Throne of Dragons

They stared at him. At least, Renard assumed that they did. With the masks, it was hard to tell.

“You’ve walked into a castle owned by a powerful lord with a reputation for cruelty,” Renard said. “You’re offering to let me go. Now, either you really appreciate my lute playing, or…”

“Or we need a master thief,” the leader said, his blank mask providing no hint of his emotions. “Yes, we do.”

“All right,” Renard said. “Let’s start with this: do you three have names?”

The one in the blank mask hesitated, but then seemed to relent. “I am known as Void, and these are Verdant and Wrath. Our former names were given away. Such things have power.”

Renard was sure that they had all the power they could ever need. He’d heard about the Hidden.

“If you can walk in here,” Renard said, “why do you need me?”

Void stood there, looking from one to the other of his companions, as if trying to decide how much to say.

“To walk into a place of men is easy,” he said. “But the object we require for our… research is in a more difficult location.”

“What object, and where?” Renard asked. He said it reflexively, the way he might have with anyone who wanted him to steal for them. The fact that he was still in chains made no difference to that.

“Does it matter to you?” the one in the twisted flesh mask demanded.

But Void shrugged. “There is an amulet, locked away in a mausoleum above a volcano, protected in ways that suit your… skills. That amulet is said to give those who wear it power over dragons.”

“Dragons!” Renard said with a laugh, because who had seen dragons in years? “You must be joking. Is that what this is? Lord Carrick’s idea of a…”

He didn’t finish, because the woman in the mask of greenery leaned close to him. Verdant’s eyes… they seemed to start green, but then shifted to red, glowing from within with a fire that stole the breath out of him. Somehow, Renard suspected that this was one woman he wouldn’t be able to charm with a few well-chosen songs and compliments.

“We do not joke,” she said, as she moved back. “And we do not like having our time wasted.”

“Your time too,” Void said. “How long now until Lord Carrick drags you from here to your death?”

He had a point. Even so…

“No, thank you,” he said.

“What?” Wrath demanded, and he looked as though he might strike out at Renard in that moment.

“You think I haven’t heard rumors of the Hidden?” Renard asked. “I’ve sung enough songs in my time to hear those too.”

“They have written beautiful songs about us,” Verdant said. “But few true ones.”

Renard suspected that there was enough truth hidden away in those songs though; that the Hidden were collectors of power, to whom good and evil were irrelevant; that they could do things to a man that would imperil his very soul. Compared to all of that, even Lord Carrick didn’t seem so bad.

“There are things we could do to you if you refuse,” Void said.

“And then you still wouldn’t have a thief,” Renard pointed out.

“You would really refuse freedom? You would really choose death?”

Renard nodded. “If the alternative is going with you, yes.”

It turned out that he’d found a new worst thing. Compared to this one, even all the others didn’t seem so bad.

Void gestured to the others. “Very well. Come. We must do this… another way.”

He turned, walking out of the cell, the robed forms of the others following in his wake. The door shut behind him with a bang, the lock clicking back into place. Renard supposed it was too much to ask that they might leave it open.

Even as he settled back to wait for his death again, he couldn’t help feeling that he’d just avoided something far, far worse.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rodry and his friends raced into the landscape of the south, trying to catch up to his sister, while Rodry hoped against hope that he would be in time. They rode down paved trackways and over dirt roads, following the signs of the party that had been ahead of them ever since they crossed into this country.

For what had to be the hundredth time since the river crossing, Rodry cursed his brother Vars. Had he been a little braver, they might have had Lenore back by now, and the ones who had taken her might already be dead. When Rodry returned, their father would hear every detail of his cowardice.

For now, there was only the chase after Lenore.

One thing that surprised Rodry a little was how much the landscape had changed simply by crossing the river, as if the whole climate differed just with that small shift. There were trees here, but they were olive and fig as often as apple, the forests light and hot rather than the rain-filled landscapes of the Northern Kingdom. The ground around seemed drier, and Rodry was sure that they had ridden past at least a couple of vineyards, set into the sides of hills. The people they had seen dressed as simply as peasant folk back home, but differently as well, with slashed skirts and blouses in place of dresses, broad hats in place of hoods. It seemed that almost everyone wore a flash of red or purple somewhere too, perhaps in homage to King Ravin.

They shrank back away from Rodry and the others as they passed, perhaps sensing some of the fury of their mission.

“How much further to this hunting lodge?” Rodry asked Kay.

His friend shook his head. “I don’t know, Rodry. I only know that it even exists because of my father.”

“What use is knowing that a place exists if you don’t know where it is?” Rodry demanded, and then bit back his anger. He wasn’t his brother, to lash out at those who didn’t deserve it. “We ride on.”

And in riding, they had to hope that they were going in the right direction. Seris, Mautlice, and the others were doing their best to track the group ahead, the way they might have done when hunting, and a whole traveling party was easier to track than any deer might have been, but even so, what if they took a wrong turn? What if they rode right into the heart of Ravin’s kingdom, but couldn’t find the place in it where they were keeping Lenore?

The answer to that was simple: they would burn Ravin’s kingdom until they found her.

They paused in a spot where the trail branched a dozen different ways, tall, arching trees rising up around in a rough circle. There was a low hut there, barely more than a lean-to, while around, the ground was churned up as if it had seen far more than a dozen riders come through there. There were bushes and rocks around the diverging paths, some set here and there with candles, as if the whole place were some great shrine or meeting place. Rodry saw it as far more than that though.

He saw it as the perfect place for an ambush.

“Down!” he yelled, as arrows flew from the bushes, throwing himself from his horse even as a shaft flashed past where his head had been. Around him, he saw his soldiers and friends duck, or raise their shields, or fling themselves from their horses the way Rodry had. Some weren’t quick enough. He saw Mautlice spin, blank-faced, from the saddle, a crossbow bolt sticking from his chest. A soldier took an arrow in the shoulder, crying out in pain.

The enemy poured out of their hiding places then, and it seemed that half a dozen of them were dressed in odd clothes, carrying a strange selection of weapons that marked them out as Quiet Men rather than normal soldiers. There were those too, though, red tunics marking them as King Ravin’s troops, armed with spears and short bows.

“You didn’t think that we’d notice you following, Prince Rodry?” one of the Quiet Men said, drawing a pair of long knives. He was tall and shaven headed, the glint of oiled chainmail showing here and there under his clothes. “You didn’t think we’d be waiting?”

Rodry drew his longsword as he stood, taking it in two hands, holding back his anger just for a second.

“You’re one of the ones who took my sister?” he demanded.

The Quiet Man nodded. “Shall I tell you everything that we did to her while we had her to ourselves? Shall I detail every last—”

Rodry struck out in the middle of the man’s words, his anger driving him forward into the attack. The Quiet Man caught that attack on his knives, but Rodry was already twisting away, cutting down toward his foe’s legs. He heard the crunch of bone as the blade struck home, but he had to fall back to avoid the next sweep of the man’s knives.