Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1

by Ian C. Esslemont

  For a time Dorin peered down at the still form of Gren, stabbed through the neck, then he collected the pouch and turned to follow Pung’s trail. He jogged easily along, enjoying the chill clean air, so different from the city. It promised to be a clear day; good for a hunt.

  He shook timbers and pushed tottering walls to chase the man out of two hiding holes and urged him out of the township. Dorin followed him east through the overrun fields, on towards copses of trees that lined the north shore of the Idryn. A famous ancient stone bridge, he’d heard, lay somewhere east of here. The Kanese probably had it garrisoned.

  Best to get the fellow before he sought refuge. As he jogged along he eased his heaviest throwing blade from its sheath under his left arm.

  His quarry was stumbling now, exhausted, his shirt dark with sweat down his back despite the cold. He was babbling and sobbing as he staggered along. The stiff grasses, laced with frost, sliced at both men’s legs as they jogged.

  Dorin adjusted the grip of the weapon, blade backwards up his wrist, and drew back his arm just as a keening shriek tore the air above, making him stumble in shock. Pung, too, nearly fell, staggering sideways. Yet the dark shape that lanced from above did not miss. Talons spread wider than any hand-width clenched on the man’s head, tearing, and Pung howled, hands going to his face.

  Immense wings buffeted the air and the huge predator opened its curved talons, rose. Pung tumbled to the ground and Dorin slowed, his arm falling.

  Then Pung climbed to his feet, weaving and turning, and Dorin winced, looking away from the lacerated ruin of the man’s face, the blood dripping down the front of his shirt. He staggered off, blindly, numb with shock no doubt, and the dark shape circled above, falling once more.

  The King of the Mountains struck again, knocking his prey down with the force of his blow. The predator hunched above his fallen victim, wings spread, beak darting and tearing. Pung howled and fought, shrieking. Dorin slowed to a halt. He sheathed his knife.

  How long Pung writhed and screamed Dorin did not know, but it seemed a long time. Bones snapped in sharp cracks and flesh tore, ripping. Eventually the prone shape stopped flinching with every jab of the knife-like beak, and the great predator settled down to feed.

  Dorin stood for a while, his breathing easing. The cold wind chilled him. He reached under his collar and withdrew an object on a leather thong – a bird’s foot complete with its talons. He studied it for a moment before tucking it back into his shirt, and then he turned away and started jogging back to the city.

  Chapter 18

  THE MID-WINTER HAD passed yet the central plains of Quon Tali still lay gripped within an unnatural frigid chill, which troubled the Sister of Cold Nights deeply. The glacial frost was not of her summoning. It reeked of another Realm, and another kind, one she knew well and considered her cause. The extravagant and unpredictable Jaghut.

  The preternatural cold drew her to the wall of the Inner Round, to a section overlooking the Idryn. It was still the thick of night, just before the gathering of any predawn glow. A cloying mist had gathered in the low-lying quarters and now smothered the entire course of the river. It was no natural fog – it had been summoned from Omtose Phellack, the wellspring of Jaghut magery, and it hid things.

  Even as she watched, the Li Heng guards next to her squinting at the mists, oblivious, shapes came easing down on to the river’s surface and formed up into ranks, waiting.

  Her breath hissed from her at the scale of the puissance expended to bring this about. The river’s surface frozen overnight. A road to the entire city now open to the Kanese.

  It was a bid to end the siege and it was unfolding before her eyes. A gambit she could counter now in the simplest of manners. A few words to any guard; a summons of one of the city mages; a call to arms. Any of these could end the throw before it could be made.

  Yet she did none of them. She remained quiet, her breath pluming, her chest tense. For she had sworn a vow to K’rul not to interfere. And in return for that vow he had promised her that she may one day reach her goal – a goal that had eluded her for untold centuries. And so she waited, watching, while the fog coiled and thickened and the basso creaking and groaning of the ice increased.

  * * *

  Iko shuddered in her full-length mail coat. Despite the thick aketon underpadding, the surcoat and the fur cloak, the iron still bit where it happened to touch flesh. Not only was she frozen here on guard next to the river, she was also profoundly uneasy. They were nearly within bow range! It was outrageous. No prior king of this dynasty had so endangered himself. Yet here he was. Chulalorn the Third, encircled by his bodyguard, watching his plan unfold from the shore of the frozen Idryn.

  When she had been told the river was iced over Iko had scoffed. Who could believe such a thing? Yet here it was beneath their feet, clear flat ice like a pond’s still surface, while the river flowed onward unimpeded just what? Two feet beneath? It was sorcery, and the name connected with it made her flesh crawl.

  She flexed her grip on the cold coiled wire of the whipsword and clenched the other fist to her belt. Wincing, she tested the state of her ankle yet again. Every sister had been gathered for this mission and she’d been granted a brusque session with a harried Denul healer. Around her, all the Sword-Dancers who’d travelled north with the king now scanned the thick scarves of fog about them, uneasy, while within their circle the king stood with his generals, relaying orders and receiving reports.

  Not only did the name behind this sorcery trouble her; the very unleashing of the tactic worried her. For it was a truism of all the treatises on warfare and strategy that she’d read: just as the sword is answered by the sword, so too is sorcery answered by sorcery.

  And the Protectress was a byword across the continent as a sorceress beyond measure.

  What could Chulalorn be thinking? Was he discounting those old reports as lies, propaganda? And if Shalmanat should answer this in kind, what could she and her sisters possibly do to protect him?

  The ranks she could just discern through the unnaturally thick mist now began moving forward. They were advancing along the river’s course from the east and the west simultaneously, as she understood the king’s plan. They would march onward, ignoring the Inner Round and the other nested circles, to lay claim to the palace itself. Once the palace and the inner sanctum were taken the city would, in effect, be theirs.

  Unfortunately, this meant dealing with Shalmanat. And Iko had more than a suspicion of who would be handling that confrontation.

  So long as Chulalorn remained here, as far from the fighting as they could keep him, she would breathe as easily as she could. And so she continued flexing her grip to warm her hands, shifting her feet, and scanning the damned blinding fogs.

  *

  Silk was walking a patrol of the north Central Round wall. He was checking on the installation of siege weapons, catapults and onagers mostly, on this second to last defence before the palace grounds. The commander of the section walked with him. She was an older career officer who, from her obvious familiarity with the requisite engineering, had no doubt come up through the ranks.

  He felt at ease with this one: the woman was secure in her rank and competence and obviously cared nothing for Silk’s own putative position in the hierarchy of influence surrounding Shalmanat. She was also far older, close to retirement age, and so treated Silk as the mild inconvenience of a visiting dignitary come to inspect the works.

  Progress in said works, unfortunately, appeared painfully little. ‘Few are fully installed,’ he remarked to the captain.

  She took it all in her stride, her hands clasped behind her back. ‘We are short of everything, sir. Timber, rope, dressed stone, general supplies. Even labour. Especially labour.’

  ‘The city is full of citizens.’

  Quite heavy and squarely built, the woman pursed her thick lips. ‘Starving citizens who can barely lift a hammer.’

  ‘I understand. Do what you can.’

 
‘Of course.’

  Shouts sounded from the base of nearby stairs and the captain frowned her irritation. ‘What’s this?’ she called down.

  ‘Some drunkard full of fight, captain,’ a trooper answered. ‘We’ll send him off to dry out.’

  Silk stepped to the edge of the catwalk and squinted down into the shadowed street below. ‘Wait! What does he want?’

  Silence. Silk looked to the captain who shrugged her apology. ‘Answer the man!’ she bellowed.

  ‘Ah – he says he has a message, sir.’

  Silk waved his acceptance. ‘Let him up!’ the captain called.

  As far as Silk knew he’d never seen the disreputable fellow before. His hair and beard were tangled and wild, his clothes practically water-repellent in their greasiness, and he obviously hadn’t washed in a decade. He leered soddenly at Silk. ‘Pretty boy.’

  The captain raised a thick arm as if to throw a back-handed blow. ‘Show some respect.’

  ‘Message for the pretty boy,’ the derelict repeated, and he gave an exaggerated wink to Silk.

  Silk eased the captain’s arm down. ‘From who?’

  ‘Ah – that’d be from whom.’

  The captain’s arm came up again and Silk made no move to lower it. ‘Whom,’ he sighed.

  The man straightened, gave a mocking salute. ‘Message from Liss for the pretty boy.’

  Silk waited, then sighed again. ‘And the message . . .? ’

  ‘River’s frozen over.’

  Silk stared, nearly uncomprehending. The captain scoffed her disbelief. ‘That’s impossible. Never in living memory has it frozen over.’

  Silk thought of all the warnings. The hints and the predictions. Utter certainty hit him like a wave of dizziness and he nearly toppled from the wall. He pointed to the captain. ‘Ready barricades along the shore! Do it now!’ And he pushed past the foul-smelling messenger for the stairs and took them two at a time.

  The very quiet of the mist-choked predawn streets that he passed gnawed at Silk’s impression of certainty. How could it all be so calm? Why hadn’t he noticed any magery? Thinking of that, he raised his Warren as he jogged along then sent a portion of his awareness ahead, questing and sensing. He detected nothing. Nothing at all.

  Yet this reaffirmed his impression of warning. For in the past, whenever he’d happened to have his Warren raised near the river, he’d always sensed the alien aura of Liss. That alone was the main reason he offered her any respect – though it was thin and dispersed, and ancient-seeming, it was yet strangely powerful, seemingly everywhere.

  And now it was gone. Or hidden. Disguised by magics obscuring the river. Obscuring, more importantly, what was going on along the river. He slowed, listening. Had he heard something? He cocked an ear, straining.

  Noises came wavering to him through the dense drifting fog. The sounds raised the hackles on his neck and sent chills down his arms. The clash of weaponry and the yells of fighting. He ran on.

  *

  Someone entering his room awoke Dorin. Keeping himself completely motionless he opened his eyes a slit then relaxed: it was one of Wu’s lads. The boy lifted a foot to kick the cot but Dorin spoke up. ‘I’m awake. What is it?’

  The lad jumped backwards then swallowed, half bowing. ‘The river’s frozen, sir. And the Kanese are invading!’

  Dorin leaped from the cot. ‘What?’

  ‘’S true! I swear it!’

  Dorin was pulling his gear on. ‘I believe you. Where’s Wu?’

  ‘In his rooms.’

  ‘Good.’ Dorin waved the youth off and ran for Wu’s quarters.

  He found the young mage engrossed as usual in his drawings and shadow-staring. He wondered, briefly, whether the fellow ever slept at all. ‘The Kanese have frozen the river and are invading,’ he announced. ‘Heng might fall.’

  Wu did not look up from his sketching. ‘I know.’

  Dorin halted. He rested his hands on the parchment-strewn table. ‘What do you mean, you know?’

  The mage continued brushing with his charcoal stylus. ‘I mean I’ve been aware of their Warren manipulation for some time now.’

  ‘And you said nothing?’

  The young mage peered up, blinking. ‘Should I have?’

  ‘Well . . . yes.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Well . . . because I’d like to know what’s going on, dammit!’

  ‘Ah. Very well. I shall endeavour to keep you informed in the future.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Dorin straightened from the table, adjusted his baldrics. He picked up a drawing. It appeared to be a study of some sort of squat angular structure. ‘What is this, anyway?’

  Wu snatched the parchment slip from his fingers, snapping, ‘It’s not finished yet.’

  ‘Not finished yet? You’ve been at this all winter.’

  The mage tapped the charcoal stick to his lips, refreshing a black stain there. ‘I can’t quite see it clearly enough yet.’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘Shadow, of course.’

  ‘I figured that out. I mean what, exactly?’

  ‘If you must know,’ Wu began, loftily, ‘these are things I have glimpsed within Shadow.’

  ‘Hunh. Well, are you coming or not?’

  The mage narrowed his already beady eyes even further. ‘Coming? Coming where?’

  Dorin couldn’t believe the fellow’s obtuseness. ‘The invasion! The Kanese!’

  Wu waved him off. ‘It matters not to me. However,’ and he raised a finger, ‘it would serve us better if Chulalorn did win . . . all the easier to unseat a usurper, and so on.’

  ‘Easier to—’ Dorin studied the fellow as if he were mad. ‘You’re not still going on about taking the city, are you?’ Now he raised a warning finger, which he quickly lowered. ‘If you fill these kids’ heads with such impossibilities and they get hurt . . . I swear, I’ll come for you.’

  Wu waved him off and returned to his sketching. ‘I believe you were going . . . yes?’

  Dorin picked up another drawing.

  Wu tried to snatch the slip away but Dorin evaded his hand. This sketch was framed in a rectangular outline and featured a dense dark tangled mass of writhing shapes. Dorin turned it this way and that. ‘I don’t think much of your execution.’

  Wu darted out from behind the table to yank the parchment from his fingers. He pinned it to a timber next to dozens of other such sketches.

  ‘You sure you don’t want to come?’ Dorin asked.

  Wu sat heavily, frowned at the page before him. ‘Quite.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Dorin left to search for Rheena. He found her in the main common room where many of the lads and lasses ate and slept. He waved her over. ‘Keep everyone locked down. This has nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve called everyone in already.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’m going to keep an eye on things.’

  She tightened her lips in disapproval, but nodded. ‘Careful. And Wu?’

  ‘His head’s up his arse. You’ll have to organize a defence here in case troopers come looking for trouble.’

  ‘Looks like someone will have to.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He dashed from the cellar as she was saying something else, and didn’t quite catch it.

  *

  Silk came across Hengan troops defending a hastily raised barricade of overturned wagons and heaped warehouse bales and wooden crates thrown up across a major access to the riverfront. From the fallen and the wounded being treated it was obvious that they had seen some action, but there was no fighting at the moment. Silk called for the officer in charge and was joined by a young sergeant-at-arms.

  ‘Why are you not attacking?’ he demanded.

  The young officer flinched at his tone. ‘They are far too many, sir.’

  ‘Then why aren’t they attacking?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir.’

  Silk climbed the barricade, s
quinted into the heavy layered fog. ‘What’s going on? What could you see?’

  ‘They’ve formed shield walls defending the shore, sir.’

  Defending? Holding the river? Why do that when the streets lay open before them? He fought to penetrate the hanging mists but couldn’t be certain of anything. There was one way to illuminate the situation, but doing so would open him up to retaliation from whoever was behind this astonishing magery. He could get squashed for his trouble. Still, whoever was manipulating these forces on such a scale . . . he or she must have their hands more than full. It might be worth the risk. He readied his Warren. ‘Keep your eyes open,’ he told the sergeant. ‘Tell me what you see . . .’

  He raised his hands, summoned his energies, and sent a stabbing shaft of light streaming down and across the width of the river. He was too busy concentrating on his manipulation to study what the flash revealed. It lasted one instant and he immediately grabbed the sergeant’s arm and pulled him down with him. ‘What was there? What did you see?’

  The young fellow was blinking in the dark. He started, hesitantly, ‘A series of defences assembled against major accesses. Like outposts. But the majority were on the move – ranks marching west past us.’

  Past them? West? Deeper into the city? Why pass by unsecured sections? They could be cut off. It went against all military strategy that he knew of to expose one’s forces like this.

  His thoughts went to the city centre. The governing quarters, the palace and the Inner Sanctum, and his breath fled from him. Gods of the city! Unless one were making a throw for the seat itself. Why waste the lives of hundreds, nay thousands, in messy uncertain street-fighting when in one clean stroke one could take control of the city entire?

  He staggered from the sergeant, horrified by the vision. They meant to take the palace. They mean to take . . . his gaze shot to the tall single spire of the one tower rising into the night sky above the sanctum. Shalmanat!

  He turned and ran without any explanation, any word.