by Arthur Slade
One swan nesting next to the edge squawked loudly, and I froze, still expecting to be struck down. But she was only complaining to another mother.
I continued to pick my way over the twigs and branches and swan defecation (which had a horrendous stink all its own). Without meaning to, I walked directly into a swan. She batted me with her head, and I went flying. I skidded across the rocks and bird excrement and turned. The swan hadn’t moved from her nest. I guess she had shown me who the master was.
Stupid, stupid me.
Then I corrected myself. No. It was my missing eye that had caused the problem. It made it hard to see things on my left. I had gotten into the habit of holding my left hand slightly in front of me in case I misjudged a wall or a doorway.
I’d have to be even more careful. I had read all I could about egg stealing in the library before heading out on this mission. There was no easy way to grab an egg and run. That would set off an alarm with all the swans, and they’d poke me with their bills until I fled or was dead. I tried to think of how I could reach under one of the swans without being caught.
And then I saw, along the edge of the nesting grounds, an egg that had slipped out when a swan had moved in her sleep. I tried not to run toward it.
I prayed to the assassin god to guide my steps. Bodies from small rodents the swans had dined on crackled beneath my feet. But I kept my eye on the egg, pausing only to look left to be sure I would not bump another swan. The farther I got into the nesting grounds, the warmer it became. The larger swans were in the middle. They were the ones who had fought to have the best place for a nest.
I crept past them and kept going until the egg was within my grasp. I leaned down. The mother swan next to me was a smaller one, and she snored ever so slightly. She hadn’t even noticed the missing egg.
I glanced over the edge. A fall from these heights looked rather far, though it had been harder to judge depth since losing my eye. The egg had come far too close to rolling off the mountainside.
I reached down and set a hand on the egg. Oh, Maestru Alesius would be so pleased. I would pass!
The egg was warm. The swan inside was alive. I was sorry to take it, but it would be well cared for in our swannery. And, if I was lucky, it might even become my mount.
I stepped back onto the spine of a dead rat. It cracked.
There was a hiss of anger, and I turned toward the noise far too slow. The strike came from my blind side and hit me very, very hard in the chest.
I tumbled over the cliff, clutching the egg against me.
5
The Curious Echo
The drop was only a few feet, but hitting the hard surface rattled every bone in my body. The side of the mountain angled sharply downward, and I rolled and spun and banged uncontrollably, feathers flying around me. Even in my fear, I knew I looked stupid. Thankfully, no one would see me in the darkness.
And no one would find me if I bashed open my skull. Maybe my brother or Maestru Alesius would remember I’d left the fortress and discover my broken body sometime after graduation.
I lashed out with one hand, trying to get a handhold, but continued to tumble head over rear. Down. Down. Down. I kept smashing my way down the mountainside. At some point, the egg came loose. It must have shattered.
Along with my hope of graduating.
I might as well give up. But the slant grew slightly less steep, and eventually I could dig my heels into the stones, grabbing at little bushes. Finally, I came to a crawling, skidding halt.
I sat up, ever so slowly, expecting my back to be broken. It wasn’t. And as far as I could tell, neither were my arms, legs, or ribs. There was little left of my swan outfit, and the moonlight showed me wounds that glistened all along my arms and legs, but none seemed too deep. The biggest wound was to my pride.
At least I still had one eye.
That thought made me laugh. Out loud. And the laugh sounded odd. It echoed.
But not through the valley or along the cliff walls.
The echo came from much closer. To my left.
I squinted until I spotted a half-hidden cave mouth. It was large, but the overhang would have made it hard to see from above.
Something enormous and rotten was inside that cave, or there were several smaller dead things. Either way, it reeked of death.
But my maestrus had trained me in the butcher’s carcass pits near the town of Ogra, so the stink was nothing new. Part of my lessons had been to not gag when confronted by the odor of decomposing flesh. I had also learned what each smell meant, as well as how many days something had been dead.
I looked back up the slanted cliffside. There was no sign of the swan egg, not that there was any hope at all that it was intact.
I stood slowly and turned toward the cave. I lumbered closer, still aching, but I had enough strength to draw the dagger at my belt. The assassin smithies had forged it with black steel that didn’t reflect light. I stepped into the cave, letting my eye adjust to the darkness.
You’re being stupid, I told myself. Don’t go into the cave. I nearly said it aloud. But I’d come out of the swan nests with nothing at all. And maybe if there was something dead here, there would be some interesting bones to be ground for potions. Or a partly decomposed bear liver that could be dried and sold to Akkadian soldiers for good luck. They worshiped bears.
Or the smell could just be from a herd of mountain goats who died of yellow sickness.
Two steps later I saw a glint of chain mail.
It was on a dead man. His armor looked to be of Truskian make, but there were no signs of a regiment, which was why I decided he was a mercenary. By the state of the body I guessed he had been dead at least a fortnight. Judging by the angle of his neck, someone had broken it.
Next to him was a woman in similar chain mail. Only the best mercenaries could afford chain mail of this quality. That alone might be something the assassins’ smithies could use. The woman had been burned rather severely, and she smelled slightly of cinnamon. It made me think of Devil’s Fire, which used a cinnamon-scented incendiary. Had an assassin used the flaming liquid on these mercenaries? It wasn’t impossible. The fortress was quite close, so an assassin might have been wandering out on these goat paths. I tried to keep the hope down in my heart. If there had been some sort of battle between these mercenaries and an assassin, then there must be something in this cave worth fighting for.
And I really needed to bring an amazing object back to my maestru. I’d read about apprentices graduating with extra marks by presenting an ancient scroll or a magic ring.
The third body was not rotting because it had been burned to a crisp. No assassin could carry that much Devil’s Fire at once. I leaned down and touched the corpse, my finger prodding the blackened and surprisingly hard face. Then my finger poked clear though his cheek. Maybe his face wasn’t that hard after all.
If not for my training, I might have thrown up.
I moved my gaze over the man. His robes hadn’t burned, and that was very curious. They were likely the protective garments of an enchanter. But they still hadn’t saved him from the heat of the fire. I knew most of the wizards were dead or had fled Ellos to the unknown lands. All because the emperor had put bounties on their heads. So seeing a magic wielder was a rare sight.
“You’re too big to be a crow,” a male voice said. It was deep. I had trouble placing the speaker’s exact location, though it came from somewhere farther inside the cave. I hadn’t heard a movement. Nor had I seen any motion. “What are you, my feathery friend?”
I held the dagger out in front of me, looking right then moving my head farther to my left.
“A one-eyed crow,” he said. “Come for the pecking, did you? These idiots came for their pecking. And they got pecked.”
I still couldn’t see the man. He had to be huge judging by his voice—though small men could have big voices. If he’d killed these mercenaries, he had to be powerful too.
Yet, why was he still here? The m
ercenaries had been dead for weeks.
“You’re a quiet crow. I hear the quiet crows taste better.”
That made me shiver. Eating the flesh of fellow humans was completely against the laws of every kingdom. There were men who’d been lost at sea and cannibalized their companions. They’d been executed when they drifted back to shore.
Clink.
The sound of metal. Of something shifting. I’d heard that sound before, recognized it from the prisons in the assassin fortress. They had chained me and my fellow students in a cell as part of our classes so we could learn to escape the various types of chains and to pick locks. Real bound prisoners had also occupied the cell.
They chained this person in a cave. And despite that, he had managed to defeat the mercenaries.
Why hadn’t they just stood back and finished him with their bows and spells?
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Was he moving toward me? I stepped back, nearly tripping over the body of the female mercenary.
“Why so scared?” The man with the big voice was coming closer. Perhaps he still had the Devil’s Fire in his hands.
I reached into my costume, found a handful of dust, and tossed it in front of me. It was an old mixture, and I prayed it would work.
The moment the sand-like substance hit the air, it glowed brightly.
And leering at me, not blinded by the sudden light in the slightest, was a dragon.
6
Scales and Bones
And it was not just any dragon, though of course a dragon of any sort was frightening enough. It was a Scythian dragon. They were rumored to be the most intelligent. The strongest. And they could regenerate. If you cut off a leg or a wing it would grow back in time.
This was not a huge dragon, perhaps not much longer than twenty-five feet. It was lithe and had black scales and long, leathery wings. The chain on its hind leg led back to…
The light failed.
Then light returned. The dragon had snorted out a flame, and a little patch of clothing on the enchanter began to burn. It smelled horrible but provided me with enough light to see.
“You look surprised, crow,” the dragon said. A scar ran between his eyes and along his snout. “You were not expecting me?”
“No, I—I wasn’t. What are you doing here?”
“Biding my time.”
“For what?” I asked.
He moved his back leg, causing the chain to rattle. “For freedom. To be out of this stinking hole and winging through the skies again.”
Now that I looked at him, I could see that his ribs were visible under his scales. It had obviously been a long time since he’d eaten, but despite that, he didn’t look like the hunger had weakened him. He could gobble me up in one or two bites.
And I was standing right in front of him.
His face was expressive, eyes gray, intelligent, and penetrating. I searched my mind for what I’d learned about this particular dragon. All dragons were rare, but the Scythians were the rarest. That much I could remember. There was a story you could get three wishes from a Scythian dragon.
My maestru had taught me to be observant. The chain led to the cave wall, where it was bolted into the stone. The chain also glittered slightly as though it had its own source of illumination. It had to be magic. I didn’t think any normally forged chain could hold a dragon that long. There was a neatly piled collection of small bones behind him that I at first thought were the remains of children. I recoiled in horror. Then I settled my mind. No. They were of sheep and rabbits and other small animals. So, his captors had been feeding him. There was a stack of books next to the bones. Could this dragon read?
“You are spending a lot of time thinking,” the dragon said. “I grow bored.”
“How did you get here?”
“I believe the situation is obvious to any half-witted crow.”
The sarcastic tone actually made me angry. He was talking down to me! Then again, he was a dragon, and I was only a mere mortal.
“These men trapped you in this cave.”
He snorted tiny flames of derision out of his nose. “Any crow chick could come to that conclusion.”
“The bones behind you suggest you’ve been here for many days—weeks, perhaps. And the books indicate that you like to read.”
The dragon nodded. “Only fools hate reading. Plus, it passes the time. Keep going. Keep using your little bird brain.”
I pointed at the body in front of me. “He was a wizard.”
“Yes.”
“He bound you here.”
“He did.”
“And even though he is dead, his magic persists.”
“Correct!” He smacked his talons together, making a clapping sound. “He was a clever enchanter. He told me that his magic would continue for decades… but I had hoped it was a lie. If he wasn’t dead, he’d be getting the last laugh.”
“But how did they capture you?” I asked. I continued to breathe slowly through my nostrils. It surprised me how calm I was. All those years of meditating in a windowless room had paid off. But I also loved puzzles, and this was a fascinating puzzle. “They must have discovered you sleeping here.”
“I sleep with one eye open. It’s the only way to slumber in the human realms.”
I gestured toward the bodies behind me. “Then these mercenaries lured you to this cave. But what could entice a Scythian dragon?”
“We do have our bad habits. And it wasn’t a virgin sacrifice, in case you’ve come to that conclusion.”
I shuddered at the thought of that. “Gold?” I said.
The dragon laughed. “I can get as much gold as I want at any time. Just burn the guards off a treasure wagon and fly away with the treasury. Unlike you humans, I have no need for gold.”
“Did they use sheep?”
“Oh, don’t be stupid. I can eat sheep whenever I want. Crows are smart. I’m thinking you’re not really a crow.”
I glanced around me, taking measure of everything I could see. Bones. And books. And three dead bodies. I drew a blank. Think, Carmen. Think!
“You came here to learn,” I said finally.
The dragon smiled, showing long rows of glittering teeth. “You are not such a dumb bird.”
“Don’t call me a bird. And don’t call me dumb.”
“Oh, you are a touchy little featherling. Yes, they lured me here because they promised me ancient texts that I had not yet tasted. I wanted to know more, to understand deeper truths so I could return to my land with new knowledge. New power. And they used that desire for knowledge against me. They doused some mutton with a sleeping draught, waited for it to take effect, and chained me here.”
“But what did they want from you?” I asked.
“That, too, you should be clever enough to figure out.”
“Three wishes?” I said.
This time the dragon laughed so hard flames snorted out his nostrils. “What do those idiot maestrus teach you in assassin school? Folktales? Lies?”
“You know I’m an assassin?”
He sniffed. “You all smell the same. Like almonds, if you must know. But no, it wasn’t wishes they were after. That is an old, old story told by old, old men and women trying to scare grandchildren. It’s not true. No one and nothing can give you three wishes.”
“Then what was it?” I asked.
“I tire of this game, child.” He raised his neck, so he was looking down at me. “What I want you to do is to pick the lock on these chains and release me. And in return, I won’t kill you. Do it, now!”
7
Only One Choice
I recounted in my mind how many steps I had taken into the cave. Twelve. I was standing almost exactly where the enchanter had stood before the dragon had blasted him off his feet. Even the female mercenary behind me had still been in deadly reach of the flames. I would have to turn.
He would fry me the moment I turned.
I could slowly bend my knees and throw myself backward, hopin
g the flames would go above me. But I knew nothing about dragon flames. Did they come out in a straight line? Or spray in the shape of a funnel?
I went quickly through the few potions and herbs in my possession. Nothing. Not even an acid I could toss in the hopes of blinding him.
Jumping backward was my only option. I slowly, slowly bent my legs and tried to keep my nerves steady. “Why sh-should I help you?”
“Because you don’t want to die.”
I kept bending and hoping the few ragged feathers hid some of my motion from him.
“Well, I do prefer being alive,” I said.
“I can tell. Despite being one-eyed, you risked those nasty swans. And you look old enough to graduate from the assassin school. Not an easy task, I’ve heard. So, you are a survivor. And despite my teasing, you are smart. What’s your name?”
I hesitated. Had I read something about dragons and names? If he knew my name would he have power over me? I couldn’t remember anything about it. “It’s Carmen.”
“Carmen. Carmen. A good name. A hard sound in your name. A hard stone in your heart.”
“What does that mean?” I had managed to get halfway to a crouch.
“Something my mother used to say. I don’t know what it means. Mommy loved her little sayings.” He snorted out a little flame. “Well, Carmen, would you take some advice from a friend?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“I’ll give the advice anyway. Don’t leap backward. You are slowly bending your legs and thinking you can outdistance me. But you will be dead before you hit the ground. And then I will eat you. Medium-rare, in case you are wondering.”
