Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1

by Ian C. Esslemont

  Silk raised his chin and called, ‘Shalmanat’s law. Murder is punishable by exile.’

  A figure emerged from the shadowed gloom further in. A young man simply dressed in trousers and a loose shirt. He held a gleaming two-handed blade readied before him. ‘They offended Hood,’ he stated flatly.

  ‘And how did they do that?’ Silk enquired.

  ‘They demanded a tithe upon the temple. I demonstrated Hood’s tithe.’

  ‘And who are you to judge?’ Smokey demanded.

  The lad’s dark, almost blue-black eyes edged aside to Smokey. ‘I am Hood’s Sword.’

  Smokey snorted a laugh. Silk, however, sensed something wrong; the youth had said the words not like a challenge or a claim, but as an obvious, uncontestable truth. As if he’d just observed that the sun rose or the land moved with Burn’s exhalations.

  ‘Well, Hood’s Sword,’ Smokey was saying, ‘you’ll have to face Shalmanat’s justice. So come with us.’

  The lad did not vary his ready stance. ‘The only true justice is Hood’s to give.’

  Smokey held out a hand, fingers spread. ‘Don’t make me burn you, kid.’

  ‘My life is Hood’s to take or leave.’

  Movement among a heap of blankets up against a wall drew Silk’s eye and he distinguished a young girl asleep among the rags. Like the lad, she was mahogany dark – Dal Honese the pair of them. He placed a hand on Smokey’s forearm. ‘Wait . . .’

  A faint blue flame – more like a weak aura – flickered and stuttered about Smokey’s fingertips and the mage of Telas stared, his brows knitting. ‘My Warren . . .’

  A dry laugh echoed round the hall and Silk flinched. Koroll rumbled from the doors, ‘We are not alone.’

  ‘Indeed, friend giant,’ came an old man’s rasp. ‘Though you carry the blood of the Thel Akai, it would be best not to press this matter.’

  Silk squinted into the dark and could just make out the shape of a scrawny ancient, hunched cross-legged before a shrine at the far end of the hall – a shrine to the dead. He eased down Smokey’s arm, murmured, ‘Not now.’

  The fire mage pointed to the lad. ‘Later, friend,’ Silk urged him back.

  They stopped outside. The thinning traffic of adherents and worshippers gave the threesome a wide berth. Silk hugged himself, feeling oddly chilled from that house of the dead.

  ‘What now?’ Smokey demanded.

  ‘These are no frauds peddling fear,’ Koroll supplied. ‘Hood is with them, whatever their other claims.’

  Silk nodded his agreement as he stroked his chin, thinking. ‘Pung can’t let this insult stand. Let’s leave them to him. See how he fares.’

  The idea obviously appealed to Smokey who smiled, chuckling. ‘That’s a good one, Silk. Smooth.’

  Koroll stamped his staff to the beaten dirt of the street. ‘The mistress must be informed that the Dark Taker has indeed entered Li Heng.’

  ‘I will inform her,’ Silk answered.

  Koroll nodded his great shaggy head ponderously. ‘Very well. We are done here. I go to summon Ho from his labours within the catacombs.’

  Silk inclined his head in farewell. The giant mage shambled off. Silk watched him go, trying to recall the words by which the old priest within had addressed him, but the foreign name escaped him. He turned to Smokey. ‘And you? Care to join me?’

  The fire mage brushed a hand along his oiled hair then pulled his long braid forward and examined the fine silver wire binding its end. ‘Naw. I’m late for a manicure and massage with a big busty Purge gal.’ He bowed, waved Silk off. ‘I leave you to it.’

  Silk answered the bow. ‘Until later.’ He turned and headed for the palace. Women, young and old, stopped to stare as he brushed by. Yet his thoughts were inward as he walked, and so he passed them by where they stood frozen in acts of laying garlands, or praying, or pouring milk over altars. He was off to see the Protectress of Li Heng. And thus, in his way, to offer up worship of his own.

  * * *

  North of Li Heng, a woman stood next to a smouldering campfire within a sheltered grove of poplars and alders. Her gaze was steady to the south. A frown of displeasure pulled her wide lips. She had been waiting within the grove for a full moon, and still each night she remained alone.

  Turning, she kicked at the dying embers. Moments later the swelling beat of horse hooves announced the approach of a troop of cavalry. She waited, arms crossed; this was not the company she wished for.

  The ten horsemen wore bright conical steel helmets and coats of mail beneath flowing robes dyed the green of the Itko Kan Southern League. Their leader dismounted, drew off his helmet, tucked it under his arm, and approached the woman, who had not stirred.

  She examined the officer’s youthful face – only recently bearing a wispy moustache – and saw no resentment or hostility in his gaze. Indeed, all she noted was a frank professionalism that was the hallmark of the academies of Itko Kan, and one explanation behind that city’s domination of all its many neighbours to the south.

  For his part, the officer took in her long wind-tossed black hair, the loose black silk pantaloons and shirt, her slim, strangely angled eyes and coarse wide cheekbones, and bowed deeply. ‘M’lady. You are unescorted.’

  ‘And what are the Kan Elites doing upon Hengan lands?’

  The young man offered a modest shrug. ‘The Seti have renegotiated their treaties with Kan.’

  ‘Been bribed, you mean.’

  Again, the modest shrug.

  ‘And now the Kan cavalry commands the central plains round Heng.’

  The officer bowed once more. ‘Effectively.’

  ‘Chulalorn the Third is a fool. He mustn’t attempt to take Heng. Many lives will be lost – and all for nothing.’

  ‘The king judges his strength sufficient.’

  ‘Not even the Talian Iron Throne challenged the Protectress. Heng remained a centre of free trade during the hegemony.’

  The officer nodded his agreement, but countered, ‘The historian Gudaran suggested it served the throne to allow it to do so . . .’

  ‘Gudaran was a creature of the court. A sycophant who kissed the Talian kings’ arses.’

  The officer coughed into a fist, reddening. ‘Well . . . m’lady is far more of a scholar than I, I am certain. In any case, you will please accompany us.’

  The woman hated coarse demonstrations, but understood their effectiveness, and so she indicated his helmet. ‘That is a handsome piece – may I see it?’

  The young man frowned his puzzlement, yet manners dictated that he must hand over the helmet. She examined it, turning it in her fingers. A turban of green silk encircled it and the sun gleamed from its polished iron surface.

  She grasped its domed top in one hand, and, squeezing, crushed it like a fruit.

  All colour drained from the officer’s face. He weaved as if close to fainting. She extended the mangled piece. Mechanically, he took it from her.

  ‘I choose to remain here for a time,’ she said. ‘You will tell your commanders not to harass me.’

  The officer nodded, swallowing, then bowed jerkily and withdrew.

  She dismissed the retreating officer and returned her gaze to the south. Behind her, the horses stamped the ground once more, and then galloped off. After a time she sighed and turned her attention to the remains of the campfire. She set her hands to her hips and glared about. ‘I have observed all the rituals!’ she called. ‘I have sat at the fire all through the night!’ She kicked dirt over the ashes. ‘Why won’t you come to me? What is it?’ She glared about once more. ‘Something’s going on. I sense it! Come to me, damn you!’

  * * *

  Iko tried not to display her disapproval of all she saw revealed in the streets of Heng, but it was hard. This was the storied meeting place of all the lands? The last of the independent city states?

  It was a pesthole.

  She fought to stop herself from covering her nose against the stink of close unwashed bodies, the stale coo
king oil, and the vile reek of excrement. Had they not heard of latrines in this benighted backwater? Kan carried its waste away in sanitary pipes of running water. Had they no such services here?

  From her side, Yuna shot a dark glare and Iko returned her wandering gaze to the armoured back before her as they marched the streets in rank: twenty of King Chulalorn’s legendary corps of Sword-Dancer bodyguards. All female. All virgin – though this particular detail Iko knew for a complete myth. All sworn to give their lives for his – and this Iko knew for a complete truth.

  The fine mail coat of her sister ahead shimmered and glinted in the sunlight as they filed through Heng’s jammed streets. The extraordinary slim length of their corps’ unique weapon hung down the girl’s armoured back, encased in its oiled wooden sheath, ready to be drawn free from over the shoulder. A blade whose secrets of manufacture were known to only a few mage-enchanters of Kan, and left the razor steel as pliable as its name: whipsword.

  Reflexively, Iko reached up the worn grip of her own blade where it jutted up over her shoulder. A grip familiar from a near decade of intensive – some said brutal and inhuman – training that began when she was taken aged four.

  A long drawn out snarled breath from Yuna brought Iko’s attention to the opposite shop fronts where a crowd of local toughs were shouting out what they would do if they had their own set of female guardians – and demonstrating with thrusting fists and pelvises. Iko rolled her eyes. Certainly some of her fellows succumbed to desire for their patron, but most saw it as compromising their hard-won abilities. And the shameful dismissal of those weeping moon-eyed few was lesson enough.

  Of course she knew the true reason behind her and Yuna’s poor humour.

  They were not at his side. He had sent them away on this political mission to the Protectress. A mission none of them wanted. Yet here they were, escorting some damned jumped-up Askan diplomat sent to deliver his terms to the oh so famous Protectress of Li Heng.

  Iko wondered if perhaps this Hengan witch would prove as underwhelming as the city itself.

  When they entered the gates to the palace grounds they acquired their own escort of Hengan soldiery. She and Yuna shared a knowing smirk at the puffed-up armoured fools; their banded cuirasses were antiquated, their shortswords effectively useless. Even their shields were rusty.

  Not experienced campaigners, these Hengans. Good only for hiding behind walls. Not like the Kanese forces. When his father took an arrow in the throat at the siege of Nex, Chulalorn the Third came to the throne as a mere lad of fifteen. Since then, over nearly two decades of constant warfare, he’d completed his father’s work of subjugating the wreckage left behind in the south by the collapse of the Talian hegemony. And so was an ancient political entity reasserted upon the face of the continent – Itko Kan.

  The tall doors to the palace itself swung open before them – if one could name such a plain heap of stone a palace. Given the polished marble splendour of Chulalorn’s own dynastic seat in Kan, Iko considered it an insult to the term.

  They advanced up a reception hall, parting a crowd of gathered city aristocracy and richer merchants, all present to welcome the emissary. Iko remained stony-faced, glaring straight ahead. At the far end of the hall waited their real objective. She sat upon a chair so blindingly white as to be glowing. Tall she was, and slim. Inhumanly so, whispered many. Itko felt her superior certainty slipping away. There she was. In the flesh. All agreed her the mightiest sorceress of the lands, the Protectress of Li Heng.

  Even from this distance the woman’s calm gaze seemed to whisper What need have I of armies?

  And arranged before her, the crowd a respectful distance from them, four city mages – each powerful enough to guide a kingdom yet gathered here in her service, as if to prove she feared no rival. Mountain-tall Koroll of Thelomen kind; wild-haired Mara whose magery could crush stone to dust; Hothalar in his bare dirty feet, who many claimed wielded the strength of a war elephant; and finely dressed Smokey, the mage of Telas, who burned the entire war fleet of Kartool as it approached Unta. And was paid handsomely for the service.

  No indeed. What need had Li Heng of costly and hungry armies?

  Like all of Chulalorn’s bodyguards, Iko had been briefed on Heng’s city mages, and so she wondered where the fifth was. The one who . . . and then she caught sight of him. Just now wandering in from a side door. Late on purpose perhaps? A half-smile played about his lips, as if to mock the pomposity of the occasion. He brushed a strand of stray blond hair from his face and Iko’s own hand twitched as if wanting to be the one to caress that lock. Somehow she knew that he wished to be here no more than she; that, in fact, just like her, he would rather be outside these miserable confining walls walking the open fields. And, amazingly, his gaze found hers among so many, and the eyes held a strange sadness, a mystery that only she could solve if she just . . .

  Iko bit her lip and tore her gaze away. Her heart was pounding, her face glowing hot. Gods! Such power! It was he. The fifth city mage. The one many considered the most truly dangerous of them all. Silk.

  Blinking and struggling to steady her breathing, she focused upon the emissary. The man was babbling on about ancient pacts and alliances between Itko Kan and Heng and how that old order had served them both so well. The Protectress sat radiating a neutral reserve and patience.

  Iko thought the audience a hollow pretence. If this woman did not bend to the Talian Iron Legions, she certainly would not yield to them. Yet the dance of diplomacy had to be allowed to run its course. Now she would thank King Chulalorn for his generous invitation to become his most favoured trading partner and ask for time to consider the documents.

  All this Iko took in with half an ear while she studied the hall’s entrances, its natural blind spots, the most defensible positions. Yet she could not keep her gaze from returning to the mages arrayed before the Protectress – skittishly avoiding Silk – for she understood that here was the real strength of Heng. A concentration of might few could match. What had Kan? Its Troika? Three mages? Not enough. Still . . . these could not be everywhere. It took soldiers to defend walls, to hold positions.

  ‘Might we,’ the Askan emissary began, unctuously, ‘offer the court some slight entertainment?’

  Iko groaned inwardly. A demonstration. How she hated their being trotted out like trained monkeys or dancing bears. She thought it frankly undignified.

  The Protectress nodded her approval and the emissary sent a glance to Iko’s commander, Hallens. ‘A cleared ring at the centre of the court, if you would please,’ the captain announced.

  The assembled city nobles and notables yielded to the request, shifting backwards amid murmurs of anticipation. The contingent of Sword-Dancers lined the border of the ring. To Iko’s relief Hallens did not pick her this time. Instead, the woman selected two of the ‘heavies’, the largest and most impressive-looking of them, Yuna and Torral. These two started forward, bowed to one another, and unslung their long whipswords, evoking a ringing, high-pitched note from the man-tall wavering razor-sharp blades.

  They began their dance. Each spun like a top, gathering speed. The blades began to flex, arcing round the women like whips indeed. Even as they spun, the dancers curled round each other, seeking openings. Now and then, utterly without hint or warning, their blades lashed out, snapping and whistling, but of course neither was touched as she leaped and ducked in this precisely choreographed set of attacks, counter-attacks, feints, and remises. The only sound now, other than the brush of the footwork across the polished stone floor, was the rising, ringing hiss of the keen blades themselves as they seemed to cut the very air.

  Iko had seen it all before of course, and was trained in this particular set. Instead she watched the faces of the onlookers. Their fascination and fixed attention satisfied her, for such a show was rare; one had to be a guest of the palace in Kan to even hope to witness it.

  The display ended very abruptly as in complete unison the two women suddenly knelt facing e
ach other, one hand on the floor, bowing. The audience was startled for an instant, but then applause began as Hallens circled the ring handing out long scarves of silk. She nodded to Yuna who stood and began to turn, slowly, the long blade extended, one-handed, at shoulder height.

  Hallens gestured in invitation to all. ‘Please, throw them in, if you will.’

  Chuckling, a noble threw his and as the cloth floated downward Yuna’s blade snapped out, whipping, slicing the scarf in two. Everyone applauded, marvelling at the demonstration. More cloths came floating out and Yuna’s blade snapped in all directions, each time unerringly finding its mark to multiply the falling scraps into multicoloured snow.

  ‘All at once!’ Hallens invited.

  Every remaining scarf came billowing in from all sides and Yuna spun in a blur, the blade hissing in circling arcs that parted every drifting scrap no matter how tiny, and Iko knew that one could spend the afternoon sorting through the litter and not find one cloth untouched.

  The hissing halted as abruptly as before as Yuna bent at the waist in a deep bow to the Protectress and held it, head lowered, the fingertips of her left hand touching the floor. In the silence following, the Protectress raised her hands and offered her gentle applause. The assembled nobles joined in, offering polite cheers as well. Yuna straightened, inclined her head in acknowledgement of the applause, and backed away to re-join the circle. Hallens signed for the Sword-Dancers to re-form their ranks.

  The Protectress applauded, Iko noted, but not her city mages. Not one of them clapped, or even altered their expressions throughout. Iko even thought she detected on Silk’s face a sort of bored resignation of the kind one might feel when forced to endure a child’s clumsy recital. The assumed superiority grated upon her. Were they truly so invulnerable?

  The Askan emissary’s bowing and fawning informed her that the audience was at an end. She and the other nineteen Sword-Dancers came to attention, offered a brief respectful bow, and began backing away. When they reached a proper distance they halted, parted to allow the emissary to pass between them, then turned and exited.