Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  Beneath his heavy cloak and thick winter garb, Nycos had become something that nobody he would meet tonight had ever seen. Something with little concern for trivialities such as weather.

  Finally certain no passersby lurked between the docks and the streets beyond, Nycos broke into a run. The sound of his steps was lost in the pounding surf behind, the wind and frozen rain all about. In seconds he crossed the gap, a slightly darker blur against the icy night. None saw him, and even if they had, they would have dismissed him as a trick of shadow, for nothing human could move so fast.

  In that sprint, with the wind in his face, he exulted. Never since he had become Nycolos Anvarri had he willed such strength into his limbs, such power into his body. He could not be a dragon, not now, perhaps never again, but tonight he came as near to it as he could without the sliver of Wyrmtaker piercing his heart.

  Tonight, he need not pass as human.

  He reached the edge of the street and sprang for the rooftops. His talons stretched out, ready to pierce the walls be they wood or stone, but they proved unnecessary. His jump carried him more than high enough, and he alighted firmly on the eaves of a fishmonger’s storehouse. Again he ran, until the edge of the rooftop loomed, and another leap easily cleared the narrow avenue with room to spare.

  Thus did he cross the breadth of Vidiir, yards above the streets, above the view of any duty-bound guards or unfortunate pedestrians forced outside this miserable night.

  It wasn’t too unlike Talocsa, this city. The buildings trended slightly narrower, the whitewashing and paint less colorful. Fewer streets were paved or lit with any regularity, and to judge by those few souls he observed, simple cloaks were favored over coat or kaftan. All he had heard over the past year proclaimed the wood and stone here were of poorer quality than in Kirresc, but between the haze of the storm and his own lack of expertise, Nycos saw no difference.

  It didn’t smell at all the same, though. All those ambient scents he’d grown accustomed to—the vegetation (however muted by the season), the lingering cookfires, the nearby woods, they were all different. Even the people had dissimilar odors, doubtless due to their diet. The aroma of fish, and the tang of the Cerenean Sea, infused it all.

  Building by building, street by street, he neared his goal. Most of the rooftops he could reach with an inhuman bound, sometimes covering several dozen feet with each. Occasionally, as he passed through wealthier parts of town, he had to climb to the top of a particularly high structure, and that was when his claws proved their worth. While most Vidiirians were surely asleep, or attributed his sounds to the frozen rain, he doubtless drew some attention with his footsteps, or the crunch of talons on stone. If anyone came out to investigate, however, he was gone long before they appeared, the evidence of his passing already hidden by his co-conspirators, the wind and snow.

  Only twice did he come across a gap too wide to traverse, where open courtyard and grand avenue combined into a veritable chasm between the buildings. There he clambered down and dashed across the roadways, and just as before, he moved unseen.

  Until, finally, he stared at the moat and the outer walls of his destination.

  Castle Auric. What sort of insecure, puffed-up jackass names his fortress “Castle Auric”?

  Despite the grandiose epithet, the keep boasted no actual gold, or even gold coloration, that Nycos saw—though that could, he acknowledged, have been a trick of the light and the weather. Still, all he observed was stone, from the curtain wall to the looming silhouettes of towers rather more slender and more square of roof than those to which he was accustomed. At the base of that wall flowed a narrow moat, sluggish and half-gelid, splotched with leprous scabs of dirty ice.

  All protected, but the sentries at the gate huddled in the mean shelter of the guardhouse, while those who patrolled the walls hurried through sporadic rounds and otherwise took refuge within the watchtowers. Any given length of parapet remained absent of witnesses for minutes at a time.

  Sloppy, perhaps, but understandable. No invading army besieged those walls, and even if an assassin were somehow skilled enough to anchor a hook and climb the stone unheard, none in his right mind would try on a night such as this. What did they have, really, to stand guard against?

  Nycos retreated far enough for a running start, waited for the gusts and the crunch of sleet to pick up, and then hurtled the moat. He soared briefly through the frigid air, then thrust out his hands as the wall loomed to meet him.

  Talons crunched into stone, catching fast against the pull of gravity and the push of wind. They didn’t sink in too deeply. With the might of his true body he could have dug whole craters from the rock, but he lacked much of that strength now, however he enhanced his human form. Those claws though, remained as sharp and as hard as always, and that was enough to hold.

  It was also why, at some point between here and Gronch, he would have to…

  Nycos shuddered and cringed from that unpleasant thought. It was a travail for another day, and he had enough to worry about right now.

  Hand over hand, he hauled himself upward, the tips of his talons digging the tiniest furrows. Once or twice he regretted not having shed his boots, wishing he could have used his feet to cling against sudden blasts of wind, but the strength of his arms proved sufficient. He peered over the parapet, ensuring that none of the soldiers lurked nearby. Then, satisfied everything was clear, he scrambled over and across, took another quick look to ensure the inner bailey beyond was equally deserted, and dropped.

  A vicious chorus of barks and snarls burst from what must have been the kennel as the royal hunting hounds caught his scent, but either the to-do went unheard amidst the freezing storm, or the beasts’ keepers assumed they were reacting to the weather.

  Shadow to shadow he flitted, ducking behind various outbuildings where he could, no matter that the entire courtyard was a sea of gloom. Several flickering lanterns warred against the night as he drew nearer the main keep, and it wouldn’t do to let some eagle-eyed sentry spot him now. This close, he saw that many of Castle Auric’s windows and doorways, as well as some of the bas-relief adornment on waterspouts and supporting columns, were indeed trimmed in gold—or at least something gilded. Given the place’s smaller, more utilitarian construction as compared to the likes of Oztyerva, it felt rather akin to putting a goblin in a wedding gown.

  He decided against sharing that particular observation with Smim when he told his companions of this night.

  Penetrating the inner keep proved bloodier work. None of the doors were barred; since the inhabitants weren’t currently besieged, they saw no need to make the jobs of the soldiers and servants any more difficult. Even the smallest and most insignificant of those entryways, however, boasted a few guards within.

  Those same claws that had punctured stone felt little resistance in chainmail and flesh. Nycos dragged the trio of bodies into the first side chamber he could find, and quickened his pace.

  Most of the castle slumbered, so he was forced to kill on only two further occasions before finally reaching the uppermost floor of the keep. It took almost another hour, hall by hall, door by door, to figure out whose chambers were whose, and then to sneak into one without waking the inhabitants.

  He didn’t quite succeed. As he slipped inside, a young servant on a bed near the door sat upright, blinking in drowsy confusion. A few candles on a side table cast a bit of light throughout the room, enough for her to instantly recognize that he didn’t belong. She drew breath to scream, hands clutched to her chest, and Nycos had no choice. A brief lunge, and the only sound to emerge was the harsh snap of her neck.

  Long he stood over the body, in part listening to make sure the sleepers across the suite hadn’t awoken, but mostly staring unhappily at the limp form. He’d killed many since becoming Nycolos, quite a few on this journey, and several this very night. But the others, to the last, had been some manner of threat. Soldiers. Bandits. The woman who’d purchased him, held him, as a slave. Even if not an enem
y in the moment, they’d been people of violence in one form or another, people who, while maybe not deserving of death, had chosen a life where they must regularly face it.

  Not this one. She’d been a maidservant, nothing more, had probably counted herself intensely lucky to work for the royal family. Guilty of nothing, not a woman of violence who’d known death potentially lurked around the next corner.

  Smim had been right. This sort of thing shouldn’t disturb him. He did what he must—and not merely for himself, as had long been his wont, but for the greater good of others. He shouldn’t feel remorse, shouldn’t give it a second thought, shouldn’t care.

  So why did he?

  Despondent, he cast about the room until he found what he needed. Carefully, quietly, he took it from the floor beside the other bed, where a pair of small figures still slept, blissfully unaware. Slipping his prize into a pouch at his belt, he crept back toward the hall, pausing only to lay a heavy quilt over the body. He didn’t want anyone awakening to that sight, if it could be helped.

  Then, softly shutting the door behind him, he moved toward his final destination of the night.

  The doors to the royal couple’s bedchamber were larger, the lintel trimmed in gold. It was also guarded, though not from without. Careful listening with inhuman ears revealed a pair of individuals standing on either side of the door within the room beyond. Doubtless the king and queen had a full suite, so the presence of the guards inside was no invasion of their privacy.

  Tricky to deal with, but not impossible.

  Nycos scraped a claw across the wall not far from the door, just loud enough to be heard. The guards would ignore it, doubtless taking it for some servant delivering a late-night message or snack to someone.

  So he waited a moment and repeated it.

  And then again. And again.

  Enough to draw attention, not enough to raise genuine suspicion. If he’d read the atmosphere in Castle Auric right, the soldiers—expecting no danger, fully secure in their fortress—should grow curiously irritated long before the idea of a genuine threat even crossed their minds.

  It was after the fourth scrape that the lock opened with a heavy thunk and the door swung gently inward. “What’s the ruckus out here?” one of the soldiers demanded, poking his head out into the hall. “Their Majesties are trying to sl—”

  Nycos grabbed the man’s skull, talons punching through bone. The second guard hadn’t yet brought her halberd around, nor drawn breath to shout a warning, before he was inside. He wrapped a fist around the haft of the weapon, yanked it and her forward, and opened the front of her throat, only just pivoting away from the crimson jet that followed. Catching the body before it could clatter too loudly to the floor, he lowered her, pulled the other corpse inside, and then carefully shut the door.

  A quick glance around the suite showed a number of rooms for this purpose or that, all larger and rather more ornate than necessary, but only a single shut door. He’d have known that for the bedchamber even without the faint snoring he heard from beyond.

  Nycos hit that door, a living battering ram, crossed the room and was crouched atop the mattress, claws to the king’s throat, before either he or the queen knew what was happening. A heavy rope hung beside the bed, doubtless to summon servants or aid. Nycos turned his head far enough that it was clear, even under the hood he’d worn against the weather, where he was looking.

  “Listen to what I’ve come to say, your Majesties,” he told them, his voice made rough and raspy by his partial transformation, “and you will both see the dawn. Try to escape, try to raise an alarm—any sort of alarm—and if you’re fortunate, I’ll kill you both before I leave. Do you understand?”

  “How dare—?!” the king started to squeak, while her Majesty drew breath to scream.

  Nycos lifted his other hand, the talons still wet with the blood of the guards, and allowed the viscous mess to drip across the velvet quilt. The other tightened, just enough to press against skin without quite puncturing it.

  “Do you. Understand?”

  Both nodded, although the king moved rather more timidly of the two.

  Nycos drew back to stand beside the bed rather than atop it. He moved through the gossamer canopy then ripped it off the frame, tossing it behind him, so nothing stood, even symbolically, between him and the royal couple. Then he reached up, grasping the rope with one hand and severing it flush against the ceiling with the talons of the other.

  Up close and without his regalia, King Boruden was a nondescript man: slim, of average complexion and brownish hair, a faint beard not much thicker than an adolescent’s. His wife, Queen Emdara, was taller, more attractive; her pale skin and blonde hair implied an almost pure Elgarrad ancestry. She also had the vacant (if currently fearful) features to suggest that Boruden had married for appearance over ability.

  How like the man.

  “People have died here tonight, your Majesties,” Nycos said, “and you brought that on them. Though I’d have wished otherwise, I will kill to achieve my purpose. Said purpose would be better served with the two of you alive, but I can work with your successors if need be.”

  “How do you propose to get away with this?” Boruden demanded, though he kept his tone low. “When I learn who sent you—”

  Nycos finally drew back his hood. And had someone compelled him to be honest in that moment, he would have admitted that he missed, desperately, eliciting the sort of reaction, the sort of terror, his appearance wrought; the fear and obedience that were his by right…

  Beneath his cloak was a visage scarcely human. Lizard-like scales the hue of rich wine covered every inch of flesh, down to lips and eyelids. His face was distended by unhinged jaws and predator’s fangs, and his eyes were a gleaming, slitted gold. Nobody, not even Mariscal or Kortlaus, would have recognized Nycolos Anvarri in that image.

  He didn’t know if Borduen was aware that Ktho Delios was somehow working with Vircingotirilux, but he’d doubtless heard the tales of the dragon’s rampages. Let the wyrm of Gronch serve Nycos’s purposes for once. “Look at me, Your Majesty. Who do you think sent me?”

  The rulers of Quindacra nearly choked on their screams.

  “What do you want?” Boruden finally forced through clenched throat.

  “Open warfare doesn’t suit our needs at this time. We can’t have Ktho Delios trying to expand its borders. So Quindacra is going to remain a faithful signatory to the southern nations’ treaty.”

  “How… How could you possibly—?”

  “You are going to send couriers to the court of every other pact nation, with a sealed message. In it, you are going to declare that you pretended to go along with Ktho Delios’s scheme to learn more about it, but that now you are prepared to share that information with your allies. You will, then, proceed to detail everything—dates, names, methods of contact, everything. They won’t believe you, but they’ll accept the explanation if it means keeping you as an ally, and it will allow you to save face.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Don’t send only one messenger to each nation. Send five or six, to make certain the message arrives. You will follow that up by sending ambassadors back to all the other courts. You will also make a public proclamation to your citizens, explaining how Ktho Delios approached you to be part of their dishonest, unworthy scheme, and how you are assisting your neighbors in standing up to them. Use words such as ‘honor’ and ‘loyalty’ and ‘as the gods would expect of you.’ Humans seem to respond well to that sort of thing.”

  The queen spoke for the first time, through trembling lips. “Won’t… won’t that let Ktho Delios know that we’ve turned on them? They’re… They’ve almost certainly got people in Vidiir, watching.”

  “Yes, it will. You won’t have the option of changing sides yet again.”

  “You don’t understand!” Boruden was practically begging, woefully unkingly behavior. “Quindacra could gain so much from—”

  Nycos hissed, a hideous reptili
an sound. “This is not about your nation! This is about you, your delusions of persecution and poverty! You will gain nothing! But let me explain what you have to lose.

  “If you turn on Ktho Delios, you will anger them, but they cannot attack you, not without facing every other nation of the south. But if you do not do as I say, your Majesties, you die. Pure and simple. You have no comprehension of what I am, what I can do. You cannot keep me out. You cannot hide from me. And even if you could, you have no defenses against the one I serve. We have spared your nation from our ravages thus far.” Because the Ktho Delians think you an ally, but you needn’t know that. “That can change.”

  Nycos moved around the bed, so he now stood at the foot of the mattress. “While I think it unlikely, it’s possible I’ve misjudged you. It is possible that fear for your own lives isn’t the motivator I think it to be. So I leave you with this.”

  He reached into his pouch and tossed onto the bed the item he’d taken from the adjoining room, where he’d killed the unfortunate servant. It was a toy animal, a knitted and stuffed unicorn, taken from where the royal couple’s youngest child had dropped it sometime during the day.

  “Your lives are not the only ones forfeit if you disobey.” He stepped back, knowing that, to their limited vision, he had faded into the shadows. He would, he decided, break the latch on the door as he departed. Without the rope to summon aid, it would take the king and queen some time to get out or attract attention, giving him plenty of opportunity to vacate the castle. “I am going to intercept several of your couriers, chosen at random. If the messages do not read as I have instructed, if their orders are anything other than I’ve instructed, if you haven’t delivered your address to your people before the sun sets tomorrow… Then I will be having this conversation with your successors the day after.

  “And those successors will not be your children. Have a lovely night, your Majesties, and try to get some sleep. You’ve a busy day ahead of you.”