The Witchwood Crown
“Silence,” said Makho. “We are the Queen’s Talons. We will do whatever must be done.”
They chose a wide, flat plateau on what seemed to be the creature’s regular route of passage. Jarnulf guessed that Makho meant to dig a pit, but there was far more rock than soil, and as Nezeru quietly pointed out, they were not even certain how large their quarry was, only of the size of its feet.
“What about a springe?” asked Jarnulf. “Some of these trees, could we bend them down, would—”
“You are a fool, mortal,” Makho said. “Even with bait confusing the scent, the beast would know we were close by and never go near it.”
Instead, after careful sampling of the wind over the course of an hour or two, Makho set Jarnulf and the rest at points around the chosen spot, none closer than a hundred paces, each placed behind something, a stone or a copse of trees, that could keep them hidden. Each of the hunters also held a coil of rope with a slipping noose at one end.
“When I give the word,” Makho said, “you will catch the beast by the neck or foot with your rope. The other end you must hold tightly, not letting go at any cost, until you have secured the loose end around something strong, a large tree or rock.”
“What if it is the kind that spits fire?” Nezeru asked.
“There are not many of those,” Saomeji said.
Makho hardly seemed to hear him. “Then we will be burned up, and the queen will send another hand to redeem our failure.”
Jarnulf said nothing—he had learned what the chieftain thought of questions—but as he watched Kemme bait their trap with the haunch of a goat they had killed many days before, he wondered how Makho thought four or five of them could wrestle down any full-grown dragon, even with the considerable help of Goh Gam Gar. It was nowhere near the first time since he had joined the Norn company that he had feared for his life, but Jarnulf could not help wondering whether this time he had pushed his luck farther than it would stretch.
The giant had his massive ax and his own great coil of rope, but because Makho said his stench would make the dragon fearful, he had been dispatched to a spot not just downwind but far away. Goh Gam Gar’s exile made Jarnulf restless and concerned. Makho might not care if most of them were killed by an angry monster before the giant joined the game, but as one of the weaker playing pieces on Makho’s shent board, Jarnulf felt differently.
Preparations made, they settled into a long, cold time of waiting.
• • •
It was on the cusp of morning, with the sun’s light beginning to warm the sky along the eastern rim of the world, brightening it from impenetrable violet to deep blue, when Jarnulf saw the giant up on the mountainside raise his arm. At first he thought he must be mistaken, that it had been just another curl of the blowing snow he had mistaken for signals several times already. Jarnulf’s head was heavy and his eyes were dry, and he had long since decided that there was no creature more stupid in all of Osten Ard than an ex-slave who would throw his fate in with the doings of his former masters. But after he blinked several times and even rubbed at his eyes with the rough sleeve of his jacket, the smear of white high above him on the slope continued to look like a hairy white arm raised in warning. Jarnulf’s heart sped, and he began to move in slow, squirming movements, trying to get blood back into his limbs and feeling back into his fingers. He peered slit-eyed at the dragon-path through the murk of blowing snow and the chill mist that clung to the slope. At first he could see nothing, but after what seemed an achingly long time he finally saw movement on the northern side of the slope. What made it was nearly impossible to discern because it was the same color as the snow and ice over which it crawled, but he could see by the shadow of its movement and occasional puffs of snow that it was long and low to the ground.
Now Jarnulf’s heart began to beat swiftly indeed. He couldn’t make out its exact shape, but he could see that the moving whiteness must be something like ten or twelve paces long from head to tail-tip, bigger than one of the monstrous cockindrills his father had told him lived in the southern swamps, and at least two or three times even Goh Gam Gar’s weight. Jarnulf had fought giants and other unnatural creatures, but almost never by choice, and the sheer folly of trying to capture a dragon, even a small one, suddenly struck him with the force of a blow.
I’m only here because of my ridiculous, swollen pride—because of an oath I made that nobody but myself and God heard—and I’ll likely die here on this Godforsaken peak, fighting beside the very Hikeda’ya monsters I am sworn to destroy.
He said a prayer, then another, asking his blessed Aedon to take pity on a believer far from home. Nobody else would, that was certain. If he died here, even the halfblood would soon forget about him, though there was no guarantee she would survive either. All of them, even the giant, seemed completely expendable to their chieftain. The queen of the Norns would be satisfied as long as one of them survived to bring the dragon’s blood to her, and Makho planned to be that one.
Jarnulf’s hatred of Utuk’ku, which he had done his best to keep buried during his time journeying with her Talons, suddenly blazed up again.
Heartless, ancient bitch, he thought. Murderer. She-demon. My dear God, if I am spared death today, I promise I will fulfill that oath I made so many years ago when I was little more than a boy. I understand the task You have given me, and how these cruel Norns will help me fulfill it. I will see the queen of treachery dead by my own hand.
But if he did not join in to help the rest, Jarnulf doubted he would ever make it back down the mountain. And if he fled for his life this moment, Makho would make a point of chasing him down and killing him—no, not just a point, but a gleeful exercise.
Jarnulf wrapped his hands around the rope the Blue Cavern weavers had made, silently touched his sword hilt to make sure it slid easily in its scabbard, and waited.
As the white thing drew closer to the spot where the goat haunch lay, Jarnulf could see more of it, and it was not what he had expected, not exactly. He had never seen a living dragon, but from drake-lore he had heard over the years he had supposed it would be longer and thinner, like a snake with legs. Instead, it seemed to have a more rounded shape. Its tail was short and blunt, as was its snout.
Could it be something else? he wondered. God alone knew what other horrors might lurk here at the edge of the world. In any case, killing such a thing would be difficult enough; trying to capture it alive now seemed like the grossest folly imaginable.
The wind eased for a moment and the flurrying snow began to settle. Jarnulf could suddenly see clearly. He could no longer doubt it was a dragon of some sort—the long, toothy jaws and reptilian head proved that instantly—but its back looked to be covered with thick white bristles, or even porpentine quills. As it dipped its head to the lure, Jarnulf saw Kemme rise and step forward from the jumble of rocks where he had been hidden and let fly an arrow, all in an instant’s swift movement. An eyeblink later the Norn arrow dangled from the creature’s shoulder, a single black quill among the white. The dragon let out an echoing honk of pain and surprise.
Makho now shouted for the rest of them to charge, and without further thought, Jarnulf bounded down the slope with the Talons. The dragon heard its attackers before it saw them, but it was befuddled to discover enemies on all sides, and in that moment of confusion Makho reached it and threw his loop of rope over the creature’s head. Kemme was only a few steps behind, but the thrashing tail struck him and flung him to one side like a chip of wood leaping from an ax-blow. Kemme somehow staggered to his feet again a few moments later and managed to throw his own noose behind one of the creature’s back feet, then waited until the dragon stepped into it before he pulled the cord tight.
Nezeru had snagged a front leg as it clawed at her, then managed to pull her rope around a huge spike of stone before the worm realized it; from that moment on the dragon was anchored. Jarnulf, aiming for the other hind leg,
got the tail instead, but pulled the rope as tight as he could and scrambled backward until he could belay it around a boulder. He threw his weight back against the pull of the creature, which even under restraint was astoundingly strong, and dug in his heels. The dragon bellowed in fury, a strange mixture like a lion’s deep roar mingled with a donkey’s bray, that made Jarnulf’s ears ache. He could not imagine how they would subdue the creature, even as Goh Gam Gar came clambering down from his high hiding place and leaped up onto the creature’s broad back as if to ride it. Even under the giant’s weight, the dragon still thrashed and snapped, but as Makho and Kemme secured their own ropes, one to a rock, one to a wide stump mostly buried in frozen earth, the flailing white beast had increasingly little room to move. Goh Gam Gar lifted his great ax as if to dash out the dragon’s brains, but Makho shouted at him not to harm it. The giant glared back at the chieftain with an expression of disgust that would have amused Jarnulf if not for the rope that vibrated in his hands like a stretched bowstring—a rope with a thrashing, jaw-snapping monster at the other end of it.
Then suddenly, as if by magic, the dragon’s movements slowed and became clumsy rather than desperate. Its pale, blind-looking eyes fell shut as it strained upward against Makho’s noose one more time, trying to get its teeth into the mountainous creature on its back, then it shuddered, stumbled, and collapsed.
“Fool of a giant!” Makho snarled. “What were you thinking? I told you—a living dragon! We need a living dragon! That is why Kemme shot it with an arrow dipped in precious kei-vishaa, to steal its wits and put it to sleep.”
“I would not have hit it so hard as to kill it outright, little Norn,” Goh Gam Gar said, rising carefully from the now motionless body, the heavy legs and long claws splayed out across the snow on either side of its trunk. “There would have been time to take blood while it still lived.”
Makho shook his head. “You understand nothing . . .” But he was breathing so hard that he said no more, only bent and did his best to find his breath.
Saomeji, who had never managed to employ his own noose despite several attempts, now came forward, his rope dragging along the icy slope beside him. The sun had mounted above the eastern rim of the mountains. Jarnulf saw a puzzled look twisting the Singer’s face. “Giant, can you lift the tail?”
Goh Gam Gar barked a laugh at the strange request, but reached down and heaved the huge, wide tail up so that Saomeji could climb underneath. “Don’t let go,” the Singer begged.
“It is a trifle slippery,” said the giant, showing his yellow tusks in amusement.
Saomeji spent a few moments beneath the creature’s tail, staring at the base of its belly. “This is no he-dragon,” he said as he clambered out. “Not as shown in any treatise I’ve seen. This is a female.”
“So?” Makho helped Kemme to his feet. He had collapsed after the dragon had stopped fighting, and clearly, from the way he clutched his ribs, had been injured by the flailing tail. “The Mother of the People did not specify male or female, only the blood of a living dragon,” Makho said, then turned to Goh Gam Gar. “Take your great rope, giant, and wrap it fast around the creature from head to tail. Hurry, or you will feel the sting of the queen’s collar and think the dragon the lucky one.”
Saomeji shook his head. “You do not understand, Hand Chieftain. If this creature is female, it is very young. Scarcely a year old, perhaps less.”
Jarnulf could not get over the size of the thing, three or more times the length of a man and so broad through the body it must weigh somewhere between twenty and forty hundredweights—as much as two long tons. He watched the great rib cage expand and contract with each slow breath, examined claws like curved swords, and thought how lucky they were that the kei-vishaa had done its job quickly.
“What do you mean, Singer?” asked Nezeru, who also seemed stunned by the sheer size of the thing they had captured. She crouched at a respectful distance, looking at the finger-sized teeth protruding from the creature’s pale jaws.
“If this is such a young she-dragon, it means it could not be the child of the monster we saw buried in the rock slide, which has plainly been dead for many years.”
Makho did not even look up, too intent on watching Goh Gam Gar bind the apparently slumbering dragon. “What matter is that? Knot it there, giant. Tightly. If it has no room to struggle, it cannot break someone’s leg with a twitch.”
“What matter is that, you say?” Saomeji took a step back, suddenly looking all around. “Does no one understand? If this huge creature is not the child of the dead dragon, then it is the child of another.”
Makho looked up at Saomeji as it finally came to him. “Another—?”
A great booming roar rolled down upon them, as if the clouds around the mountain had turned to stone and fallen from the sky. Even the echoes were earsplitting. Jarnulf and the rest looked up the mountainside in time to see the thing appear headfirst over a great outcropping, looking like some unbelievably vast serpent, though that was only its head and long, long neck. The rest of the body came into view as the dragon crawled over the rock, its claws digging deep furrows in the raw stone. This beast was white, too, wingless like its child, but much, much bigger than the creature lying trussed at their feet. It saw them, and opened its toothy maw in a hiss of fury.
Saomeji’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “The mother is not very happy with us.”
And then, with a roar that shook the mountainside and echoed from the surrounding peaks, the huge white thing clambered off the rocky outcrop and came scrabbling and slithering down the slope toward them in a landslide of tumbling stones, fountaining earth, and billowing snow.
50
Several Matters of State
During a brief pause between audiences with visitors and supplicants, Simon turned to his wife and said, “That was a clever gamble with the escritor—and a lucky one.”
“What was?” She gave Pasevalles a sign across the heads of the milling courtiers. He nodded and said something to his clerk.
“That Auxis would be able to agree to all that by himself, without waiting to hear from the lector. Or were you hoping he wouldn’t so you could avoid the wedding? It will probably be an unpleasant affair, with both sides snarling at each other.”
She shook her head. “You are right—I am not looking forward to it. My teeth will be clenched the whole time I’m there.”
“Poor wife. Remember, though, you were the one who decided to face it by yourself and leave me at home.”
“Don’t mock me, husband,” she told him sternly.
“I don’t mean to. In any case, you handled the negotiation well.”
She recognized a peace offering. “It seemed obvious that Vidian had to have put a few concessions in the escritor’s pocket, or what’s the use of sending a high-ranking churchman instead of a letter? The Sancellan Aedonitis has known for a long time that we wanted another northern escritor, so it made sense that the lector would have given permission ahead of time for Auxis to accept any reasonable candidate. As for the other promise—fairer treatment of all sides by Mother Church—I felt certain Auxis had been told to accept any deal that the lector might be able to slip out of later on.”
“Sweet Elysia, Mother of our Redeemer,” Simon said, keeping his voice down to avoid being heard by the various courtiers and visitors Pasevalles was now herding toward the throne room’s great doors. “You are more cynical about the church than I am!”
“I love God, but I know the church is composed of mere men.”
The king laughed, though not entirely happily. “Well, I give you all the credit, my dear. You told me Auxis could say yes on the lector’s behalf without waiting for an answer from his master, and you were right.”
“It only made sense. Lector Vidian wants the dukedom of Nabban to be held by one of his allies, like Count Dallo, but not by violent rebellion, which will bring
in the High Throne. Now he sees that matters have gone too far and is desperate to calm things down, and a large part of that is because his own position is shaky. It’s his own fault for having so obviously favored the Ingadarines that none of the other families trust him.”
Simon looked uncertain. “But even if Dallo and Drusis reach for power and fail, Lector Vidian cannot be . . . what would it be called? ‘Un-elected’? See, there isn’t even a word for it. Lectors serve for life!”
“You’re right, my husband. So he knows that if it came to a civil war in Nabban, someone would likely kill him.”
“What do you mean? Not truly.”
“Yes, truly. What do you think happened to the first Larexes, or old Saqualian? Choked on a fish bone? It is well known in Nabban that his mistress poisoned his oyster stew.” She paused. “In fact, even poor, brave Lector Ranessin died an unnatural death, and I should know, since I was in the Sancellan that night.”
“But Ranessin was killed by Pryrates!”
“It was still a removal for political reasons.” Her mouth twisted. “My father’s reasons, although I pray he did not know how that cursed priest planned to do it. No, my beloved man, power struggles in Nabban are nearly always deadly.” She showed him a smile, although it came with difficulty. “It’s a good thing I’m the one going. It’s also fitting that I’ll be going there on a ship named after my mother, since it was she and my Nabbanai relatives who taught me these things.”
“How did your mother teach you all this? She died when you were only a child.”
“And that taught me that life is precarious. But it was her inner court and my relatives there—especially a few rare bitches among her ladies-in-waiting—who taught me how things are done in Nabban.”
Which is all the more reason I should not go back to that treacherous place, though I must, she thought. But I shall miss my kind-hearted husband so painfully while we are apart. And almost without realizing it, she reached out and took Simon’s strong, familiar hand and squeezed it as though she would never let go.