The Dragon's Path

Dawson



Issandrian's parade began at the edge of the city, snaked through the low market, then north along the broad king's road, past the gates of the Kingspire, and then east to the stadium. The broad streets teemed with the subjects of King Simeon, sworn loyalists of the Severed Throne, all standing on their toes to catch a glimpse of the slave races arrived to turn Antea into the puppet of Asterilhold. The roar of the assembled voices was like the surf, and the smell of their bodies threatened to overwhelm the gentle scents of springtime. Some follower of Issandrian's cabal had paid the rabble to carry banners and signs celebrating the games and Prince Aster. From where Dawson sat, he saw one - beautiful blue-dyed cloth with the prince's name in letters of silver - held aloft on poles, but with the wrong side up. It was Issandrian's revolt in a nutshell: the words of nobility hefted by men who couldn't read them.



The noble houses had their viewing platforms set in order and position according to the status of each family's blood. The place each man stood told where he put his allegiance. The state of the court as a whole could be read in a glance, and it wasn't a pleasant sight. Banner colors from a dozen houses fluttered about king and prince, and more of them belonged to Issandrian's cabal than not. Even Feldin Maas's grey and green. King Simeon sat high above it all, dressed in velvet and black mink, and managed to smile despite what was before him.



A column of Jasuru archers marched through the streets, the bronze scales of their skins oiled and glittering like metal in the sun. They carried the stripped-hide banners of Borja. Dawson made a rough count. Two dozen, say. He noted it down as the archers paused before the royal stand and saluted King Simeon and his son. Prince Aster returned the gesture with the same wide grin that he had each company before and would each one still to come.



"Issandrian's a cruel bastard," Dawson said. "If you've come to steal the boy's place, you should have the dignity not to put ribbons on it."



"For God's sake, Kalliam, don't say that sort of thing where people might hear you," Odderd Faskellan said. Behind them, Canl Daskellin chuckled.



On the road, five Yemmu lumbered. Their jaw tusks were dyed improbable colors of green and blue, and they towered over the watching crowd of Firstbloods. They didn't seem to have armor or weapons apart from the freakish size of their race. The five stopped before the king and made their salute. Prince Aster returned it, and one of the Yemmu men lifted his voice in a rolling, barbaric call. The others joined in, one voice layering over the other until the sounds seemed to braid. A soft breeze tugged at Dawson's cloak, and the trees that lined the street bobbed and shuddered. The air called in from all directions. The voices deepened, and the Yemmu at the center of the pack lifted a great, meaty fist. They were whipped by the tiny whirlwind.



Cunning men, then. Dawson made a note.



"Do you think the blow will come before the games commence?" Daskellin asked as if wondering aloud about the chance of rain.



"There doesn't have to be a blow, does there?" Odderd asked.



"More likely during," Dawson said. "But anything's possible."



"Reconsider Paerin Clark's offer," Daskellin said.



"I will not," Dawson said.



"We have to. Or aren't you seeing the same display I am? If we're standing against this, we need allies. And, frankly, gold. Do you have a way to get them? Because as it happens, I do."



A troop of swordsmen marched past. Fifty of them, all in the bright-burnished armor of Elassae, and evenly divided between black-scaled Timzinae and wide-eyed Southling. Cockroaches and night-cats. Races created in slavery to serve their dragon masters, marching into the center of Firstblood power.



"If we can't win as Anteans, we deserve to lose," Dawson said.



The shocked silence behind him meant he'd gone too far. He noted the swordsmen.



"I began this because I believed you were right, old friend," Daskellin said. "I didn't say I'd crawl into your grave."



"Something - " Odderd began, but Dawson ignored him.



"If we win this by putting ourselves out to bid, we're no better than Maas or Issandrian or Klin. So yes, Canl, I will go to my grave for Antea. And with one loyalty. Not so many hundredths to the throne and so many on a green table in Northcoast."



Daskellin's face went still as coal.



"You're talking out of fear," he said, "and so I'll excuse - "



"Both of you, shut up!" Odderd snapped. "Something's happening."



Dawson followed the man's gaze. On the royal platform, an older woman in the colors of the Kingspire bent her knee before King Simeon. A youth was at her side, leather-armored and still dusty from the road. Prince Aster was looking at his father, the parade forgotten. King Simeon's mouth moved, and even at distance, Dawson recognized shock in his expression.



"Who's the boy?" Canl Daskellin said, almost to himself. "Who brought him news?"



Footsteps came from the wooden stairs behind them, and Vincen Coe appeared. The huntsman bowed to the two other men, but his eyes were on Dawson.



"Your lady wife sent me, lord. You're needed at home."



"What's happened?" Dawson said.



"Your son's returned," Coe said. "There's news from Vanai."



He what?" Dawson said.



"He burned it," Jorey said, leaning forward on the bench and scratching a dog between its ears. "Poured oil in the streets, closed the gates, and burned it down."



The year that had passed since Dawson had seen his youngest son had changed the boy. Sitting in the sunroom, Jorey looked more than a year older. His cheekbones had the thin look that came with time on campaign, and the smile that had always lurked just behind whatever expression he wore was gone. Exhaustion pulled at the boy's shoulders, and he smelled of horse sweat and unwashed soldier. It struck Dawson like a detail from a dream that Jorey and Coe could have passed for cousins. Dawson rose and the floor tilted oddly beneath him. He walked to the windows and looked out at the gardens. Snow still haunted the shadows, and the first press of green was softening the bark of the trees. At the back, cherry trees bloomed white and pink.



Geder Palliako burned Vanai.



"He didn't even have us loot it," Jorey said. "There wasn't time, really. He sent out a courier the day before. I've killed horses trying to beat him here."



"You nearly did," Dawson heard himself say.



"Does he know that you were the one who put Geder in place?"



It took Dawson almost a breath to understand the question, and by then his mind was on to questions of its own.



"Why did Palliako do it?" Dawson said. "Was he trying to undermine me?"



Jorey was silent for a long moment, looking into the dumb, bright eyes of the dog before him as if they were in some private conversation. When at last he spoke, his words were tentative.



"I don't think so," Jorey said. "Things were going poorly. He made some bad decisions, and they were bearing fruit. He knew that no one took him seriously."



"He put one of the Free Cities to the torch because he was embarrassed?"



"Humiliated," Jorey said. "Because he was humiliated. And because it's different when it isn't before you."



One of the dogs groaned long and soft. A bluebird fluttered onto a branch, peered in at the two men, and flew off again. Dawson put his fingers to the cold pane of the sunroom's glass, the heat of his flesh fogging the glass. His mind darted one way and then another. The stream of show fighters and mercenaries coming to Camnipol, paid by Issandrian with coin borrowed from Asterilhold. The bland, implacable expression of Paerin Clark, banker of Northcoast. Canl Daskellin's anger. And now, the burned city.



Too many things were moving, all in different directions.



"This changes everything," he said.



"He was different afterward," Jorey said as if his father hadn't spoken. "He was always apart from the rest of us, but before it was that he was a buffoon. Everyone laughed at him. They mocked him to his face, and more than half the time he didn't even notice it. But after, no one laughed anymore. Not even him."



The boy's eyes were toward the window, but he was seeing something else. Something distant, but more real the than the room, the glass, the spring trees in the garden. There was pain in that emptiness, and it was one he recognized. Dawson put aside the chaos. His son needed him, and so however much it howled for his attention, the world would wait.



Dawson sat. Jorey looked at him, and then away.



"Tell me," Dawson said.



Jorey smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. He shook his head.



"I've been to war," Dawson said. "I've seen men die. What you're carrying now, I've carried as well, and it will haunt you as long as you hold it. So tell me."



"You didn't do what we've done, Father."



"I've killed men."



"We killed children," Jorey said. "We killed women. Old men who had nothing more to do with the campaign than to live in Vanai. And we killed them. We took away the water and lit them on fire. When they tried to come over the walls, we cut them down."



His voice was trembling now, his eyes horror-wide but tearless.



"We did an evil thing, Father."



"What did you think war is?" Dawson said. "We're men, Jorey. Not boys swinging sticks at each other and pronouncing the evil wizard's defeat. We do what duty and honor demand, and often what we do is terrible. I was hardly older than you are now for the siege of Anninfort. We starved them. It wasn't fire, but it was a slow, painful death for thousands. And the weak die first. Children. Old men. The plague in the city? We put it there. Lord Ergillian sent riders out to find the sick from all around the countryside, and who we found, we named emissary and sent into the city. They were killed, but not before the illness spread. Every day, women came to the gates with babies in their arms, begging us to take their children from them. Usually we ignored them. Sometimes we took the babes and killed them there, just out of their mother's reach."



Jorey's face had gone pale. Dawson leaned forward, his hand on the boy's knee as he had since the child had been old enough to sit. Dawson felt a moment's sorrow that that thin-limbed boy was gone, and this moment - this conversation so like one he had had with his own father once - was part of that child's passage out of the world. The child had to go and make way for the man. It gave meaning to the loss, and made it bearable. That was the most Dawson could offer.



"Anninfort rebelled against the throne," he said, "and so it had to fall. And in order that it fall, it had to know despair. The ones they brought were on the edge of starvation. They wouldn't have lived. If the children we killed - the children I killed - brought the end a week sooner than it would have come otherwise, then I did the right thing. And I suffered then as you are suffering now."



"I didn't know that," Jorey said.



"I didn't tell you. Men don't put their burdens on their children. I didn't tell your mother. It isn't hers to bear. Do you understand what I'm saying?"



"Vanai was different. There was no need for it."



Dawson opened his mouth to say something - hopefully something wise and comforting - but he felt the thoughts come into place with an almost physical click. Vanai. Issandrian. The armed mercenaries riding to Camnipol under the thin claim of honoring Prince Aster. The occupying force returning from the south, Geder Palliako at its head.



"Ah," Dawson said.



"Father?"



"Where is Palliako? Is he here?"



"No. With the men. A week behind me, perhaps?"



"Too far. We need him back sooner than that."



Dawson was on his feet again. He threw open the door, shouting for Coe. The huntsman might have been waiting for him. The first instructions were simple enough: find the others. Not only Canl Daskellin, but all the half dozen men who'd thrown their lots with him. Time was short, and victory uncertain. Coe didn't question, only saluted and vanished. When he turned back, Jorey looked bewildered.



Dawson raised his hand, stopping the questions before they came.



"I need one last favor of you before you rest, my boy. I'm sorry to ask, but I believe the fate of the throne rests on it."



"Anything."



"Bring me Geder Palliako. And quickly."



"I will."



"And Jorey? Vanai's death may have saved us."



Hardly an hour passed before Dawson's guests arrived. In addition to Odderd and Daskellin, the Earl of Rivermarch and Baron Nurring came. The others weren't at home, and Coe had gone back out searching for them. This, however, was enough. Five men, all commanding the loyalty of high families and strategic lands, sat or stood or, in Canl Daskellin's case, paced restlessly around the back wall. They still wore the brocade and embroidered hats they'd sported at Issandrian's parade. Clara had brought in two servant girls bearing a tray of water flavored with cucumbers and rounds of twice-baked cheeses that still stood untouched by the wall.



In the time between the courier's arrival at Simeon's side and now, a dozen rumors had already spread. Dawson could see the uncertainty on the faces before him, and he could feel it on the breeze. His own sense of urgency was like a live thing crawling on his back. If this were to be done, it had to be done quickly, before the court had time to decide what the news meant. Before Simeon had the time.



Like a priest before his congregation, Dawson lifted his hands.



"The slaughter of - " he began, then stopped. "The sacrifice of Vanai has come like a torch in our darkest hour. And the salvation of the Severed Throne is at hand."



The silence was profound.



"You've lost your mind," Daskellin said.



"Let him talk," the Earl of Rivermarch said. Dawson nodded his gratitude.



"Consider this. Geder Palliako is known to have been at odds with Sir Alan Klin, one of Issandrian's closest allies, almost from the beginning. He managed to supplant Klin as protector of Vanai - "



"He managed?" Daskellin said.



" - and rather than use his position to gain wealth or play court politics, he made a decision. A brave and principled decision."



"Geder Palliako," Daskellin said, running a hand through his hair, "is a buffoon we lifted up in order to embarrass Issandrian by making the occupation of Vanai a bog. He's an untried youth whose entire military experience has been taking an arrow in the leg and falling off his horse. Now he also appears to be a bloodthirsty tyrant in the mix. By tonight, Issandrian will have a dozen men who'll swear that his appointment was our doing, and it's almost certain that one of those will be Lord Ternigan. We won't be able to deny it."



Dawson could see the unease in the eyes of the other men, the slope of their shoulders, the angles at which they held their heads. If he answered rage with rage, it would end here with the two of them snapping at each other like pit dogs and the confidence of the cabal broken. Dawson smiled, and Daskellin spat into the ashes of the fire grate.



"Deny it?" Dawson said. "I'll sit at Palliako's side and be proud. Or did all of you see some different parade than I saw today? Has is not occurred to anyone else that several hundred loyal Anteans under Palliako's command are marching to Camnipol as we speak?"



"I don't understand," Odderd said.



"Here is what we say," Dawson said. "When Palliako discovered that Issandrian was bringing an armed force into Camnipol, he chose to bring his troops to the defense of the throne. Rather than abandon Vanai to our enemies, he took action that would show the steel of his intent. He didn't scrape the city of every last bit of silver. He didn't trade it away for concessions on tariffs. He burned it like a warrior of old. Like the dragons. What other man in all of Antea is so fierce and pure of intention? Who else would have done what he did?"



"But the king gave permission to hold these games. And this army coming to save us? Half of the men are Issandrian's, and the others disdain Palliako at best," Daskellin said. "This is a fairy story."



"They don't disdain him. They fear him. And if we all say it loud enough and often enough Issandrian will fear him too," Dawson said. "And since our lives may depend on it, I'd suggest we all practice in chorus."



"So this is what desperation looks like," Daskellin said. Dawson ignored him.



"If Issandrian moves against us, it will show that Palliako was justified. If he doesn't, it will be because Palliako cowed him. Either way, Issandrian loses some part of his grip on the king. And we do it without selling ourselves to Northcoast and the Medean bank. This is a windfall, my lords. We'd be idiots to turn it away. But we must go tell our version of it now. Today. When the court goes to bed tonight, it's our story they have to whisper to their pillows. Wait until opinion is set, and it will be a hundred times harder to change."



"And if Issandrian turns his plot against this Palliako boy?" Barron Nurring said.



"Then the blade meant for your belly may be stuck in his instead," Dawson said. "Now. Tell me you wouldn't prefer that."