The Spider's War (The Dagger and the Coin series) (10 page)

“Thumb, please,” Damond said. His heart was beating fast. It wasn’t possible, was it? It couldn’t be truth.

The Firstblood scowled deeply. He turned his gaze to the blade, the bloodied cloth, and shook his head. “We will not need to do this. You would be foolish to insist.”

“It’s a… it’s needed. Protocol,” Damond said, but in truth he did feel a bit silly. The Firstblood shook his head.

“Listen to my voice, friend. There is no need. It would be foolish to insist. Better that we let this go. Better for you, and for me, and for your people. Nothing good can come from insisting. Better to let it go.”

Damon’s throat thickened and he nodded, lowering the thin blade. A kind of deep embarrassment was spreading through him. Here he was, a guard of the city, poking
strangers at the word of God alone knew who. Qort was likely having him do it just as a show of contempt.

“Listen to my voice,” the Firstblood said again. “There is no—”

The door opened and Ammu Qort came in. The Firstblood turned to him, anger in his eyes.

“What’s the matter here, inspector?” the prime demanded.

“Nothing, sir,” Kana said, sounding dazed. “It’s just this man—”

“Is he processed?” Qort said.

“He’s paid,” Damond said, not realizing that he was proving he hadn’t taken the wax. “But the blood… it seems like we should just—”

Qort scooped the blade from Damond’s hand and grabbed the Firstblood’s wrist, and before any of them could speak, a tiny drop of crimson was on a corner of the white cloth. And in it, skittering wildly, a tiny black spider.

“Fucking hell!” Qort shouted, jumping back.

“Drop your weapons,” the Firstblood shouted. “You cannot win against me. You have already lost—”

“His voice’s poison!” Qort shouted. “Don’t listen to him! Don’t
hear
him!”

Some part of Damond understood and he screamed. It was wordless at first, but loud. And then, as he pushed the Firstblood back through the door to the quay, he added syllables.
MA-LA-LAL-BAY-AB-ABA! ZA-MAM-BABA
! Nonsense gabbling like a bored child singing in a yard, but it drowned out whatever the Firstblood was saying. His own blood seemed to rush white-hot in his veins as he pushed the Firstblood back. Kana was scrambling toward the loaders and dock guards, shouting at them, but Damond couldn’t hear her over his own screaming any more than he could hear the spider-infected thing.

The Firstblood was trying to yell at him, but Damond’s voice was louder, and he shoved the man back, and back, and back again.
BA-BA-YA-BA-MA-BABA! YE-BE-YE-BEY-BE
! And Qort had a rope around the Firstblood man’s neck. The Firstblood reached for the noose, clawing at it. Damond stopped shouting.

“Come on, you bastard!” Qort shouted. “Help me with this!”

The rope around the man’s neck was tied on the other end to a stone anchor weight. Together, Damond and Qort pushed it to the river’s edge, and then into it. To their right the guards under Kana’s direction were throwing lit lanterns onto a boat that was trying to throw off its moorings. The anchor weight sank, hauling the Firstblood down behind it. Damond watched until all he could see were the soles of the Firstblood’s shoes, kicking in the gloom, then going still.

Qort lay on the quay beside him, breathing hard. The prime’s expression was one of rage and triumph. Damond tried a smile.

“Forgot the wax, sir. Sorry.”

M
arcus swung hard and low, but the blow didn’t connect. Yardem danced back just outside the arc of the attack and brought his own sword down. Marcus shifted, parrying with a hard clack of wood against wood. The impact stung his fingers. He stepped back as Yardem pressed his advantage. Marcus blocked, blocked again, dodged, and tried to slip under an attack. Yardem’s sword caught him just above the temple, and the world went a little quiet for a moment. He felt his mind willing his body to shift away, to raise his own blade in reply, but nothing happened. His hands and feet had gone sluggish, and he stumbled to the icy brickwork of the pit.

“Sir?” Yardem said, his voice humming with concern. Marcus lifted his hand, waited until the world stopped spinning.

“I’m all right. That was a good counter. Nice work.” He hauled himself to his feet. The fighting pit was ten yards across, and a little longer. The walls curved, but not into a circle the way they made them in the south. It still had corners. The poisoned sword leaned in one of them beside Marcus’s overcoat and Yardem’s less exotic blade. In the summer people would stand at the lip, or sit and dangle their legs. The cold made it a less enticing spectacle. Marcus didn’t care either way. Let them look, let them stay indoors by their fires. It didn’t change what he had to do.

“Let’s go again,” Marcus said, taking a grip on the hilt of the wooden practice sword. “I’m good for it.”

Yardem huffed out a white, frozen breath and raised his own false blade, but not fully to the ready. “Might want to discuss that, sir.”

“You knocked me on the cob,” Marcus said. “Not the first time it’s happened. Come on. Take position.”

“Comes a point where more training doesn’t gain you anything, sir.”

“You think we’re there?” Marcus said through a tooth-baring grin.

“Were an hour ago. Didn’t mention it.”

Marcus let his shoulders sag. Truth was, he didn’t feel well. Hadn’t in a while. He sank to his haunches, leaning on the practice sword. He was breathing harder than he should have been. His back ached, and not with the vigorous burn of worked muscle. More like the sharp complaining of loose joints. He coughed and spat. The brick walls rose up on all sides, the looming wall of the gymnasium to the east, and the white winter sky above that. He wondered where the habit had begun of sinking practice pits into the ground. It wasn’t done for formal dueling. He pictured vast perches at the edges, and dragons looking down at them, slaves fighting each other for the masters’ pleasure. It seemed a little too plausible.

“It’s not the sword,” he said.

“Didn’t say it was, sir.”

“No, but you thought it mighty loud. So don’t crawl up my back again about how I should leave it be more.”

“Or let someone else take a turn carrying it,” Yardem said.

“You think it’s rotting me from the inside out, and you’d pass it to someone else? That seems cruel of you.”

“Fit across my back,” Yardem said. “Give you some time to find your strength.”

“I know where my strength went,” Marcus said, pulling himself up. His scalp felt cold where the sword had taken it. Oozing blood, most likely. “It’s not the sword. It’s age.”

“It’s both, sir.”

“Well don’t paint it gold for me,” Marcus chuckled. “Tell me how you really see it.”

“You’re past the age when most men in our profession have stopped,” the Tralgu said, his ears flat against his head. “Taken long-term duties running a guard company or opened a training camp or died. Instead, you’ve trekked across the world two times over, half died in the interior of Lyoneia, been hauled up mountaintops by a dragon, and strapped this blade across your back. You act as if you could go on forever, and your body’s starting to show you it isn’t truth.”

“I was joking, Yardem. You can go ahead and paint it gold a little.”

His second-in-command looked down and flicked an ear. “All right. You’ve got a mostly full head of hair, and that one girl at the inn still thinks you’re handsome.”

“Fuck you,” Marcus laughed, walking across the brickwork to their things. His legs actually seemed to creak. Yardem was right about one thing, at least. There was such a thing as overtraining. They bundled the wooden swords together with a leather strap, and Yardem tossed them across his shoulder like a day soldier carrying a pack. Marcus pulled on his overcoat, and then the dark-green scabbard and hilt of the culling blade. As they walked toward the ladder, a figure appeared at the edge of the pit. The sole observer of their showfighter’s practice.

If the last few years had worn Marcus down, they’d
grown Cithrin up. She’d never have the shard-of-milk-ice paleness of her mother’s race, but she carried something of the Cinnae calm. She no longer showed the awkward girlishness that Master Kit and Cary had tried to train out of her back in ancient days. Back when they’d been smugglers running from an Antean army not yet fueled by the spite of dragons. She was a woman now. A young one, but experienced beyond her age.

She’s not your daughter
, Marcus thought. And yet, standing before her as Yardem climbed the ladder behind him, he felt the same mixture of pride and melancholy he imagined a Merian grown to womanhood might have called forth.

“I need you,” she said.

“And here I am,” Marcus said. “What’s the problem?”

“I have a plan, or part of one, but it means the two of you talking.”

Yardem grunted his way over the lip of the pit and leaned against the wooden railing. Marcus glanced at him.

“We’re here,” Marcus said, settling the blade more firmly on his shoulder. “What is it we need to talk about?”

“Not you and Yardem,” Cithrin said. “You and
him
.”

“Well, God smiled,” Marcus said sourly.

I
nys stood on his perch, staring out over a slate-grey sea. The vast head turned as the three of them came close. The intelligence in the huge eyes was unmistakable, as was the weariness. Marcus hadn’t spent much time around the dragon since they’d come to Carse. There had been no end of people to serve Inys—bring him food, clean away his dung, sing and caper for him. Marcus understood it. Even felt some of the same urges to cater to the master of the fallen world. Almost all of humanity’s races had been built to serve the dragons and to read the feelings in their faces
like sheepdogs watching the shepherd. For thousands of years, no one had suffered that burden, and now, with Inys suddenly among them, no one had any practice resisting it.

Marcus had the feeling someone should, and he was fine with its being him. Part of the job. He had the sense that Inys knew it too. That, perhaps, it was why the dragon had a fondness for him.

“Stormcrow,” Inys said, the words low and deep, “you return at last.”

“So it seems,” Marcus said. “You’re looking ragged.”

When Marcus had woken him, Inys had been sluggish from ages of stonelike sleep, but he’d been unscarred. The dark, shining scales had been dulled by dust, but perfect, row on unending row. Porte Oliva had changed that. Long streaks along the dragon’s side were roughened by scar. The huge wings had holes in them where Antea’s great spears had pierced them and pulled the dragon down. Weapons designed to slaughter dragons, and invented, it seemed, after Inys began his long hibernation. That they existed at all meant someone out there had shared Marcus’s opinion of the masters of the world and the dignity of being their slaves.

Cithrin stepped between them, taking the moment for her own. It was a good skill to have, in her position.

“We’ve had more reports from the east. Birds now. Not just cunning men.”

“That’s good,” Marcus said. “Half of what the cunning men make out winds up being dreams anyway. I’d rather we had an actual courier, though.”

“I’m working on that,” Cithrin said.

“What will it matter?” Inys said, his gaze turning back to the sea. “The world is empty anyway.”

Cithrin ignored the comment. “For now all we know
for certain is that Kiaria is no longer under siege, and the forces that were meant to hold Elassae are hunkered down in northern Birancour.”

“Hunting you,” Marcus said.

“Hunting me,” Cithrin agreed. “Geder was so fixated on that, he left himself open, and the Timzinae are taking advantage of the fact. There was fighting in Suddapal and along the coast. We don’t know how bad it was, but… people there have more reason to be angry than merciful.”

“Mercy has no reason,” Inys sighed. “Mercy justified is only justice.”

“Deep,” Marcus said.

“We don’t know who’s in charge of the uprising,” Cithrin said. “That’s in part what the courier is going to find out for us. And Isadau is going too. Barriath’s given her a fast ship and a crew.

“The good news is that the priesthood there has been closely identified with Anteans. Even if there is a schism, the priests hate the Timzinae and the Timzinae hate the priests. Komme’s fear—and I think it’s a fair one—is that when the chaos goes north into Inentai and Nus or west into the Free Cities, it’ll start reaching other races. Jasuru, Yemmu, Tralgu. People who might see a schismatic priest as an ally.”

Marcus nodded. “And then fall to their unpleasant power, lift up another bunch of fanatics, and start the whole damned war over in miniature.”

“Not miniature,” the dragon sighed, his breath pluming out yards from his mouth. “And not starting over. They will only carry it forward. More sides, more causes, more reasons to demonize and slaughter the slaves in the next valley. It was what Morade wrought.”

“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.”