The Dragon's Path

suspect, or Feldin wouldn’t have brought it up. Dawson smiled the way he hoped he would have if he’d had no stake in the matter.
    “Unity among the Free Cities? That seems unlikely,” he said. “Probably just rumor.”
    “Yes,” Feldin Maas said. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right.”
    The dog-faced, small-cocked, hypocrite bastard son of a weasel and a whore bowed and escorted his wife from the house. When Dawson didn’t move, Clara took his hand.
    “Are you well, dear? You look pained.”
    “Excuse me,” he said.
    Once in his library, he locked the doors, lit the candles, and pulled his maps from their shelves. He’d marked the paths from Maccia to Vanai and the roads the army was sure to take. He measured and made his calculations, fury rising like waves whipped by a storm. He’d been betrayed. Somewhere along the chain of communications, somebody had said something, and his plans had been tipped to the ground. He had overreached, and it left him exposed. He’d been outplayed. By Feldin Maas. One of the dogs whined and scratched at the door until Dawson unlocked it and let it in.
    The dog climbed onto the couch, wrapping its haunches in close and looking up at Dawson with anxious eyes. The Baron of Osterling Fells sank down beside the beast and scratched its ears. The dog whined again, pressing its head up into Dawson’s palm. A moment later, Clara appeared in the doorway, her arms folded, her eyes as anxious as the hound’s.
    “Something’s gone wrong?”
    “A bit, yes.”
    “Does it put Jorey in danger?” she asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Does it put us in danger?”
    Dawson didn’t reply because the answer was
yes,
and he couldn’t bring himself to lie.

Geder
     
    A mist lay on the valley, white in the morning sun. The banners of the houses of Antea hung limp and damp, their colors darkened and greyed by the thick air. The world smelled of trampled mud and the cold. Geder’s horse shook its head and grunted. He reached forward a gauntleted hand and patted the beast’s shoulder.
    His armor had been his father’s once, the bright steel of the plate dimmed a little now where the smith had bent it to more nearly fit Geder’s back. The straps pinched even through the brigandine. The march had been a long, weary foretaste of hell. The pace had never been fast, but it was relentless. From that first hungover morning, he had ridden and walked for four days without more than two short hours’ rest at a time. In the night, he draped a blanket across his shoulders and shivered against the cold. During the day, he sweated. The army passed down the wide green dragon’s road, the tramp of feet against the jade becoming first an annoyance, then a music, then an odd species of silence, before cycling around to annoyance again. With only one horse, he had to spend a fair part of each day walking. A richer man would have brought two or three, even four mounts on the campaign. And plate that hadn’t seen decades of use before he was born. And a tent that kept out the cold. And, just perhaps, a little respect and dignity.
    The other titled nobles rode in groups or with their personal retinue. Geder shared their place at the head of the column, but significantly at the rear of the grouping. The supply carts came just behind him, and the infantry and camp followers behind them, though there weren’t many camp followers these days. It said something when a march was too much trouble to be worth a whore’s time.
    The order to stop had come last evening an hour before sunset. Geder’s squire had erected his little tent, brought a tin plate of lentils and cheese, and curled up into a small Dartinae ball just outside Geder’s tent flap. Geder had crawled onto his cot, pressed his eyes shut, and prayed for sleep. His dreams had all been about marching. With the first light of dawn, the new order had come: prepare.
    All through his boyhood, he had imagined this day. His first real battle. He’d imagined the wind of the charge, the heat and speed of the horse beneath him, the fierce cries of battle in his throat. He hadn’t thought about the numbing hours sitting in the saddle, his armor cooling against him, while the infantry formed, shifted, and re-formed. The noble line of knights, sword and lance at the ready, was a clump of men laughing, trading dirty jokes, and complaining that the food was either sparse or spoiled. It felt less like the noble proving ground of war than the ninth day of an