Барбара Хэмбли - A Night with the Girls

Then there was only a mush of coals and embers, white scarves of steam floating sullen over the charred jumble of wood.

The sack was gone.

The wight was gone.

Starhawk got to her feet, covered with mud as if she'd been dipped in it and soaked to the skin. Her knees shook and she reached out, holding Butcher's arm for support. Elia, soaked also-all of them were wet as if they'd just been dragged up from the bottom of the sea-started to ask something, but Starhawk caught her eye and shook her head.

On the edge of the crowd of mercenaries, Prince Chare and Mayor Cornmonger stood staring at the steam-wreathed pyre, the sodden ashes in disbelief.

Starhawk wiped the goop from her eyes, and said, "Take a warning, pals." She fished in the pouch at her belt, and brought up the last brown-and-white fragment: a dog's footbone, she guessed it was when she'd found it in the muddy farmyard. But at that distance, in the iron dark and flickering torchlight of pre-dawn, it looked sufficiently like the wight's teeth to pass for one. Her heart hammered so loudly she was sure Cornmonger and Chare must hear it. She turned the bone in her fingers, holding it up, molding her face into the expression of cold and enigmatic arrogance Sun Wolf assumed when he was bluffing, and hoped to hell they bought the story. "Take a warning, and sign those Articles. Because I can bring her out of that pyre, as easy as I sent her in, in a form you don't want to know about."

To her enormous surprise, they both signed. Elia and Councillor Toth made sure they signed all six copies of the Articles, and took them away the moment the sealing-wax was set to send them to various allies, so that neither side could repudiate without severe repercussions. Then Chare went back to what was left of his tent to begin arrangements for paying off the mercenaries and to order his servants to clean up the mess, and Cornmonger headed for to the walls of Horran to let the people know that the siege was over. If they hadn't won all of their independence, at least they wouldn't be sacked, or return to the absolute rule against which they'd rebelled.

Dawn was coming up, gray and thin above the hills.

Starhawk sat down on a wagon-tongue and started to scrape the mud off her face and hair.

"Sorry about the water." Dogbreath brought her a bucket. "You sure that thing's not gonna be back?"

"Pretty sure." Starhawk upended it over her head-she was past any consideration of delicacy. She wondered if the stink would ever come out of her hair. "She got her teeth-that's why she went into the pyre-and once she was there she incorporated what Teryne had brought from the city tombs. That's what she's been wanting all this time."

"What was it?" Butcher came over, wringing out the tail of her shirt. "Teryne dug around the public catacombs for half an hour looking for it."

"The bones of Gillimer Cornmonger," said Starhawk. "Brannis Cornmonger's father-the man who seduced and betrayed her fifty-five years ago. That's what she wanted, all those years. To have him all to herself. And now she does. Once the flesh and the will were at rest, the wight had no more power."

"And you learned that from reading Sun Wolfs magic books?" asked Battlesow wonderingly.

Starhawk looked off across the jumble of burned-out farmhouses and trampled fields, to where the small train of mayor and councillors and their bodyguard had reached the city gates. Cindery light showed the guards coming in from the siege machinery. Somewhere over the camp someone set up a faint cheer, answered, still more faintly, from the cheering in the city behind its walls.

"It was just a guess," she said. "I learned that from the people who live in those cities I used to help destroy." She unbuckled the spiked guards from her arms and neck. "It's not magic, and it's not in books. It's not even logical. It's just what people do and are, and need to make them happy."

"Considering what it takes to make some people happy," said Butcher softly, "Brannis Cornmonger was lucky."

Starhawk sighed. "We all were lucky." She flung the chip of dog bone away into the dead ash of the pyre. "And Sun Wolf the luckiest of anybody. This is definitely the last time I open a message addressed to him. Now how about some breakfast before I head out?"

"That's right," the dragon explained to the man in the long brown robe. "If you ask Lilire, she'll tell you that the dragon and its treasure were just gone when she arrived. Unbelievable, really."

The man nodded appreciatively. "Well, you've both done wonders renovating the keep. And now there's talk of starting a university nearby?"

"Thank you," the dragon said, patting a stray wisp of hair back into the severe bun on the back of her head. "And yes. The distance knights are willing to travel for treasure seems to be nothing compared to the distance scholars will travel for books."

"So true," the man sighed. "So true."

"At any rate," the dragon continued, "the stacks are in the main hall over there. Copy rooms are upstairs, and we're happy to provide parchment, ink, and quills for a modest fee. Ask me or Lilire if you need help finding something."

The man bowed. "Thank you."

"And please remember," the dragon told him severely, "this is not a lending library. Books are never allowed to leave the building under any circumstances." She gave a feral grin almost too wide for a human mouth. "Violators will be eaten."

"I believe you," the man laughed as he headed for the stacks. "I believe you."

The dragon watched him go with a private smile.