Dragon's Treasure (19 page)

He said, "There's water in the pot. The guard's name is Finle. He and two other men will be outside this stall all night. If you give them any trouble, they have orders to throw you in with Rosset." He jerked a thumb toward the left-hand stall. "He's a racing stallion. You'd probably survive."

* * *

He woke to fire. The stable was on fire. Columnar blue flames soared toward the ceiling. The very straw he lay on was burning. Desperately he bucked and rolled, stood, and lunged for the door.

He had forgotten the rope. The lunge almost broke his neck. The shock and the pain stunned him. For a moment he could not move, and in that moment he realized that the stable was not, in fact, burning. There was no smoke, no sound, no heat, only a dense blue shimmering. In the stall next door, the agitated stallion stamped and bugled.

The illusion faded. Darkness returned. Out of it a deep voice said, "That is what the guardsmen in Castella saw as they died."

Slowly he sat up. His neck burned. He eased the pain by sliding closer to the wall. The fire returned: not a conflagration this time, but a single point, a candle stub, set in a lantern. A breeze blew through the tiny circular window in the back wall of the stall.

Karadur Atani, holding the lantern, stood in the opening of the stall. He looked much as Treion remembered him, only bigger. Treion's lungs seemed suddenly inadequate to his need for breath.

The dragon-lord stepped into the stall. Shadows gyrated wildly. He set the lantern on the floor and crouched, so that their faces were on a level. The flame, quivering in the breeze, touched his hair and the planes of his face with light.

He said, "Marion diSorvino wants very much to kill you. So does Lukas Ridenar."

"Why?" The word came out a whisper. Treion tried again. "Why? I never burned
his
towns."

"Celia Bertinelli. The woman you killed in Castella. She was his mistress."

"I didn't know," he said.

"Why did you kill her?"

Why had he killed her? She had taunted him. He had lost his temper. "It was a mistake," he said.

"And Rodolfo Mino? The man was an administrator, not a warrior."

"I didn't kill him," he protested.

"But he died," Karadur Atani said. "You raided the Amdur farm, and Thorin and Garth Amdur died. I could kill you for that. I should kill you for that." His eyes burned suddenly, bright as the sun. The stall grew oven-hot. Treion's back and sides dripped sweat. He tried to look away. Karadur caught his chin in one huge hand.

He closed his eyes to shut out the inhuman glitter.

"Look at me!" Karadur said.

Treion opened his eyes.

"Last year, on Coll's Ridge, you could have escaped. Instead, you came back to the house. Why?"

His neck throbbed painfully. If he said the wrong thing, Karadur would kill him. A lie was unthinkable. His mind was empty. The words came from elsewhere.

"I came for my men. They followed me. They trusted me. I thought I could get them out. I had to try."

The heat in the stall eased. Somehow, somehow he had said the right thing. The dragon-lord dropped his hand. He rose to his feet. Scooping up the lantern, he walked to the door of the stall.

Gathering his courage, Treion said, through his parched, aching throat, "Are you going to kill me?"

"Possibly," Karadur Atani said. "Not tonight."

10

They arrived at Dragon Keep at sunset. A horn blew as they approached the gates. Boys came running to hold the horses. Girls in bright aprons leaned from the windows, calling welcome. Behind the Keep, the mountain peaks glittered red.

He had forgotten how clean the air smelled in the north. His scalp itched; vermin crawled in his hair. His clothes were stiff and mud-caked; they felt like armor against his skin.

The journey had not been too bad. They had fed him, at least. He had had to sleep bound. He had watched, hoping for a chance to escape, but of course there had been none. Like the riders of Lienor, unlike his own quarrelsome crew, Dragon Keep's warriors knew what needed to be done and did it without being told. They obeyed Karadur's orders without servility, and without question.

They feared him, of course. The only one who did not was the singer. Obviously they were bedmates: men did not touch each other as Karadur touched this man unless they were lovers. But there was more between them, a connection, a feeling that was present even when they sat apart.

He ached all over. The pain in his wrists and hands was so familiar that he had almost ceased to feel it.

"Get down," Herugin said. Wearily he slid from his horse's back. A dog barked at him from beneath a wagon. Karadur did not look at him. His attention was elsewhere; he was talking with a grey-bearded man, obviously one of his captains.

Two men took him to the post set in the courtyard and fastened him to it with ropes. The castle hounds, captained by a brown brute with a heavy, battle-scarred head, eyed him suspiciously, barking and growling. Children came to stare at him. A dark-haired boy with odd, light-filled eyes watched him for a long time. Loathing the indignity, he forced himself to piss and shit in a corner. He cleaned himself as best he could.

A bell rang in the ward; men streamed into the hall. Toward the end of the meal, as the hall began to empty, Finle appeared, with a platter of meat, and bread. He laid it on the stone. It was a kindness Treion had not expected.

"Thank you." Finle was still standing there.

"What's going to happen to me?"

The archer shrugged. "Don't know. Whatever it's to be, it'll be soon. Dragon doesn't linger over judgment."

* * *

In the kitchen: "Pay me," Anssa said to Ruth. "You owe me five pennies."

The scullions were curious about the prisoner. Pico, especially, was puzzled. "He's from Ujo, right? Who is he? What's he doing here?"

"His name is Unamira. He's an outlaw," Ruth said. "He's the man who raided the Amdur farm, and took Herugin hostage, last year. He did something bad in Nakase. He ran east. They captured him in Kameni and they gave him to Dragon, to punish."

"Why?"

"Because he wanted him," Simon said. Pico wrinkled his nose. But Ruth and Eilon nodded in rare agreement. Even though it was Simon who said it, it made sense. If the lord of Dragon Keep wanted something, or someone, it was best not to stand in his way.

"What's going to happen to him?" Pico asked, turning toward Boris. The cook sat on a stool at the slicing table, keph board at his elbow. He had taken off his apron. He mostly played by himself, now. Macallan, the Keep's physician, had been his regular partner. But Macallan had died in the burning of Coll's Ridge.

"Don't know, toad," Boris said.

* * *

In the small, octagonal chamber in the watchtower, two friends sat in a companionable silence. The room was warm. An empty wineglass sat on the floor at Azil's feet. Another perched on the bare desktop. On the wall, a single candle burned in its sconce.

Brian stuck his head round the door. "My lord, do you need aught?"

"No," Karadur said. Brian withdrew. The dragon-lord gazed into the shadows. His eyes were nearly closed. In the dimness, he looked like a stone.

Azil said, "When will you do it?"

"Tomorrow."

"Will he survive it?"

"He'll survive it. He's strong."

"And after?"

"I don't know. We'll see." His lips tightened. "I shall have to tell Maia."

Azil asked, "When will you tell her?"

"When it's done."

He'd known for years that one day Karadur would meet a woman, and that they would have a child. But for years Karadur had refused to even contemplate it.

My mother died giving birth to me,
he said.
I will not do it....

Then he had met this girl. Azil had not met her. Karadur had said she was comely, and quick-witted, and that she loved her brother. Presumably she was healthy, sturdy enough to bear a child, and clear-sighted enough to know that the children of dragons were not like other children.... He would have to meet her someday.

It would be simplest if he could hate her. Only he could not, because Kaji wanted to love her.

Karadur's eyes opened. His gaze focused. "Azil. It changes nothing."

Azil did not reply.

He said, "What did you think of Cirion?"

"I liked him." Karadur's face grew pensive. "Something— strange—happened between us."

"What happened?"

"He—stopped me. I can't explain it. He touched my mind, and held me...." He clasped his hands together, frowning. The dragon brilliance shimmered momentarily behind his eyes.

"Is he changeling?"

"No."

Sorcerer? The word trembled on the tip of Azil's tongue. But he did not say it. Karadur had no love for sorcerers. Tenjiro Atani had been a sorcerer.

A voice whispered in his head.
Traitor. I see you, traitor....

It was Tenjiro Atani's voice. His heart shuddered in his chest.

Illusion. It was illusion. Tenjiro was dead, and Ankoku, the terrible, malevolent being whose purpose Tenjiro had agreed to serve and who had ultimately devoured him, was defeated, gone, sleeping.

Karadur said sharply, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing. A memory: a bad one. It happens." It happened sometimes, at night, when he was very tired.

But never with the voice.

"The ice?"

"Yes." He shivered.

"I can do something about that." Rising, Karadur came around the desk. He pulled Azil from his chair.

The chamber filled with light.

* * *

At sunrise, the castle woke. The watch changed. Men came from the barracks. Some of them, carrying short bows and a supply of arrows, left the castle through a side door in the wall. Hawk went with them.

The dog keeper let the dogs out. They trotted through the ward, marking and scuffling. A few of them came to sniff at Treion, but the hostility of the day before had gone. He no longer smelled like a stranger.

The grey-bearded captain and Herugin sat on a bench in the sunlight. They talked; Herugin made marks on a slate.

Half a dozen men with wooden swords came into the yard and began to spar under the eyes of a black-bearded officer. They were novices: farm boys, probably. He wished he were with them, and not tied to the post.

The postern gate opened. Riders entered. He recognized the foremost of them, an elegant, erect woman wearing a wide-brimmed leather hat. She was the woman whose farm he had raided. The others were a ruddy-haired young man, and a towheaded boy on a pony. The boy, wide-eyed, looked about with wonder on his face. The woman folded her arms and stared rigidly at Treion. The young man put an arm around her shoulders.

Karadur came into the yard. He was wearing his sword. He looked at Treion without expression. Two men hauled a flat block of wood into the courtyard and set it near the post. The skin along Treion's backbone prickled. Men began to gather. His bowels knotted shamefully. He knew the stories of the dragon-kindred's vengeance.

Finle and three men he did not know walked toward him. A knife gleamed in the archer's hand.

"Get up," Finle said. Treion stood, heart racing.

They stripped his shirt off and unfastened the ropes. Clamping their hands about his arms, they pushed him to the wooden block. The crowd in the yard surged forward. The towheaded boy stood in the front. The young man stood behind him, hands on his shoulders.

Into a sudden quiet, Karadur said, "Treion Unamira. You are a despoiler and a thief. Last year, in my domain, you led your men to Thorin Amdur's farm, and stole his horses, and burned his house.

"Thorin and Garth Amdur died that night. The man who killed them is dead. But you were his captain. You must pay for what you did to them and to the family." He turned to the grey-bearded captain. "Lorimir, how would my father have punished this man?"

The captain said soberly, "My lord, your father the Black Dragon would have opened him from breastbone to gut, and hung him living on the walls for the condors to devour."

The listening men murmured. Treion's skin went clammy. A strong man could live for days in such torment.

Karadur s eyes met his.

I will not beg,
he thought.

The dragon-lord said, "It might be fitting. But I am not my father. Stretch him out."

Hands pushed Treion to his knees. Someone brought a rope, and looped it over his right wrist, and drew it taut. He understood, then, and fought them, writhing and twisting, but they had him pinioned, and there were too many men. They pinned him to the stone, and stretched his right arm across the block. He closed his eyes. His face ground into the dirt.