The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos)

Part 2 – Declare I Dare Not

Consider the way she had to go,

Think of the hungry snare,

The net she herself had woven,

Aware or unaware …

—Marion Angus

The hook of the ice staff bit into snow, and Lord Arteloth Beck bowed his head against the wind that bellowed through the Spindles. Beneath his gloves, his fingers were as red as if he had dipped them in madder. Draped over his shoulder was the carcass of a mountain ewe.

The tears had frozen on his cheeks for days, but now the cold had entered him. He could not think of Kit for long when every step was agony. A mercy from the Saint.

Night had fallen. Snow starched his beard. He crossed a rill of lava, which oozed from a cleft in the mountainside, and crawled into the cave, where he coasted in and out of sleep. When he had the strength, he forced himself to arrange the firewood and kindling he had gathered. He struck the flint and blew, urging the flame to grow. Then, steeling his nerves, he set about excoriating the ewe. When he had skinned his first animal on the third night, he had vomited and sobbed himself hoarse. Now his hands were well versed in the motions of survival.

Once it was done, he fashioned himself a spit. He had feared, at first, that the wyrms would see his fires and fly to them like moths to a taper, but they never had.

He cleaned his hands in the snow outside the cave, then heaped more of it over the blood, muffling the scent. In his shelter, he tore into the mutton and beseeched the Knight of Courtesy to look away. Once he had eaten as much as he could and stripped the remaining edible parts, Loth buried the carcass and sheathed his hands in gloves again. The sight of his red-tipped fingers made him queasy.

The rash was already crawling down his back—at least, he thought it was. He had no way of knowing if the itch was real, or his imagination. The Donmata Marosa had not told him exactly how long he had, doubtless to stop him counting down the days.

Chilled, he returned to the fire and cushioned his head on his pack. He would rest for a few hours and strike out again.

As he lay there, swaddled in his cloak, he checked the compass that hung from a cord around his neck. The Donmata had instructed him to move southeast until he reached the desert. He would cross it to the Ersyri capital of Rauca and join a caravan to Rumelabar, where Chassar uq-Ispad lived on a vast estate. Ead had grown up there as his ward.

It would be a hard journey, and if he meant to avoid joining the afflicted, he would have to make better time. There was no map in his pack, but he had discovered a purse of gold and silver suns. Each coin bore the image of Jantar the Splendid, King of the Ersyr.

Loth tucked the compass back into his shirt. A fever torched his brow. Ever since his hands had flushed, his dreams had left him drenched in sweat. He dreamed of Kit, entombed in bloodstained glass, trapped forever between one world and the next. He dreamed of Sabran in her childbed, dying, and his being powerless to stop it. And he dreamed, inexplicably, of the Donmata Marosa dancing in Ascalon, before she had been yoked to her tower, at the mercy of the manikin her father had become.

He came around to a rustling at the mouth of the cave. Ears pricked, he lay still and waited.

Talon rang on stone. The fire had dwindled to a dusting of embers, but there was just enough light for Loth to catch a glimpse of the monstrosity.

Bone-white plumage and scaled pink legs. Three toes on each foot. A comb of flesh above a beak. Loth had never laid eyes on anything so hideous, so wrong. He called on the Knight of Courage, but all he found was a pit of dread.

It was a cockatrice.

A guttural sound clacked from deep in its throat, and wattle slobbered. Its eyes were two blood blisters in its head. Unmoving in the shadows, Loth observed its torn and bloodied wing and the dirt across its plumage. A slug of a tongue rasped over the lesions.

Butterfingered with fear, Loth eased the strap of his pack across his chest and took hold of the ice staff. As the cockatrice licked its wounds, he drew his sword and crept toward the mouth of the cave, cleaving to the closest wall.

The cockatrice jerked up its head. It let out a deafening screech and clawed itself upright. Loth charged forward and hurdled its tail, and then he ran as he never had, out of the cave and down the slopes, boots scudding on ice. In his blind haste, he lost his footing and rolled, holding on to his pack as if it were the hand of the Saint himself.

Talons punched into his shoulders from above. He shouted as the ground tumbled away. His sword slipped from his grasp, but he clung to the staff by his fingertips.

The cockatrice flapped skyward, over a ravine. Its body listed toward its broken wing. Loth kicked and thrashed until he realized, through the fumes of panic, that the cockatrice was all that kept him from a fatal plunge. He let himself fall limp in its clutches, and it crowed in triumph.

Solid ground lurched up to greet them. The moment the talons relaxed, Loth flung out his shoulder and rolled. The collision jarred every bone in his body.

The beast had taken him to the summit of a low mountain. Panting, Loth shoved off the ground and snatched up the ice staff. He had often hunted with Sabran on horseback, but he had not been the quarry then.

A scaled white tail caught him hard across the midriff. He flew backward and cracked his head against a burl of rock, belly clenched in protest, but kept hold of his weapon.

Let him die here if he must, but he would take this monster with him.

Sick from the blow, he thrust out the staff. The cockatrice stamped its feet, raised its hackle feathers, and thundered toward him. Loth hurled the ice staff like a spear. The cockatrice flattened itself to avoid it, and his only weapon skittered into the ravine.

This time, the swing from its tail almost threw Loth over the precipice. The cockatrice bore down on him with a shudder of wet clucks. Talons click-clicked. He knotted himself into a ball and clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. Warmth soaked into his breeches.

A heavy foot crashed down on his back. A beak savaged his cloak. He tried, as a sob heaved through him, to cling on to a kernel of joy. The first memory that came to him was the day Margret was born, and how lovely she had been, with her huge eyes and tiny hands. His dances with Ead at every Feast of Fellowship. Hunting from dawn until dusk with Sabran. Sitting in the Royal Library with Kit, reading his poems back to him.

A new sound came, and the foot was gone. Loth cracked open his eyes to see the cockatrice blundering like a sodden-witted giant. It was fighting off another creature, furred where the cockatrice was scaled and feathered. The Draconic beast yawped and shrieked and lashed its tail, but its labors were in vain—the newcomer ripped out its throat.

The cockatrice crumpled. Blood throbbed from its carcass. Its vanquisher let out a bark and shunted it into the canyon.

Now it was still, Loth could see what his savior was. It had the shape of a mongoose, with a sweep of tail, coated in alder-brown fur that paled to white around its paws and muzzle—but it was giant, big as a Northern bear. Its chops were dark with gore.

An ichneumon. The natural archenemy of wyrms. They were the champions of many an Inysh legend, but he had never dreamed that they still existed.

The Saint had met one of these creatures on the road to Inys from Lasia. It had carried the Damsel on its back when she was too tired to carry on.

The ichneumon licked its teeth clean. When it looked at him, it bared them anew.

Its eyes were round and amber, wolflike, ringed by black skin. White markings striped the end of its tail. At present, its face was covered in bloody tufts of feather. It stalked toward Loth, impossibly light-footed for its bulk, and sniffed at his cloak.

Tentatively, Loth held out a hand. Once it had nosed his glove, the ichneumon growled. It must smell the plague in him, the scent of its age-old foe. Loth held still as hot breath dampened his cheek. After some time, the ichneumon bent its front legs and let out a bark.

“What is it, friend?” Loth asked. “What do you want me to do?”

He could have sworn it sighed. It pushed its head under his arm.

“No. I have the plague.” His voice was weak with exhaustion. “Don’t come near.”

It occurred to him that he had never heard of an animal catching the Draconic plague. Warmth exuded from its fur—a gentle, animal warmth, not the red-hot scorch of wyrmfire.

His strength reborn, Loth shouldered his pack. He knotted his fingers into thick fur and climbed on to the ichneumon.

“I would go to Rauca,” he said, “if you will show me the way.”

The ichneumon barked again and sprang down the mountainside. As it ran, its paws swift as the winds, Loth whispered a prayer of gratitude to the Damsel and the Saint. He knew now that they had put him on this path, and he meant to follow it to the bitter end.

At dawn, the ichneumon prowled to a stop on a crag of rock. Loth smelled sunbaked earth and the spice of flowers. Before them lay the dusty foothills of the Spindles—and beyond those, a desert sprawled as far as the eye could see, powdered gold beneath the sun. It could almost be a mirage in the heat, but he knew that it was real.

Against all odds, he looked upon the Desert of the Unquiet Dream.