The Dragon Lord

by Peter Morwood

  “So,” she said at last. “I see.” Aldric had a brief uneasy feeling that she did indeed, far more so than he wanted, and regretted the rashness of talking to strangers. “Commander,” her voice was much softer now, much more confidential, “your interests aren’t for discussion in the public square. Especially while wearing those.” She flicked a quick, disdainful gesture at the insignia which glinted in so many places on his dark clothing. “Undress uniform doesn’t fade unnoticed into many backgrounds, does it?” She grinned, a flash of teeth that took the sting from her words and lit up her entire face.

  “But I make my living from, ahem, such subjects as we’ve discussed, and I’d like to hear more. Lots more. Safer by far if we talk later over another drink. In private.” She nodded sideways to where a painted tavern sign caught the lamplight, hesitated, then seemed to reach a different decision. “Commander, I’ve got a small library at home, about the subjects which interest you so much.” There was another grin. “The winged, fire-breathing ones in particular. You’d be a welcome guest on your next furlough, for I find your interest most refreshing.”

  “Lady, thanks for offered hospitality at such brief acquaintance, but…” He was trying, and failing, to keep a back-note of apprehension from his voice. “But this is urgent!”

  *

  Ayan glanced at him, examining the words and the man who spoke them, and realised that behind all the badges and the marks of lofty rank, this Cavalry hanalth was no older than her own youngest son. There was an air about him, not only the expression in his eyes and face but the whole set of his body, which spoke of… She corrected her own thoughts even as they formed. No, not fright, but definite unease. He looked like a scholar who had found sense in something senseless. As if he could prove that twice two equals five.

  “If so, Commander Dirac, then sooner we have that private talk the better.” Ayan might have said more, but realised his attention was elsewhere. He was staring off over her shoulder with an intensity that was disturbing. Ayan looked for herself, and turned back with new wariness in her own face. She had thought this young man’s interest in legends was merely something his fellow officers mocked as childish peasants’ fare, hence his nervous secrecy, but she hadn’t imagined for a moment there might be something deeper to it. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  Already the young hanalth was backing away with his mind on his own affairs again. His gaze flicked towards her for an instant, and in that instant he saluted, grinning as she might have done herself on a witty exit line. Except that his grin lacked all trace of humour.

  “Lady, forget what I said. Other matters are more urgent still!” And he was gone.

  “Ker Trahan steading, commander!” she shouted after him with all the power of a voice trained for song and public speaking. “Go two leagues beyond Twin Crags on the Great North Road and turn off left at…”

  Ayan ker Trahan closed her mouth around the unfinished sentence and felt a flush of embarrassment warm her cheeks as she met the bewildered stares of people taking their seats around her. She pushed the strange young officer and his curiosities to the back of her mind, though not out of it. There had been a half-formed notion of following the hanalth to see what happened next but that had to be set aside because, right now, what happened next was underneath a bookmark.

  “Where did I leave off last time?” she asked.

  “ ‘There were eyes in the darkness!’ ” prompted an eager voice from the audience. Ayan nodded, raised her hand and waited for silence before opening the book for a single glance to refresh her memory.

  “There were eyes in the darkness. Seela looked up and up, thirty feet above her head, and saw them blink. They might have been eager, they might have been content, they might have been curious. She couldn’t tell, for they were such eyes and such an expression as she had never seen before.

  But she was a blacksmith’s daughter, and blacksmiths know the power in cold iron that Evil can’t abide. After her mother was stolen away, Seela’s father made her a special amulet to carry always. It was a nail, only a simple thing, but even the simplest thing has virtue if made well and true. Seela’s father put all his strength of hand and skill of eye into that nail, and all the love of a father for his only child.

  It was as long as Seela’s hand from wrist to fingertips, and its four sides tapered to a point as sharp as a sword, as sharp as a needle, as sharp as the grief of loss. The nail was pure iron, smelted and refined ten times, and though it had been dull grey when it left the fire and hammer, Seela had ground it with a stone and polished it with clean fine river-sand until it gleamed like a dagger forged from the finest twisted steel for some great lord to wear.

  She took it out, and held it up, and said, “By the power of this cold iron, I bid you gone!”

  For a moment nothing happened, but then it was as if a fog or smoke had blown away until Seela could see clearly. And what she saw was this: the eyes had never been just hidden in the darkness. They were a part of it…”

  *

  What Aldric had seen was a man on a horse, but no ordinary man and no ordinary horse. That was the problem. He was small and lean, sagging in the saddle of a lathered horse, and he had ridden through Egisburg’s North Gate less than five minutes ago. His long yellow overmantle, splattered now with the multi-coloured mud of two provinces and an independent holding, bore embroidered crests at chest and cuffs and in the centre of the back: stylised blue falcons with gold-feathered wings. They were the crests of an Imperial courier, who might ride more than a hundred miles between dawn and dusk along the roads of graded dirt prohibited to all but those who wore the Falcon badge.

  It was a task that needed many changes of horse but often allowed no change of messenger, and this exhausted man had such a look. His appearance and the crossbelt hung with warning bells attracted curious glances from those who should mind their own business, but also from Aldric, grateful that chance had let him spot this new arrival in the city.

  The Falcon courier was a source of murmured speculation, and several of those who murmured cast knowing looks towards where the Red Tower reared into the night sky. There could be, they ventured, only one reason for a Falcon to arrive in Egisburg in such a state and at such an hour. And that reason was the Princess in the Tower: Droenya Marhala an-Sherban.

  That same reason had flicked across Aldric’s mind when he first saw the rider walk his stiff-legged mount around the swarming mass of people in the square. But a second possibility took shape. If someone, somewhere, had got wind of the rescue, that would justify sending an alert to Egisburg by the fastest method possible. There was no chance of getting through the crowds fast enough to intercept the man, so instead Aldric worked through them in the opposite direction, back to the inn where Bruda, Voord and Tagen awaited his return.

  A clock chimed at the perimeter of the square and Aldric twisted about to read what hour showed on its face. He relaxed a little. It was the half-mark of the Hour of the Dog, seven o’clock as Albans reckoned time, but he didn’t relax because it still left an hour for the courier to set everything wrong before a certain deputation of officers arrived at the Red Tower’s gate. When a convenient space presented itself Aldric shouldered himself clear of the people in Tower Square, threw the assumed dignity of his assumed rank to the wind and ran.

  That hasty departure meant he missed the courier’s contented glance at the same still-striking clock, and the leisurely way in which he shook his tired horse to a walk.

  *

  Another clock was striking the same half-hour as Aldric approached the inn and he slackened his pace, wondering why the Empire didn’t regulate its public timepieces better. His breath fumed white in front of him as he gasped it in and out, he was hot and sticky despite the freezing night, and he tugged with both hands at his rumpled clothing. Bruda’s sarcasm was something he didn’t want to face at the same time as there was something unpleasant brewing in the Tower.

  A door snapped open ahead of him, released a glow of
yellow lamplight crossed by a fast-moving shadow, then as hastily jerked shut again. For no reason but wary instinct Aldric stepped sideways into the darkness between two buildings. It wasn’t quite suspicion, and it wasn’t quite precaution, but it was enough to put him out of sight with a feeling that going unnoticed would be wise.

  Heavy footsteps approached and Lord-Commander Voord’s distinctive profile passed by, back-lit by the tavern’s courtyard lantern. No matter that he was already near-enough invisible, Aldric flattened himself against the wall at his back and closed one hand on Widowmaker’s hilt. Nothing came of it and Voord strode on, but to Aldric’s mind despite the sound of boots on pavement he moved with too much caution for so early in the evening. Later at night it might have been an innocent wish not to disturb, if anything Voord ever did was innocent, but now each step seemed furtive, stealthy, and worth further investigation.

  With the rank-robe closed right up to his throat and its deep hood over his head, Aldric waited for a count of ten before venturing back onto the street. By then Voord was a good thirty yards further away and hard to see unless he was outlined against a paler background. Aldric was careful not to make the same mistake himself. Voord’s progress made him wonder at the hautheisart’s arrogance. The man took not the slightest precaution against detection or pursuit, but stalked through the streets of Egisburg as if he owned them while Aldric slipped from shadow to shadow without a sound. He was wearing his own boots rather than the heavy military issue which made tracking by ear a simple undertaking. Without those clumping footfalls he would have lost Voord before the end of the first narrow street.

  When the Vlechan halted at last and took a glance up and down the street Aldric was still out of sight, holding his breath and listening. There was a soft, staccato tap of gloved knuckles on wood and the rasp of a heavy door sliding in well-waxed channels. Aldric was quick-witted enough to memorise the pattern of the tapping, and cautious enough to wait for the solid thump as the door closed again before he risked a glance around the corner.

  There was nobody to see. Voord had gone through whichever door had opened and shut. But which one? Aldric debated whether to move closer or not, then had the choice made for him as Voord emerged again and walked off down the street and out of sight. The Vlechan had been inside for less than three minutes, and what sort of time was that to spend on a secret which involved the Falcon couriers? Besides asking Voord himself, there was one way to learn the answer.

  No, there were two. He could go back to the tavern, confront Voord and hope that Bruda would get more than well-turned lies from his subordinate; or he could learn it in the same way Voord had done. Whether the hautheisart’s source would repeat himself was something Aldric would find out soon enough. By the time he reached the door he had his course of action planned. It wasn’t sorcery, and in a way he wished it was since there were fewer variables. This was just a display of daring and impudent nerve. After a deep breath to calm himself he reached out and rapped the proper pattern on the door.

  “Kei’ach da?” Thick timber muffled the voice but its mistrustful tone was plain enough. Voord had come, Voord had gone, and no other visitors were expected.

  Aldric counted ten and rapped again more loudly, more irritably, more in the way of a man kept waiting for five seconds when one second was enough for an insult. He rummaged in his mind for what he intended to say, which was obvious enough, and the form in which to say it, which was proving more elusive. Whoever was on the far side of that unopened door needed to believe he was real within two sentences and without credentials, or he would never believe it at all.

  Aldric had used Drusalan as a first language for almost a month, except for the rare occasions when he could speak Jouvaine or even Alban. During that almost-month, apart from one or two anger-fuelled lapses, he had avoided using the phrases and construction he now pulled from memory. He had heard them often enough, directed at his country, at his people and at himself. High Drusalan in its most formal mode was an extreme insult when spoken by inferior to superior, and in all the Empire there was nothing more inferior than an Alban.

  “Do you intend that I stand here until dawn?” he snarled at last, pitching his voice low and heaping it with an arrogance learned from experts, not that High Drusalan required much to make it arrogant. He breathed deeply once more, with a studied, calming count between inhalation and speech, then spoke again. “By Hautheisart Voord’s authority, open up! I grow impatient! This is your final warning!”

  He hadn’t known quite what would follow, whether the door would inch back or jerk open all at once. It did neither, just slid aside without haste while whoever opened it inspected him. Playing this game by instinct and ignorance of its rules, Aldric didn’t risk losing the initiative. Instead of entering at once he stayed where he was and let the lamplight show what he was.

  It worked. He heard a soft oath from inside and put a humourless smile on his lips. Shrouded in black from head to heel, he would be little more than a silhouette in the lantern-glow, and any points of reflected light would come from the polished metal of insignia so impressive that to consider it false would be a crime. He had done no more than claim to act with Voord’s authority, but if his rank suggested he really was that officer of evil repute, and a mistake had taken place tonight, he was ready to take advantage of it.

  “Finally,” he said as he crossed the threshold at last, glowering at the man who had opened the door. It was the courier. Even without the distinctive yellow robe Aldric recognised his heavy moustache. He maintained his glare until he got a salute and a low frightened bow. “Better. But your obedience is slow and your manners need mending. Take care I don’t mend them for you. My way leaves scars.”

  That was in keeping with what Aldric had seen of Voord’s style, enough that when the courier flinched from the threat it made him feel uncomfortable. He was here to gather information, not to terrorise, but the threat of it must have been here before him. There was a spanned and loaded crossbow propped against the wall in one corner of the room, and he speculated about what meeting might need such a preparation. Probably one involving Lord-Commander Voord.

  “All right, what’s your message?” He retained his air of arrogance by the simple expedient of keeping his back turned.

  “Message, sir?”

  “Message, idiot!” Aldric let it come out like a whipcrack, knowing how any officer of rank, let alone Voord, would treat a subordinate who echoed his questions instead of answering them. “Are you deaf? Or insolent?” He half-turned and slapped one leather-gloved hand – he had no time to be subtle – against the gleaming menace of Widowmaker’s hilt. “Because if insolence is your problem, I have a cure for that as well.” The courier drew in a noisy breath to deny the allegation and lost his chance as the man he knew as Voord swung round on him at the first sound of inhalation. “Yes?” Aldric demanded nastily, and now he had a handspan of blade clear of its scabbard. Then, nastier still and becoming far too perceptive, “Who else was here tonight?”

  The courier’s face was the weatherbeaten colour of old brick, but that question made it blanch many shades paler. Aldric could see the man considering his choices, and realising how few of them he had. Repeating the question would aggravate this already all-too-angry officer, saying nothing would be even worse, and telling lies to a man who might be able to spot them could be fatal. At last, for safety’s sake, he told the unvarnished truth.

  “C-Commander Voord,” the courier faltered.

  “Yes? What?”

  “N-no, lord. N-not you. Another—”

  “Another what?” Aldric let his tension vent itself in feigned impatience. “Father of Fires, I’ll gut the man who gave a fool this mission!” He stopped his pretence of rage, deciding it was time to understand. “Do you mean there was someone else?” Now to recognise the problem. “Someone claiming to be me?” The courier nodded wretchedly and got the back of one black-gloved hand across the face. “And you believed him.”

 
Aldric let the words come out in the same flat way he had heard from Voord himself, but inside he felt sick. That backhanded slap was well in keeping with who he pretended to be, but not with how he had grown up or the Code which still governed his life. How well could one play a part before role and character became real?

  “You believed him,” he repeated, not a statement but an accusation. “And you told him what was for my ears alone. And you let him go. But you kept me standing in the street!” Aldric let the feigned outrage drain from his voice, replacing it with a distrust that edged each word like a razor. “Yet you didn’t mention this previous visitor. Did you hope I wouldn’t know about him? Or was it something else?”

  The courier fell to his knees, terrified by the intangible reputation of the Imperial Secret Police and the all too tangible presence of Hautheisart Voord, so recently promoted to hanalth that it hadn’t even been on his message. He began a tremulous babble of apologies, abject pleading that made Aldric’s stomach clench in a nauseated knot. He had killed men before, but never caused fear like this. It told him what Voord was like, and proved the accuracy of his imitation. That was no compliment, and for one disgusted second he was within a muscle’s twitch of walking out. Then the preliminary excuses came to an end and the true message began. It shocked him with its concept, construction and ruthless simplicity.

  It stank of Lord-Commander Voord.

  He understood a great many things more clearly now, because the courier’s words explained why so much time and money was expended to get him to Egisburg, and why Voord had let himself be overruled with so little protest. It also explained a small annoyance which had troubled him even as he left Kathur’s house in Tuenafen as far behind him as he could, before the Empire’s net closed in again. That annoyance was her theft of one of his telekin.