And they’d damn better be too preoccupied with their horses at this minute to see where we went…
He did know the Word of There’s-Nobody-Here and he had that one down pat.
Heard Starhawk’s terrified mount, relieved of its double burden, fly up the road toward town like a young deer.
Moments later their attackers clattered by at full gallop, unseeing.
Then only stillness, and the hot spring sun on his back, and the smell of settling dust.
“What the hell was that all about?”
“If this was some other dragon-hunter trying to kill off the competition—” Sun Wolf raised himself up on his elbows, scanned their surroundings for the quickest way to the thicker cover of the gully, “I’m gonna have a few spells to put on his weapons. But I don’t think that’s the case.”
It was a long walk back to town.
*
A message awaited them at the Widow Kubaba’s, from the palace chamberlain. “It’s the usual thing,” explained the widow with a shrug, seeing Sun Wolf’s eyebrows pull down sharply as he read it. “Lord Darvi keeps an eye on people coming and going in this time. Her Majesty also. There’s a sense among the peasantry that killing a dragon means something beyond killing wolves or mountain-cats for bounty. As if the Gods—” She used the triple-singular form of the word, common in the Megantic dialect and almost unknown in the North and West, “—use the vexation of a dragon as a sort of test of kingship. Maybe it was, in ancient times.”
“Hence our friend Martus of Ciselfarge?”
“I think so. The other dragonslayer will be there.” The tall, black-haired woman drove her ax into the woodpile by which they’d found her, and glanced at the opposite wing of the inn, gauging the level to which the shadows of the inn-roof had risen on the wall. “You still have time to bathe if you hurry.”
They arrived at the palace late and damp-haired, but were seated at one end of the High Table, in a place of what Sun Wolf privately thought of as semi-honor. The men-at-arms brought by the King of Dalwirin’s nephew were at one of the two lower tables, with the assistants of the court chamberlain and treasurer. The “comrade” of the shirdar prince Shamash Hadru (it was actually a semi-official position somewhere between servant and combat second) was seated next to Sun Wolf, and during the long and tiring succession of courses required of a formal banquet (which Sun Wolf hated) was induced to talk of dragons.
“My master and I rode against the green dragon that beset this land fifteen months ago,” the man said. “We found the lair where it had taken its stolen gold – ‘twas in the sea-cliffs, well north of here – and had my master not been injured in that fight I think we would have slain the worm.”
“You have dragons in the K’chin Desert, don’t you?” asked the Wolf, and the comrade – his name was Zarath – nodded. “Was this one different?”
“In color – those that breed in the desert and the mountains of my home are darker and drabber in color. In shape they’re the same, like winged snakes, all muscle and bone, and they move…” With his dark hands, Zarath traced whipping, s-shaped curves. “Like ribbons in the wind. Nothing I have seen in my experience moves so. When fighting them—”
Further up the table, the hawk-featured shirdar prince frowned sharply at his comrade, as if disapproving of even a small piece of information that might help another slay the monster first.
“Forgive me,” said Zarath. “Far be it from me, to teach another slayer of dragons his trade.”
Shamash Hadru’s attention had already been called back by Martus of Ciselfarge: seated, Sun Wolf observed, at Queen Caia’s left hand, rather than her right. The young man was as gracious and smiling to the guests at his wife’s table as he had been when riding through the square the previous day. By his gestures he was discussing the techniques of battle with the King of Dalwirin’s nephew. But watching the guests, Sun Wolf was well aware that when Lord Darvi Blackmouth spoke, their eyes would immediately leave the younger man and snap to the older, and that even when Martus was speaking, both potential dragonslayers had an ear cocked to the man who really ruled the kingdom.
And Martus knew it. When Lord Darvi held forth briefly on the training of battle-horses – the center of all eyes – the Wolf saw how the consort’s love-god mouth twisted into a line of petulant anger, and how his dark eyes glittered with the rage of a schoolboy whose prize knife is taken from him by a bigger boy. Caia was aware of it – Sun Wolf’s glance cut quickly to that potato-dumpling face, and recognized that though she ignored her husband’s vexation, her whole squat body was stiff with discomfort.
And maybe, he thought, with dread at the inevitable bedroom quarrel to come.
If they still shared a bedroom. He would have been willing to bet they didn’t.
At dinner’s end, when the guests retired to the garden pavilion for coffee, Queen Caia made her way to Sun Wolf’s side, carrying a slender roll of papers in her round little hands. “Lord Sun Wolf,” she said, as he bowed. “Have you also come to try your hand against this drake? I remember my father hired you and your men,” she added, with a stiff smile that showed how difficult it was for her to speak to strangers. “But my lord Darvi mentioned nothing of you bringing your company.”
“He had the inn watched?” He cocked an eyebrow at her, to turn the words into half a jest, but her heavy cheeks flamed in the lamplight. “It’s all right,” he added, and she quickly shook her head.
“Please be assured that I have no quarrel with you bringing your company to help you in this. All I want is the creature’s destruction. Do you think it will serve, against a creature such as this?”
“I don’t know,” said Sun Wolf. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone trying it, and anyhow my company and I parted ways about two years ago, when I undertook the studies of wizardry. It’s wizardry brought me here, not dragon-slaying.”
Her eyes widened and she said, “Oh—” uncertainly.
Not a girl of sparkling repartee.
“Oh, then… then perhaps you won’t be needing these.” She shoved the papers at him. “I’ve just observed… That is, I know dragon-slayers – dragon-hunters – often aren’t… don’t…” She struggled for some other way to speak of the way Shamash Hadru and others had dealt with would-be competition.
“That’s very kind of you.” Sun Wolf took the papers from her hand, stepped closer to the nearest lamp and unrolled them.
“It’s the drawing one of the shepherd boys made, who saw the dragon destroy his village,” she explained. “Shamash Hadru, and Bran Kathel of Dalwirin, have seen this, too. And I had one of the court clerks make a fair copy, of what the boys said, of seeing the dragon descend on the village. Shamash Hadru has been sailing to all the nearer isles – Senat and Taspen and Rillfaven – seeking for the thing’s lair, and Lord Martus—” Her voice stumbled slightly on her husband’s name, and despite her self-control her glance went to the man, gorgeous in dark-green velvet, on the fringe of the group around Lord Darvi. “Lord Martus has gone across to Senat also… It’s a very large island, and its far side is thickly wooded and little known. Bran Kathel has had his men seeking all over the countryside near here. But if you’ve not come to slay the dragon…”
She hesitated, and Sun Wolf stood for a moment, looking down into that round, worried face.
“Nevertheless, these are very helpful. How much gold do you have in the treasury here?”
The chill haughtiness he’d seen in her face as she’d ridden through the square stiffened her once again. “Sufficient for our needs, Captain.”
“Is it actually here in a vault?” he went on. “Or invested with one of the merchant-banking houses in the Middle Kingdoms?”
“I don’t see that that has anything to do with either wizardry or dragon-slaying.”
“It has everything to do with dragon-slaying, m’am, if three-quarters of your gold is in the vaults of the House Stratus in Kwest Mralwe and there’s nothing here in Ilfagen for the dragon t
o actually be after. Is there anyone—”
“Your Majesty.” Lord Darvi appeared at their side, and bowed deeply to his niece. “His Holiness Great Udasu has arrived, from Preth Vanu, and begs your pardon for the lateness of his coming—”
“There’s no need for you to leave your guests, Caia.” Martus Dragonslayer hurried upon Lord Darvi’s heels, and executed a profound and graceful salaam to his wife. “I’ll meet them—”
“Thank you, Martus.” All the good manners in the world could not erase her wary tone. “That’s very good of you, but I’ll deal with him.”
“Do you think I’m accidentally going to spit on his shoes?” he demanded angrily. “I’m not an idiot! I do know how to conduct an audience.”
“Of course you do.” Patience and exasperation vied in her voice: patience won. “I assure you, my lord, it’s no trouble. If you will excuse me, Captain, War-Lady…”
She curtseyed to both Sun Wolf and Starhawk, took the arm that her uncle offered her, and walked with him to the wide main entrance of the many-doored pavilion, where a palace servant and a man in the brown robes of a lesser priest waited. Martus Dragonslayer followed them with his eyes, his mouth set in an ugly line, his hands clenched. Then he turned sharply and strode out of the pavilion by another door.
And for a moment as he moved, Sun Wolf caught, from his clothing, the unmistakable scent of roses, and honey, and oranges.
*
“What do you mean, there’s no dragon?” Starhawk’s straight dark brows pinched down over the broken bridge of her nose. “Chief, everybody saw that dragon. Its tracks were all over those villages.”
“Everybody who’s been in and out of Nanya’s perfume-shop sees blue butterflies flying around their heads,” pointed out the Wolf quietly. Around them, the darkness of the garden was sprinkled with the distant lamplight of the pavilion; the sound of lutes and viols now mingled with the voices of the guests. “The first year you were with the troop, and we were fighting for the King of Mallincore, hundreds of people in Mallincore saw all those empty tents we had set up in our encampment and swore we had five thousand men. And any cattle-thief can fake up a paw to make tracks with.”
The Hawk was silent for a time. Then she said, “You mean, Nanya’s in on it.”
“Yeah.”
“You think she and Martus—?”
“I think she was in his arms the last time he wore that doublet.”
“Well, after five minutes of talking to Caia I can understand that. Especially if Martus thought he was being given a kingdom to rule instead of a job as chief stud with no power attached. They have to be using mercs, to do the dirty work in the villages—”
“They are. I thought those claw-rakes on the cottage walls – besides the fact that they didn’t get the spacing the same from one wall to the next – looked awfully damn clean for claws. And look here.” He led her to the parapet, where the Queen’s garden overlooked – twenty feet below – the kitchen gardens of the lower palace. Cressets burned in iron baskets along the low wall, and by the blaze of the nearest one he unrolled the drawing the Queen had given him.
“The Captain of the Peacock described dragons as snaky and bony. Zarath – Shamash Hadru’s servant – said the same. That thing – and the thing I saw in my dream – looks exactly like the lamp in Nanya’s perfume-shop. That’s probably as close to a real dragon as she’s ever come.”
“And they started in the villages so Lord Darvi wouldn’t think it was some kind of staggering co-incidence when his niece conveniently gets bumped off leaving Gorgeous as King of Ilfagen?”
“Except I think Lord Darvi’s going to be one of the victims when the dragon finally hits the palace here. But the Blackmouths had a lot of power among the land-chiefs. They’d never have stood it, if some jumped-up merc from the Islands just came in and offed the Queen and her uncle. It has to look real, like our pal Moonweasel finding out the name of that poor mark back in Kwest Mralwe, and where he’d been to school. It has to look good.”
“That’s…” She paused, considering.
“Unproven the word you’re looking for?”
“No,” said Starhawk after a moment. “Actually, I think the words I’m looking for are, Pretty damn clever. No wonder the other dragonslayers can’t find the thing’s lair.” She rolled up the drawing and the accounts of the villagers, handed them back. An ugly glitter chilled her gray eyes. “And how many people killed – fifteen? Twenty? To make it look good.”
“I’m guessing those that disappeared are being held someplace for sale.”
“Oh, that’s an improvement.”
Beyond the palace – beyond the lights of the town below – the Inner Islands lay in the moonlight, black velvet against the multifarious sparkle of the sea. Deceptively beautiful, the Wolf reflected: pirate gangs and mercenary troops abounded, there was always somebody fighting somebody over the rich island trade. Beside him, Starhawk had fallen silent, but he could see her calculating how she’d mimic a dragon-attack on the palace, once she could be certain of the appearance of an illusory dragon to draw everyone’s attention. Where she’d place blasting charges to isolate the royal suites of the upper palace from the more populous areas around the main court, how she’d use war-fire – the combination of sulfur and naphtha used in sea-battles – to cover the fact that the deaths involved were the work of men and not a monstrous beast.
“Shouldn’t be hard to find out where their base is,” she went on after a moment, “once we start asking—”
“Once I start asking,” the Wolf corrected her. “I’ll cross over to Senat in the morning. I want you to stay here.”
“Here here, as in the palace?”
“In the Queen’s suite someplace, if you can manage it without being seen. Tonight and tomorrow night. I don’t think you have to worry about her and Martus rolling the linen while you’re under the bed.”
She nodded, clearly recalling the attack on them that afternoon. Linen-cupboards, store-rooms, attics – in many ways, despite the presence of servants and guards, palaces were easier to hide out in than huts. It was just that the penalties of being caught were likely to be higher.
“I’ll have to steal a sword…” No one, of course, was permitted to carry weapons into the presence of the Queen, and if the Hawk was to act as invisible bodyguard she probably couldn’t stave off an attack with just the four hide-out knives, two sets of brass knuckles, and garrote still on her person. A clandestine visit to the palace armory was clearly called for. “You sure this is any of our business, Chief?”
“How much of anything is our business?” he returned. “You and I have spent half our lives minding other peoples’ business for money, and leaving a trail of corpses from here to the Western Ocean. There’s been two dozen people killed, who were just trying to mind their own business and raise their families, and you and I are the only ones who know so far why it was done. Far as I’m concerned, that makes it our business. In a way, we’re now working for them.”
“Fair enough.”
“Not to mention that the thought of that little witch running a trade-city of this size and wealth makes my toes curl. She’s tried to kill us once. If she succeeds in marrying Martus and living happily ever after here, I don’t think she’s going to stop at one attempt.”
*
Besides Senat Town itself – a medium-sized walled trading-town dominated by a merchant duke and the local money-changers – the heavily forested Isle of Senat boasted half a dozen smaller harbors, scattered around two-thirds of its ovoid perimeter, and Sun Wolf suspected that the mercenary camp would be at – or near – one of those rather than close to the center of trade. But it was in the town that he spent most of the day, loafing in taverns, gossiping with fishermen, small-time coast-runners, slave-traders and the mercenaries that one could find anywhere in the Inner Isles.
From the landlady of The Captain’s Wife (an old acquaintance from his own mercenary days) he ascertained with very little trouble that Mar
tus of Ciselfarge had been part of the Raptor’s company—
“The Raptor always did like ‘em pretty,” he grunted. “He any good?”
“Oh, hell, yes.” Smallpox Anny – tough and businesslike as she’d been ten years ago when she and the Wolf had collaborated on besieging Rilfaven – scratched her short-cropped hair. “And he really did kill that drake: single-handed, too. So yeah, I understand why his arse is chapped about getting nothing for his trouble but a wife who gives him candy-money and treats him like an idiot – which he is, by the way. I don’t know what else he expected, from that family. You’ll never catch a Blackmouth giving away power, and you’ll never catch that little girl getting in a twitter just because a man’s put it to her once or twice.”
“Raptor been in town recently?”
Smallpox frowned over the memory. “Yeah, now I think of it. At least, three of his boys were in here early in the spring…”
“Four or five weeks ago, would you say?”
“’Bout that. Just before the dragon hit Ilfagen.”
“Who in town sells naphtha?” asked the Wolf. “Or sulfur, or niter?”
“You planning on making a flamethrower?”
“I’m planning on buying you new earrings to keep your mouth shut about me asking questions. Or even that you saw me—”
She ostentatiously put her hands over her eyes.
The new earrings were expensive. With the rest of the money he laid out that day – for drinks, for information (“I know there’s some bunch of mercs camped behind Gull Cove,” said a fisherman, “because they raped a woman who was out that way catching lobsters…”), for silence, and for hiring a horse to take him eight miles out to Gull Cove – by the time Sun Wolf left his horse hidden in the pinewoods behind the cove, he was having concerns about getting a craft to take him back to Ilfagen come evening. Like most of the little landing-places along the northwest bulge of Senat Island, Gull Cove was backed by steep cliffs of blue-black basalt; its advantage (as Sun Wolf recalled it, from a single visit to the place nearly fifteen years previously) was that a sort of shelf existed mid-cliff, a dozen feet above the level of the rocky beach, which permitted an encampment that was invisible to casual observers and that wouldn’t be inundated on a high tide.
Nanya of the Butterflies (Sun Wolf and Starhawk) Page 3