Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 (43 page)

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.