The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

  The citizenry were glad enough, naturally, for the panic to be put to rest. What caught Dante off guard were the scribe-written letters and visits from the families of those the sorcerer and his dog had killed. Their gratitude wasn't driven by the satisfaction of vengeance or justice, but from simply knowing what had killed their sons and husbands. With the support of Tarkon and Merria, and aided by volunteer monks from the Cathedral of Ivars, Dante cleared the catacombs beneath the cemetery on the hill and installed equipment and storage. A small crew of willing monks was trained for a simple purpose: to investigate any strange or suspicious deaths brought to them, primarily via whatever clues could be discerned with the nether.

  The "carneterium" had not been his idea for the name.

  Laughter and the clatter of hooves filtered from the streets. They passed through the upper floor of a guard tower every quarter mile, where guards glanced at Dante's sapphire brooch and black cloak and waved them on. Once the curve of the Pridegate took the wall east-west, Dante descended at another tower and strode through the quiet streets. Weedy yards separated the modest houses. A high hill rose ahead.

  There were no words carved above the door in the foot of the hill. Instead, a stone plaque bore the image of a millstone pierced by an angled pole. The pole's tip was astered by the four-pointed star of Jorus.

  "Why do you humans insist on putting your dead in their own little holes?" Mourn muttered.

  "What do you do?" Blays said. "Prop them up at the table?"

  "We've seen their funerals," Dante said. "They leave the bodies on the oldest hills. If there's more than one, they pile them up in one big grave."

  "I thought that was just for the people they don't like."

  "We don't think our dead should rest alone," Mourn said. "If you belong to a clan in life, why should you be isolated in death?"

  The dim tunnel swallowed them up. A flicker of decay wafted on the breeze. Torches burned from the rough limestone walls. A short, gritty walk took them into a foyer furnished with a handful of chairs and an end table with a small gong on it, which Dante struck. A bald monk padded into the room, nose lifted as if he smelled a pie.

  "My old student," Nak smiled. "Come to lord over me with your latest promotion?"

  "Someone tried to kill me yesterday," Dante said. "I'd like to see the body."

  "Right this way." Nak padded down the stone halls, exchanging pleasantries. The smell of rot thickened on the cool cavern air. Nak led them to a small room; the dead assassin rested on a stained table, body stripped bare. Nak frowned sharply. "I'll fetch the natriter."

  He padded off, leaving the four of them with the body. Blays sniffed. "Doesn't look so tough now."

  "Nobody looks tough when their balls are hanging out," Dante said.

  Lira shrugged. "People who fight naked are more frightening than those in full chain."

  "I have my doubts," Blays said. "Let's put this to the test."

  They were interrupted by the arrival of the natriter, a man with dark circles around his eyes and an expression chilly enough to preserve the flesh of any corpse he glanced at. Which made sense. It was his job, after all, to decide how the dead had died.

  Dante nodded at the body. "What can you tell me about him?"

  The man gave him a level look. "The stab wound tells me he died of a stab wound."

  "Any indication where he came from?"

  "A womb, most likely."

  Blays paced around the body. "Look, this justifiably dead person tried to kill my friend here. Anything you can tell us about him would do wonders for our ability to continue going unassassinated."

  The natriter sighed through his long nose and closed on the corpse in a single stride. He pushed back the dead man's lips. "He still has most of his teeth. Unlikely to be a sharecropper. But his hands are awfully rough to be a lord."

  "Excellent," Blays said. "So he could be anyone but the poorest of poor or the richest of rich."

  The man didn't acknowledge this. "The hem of his cloak smelled like wintrel."

  "What did the nether show?" Dante said.

  "Nothing abnormal. You're welcome to check for yourself."

  Dante shook his head. "Please hang onto the body for now. Once it turns, I'd like the skull preserved. Just in case."

  "Whatever you say."

  Dante waved to Nak on their way out of the catacombs. Outside, the sun felt hard, the air gentle and pure.

  "That wasn't half as bad as you made it sound," Lira said.

  Blays rolled his eyes. "That's because we didn't go to storage."

  "Did we just learn anything at all?" Dante said.

  "I don't think wintrel grows anywhere but the Gaskan interior," Blays said. "So that rules out old enemies from Mallon. Or pirates."

  "Not river-pirates," Mourn said. "Or land-pirates."

  "Another finger pointing Cassinder's way." Dante glanced up; dark clouds mounded in from the bay, low and fast. "Or anyone who wants to get in his good graces. Which describes nearly everyone in Gask."

  Perhaps it was the comfort of being home after a long journey, but Dante didn't feel all that concerned that an unknown enemy had recently tried to take his life. Then again, this wasn't the first time he'd been attacked in the street. He had a full flask of experience to draw on in comparison. The fifth strawberry never tastes as sweet as the first.

  So he didn't think much about the dead man as he led the others to the Ingate tailor who handled the Citadel's ritzier garb. The sharp-eyed proprietor closed her shop and led them upstairs to a world of fur and silk and cotton. Pins and swatches and cloth tape flew as she and her two assistants fitted them for travel and court. The old woman took Mourn's fitting as a special challenge. Mourn appeared to feel the same challenge about her measuring tape sliding under his armpits and around his groin. When they left late that afternoon, snow whorled down from the clouds. In protest, the Thaws-days revelers burnt all the moths they could find—traditionally, the last days of Urt were associated with cicadas, but Dante hadn't seen a one of those since leaving Mallon—and smashed snowmen with axes and hoes.

  Several days passed in complete peace. Dante spent hours discussing his upcoming diplomatic tour with Cally. He found maps of Gask's provinces, holdings, and fiefdoms, and took them to the monks for copies. He visited with a handful of Narashtovik's lords, merchants, and ambassadors, juicing them for information about the men and families he should most try to sway. According to Cally's scheme, each visitation would carry its own goals. At one manor, Dante might entreat the lord to pressure his colleagues in Setteven to ease back on any measures against the Norren Territories. In another, he might subtly ask a baron to remain quietly neutral should war erupt—or at least provide minimal aid when the king's campaign came calling for men and grain. At yet another household, Dante might do no more than attempt to gauge its master's opinion, and remind the man, with Dante's own presence, that other powers and interests populated the lands of greater Gask besides those concentrated in its capital.

  Word arrived the viceroy of Dollendun and the border-towns had banned all norren from bearing arms in public without notarized consent of the local guard. Several norren had already been arrested. Two days later, one of Cally's scouts rode through the gates with news the Clan of the Broken Branch had ranged across the river to burn a slave camp to the ground. The clan left no living human behind.

  "It's just a matter of time," Blays said after a long time planning routes in his room. "We ought to just dig a huge ditch around the norren lands and fill it with all the trash we can find. See if that keeps 'em out."

  Dante stood from the desk, knees popping. "Speaking of trash, I'm hungry. Want lunch?"

  "Five times a day."

  Dante clomped down the back stairs to take the shortcut to the dining hall. The high, wide walls were a product of an earlier time, and so too were the rules of etiquette that continued to govern it. Anyone within the Citadel was allowed to eat in the hall, from the lowest charmaid to common sold
iers to Cally himself. When there were lines, no favors were to be expected or granted. Most shockingly of all, perhaps, in practice it played out just like that: the few who had issue with such egalitarianism, such as blue-blooded Kav, simply took all their meals in their room or out on the town. This order amongst the classes was self-policing and easily explained. Pull rank on a servant in the hall to help yourself to the last slice of plum duck, and the next time a meal was delivered to your room, it was likely to contain an additional spicing of saliva, hair, and pestled rat feces.

  So the hall bore its usual assortment of soldiers, footmen, and monks. Flatware clattered from plates and long wooden tables. Across the room, Lira faced Wint, her back as stiff as charcoal-forged steel. Wint smiled and gestured towards her waist. Her hand flinched.

  "Ah." Blays strode across the wooden floor, sidestepping a servant waddling along beneath a tray of cups and bowls. Dante jogged to catch up.

  "My point," Wint said, voice threading through the rattle of knives and laughter, "is why limit yourself to bodyguarding while you're awake?"

  Lira didn't move. "You're proposing to hire me in my sleep."

  The young councilman shook his head. "I wasn't aware your services were paid."

  Her limbs went loose. Not from a deflation of tension—the alert looseness of a warrior readying her muscles to react in an instant. "Stop speaking to me."

  "Is that a command?" Wint's smile withered. "Just where do you think you are?"

  "Positioned in front of a rather poor view," Blays said, slipping between them like a knife between ribs. "But I bet I can pound it into shape easy enough."

  Wint laughed inches from Blays' face, brows bent. "Everyone's forgot themselves today. Officially, you're a retainer of the Citadel, yes? Bound, in other words, to carry out orders from every member of the Council."

  Blays' hand found the handle of his sword. "Yes, but I have notoriously bad hearing. To me, all orders sound like 'stab stab stab.'"

  Nether flickered to Wint's thin fingers. "Perhaps your ears are simply clogged, and the blockage can be knocked free with sufficient force."

  "Stop this," Dante said. "Nobody wants a bunch of blood in their food."

  "Nothing to worry about, then. There's no blood if a man's heart just...stops." Wint winked at Blays, then turned and strode for a nearby table, snagging an entire plate of skewered beef from a passing servant.

  Lira met Blays' eyes. "I can take care of myself."

  "I know that," he said. "I've just always wanted to hit that guy."

  "He was reaching for the nether," Dante said.

  Blays snorted. "I've been around you long enough to have worked out a plan or two. Let's see how well you boss those shadows around while I'm twisting your nipple off."

  Dante shook his head. Blays rapidly dropped the subject in favor of a tirade about the inherent superiority of peppered chicken and herbed kasha, but Lira was silent even by her own laconic standards. Then again, she and Mourn had been cooped up in the Citadel and its grounds for days now, sitting on their hands while Dante, Blays, and Cally schemed and mapped and planned.

  "It's the last day of Thaws," Dante said. "Why don't we go out tonight?"

  Blays jabbed a greasy chicken bone his way. "Not if your plan is to go look at churches. Or attend some play."

  "My thinking was more along the lines of eating, drinking, and repeating, until our corpses have to be swept into the street."

  "That's what you consider fun?" Lira said.

  She came along anyway. Dante took his loon, leaving the other with Cally. Blays took an emergency flask and an emergency-emergency flask. Lira took three extra knives. Mourn took himself. Their first stop was just beyond the gates. A similar scene was about to play out in squares across the city, but the plaza between the Cathedral of Ivars and the Sealed Citadel was the most popular by far.

  Three thousand people ringed a wide, roped-off circle. Twelve monks were spaced along its interior. They carried long-handled nets and foolish grins. Spectators jostled, placed bets, exchanged good-natured jeers with the monks. The sun sank beneath the cathedral roof. A gap opened in the crowd directly in front of the church's doors, revealing an elderly woman—Hallida, the institution's master. She shuffled to the center of the vast ring, head bobbing, a squirming sack tucked beneath one arm. Four men in black hoods circled counterclockwise among the monks, passing out ceremonial wine.

  "Confused, blind, and chased," Hallida smiled. "At least you're not alone."

  She whipped the sack away. A blindfolded rabbit wriggled in her arm. Around the circle, the monks chugged their mugs. The crowd whooped as the monks set down their cups and took up their nets. Hallida raised her free hand for silence, then spun three times and set the rabbit on the ground.

  It listed like a hulled ship, careering straight for a portly monk. He swiped at it with his net, missing widely, drawing a hail of boos. A woman sprinted forward, robes and black hair flapping. The rabbit bolted between her ankles. Three others jogged to intercept, holding a chevron formation. The creature veered toward the crowd. They stamped their feet until it reversed course—and dashed straight into an old monk's net. He hefted it over his head, its long legs kicking as he raised his fist in triumph. The audience laughed, shouted, clapped.

  "I don't understand what I just saw," Lira said.

  "Narashtovik," Dante smiled. "Five hundred years of sieges and decay has left them a bit fatalistic."

  "And weird," Blays said. "Onward!"

  Last light dwindled from the rooftops. Knowing the best taverns were rarely the richest, Dante led them beyond the Ingate to one of the city's less-loved neighborhoods. In squares, people stomped the slush and shoveled it to melt beside snapping bonfires. The smell of woodsmoke on cold air always made Dante feel at peace. In front of the six-sided spike of Vaccarrin Tower, a man in a patchwork cloak made delicate hammer-strokes from atop the ladder he needed to play the ten-foot strings of his godsharp.

  The pub-hunt didn't start strong. The Left Hand was too crowded to fit through the door. The Pine and Hatchet had burned to the ground. Finally, Dante settled on Kattin's, a four-story pub and inn with an auxiliary basement they opened for holiday crowds. To his surprise, several tables were open in the main room. Their group occupied one and quickly populated it with mugs of stout. Dante wasn't as enthusiastic about pubs as Blays, but for his coin, the second drink was always the best: settled in to his chair, that first rum or beer soothing his nerves, the anticipation of the evening to come. The mood of the crowd at Kattin's matched his; placid to begin with, but gradually growing more excited for no apparent reason. By the time the barbacks shoved two tables aside for a boisterous quartet hailing from the eastern mountains, Dante's toes began to tap on their own.

  "I think I need to dance," Blays declared.

  Dante glanced away from the short-haired blonde whose voice was as crisp as her flute. "I didn't know you danced."

  "Not well. But that's why it's fun." He stood, chair scraping, and extended his hand to Lira. "My lady?"

  "I don't dance," she said. "Meaning I don't dance."

  "How stupid. How about you, Mourn?"

  The norren blinked. "Do male humans dance with other males?"

  "No, but they sometimes joke about it. Wish me luck." Blays swung from the table and approached the hodgepodge of men and women dancing in front of the sweating quartet. He quickly linked arms with a young woman whose white smile flashed between the black brackets of her hair. Each time Blays stumbled, he leaned in and shouted something above the music. Each time, the girl drew back laughing.

  "He's very enthusiastic," Lira said.

  "Especially for putting our lives at risk." Dante sipped his thick and bitter beer. "Why don't you dance?"

  "I have to choose to be thought of as a warrior or as a woman. Shooting for both targets means striking neither."

  "I can only imagine."

  Lira laughed in the high-pitched way of someone who's very pleased with herse
lf. "You bought it, didn't you? Not that it's entirely a lie." She peered at him over her beer. "Primarily, I'm afraid I'd break both legs. I'd probably break a third one I didn't know I had."

  Dante chuckled. The musicians finished on a stutter of hard notes. The dancers fell apart, laughing and clapping and bowing.

  Lira gestured their way. "Do you dance?"

  "Just often enough to remember why I never do."

  The next dance involved a rhythm of boot-stomps and partnered claps that Dante couldn't begin to follow. Blays blustered through in a flurry of stinging palms and barking laughter. At the end, the dark-haired girl hugged him and left with a wave. He plopped back in his chair sweaty and grinning.

  "I'm not going to ask if you watched," he said. "Saying no would only prove you're a liar."

  "We conversed," Dante said. "Mostly about the best way to scrape the remains of your partner from the bottom of your shoes."

  Lira clapped her mug to the table. "I should dance with you after all. I'm much harder to stomp than some waif."

  Blays grinned. "Another drink first. And much more air. Then we'll see who tramples who."

  Air was breathed. Drinks were drunk. The band took a breather of their own. When they returned, Blays stood up and offered Lira his hand. She accepted with a curt nod.

  "What am I seeing?" Mourn said.

  Dante shook his head. "A man eager to make a mistake."

  Lira moved with a rhythm that more or less matched that of the fiddle. Dante thought she'd be clumsy, stiff, openly dangerous with her elbows and toes, but she danced with a martial precision that resembled a less-practiced version of the crisp mastery she showed with her forms in the barracks. Despite this, it wasn't unpleasant—through it all, she kept her limbs and muscles loose, guided by the confident hands of training and alcohol. The players leaned into their instruments, elbows jumping back and forth. The creases of concentration smoothed from Lira's brow. She flowed after Blays' lead, matching his steps and gestures as if she'd rehearsed for weeks. Dante smiled.