Twenty-one
Zee, Warlord of Surmise, knowing he would be punished for his absence, was nevertheless far from the feast, deep in the dark and festering belly of the castle dungeons.
In total darkness, by sense of touch alone, he fitted a key into a rusty lock and shoved open a heavy stone door.
“Who’s there?”
“Be easy, it’s just me.” Pulling the door closed behind him, the Warlord lit the lantern he carried and hung it on a peg set high in the wall.
Duncan scrambled up onto unsteady feet. Traces of tears smudged his cheeks. “Forgive me, Warlord—it’s the light, making my eyes water—”
He had not been treated gently. His fair hair was dark with blood, his face swollen and distorted. The burn, untreated, oozed and had begun to fester.
“Darkness breeds fear—I felt you could use a little light.”
“And the news?”
“The dragon died.”
One ragged breath. Another. When he spoke, the young man’s voice was very nearly steady. “When is it to be?”
“Tonight, I’d guess. Soon. I am sorry. The Queen has returned—I can do nothing to stop this.”
“I understand.”
“You did right, Duncan.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. The woman?”
“I have no word on that.”
Duncan turned his back, and his shoulders shook. Only for a moment, though, and when he turned, his face was set and hardened. “How is it to be? Can you tell me?”
“There will be another—Flynt, the farmer. Stabbed the dragon with a pitchfork when it went for his daughter. The fact that the dragon was flying around apparently well and healthy when it left the farm and came to you has no bearing—the investigator says he drew blood and the dragon is dead. He will share your death.”
“Gladiators, you think? Me against the poor old sod?”
“Yes. I will see to it that both swords are sharp, understand?”
“You do us no good if you risk your own life.”
The Warlord sharpened his voice. “The swords will both be sharp—it’s already arranged. I’ve been to see Flynt. He understands.”
For the first time the boy’s voice broke. “I don’t know that I can do this thing, to kill in cold blood—”
“A kindness. There are worse things than death at the hands of a friend.”
The Warlord wanted to shake the boy’s hand, to offer comfort, but it was a cruelty to offer comfort where there was none. Too much kindness and the control might break. He couldn’t even leave the light, as somebody else would be blamed and punished and there was enough blood on his hands already.
“Good-bye, Duncan.”
“Warlord—”
He turned. The boy held his eyes. “I will die well.”
“I do not doubt it.”
He closed the door as softly as possible, then turned the key in the lock. One step at a time, running a hand along the wall for balance, he continued down the dark passage that he knew by heart, turned right, opened a door, and closed it behind him.
Here he again lit the lantern and hung it on a hook.
A small room, with little more than a narrow bed and hooks for his few articles of clothing. A mirror hung on the far wall, with a washbasin on a wooden stand. Crossing the room, he confronted his scarred face in the mirror. Even to him, it looked deformed and frightening. Women cringed away from him; men feared him.
He had no problem with this—he deserved nothing more. He was the Warlord of the kingdom; it was his sworn duty to guard the populace from the dragons, to train and protect the men who served under him. In this task, he failed. Again and again he failed. In the past he’d managed to save a few men like Duncan, despite the rigid edicts of the law. A severe punishment—whipping, the loss of a hand—had sufficed. But when this Queen returned and demanded an accounting of the kingdom, he’d known at once there would be no mercy. For anybody. Ever.
As for the woman he’d found in the forest—her coming might be blessing or curse and he could not tell which. He knew her from dream; had walked beside her, sword in hand, and protected her, slaying all that threatened to touch her. In his dreams he loved her beyond any honor or duty or sense of right and wrong.
But this was not dream, and he was sick to death already of injustice.
When he’d seen her in the woods, bruised, frightened, and still defiant, he’d had a problem with his breath, as though some magic had sucked away all the air. A weakness had come over him, a softness, inexplicable and strange. He had wanted to scoop her up in his arms, to gentle her fear, to bury his face in her hair and breathe in the scent of her. Racing back to the castle under the dragon shadow without raising a sword to protect her had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed.
He’d thought she would die in his arms, bleeding from the dragon’s talons, had waited for the inevitable spasms to twist her body, the burning heat. These things had not come to pass. The woman had power and was keeping secrets. She had survived the dragon poison. Her eyes had changed color; her skin bore a pattern of scales. She’d dressed herself in the gown of a full-blood sorceress.
Tales from the mists of time past told of dragons with the power to take on human form, dragons that had taken human women for themselves. Rumor, myth, or so he had always believed. How could dragon blood, corroding and toxic, possibly run in the veins of a human?
Seeing what he had seen this day, he feared that truth lay hidden in the tales.
One sorceress was enough in a kingdom. They did not need another.
For now, he would watch and wait. His duty was clearly to the kingdom. If the woman had power, then perhaps she and the Queen would destroy each other, and the kingdom would be free. He would wait, let things take their course. If need be, he would kill her himself, no matter how his heart might beat against it.
But today carried enough heartbreak without allowing himself feelings about a woman loved in dream. Another dragon dead. No matter how well he trained his men, how diligently he sought to repel the dragons and keep them in their own territory—providing food sources in the mountains when game was scarce, beating the bushes to scare them off when they encroached on civilization—still accidents happened. Either people died because they did not offer resistance, or they died because they dared to defend themselves, or more commonly someone they loved.
For this, for his inability to prevent the deaths of good men who had committed no sin other than that of self-preservation or the protection of their loved ones, he exacted penance, marking the memory of each death on his own body. Staring down his scarred face in the mirror, he drew the blade of his knife down his right cheek, from just below the eye to the jaw. Blood welled, flowed over his face and down his neck, staining his tunic. He repeated the motion on the left. One cut for each of the men who would die tonight. A small gesture: All the penance in the world was not enough.
As he faced himself in the mirror, it seemed in that moment that his image shifted, bent, until he looked into another face. The eyes were his own, but this face bore only a single fresh wound, horizontal across the cheek. As the Warlord leaned forward to look more closely, the other face did likewise. The mirrored eyes widened in surprise.
And in that moment the Warlord felt a shift, as though his dream self stepped out of the shadows and stood beside him—himself, but with a different set of memories, thoughts, and emotions. Only a moment, and then the sensation faded.
Only his own face, scarred and bloody, looked at him out of the mirror.
He turned away, blotting at the blood with a towel. He owed it to Duncan to witness his death.
After that he would do whatever needed to be done.