The Assassin King

by Elizabeth Haydon

  “My father, your brother Llauron, is dead, Uncle,” he said softly, his voice emotionless. “Worse, he has Ended, forsaking all of his draconic lore as the Progenitor did, in a final act of protection of Rhapsody and our child, his grandson.” He waited, allowing the import of his words to sink in.

  Anborn stared at him for the span of seventy heartbeats.

  “The shield of the world is compromised,” he said finally. “This is grave news indeed.”

  Gwydion Navarne blinked but said nothing. It never failed to amaze him how passionlessly the members of the royal Cymrian dynasty were able to absorb tidings about the deaths of their family members, especially given the history of a thousand years or more that they shared. It might have caused him to believe that as humans with dragon blood, or wyrmkin, they were incapable of emotion, except that he himself had witnessed their desolation in the loss of others. He had seen firsthand the grief of Ashe when Rhapsody was missing or away, and the agony Anborn underwent following the death of his man-at-arms and friend, Shrike, a lowly soldier. It was a puzzle he not only could not decipher, but one whose very pieces were invisible to him.

  Then again, he mused, maybe it was more a matter of the deceptions they had perpetrated on each other over the centuries. Both Ashe and Llauron had been forced, or chosen, to feign their own deaths, to remain hidden from the sight of the living world for years. Perhaps this lack of loss was the price of that.

  “Additionally, I was unable to find my great-grandmother, Elynsynos, who would most certainly have been there if she were able,” Ashe continued. He looked askance at Rhapsody, whose eyes glistened with tears, but whose face remained stoic otherwise. “My own ability to discern her presence is limited to a range of approximately five miles, but there is such a patent lack of ethereal energy in the air, such a loss of lore from the forest ground, that I fear the worst.”

  Anborn’s face whitened noticeably. Gwydion felt the air in the room become suddenly drier, more caustic.

  “Gods,” he whispered. “If that be true, then with her death and that of Llauron, the Great White Tree is now unguarded, and the lands that once were her domain—most of the western continent, even unto Tyrian in the south—are no longer under draconic protection.” His hand shook slightly as he traced the area. “For all that humans do not even discern that wyrms protect the very ground on which they walk, the loss of both of them will leave a good deal of the Alliance vulnerable, should there be F’dor about.”

  Ashe nodded, his jaw clenched. Then he turned to Achmed and Grunthor.

  “Tell us, please, what you experienced in the forest of Gwynwood. Rhapsody was too ill to talk about it on the way home in the carriage.”

  The Bolg king’s mismatched eyes gleamed in the flickering light. “Well, I suppose if you are counting the number of dragons left in the world and bemoaning the loss of those two, you can gain cheer from this,” he said archly. “One we had thought dead is actually alive—your bloody grandmother, Ashe.”

  The Lord Cymrian’s face went rigid, and the draconic pupils in his eyes expanded.

  “Anwyn?” he asked in a choked voice. “Anwyn is alive?” He looked from the Bolg king to Grunthor, who remained at attention, as he always did in Achmed’s presence, then finally to his own wife. “How can that be? The three of you killed her, locked her in a grave of scorched earth within the Moot before the eyes of almost everyone in this room. The sword Daystar Clarion took her from the skies with a flash of starfire that ignited the grass all around for miles—how can this be?”

  “Bloody dragons,” Grunthor muttered. “Once is never enough with ’em; ya gotta kill ’em at least twice, maybe more.”

  “If anyone should know that it would be you, Ashe,” said Achmed. “I’ve been trying with you for the last four years, and yet here you are.”

  The air around him bristled, and Gwydion Navarne winced involuntarily. He knew the Bolg king’s words were black humor, but there was enough truth in them to set off the dragon in Ashe’s blood, and possibly Anborn’s as well.

  “Careful then, Achmed, lest your reputation as a renowned assassin be seen as mere puffery,” Ashe said calmly, smoothing out the map. “Where did you see her?”

  The Bolg king lowered the veils that traditionally shielded his hideous face from both the gaze of the world and the vibrations of ordinary life that irritated the sensitive nerve endings and traceries of veins that scored his skin, hallmarks of his Dhracian heritage.

  “She chased Rhapsody, your brat, and me through a good deal of the forest outside of Elynsynos’s lair,” he said. “The last I saw of her was at the place where your father’s ossified carcass now stands.” Rhapsody glanced at him reproachfully but did not speak, still concentrating on the accounts.

  “She was alive when he interposed himself between you, enveloped you?” Ashe asked, his jaw rigid but his eyes clear. “When he Ended, with the three of you inside him?”

  The Bolg king exhaled. “She took a shot from my cwellan, a bladed disk of cold-fired rysin-steel that expands jaggedly in heat. I think I hit her in the chest area or midsection—it’s hard to tell on a dragon. That disk should continue to expand for a while, ripping into the muscle and sinew, until it finally shatters, whereupon the pieces should make their way to the heart. Those disks are called dragonkillers. Ironic—your own grandfather, her hated husband Gwylliam, was the one who produced the design for the manufacturing process four hundred or so years ago before Anwyn had him assassinated. Seems he was bent on finding a weapon that could rip apart dragons as well.” His eyes went to Anborn. “Your parents were charming people. Family dinners in your house must have been joyous.”

  “Why do you think each of us had a personal food taster?” Anborn replied testily. “Shall we return to the matter at hand?”

  “She was after Rhapsody,” Achmed said. “She seemed obsessed, and unaware, of everything else around her. She did not threaten me, or call out after anyone else—she screamed Rhapsody’s name over and over again, using the wind, the rumbling of the earth, anything she could draw power from, to threaten her.”

  “Sorry Oi didn’t come sooner,” Grunthor muttered, his polished tusks protruding from behind bulbous lips. “Oi’d ’ave made ’er scream somethin’ else.” Rhapsody glanced at him and smiled slightly; the Sergeant smiled in return, understanding the unspoken thanks in her eyes.

  “It’s difficult to know whether or not she died of those wounds,” Ashe said, studying the map. “Like Anborn, and myself, and any other of Elynsynos’s descendants, she is not a true dragon but wyrmkin; if she were true wyrm, she would never have been able or willing to try to kill my father, or Meridion. No true wyrm would ever kill another, not even in a dispute over territory, which is their greatest point of contention. She has none of the compunction and none of the collective conscience of her mother’s race—and therefore she will stop at nothing to vent her hatred. If she survived your cwellan shot, she will continue to appear randomly, whenever she is least expected, until she gets what she wants—and it appears what she wants is to kill you, Rhapsody.”

  The Lady Cymrian nodded, still concentrating on the report.

  “I suspect that she will ultimately die of the wound,” Achmed said. “There is no person to whom she can turn to have the shards removed, so sooner or later they will rend her enough inside to cause her to bleed to death—one of my all-time favorite aspects of those disks. I suspect Rhapsody has little to fear in the long term.”

  “Whether she does or not, dear as you are to me, m’lady, I fear that’s the least of our concerns,” Anborn said. “While Anwyn may pose a threat by the sheer chaos of her actions and intent, it is unlikely that she is allied with any of our enemies. If the Bolg king has finished his report, we should move on to what is looming on our borders.” Rhapsody nodded again silently, still listening intently.

  “Indeed,” said Rial; the leathery skin of his face darkened as he spoke. “I came, uninvited, to bring you the winter report, m�
�lady. The southern and western border watchers have compiled very disturbing information that points to a massive buildup of Sorbold military presence at the outskirts of our lands, particularly of the elite soldiers of their mountain guard. Never have we seen mountain guard along any of our borders; this be disturbing enough, but that news be coupled with an increase of blood sport in the arenas of Jakar, which abuts our southeastern border.

  “’Tis true that Sorbold has always allowed the practice of gladiatorial arena fighting, though it was discouraged, at least officially, by the late Dowager Empress. But now that this new emperor, Talquist, be awaiting the end of his regency year, the human traffic through our lands to the arenas has swollen like a river in spring. The crowds making their way to Jakar’sid be enormous and violent, drunk with spirits and bloodlust. The forest fringe has been set alight several times, and the border guards have engaged in the repelling of quite a few raids, seemingly incited without reason, just from the ugliness that is building to the south. Additionally, the guardians of our western coastline have noted a substantial increase in ships sailing north.”

  “North?” demanded Anborn. “Gwydion and I saw a massing of them in the south—speak up, lad, report.”

  Gwydion cleared his throat. “In the harbor of Ghant, Anborn and I witnessed seventy-five three-masted cutters, sixty three-masted schooners, and at least four score heavy barges arrive and unload in port, all in the course of one day. That rivals the traffic of Port Fallon in Avonderre, the busiest seaport in Roland.”

  “And dwarfs that of Port Tallono, Tyrian’s largest,” added Rial.

  “Not even Argaut, half a world away, traffics that many ships daily. Only Kesel Tai on the island of Gaematria has greater sea trade than that,” said Ashe, indicating the solitary land mass in the midst of the Wide Central Sea to the west. “Or at least they did; the Sea Mages have been limiting their contact with the outside world of late. The shipbuilding schedule is dramatically behind, the vessels I’ve ordered are arriving a few weeks late consistently. Has Edwyn Griffyth indicated why to you, Uncle?”

  Anborn snorted contemptuously. “As if my brother communicates anything to me, and as if I would be interested in anything he says. Over the centuries the Sea Mages have been less and less interested in commerce with the outside world, preferring to pass their days in the folderol of magical research, invention, and the science of tidal studies, or some such rot. They have been fairly useless for centuries now; they were famously absent in the Great War, and have been even less interested in our plight ever since.” His azure eyes gleamed as a thought occurred, and he turned to Achmed. “Except for that idiot ambassador my brother sent with the walking machine last autumn; he seemed quite intent on contacting you.”

  The Bolg king’s forbidding countenance soured even more. “Oh, he did, rest assured,” he said. “I let him live in spite of it. That’s your fault again, Rhapsody.”

  The Lady Cymrian kissed her new son’s downy blond hair, ignoring him, maintaining her silence.

  “The ships were laden with human cargo,” Gwydion continued. “Slaves, or would-be slaves, it seemed, captives from entire villages, being transported in wagons like chattel. Men, women, children; the distribution seemed very efficient. They were split up at the docks and dispatched in many different directions.”

  “So Sorbold has been building up its internal capabilities for war, its army and naval forces, at an extreme rate in less than a year,” Ashe said, noting his uncle’s rising anger at the discussion of the slavery. “Anborn has always had his suspicions, but how did the speed of this escape our notice? Talquist isn’t even emperor yet; he chose to take only the title of regent for a year. All the ambassadorial meetings between the Alliance and the new Sorbold diplomatic mission have been cordial. There have been no hostilities in the time since the death of the Dowager Empress. There have been no raids that I have heard of in Roland, Tyrian, or the Nonaligned States except for the drunken thuggery during times of blood sport you just mentioned, Rial—and certainly none where captives were taken. And had there suddenly been orders for more ships by the crown of Sorbold placed in Manosse or Gaematria, surely the harbormasters and the Sea Mages would have alerted me.”

  “One would hope so, given that Manosse is one of your late mother’s holdings, and Gaematria is a member of the Alliance,” agreed Anborn.

  “So where are these ships and slaves coming from?”

  As the words left Ashe’s mouth, he sat up suddenly as if shot by an arrow in the back.

  “Gerald Owen is coming down the stairs,” he said softly. “I gave specific orders not to be disturbed.”

  Gwydion Navarne felt an old fear well up inside him, a dusty and atrophied panic left over from the slaughter at the Winter Carnival, causing the saliva in his mouth to taste of metal and cinders. His guardian’s dragonsense, set off by the action in the Great Hall above, left a cracking dryness in the dank air.

  Ashe rose and strode out of the glittering circle to the hidden door. He opened it and stepped into the dark antechamber beneath the rough-hewn staircase.

  “What is it, Owen?” he demanded.

  The old man’s reply was soft.

  “A visitor is here to see you, m’lord,” he said. “This man knew you were meeting; he instructed me to beg an audience of you—when asked his name, he said merely that you and he had traveled the road as strangers and companions four years ago on the way to the Cymrian Council.”

  The Lord Cymrian stood silent for a moment, then looked back into the lamplit chamber where his councilors were waiting.

  “Perhaps the answers to some of these questions have just arrived,” he said. He turned back to Gerald Owen.

  “Send him down.”

  6

  The occupants of the hidden room looked at one another in amazement as footfalls could be heard descending the stone steps.

  “Is he mad?” Anborn said in a low voice. “It was his bloody demand that this meeting take place in secret; why in the name of every wench I’ve ever bedded would he be breaking the seal of this place to allow an interloper? Your husband is a fool, Rhapsody.”

  “Won’t get an argument from us on that,” Grunthor said.

  The Lady Cymrian rose, still weak, and stepped over to the doorway.

  From the darkness at the bottom of the staircase a figure emerged, cloaked and hooded. The man came immediately to Ashe and spoke a few soft words in a low tone, then followed him into the hidden chamber. The Lord Cymrian closed the door behind him.

  Even beneath the plain broadcloth cloak it was clear that he was tall and wide of shoulder, taller than any of the men present except for Grunthor. He did not bow, but turned in the direction of Rhapsody and the infant for a moment, then reached out a large hand, one sheathed in a lambskin glove, and rested it gently on the baby’s head.

  Gwydion Navarne watched the odd spectacle unfold in silence.

  With the other hand the man reached up and took down his hood, revealing hair streaked gray and silver with age, though there was still enough white-blond hue to it to hint of what it must have looked like in his youth. His beard was long, curled slightly at the ends, and his eyes were clear and blue as the cloudless summer sky, reflecting the flickering light of the lantern.

  Constantin, the Patriarch of Sepulvarta.

  For a long moment after he knew he should be kneeling, Gwydion remained frozen in place, finally rising long enough to sink to one knee. His father, Stephen Navarne, had been an adherent of the Patrician religion, though he was also a good friend of Llauron the Invoker, the former head of the Filidic order of nature priests, and had been conversant in and respectful of the religious practices of both sects. Stephen’s attitude, unique as it was in the polarized world of faith, was unsurprising given both the geography of his duchy and his accepting nature. Navarne was located at the crux of the northern forest of Gwynwood, the eastern border of the neighboring duchy of Avonderre, and the northern fringe of Tyrian, making it the cross
roads of the continent’s faiths.

  So the magnitude of the Patriarch’s appearance in his family’s home was not lost on Gwydion Navarne. The Patriarch only left the Basilica of the Star, Lianta’ar, in Sepulvarta for occasions of state, such as royal funerals, marriages, or coronations, or in the direst of emergencies.

  As far as Gwydion knew, no one royal was being buried, married, or crowned.

  The Patriarch’s white brows drew together, and gestured impatiently at Gwydion.

  “Get up,” he said tersely. “It’s far too crowded in here to be doing that, and inappropriate for a man who has been invested as duke of an Orlandan province. Rise from your knees and sit down.” Gwydion complied, abashed.

  “What brings you here at this time, Your Grace?” Ashe asked quickly, offering the Patriarch a chair.

  The holy man’s body, while elderly, still bore the signs of great strength from his youth; he waved a hand dismissively at the chair.

  “I can’t remain here long, lest it be discovered that I am gone from Lianta’ar,” Constantin replied. “I bring disturbing news—but by the look of things, I am not alone in that.”

  “Step within the circle, then. Rial, Anborn, and Gwydion were reporting on the preparations Sorbold is making for war,” said Ashe, sitting down beside Rhapsody. He ran a hand gently over his son’s head. “It would appear that Roland, and perhaps the other members of the Alliance, are the targets of their intended aggression.”