Dragon's Winter (17 page)

Thea interrupted him. “A wagon? Going to the Keep now?” She glanced at Wolf, who nodded. “Do you suppose we might ride in it?”

“No reason why not, if there’s room,” Niall said. “Jonno, go see if the wagon’s left yet, and if it hasn’t, tell Berris to wait, and to make some room among the hides. He’s got passengers. Aye, and you can do me a favor, if you would.” He rummaged beneath a counter, and brought out a pair of brown leather riding gloves. “These need to go to Azil Aumson.”

The gloves were oddly thick, the fingers padded and curled. Wolf stuffed them in his pack. “What will we owe you for the work?” he asked.

The leather-worker shrugged. “I could use a warm blanket.”

“Done,” Thea said.

“I thank you.” Niall glanced at his feet. “You planning to leave the boy?”

Shem had vanished. Thea squeaked. Wolf caught her wrist. “Listen,” he said equably. She lifted her head, and heard Shem’s peculiar crooning emanating from the rear of the shop.

Niall beckoned them through a curtain. Their son was seated beside a box in which six piebald puppies squirmed. A bowl of warm milk and meal teetered on a crate nearby. Niall said, “The bitch died, and I’m trying to keep them alive with milk porridge.” He crouched, and guided Shem’s fat hand to stroke a puppy’s thistledown fur. For a moment the dark bent head was absolutely still, absorbed in the delicate sensation.

“Puppy,” Niall said.

“Boppy,” repeated Shem.

The ride to the Keep was swift. Wolf sat on the box with Berris. Lulled by the steady plod of the mules, Shem fell asleep against a pile of soft calfskins. Thea sat upright in the wagon, watching the road as it wound up and up through a rocky defile, and then out into mud-brown fields. Beyond the fields the mountains towered, peaks she had known all her life, Brambletor and Whitethorn and the jagged majesty of Dragon’s Eye. And hard against the grey wall of rock rose the castle, black and old and solid as the stone out of which it had been hewed.

Within a very short time, they were within its gates.

The courtyard teemed with mules, wagons, and men. Along one wall, a chain of men lifted slabs of frozen meat and lengths of roughly finished red-gold wood from two large wagons. Horses, mostly geldings and mares, paraded back and forth, and then stood, while a lean, dark-haired man ran his hands along their legs and looked at their teeth and hooves.

Shem, waking, gazed upward at the great stone walls. “House,” he commented. “Big house.”

“Yes,” Thea said. She scrambled from the wagon. “This is Dragon’s house.”

Wolf, descending the box, took his son in one arm and put the other reassuringly around Thea’s shoulders. “Look,” he said softly. Thea followed his gaze. Azil Aumson stood in the shade, contemplating the parading horses. As they approached him, he took a step to meet them. He had put on weight; his face was lean but no longer starved.

“He told me he had sent for you,” he said. He spoke with an odd hesitation before each word, as if he had to think of it before he could pronounce it. “Thea and Wolf of Sleeth. Welcome to Dragon Keep. It’s good to see you.”

“And you,” Thea said warmly. “You look well.”

“Yes.” He nodded at Shem. “I have forgotten your son’s name.”

“This is Shem,” Thea said. Shem grinned, a ridiculous, gap-toothed grin.

“He has grown,” said the scarred man. His maimed hands hung quiescent at his sides. “Please, come and sit.” He led them to a stone bench. Thea sat. Wolf slid the pack off his back. The smell of baking bread eddied tantalizingly through the courtyard. The steady sound of a smith’s hammer chimed counterpoint to the shouts of men and the stamping of horses and the rumble of wagon wheels. “I must tell you, the lord of the Keep is not here. Three wargs circled Chingura yesterday morning, and then ran north over the rocks. They were seen. My lord took a party of soldiers and hunting dogs in pursuit.”

Wolf said, “You are busy here.”

The scarred man’s voice was grim. “We are preparing for a war.”

“When?” It was the question all the folk of the domain were asking.

Azil said, “He has not told us. But it will be soon.”

“Before I forget,” Wolf said, digging into his pack. “I brought you these.” He handed Azil the gloves. Azil stuffed them into his belt.

“And I brought you this,” Thea said. She drew a length of scarlet wool from her pack. “It’s a scarf. You were so cold when you came to us...” She refolded the soft fine cloth into a square and laid it across his twisted palms.

On the ramparts, a sentry shouted. A horn blew twice. Shem wriggled imperiously in Wolf’s arms. “Down,” he commanded. Wolf loosened his grip so that the little boy might slide to his feet. He landed swaying, triumphant, fingers clutching Wolf’s leggings.

“Shem, stay here,” Wolf warned.

The horn blew again, closer. “Get those wagons out of the way!” someone shouted. The wagoners grabbed the reins of their mules and tugged. In the pens, the dogs started barking. Men ran to the big gates, and swung them back. A man bearing the dragon standard rode first through the gate. Abruptly, the courtyard brimmed with dogs and armed men on horseback. Boys ran to seize the horses’ reins as riders swung from their saddles. A pack of perhaps fifteen hunting dogs milled about the meat wagon’s wheels. Unleashed, they growled and snapped at each other.

The lean man slid among the horses to catch the reins of a limping grey gelding. The grey’s rider, dismounting, waved his hands, answering a question. “Who’s that?” Thea whispered into Wolf’s ear, pointing at the lean man.

“I don’t know. At a guess, I’d say the cavalry master.”

“It is. Herugin Dol is his name,” said Azil softly. But he did not turn his head; he was watching the bright-haired, dark-cloaked man in the middle of it all.

Shem’s face glowed. “Boppy!” he declaimed, releasing his grip on Wolf’s leg. In a toddler’s headlong rush, he marched boldly across the courtyard, right into the middle of the irritable, hungry dogs.

The hunting pack snarled. Savage, the pack’s leader, shouldered forward, growling. Thea screamed. A shimmer of light seemed to hang in the air. A black wolf with silver-tipped fur streaked across the courtyard and knocked the boy off his feet. Baffled, buffeted, and frightened, Shem let out a roar. Straddling the child, the wolf faced the dogs, thick fur raised, yellow eyes blazing danger. The pack broke into frenzied, guttural barking.

Silently, Savage’s huge brown head lowered. Baring his fangs, he crouched to spring. In three strides, Karadur crossed the yard. One big arm scooped the yelling child from the ground. The other cuffed the massive pack leader and sent him head over heels across the stone. The other dogs crouched on their bellies, whining.

Wolf changed. The dragon-lord bounced Shem casually on his forearm.

“Hush, wolfling,” he said. “Be still. Naught has hurt thee.” Cool blue flames flickered along his hands and arms.

Shem forgot his tears, and snatched rapturously at the teasing blue patterns. “Boof!”

A redheaded soldier appeared at Karadur’s elbow. “My lord, I’m sorry. The dogs were in my charge.” He was breathing hard.

Karadur looked at him. “Rogys. Is this how you usually obey my orders?” The redhead swallowed. Freckles stood out darkly on his ashen face. His shoulders braced. “We will speak of this later. Get those beasts to kennel.” The redhead and two other guards grabbed for the dogs’ leather collars. The man named Herugin came up on Karadur’s left shoulder.

“My lord, Hern Amdur’s here. He’s brought a string of seven cavalry-trained horses from his father’s stables: three geldings, four mares.”

“Hern? Good.” Karadur flung Shem into the air, and caught him. Shem crowed aloud. Karadur surveyed him, and handed him to Wolf. “Illemar Dahranni, my wolf cousin. Welcome to my house.”

Thea was trembling at his side. Wolf put an arm around her shoulders. He had never gone on his knees to any man, and would not now, but he chose his words as carefully as ever he had made a choice.

“Lord, thanks are too small for what I want to say to you. There is nothing I own, or could borrow, build, or steal, that is not yours if you want it. And if you have, now or ever, the least use for a threadbare, forty-year-old wolfskin, I think I could find you one.”

That brought a near-smile to Karadur’s hard face. “What makes you think I would prefer you with your skin off? Let you and your family be free of the house, until I am able to greet you properly. My household will be pleased to make you welcome. Will you rest the night?”

“My lord, we would be happy to.”

“Rogys!” The redhead snapped to attention. “Make your amends by showing my guests around the Keep.”

Karadur strode toward a stairway, Azil on his heels. Rogys exhaled deep and long. “Gods.” He hovered. “Do you want food, beer, wine? I’ll send for it.”

“We’re fine,” Wolf said. Shem, wedged peacefully into the crook of his father’s arm, made a bubbling, humming sound.

Thea said, between her teeth, “I would like a club. With nails in it, long sharp ones.” She lifted Wolf’s free hand in hers, brought it tenderly to her lips, and bit his thumb, hard.

Rogys escorted them around the castle, as proud of the place as if he had built it himself. The bakery steamed with transcendent smells. The forge was dark and hot as a troll’s cave. At the stable, looking down the row of equine heads poking curiously from stalls, Thea said, “I have never seen so many horses in one place.”

Rogys grinned. “Aye. Herugin says we’ve stripped the north of horses.”

“How many?” Wolf asked.

“Eighty, and fifteen mules. Twenty of them—the ones with the red and gold bridles—came from Erin diMako,” Rogys said. He rubbed the nose of the nearest horse, a blazoned bay mare. “Hey, Star. Art bored? I have no sugar with me, bright one.”

He led them next to the carpenter’s shop. At the doorway, Thea lifted Shem from Wolf’s arms. “I will see you later,” she said to her husband. She smiled sweetly at Rogys. “I think you should take me to the kitchens.”

The wood smell was strong as wine. Lengths of yew and cedar were stacked against a wall. There were bows everywhere, in various stages of completion. Wolf ran a surreptitious finger along one that appeared finished. The oiled wood was satiny. A man about ten years his senior was planing a yew stave. Wolf introduced himself.

“Liam Dubhain,” said the bowsmith. His hands maintained their steady stroking movements with the plane. “I’ve heard of you. You work with wood.”

“Rough carpentry, mostly,” Wolf said. “Walls, roofs, shelves. I have a friend in Ujo who makes bows. Terrill Chernico is her name. Her shop’s in Lantern Street.”

“We’ve never met, but I know of her.”

Wolf ate that night in the guard hall. It brought back memories of his own service to Kalni Leminin. The Lemininkai castle and garrison were twice the size of this one. But the appetites were the same, and the noise, and the spirit. Rogys, taking his escort duties seriously, brought him to meet the cavalry master, Herugin, and the archery master, Murgain.

“That’s Captain Lorimir,” the redhead said softly, pointing to a broad-shouldered, bearded older man. “He’s originally from Nakase, but he’s been here thirty years. He served the Black Dragon, our lord’s father.”

After dinner the men shoved the tables aside. In the antechamber, the dogs whined to be let in, and at Lorimir’s nod the doors were opened. The younger men initiated a contest involving throwing-knives and the carcass of a pig. Wolf moved hastily from the line of fire, and found himself standing between Herugin and a young, slender, fair-haired man.

“Hern Amdur,” the young man said. He held out a jug. “Want some?”

Wolf lifted the jug to his lips. The mellow taste of wine warmed his mouth. He passed the jug to Herugin. “There’s a free bench,” the cavalryman said softly. The bench was empty, and the jug, though small, was full. The three men sat. Wolf stretched his heels contentedly. His stomach was full of roast glazed ham. Before the meal, he and Rogys had visited the kitchen. Thea, deep in conversation with the cooks, had pretended not to see him. Shem, wrapped in a bright yellow blanket, lay fast asleep in the well of a copper cauldron.

Herugin and Hern talked cheerfully of horses. Suddenly Herugin turned the jug upside down. “Empty. How did that happen?”

“I’ll do it,” said Hern. He rose, and strolled toward the kitchen.

Wolf said, “You seem to know each other well.”

“Well enough. His father, Thorin, was cavalry master here when I arrived. He retired about a year later. Thorin and his wife Mellia breed horses. Their farm is north and east of here, just this side of Coil’s Ridge.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Mako. But I was born in Selidor, in Kameni. My father was a traveling horse doctor. We moved to Merigny when I was small, and then up the river to Ujo, and finally to Mako.

I served four years in the city guard. So did Hern. That was where we met.”

“How is it you are here?” Wolf asked.

“Dragon was a captain in the Mako garrison for two years. When he left, I followed him.”

Wolf said, “That must have been odd. After all, his father nearly destroyed the city. Did the men know who he was?”

“He called himself Kani Diamori. He was careful. Some of the men never knew.”