City in the Sky (31 page)

The men nodded, their faces blanking as they swiftly memorized his words.
These
orders could not be trusted to paper.

“Once you're done, meet at the rendezvous to confirm,” Brane continued. The men scattered, each to find his own contacts, as Brane turned back to the walls of the military enclosure. The rendezvous was a tavern, named the Black Moonbeam.

His lips twisted at the thought. Even the
tavern
names were pretentious here. Aeradi arrogance and pretensions oozed from every corner of the buildings and streets. It sickened him, but he knew the place would be in his people's hands soon enough.

The room he was renting, and the cage with the small courier pigeon in it, were only a few blocks from the tower he'd scaled. Everyone always raved about how they would soon have a method of communication by magic of one kind or another. The Dwarves' engineers and alchemists talked about wires and Fire, the Draconan and Aeradi crystal Aligners and Medlers talked about crystals that could speak across the Air. None worked.

The only method Brane knew to work was the Mages' mind-to-mind communication, but the Draconans had few mages, and they, like Dracona's Healers, were half-bloods. Respected for their talents, but despised for their impure blood.

Certainly he had no Mage to communicate with the army on the shores of Hellit, but he didn't need one. He caressed the head of the courier pigeon, and took the time to write the message out carefully before he tucked it into the bird's ankle-tube. Once the message was in place, he carried her to the window and let her loose.

The bird flew faster than dragons or rocs, let alone skyships. She'd reach her mate, with the army, by nightfall. The army would leave those shores by dawn.

Two days after that, ten thousand Claws of the Dragon would descend on the undefended city of Newport.

After Erik's display in the tavern, the bar fights between his men and Dekker
sept
Corens' stopped. Unfortunately, according to Ikeras – who had given up on hiding anything from Erik – that was only because they'd moved their harassment to more public locations, where steel could not be drawn.

The campaign of low-level harassment sickened Erik, but he was hard-pressed to think of things to do. The only option he could come up with was to confront Dekker himself. Which, of course, was what led to him standing outside an upscale tavern named the Black Moonbeam in the fading spring light.

According to Ikeras, Dekker frequented this tavern often, most evenings in fact, and should be in there now. Confronting him would be simple: all Erik had to do was walk inside and find the man. It wasn't a big tavern.

There was no way Erik could allow the harassment of
his
men to continue. He'd refused Ikeras' company on this venture, in the hope that the lack of other presences would encourage Dekker to speak honestly, but only time would tell.

He entered the tavern. It was a small tavern, with only one major room with a bar and several tables. Quite upscale, the tables and bar were Sky Isle oak, well-polished and kept clean, and the room was well, if dimly, lit by dozens of crystal-lights. The Moonbeam was only about half-full, with a noticeable number of Draconan traders enjoying a drink before the evening rush of Aeradi pushed them out.

Dekker sat alone at a table off to the right-hand side of the room. He was out of uniform, and didn't even appear to be armed. The Wind Guard wasn't facing the door, and his gaze appeared to be riveted to the rear of one of the tavern's serving girls. With a quick glance, Erik confirmed that this sight was likely to hold his attention for a while, and crossed to the Aeraid's table.

“Dekker
sept
Corens,” he said, just loudly enough to be heard over the dull murmur of conversation in the room. “We meet again.”

“Well a now,” Dekker drawled, his gaze returning to his own table, “isn't this a pleasure.” Despite his words and the drawl, his voice was flat. “And just what would you be a wanting, Tarverro?”

“I want your men to stop pushing mine,” Erik said flatly, circling the table to the only other chair at it. His gaze locked onto Dekker's as he slowly sank into the chair, half-facing the Aeraid, half-facing the tavern door.

“I wouldn't be having the slightest notion what you're on about,” Dekker replied lazily. “Soldiers get rowdy, you know, and there's little man nor god can do about that.”

“Like Fires you don't,” Erik hissed. “You and I both know you put them up to it.”

“Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't, but I don't see how it’s my concern if you're not keeping your own discipline,” Dekker told him, a slight grin on his face.

“Oh, I can keep discipline if I have to,” Erik said quietly. “Which half of your men do you want me to kill to make the other half behave?”

Dekker's lazy, relaxed stance vanished as he straightened hard in his chair. “You'll be finding I'm not taking well to threats,” he said, equally quietly, his drawl suddenly hard. “To my men least of all.”

Erik blinked at this sign, the
first
sign, of the man caring for more than his own bloated ego. “Keep your own discipline, then,” he told the man, “then I won't have to.”

“I don't be seeing...”

Whatever it was Dekker wasn't planning to see, Erik never heard. Even as the Aeraid spoke, his gaze drifted to the door of the tavern, just as another Draconan merchant walked in. He casually glanced at the man's face, and froze.

It was the man from Black Mountain. The Red Dragon who'd hunted him across half of Cevran. In the moment Erik recognized the man, the Dragon clearly recognized him. A twisting motion of the assassin's wrist brought
something
into his hand, and Erik didn't stay still long enough to find out what it was.

“Corens, down!” he snapped, and dove across the table to drive the Wind Guard officer to the floor. As he did, a bolt of lightning struck the table, shattering it into a dozen pieces.

The smell of burning ozone in his nostrils, Erik surged back to his feet, shoving Dekker one way while he jumped the other. Another bolt of lightning flashed through where they'd been kneeling, and exploded against the back wall, showering the patrons with shrapnel.

This was
not
what he'd been expecting!

Brane cursed horribly in the privacy of his mind. By all the Gods and powers, Tarverro
here
? There was only one, perhaps two or three, people in this entire
city
who could recognize him for what he was, and he had run into the only one he was certain of. The one man he wanted above all else to kill, but couldn't afford to be seen by.

Both of his bolts had missed, and his crys-rod was expended. He could run, but he wouldn't make it. Besides, Tarverro knew he was here, and Tarverro knew
what
he was. No matter what else, Tarverro had to die.

Flinging his cloak from his shoulders, Brane drew his sword, and his mind began cataloguing threats. Most of the patrons weren't a danger, but the man with Erik had come back to his feet too quickly, and was surveying the room with too sharp an eye. He was a soldier, definitely.

Four of his own men were already in the tavern, and a fifth was with him. He had no choice. Tarverro
had
to die, and the soldier as well, just to be certain.

“
Take them
!” he shouted, and his men threw back cloaks and jackets, drawing the swords they'd carried concealed underneath them.

It wasn't the venue he'd have chosen, but it was the battle he had.

Erik didn't like the stiletto daggers he'd forged months before for the Red Dragon Rade, but he was too aware of their usefulness to give them up. So, even when he'd hung the rapier on the wall, replacing it with his father's sword, he'd had a leather wrist-sheath made for one of them.

Now, with Draconans far too close for him to draw his sword, he flicked it out of its sheath. In one fluid motion he stepped inside the reach of the Draconan nearest him and slid the tiny blade between the man's ribs.

The Red Dragon froze in shock, coughed up blood, and began to fall, clearing Erik a space. Before the assassin hit the floor, Erik grabbed the shortsword he'd been wielding, and brought it up against the man who'd been with his victim.

He was too close to use the blade, so he simply slammed the pommel of the weapon into the Draconan's face. The man stumbled backwards, over a stool, and Erik took advantage of the free moment to spin to Corens.

As he'd feared, the Wind Guard was unarmed, and facing off with two of the Red Dragons. Unarmed, the man was doomed. Erik may have disliked the man, but he had no intention of allowing
that
to happen.

“Corens!” he bellowed. The Wind Guard's head snapped around to face him, and he smiled grimly. “Catch!” Erik shouted, and tossed the sword in his hand. Corens caught it one-handed, and raised it in salute, quickly turning the gesture into a parry as the Draconans closed in.

He'd done all he could for Corens, and his own sword whistled out of his sheath as he turned back to the Draconan he'd distracted. The man was back up on his feet, and charged at Erik, his sword out for a disemboweling slash.

Erik thrust his sword out and into the charging assassin. His swing faltered as the sky steel point punched into his gut, and Erik batted the shortsword aside with the flat of his hand, and yanked his blade out.

The Draconan crumpled to the ground, but a whistle of air warned Erik of another assassin. He dodged sideways, sliding to one knee on the gory wooden floorboards, and a shortsword stabbed through where he'd stood. He surged back to his feet, parrying another blow as he did, and retaliated with a backhand blow that opened the spy's throat in a spray of blood.

Then Brane, the Draconan he'd
known
was a Red Dragon, was there, his sword driving for Erik's own throat. Erik slashed his sword violently in front of his face, knocking the Red Dragon's sword aside, but unbalancing himself.

Erik slid almost uncontrollably on the gore, causing Brane's next blow to go wide. He stopped his slide and came to his feet in a lunge, but the Red Dragon nimbly dodged out of the way of Erik's blade, sending his own strike sweeping at Erik's head.

The two swords met with a clang as Erik knocked the strike aside and lunged forwards. The tip of his tachi scored the Draconan's side as Brane failed to dodge swiftly enough, and Erik grinned mockingly.

“Even Rade was better than this,” he told the other man softly, watching to see if his judgment of the man's blood relation to that long-dead assassin was right.

A wordless snarl was his only answer, enough to confirm his thought. Erik had no time for further worry, however, as Brane came at him fast and dirty. Three times the Draconan struck, trying to find a weakness in Erik's guard, and three times Erik parried. His focus on Brane's strikes was almost his undoing.

“Tarverro!” Corens' shout echoed across the tavern. “Look out!”

One of the Dragons attacking Corens had broken off and come to his leader's aid. He came in from Erik's flank, stabbing for the half-Aeraid's thigh. Corens' warning was just enough, and Erik stepped backwards.

The Draconan slid into the space he'd occupied, and Erik grabbed the man's shoulder with his left hand. The muscles of years of blacksmithing stood out along Erik's arm as he propelled the man across the slick wooden floorboards into Brane's weapon arm.

Brane was too well-trained to accidentally hit his own man, but the other Red Dragon knocked the Draconan's arm off for a deadly moment too long. In that single moment of distraction, Erik struck.

His father's sword lanced out in a deadly-perfect underarm stroke that punched clean through the assassin's ribcage and drove splinters of bone into the man's heart and lungs before punching out Brane's back, severing the Draconan's spinal cord.

For an unimaginably long moment, Brane's and Erik's gazes locked. Then, wordlessly, the Draconan assassin slid from Erik's blade onto the floor.

Erik barely even saw Corens dispatch the last pair of Red Dragons. Brane's death put the rest of the fight into shadow, and Erik slowly knelt by the assassin's body, ignoring the gore.

The man had chased him across half a continent, and somehow managed to follow him even to here, to Newport, where he'd assumed he was safe. So many had died for this man's pursuit of him, and now it was over. Erik wasn't quite sure how to take it.

“Red Dragons,” he heard Corens say softly, interrupting his reverie.

Erik turned away from the body of his enemy and faced the other soldier stiffly. “Yes,” he said quietly. “That one,” he indicated Brane, “and I have met before.”

Corens eyed the body and nodded slowly. “If you hadn't spotted him, we both would be dead,” he said quietly. “I would have died again had you not armed me. I owe you a life, Tarverro.”

Erik shivered. The words somehow meant more for their quiet sincerity, and terrified him.
That
was not a debt easily set aside among the Aeradi
ept
. Nor was it one he felt deserved.