Dragon Hunters Read online

  The emira finally opened her eyes. Flames smoldered in their depths. “Whatever the explanation, Mazana, it appears you have had a wasted journey. Don’t let us keep you.”

  “Thoughtful of you as ever, but I think I will stay awhile. Perhaps one of the other Storm Lords will have an answer to this mystery when they get here.”

  “Oh? You know for certain that they all received a summons?”

  A slip, that, by Mazana? If so, she wasn’t about to acknowledge it. “It would seem a fair assumption. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I will retire to my house to freshen up. Perhaps by the time I return you will have remembered why you sent the summons.”

  The skirt of her dress swirled about her legs as she spun round. Her companions parted for her. As she disappeared along the underwater passage, Beauce and Kiapa set off in pursuit. Greave hesitated an instant before following, as if he had been expecting an invitation to speak. Senar found himself missing the Storm Lady already, if only because the emira and her crowd mistrusted the woman even more than they mistrusted him.

  The double doors leading to the palace closed with a boom.

  Pernay threw himself into his chair. “The bitch is hiding something, I swear it!”

  Senar was not so sure. Thinking back to the cut of Mazana’s dress, he felt, to the contrary, that the Storm Lady was revealing too much.

  The shaman said, “If Mazana is right, and the other Storm Lords are heading here, what does she gain by calling them together?”

  “If we knew that,” Pernay snapped, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”

  “I meant, there is sense in what she says. Gensu has more reason—”

  “Then why was the emira’s mark on the summons? Gensu has never shied from putting his name to his grievances before. No, this melodrama stinks of Mazana’s work.”

  A kris shark was now prowling the seas behind the executioner. The giant appeared unaware of its presence, and Senar found himself wondering whether the fish’s teeth could penetrate the man’s armor. Or if anything could, for that matter.

  Pernay was saying to Jambar, “… you’re supposed to be a shaman, aren’t you? How is it your arts failed to forewarn you of Mazana’s coming?”

  Jambar sighed. “I have been agonizing over that same question. Alas, the days leading up to Dragon Day are ever a blur to me.”

  Senar’s heart skipped a beat. Dragon Day. It was close, then? He’d always thought he’d liked to see the Hunt one day. Now he was reconsidering.

  Jambar went on, “The convergence of so many formidable powers on our fair city has muddied the waters of my prescience.”

  Pernay turned to Imerle. “Whoever is behind this, the timing of the summons can be no coincidence. Our plans—”

  The emira raised a hand to cut him off. And just as things were getting interesting, too. “Guardian,” she said, “we would hear your thoughts.”

  Suddenly the spotlight was back on Senar. The Guardian shifted under Imerle’s regard. Had she expected him to follow all this enough to express an opinion? “If Mazana Creed’s performance here was just a performance in truth, then it was masterful. But I do not know enough about the other players to judge the pattern of the game.”

  Pernay spoke. “Could the woman’s companions be relevant? What do we know of them?”

  “The bronze-skinned man is an Everlord,” Senar said. “His left arm below the elbow was less tanned than the rest of his body, suggesting the limb has been severed recently and grown back. The new skin has not yet darkened to match the old.”

  “And the other man? The fat one?”

  Senar raised an eyebrow at his tone. “You will have to forgive me, Chief Minister. The view from my cell was somewhat limited.”

  Pernay scowled.

  The emira said, “Guardian, go to her.”

  Senar blinked. “To Mazana?”

  “See what you can find out about her schemes, then report back to us.”

  He hadn’t seen that coming. He’d assumed Imerle would want him close at hand so she could keep a fiery eye on him. More to the point, there was no reason to think Mazana would be more forthcoming with Senar that she’d been with the emira. But then he was beginning to suspect Imerle’s order had as much to do with getting him out of the throne room as it did with obtaining information.

  “As you command,” he said. “Mazana will surely guess, though, why you have sent me to her. What if she turns me away?”

  Imerle smiled with her usual warmth. “Somehow we think that is the least of your concerns.”

  * * *

  Judging by the rate at which the sea had crept inland over recent years, Kempis reckoned the brothel had only a few months left before the water claimed its ground floor. The waves lapping at the road already reached to within half a dozen paces of the building’s doorway. Three stories high, the brothel tilted precariously over the alley onto which it fronted. From its upper windows leaned painted ladies who shouted abuse at Kempis as he strode beneath.

  In front of the building, Loop and Duffle flanked a pale-skinned nobleman in gaudy green silks with a face so bruised it looked like he’d run into a wall. Loop was the closest thing the Watch had to a mage. He’d been in the job as long as Kempis had, though strangely this would be the first time they’d worked together on a case. Duffle, like Sniffer, was a thief seeing out his sentence in the Watch, and Kempis suspected the youth was using the time as work experience to find out how the other side operated. Even barefooted, Duffle towered over Loop and the noble. The youth’s uniform—the largest the Watch’s quartermaster had been able to find—was a finger’s width too short for him at the wrists and ankles.

  A breeze blew off the sea, carrying on it the stench of excrement. The water had a sheen to it. Bobbing on the surface were clinking bottles, scraps of wood, torn fishing nets, even a boot missing its sole. A pace from the water’s edge was a bloody sheet covering what had to be a corpse. Taking a look at the package meant getting closer to the sea than Kempis would have liked, but he gritted his teeth and crouched beside the body. He lifted a corner of the sheet. Sharks must have been at the corpse, because its left arm was missing. Its facial features were unrecognizable, but the contours of the body were unmistakably those of a woman.

  Loop approached. “That one ain’t ours, Septia. The lass here washed up half a bell ago while we was waiting for you to show.”

  Now he tells me. Kempis let the sheet fall and rose. “So where’s the Drifter?”

  “Taken away to be put on ice. Body was getting a bit ripe in the heat.”

  “You saw it?”

  Loop spat into his hands and ran them through his hair. “Yeah, pro job. One stab through the heart, nice and clean.” He almost sounded disappointed.

  Kempis looked at the pale-skinned man standing next to Duffle. “Who’s the blueblood?”

  “Witness, sir.”

  Kempis took in the dandy’s bruised face. “Didn’t like his answers to your questions, eh?”

  “Weren’t my work. Couple of lads in the Duskwatch caught him running from the scene. Mistook him for the killer and, er, got a bit carried away. Knocked him out cold for a couple of bells.”

  “What about the other witness Hilaire mentioned?”

  “One of the whores. Not spoken to her yet—too shook up.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Inside. Went to lie down.”

  “I bet she did.”

  “You want me to find her?”

  Kempis nodded, and the mage scuttled away. Farther along the alley a fat man wearing furs waddled into view from a side street. Seeing the septia, he smoothly reversed course and disappeared. A heartbeat later Sniffer emerged from the street he’d taken. In her webbed hands was a raw, half-eaten runefish, its flesh a gray-green to match the Untarian’s skin. As she drew up before Kempis she picked a fish bone from her teeth and flicked it away. She was whistling through her gills, and the septia shot her a look to silence her.

 
; “What we got?” she said.

  Before Kempis could respond, a new voice spoke. “You, man! You are Septia Kempis Parr?” The pale-skinned noble shook off Duffle and strode forward. His right eye was swollen shut, and his hair was crusted with blood. To his shattered nose he held a handkerchief spotted with more blood. “Well? Answer me, man!”

  Kempis bristled at the dandy’s tone. He’d have to play this carefully, though, since Duffle had evidently given the blueblood his name. “And you are?”

  “Colm Spicer,” the noble replied with the arrogance of all those born into privilege. He looked for a flicker of recognition in Kempis’s eyes, then added, “Of House Spicer. The largest actuary in Olaire!”

  “Of course. Can’t think how I missed you. Must have been the bruising to your face that threw me, sir.”

  Colm did not react to his irony. But then it was amazing the shit you could get away with just by adding “sir” at the end of a sentence.

  “I demand justice!” the man said. “Your men attacked me without provocation. I want them whipped! Whipped, do you hear me!”

  Spittle flew from his mouth, and Kempis wiped a hand across his face.

  “I can describe the perpetrators to you,” Colm continued. “One had a scar along his jaw. Potter, I think his friend called him—”

  “Please, sir,” Kempis interrupted, holding up a hand. “I’ll need to take a full statement, but this ain’t the time or the place. If you like, I could call round your house later.”

  The noble cast a glance at the brothel before licking his lips. “Is that really necessary?”

  “Absolutely. Like to do things by the book, me. Ain’t that right, Sniffer?”

  The Untarian nodded as she tore off another mouthful of fish.

  Kempis looked at the blueblood’s left hand and saw a wedding band on his ring finger. “If you ain’t in, I’ll speak to your missus, shall I?”

  Colm stared down at the ring.

  “Or if you’d prefer, we could continue this in my office. I’m a reasonable man, sir. You can rely on me and the lads for discretion, but I’d worry someone might see you going into the Watchstation and ask questions.”

  Colm studied Kempis, then ground his teeth together. “Never mind.”

  The septia slapped him on the back. “Good of you, sir. I’m sure the lads meant no harm. I’ll have a word with them if you like, make certain it don’t happen again.” The only thing he’d be telling Potter when he caught up with him was to watch his back. Bluebloods weren’t the types to let grudges slip. “What brings you to this part of the city, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Colm watched with sick fascination as Sniffer bit into the runefish’s egg sac and used her tongue to tease out the roe. She showed her black teeth to him, and he came to suddenly before swinging his gaze to Kempis. “Excuse me?”

  “What were you doing in the Shallows?”

  “I’d left the Round and was making my way to the Temple District when I must have, uh, lost my bearings.”

  “Temple District is up the hill from the Round. Strange you should find yourself all the way down here.”

  “Ah, yes.” The noble paused. “There’s a shortcut I sometimes use. Well, not a shortcut as such—”

  “Keep digging, sir,” Sniffer cut in. “I’m sure you’ll be out of that hole in no time.”

  Colm glared at her.

  “This Drifter,” Kempis said. “You get a good look at who did for him?”

  “I already told your colleague—”

  “And now you’re going to tell me. So, did you get a look at the killer?”

  “Of course not! It happened just after the fourth bell. Pitch bloody dark, it was!”

  “Explains how you got lost.”

  The noble searched Kempis’s expression for mockery.

  “The assassin,” Kempis prompted.

  “She was standing—”

  “She, sir?”

  “I know a woman when I see one. Her build, her poise, her bearing.”

  “Where exactly did you see her?”

  “There,” the noble said, pointing down the alley, “at the corner of the next building.”

  “In the sea, then.”

  “I heard a splash when the Drifter’s body hit the water. That’s what caught my attention in the first place. The killer was crouching beside the man, checking for a pulse.”

  “How far away were you?”

  “A dozen paces, maybe.”

  “A dozen paces,” Sniffer mused aloud. “That would put you in the doorway to the brothel.”

  Colm groped for a retort.

  Kempis gauged distances. “A dozen paces, and you saw nothing of her face?”

  “She was wearing a hood. All I remember were her eyes. Bright blue, they were. So bright they glowed in the dark.”

  “She saw you too?”

  “Our gazes locked. Then she disappeared.”

  “Disappeared.” Kempis let the word linger on his tongue. “It was dark, sir. You said so yourself.”

  “She disappeared, I tell you! One moment she was there; the next, she was gone.”

  Sniffer leaned forward and sniffed his breath. “Been drinking, have we?”

  “No.”

  “A little blackweed, perhaps?” Kempis said.

  “No, damn you! I know what I saw.”

  “Then why did you run?”

  “What?”

  “The Duskwatch lads you bumped into said you were running. Why run if the killer had already gone?”

  “Because I heard a woman in the … brothel scream. With the assassin flown, I didn’t want to be mistaken for the Drifter’s killer. And from the reception I was given by your thugs, I’d say my fears were well-founded.” Colm’s nose started to bleed again. A drop fell onto his shirt, and he tutted as he brushed at the silk. “Now, if we’re done here, I’d like to get my wounds seen to.”

  Kempis nodded. “I know where to find you if I think of anything else.”

  The noble grunted.

  “Just one more question,” the septia said as Colm turned away. “You say you didn’t get a good look at the assassin before she vanished. Any chance she’d recognize you if she saw you again?”

  Kempis chuckled as the other man retreated, white-faced, peering into every shadowy doorway he passed.

  Sniffer moved to the waterline and stared toward the Deeps. Kempis joined her, his stomach aflutter. A group of people had collected on the roof of one of the buildings—a yellow-plastered house covered with graffiti. In the distance was a small boat. An old man paddled it with a plank of wood, scavenging amid the floating detritus.

  Sniffer took a final bite from her runefish before tossing it into the water. She crouched beyond the reach of the waves, her gills flaring as she tested the air.

  “Sense anything?” Kempis asked, turning his back on the sea.

  “Just Loop,” Sniffer said. She nodded at the corpse under the sheet. “He left footprints when he dragged out the fish food.”

  “And the killer?”

  “Went in but didn’t come back out. Not here, at least.” The Untarian straightened. “What about you?”

  What indeed? Kempis closed his eyes and tried to relax his mind. It wasn’t easy with the buzz of salt-stingers in his ears, but after a while he detected ripples of sorcery on the air. He’d been just eight when he discovered he had the ability to sense magic. Growing up next door to a featherwitch in the Wharf District, he’d had to endure all manner of energies drifting through the wall of his mother’s hut. At first the sorcerous ripples had sat so ill on his stomach that he’d thrown up every day for a month. He still had no idea where the talent came from—from his father, most likely, since his mother had never shown any trace of it. Maybe one day he’d learn the truth. But only if his mother ever remembered who his father was.

  Kempis focused on the ripples in the alley. The dead Drifter’s water-magic was simple enough to distinguish, but there was something else too. Somethin
g alien. All sorcerers drew in energy to fuel their power. Until now Kempis had always been able to get a sense of the source of that energy—the prickling heat of fire-magic or the spine-tingling chill of necromancy. Here, though, all he got was a vague feeling of incongruity, as if when he opened his eyes he would find himself somewhere else.

  “Well?” Sniffer said.

  The septia shrugged.

  “Chameleon, perhaps?”

  “No.”

  “Illusion, then. The assassin could have hidden herself when she was spotted.”

  “I know what an illusion smells like,” Kempis said, opening his eyes. “This is new.”

  Footfalls marked the approach of Loop and Duffle. Loop was frowning at the sky.

  “Don’t like the look of them clouds, Septia. There’s rain on the way, mark my words.”

  Kempis followed his gaze. And blinked. The sky was a dazzling vista of blue broken only by a few wisps of white. “Mage,” he said, “what sorcerers can transport themselves from one place to another?”

  “Can’t be done.”

  “I’m smelling it now, man!”

  Loop considered. “It’s said where enough magic is unleashed, it can burn a way through to wherever the sorcerer gets his power from. But that kind of magic—”

  “Ain’t wielded by someone who goes round sticking holes in Drifters,” Kempis finished. In any event, if such a portal had been opened, wouldn’t it still be here?

  Kempis scratched his grizzled chin. The fact the assassin’s magic was something he hadn’t encountered before meant a new player had come to Olaire. Kempis shouldn’t have any trouble recognizing her signature if he came across it again. The problem was, he had no way of knowing where the assassin had vanished herself to. And when he next caught a whiff of her sorcery, that wouldn’t help him track her down if all it signified was that she’d done another disappearing act. He turned to Loop. “Find anything out from the whore?”