Dancer's Lament

Chapter 16

ONCE THE BATTLE died down into a sullen staring match across barricades, Dorin returned to Wu’s underground quarters. He knew he was no expert at sieges but it appeared to him that the two sides now had each other in a death grip and were determined to throttle one another.

He found Wu in his cellar ‘chambers’ sitting cross-legged and staring at a wall, a low fire burning behind him. He appeared to be doing nothing more than watching the shadows play across the surface as he sat chin in fist.

‘Fight’s over,’ Dorin announced. A decanter of wine stood on the table and he poured himself a glass. Drinking it he gagged – still as sour as rat piss. More ancient looted grave offerings. He set the glass aside.

Wu turned to him, blinking, his face blank. ‘The what?’

‘The siege, you know? The Kanese have taken the south Outer Round.’

The Dal Hon mage waved the development aside. He returned to eyeing shadows. ‘Well, that’s good for us, yes?’

‘How so?’

‘Chulalorn is more likely to hang about, isn’t he? We can move on Pung.’

Dorin peered at him. ‘Or not. He may think it all in hand and give things over to his generals and return to the south. But anyway, Pung is nothing to me now.’

Wu rose, stretching his arms. ‘Not Pung. Our rightful possession – stolen from us.’

‘From you.’ Wu poured himself a glass of the wine and Dorin watched him gulp it. ‘How is it?’

Wu coughed, and with great effort managed to force the drink down. ‘Oh, it’s quite good,’ he gasped. ‘A unique aftertaste. You should get to know your wines. As to who or what Pung is – that is immaterial. We need that box.’

‘You mean you want that box.’

‘It’s my price. As agreed, yes?’

‘Exactly . . . as agreed. You help me reach Chulalorn and I will help you. Chulalorn may leave at any time but your box isn’t going anywhere, is it?’

The youth appeared pained. ‘Well, that’s the problem. The object is disguised. It doesn’t appear valuable at all. It may be thrown away.’

Dorin remembered Pung’s lackey, Gren, saying that the mage had had nothing valuable on him. ‘What does it look like, then?’

‘Never mind. The point is it is just as urgent!’

‘Chulalorn first – Pung’s going nowhere.’

Wu glared for a time. He raised a brow as if attempting to give the evil eye, but Dorin did not change his own expression of placid scorn. Wu slumped, waving the matter aside. ‘Oh, very well. I suppose we will be too busy once we have the item in any case.’

Dorin ignored the bait. ‘I’ll go to reconnoitre the site.’

Wu opened his arms in disbelief. ‘There is no need. We were just out there – I got us away and I will get us back in just as easily.’

‘We haven’t agreed on routes. Or fallbacks. Or rendezvous sites in case we get separated.’

Wu’s gaze darted about the dim cellar. ‘On what?’

Dorin let his arms fall, utterly disheartened. ‘Oh, great gods below! Let me organize this, all right?’

Recovering, Wu now held a lofty expression. ‘If you must.’ He reached for the wine but shied away at the last moment. ‘The diggers have the tunnels ready to hit Pung’s compound, you know. We need only dart in and out.’

‘Later. First I’m going out to get a feel for the lie of the land out there.’

‘Very well. Ah . . . need I come along?’

‘No. I most certainly don’t want you along.’

The Dal Hon’s prematurely wrinkled face turned crafty and sly. ‘If you insist.’

Dorin just gave him another hard look before he turned to the flimsy door. ‘Later.’

‘Yes, later.’

Dorin knew the damned mage was up to something but he let it go, hoping it wouldn’t interfere with his reconnoitring. He headed into the warren of tunnels and catacombs. The nearest exit he found was guarded by a lad, one of the diggers, now armed with a crossbow and a wicked-looking long-knife. The lad gave him a deep nod, almost like a salute. ‘Sir.’

Dorin was startled. ‘Sir?’

‘You’re second in command.’

‘Really?’

‘Un-huh. And I want you to know we’ve pushed Pung’s boys out of this quarter.’

Dorin was even more taken aback. ‘You’re fighting them?’

‘’Course! They’d wipe us out, wouldn’t they?’

‘Well, true enough.’

‘Oh, and there’s a message for you.’

‘A message?’

‘Yeah. From a girl. Came last night. Gave her name as Rheena. Says it’s important she talk to you.’

Dorin nodded, considering. Rheena? Really? ‘Well, when I get back, I guess. My thanks. What’s your name anyway, lad?’

‘Baudin, sir. Named for my father, and my father’s father. All Baudin.’

Dorin examined the lean, hardened youth – barely twelve perhaps and already toughened by a life of privation and abuse that none should have to endure. ‘Well, don’t mount any major attacks without consulting me.’

‘If you say so, sir.’

‘Yeah. I say so.’ He gave a nod of farewell and squirmed from the exit, concealed as it was beneath a pile of wreckage.

He made for the east and the water gate of the Inner Round. Here he slipped into the Idryn and swam out towards mid-stream, making for a piece of flotsam that he gripped as it drew him along. Once he was far enough from the city, and with dawn coming on, he made for the south shore, slid up among a stand of tall grasses and cattails and lay there, letting the sun dry him.

Mid-morning, he found a vantage among the meagre hills south of the city and kept a watch on the tent city that the Kanese had raised. The focus of his attention was the central ring of larger tents – the officials, court, and field command of King Chulalorn the Third. He watched the guards trading off. He timed their rounds and made a rough count of their numbers, then waited for night. He ate a small meal of smoked meat and a knuckle of hardened cheese, and emptied the one skin of water he’d brought.

When dusk came and the shadows deepened he rubbed dirt over his hands and face and set out crawling on his elbows and knees through the grass. He found the night uncommonly chill; he even encountered ice-covered pools of standing water, which he imagined must be unusual for the region.

His slow cautious approach paid off as he made it through the first two rings of pickets and guards to reach the tents of the military encampment itself. Now he moved from the deep shadows of one tent to another. He considered, momentarily, dressing in a Kanese surcoat but dispensed with that plan as he’d already blackened his face and hands. So he kept to the darkness, eluding roving guards until he reached the security ring surrounding the innermost tents of the royal command itself.

Up to this point the purpose of his approach had been merely to test the security. But now he was beginning to wonder whether he should actually make the attempt. When, after all, might he manage to come so close again? But that was not proper procedure, according to his teacher – never rush anything had been the old man’s refrain. Still, so close . . .

He manoeuvred round the ring until he reached a point where the walking pickets crossed one another to leave a brief gap unwatched. He waited here for them to return on their route. For an instant, crouched as he was behind piled equipment, he had the definite sensation that he was being watched. The hair at the nape of his neck stirred, and he felt an eerie prickling down his back, yet he could see no one, and no alarm was raised. He shook off the sensation and readied himself.

As the guards crossed he darted out around them, utterly silent, and reached a narrow darkened lane between the glowing walls of the occupied tents. This had been his goal all along: this narrow twisting gap. Like a hidden passageway within walls. Now he had a chance to locate Chulalorn’s private quarters.

Silent, crouched, he padded along, listening and sensing. Would it be one of the darkened ones? Surely the king wouldn’t have retired for the night yet . . .

His only warning was a frigid iciness that gathered in the air. Hoar frost blossomed on the canvas tent wall next to him and then a hand seemed to take hold of his neck like a giant seizing him from behind and he was slammed face first down into the frozen mud and trampled yellow grass.

Footsteps approached: heavy, uneven, limping perhaps. A real hand – larger than any human’s – grasped his neck and lifted him bodily from the ground to hang free, his legs swinging. A twisted scarred face peered up into his and Dorin knew that whatever this being was, it wasn’t human.

The man-like creature was hunched over near double as if its spine were bent. Its thick muscular limbs were twisted and seamed with deep scars. It snorted, eyeing Dorin closely with one strange amber eye, and set off carrying him as if he were a trapped rabbit.

The creature pushed into a tent that was empty but for guards and a small cage of iron bars. With a clawed hand the thing tore the baldrics from Dorin then threw him into the cage and slammed shut the door, locking it.

‘Bring the lord,’ the giant growled to a guard, who bowed and ducked outside. The creature, so very man-like, eased himself down into a saddle stool that creaked beneath his weight. Now Dorin had time to examine him more carefully and it seemed to him to bear a marked resemblance to the creature he’d encountered when he’d first met Wu; one the Dal Hon had named a Jaghut.

The creature winced, stretching his legs. He regarded Dorin with his alien eyes. ‘So, little one,’ he said, in a voice like rocks cracking, ‘you are quite good. I almost missed you. And I would have, but for the one with you.’

Dorin had been rubbing the life back into the frozen flesh of his neck, and he stilled. One with him? ‘I’m alone,’ he managed, hoarse.

This brought an amused smile from his captor. He raised a crooked mangled hand. ‘Quiet now, the king comes.’

Two Kanese elite guards entered the tent and held open the canvas flap. A man ducked within and straightened. He wore long robes of green silk, damasked in silver, and gleaming in swirls of precious stones. His features were classic dusky Kanese, lean and ascetic. Long midnight black hair was tied and thrown forward over one shoulder to hang down almost to his waist.

The man – King Chulalorn the Third, ruler of all south Quon, Dorin assumed – bent down to examine him with an expression of vexed irritation. ‘What is this, Juage?’ he asked, practically scolding. ‘I am interrupted for this?’

‘An assassin, m’lord.’

On his knees in the small cage, Dorin grasped the bars. ‘I am no assassin!’

‘Pray then what are you?’ Chulalorn sniffed.

Dorin raised his chin, defiant. ‘A spy, great king. Sent to gather intelligence.’

‘An actor,’ the giant Juage chuckled.

With a thumb and forefinger Chulalorn picked up the torn baldrics, each bristling with knives, loops of wire, and other equipment. ‘For a spy you are uncommonly well armed.’ In his cage, Dorin had nothing to say to that. Chulalorn let the broken belts fall. He waved to Juage. ‘Squeeze what you can from him then get rid of him. I care not how.’ He turned to go.

‘It is not him I am interested in squeezing,’ the creature rumbled. ‘It is the one with him.’

Chulalorn paused, frowning. ‘What nonsense are you speaking? He is alone.’

‘To your eyes perhaps.’ Juage waved the king onward. ‘But do go, these are matters far beyond you.’

Chulalorn froze, his eyes flaring, outraged. ‘Beyond me? Explain yourself.’

A satisfied smile revealed the creature’s prominent jutting canines in full. ‘Just that. Matters far beyond the names on any of these pathetic local thrones.’

Now the king glared, his hands clenching into fists. ‘One day you will go too far, Juage.’

The creature waved him off again. ‘Usefulness is a two-edged sword, little king.’

Chulalorn hesitated, searching for the proper retort, but failing to come up with anything he snorted his scorn and swept from the tent in a brushing of his thick dragging robes.

‘Now you two,’ Juage said, flicking his fingers at the remaining guards. ‘Exit now, while you may. Secrets will be revealed here that may blast your souls to the Abyss.’

The guards’ brows climbed in alarm, and, eyeing the creature in obvious unease, they edged towards the flap and hurried out.

Dorin also eyed the giant, at a loss. Quite mystified, he asked, ‘What are you doing?’

Juage raised one hand for silence while with the other he made teasing ‘come-hither’ gestures about the tent. ‘Come out, come out. I know you are here. Come out of’ – the creature turned an eye to the darkest corner of the tent – ‘the shadows.’

Dorin clenched his teeth in irritation. Damn the gods. Is he really here?

The light wavered within the deeper murk and a shape emerged, hunched, aged, leaning on a short walking stick. Wu, in his image of a wizened old mage. He nodded to Juage. ‘How can I ignore such a charming invitation?’

Dorin glared at his erstwhile partner. ‘What are you doing? Following me?’

A small moue from the mage. ‘Of course.’

Dorin slammed the bars. ‘You idiot! I was caught because of you! He sensed you!’

Completely unruffled, Wu gave a deprecatory wave. ‘A small matter. But we are here now to discuss very great matters – is that not so, Juage?’

The giant gave his predatory smile once again, his yellowed canines showing. He reached a long arm out to a table and took up a handful of nuts that he cracked in one fist and began tossing the meat into his mouth. ‘You two are fools. But first, let me tell you my own story – and it is a sad tale indeed.’ He grimaced, reached into his mouth to pull something out, a bit of shell perhaps, and began. ‘As you have no doubt deduced, I am of the Jaghut kind. Through foolishness of my own that is no business of yours I was enslaved generations ago to the Chulalorn dynasty. I have been forced to further their petty territorial ambitions. It is a humiliating servitude I would do anything to be free of.’ He tossed the broken shells into the brazier burning at the centre of the tent. ‘But that is neither here nor there. I offer my own example as a warning to the two of you. You who are yet able to walk away from a similar galling servitude.’

Wu had been studying his walking stick, but now he gave an airy flutter of one hand. ‘Do go on.’

‘I speak of course of your ignorant entanglement with the Azathani. I smell their influence upon you. I warn you – you are nothing more than pawns to them. Expendable pawns.’

‘Azath, you mean,’ Dorin said. He’d come to the conclusion long ago that the chamber he’d entered with Wu was one of those eerie haunted structures, the Houses of the Azath.

‘As you will,’ Juage answered, picking up more nuts. ‘Azath, to your limited human understanding.’

Wu was now leaning forward, his walking stick firmly planted before him. ‘What advice would you offer, then?’

Juage waved them off with the back of his hand the way one might shoo a fly. ‘Walk away. Just walk away. The skeletons of your predecessors litter the path you have so foolishly set out upon. None have succeeded. None can succeed. Too many Ascendants stand against it. That realm must not be reawakened. All have agreed. The Son of Darkness especially.’

Dorin gripped the bars of the cage. The Son of Darkness? By the gods, what had they stumbled into? He noticed that his grip was next to the lock, and that the lock was a very old design that he knew inside out, having been trained to build and rebuild one much like it over and over again. He reached down and pulled a tool from his ankle.

His companion had been thoughtfully prodding the ground with his damned stick. ‘Very well,’ the young Dal Hon said. ‘Thank you for your generous offer. Now, here is mine – you release my partner and promise not to interfere with us any more, and we will allow you to walk away.’

The Jag stared, quite taken aback, and then his eyes, sunk deep beneath his heavy brows, slit in irritation. ‘Do not try me, little mage. I could break you. Take my advice. It is indeed generous. Take it . . . or you will not leave this tent alive.’

Wu tapped the stick to the ground, studying his handiwork. ‘And I say – do not force me to summon my pets.’

For an instant Juage gaped, then he slapped a wide hand to his thigh, chortling. ‘Ha! You are an amusing fellow, I give you that.’ He tossed more nuts into his mouth. ‘But not even a fool like you can be so deluded as to think those wild beasts are your pets! No one can compel them and they answer to no one.’

‘There are hints,’ Wu said, his gaze still on the ground, ‘that there is one in Shadow they answer to.’

Juage grunted his understanding, chewed thoughtfully for a time. ‘I doubt they answer even to him. In any case, it boots not. The choice stands. Move on – or die.’

Sighing, Wu jammed the stick into the ground so that it stood upright next to the brazier. ‘Then I say . . . you had better start running,’ and he swept his hand through the shadow cast by the stick.

Juage surged from his stool. ‘You little fool! You’ll be first down their gullets!’ He threw the remaining nuts at Wu and charged from the tent, bellowing: ‘Guards to the king! All guards!’

‘Are they really coming?’ Dorin asked, not quite believing that the fellow could actually have summoned those terrifying beasts.

Wu calmly kicked the torn baldrics to the cage, approached, and bent down. ‘Open up please.’

Dorin pushed open the door, took up his equipment. ‘Already done.’

‘Excellent.’ Wu ducked inside and pulled the door shut behind him, locking it.

Dorin stared at the skinny lad crouched next to him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Saving our collective arses – as they say.’

Dorin opened his mouth to curse the fellow to the furthest reaches of Hood’s paths but didn’t hear a word he said as a titanic baying howl erupted right next to the cage. He clapped his hands to his ears. The brazier went flying in a cascade of embers that set the tent alight and something emerged from the smoke and churning flames. It towered over them, panting like a bellows. Twin brown paws thumped to either side of the barred cage. An enormous head lowered and eyes the brightness and colour of the golden setting sun regarded them, hot with hunger. Beneath, black wet lips drew back from jutting canine fangs.

Dorin and Wu jammed themselves to the rear of the cage. A small voice in the back of Dorin’s mind wondered Is this the same one I saw before? He thought not.

Snarling like splitting stones, the beast lunged. Its maw crashed into the bars, pushing the cage backwards. Iron groaned, bending and creaking. The cage gouged the earth, sliding, tore through the tent canvas. They flailed and rolled as it tumbled, striking equipment and even knocking aside running soldiers.

Alarms split the air throughout the camp. Another enormous hound’s call thundered in the night nearby and Dorin thought Ah, at least two then.

‘As you see,’ Wu said, a hand pressed to a bleeding nose, ‘we are quite safe.’

‘Quite—’ A swipe of one huge paw sent them skittering onward, rolling and spinning and mowing down tents. Soldiers hacked at the beast but it appeared determined upon tearing them from their haven.

Dorin held his head and turned to his companion. ‘It seems to really want you.’ But the mage lay unconscious. Blood pouring from his nose smeared his face crimson.

Jaws clamped on to the cage once more. Iron bars snapped explosively. The beast ran with them, battering down tents and lines of soldiers. It flung its head, sending the cage soaring. They tumbled down a slope of tall grasses and splashed into the frigid dark waters of the Idryn. Dorin had one instant to steal a breath of air before the heavy iron cage carried them to the bottom.

*

Iko was on her cot trying to meditate to stave off the pain of her ankle when the alarms sounded. She lay with her leg bound in a splint of wooden slats wrapped in cloth. Her sister Sword-Dancers were up and out in an instant while she struggled to rise. Her immediate thought was for the king, of course, but then the deafening roars burst across the night like eruptions of thunder and she knew this was something else entirely: an attack upon the camp by the man-beast, Ryllandaras. Set upon them in retaliation for the ground they had gained, no doubt.

She limped out into the night, a hand at the grip of her whipsword. Soldiers ran past while officers bellowed orders. Iko made for the king’s quarters. The level of panic she encountered was rather worrying: the regulars either milled about uselessly or stood frozen in terror. But much of the effectiveness of any sorcerous attack was in the broader fear it generated, or so it seemed to her.

Whatever was attacking the camp was rampaging about seemingly at random, as she heard the monstrous braying moving hither and thither. She crossed a trail of its destruction in a line of trampled tents, scattered equipment and torn corpses. One body she passed had been bitten in two across the torso, and she wondered what manner of horrific daemons had been loosed upon the camp.

She reached the pavilion that served as the king’s private quarters and was waved through by her sister Sword-Dancers who held the perimeter. Within, she drew up short, as she saw next to Chulalorn a giant whose twisted body resembled the caricature of a man. She took the arm of Sareh nearby and hissed, ‘What is this?’

Sareh’s face echoed her own distaste. ‘None other than Juage himself.’

She released her sister’s arm in a flinch of disgust. Juage! The ogre of the southern mountains! He had ruled a kingdom high among the peaks until Chulalorn’s grandfather had defeated him and chained him beneath the very mountains he had terrorized – or so it was said. In the south they named his kind Jaggen, or giant. Inhuman, in any case. This was a sorcerous escalation of the worst kind. Deals with devils. Hallens’ warning appeared to be justified as the fear struck her that events were spiralling out of anyone’s control.

While she and her sisters guarded the perimeter of the tent, Chulalorn argued with his pet fiend.

‘Can you not dismiss them?’ the king was demanding.

‘They will go shortly, m’lord,’ Juage answered in his rumbling bass. ‘They cannot stay long from their . . . well, their native realm.’

‘So there is nothing you can do.’ Chulalorn’s tone was sneering.

‘There is nothing anyone can do against these particular . . . summonings.’

‘I wonder then why I do not release you back to your internment.’

The ogre bowed obsequiously. ‘I will defend you should they attack . . . m’lord.’

‘Yet you say they are not sent by Shalmanat.’

‘No, m’lord. A minor hedge-wizard only. A dabbler and a fool. No doubt dead now.’

Chulalorn snarled, outraged, ‘Are you saying a minor wizard has destroyed my camp?’

Juage bowed again. ‘Give an imbecile a torch and you will get a fire.’

Chulalorn exhaled noisily, mollified for the moment.

Sareh touched Iko’s shoulder and motioned to the outside, tilting her head. Iko listened and heard only the yells of the soldiers, the crackling of flames, and the occasional bellowed command. The sisters about her all eased slightly in their stances, listening as well.

Juage raised a huge gnarled and misshapen hand. ‘I believe they may be gone now.’

The king grunted his satisfaction. ‘As you predicted.’ He crossed his arms, regarding the creature. ‘I am tired of this interminable siege, Juage. You said you would end it – do so.’

The ogre bowed once more. ‘Soon, my king. Soon. It is almost cold enough.’

‘Make it cold enough. Quickly.’

‘As you order,’ and the monster bowed, very low and unctuously.

Iko looked away in distaste. Disgusting! This was beneath Chulalorn, surely. Yet he would have his way – there was nothing new in that. The will of kings. Hallens had warned her of this as well.

Yuna, who with Hallens’ death had been given command of the Sword-Dancers, came to Iko and looked her up and down in obvious disapproval. ‘Get back in your cot. You’re of no use here.’

And Iko bowed as low as she could with her splinted leg. ‘As you order . . .’

*

On the north bank of the Idryn a bedraggled, mud-slathered shape drew another limp form up the mud bank and fell to the ground, gasping. All was dark but for the fires burning in the Kanese camp to the south. Dorin wiped the cold slick clay from his face and lay exhausted, luxuriating in the sensation of just being alive. Sleep pulled at him but he knew that the deep sleep of the cold was a slow sure death and so he roused himself, lifted the unconscious Wu over his shoulder, and staggered inland searching for cover.

In the ruins of a burned-out barn he started a meagre fire from leaf litter and sticks and huddled about it with the still unconscious Wu. The Dal Hon youth had taken quite a hit to the head from the bouncing of the cage, but at least his nosebleed had clotted over. He may wake up addled, as so many who take such strikes to the head did, but in his case how would one know?

He tucked the lad’s ice-cold hands to his chest and patted his shoulder. Well done, you crazy lunatic. You really did save our arses – even if it was you who endangered them in the first place.

Dorin sat back against the charred wall and kept watch through the dawn.

The mage’s eyes popped open a good while after sunlight slanted down to warm him. The eyes roved about the ruins, red and bloodshot, and then the fellow grunted, satisfied, and croaked, ‘As I said. Quite safe.’

Dorin would have laughed had he the energy. He motioned him up. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Not the river, I beg you.’

‘No, not the river. The north is open. I know a number of ways in.’

Wu strained to rise, groaning and hissing. ‘Thank the gods.’

Once inside the walls Dorin kept them to narrow back alleys, for they were alone, and much of the territory they had to pass through was held by either Urquart or Pung. Eventually they came limping back into Wu’s domain; or, more accurately, his lads’ and lasses’ domain, for in truth they did all the organizing and fighting. All was merely done in his name.

When they came staggering down the chute of a tunnel a lass approached Dorin, motioning for his attention. Dorin allowed a gang of lads to take Wu from his hands.

‘There is someone here to see you,’ the girl said.

‘Who?’

A shrug. ‘I’ll take you. This way.’

She led him to a block of quiet, near-abandoned disputed streets that lay between Wu’s gang and Pung’s. This long into the siege few citizens ever left their quarters, which were barricaded and barred. It was now just a matter of waiting it out. You either managed to survive with what you had, or you didn’t, for there was no longer anything left to buy, barter, or steal.

The girl led him to a cellar, one open and known to all parties. Here he was surprised to find Rheena – much skinnier, paler, and looking markedly older, but unquestionably Rheena. The girl started from her chair when he entered, gasping, ‘What happened?’ and he realized that he must present an even worse appearance.

He tried to straighten his mud-streaked half-dried leathers. ‘I was out . . . scouting. What are you doing here? Pung would kill you if he knew.’

She bit her lip, and pulled at her tangled red hair. ‘I’m sorry, Dorin. I’m very sorry. I tried to warn you. I had nothing to do with it. I kept my mouth shut, but Loor knew. He talked. He’s angry with you – he thinks you betrayed him. Please, don’t kill him. Please. He’s just a dumb kid. He doesn’t understand . . .’

He took her cold hands in his. ‘What’s happened?’

She would not raise her eyes. ‘I’m finished with Pung now,’ she whispered, fierce. ‘This isn’t what I joined for. She wasn’t even involved . . . I’m sorry . . .’

Dorin let her hands fall. He backed away shaking his head, then he turned and ran.

He did not remember his passage to the streets of the caravanserai staging area in the west Outer Round; it all passed in a blur. He refused to think of what might await him but the moment he entered the narrow alley next to Ullara’s family barn he knew, for there among the rubbish lay two dead birds.

Proud predators both had been in life, a red falcon and a kestrel. They lay now broken and bloodied. Looking up he saw smears of blood at the ledge of the open gable far above. He climbed while refusing to allow himself to think at all – he held it all at bay, waiting until he reached the loft.

Within it was as he dreaded: scattered feathers and broken bodies of every single roosting bird that Ullara had taken in. All had died fighting to defend her; all had been slashed or crushed. And amidst all the corpses, Ullara lying on her side, her legs and arms trussed. Gently, he untied the rope, releasing her blue hands and feet, and turned her on to her back. When she rolled over he flinched away, for her eyes had been gouged out.

The next thing he knew he was vaguely aware that someone was saying sorry over and over again in a cracked broken voice while he held her pressed to his chest, rocking her. Her chemise was wet against his face. ‘I’m so sorry,’ that person was whispering, hoarse. ‘It is my fault. All my fault.’

He kneaded her hands and feet, massaging the life back into them. She stirred with the pain of the blood returning. He found a rag and wrapped it about her head over the savaged holes that had once held her eyes.

He sat with her head cradled on his lap through the night. He arranged her skirts, set her hands on her chest and sat looking down at her. He studied her for a very long time before blinking heavily and coming back to himself. Ever so slowly, he drew up the rope that had bound her and coiled it as he did so.

A fine length of slim taut hemp. Pung’s thugs must have brought it with them.

He had a use for it too.

He had no idea how long he sat there with a hand on her forehead. The beginnings of a penance, perhaps. Dawn came and still he sat. Once, far above, came the heart-wrenching keening of a great bird, and he knew that her King of the Mountains still lived.

With the warmth of the morning she stirred. Her hands rose to her eyes but he caught them and gently lowered them to her chest.

She tried to speak – cleared her throat, and tried again, ‘They told me this was a warning.’

He nodded, then flinched inwardly with the realization that she could not see it. That she would never see again. He swallowed to wet his raw throat. ‘I understand.’

‘They offered me a choice, you know,’ she said, her voice eerily flat. ‘Hands or eyes . . . but I fooled them. I chose my eyes.’

A shudder took Dorin at her words. Something elemental and very dark seemed to move beneath them.

‘Listen, Ullara. I will take you with me. I can hide you. I know where—’

‘No.’

‘Don’t be a fool. I can hide you, truly I can. Keep you safe.’

‘No.’ She raised a hand to his face and gently brushed it down his features, caressing them. ‘Find him,’ she whispered through her sharp clenched teeth. ‘Find him and kill him.’

Dorin shuddered again at the ferocity contained in this slim young form. She seemed to burn in his arms. No wonder the birds of prey came to her. They recognized the spirit of a sister.

‘Yes. Yes. I will.’

She relaxed once more on to his lap. ‘Good.’ She pushed his hands away. ‘Go, then.’

‘Ullara! What of you?’

‘I will be fine. My father is below – too frightened to come up, no doubt. Do not worry. I will call him.’

‘But . . .’

‘Go. Find him. He thought you and I could be frightened off but he made a mistake. He doesn’t understand what we are.’ She pushed herself from him and sat up. ‘Go. Do not return until he is dead.’

Chastened by her fire, he took one of her bloodied hands and pressed it to his lips. ‘Yes. And . . . I’m sorry. I did not understand you either.’

‘No, you didn’t. Now it is too late. Now all that is left to us is vengeance and the hunt. So go.’

He clambered to his feet. ‘Ullara . . . I—’

‘Go.’

He lowered his head. ‘Yes. I will find him.’ Bending down, he kissed her brow above the stained cloth then descended to the alleyway below.

The moment he set foot on the littered cobbles movement snapped him around. Some sort of vagrant stirred beneath a dirty blanket and rose, coughing. As the figure straightened it wavered into the familiar elderly shape of Wu. The mage peered up at the gable then lowered his head and clasped his hands before his stomach. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘She was an innocent.’

‘Yes.’ Dorin nodded. ‘Yes, she was.’ He drew a long shuddering breath and released it feeling as if he were releasing everything with it – his every wish, every foolish grandiose ambition, and every childish dream. All his plans for any future. ‘It was my fault.’

‘Do not blame yourself.’

‘If I had moved against Pung as you wished this would not have happened.’

‘We cannot be certain.’

Now he frowned, vaguely irritated. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I am worried about what you’re going to do.’

‘You know exactly what I am going to do.’

‘Ah, yes, well. Exactly my worry . . .’

‘I thought you wanted Pung dead.’

‘Of course. But not you. Please, Dorin, let’s not be hasty . . .’

He thought of her slim frame – so tiny and frail – and shook his head. Blinding. A terrible, awful, cruel maiming. How could anyone do such a thing to an innocent soul? ‘Things have changed.’ Dorin died in that loft.

‘Ah, I see. As you say. But let us take a moment to consider—’

‘No. No more planning or considering. Look what my delaying has cost. I am finished with it. I’m going now.’ He faced the Dal Hon mage directly. ‘Are you with me or not?’

‘Of course I am with you, as always. But please, for the love of the gods – wait for nightfall at the least, I beg of you.’

Dorin brushed past to the alley mouth. ‘Dusk, then,’ he allowed, grudgingly. Something among the litter caught his eye and he picked it up. A bird’s leg and clawed foot, torn or severed from its owner. Blood still limned the black curved talons. He studied the grisly object for a time then slipped it down his shirt.

‘Let us prepare,’ said Wu, and his short walking stick appeared in his hand.

In the loft above, Ullara felt about the floor before her, patting the messed straw, feeling her way to the gable window. Reaching the wall, she pulled herself erect and felt at the window ledge. She raised her face to the warm morning breeze. ‘Come,’ she whispered to the breeze.

After a time the brazen call of a bird tore the sky and broad wings buffeted the air. A tall heavy shape perched upon the roof opposite.

Ullara raised her hands to the cloth at her eyes and unwound it. Once it fell away she studied her hands as if marvelling at them, then turned her attention to the roofscape of the city beyond.

‘Go, my hunter,’ she urged the wind.

* * *

‘It is not as bad as it could have been,’ Ho was saying to Shalmanat while he, Mara and Silk faced their mistress in her sanctum. ‘We have them contained within the Outer Round. The river gates are sabotaged, and the arches broken. They have no way in but to take the walls or the gates, just as before.’

But Shalmanat would not look up. She sat slumped upon her camp stool, a shawl draped over her shoulders. ‘The populace will have lost faith in me,’ she whispered, staring at the floor.

Ho cast Silk a meaningful glare. Silk cleared his throat and knelt next to her. ‘Not at all, m’lady. The populace holds firm. The Inner Round walls are defended. Holding one section does not give them the city entire.’

‘I will not yield the south.’

‘Of course not. There is no need.’

‘Nor will I accept Dal Hon’s offer,’ she said.

Silk raised his head to look at Ho who grimaced, taking a heavy breath. ‘They will come if we accept their authority.’

‘I will not escape one tiger by putting my head into the jaws of another,’ she snarled, pulling her shawl tight. ‘And speaking of that,’ she snapped, glaring at Ho, ‘what is your excuse for Ryllandaras?’

Ho clasped his meaty hands behind his back, nodding. ‘Think, Shalmanat. It is really for the best. This Kanese incursion is only temporary. It will pass. But he remains the eternal enemy. With him out of the way our trade will burgeon. We will be able to rebuild even stronger. And it is also a mercy; someone, eventually, would have killed him.’

The Protectress’s gaze slid away, unfocused. ‘I promised him I would keep the plains open . . .’

‘And you did – for a time. But Tali and Purge are expanding in the west. They have made no such promises.’

‘And Tali has made an offer of alliance,’ Mara added. ‘If we accept their aid.’

Shalmanat snorted. ‘How it still rankles with them! They would like to finally march their Iron Legions through my streets!’

‘They are too far off anyway,’ Mara said. ‘We must finish this ourselves.’

The Protectress raised her eyes and Silk was shocked to see them bloodshot, sunken, red-rimmed, and shining with a feverish light. ‘Yes. Finish it. I hoped it wouldn’t come to it – but it may. It may have to.’

Silk eyed her warily, troubled by her tone. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Warn me of any preparations for an attack,’ she told Ho. ‘Any massing of their numbers.’

Ho bowed. ‘As you order.’

‘And this attack in their camp?’

Ho waved the topic aside. ‘The beasts appeared among them, rampaged, then disappeared once more. I dare say they did more damage to the Kanese than we have.’

‘What are they anyway?’ Silk asked Ho.

‘Daemons summoned by a minor talent who could not control them.’

Shalmanat, Silk noted, tightened her lips against saying anything.

‘We are done, then?’ Mara asked. ‘We must get back to the walls.’

The Protectress waved them off with a weak gesture.

Silk lingered, hoping to talk, but she kept urging them out and so he relented and backed away after Ho and Mara. The guards pulled shut the door. Silk hurried to catch Ho.

‘What did she mean, finish it?’ he asked.

The heavyset mage was lumbering through the palace halls with his sideways swinging walk. ‘You know her only as the ruler of the city, but she is powerful in her own right.’

‘She is afraid of that power.’

Ho nodded his dour agreement. ‘As she should be. What troubles me is this unusual cold.’

‘This winter? It has been a rare one, I understand. But they suffer just as much as we do.’

The sour mage grunted his half-agreement. Silk’s thoughts turned to his own worries. He thought he understood Shalmanat now. She must see herself being driven into a corner. Forced to take up her worst nightmare – her powers. And these he knew as Liosan. Elder Light. The wellspring, he now knew, behind Thyr and Telas – neither of which drove him or Smokey unhinged with dread. It was more powerful, yes, but in the end it was just another Warren, was it not?

* * *

They gathered in a narrow tunnel recently dug out beneath Pung’s quarters. Wu’s urchin diggers bristled with weapons but their youth made Dorin uneasy, though in truth they were but a few years younger than he. Lowering his voice, he murmured to Wu, ‘Only bring them up if they’re needed.’

The mage nodded in his distracted, half-attending manner. Irritated by this, Dorin moved to the fore. ‘I’ll go first.’ He took a small shovel from the hands of a girl and cut into the wall they faced. She winced in agony at his hacking.

‘Careful,’ she implored.

Dorin grunted his assent and slowed. Light shone through, dim, but enough for their starved vision. A portion of the dirt wall fell away revealing a root cellar. He stepped in and around old barrels and crates. The air stank of rot and damp. A short ladder led to a trapdoor.

He listened at the slats of the door, heard nothing. He pressed against it until it rose a fraction and stilled, listening once more. He heard nothing – no footsteps, no breathing, no creak of leather or wood. He raised the door further until he could see up an empty hall then entered and crouched, knives ready. Wu poked his head through the trapdoor. Dorin beckoned him upward.

The absolute quiet sent Dorin’s instincts blazing with dread. This was all wrong. It felt like a trap yet there was no one about. The house seemed deserted. How could it be a trap with no one here?

He motioned for Wu to pause then advanced to the main floor’s centre and stood, listening. Again, he heard nothing – the house was indeed abandoned. Then it reached him. Distant, audible only because of the building’s emptiness: someone walking far above, perhaps even on the roof.

Someone alone, pacing the roof. Waiting. Waiting for . . . him.

He straightened then, sheathing his knives in his new baldrics. He returned to Wu. ‘Find your box, or whatever the damned thing is, if it’s still here. I’ll be above. I have an . . . appointment.’

The Dal Hon’s gaze climbed to the ceiling. ‘I see. You have my aid, of course.’

‘No. This is personal. Don’t interfere.’

Wu gave a slight lift of his brows. ‘If you insist.’

He waved him off. ‘Go and search.’ He went to the stairs. Another trapdoor opened on to the roof. Dorin knew it well. It was flat, the footing reliable. He straightened, drawing his best fighting knives.

Far across the breadth of the roof a dark shape straightened as well. It approached, resolved into a tall young man, cloaked, wearing a well-trimmed goatee. The fellow inclined his head in greeting. ‘So, another student of Faruj, yes?’

‘Where is Pung?’

The fellow’s hands emerged holding similar fighting blades. He gestured widely. ‘His location is immaterial to ones such as us, don’t you think?’

‘He’s the only one I want.’

The fellow frowned an exaggerated disappointment. ‘Really? You do not sound like a student of Faruj. Are you yet another poseur? I have found . . . well, killed so many. We cannot have people running about claiming to be our equals, can we?’ He gave an apologetic shrug. ‘It is bad for our rates.’

‘Where did he bring you in from?’

‘Unta, of course. It’s where the money is, you know.’

‘So much for Unta,’ Dorin muttered.

‘What? You said something?’

‘I said, you came for nothing. I frankly don’t give a shit about you.’ He slid a foot back to the edge of the trapdoor.

‘Leave and you die!’ the assassin warned. He opened his arms once more, apologetic. ‘It’s just the way it is. Turn away and I will cut you down from behind.’ He shrugged. ‘Makes no difference to me.’

Dorin understood. He had known the moment he saw the man. But he had to give it a try. He nodded and eased into a ready stance, one blade low and forward, the other high over his head, but held point downward.

The assassin smiled hungrily and eased into an identical stance. ‘What is your name?’ he asked.

‘Dorin.’

The smile broadened. He shifted, circling to the right. Dorin responded, circling to his right. ‘My name is Stephan,’ the assassin said. ‘Did the old man mention my name?’

Dorin knew this for a trap – names had meant nothing to the old man – but he’d already sized up his opponent and had reached the conclusion that the fellow was damned vain. And so he said, ‘He said he once tried to teach a cretin named Stephan how to throw a knife.’

The smile was whipped away. ‘Don’t make me mad, little boy. This could be quick – or it could be very slow. Agonizingly slow.’

Dorin relaxed completely into that loose awareness that was his state of mind for any duel. Nothing else mattered any longer – only the moment. There was no past or future. No plans or hopes or expectations.

Just this moment: the chill night air in his lungs; his breath pluming ever so lightly; the soft leather of his shoes gripping the bricks laid in a herringbone design across the roof; and the cool hard familiarity of the knives in his hands. He shifted into a new stance, warming up – and his partner responded, answering his rhythm. And with that he knew this Stephan had truly been a student of his mentor.

For the old man had taught knife-fighting as a dance.

It is a duet, he heard the old bastard say once more. A duet, in which your goal is to kill your partner.

Dorin allowed the ghost image of that old man, his sparring partner for years and years, to superimpose itself over the figure opposite. An entire childhood spent in a dusty cold barn shuffling in endless circles while this iron-faced skinny ancient struck him with his wooden knives on his arms, his legs, his head.

And lectured him interminably while doing so.

You must come to know your partner better than they know themselves, he’d snarl, and strike him across the bridge of the nose.

And he, his skinny bare arms a mass of purple-black bruises, struggling to organize a counter-attack.

Do not think of what you will do! A shocking blow to his temple that raised stars in his vision. Watch what they are doing and think what they will do!

And as the years passed his other training – his breaking and entering, his pickpocketing and rope-escaping – all became mere decoration next to his knife training. The bruises on his arms and legs became fewer and fewer. His duets with the old man lasted longer and longer there in the clouds of dust raised from the hard-packed floor of the barn.

You must come to know them as intimately as a lover. A thrust to his neck turned aside. A sweep evaded. Three false slashes with the blade hidden behind the wrist, high and low, followed by a spinning overhead slash that he intuited as show to cover a thrust to his side that he sidestepped, counter-attacking with what in sword-fencing would be considered a stop-thrust.

For when you know them so well you understand them – that is when you slip the knife in.

Stephan staggered back, yielding ground, a hand pressed to his side that came away wet and gleaming in the moonlight. He studied his fingers, then raised one blade to his forehead, acknowledging it. ‘Touché.’

Dorin eased into a more aggressive stance, both blades held out before him.

Stephan circled anew, weaving his knives. Dorin ignored the flash of the moonlight from the blades to watch the man’s centre of weight instead. He is leading – where are we going?

The man refused to commit, dodging and circling, and Dorin understood: his partner wouldn’t be giving any more. He would have to be pressed. Dorin edged forward to begin the long chase that was cornering a partner. The man circled, again and again. But Dorin kept the pressure on, always working him towards a corner of the rooftop.

In the periphery of his attention, Dorin noted the moon sinking. This was his longest dance in years. A droplet from his brow struck his eyelid and he realized this was the first time he’d worked up a sweat in any fight since leaving Tali. Most bouts lasted a mere few heartbeats; a few traded slashes and parries. Yet he and Stephan already knew one another so well. Their stances echoed each other’s precisely. He saw his own moves reflected perfectly in his partner’s.

Reflected . . .

That thought saved Dorin’s life.

Just as he assumed he had Stephan where he wanted him he realized that the opposite was true – that all along he’d been fed exactly what he’d expected to see. His reflexive rage at himself was a physical flinch that pulled him away the thumb’s breadth necessary to save his life. The point that penetrated his shirt and the armoured plastron beneath passed between his ribs but didn’t touch his heart.

Stephan’s smile of victory froze as Dorin’s blade slammed home in his neck.

Dorin clutched his chest, staggering backwards.

Stephan fell to his knees, both hands at his throat. Blood welled thickly between his fingers. One-handed, Dorin started tearing at his shirt and the lacing of the plastron beneath.

‘Congratulations . . .’ Stephan whispered, a ghastly smile on his lips.

Dorin fell to his own knees. He heaved the half-unlaced plastron over his head and threw it aside to thump to the roof. Blood smeared his hand at his chest.

‘. . . you’re the last . . .’ Stephan fell to lie on his side with his eyes staring fixedly at nothing ‘. . . the last . . . student of Faruj . . .’

Dorin wavered, dizzy. There was a roaring in his ears. He blinked, thinking No – this isn’t what I came here for. This isn’t what I want. I wanted . . . I wanted . . .

He blinked more and more slowly, his sight darkening with each fall of the eyelids. Movement roused him: the crackling of footsteps in the grit of the roof. A murky wavering shape halted next to him, a stick set down to the bricks, tapping.

Dorin swallowed to wet his throat, croaked, ‘You gonna . . . watch me . . . bleed out?’

‘Not at all. The urchins are on their way.’

The thought of those kids poking at him almost got Dorin to his feet. Wu pressed him back down. ‘Do not worry, I have everything in hand.’

That’s what fucking worries me . . .

The youths arrived, eased him on to his back. Small hands pulled at his torn shirt. The pain was swept aside like a receding wave, and Dorin recognized the effects of the healing Warren, Denul.

‘You have a healer?’ he murmured to Wu, amazed.

‘Almost every one of these youths is a talent of one sort or another. That’s why I picked them from all the hundreds of kids.’ The mage studied his walking stick, sniffed. ‘Really, Dorin, give me some credit.’

And Dorin let himself relax, yielding to the probing fingers, thinking Oponn’s jest! An army of damned talents?