Dragon Weather (69 page)

And Arlian was wearing a new face, courtesy of Shibiel's glamour.

He stood, suddenly inspired, and tapped Stonehand on the shoulder.

Stonehand turned, startled. “Yes?”

“You're called Stonehand, aren't you?” Arlian asked.

Stonehand was suddenly wary. He pushed away from the table and put his hand on his sword-hilt. “Why?” he asked.

“Because I thought I recognized you,” Arlian said. He unobtrusively eyed the arrangement of table, chair, and sword, and then, moving as suddenly as he could, punched Stonehand on the jaw.

The guardsman's chair rocked back but did not quite topple over; astonished, his two companions leaped to their feet, as Stonehand clapped a hand to his injured chin and stared up at Arlian.

“You stinking heap of bloody offal,” Arlian bellowed. “You sold me as a slave!”

“Hey! Hey! Not in my house!” the innkeeper shouted, waving his hands but standing well clear.

“You stay out of this,” Arlian said. “This is just between him and me.”

“You have the advantage of me,” Stonehand said, still rubbing his jaw. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Don't you? Ten years ago, on Smoking Mountain?”

Stonehand frowned. “I was on Smoking Mountain once,” he admitted. “I don't remember just when.”

“Do you remember finding a survivor in the ruins? And what you did with him?”

“I didn't do
anything
with him,” Stonehand protested. “He was Lord Dragon's property.”

“I was
no one's
property!” Arlian roared. “I was a freeborn child!”

“Well,
I
didn't sell you!” Stonehand roared back. “It was nothing to do with me!”

“You didn't say a word to protest,” Arlian said. “You took your share of the loot—my mother's jewels, the neighbors' things, whatever you could find!”

“They were dead!”

“
I
wasn't!”

“And you still aren't! You're free now, aren't you?”

“After seven years in the mines,” Arlian said. “You
owe
me for that seven years!”

“Oh, fine,” Stonehand said. “What is it you want of me, then?”

“Satisfaction,” Arlian said, grabbing the hilt of his sword—but not drawing it.

“A duel?” Stonehand's mouth quirked into a smile. “And if I refuse?”

“Then you're the worthless piece of offal I called you, not a man fit to wear a lord's uniform.”

“Oh, now
there's
a fearsome threat!” Stonehand grinned broadly. “A merchant calls me names, and I'm supposed to cower in shame?”

“A
man
tells you you're worth less than a dung heap, and you can take it, and let everyone here see you for the coward you are, or you can fight me to show them I'm wrong.”

“I don't want to fight you,” Stonehand said. He studied Arlian's face. “You know, I don't remember you very clearly, but your face isn't familiar at all.”

“Seven years in the mines will change a man,” Arlian said. “Then you're admitting cowardice?”

Stonehand sighed. “I am not admitting anything of the sort,” he said. “I am merely reluctant to perforate a mad fool who may have some slight grounds for feeling I may once have inadvertently wronged him.”

“‘May'? ‘Inadvertently'?”

“People are sold into slavery every day, boy. Fate plays with us, and is none too gentle about it.”

“And Fate has brought you here, to me, and I demand you fight me!”

“It wouldn't be fair,” Stonehand warned. “I'm a soldier; you're a merchant. What do you know about swordplay?”

“Enough,” Arlian said. “Then you'll fight me?”

Stonehand glanced at his companions; one shrugged silently, and the other said, “Go ahead. Teach him to mind his own business.”

“Fine,” Stonehand said. “Outside.”

“Of course.” Arlian made a formal bow—one suited to a lord, not a mere merchant. Stonehand's smile vanished, and he eyed his foe suspiciously.

He did not say anything, though, and the two men made their way out into the street. They took up guard positions, swords ready, facing each other, Arlian to the north, Stonehand to the south. The sun was below the western rooftops but not yet completely gone.

Arlian drew his swordbreaker; Stonehand was obviously startled by its presence. He had none, but pulled a dagger from his boot for his left hand.

“It's a trick, isn't it?” Stonehand said, gesturing at the swordbreaker. “You're no mere tradesman. You're probably not even that boy from Smoking Mountain.”

“I am who I said I was,” Arlian said. “But yes, it's a trick—I've studied the sword since I escaped the mines.”

“Obsessed with revenge, I suppose?” He smiled. “As I said, Fate plays with us all.”

Then he lunged; Arlian parried, made a simple overhand riposte—and skewered Stonehand neatly, running the blade of his sword through Stonehand's chest. Stonehand looked down and said, “I never did get the hang of all those fancy tricks. I always did…”

Then he gasped for breath and crumpled to the ground, pulling free of Arlian's blade, his own sword and dagger falling from his hands, his collapse leaving Arlian staring down at him, astonished with the ease of his victory. The duel had been so brief that the crowd had not even finished forming.

Arlian had expected a much longer contest—but a man called Stonehand would have been named for his fists, not his skill with a blade.

“I wasn't even sure I meant to kill him,” Arlian said, as much to himself as anyone else.

“Oh, for…” one of the other soldiers said. His companion was kneeling at Stonehand's side. “
Now
what do we do?”

The kneeling man looked up. “Do
you
want to fight him?” he asked, jerking a thumb in Arlian's direction.

“No,” the standing soldier said. “I want to go home.”

“That sounds like a fine idea to me,” the other replied. “We should take his body, I suppose.”

“Is he really dead?” Arlian asked.

“No,” the kneeling man admitted, “but he will be soon, I'd say. He's unconscious.”

“We'll need to wait here, then, until he dies,” the other soldier said.

“He'll be dead by morning, I'd say.”

“I'm sorry,” Arlian said.

It was the truth, oddly enough. He had sought Lord Dragon's looters for years, with every intention of killing them all, and he had forced this duel knowing perfectly well that he would probably kill Stonehand, but all the same, now that he had done it, he regretted it. There had been little satisfaction in so brief a fight, and while Stonehand had participated in the looting of Obsidian and had served Lord Enziet, he had not been so outrageously cruel as Drisheen, nor so callous as Enziet or the other lords. In the brief conversation leading up to the duel he had shown himself to be a man, not a monster—perhaps under other circumstances, he and Arlian might have been friends. He had done wrong, yes, but he had not been proud of it; he had done as he was told.

And now Arlian had taken something he could never give back. Lord Dragon had taken seven years of Arlian's life, all the years when he should have been growing and learning and finding his path in the world, and Arlian could never get those back, but taking the rest of Stonehand's life did not make up for that. It was simply another theft, not a restoration.

But if he had to do it over again, he could not say he would do anything any differently. And he still had every intention of hunting down and killing Lord Enziet. He was no longer eager to hunt down any of the others, but Enziet, yes—Lord Dragon was a monster, as Stonehand had not been, and must die.

There was nothing more he could do for Stonehand; he wiped his sword, sheathed it, and reentered the inn.

“I don't think I should stay here after all,” he told the innkeeper. “I'll find somewhere to camp.”

“Please yourself,” the man said. “That was quick, I must say.”

Arlian ignored the comment. “Before I go, though—I'm looking for a man, Lord Enziet. He would have come through here several days ago, and gone on southward, up the ravine to the Desolation. Do you know who I mean?”

“Oh, the lord with the lamed horse?” The innkeeper nodded. “Those three asked about him, too. He got tired of looking for a new mount and left about three days ago, on foot.”

Arlian stared at the innkeeper.

Lamed horse? On foot?

And only three days ago?

His vengeance against Lord Enziet was closer than ever.

“Thank you,” he said.

58

The End of the Pursuit

The wind on the Desolation was almost cold, not the searing hot blast Arlian remembered, but it blew just as constantly and fiercely as he recalled, and just as dry, sucking the moisture from their mouths and skin.

They left the Eastern Road behind on the fourth day, veering eastward across bare stone, away from the drifting sands, following the glow of Thirif's enchanted crystal. The Aritheian was quite sure that this was the path Lord Enziet had followed.

“He's very close,” Thirif assured Arlian. “I think we've gained significantly.”

“Why would we be gaining?” Arlian asked. “A man on foot is faster than an ox-drawn wagon.”

“If he's hurrying,” Black said. “Why would he hurry? He needs to stop for water, just as we do.”

Arlian frowned, then shrugged. “I'm going to scout ahead,” he said.

This was hardly new; Arlian had been using Drisheen's horse to scout ahead of the wagon regularly. As usual, he found nothing but bare stone.

On the sixth day, while scouting ahead yet again, Arlian thought he could smell salt in the air, and that it was significantly more moist than it had been. His breath no longer dried out his throat every time he inhaled through his mouth. He saw birds in the distance—seabirds, he thought.

He stared at them intently, but could not make out enough detail to be sure—after all, he had never seen the sea or seabirds, except in pictures.

In pictures they usually seemed to have long, oddly shaped wings, though, and these black specks swooping in the distance fit that description.

He was at the point where he would ordinarily have turned back to rejoin the others, but the birds drew his interest; he urged his horse forward, up a slope of broken stone. At the top he paused again, watching.

Then he lowered his gaze and saw the man standing atop a boulder, perhaps two hundred yards away across a broad expanse of water-worn rock—a tall man, dressed in black, with a plumed, broad-brimmed hat on his head and a sword on his belt.

Lord Enziet.

And Enziet had paused as well, and had glanced back, and was staring directly at Arlian.

“At last!” Arlian muttered, spurring his mount.

The horse jerked forward and broke into a canter, scattering stones in all directions as it stumbled across the rocky ground. Arlian felt himself losing his seat—he was still far from an expert horseman—and reined the beast in. For a moment he concentrated his attention on not being thrown headlong onto the rocks.

When he had the horse slowed to a comfortable walk he looked up, and Lord Enziet was gone.

“Blood and death,” Arlian growled. He rode on, staring ahead, looking for any sign of his quarry.

He saw none.

A few moments later he was alongside the boulder where Enziet had stood; he dismounted, weighted the horse's reins to the ground with a good-sized rock, and looked around.

Enziet was nowhere to be seen; a rough expanse of bare, jagged stone stretched in all directions, hard and cold and alien. Several openings were visible—sinkholes, perhaps, or caves, or just gaps between fallen chunks of rock; Arlian had no way of telling which were which.

He stared at the ground, looking for a trail—and found one; a stone had been turned, exposing a damp underside that had not yet dried in the chill winter wind. He drew a line with his gaze from the boulder to that stone, then extended it straight on—east by southeast, almost the direction they had been heading for the past two days. He drew his sword, patted the horse reassuringly, then began walking that line, slowly and carefully.

A few feet past the turned stone he paused; just to his right was a dark opening between two slabs of stone. He knelt and peered into it.

Something black and powdery clung to the underside of one of the slabs—dead plant life, Arlian supposed, either moss or lichen that had managed to grow there briefly before succumbing to the ghastly conditions of the Desolation.

There were two smears in the black powder—two smears, as if someone's fingers had brushed against it.

“Lord Enziet!” he called into the darkness.

No one replied—but the sound of his voice echoing into the depths told him that this opening was clearly the mouth of a cave, no mere sinkhole.

And it was a cave that Enziet surely knew better than he did, but Arlian had hardly come so far to give up now. There might be another entrance; if he didn't pursue, Enziet might reemerge anywhere, at any time.

Cautiously, his sword ready, he stooped and made his way into the darkness.

The ground sloped down steeply but did not drop out from under him; in fact, after he had gone a dozen feet he found himself on uneven stone steps—whether natural or man-made he could not tell. They wound downward into darkness, the curves shutting out the sun's light.

He paused some thirty feet from the entrance, perhaps ten feet below ground, just before he left the daylight behind entirely. Here he let his eyes adjust and wished he had brought a lantern or lamp, or even just something he could use as a torch. Surely, Enziet could not see down here without some such device!

Of course, if he knew this cave well enough, he wouldn't need to see. He could be waiting at the bottom of the steps, planning to skewer Arlian by sound and feel.