Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

The company stood in order, Kalliam, Allintot, and two dozen other knights, many of them already in chain and show plate. Behind each, their sergeants and men-at-arms arranged in five ranks deep. Geder Palliako tried to stand straight and true, knowing that the men behind him were judging their chances of glory and survival by his competence. Just as his depended on the captain, and above him Lord Ternigan, the High Marshal who commanded the whole of the army.

Sir Alan Klin stepped out of his tent. In the cool light of morning, he looked like the perfect warrior. His pale hair was drawn back. His uniform was a black so deep it seemed like a sheet cut from midnight. His broad shoulders and jutting chin were a memorial statue brought to life. Two camp slaves brought a speaking dais and set it at the man’s feet. The captain stepped up.

“Men,” he said. “Yesterday, Lord Ternigan sent new orders. Vanai has entered into alliance with Maccia. Our reports are that six hundred sword-and-bows are on the march to reinforce Vanai even as we speak.”

The captain paused to let that sink in, and Geder frowned. Maccia was an odd sort of ally for Vanai. The two cities had been at each other’s throats over the spice and tobacco trades for more than a generation. Vanai was built of wood, he’d read, mostly because Maccia controlled the quarries while timber floated down the river from the north. But perhaps there was something more going on than he knew.

“These reinforcements will not save Vanai,” Alan said. “Especially because when they arrive, they shall find us in control of the city.”

Geder felt his frown deepen, and a sense of sick foreboding rise in his gut. It was perhaps five days by water from Maccia to Vanai, and they were at least a week from the border. To reach Vanai before the reinforcements meant…

“Today, we begin a hard march,” Alan said. “We will sleep in our saddles. We will eat while we walk. And in four days’ time, we will take Vanai by surprise and show her what the power of the Severed Throne means! To the King!”

“To the King!” Geder said in chorus with the others, raising his hand in salute even as he tried not to weep.

They had known. Last night, they had known. Already, Geder could feel the ache growing in his spine and his thighs. The throbbing in his head redoubled. As the formation broke, Jorey Kalliam met his eyes and then looked away.

Here was the prank. Being tipped into the sludge of the latrine had only been the start. After that, insist on the buffoon accepting apology. Get him in warm water. Fill him full of wine. Make him dance. The memory of reciting his father’s dirty rhymes and dancing the little jig came back like a knife in his back. And all so that they could announce the forced march while fat idiot Palliako tried not to puke himself at formation. They’d taken his last night of sleep, and for days they would have the pleasure of watching him suffer.

The camaraderie of the sword. The brotherhood of the campaign. Warm, meaningless words. It was no different here than back home. The strong mocked the weak. The handsome pitied the plain. Everywhere and aways, the powerful chose who was in favor and who could be made light of. Geder turned and stalked back to his tent. His squire had the slaves ready to strike it. He ignored them and walked into his last moment’s privacy before the battle that was still days away. He reached for his book.

It wasn’t where he’d left it.

A chill that had nothing to do with autumn ran down his spine.

He’d been drunk when he came back. He might have moved it. He might have tried to read it before he slept. Geder searched his cot, then under his cot. He looked through his uniforms and the wood and leather chest that held all his other things. The book wasn’t there. He found himself breathing faster. His face felt hot, but whether it was shame or anger, he couldn’t let himself think. He stepped out of his tent, and the slaves jumped to attention. The rest of the camp was already being loaded onto wagons and mules. There wasn’t time. Geder nodded to his Dartinae squire, and the slaves got to work putting his things in order. Geder walked across the camp again, his steps slowed by fear. But he had to have his book back.

The captain’s tent was already struck, the leather unfastened from the frames, the frames broken down and stowed. The bare patch of earth where Geder had capered last night was like a thing from a children’s story, a fairy castle that vanished with the dawn. Except that Sir Alan Klin was there, his leather riding cloak hanging from his shoulders and his sword of office at his hip. The master of provender, a half-Yemmu mountain of a man, was taking orders from the captain. Geder’s rank technically gave him the right to interrupt, but he didn’t. He waited.

“Palliako,” Klin said. The warmth of the previous night was gone.

“My lord,” Geder said. “I’m sorry to bother you, but when I woke up this morning… after last night…”

“Spit it out, man.”

“I had a book, sir.”

Sir Alan Klin closed his noble, long-lashed eyes.

“I thought we’d finished with that.”

“We did, sir? So you know the book? I showed it to you?”

The captain opened his eyes, glancing about at the ordered chaos of the breaking camp. Geder felt like a boy bothering a harried tutor.

“Speculative essay,” Klin said. “Palliako, really? Speculative essay?”

“More for the exercise in translation,” Geder lied, suddenly ashamed of his true enthusiasm.

“It was… courageous of you to admit the vice,” Klin said. “And I think you made the right decision in destroying it.”

Geder’s heart knocked against his ribs.

“Destroying it, sir?”

Alan looked at him, surprise on his face. Or possibly mock surprise.

“We burned it last night,” the captain said. “The two of us together, just after I took you back to your tent. Don’t you remember?”

Geder didn’t know whether the man was lying or not. The night was a blur. He remembered so little. Was it possible that, lost in his cups, he had forsworn his little failure of sophistication and permitted it to be set to fire? Or was Sir Alan Klin, his captain and commander, lying to his face? Neither seemed plausible, but one or the other had to be true. And to admit not knowing was to confess that he couldn’t hold his wine and prove again that he was the joke of the company.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Geder said. “I must have been a little muddled. I understand now.”

“Be careful with that.”

“It won’t happen again.”

Geder saluted, and then, before Klin could respond, stalked off to his mount. It was a gelding grey, the best his family could afford. He lifted himself to the saddle and yanked the reins. The horse turned sharply, surprised by his violence, and Geder felt a stab of regret through his rage. It wasn’t the animal’s fault. He promised himself to give the beast a length of sugarcane when they stopped. If they stopped. If this twice-damned campaign didn’t drag on to the end of all days and the return of the dragons.

They took to the road, the army moving at the deliberate pace of men who knew the walk wouldn’t end. The hard march began, rank following rank down the wide, dragon’s jade road. Geder sat high in his saddle, holding his spine straight and proud out of sheer will and anger. He had been humiliated before. Likely he would be humiliated again. But Sir Alan Klin had burned his book. As the morning sun rose, the heat drawing cloaks from shoulders, the glorious leaves of autumn glowing around them, Geder realized that he had already sworn his oath of vengeance. And he’d done it standing before his new and mortal enemy.

It won’t happen again, he’d said.