Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  Smim sighed deeply, strode to the door, and opened it with an extravagant bow. “You seem awfully fond of that particular threat, my Lady. Do you suppose they’d actually do it?”

  She swept into the room in a flurry of scarlet and gold, scarcely glancing at him, though whether that was a sign of distraction or merely her surprised repugnance at the unkempt state of the chamber he couldn’t say. “With my rank and title, they’d have little choice but to obey. Where’s Nycos?”

  “I fear the master is out on a personal errand. If you wish me to tell him you called, or deliver a message, I shall be delighted—nay, honored!—to pass along—”

  “Oh, stuff it, you obsequious little toad.”

  “As you wish. If my Lady would just enlighten me as to what, precisely, I’m to stuff, and where—?”

  “I’m actually glad he’s not here,” she admitted. “It saves me from making up excuses. I want to speak to you.”

  That, finally, caught Smim sufficiently by surprise to shut him up.

  Mariscal found a chair that met her standards of cleanliness, and planted herself in it. Then, after a moment and a cloudy expression, she rose and moved to the table, poured herself a drink, and returned to her seat. Apparently doing it herself was less offensive than having the goblin touch the goblet she meant to sip from.

  I should tell her I pissed in it, the haughty snot.

  “Smim, was it?” she asked, idly swirling the brandy.

  “It was. Indeed, it still is.”

  “I apologize for my earlier words. You’ve been nothing but a loyal servant to Nycos, and you deserve better treatment than that.”

  Shocked to the core of his being, Smim found himself so completely paralyzed he actually wondered, for a maddened instant, if he might have died.

  “What happened to him out there, Smim?”

  Oh, shit. And just like that, he could move again. “You… heard his tale, my Lady. When he addressed the court. He—”

  “Yes, yes, I heard all that. It explains nothing! This man who’s been brooding and snarling about the palace isn’t my Nycos, though!”

  You’ve no idea. Also, “my Nycos”? Interesting…

  “Something is very wrong. I don’t know what he was like when you met him, but this, this isn’t him!” She swallowed once, continued. “Something happened to him, something he won’t tell me—us. So I need you to tell me.”

  What was he to say? That the dragon who’d taken the man’s form was in deep mourning, deep despair, for the death of his only hope? That the notion of a life trapped in an inferior form among inferior beings was eating away at Nycolos’s soul?

  Or what of Smim’s own theories, that there was more to the master’s suffering and behavior? That Nycolos was behaving sullenly and temperamentally, even immaturely so? Smim had slowly grown convinced that the master was battling not merely his circumstances, but his body. The thoughts, the feelings, the urges and needs that lurked in the minds and roared through the blood of all humanoids, that peaked in adolescent years, that all adults—human, goblin, and other—had spent their lives learning to deal with? These were all brand new to Nycolos, who had only a few months’ experience with them. Frankly, that things hadn’t gotten much worse much sooner was a testament to the master’s iron will.

  Put a sparrow’s soul within a wolf’s body, how long would it take for the sparrow to become a predator, or cease trying to fly? How long would that conflict rage? Yet that was a far nearer match, in many respects, than what Nycolos must now struggle to reconcile.

  None of which, even had he been utterly certain, even if it were more than his own hypothesis, could Smim possibly tell the woman.

  Mariscal had read meaning in his pause, however, in his posture. “You do know something!” she declared, leaning sharply forward.

  “Obviously, Master Nycolos did not reveal every detail of his—our—journey,” the goblin said carefully. “Nor of our tribulations. If he chose not to speak of something, however, we must trust that he has his reasons. Or at least I must. I suppose you’re free to trust or distrust whatever you choose.”

  “Smim—”

  “But it is not my place to reveal his secrets, if any. I’m sorry, my Lady.”

  “I could make you talk, goblin. We have methods, techniques. We prefer not to resort to such measures. They’re… unenlightened. But that doesn’t mean we won’t. And I imagine his Majesty would prove far less reluctant where a creature such as yourself is concerned.”

  Smim felt his stomach turn over, his knees turn liquid, but he forced himself to remain steady. “And how do you imagine the master would react to that, when he learned of it? When he heard you had such little regard for his friendships, and his word, that you did that to me when he has already declared me a vassal under his protection?”

  Mariscal squeezed and bunched a handful her skirts in both fists until it seemed the wrinkles and creases were indelibly pressed into the rich fabric. Then she rose and made to leave, halting only as she reached the doorway.

  “There are those in Oztyerva,” she said without looking back, “who believe you are somehow responsible, in whole or in part, for the change in Nycos. That you have some hold over him, or serve someone who does.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Smim said.

  “I don’t believe that’s so,” she admitted. “But if I’m wrong, if I learn there’s the slimmest truth to it, or discover evidence to suggest that it’s true, I will have you put to slow torture. Your death will be long and ugly, and damn the consequences. You understand?”

  The goblin swallowed, hard, and hoped she hadn’t heard it. “I do.”

  She was gone. Smim lunged for the door, slamming and latching it, and then sank to the floor with his back against the portal.

  I’ve no idea where you are, Master, but it will be far better for the both of us if you aren’t gone long.

  ___

  The group’s gathering spot—it didn’t seem worthy of so grandiose a term as “headquarters”—was a back room in someone’s house. A cheap, ramshackle structure standing alongside a filthy street among other cheap, ramshackle structures, it hunkered against the chilly breeze and faint drops of a late night shower. Nycolos guessed it belonged to the White Knife leader, a squat, pale-skinned, tattooed woman named Samsa, though he supposed it could just as easily have been one of the other members’ home.

  The White Knife, as he had picked up from Xilmos on route, and then from everyone else’s hushed conversation once they’d arrived, was a small gang of criminals. Thugs, robbers, occasional purveyors of illegal goods, pimps and prostitutes, and so forth. Unimportant and unimpressive, but apparently worth fighting over, as the White Knife currently waged a territorial war with a rival band of riffraff calling themselves the Fletcher Street Wolves.

  None of them had been thrilled to see Xilmos show up on their doorstep with a stranger, though his tale of how “Nycos” had saved his life seemed to soften their distrust. Not entirely, though, and in no small part because they refused to believe some of the more outlandish details.

  “Swear to us,” Samsa had demanded, “that you won’t reveal to anyone what you learn here.”

  “Or?” Nycolos had asked, his tone amused.

  “Or you’re a dead man.”

  She and the others had recoiled at his cold laughter, and gone off to the other end of the room to discuss further. Nycolos, who could of course hear every word, had brushed aside a stack of dirty clothes, on which had lain a small collection of cheap jewelry—stolen, no doubt—and sprawled tiredly across the sagging, beetle-eaten old cot doubling as a sofa.

  He eavesdropped for a time, chortling to himself when Xilmos argued that the White Knife should try to entice him to join them—Nycolos couldn’t even begin to imagine what they had to offer him, beyond a place to sleep for the night—and then rolled over to face the wall in hopes of drifting off.

  And he’d almost done just that when a particular overheard word made his eyelid
s snap open.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, turning over once more to face the others. “But who are these ‘Creeping Dragons’ you’re speaking of?”

  “How in God’s name did you hear that?!” Samsa demanded, her tone shrill.

  “I told you he had some kind of magic!” Xilmos crowed, though he frowned right after. “But how’ve you never heard of the Creeping Dragons?”

  “Just accept that I haven’t and answer my question.”

  It was Samsa who did so, albeit uneasily. “The Creeping Dragons are… I guess you’d call them a thieves’ and smugglers’ guild, but bigger. They operate in a bunch of cities, in a couple different kingdoms.”

  Creeping Dragons. The Dragon River. What is it with humans and that word?

  Although I suppose we are impressive…

  “And their involvement in this is what?” he pressed, though he’d already begun to lose interest again.

  “The Wolves are trying to prove themselves worthy of working for the Dragons,” Xilmos said. “Maybe even take over managing their interests in Talocsa.”

  If the Fletcher Street Wolves are as unimpressive as you silly creatures, I doubt that’s probable.

  “We think that’s why they were willing to grab Xilmos in the middle of the day like they did,” one of the others chimed in.

  “And why they’re so eager to finally get us out of the way,” Samsa said.

  Because you lot are such a threat.

  At a whisper and a nudge from Xilmos, she added, “And why we could really use someone with your talents working with us. If you can really do what he claims you can.”

  Nycolos hadn’t yet decided whether to explain that he had no intention of throwing in his lot with theirs, or whether to simply laugh in her face again, when the faintest scrape from above caught his attention. It was barely there, far too soft for anyone else to have heard.

  He cocked his head, focusing, and now that he made a point of listening, he sensed this was no mere animal, no branch swaying against the rough shingles in the wind.

  “I would wager,” he said, “that’s also why they’re creeping around on your roof right now.”

  He’d give them credit for this much: Nobody hesitated, nobody asked how he might possibly know or pelted him with inane questions, nobody panicked. Everyone present either rose or dropped, as appropriate, into a fighting stance, producing small blades and similar weapons from the folds of their clothes and all corners of the room. Several sidestepped so they stood back to back, while others leapt atop or crouched beside the furniture, well away from the door and the boarded windows.

  Perhaps the White Knife didn’t consist solely of idiots after all.

  Whether they’d heard their prey readying for battle or because their timing was simply that dramatically appropriate, the Fletcher Street Wolves chose that moment to burst inside. Some had crept up on the house from the streets, others swung down from the roof on frayed hempen rope, boards and shutters cracking inward before their bootheels. They looked… Well, they looked, to Nycolos, like the same sorts of unimportant street thugs as their White Knife rivals. The only difference was the mantle of grey-dyed fur each of them wore on their shoulders, presumably a badge of membership. Their enemies were probably meant to assume those were wolf pelts, but Nycolos spotted, and smelled, much dog and other animal fur, with only a few traces of genuine wolf to be had.

  He never did learn, nor did he much care, how they’d found the heart of the White Knife, a secret Samsa and her people had kept for years. The Wolves outnumbered their enemy, but not by much; the battle might, had this been a normal night, have gone either way. The scourge of Fletcher Street had not, however, come alone.

  When every member of the White Knife present had turned to face the enemies barging in through the windows, the door to house shivered and cracked, sundered by a single mighty blow. The man who stood beyond was one of the largest humans Nycolos had seen in all his many centuries, topping seven feet in height and still abnormally broad of shoulder. Muscles bunched visibly across his chest as he spun, in one hand, a great double-headed axe that most people could scarcely have lifted with two. The grin that split his wild beard was savage indeed.

  They called him the Black Bear, Nycolos would later learn: an infamous killer-for-hire who had learned to fight as a gladiator-slave in the slum-cradled arenas of Mahdresh. The White Knife could never have gathered the resources to hire him, and the Wolves shouldn’t have been able to, either. The Fletcher Street criminals must have gone all-out, pouring everything they had into one lightning-swift strike to take down their rivals and impress the Creeping Dragons. The Bear’s appearance alone set several of the White Knife to trembling, to lowering their blades as though they’d lost all hope of fighting back.

  Nycolos roared and leapt to meet him.

  The two ferocious shapes met in the center of the chamber, White Knife and Fletcher Street Wolf alike scrambling from their converging paths. Met, and it was Nycolos, much to his astonishment, who came out second-best in that initial clash. He felt himself hurtling back, a sharp and pounding ache in his ribs, to crash against the cot he’d so recently vacated.

  It wasn’t that the Black Bear was stronger than he. So far as he knew, no human could be, though this one came closer than most. The man was fast, remarkably so, but again he was only human. No, he was clever, cunning. Nycolos had been so focused upon that massive blade that he’d never seen the kick coming.

  And it hurt. A lot. Anyone else would be dead, or at least bleeding to death on the inside, ribs crushed, organs battered. Had the blow impacted against Nycolos’s old wound, jarring the sliver in its cocoon of scarred flesh, he might have been, too.

  As it was, he stood from the overturned cot, brushed himself off, and nodded to the Black Bear. “First round to you.”

  Gasps sounded from both gangs, and the behemoth’s expression grew uncertain.

  He took the opportunity granted by that instant of hesitation to concentrate on his chest, allowing the skin beneath his tunic to harden beyond anything remotely human, taking on a deep wine hue and the consistency of scales. His goal was solely to guard his lingering injury; for the rest of his body, he didn’t bother. No, he didn’t want the people here to know of his abilities, but more to the point, against a direct blow from that axe, no protection he could manage in human shape would suffice. His only defense was not to get hit.

  The skirmishes that had begun between White Knife and Fletcher Street Wolves ceased as everyone in the room stepped back to watch, knowing full well that victory or defeat—life or death—hinged on what was about to happen between the outside champions of both sides.

  The axe whirled in great but swift arcs, first from this angle then from that, horizontal, diagonal, vertical, each capable of punching deep into Nycolos’s body or taking off a limb. For a time he merely avoided the cleaving blade—and the sporadic punch or kick or grab, now that he was wise to the Bear’s tricks. He ducked, weaved, twisted aside, drawing upon his impossible speed, watching for his foe to fall into a predictable pattern or reveal an exploitable weakness in technique. Furniture shattered beneath the axe as they moved about the room, Nycolos slowly giving way, but never was the impact enough to slow the killer’s momentum, and no opportunity appeared.

  So he’d simply have to make his own.

  When next the Black Bear lunged and the axe whistled near, Nycolos didn’t just flow aside but leapt back, hard. His momentum carried him several steps from his foe, to land beside the circled audience of criminals.

  He spun, fingers closing tight on the tunic and belt of a startled Fletcher Street Wolf. The young thug drew breath, but the gestating words or shout or scream never saw birth.

  Nycolos jumped yet again, kicking his legs over and out, spinning flat and horizontal in the air, dragging the other with him. At the height of that spin, he released the Wolf, hurling him away.

  Perhaps the Black Bear meant only to protect himself from being flattene
d by the flying man. Or maybe, not caring which faction the living projectile might belong to, he’d sought to cut him out of the air. Either way he brought his axe in line, but lacked the time for a full swing. The Wolf died, split upon that massive blade, but not fully bisected. Lodged in muscle and bone, the weapon required an extra heartbeat or two to recover, to raise and ready to strike once more.

  All the time Nycolos required to close.

  A second pair of fists closed on the haft of that monstrous weapon, two fearsome tugs in opposite directions holding it as still as if it supported the weight of the sky itself. Nycolos was the stronger; the Bear was the larger, exerting greater leverage and holding the better placed, more secure grip.

  They glared, watching, never blinking, sweat breaking out across reddening faces. The audience around them, and it seemed even the chamber itself, all held their breath. Each time one of the combatants took a step, hoping to break the stalemate, the other followed, maintaining the struggle. Sporadically the weapon would shift, half an inch closer to one combatant or the other, and then surrounding lungs would remember to breathe in quick, explosive gasps.

  The Black Bear was indeed cunning, but he was unaccustomed to a foe like Nycolos. More to the point, this axe was his weapon, an ally by his side and a tool he had wielded through countless battles and equally innumerable murders. The answer to their struggle, which seemed so obvious to Nycolos, either never occurred to him, or he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  Nycolos could. He simply let go.

  The giant stumbled at the sudden lack of resistance, off balance and unable to catch himself. Nycolos stepped in behind those massive blades, reached out, and twisted, hard and fast.

  The snap of the Bear’s neck was an detonation that filled the confines of the room and echoed in the skulls of everyone watching.

  Nycolos plucked the axe from the dead man’s grip before the body hit the floor. He hefted it thoughtfully in one hand. “You run,” he said, “and you die before you reach the window or the door. Weapons down.”