Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 (10 page)

Already he disliked this lad for such sly calculation.

The two met halfway. They appeared well matched, both carrying sword and shield, but the much larger Kanese officer obviously held the advantage in weight and reach. The two kneed their mounts and began circling one another – no charging this time.

At some silent sign or signal, the horses lurched together, slamming their shoulders. The shields smashed, grinding and sliding. The blades wove and flashed overhead. The horses kicked and pushed, churning up a cloud of dust.

When the dust dispersed the crowds gasped. The Red Prince was on the ground. The Kanese officer circled him, gazing down. After a moment, the lad stirred, rising. Straightening, he shook off his shield and drew a second blade. The officer saluted him and swung down from his mount.

The crowd went wild with delight. They roared, slapped the stones of the wall, and stamped their feet. Dorin could only scowl harder. What a damned show-off! He hadn’t even been hurt by that fall! He tried to recall the youth’s name: something odd. The names out of the north followed some sort of strange old tradition, he remembered. K’azz. Yes. K’azz D’Avore.

Now they circled afoot. The youth carried two slim blades, the officer his broad shield. Personally, Dorin gave the edge to the officer. But then, in a real fight, he wouldn’t have dismounted anyway. He would’ve simply ridden the lad down.

Well, at least that’s what
he’d
have done.

They met in a high ringing of iron that was audible even upon the walls. Watching, Dorin had to give the lad his due: he was fast, and had obviously fought many times before. The two continued to circle; the officer constantly pushing, the lad giving ground to bring both blades into use.

Then sunlight flashed as the lad’s blades moved in a blur and the officer was down on one leg. K’azz set a sword next to his neck and the officer dipped his head in submission.

The crowd exploded into rapturous approval. They waved favours, even threw tokens from the walls. Dorin merely crossed his arms. The three with him were cheering and waving and howling. Out on the field, K’azz helped his one-time opponent back up into his saddle and saluted him as he went. Then he mounted his own warhorse – which was trained well enough not to run off – saluted the crowds with a wave, and returned to his camp.

The Hengan populace continued to roar their delight. Entertainment, Dorin reflected sourly, must be pretty thin on the ground here in Heng. The cheers had been abating, but suddenly they redoubled in volume and Dorin returned his attention to the Guard camp. It was breaking up and the Guard was forming a column, three abreast, and heading across the fields straight for Heng’s north gate, the Gate of the Plains.

The horde of townsfolk lining the walls now stampeded in a crush for the stairs, intent on reaching the main way to give the Guard a triumphant greeting. From atop the merlon, Dorin watched them struggling to force their way down the steps. He looked to the sky. Gods! Should he?

‘Good pickings tonight,’ the girl announced, now close at his side.

He shot her a glance. She was watching him with a knowing, openly mocking grin. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t play all coy. I seen the blades you got hid. You can use them?’

Dorin allowed a wary nod.

‘You with a crew?’ He shook his head. She sighed at his monumental ignorance. ‘Gotta join a crew, man. You’re a nobody otherwise. Me, I’m with Tran. Me ’n’ the lads. Can you keep a lookout? Think you can manage that?’

Tran. A minor street boss associated with . . . Pung. A plan – one so very elegant and simple – suddenly appeared to Dorin, and he mentally kicked himself for being so stupid as not to have thought of it before. He offered the girl a shy smile.

‘Count me in.’

* * *

Iko listened to the roar of celebration out in the streets of Heng. She stood at the open latticework window of a covered walkway. Even from this distance she could make out individual laughter, cheers, and drunken singing. The majority sounded as if it were coming from furthest away, the outermost round.

Some sort of religious festival, she imagined. Though she’d heard nothing of it through the day.

She tapped the carved latticework: gold-painted wood. Hardly the stuff of prison bars.

Why, then, her restiveness? Shrugging, she returned to her pacing. Down the way, four of her sisters were on guard over the Sword-Dancers’ chambers – they had no need for reinforcements. Still, sleep would not come, and she had exited their suite of interconnected rooms.

Guest chambers, the chamberlain had explained.

Iko had taken one look at the fountains, the many scattered carpets, the cushions and divans, and felt her lips tighten with distaste.

More like the concubines’.

The chamberlain knew; how he’d smirked as he drew shut the doors upon them. Their captain, Hallens, demonstrated her displeasure by promptly kicking them open. The Hengan servants had jumped, dropping trays and towels, but at least the doors hadn’t been locked.

Now Iko walked a roofed path that crossed the gardens. Night birds called from ornamental trees and bushes bearing dark heavy blossoms. Frogs murmured and insects clouded round torches set about the trails. At the far end of the walkway, where doors led to the complex of the palace proper, a single man stood guard. Or perhaps was merely as restless as she. The slim, immaculately dressed figure of the city mage, Smokey.

Well. A single guard would be all that was required – if he or she were a mage of such a reputation. Steeling herself, she approached, and offered a slight bow of greeting. This the mage answered, only a touch condescendingly. Closer now, she saw that his shirt was of the finest brushed cotton, his footwear of the highest quality soft leather, and that his hair and beard were too evenly black – dyed, in point of fact, to hide a premature grey. Vanity was what she read in this. Vanity and an underlying insecurity. ‘A warm evening,’ she offered. ‘Is it always so warm this late?’

‘The plains can get quite hot, Sword-Dancer.’

She gestured out to the darkness beyond the decorative latticework of the walkway. ‘There is some sort of religious festival?’

The mage shook his head. ‘The locals are feting the arrival of the Crimson Guard . . . rumours are flying that they have come to save the city from you Kanese.’

Iko considered the mage’s words. ‘But they have not.’

‘They have not. They have come escorting a Grisian prince. He is keen to make a name for himself and has come to hunt the man-beast Ryllandaras. As so many have before – and failed.’

Iko grunted her rather shocked amazement at this.

‘Indeed. He and the Red Prince, K’azz, are close friends, so the talk goes. K’azz grew up in the Grisian court.’ The mage shot her a strange look. ‘A hostage, you understand.’

‘I see.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, they are only mercenaries. And the entire corps numbers only a thousand, yes?’

The mage inclined his head once more. ‘Indeed. They only take in new members when one of their number dies. And then only the greatest of those vying to enter.’

Iko now wondered what it was the mage was truly talking about; she decided it was war. She returned to studying the dark. ‘Mercenaries are untrustworthy and duplicitous allies. When it looks as though the cause is lost they will always betray or desert their employer. Sometimes they even offer their services to the opposing side.’

The mage nodded sagely. Iko thought she detected a hint of wood smoke in the air. It was not unpleasant; it reminded her of kneeling next to her family’s hearth, her mother cooking.

‘This is true – for most of the companies that have come and gone here in Quon. But not elsewhere. Have you not heard of the Grey Swords of Elingarth? The Guard are just as they. Can you think of a single reported incident when either deserted an employer? Or betrayed a contract? No?’ She shook her head. ‘Exactly. They dare not. It would destroy their reputation and none would hire them.’

‘Yet, in the end, war is not a profitable business.’

Iko waited, but the mage did not answer. She glanced to him and saw him eyeing her with a new expression in his eyes – a new respect.

He finally spoke, nodding to himself. ‘Indeed it is not – for those caught in it. And so I offer you advice, child . . . Urge your king away from this war. It will not win him the rewards he imagines. But more important, many southerners will die. And all for nothing. If he truly cared about the welfare of his people he would abandon this campaign.’

Stung, Iko faced him directly. ‘I am disappointed, old man. So speaks a city mage of Heng. What is next – base threats?’

But the mage merely stroked his beard, shaking his head. ‘It is I who am disappointed. Perhaps, in time, you will understand my words. I hope it will not be too late.’

Iko waved a curt farewell. ‘It is already too late, mage. I bid you good night.’ She turned away and stalked off. His last words came wafting through the darkness.

‘Remember. All that comes he has brought upon himself . . .’

THE RED-HEADED GIRL’S
name was Rheena. She and her two loyal followers, Shreth and Loor – Loor being the younger – played thieves’ games long familiar to Dorin. He recognized buttoning, fishing, and the crooked cross. Rheena picked the marks and usually served as the distraction. She sometimes asked for coin, or she’d catch a man’s roving gaze and offer herself. During the negotiations the mark would get run into by Shreth, or the two lads would start a fight right on top of him. She also proved a shrewd judge of character as, after eyeing one finely dressed fellow, she immediately started yelling that the bastard had felt her up. Under the surrounding hostile stares the embarrassed mark practically begged her to take a quarter-round to go away.

But theirs was a dangerous game. The streets were crowded with revellers and she made a mistake with one big fellow, who snatched Loor’s quick hand and twisted, sending him on his way with a kick. Shreth swung at him but was quickly laid out with a blow to the head. The man snatched Rheena by the arm and dragged her into an alley. Loor picked up a board but Dorin pulled him back, motioned for him to wait, and followed them himself.

In the narrow way the fellow had her up against a wall, one hand clutching her throat, the other holding her up by her crotch. Dorin cleared his throat. The fellow turned his head; his gaze was full of lazy confidence. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

Dorin motioned up the alley. ‘Put her down and walk away.’

The man dropped Rheena to the cobbles where she lay gasping for breath. He pointed a stubby finger at Dorin. ‘Dumb-fuck kids. Shouldn’t play with grownups.’

Dorin flexed his wrists to allow the thin blades he carried there to ease into his palms. The light in the alleyway was dim and flickering as revellers passed on the street waving torches and lanterns, but a change in the man’s expression told Dorin he’d seen them and knew what they meant. ‘Not worth it,’ Dorin told him. ‘Plenty of other girls out there. Walk away.’

A strange sort of knowing smile crept up the fellow’s lips and he opened his arms wide. ‘You gonna kill me, little man?’

‘No.’

‘No? Why not?’

‘I don’t kill for free.’

The other man frowned at that, stroked his chin with a wide paw. ‘Hunh. Makes sense.’ He kicked Rheena, who’d sat up. Shreth and Loor pressed up close behind Dorin, snarling their rage. ‘You, girl,’ the fellow demanded, ‘who do you work for?’

Rheena was rubbing her neck. ‘Fuck off.’

‘It ain’t Odd-Hand, I’m sure of that.’

Rheena started, surprised, and dropped her hand. ‘Tran,’ she spat, resentfully.

The big fellow grinned without humour. ‘Thought so. Well, you tell Tran to keep his brats off our streets. Right?’

‘Fine!’

‘Good for you. Not so stupid after all.’ He brushed his hands together. ‘Now run along.’

Still unsteady, Rheena climbed to her feet. Shreth and Loor rushed forward and helped her limp away. Dorin did not move.

‘You too, knife-boy.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Unimportant, lad. This is just business. Now g’wan.’

Dorin decided to let it go. He backed away, all the while keeping his eyes on the other man. The fellow – an enforcer? – watched him go, his amusement quite obvious.

Out on the street, Dorin asked, ‘What was that all about?’

Rheena waved it off. ‘Just a little border scuffle.’

‘Who was he?’

‘He works for Urquart.’

Urquart. Pung’s main rival for control of all the city’s black market and thievery. Rafall, he knew, worked for Urquart.

Rheena suddenly laughed uproariously. She tossed her flame-hued hair, the familiar fey light once more shining in her eyes. ‘Forget all that!’ She held out a fistful of coins. ‘Let’s get shit-faced drunk!’ Shreth and Loor howled their enthusiasm, joining their voices to the surrounding roar of revelry and singing.

With dawn, Dorin slid out of the dive where Rheena and her small loyal crew had finished their drinking. As the coin dwindled, the quality of the dives had slid precipitously, until they’d crashed in this dingy basement among snoring drunks. Dorin didn’t even think it a true business, just an abandoned room where you could find watered beer and the cheapest of narcotic chew and stale old d’bayang powder.

His head throbbed from the one tankard of disgusting beer he’d nursed and the smoke he couldn’t avoid inhaling. He rubbed his stinging eyes and headed off for the main street of the Outer Round. He circled pools of spilt beer and vomit, and stepped over unconscious revellers. Shop-owners tossed trash and the contents of night buckets into the streets. Hengans walked the streets holding their heads and groaning. He overheard stories of one large gang of celebrants, overcome with alcohol and confidence, that sallied out into the field in the pre-dawn. They’d been armed only with what they could pick up, and made a charge for the Kanese camp. Cooler heads had prevailed, however, or perhaps it was the chill prairie wind in their faces, or rumours that Ryllandaras had been seen in the vicinity, but they thought better of the assault and retreated. The mounted Kanese pickets had kindly allowed them to go with only a few jabs of their lances to hurry them along.