The Dragon's Path

younger Kurtadae was in the medical wagon, his arm being shaved and bound. Beneath the pelt, his skin looked just like a Firstblood’s.
    Three of the enemy sailors were laid out under tarps. The rest, bound in ranks with arms bent back, were sullen and angry. Marcus’s men were grinning and trading jokes. It was like the aftermath of a battle, only this time there’d hardly been any bloodshed. The wet sand was smooth and even where the waves washed their footprints away. The mules, ignoring the smell of flames and the banter of soldiers, pulled wagons filled with silks and worked brass back toward the road. The smells of salt and smoke mixed.
    Marcus felt the first tug of darkness at the back of his mind. The aftermath of any fight—great battle or taproom dance—always had that touch of bleakness. The brightness and immediacy of the fight gave way, and the world and all its history poured back in. It was worse when he lost, but even in victory, the darkness was there. He put it aside. There was real work to be done.
    Yardem stood by the head wagon, a Cinnae boy on a lathered horse at his side. A messenger. As he approached, the boy dropped down and led his mount away to be cared for.
    “Where do we stand?” Marcus asked.
    “Ready to start back, sir. But might be best if I led the column. The magistra wants you back at the house as soon as you can get there.”
    “What’s happened?”
    Yardem shrugged eloquently.
    “An honest war,” he said.

The Apostate
     
    T he apostate groaned, rolling over on his thin mattress. The first bare light of dawn outlined the stable door, and in his blood, the spiders shuddered and danced, agitated as they had been for weeks now. In the twenty years he had traveled the world, the taint in his blood had never troubled him as much as these last weeks. Around him, the others still slept, their deep and regular breath reassuring as a thick wool blanket. The stables were warm, or warmer at least than sleeping in the cart would have been. He wouldn’t have to break a skin of ice off the water bucket before he drank. When he sat up, his spine ached. Maybe from the coming winter, maybe from the years weighing down his shoulders, maybe from the restlessness of the creatures that lived in his skin.
    One of the horses snorted in its stall, shifting uneasily. From the shadows, there was a tiny gasp. He went still, straining to hear.
    “I won’t finish,” a familiar voice whispered. “I swear I won’t finish.”
    The apostate closed his eyes. It never changed. All through the world, likely all through the ages and epochs of humanity, some things simply never changed. He swallowed, readying his voice. When he spoke, the words carried through the stables and out into the yard.
    “Sandr! If you get that girl pregnant, I will be sorelytempted to tie off your cock with a length of wire, and I swear it will not improve your performance.”
    The voice that had gasped squeaked in alarm, and Sandr rushed into the dim light, pulling at his tunic to cover himself.
    “There’s no one here, Master Kit,” the boy lied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Which performance do you mean?” Smit asked in a sleepy voice. “Seems to me that if you’re talking about stagecraft, tying yourself down might be a decent exercise in concentration.”
    “Help him play a hunchback,” Cary said through a yawn.
    “There’s no one here,” Sandr said again. “You’re all imagining things.”
    The scrape of a board at the stable’s back marked the girl’s escape, whoever she was. The apostate rose to sitting. Hornet lit a lantern, the warm light chasing away the darkness. With groans and complaints, the company came to life. As they always did. Charlit Soon, the new actress, was looking daggers at Sandr. Yet another irritation the apostate would have to soothe. He wondered, and not for the first time, how anyone without the spiders could keep an acting company together for any length of time. But perhaps they couldn’t.
    “Up,” he said. “I’m sure there’s work to be done that will make us more money than lying here in the dark. Up, you mad, beautiful bastards, and let us once more take the hearts and dreams of Porte Oliva by storm.”
    “Yes, Mother,” Cary said, rolled over, and fell back to sleep.
    T he first time he’d met Marcus Wester, the apostate had given him a private name: the man without hopes. In thelast year, the despair had faded a bit, but sometimes