Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  But? Nycos asked silently, waiting for it.

  “But I think we’d all very much like to know, Sir Nycolos, what that flammable substance was that you used to assist Dame Zirresca in making her kill…”

  Her kill. Nice.

  “…and what could possibly have possessed you to give such a potent weapon into the care of a goblin for safekeeping? I understand that you trust the creature, for whatever reason, but that still strikes me as unconscionable.”

  If the margrave had hoped to attack at a weak point, to lessen Nycos’s standing in the wake of this catastrophe, it appeared a tactical failure. While his close allies and friends voiced instant approval, adding their own demands for an explanation, the others throughout the throne room seemed at best taken aback, and some actively angered, by his efforts to politicize what had just occurred. Neither Zirresca nor the Archduchess Pirosa looked remotely impressed with his actions.

  When Nycos answered, he squeezed as much contempt into his tone as possible without making his words overtly offensive to Pirosa, as Andarjin’s mother. “My Lord, Smim has been my loyal vassal for some time, and more to the point, he has served here in the palace for nigh unto a year now. I believe he has more than proved himself a faithful and zealous worker.” He turned, briefly, to a group of servants huddled in the throne room doorway. “You have all worked alongside him. Has he, despite his lineage, given any of you reason to mistrust or mislike him?”

  More than a few seemed nervous about answering, either because they still held an intrinsic antipathy toward the goblin or for fear of angering the margrave, but enough of them responded to make the knight’s point.

  “As for the oil,” he continued, now spinning a tale from pure moonbeams, “I ‘allowed’ Smim to hang onto it because it is his. It’s an alchemical mixture taught to him by his former master. Rather than questioning his loyalty, you ought to be grateful he had the foresight to think such an important assembly might draw danger. He’s been carrying it since his Majesty’s guests began to arrive, against any sort of emergency.”

  At this, several of the attendees—not just servants, this time, but nobles as well—rumbled their assent, expressing their gratitude to the startled goblin.

  Seeing the moment slipping away, Andarjin bowed, albeit shallowly, toward Smim. “All fair points. My apologies.

  “However, I do think it would be a reasonable request that he make this, shall we say, recipe available to the Crown Marshal’s soldiers. It’s certainly a potent advantage.”

  “It is,” Nycos said, flavoring the lie with a sprinkle of truth. “One that requires, among other rare ingredients, the saliva of his former master, or another dragon. That’s why he only has what small quantities he escaped with. Have you a live wyrm handy, my Lord?”

  Rather than let this continue, Hasyan chose that moment to call the guards and nobles to attend him, to discuss the implications of this attack and determine strategies to defend against others like it. Was this another manipulation by Ktho Delios? Did the recent activities in and around Gronch represent a greater, more wide-reaching threat? What sort of sorceries were involved? And so forth.

  Nycos briefly hung back, ignoring Andarjin’s cold regard, and gestured for Smim to join him. “King Hasyan wasn’t the target,” he whispered without preamble.

  “Yes, I thought that might be the case, Master. Are we assuming the obvious suspect?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Ogres do exist outside Gronch, but they’re so rare… And I can’t think of anyone else I might have angered who has any truck with the creatures.”

  “Yet you sound unconvinced.”

  “Because this doesn’t feel like her. Sending one of her minions so far in order to murder me? Vircingotirilux isn’t much of a schemer. If she wanted to strike at me here, no reason she’d not come herself. And she lacks the sorcery to perform the sort of shape-change we just saw. Besides how she could have found me out at all? She’s neither clever enough nor mystically inclined enough for that. There’s a skilled wizard mixed up in this, somewhere.”

  “One of Ondoniram’s followers, Master?”

  “I suppose it’s possible, but it’s been, what? At least four or five human generations since I slew him. Would they have passed along a grudge that long?”

  The rest of the conversation would have to wait, as Nycos could no longer justify delaying his own approach to the dais. He would be some time, he knew, involved in his Majesty’s discussion, then longer still explaining the repercussions of what had happened to Prince Elias. Throughout it all, however, his mind roved down the list of the many enemies he’d made in his centuries of life.

  The fact that he could come up with few, if any, who were both capable of the feats he’d witnessed and were still among the living, no longer offered him the sense of victorious accomplishment, of comfort or of safety, it once might have.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Autumn grew long in the tooth and gave way without much struggle to winter—and with the turning of the seasons came an ever-increasing torrent of rumor and reports as chilling as the mounting winds.

  From Kirresc’s easternmost borders, from neighboring Wenslir, even on occasion from distant Suunim, traveled tales of horror. Farms, hamlets, some entire villages wiped from the soil by forces unseen; reduced to empty husks or smoldering ruins between one day and the next. Details were scarce, verification difficult, but after the first handful of stories, and after hastily dispatched riders confirmed at least one Kirresci community was indeed a heap of cinder and ash, few skeptics remained within the halls of Oztyerva.

  And through it all, just far enough from their own borders that it was impossible to keep track of maneuvers or troop movements, the Ktho Delian legions continued to mobilize, churning like a long-boiling pot.

  Were they responsible, in some way, for what was happening in and around Gronch? Or was the combination of threats sheer coincidence, or perhaps divine whim? No evidence presented itself either way, and even if it had, the course of action was the same: All the southern nations could do was watch, wait, hunker down and try their best to prepare.

  The timing was particularly poor for Kirresc (not that any time would have been good). Since major conflict was now a looming possibility, Orban Laszlan had chosen to begin the Marshal’s Trials.

  This was far from the first time in history that Kirresc’s Crown Marshal was faced with multiple viable candidates to succeed him. Had one of the three been an obvious choice, the situation would have been simpler, but while Zirresca remained the odds-on favorite, her qualifications did not so obviously exceed the others’ as to assure her of victory. To serve as a tie-breaker, a means of final selection, one of Laszlan’s predecessors had devised a series of military tests, problems and exercises that would, over the course of several weeks, determine a front-runner. The Marshal’s Trials were not based in statute, neither binding nor required—but the weight of tradition made them all but a necessity when two or more campaigns of succession had dragged on without resolution.

  Normally, they would not take place so soon after Kirresc’s royal tournament, nor during the icy months of winter. With war on the horizon, however, Laszlan wanted the matter decided before it was too late, before the soldiers and resources—and indeed, the candidates themselves—were needed elsewhere.

  Today was day three of the first trial: a four-day test, with Nycos as one of a quartet, rather than the anticipated trio, of competing generals. As a means of enhancing his Highness’s own military experience, however simulated, King Hasyan had asked Laszlan to include Prince Elias in the exercise, along with the three contenders. Each “general” was responsible for conquering as much of the others’ territory as possible while defending his or her own. The battlefield, located in the wilds just outside Talocsa’s walls, was hundreds of acres across, consisting of grasslands, rolling hills, and multiple copses of trees. Just like a real engagement, each of the four factions had different numbers of troop
s, different defensive capabilities, and differing stores of supplies, all determined randomly at the start of the trial.

  Between the soldiers assigned to each faction, the judges responsible for ensuring that those soldiers “died” properly and honestly based on their melee with blunted training weapons, and the noble observers who had the right to oversee any given battle or play audience in any contestant’s headquarters, it was a lively battlefield indeed.

  A light snow had begun to fall, a faint dusting of white turning grey, limiting visibility and melting swiftly to trace frigid trails down the insides of even the most tightly sealed kaftans, coats, and armor. Standing inside a makeshift fort atop a tree-covered hillside, Nycos was spared the worst of the weather’s discomforts, but he might as well have been out and about. His mood was a perfect, chilly match.

  He peered, fists clenched, over a hastily sketched map of the region, enemy emplacements and forces marked in charcoal where his scouts had managed to locate them. At his side were two military advisors, chosen from among those gathered by Orban at the start of the exercise. Sir Jancsiv was a broad-shouldered fellow, ebon-skinned and white haired, the sort of man who maintains a dashing and rakish charm even into his middle years. Captain Natalin was a short, slender woman, pale as Jancsiv or Nycos himself were dark, who would have looked more at home attending a formal ball than on the battlefield. She’d threatened to break more than one man’s bones for telling her precisely that.

  Both were among the top military tacticians Nycos could have chosen, and both were as bewildered by the events of the day as he was.

  “Let’s go over this again,” Natalin said, leaning on her knuckles until the map crinkled.

  “Yes, because we might have missed something the first fifty-seven times,” Jancsiv muttered.

  “Sir Nycolos has been focused on Sir Kortlaus and Dame Zirresca,” she bulled on. “He’s only been directing attacks against his Highness’s territories since yesterday evening.”

  Nods all around.

  “His first two offenses were both direct thrusts, using overwhelming force to punch through Prince Elias’s lines.”

  Indeed, Nycos—though more than willing to change things up when necessary—was quite fond of engaging in swift shock-assaults from a secure defensive position. (That was, after all, the primary attack pattern of most dragons: soar out from the lair and obliterate whatever or whoever needed to not exist any longer.)

  So, another pair of nods.

  “Then how in God’s name did Elias, of all people—no offense to his Highness,” she added, belatedly and somewhat unconvincingly, “—figure out this afternoon’s offensive was a feint?!”

  “My goodness!” Sir Jancsiv remarked. “You’re absolutely right! If only we’d thought to ask that question the first fifty-seven times we—”

  “Bicker later,” Nycos snapped. “I lost a skilled unit in this fiasco. I want to know why.”

  “I might be able to shed some light on that, Master.”

  Smim, wrapped tightly in a fur-lined coat that was far too large and dragged in the dirt and snow behind him like a bridal train, shuffled in through the door, accompanied by a gust of frigid air. Just behind him came Mariscal, clad far more elegantly in multiple layers of stoles and fine cloaks. She carefully picked her way through the goblin’s slushy trail to stand beside Nycos. He offered her a brief smile—it wasn’t the first time she’d taken advantage of her status as a “noble observer” to visit and offer her support during this first of the Marshal’s Trials—but his attention remained focused on his servant.

  Servant and, for the duration, spymaster. It was Smim’s responsibility to consolidate and deliver all the information reported by his master’s scouts.

  “Tell me,” Nycos commanded.

  “We’ve learned who Prince Elias chose as his two military advisors, Master.”

  “They’d have to be pretty damn good,” Natalin grumbled.

  Smim half-shrugged, a gesture that set the overlong sleeve flopping well beyond the reach of his hand. He glared at the garment, sighed, and then said, “Would Silbeth Rasik and Marshal Laszlan qualify as ‘pretty damn good,’ Captain?”

  Natalin and Jancsiv both subsided into slack-jawed silence, and Nycos teetered on the edge of literally sputtering in outrage. “That—that is unacceptable! His Highness’s rank and titles don’t entitle him to cheat in an exercise of this sort! We were clearly told… Clearly…”

  He trailed off, thinking back. Had they been told? Marshal Laszlan had assembled a group of knights and officers to stand at his side when explaining to Nycos, Zirresca, Kortlaus, and Prince Elias the rules of this first trial; had specifically pointed all of them out as viable choices when instructing the competitors to consider who they would choose to advise them.

  But had he actually said, in so many words, that the choices were limited only to those specific men and women standing there? Now that he pondered it, Nycos didn’t recall him ever having done so. He and the others had simply assumed, taking it as a given.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Even as he shook his head, chewing on the bitter taste of having been outsmarted, he couldn’t help but chuckle. Had Elias made an abnormally clever choice? Or had his simplemindedness actually worked for him, saving him from the “obvious” conclusion everyone else had drawn?

  Either way, there was a lesson to be learned from this.

  “All right then,” Nycos said, shaking himself and the others from their amazement. “So we’re up against the most senior and most experienced officer in Kirresc and one of the most skilled combatants I’ve ever seen.” His smile was grim. “It just means this’ll be a little harder. It’s still Prince Elias making the decisions, and they still don’t know the full extent of our resources. We’ve got to be clever, is all.”

  The knight and the captain both looked more than a bit skeptical, but obediently turned back to the map. Mariscal tried her best to appear reassuring, but he could see the doubt in her expression as well.

  So be it. Let them doubt. Orban, above all others, would take this test seriously. He wouldn’t permit his Highness to turn command over to him, or to Silbeth. They really were still dealing with Prince Elias, first and foremost—and it remained possible that Zirresca and Kortlaus were yet ignorant of Elias’s choice of advisors. With a bit of thought, Nycos might even be able to turn this to his advantage.

  If he could focus on the matter at hand.

  Nycos had never entirely shaken his fascination with the Priory of Steel swordswoman; her skill, her demeanor, her sheer predatory grace. He had assumed, with no small measure of disappointment, that she’d departed weeks ago, her task completed, and had bemoaned to Smim on more than one occasion his failure to find any excuse to speak with her in depth before she’d gone. To learn, now, that she remained at Oztyerva was welcome news—but also a distraction, and one that bore with it a number of new questions.

  Why had she stayed? What was she doing here? How might he contrive to get to know her, learn how she had become what she was, study her techniques and her beliefs? And above all else, how had he not known she was still here? Had she deliberately avoided him? The notion disturbed him intensely, for reasons he didn’t entirely understand. What sort of offense might he have—?

  Smim peered at him between narrowed lids, as though sensing his dismay, and Nycos gave himself a sharp mental slap. What was he thinking? Silbeth would have had no reason to avoid him, but above and beyond that, what reason would she have had for seeking him out? It was entirely possible, given the parameters of his own duties and responsibilities, that they’d just never crossed paths, and the woman certainly had no cause to come looking for him. Attributing deliberate intent was just… silly.

  It never once occurred to Nycos, as he moved to join the others at the map, to question why he was so fascinated, so captivated, by Silbeth in the first place.

  Whether the four of them—Nycos, Sir Jancsiv, Captain Natalin, and Smim—could have altered
their plans and tactics well enough to account for the prince’s unexpected advisors, they were never to know. An in-depth planning session, with Margravine Mariscal observing around the edges, came to an abrupt halt after an hour or so with the sound of horns, a series of coded blasts alerting Nycos to an attack on his territory’s southern edge.

  And he had only just responded to that, riding Avalanche to the edge of the trees to spot a large force under Zirresca’s banners appearing like phantoms from the drifting snow, when the entire battle, the entire exercise, was jerked to a halt by a different sequence of calls from a separate set of trumpets. Though flattened by the slush-laden air, the signal carried, snagging the full attention of soldiers and commanders on every side—for this was no factional code, but one restricted to royal heralds.

  Return at once to Oztyerva. His Majesty requires your attendance.

  During the trudge back to Talocsa—a journey of only a few miles, but rendered slow and unpleasant by the weather and the sheer number of travelers—Nycos reined Avalanche back, eventually clopping along beside the silver-trimmed carriage in which Mariscal rode. The two gold-bedecked palfreys pulling the vehicle groused and snorted at the snow, tails and heads flickering with equal discomfort. Avalanche, as proud a veteran as any senior officer, gave no indication of unhappiness at all, save for occasionally chafing at the slow pace. The whinny he directed at the smaller, more sensitive horses sounded for all the world like contemptuous snickers.

  “I’m sorry things were going poorly back there,” Mariscal said through a half-opened window, voice raised over the clacking of the wheels. Her smile, an obvious effort to be supportive, rang hollow.

  Nycos, holding himself rigid to avoid shivering and inwardly cursing the idiotic rules of propriety that kept the margravine from offering him a seat in the carriage, took a moment to thaw out his response. “His Highness caught me by surprise, but we could have dealt with that, given the opportunity.”