,” she says. “I watched it eat him.”

  “Listen.” Herse holds her cheek. “Who’s he with?”

  “What? A company?” Tristaban says. “None. It’s Jeryon.”

  “Who?”

  “The captain of the Comber.”

  So the rumors are true. Jeryon was given the captain’s chance. Herse should have known. Chelson had to have seen something in Livion.

  “He was going to trade me for their confessions,” Tristaban says. “Livion’s. And my father’s. He’d ruin us.” Her eyes dart to the crossbow. “You have to do something.”

  “Of course,” he says. “We’re partners.”

  His hand is still on her cheek. She smiles. “I like the sound of that word when you say it.”

  He pats her cheek and crouch-walks to the wall.

  She twists to watch him. “Cut me loose,” she says.

  He shushes her and peeks over.

  “I have to ask,” Ject says. “Did you take Chelson’s daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Up there?”

  Jeryon nods.

  “Good.” Two fish, one hook. “Why don’t you come down from there? My neck’s getting a crick looking up like this.”

  Jeryon stiffens. He says, “With your men waiting to take me?” He plies the reins. The dragon swings its head to watch Ravis and Oftly.

  “I’ll call them off. Stand down! To me!”

  This breaks the spell cast over his first guard. Ravis reluctantly lowers his crossbow to his side.

  Ject’s guards edge around the tower, crossbows half-raised, confused. The general says, “At ease. We’re all friends here.”

  “Is that everyone?” Jeryon says. Ject nods. “Put the weapons down.”

  “Let’s go one better,” Ject says. “Ravis, lead the
detail inside so the captain and I can talk.”

  “They’ll stay out here where I can see them.”

  Ject shrugs and flutters his hand. His men lay their weapons on the walk.

  Ravis turns away from the dragon to put his down, and with his eyes directs Oftly’s to the eave. The first guard slashes a finger toward himself and to the dragon as he turns back. Oftly understands. They couldn’t climb onto the dome before being attacked, and even if they could the rider is far enough from them that he could take off before they could attack. If Ravis struck at the dragon’s neck, that might distract the rider enough for Oftly to get to him.

  Keeping the detail in view, Jeryon backs the dragon up the dome and edges east and west to make sure no one is on the walk. A shadow shifts in the corner of his eye. He glances at the cupola. The girl isn’t watching him. He’s not surprised. He left her half-catatonic. She’s probably seen enough in the dome to put her off meat for life. Satisfied, he returns to Ject.

  “At least someone in this city isn’t a liar,” Jeryon says. He gives a little downward tug on the dragon’s halter, and it rests on its elbows, which causes the crossbow bolt whistling toward the back of his head to only graze his scalp.

  5

  * * *

  As the city guards assemble in ranks on one side of the plaza and the tanner stirs up his cohorts on the other, some in the crowd sink back into the city, but the pressure pushes the rest near boiling.

  In front of Rego the six-fingered man, the pig-tailed girl, the father and his son surround the man who would take three coins. Several come to his defense, while others offer themselves up for two. Jostling turns into shoving. The boy starts crying and his father tells him to shut up, which makes him cry louder and makes the girl tell the boy to shut up. Now the father turns on the six-fingered man, who says he has no idea who the girl is. Meanwhile the girl picks both their pockets, and the bidding drops to thirty pennies.