The Dragon Lords: Fool's Gold, page 46
“Well.” Balur shrugged. “My tribe is having fifty thousand more people in it now. And I am not sure there is being enough room for deadweight like you anymore.”
Lette weighed that, and smiled and put her arm around Will.
“Personally,” she said, “I’ve always felt like two is the right size for a tribe.”
If Will had died at that moment, he would not have considered his life poorly spent.
But he didn’t die. Instead he saw Firkin walking toward them, and his moment of sunshine-bright happiness disappeared behind a cloud.
“Oh shit,” he said. Because if there was one person who might not be thoroughly convinced that Will was dead… it was Firkin. Indeed, Firkin might well prefer Will to be his prophet—someone he could push around, someone who was not big enough to push back.
“Good morrow,” the old man slurred as he approached, waving a wineskin at them. Then he looked at the wineskin. “Wait,” he said. “This isn’t morrow. It’s wine.” He put it to his lips, tilted his whole body back. He came back up smacking his lips. “Yes,” he said. “Definitely wine.”
He looked around their group, squinted, tilted his head on his side. “Morning, Will,” he said, and sat down heavily.
“Evening, Firkin,” Will said.
“Tiring shit, this being this mouth-of-the-prophet thing,” Firkin said. “Lot of shouting.” He rubbed his throat. “Parched half the time, I am.” He took another hit of wine.
“Right.” Will nodded. He felt curiously alone in this moment. None of the others seemed to want to save him. “And, erm…” He struggled for an angle of approach. “How is the prophet?” he said.
Firkin arched an eyebrow. “Why don’t you ask him? Sitting right over there.” He nodded at Balur.
Will felt relief so overwhelming it almost bowled him over and left him lying on the floor.
“Balur’s the prophet?” he said, not quite trusting this was as good as it sounded.
Firkin shrugged. “Was telling me he was. Said the prophet wanted beers and whores in that order, and he was the prophet so I should listen to him, so to get them for him pronto. And I said ‘beer and whores, thus spaketh the prophet’ and suddenly they were everywhere.” He blinked several times, and rubbed his bald head.
“But…” Will was terrified of pushing the subject but he had to know. “He told you back in Athril that I was the prophet.”
Firkin nodded. “You said you weren’t. He said you were. Now he goes and says he is.” He shrugged. “I just say what the prophet says. I’m not going to argue with him. Look at the size of him.”
Will looked at Balur.
Balur nodded. “I am being pretty magnificent in the size arena, it must be being said.”
Will wasn’t sure what to make of it. Because it seemed amazing, and he wasn’t sure that amazing things happened to him.
Firkin grinned a gap-toothed grin at him and clapped him on the shoulder. “We did it, Will,” he said. “Just like we used to talk about on those long, lazy days years ago. We took down all the dragons, we freed the people, and we got rich doing it.” He suddenly and unexpectedly grabbed Will in a tight hug. “I’m really fucking proud of you,” he said in a voice thick with emotion.
Will was struck dumb. He stared.
“All right,” Firkin said, standing up. “Off to spread the good word and all that. Like butter on bread it is. Except using your mouth of course. Can’t do that with butter. Well, maybe you could but the bread would be getting all wet.” He shook himself. “Only stopped by to rest my legs.”
And then he staggered away, sipping occasionally from his wineskin.
Will watched him go. The clouds seemed to be lifting inside his head.
“You realize,” Lette said to Balur, “that you’re stuck with him now. Oh prophet.”
Balur shrugged. “I can be keeping him in line. Look at the size of me.”
Lette snorted out a little laugh, turned, and looked at Will. “What about you, then?” She leaned forward, kissed him. For a minute the world was all about the softness of her lips, and the smell of her hair. She pulled away. “What are you going to be?”
Will kept staring after Firkin for a moment longer, then looked at her. At the world beyond. The celebrating crowds. The dead dragons. The blue sky and the white sun. And suddenly he knew exactly what he was going to be.
“Happy,” he said. “I’m going to be happy.”
Acknowledgments
I have wanted to be an epic fantasy author since around the age of nine. Now, for better or worse, I am one. These are the people who helped me get here, and whom I can never thank enough. My parents, who indulged my geek side, and took me on my first trip to Middle Earth. Greg McClenaghan, who introduced me to D&D and lent me the Dragonlance Chronicles—I wouldn’t be half the nerd I am today without him. Adam Brown, the self-proclaimed comedy genius and my first partner in literary crime. Paul Jessup, Natania Barron, Michelle Muenzler, Jacques Barcia, Jaym Gates, Harry Markov, Berit Ellingsen, and the rest of the Broken Circles writing group, who are a constant source of inspiration and amusement—everyone should be lucky enough to know people as good as them. Jeff and Ann Vandermeer, who introduced me to my agent. Howard Morhaim, the aforementioned agent, and quite possibly the only real wizard I have ever met. Will Hinton, my editor, who took a chance on me and this series, and whose advice and enthusiasm have been utterly invaluable. And finally, my wife, Tami, my muse, my first editor, my champion, and the princess in the tower who rescued me. Without her none of this would be possible.
extras
introducing
If you enjoyed
FOOL’S GOLD,
look out for the next Dragon Lords novel,
FALSE IDOLS
by Jon Hollins
1
Big Thaumatobiologist on Campus
Quirkelle Bal Tehrin dreamed of fire. It kindled in her sleep, licked at the feet of her desires and fears, then rose—wings spreading—to the sky, and tore through her subconscious. It was a roiling ocean of flame. It obliterated everything in its wake. She would come awake in the cot she kept in her garret above the Tamathian University, sheets soaked with sweat, and her palmprints scorched into the sheets.
She had yet to work out if the racing of her heart after these nightly visions was from terror or pleasure.
And yet, despite this, there were some things Quirk was certain of in life. That she knew more about dragons than anyone else alive. That such knowledge made her position at the Tamathian University more secure than a princess’s chastity belt. And that the Tamarian Emperor’s palace was not quite as impressive as he thought it was.
She sat now at his dinner table, two seats away from the man himself. She was flanked by his wife, the Empress, and by his daughter.
The Emperor himself was a small man, in his late fifties, balding, and with his remaining hair cropped to short gray stubble. He was wreathed entirely in gold. Great swirls of fabric encircled his arms, his torso. A great gold neckpiece—which probably weighed almost as much as his birdlike wife—sheathed his neck. His deeply lined face, emerging from its depths, appeared somewhat inadequate in comparison. Religious iconography dangled from him. A medallion inscribed with the scepter of Lawl, king of the gods, bobbled over the neckpiece. The open palm of Klink, god of commerce, was etched into his broad earrings. The wheat sheaves of Toil, god of fertility and the field, were upon his rings.
He had invited her here, as was now his weekly custom, to dine with his family, several highly esteemed courtiers, and a smattering of visiting dignitaries. At first she had served more as a conversation piece than as a source of conversation. Still, over time she had managed to change that.
At that precise moment, his eminence was attacking a small roast partridge and coming off the worse of the two combatants. Orange grease was smeared over his fingers, rings, face, and fabric. He kept spitting small bones in the direction of his plate and missing badly. More than once he had swallowed and then had to signal at a bodyguard to throw an elbow into his sternum so he could hawk up whatever had lodged in his throat.
On the plus side, he had not yet called for the beheading of the chef. He knew now that Quirk did not like that.
“So,” the Emperor said around a mouthful of gristle, pointing a partridge thigh at her like a miniature rapier. “What is it that you make of this business with the Elven king?”
Quirk felt thirty pairs of eyeballs come to rest on her. Nobles, lords, ladies, the Emperor’s cousin, two of his bastard children, three ambassadors, and a visiting dignitary from Verra. They all watched her and they waited.
The truth was, of course, that her knowledge of the world made her woefully inadequate to answer the question. She had for most of her life lived in seclusion, first as the personal weapon of a murderous demigod, and then as a hermitlike academic lost in the warren of tunnels of the Tamathian University. The one time she had ventured out into the world she had witnessed the death of seven dragons and just over ten thousand of the inhabitants of Kondorra. It was not a period in her life she would necessarily describe as successful.
And yet, they all waited. They all wanted to know what the world’s leading thaumatobiologist and expert on dragons would say.
She wondered if any of them had actually read her papers. Had attended her lectures. She could not imagine the Chancellor of the Exchequer really coming to grips with the inner workings of Varanus draconis’s digestive tract. He was having enough trouble getting anything other than alcohol into his own.
On such things, she thought, the fate of nations fall.
The specific matter the king was referencing was the death of a white hart at the hands of several of his huntsmen. The hart had wandered from the forests of the Vale—which the Elven Court claimed as their own—and into the path of the several huntsmen looking for boar in the Emperor’s abutting forest. Not being the sort of men to question providence when it stood in the way of a full purse, the huntsmen promptly shot the hart, skinned it, and sold the hide for a profit that would make even a city merchant blush. Which was all well and good until the Elven king delivered a message stating that the hart was his sovereign property, that the huntsmen were thieves, and that unless they were handed over to him for execution then the consequences would be dire.
Well… that was if she paraphrased the specifics of the Elven dialect. More directly the message had read: “So-called Emperor of all the round-eared fucks in the shit-stain empire of Tamar, give me the round-ear fucks who stole my fucking hart, or I shall come and fuck you. His highest eminence, master of the bowstring, slayer of the round-ear fucks, commander of the Vale forces, fine-aspected Todger IV.”
“Well,” Quirk said, as delicately as it was possible to do so, “given the tone, and content of the letter, I do not honestly believe that King”—she hesitated—“Todger”—she managed as gracefully as she could—“should be entertained in this manner. And furthermore, I do not believe that he can necessarily follow up on his threat to, erm…” She hesitated over this one. “… to violate you.”
“So fuck him,” said one of the nobles, and brayed with laughter. Several other followed suit. There was much stamping of feet, and pounding of golden goblets on the red velvet tablecloth.
Quirk winced, and not just because she was being reminded of the red velvet tablecloth. Sometime she really did need to speak to the Emperor about that particular detail. She raised a delicate finger to indicate that she was not quite done.
“However,” she said, but no one was listening anymore.
The Emperor coughed loudly. All noise stopped. All attention returned to the richest, most powerful man in the room. He glared around at them, then looked back to Quirk. “You were saying?” he said.
Small he might be, but it was rumored that the Emperor had personally throttled two assassins to death after they had killed the rest of his personal guard.
“However,” Quirk said again, “there doesn’t seem to be much point in purposelessly angering”—again she hesitated over the name—“King Todger. While he cannot… violate anyone here, his forces can certainly make things difficult for border patrols, and nobody here wants to actually go to war with the elves.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” said one lord, who then seemed to realize people could hear him.
“Truly, Lord El Sharred?” said the Emperor. He had a harsh, nasal voice. “You would like to take your cavalry into thick forest and have arrows rain down upon you while you chase men who disappear like ghosts among the branches?”
Lord El Sharred appear to vacillate momentarily between whether he should capitulate to his lord’s greater wisdom or attempt to save face in front of his peers. He chose wrong.
“We should burn the place down around their ears,” he said defiantly.
There was more pounding of goblets. The Emperor rolled his eyes. Quirk smiled at him. A question about fire she could answer.
“Have you ever tried to burn living wood, Lord El Sharred?” she asked. “To be honest, I doubt you’ve even tried to burn dry wood. You have people to do that for you after all, so why bother?” She smiled sweetly and watched as the insults passed over the man’s head. “Living wood does not burn like the fire in your hearth at home. It is slow, and smoky, and reluctant. If you were able to get one tree to burn before the elves turned you and your men into novelty pincushions, I would count you very good at your job.”
Now, finally the Emperor laughed. And when he laughed, everyone laughed. Even Quirk laughed. Lord El Sharred turned very red, and nodded, and managed a quick, “I daresay I am,” before retreating back to his goblet.
“As ever,” said the Emperor, once the general mirth had died down, “you have proven yourself of greater wisdom and experience than many of the men who sit here, Professor Bal Tehrin. I ask again, and pray that you can answer without interruption, what would you advise?”
“Merely to send him ten of our own harts, slain, and ready for roasting so that he may feast at our expense. Lives will be spared, and honor will be satisfied.”
The table held its collective breath as the Emperor considered this. Finally he clicked his fingers. Instantly a servant was at his side, eyes angled obsequiously low.
“Tell the huntsmen to kill ten harts and prepare them for delivery to King Todger along with a message expressing my deepest regrets at the unfortunate situation.”
The servant nodded and backed away. The Emperor picked up the last of his partridges, looked at it distastefully, and cast it over his shoulder. “Let’s just get to the fucking dessert, shall we?”
No one disagreed.
introducing
If you enjoyed
FOOL’S GOLD,
look out for
THE CITY STAINED RED
Bring Down Heaven: Book 1
by Sam Sykes
STEP UP TO THE GATES
After years in the wilds, Lenk and his companions have come to the city that serves as the world’s beating heart.
The great charnel house where men die surer than any wilderness.
They’ve come to claim payment for creatures slain, blood spilled at the behest of a powerful holy man.
And Lenk has come to lay down his sword for good.
But this is no place to escape demons.
PROLOGUE
Cier’Djaal
Some crappy little boat
First day of Yonder
You can’t lie to a sword.
It’s a trait you don’t often think of between its more practical applications, but part of the appeal of a blade is that it keeps you honest. No matter how much of a hero you might think you are for picking it up, no matter how many evildoers you claim to have smitten with it, it’s hard to pretend that steel you carry is good for much else besides killing.
Conversely, a sword can’t lie to you.
If you can’t use it, it’ll tell you. If you don’t want to use it, it’ll decide whether you should. And if you look at it, earnestly, and ask if there’s no other way besides killing, it’ll look right back at you and say, earnestly, that it can’t quite think of any.
Every day I wake up, I look in the corner of my squalid little cabin. I stare at my sword. My sword stares back at me. And I tell it the same thing I’ve told it every day for months.
“Soon, we reach Cier’Djaal. Soon, we reach a place where there are ways to make coin without killing. Soon, I’m getting off this ship and I’m leaving you far behind.”
The sword just laughs.
Granted, this probably sounds a trifle insane, but I’m writing in ink so I can’t go back and make it less crazy. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably anticipating the occasional lapse in sanity.
And if you aren’t yet, I highly recommend you start. It’ll help.
I’ve killed a lot of things.
I say “things,” because “people” isn’t a broad enough category and “stuff” would lead you to believe I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.
The list thus far: men, women, demons, monsters, giant serpents, giant vermin, regular vermin, regular giants, cattle, lizards, fish, lizardmen, fishmen, frogmen, Cragsmen, and a goat.
Regular goat, mind; not a poisonous magic goat or anything. But he was kind of an asshole.
When I started killing, it seemed like I had good reasons. Survival, I guess. Money, too. But the more I did it, the better I got. And the better I got, the less reason I needed until killing was just something I did.
Easy as shaking a man’s hand.
And when it’s as easy as shaking a man’s hand, you stop seeing open hands. All you see, then, is an empty spot where a sword should be. And will be, if you don’t grab yours first.
I’m tired of it.
I don’t live in lamentation of my past deeds. I did what I had to, even if I could have thought of something better. I don’t hear voices and I don’t have nightmares.
