Papyrian widows were trained to kill heavily armored men with a frightening kind of efficiency—they dodged and they weaved and they stabbed at your vital organs until you collapsed, not even realizing that the woman in front of you had poked your liver and lungs and heart with holes. The Skojit that Vera was fighting had probably planned on cutting her in half and then helping his friends kill Rowan. Instead his boots were filling with blood and he was dead on his feet. Just didn’t know it yet.
Rowan was not as graceful as Vera, but he fought like a cornered wolf. Two Skojit had come for him, and one of them was already on the ground—his skull cleaved in two and his legs twitching. Rowan’s short sword whipped around to meet the other Skojit, parrying his attacks while he wrestled himself up close and began beating at the Skojit with his elbows and knees and steel-tipped boots.
The last Skojit was working on Felgor—yelling hard curses in an angry tongue and swinging a stone club from left to right. Felgor was unarmed and panicked, ducking away from each blow as best he could, moving away from the fire.
If anyone needed help surviving the next few seconds, it was Felgor.
Bershad panned to his right, staying beyond the light of the spilled fire. Then he rushed forward, thigh screaming in pain. He reached the Skojit just as he was making another wide sweep with the club. It would have turned Felgor’s head into a bowl.
Bershad did not entertain half measures when he was stabbing someone in the back. He crunched his stolen blade diagonally through neck and collarbone and breast, carving into the Skojit’s chest until his blade became tangled in his spine several inches above the navel. The Skojit made a desperate gurgle in place of another battle cry, and fell over. Blood sprayed up from the gash in a torrent of red, drenching Bershad’s bare thighs and arms and chest.
In seconds, the blood from the Skojit had made a small pond on the ground beneath Felgor’s feet. The thief was sweating and panting, his fingers twitching.
Bershad left the sword in the dead man, and locked his eyes on Felgor.
“He’s dead,” Bershad rasped. “You’re not.”
After a close call like that, a reminder helped.
The other Skojit were dead, too. Rowan was wiping his sword off. Vera had one leg propped on the armored man’s chest and was yanking on the dagger she’d stuck between his ribs. Bershad’s leg was tightening up with a bad kind of pain. He yanked Felgor’s cloak away from his shoulders—tied it around himself in a makeshift skirt—then limped back to the ruined camp and plopped down next to the fire.
“I see they sent an archer down after you,” Rowan said, motioning toward the arrow stuck in Bershad’s thigh. “I’ll get some bandages.”
Bershad nodded absently, scanning the camp of dead men. Alfonso was off to the side, munching grass and unmoved by the carnage. Rowan moved to his pack and started pulling out bandages and a jar of moss they kept for his dragonslaying injuries.
“Just the bandage, it’s not bad,” Bershad said. He didn’t want the others to see what the moss would do. Rowan nodded and handed Bershad the bandage. Put the jar away.
“Where’s the Grealor?” Bershad asked when he’d removed the arrow.
“Bad news, there.” Rowan grimaced. “They went for him first. Must have thought with all that nice armor he was the biggest threat. Well, besides you.” Rowan grabbed hold of a body. He pulled Yonmar closer to the fire where there was enough light to see. Felgor and Vera came over as well.
There was an arrow sprouting from the middle of Yonmar’s forehead. He had an annoyed look on his face like he’d just been tapped on the shoulder during an important task.
“Must have just had two bows. One for you. One for him.” Rowan grunted from the labor of moving the corpse. “Lucky.”
Bershad sighed, leaned down, and pulled the jaguar cloak off the corpse. He folded it carefully, then placed it on the fire. Pictured the ashes floating down into the sea eventually. Then he took a white seashell from the leather pouch he kept around his neck and put it in Yonmar’s mouth. Even the souls of assholes deserve a little help getting back to the sea.
When that was done, Bershad sat down on a boulder and rubbed his leg for a few moments, thinking. Ashlyn had told Bershad to keep Yonmar alive. That hadn’t panned out so well. He turned to Vera. “Yonmar said he was going to sneak us across the Balarian border from Taggarstan. How was that going to work?”
Vera finished wiping the blood off her dagger and sheathed it. “I’m not sure. The Grealors made some kind of deal with a man there.”
“Hand me his satchel,” Bershad said.
Rowan pulled the leather satchel off Yonmar’s corpse and threw it to Bershad. Inside, there was a poorly balanced knife, a purse with twenty silver pieces, one rolled-up parchment that had been flattened by travel, and an ornately carved rosewood box.
Bershad unrolled the parchment first. He read it twice, frowning.
“Well?” Felgor asked. “What’s it say?”
“It says, ‘Bring this letter to the Seven Anchors in Taggarstan and present it to the vampire, along with payment, and your passage to Balaria will be arranged.’”
“Vampire of Taggarstan,” Felgor repeated. “You’re sure?”
“I know how to read, Felgor. Why? Do you know him?”
Felgor licked his lips and glanced at Yonmar’s dead body. “Not personally, no. But I’ve heard of him.”
“Well, he’s the man we need to see.”
“What’s the payment, though?” Vera asked.
All of them looked at the rosewood box. A bunch of Almiran gods with animal faces and wild hair were carved into the side. Bershad unclipped the silver clasp and opened it. Inside, there was an emerald egg the size of a fist. Bershad picked it up and held it next to the fire.
“Well, there’s the answer to that question.”
“Finger my ass while Aeternita watches,” Felgor said. “That’s a big egg.”
“If you steal this egg,” Bershad said, “I’ll knock all those tiny teeth out of your mouth and sell you to a brothel so you can suck cocks for a copper a pop. Are we clear?”
Felgor scrunched up his nose. “You know, I’m getting a little tired of all these threats to my body. What’ll it take for you to trust me?”
“I’ll let you know when I see it,” Bershad said, closing the rosewood box and giving it to Rowan. “Let’s move the bodies away from here and try to get some sleep. There’s plenty more walking to be done tomorrow.”
15
JOLAN
Almira, City of Deepdale
Jolan woke up two hours after sunrise. It was the longest he’d slept in five years. Even after leaving Otter Rock, when he was wandering the wilds of Almira, he had been unable to stop himself from rising with the sun. A few times, he even moved to prepare a pot of coffee on a stove that no longer existed. The rain ale and featherbed had solved that problem.
Jolan’s mouth was dry and his head felt as if his skull was suddenly too small for his brain. Finally, he understood the feeling the drunks of Otter Rock were trying to remove when they stumbled up to the apothecary after a long night at the tavern, asking for a tincture or a tonic to ease their pain.
Jolan actually did know how to brew a tonic that would erase a hangover entirely, but it required four ingredients from a warren: Gods Moss, eggs from a mirror frog, marrow from a purple stranglevine, and Dainwood beets. No way he was drumming those up today.
“Too bad,” he muttered to himself as he sat up, looked around, and then very nearly shat himself. Garret was in the room, sitting in a chair near the circular window that encompassed most of one wall. He was wearing his leather traveler’s cloak, and there were new, dark streaks along the shoulders and sleeves. Soot or grime of some kind. Garret’s hunting knife was in his lap and he was smoking a pipe.
“How was the bed?” Garret asked, blowing a two-pronged curl of smoke from his nostrils.
“I didn’t know sleep could be like that,” Jolan answered. “Thank y
ou.”
Garret looked out the window. “Something is wrong with my hand,” he said.
“Even with the Crimson Tower moss, there will be pain for several weeks, most likely.”
“Pain I can handle. There’s a clumsiness in my fingers. Tingling and weakness. I can barely make a fist.”
Jolan frowned. He had thought the tooth had only hit muscle, but it was possible a tendon or a nerve had been nicked as well. “Let me see your arm.”
Garret extended his forearm. Jolan crossed the room and unrolled the bandage. The injury itself seemed like it was healing nicely—the wound had scabbed over and there was no sign of pus or rotting flesh. But Garret’s fingertips were pale white, as if he’d been walking around in the cold for three hours without gloves.
“Damn.”
“What is it?” Garret asked.
“Dragon rot.”
“That is not an adequate answer.”
“It’s a rare complication with dragon wounds,” Jolan explained. “A fragment of the Lake Screecher’s tooth must have traveled up your arm through a blood vessel and gone to rot near the wrist.”
“Can you get it out?”
“I never learned how to perform surgeries like that. I’d just make it worse. It can be treated with a tonic, instead. But it takes warren ingredients.” Jolan thought of what he’d need. Ran through a mental inventory of his pack.
“Jolan,” Garret said. “I need to leave Deepdale in the next hour. Can you fix this or not?”
Jolan licked his lips. “I already have fermented lemon lace and ginger. So, the only thing I’m missing to make a decent dragon rot tonic is norishroot. If you take regular doses for seven days, the nerve damage should go away.”
“Should?”
“Will,” Jolan corrected himself. “It will go away. An alchemist in the city should sell norishroot, and I think we passed one on the way in. But even a small amount is expensive.”
Garret produced five gold coins from an inner pocket of his cloak and held them out to Jolan. “Wake the alchemist up if you have to. I cannot stay here much longer.”
Jolan took to the streets, cursing himself for screwing up Garret’s wound. Master Morgan would have never let something like that happen. Had he pulled the tooth out at an angle and caused the fragment to break off? Maybe that wasn’t it at all, and he’d just numbed the arm improperly?
“No,” Jolan whispered to himself, “then he’d never have regained feeling at all. Definitely dragon rot.”
He was so caught up in his own thoughts, that Jolan didn’t notice the tolling of the alarm bells or the steady growth of traffic as he moved east—everyone was heading in the same direction, and lots of people were pointing down one of the main thoroughfares.
“It’s Lord Grealor,” a tanned man near Jolan said. “I recognize the cloak.”
“The fuck it is,” said another.
A woman screamed from farther down the avenue and a group of wardens pushed their way through the crowd, hands on their swords and serious looks on their faces.
“Back to your business!” a warden called. “Stay away from the manor! Back to your business!”
Nobody listened. They just fell in behind the warden.
Jolan spotted the apothecary on the other side of the avenue. But the crowd—and his own curiosity—were pulling Jolan farther down the street. He gave in and started working his way through the mob. He’d see what the fuss was about, and then he’d go back to the apothecary. He turned the corner.
A man had been hanged from the mouth of a stone jaguar.
The statue was perched atop the roof of a great manor. A rope had been strung around the big cat’s jaws and skull, the man lynched by a twenty-foot length of hemp cord. He was swaying back and forth in the wind about thirty strides above the street, the soles of his expensive leather boots visible to everyone below. The man’s face was purple and twisted. There was a steady trickle of piss dripping off his boot.
“I’m telling you, that’s Lord Grealor,” the tanned man repeated. “I watched the bastard ride into the city a week ago and he was wearing that same jaguar cloak.” The man spat. “Fucking asshole.”
“Why was he back in the city?” Jolan asked.
“Came back to raise another host and take it to Floodhaven. Guess that won’t be happening.”
“If that’s Elden Grealor,” said the second man, “why the fuck was he in this manor, and not the castle?”
The tanned man smiled. “Everybody knows Elden had a honey-pot he kept in there. Way I heard it, he kept a few of them in there. Real pretty ones.”
“You’re a liar. And that ain’t Lord Grealor. If members of the High Council are spending their time swaying from jaguars these days, we’re all liable to wind up in a fix.”
“Funny thing, now that you mention it.” The man scratched at his face. “Lord Tybolt wound up with a mouth full o’ shells up in Mudwall not too long ago. That’s what my nephew said, anyway. Although, he’s been known to tell a tale.”
“Is that what we’re callin’ lies these days?”
“Mudwall…” Jolan repeated.
He’d met Garret just a few days’ walk from there.
Jolan squeezed between the two men and worked his way back to the apothecary. He passed three wardens who wore green tabards, black chain mail, and had jaguar masks hanging on their hips. The feline visages were similar to the one Bershad had worn at Otter Rock, but not quite as scary looking. Those masks meant they were part of the Jaguar Army, Bershad’s old wardens. They served the Grealors now, but were famous for having kept their jaguar masks all these years, rather than carve new ones in the shape of a bear to signify their new allegiance. Morgan had talked about them sometimes. Said that any other wardens would be lynched for such a brazen display. But the Jaguar Army were some of the most fearsome warriors in the realm of Terra, so lords tended to look the other way so long as they fought when they were asked.
All of the wardens were staring at the hanging man.
“How the fuck are we gonna get him down?” one asked.
“We gotta get into the manor, first,” said another. “Cumberland says Grealor’s wardens have barricaded the door and drawn steel. They think we killed him.”
“Gods, they want a fight?”
“All I know is that if I was a high-warden who lynched my own lord, I’d start pointing fingers pretty quick, too. The lackeys from the capital all think we’re still Bershad men anyway.”
The first warden shook his head, keeping his eyes high. “What a goatfuck. Let’s see if we can rustle up some more men.”
Back at the apothecary, the shopkeeper was just unlocking the door.
“They catch a pickpocket or something?” she asked Jolan, motioning to the crowd. He ignored the question, knowing that if he told the woman what had really happened, she’d close the shop and go have a look for herself.
“I need half an ounce of norishroot and a sterile glass flask.” Jolan showed her the gold coins. “And I need them quick.”
* * *
Half an hour later, Jolan was back at the inn. Garret was waiting for him, still smoking his pipe and staring out the window. The hunting knife was back in its sheath on his hip.
“Somebody murdered a lord,” Jolan said as he unpacked the norishroot and glass flask. He dug up his mortar and pestle and started grinding the herb down.
“Did they.”
“Strung him up above the street by a jaguar statue. He’s just swaying out there for a big crowd to see.”
“How do you know he didn’t hang himself? Might be he got depressed or something.”
Jolan stopped his work for a moment. Glanced at Garret. Now that he was back in the room with the quiet, mysterious man, he became painfully aware of how easy it would have been to disappear into the city instead. But now there was nothing left to do but finish the tonic.
He ground the norishroot into powder, put it in the glass flask, then added the fermented lemon lace he�
�d taken from Morgan’s apothecary. He winced when he saw he’d have to use all of it. Lemon lace was far less common than norishroot—he could have sold that vial for a sack of gold instead of a few coins. But the tonic wouldn’t work without it, and despite Jolan’s growing fear of Garret, he couldn’t bring himself to offer him a faulty product. He sliced four thick discs from a piece of ginger and added them to the flask, too. The lemon lace would react with the norishroot and create a powerful tonic that would kill the dragon rot in Garret’s body. The ginger was just for flavor.
“That about done?” Garret asked.
“Yes.” Jolan plugged the flask with a cork. Wrapped the glass bottle in leather so it wouldn’t crack on the road. He handed it to Garret. “Take a sip once a day until it’s empty. Your hand will start feeling better after a few days, but keep drinking it until it’s gone. That’s important.”
Garret stood up and took the flask. After taking a swallow, he stowed it in the goat bladder that sat on his hip. “I’m in your debt once again, Jolan,” he said. Garret extended his left hand, struggling a little with the motion. There were five more gold coins in his palm. Jolan looked at the money, then looked at Garret’s other hand, hanging loose at his right side, just below the hilt of that razor-sharp hunting dagger.
“It was nothing,” he said. “I don’t need that. Really. I just … I just want to see the Dainwood dragon warrens.”
16
GARRET
Almira, City of Deepdale
Garret wasn’t happy about having to murder the boy, but Jolan was too smart for his own good. He held out the money and waited for Jolan to take it so that he could slash his throat open. But the boy didn’t move.
Blood of an Exile Page 21
