Dragon Hunters

by Marc Turner

  “What is this Gerrick Long doing here, then? I assume that he withdrew his city from the League as soon as he came to power.”

  “Indeed he did. But protocol demands he is retaining some links with the Storm Isles.” Lydanto leaned in close. “Rumor has it also that on a recent visit to Olaire he was—how do you say?—losing his heart to the emira.”

  “She can use it to fill the hole where hers should be.”

  The Grantorian did not respond, but then his eye had been caught by a serving-girl emerging from the captain’s cabin with a tray of drinks.

  “Ambassador?” Agenta said.

  “What? Ah, yes, I was speaking of our fellow passengers.” He glanced to Agenta’s right. “Across from us—no, Kalischa, do not look now—is a man wearing a gold shirt. That is Samel Fletch, one of the merchants believed to have lent money to Imerle.” Lydanto tapped his nose. “A chance to quiz him may present itself later, I am thinking. A few discreet questions over a glass of wine will doubtless elicit more information than any amount of sifting through dusty scrolls at the Round.”

  Agenta’s brows knitted. “Curious, isn’t it, that the emira should invite us on board when she knew Samel Fletch would be here. I would have thought she’d want to keep us as far away from him as possible.”

  “Your scheme in the throne room worked, did it not? Clearly Imerle does not see you as a threat now that she has indicated her willingness to deal.”

  And yet, to risk putting the Gilgamarians with the merchant before the deal was closed, that seemed a little out of character. Now Agenta thought of it, what was Samel doing here at all? From what Lydanto had told her, the emira had done everything that she could to hide her dealings with him. So why was she now flaunting their association in public?

  The ambassador’s attention had wandered again, his gaze following a second serving-girl as she handed out drinks to the passengers on the aft deck. Rethell, too, was taking no notice of Agenta, his distant look suggesting his thoughts were still with Zelin in the White Lady’s Temple. But then he’d long preferred to spend his time among the dead rather than the living.

  “Who are they?” Agenta asked Lydanto, gesturing to two men on the forecastle. One was bald and wore the blue robes of a water-mage, the other the uniform of a Storm Guard. A cluster of dignitaries had gathered about them, and raised voices reached the kalischa.

  “The sorcerer is called Orsan,” the ambassador said. “A close confidant of the emira, I am believing. The soldier is Dutia Elemy Meddes.”

  Karan del Orco had joined the group of dignitaries round the two men and now jabbed a finger into Elemy’s chest with such force the dutia was driven back a step.

  Something was bothering Agenta, but she couldn’t think what. “They don’t appear to be the most popular men on board.”

  “The delay, perhaps—”

  “No,” she interrupted. “See, we are casting off.”

  Ropes were being thrown up to the deck, and the hum of the watching crowds rose to a roar. As the Icewing pulled away from the dock the throng surged forward, pushing through the cordon of Storm Guards and sending a handful of soldiers toppling into the water. People came running along the quay as if they intended to grab one of the ship’s lines and climb aboard. Fast as they were, though, the Icewing was faster, as a wave of water-magic swelled beneath the vessel and swept it toward the Causeway. It passed a berthed galleon flying the gauntleted fist of Storm Lord Thane Tanner. Strangely, its decks were all but empty.

  Agenta scanned the ranks of the remaining ships at quayside. “I don’t see the Crest,” she said to her father. Those were the first words she’d spoken to him since leaving the temple.

  “I sent it on ahead.”

  The kalischa looked at him. “To the Dragon Gate? Why?”

  “Why not?”

  Because he cared nothing for the prestige that would come if the Crest brought down the dragon, that’s why. Because with the loss of the Gadfly, he could ill afford to lose another ship. Agenta didn’t get a chance to voice her thoughts, though, for Rethell was already walking toward the steps to the aft deck.

  Lydanto set off after him, rubbing his hands together. “Time to sample the hospitality of the emira, I am thinking,” he said.

  Agenta made no move to follow. She could do with a drink herself, but not if it meant rejoining her father.

  The Icewing entered the Causeway. The kalischa saw people staring at her from the roofs of the flooded buildings, as they had when she arrived in Olaire. Unlike the crowds on the quays these spectators watched silently, sullenly. But then anyone unfortunate enough to live in the Shallows had little reason for good cheer. Starbeaks bobbed on the water in the Icewing’s path, and they took flight as the vessel bore down on them. A fishing boat was approaching from the opposite direction. The wave created by the passage of the emira’s ship sent it bumping into the wall of a building.

  When the Icewing reached the open sea, a cry of “hands aloft!” went up. Sailors scrambled up the rigging and began letting out the sails. As the bow swung south, Agenta’s breath was tight in her chest. In her enjoyment at outwitting Imerle she had overlooked what her reward for doing so entailed. And while courting risk was one thing, courting a dragon was another entirely. The trader ship she’d seen destroyed six years ago was small in comparison to the Icewing. Yet a single flick of a dragon’s tail that day had been enough to send the vessel to the bottom of the ocean. It had been decades since a Storm Lord’s ship was last lost on the Hunt, but even with both Imerle and Orsan on board there could be no guarantee …

  Agenta’s thoughts trailed off. Both Imerle and Orsan.

  She studied the faces on the aft deck, then the quarterdeck, then the forecastle, but the person she was looking for was not among them. Could they be belowdecks? Or in the captain’s cabin, perhaps? On the forecastle, the number of dignitaries clustered about Orsan and Elemy had swelled, and so too had the sound of their voices now that the bustle of the harbor was fading behind. The people about Agenta were looking in their direction. A hush settled on the quarterdeck as everyone tried to hear what was being said.

  The kalischa, though, had already worked out the reason for the altercation.

  Imerle. She’s not on board.

  * * *

  Kempis skidded to a halt at the edge of the marketplace.

  Sender’s mercy!

  Black-skinned and horned, the Kerralai demon swooped over the Round. It banked left and landed on the roof of the Mercerien embassy. Roof tiles torn loose by its claws came raining down onto the street, and a blueblood exiting the embassy looked up before dropping the armful of scrolls he was carrying and darting back inside. The people in the marketplace were similarly running for cover, save for a handful who stared slack-jawed at the apparition. Among them Kempis noticed a woman dressed all in midnight blue outside the Round’s East Gate. The assassin? It had to be, for while her eyes did not glow in daylight as they had at night, she stood out from the finery about her like a crow in a field of peacocks.

  The demon unfurled its wings and leapt into the air.

  Bright Eyes turned and bolted toward the Round.

  The East Gate was guarded by four Storm Guards. They held their ground as the demon bore down on them, and Kempis found himself admiring their courage if not their intelligence. A fifth soldier ran from the South Gate to support his colleagues. As the Kerralai descended, he hurled a spear at it. The creature veered out of the weapon’s path before turning its blood-red gaze on the thrower. Twin jets of flame shot from its eyes, and the Storm Guard became a shrieking firebrand.

  Kempis drew his sword. “We need to get in there,” he said to Sniffer, nodding at the Round.

  She looked at him like he’d sprouted a set of horns to match the Kerralai’s.

  “I ain’t planning on stepping into that thing’s path, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Then why go in? Why not wait for the demon to flush Bright Eyes out?”


  “’Cause we can’t see the North and West Gates from here, that’s why. Only place you can see all the exits from is inside.”

  “So she leaves without us seeing, so what?” Sniffer said. “The creature found her once, it’ll find her again.”

  “And if she gets to a portal before it catches her?” Kempis watched Bright Eyes enter the Round. “If the demon takes her down, I want to see it. If not, we drive her to one of the gateways we’ve got guarded. Either way, this ends now.” After the stunt he’d pulled at the Watchstation, he would only have this one chance to save his stripes.

  The Kerralai alighted in the marketplace near the East Gate. Its taloned feet scraped on the square’s mosaic. The Storm Guards facing it crouched behind their shields, their spears stabbing out.

  “Are you with me?” Kempis asked Sniffer.

  She squinted at the demon, then muttered something and nodded.

  “We go on three, right?”

  “Bugger that,” the Untarian said, sprinting for the Round.

  The septia scampered after her.

  Sniffer reached the South Gate ahead of Kempis, and he followed her beneath the portcullis set into its ceiling. The walls of the countinghouse were so thick it was like running through a tunnel. Kempis had to fight through a crowd of people coming the other way, but at last he emerged into the light streaming down through the Round’s domed glass roof.

  He drew up beside the trading floor. From his right came a deep-throated growl, followed by a crash as someone lowered the portcullis over the East Gate. The Storm Guards facing the demon were trapped on the wrong side. Through the bars of the gate Kempis saw one of them jab his spear at the Kerralai, only for the creature to bat the weapon aside and rip open its assailant’s throat with its talons. As the demon closed on the remaining guards, its body blocked out the light in the tunnel until all Kempis could see was its blazing red eyes.

  Inside the Round, bluebloods ran in every direction. A woman wearing a feathered hat tripped and fell, then took a boot in the face. Some of the desks on the trading floor had been overturned. The ground about them was covered in coins and papers. Amid the chaos knelt a rusty-skinned Sartorian who had slipped out of his purple cloak and was now lifting coins onto it, doubtless intending to use it as a makeshift carrier. Bright Eyes was at the North Gate in the middle of a scrum of bluebloods. Her plait bobbed as she was swept along the tunnel.

  Another growl came from Kempis’s right, then an explosion of fiery light. The septia saw a wave of demonic magic hit the East Gate. The surviving Storm Guards had been pleading for someone to raise the gate, their arms pushed between the bars. As the sorcery struck them they screamed and collapsed into dust. The rails of the portcullis fared little better, melting like ice and dripping molten metal to the ground. The magic rolled into the Round. On the trading floor the purple-robed coin-gatherer had time only to hug his gold-laden cloak to him before the sorcery engulfed him. He and his burden erupted into flames.

  Kempis frowned. Waste of good gold, that.

  Screams started up from his left as the power devoured the people trying to escape through the West Gate. In the wake of the magic the trading floor glowed red. The desks had been set alight, and charred papers flapped and swirled on the scorched breeze. From the East Gate came another growl. Kempis looked that way, expecting to see the Kerralai. Instead all he could make out was a cloud of smoke. The concussion of beating wings reached him. Was the Kerralai retreating? Had more Storm Guards arrived to drive it off? Or had the demon sensed Bright Eyes fleeing and taken to the skies in pursuit?

  Bright Eyes …

  Kempis looked for the assassin again at the North Gate, but she had already vanished outside. He set off after her. As he crossed the trading floor, he felt the heat of the stone through the soles of his boots. A scattering of bluebloods were huddled in the tunnel leading out. They looked relieved to see him—as if they thought he was going to protect them. Kempis couldn’t decide what was more stupid, the idea that he might risk his life against the demon, or that he’d fare any better than the Storm Guards if he tried. Pushing through the crowd, he emerged from the Round in time to see Bright Eyes duck into Imperial Road.

  Kempis groaned. Another Shroud-cursed chase. But at least for now there was no sign of the Kerralai.

  The septia pounded after the assassin. A left turn into Manor Road brought him a glimpse of the Watchtower at Ferris Point, but it disappeared again as he passed the Scriptorium. Ahead was the Artisan Quarter with its warren of alleys, and beyond that lay the Temple District. Could Bright Eyes be making for the portal near the temple of the Lord of Hidden Faces? There seemed little sense in escaping a demon by traveling to the world from which it had tracked her, but if the creature couldn’t follow the assassin through the gateway she might at least buy herself time to catch her breath.

  The gap between Kempis and Bright Eyes was closing, and he recalled the limp Senar Sol had given her yesterday. Sniffer overtook him as he swung wide round the fountain outside the Carlatian Pleasure Gardens. The Untarian hurdled a broken cart wheel and stumbled as she entered Baker Alley.

  The stumble saved her life. Bright Eyes had been waiting round the corner, and her thrown dagger flashed through the air where Sniffer’s head had been. The assassin cursed and drew her longknives.

  Kempis charged.

  The alley rang with steel as Bright Eyes parried his wild attacks. For a heartbeat she was forced to give ground. Then the battle turned, and a thrust to Kempis’s face had him swaying back. The cut that came next narrowly missed his chin. He retreated, his sword jerking from side to side as he tried to follow his opponent’s intricate feints. A nick to his hip drew a grunt from his lips. It occurred to him it could have been Elemy’s soldiers, rather than him, soaking up the assassin’s knife strokes, and he found himself almost regretting the deception he’d played on the two Storm Guards at the Watchstation.

  Almost.

  A dagger thrown by Sniffer flashed past his right cheek, straight for Bright Eyes’s chest.

  She blocked it with ease, but in doing so gave Kempis an opportunity to disengage. He stepped back out of range—where he should have been all along. What was the point of being a septia, after all, if you couldn’t get someone else to do your bleeding for you?

  A creak of leathery wings sounded overhead, and the Kerralai glided low over the rooftops. Smoke curled from its nostrils. The touch of its shadow sent a prickle along Kempis’s skin, yet he was relieved to see it all the same.

  Relieved? Not a feeling he’d ever thought he would associate with a demon’s coming.

  Bright Eyes’s gaze followed the creature as it banked to the right for another pass.

  Then she turned and fled along the alley.

  * * *

  Senar looked about the temple courtyard. At the far side was a wall covered with carvings of animal-headed figures, and before the wall stood a white-robed man wearing a gold mask—the high priest of the Lord of Hidden Faces, Senar presumed. The Guardian watched from the shade of a colonnade as the man paced along the length of the wall, bellowing at a congregation seated on the sandy ground. The priest’s voice filled the courtyard.

  “… and when a man is unwilling to submit freely to the will of his Lord, it is because his base nature is untempered! Learn to obey His will…”

  Mazana stood a pace to Senar’s left, fanning herself with one hand. She hadn’t seemed surprised earlier when he’d told her he would be accompanying her to the Founder’s Citadel, and from the glint in her eyes she knew why Imerle wanted him there. But then why had she chosen him, and not one of her bodyguards, to escort her here this morning?

  He suspected he was about to find out, for moving toward them along the colonnade was a woman wearing a featureless mask of white wood. Long auburn hair fell about her shoulders, and through her mask’s eye slits Senar saw brown eyes that never rested in one place for more than a moment. Her fingers fluttered as she walked. She halted before Senar
and Mazana.

  “Priestess,” the Storm Lady said, inclining her head, “may I introduce Senar Sol, a Guardian of Erin Elal.”

  He bowed. “An honor.”

  “Guarrrdian,” she said, making a little trilling sound as she rolled the “r.”

  Senar looked from the masked woman to the worshippers in the courtyard. “I confess, I am surprised to find the cult of the Lord of Hidden Faces flourishing here in Olaire when it has died out everywhere else.”

  “No more than I am, I assure you,” the priestess said, her voice hinting at amusement.

  Senar waited for her to explain the remark, but she kept her silence. His gaze strayed to the golden-masked figure on the opposite side of the courtyard. “The high priest is a … powerful speaker.”

  “Artagina is a man devoted to his god. But then the Lord of Hidden Faces makes an ideal master for such as he.”

  “How so?”

  “The Lord is so much less prrrescriptive than other immortals, and thus his cult is one the high priest can truly put his mark on.” The priestess tilted her head to listen to Artagina’s sermon.

  “… the words of the Lord’s priests,” he boomed, “cannot be weighed by man’s understanding, for they are His words! They are to be heard in silence, and received with humility…”

  The masked woman’s hands caressed the air. “He seems particularly keen on obedience, you may have noticed.”

  “Most leaders are,” Senar said sharply, picturing the emperor. Even when it wasn’t owed to them. Especially then, perhaps.

  “That is because they believe their judgment to be infallible. As Artagina is so fond of telling us, a man doing his god’s will can never be wrong. We are truly blessed to have a high priest so in tune with the desires of his Lord.”

  Senar wished he could see what expression the priestess’s mask was hiding. Something about her bothered him—something beyond her apparent irreverence to the leader of her own order. He reached out toward her with his Will and sensed … nothing. As if she were a mere illusion. Perhaps he should not be surprised that a dedicate of the Lord of Hidden Faces could conceal herself so artfully in her own temple, but still …