The Halls of Stormweather s-1

by Philip Athans

  Surprised, she looked about, and saw that Tazi had wrapped her in one of the sections of tapestry. "Somehow I could tell that you didn't want anyone to see your scar," the younger woman murmured.

  Shamur drew a deep breath, steadying herself. "Actually, I didn't want people to see all the bare flesh showing through what remains of my clothing," she lied. "But thank you."

  *****

  In the hours that followed, Shamur discovered that most of the aristocrats and lesser folk in the Palace and Garden had survived their ordeal with bodies and minds intact. Many of the changes wrought by the opera had reversed themselves when the music was interrupted. As she lingered in the foyer, which now served as a makeshift first-aid clinic, making sure that Quyance received proper care and credit for his help, Shamur realized how lucky she was that Tazi had covered her scar. Intoxicated with victory, she hadn't been thinking clearly, but now she knew she had no choice but to continue her imposture. Thamalon could still ruin the Karns. Moreover, if he disowned her, he could likewise have her children declared illegitimate, remarry, and start a new family. Sune knew, the old satyr was still capable of it, even in the winter of his life, and he'd made no secret of the fact that he was sorely disappointed in his heirs.

  She was equally fortunate that her fellow aristocrats had sat stupefied while she and Tazi battled Guerren's magic. They recognized in a muddled way that the Uskevren ladies had disrupted the spell but had no idea that they'd needed the abilities of accomplished swordsmen and thieves to do so.

  Oh, yes, she'd been lucky all the way around. Why, then, did she feel so empty and cold?

  Tazi brought her an inlaid silver goblet of mulled wine. "All right," the black-haired woman said. "Things have settled down, and if we speak softly, no one will overhear us. Tell me."

  Shamur arched an eyebrow. "I don't know what you mean."

  Tazi gaped at her. "You aren't still going to pretend that no one ever taught you to fight, or climb, or-"

  "I assure you, no one did. As I explained before, I simply did the best I could in a crisis."

  "Mother, please don't do this. Don't go back to being that starched, frozen creature you were before. I can't believe you truly want to."

  "I want to behave as befits my station in life. So should everyone. Indeed, I'd like you to forget all about my undignified behavior. Just as, I imagine, you'd prefer that I not inquire further into your facility with a lockpick. Nor mention it to your father."

  Tazi looked as if she couldn't decide whether to laugh or fly into a rage. "That's blackmail."

  "If you like."

  "Very well," Tazi said, glowering. "I won't talk about tonight anymore. Not even to you, if that's what you want. But I won't forget. I liked you tonight, Mother. I liked you and I was proud of you."

  Shamur felt the ice around her heart thaw a little. "I'm proud of you, too," she said, "even if I don't say so very often." She glanced across the chamber and saw Andeth's chamberlain handing the bandaged Quyance a purse. "Let's find the carriage and go home."

  THE HEIR

  NIGHT SCHOOL

  Clayton Emery

  A whistle was their only warning.

  Two whistles, one from either side under the dark trees.

  Instantly Vox and Escevar planted themselves to bracket Tamlin. Vox, old and huge and dark as the night, hefted a war axe while Escevar, young and fair, drew slim steel.

  "Is that some signal?" Tamlin fumbled for his sword hilt in the darkness. The trio could see lights at both ends of the path, for Twelve Oak Park crowned a small hill in the heart of busy Selgaunt by the sea. Yet right here, amid ancient oaks like stone pillars, they might have been stranded in some remote mountain pass.

  "Sounds like a shepherd's whistle." Escevar balanced a long sword with the point down and a smatchet, a thick-bladed hacking knife, with the point cocked up. The young men squinted to penetrate the dark night. Tamlin and Escevar were dressed in quilted silks and wool, flashy and fashionable, but the veteran Vox wore workmen's clothes and a black bearskin cape, almost impossible to see. Frost puffing at every breath, Escevar hissed, "We can-Look out!"

  The towering Vox grunted and chopped straight down with his long-hafted axe. The blade skinned flesh and chunked in dirt as some animal, fast and low and heavy, slammed into the fightmaster's leg and knocked him reeling. Vox's elbow punched Tamlin so hard the heir almost stabbed Escevar.

  In the vanguard, Escevar heard footsteps or hoofbeats pattering toward him. Then he was butted in the gut as if by a charging ram. Vicious teeth snagged folds of his doublet and ripped it clean away. The beast's breath stank like a cesspit. Escevar's exposed stomach felt chilled by the winter night, and the young man gulped, winded and worried: his skin would peel away just as easily. A dog's snarl made Escevar jump and cannon into Tamlin. Escevar jerked a leg more by instinct than training, and heard teeth clash in air. They needed elbow room to fight, thought Escevar, yet he and Vox had to protect Tamlin. A bodyguard's job was never easy.

  Angry and scared, the young swordsman flailed steel in a windmill pattern. A leftward swipe of the smatchet struck nothing, but his long sword kissed flesh. Yet Escevar was bewildered: the dog-thing had leaped in, bitten his doublet, then leaped out of sword's reach in an instant. What kind of dogs were that smart?

  "Let me fight!" Sandwiched, Tamlin couldn't even raise his sword. Stepping sideways, he picked up his sword tip to deflect an attack, then whipped his cape around his left forearm as a shield, forgetting he carried a smatchet, for they were newly adopted, the latest fashion in fighting.

  Tamlin felt Vox's big calloused hand swish for his shoulder. Vox's idea of protection would be to mash Tamlin to the path and straddle him like a baby while swinging his great axe two handed at all comers. Tamlin evaded his bodyguard's reach. He'd outgrown that kind of protection, or so he hoped.

  Crouching, unsure what to do, Tamlin waited for an enemy to blunder into his sword tip. Instead, silent and deadly as a crossbow bolt, a stinking dog-monster clamped onto his left arm wrapped in the cape. Tamlin whooped as he skidded on gravel and crashed. Yet even Tamlin, a poor fighter, realized the dog had jumped down from a tree branch. Maybe these weren't dogs, but flying-gargoyles? gremlins? what?

  Winded by the wallop, Tamlin was dragged across gravel by his arm. Instinctively he flipped the sword toward his attacker, unwittingly saving his life. The dog had let go of the cape to snap at Tamlin's face. Scant inches from the young lord's chin, the dog's teeth clashed on the steel blade. Growls turned to whines as its muzzle was cleft to the bone. Tamlin almost urped from the slaughterhouse breath, and the dog dodged sideways. Tamlin's own blade whacked him like an iron bar on his thick velvet hat. Blood started from a nicked chin.

  Disgusted by his ineptitude, Tamlin kicked viciously. His boot thumped muscle, but the dog disappeared in the darkness. Scrambling, with Vox's big paw yanking his shoulder, Tamlin gained his feet. "Nine gates to the night! We're lucky-"

  "They're all around us!" Escevar hollered. "Stand back to back!"

  Like dominoes falling in a line, growls and chuffs and snarls sputtered around the three nightwalkers. Then some unseen doghandler piped from the gloomy trees, a sharp whistle. With a collective roar, the dog-monsters leaped.

  The veteran Vox swept his long axe in a sidewide arc that kissed half a dozen dogs with cold steel. Without reversing the blade, he slung it backward and was rewarded by the meaty smack of the poll spanking a skull and breaking a jaw. A dog skulked low, and its snaggly teeth penetrated Vox's horsehide boot like hammered nails. Vox tugged his leg back to keep the dog hanging on, then kneeled hard on its back. Slapping his free hand on the axe poll, he drove straight down at the belly and felt the blade bite deep. The salt-sweet tang of blood mingled with the beast's open-sewer stench. Another dog snapped at Vox's shoulder, but the big man wore black bearskin in winter, and the dog tore only the cape. Vox shot the axe haft into its gut so it flipped and slammed on its back, kicking and whining feebly.

 
Escevar and Tamlin, veterans of very few skirmishes, fared less well. A jumping dog snagged Escevar's woolen cape, then hung slack to yank the young man down. Escevar was choked by his metal clasps until the soft pewter snapped. The surprised dog toppled backward, cape tangled in its teeth. Stabbing wildly, the hired man punched a hole through the cape and nicked the dog's breast. Another dog clamped onto his left forearm. Razor teeth sheared Escevar's calfskin glove and ground the bones in his wrist, making him shriek. Frantically he hammered his sword pommel on the dog's head, once, twice, thrice, but it wouldn't let go. Pulled to his knees, Escevar knew it would rip his throat next.

  Tamlin wished he'd paid better attention to Vox's lessons in swordsmanship. His cape was gone, ripped off by an unseen beast. Belatedly he remembered his smatchet and jerked it from his belt. Lacking finesse, he slashed the air with sword and smatchet, and hoped he didn't shear his own wrist. When Escevar screamed, Tamlin stabbed at the huge shape hanging from his friend's arm. The blade met flesh tough as rawhide, and for a second Tamlin balked, then shoved hard, leaning into the thrust. The sword grated on ribs, and only then did Tamlin recall a lesson: Never stab the ribs, because the blade might fetch up. Even as Tamlin remembered, the stricken dog dropped, the blade twisted and was trapped in bone, and the pommel ripped from his hand, gone.

  "Drat the dark!" burst Tamlin. "Vox will kill me!"

  "Lecture you deaf, more likely." Escevar hissed for pain in his shredded wrist. His smatchet dangled by a wrist thong. "Tam, you saved my life!"

  "Did I?" Tamlin was astounded. "Oh, it was nothing, old chap, I-Ulp!"

  For the second time, Tamlin crashed on his rump as Vox's brawny arm knocked him and Escevar sprawling. Tamlin glimpsed two huge shapes soaring down like catapulted boulders, then a silver gleam cut the starry winter sky. Tamlin gasped to see the fightmaster's feat, and thought yet again Vox must have orcish or ogrish blood to see in the dark like a cat. The two dog-creatures that had launched from trees were intercepted by Vox's silver axe blade. Both dogs were blown from the air by the heavy blade. Flesh sheared, blood cartwheeled, the dogs crashed to earth -Tamlin and Escevar were lifted bodily and shoved down the path. Vox couldn't speak, but his push spoke. Run!

  Clinging together, the trio trotted along the slippery gravel path. When the way leveled, they pelted headlong. Ahead the path forked around a shallow pool flanked by upright columns, benches, and flowerbeds: a summer place for parents and nurses to sit while children splashed. In winter the park was deserted, and the wading pool eerily iced over, gleaming in starlight. Over their panting breath and pounding feet the trio heard more sinister whistles sound behind. They imagined the rapid patter of dog paws drumming the earth. Tamlin was just about to ask which fork to take around the pool when Vox stumbled like a runaway horse.

  Knocked headlong, Tamlin and Escevar pitched over the pool's stone rim and slid on their bellies. Escevar hissed as his bare belly slithered across ice. Tamlin slapped down a hand to stop but still held his smatchet. The blade chipped ice, then grabbed so he described a wild, stomach-lurching spin. Flopping like a stranded fish, Escevar rolled until his sword hilt scratched a furrow with a teeth-grating skreeeeek! Both young men tried to rise but skidded and sprawled. Grunting, aching, freezing, they chunked weapons into the ice like crampons to drag themselves to the pool's edge.

  A one-man army, Vox stood, back against a stone fountain, and killed dog-creatures. His flashing axe walloped a dog's spine, crippling its back legs. It whined like a puppy. A backswing belted a low-flying dog from the air, and the return arc slammed another's skull. Snarling and barking, more dogs surrounded the colossus, yet they were savvy enough not to attack. Tamlin and Escevar grabbed the pool's stone rim as Vox again raised his axe Whistles froze the fighter. Different, these tones started high and sank low. Instantly the dogs scampered away. Tamlin and Escevar squinted but saw no mysterious whistlers, only hunched shapes that galloped amidst dark trees.

  Cat-eyed Vox saw more. Whipping his left leg forward, swinging his axe far behind, he slung the long weapon at a light-colored figure silhouetted by a dark trunk. Vox's companions heard the whap! of steel on flesh and a gargling cry. Vox was already running. Tamlin and Escevar raced after.

  Vox hunched over a stricken man whose breath gurgled with blood. The giant fighter snapped his fingers. Escevar pulled a magic candle from a pocket and touched the wick to steel. The paper-wrapped tube flickered aflame, and Vox snagged Escevar's wrist to bring the light close.

  "A hillman!" said Escevar.

  "We're attacked by barbarians?" puzzled Tamlin. "I expected plain-old city-bred thugs."

  Shaggy, cropped hair, a thick beard, and swarthy skin spoke of a lifetime outdoors. The villain wore a long homespun shirt and a laced vest with the hair still on. The hairy hide was a curious dark brown and thickened at his shoulders, giving him a humpbacked look. Vox's cruel axe had ripped the man's belly. Curled in pain, he spilled gallons of blood in a black pool.

  Squinting by candlelight, Vox searched at the man's throat but found no wooden or bone whistle, which meant the doghandler whistled through his teeth. The hillman carried only a short club drilled and weighted with lead and a long knife. A squirrel-hide purse dangled from his belt, and Vox used the long knife to cut it loose. Finding nothing else, the veteran spiked the man's windpipe and left him for dead.

  "You hardly need loot the man, Vox." Tamlin's voice shook. He didn't often witness death, and his bodyguard's simple savagery always startled him. "Leave the chap some coins so his kinsfolk can bury him."

  Glaring under dark brows, Vox touched his own forehead, then flicked his fingers away. He pointed to his eyes, then to the dead man, and spread his fingers wide. Used to the mute's sign language, the young men read Have you lost your mind? There's more to this assassination attempt than meets the eye.

  Moving on, Vox examined a dead dog-or dog-monster. Similar in shape, the creatures proved more squat than dogs, almost humpbacked, with short thick legs. Vox pinched shaggy fur, stroked his breast, and pointed at the dead man. The young men realized the hillman's furred vest was dog-hide. Square skulls of bone bore tiny lop ears and teeth like jagged glass. The rancid smell came from stale sweat, crumbs of dung, and fetid blood on their muzzles.

  A second carcass sprang a surprise. Bending, Vox unfolded a leather membrane that stretched from the brute's hocks to its hunch: a lump of muscle to power the stubby wings. Escevar tugged the wing and jerked a dead leg. "It's like a bat's wing! But flying dogs? I never heard of such a thing!"

  Vox yanked the wing to test the dog's weight, and found it heavy. He scooped a hand along the ground to say, More like gliding dogs. A quick check with the fading candle showed another dog had vestigial wings no bigger than a pigeon's, and a third had no wings at all. Then the candle sputtered out and plunged them into night.

  "They're not devil dogs, nor phantom hounds, from what I've heard in pubs," said Escevar. "Wheels of fire! This city's gotten stranger than usual lately. All kinds of oddities crop up!"

  "Blame the Soargyls and their necromancers," said Tamlin absently. "Should we alert the Hulorn's Guards?"

  "No. They'd ask a thousand questions and we'd have no answers. And I'm freezing." Between battle fatigue, a wounded wrist, shorn clothes, and a lost cape, Escevar shivered uncontrollably. "Let's get somewhere inside."

  "What about my sword?"

  A nudge from behind was Vox's way of saying, Leave it.

  Leaving the dead dogs and lone handler, they left the winter-dead park for lighted streets, and safety, and warmth.

  *****

  "Master Tam," piped the girl. "You're wounded!"

  "Eh? Oh, no, Dolly." Tamlin shrugged off torn clothes as the maid assisted. "It's Escevar who got hurt. I'm fine."

  "No, you're not." Despite the late hour and hushed halls, Dolly still wore her uniform and waited up for her master. In the Uskevren household, servants wore a blue shift under a white smock, a gold vest, and a gold turban that set off Dolly's
short dark hair. Laying Tamlin's clothing aside, she touched his cheek gently. The master started at a twinge, and Dolly's finger showed red. "This sword cut must be treated right away."

  Behind Dolly's back, Escevar and Vox rolled their eyes.

  "Sword cut?" Tamlin felt the wound, thrilled at a badge of honor. "My, my. Will it leave a rakish scar?"

  "Dolly, if it's not too much trouble?" Escevar hissed as he shucked his calfskin glove. Punctures in the crescent of a toothy jaw leaked red. "Could you summon Cale and his magic box of healing gook? While you dab Deuce's chin, they can lop off my hand and seal the stump with burning pitch."

  Thamalon Uskevren the Second, called Tamlin or Deuce, studied his chin scar in a silver mirror. Seven sleepy servants shuffled into the echoing hall bearing hot food, mulled wine, bandages, and fresh clothes. Newly built, Stormweather Towers already felt ancient with jumbled rambling rooms with lofty ceilings that ate any heat and stone walls that echoed every cough and murmur. A fireplace big enough to roast an ox was kicked up, and the three ramblers crowded to the blaze. Gratefully they gulped warm mugs of Usk Fine Old, the sharp and spicy wine that Tamlin's father had originated in his vineyard vats.

  Seen in firelight, Tamlin resembled his father, being middling in height and sporting wavy dark hair and deep green eyes. Escevar was rail-thin, red-haired, and profusely freckled, and looked underfed and twittery, which he was not. Vox was a hulk whose single black eyebrow and fierce beard hid a dark face that hinted at orcish or ogre blood. A black braid hung over his left shoulder to mask the white scar that had robbed him of speech. Hired years ago as Tamlin's fightmaster, Vox now served as his bodyguard. The foundling Escevar had been bought off the streets at a bargain, originally to be Tamlin's whipping boy and schoolchum, but now his companion, guard, secretary, and best friend.