Dangerous Gifts by Gaie Sebold

Author:Gaie Sebold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

DENTOR, HIS RUFF soiled, his hems coming down and his buttons dull with tarnish, was sitting surrounded by similarly scruffy cronies, telling a joke in which the word ‘scaly’ figured a lot.

The Ikinchli were studiously ignoring his little performance, though I could see a number of raised crests.

I walked over to them. “You’re Dentor, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I would like,” I said, “a word. With you. In private.”

Anywhere else, that sort of approach would have led to all sorts of comments. But this was Incandress, among the Gudain. Not a joke, not a nudge; though I heard one of the Ikinchli say something that contained several words I recognised. You must think I have no taste.

“Why?” Dentor said.

I let my eyes travel to the snake around his arm. “Scarlet angel, am I right? Deadliest snake on Incandress.”

“S’right.”

“Kill you in an instant if you didn’t know how to handle it.”

“Yeah.”

“Man like you, can handle a scarlet angel, you got nothing to worry about having a few private words with me, now have you?”

He stuck his lower lip out like a pouting baby, and glanced around at his cronies, who were hanging on every word.

Dentor shrugged, and got up. “Come on, then.”

I followed him out of the room, round to the back. “What d’you want?” he said, gracious as ever, running his snake-free hand through his hedgehog hair.

“Captain or no captain, I get the impression you’re the one they follow, am I right? You’ve got influence.”

He stuck his chest out. “Yeah, I do. I talk, they listen. Captain don’t have a problem with it.”

The captain, I thought, either hadn’t noticed the way his guard was looking or had decided to ignore it until forced to do otherwise.

“Now, I noticed something in there. The Ikinchli, they look like they’re going on parade; shined up to the last button. You boys... Well. Not so much. So, you want to tell me what that’s about?”

“They want to get all in a lather for some scaly superstition, that’s up to them, ain’t it? Me and my crew, we don’t put stock in that stuff. And anyway, you can’t make a scaly look like a guard, don’t matter what you dress ’em in.”

“You don’t think people might get the impression that maybe they’re, I dunno, better disciplined, better guards, than you Gudain?”

“What, them? Don’t make me laugh.”

“And you don’t think it might be seen as showing disrespect to the family?”

“The master’s head of the family, no one else. He seen us, just this morning, and he didn’t say nothing. Nor’d the captain. Seems like we look plenty smart enough for him.”

Right, tact wasn’t going to work. I leaned over him, close enough that he had to lean back to meet my eye.

“I want you to smarten up, soldier. Your boots are filthy, your uniform’s disgusting, and you look like you’ve forgotten how to stand up straight. You’re a disgrace. So sharpen the hell up and tell your friends to do likewise.”

“Or what?” he said, grinning. “You ain’t my captain, you can’t tell me what to do.

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