The Veiled Dragon h-12

by Troy Denning

  Jarvis missed a step and nearly fell, filling the stair- well with a ringing clamor as he thrust a hand out to catch himself.

  "Is something wrong?" Ruha found the guard's conster- nation puzzling. "Has she been here already?"

  Jarvis shook his head and smoothed his tabard. "I haven't seen the Lady Constable, but that doesn't mean she hasn't been here. She might come through the pas- sage from Moon Tower, and I would never know it."

  Ruha considered this worrisome possibility, then rejected it as quickly as it entered her mind. Had Vaer- ana already come and gone, she would certainly have left a message with the guards.

  Jarvis stopped at a landing and opened a doorway into the main part of the tower, where a short corridor led to a vaulted alcove that served as one of the fortress's exterior arrow loops. He escorted Ruha past three doors, two with loud rumbling snores reverberating through the wood, then opened a fourth. The chamber inside was as lavishly furnished as it was small, with wool tapestries on the walls, a true wooden bed, a small table with a pitcher and basin, and a stone bench built into the alcove of another arrow loop.

  Jarvis lit a tallow pot hanging inside the door, then stepped aside to let Ruha enter. "I'll tell Vaerana which room you're in."

  "That is very kind. And do you know Captain Fowler?"

  Jarvis's eyes widened slightly. "The half-ore?"

  "Yes. If he asks for me, please fetch me at ence."

  The guard nodded, then backed into the hall and pulled the door shut. Ruha sat on the stone bench and peered out the arrow loop at the side of a wooded hill.

  She leaned her head back against the wall and felt her heavy eyelids beginning to descend. She did not have the strength to raise them.

  Tang lay facedown on the dark mountainside, his toes kicked deep into the slippery mud to keep from sliding through the ferns down into the swamp. Though he had his palms pressed tightly over his ears, he could not shut out the voices of the dead. The spirits of his soldiers kept wailing at him. Their words were incoherent, but he knew what they wanted. He could feel their craving, deep down in his abdomen where his own shrunken spirit cow- ered like that of a frightened peasant. They needed him to look at them, to acknowledge the futility of their sacri- fice, to intercede with Yen-Wang-Yeh and tell the Great Judge that they had died bravely and well and that their mission had failed through no fault of their own.

  Tang could not bring himself to utter the prayer. To concede their valor was to admit he had suffered defeat at the hands of a barbarian; worse, it was to admit defeat at his own hands. When his soldiers laughed at him, he had let his embarrassment dictate General Fui's death.

  The price for that arrogance had been the failure of his assault, and the prince did not care to admit-to himself or his ancestors-that he been had such a fool. If that made him a coward, so be it; Shou princes were taught to be cowards, and forgetting that lesson had been the cause of his ignoble defeat.

  Tang's resolve only made the voices echo louder inside his head. He rolled onto his back and sat up. Midnight gloom filled the swamp below like a funeral pyre's black smoke, spreading an oily, clinging ink over everything it touched. The darkness was broken only by a faint fox fire glow that illuminated the floating corpses of the scream- ing dead soldiers.

  "Silence, I command!" Tang hissed. "Present your- selves at Ten Courts and leave me in peace!"

  A gentle sloshing sounded below. Something broke the surface of the black water, sending a crazy pattern of rip- pling, ghost-faint lights bouncing off invisible cypress trunks. Tang froze, praying the disturbance had been caused by a restless alligator.

  It was impossible to say how long the prince stared into the darkness. He was not conscious of breathing until long after the air had grown heavy with silence and the pond had returned to its glassy stillness. It occurred to him that the voices of his dead soldiers had fallen quiet; then he sensed a pair of long reptilian necks rising from the black water. He did not see the creatures so much as feel a pair of lighter, warmer presences among the cypress trees below, but he knew without doubt that his craven outburst of whispering had drawn the atten- tion of Cypress's wyverns.

  Tang had not expected the two reptiles to emerge froni the cave that night. They had both suffered a substantial battering during the destruction of the Shou assault party, so the prince had assumed they would lie up for the night and lick their wounds. Still, with a ready sup- ply of fresh meat floating outside their door, it was not surprising they had come out to feed. Tang was glad he had decided not to hazard moving at night. If the crea- tures had been outside when he started rustling through the brush, they would surely have killed him.

  No sooner had Tang finished congratulating himself on his wisdom than the ground trembled beneath his legs. He stifled a cry and, thinking one of the reptiles had landed nearby, reached for his only weapon, a pitifully inadequate dagger. Instead of feeling the sharp sting of a wyvern's tail barb, however, he heard a series of faint, muffled knells-such as a distant bell or gong might make.

  The tolling had hardly begun to fade before a loud purl rolled from the mouth of the grotto below. Cypress's form-a huge, shadowy darkness far blacker than the surrounding swamp-emerged from the lair and seemed to pause outside the cavern.

  The wyverns hissed in frustration and swam, rather noisily, back into the cavern. A loud, basal throb rever- berated through the swamp as Cypress's mighty wings beat the air. Visions of the dragon swooping down out of the darkness filled the prince's mind, at least until he realized the pulsing was growing softer and more dis- tant. The dragon was flying away.

  Tang sighed in relief, then kicked his heels deep into the mud and felt something slithering across his leg. The prince remained motionless until he located the crea- ture's head, then calmly grabbed it behind the jaws and flung the writhing thing down the hill. He had nothing to fear from snakes-perhaps from the spirits of his dead soldiers, whose voices were again filling his ears-but not from snakes.

  Ruha slept without dreaming and awoke sometime later, lying on the soft bed with the heavy woolen quilt pulled high beneath her chin. Her first thought was not that she usually took off her aba before sleeping, or that she never pulled the blanket up to her chin, but that she had slept the night away. She threw the cover off and rushed to the alcove, where, to her relief, she saw the treetops still dancing in silver moonlight. Only then did she notice that someone had removed her veil and real- ized that the tallow lamp had been extinguished-she could not have been asleep long enough for it to burn itself out! — and it occurred to her Vaerana had already come and gone.

  Ruha fumbled around in the darkness until she found her veil on the stone bench, then felt her way out the door, into the hallway, and down the spiraling staircase.

  Jarvis and his partner were leaning on their lances out- side the portcullis.

  The witch paused to put on her veil, then demanded,

  "How long have I been asleep?"

  Startled by Ruha's question, they whirled around with lance tips lowered. When she cautiously stepped into the flickering light of their candle, both men sighed and snapped to attention.

  "How long ago did Vaerana put me in my bed?" Ruha demanded.

  The two guards glanced nervously at each other, then Jarvis said, "Actually, I laid you in the bed."

  Ruha raised a hand to her face. "You removed my veil?"

  Jarvis looked first confused, then embarrassed. "The Lady Constable commanded me to-er, she said that you deserved your rest-"

  "Vaerana said that?" Ruha could hardly imagine those words coming from the Lady Constable's lips.

  "Yes, about three hours ago. She rushed up the stairs and right back down again." Jarvis glanced at his com- panion, then added, "She ordered me to see that you rested comfortably, and to tell you she would look in on you when she returned."

  "Kozah take her for an impatient she-camel!"

  Jarvis scowled at that outburst. "There's no need for calling names. She was only trying to
be considerate-and that's a rare thing for Vaerana Hawklyn."

  "It would have been considerate to wake me!" Ruha retorted. "She was taking advantage of my fatigue. How soon will she return?"

  Jarvis shrugged. "She was dressed for battle."

  Ruha cursed again, this time under her breath. "And what of Captain Fowler? I told you to fetch me if he asked."

  "He has not asked," Jarvis replied stiffly.

  Ruha sighed in relief. If Fowler had not come for her, she could still spring her trap. "I want one of you to come with me, so you can show Vaerana where I am hiding."

  "Hiding?"

  "It is for the good ofYanseldara. That is all you need to know, Jarvis."

  Ruha started across the drawbridge without waiting for the guard to agree. Before she reached the other side, Jarvis's heavy steps were booming across the thick planks behind her.

  "We're not supposed to leave our posts," he complained.

  "And Vaerana was supposed to speak with me before she left. Because she did not, we must now improvise."

  They descended the stairs and retraced the meander- ing path to Silavia's kitchen. With the door and shutters all closed, the place looked as dark and silent as the other sheds built along this section of the wall. Wonder ing how those inside could tolerate the cloying smell of vlang oil without opening the windows, Ruha slipped beneath an unruly wax myrtle. She settled into a hiding olace so deliberately uncomfortable that she would not fall asleep, then sent Jarvis back to Pearl Tower.

  A long, bone-aching time later, Ruha began to debate the wisdom of going to check on Tombor's progress. She had expected it to take him quite some time to press all eight sacks of ylang blossoms, but the first gray hint of false dawn had already appeared in the eastern sky.

  Household servants were beginning to trudge about their morning tasks, and it would not be long before some passing groom or maid discovered the witch lurking in the bushes.

  Ruha heard the crunch of heavy boots coming down the path. She backed out from beneath the wax myrtle and saw Jarvis and Vaerana approaching. All thoughts of chiding the Lady Constable about last night's departure quickly vanished from Ruha's mind. Vaerana was limping badly, with one arm hanging slack at her side and the side of her face so swollen it looked as if she had been kicked by a horse. What remained of her tattered jerkin was black with half-dried blood, and even her boots looked as though someone had tried to cut them off her feet.

  "What happened to you?"

  Vaerana squatted beside Ruha. "Ambush." The word came out mushy and difficult to understand. "They were waiting."

  "And I know who told them you were coming." Ruha resisted the temptation to point out that Vaerana could have avoided the beating by awakening her last night.

  "The Cult of the Dragon has a spy inside Moonstorm

  House."

  A murderous glint flared in Vaerana's eyes. "Who?"

  Ruha pointed toward the kitchen, where a pair of scullery wenches were just entering the door. "The spy will reveal himself soon enough."

  Vaerana's hand drifted toward the blood-smeared hilt of her sword. "What's the sense in waiting? Let's get him now."

  Ruha laid a restraining hand on the Lady Constable's arm. "Wait. He is going to lead us to the dragon's lair

  That's what I was trying to tell you last night."

  Vaerana scowled. "Then why didn't you?"

  "Because I would have ruined the trap," Ruha explained. "The traitor was-"

  The witch was interrupted by a muffled shriek from inside the kitchen. The door burst open and both scullery wenches came rushing outside. One woman held her hands over her mouth, while the other waved her arms at the door and yelled incoherently. With a sinking stom- ach, Ruha leapt up and raced toward the shed behind Vaerana and Jarvis. Vaerana pulled the crying wench out of the way and led Jarvis and Ruha into the kitchen.

  The room was as dark as pitch, for all of the candles and tallow lamps had been extinguished. The cloying perfume ofylang blossoms lingered in the air, though not heavily enough to disguise a coppery, more familiar scent: blood. A few steps inside the door, the Lady Constable suddenly stopped and squatted on her haunches.

  "Fetch a light."

  As Jarvis left to do his mistress's bidding, Ruha knelt close to Vaerana and ran her hands over the floor. It did not take long to find Silavia's plump, cool body lying face- down on the wooden planks. There was a soft, sticky mess where the back other head should have been.

  "Who did this?" Vaerana demanded.

  "A cult spy." Ruha no longer felt any joy in her coming vindication, in large part because they were going to find another body in the kitchen and she knew who it would be. "This is my fault. Had I not fallen asleep-"

  "This is no time for blaming yourself!" Vaerana snapped. "Just tell me about this spy."

  "There were only two people in the kitchen with Silavia: Tombor and Fowler."

  "You think Tusks did this?" Vaerana scoffed. "And I was beginning to think you might not be such a bungler!"

  Ruha bit her tongue. A sharp retort would do nothing to bring Fowler back, and even less to convince Vaerana ofTombor's betrayal. The Lady Constable would realize the truth for herself soon enough.

  Jarvis returned with a lit candle, which he promptly used to find and light several tallow lamps. As the flick- ering light illuminated the room, it became apparent that Silavia had been struck down as she fled, for she had left a short trail of bloody footsteps behind her. The rest of the kitchen looked normal enough; there were no tables overturned, the room was not strewn with uten- sils, and the walls were mercifully unspattered with blood.

  Ruha took Jarvis's candle and led the way toward the pantry. The oil press was not on the table where it should have been, but she quickly forgot about that as she stepped around the corner of the table and saw Fowler's stout body sprawled on the floor. The captain was lying amidst a pool of dark blood, with the handle of a long butcher knife protruding from the middle of his back. His neck was turned at an impossible angle, and his astonished gray eyes were staring straight ahead. Vaerana slipped past Ruha and crouched down beside Fowler. "So much for your spy."

  "I did not say that Fowler was the spy." Ruha's tone was sharper than she intended, for she was boiling over with anger and guilt. "I was speaking of your friend, Tombor the Jolly."

  Vaerana's jaw dropped. "You think Tombor…?"

  Ruha nodded. "He was the only one in the room."

  The Lady Constable rose, shaking her head. "Not Tombor. He saved-"

  "I know; he saved you from the cult's assassins, more than once." Ruha paused, giving Vaerana time to draw her own conclusions. When the witch saw no sudden gleam of understanding in the Lady Constable's eyes, she said, "The attacks weren't real. They were a trick to win your confidence."

  A look of humiliation flashed across Vaerana's face, but it vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. "You don'tknow that."

  "Don't I?" Ruha waved her hand around the kitchen

  "Where are the ylang blossoms?"

  Vaerana's gaze roamed across the chamber, her com- plexion turning as white as alabaster when she did not find the eight bulky sacks. Finally, the Lady Constable whirled on Ruha.

  "You knew he would steal the blossoms-and you let him?" Vaerana looked almost relieved to have someone upon whom to vent her anger. "You let him kill Fowler?"

  "I did not let him kill anyone!" the witch snapped

  Vaerana's words hurt more than they should have, perhaps because Ruha feared there was more truth to them than she would have liked. "I had hoped we could follow him to Yanseldara's staff-which we might have done, had you bothered to awaken me and hear my plan!"

  Jarvis interposed his armored bulk between the two women. "Tombor was gone by then. I doubt he stayed much longer than it took him to kill the half-ore and Silavia."

  Ruha turned to the empty table and, seeing no mess upon the surface, nodded. "He was in a hurry to get out of here. He took the oil press with him."


  "The press maybe, but not even Tombor could sneak eight sacks of ylang blossoms out the gate," said Vaerana,

  "The sentries would ask too many questions. They saw what you went through to bring those sacks to us."

  "Perhaps he took them out some other way," Ruha sug- gested.

  "Yes, and I think I see how," said Jarvis. The burly guard took Ruha's candle and went to the back wall, where a mass of roofing straw lay scattered around a butchering bench. He climbed onto the table and stuck his head up between the rafters, then raised the candle hieh enough to illuminate his shoulders sticking up through a hole in the roof. "He climbed onto the roof and threw the sacks over the wall."

  "Fowler's tnck!" Ruha gasped.

  A long, heartsick groan slipped from Vaerana's lips.

  She hung her head and braced her hands on the table edge. "I failed her."

  "Not yet." Ruha went to the Lady Constable's side and, rather uncertainly, laid a hand on her shoulder. "Tombor took the wrong blossoms."

  Vaerana raised her brow. "The wrong blossoms?"

  Ruha nodded. "The ones Tombor took were only bait.

  They were picked in the evening, and they are not potent enough to serve the dragon's wishes. Cypress needs blossoms picked in the morning, and those remain at the Ginger Palace."

  Vaerana stood up straight. "Then what are we waiting for?" She turned to Jarvis. "Find Pierstar and tell him to call out the Maces! We've got a palace to storm!"

  Ruha caught Jarvis's arm. "That won't be necessary. Minister Hsieh has promised to give us the blossoms, in exchange for returning Lady Feng to him unharmed."

  "How are we going to do that?" Vaerana demanded.

  "Isn't she with Yanseldara's staff in Cypress's lair?"

  Ruha nodded. "When we recover one, we rescue the other. It costs us no extra effort."

  Vaerana considered this for a moment, then scowled.

  "That'd be fine-if we knew where to find the lair. And since you were trying to trick Tombor into leading us there…"

  Ruha raised a hand to silence Vaerana. "There may be another way. In my room, I have a potion. If we can get