Blackwing by Ed McDonald

Author:Ed McDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

20

THEY didn’t follow us, and the Misery seemed to respect Dantry’s pain and left us alone. A few uneventful days and we were back in sight of Valengrad’s vast stone walls. The vivid blood-neon letters on the face of the citadel read COURAGE, and we rode towards them in weary silence. For once, Dantry had stopped snivelling. The death of his servant had struck him deeper than I’d thought it would. Maybe behind all that nobility and cream he was human after all.

“We must go straight to my sister,” Dantry said. He tried to sit tall in the saddle, but even that was too much for him.

“Not straight off. Barber, bath, tailor. If we’re going in with the authority of a count, you need to look like a count.”

Dantry considered my advice, running a hand through the light growth of fuzz on his cheeks.

“You look like shit,” Nenn put in helpfully. Dantry toyed with the dirt-stained cuff of his shirt and finally, agreed.

“The bank first, then the bath house,” he said. “I’ll need to access some money, but the banks will allow credit against my holdings, I’m sure. I hate to think of Beth stuck in that place.”

As we rode in through Valengrad’s single east-facing tunnel, I felt a twinge in my chest, silver and serpent-like as the dragon flexed.

Welcome home, a leathery voice mouthed into my mind. I felt my attention dragged to one of Saravor’s little grey children, watching from an alleyway. It noted my return before sliding away into the shadows.

“Any sign of drudge activity?” the lieutenant at the gate asked.

“Didn’t see anything. Any news from the north?”

“Nothing good. Drudge are shuffling closer. The Iron Goat sent half our ordnance to Three-Six yesterday.”

I thanked him and rode on. The city was a muted place with half its population gone.

We dropped Dantry’s brass apparatus off at my apartment. I’d already killed off the suggestion that we ride out to Willows and alert Herono to our presence. She’d abandoned the Tanzas’ cause in order to protect her position, and following the events in the Misery, I was conflicted. Herono was a hero; short of Venzer, there was nobody on the Range with a more distinguished career, but someone had sent Stannard to commit murder, and his was one loyalty I didn’t doubt.

I’d wrangled it every way that I could in my mind, but it just didn’t make any fucking sense.

At my apartment, I ditched my armour and grabbed a bag of liquorice root. It was hard and dry, but I could already feel the Misery shakes coming on. My skin had turned clammy, and there was an ache in the roof of my mouth. We sucked the roots, stopped off at a tavern and took a long drink of beer and a hot meal. Summer vegetables in a dull gravy with a hunk of soft bread. It was simple, but after a week of eating dried meat and beans, I was famished enough to rip through it in minutes. The beer helped settle us all down.

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