Dragon Hunters

by Marc Turner

  Yes, how could the needs of the fortress’s former occupants possibly compete with those of a book?

  As Senar passed a side corridor he heard a fragment of his conversation with Darbonna repeated, then above that a snatch of disembodied laughter, faint as memory. When he looked at Darbonna she gave no indication that she’d heard it. But then the maker of that laughter could have been standing right next to the woman, and she still wouldn’t have noticed.

  “How many librarians are in the fortress?” Senar said.

  “Not enough,” Darbonna replied with a sigh. “The demands on our time are endless. Mexin leaves are so susceptible to mold, did you know? Of course you did. And as for our more ancient texts…”

  Senar was only half listening as she proceeded to explain at length the properties of various writing materials and the efforts of the librarians to preserve them.

  “How long have you been here?” he said when she paused for breath.

  “Oh, less than two years. The emira herself gave her blessing to our community. A great and a wise woman…” She broke off as if she’d just remembered Mazana was walking behind her.

  The torchbearers turned right into an unmarked windowless passage, and Senar found himself wondering at their ability to navigate the corridors without hesitation. Following the attack on Karalat’s fortress by Erin Elalese forces, a single enemy sacristen had escaped to flee into the citadel’s warren of passages. Neither he nor the three squads of Breakers sent to find him were ever seen again.

  “What do you know of the fortress’s history?” Senar said.

  A look flitted across Darbonna’s features. “A little,” she said. “The citadel was constructed by the titans and abandoned at the end of the Second Age. It must have been occupied by primitives some time after because occasionally we encounter rooms with wall paintings or”—she suppressed a shudder—“the remains of their dead. We have found nothing, though, to suggest the fortress has been occupied by large numbers in recent times.”

  “The Storm Lords never claimed it?”

  “The Storm Lords have no interest in a building where their powers would be blunted by the weight of stone separating them from the sea.”

  The librarians leading the company turned into a wider passage lit by torches in holders on the walls. Those torches bothered Senar for some reason, but it was a moment before he could put his finger on why. “You are mapping the fortress?”

  Darbonna checked her stride. “What’s that?”

  Perhaps it was Senar’s imagination, but the old woman’s poor hearing only seemed to trouble her when he asked certain questions. “We’ve been walking now for nearly quarter of a bell, yet we still haven’t reached the ramp. How is it you librarians came across it?”

  “Oh, we explored widely in the early days when we were clearing the fortress of unwanted guests.”

  “And the torches along our route?” As if this were a well-trodden path …

  Suddenly an earth tremor set the floor quivering. Senar was pitched into the wall to his left. A rasping groan came from along the passage, and the quake grew in intensity until the corridor thrummed like a bowstring. The Guardian looked at the ceiling, expecting to see fissures develop in the rock. There were no cracks, though. No cracks at all, even to mark the joints between blocks of stone. It was as if the passage had been carved from a single piece of rock, yet there were no tool marks on the walls.

  The tremors subsided, and Darbonna moved ahead.

  “Ah!” she said. “We are here!”

  The torchbearers had reached the end of the corridor, and the light from their torches expanded into the black emptiness beyond. Senar’s eyes widened as he entered a circular chamber so large the torchlight breathed only a hint of form and color into the far wall. Around the base of the wall were arches leading into passages, and carved into the rock above each arch was a face as tall as Senar himself. Titans. To the Guardian’s left was a male with a heavy brow and a beard. Alongside was a female with a bulging forehead and thin lips parted to reveal filed teeth. Time had in no way softened the chiseled lines of either face, but then, as Senar was coming to understand, the titans had been workers of stone without compare.

  The Everlord moved up to flank him. “Magnificent,” he said, and so it was—in a creep-the-shit-out-of-you kind of way.

  The word was repeated by one of the stone faces, then another and another, to create an otherworldly harmony that filled the room. With each repetition the sound grew more distorted, merging with the words of the other titans until finally it became unrecognizable.

  Slowly the whispers faded.

  Senar hadn’t noticed the floor sloping down as he walked through the fortress, yet the dank smell in the chamber made it feel as if he were deep underground. From the far side of the room came a drip, drip of water. When the Guardian took a breath, intense cold tickled the back of his throat. He coughed, and the noise was spat back at him by the stone faces.

  The last of Imerle’s soldiers entered the chamber and spread out to half encircle Mazana and her bodyguards. The move did not go unnoticed by Greave and the Everlord, for while the two men pretended an interest in the titan faces, they took care to keep the soldiers in view at all times. This was the chance Imerle’s forces had been waiting for to spring their ambush, for the size of the chamber would allow them to exploit their superior numbers. And while there were many exits from the room through which Mazana’s bodyguards could flee, the torchlit corridor that the party had taken here was now guarded by Imerle’s men. Senar could feel the septia’s gaze on him. Doubtless Cilin was waiting for the Guardian to signal the attack.

  Let him wait. Maybe Imerle thought she’d been clever, sending Senar here. Maybe she thought he had no choice now but to kill Mazana. But the more someone pushed the Guardian, the more he wanted to push back. If he had to pick a side, it wouldn’t be Imerle’s; the two of them could never be friends. Perhaps Jambar had been right, and he would one day save her life. But if he did so, he wasn’t fool enough to think Imerle would stay thankful for long. Soon her thoughts would turn to the Merigan portal. Senar’s knowledge about the gateway made him a threat to the Storm Isles, and the emira wasn’t the sort to let gratitude get in the way of expediency.

  The torchbearers moved farther into the chamber, driving the gloom before them. At the center of the room was a ramp leading down, and at the bottom of the ramp was a wall of sorcerous shadows that the torchlight could not penetrate. As the librarians descended to stand before it, ice crystals crunched beneath their feet. Such was the chill given off by the barrier that the flames of the men’s torches darkened through purple to blue, and Senar wondered whether he would feel heat or cold if he reached his hand out to those flames.

  The sorcerous wall was made up of scores of different threads of magic, suggesting many hands had contributed to its construction. A number of those threads were frayed, and the barrier was pitted and scarred as if someone had attempted to tear it down. Senar shot a look at Darbonna. Could someone have mounted an attack on the wall without her or the other librarians knowing?

  An aftershock of the earlier quake shook the fortress. The ground lifted and settled as if the citadel had drawn in a breath. A rumble sounded beneath Senar’s feet, and the stone faces sent echoes booming around the chamber. As the noise died away, Mazana forced a smile. “I’d say we’ve found the source of the quakes, wouldn’t you?” she said to the Guardian.

  Quakes, quakes, quakes, the titans whispered back at her.

  Senar leaned in close, trying to pitch his voice so the faces wouldn’t share his words with the rest of the room. “Someone tried to bring that thing down”—he nodded at the sorcerous wall—“and failed. Recently too, I’m guessing. No doubt that person is hoping you will finish—”

  “Then I’d best not disappoint them,” Mazana cut in, moving away.

  Senar tutted his disgust as he watched her descend the ramp. What in the Matron’s name was she up to? She couldn�
��t be blind to the hidden hand at play here, any more than she could be ignorant of the tension between her forces and Imerle’s. Yet she acted as if neither were her concern. Senar felt the septia’s gaze on him again. Cilin wouldn’t wait on his signal for much longer. Would the soldier attack, though, when there was so much going on they didn’t understand?

  Any of them except Mazana, that is.

  She reached the bottom of the ramp to stand between the two librarians, then extended her hands to the wall of blackness. The barrier started to weaken, layers of wards peeling away with a sound like the tolling of a spirit bell. The chill in the room began to lift, and the flames of the librarians’ torches turned through green to yellow to orange. Another tremor shook the chamber, faint at first, then growing stronger as the barrier dissolved. It was as if the wall had been holding back whatever force was responsible for the quakes. Was something trapped on the level below? Something the Storm Lady was about to release. Something the titans had seen fit to cage behind magic strong enough to last millennia.

  Senar reached out with his senses to explore the power flowing from Mazana’s hands. Whenever he sought to focus his Will on it, though, it escaped him. Not water-magic, that much was clear. So what was its source? The priestess of the Lord of Hidden Faces—it has to be. The priestess had agreed to help Mazana in the fortress, and now she was delivering on that promise.

  The last few strands of the sorcerous barrier unraveled. The darkness before Mazana dissipated to leave her standing before a vast arched portal decorated with more snarling titan faces. There was movement in the gloom beyond, and a swirl of ice-blue light swelled outward.

  The Storm Lady stepped back.

  A wave of mist rolled through the portal to engulf her.

  Senar heard her gasp. He reached for his sword. Around the chamber, Mazana’s bodyguards and Imerle’s troops were doing the same. The Guardian wondered if the tension was about to erupt into battle. The soldiers had lowered their spears, and Greave half turned toward them, baring his teeth. Below him the wave of mist had broken against the ramp and now came surging up to curl round the legs of those in the chamber. The shuddering cold returned, and the flames of the librarians’ torches guttered, before burning once more with a blue so deep it verged on black.

  The light in the room faded.

  But not before Senar had seen Mazana’s form reappear in the mist at the foot of the newly exposed archway. Hugging her arms about herself, she strode through the portal and into the murk beyond.

  The coming of the mist had put an end to any prospect of a fight, because with the darkness so deep it would be hard to tell friend from foe. As if I’d known the difference before. For a heartbeat no one stirred. Then Senar flinched as Darbonna brushed past him. She started down the ramp, her movements showing no hint of the frailty she’d displayed on the walk through the fortress. As she drew level with the torchbearers, they fell into step. Together they passed through the archway. The Everlord went next, followed by Mazana’s other bodyguards.

  Four of the emira’s soldiers moved to take up positions at the top of the ramp. They looked at Cilin for a signal. The septia was frowning, but in the gloom Senar couldn’t have said if that frown was directed at him. The Guardian stared again at the stone titans. The face across from him was the woman with the filed teeth. A sound escaped her lips—the same ghostly laughter he’d heard on the walk to the chamber. The Guardian thought he saw movement through the archway beneath her, but it was only the swirling fog.

  Then another noise reached Senar—a sound on the edge of silence. It came from his left. The stone faces picked it up and sent it bouncing about the room. A word. Follow? Sorrow? With each repetition it became more mangled until it was transformed into something no human throat could have uttered. Senar looked at the passage from which he thought the noise had come.

  Nothing stirred.

  Moving alongside Cilin he said, “Give the word to your men, Septia. Tell them to watch their backs.”

  * * *

  Kempis was sweating in spite of the chill. The emira’s throne room was as large as the Watchstation’s exercise yard, yet still he felt hemmed in by the walls of water. To make matters worse, prowling the sea to the septia’s left was the meanest looking kris shark he’d ever set eyes upon. Try as he might, Kempis couldn’t keep his gaze from straying to the fish, and the Shroud-cursed thing seemed to be watching him in turn. For all the septia knew this could be the same shark that had chewed on his leg twenty years ago. He could even convince himself he saw a glint of recognition in the creature’s eyes.

  Right now, though, Kempis was more worried about the big fish inside the chamber. On a throne sat the emira, her hands steepled as she listened to his account of Bright Eyes’s passing. Her chief minister frowned at the septia from the chair to Imerle’s right. Behind, the twins Mili and Tali looked bored, the executioner vacant, while the Chameleon high priest, Caval, wore a smile that suggested he was reveling in Kempis’s discomfort.

  Hilaire was two paces to the septia’s left, standing so rigidly at attention she might have had a spear shoved up her ass. She’d insisted on coming with him to answer the emira’s summons, though doubtless only to ensure that, of the two of them, he was the one thrown to the sharks for Thane Tanner’s untimely demise.

  When Kempis finished speaking, Imerle turned to Caval. “We had understood, High Priest, that your counterpart at the temple of the Lord of Hidden Faces was a fraud.”

  “And so he is. Artagina has usurped a dead religion in order to acquire some small measure of power. There must be another explanation for why the shrine survived the demon’s attack.”

  In other words, the bastard thinks I’m making this up.

  Imerle switched her gaze to Kempis. “Septia, you say you couldn’t sense the temple’s wards?”

  “I’m sure—” Hilaire began.

  “Are you a septia?” the emira cut in. “Because that can easily be arranged.”

  Hilaire’s mouth snapped shut

  Kempis found himself warming to Imerle. “I’ve seen sorcery used to cover a trail before, and it leaves a shadow. There weren’t nothing like that here.”

  “Meaning we are dealing with someone skilled at covering their tracks.”

  Kempis stayed silent. His back was starting to ache. Before entering the chamber Hilaire had insisted he put on his stripes, but without needle and thread to secure them to his shoulder the only way to stop the damned things slipping off was to match Hilaire’s wooden stance.

  Pernay spoke. “Is it your view, Septia, that the assassin intended all along to take shelter in the temple?”

  “No.”

  “But the priestess you mentioned protected her, did she not?”

  “If you call making off with her corpse ‘protecting,’ yes.”

  The more Kempis thought about the masked woman, the more questions arose to plague him. Most likely the priestess had taken Bright Eyes’s body to prevent her being recognized as a follower of the Lord of Hidden Faces. But then why had Artagina seemed oblivious to the whole affair? Was it possible the priestess wanted the corpse for herself? Kempis had heard rumors of aging bluebloods employing necromancers to shift their souls into younger bodies, but the priestess had appeared no older than Kempis himself.

  “What about Artagina?” Pernay said. “Did you get a chance to speak to him?”

  “The high priest claimed he knew nothing about the assassin or the priestess or the Shroud-cursed Kerralai demon for that matter. Otherwise, he was real helpful. Maybe we should bring him and the priestess in.”

  “Leave the Lord of Hidden Faces to us,” Imerle said.

  Kempis scowled, and Hilaire hurriedly said, “Of course, Emira.”

  Imerle’s gaze remained on the septia. “What have you been able to find out about Thane Tanner’s killer?”

  “Nothing yet. What with having come straight here from the temple, and all.”

  Hilaire cleared her throat. “There ar
e no reports of anyone seeing the assassin, but I remain hopeful a witness will come forward. The perpetrator will be found.”

  “We have your word on that, Quina?”

  “I have the utmost confidence in Septia Kempis Parr.”

  There she went again, talking Kempis up when he least wanted her to. There’d been no suggestion Thane’s assassin was a sorcerer, so there was no reason why Kempis of all people should be given the case. Except that he was here now, and Hilaire needed someone to take the fall for her if the killer wasn’t found.

  Just then shouts came from the underwater passage behind, and the septia looked round to see a one-eyed old man enter the throne room. In his right hand was a bag; in his left, a monocle, which he pointed at Imerle.

  “Emira! Look to the seas behind you!”

  Kempis scanned the wall of water at the back of the chamber and saw a dark shape speeding through the deep toward them. At first he thought it another shark. Then he detected a flicker of water-magic.

  The rear wall rippled and parted, and a woman stepped into view. Green-eyed and hugely muscled, she clutched a longsword in her left hand, a throwing knife in her right. She wore a sleeveless leather jerkin and a necklace of fireweed. Her most striking feature, though, was her skin—charcoal gray with glittering flecks. She stiffened at finding her arrival expected, then sent her throwing knife flashing toward the emira.

  Imerle sat frozen.

  The executioner stepped into the dagger’s path. He made no move to bat the blade aside, merely let it strike him at the level of his navel. The knife bounced off the metal links sewn into his skin and fell to the ground.

  The stone-skin transferred the longsword in her left hand to her right.

  Mili and Tali sprang at her. The newcomer was fast with her blade—faster even than Bright Eyes, perhaps—but the twins were faster still. Cuts blossomed across the stone-skin’s arms and chest. Kempis saw one twin thrust her needlelike sword into the assassin’s thigh before twisting and withdrawing it. The stone-skin’s leg almost gave way, but she managed a counterswing that was blocked by the second sister. The first twin lunged again, for the newcomer’s chest this time, and the stone-skin pushed the blade aside with her free hand.