Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (45 page)

‘So what happened with the election? What happens about the result now that Cassava’s dead?’

‘Well,’ Ben said, ‘the law states that if a consul elect is killed before assuming the role, then the election will be held again.’

He paused for effect. ‘However … that doesn’t really apply in this case, since Cassava only came
third
in the poll.’

Kal almost fell off the stone bench. When she had seen the three names on the ballot card, she has dismissed the last-minute addition as a joke. ‘But that means …’ she began.

Ben smiled. ‘That’s right. It was a close-run contest, but Cassava only gained the support of thirty-one centuries. Greatbear beat her into second place with thirty-three. I managed to secure the votes of thirty-seven. Kal, you are looking at the next consul of Amaranthium!’

Ben!
Out of nowhere he had put his name forward and, with no obvious campaigning or promotion, secured more than a third of the city’s support. ‘But … how?’ Kal managed to ask, shaking her head.

‘Well, remember you came asking me for money after the robbery, and I said I was struggling. It’s because I was spending money faster than I could lay my hands on it. There were times when I would have gone under completely, if it wasn’t for small lifelines like when Felix bought my painting.’

Kal frowned. ‘Really, Ben? You were spending money on bribes?’

‘No!’ he protested. ‘A cash injection into the city’s economy! The Senate is always reluctant to actually spend public money, so I spent mine instead: on funding libraries, schools and small businesses. The City Watch and Senate Guard—large employers of people from poorer areas of the city—now have new equipment and funding. It was just a bonus that Captain Dogwood was too proud to accept an under-the-table donation without
insisting
on helping me out somehow.’

‘So I discovered,’ Kal said wryly. ‘But the commoners in the city don’t have that much influence in the elections, do they?’

‘That’s true,’ Ben agreed. ‘The mercantile centuries carry a lot of sway, but certainly didn’t need any financial help from me. So that’s why I had you running around the city gambling and bargaining for those documents from merchants. They were share certificates, Kal, giving me a stake in much of the major industry and business in the city. I wrote to all the merchants afterwards promising that I would work with them for mutual profit, if I were ever in a position to influence trading laws.

‘The aristocracy were always going to be the hardest group to turn my way, though. They’ll always look down on a self-made-man, and I wasn’t ever going to resort to playing the royalty card. But I had noticed that Felix was a crack in their armour that threatened to embarrass them all. I know they were secretly pleased when I took him down.’

He looked around the ruin of his mansion. ‘I never planned to run this year though: it was only after Greatbear suggested that I run
next
year, that the thought popped in my head that conditions might be riper right now! It’s lucky things worked out though—without the lodgings at the Senate that consuls get, I’d be homeless. I couldn’t afford insurance on this place.’

Kal whistled through her teeth. ‘So many things had to go right and slot into place for you though. You took a hell of a risk, Ben!’

Ben shrugged. ‘Well, I guess I’m a gambler too, Kal. It’s no good sitting and waiting for fortune and fame to come to you. In the words of old General Truebolt’s family motto:
lapides non, noli volvunt ossa
!’

Kal’s weary brain stumbled over the archaic language. Then, for the first time that day, she cracked a smile.

‘If you don’t have the stones, don’t roll the bones!’

THE END

PART ONE

THE VOYAGE

When I was young, my spirit free,

My feet, they led me to the sea.

No place in this world could ever be,

A cage to hold the soul of me.

I.i

Beginning of a Great Adventure

Snow lay thick on the forested lower slopes of the Starfinger Mountains. It was midwinter—Kal’s favourite time of year, when running through the trees and valleys warmed her fur-clad body, but the crisp air still tickled her nose and ears with cold. As she paused to suck oxygen into her lungs, her breath steamed, visible against the bright blue sky.

The snow deadened all sound, driving animals into shelter and turning a familiar landscape into a ghost world. The only noises were snow slipping off the branches of fir trees and crashing to the ground, and, once, the heavy beat of wings, as a hungry tawny owl scouted the white wilderness for a glimpse of a mouse or vole.

As her breathing and heart rate slowed, Kal listened;
he
was out there, somewhere, hunting her, and like the other animals of the forest, Kal’s tracks were easy to follow. The snow was a foot deep—fresh, virgin snow that had fallen overnight—and it would be child’s play to follow the path she had forged through it.

She picked up her weary limbs and tried a new tactic: running rings and figures-of-eight around the pines. She stopped again barely a minute later. This was futile; she might put him off the scent for five minutes, but she would
waste
five minutes creating the diversion.

Kal’s eyes fell on a fallen tree: a twenty-yard giant brought down by the recent storms and not yet collected for timber. But she didn’t just run straight up and on to it … she ran
past
it, stopping at the foot of another tree, one she hoped looked like the sort she might be expected to try and climb and hide in. Then she retraced her steps, placing her feet carefully in the furrows she had just made, and only then did she jump onto the fallen tree’s dead trunk.

She scuttled along its length. When she reached the other end, she saw another welcome sight: a frozen-over stream that normally she would have heard babbling from some distance away. Now she knew where she was. All she had to do was reach the stream and follow the ice home.

The problem was, the stream was ten yards away: too far to leap. Unless … Kal’s gaze fell on the slim, frosty branch of a bare elm tree. If she could reach that and swing …

She made up her mind, pulled off her rabbitskin gloves, and took a run at it. What was the worst that could happen? A wet and sore backside if she fell into the snow?

Kal leaped off the end of the deadfall and grabbed the branch. Her cold fingers slipped off the icy bark, but by then she was already flying through the air. She fell hard on the frozen stream, but the three-month-old ice didn’t break, and she actually slid downhill on her belly for twenty yards, skidding up the bank at the first bend.

Half an hour later, Kal found her way to a straw-thatched cottage in a forest clearing. A young man with a beard and long hair was outside, shirtless in the snow, chopping wood. He put down his axe and gave Kal a hug and a kiss. ‘Are you alone?’ he said, looking around.

‘Alone
and
starving!’ Kal replied. The man smiled and went inside, returning moments later with two parcels wrapped with linen and tied with string. Kal stuffed one in her satchel and unwrapped the other. As she took a bite out of the huge pork sandwich that dripped with fat and apple sauce, she spotted a small figure emerge from the forest, following in her tracks.

‘Here he comes,’ Kal said. ‘I bet him my lunch that he couldn’t catch me before I made it home.’ She shouted across the snowy clearing: ‘What kept you? I’ve been waiting here for
ages
!’

Kal’s pursuer, a young, serious-looking boy, stepped forward to accept the remains of the sandwich that Kal proffered. He was damp and covered in pine needles. ‘I fell out of a tree and into a snowdrift, looking for you, Kal,’ he grumbled.

The bearded man laughed. ‘So what have you two got planned for the rest of day, then?’ he asked.

‘We’re going on a quest to find the treasure of Dark Dell,’ Kal told him excitedly.

‘Alright then. But be careful, Kal. You know the rules: be back before the sun falls below the mountains, and don’t go beyond the Watcher Tree. And look after Deros here—his mother will kill me if he picks up so much as a bruise.’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Kal said, although she had already forgotten what the rules were.

Kalina Moonheart was ten years old, and about to set out on another great adventure.

I.ii

The White Spot

Kal dreamed of snow and forests, and also of ringing bells.

She woke instantly. Back in the village of Refuge, bells meant danger. But she wasn’t in Refuge any more. She was in her city apartment, and the noise meant
intruder
! There were a cluster of tiny brass bells hanging from cords just above Kal’s bed. The cords ran, via a network of loops fixed to the walls, to both the window and the door. Judging by the blast of cold winter air that hit her in the face, it was the window that had been breached.

Kal affected a stretching yawn, slipped her hand under her heavy straw-packed pillow, and closed her fingers around the handle of her dagger—one of several she kept concealed around the room. She could hear someone moving around, trying—but failing—to avoid the creaky floorboards. Kal prepared to leap out of bed and attack the intruder …

Then she heard the clinking of glasses and the
glug glug
of a drink being poured. She opened one eye slowly.

Kal’s apartment was open-plan. From her bed she could see that her small table, where she usually ate alone, was set with a candle, two shot glasses and her most expensive bottle of brandy. A figure in a black leather greatcoat and black tricorn hat was crouched down, setting a flame to kindling in the fireplace.

Kal threw off her feather-and-down blanket, sprang out of bed stark naked, and crossed the room. ‘Damn it, Lula,’ she said. ‘You can’t just turn up in the middle of the night and light the fire!’

The girl in the hat looked up and smiled. ‘I just did, Kal.’

‘No,’ Kal said, kicking ashes over the blossoming flame. ‘I mean you can’t light the fire because the chimney is blocked. There’s a dead dog stuck up there or something.’

Lula backed off and sat down in one of Kal’s cowhide-upholstered bucket chairs. ‘This whole building looks like it’s condemned, Kal. I almost fell to my death climbing the crumbling mortar. Why do you still insist on living here? I keep offering to let you winter with me.’

Kal took her dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door. It was fine red silk, imported from the far-off Empire of the Moon. Golden dragons coiled around Kal as she yanked tight the belt. ‘I like it here. The rent is cheap. What do you want, Lula?’

‘I
want
to get warm,’ Lula replied, taking a slug of the brandy. She shuddered as it went down. ‘That’s a start, anyway!’ She tossed away her hat, shaking free her glossy black hair, and examined the label on the bottle. ‘
Spirit of the Revolution
? They serve this stuff at the governor’s parties in Port Black. Did your friend Ben get it for you from the Senate House?’

‘He doesn’t
get
things for me,’ Kal said, prickling at the dig at her rich patron. ‘I stole it.’ She took the other glass and knocked the fiery spirit back as if it were water.

Lula was impressed and they chinked glasses. ‘We just got in on the high tide,’ she said, pouring out two more shots. ‘And we’ll be leaving again before dawn. I want you to come with me, Kal.’

‘What, tonight?’

‘Yes! You need to escape this city, Kal. Get away from the crowds, the politics and the bad weather. Join me on the open sea. Swim with me in blue lagoons, and drink rum on beaches where the sand is still warm at midnight!’

‘Come on, Lula,’ Kal scoffed. ‘You didn’t sail halfway around the world and wake me in the middle of the night to give me the opportunity to change my lifestyle. I’m guessing you’re here on business … and no good business, I imagine.’