The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 12 by Jonathan Strahan

Author:Jonathan Strahan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

Die rich, dragon’s dinner!

Play well the game that has no winner!

Climb the mountain, greedy sinner!

Die rich, dragon’s dinner!

The chant had the sound of a familiar ritual that had been much-practiced. I liked it not a whit.

NEXT, HOW WE PROVED OUR RESOLVE AND BROKE A FEW HEARTS ALONG THE WAY

IDOZED FITFULLY most of the day, in a hired chamber guarded by some of Gudrun’s arcane mutterings. Terrified or not, I was still an experienced man of fortune and knew to try and catch a bit of rest when it was on offer.

At dusk the moons rose red, like burnished shields hanging on the wall of the brandywine sky. The mountain loomed, crowned with strange lights that never came from any celestial sphere, and it seemed I could hear the hiss and rumble of the stone as if it were a hungry thing. I shuddered and checked my gear for the tenth time. I had come light from the Crescent Cities, in simple field leathers, dark jacket, and utility belts. I carried a sling and a sparse supply of grooved stones. My longest daggers were whetted, and I wore them openly as I headed for the northeastern side of town with my companions, pretending to swagger. Denizens of Helfalkyn watched from every street, every rooftop, every window, some jeering, some singing, but most standing quietly or hoisting cups to the air, as one might toast a prisoner on the way to the gallows.

Brandgar wore a fitted coat of plate under a majestically ragged gray cloak with particolored patchings from numerous cuts and burns over the years; he claimed it was as good as enchanted and that he had sweated most of his considerable luck into it. Gudrun had never offered a professional opinion on this, so far as I knew. She was as scruffy as ever, a study in comfortable disrepute. Strange charms and wooden containers rattled on leather cords at her breast, and she bore a pair of rune-inscribed drums on her back. Mikah was lightly dressed in silks and leather bracers, moving with their familiar fluid grace, concealing their real thoughts behind their even more familiar mask of calculating bemusement with the world. They carried a few coils of sea-spider silk and some climbing gear wrapped in muffling cloth. However detached they seemed, I knew they were a fanatic about the selection and care of their tools, more painstaking than any other burglar I had ever worked with, and any professional jealousy I might have felt was rather drowned in comfort at their preparedness.

The only real oddity was the extra weapon Brandgar carried. His familiar spear Cold-Thorn had a bare and gleaming tip, and its shaft was worn with use. The other spear looked heavy and new, and its point was wrapped in layers of tightly-bound leather like a practice weapon. When asked about this, Brandgar smiled and said, “Extra spear, extra thief. Aren’t I growing cautious in my old age?”

At the northeast edge of Helfalkyn lay our first ascent,

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