The Dragon's Path

had gorged themselves on their bodies.
    Between those extremes, Geder’s mind found room for a nearly infinite variety of bleak imaginings. And as the mountains and valleys grew familiar, the dragon’s road shifting between hills that he’d known a hundred times before, Geder found that each new scenario of his death and humiliation left him with a grim hope. Would he be set afire himself? That would be just. Would he be put in a public gaol and pelted with shit and dead animals? It would be what he deserved. Anything—
anything
—would be better than this grinding and silent regret.
    The great promontory on which Camnipol sat appeared at the horizon, the dark stone blued by air and distance. The Kingspire itself was hardly more than a sliver of light. A lone horseman could make the ride in a couple of days. The full company might need as long as five. The king’s cunning men could probably see them already. Geder’s gaze kept drifting up to the great city, caught by longing and dread. With every mile, the fear grew stronger and the other traffic upon the road thicker.
    The farmlands surrounding the capital city were among the best in the world, dark soil irrigated by the river and still rich from battles fought there a thousand years before. Even in the starving season just after the thaw, the land smelled of growth and the promise of food. Goatherds drove their flocks down the dragon’s road from the low winter pastures toward the mountains in the west. Farmers led oxen to the fields ripe for tilling and planting. Tax collectors rode withtheir petty entourages of sword-and-bows, scraping what could be had of the small towns before their rent contracts expired. It was a rare thing to see a lone man on a good horse, and so Geder knew that the grey stallion coming south was meant for him. It was only when the horse drew up and he saw the rider was Jorey Kalliam that his anxiety broke and his breath came easily.
    He turned his own mount off the dragon’s jade and into the roadside muck, letting the column move forward without him. Jorey pulled his horse so close that the beasts could have slapped each other’s faces with their tails, and Geder’s knee nearly touched Jorey’s saddle. Exhaustion greyed Jorey’s face, but his eyes were bright and sharp as a hunting bird.
    “What’s the news?” Geder asked.
    “You need to come ahead,” Jorey said. “Quickly.”
    “The king?” Geder asked and Jorey shook his head.
    “My father,” he said. “He wants you there as soon as you can.”
    Geder licked his lips and looked up at the carts passing slowly by them. Some of the carters and swordsmen pretended not to notice the two of them, others stared openly. Ever since they’d left the corpse of Vanai, Camnipol was the goal he’d held before him, an end to his struggles. Now that the time had arrived, he wanted to delay it just a little more.
    “I don’t think it would be wise,” Geder said. “There’s no one to leave in command, and if I’m—”
    “Give it to Broot,” Jorey said. “He’s not particularly bright, but he’s competent enough to lead a column down a road. Just tell him to make camp outside the eastern gate and wait for word.
Don’t
let him order the disband.”
    “It’s… There’s morale to think of,” Geder said. “I don’t want the men to feel I’ve abandoned them.”
    Jorey’s expression was eloquent. Geder hung his head, the blush glowing from his cheeks.
    “I’ll find Broot,” he said.
    “And bring your best clothes,” Jorey said.
    While he gave Broot the instructions Jorey had given him, Geder also changed for a bay gelding who had been at rest trot for the morning. When Geder left his first command behind, it was on a young, fast horse with Jorey Kalliam at his side. The city was much too far to make at a gallop, but Geder couldn’t help himself. For a few minutes, he let the animal beneath him press itself against the wind, glorying in the illusion of freedom if not the fact.
    They stopped for camp at a black-roofed shack where a muddy path met the dragon’s road, both of them too exhausted to do more than see to their horses. Geder collapsed into a dreamless sleep and woke in the morning to find Jorey cinching the girth on the gelding. They had taken to the road almost before Geder had cleared the grogginess from his head.
    Before them, Camnipol rose.
    The approach from the south was the steepest, the green band of dragon’s jade tracing its way up the