‘Here’s to another good night,’ he said, handing The Unknown a glass.
‘And to the wisdom of hiring those two extra staff. They’ve taken a weight off.’
The two men, friends for well over twenty years and co-owners of The Rookery for a good dozen, chinked glasses and drank. Just the one shot every night. It was the way and had become a token these last four or so years. Neither man would miss it after an evening’s work together any more than they would give up breathing. It was, after all, to enjoy these moments of magnificently ordinary life that The Unknown had fought with The Raven for more than a decade. Shame then, that with the wisdom of hindsight, he knew they weren’t enough.
The Unknown rubbed his chin, feeling the day’s stubble rasp beneath his hand. He looked towards the door to the back room, painted with the Raven symbol and scarce used now.
‘Got an itch, boy?’ asked Tomas.
‘Yes,’ replied The Unknown. ‘But not for what you think.’
‘Really?’ Tomas raised quizzical eyebrows. ‘I never could see it, you know. You settling down and actually running this place with me forever.’
‘Never thought I’d live, did you?’ The Unknown hefted a bucket and cloth.
‘I never doubted it. But you’re a traveller, Sol. A warrior. It’s in your blood.’
The Unknown allowed only Tomas and Diera to use his true name, his Protector name, and even now when they did, it always gave him pause. It meant they were worried about something. And the truth was that he had never settled completely. There was still work to be done in Xetesk, to press for more research into freeing those Protectors that desired it. And aside from that, he had friends to see. Convenient excuses when he needed them and while his reasons still drove him, he couldn’t deny that he sometimes tired of the endless routine and yearned to ride out with his sword strapped to his back. It made him feel alive.
It worried him too. What if he never wanted to settle? Surely his desire would fade to something more sedentary in the not too distant future. At least he didn’t feel the urge to fight in a front line anymore and there was some comfort in that. And there had been offers. Lots of them.
He smiled at Tomas. ‘Not any more. I’d rather mop than fight. All you risk is your back.’
‘So what’s the itch?’
‘Denser’s coming. I can feel it. Same as always.’
‘Oh. When?’ A frown creased Tomas’ brow.
The Unknown shrugged. ‘Soon. Very soon.’
Rhob, Tomas’ son, appeared through the back door that led to the stables. In the last few years, the excitable youth had grown into a strong, level-headed young man. Glinting green eyes shone from a high-boned face atop which sat short-cropped brown hair. His muscular frame was the product of many years’ physical labour around horses, saddles and carts and his good nature was a pure reflection of his father’s.
‘All in and secure?’ asked Tomas.
‘Yes indeed,’ said Rhob, marching across to the bar to grab the other bucket and the large rag-headed mop. ‘Go on, old man, you get off to bed, let the youngsters fix the place up.’ His smile was broad, his eyes bright in the lamp light.
The Unknown laughed. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve been called a youngster.’
‘It was a relative term,’ said Rhob.
Tomas wiped the bar top and threw the cloth into the wash bucket. ‘Well, the old man’s going to take his son’s advice. See you two around midday.’
‘Good night, Tomas.’
‘ ’Night, Father.’
‘All right,’ said The Unknown. ‘I’ll take the tables, you the floor and fire.’
Just as they were into their stride, they were disturbed by an urgent knocking on the front doors. Rhob glanced up from his swabbing of the hearth. The Unknown blew out his cheeks.
‘Reckon I know who this is,’ he said. ‘See if there’s water for coffee will you, Rhob? And raid the cold store for a plate of bread and cheese.’
Rhob propped his mop in the corner and disappeared behind the bar. The Unknown shoved the bolts aside and pulled the door inwards. Denser all but fell into his arms.
‘Gods, Denser, what the hell have you been doing?’
‘Flying,’ he replied, his eyes wild and sunken deep into his skull, his face white and freezing to the touch. ‘Can you help me to somewhere warm? I’m a little chilly.’
‘Hmm.’ The Unknown supported the shivering Denser into the back room, dragged his chair in front of the unlit fire and dumped the mage into the soft upholstery. The room hadn’t changed much. Against shuttered windows, the wooden feasting table and chairs lay shrouded beneath a white cloth. That table had seen celebration and tragedy, and it was a source of sadness that his abiding memory was of Sirendor Larn, Hirad’s great friend, lying dead upon it, his body hidden by a sheet.
The Raven’s chairs were still arrayed in front of the fire but every day The Unknown moved them so he could practise with his trademark double-handed sword in private. If there was one thing The Unknown’s experience had taught him, it was that nothing in Balaian life was ever predictable.
Rhob pushed open the door and came in, carrying with one hand a steaming jug, mugs and a plate of food on a tray. In the other was a shovel, full of glowing embers. The Unknown took both from him with a nod of thanks.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll clear up out front,’ said Rhob.
‘Thank you.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘Just a little cold,’ said The Unknown but he knew there was more. He had seen pain in Denser’s eyes and an exhaustion forced upon him by desperation.
He quickly lit the fire, pressed a mug of coffee into the mage’s hands and placed the bread and cheese on a table within arm’s reach. He sat in his own chair and waited for Denser to speak.
The Xeteskian looked terrible. Beard untrimmed, black hair wild where it protruded from his skull cap, face pale, bloodshot eyes ringed dark and lips tinged blue. His eyes fidgeted over the room, unable to settle, and he constantly fought to frame words but no sound came. He’d pushed himself to the limit and there was no beyond. Mana stamina was finite, even for mages of Denser’s extraordinary ability, and a single miscalculation could prove fatal, particularly under ShadowWings.
The Unknown had felt a tie to Denser ever since his time as the mage’s Given during his lost days as a Protector. And looking at Denser now, he found he couldn’t stay silent.
‘I understand something’s driven you to get here as fast as you can but killing yourself isn’t going to help. Even you can’t cast indefinitely.’
Denser nodded and lifted his mug to trembling lips, gasping as the hot liquid scalded his throat.
‘I was so close. Didn’t want to stop outside the City. We’d have lost another day.’ His numbed lips stole the clarity from his words. He made to say more but instead coughed violently. The Unknown leaned in and grabbed the mug before he slopped coffee on his hands.
‘Take your time, Denser. You’re here now. I’ll find you a bed when you need it. Be calm.’
‘Can’t be calm,’ he said. ‘They’re after my girl. Erienne’s taken her away. We’ve got to find her first or they’ll kill her. God’s, she’s not evil. She’s just a little girl. I need The Raven.’
The Unknown started. Denser’s tumble of words had shaken him every which way. But it was the solution that troubled him almost as much as the problem. The Raven had disbanded. All their lives had moved on. Reformation was unthinkable.
‘Think hard, Denser, and slow down. I need to hear this from the start.’
Night on the southern slopes of the Balan Mountains, half a day’s ride from the largely rebuilt town of Blackthorne. The stars patterned the sky, moon casting wan light, keeping back full dark.
Hirad Coldheart tracked down the steep path, his movement all but silent. It was a path he could traverse blindfold if he had to but this time, speed and stealth were of the essence over the treacherous mud and smooth stone. Hunters were comin
g again and, like those that had come before, had to be stopped. Yet even if these latest fell as had all the others, Hirad knew that wouldn’t put a stop to the stupidity.
Not many dared the task but the numbers were increasing, as was the complexity and technicality of their planning, as information on habits and strike points filtered through Balaia, falling on interested ears. It sickened him but he understood what drove these men and women.
Greed. And the respect that would be afforded those first to bring back the ultimate hunter’s prize. The head of a dragon. It was why he couldn’t leave the Kaan even if he wanted to. Not that they were particularly vulnerable. But there was always the chance. Humans were nothing if not tenacious and ingenious; and this latest group marked another development.
Hirad still found it hard to conceive of minds that so quickly forgot the debt they owed the Kaan dragons; and it had been The Unknown who had put it in context when delivering word that the first attack was being prepared, after overhearing a drunken boast in The Rookery.
‘You shouldn’t be surprised, Hirad,’ he’d said. ‘Everything will ultimately have its price and there are those who will choose never to believe what the Kaan did for Balaia. And there are those who don’t care. They only know the value of a commodity. Honour and respect reap no benefit in gold.’
The words had ignited Hirad’s fury exactly as The Unknown had intended. It was what kept him sharp and one step ahead of the hunters. They had tried magic, poison, fire and frontal assault in their ignorance. Now they used what had been learned by the deaths and by the watchers. And for the first time, Hirad was worried.
A party of six hunters; three warriors, a mage and two engineers, was moving carefully and slowly into the foothills below the Choul, where the dragons lived. Their route had taken them away from any population that might have alerted Hirad sooner and they brought with them a crafted ballista, designed to fire steel-tipped wooden stakes.
Their plan was simple, as were all the best-laid. Unless Hirad was sorely in error, they planned to launch their attack this night, knowing the Kaan flew to hunt and feed under cover of darkness. The ballista would be positioned under a common flight path and it had the power to wound, and perhaps cripple with a lucky shot.
Hirad wasn’t prepared to take the risk so descended to meet them before clearing the Kaan to fly. The hunters had made two mistakes in their plan. They hadn’t factored Hirad into their thinking and only one of their number was elven. They had placed themselves at the mercy of the night and would soon discover the night had none.
Hirad watched them through a cleft boulder. They were roughly thirty feet below him and a hundred yards distant. The barbarian was able to track their movement against the dull grey of the landscape by the hooded lantern they carried, the creaking of the ballista’s wheels and the hoof-falls of the horses that pulled it.
They were nearing a small open space where, Hirad guessed, they planned to set up the ballista. The slope there was slight and a butt of rock provided an ideal anchor point. Hirad knew what had to be done.
Backing up a short distance, he moved right and down into a shallow ditch that ran parallel to the small plateau. With his eyes at plateau level, he crept along its edge and waited, poised, sword sheathed and both hands free.
The mage led the horses up the incline on the near side, a warrior overseeing their progress on the other. The two engineers walked behind the ballista with the final pair of hunters bringing up the rear.
Hirad could hear the horses breathing hard, their hooves echoing dully through mufflers tied around their feet. The wheels of the ballista creaked and scraped as it approached, despite constant oiling by the engineers, and the odd word of warning and encouragement filtered up the line.
Hirad readied himself. Just before it levelled out, the path became a steep ramp for perhaps twenty yards. It would be slippery after the day’s showers. As the hunters approached it, they slowed, the mage out in front, hands on both sets of reins, urging the horses up.
‘Keep it moving,’ came a hiss from below, loud in the still night air.
‘Gently does it,’ said another.
The mage appeared over the lip. Hirad surged on to the plateau and dived for his legs, whipping them away. The mage crashed to the ground. Hirad was on him before he could shout and hammered a fist into his temple. The mage’s head cracked against stone and he lay still.
Racing low around the front of the suddenly skittish horses, he pulled his sword from his scabbard. The warrior on their other side had only half turned at the commotion and was in no state to defend himself. Hirad whipped his blade into the man’s side and as he went down screaming, the barbarian leant in close.
‘Believe me, you are the lucky one,’ he rasped. Quieting the horses who had started to back up, he ran back to the ballista and slashed one of the harness ropes. The ballista shifted its weight and the horses moved reflexively to balance it, one whinnying nervously. Below him, four faces looked up in mute shock. Blades were drawn.
‘I warned the last who came to tell the next that all they would find here is death. You chose not to listen.’ He lashed at the other harness rope, splitting it at the second strike. The ballista rolled quickly down the ramp, scattering the hunters and gathering pace as it bounced over rock and tuft. A wheel sprang away and the main body ploughed left to plunge over the edge of the path, tumbling to its noisy destruction in a stand of trees some two hundred feet below.
Below the ramp, the hunters picked themselves to their feet, the engineers looking to the warriors for guidance.
‘There’s nothing they can do for you now,’ said Hirad. It is safe, Great Kaan.
A shadow rose from the hills behind Hirad and swept down the path. It was enormous and the great beat of its wings fired the wind and from its mouth came a roar of fury. The hunters turned and ran but another shape took to the air over the path below them and a third joined it, herding them back towards Hirad.
The trio of dragons blotted out the stars, great bodies hanging in the sky, their united roars bouncing from the mountains around them, the echoes drawing cries of terror from the hunters now turned hunted. They huddled together, the dragons circling them, lazy beats of their wings flattening bush and grass and blowing dust into the air. Each one was over a hundred feet long, its size and power making a mockery of the pitiful band who had come to kill one. They were helpless and they knew it, staring into mouths that could swallow them whole, and imagining flame so hot it would reduce them to ashes.
‘Please, Hirad,’ mumbled one of the engineers, recognising him and fixing him with wide desperate eyes. ‘We hear you now.’
‘Too late,’ said Hirad. ‘Too late.’
Sha-Kaan powered in, his wings beating down and blowing the hunters from their feet to sprawl beneath the gale. His long neck twisted and arrowed down, striking with the speed of a snake and snatching up a warrior in his mouth. And then he was gone into the sky, his speed incredible, his agility in the air breathtaking. He was impossibly quick for an animal his size and the hunters left on the ground gaped where they lay, too traumatised now even to think about getting back to their feet.
The man in Sha-Kaan’s mouth didn’t even cry out before his body was torn in two and spat from the huge maw, scattering blood and flesh. The Great Kaan barked his fury into the night, the sound rumbling away like distant thunder. Nos-Kaan soared high, then dived groundwards, the men below his gaping mouth screaming as he fell towards them. With a single beat of his wings, he stalled his speed, the down-draught sending the hunters rolling in the dust, their cries lost in the wind. He looked and struck as Sha had done, his victim crushed in an instant and dropped in front of his comrades.
And finally Hyn-Kaan. The Great Kaan’s bark brought him low across the ground, a great dark shape in the starlight, his body scant feet from the rock, his head moving down very slightly to scoop his target into his mouth. He flicked his wings and speared into the heavens, a human wail filtering down,
cut off, and followed by the sound of a body hitting rock.
Hirad licked suddenly dry lips. They had said they wanted revenge. And they had said they wanted men to know their power. Yet the elf at his feet was still unconscious and had seen nothing. Lucky for him. Hirad loved the Kaan and theirs was a bond that would not be broken by such violent death. Yet once again, he was reminded of the unbridgeable gulf between man and dragon. They were majesty, men their slaves if they so chose.
Hirad brought his attention back to the lone engineer, alive still and surrounded by the torn carcasses of his friends. He had soiled his breeches, liquid puddling around his boots where he crouched in abject terror of the three dragons circling above him. Sha-Kaan landed and grabbed him in one foreclaw, bringing him close to his jaws. The man wailed and gibbered.
Hirad turned to the mage, uncorked his waterskin and dumped its contents over the elven head. He gasped and choked, groaning his pain. Hirad grabbed his collar and hauled him upright, a dagger at his throat.
‘Even think of casting and you’ll die. You aren’t quick enough to beat me, understand?’ The mage nodded. ‘Good. Now watch and learn.’
Sha-Kaan drew the hapless engineer even closer. ‘Why do you hunt us?’ he asked, his breath billowing the man’s hair. He tried to reply but no words came, only a choked moan. ‘Answer me, human.’ The engineer paddled his legs helplessly in the air, his hands pressing reflexively against the claws he could never hope to shift.
‘The chance to live comfortably forever,’ he managed. ‘I didn’t realise. I meant you no harm. I thought . . .’
Sha-Kaan snorted. ‘No harm. You thought us mindless reptiles. And to kill me or one of my Brood was, what does Hirad call it? Yes, “sport”. Different now, is it? Now you know us able to think?’
The engineer nodded before stammering. ‘I’ll n-never d-do it again. I swear.’
‘No indeed you will not,’ said Sha-Kaan. ‘And I do hope your fortunate companion pays careful attention.’
‘My fortun—?’ The engineer never got to finish his question. Sha-Kaan gripped the top of his skull with a broad foreclaw and crushed it like ripe fruit, the wet crack echoing from the rock surrounding them.
The Raven Collection Page 110