The Dragon’s Path (67 page)

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.

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 sorely
tempted 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 the
last year, the despair had faded a bit, but sometimes Wester would still make his little jokes—
I’m too stubborn to die
or
You don’t need love when there’s laundry to wash
—and the people around him would chuckle. Only the apostate knew how deeply the man meant what he said.

It was what made the mercenary captain interesting.

The taproom near the bank had the advantage in these cold months of keeping food and a warm fire. Cary and Charlit Soon would set up in the common room some nights, singing songs from the lighter comic operas and making between them enough to feed the whole company for three days.

“Always best to keep your political assassinations discreet,” Wester said. “Really, that was where I went wrong. Well, it’s not the first place I went wrong.”

“One of the places, sir,” Yardem Hane said.

“Will it keep Northcoast from violence, do you think?”

“They poisoned a man so he’d vomit himself to death,” Marcus said. “That’s violence. But with his claim disposed, I don’t see any swords taking the field, no. So that’s good for the Narinisle trade. And apparently Antea’s decided not to descend into civil war either.”

“I didn’t know they were on the dragon’s path,” the apostate said, taking a sip of his ale. During winter, they kept it in the alley under guard, so it was as cold as the rooms were warm.

“Didn’t either. This new notary gets reports from everyplace, though. It’s one of the advantages of being part of a bank where the bank people know about you. Anyway, it seems the only thing that kept the court in Camnipol from turning on each other like a pack of starving dogs was a religious zealot from the Keshet.”

“Really?”

“Well,” Wester said, “he’s a real Antean noble, but apparently he spent time in the Keshet and came back with a bad case of the faith. Exposed some sort of plot, turned the court on its ears, and built a temple just down the street from the Kingspire to celebrate.”

“There’s nothing sinister about building temples, sir,” Yardem said. “People do it all the time.”

“Not in celebration,” Wester said. “People go to God when they’ve got trouble. Things are well, there’s not much point sucking after the divine.”

Yardem flicked a jingling ear and leaned toward the apostate.

“He says these things to annoy me.”

“Always works.”

“It does, sir,” the Tralgu lied.

“And the Goddess of Round Pies seems especially dim.”

“Round pies?” the apostate asked.

“The cult’s got a symbol. Big red banner with a white bit in the middle, and what looks like eight bits of pie all stuck together.”

“Eight points on a compass,” Yardem said.

No,
the apostate thought, dread pouring into him like dark water.
No, the eight legs of a spider.

“You all right, Kit?” Wester asked. “You’re looking pale.”

“Fine,” the apostate said. “Just fine.”

But in his mind there was a single thought:

It’s begun.

Writing a book is never as solitary a job as I expect. This project especially has benefited by the time and attention of people besides myself. I owe debts of gratitude to Walter Jon Williams, Carrie Vaughn, Ian Tregillis, Vic Milán, Melinda Snodgrass, and Ty Franck, who were there when the lightning struck, and Jim Frenkel, who did what he could. Also my agents Shawna McCarthy and Danny Baror, who have been better than gold on this as on everything. And I would especially like to thank the crew at Orbit. My editors Darren Nash and DongWon Song have made working on the project a joy, and the deep professionalism and consideration I’ve seen from everyone on staff in New York and London have continually impressed. This would be less of a book without each of them.

Any errors and infelicities are entirely my own.

A Shadow in Summer

A Betrayal in Winter

An Autumn War

The Price of Spring

Leviathan Wept and Other Stories

Hunter’s Run
(with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois)

Unclean Spirits
(as MLN Hanover)

Darker Angels
(as MLN Hanover)

Vicious Grace
(as MLN Hanover)

Killing Rites
(as MLN Hanover) (forthcoming)

The Dragon’s Path

Leviathan Wakes
(with Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey)

“Abraham is fiercely talented, disturbingly human, breathtakingly original and even on his bad days kicks all sorts of literary ass.”

—Junot Díaz

“Daniel Abraham gets better with every book.”

—George R. R. Martin

“The storytelling is smooth, careful and—best of all—unpredictable.”

—Patrick Rothfuss

“His quiet compassion for humanity slams hard against his clear-eyed depiction of the ruthless progress of war and the bitter choices people must often make to protect their own.”

—Kate Elliott

“
An Autumn War
ratchets up the tension and then delivers a stunning ending that will leave you gasping for breath, wondering what bowling ball just slammed you in the skull. Yes, it is that good.”

—Walter Jon Williams

“One of the most elegant and engaging fantasies I’ve read in years, based on an intriguing, original premise.”

—Jacqueline Carey

“Enjoyable, intelligent, original fantasy.”

—
Starburst

“A compelling, emotionally brutal and edgy fantasy that’s genuinely worthy of comparison with genre heavyweights like George R. R. Martin… exceptionally well-written.”

—
SFX

“[An] impressive first novel… The long outcome should be the addition of Daniel Abraham to the pantheon of major fantasy authors.”

—
Locus

Copyright © 2011 by Daniel Abraham

Excerpt from
The King’s Blood
Copyright © 2011 by Daniel Abraham

Map by Chad Roberts

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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First eBook Edition: April 2011

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN: 978-0-316-17507-4

BOOK ONE OF THE EXPANSE