The Dragon Lord Page 27

  It wasn’t enough to account for the warnings sounding at the back of Aldric’s mind. And it wasn’t enough to make them stop.

  His left hand was warmed by more than the leather of his glove. If he rolled back the cuff the blue-white glare of the Echainon stone would flood this entire place. The waves of energy ebbed and surged in time with his pulse, throbbing from fingertips to elbow as if the muscles were responding to exercise. It seemed almost to have a sound like the drone of bees in clover, yet there was no sign that the others noticed anything amiss. Aldric could think of no reason why the stone should come to life just now, but he was sure he would find out soon enough.

  When at last he appeared, the eldheisart commanding the Red Tower’s garrison was an unimposing figure for all the neatness of his indoor-duty uniform. He looked more like an innkeeper than a soldier, with the well-padded waist and fleshy jowls of a man who enjoyed good food and drink. That might be thanks to the special guests housed here, for there had been nothing soft about the other troopers and officers Aldric had seen. Despite the relaxed way they carried out their guard duties, they struck him as a capable and dangerous group of men, more dangerous because they were here rather than despite it.

  ‘A reward for good conduct’ was how Bruda had described a posting to this garrison. It suggested that the hard-eyed men inside and outside the Red Tower were better than their comrades. Better at the most basic soldier’s trade of killing; their appearance wasn’t that of men with expertise in gentler arts.

  Bruda and the plump garrison commander made polite small talk over glasses of local grainfire spirit, and within minutes more of it was being served. The stuff was colourless as water and heavy as oil, it reeked of herbal extracts, and Aldric found it vile. Mixed with something else, anything else, it might be acceptable; not these brimming small measures put down in a single gulp as if the stuff might escape. Those repeated gulps were happening with enough frequency and enjoyment that his own reluctance made him seem out of place, and prompted a comment from the stout eldheisart.

  “He seems young for a hanalth, Lord-Commander.” Though the observation might have confidential, it came out at a volume suggesting these hospitality-cups were far from the first of the night. Aldric hid a brief smile, but not before it went sour at Voord’s reply.

  “That little bastard – your pardon, sir – doesn’t have a military rank at all. His written authority has him with the Secret Police. And he’s here about Princess Marhala, as if you and the Army weren’t good enough.” It was a spur-of-the-moment improvisation almost worthy of applause. That remark, with its ill-concealed detestation and the eventual, inevitable discovery that Aldric’s papers were as false as his rank, would point yet another finger at the man who had murdered the princess.

  For now, mention of the Secret Police diverted the garrison eldheisart’s curiosity from a guest who might as well have turned into a venomous snake. It would make remembering him again much more dramatic, but Aldric didn’t care. Far too many people had noticed him already.

  *

  The stairs inside the Red Tower were wrong. They were wider than they should have been, and they didn’t spiral to cramp an attacker’s arm. Though its grim exterior remained the same, the building’s purpose had changed in the years since it was first built. Stonemasons’ hammers and a great deal of money had transformed it from a fortress to a residence for the Overlords and friends of a wealthy city-state. Such lords preferred to flaunt that wealth with wood-panelled halls, lofty windows glazed with clear and coloured glass, and broad stairways better suited to a palace. At least there was no need to go right to the top of the Tower, as Aldric first feared they might. But they still climbed up for five levels, and the ascent in heavy, poorly-fitting armour reminded Aldric of his exertions in the battleram Teynaur.

  “How – how many levels – are there?” he gasped. The trooper sent along to guide them was in a tunic rather than armour and feeling no discomfort as he waved toward yet more stairs.

  “Fourteen more and then the rooftop, sir. If you’re interested, then in daylight and better weather—”

  “And no armour. No, thank you. I’ll forego the pleasure.” The words all came out in a rush as Aldric waved a hand to dismiss the offer. That hand was skimming along the edge between discomfort and real pain, for if the spellstone grew much hotter it would raise blisters. Oh for a moment to himself, a moment’s privacy to tug away the glove and look, to see even if not to understand what the talisman was doing. There was more power in the Echainon stone than at any other time he could remember. It thrummed with it, vibrating the bones of his arms until he felt as if the whole limb trembled. Yet there was nothing to see; arm and hand and fingertips were steady. For now.

  Then the guide trooper hesitated between one step and the next, tilting his head back and sideways as if listening to something. After a moment he shrugged, dismissing it as unheard or at least unimportant, and nobody else seemed to have noticed.

  Except for Aldric. Just at that moment his hand was flat against the wall, and what the man thought he heard was more vibration than sound. It might have been snow-slip from a ledge or the slamming of a distant door, but it would need more snow than had fallen on the entire city, or a bigger door than even the main gate, to send such a shiver through these ponderous blocks of stone.

  A thing settling on the roof which had enough mass to tilt the fore-deck of a battleram was another matter.

  “Fourteen levels to the roof-top, soldier?” said Voord in a voice that was brisk and all too businesslike. “Princess Marhala’s apartments must be more convenient than that. Where?” It was a genuine enough question for a man fed up with stairs, so the trooper pointed along the corridor.

  “On this level, sirs, and fifth door on the left. Will I make your introductions?” he added helpfully, and Voord’s smile inside his helmet was more pleasant than the thought which prompted it.

  “No need. I know the lady. We’ll surprise her. Dismissed.”

  The young soldier knew when he wasn’t wanted and with a sketchy salute made himself scarce. Aldric watched him go. You should be on the stage, he thought with a fleeting look at Voord. He didn’t like what he saw. Bruda and Tagen were brushing real or imagined dirt and snow-melt from their rank-robes, but Voord was checking the straps of his armour like a man preparing for combat. That was of a piece with getting rid of their guide and having their honour guard hold position at the foot of the stairs.

  “See to the princess,” Voord told him. It was ordinary rudeness but, if the trooper had still been present, he would have wondered at a hautheisart using that tone to a senior officer. “We’ll be right behind you.”

  With a loaded telek in your fist. Aldric said nothing aloud as he walked down the corridor to the fifth door on the left. Behind him he could hear Tagen being instructed to go downstairs and have the honour guard stand ready. That leaves you and Bruda… And me. Our performance is about to begin.

  He tried the handle, opened the door and went inside.

  *

  “Light of Heaven!” gasped Dewan. They had both seen it this time, as clearly as the swirling snow allowed, beyond denial even by the driest of dry humour. It was a monstrous shape of vast wings, lean body and a brief bright lick of flame, made more monstrous still by the surrounding darkness, and it was landing with audacious ease atop the Red Tower. By now Gemmel and Dewan were close enough to see a length of parapet break away under the dragon’s weight and go tumbling out of sight. Neither of them saw or heard it striking ground.

  “How many men in the garrison?” Gemmel had the Dragonwand braced in both hands, and now it was a weapon not a walking-staff, for the energies it contained were brightening the snowshot darkness with a glare like summer lightning behind clouds.

  Dewan could hear the sound which emanated from the spellstave as Ykraith sang with a warbling sound like bees in a meadow. The ebb and flow of that high, sweet wail matched the swirls of force dancing along her dragon-pattern
ed length, and both matched the beating of a heart. Not Dewan’s, for his heart was racing again, pounding the blood through his veins in a percussive counterpoint to the spellstave’s music, and not Gemmel’s either.

  “I said, ‘How many men?’ ” Gemmel’s voice had an urgent edge which spoke of more important things than calculating odds.

  “Forty, most likely. There might be more, given the circumstances. But that still makes the odds twenty-to-one at the least!”

  “Count again,” Gemmel reproved. “You’re forgetting Aldric, and you’re forgetting…” He gestured towards the top of the tower, where Ymareth crouched unseen behind a curtain of snow. “I’d say that evens things a little.”

  “What are you planning?”

  “A diversion. Remember what Kathur the Vixen told us? When the alarms go off, the guards should only think of running in the right direction. We’ll confuse them about which direction is the right one. Let’s get closer. I want to know when the panic starts.”

  They edged forward, eyes narrowed and squinting against a snowfall already close to a blizzard, until Gemmel muttered under his breath and strode along the middle of the street as if he had every right to do so. Dewan watched the wizard’s outline fade from view and realised what had made him bold. There was no need to hide in this.

  “I’ve never seen snow fall so heavily this early in the season,” he said as he drew level again, then glanced sidelong at Gemmel. “It’s you again?”

  “Fog’s difficult, but snow already primed to fall is easy.”

  Neither of them saw the cloaked and muffled figure standing with a little group of horses in the wind-lee of the buildings nearest to the Tower. If they had there might have been a stirring of recognition, in Dewan’s memory at least. But with an impenetrable curtain of snow dancing and whirling between them, not even Gemmel knew anyone was there.

  *

  The room beyond the door was snug and warm, illuminated by scented lamps and the flickering of a large log fire. Applewood, by the smell. There was a sense of ease and comfort rather than real luxury, but nothing except the two bars across the outside of the door suggested this might be a prison cell.

  It would have taken far less than that to make Aldric’s suspicions gather momentum again. Already there had been too much trickery, too much deception, too many things which had not been as they first appeared. What if the princess wasn’t a prisoner at all but a willing guest, and he was a gaming piece in some internal power-play? What if the assassination itself was another trick? What if there was no one here at all?

  There were two large chairs facing the fire and a book lay on a table between them, its pages ticking over one by one by one. A tray of honeyed fruit was near it, their sweet glaze glistening in the firelight, and beside the tray were two goblets.

  Two? Nobody said anything about two people…

  A woman rose from concealment in one of the deep, high-backed chairs and rounded on him, dropping a needlework tambour as she did so. She looked sleepy, as if she had been dozing until awakened by the clatter of his arrival. That sleepiness didn’t conceal the irritable expression on her face and the way she looked and dressed was unlike royalty, at least to Alban eyes. As tall as Aldric and almost as broad in the shoulders, her clothing and appearance fell somewhat short of Imperial but her manner made up for it, as imperious as any noblewoman of the court at Kalitzim.

  “Where did you leave your manners, soldier?” she snapped, evidently an obstructive, over-protective servant. “This is a great lady’s private apartment, not a barrack! You knock first and wait for invitation; you don’t barge through the door like a bull into a cowshed! Make your apologies and get out!”

  “Expedience first, manners second, apologies later,” said Aldric. He took a swift look over one shoulder, saw nobody behind him and stepped further into the room. “Where’s Princess Marhala?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m here for the princess. Where is she?”

  “Show me written authority!”

  “There isn’t any authority, written or otherwise! This is a rescue, if you’ve the wit to let it happen!” He back-heeled the door shut and looked in vain for bars and catches. The only locks were on the outside, so he leaned his weight against it for want of anything better and glared at the tall woman. “Otherwise it’ll become murder!”

  A dagger appeared from somewhere in the pleats of her clothing. It wasn’t the usual dainty needle primped out with gold and jewels, but a proper military weapon held in the proper fashion with its foot-long blade thumb-braced above her fist. There was no question about her knowing how to use it, or her willingness to do so. Aldric coughed a mirthless laugh.

  “Not done by me. Do you think I’d have announced my intentions? There’s one outside who… Never mind, I’ll explain when I apologise. Get boots, gloves and cloaks, and—”

  “What’s all this excitement?”

  Aldric’s head jerked sideways as this new arrival emerged from another room of the apartment. Small and slight, dressed in a white robe decorated with silvery patterns like costly cobwebs, this woman definitely looked like a princess; the ornamental embroidery of her clothing outvalued almost everything he and the knife-wielding servant wore. But beyond that he had to revise his mental image of Princess Marhala an-Sherban, because she wasn’t as he had imagined her. This woman, with elaborately braided dark hair and thoughtful brown eyes, was in her middle forties, not ancient by any means but far from the girl he had expected to see.

  Then he realised the source of his error and despite the tense situation it prompted a quick smile of honest humour. Marhala was always called ‘the Emperor’s sister’, yet he had never thought to ask ‘which Emperor?’ Not twenty-year-old Ioen, that was certain. She was his father’s sister, and that answered why she was the intended victim of this plot. An aunt could give her nephew all kinds of family advice, the sort political schemers wouldn’t like. It would be the sound, sensible advice kept from his elder brother Taroen while those same schemers schooled him into a complaisant ruler they could control.

  Princess Marhala was an inconvenience, and Aldric already knew how the Empire dealt with people who were inconvenient. It had happened to his family. One of the Grand Warlord’s councillors at Drakkesborg must have suspected an Alban involvement in earlier Imperial deaths and responded in kind. It was fair, for a warped value of fairness, though not for the woman held in the Red Tower or the man who would take the blame for her death.

  “Who is this person, Chirel?” asked the princess. “And why is he here?”

  “Despite her reluctance to listen, lady, I was about to tell her. So I’ll tell you instead while she goes for foul-weather travelling gear, and goes now!” Marhala looked him up and down, then gave her servant a small nod that provoked faster action than any shouts from Aldric could have done.

  “Well?” she said as Chirel bustled from the room. “Tell me.”

  “General Goth – and I presume your nephew the Emperor – sent me to escort you from the Tower before assassins get here.”

  “Why does the Lord General use an Alban instead of our own soldiers?” So she recognised his accent. Whether that would make things easier or more difficult depended on how convincing he could be.

  “Because some of those soldiers are the men coming to kill you,” he said. There was no way to prettify such a statement so it came out blunt and brutal, yet the corners of her mouth twitched in something between a grimace and a smile. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “Men have been coming to kill me since my brother died, and surprise wears thin. I even stopped wondering who sent them, though I could guess. It’s because I say the wrong things to the wrong people, Alban. I talk sense, and because of who I am my words are heeded. It doesn’t make me popular, but it does make me a target.”

  “Then stop saying them!” The suggestion got him a dirty look from Chirel, back again with armfuls of winter clothing. She glowered at him f
or daring to tell her mistress what to do, then helped the Princess into a layer of thick furs.

  “It was too late to stop after the first time,” said Marhala. “And I know what will happen if I do. The Emperor needs advice from someone without a constant eye on profit or advancement and,” she shrugged, a small gesture enlarged by her heavy winter garments, “If I can keep the land I love from tearing itself apart in war, then even if it costs my life to do it I consider that life well spent.”

  Aldric said nothing, because there was little he could say that wouldn’t ring false. He didn’t like Imperials, he didn’t trust them, and it would take more than a pretty speech to offset what had been happening to him this past while. No, he didn’t like Imperials at all, there were several he hated, and the most hated of them all was outside this room.

  Right outside.

  The door gave a little creak and a stealthy pressure against his back as someone tested it. The handle rattled, reminding him that there was neither bar nor lock nor key on this side, and only his armoured weight kept it closed. He braced his feet against the floor and leaned backwards as hard as he was able. Then he sensed a familiar thrumming in the air, felt a tremor run through the heavy oak, tasted an acrid flavour in his mouth and in his mind, and knew even the heaviest bolt wouldn’t be enough.

  “Get down!” he yelled, and threw himself aside.

  Aldric was barely clear of the door when its timbers and iron braces and steel fittings wrenched out of their framework. The ponderous slab of wood and metal scythed across the room as if flung from a catapult, leaving a swathe of destruction in its wake. Something massive plucked at his shoulder and tore away a handspan’s width of everything – winter coat, rank-robe, armour and tunic – right down to the skin. The jolt of it sent a tingling shock right to his fingertips as if he had slammed the nerve-spot of his elbow against something solid, but there was no blood and even the fabric of his shirt remained undamaged.