H - 138: I Shall Not Be Long (Patreon)

“Stop.”

The captain had gone alert minutes back; the second sign of incoming trouble was that the horses began to snort and prance, the driver struggling to keep them in check. Now, finally, a figure appeared out of the trees up ahead, and that was when the captain made the call.

The other four House guards formed up around the carriage, while the captain kneed his mount forward, past the two carriage horses who had begun to rear and shriek so badly the carriage would have stopped even had he not ordered it. His warhorse laid her ears flat back, snorted, and pawed the ground once, but held position. She was as well-trained a weapon as her rider.

Marienne and Luca drew up alongside him. “Who is it?”

“No idea,” the older man said curtly. “Stand ready—but stand polite. Assume whoever that is, they’re important as a duke and can cause you twice the trouble if they don’t like your tone.”

The two adventurers exchanged a look as he wheeled his warhorse back toward the carriage. Luca carefully did not draw his sword; Marienne gripped her staff in front of herself with both hands, watching the lone shape come into focus as it approached them along the road ahead. It hadn’t been on the road, but apparently walking straight through the woods.

“What’s the matter, captain?” demanded the well-bred voice of their employer, who had just opened his carriage window to lean out.

“Anomaly on the path, m’lord,” the guard captain reported, bringing his mare up alongside the carriage. “May be nothing, but it’s a bad sign the horses are so afraid. Sit tight, and if you hear fighting, you and the ladies exit the carriage the other side. We’ll buy you time.”

“Understood,” the aristocrat said crisply, drawing back inside and shutting the window. He was a good employer, unusually so for a noble; he respected the skills of his guards and, followed their advice the first time, and didn’t pitch a snit about proper courtesy during a crisis.

“If it comes to that,” the captain added in a lower tone as he drew his steed back up alongside the two adventurer guards, “you leave us to hold this ground and escape with the family. You’re to get them safely to civilization by hook or by crook, clear?”

“Clear,” Luca replied.

Then they fell silent, as the interloper had come within hearing. The carriage horses were absolutely panicking now; the driver had dismounted and come up front, working desperately to soothe or at least control them before their rearing damaged the carriage.

The person striding up the road toward them looked normal enough from a distance, just a lean figure in a cloak, the only clear oddity being the staff held at their side rather than being used as a walking stick.

Closer, though, more details emerged.

The cloak was odd, just layers of black rags. Beneath it, she was dressed in chain mail that appeared to be more than half rust. Her hair was a peculiar color between brown and gray—not brown hair going gray, but an uncanny shade that did not belong with her otherwise human features. Worst was her eyes. They seemed to shift color with every movement. Yellow one moment, crimson the next, never passing between shades but altering like the reflection of ripples in the sun.

She did not blink.

“Good day to you,” the captain said with grave courtesy, nodding deeply from astride his tense mount. “Apologies for cluttering the road, we seem to be having some trouble with the horses. I’m sorry to be an inconvenience.”

“How courteous,” the woman replied. Her voice was oddly normal, a sharp contrast to the absolute panic of the coach horses at her presence. The captain’s mare drew back her lips, clearly barely holding her own discipline. “These things happen, friend. There is plenty of room for us all on the road.”

“Appreciate the understanding, madam,” he said, nodding again. “Safe travels to you.”

“May your journey be kind,” she replied, nodding in reply, and adjusted her course to walk around the group.

Marienne, Luca, and all the House guards held their positions, deliberately not drawing weapons, but turning to keep the walker in view as she headed off down the road behind them. The woman was moving on a course that would take her back off the road and into the trees again at an angle. Almost as if she was walking a straight line overland, navigating like some kind of migratory bird, and crossing this stretch of road more or less along its own course were just happenstance.

“Who was that?” Marienne hissed as soon as the figure was out of earshot behind them.

“Hells if I know,” the captain grunted. “Keep ‘er in sight til she’s gone.”

He heeled his horse back to the carriage, rapping lightly on the window panel. It instantly slid open.

“Trouble’s passed, m’lord,” the captain reported. “It spooked the horses somethin’ frightful; we’ll get back underway as soon as they’re back under control.”

“Very good, captain, thank you,” the nobleman replied with audible relief, immediately ducking back inside and shutting the window again.

“So, um,” Luca said hesitantly, watching the driver finally making some progress getting the horses under control. “What…?”

“The Vales are an old land,” he said gruffly. “Lots of old places full of old shadows, and old things that live by old codes. You ever see something like that, something that looks like a person but every instinct in your skull is telling you it isn’t, here’s what you do: you speak as politely as if you were talkin’ to a surly noble, be as generous as you can afford to if they ask you for somethin’ and grovelingly apologetic if you can’t afford it. Never attack first, never trade or bargain with them, and never tell them your name. Nine times in ten, that’ll get you through unscathed. The other tenth is down to basic adventuring craft: know when to fight or flee and be able to do both.”

“Things?” Marienne repeated. “Just…things? Things like what?”

The older man shrugged, watching as the lone walker finally disappeared into the trees behind them. “All manner of things. Stray little gods, Fair Folk gone wandering, various renegades from the Cryptlands or the Ravening Host… Miscellaneous shite we’ve never learned the names of, like as not. Mark me, you two: remember what I told you and share it when you get back to your guild. It’s your generation that’ll be dealing with such. They kept their heads down as much as the rest of us while the Dread ruled the skies, and before that, the old Empire kept them in check. Now they’re free to roam again. Things are going to change.”

***

The Castle Under held the distinction of being one of the very few Valeri-era fortifications in all the Evervales which had never fallen to dragon attack.

The key to its defensibility was its position halfway down a deep ravine; built along a natural stone bridge which made a unique formation between two towering rock walls, it was barely visible form above, and protected by an overhead gap which was simply too physically small for Atraximos the Dread to have fit through.

Of course, that wasn’t why he had never attacked it. Atraximos had gotten into even more inaccessible places, and established early on that while building underground shelters for emergency use was permissible, any Vale society which tried to spoil his fun by moving entirely underground would be entirely destroyed. The Castle Under was a small fortification, owned by the Hunters, whose religion mandated a simple way of life. They permitted its use by various crowned heads, noble Houses, merchant and other guilds, and secretive Societies as neutral ground removed from civilization in which to conduct gatherings of all sorts. Over the years it had hosted everything from religious rituals to treaty signings, to parties, orgies, and countless conspiracies. What it did not contain was any treasury worth plundering, nor any large group of people to scurry around in panic when set afire.

The Dread had left it alone because it had nothing to interest him.

Between the well-established protections of these diminutive fortifications and the fact that the Dread himself was no more, the nobles gathered around a banquet table upon the crenelated upper deck of the Castle felt downright celebratory in their safety when, for the first time in the history of the Castle Under, a dragon descended upon it.

Vanimax was less than half his father’s size and a nimble flyer; he dived neatly between the overhanging rock faces and snapped his wings out, arresting his precipitous fall and incidentally blasting the rooftop gathering with a downdraft that sent loose articles flying and discombobulated the gathered nobility so badly that none had managed to muster a response in the three seconds of warning they had before he landed directly upon the rooftop with them.

At that point, the response consisted entirely of screams. There was a brief scrum as a few nobles tried to flee through the one doorway which led down into the castle proper, followed by a round of most discourteous invective as the first two through slammed the door shut behind them and apparently barred it.

“What a festive gathering,” the dragon said, folding his wings. “And did I not warrant an invitation? My feelings are hurt.”

There was nowhere to flee; roughly half the guests were now cowering against the sealed door or the surrounding battlements, while the rest remained in their seats, either too shocked to have managed a response or simply poised in the face of inevitable death.

The steel-haired woman who rose from the head of the table was evidently of the latter group.

“Most humble apologies, my lord,” she said, raising her chin proudly. “I am Isabella de Tallemonde, hostess of this small gathering of friends. I can but assure you that had I the slightest inkling you would be interested in joining us, I would of course have sent a messenger to Dragonvale.”

Vanimax grinned at her, and then to the astonishment of all present, dipped his head deeply in respect.

“Brave and polite in the face of death! I like you. Forgive me for indulging in a little jest at your expense, Lady Isabella, and for disrupting your party. I shall not be long; I am only here to deliver a message. Which of you is Duke Alfonso di Rigardi?”

No one immediately responded, but no one obliged the Duke in maintaining discretion: every head upon the flat rooftop turned toward one man. After a moment, he yielded to inevitability and rose, inclining his head briefly toward Vanimax.

“I am the Duca of the House of Rigardi.”

He was a tall and broad-shouldered man in his later middle years, his height and strong frame not concealing the soft outline of a man who denied himself few pleasures, but his face was still handsome in a stern way, decorated by a thick but neatly trimmed goatee sporting the same streaks of silver as his hair.

“Splendid,” Vanimax said with a grin which caused two women to faint. “This will be brief, then. I have been asked to read to you a letter.”

In the air in front of him appeared a sheet of parchment, sized for the convenience of a dragon rather than a human, its edges luminous with the magic keeping it aloft.

“Ahem. ‘I, Ar-Kaln Zelekhir, Lord of Dragonvale, greet the Duca di Rigardi of Lavenna on the day I received your messenger, the Count Mario da Rianetti, whose conduct in my presence and that of my family was so egregiously rude that, though I know not whether you instructed him to deliver such insults or merely knew him to be the kind of fool who would, I hold you personally responsible for the several affronts he offered Dragonvale in your name. I am confident in this decision as, based upon the content of the presumptuous demands you issued through him, it is clear your intent was to antagonize me.’”

Now, only a few of the nobility upon the roof were still staring in shock and horror at the dragon looming over them. Most were staring in shock and horror at Alfonso di Rigardi, who bore it with an expression of restrained but growing rage.

“‘In response to your demand,’” Vanimax continued to read, “‘that I retract my endorsement of Countess Rafaela di Vampa’s innocence of treason against Lavenna and remand her to your custody, I instead reiterate that you framed her to cover your own failed attempt to seize the crown of Lavenna. I had no desire to involve myself in Lavenna’s affairs, nor those of any sovereign state, but as you have seen fit to insult and harass me, my lord Duke, I now make the public proclamation before your peers for which reason I imposed upon Lord Vanimax to expend his valuable time on my behalf. I have the evidence of your treason and the Countess’s innocence, and I will show it to any interested party who travels to Dragonvale and asks politely. I will caution all present that, as this evidence is magical in origin, my advisors have indicated it is unlikely to stand before a court of law. However, I am capable of revealing every detail of the plot, no matter how trivial, and no matter the time elapsed. I assume any sufficiently motivated party who wishes to act upon the truth will be able to find sufficient leads to penetrate your deceptions, and I wish them good fortune in this pursuit.

“‘I know not, my lord Duke, what you hoped to gain by provoking my anger against your home in Lavenna, nor can I guess why you assumed me incapable of immediately finding you. Such speculations I will leave to those in your company who may have loved ones or other interests in Lavenna, with whom I have no argument. More importantly, I do not care. The next time you dare to insult me will be the last, and no bystanders will be harmed in the process. The Dragonlord has spoken.’”

Vanimax stopped speaking, and raised his head; the overlarge letter dissolved into motes of light before them all.

Now, not one noble present was even looking at the dragon anymore. Every pair of eyes was affixed upon the snarling face of Duke Alfonso with the acuity of sharks studying a wounded seal who had just insulted them.

“That’s all,” Vanimax said lightly. “Enjoy your party.”

The dragon turned, stepping with great care between the chairs and individuals in them to perch upon the crenelations at one narrow end of the roof, and spread his wings for takeoff.

“How the mighty have truly fallen,” Duke Alfonso said in a ringing tone, “if the son of Atraximos is reduced to this so-called Dragonlord’s errand boy.”

There ensued a collective hiss of indrawn breath from the onlookers, followed by the different hiss of a sword being pulled from its sheath.

Vanimax had frozen in place for a second. Now, slowly and with the same meticulous care, he turned around. Folding his wings again, he paced back across the long rooftop. With eyes fixed upon the Duke, the dragon approached over the table itself, not stepping on or even bumping any person or fallen object despite seeming to ignore everything but his target.

The dragon stopped with his extended head directly in front of Alfonso’s face. The Duke glared back at him, head proudly high. Vanimax tilted his head to one side, as if considering the best angle from which to bite. Moving slowly so as not to draw his attention, every noble still at the table began shifting back out of his way.

Then he smiled. Alfonso did not flinch at the display of murderous fangs before him, though several of his assembled peers did.

“Kaln’s a good sort,” Vanimax said. “Kind—genuinely so. He likes to help people, uses his power to solve problems and make things better for whoever he can. That’s why, despite how briefly he has been active, there are already plenty of people who owe him favors, and plenty more who would grant him one simply because he asked. Including dragons.”

The dragon arched his neck, now looking down upon Duke Alfonso from on high.

“You, little man, will never know what that feels like. For the entirety of your wasted existence, you have gained compliance from others only when they wanted something from you, or feared what you might do to them. From parties like this, to temple services, to those you gathered around your hearth or in your bed, you have been…tolerated. Never wanted. And when you are gone from this world, the only legacy you leave will be brief relief at your absence, followed by an eternity of silent disinterest.”

He took two steps backward, spreading his wings once more.

“I assume you tried to provoke me into summarily destroying you just now because it would be cleaner and quicker than what you’ve got coming as your web of schemes unravels. My father would have fallen for that. Funny enough—that’s exactly how he died.”

The dragon shifted his head, glancing around to make clear that he was no longer speaking solely to Duke Alfonso.

“You would be wise to take the rest of us more seriously.”

His wings slammed down, again blasting the rooftop with the force of a gale, and then the dragon shot back upward, through the crack and into the clear sky beyond.