Dancer's Lament: Path to Ascendancy Book 1 (45 page)

After a time the brazen call of a bird tore the sky and broad wings buffeted the air. A tall heavy shape perched upon the roof opposite.

Ullara raised her hands to the cloth at her eyes and unwound it. Once it fell away she studied her hands as if marvelling at them, then turned her attention to the roofscape of the city beyond.

‘Go, my hunter,’ she urged the wind.

* * *

‘It is not as bad as it could have been,’ Ho was saying to Shalmanat while he, Mara and Silk faced their mistress in her sanctum. ‘We have them contained within the Outer Round. The river gates are sabotaged, and the arches broken. They have no way in but to take the walls or the gates, just as before.’

But Shalmanat would not look up. She sat slumped upon her camp stool, a shawl draped over her shoulders. ‘The populace will have lost faith in me,’ she whispered, staring at the floor.

Ho cast Silk a meaningful glare. Silk cleared his throat and knelt next to her. ‘Not at all, m’lady. The populace holds firm. The Inner Round walls are defended. Holding one section does not give them the city entire.’

‘I will not yield the south.’

‘Of course not. There is no need.’

‘Nor will I accept Dal Hon’s offer,’ she said.

Silk raised his head to look at Ho who grimaced, taking a heavy breath. ‘They will come if we accept their authority.’

‘I will not escape one tiger by putting my head into the jaws of another,’ she snarled, pulling her shawl tight. ‘And speaking of that,’ she snapped, glaring at Ho, ‘what is your excuse for Ryllandaras?’

Ho clasped his meaty hands behind his back, nodding. ‘Think, Shalmanat. It is really for the best. This Kanese incursion is only temporary. It will pass. But he remains the eternal enemy. With him out of the way our trade will burgeon. We will be able to rebuild even stronger. And it is also a mercy; someone, eventually, would have killed him.’

The Protectress’s gaze slid away, unfocused. ‘I promised him I would keep the plains open . . .’

‘And you did – for a time. But Tali and Purge are expanding in the west. They have made no such promises.’

‘And Tali has made an offer of alliance,’ Mara added. ‘If we accept their aid.’

Shalmanat snorted. ‘How it still rankles with them! They would like to finally march their Iron Legions through my streets!’

‘They are too far off anyway,’ Mara said. ‘We must finish this ourselves.’

The Protectress raised her eyes and Silk was shocked to see them bloodshot, sunken, red-rimmed, and shining with a feverish light. ‘Yes. Finish it. I hoped it wouldn’t come to it – but it may. It may have to.’

Silk eyed her warily, troubled by her tone. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Warn me of any preparations for an attack,’ she told Ho. ‘Any massing of their numbers.’

Ho bowed. ‘As you order.’

‘And this attack in their camp?’

Ho waved the topic aside. ‘The beasts appeared among them, rampaged, then disappeared once more. I dare say they did more damage to the Kanese than we have.’

‘What are they anyway?’ Silk asked Ho.

‘Daemons summoned by a minor talent who could not control them.’

Shalmanat, Silk noted, tightened her lips against saying anything.

‘We are done, then?’ Mara asked. ‘We must get back to the walls.’

The Protectress waved them off with a weak gesture.

Silk lingered, hoping to talk, but she kept urging them out and so he relented and backed away after Ho and Mara. The guards pulled shut the door. Silk hurried to catch Ho.

‘What did she mean, finish it?’ he asked.

The heavyset mage was lumbering through the palace halls with his sideways swinging walk. ‘You know her only as the ruler of the city, but she is powerful in her own right.’

‘She is afraid of that power.’

Ho nodded his dour agreement. ‘As she should be. What troubles me is this unusual cold.’

‘This winter? It has been a rare one, I understand. But they suffer just as much as we do.’

The sour mage grunted his half-agreement. Silk’s thoughts turned to his own worries. He thought he understood Shalmanat now. She must see herself being driven into a corner. Forced to take up her worst nightmare – her powers. And these he knew as Liosan. Elder Light. The wellspring, he now knew, behind Thyr and Telas – neither of which drove him or Smokey unhinged with dread. It was more powerful, yes, but in the end it was just another Warren, was it not?

* * *

They gathered in a narrow tunnel recently dug out beneath Pung’s quarters. Wu’s urchin diggers bristled with weapons but their youth made Dorin uneasy, though in truth they were but a few years younger than he. Lowering his voice, he murmured to Wu, ‘Only bring them up if they’re needed.’

The mage nodded in his distracted, half-attending manner. Irritated by this, Dorin moved to the fore. ‘I’ll go first.’ He took a small shovel from the hands of a girl and cut into the wall they faced. She winced in agony at his hacking.

‘Careful,’ she implored.

Dorin grunted his assent and slowed. Light shone through, dim, but enough for their starved vision. A portion of the dirt wall fell away revealing a root cellar. He stepped in and around old barrels and crates. The air stank of rot and damp. A short ladder led to a trapdoor.

He listened at the slats of the door, heard nothing. He pressed against it until it rose a fraction and stilled, listening once more. He heard nothing – no footsteps, no breathing, no creak of leather or wood. He raised the door further until he could see up an empty hall then entered and crouched, knives ready. Wu poked his head through the trapdoor. Dorin beckoned him upward.

The absolute quiet sent Dorin’s instincts blazing with dread. This was all wrong. It felt like a trap yet there was no one about. The house seemed deserted. How could it be a trap with no one here?

He motioned for Wu to pause then advanced to the main floor’s centre and stood, listening. Again, he heard nothing – the house was indeed abandoned. Then it reached him. Distant, audible only because of the building’s emptiness: someone walking far above, perhaps even on the roof.

Someone alone, pacing the roof. Waiting. Waiting for . . .
him
.

He straightened then, sheathing his knives in his new baldrics. He returned to Wu. ‘Find your box, or whatever the damned thing is, if it’s still here. I’ll be above. I have an . . . appointment.’

The Dal Hon’s gaze climbed to the ceiling. ‘I see. You have my aid, of course.’

‘No. This is personal. Don’t interfere.’

Wu gave a slight lift of his brows. ‘If you insist.’

He waved him off. ‘Go and search.’ He went to the stairs. Another trapdoor opened on to the roof. Dorin knew it well. It was flat, the footing reliable. He straightened, drawing his best fighting knives.

Far across the breadth of the roof a dark shape straightened as well. It approached, resolved into a tall young man, cloaked, wearing a well-trimmed goatee. The fellow inclined his head in greeting. ‘So, another student of Faruj, yes?’

‘Where is Pung?’

The fellow’s hands emerged holding similar fighting blades. He gestured widely. ‘His location is immaterial to ones such as us, don’t you think?’

‘He’s the only one I want.’

The fellow frowned an exaggerated disappointment. ‘Really? You do not sound like a student of Faruj. Are you yet another poseur? I have found . . . well, killed so many. We cannot have people running about claiming to be our equals, can we?’ He gave an apologetic shrug. ‘It is bad for our rates.’

‘Where did he bring you in from?’

‘Unta, of course. It’s where the money is, you know.’

‘So much for Unta,’ Dorin muttered.

‘What? You said something?’

‘I said, you came for nothing. I frankly don’t give a shit about you.’ He slid a foot back to the edge of the trapdoor.

‘Leave and you die!’ the assassin warned. He opened his arms once more, apologetic. ‘It’s just the way it is. Turn away and I will cut you down from behind.’ He shrugged. ‘Makes no difference to me.’

Dorin understood. He had known the moment he saw the man. But he had to give it a try. He nodded and eased into a ready stance, one blade low and forward, the other high over his head, but held point downward.

The assassin smiled hungrily and eased into an identical stance. ‘What is your name?’ he asked.

‘Dorin.’

The smile broadened. He shifted, circling to the right. Dorin responded, circling to his right. ‘My name is Stephan,’ the assassin said. ‘Did the old man mention my name?’

Dorin knew this for a trap – names had meant nothing to the old man – but he’d already sized up his opponent and had reached the conclusion that the fellow was damned vain. And so he said, ‘He said he once tried to teach a cretin named Stephan how to throw a knife.’

The smile was whipped away. ‘Don’t make me mad, little boy. This could be quick – or it could be very slow. Agonizingly slow.’

Dorin relaxed completely into that loose awareness that was his state of mind for any duel. Nothing else mattered any longer – only the moment. There was no past or future. No plans or hopes or expectations.

Just this moment: the chill night air in his lungs; his breath pluming ever so lightly; the soft leather of his shoes gripping the bricks laid in a herringbone design across the roof; and the cool hard familiarity of the knives in his hands. He shifted into a new stance, warming up – and his partner responded, answering his rhythm. And with that he knew this Stephan had truly been a student of his mentor.

For the old man had taught knife-fighting as a dance.

It is a duet
, he heard the old bastard say once more.
A duet, in which your goal is to kill your partner
.

Dorin allowed the ghost image of that old man, his sparring partner for years and years, to superimpose itself over the figure opposite. An entire childhood spent in a dusty cold barn shuffling in endless circles while this iron-faced skinny ancient struck him with his wooden knives on his arms, his legs, his head.

And lectured him interminably while doing so.

You must come to know your partner better than they know themselves
, he’d snarl, and strike him across the bridge of the nose.

And he, his skinny bare arms a mass of purple-black bruises, struggling to organize a counter-attack.

Do not think of what
you
will do!
A shocking blow to his temple that raised stars in his vision.
Watch what
they
are doing and think what
they
will do!

And as the years passed his other training – his breaking and entering, his pickpocketing and rope-escaping – all became mere decoration next to his knife training. The bruises on his arms and legs became fewer and fewer. His duets with the old man lasted longer and longer there in the clouds of dust raised from the hard-packed floor of the barn.

You must come to know them as intimately as a lover
. A thrust to his neck turned aside. A sweep evaded. Three false slashes with the blade hidden behind the wrist, high and low, followed by a spinning overhead slash that he intuited as show to cover a thrust to his side that he sidestepped, counter-attacking with what in sword-fencing would be considered a stop-thrust.

For when you know them so well you understand them – that is when you slip the knife in
.

Stephan staggered back, yielding ground, a hand pressed to his side that came away wet and gleaming in the moonlight. He studied his fingers, then raised one blade to his forehead, acknowledging it. ‘
Touché
.’

Dorin eased into a more aggressive stance, both blades held out before him.

Stephan circled anew, weaving his knives. Dorin ignored the flash of the moonlight from the blades to watch the man’s centre of weight instead.
He is leading – where are we going?

The man refused to commit, dodging and circling, and Dorin understood: his partner wouldn’t be giving any more. He would have to be pressed. Dorin edged forward to begin the long chase that was cornering a partner. The man circled, again and again. But Dorin kept the pressure on, always working him towards a corner of the rooftop.

In the periphery of his attention, Dorin noted the moon sinking. This was his longest dance in years. A droplet from his brow struck his eyelid and he realized this was the first time he’d worked up a sweat in any fight since leaving Tali. Most bouts lasted a mere few heartbeats; a few traded slashes and parries. Yet he and Stephan already knew one another so well. Their stances echoed each other’s precisely. He saw his own moves reflected perfectly in his partner’s.

Reflected
. . .

That thought saved Dorin’s life.

Just as he assumed he had Stephan where he wanted him he realized that the opposite was true – that all along he’d been fed exactly what he’d expected to see. His reflexive rage at himself was a physical flinch that pulled him away the thumb’s breadth necessary to save his life. The point that penetrated his shirt and the armoured plastron beneath passed between his ribs but didn’t touch his heart.

Stephan’s smile of victory froze as Dorin’s blade slammed home in his neck.

Dorin clutched his chest, staggering backwards.

Stephan fell to his knees, both hands at his throat. Blood welled thickly between his fingers. One-handed, Dorin started tearing at his shirt and the lacing of the plastron beneath.

‘Congratulations . . .’ Stephan whispered, a ghastly smile on his lips.

Dorin fell to his own knees. He heaved the half-unlaced plastron over his head and threw it aside to thump to the roof. Blood smeared his hand at his chest.

‘. . . you’re the last . . .’ Stephan fell to lie on his side with his eyes staring fixedly at nothing ‘. . . the last . . . student of Faruj . . .’

Dorin wavered, dizzy. There was a roaring in his ears. He blinked, thinking
No – this isn’t what I came here for. This isn’t what I want. I wanted . . . I wanted
. . .

He blinked more and more slowly, his sight darkening with each fall of the eyelids. Movement roused him: the crackling of footsteps in the grit of the roof. A murky wavering shape halted next to him, a stick set down to the bricks, tapping.