The Dread Wyrm Read online

  He made a natural, but ill-judged, decision to run his hand over her body as she passed, and found himself wheezing on the hard oak boards. Her paramour, Count Zac, stepped on the fallen Hillman and vaulted over the bar.

  The Hillman rose, his face a study in rage, to find Bad Tom’s snout within a hand’s breadth of his own. He flinched.

  Tom handed the man—one of his own—a full flagon of ale. “Go drink it off,” he said.

  The Keeper glared at the incursion of Albans now encroaching on the smooth delivery of ale. “Didn’t I rent you a private room?” he asked the captain.

  “Do you want to hear this tale, or not?” the captain said.

  The Keeper grunted.

  “So Thorn—” Every man and woman in earshot was aware that the captain or the duke—or whatever tomfool title he went by these days—had just said Thorn’s name three times.

  Three hundred Albin leagues north and west, Thorn stood in a late-winter snow shower. He stood on the easternmost point of the island he had made his own, his place of power, and great breakers of the salt-less inner sea slammed against the rock of the island’s coast and rose ten times the height of a man into the air, driven by the strong east wind.

  Out in the bay, the ice was breaking.

  Thorn had come to this exposed place to prepare a working—a set of workings, a nest of workings—against his target: Ghause, wife of the Earl of Westwall. He felt his name—like the whisper of a moth’s wings in the air close to a man’s face on a hot summer night. But many said his name aloud, in whispers, often enough that he didn’t always pay heed. But in this case, the naming was accompanied by a burst of power that even across the circle of the world made itself felt in the aethereal.

  The second calling was softer. But such things run in threes, and no user of the art could ever be so ignorant as to attract his attention and leave the third naming incomplete.

  The third use was casual—contemptuous. Thorn’s sticklike, bony hands flinched.

  But the Dark Sun was no casual enemy, and he stood in a place of power surrounded by friends. And he had made Thorn blind, as he did on a regular basis. Carefully, with the forced calm that, in a mere man, would have involved the gritting of teeth, Thorn mended the small gap in the aether made by the calling of his name, and went back to crafting his working.

  But his patience had been interrupted and his rage—Thorn thought dimly around the black hole in his memory that once he had been against rage—flowed out. Some of the rage he funnelled into his working against Ghause—what better revenge? But still he felt that the Dark Sun made him small, and he hated.

  And so, without further thought, he acted. A raid was redirected. A sentry was killed. A warden—a daemon lord, as men would call him—was suborned, his sense of reality undermined and conquered.

  Try that, mortal man, Thorn thought, and went back to his casting.

  In doing so, like a bird disturbed in making a spring nest, he dropped a twig. But consumed by rage and hate, he didn’t notice.

  “Attacked Lissen Carak, and we beat him. He made a dozen mistakes to every one we made—eh, Tom?” Gabriel smiled.

  The giant Hillman shrugged. “Never heard you admit we made any mistakes at all.”

  Ser Gavin chose to lean against the bar on the other side. “Imagine how Jehan would tell this tale if he was here,” he said.

  “Then it would be nothing but my mistakes,” Gabriel said, but with every other man and woman in red, he raised his cup and drank.

  “Any road, we beat him,” Tom said. “But it wasn’t no Chaluns, was it? Nor a Battle of Chevin.” Both battles—a thousand years and more apart—had been glorious and costly victories of the forces of men over the Wild.

  Gabriel shrugged. “No—it was more like a skirmish. We won a fight in the woods, and then another around the fortress. But we didn’t kill enough boglins to change anything.” He shrugged. “We didn’t kill Plangere or change his mind.” He looked around. “Still—we’re not dead. Round one to us. Eh?”

  Bad Tom raised his mug and drank.

  “In summer we rode east to the Empire. To Morea.”

  “That’s more like it,” said the Keeper.

  “It’s a tangled thread. The Emperor wanted to hire us, but we never knew what for, because by the time we heard, he’d been taken captive and his daughter Irene was on the throne. And Duke Andronicus was trying to take the city.”

  “By which our duke means Liviapolis,” Wilful Murder said to his awestruck new apprentice archer, Diccon, a boy so thin and yet so muscular that most of the women in the common room had noticed him. “Biggest fewkin’ city in the world.” Wilful knew what it meant when all the officers gathered, and he’d wormed his way patiently into the story circle.

  The Keeper raised an eyebrow. His daughter laughed. “Way I hear it, she had ’im taken so she could have the power.”

  “Nah, that’s just rumour,” her father said.

  The Red Knight’s companions didn’t say a thing. They didn’t even exchange looks.

  “We arrived,” the captain said with relish, “in the very nick of time. We routed the usurper—”

  Tom snorted. Michael looked away, and Sauce made a rude gesture. “We almost got our arses handed to us,” she said.

  The captain raised an eyebrow. “And after a brief winter campaign—”

  “Jesu!” spat Sauce. “You’re leaving out the whole story!”

  “By Tar’s tits!” Bad Tom said.

  Just for a moment, at his oath, a tiny flawed silence fell so that his words seemed to carry.

  “What did you just say?” Gabriel asked, and his brother Gavin looked as if one of Tom’s big fists had struck him.

  Bad Tom frowned. “It’s a Hillman’s oath,” he said.

  Gabriel was staring at him. “Really?” he asked. He sighed. “At any rate, after a brief but very successful winter campaign, we destroyed the duke’s baggage and left his army helpless in the snow and then made forced marches—”

  “In fewkin’ winter!” Bad Tom interjected.

  “Across the Green Hills to Osawa to retrieve the Emperor’s share of the fur trade.” The captain smiled. “Which paid off our bets, so to speak.”

  “You ain’t telling any part of this right,” Sauce said.

  Gabriel glared at her—she couldn’t tell, despite knowing him many years, whether this was his instant anger or a mock-glare. “Why don’t you tell it, then,” he said.

  She raised and lowered her eyebrows very rapidly. “All right then.” She looked to the Keeper. “So we—” She paused. “Got very lucky and—” She thought of the security ramifications and realized she couldn’t actually name Kronmir, the spy, who had left the enemy and joined them and even now was making his way to Harndon with Gelfred and the green banda. “And… we… er…”

  Gabriel met her eye and they both laughed.

  “As I was saying,” he went on. “A month ago and more, we found through treason in the former duke’s court in Lonika the location of the Emperor, and we staged a daring rescue, met his army in the field and beat it, and killed his son Demetrius.”

  “Who had already murdered his father,” Ser Alcaeus muttered, joining the circle.

  “So we returned the Emperor to his loving daughter and grateful city, took our rewards, and came straight here to spend them,” the Red Knight said. “Leaving, as you don’t seem to notice, more than half our company to guard the Emperor.”

  “His mouth is moving and I can’t understand a word he says.” Bad Tom laughed. “Except that we’re all still being paid.”

  Ser Michael joined the giant. “You told what happened without any part of the story,” he said.

  “That’s generally what happens,” Gabriel agreed. “We call the process ‘History.’ Anyway, we’ve been busy, we have silver, and we’re all on our way south. We’ll help Tom get his beeves to market and then most of us will go to the king’s tournament at Harndon at Pentecost.”

  “
With a stop in Albinkirk,” Ser Michael said.

  Gabriel glared at his protégé, who was unbowed.

  “To see a nun,” Michael added, greatly daring.

  But the captain’s temper was well in check. He merely shrugged. “To negotiate a council of the north country,” Gabriel corrected him. “Ser John Crayford has invited a good many of the powers. It’ll run alongside the market at Lissen Carak.”

  The Keeper nodded. “Aye—I’ve had my herald. I’ll be sending one o’ my brats wi’ Bad Tom. It’s a poor time to go, for mysel.” He wrinkled his nose. “And ye—pardon me. But you may be the king o’ sell-swords, but what ha’ ye to do wi’ the north country?”

  Gabriel Muriens smiled. For a moment, he looked rather more like his mother than he would have liked. “I’m the Duke of Thrake,” he said. “My writ runs from the Great Sea to the shores at Ticondaga.”

  “Sweet Christ and all the saints,” the Keeper said. “So the Muriens now hold the whole of the wall.”

  Gabriel nodded. “The Abbess has some of it, out west. But yes, Keeper.”

  The Keeper shook his head. “The Emperor gave you the wall?”

  Sauce had a look on her face as if she’d never considered the implications of her captain being the Lord of the Wall. Bad Tom looked as if an axe had hit him between the eyes. Gavin was looking at his brother with something like suspicion.

  Only Ser Michael looked unfazed. “The Emperor,” he said lightly, “is very unworldly.” He scratched his beard. “Unlike our esteemed lord and master.”

  Whatever reaction this comment might have received was lost when a slim man with jet-black hair emerged from the dumbwaiter that brought kegs from the deep cellars. The Keeper’s folk rode the man-powered elevator from time to time, usually for a prank or when ale was needed very quickly; but most of the folk standing on the staff side of the bar had never seen the black-haired man before. He wore a well cut, very short black doublet and matching hose and had pale, almost translucent skin, like depictions of particularly ascetic saints.

  “Master Smythe,” Gabriel said, with a bow.

  The Keeper puffed his cheeks. “Could we,” he said carefully, “move this to another room?”

  One by one they passed under the bar into the outer common room and then forced their way to the end of the great hall and out into a private solar under the eaves. It was chilly, and the young woman who had so carefully given the captain the eye knelt gracefully and began to make up a fire. She lit it with a taper and then curtsied—but this time her bright eyes were for Master Smythe.

  Master Smythe surprised them all by watching her as she left for wine and ale, and a tiny wisp of smoke came from one nostril. “Ah, the children of men,” he said. He raised an eyebrow at Gabriel. “What curious animals you are. You don’t want her, but you resent her wanting me.”

  Gabriel’s head snapped back as if he’d been struck and, behind him, Father Arnaud choked on his ale and hid his face.

  “Must you always say what other people are thinking?” asked the Red Knight. “It would be a bad enough habit with your own thoughts. Please don’t do it with mine.”

  Master Smythe smiled politely. “But why resent me?”

  Gabriel exhaled for so long that it wasn’t a sigh. It was like a physical release of tension. His eyes moved—

  He shrugged. “I miss the company of women in my bed,” he said with flat honesty. “And I like to be desired.”

  Master Smythe nodded. “As do I. Do you perceive me as a rival?”

  Sauce stepped in. “Given that you’re some sort of god and we’re not, I’m sure he does.” She smiled at the black-haired man. “But he’ll get over it.”

  “I can fight my own fights,” the Red Knight said, putting a hand on Sauce’s shoulder. He nodded graciously to Master Smythe. “We are allies. Allies are—often—potential rivals. But I think you put too much on my surface thoughts and my animal reactions. I like a wench, and sometimes,” he smiled, “I do things from habit.”

  Master Smythe nodded. “For my part, I am a surly companion, my allies. Do you know that before this little matter of the sorcerer in the north, I was quite happy to lie on my mountain and think? I retreated from this world for reasons. And as I play this game, the reasons seem to me ever more valid.” He looked around. “I am not filled with a sense of ambition or challenge, but just a vague fatigue. Facing our shared foe—” He paused. “I’d really rather that he just went off to another plot, another world.”

  The serving girl returned. She had broad shoulders—extraordinarily broad. She had a peculiar grace, as if life in a big body had forced her to some extraordinary exercises.

  The Red Knight leaned over. “You’re a dancer!” he said, delighted.

  She bobbed her head. “Yes, m’lord,” she said.

  “A Hillman!” Gabriel said.

  Master Smythe laughed. “Surely—surely we call her a Hillwoman.”

  She blushed and looked at the ground and then raised her eyes—to Master Smythe.

  Gabriel took a sip of ale. “I think I’ve lost this round,” he said. Sauce rolled her eyes and leaned against the table.

  The fire roared to life, the kindling bursting into an almost hermetical fire so that the small room was instantly warmer.

  Father Arnaud whispered something as Bad Tom pushed in, and Sauce roared. “It’s like watching two lions with a bunny,” she said.

  Father Arnaud was less than amused.

  Master Smythe took his ale and sat in the chair at the end of the table, and the rest of them made do with two benches and a collection of stools brought by a trio of boys. There wasn’t really room for everyone—Ser Michael was filling out rapidly and bid fair to reach Bad Tom’s size; Bad Tom folded himself into a nook by the chimney, as if storing heat for his future of sleeping out on the moors with his flocks. Sauce hooked a stool across from the captain. Mag came in and settled on the bench next to the captain, and Gavin took the other side. The Keeper took a stool at the far end of the table from Master Smythe. Ser Alcaeus stood behind the captain, leaning with his shoulders wedged into the oak panels. Wilful Murder stood in the doorway for as long as a nun might say a prayer, and the captain made a sign with his hand and the old archer slipped away.

  “Where is the remarkable young man?” Master Smythe asked.

  “We have a whole company of remarkable young men.” Gabriel nodded. “You mean Ser Morgon?”

  Master Smythe nodded and blinked. “Ah—I expected him here. He is in Morea.”

  “Where he belongs, at school.” Ser Gabriel leaned forward.

  “You have left half your company in Morea?” Master Smythe asked.

  “Ser Milus deserved an independent command. Now he has it. He has almost all the archers and—” The Red Knight paused.

  Ser Michael laughed. “And all the knights we trust.”

  Master Smythe nodded. “Hence your escort of Thrakian… gentlemen.”

  Ser Gabriel nodded. “I don’t think any of them plan to put a knife in my ribs, but I think it’s better for everyone that they aren’t in Thrake for a year or two.”

  Count Zac came in and, at a sign from Sauce, closed the door with his hip. He had a tray full of bread and olive oil. He went and balanced with Sauce on a small stool.

  “And we have Count Zacuijah to keep the rest of us in line,” Ser Gabriel said.

  “And the magister you carried in your head?” asked Master Smythe.

  There were some blank looks and, again, Sauce made a face that indicated a connection made. She bit her lip and looked at her lover. He shrugged.

  Most of the men and women present had never seen the captain so at a loss—so hesitant. But he mustered his wits. “All my secrets revealed. Well. Maestro Harmodius has re-established his place in the… um… corporeal world.”

  Master Smythe nodded. His gaze rested on Count Zac. “And you just happen to have joined our little cabal?” Master Smythe asked.

  “I want to see a tournament,�
�� the easterner said. “Besides, nothing exciting will happen in Morea now.”

  Alcaeus grunted. “Your mouth to God’s ear,” he said.

  Count Zac shrugged. “Yes—unless someone poisons the Emperor.”

  Alcaeus put a hand on his dagger.

  Master Smythe allowed a wisp of smoke to escape his nose. He pulled a pipe from his pocket—an amazing affectation, an Outwaller habit almost never seen in civilized lands—and began to pack it full of red-brown leaf mould. “Could we begin?” he asked mildly.

  Gabriel spread his hands. “I have very little to report. And little to say beyond—thanks. We really could not have accomplished anything without you. It pains me to say it, but without your hand on the delicate balances of power and logistika, we’d have failed last winter.”

  Master Smythe bowed his head in gracious assent. “How was the petard? The explosive device?”

  Ser Michael barked a laugh. “Loud,” he said. “My ears still ring sometimes.”

  Master Smythe played with his beard as if he’d never noticed he had one before. “Splendid. There will be more toys of a similar nature coming along in the next months. Indeed, I have arranged—or I will—that you can collect them in Harndon.” He looked around. “We are coming… to the difficult part.”

  Sauce allowed her nostrils to flare. “That was the easy part?”

  Master Smythe sighed. He put his pipe to his lips—a very long-stemmed Outwaller pipe decorated in an extravagant excess of porcupine quill work—and inhaled, and the pipe lit itself. “Yes,” he said. “In the next phase, almost whatever we do, we will be noticed. Even now, our adversary must be wondering if there is another player in the game. Or if the dice are rigged. He has made two attempts to put his pawn on the throne of Alba. He has made a half-hearted attempt to bring about the collapse of Morea. I think he believes that his adversary is Harmodius. So far.” Master Smythe smiled with prim satisfaction. “Now—” He exhaled smoke. “Now he is bending his schemes to Ticondaga and Dorling. My own backyard.”

  Ser Gavin stiffened.

  “Down, boy,” Ser Gabriel said. “I’m sure that Mater can overcome anything we face.”