Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

“I wouldn’t have mentioned Ellis,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

Dossen looked up at the Tralgu with contempt, then at Marcus, and then, nervously, away.

“Didn’t mean disrespect to your family, Captain,” he said.

“Walk away,” Marcus said. “Do it now.”

Dossen stepped back. Just out of thrusting range, he paused.

“Three days until the ’van leaves,” he said.

The rest was clear. Fail to meet the terms of the contract, and answer to the prince. Like it or no. Marcus didn’t answer. Dossen turned and strode into the square.

“That’s a problem,” Yardem said.

“It is.”

“We need men, sir.”

“We do.”

“Any thoughts on where we find them?”

“No.”

Marcus took one more despairing look at the men who had once been his, shook his head, and left the menagerie behind.

The city of Vanai had once been a seaport at the mouth of the river Taneish, but centuries of silt had slowly pressed the river mouth away until now it lay a full morning’s ride to the south. Canals and waterways laced the city, and flatboats still came there on the way to and from the smaller, younger city of Newport carrying grain and wool, silver and timber from the countries to the north.

Like all the Free Cities, Vanai had a history of conflict. It had been a republic led by a lottery-chosen council, the private holding of a monarch, the ally or enemy of Birancour or the Severed Throne depending on which way the wind blew. It had been a center of religion, and of revolt against religion. Every incarnation had left its mark upon the white wood buildings, the greasy canals, the narrow streets and open squares.

Here, ancient gates still hung at rest, prepared to protect the halls of the Common Council though the last councilmen were all generations dead. There, a noble bronze statue showed the wise and solemn countenance of a robed and mitred bishop streaked with verdigris and pigeon shit. The streets had signs in wood and stone from a thousand years of history, so that a single alley might be called by a dozen names. Iron gates marked the twenty tiny political districts, allowing the prince to remake the pathways through the city at his whim, protection against riots and conspiracy.

But even more than the architecture, Vanai wore its past in the character of its people.

Timzinae and Firstblood were most common, but glow-eyed, hairless Dartinae, the reed-thin, snow-pale Cinnae, and bronze-scaled Jasuru all had districts within the city’s wide white walls. Time and experience had given them all a sophisticated, cynical edge. Walking through the narrow streets beside rich green canals, Marcus could see all the small signs of it. Firstblood merchants, loyalists to the prince, offered the soldiers discounts on goods that had been marked higher for the purpose. The beer houses and physicians, tanners and cobblers and professionals of every sort prepared fresh signs in Imperial Antean script so that business could go on unabated after the war was lost. Old Timzinae men, their dark scales greying and cracked, sat cross-legged at quayside tables talking about the last revolution when the prince’s father had taken power from the republic. Their granddaughters walked in groups wearing thin white skirts of an almost imperial cut, black-scaled legs showing through the cloth like shadows.

Yes, some soldiers would die. Yes, some buildings would burn. Some women would be raped. Some fortunes would be lost. It was an evil that the city would weather, as it had before, and no one expected the disaster would come to them in particular. The soul of the city could be summarized with a shrug.

In a green-grass common, a weathered theatrical cart had dropped its side, the shallow stage hanging with dirty yellow ribbons. The small crowd standing before it looked curious and skeptical in equal measure. As Marcus walked past, an old man stepped out from behind the ribbons. His hair stood high on his head, and his beard jutted.

“Stop!” the man cried in a deep and resonant voice. “Stop now, and come near! Hear the tale of Aleren Mankiller and the Sword of the Dragons! Or if you are faint of heart, move on. For our tale is one of grand adventure. Love, war, betrayal, and vengeance shall spill out now, upon these poor boards, and I warn you…”

The actor’s voice seemed to drop to a whisper, though it still carried as clearly as the shouting.

“… not all that are good end well. Not all that are evil are punished. Come close, my friends, and know that in our tale as in the world, anything may happen.”

Marcus didn’t realize he’d stopped walking until Yardem spoke.

“He’s good.”

“Is, isn’t he?”

“Watch for a bit, sir?”

Marcus didn’t answer, but like the rest of the small crowd stepped closer. The play was a standard enough tale. An ancient prophecy, an evil rising from the depths of hell, and a relic of the Dragon Empire destined for the hand of the hero. The woman who played the maiden fair was perhaps a bit too old, and the man who spoke the hero’s part a little too soft. But the lines were well delivered, and the troupe was professionally rehearsed. Marcus picked out a long-haired woman and a stick-thin youth in the crowd who laughed at all the right times and put down hecklers: spare players planted in the audience. But each time the actor who had called the introduction came onstage, Marcus lost his train of thought.

The old man played Orcus the Demon King with such a sense of evil and pathos that it was easy to forget it was all for show. When Aleren Mankiller swung the Dragon Sword and blood gouted down the Demon King’s chest, Marcus had to stop himself from reaching for his blade.

In the end, and despite the actor’s warnings, the good triumphed, the evil were vanquished, and the players took their bows. Marcus was startled by the applause; the crowd had doubled without his noticing. Even Yardem was thumping his plate-wide palms together and grinning. Marcus dug a silver coin out of the pouch hung under his shirt and tossed it onto the boards. It landed with a hard tap, and a moment later Orcus the Demon King was smiling and bowing in a small rain shower of money. He thanked them for their generosity and their kindness with such warmth that even walking away, Marcus found himself thinking of people as generous and kind.

The early autumn sun was lowering, the pale city glowing gold. The audience unwound itself from around the stage, breaking off in groups of two and three to walk across the sward. Marcus sat on a stone bench under a yellow-leafed oak and watched as the actors reassembled their cart. A pack of Firstblood children descended upon the players, laughing, and were chased away with grins. Marcus leaned back and considered the darkening sky through the tree’s boughs.

“You have a plan,” Yardem said.

“Do I?”

“Yes, sir.”

It had been a fine little play. Not a huge cast. Alaren Mankiller and his companion. The maiden fair. Orcus the Demon King. The one man who’d taken all the small business as villager or demon or nobleman, depending on his hat. Five people for a full play’s work. And the two leading the crowd…

Seven people.

“Ah,” Marcus said. “So I do.”

Seven people sat at the wide round table drinking beer and eating cheese and sausage paid from Marcus’s diminishing funds. The two from the crowd were the thin boy Mikel and the long-haired woman Cary. The youth who’d played the hero was Sandr, the elderly maiden fair was Opal, the hero’s companion was Hornet, and the jack-of-all-roles was Smit. Yardem sat with them, a wide, gentle smile on his face, like a mother hound surrounded by puppies.

Marcus sat apart at a smaller table with Orcus the Demon King.