Dragon Hunters

by Marc Turner

Karmel inwardly swore. She’d need Perfume’s uniform to trick her way into the citadel, so she curled her left arm round the guard’s throat and hauled her back even as she withdrew her blade from the woman’s skull and twisted to face Clemin. Clemin had half turned toward her, spraying urine onto the walkway. For a moment he stared at her, his mouth hanging open, his manhood hanging out. Then he reached for his sword, his neck muscles bunching as he made to shout.

  Karmel threw her knife. It seemed to come out of her hand all wrong, yet still it took him in the throat. His yell emerged as a gurgle. He reached up as if he meant to tug the priestess’s blade free. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and his legs buckled. Karmel knew she should try to catch him, but her limbs felt like they were made of mud. She could only watch as his head thudded into the walkway, the knife tearing loose from his throat.

  Silence.

  The priestess looked toward the dragon’s skull and the Natillian guards beyond. Had they heard anything? If either of them called out a question, Karmel would have to try imitating Perfume’s Dianese burr—maybe blame the noise on Clemin tripping over his feet, or mumble something unintelligible and hope that allayed the Natillians’ suspicions.

  A dozen heartbeats passed, but no challenge came—or at least none that Karmel could hear over the pounding of blood in her temples.

  Perfume’s corpse was starting to weigh on her arm, and she lowered it to the ground. The woman returned her gaze with glassy eyes. Her skin was waxy-pale, her hair soaked with blood. Clemin lay on his side, his mouth open, his teeth stained pink. Karmel’s knife had torn open his throat to leave a gash a handspan long, the flesh inside glistening red …

  Grimacing, the priestess looked away.

  Her hands were trembling again. Perhaps she should have felt triumph at having silenced the guards, but instead she felt only relief that her ordeal was over. Tired, too. Earlier she’d spent the evening pacing her basement lodgings. It had left her feeling drained even before she’d set out for the gate, and there was only so far adrenaline could carry her. Now it set her down with a bump. She sagged against the merlon.

  When she looked up again, she saw Veran watching her from a short distance away. He had made no sound in climbing to the battlements, but then the whole of the Dianese citadel could have crept up on Karmel at that moment and she wouldn’t have noticed. His gaze was characteristically cold, but it thawed a little when he took in her shaking hands.

  Only to darken again when he looked at the corpses of the Dianese soldiers.

  “You got blood on the damned uniforms,” he muttered.

  CHAPTER 10

  AGENTA CLOSED the door to the White Lady’s Temple behind her. The buzz of the city fell to a whisper. Watery light trickled through the cracked and grimy windows, bathing the chapel in a chill, otherworldly glow. The walls were blackened with age, and the flagstones had been worn smooth as glass. With each step Agenta took, the silence about her deepened until it seemed as if she’d left Olaire far behind.

  The chapel was empty but for her father, dressed all in black, seated on a warped wooden bench at the front. Before him was a statue of the White Lady, her features so lifelike that Agenta thought she saw the mouth twitch in an enigmatic smile. The kalischa halted behind Rethell. He sat with head bowed and shoulders hunched. When he’d slipped away from the embassy earlier, Agenta had known instinctively where he was going. The fact he hadn’t asked for her company meant he didn’t want her here, so why had she followed? On this, the anniversary of her brother’s death, she had no wish to intrude on his grief, for it was a grief she felt a stranger to. Even in death Zelin shared a bond with her father she would never know.

  “Why are you here?” Rethell said without looking round.

  “I could ask the same of you.”

  He stiffened. “You can’t have forgotten—”

  “Of course I haven’t.”

  “Then why are you surprised I should remember him today of all days?”

  Agenta sat down on a bench. It creaked beneath her. “Because you grieve for him every day.”

  “I’m not the one still in mourning.”

  “I finished mourning Zelin months ago.”

  “No you didn’t. You just convinced yourself you didn’t care.”

  Agenta recoiled as if she’d been slapped. He was accusing her of still brooding over Zelin’s death? Was this the same Rethell whose grief had whittled him down to a mere sliver of his former self? Who walked with Zelin’s shadow hanging over him even now? So what if Agenta had taken tollen to rid herself of her grief at her brother’s passing? What was so noble about grief that one had to suffer through it?

  A ruddy-faced old man wearing a white robe appeared from a side door Agenta hadn’t noticed. He shuffled to an altar at the front of the shrine. The hem of his gown swished on the flagstones.

  Rethell’s gaze tracked his progress. To Agenta he said, “I am sorry you had to take on the burden of Zelin’s duties after he died.”

  “Were you sorry he had to carry out those duties while he lived?”

  “You were never meant to assume his role. You weren’t ready for it.”

  “Perhaps that’s why I always disappoint you in it,” Agenta said, hating the note of self-pity in her voice.

  And yet Rethell didn’t bother to refute her words.

  She glanced back at the statue of the White Lady. Was it was her imagination, or had the goddess’s expression become more sober since Agenta last looked? “Perhaps I see no purpose in taking on your mantle, Father. Perhaps soon there will be nothing left to succeed to. You spent a lifetime building your empire, but only now do you realize it is made of sand.”

  “Is that how you see things, Agenta? Nothing has value because everything we have can be lost?”

  If she attached no value to something, how could she feel loss when it was taken from her? When she said as much to Rethell, he opened his mouth to speak before closing it again.

  Agenta searched his gaze for some hint of what he had been about to say. Something to do with Zelin’s passing, she suspected. Was he going to tell her that death was the price we pay for life? That she should live for the happiness in each day? He didn’t believe such platitudes any more than she did. He only told himself he did to make it easier to manage his grief, else why was he here now and not back at the embassy toasting Zelin’s memory? That’s what Agenta had done earlier with Lydanto. A part of her wanted to shake her father by the shoulders. To strip away the pretenses and make him confront the absurdity of his self-deception. But she did not. He was a broken man, after all. Who knew what might happen if she kicked away the crutch he leaned on?

  A rustle of cloth signaled the priest’s approach. Agenta looked up to see the old man lighting a taper from a candle in the hand of the White Lady’s statue. Sensing the kalischa’s attention, he gave her a smile. For some reason the gesture irritated her, and she looked away.

  Rethell waited until the priest had retreated, then said, “It is time we were going. The emira’s ship sails in a bell.”

  “At our meeting, you seemed concerned when she invited us onto the Icewing. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Something in her look.”

  “If Lydanto’s sources are correct we won’t be the only people there. The emira would never risk treachery in front of witnesses.”

  “Yet she intends to negotiate with us over the duskstones before those same witnesses?” Rethell swung his gaze back to the statue. “Perhaps it is nothing.”

  There was no conviction in his voice, though. Agenta wondered what he was keeping from her. Was he afraid of encountering a dragon on the Hunt, and trying to pass off that fear as unease at Imerle’s motives?

  Yes, that had to be it.

  Agenta pushed herself to her feet. Rethell made no move to follow, and she realized his talk of hastening to the Icewing had simply been his way of dismissing her. “I will leave you to your ghosts,” she said, striding toward the rear of the shrine.
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  No response.

  A wall of noise hit her as she opened the door to the street and stepped outside. Such was her preoccupation that she didn’t at first see the fat man in the pink shirt standing a pace away. His round face showed an expression of comical surprise as she collided with him. The two mitrebird eggs he was holding smashed against his chest, spattering him with amber goo.

  Without a word, Agenta walked past.

  * * *

  Quina Hilaire Desa was ranting again, but Kempis had long since stopped listening. He was thinking about what Senar Sol had said concerning overlapping worlds and the gateways between them, and wondering how he could use that knowledge to his advantage. Now that he knew Bright Eyes used the portals to return to Olaire as well as to leave, maybe he could ambush her after her next vanishing act. To that end, Storm Guards had been stationed at the approaches to the gateways in the Shallows and the Temple District. But how could those soldiers set a trap when no one knew how large an area the portals covered? Moreover, what if the presence of the Storm Guards deterred Bright Eyes from traveling through the gateways she’d already used? How was Kempis supposed to find out if there were other portals in the city, and where they were located?

  As Hilaire continued her tirade, she took out a looking glass from a desk drawer and began smearing red lipstick over her lips. “And now you tell me,” she was saying, “the city is infested with the spirits of everyone who’s died in Olaire these past few weeks…”

  So that was Kempis’s fault too, was it? He made a mental note to kick Shroud’s soul-gatherers into shape when he got out of here.

  “… and what in the Nine Hells were you thinking, telling Loop to bring the spirit of that Drifter here…?”

  Right on cue Irlon’s wailing started up from the direction of the exercise yard, followed by the lowing of a temlock.

  “… Lady’s blessing, does he ever shut up? And as for those temlocks—”

  “It’s Loop, sir,” Kempis cut in, glad for an opportunity to pass the buck. “Needs a death every few bells to give him the power to keep Irlon bound.”

  “Then he can take the Drifter to the slaughterhouse! This isn’t a Shroud-cursed cattle yard! That spirit’s howling has turned the temlocks’ bowels to water. All morning I’ve done nothing but wade through shit!”

  Welcome to my world. Not that he’d have swapped it for Hilaire’s, of course. Before the quina’s time, the bluebloods had tried once to offer her position to Kempis. As if he was going to fall for that one.

  Movement through a window caught his eye, and he looked left to see the tip of a spear held by someone outside. When he’d arrived at the Watchstation earlier, he’d spotted two Storm Guards loitering near the armory. He’d assumed they were the escort of some blueblood come to visit Hilaire, but since there was no blueblood in sight …

  “What are those soldiers doing here?” he asked the quina.

  Hilaire gazed into her looking glass, pouting her lips. “Dutia Elemy Meddes sent them.”

  “Gray-Face reckons Bright Eyes might come here, does he?”

  A pause. “The soldiers are now part of your team.”

  “The Sender they are.”

  Hilaire scowled. “I’m not asking for your blessing, Septia. Twice now you’ve had the assassin in your grasp, and twice you’ve let her slip.”

  “That’s why we’ve stationed Storm Guards at the gateways. So I can drive Bright Eyes toward them.”

  “And Elemy’s soldiers can help with the driving.” Hilaire brought the looking glass so close to her face Kempis thought she was going to kiss it. “With their assistance, maybe next time you won’t steer your quarry into a Storm Lady.”

  “That weren’t my fault. Bright Eyes had already found Mazana Creed when I caught up to her. I saved her life.”

  “As I heard it, Mazana’s bodyguard had the assassin right where he wanted her until you blundered in and scared her into running.”

  Nothing to do with the beating she’d been getting from Senar Sol, then. “You’d have preferred it if I’d sat back and watched?”

  “I’d have preferred it if you’d done your job properly and caught the damned woman! Instead it seems we may now have a Kerralai demon to worry about.”

  Kempis shrugged. “If the demon tracks Bright Eyes down, that’s a good thing, ain’t it? We just wait for the creature to sniff out her trail, then follow it to her.”

  “Through the smoldering ruins of the city, you mean? Gods below, Septia, this is a demon we’re talking about! If it tracks her here from the Shades, do you think it’s going to worry about a few buildings that get in its way?”

  Kempis kept his silence, knowing no matter what he said it would be the wrong thing.

  Hilaire returned her looking glass to its drawer. “Now, in case it has slipped your mind, today is Dragon Day, which means every water-mage worth his salt is about to set sail for the Dragon Gate. I want you at the harbor in case the assassin shows her face. Take Elemy’s men with you.”

  Her tone told Kempis he was dismissed, so he turned and headed for the door.

  “And find your bloody stripes!” Hilaire shouted after him.

  Kempis left Pompit smiling in the outer office and entered the exercise yard. Elemy’s soldiers stood to his right. Both carried spears and had bucklers strapped to their arms. The taller man—a white-haired Maru with bulging eyes—was a septia too, judging by the stripes on his shoulder, and for the first time in a long time Kempis was tempted to take his own stripes from his pocket. Instead he nodded to the men and gestured over his shoulder. “Quina wants a word with you. I’ll wait for you here.”

  The soldiers exchanged a look before disappearing inside, leaving their spears propped against the wall.

  As the door to Pompit’s office closed, Kempis hurried for the gate leading to Meridian Street, picking his way through piles of temlock dung.

  Sniffer’s voice startled him from the shadows of the guardhouse. “Morning, sir.”

  Kempis ignored her, striding through the gate at a pace that had the Untarian half jogging to keep up. Ahead a cart laden with crates of gallow crabs was trundling toward the fish market on Crofters Lane. Its driver was fighting a running battle with urchins intent on lightening the cart’s load. The septia took a right turn, then a left, before finally slowing as he drew level with the Amarr Observatory. Behind him in the Watchstation’s exercise yard he could still hear the wails of Irlon and the temlocks as they competed in their misery.

  Sniffer was whistling through her gills. “Where are we going?”

  Kempis did not reply. He’d been hoping to get some time alone to think. As he swung into Vale Street the seventh bell sounded.

  “Seventh bell, sir,” Sniffer said.

  “You don’t say.” Insight like that, she’d be after his job soon.

  “Seventeen more and I’m out of here.”

  Kempis had forgotten today was the Untarian’s last day in the Watch. His mood brightened.

  “Any idea,” Sniffer went on, “who your new partner’s going to be? I was thinking maybe Duffle. The children are our future, right?”

  “Whoever I get, he’ll be a lot easier on the ears than you.”

  “You sure of that? There’s a blueblood among the new recruits. Apparently he’s so unimpressed with our efforts to guard the city he’s decided to show us how it’s done. I told him to ask for you personally.”

  “Maybe I won’t get another partner at all. Not when they see how bad you turned out.”

  Sniffer laughed. “I’ll miss you too.”

  The next right turn would take Kempis to the harbor. He went left. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again sooner than you think.” Criminals like the Untarian never stayed straight.

  “But not for long at the speed you run, eh, sir?”

  As Kempis opened his mouth to retort, a shadow passed overhead. The septia looked up to see a dark shape glide over the rooftops.

  A roar shook the hous
es to either side.

  * * *

  From the quarterdeck of the emira’s flagship, the Icewing, Agenta tugged her gaze from the creature sweeping low over the distant buildings and looked down on the docks. At the end of the quay a cordon of Storm Guards held back a sea of faces. As Agenta watched, a young woman carrying a garland of dewflowers pushed through the cordon and approached the ship. She threw the garland up to the main deck where it was caught by a soldier who stared at it before hooking it over a spear in the weapons rack behind him. A comment from the man drew chuckles from his companions, but the laughter was halfhearted. It died away to be replaced by a strained silence.

  It was not difficult to determine the reason for the soldiers’ edginess. During the past half-bell a procession of vessels had left the harbor bound for the Dragon Gate, yet still the emira’s flagship remained at quayside. Agenta had heard the same question voiced by a dozen of her fellow passengers: why had the Icewing not set sail? After all, the best starting berths for the Hunt—those immediately facing the Dragon Gate—went to whichever ships claimed them first. Not even Imerle would be able to command the captain of another vessel to make way.

  Footfalls to Agenta’s left signaled Lydanto’s approach.

  “Magnificent, is she not?” he said, his sweeping gesture taking in the Icewing. “Sixty-two paces long she measures—I have been striding her out myself. The largest ship on the Sabian Sea, I am hearing, though the prince of Hardangill is said to have commissioned a galley with four rows of oars on each side. Four!” He paused to allow Agenta or Rethell, standing a telling distance to one side, to share his wonder. When they kept their silence he went on, “Truly we are in exalted company, no? The man on the aft deck in the ankle-length red gown, that is Karan del Orco, pasha of Shamano, and one of the critics most outspoken of the emira’s decision to raise the Levy this year. Beside him, flanked by his bodyguards—imagine wearing chain mail on a ship!—is Gerrick Long—”

  “The Gerrick Long?” Rethell said. “Of Palana Utara?”

  “The very same.” Lydanto looked at Agenta. “In case you are not knowing, Gerrick is the successor to Page Calabra, the man who famously bowed to Imerle three years ago before bringing his city into the Sabian fold for the first time in its history. Alas, the move proved unpopular with his people, and he was unseated the following year in a coup led by the man you are looking at.”