Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

“They didn’t think of you as a smuggler,” Marcus said.

“Thought of me as a dupe.”

“Me too,” Marcus said. And then to the Timzinae’s outraged look, “No, they also thought I was a dupe. Not that I also thought you were.”

The ’van master sank into a bitter silence. The cliffs of Bellin faded behind them. It promised to be a miserable winter. When they stopped for the night, putting up tents in the fast-fading twilight, Marcus walked through the camp with Yardem at his side. Conversations paused when they came near. Smiles grew false and unconvincing. Resentment soaked the caravan like oil on a wick. He’d have to be sure nothing happened to light it. It was no worse than he’d expected. When he came to his own tent, she was waiting for him.

Tag the Carter was gone, vanished from the world as if he’d never been. The actors had helped her wash the worst of the dye from her hair, and without the lichenous whiskers her face seemed almost unnaturally clean. Youth and her Cinnae blood conspired to make her coltish, but a few years would change her into a woman.

“Captain Wester,” she said, then swallowed nervously. “I didn’t get to say how much I appreciate this.”

“It’s what I do,” Marcus said.

“All the same, it’s more than I could have asked, and… Thank you.”

“You aren’t safe yet,” Marcus said, more sharply than he’d meant. “Save your gratitude until you are.”

The girl flushed, her cheeks like rose petals on snow. She half bowed, turned, and walked away, footsteps crunching in the snow. Marcus watched her go, shook his head, and spat. Yardem, still at his side, cleared his throat.

“This girl’s not my daughter,” Marcus said.

“She’s not, sir.”

“She doesn’t deserve my protection more than any other man or woman in this ’van.”

“She doesn’t, sir.”

Marcus squinted up into the clouds.

“I’m in trouble here,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Yardem said. “You are.”

The King’s Hunt pressed through the thick-falling snow, the calling of the hounds made fainter and eerie by the grey. Dawson Kalliam leaned in toward his horse’s steaming neck, feeling the great animal launch itself into the air. He saw the icy ditch as a blur beneath them, and then it was gone, and the impact of their landing gave way again to the wind-swift chase. Behind him, half a dozen voices rose, but not the king’s. Dawson ignored them. To his left, a grey horse with red leather hunter’s barding loomed out of the snow. Feldin Maas. Others rode close behind, nothing more than snow-drowned shadows. Dawson leaned closer to his mount, digging heels into its flanks, urging it faster.

The hart had run long and hard, nearly outwitting the hunstmen and their dogs twice. But Dawson had ridden the hills of Osterling Fells in all weather since he was a boy, and he knew the traps of them. The hart had turned down a blind canyon, and it would not return from it. The kill, of course, would be King Simeon’s. The race now was to be the first to reach their prey.

The lower branches of a pine stood startling green against the void, marking where the hart had passed. Dawson turned, feeling Feldin Maas and the others crowding close behind him. Someone was shouting. The howls and yaps of the hounds grew louder. He set his teeth, willing himself forward.

Something surged on his right. Not the grey. A white horse without barding. Its rider had no helmet or cap, and the long red-gold hair announced Curtin Issandrian as clearly as a pennant. Dawson dug his heels again, and his horse leapt forward. Too fast. He felt the drumming, pounding rhythm of the gallop roughen and the horse struggled to keep its feet. The white surged forward, passing him, and a moment later the grey with Feldin Maas was at his shoulder.

If the hart had gone another thousand yards, Dawson might have retaken the position of honor, but the doomed beast stood at bay in a clearing too near. Two dogs lay dead at its feet, and the huntsmen held back the rest of the pack with their voices and short whips. A point had broken off the hart’s rack, and blood marked its side. Its left hind leg was blood-soaked where an overeager hound had ripped off its dewclaw, and its patchy winter coat gave it the aspect of a traveler at the end of a journey. It turned toward them, breath white and exhausted, as Curtin Issandrian pulled to a stop, Dawson and Feldin Maas just behind him.

“Well played, Issandrian,” Dawson said bitterly.

“It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” the victor said, ignoring him. Dawson had to admit the hart had an air of real nobility to it. Exhausted, beaten, and facing death, there was no sense of fear from it. Resignation, perhaps. Hatred, certainly. Issandrian drew his sword and saluted the beast, and it lowered its head as if in acknowledgment. The second group of riders pelted into the clearing, six together each with the sigils of their houses. The hounds leaped and barked, the huntsmen shouted and cursed.

And then the king.

King Simeon rode into the clearing on a huge black charger, the black leather reins braided with scarlet and gold. Prince Aster rode a pony at his father’s side, the child’s spine straight with pride and his armor still a little too large for his frame. His personal master of the hunt rode behind and behind him: a huge Jasuru in green-gold armor that matched his scales. King Simeon himself wore dark leathers studded with silver and a black helm that hid the beginnings of jowls and his skewed nose.

Dawson had been on hunts with him since they had both been boys younger than Maas and Issandrian, and he could see the weariness in the king’s spine, even if no one else could. The rest of the hunting party rode behind him, the casual hunters more interested in gossip and a clean day’s ride than the sport of it. The banners of all the great houses were present, the court of Camnipol come to a clearing in Osterling Fells.

The Jasuru huntsman lifted a spear from his back and held it out to King Simeon. In the king’s hands, it seemed longer. The Jasuru huntsman called, and the dogs surged forward, leaping at the hart. Distracting it. King Simeon set the spear, spurred his mount, and charged. At the impact, the hart staggered back, the spear’s point deep in its neck. As it fell, Dawson had the visceral sense that the beast was surprised more than pained. Death, however clearly foretold, still came unexpectedly. King Simeon’s arm was as strong as ever, his eyes as keen. The hart died fast and without the need for an arrow’s grace. When the huntsmen called back the hounds and lifted fists to confirm that the beast was dead, a cheer rose from the noblemen, Dawson’s voice among them.

“So who took honors?” King Simeon asked as his huntsman went about unmaking the hart. “Issandrian? Or was it you, Kalliam?”

“It was so near at the end,” Issandrian said, “I would say the baron and I arrived together.”

Feldin Maas dropped down from his horse with a smirk and went to examine the killed dogs.

“Not true,” Dawson said. “Issandrian arrived a good length ahead of me. The honors go to him.”

And I will not carry a debt to you, even something as small as that, he thought but did not say.

“Issandrian will have the horns, then,” King Simeon said, and then, shouting, “Issandrian!”

The others raised fists and swords, grinning in the snowfall, and called out the victor’s name. The feast would come the next day, the venison cooked at Dawson’s own hearth, and Issandrian given the place of honor. The thought was like a knot in his throat.

“Are you all right?” the king said, softly enough that the words would not carry.