Dragon's Winter (40 page)

Azil Aumson spoke from his place against the wall. “They will not know she is here. They will expect her to have gone to Chingura. They will be watching the east road,”

“Then we will come on them from the north.” He raised his voice. “Listen, all.” The room went silent. “Twenty men, possibly from Reo Unamira’s land, burned Thorin

Amdur’s house tonight and drove off the stock. Thorin and Garth are dead. The children and servants are in the barn. We ride first to the farm, and then in pursuit of the killers. Is Macallan awake?”

“I am here, my lord,” said the physician calmly. “We shall need you. Marek, the command here is yours. Orm, you direct the archers this night. Hunter.” The dragon-fury burned inside her mind. “There may be a wounded man somewhere on our path. Can you find him for me?”

She fought free of him. “I can do it,” she said.

25

They took no road out of Dragon Keep. They cut north and east across the fields and into the forested hills below the mountains, racing through the narrow trails.

Mellia Amdur rode at Dragon’s back. She had refused to stay behind.
My house, my husband
, she said. Her horse was badly winded; Herugin gave her Falcon, and she rode as if she had been born in the saddle, whispering to the spotted mare as a man might croon to a lover. Speed was vital now, not secrecy. Still, they were as silent as thirty armed riders and their horses can be along a woodland trail. There was no shouting, and few words: only the jingle and snap of metal, the hard breathing of horses, and the sound of hooves striking the ground.

They climbed one hill, galloped for a time along a barren ridge top, and then went down, into a forested valley. As they came from under the trees, Hawk smelled burning. Her long sight showed her the silhouettes of barn, stables, and sheds. Red fire flickered through fallen timbers. Beyond the curve of the valley, Coil’s Ridge lifted lightless and bare against the majestic scrolling of the stars.

At Karadur’s signal, they halted. He wheeled his horse to Hawk’s side. “What say you, hunter? Are they watching the house?”

She reached into the darkness. There were no watchers on the hillside. “No, my lord.” They rode across the fields.

Mellia went to the barn, calling softly through the doors. A woman came out, followed by three children. The boy glared fiercely at the shadowy strangers. The two little girls huddled in her skirts. Macallan trotted by her, carrying his instrument bag. The men lit torches. They combed the buildings.

“My lord,” someone said, “we have found him.” Three men moved from the darkness, carrying a man’s body between them. They laid him at Dragon’s feet. The dead man’s clothes were stained scarlet from a wound in his chest. His hair was ruddy, his beard nearly white.

“Who is he?” Hawk whispered to Herugin.

“Thorin Amdur, Mellia’s husband. He was cavalry master to Kojiro Atani. He was at the Keep when I arrived. I served under him for a year. His eldest son, Dennis, is head of the first cavalry wing in Ujo. He’s red-haired, like Thorin. He’s got a scar on his neck.” Herugin drew his thumb along the side of his throat.

Hawk said, “Rides a bay stallion with a silver bridle? I remember him.” He was affable, clever, and a competent officer. But then, Kalni Leminin did not promote incompetent officers.

A second body had been found. Sandor and Rogys laid it beside the first. “Garth,” Herugin said. “The second son. Hern is the third son, and Ellis the baby. Ellis is not here; he is in Mako, serving in Erin diMako’s guard. But Hern—”

“Hern may still be alive,” Karadur said. “Herugin, leave five men here, and designate five more to take Mellia, Leanna, the children and the servants to Castria. Hurry.”

With ten fewer men, they rode up the ridge. The splendid moon made the ridge top seem nearly bright as day. Hawk gazed down the slope of the sleeping forest, feeling the watchful thought of the night creatures, crouched in burrows or perched on tree limbs or curled in the shadow of rocks... “There,” she said.

Hern Amdur lay beneath a fir tree, his dead horse beside him. Dazed with pain, he stared with evident confusion at this crop-haired stranger with an eye-patch standing above him, saying his name. Then Dragon bent over him.

The wounded man said, “Sir? My lord?”

“Yes. Lie still,” Karadur said. He laid a light hand on the boy’s head. “Where are you hurt?”

“My leg. A blow from a club. They shot my horse.” He struggled to rise. “Sir—my father and my brother Garth—they’re dead.”

“I know. We came from the farm,” Karadur said. “But your mother lives, and Leanna, and your brother’s children.” He slid an arm around the boy’s lean shoulders, and eased him to a sitting position. “Who were they, Hern? Could you tell?”

“They were Unamira’s men, sir. I recognized them.”

“Your mother said they masked their faces.”

“They did. But I knew them from their riding. The one who killed my father is named Edan. He’s big and dark-haired; I’ve seen him before. But the one who gave the orders is a stranger to me.”

Macallan knelt, and ran his hands along Hern Amdur’s leg. He said calmly, “The leg is broken, and needs to be set.”

“There’s no time,” the dragon-lord said. “Strap it so that he can ride as far as Castria.”

Hern said, “No! Not Castria.” He caught Karadur’s arm. “My lord, I can ride—”

“No. You are going to Castria,” said the dragon-lord, with finality.

“I need to straighten the leg, and then splint it.” Macallan took a flat piece of wood from his bag. “Give him some brandy.” Someone passed up a leather flask. “It will not take long, if you stay still. If we could have someone to hold him—”

“I will do that,” the dragon-lord said. He shifted his position so that Hern could lean against him, and wrapped his arms around the slighter man. “Scream if you must,” he said. But Hern did not scream, nor did he move, though he did groan once, as Macallan straightened the fractured leg, cushioned the splint with soft cloth, and bound all together with twine.

“Done,” the physician said to his patient, “You did very well. You can have some more brandy, now.”

Hern fumbled the flask to his lips. His face, in the shimmering moonlight, looked very white. He said faintly, “Dennis will be so angry at me. I told him I would keep them safe.”

Karadur said, “Your brother may spend his anger on me. It is my charge to keep your family safe, and I failed it. Let us see if you can stand.” He put an arm around the boy’s slender back, and heaved him upright. “Arn, give him your spear. Hern, you will go to Castria. I shall send two men to ride with you. You are to rest, to heal, and to care for your mother. That is all you have to do, now.”

In the house on Coil’s Ridge, the men were placing bets.

“A penny on the cat,” Blaine yelled.

Nils, who had helped to trap the cat, threw a shoe at Blaine. It missed. One of the hounds leaped on it and carried it away to chew. “A penny? Blaine, you chiseler. Ten pennies.”

“Twenty on the cock,” offered Edan. He had to raise his voice to be heard. It had been Edan’s idea to put the feral cat and the red fighting cock together in the barrel. Two men had been badly scratched, and the cock had nearly pecked Edan’s eye out.

The noise was astonishing. In a moment the old man would come lurching down from his rooms, and shout at them. Someday, Treion Unamira decided, someday he would rip the old sot’s throat out, as he had no doubt the cat was now doing to the bewildered cock. The cock had sharp spurs and a wicked beak, but the cat had teeth and claws and night vision and a deadly hunter’s instinct. Were he willing to bet, he would bet on the cat. He lifted his wineskin. It held merignac, that liqueur of the gods. It tasted like honeyed fire. His grandfather’s cellars contained six jeraboams of merignac; five now. He smiled, remembering the night’s work. It was only a beginning, but still, they had done well. The old sot, his grandfather, had never done more than steal sheep and harry unwary merchants while Karadur Atani’s back was turned. There was no future in sheep-stealing, and no fun in it either. But now, with the horses, his little tribe of brigands could do more. They had all of Ippa to range in—no, all of Ryoka. They would grow. He saw himself riding at the head of an outlaw band a hundred strong... The Bastard’s Company, men would call it. He would like that.

He had originally intended only to steal the horses, not to kill, but the arrogance of the old horseman, coming at him with a sword, had enraged him. Firing the house had been an afterthought. Still, it had given him pleasure to watch it. He had always liked fire.

The uproar from the barrel was becoming tiresome.

“Stop it,” he said to Edan. “Let them out.” The men looked at him in stupefaction. Edan started to argue, thought better of it, and kicked Edric in the side.

“Get up. We’re letting them go.”

Warily they pried the top from the barrel. The cat staggered out, sneezing, bloodied. Nils whooped, and stuck his hands out. “Pay me!” he yelled. They squabbled about the winnings.

“Shut up,” Treion said. He didn’t raise his voice, but the place grew still. They were all learning, except the habitual drunks and the stupid ones, and unfortunately as long they could ride and shoot, he needed even the stupid ones. At least they had learned not to lie to him. He loathed lies—they made him sick, literally. He had warned his grandfather’s men—curs, who lied as easily as they breathed—the very first week of his arrival at the house, how much he hated it when people lied to him, and that if they did it, he would know. They had not believed him, of course. But they did now.

Edan, without being told, went out to make sure that the sentries were still there, still sober, and looking in the right direction. That was good. The stolen horses were hidden in the woods, picketed and guarded by two men he trusted; at least, he trusted them to need money, and now that he had finally deduced where the old sot kept his purse, he had money. That was also good. In another month he would have this motley miscellany of ruffians licked into shape, or dead. It troubled him that the woman had gotten away, but he was sure she had not recognized them. He had made it absolutely clear to his men that he would cut the throat of anyone who thought to ride without a mask. No one had challenged him.

Edan came back inside. Treion raised an eyebrow in question. Edan nodded.

Then the men with the swords came in.

It was not a fight. They found the men who had been left on guard—half-drunk, no trouble to subdue—and bound them, and entered the house. They disarmed the drunken outlaws. One man, more abstemious and agile than the rest, heard them coming and vanished out the back. Another—big, dark-haired—tried to fight, and got his head cracked for his pains.

The archers herded them outside, into the clearing before the manor house, where a pack of half-trained, hungry hounds skulked, growling and making angry rushes at the horses. Finle shot two of the dogs, and the rest fled. The manor house was scarcely more than farmhouse, with a long hall added on to it, in which the outlaws slept. The inside of the hall was littered with animal feces and half-eaten food and soiled rags that had once been someone’s clothes. A bloodied cat lay panting in a corner.

“Gods,” Rogys said, looking about, one hand on his knife, “this place is a dung-heap.”

“I want Reo Unamira,” Dragon said coldly. “Find him. Bring him to me.” He turned, and walked to the clearing, where Orm’s archers held their bows on the sodden outlaws. The Hunter’s Moon burned fiercely overhead.

Herugin, sword in hand, took Orm and Lurri and went upstairs to the sleeping chambers. A man yelled: a vivid stream of invective, abruptly silenced. Then an old white- haired man, with Herugin behind him, walked through the doorway of the house. He wore a bedraggled night-robe. Herugin’s sword point was in the small of his back.

The old man put his hands on his hips, ignoring the sword. “What damnable insolence is this?” he demanded grandly. “Who dares to interrupt my resht—rest?”

Karadur Atani looked at him. “You know who I am.”

“Do I?” The old man squinted. “Ah. Yes. My overlord comes to visit me. Had I known you were coming, my lord, I would have prepared a prop—a proper welcome.” He weaved down the front steps, staggering a little at the final, broken step. Herugin sheathed his sword. “Iva,” the old man called into the moonlight, flinging his arms wide, “Iva, we have guests! Bring wine.” He tottered. “Shorry. No more wine.” He peered at the archers, and at his sullen, sobering men. “Wassis? Whassamatter?”

Karadur said, “Do you know where your band of cutthroats went tonight, old man? To Thorin Amdur’s farm. They stole the horses. They killed Thorin and his son Garth. They fired the house and left everyone in it to burn.”

“Ri-ridiculous,” Unamira said. “Why would they do such a thing? I did not tell them to do that.” But fear flickered at the corner of his eyes.

“They did it. And you must answer for it,” the dragon-lord said.

Reo Unamira drew himself up, a parody of offended dignity. “You should not speak so to me, my lord. I served your father with honor. I saved his life in battle.”

“I know it,” Karadur Atani said. “You have traded on that service for thirty years. I grant you one day’s grace. By sunset tomorrow you and your family must be gone from my domain.” “What of them?” the old man demanded. He waved an unsteady hand at the bandits.