Dragon's Winter (21 page)

“Where are we going?”

“Sleeth. It’s a small town just below the mountains. We can do it easily in three days.”

“You were there? When?”

“A year ago summer. Wolf has—had—a house, and a garden. He traps, and Thea weaves. She made this.” She touched her tunic. “Their son was born in October: not this past one, the one before that. Shem, his name is. It means fearless.”

With a certain diffidence Bear said, “If you wish—go on. You move quicker than I.”

She shook her head. “No. I will stay with you.” A traveler watching the hillside, had there been any—but there was none—would have seen the sunshine coalesce and glitter, amber and silver, around the two strangers on the little hill. And then he would have seen a silver-grey hawk lift into the sky with short, powerful wing-beats, while below her a massive red-brown bear crossed the valley and headed north with swift, ground-eating strides.

They kept to the wilderness. They met no humans, save a woodcutter who froze with terror as the huge red-brown bear loped by him. They ate as they traveled. Hawk hunted on the wing. Bear broke river ice and scooped fish from the water. He found the carcass of a moose calf, partially eaten, stuffed under a hedge, and ate most of the rest of it, At night they sheltered in the open: Bear in a copse, Hawk in a tree.

They came to Sleeth just after dawn of the third morning. As Hawk circled down into the meadow, she saw the shapes in the snow, and the animal tracks that ringed them. She changed beneath the drooping birch branches. A west wind thrust across the meadow, spattering her with cool drops. A shadow moved at her back; she whirled, hands fitting arrow to bow and aiming with one indrawn breath. A red-brown bear ambled up from the darkness near the river. Then he changed, into a big, yellow-eyed man.

Kneeling, Bear studied the tracks. “Lynx,” he said, his voice husky with pain. “A fox. A boot heel, here.” He brushed the snow away from one of the shapes. After a while, he uncovered a woman’s bare, brown arm, then her mutilated breasts, then a face. The birds had been at it. “Imarru’s balls. What tracks are these?”

Hawk knelt. After a while, she said, “I think, wargs—”

He looked at her as if she had lost her wits. “Wargs? What foolishness is this?”

“Wolf wrote to me. I have the letter in my pack. Just after New Year’s Moon, a pack of wargs came out of the north and killed seven people in this province. One, a soldier, was taken on the very walls of Dragon Keep.”

Bear said, scowling, “I have rarely heard such nonsense. I have been roaming this country for forty years, and have never seen a warg. Stories to frighten children.”

A little wind blew across the stained earth. A dust of snow drifted over Thea’s breasts and face. Hawk turned abruptly away.

“Well,” Bear said heavily, “you are the scholar. What do you know of wargs?”

“Only that they are creatures of magic.”

“And did you see any signs of wizardry while you were here?”

“No. But Wolf told me that Karadur Atani, the Dragon of Chingura, has a wizard brother, who lives far in the north, and that there is some terrible grudge between them. You have heard the rumors. Word has gone out across the north, through Ippa and Issho and into Nakase:
Dragon Keep goes to war in the spring.
There is talk of it even in Ujo.”

“I have heard it “ Bear said. “You think the Dragon of Chingura intends to take his troops across the mountains, and attack his wizard brother, if, of course, he has one?”

“I would,” Hawk said calmly. “If I had a brother, and my brother was sending magical beasts through my land to kill its people, I would not rest until I had my talons in his throat. She pointed through the leafless trees. “Dragon Keep lies that way a few miles, at the foot of a mountain.”

“So?”

“Someone has to tell Thea’s kin that Thea and Wolf and the boy are dead. It will come easier from a Keep’s messenger than from a perfect stranger. And Karadur Atani might find a use for two experienced warriors in his army.”

Bear snorted; an insolent woof of sound. “Hah. I have no doubt they could use us. But I run with no pack. What do I care for Karadur Atani? The Dragon of Chingura, people call him. But they say he has never taken form. Who knows what he really is?”

“He is Dragon. Wolf said so.”

“And what good did that do him? He is dead.” He glanced at the bodies. Pain flashed in his yellow eyes.

“I remember when we first met,” he said softly. “It was in Selidor. He was young: twenty, twenty-two. He’d been at sea. He had just come round Gate-of-Winds for the first time. He asked me to recommend a tavern. We went to someplace—I can’t recall the name—and drank merignac, and ate spiced dumplings, and played dice. He beat me four times out of five. I wanted to go north, to the Green Mountains, I don’t remember why. I asked him to come. He was a good traveling companion, you remember?”

“Don’t,” Hawk said sharply. “Not now. Later, when we are warm and have wine.” She knelt again, and brushed the snow back. “Too many prints,” she said. “I cannot tell how many beasts there were here, save that there were many. We would lose their tracks in the rocks in any case.”

“I will not lose their tracks.”

Hawk did not bother to conceal her exasperation. “If you can follow an unknown number of magical beasts across the Grey Peaks into the northern plains, then
you
are the magician.”

“If there is a wizard in the far north,” he said unexpectedly, “my cousins will know.”

“Your cousins?”

“My grandparents on my mother’s side came from Mitligund. I have cousins there still. Perhaps it is time to go and visit them.”

It was not implausible. It was even likely. She had cousins in unlikely places all over Ryoka, and the bear clan was more numerous than her own. “And if there is indeed a wizard in the north?”

“I will kill him.”

Hawk swallowed. “Bear, you cannot war on a wizard by yourself.”

Bear spun the heavy cudgel till it blurred. “I don’t see why not. Magicians die like other mortals.” He stared arrogantly at her from his great height. “Do you doubt I can do it?”

Hawk glanced at the sprawled, mangled bodies. The image of Bear marching across the steppes to mount a solitary attack on a wizard seemed idiotic, but she knew well that if anyone could face down a magician alone, it was Bear. Still, it was ridiculous, and dangerous. It was not so, what he had said. Wizards did
not
die like other mortals.

Wolf would have talked him out of it. Wolf would have known what to say. She did not...

“I suppose it will not help for me to argue with you,” she said. He raised a tawny eyebrow in disbelief. No one ever won an argument with Bear. “I go to the Keep. But I will meet you there, with or without an army. Wait for me.”

“I will try.” He changed, in a swirl of crimson light. The sun blazed off his thick pelt. Luminous, tawny eyes stared into hers. He reared, majestic, deadly, massive forepaws bigger than her head. Then, with only the slightest sound, he dropped to all fours and padded into the dappled shadows beside the river.

13

Hawk rode the high wind into Dragon Keep.

Spiraling above the ramparts, she saw the Keep laid out below her as its makers might have yearned to see it: gates and towers, stables and forge, barracks, workshops, kitchen, pens, archery range, fighting yards, and riding rings... Smoke trickled from a chimney into the indigo sky. The people who lived and worked in the dark granite buildings were invisible, as if some unknown mage had cast a powerful spell.

Folding her wings slightly, she let herself fall in a swift controlled glide to the center of the great courtyard. She changed, and waited: for the boy at the kennels to turn and notice her, for the sentries to see her, and shout warning, for the officer by the well, the bearded pudgy one, talking earnestly to the laughing sloe-eyed kitchen maid, to become aware that the woman in silver-grey with the short dark bow between her hands was not in his company, nor any company of the war band... Holding her bow at arm’s length, heart drumming through her bones, she waited.

Two women in soft bright clothes, one holding an empty laundry basket, strolled across the wide crowded space. On the west wall, a sentry shouted. Silence grew and spread like ripples in a pond.

Turning, the plump officer said thoughtfully, “Who the hell are you?”

Very slowly, with a watchful eye on the six arrows leveled at her chest, Hawk knelt and laid her bow and quiver on the flagstones. She said, “My name is Terrill Chernico, called Hawk. I live in Ujo. I came to visit my friend Wolf Dahranni and his wife, the weaver Thea. I went to their home this morning, and found them dead in the snow.”

The men looked at one another. The officer said quietly to the man nearest him, “Tell Dragon. He’s at the riding ring. Hurry.” The man ran. “How did they die?”

“Wargs,” Hawk said. “They’ve been dead for some days.”

A stocky man with a square black beard and a gold ring in one ear said, “How do we know she’s telling the truth? How do we know she is who she says?”

“Why would she lie?” the officer said. “Besides, Dragon will know.” The black-bearded man nodded. The small hairs lifted at the base of Hawk’s neck. She heard a horse, coming fast. Two men yanked the postern gate open. A shaggy black gelding pounded through it and came to a stamping halt. A man slid from his back. Sunlight seemed to collect around him, so that she saw through a dazzle a dark, formless presence moving within a column of flame. Then the dazzle dispersed, and she saw clearly a dark-clad man with thick tangled gold hair, and eyes the color of a summer sky. His fair skin was roughened with wind chafe.

I have met the Dragon of Chingura. We met by accident; he nearly put a sword through my throat. He has hair like the sun and eyes like blue fire, and a grip, so I’m told, that can crack stone...

“I am Karadur Atani,” the man said. His voice was deep, and very clear. “Who are you, and what is this you have come to tell me?”

“My name is Terrill Chernico, my lord. Wolf Dahranni and his wife, Thea, are dead. Wargs killed them.”

An incandescent hand closed around the sinews of Hawk’s mind. She could neither look away from him nor at him. Her senses spun: the Keep walls evaporated, and she was alone in an infinite space with a being that burned endlessly and was not consumed. She gasped, and felt the link snap free.

“She tells the truth,” Karadur said bleakly. “Marek.”

“Sir,” said the square-bearded man.

“You and Irok are our best trackers. The two of you go, find out what you can: when it happened, and how many wargs. Murgain, where is Tallis?”

The plump man hesitated. An older man, clearly a senior captain, came up on the dragon-lord’s right shoulder. He said, “My lord, he is on duty in Chingura.” The fair-haired man frowned. “Toby knows the family.”

“Does he? Toby.” A slender man stepped from the growing crowd of men. “Go to Chingura, and tell Tallis what has happened. Then relieve him at his post.” The three soldiers moved; the others in the courtyard made way for them.

The captain said softly, “My lord, someone must inform the weaver’s family. Do you wish me to go to Sleeth?”

Karadur shook his head. “No. I will do it.” He stood very still: heat, like the blaze of the summer sun, poured from him. It seemed as if he might literally burst into flame. Blue fire shimmered along his arms and hands. Not surprisingly, the captain stepped back. The dragon-lord bent his gaze upon Hawk. She steeled herself for the shock of contact, but the touch, when it came, was surprisingly gentle.

“He was your friend,” he said. “I am sorry. Will you stay, until I return? I would like to talk with you.” The unexpected, almost tender courtesy brought a prickle of tears to her eyes. She managed a bow.

A lean, dark-haired man limped from the crowd of men. “My lord,” he said, “let me come with you.” His speech was diffident. Some terrible hurt had been done to his hands: they were scarred and brutally twisted.

Karadur hesitated. Then he said, “All right.” He turned to take the reins of his horse.

The man who held them, a comely redhead, said, “My lord—please let me go as well.”

Karadur halted as if he had been suddenly turned to stone. Hawk could not see his face. But the impact of the dragon-lord’s unbridled rage pulsed through her mind. The agony of it spun her nearly off her feet. It flung the redhead ten feet back and slammed him face-first into a wall. He fell bonelessly to the stone. Karadur mounted; a stable boy cupped his hands, and the man with the crippled hands mounted behind him. Without looking back, Karadur wheeled the big horse toward the postern gate. The grey-haired captain gave concise orders. Men lifted the redhead and carried him away.

The pudgy officer said to Hawk, “You all right? You look a little grey. You want a meal?”

“I want a bed.”

“We can do that,” he said. “Torik! Take this visitor to one of the guest rooms. If you change your mind about food, let Torik know. There’s always something in the kitchens.”

The boy brought her to a small cold chamber on the second floor. The curtained windows were narrow and high. A smoke-stained tapestry on one wall showed a scene of an archer shooting at an antlered deer, or perhaps it was a moose. He brought her a basin, a water pitcher, and a cloth, and then left her alone. Wearily she cleaned the grime of Wolf and Thea’s death-place from her face and hands.