The Spider's War

  “Birancour is stable,” Cithrin said. “For now. But the Antean main army’s still there. The Lord Marshal and a force of cold, skinny Anteans are still tasked with hunting me down and taking me back to Camnipol in chains. And even if Jorey Kalliam’s turned sides the way his mother says, that’s not a promise they won’t try to take Northcoast come the thaw. Antea’s got a new and thriving tradition of killing off its Lords Marshal. At which point Northcoast is bound to act.”

  “So chaos on both sides of Antea,” Marcus said. The dragon heaved a massive sigh. Great whiner, Marcus thought. He brought the whole thing on us, however many hundred generations back. Least he could do was pretend interest.

  “Pulling the thorn here,” Cithrin said, “and keeping the fighting in the east from turning to the greatest rout in history call for the same thing. The Antean army’s well-ordered withdrawal back to Camnipol. Only there’s two priests with them talking everyone there into thinking they’re invulnerable and protected by the goddess.”

  “So we’ll need to be rid of them,” Marcus said.

  “And that seems to require Marcus. Or at least his sword.”

  “If it takes the sword, it takes me. That’s the job. And, fairness, the prospect of not having a massive force of armed men bent on delivering you to the boy tyrant who feels you humiliated him would likely help my concentration too.”

  Cithrin tilted her head, hearing something more in his words perhaps than he’d meant to say aloud.

  He cleared his throat, feeling an unwelcome blush rising in his neck. He turned to the dragon and changed the subject. “How about it, Inys? Are you up for hauling a few people south? Or are your wings too weak?”

  The dragon turned, real anger in its eyes. Marcus fought the urge to take a step back, but he did lower his eyes. “My wings are cut, but I am no cripple, Stormcrow. What is this that you ask of me? Be plain!”

  “How many can you carry?” Cithrin asked. “I mean no disrespect, Inys. You know that. But I won’t tax your strength. Not while you’re still healing.”

  “How far?” the dragon asked, scowling in a way that was both inhuman and perfectly recognizable.

  “Around the army, far enough that its scouts don’t see you. And then south. It’ll be less likely to raise suspicions if they don’t seem to be coming from Northcoast.”

  The dragon spread his wings. Marcus knew they’d suffered in the attack at Porte Oliva, but he hadn’t made a close inspection. It was uglier than he’d thought. There were gaps in the thick, leathery membrane. Holes. He remembered watching Inys laboring across the water toward the escaping ships and wondered just how close the dragon’s escape had been.

  “I can carry myself and five others,” the dragon said.

  “Let’s call it three,” Marcus said.

  “Do you doubt me?”

  “A little,” Marcus said. “It’s why you love me.”

  The dragon bristled, bared its teeth, and then laughed. Gouts of stinking flame rolled through the winter air as Inys chuckled. The smoke rose above them, spreading until it became the sky. “Three then,” the dragon said.

  “When will you be ready?” Cithrin asked.

  “I am ready now,” Inys said, folding his wings together and settling heavily on his perch. The great eyes closed, with the feeling of the conclusion of a royal audience. Marcus walked at her side in silence until they reached the court where Yardem stood waiting.

  “Went well?” Yardem asked.

  “Didn’t end with us burned or in his belly,” Marcus said. “Willing to call that a victory. So me for the sword. This Lady Kalliam to get me past the guards. Maybe Enen? Kurtadam are common enough in the south she wouldn’t seem odd. Or should we keep to Firstbloods?”

  “Not Yardem?” Cithrin asked.

  “We’re known,” Yardem said. “A man traveling alone might be anyone. A Tralgu man with a Firstblood beside him, and people might remember stories. Especially this near to Northcoast.”

  “Barriath will want to go,” Cithrin said.

  “Can’t let him,” Marcus said. “Lose him for too long and his little pirate fleet’ll pull up stakes. Metaphorically speaking. And… Oh. Yeah.”

  “I think that’s right, sir.”

  “What’s right?” Cithrin asked. The cliff and the sea and the dragon retreated behind them as they walked. A Timzinae woman hurried past, wrapped in a wool scarf, the scales of her face catching the dim winter sun. “Marcus? What’s right?”

  “You’re sending me in to assassinate the priests, yes?”

  “Unless you’re willing to hand the sword to someone else,” Cithrin said.

  “Once that’s done, though, the soldiers are going to lose all the false certainty they’ve had carrying them through. Start thinking for themselves, and since the truth is they’re hungry, exhausted, and working with shit supply lines, they’ll likely come to the fact that all’s not well pretty damned quickly. If we just wanted a mutiny or a mid-campaign disband, it’d be simple. But you want to march them back east. To do that… Well, we’ll need a priest, and that means Kit.”

  “Cary won’t like it,” Yardem said.

  “You can tell her, then,” Marcus said, and Yardem flicked a jingling ear. “And truth is, Kit’s just going to have to keep them together at least long enough to let them scent home. After that, they’ll likely go where we want like water running downhill.”

  “Through the pass at Bellin?” Yardem said.

  “Depends on how deep the snows are,” Marcus said. “Otherwise… I don’t know. The coast and by ship? I don’t like the idea of marching all the damned way south to the Free Cities again, and I can’t see King Tracian letting them through Northcoast, even if they’re sort of on our side.”

  “Complicated,” Yardem agreed. “You’ll go back to Camnipol with them, then?”

  “Can’t see leaving Kit behind. It’d be rude,” Marcus said, and smiled. If anyone had asked, he’d have said that being back in Carse, in Northcoast, walking down the streets that Merian and Alys had walked down once a lifetime ago, didn’t bother him. The pleasure he felt at the prospect of leaving—even leaving in disguise at the heart of an enemy army—suggested his assessment might have been optimistic. Any reason not to be here was a good one.

  He wondered how much he could really trust Lady Kalliam, now that his life and Kit’s depended on her. He supposed there was an easy way to find out.

  The great keep of the holding company came in sight as they rounded a corner. Carts and horses and servants in the colors of half a dozen houses swarmed the street around it. The Medean bank hadn’t been built for the constant traffic that came with governing a kingdom, much less three of them. Perhaps more. They’d have to redesign.

  “Why do you bait him?” Cithrin asked.

  “Who? Inys? Do I bait him?”

  “You do, sir,” Yardem said.

  “I don’t know,” Marcus said. Then, “Because he’s self-indulgent with his grief. Because he screwed up badly once, and now everything he ever does is about that, and God forbid that anyone around him ever be let to forget it for a day.”

  “Oh,” Cithrin said. “All right. I understand.”

  “I wasn’t going to say it,” Yardem said.

  “Say what?” Marcus said, then understood. He disliked the dragon for being too much like Marcus Wester. He shook his head. “You can both go piss up a rope.”

  “If you say so, sir.”

  “And you two take care of each other while I’m gone. I’ll miss you. Now let’s go break the bad news to Kit.”

  Clara

  Clara, wrapped in layers of wool and leather against the cold and the wind, pressed her face against the dragon, closed her eyes, and waited for the worst to be over. Inys’s leg shifted as he flew, the huge muscles flowing and flexing against her in a way that felt both intimate and impersonal. The leather straps that kept her from plummeting to her death bit into her legs and back. She couldn’t say whether her feet had gone numb from t
he lack of blood reaching her toes or the intense cold. She had imagined one time and another what it must be like to fly through the air. Always, she’d evoked ideas of freedom and joy. Now that it came to the actual practice, it felt more like being a baby carried along the edge of the Silver Bridge by a not-entirely-trustworthy nurse.

  On the occasions when she did open her eyes, there was little enough to see besides the horizon of stars and the bulk of the vast animal to which she was tied. The land below her was dark, and the few firefly glimmers she saw might have been anything: cities, camps, farmhouses, tricks of her over-tired eyes. The others—Wester and Kit—had straps of their own on other legs. She couldn’t see them, nor could she imagine hearing them over the sound of the wind. Had they fallen to their deaths, she would not have known.

  They had left Carse only hours before, with the dull red disk of the sun hovering just above the horizon. She’d felt then, waddling out to the open space nearest the Graveyard of Dragons, ridiculously overdressed. Her elbows and knees seemed hardly to bend. Barriath walked beside her, and if he found her as laughable as she found herself, he showed respect enough not to say it. The dragon was on a great perch made from a felled pine. The scent of its sap was still fresh. When she saw the harnesses hanging limp from the great beast’s legs, she had to work to stifle her laughter. What would the ladies of the court think if they saw this? Hardly appropriate behavior for a baroness. But what had to be done, would be.

  In the shadow of the great wings, two figures were already waiting. The older man with the long face and wiry hair of the priests and an attractive younger woman with a thick braid. They were speaking with an intensity that made her wonder whether they might be lovers or father and daughter, though that didn’t seem likely. The woman’s face was hard, and tears streaked her cheeks. The man’s posture was equal parts sorrow and strength. Clara found herself wondering how they managed to express so much with their bodies alone, but then they were actors. She supposed it was the sort of thing one did without thinking, if only one practiced enough. Like the way her daughter Elisia used to spend the whole day whistling to herself after working with her music tutors.

  The woman said something she couldn’t make out, and the old man laughed, then they embraced. Not as lovers would, nor yet parent and child. Family of some sort, though.

  “I should be going,” Barriath said.

  “Of course you shouldn’t, dear. They need you for Callon Cane or the leader of the little fleet or some such. Besides which, there’s little you could do to look after me that Jorey won’t be able to accomplish. He is still the Lord Marshal.”

  And if he took her place, she wouldn’t be reunited with Vincen Coe, she didn’t say. In truth, the implausible journey she was about to take might have uneased her more deeply without the prospect of Vincen at its end. Of course, she couldn’t explain that to her son. For him, her eagerness might even look like courage. She felt a bit dishonest about that, but didn’t see what else she could do.

  The actors stepped apart gracefully, as if they had ended their scene. What fascinating people really. And the woman, at least, seemed vaguely familiar. Clara wondered whether she’d seen her perform somewhere. Barriath took Clara’s hand, turning her. The distress in his eyes reminded her of how he’d looked as a boy. A baby. Of course this was hard for him. Since the day they’d found each other again, he’d been able to play the protector. Now he was sending his mother off into the teeth of danger. What boy could ever see that done and be unmoved?

  She raised her laughably puffy arm and touched his face. “No regrets now. We’ve gone past that.”

  “Just tell me you won’t take any chances you don’t need to,” he said.

  She wondered for a moment what her life might have been if she’d lived by that rule. Nothing like it was, she thought. She wondered what her son would make of all the things she’d so carefully never told him. The rage and despair she’d suffered losing Dawson. The joyful recklessness of standing against Geder Palliako even at the height of his power. She was friend to thieves and cutthroats now. Lover of a man her sons’ age. And none of it could be said.

  “I will use my very best judgment,” she said. “And this won’t be our last meeting.”

  “You don’t know that,” Barriath said, choking on the words.

  “I don’t,” she said. “But I choose to believe it, or else I’d never stand going.”

  “I love you, Mother.”

  And then they were embracing. Not for the last time, she told herself. There would be another, at least. Somehow. She was weeping now as well. When she could bring herself to let him go, Barriath’s eyes were red and wet. He wiped them angrily with his sleeve and stepped back. She turned to the dragon.

  The mercenary captain and his Tralgu second fell into step beside her. The green blade was strapped across the older man’s back. The Tralgu—Yardem, his name was—flicked an ear.

  “I know,” Marcus Wester said, as if something had been said. “Watch after it all until I’m back.”

  “Will.”

  And then she was at the dragon’s leg, and they were helping her into the harness. She still didn’t entirely believe that it was going to happen until the dragon spread its wings, howled like a storm, and fell up into the sky.

  That had been hours ago, and the sun had long since fled. Clara couldn’t entirely believe that she’d slept, but her mind had surely lost track of time. A scattering of fires glimmered far to what she presumed was the east, and the ground seemed closer. She could make out the shapes of trees, and a thin silver line that might have been a stream or a dragon’s jade road. Her cheeks were stiff as plaster, and as unfeeling, but she craned her head against the storm wind. The ground was closer. Much closer. The dragon dipped, dipped again, and didn’t rise. The great wings worked, stirring loose snow and winter-killed grass. They landed in a drift that rose to her knees. The ripping storm that had plagued them since Carse vanished instantly, and the calm seemed unreal. Clara sagged against the dragon’s flesh. Now that they weren’t in motion, the warmth of it was like sitting near a fire, and she wondered how much Inys’s heat had sustained her during their flight.

  Someone tugged at her, and she opened her eyes. The actor-priest. Kit. Starlight lit his smile, and she felt a little thrill of fear and revulsion. The man might be a tame priest, but the same spiders were in his blood as in the others’.

  “I think you’ll find it more comfortable once you’re unharnessed, Lady Kalliam,” Kit said.

  “Thank you,” she said, meaning to go on with I can manage for myself only it seemed she couldn’t. The straps had worked themselves around her back, and so she suffered the priest’s aid in silence. When she tried to walk, her legs felt half strung and uncertain. Captain Wester was at her side, helping her to keep her balance. He had already stripped off the thick wool traveling clothes to reveal the guard’s tunic beneath. The great green sword was still across his shoulders, but wrapped in rags and leather. The priest was pulling on the grubby robe of a servant with a deep hood to conceal his face and hair. Somehow, he managed to seem smaller than he was. It was quite a talent.

  “First light’s not more than an hour from now, and I’d guess we’re at least an hour’s walk from the camp,” Wester said.

  “I don’t know that I can manage that,” Clara said.

  “Once we start moving, you’ll warm up,” Wester said. “Besides which, if you rest, you’ll cool down. So we’re short on options.”

  “You stand before me,” Inys said, his great voice low but all the more threatening for that, “and moan you can find no warmth?”

  “Anything that would fuel a fire, that army burned weeks ago,” Marcus said. “And while I’m sure streams of dragon flame could heat some rocks enough to thaw our hands by, I’d prefer not to call attention this way just before we walk up to their sentry posts.”

  The dragon snorted his vast derision, but didn’t press the issue. Clara nodded and began pulling off her ow
n flying gear. She knew the robes she wore underneath were warm and thick enough for uses besides flying through the night sky like a witch out of legends. Still, she did wish they had something to make a little fire with.

  “Head out away from the camp before you turn north,” Wester said.

  “I shall go as I wish, and do as I please, Stormcrow.”

  Now it was the captain’s turn to snort, but when the dragon leaped again into the darkness, it seemed to Clara he was doing as Wester had ordered. Or suggested. It wasn’t easy to know the difference with those two.

  “Kit?” Wester said.

  “Ready, I think,” the priest said. “I’m not certain which direction to go in, though.”

  “That’s all right,” Wester said. “I am. Keep close, both of you.”

  He forged through the snow, breaking through the soft white with his legs. Clara found it was easier to walk in his footsteps, and before long the snow thinned, and they found themselves on a track of frozen mud and churned ice. It stretched out to north and south, winding. The ruts of wagon wheels showed in the muck like scars.

  “All right,” Marcus said. “Let’s go see if this works.”

  “It will,” Clara said.

  “Things can always go wrong, lady,” Wester said, but there was a smile in his voice. Clara took the lead. It was a shame, she thought, that they didn’t have horses. Or at least one for her. Coming in on foot was beneath her station, not that a poor beast could have survived being carried all the way from Carse. Even if it didn’t freeze to death, the fright would likely have killed it. But they could have gotten a litter. Something light that the two men could have used to carry her. Well, it was something to keep in mind for next time.

  Next time. She chuckled. God, let there never be a next time.

  Wester was right: the walking did help. By the time the eastern sky began to come rose and gold, she was feeling almost herself. She was Clara Kalliam, taking a brisk morning’s constitutional with a guard and servant trailing behind her. She wondered whether Jorey had any tobacco left. Almost certainly not, which was a shame.