The Dragon's Path Read online

  “Now, Geder!” Jorey shouted. “Cut him!”

  Geder scuttled forward, swinging with his blade. The cut wasn’t deep, but it got through the leather armor. The Yemmu shouted, and Jorey jumped back. Geder swung again. He was trying for the thing’s belly where the armor was thin to let it twist, but the blow went low, dropping toward the thing’s thigh. The Yemmu put out its huge grey hand and shoved Geder back, but Jorey Kalliam’s blade cut down, drawing a gout of blood from its wrist. It howled, dropping its sword and grabbing at the wound to stanch the flow. Geder rushed in, hewing two, three, four, times at the Yemmu fighter’s knee like he was trying to cut down a sapling.

  The Yemmu stumbled and fell, lifting its arms in surrender. Geder spun around.

  The gates had stopped, neither fully open nor closed, and more of the Vanai soldiers were pouring through the gap. The Jasuru archers were nowhere to be seen, and four of the Yemmu had fallen, with half a dozen more locked in battle against a rising tide of Antean swords. Jorey Kalliam was bent over, breathing hard. Blood trickled from his mouth and stained his teeth, but he was smiling.

  “Didn’t know what they were starting when they crossed us,” Jorey said through a foam of his own blood and saliva. Geder grinned.

  * * *

  Well,” Lerer Palliako said, leaning against the parapet of his balcony. “Well, well, well.”

  “They actually took the southern gate,” Geder said. “Closed it and jammed the mechanism. We still can’t open it.”

  Geder shrugged. The twilight was fading and stars coming out. The feasts and balls were all canceled by order of the throne. Blades and blood in the streets of Camnipol had the king’s guard patrolling the streets. King Simeon himself had gathered a select group of nobles in the Kingspire, and set a dusk-to-dawn curfew that meant anyone found in the darkened streets would be slaughtered without question or warning. The houses were being closed and barred, and a fire watch set on the walls of the city. The stadium that had been remade to house Prince Aster’s celebratory games instead had a dozen gladiators hung from makeshift gallows. Twice that number had been bound and dropped off bridges, their bodies unburied at the bottom of the Division.

  The city’s shock and fear seemed to change the air itself. Everything seemed fragile, poised at some great catastrophe. Geder knew he should have been frightened too, but he was exhilarated. An armed revolt in the capital city, and he’d put it down. If he’d been celebrated for the burning of Vanai, he could hardly imagine the glory that would rain down on him now. He was half drunk with the idea of it.

  “I also hear Lord Ternigan has ordered the disband,” his father said.

  “The men were all desperate to defend their houses and families. If Lord Ternigan hadn’t, I likely would have.”

  His father shook his head and sighed. From the window, they could see the Kingspire at the city’s edge, towering above Camnipol and therefore the world. Lights glittered in the windows like stars or the cookfires of an army. Lerer Palliako cracked his knuckles.

  “Bad times,” he said. “Very bad times.”

  “It won’t go on,” Geder said. “This ends it. There aren’t any more of the gladiators, and if there are, they’ll be hunted down. The city’s saved.”

  “There’s whoever suborned them,” his father said. “Whoever arranged the attack. And the names I can put on that list are too powerful to die on a rope. I never spent time at court when I was a young man. I never made the connections and alliances. I wonder now if I should have. But it’s too late, I suppose.”

  “Father,” Geder said, but Lerer coughed and held up a hand.

  “The disband’s been called, son. You can go anywhere you’d like. Do anything. It might be wise if you were out of Camnipol for a time. Until this is all settled out.”

  Unease cut through Geder’s euphoria for the first time since the fighting stopped. He looked around the night-soaked buildings and streets. Surely his father was jumping at shadows. There was nothing to be afraid of. They’d won. The coup had been stopped.

  This coup. This time.

  “I suppose there’s no harm in going home now,” Geder said. “I have an essay I’m thinking about that I think you’d find interesting. I’m tracking geographic references by time and comparing them with contemporary maps to—”

  “Not Rivenhalm,” Lerer said.

  Geder’s words trailed off.

  “You should leave Antea,” his father said. “You’re too much a part of politics we don’t fully understand. First Vanai, and now this? For the season at least, you should go where they can’t reach you. Take a few servants. I’ll give you the money. You can find someplace quiet and out of the way. By autumn, perhaps, we’ll know better where things stand.”

  “All right,” Geder said. He felt very small.

  “And son? Don’t tell anybody where you’re going.”

  Dawson

  Simeon paced before them all. The king’s face was a mixture of hesitance and determination that Dawson had seen on hunting dogs unsure of how to get down a slope, aware that once they began there would be no stopping. Whatever counsel his old friend had taken in the long night, it hadn’t been with him. On the other hand, he was certain it hadn’t been with Curtin Issandrian either.

  The audience chamber they sat in now wasn’t the usual. There were no tapestries or soft velvet cushions, the walls were bare brick. There were no rugs or cushions to support the bent knees of Simeon’s subjects. The king’s guard stood along the walls with swords and armor that could not be mistaken for merely decorative. Prince Aster sat on a silver throne behind his father. It was clear the boy had been crying.

  Curtin Issandrian knelt across the aisle from Dawson, his face drawn and pale. Alan Klin was at his side. Canl Daskellin and Feldin Maas had both managed to avoid attention. Odderd Faskellin was dead of an arrow to the throat, and his killer already feeding the gallows flies. Geder Palliako, by all rights the hero of the hour for holding the southern gate, had already left the city. Dawson was alone.

  Behind and above the three of them, the viewing galleries were packed. Every man of nobility sat on low, uncomfortable stools behind the length of woven rope that pretended to separate them from the formal audience. The women stood in the upper gallery, including, somewhere amid the press, Clara. The highest gallery was customarily reserved for the most honored lowborn subjects of the king and ambassadors from foreign courts. Today, it stood empty.

  The king stopped pacing, and Dawson didn’t lift his head.

  “This ends today,” Simeon said, his voice ringing out to the farthest corners of the chamber. “It ends now.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Dawson said, his voice carefully humble. A moment later, Issandrian and Klin echoed him.

  “Antea will not follow the dragon’s path while I sit on the Severed Throne,” Simeon went on. “These petty intrigues and political games will not bring confusion and strife to the empire at the heart of the world. I swear my life to it, and as your lord, I expect and demand the same of each of you.”

  This time when Dawson said, Yes, Your Majesty, Issandrian’s cabal spoke with him.

  “Noble blood has been spilled on the streets of Camnipol. Foreign swords have been drawn on our streets,” the king went on. “It no longer matters whether the motives behind it were pure. There must be a reckoning.”

  In the corner of his vision, Dawson thought he saw Alan Klin grow even more ashen.

  “Do you have any statements before I pass judgment?” the king asked. “Lord Kalliam?”

  “No, Your Majesty,” Dawson said. “I abide in loyalty to you and to the Severed Throne.”

  “Lord Issandrian?”

  “Your Majesty,” Curtin Issandrian said. His voice was shaking. “I wish to draw only two things to your attention. First, I beg that you consider that the violence yesterday may not have been the intention or plan of any man present. But if Your Majesty is adamant that punishment must be meted out, I ask that you spare my compatri
ot. The games for Prince Aster were my project, and mine alone. I would not have innocent men suffer simply because they know me.”

  It was a pretty speech, Dawson thought. But ill-advised.

  “My Lord Issandrian forgets that this is not the first violence that your disagreements with House Kalliam have spawned. If you would like to offer yourself up to be made an example of, I will consider it, but don’t think that anyone will find safety behind your skirts.”

  “Majesty,” Issandrian said.

  In the silence that followed, Dawson closed his eyes. His leg ached where his weight ground bone and skin into the stone floor, but he wouldn’t shift. Fidgeting would be beneath the dignity of the occasion.

  “Dawson Kalliam, Baron of Osterling Fells,” King Simeon said. “I am doubling the duties owed by your holdings for the next five years. You are to absent yourself from the court and Camnipol for not less than half a year, nor are you permitted to raise soldiers or hire mercenaries without the express permission of the throne.”

  Dawson didn’t speak, but deepened his bow. His heart was beating faster now, and he was careful not to show his anxiety.

  “Curtin Issandrian, Baron of Corsa,” the king went on. “I reclaim all lands previously held by you south of the river Andriann, and dismiss you from your positions as Warden of Estinport and Protector of the East. I am doubling the duties owed by your holdings for the next five years, and you are to absent yourself from the court and Camnipol for not less than half a year, nor are you permitted to raise soldiers or mercenaries without the express permission of the throne.”

  Dawson closed his eyes. He had to force himself not to shake his head. The disappointment sank in his belly like he’d swallowed a stone. The judgment against Klin would necessarily be equal or less. And indeed, King Simeon sent him into the same exile, increased his obligations, and stripped him of minor titles. Feldin Maas, wherever he was hiding, escaped without even that much.

  When he called them to stand, Dawson looked up at his old friend. His king. Simeon’s face was flushed, his breath fast, his face still set in a furious scowl. Behind him, Price Aster’s chin was lifted as if in defiance. For a moment, Simeon looked into Dawson’s eyes. If there was a flicker in the king’s apparent outrage, it was the only acknowledgment Dawson would get. The king’s guard stood aside, and Simeon strode out, Aster following, and the galleries burst into a thunderous clamor of voices. Dawson looked across the aisle to where Issandrian and Klin huddled in conversation of their own. Klin looked stunned. Issandrian seemed sad, and Dawson wondered whether it was for the same reason he was.

  “Lord Kalliam, sir?”

  The captain of the king’s guard was a tall man, broad across the shoulders, with a pug face and apologetic, watery eyes. Dawson nodded to him.

  “I’ll have to ask you to be outside the gates by sundown, my lord,” the man said.

  “Is my household bound?”

  “No, my lord. They can stay if they please.”

  Dawson scratched at his aching knee. The captain stood for a moment in silent respect, then moved to Issandrian’s cabal to deliver, Dawson assumed, the same warning. He turned and walked out. The outer hall was black marble and worked silver. The midday sun glared through tall, unshuttered windows. Clara was there already, waiting for him with Vincen Coe behind her like her shadow. Jorey appeared at the hallway’s end walking toward them quickly. His boots rang on the stone floor.

  “I thought that went quite well,” Clara said.

  Dawson shook his head once.

  “It was a travesty, dear,” he said. “It was the end of the empire.”

  The carriage awaited them on the street, the team of horses snorting and impatient, as if the animals felt the changes in the city itself. A hundred others like it crowded the narrow streets, waiting for the assembled nobility of Antea to trickle out from the Kingspire. All of them made way for House Kalliam. A swift return to his home was the traditional last respect given an exile.

  The rough cobbles rattled the carriage wheels. No one tried to speak. Dawson watched out the side window as the Kingspire vanished around a corner. They passed through the great square and into the streets of the city. Pigeons rose in great flocks, circled, and returned to earth. Then the Silver Bridge, and the great drop of the Division. Smoke rose from the forges and ovens.

  A day ago, noble blood had spilled in these streets. Today, it looked the same as it always had, except to the few like himself who knew better.

  At his private mansion, the servants brought out the steps as they always did. Dawson waved away the offered hands. The old Tralgu door servant greeted him solemnly. Within, the servants of the household were preparing the house. Tapestries were being taken down, furnishings draped against dust. His houndsman already had the dogs in their traveling cages; the animals whimpered their confusion and distress. Dawson knelt by them, pressing his hand against the bars to let the dogs smell him and lick at his fingers.

  “I can stay on,” Jorey said.

  “Do that,” Dawson said. “I won’t have time to put everything to rights before I leave.”

  “Some of the servants have to stay, dear,” Clara said. “The gardens won’t survive without the gardeners to look after them. And the fountain in the rose court still needs repair.”

  In the cage, the dog looked up at Dawson. Its huge brown eyes were soft and frightened. He reached through a finger and stroked its muzzle. A jaw strong enough to sever a fox’s spine with a bite leaned gently into him.

  “Do what’s best, Clara,” he said. “I trust you.”

  “Lord Kalliam?”

  Vincen Coe gave a huntsman’s salute. Dawson brought himself to nod.

  “Lord Daskellin’s come, my lord,” Coe said. “He’s in the western sitting room.”

  Dawson drew himself to his feet. The dog whined as he walked away from it. There was nothing he could do. He had no more comfort to offer. In the sitting room, Canl Daskellin stood at the window, his hands clasped behind his back like a general overseeing the field of battle. His pipe smoke was sweet enough to cloy.

  “Canl,” Dawson said. “If there’s anything you want of me, it had best be something quick. I don’t have time for a hand at cards.”

  “I came to offer my sympathies and congratulations.”

  “Congratulations? For what?”

  “We’ve won,” Daskellin said, turning away from the window and striding into the room. “You played your hand brilliantly. You lured Issandrian into a thrust he couldn’t follow through, then cut his conspiracy down. Now he’s in disgrace. His inner circle is exiled. Stripped of lands and titles. There’s no saying who will take Prince Aster as ward, but it won’t be any of them. There won’t be a farmer’s council in our lifetimes. I’m sorry it came at a price to you, but I swear that your name will be praised as a hero while you’re gone.”

  “What good’s winning battles when the war’s lost?” Dawson said. “Did you actually come here to celebrate, Daskellin? Or is this how you gloat?”

  “Gloat?”

  “Odderd Faskellin was a rabbit and a coward, but he had high blood. He died yesterday. In Camnipol, and by foreign hands. That hasn’t happened in centuries. And how did Simeon reply? Increased taxes. Petty exile. A few minor lands and titles shuffled about.”

  Daskellin leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. Grey smoke spilled from his lips and nostrils.

  “What would you have had him do?”

  “Slaughter them all himself. Bind them, take sword in hand, and take their heads with his own hand,” Dawson said.

  “It sounds like you’re missing Palliako already,” Canl said dryly. Dawson ignored him.

  “An armed company in the streets? It’s treason against the throne, and to answer it with less than death is one step short of open surrender. He made himself a mask of fierceness, and all it did was point out how frightened he is. You should have seen it. Simeon strutting and raging and calling for an ending. It was like watching a
shepherd boy trying to shout down wolves.”

  “Frightened? Of whom?”

  “The power backing Issandrian. He’s afraid of Asterilhold,” Dawson said, and then pointed an accusing finger at Daskellin himself. “And he’s afraid of Northcoast.”

  The imitation of a smile bent Daskellin’s lips and he took his pipe from his mouth.

  “I am not Northcoast, old friend,” he said. “And if consideration of the reactions of the other courts and kingdoms brought King Simeon to a place of greater mercy, that’s wisdom on his part.”

  “That’s permission for every landholder in the kingdom to spread his loyalty as widely as he can,” Dawson said. “As long as answering to a duchess in Asterilhold or a bank in Northcoast makes us safer than standing by Antea, Simeon won’t have a court of his own. He wants to keep the kingdom off the dragon’s path so badly that he’s walking down it.”

  Daskellin knelt by the fire grate, knocking the bowl of his pipe against the soot-stained brick. A rain of ashes fell from it.

  “We disagree,” he said, “but there can be room for a little differences between allies. You’re right, of course, that even with Issandrian’s cabal hobbled, the danger to the kingdom hasn’t entirely passed. Whether you believe me or not, I’d thought to reassure you that I would keep working during your exile.”

  “By selling us to the Medean bank?”

  “By seeing that King Simeon has the support and loyalty he needs.”

  “Spoken like a diplomat,” Dawson said.

  Daskellin bristled, and then as Dawson watched, gathered his temper in. He tucked his pipe into his belt and stood. The smell of old smoke still hung in the room.

  “It’s a dark day for you,” Canl said, “so I’m going to take that for what you said and ignore what you meant by it. Whatever you think, I didn’t come to gloat.”

  The two stood for a moment, the silence between them stretching. Canl Daskellin made a rueful half-smile, then walked out, putting a hand on Dawson’s shoulder as he passed. Dawson listened to the footsteps draw away, drowning in the noise of his household being uprooted. He stood a moment longer, looking out the window without seeing the early summer trees beyond it. Without hearing the birds or the servants or the whining of dogs.