Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  “Not worth it,” Talo cut across him, returning to the desk, intent on putting away the parchment and ink. He would draft the letter later, he decided. “If the way isn’t cleared, we won’t be more than a few hours on the road before the snow gets too deep to do more than walk. Leave the workers to their labors. What little time we lose will be worth minimizing the risk of laming the horses.”

  “If you’re sure,” Carro grumbled, turning to ease himself down on the closest corner of the room’s single bed before giving Talo a sidelong look. “I’m not convince you’re not delaying on purpose, though…”

  “To what end?” Talo asked with feigned sweetness, crossing his arms as he prepared for the accusation he knew full well was coming.

  “Arro,” Carro huffed, waving a hand aimlessly towards the southern wall of the room, the direction they had come from Azbar. “I can’t help but consider you might be slowing us down deliberately, hoping he’ll have changed his mind. Even if he did, he would have been a fool to try the roads through that storm! We’re lucky we made it to Ystréd without much trouble as it was, and the atherian trying to do the same would be—!”

  “I’m not waiting for anything, Carro.”

  Carro paused in his half-hearted rant, watching Talo closely.

  “I admit I held out some hope on our way here,” the High Priest said with a shrug. “I won’t deny it. But it’s dissipated. Two days waiting out the snow here, and another four on the road before that… If Arro had wanted to catch up to us by now, I’m sure he would have. Even bringing along the Koyts. One way or another, the man would have made it into town at least, and that alone would have made enough noise to reach us within the hour. No, I hold no delusions. Arro made his choice, and it’s time I respected it.”

  Despite all this, Carro was still watching him suspiciously.

  “So you’re not delaying us?” the Priest asked after a moment. “There’s nothing holding you back?”

  Talo sighed. “By ‘holding me back,’ do you mean something other than the fact that we left Azbar in the hands of its lunatic chairman and his twisted council? Or abandoned our goal of taking the Arena down completely? Or left Arro to fend for himself, as well as Arrun and Lueski?” He grimaced. “No. No, obviously there’s nothing holding me back. Nothing at all.”

  He’d done his best to leach the bitterness from the words, but even as he said them Talo knew he hadn’t succeeded. He watched Carro’s face tighten, then soften. Pushing himself back up onto his feet, the Priest moved until they stood barely a foot away from each other. Talo tensed as Carro’s big hands came to rest gently on either side of his crossed arms.

  “I’m sorry,” the Priest said softly, meeting his gaze. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. Hell, it’s not how I planned on things going either. But Syrah made it clear we are needed home, Talo…”

  Again, Talo sighed. “I know,” he said, relieved to hear his voice calm. “This mess with Baoill is going to be a thorn in our side, I can feel it.”

  “Gûlraht Baoill may be the very least of your problems if we don’t get back to the Citadel in the next fortnight,” Carro chuckled. “Forget the thorn. Syrah might just have your head and be done with it.”

  “Would save me some trouble in the long run…” Talo grumbled in reply. “The Kayle has twenty-five thousand at his disposal, and Ystréd and Azbar are right in his warpath.”

  “If he keeps heading south,” Carro said with a shrug. “I’ll bet anything Ystréd is scouting the Woods constantly, and if we haven’t heard anything yet it might mean Baoill’s halted his march. The Arocklen offers his army food, shelter, and warmth through the freeze. It’s not a bad place to winter before picking things up again come spring.”

  “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t change the fact that the valley towns will have to deal with him one way or the other.”

  “All the more reason to get you home, then,” Carro said with a nod.

  In response, Talo frowned. After a moment he turned away from the Priest to lean over the escritoire and reach up, pushing open the windows across from him. The clear day hadn’t chased away the bite of the freeze, and cold air spilled into the room, washing over both of them.

  They were on the top floor of Ystréd’s small temple, in the room Atler—the High Priestess of the local chapter—kept for travelling Laorin and guests. It wasn’t an impressive chamber by any means, but it was comfortable despite the bed and the desk taking up much of the floor, and a good deal more comfortable than the night they’d spent at The Red Bear almost two months back, when they’d been making for Azbar. When they’d realized the snows weren’t going to let up anytime soon, Talo and Carro had opted for the hospitality of the faith rather than a quick stay in the local inn.

  The building across from them was constructed of the same dark timber and grey granite as a majority of the rest of the city’s residences, lumber and quarried stone from the rich woodlands that made up much of the North. The street below was cobbled and clean, swept clear of snow through the night. As he watched, a party of roughened men passed below on horseback, towing a small cart behind them whose contents were hidden below a layer of heavy pelts. At one end of the road, a couple were arguing about something as they walked, barely distinguishable under all their furs. At the other, a group of children were laughing and bombarding each other with snowballs, scooping the stuff from every surface and ledge that hadn’t yet been wiped clean. Their joy should have been infectious.

  Instead, it only deepened Talo’s frown.

  “They aren’t ready,” he grunted over his shoulder. Behind him, he heard Carro sigh, then the creak of the bed as the man got to his feet again. A big hand came to rest on Talo’s arm.

  “You know this and I know this, love, but there’s nothing to be done about it now,” Carro said softly. “Focus on the task at hand. Syrah already has the council primed for action against the Kayle. The remaining valley towns will jump at your word. We can unify them.”

  “Even Baoill won’t be able to do much against the combined forces of Azbar, Drangstek, and Stullens, not to mention whatever Ystréd itself can afford to throw into the mix,” Talo said with a nod. “Still… I hate the idea of war.”

  “Then don’t let it come to that. The Kayle isn’t stupid. If he sees defeat on the horizon, he won’t dare continue his campaign.”

  “No, he’s not,” Talo mumbled resentfully. “In fact, he’s smart enough to know his time to strike is limited, I think. I’m surprised we’ve heard nothing from him. It worries me…”

  Carro was about to respond when another knock came through the door, interrupting him.

  “Come in,” he said, letting his hand drop from Talo’s shoulder and looking around.

  The door opened slowly, and a small boy in acolyte’s robes peeked his head into the room, looking rather anxious at the prospect of being sent to speak with the temple’s distinguished guests all on his own.

  “The High Priestess bids you join her to break fast, sirs,” he squeaked, flushing a violent shade of red.

  “Tell Tana we will be down shortly, thank you,” Carro said with a smile. The crimson in the boy’s face only deepened, though, and after a brief nod he vanished, leaving the door to hang open in his hasty attempt to escape his embarrassment.

  Carro chuckled, then turned back to Talo.

  “Coming?” he asked.

  Talo nodded, but didn’t move, his mind elsewhere as he continued to look up at the blue sky above, thoughts hovering over the doubts and feelings he couldn’t shake off, telling him that something wasn’t right.

  He dragged himself out of his worry, though, when Carro’s gentle fingers took his chin and turned his head to face him.

  “There’s nothing to be done right now,” Carro said with a sad smile. “Agonizing over Baoill and his plans will do no more than turn your hair white, and I’m not ready for that just yet. I’m still getting used to the silver.”

  Talo snorted, but reached up and took
Carro’s hands in his.

  “Chances are I won’t live long enough for you to worry about that,” he joked, managing a half smile as he stepped past his lover, intent on the scent of fresh bread he could suddenly make out, wafting through the open door.

  III

  “I known a man who crossed the lizard once. Mind you, when I say ‘I known’, I ain’t meanin’ I met him in passin’, or lost touch with him. I say ‘I known’, because by the time Arro was done puttin’ his head through a fuckin’ wall, there was hardly enough left of him to tell he’d ever been a man at all.”

  —LEV SAYL, LEADER OF THE CROWS

  KISSER WAS not in a good mood.

  There were any number of reasons for his temper—such as hating the fact that the rest of the group had ever started calling him “Kisser” in the first place, or that he’d been stuck carrying the Monster’s gear so it wouldn’t be in reach if the atherian decided to suddenly wake—but at the moment his ire was distinct and direct. It was so pointed, in fact, that he was almost surprised Garth hadn’t felt his eyes boring hatefully into his back.

  Look at him, strutting around like he’s come to lay his claim on the world, Kisser fumed, as he’d done constantly for the last half-day.

  He was getting used to being discounted, even ignored. Garth Ve’Set and his band had taken Kisser in on a whim more than anything, impressed by the con he’d been running on women—and the occasional man—back in Stullens, wooing and seducing them before disappearing into the night with any valuables they’d been foolish enough to let him get his hands on. Garth had apparently hoped his group would have a use for Kisser’s good looks and silver tongue, but a mercenary’s life doesn’t often parallel the social setting and environments needed to pull off such tricks, nor did it often entail the patience that was just as essential.

  Before long, Kisser had found himself fallen from Garth’s favorite prospect to not much more than a minor nuisance to the group as a whole.

  Still, it wasn’t any of them who brought the Monster down.

  Kisser glanced into the cart that rumbled along the cobblestone to his left. Every spare pelt they had had been laid out carefully like a blanket, hiding the shivering form of Raz i’Syul Arro completely from view. After Kisser had hit him from behind, the atherian proved to be a docile prisoner. Whether it was the blow or the sickness that seemed to be wracking his body, the Monster had been out cold through their night of travel, and now well into the morning. Even after they made it to Ystréd, trading the comparative smoothness of the snow and dirt for the uneven clattering of stone roads, the beast had done little more than give muffled groans through the pelts.

  Kisser looked up at the buildings around them. Ystréd was a small town by most Northern standards, home to less than a hundred thousand people. Its walls were dwarfed by the towering bastions of Stullens and Drangstek to the west, and even more so by Azbar’s to the south. Even the recent additions and fortifications—cobbled together fervently following the sacking of Metcaf and Harond by the mountain tribes’ new Kayle—didn’t do much to add confidence to the sight of barely ten feet of mortared slate and marble.

  Still, it was a quiet town, edging the hills of the Dehn Plains, and Kisser was pleased to be back. They hadn’t stayed long after their last arrival, even though they’d intended to weather out the winter within the city. The band had just finished laying claim to an old abandoned house in the slums, in fact, when Garth came back from the markets with eyes all aglitter and bearing news from Azbar.

  And so they’d set off again, this time southward, dreaming of claiming the great bounty on the Monster’s head for themselves.

  And then he stumbles right into camp, half dead in the snow.

  Kisser couldn’t figure out how he felt about the situation, exactly. Part of him was seething at the fact that not one among the group had acknowledged that it had been he who had brought the Monster down, but a larger part was endlessly stunned that he’d had the opportunity in the first place. What in the Lifegiver’s name the lizard had been doing so far from Azbar’s Arena in the middle of the freeze was beyond any of them, and i’Syul himself wasn’t about to give up any hints to the condition of his affairs.

  Even as he thought this, Kisser caught Garth glancing over his shoulder, eyeing the cart nervously.

  “Where is this place, Les?” he asked in an aggravated tone, his patience apparently wearing thin.

  Beside him, Les Woyt inclined his head to the left, northward.

  “Jus’ around the bend,” he said. “Sven’ll be there, you’ll see. Cheapest we’ll find, and a copper or two extra should convince him ta’ keep his mouth shut until we can make south again.”

  Garth nodded once, but otherwise didn’t reply. Kisser felt his anger boil upward again.

  A physician. They were carting around ten thousand gold pieces worth of dead weight, looking for a physician. Kisser had tried to argue with Garth that they didn’t need the atherian alive, that whatever was left of his head would be more than enough for the Mahsadën, so long as they took the infamous Ahna with them, and maybe a wing too. The man would hear none of it, though, and all Kisser had earned himself was a cuffing.

  Garth wasn’t a stupid man, but his ambition could make him foolish, like asking Kisser to join them in the first place: rash, and done without thinking it all through. He wanted to drag the Monster back in one piece, wanted to present the beast alive to the šef of the Southern fringe cities. He’d convinced the others easily enough, quashing any reservations the four might have had with promises of fame and glory, of the contracts the news of their successful capture of the Monster would earn them, and of the mountains of gold they would win.

  Kisser wanted none of it. Even if Garth stiffed him of a fair share of the bounty, a thousand or so Southern gold crowns was more money than he had a sense of what to do with. He could stop scamming, at the very least. Maybe even buy himself an apprenticeship with one of the valley towns’ theater groups, and give a stab at making an honest living of his life.

  And Garth, in his infinitely idiotic wisdom, was risking all of that.

  “There.”

  Les was pointing to a narrow two-story building, squashed between a pair of larger houses. It wasn’t in any terrible state of disrepair, but the broken roof slats they could see beneath the piled snow and rickety state of the door didn’t speak much to the success—or skills—of whatever physician held practice there.

  Garth pulled his horse around, and everyone followed suit behind him. Kisser cursed as the great two-headed spear shifted in its place across his lap and nearly slid to the ground. The weight of the thing had made his legs go numb more than once during the ride to Ystréd, and he was good and ready to be rid of it, if only for a time.

  “Everyone, off,” Garth barked, swinging himself down from his saddle and landing with a crunch in the thin layer of ice and snow that patterned parts of the road. “Les, go make sure yer man’s awake. The rest of ya’, help Kisser.”

  Veret, Mihk, and Albur, the other three men in Garth’s little entourage, grumbled at the orders, but did as they were told. Together they slid Ahna off his thighs, huffing and grunting under her top-heavy mass despite their number. Kisser gave his legs a minute to regain feeling, watching the threesome struggle to hide the spear under the cart before he dismounted. He was careful, swinging himself off, not to catch his boots on the handles of i’Syul’s gladius and ax, slung from the saddle, nor on the wicked tips of the clawed gauntlets they’d shoved on either side in traveling pouches.

  The rest of the armor Garth had left on the beast, hoping the padding and leathers would help keep him warm long enough to make it to the city.

  There was a creak of old hinges, and Kisser looked around. The door of the building had been pulled partially open and the head of an aged, thin man with lank grey hair appeared around its edge. He exchanged a few words with Les, and Kisser saw the man raise a brow in what was either suspicion or disbelief. Regardless of w
hatever had been said, though, he nodded, opening the door wide.

  “Give us a moment,” Kisser heard the man say, and he stepped away from the door, reappearing a few seconds later throwing a heavy cloak over his narrow shoulders.

  “Damn freeze’ll be the death of us all,” the physician—Sven, if Kisser had heard correctly—grumbled, stepping out into the cold, his breath misting in the air as he spoke. “Now show me this ‘special patient’ of yours, before I decide to go back to my warmth and fire.”

  “Over here,” Garth said, crossing in front of him and leading the man towards the cart. When Sven had shuffled his way over, cursing the ice and snow and their whole party for pulling him out from the warmth of his home, Garth reached down and lifted the corner of the layered pelts.

  Kisser couldn’t see the atherian from where he stood, but he didn’t have to. He knew the Monster was a thing to behold, even out cold and senseless. The dark sleekness of his scaled skin, the bunched ripples of lithe muscle beneath it. The lizard’s stupor did nothing, either, to hide the scattered, half-finger long teeth that jutted up and down between his lips, nor the wicked edge of his clawed fingers and vibrant red of his ears and wings.

  And, judging by the physician’s gasp of horrified wonder, the old man hadn’t missed any of those things.

  There was a brief pause during which the man gaped in open astonishment at the figure beneath the furs, clearly incapable of doing anything else. Then, oddly, he glanced up at Garth and the rest of them, eyeing each one briefly as though sizing them up.

  “Get any ideas about claimin’ the bounty for yerself, Sven,” Garth growled in a throaty whisper, placing his hand pointedly on the hilt of the long knife thrust into the front of his belt, “and they won’t even bother trying to count how many parts they find you in. Crystal?”

  The old man’s eyes grew wide, eyeing the hand, and he nodded. “Get him inside,” he hissed. “Quickly, before someone sees him. I’ll go clear the table.”