Dragon Hunters

by Marc Turner

In Senar’s mind’s eye he saw again the woman lying facedown amid the pieces of broken bottle, and he knew without looking that her body would be close behind. Greave had no doubt driven him toward her, hoping the Guardian would trip over her. Senar needed to make some room, so when his opponent attacked again, he ducked under a head-high cut, then lashed out with a Will-strike to Greave’s chin. The champion’s head rocked back—more in surprise, Senar suspected, than from the power of the blow. Greave had claimed to know about Guardians, but he was clearly ignorant on the workings of the Will, for he retreated hurriedly, looking about for the source of the unseen attack.

  Senar stepped into the center of the mosaic.

  Greave strode forward once more, roared on by his followers. His sword came whistling round. A duel to first blood Beauce had said, but it was plain from Greave’s strokes that the champion didn’t care if Senar’s first blood was his last. Then, midstroke, Greave changed the angle of his sword’s swing and released his blade before snatching for the hilt with his left hand. His right hand, meanwhile, reached for Senar’s sword. Doubtless Greave had intended to grab the Guardian’s weapon and thus prevent him from parrying an attack from the fish-spine blade now in his left hand. A nice trick, but the juripa spirits must have spoiled it, for Greave’s right hand missed Senar’s sword and his left fumbled at the hilt of his own blade, only grasping it at the second attempt.

  Senar had plenty of time to block the cut that followed.

  With Greave’s sword now in his wrong hand, the Guardian saw his chance to seize the initiative. He feinted low, then attacked high with a thrust meant to graze his opponent’s right arm. The champion brought his blade up to parry, but Senar used a nudge of his Will to slow the weapon. Got you.

  His sword glanced off Greave’s arm with a scrape of metal.

  Senar stepped back, uncertain.

  The champion lowered his blade, his gaze shifting from the Guardian to his arm. Senar’s sword had made a gash in his shirt, but no blood welled up to soak the cloth. Instead Senar saw a glint of silver through the tear. Scales? Evidently his opponent was wearing armor beneath his puffed shirt.

  Greave grinned. “First blood, remember.”

  He launched himself forward.

  The shouting of his followers had died away to leave a charged silence broken only by the clang of swords. The wall torches cast wild shadows across the mosaic. Senar was panting now, but at least the longer the duel went on, the more his mastery of the Will would return. In his early days as an initiate at the Sacrosanct, Senar’s weaponsmasters had considered him the runt of the litter because of his size, yet even then his control of the Will had let him defeat stronger, more practiced, opponents. Using the Will was like wielding a second weapon, and a flick of his mind now drove Greave back. Senar worked an opening to his adversary’s left leg. He feinted to it to bring the champion’s blade flashing down. Another touch of the Guardian’s power added momentum to the other man’s swing, overbalancing him.

  Senar stepped to his right and lunged with his sword for Greave’s face. No armor there. Greave did not have time to recover his blade, so he threw his head back in an effort to evade the attack.

  Too late.

  Senar’s sword sliced open his left cheek and nicked the lobe of his ear.

  Behind, Mazana flinched as a thread of the champion’s blood spattered her face.

  And that concludes today’s lesson. Normally Senar didn’t like to gloat, but for the champion he’d make an exception.

  Greave’s eyes were wide with surprise, and his sword, poised now for a thrust at Senar’s midsection, wavered in the air. The Guardian moved back, but didn’t lower his weapon. No way he trusted Greave to take defeat graciously. Someone to his right began a slow, mocking handclap. Greave lifted a hand to his wounded cheek. He stared, disbelieving, at his bloody fingers. When he finally looked at Senar again, his lips were drawn back in a snarl.

  “A shallow victory, Guardian,” he said. “In giving that cut, yer left yerself open to a killing stroke. Me next thrust would have gutted yer like a bayfish.”

  Not true, as it happened, for Senar would have blocked the move with his Will. But that was hardly the point, as Greave well knew. “How did you put it? ‘First blood, remember.’”

  “Out!” Mazana said. “Everybody out! I wish to speak to the Guardian alone. You too, Greave,” she added when the man lingered.

  Beauce was the first to move, chuckling as he headed for the door through which Senar had entered. His soldiers fell in behind. The Everlord went next, guiding the manacled girl before him. Greave and his followers went more slowly. Two of them seized an ankle each of the woman lying on the floor. As they dragged her across the mosaic, a red smear was left in her wake.

  The door closed to leave Senar alone with Mazana.

  Interesting development.

  The Storm Lady was watching him, and he returned her look evenly, waiting for her to speak. Instead she rose, then wiped Greave’s blood from her face with a sleeve and crossed to stand in front of a painting of a man mounted on a palimar. Two daggers protruded from the canvas, one from the rider’s forehead, the other from his left cheek. There were more slashes round his chin and neck. Mazana reached up and seized the hilt of the knife piercing his forehead. Twisting it from side to side, she tugged it free. For a while she weighed the blade in her hand as if she was considering stabbing it into the canvas once more.

  When the Guardian studied the painting, he saw the rider had Mazana’s copper-red hair and sardonic smile. “Your father?” he said, sheathing his sword. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something told him they shared a difficult relationship.

  She nodded. “He’s dead. He died six years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. He taught me never to let my thoughts be governed by compassion or sentiment. To be unrelenting in my ambition, and ruthless in my dealings with friend and foe alike.” She paused. “So one day I took him at his word and slipped red solent into his wine.”

  Senar’s expression darkened. She’d killed her father? And apparently she saw no shame in the act either. Senar’s own father had died on a mission when Senar was seven; his loss was stamped all over Senar’s childhood. All he remembered of the man were snatched images, but they were no less valued for that.

  “What did you want to speak to me about?” he asked Mazana coolly.

  Ignoring the question, Mazana strode to a door along the wall to her left and stepped through. Senar followed. Beyond was a passage, and with slow steps the Guardian trailed Mazana along it and through a door at the far end. He entered a bedroom and halted just inside. More and more … interesting. Dominating the right-hand wall was a four-poster bed with curtains of white silk. In a smaller bed beside it was a red-haired boy, curled up in sleep. Mazana crossed to a wardrobe against the far wall, tossing her knife onto a chair. Then, with her back to Senar, she released a clasp at her left shoulder. Her dress fell away to pool at her feet.

  Senar averted his gaze and found himself looking through an open window at a sky streaked crimson by the setting sun. Whatever game Mazana was playing, he wanted no part of it.

  Moments later the Storm Lady crossed his line of sight. She now wore a cream nightgown that swept the floor tiles as she walked. She moved to a desk beneath the window. On the desk was a decanter filled with a clear liquid, and the Storm Lady filled two glasses before crossing to join Senar. The jewel invested with air-magic was still round her neck. It sparkled in the half-light, and Mazana’s eyes were no less bright as they focused on the Guardian. She gave him one of the glasses. The smell of juripa spirits reached him.

  “You think the summons was sent by me?” Mazana asked suddenly.

  A smudge of Greave’s blood remained below her hairline, and Senar resisted an impulse to wipe it clean. “I think it was not sent by the emira.”

  “And I think Imerle is more cunning than you give her credit for. You’re aware her rule is coming to
an end?”

  Senar shook his head. He had known each Storm Lord held the title of emir or emira for five years before making way for a colleague, but he did not know when Imerle’s term finished, nor for that matter where Mazana fitted into the succession.

  The Storm Lady said, “Her tenure concludes at the end of this year. Then Gensu takes up the reins, and the great Imerle Polivar passes into obscurity to wait twenty-five years for her turn to come again. You backed the wrong horse, Guardian.” She cocked her head. “Unless, of course, you know something I don’t.”

  Senar was silent, unsure what she was hinting at. “You think the emira is plotting to hold on to power?”

  “When you’ve stood on top of the mountain for so long, it must be difficult to climb down and watch another take your place. And twenty-five years is a not inconsiderable time to wait, don’t you think?”

  “How long is it before your own turn comes round?”

  Mazana smiled but did not respond. A breeze was stealing in through the open window to Senar’s left. As the Storm Lady went to close it she stepped in front of a torch, and its light seeped through her gown, making it appear as insubstantial as smoke.

  “Poor Imerle,” Mazana said. “Such a sad and broken woman. You know her history, of course?”

  “I have a feeling you are going to tell me,” Senar muttered. The emira had sent him here for information, but thus far all he’d found out was what Mazana wanted him to know.

  “Imerle was a powerful sorceress even as a child, but she had the misfortune to grow up when her father was at war with another Storm Lord. She was made to help her father wreak destruction on his enemy’s fleet. Hundreds died.” Mazana drank from her glass. “Then she was captured. Her jailers made threats against her in the hope they could bring her father to the negotiating table, but he left her to rot in a cell. Two years it took for the conflict to run its course. The ordeal left Imerle afraid of the dark, so much so that she now sleeps in a brightly lit room, and always with others present—the twins, mostly.” Her eyes twinkled. “You can imagine the rumors that has led to.”

  Senar cleared his throat. “The emira is the strongest of the Storm Lords?”

  “Yes. She is an archmage—you must have noticed her flaming eyes. All water retains within it the memory of the fires it has quenched. The most powerful water-mages are able to draw that fire out and shape it.”

  “Is she stronger than all of the other Storm Lords combined?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Then if she were plotting against you, why would she bring all her rivals together in one place? Why not attack each of them while they are alone?”

  “Perhaps because she has a plan to dispose of us all at once.”

  From somewhere in the house cheers sounded, followed by a burst of laughter. The Guardian set his glass down untouched on a table to his left, ignoring Mazana’s amused expression. The time had come to steer the conversation in a direction of his choosing, for while he had no wish to become embroiled in the intrigues of Imerle’s court, he knew he should take this opportunity to find out more about the key players—even if it was just Mazana’s skewed view of them. “You mentioned Gensu in the throne room earlier. Something about the chief minister’s employment?”

  Mazana considered before answering. “Throughout the history of the Storm Lords, the machinery of state—the army, the courts, the administration—has remained independent of the emir or emira. The thinking was that if the most powerful people in Olaire owed their loyalty to the Storm Lords, as opposed to the leader personally, it would be more difficult for that leader to hang on to power at the end of their tenure. Generally that neutrality has been respected.” She drained her glass. “But not always.”

  “You don’t think the chief minister is neutral?”

  “Not unless you count fathering a child on Imerle neutral, no. Oh, I have no proof of that, but rumors abound, and this time they weren’t even started by me.” She rolled her empty glass between her hands. “Imerle lost her daughter three years ago to a fever, and it broke her mind. Such a tragedy.”

  Odd, Mazana didn’t sound all that regretful. “And so Gensu tried to have Pernay removed from office?”

  “He nearly succeeded, too. The vote was tied three all, so the emira’s casting vote held sway.”

  “If the case against the chief minister was as clear as you say, how did he hold on to his position?”

  “Imerle’s predecessor, Mokinda, has always been in her pocket.”

  “And the third vote in Pernay’s favor?”

  “Mine, naturally.”

  Senar scratched at the stubs of his missing fingers. Mazana had voted to keep Pernay in office even though by doing so she strengthened Imerle’s hand? Why? Perhaps for no other reason than to keep the emira guessing, he thought sourly. As she has me doing.

  The boy in the small bed murmured in his sleep. When Mazana looked down on him, her eyes lost some of their hardness.

  “Your son?” Senar asked in a low voice.

  “My half brother, Uriel.” Mazana reached down to brush a strand of hair from the boy’s forehead. “My father always wanted a son to continue his dynasty, even set my mother aside when it became clear she could not give him one.”

  “And you feared he would do the same to you when Uriel was born?” Was it for power, then, that she had killed him? Senar didn’t think so. Mazana was trying to hide it, but her eyes held a pain that hinted at something more. Senar was tempted to ask her about it, but he knew it wasn’t his place.

  “No,” she replied. “He had already sent me to live in Olaire. I hadn’t set eyes on him for years before I poisoned him.”

  Senar looked at Uriel. “So you brought the boy up yourself? What of his mother?”

  Mazana’s raised eyebrow was all the answer Senar needed.

  Seeing his expression the Storm Lady said, “You disapprove, Guardian? Or perhaps you would have killed the boy as well?”

  “I am wondering why you did not.”

  “Oh, please, don’t put me on a pedestal.” Uriel stirred once more, and Mazana’s voice softened. “He’s just a boy now, but one day he will learn that I killed his mother and father.” She shrugged, then added in a whisper, as if to herself, “What choice do I have?”

  Senar nodded. “Your father taught you well.”

  “My father taught me not to let my emotions govern my judgment. A lesson I’d have thought you would approve of.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you’re a long way from home. A man does not go walking in the cold when he has a fire in his hearth to keep him warm.”

  She could not know, of course, about Senar’s passage through the Merigan portal, or of his reasons for being in Olaire. For a heartbeat he wanted to tell her. “The decision to come here was not mine.”

  “And yet you don’t seem in any hurry to leave.” Mazana approached to within a pace of Senar. Along with the smell of juripa spirits, the Guardian caught the scent of mirispice. “Is there anyone in Erin Elal wondering what you are doing now or when you will return?”

  Senar kept his silence. That barb, at least, had found its mark, though not for the reason she had intended.

  Mazana must have taken his silence for confirmation, for she turned away and said, “I thought not. Close the door on your way out, Guardian.”

  * * *

  Karmel followed her brother along a ledge that clung to the cliff. A dozen armspans below, waves pummeled the rocks, shattering into clouds of spray that glistened in the moonlight. One of those waves set the ledge shuddering, and Karmel stumbled. She reached out a hand to the cliff to steady herself, only to scrape her knuckles on a jagged protrusion. On the path ahead was a mound of stones. Beyond it Caval had stopped to offer his hand, but the priestess ignored him and scrambled over unaided.

  On leaving the temple earlier Caval hadn’t bothered to mention they would be going rock-climbing, yet Karmel was becoming all too accustomed to her brother’
s … reticence. Their conversation this morning had left countless questions unanswered, but Caval had dismissed her before she could ask them, citing important temple business. For the rest of the day he had been impossible to track down, so on the walk to the shore Karmel had pressed him for more information. How, for example, was she supposed to sneak into Dian’s citadel with barely a day to scout the place, and how was she going to disable the mechanism that raised the Dragon Gate? Caval, though, had refused to discuss the mission until they were clear of Olaire, and by the time they reached the coast the hiss of the sea, together with the unevenness of the path, had made conversation out of the question.

  Karmel’s brow furrowed. Something had been troubling her on the walk. It wasn’t that she knew so little about the mission, for doubtless the Chameleon priest accompanying her—Veran—would be better informed. No, what concerned her was that there hadn’t been time for Caval to give her fuller instructions. She wondered if she hadn’t been her brother’s first choice for this mission—if she was filling in for another Chameleon who had backed out at the eleventh hour. And why had her predecessor withdrawn? Perhaps because of something Caval hadn’t yet had a chance to tell Karmel about?

  How convenient.

  All day Karmel had felt like she should be doing something to prepare for the mission. She’d had no idea what, though, so instead she had returned to the routine of her temple duties: weaponwork with Foss, theology with Scale. Colley knew her well enough to sense something was amiss, but Karmel had been warned not to breathe a word about the mission, so she’d refused to answer his questions. The secret had swelled inside her like a drawn breath until she’d been forced to go to the Gray Room and whisper it to the statue of the Changeling. Then, as she was leaving, she had been cornered by that old fossil, Zilva, and bored witless by his tales of braving the Shark Run in the Rubyholt Isles. All in all it had been one of the longest days of Karmel’s life.

  Yet when the time had finally come for Caval to collect her, it had still seemed too soon.

  The ledge along the cliff became a track that curled down to a beach of gray stones strewn with fireweed. A pace above the waterline stood a black man—Veran, Karmel assumed—staring out to sea. Drawn up beside him was an undecked boat fifteen paces long. As the priestess reached the beach, she tugged Caval’s sleeve and pointed at the craft. “I’m traveling in that?” She’d expected a mode of transport more in keeping with the prestige of the mission. The emira’s flagship, perhaps.