Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  “You know me, Master, and what I can do. Nobody sleeps that lightly. I could—”

  The conversation, Nycos might have anticipated. The surge of fury at the goblin’s implication, however, caught him by surprise. “Don’t you dare so much as think it!” That he kept his voice to a whisper—or perhaps it was a low growl—was nigh miraculous.

  “I needn’t kill her!” Smim insisted, backpedaling. “Just a… a mild injury, enough to hobble her for a few days! We would be long gone by—”

  “No.”

  “Master—”

  “I’ve decided I prefer to have her along, at least for now.”

  The goblin appeared almost physically ill as he rose. “If you say so, Master.”

  He’d started away, a single footstep crunching in the snow and dead leaves, when, “Smim?”

  “Yes, Master?”

  “On occasion, you have taken it upon yourself to act, to ‘help’ me, if you feel I’m not able to manage something, or that I’m making a grave mistake. We’ve talked about this a few times.”

  Nothing. Only the faint whisper of the wind.

  “There have been times, I admit, when I’ve been grateful for that propensity. I’m sure I will be so again. But on this matter? You have been an excellent servant, and a good friend to me, but if you try to harm or otherwise get rid of Mistress Rasik behind my back, I will roast one of your legs for supper and leave the rest of you to the wolves.”

  “I obey, Master, as always.” The words came colder than the snow. Nycos swore even the fire dimmed.

  Well, he might have taken that a step too far. He’d decide if it warranted an apology in the morning. Not an overt one, of course, but perhaps an unexpected compliment or reward. Smim would know what it meant.

  Why had he reacted so fiercely? Yes, Silbeth was a useful ally, as well as fascinating company. He wanted to build trust with the woman, and he had to know for certain that Smim wouldn’t sabotage that. Still, that didn’t explain the strength of his outrage. Perhaps—

  “Your manservant—ah, ‘goblinservant,’ I suppose—doesn’t seem particularly happy to have me along.”

  Nycos tried not to jump. Had he allowed himself to grow that distracted? He glanced up at Silbeth, nearly panicked. She was speaking of his general attitude since Oztyerva, not tonight’s conversation, wasn’t she? How much had she overheard? They’d spoken in low tones and she’d been in her bedroll across the camp until a moment or two ago.

  Hadn’t she?

  “Smim is… protective,” he said at last, gesturing for her to sit on the large tree root beside him. It wasn’t much of a stool, but it kept them off the frigid soil. “And he doesn’t readily trust.”

  “I imagine he’s not the only one,” she said, lowering herself to the root. Then, before he could ask what she meant, “How did you two become friends?”

  So he told her the same tale he’d offered Hasyan’s court, that the goblin had been a servant of Tzavalantzaval, that he’d chosen to accompany Nycos after the dragon’s defeat, and that they’d saved one another’s life multiple times on their harsh journey across the Outermark.

  “I’d enjoy hearing that entire story, Sir Nycolos. I’ve seen much and heard more in my time, but never the slaying of an actual dragon!” She sounded almost childishly excited by the prospect.

  Nycos was less enthused at the notion of recounting those particular events—either version of them. “Perhaps you will someday,” he said, staunchly noncommittal. Then, “And it’s Nycos. ‘Sir Nycolos’ may grow cumbersome if we’re to be traveling together.”

  “Oh, no need to worry about that.” She grinned. “I assure you, it already had.”

  He smiled in return, reflexively and genuinely, but then subsided once more into silence. Why was it so hard to think up anything to say to this woman?

  Silbeth gazed briefly into the same darkness he had, then dug into her pack for oil and a whetstone. She’d unwrapped the both, and gotten as far as laying her sword over her knees, when she paused to glance back, frowning, at the now-slumbering goblin.

  “It’s fine,” Nycos told her. “He’s slept through a lot worse.”

  “No,” she said, repacking her supplies with a soft sigh. “It doesn’t actually need it yet, anyway. Just habit.”

  The various metals, and some of the leather, glinted in the dull firelight. “May I?” Nycos asked, startling himself.

  She paused, considering, then slowly slid the sword—belt, scabbard, and all—over to him.

  Carefully, almost reverentially, he drew the long, narrow blade, holding it before him and admiring the feel in his grip. He’d rarely paid much attention to weapons beyond the basic “How long and sharp are they?” for the bulk of his existence. Since sliding into the life of Nycolos Anvarri, he’d observed any number of cultures’ armaments—during practice, during his patrols, and particularly during the tournament. And yet…

  “I don’t believe I recognize the style,” he admitted.

  “I’m not surprised,” Silbeth said, a response he found faintly relieving. “It’s actually of Ktho Delian make.”

  Nycos frowned. The shape of the blade and the feeble illumination turned it into a monstrous, twisted scowl in his reflection. All the Ktho Delian swords he’d seen had been heavier, thicker weapons, and most had been notably shorter.

  Either she saw his confusion, or she’d anticipated it. “It’s an older style. You only really see it today among some of their aristocracy. Modern Ktho Delian swordsmanship developed to favor shields, so they prefer shorter arming swords or the like. Me?” She shrugged. “I prefer the buckler, or else to fight with a two-handed grip, so the older, narrower hand-and-a-half suits me well enough. It loses some striking power,” she confessed, “compared to the heavier longswords a few of them still use instead of carrying shields, but it’s quicker. Better control.”

  “So I recall,” he said, grinning and passing the weapon back her way.

  “And you? Are you required to wield the traditional Kirresci arms as a loyal and faithful knight of the realm?” she asked jokingly.

  “It’s not a requirement, but we do get the dregs of wine and the most gristly cuts of meat at supper if we don’t.”

  He was absurdly pleased when that response drew a laugh from her. “You seemed to favor the szandzsya in the tournament.”

  “I do. The sabre’s well and good, and the shield has its place, but I prefer hitting hard and fast as possible. Dead enemies don’t require much defending against, by and large.”

  “You know, I think I remember the Priory teaching us something to that effect.”

  That led neatly enough to the question he’d been sitting on for a while, but he decided, even with his still imperfect grasp of interpersonal etiquette, that he hadn’t yet earned the right to ask. They subsided again into silence, but at least it felt more companionable this time, less awkward.

  A small log in the fire split, sending up a shower of sparks. “Nycos,” Silbeth said, as though that crack had been a signal, “shouldn’t we have left the road and moved into the Brackenwood by now?”

  “That… would be a more direct route to Gronch,” he hedged, not yet prepared to explain that Gronch wasn’t their first destination. “But I’d rather cleave to the highway a bit longer. It may add some distance, but I think we’ll more than make up for it in speed.”

  “Your decision,” she said, rising lithely from the tree root. “There’s a price attached, though.”

  He blinked, startled. “How do you mean?”

  “If we’re going out of our way,” she told him as she headed back toward her bedroll, “you’re definitely going to have to take on some of the storytelling duties. Starting tomorrow. Wake me when it’s my turn on watch.”

  It was just as well that she’d walked away, as he hadn’t the first notion of what to say to that.

  ___

  Snow would have been preferable to the next day’s sleet and freezing rain. Although light, sporadic
, it soaked into everything, slipping through even the tightest folds in cloak and kaftan. The horses trudged miserably along the roadway, heads bowed, while those who sat atop them shivered despite every effort to keep warm.

  Warm, or at least distracted.

  Endeavoring to make the telling of it as exciting and suspenseful as he could, Nycos spoke of his patrols along the border with Mahdresh, the pursuit and ambush, the discovery of the Ktho Delian agitator amidst the bandits. As best he could recall, he detailed every question, every cry, every blow and every parry.

  Although he did, of course, alter or omit a few details—specifically those pertaining to his more-than-human abilities and techniques. He wasn’t entirely certain how well he succeeded in making the tale remotely entertaining, but at least several miles of sodden roadway and bare, depressed forestry had passed them by when he was done, and if Silbeth found the recitation lacking or dull, she was polite enough to hide it.

  “All right,” he announced around a quivering mouthful of sleet. “Your turn.”

  “My… I seem to remember telling a good five stories in a row yesterday!”

  “Um.” Nycos thought back, then actually held up a gauntlet-wrapped hand to count off fingers. “It was three, in fact.”

  “We’ll compromise. Call it four.”

  “But it wasn’t four, it was—”

  “My point, though, is that you can cough up a few more tales before it’s back to me.”

  He was grinning again, despite the ache of the cold against his teeth. “No, you see, I let you go on yesterday for your sake.”

  “My—?!”

  “It would have been rude to interrupt you, would it not? I was being chivalrous. That’s what we’re supposed to do, with people of lesser station.”

  “Let me guess. And if you don’t, you get dregs and gristle at supper?”

  “Precisely. You wouldn’t want to punish me for being chivalrous, would you?”

  “I think,” Smim declared disgustedly from behind the both of them, plodding along on the smallest of the horses, “that I would very much like to freeze to death now.”

  In the end, Silbeth talked him into telling one more before she took over, and they alternated turns after that. Nycos didn’t have terribly many experiences to relate, of course, but he’d learned enough about the life of the other Nycolos that he was able to come up with several mixtures of fact and fiction that sounded believable.

  Which did, in turn, make him wonder for a moment how many of Silbeth’s own stories were entirely truthful. Ultimately, though, he decided it didn’t matter. They were interesting enough to listen to, helped pass the time, and—her jesting protestations to the contrary—she clearly enjoyed telling them.

  No story, however, was so all-consuming as to make the damp and frigid journey at all pleasant. After another day and a half, when the highway had begun to lead them ever-further south, no amount of diversion could keep the inevitable questions at bay any longer.

  “We’re not going to Gronch,” Nycos finally confessed, when Silbeth pressed him yet again about his choice of routes, about electing the highway over the Brackenwood. “I mean, yes, we are, but not yet.”

  “I’d more or less picked up on that,” the mercenary said around a shallow scowl. “So where are we going?”

  “Just a slight detour.”

  “Nycos, where?”

  Well, he was going to have to tell her sooner or later. “Vidiir.”

  “What? That’s… You’re adding over four-hundred miles to our journey! In the dead of winter!”

  He yanked open a saddlebag and began hauling out lengths of canvas to set up a tent for the night. “I hadn’t actually done the measuring on a map, but that sounds about right, yes.”

  “For the gods’ sake, why?”

  “Because that’s where Vidiir is?”

  One look at Silbeth’s face and the grin slipped from his own. Apparently, this was not the proper time for the sort of jesting that had become a habit between them over the past few days. Damn fickle humans.

  “Because,” he said far more seriously, “I figured as long as I was setting out to try and neutralize the threat posed by a mad dragon, I might as well also swing by the Quindacran court and make them change their minds about withdrawing from the treaty.”

  He smiled tightly over the wrinkled canvas, mildly amused that, for once, Silbeth appeared honestly speechless. “I mean, once you’re already performing the impossible, it’s not as though things can get any more difficult, right?”

  Oddly, though she continued to say nothing at all, Nycos couldn’t shake the vague sense that she didn’t entirely agree with his logic.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “What the hell sort of name is ‘Wayloq,’ anyway?” Silbeth groused. “It doesn’t really sound Kirresci.” She seemed as though she were trying to maintain the irritation she’d felt—and shared—since Nycos had announced their detour. Trying, and failing, thwarted by the warmth of the crackling fire in the hearth and the other gathered patrons, to say nothing of their recent hot meal, now reduced to steaming leftover scraps of mutton and fish spread about various plates. Truly comfortable and well-fed for the first time since leaving Talocsa, neither of them were able to keep their mood from partially thawing.

  Smim doubtless felt otherwise, but since he was confined to the rooms they’d let for the night—they’d all decided, some more grudgingly than others, that they couldn’t afford the attention a goblin would draw in the common room—he was in no position to complain. He’d feel better once Nycos brought him up some food.

  Nycos leaned back, a pewter tankard held at his lips, and glanced around. Walls of carefully fitted logs, tables bustling with clients and servers, a long bar along one end of the room, and the thick scents of heavy brews and roasting meats… It was the very spiritual ideal of a traveler’s tavern. It was less the ambience, here at the Inn of the Hungry Dog, that concerned Nycos, however, but the patrons. Most, to judge by the rougher cut of their furs or the oiled sheen to their kaftans, were probably locals; trappers, sailors, or craftsmen, making their lives here at the very edges of Kirresc. The gazes they cast at Nycos and Silbeth in turn were inquisitive, but not hostile. They might wonder what these strangers were doing, traveling in such an unfriendly season, but it was an idle curiosity at worst.

  “It’s not,” Nycos finally answered, having reassured himself—for the umpteenth time—that the inn concealed no hidden enemies or looming threats. “Wayloq’s been here since before Kirre the First claimed Talocsa as the capital of his kingdom-to-come. I understand it hasn’t changed much in all those generations, either. Grew all the way,” he explained sarcastically, “from a large fishing town to a small port town.

  “It’s moderately important to Kirresci trade, but not big enough or close enough to the rest of civilization to be worth more than a modicum of royal attention, so…” He shrugged, then drained his flagon. “It sits out here and does what it does, without much concern for what anyone else thinks.”

  “Oh, you mean like some people I know,” she retorted. “No wonder you wanted to come here.”

  “I wanted to come here so we’d have the chance to warm up and fill our bellies with something other than camp fare before approaching the border. I didn’t hear you complaining about the fire or the food.”

  “I didn’t say it was a bad idea,” Silbeth grumbled.

  Nycos, who had rarely felt the urge to sigh until he’d become human, swallowed one now. He couldn’t really hold her resentment against her. It wasn’t the change in plan, or even the perceived insanity of his intentions, he knew, that bothered her. It was the fact that he’d steadfastly refused to tell her what he meant to do in Vidiir, how he could possibly go about altering the course of an entire nation.

  After several days of building comradery, she’d taken his abrupt reticence on this one vital topic as a lack of trust. And to be fair, it was; she just couldn’t possibly comprehend the magnitude of the
secret he felt obliged to keep.

  He did have to keep his true nature secret from her. Didn’t he?

  Around them, conversation hummed, punctuated by raucous laughter and the clatter of dishes. Beyond, the peculiar melding of sleet and the lapping tide of the Cerenean Sea melded into a low, whispering song. An urge overtook him, to invite Silbeth to join him for a walk along the shoreline, along Wayloq’s piers and the nearby inlets. It was only the sudden memory that the cold would bother not just her but—in this form—Nycos himself that stayed his tongue.

  “Well,” Silbeth said, pushing back from the table. “If we’ve only got genuine beds to sleep in for one night, I don’t intend to miss the opportunity. Good n—”

  “How did you wind up joining the Priory of Steel?” He’d been sitting on the question since they’d begun this trek, if not longer, and he hadn’t meant for it to slip out here. Now that it was out, however, he found himself relieved, though that would doubtless change should she refuse to answer. It wasn’t merely a matter of learning more about her, either, although that was certainly part of it. He couldn’t yet have described why if he’d been asked, but he felt that this was the first step toward making a much bigger decision regarding how much of himself it would be safe to share.

  Silbeth had stopped, half-standing, so that she now hunched over the table. Her arms and her expression were equally stiff, while a dozen different emotions danced with the firelight reflected in her eyes. She spoke not a word, but Nycos could hear the questions and challenges all the same.

  Most of them amounted to, Why should I tell you something so personal when you so clearly don’t trust me? And in all honesty, had she actually come out and asked him that, he would have been hard pressed to offer up an acceptable answer.

  For whatever reason, though, she didn’t ask. In fact, she seemed ever so slightly to relax as she sat back down. She tried to take a sip of her drink, discovered the flagon empty, and waved vaguely at the nearest server for another.

  “My family is from Wenslir,” she began, her words taking on a very different cadence than when she’d told so many of her other stories over the past few days. “I was born in Imirrin.