Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  She dropped her own dead parts before her with a loud and hollow splat. Again she reared, tail slamming and thrashing with agony. She clawed at the tunnels, as though to dig out anything that lingered within, and once more she bathed the room with flame. Whether by intent or by accident, she turned one of those gouts of fire upon herself, cauterizing the ragged stump with a fearsome sizzle.

  “I need to get above her,” Nycos muttered.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Above her. She’s treating us like human opponents. She’s not looking up.”

  “We are human opponents. More or less.”

  “But I can climb. Can—?”

  Nycos halted as Smim appeared in the entrance to one of the passageways, roughly halfway between them and Vircingotirilux. He carried one of the spears that had been dropped back in the central chamber, though he clearly struggled with its length, its weight. No way to speak loud enough for him to hear, not over the cacophony the dragon made, and even if Nycos could shout that loud, he’d just be announcing his plans. Instead, looking straight at the goblin, he gestured to his eyes and then to Silbeth. He wasn’t certain Smim would get watch her, do what she does from that, but it was the best he could manage.

  “Do you think you can keep her distracted?” he asked. “For just a moment?”

  “Oh, I’m sure I can distract her. Whether I can live through it…”

  “I’ll be quick.”

  “Do that.”

  Moving low and keeping to the dragon’s right, Silbeth darted from the cave. She ran a crooked course, ducking behind this rock, that heap of earth, once even behind Vircingotirilux’s own limp and severed head. Even as she moved, Nycos leapt as high as he could and then drove his talons deep into the wall. Punching finger- and toe-holds into the packed soil, he scampered upward, swiftly rising.

  Vircingotirilux began to turn his way, and Silbeth lunged. She sprinted hard, crossing the remaining yards of the chamber and drove her spear deep into the dragon’s foot.

  The wyrm yanked her leg up and slammed it back, trying to crush her tormentor, but Silbeth dove away. Again she lunged, tearing another small wound in the scales, and again she rolled aside. Smim darted from his own shelter and tried to deliver a stab or two of his own, but the ungainly weapon slowed him enough that he couldn’t land a meaningful blow.

  And through it all, Nycos climbed. Just a bit longer, just a bit farther.

  He’d never thought she’d do it. The dragon’s scales would protect her from her own fire to a point, but too much exposure, at too close a range, would burn even her. Vircingotirilux’s rage, her frustration, her madness had, however, moved her past the point of caring. When her third effort to stomp on Silbeth failed, when the mercenary managed to dodge away even when the dragon tried to bite her in half or swallow her whole, Vircingotirilux reared back and inhaled, deeply.

  All thoughts of stealth forgotten, Nycos cried out a warning. Silbeth didn’t need it. Already she had turned, raced back across the cavern, but she had nowhere to go. The pool might provide some protection, if it didn’t boil, but that would have meant getting past the dragon. And she was too far from the wall and its many passageways, could never possibly reach it before—

  Flame filled the chamber, washed across Nycos’s vision. He flinched from the sudden brightness.

  When he looked back, the floor steamed where Vircingotirilux’s blood had evaporated in the infernal heat. More steam, and a bit of smoke, rose from her severed head and neck.

  Of Silbeth, there was no trace. Not so much as melted armor, charred bone, or even a heap of ash. She was simply gone.

  Wrath the likes of which Nycos could never remember flooded through him, setting his soul alight hotter than any dragon’s fire. Wrath and something far less familiar, something he’d come to know only sporadically and only as a man.

  Guilt.

  With an animal bellow, he hurled himself from the wall and dropped, talons outspread, toward his enemy. Vircingotirilux’s center head roared back, unleashing flame, but the dragon had nearly exhausted her inner furnace. The sheet of fire that washed past him, over him, was thin and dull. He felt tattered cloak and tunic disintegrate, ringlets of mail grow searing, scales and flesh burn, but he remained intact when he landed hard upon her other, more bestial head.

  Even as his talons sank home, however, she thrashed, nearly throwing him off. Back and forth the neck whipped, and it was all he could do to hang on. With hands and feet both he clung, unable to attack lest he lose his grip and go flying. He grew dizzy; his singed limbs weakened. And off to the side, Vircingotirilux raised her other head, jaws agape to pluck him off and rend him into pieces.

  He caught a brief glimpse, as the chamber swirled and spun, of Smim, stabbing desperately at the dragon’s tail, trying to distract her from Nycos, but the goblin’s efforts were futile. Vircingotirilux knew her enemy, knew the true threat, and nothing would divert her attention, would stop her from—

  She froze, body and her central head both. Gleaming eyes grew wide—in pain, yes, but mostly in shock. A small rivulet of blood trickled from the corner of her middle jaw, and even the savage head to which Nycos clung slowed its thrashing, struggling to see and to understand what had just happened.

  She’s alive!

  Silbeth stood below, the dragon’s distraction having allowed her to come terrifyingly near. She had plunged her spear deep into Vircingotirilux’s centermost neck, ripping at flesh and various pipes within. Not a lethal stroke in and of itself, but unexpected, devastating.

  But how had she…?

  He looked again, focusing past the dizziness of his wild ride. Silbeth was absolutely coated, slick with blood and saliva and other fluids, as though she’d rolled through an abattoir. It caked her clothes, gummed her hair into a sodden mass.

  Nyos’s gaze flickered to the dislocated head that lay, still steaming, on the cavern floor, and he knew where Silbeth had sheltered from the torrent of flame. His admiration for this woman who should, by all rights, have been born a dragon grew stronger still.

  Better not let her efforts go to waste, then.

  He reared up, plunged both hands deep into Vircingotirilux’s flesh and began to burrow. Like a maddened badger, he scooped out clawed handfuls and tossed them behind as he dug. Again the head and neck thrashed, but Nycos had gone deep. A thick tendon provided a convenient handhold for one fist as he continued to carve with the other.

  In seconds he exposed a patch of bone. Straightening his fingers, making a blade of his talons, he struck. And again. And once more.

  Skull split; a tiny rift, but enough for a claw to penetrate. Head and neck froze. Nycos lay flat upon the scalp, arm fully extended and all but encased in the hole he’d excavated.

  And then, as before, the neck went limp.

  Nycos let go, allowing himself to be thrown aside. Silbeth, too, wisely retreated, as once again Vircingotirilux convulsed, tail and her one remaining head beating the floor of the cavern. Blood and fire spilled from her surviving set of jaws in equal measure, yet her maddened thrashing and her screams were weaker than before. Now and again she spat a few syllables, but they formed nothing resembling coherent words.

  “Do we… try to question her?” Silbeth asked skeptically. “I know you wanted information…”

  “I did. I do.” Indeed he seethed with frustration, wondering who or what had told her where to find him, had provided the magics to cloak her ogre assassin. “But she’s too far gone.”

  “Then we should finish this.”

  No argument there. “Smim!” He stretched forth a hand as the goblin came running. “Spear.”

  The shaft smacked into his palm. He lifted the weapon, saw Silbeth hefting her own, and nodded.

  Perhaps too pained, perhaps too maddened, now, to even recognize the danger, Vircingotirilux didn’t react as they drew near. Just like that, head by head, the wyrm of Gronch died.

  And took her secrets with her.

  Chapter Thirty<
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  At first, perhaps driven by pounding hearts and racing thoughts, they’d chatted up a storm.

  Silbeth expressed her sympathies, again, that Nycos hadn’t learned what he’d hoped from their journey. He, after brushing it off as unimportant—a lie they both recognized—had set the trio to collecting as many of the iron spears as remained salvageable.

  “Planning to hunt another dragon next year?” she’d taunted.

  “For the ogres,” Nycos had replied. “I’ve no idea how they’re liable to react to their ‘queen’s’ death, but I’d prefer to have weapons that can harm them. Besides,” he added with a shrug, “the spears probably won’t be any good in a year. Once the talons start to decay, in a few months, they’ll grow brittle.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “They should still be more than strong enough if you plan to kill me now, though. I’m tired and I hurt, so this is probably your best shot.”

  Smim and Silbeth had exchanged shocked glances. “Why would you even tell me that?” Silbeth demanded.

  “Because I don’t think you’ll do it. But also because I don’t have the energy to lie around wondering if it’s coming.”

  “I’m not going to kill you, Nycos. Not now, anyway.”

  “Oh, good. Then can you help me get this hauberk off? It’s partly melted.”

  Once they were beyond Vircingotirilux’s lair, however, they seemed to leave conversation behind with the dead dragon. Days of meandering back through Gronch, hiding sometimes from lone ogres, sometimes from shouting, rampaging bands… then, once they’d recovered the horses, riding across snow-swept grasslands… and all of it in near silence. They didn’t speak of their experiences, either their victories or failures. They told no tales of past adventure. Even the setting up and striking of camp, the sharing of meals, occurred with minimal speech.

  Nycos welcomed the silence, the solitude. His head was awhirl with questions and worries, none of which he knew how to address. The death of a dragon, even one as horrid and savage as Vircingotirilux, was no small matter. He felt the weight of his actions. No guilt, not in this case, but a sense of magnitude, with repercussions he could not begin to anticipate. He racked his mind, trying to determine who might have aided the wyrm of Gronch, to think of anyone with both the magic and the motivation to throw in with the maddened beast. None of the answers made sense. Tzavalantzaval had many enemies, of course, but few were masters of the necessary sorceries. Few were of the sort to work through allies or pawns such as Vircingotirilux and her ogres. None he could come up with were both.

  None who still lived, anyway.

  His whole body ached with the wounds and burns he’d taken in the struggle, and though he’d resumed his human form and concentrated on his own shapeshifting magics as often as he could, healing his hurts, it would be many days before he felt whole.

  He worried over his actions in Quindacra, wishing he had some means of knowing if his gambit had paid off, if he’d prevented dissolution of the pact, prevented war. He worried over Ktho Delios’s schemes, wondering at their involvement with Vircingotirilux, if their own inquisitors had contributed their magic to her cause. But then, why would they have targeted him? How could they even have known of him? No matter how he chased it, over the days of freezing cold and frequent snows, he could never catch a solution.

  Then there were the consequences of this journey to consider. For the second time—well, so far as anyone else knew, for the second time—he’d disobeyed a direct order and sneaked from Oztyerva on a mission he’d taken onto himself. That he’d successfully slew the dragon wouldn’t protect him from the Crown Marshal’s ire. That he’d saved the treaty might, except he couldn’t take credit for what happened in Castle Auric. He’d had no choice, he’d had to deal with the threat Vircingotirilux posed, but he might have destroyed his life back home, or at least many of his ambitions, in the process.

  And above all else, he fretted about the woman riding beside him, about whether they would remain allies—even friends—or whether she was about to turn her blade upon him, to strike down what she must surely consider a potential threat to the people of Kirresc.

  More than once, during what few whispered conversations they had, Smim tried to convince him to kill Silbeth in her sleep. He never did, of course, and he forbade the goblin from moving against her, but he couldn’t deny that he might well suffer for his mercy.

  No, not mercy. Affection.

  As for Silbeth herself, her thoughts on that long, silent trek remained her own.

  The day was cold, the air smeared with gently drifting flurries, when the walls and the banners of Talocsa hove into view. The steeds, cold and tired, picked up their pace, sensing the end of their journey and the promise of shelter. Thus, it took only a few minutes for the trio to draw near enough to make out the narrow black pennants hanging beneath the traditional ensigns.

  Nycos and Silbeth both went stiff. “War?” she suggested grimly.

  For an instant, Nycos battled the urge to turn Avalanche around, to ride hard for Vidiir where he would peel the king and queen of Quindacra like tubers. After a few breaths to calm himself, however, and to review what he’d learned of Kirresci pageantry, he shook his head.

  “Those are symbols of mourning, not conflict. Besides, look. The gates are open. They’d be sealed in a time of war.”

  They rode ahead at a swift trot, determined to learn what had befallen the kingdom in their absence. Several bows and spears bristled as they neared, but Nycos called out, identifying himself before the soldiers could even issue challenge.

  “Sir Nycolos! Welcome home!” The guard commander scrambled down from her post atop the wall. It was, as fortune would have it, the same captain who had been on duty that day—so long ago, now—when he’d first arrived after stumbling his way through the Outermark. “We’re so glad to see you well, particularly—”

  “Captain.” He raised a gloved hand. “I apologize for my rudeness, but please. What’s happened?”

  “I…” The officer stopped, exchanged a look with her soldiers, cleared her throat. “I’m truly sorry to be the bearer of this sort of news, Sir Nycolos. Crown Marshal Laszlan was… He’s dead. Murdered.”

  Nycos felt as though he’d once again been burned by Vircingotirilux’s breath. He literally rocked in his saddle. “What… I don’t… How?”

  “I’ve only heard rumors and thirdhand reports, sir. Apparently enemy operatives or assassins somehow gained access to Oztyerva. They… Sir, there’s more. Baron Kortlaus apparently interrupted the struggle.”

  Now he had to dismount, to lean on Avalanche for support lest he topple. “Dead?” He’d barely remembered how to speak the word. His friends were so few…

  “No, sir, but… He took a blow to the head. He’s alive, but none of us know how he’s doing, or if he’ll recover. Sir Nycolos, I’m so sorry.”

  “I…” He couldn’t remember feeling so adrift, so helpless, since his earliest weeks here in Talocsa. Perhaps this guard captain is an ill omen, he wondered, though he knew the thought was borderline hysterical. “I need to go to the palace.”

  “Of course, Sir Nycolos.” The soldiers stepped aside, allowing the travelers to pass.

  Nycos kept his gaze downward. The road seemed oddly blurred, obscured by something beyond the gentle snows. It was almost as if—

  “Nycos?” Silbeth, now also on foot, took his arm and pulled him to a halt. “Are you crying?”

  “Am I?” He looked up at her. He’d shed tears, as a human, of exhaustion, frustration, pain… Never such as these. He reached up, felt the moisture in his eyes, a single trail threatening to freeze as it traversed his cheek. “I guess I am. It’s a curious thing; I… don’t think I care for it.”

  She studied him, lip twitching as though she would say a hundred things at once, and then she wrapped him in a brief but steadying hug.

  “I’ve made my decision,” she whispered in his ear. “I’ll keep your secret.”


  She pulled away, and it took him a moment to realize just what she was telling him. Despite everything, a tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Thank you.”

  “I mean, unless you give me a new reason to change my mind,” she warned him, only half in jest.

  “Of course.” And then, again, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Nycos.”

  ___

  He stood alone in the council chamber, staring idly at the table where maps and other documents of war so frequently lay. The guards had directed him to wait here when he’d requested an audience with the king, but they’d given no indication of how long he was to wait, or why here rather than the throne room.

  During his trek through Talocsa, and then Oztyerva, Nycos had picked up on much that had happened in recent weeks. Quindacra had, indeed, not only dispatched the messages he’d instructed but reopened ambassadorial channels as well—all good signs, though he thought it unfortunate they’d sent a new envoy in place of Ambassador Guldoell.

  The treaty remained intact. The attacks on communities in and around Gronch had ceased, for reasons Nycos understood better than anyone. Ktho Delian forces had concluded their supposed exercises and drawn back from the border, albeit not far. The threat of imminent invasion, it seemed, had passed.

  Yet while Kirresc might not be at war, neither was the nation on a peacetime footing. Nycos had spotted far more soldiers on the street on his way to the palace, far more knights in residence once inside, and had overheard enough conversation to know that troop movements were underway all across the nation. If conflict had not yet been born, it clearly gestated, and he wasn’t entirely certain why. Perhaps when his Majesty finally arrived…

  “Welcome home, Sir Nycolos.”

  That wasn’t King Hasyan’s voice.

  Nycos turned and dipped his head in polite greeting. “Dame Zirresca.”

  She started to speak, then seemed to think better of it, instead shutting the door behind her and moving to stand at the table. “Have you seen Baron Kortlaus?” she asked, not unsympathetically.