The Dragon Lords: False Idols Read online

  And suddenly, Will found his rage. He found his anger. He found his hatred. And, to his relief, it wasn’t at Lette. It wasn’t at the people in the street ruining their lives, and this country. It was at Theerax, sweeping over them, spreading nothing but pointless, stupid devastation in his wake.

  “You want a plan?” He thrust a finger at Lette. She turned, surprise writ large on her features. “I’ve got a gods-hexed plan.” He nodded to himself. “This country. This army. It’s a bust. A wasted chance. But it’s not the only army out there. This isn’t the only country. Not all of them will have fallen to these bastard dragons. Not yet. So we go and we find one that’s still standing, and we get ourselves a new army, and we put ourselves at the head of it. We don’t trust kings, or emperors, or bureaucrats, or politicians. We do it ourselves. We do it right. And we find each and every one of these dragons, and we paint the sky red with their guts. Is that enough of a fucking plan for you?”

  Lette stood staring at him for a moment. Then she nodded, and she smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “That’ll do.”

  21

  Heavy Lies the Crown

  Quirk knew that streaming across the Tamathian plains, fleeing her home and the slaughter she had left there, heading north as fast as she could … that was not the time for profound philosophical contemplation. And still, she couldn’t help but wonder, why in the Hallows had anyone ever bothered domesticating the horse?

  Her arse felt like it had been paddled for the best part of a day. Her thighs burned as if she were suspended above a fire. And the less said about her nethers, the better everyone would be. At this point, panic was about the only thing still holding her upright. But she had been on the run for the best part of eight hours now, and even panic had its limits. She felt numbness setting in.

  She glanced back over her shoulder. The escaped prisoners were strung out behind her on their own purloined animals.

  We’re horse stealers now, she thought. We’ve even given them a legitimate reason to hang us.

  That firmed up her panic a good bit.

  But she couldn’t ignore the fact that she wasn’t the only one flagging. Most of the men and women looked dead in their saddles, hunched low, drooping over the necks of their animals. For that matter, the horses themselves didn’t look too chipper. This was less of a flight for freedom than it was a slow trudge.

  She pulled slightly on her reins, dropped back next to Afrit, who was riding a few yards behind her.

  “I think we should stop soon,” she said.

  Afrit nodded. “That’s a good idea.” Quirk thought the woman looked exhausted, though it was hard to tell under all the bruises.

  They rode on in silence.

  Finally, Afrit said, “So … you should probably tell the others then.”

  “Me?” Quirk was not at all comfortable with that idea. She didn’t even know where they were going. She hardly ever even left the city, and when she did she never headed for these domesticated farmlands. This was grazing land for herds and flocks, not the hunting grounds of the beasts she studied. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.

  “Who do you think these people are following?”

  “No one’s following anyone,” Quirk said. “We haven’t formalized any sort of organizational structure yet, and—”

  “Formalized?” Afrit let go of her reins with one hand to raise it to the heavens as if beseeching Knole for guidance. “You broke everyone out of jail by melting the bars with your bare hands. We don’t have to formalize anything.”

  And that sat even worse. “Oh,” said Quirk. “I wield the biggest stick, so I’m in charge?” That had been her childhood. She knew what that sort of power could do. “No.” She shook her head. “I’m not going to enforce a false impression of leadership.”

  Afrit sighed heavily and wheeled her horse around. “Quirk says we need to look for somewhere to rest,” she said loudly.

  Quirk found she still had the energy left to be outraged. “What did you say that for?” she asked as Afrit rode up back beside her.

  Afrit just rolled her eyes.

  Quirk wasn’t going to be railroaded into anything. She pulled her horse around. It seemed grateful for the excuse to stop. “Look,” she said to the crowd, “does anyone know this land? Does anyone know a place we can hide?” Asking questions seemed a good way to get someone else to step up and share in the leadership responsibilities. Soon they’d pick up on the collective mentality.

  “I grew up round here.” It was a large man who spoke up, his face bisected by a fearsome diagonal slash that had left dried blood plastered down one cheek and over his chin. “It’s all scattered farmhouses. We could hole up in a barn. Farmer wouldn’t even know, let alone soldiers.”

  Quirk nodded and smiled. “So you think we should ride until we see one that’s suitably isolated and camp down?” she asked the crowd at large.

  There was a long silence while they all stared at her. Quirk’s anticipation slowly turned to disappointment.

  Next to her Afrit sighed heavily. “Come on,” she said with a sharpness that Quirk simply could not muster at this point. “You heard the woman. Let’s start looking for a barn.”

  Which was not what Quirk had said at all. As their steeds staggered to life once more, it took her a moment to catch up with Afrit, her horse was so reluctant to get going.

  “I said,” she hissed, “that I didn’t want to reinforce the idea that I’m the leader.”

  Afrit closed her eyes. “This,” she said, “is an odd time for a lecture.”

  “Well,” said Quirk, “you need one.”

  Afrit’s eyes flashed. “I meant,” she said, “that this is an odd time for me to need to lecture you on the nature of power.”

  Quirk’s mouth opened indignantly but Afrit didn’t give her a chance to say anything. “Power is about will. And so leadership lies at the heart of it, really. Because all leadership is in the end is the will to wield power. And because it’s about power and wielding it, a lot of the time people take leadership by force. A lot of the political systems we have are about formalizing that struggle, of making it seem civil. But if you boil it down, it’s essentially about beating your opponents down, and taking what you want.”

  Afrit let a little heat out of her voice and offered Quirk a smile. “But it’s not always like that. Sometimes instead leadership is forced onto people. Sometimes people want to be led. And those, as you are so very clearly aware, are dangerous times, because it is very easy for absolute arseholes to seize the reins. And it’s easy for well-intentioned people to become seduced by power.

  “But right now,” she continued, looking around, “we’re really short on options, and we’re really short on time. These people need someone with the will to lead them. Otherwise they’ll fragment, and be caught, and be cut down. And the list of options for them is you, and that’s about it. But fortunately, I don’t think you’re an arsehole. And unless you think you’re going to let all the power go to your head between now and sunset, then I think we’ll be okay.”

  Quirk pursed her lips. And she knew good sense when she heard it. And she was not too proud to admit when she was being a fool. Yet … it still sat queasily in her gut. “What about you?” she said to Afrit, almost plaintive. Above her head, two blackbirds flitted back and forth whistling to each other.

  Afrit managed something like a smile. “I thought you were smart enough to recognize when someone is literally begging you to make a decision for them.” For a moment the professorial mask shivered, something broken and damaged peeking out from behind. “I’m so fucking scared, Quirk.”

  And Quirk’s heart broke in this moment for this proud, intelligent, defiant woman. For all she had been through. For what she herself was putting her through now.

  “I’m sorry.” She reached out, clutched Afrit’s arm. “I think I’ve been very selfish for a very long time.”

  Afrit shrugged. “You’re afraid of power. Which as a student of it, s
eems a good baseline place to operate from to me.”

  “Hey!” a voice called back to them. They had dropped back in the group as they talked, and now several riders, holding themselves a little straighter, a little taller, had scouted the land ahead of them. A man at the crest of a small rise in the land was pointing away and ahead. Quirk pushed her horse to trot up beside him. A canter was well beyond it at this point.

  A small, sagging barn was outlined at the peak of the next rise, a half-mile away.

  “Brilliant.” Quirk smiled and clapped the man on the back. “Thank you.”

  The smile she received in return was as bright as a second sun rising into the skies.

  To describe the barn as being in poor repair was generous, to say the least. The doors had fallen off their hinges and were propped against the wilting frame. The roof was more than half-gone, and what remained was more than half-covered in moss. The windows were choked with vines, and the smell of rotting straw was ripe on the air from fifty yards away. And still the place looked wonderful to Quirk.

  At least it did until she saw the woman walking out of the doors.

  As one her troop of escapees pulled up with a jingle of horse tackle, the woman’s head snapped up. For a moment they all just stayed staring at each other.

  Gods piss on it, thought Quirk. This leadership shit sounded far better when Afrit was talking.

  “We ain’t got nothing,” the woman by the barn said as Quirk rode closer. “We ain’t got money, and my daughters is all gone.” She had her apron held out in front of her, holding a good few pounds of corn and seed.

  “No,” said Quirk, holding out one hand to her. “That’s not what we want.” Down the slope, she could see a farmhouse. Chickens and geese scrambled around a yard.

  The woman snorted. “Come to help out around the house have you?” She spat onto the ground.

  “We just want shelter,” Quirk said, trying to keep her voice soft, friendly, reasonable. “You won’t even know we’re here.”

  She knew what the woman feared. It was only a few short decades since bands of horsemen rode back and forth across these lands, burning and looting, murdering and raping, and taking small girls to be their personal war mages, and setting them to burning the world.

  Quirk took a slow, steady breath.

  “And what if I say no?” said the woman, mouth twisted in something resembling a snarl. “Will I not know you’re here then?”

  “If you say no,” Quirk said, trying to keep her voice as calm and reasonable as possible, “then we ride on, and you never see us again.”

  The woman chewed her tongue, eyeballing Quirk.

  “It’s okay,” Quirk said into the silence. “We’ve already taken up too much of your time.” She turned her horse away, called back to the others, “We ride on!”

  “Wait,” said the woman, and her voice was still rough, but some of the harshness was gone. “Who are you running from?”

  Quirk twisted in her saddle. “Who says we’re running?”

  “I don’t lend my barn to people who accuse me of being a fucking idiot,” said the woman, without apparent rancor.

  “If I tell you,” said Quirk, still not turning her horse around, “and you agree with the people chasing us, then you’ll point them straight after us.”

  “And if I disagree with them you get a roof for the night.” The woman folded her arms.

  Quirk weighed her options. “We’re running from the Diffinites,” she said.

  The woman narrowed her eyes. “Them that’s taken the city?” she said.

  “Yes,” Quirk said, trying to read the woman’s impassive eyes.

  Then the woman spat again. “Toil’s always been good to me and my crops.”

  From the state of the barn, Quirk wasn’t sure about that, but she knew better than to voice her doubt.

  “Screw dragons,” said the woman. “Get in the barn, bed down. If anyone comes looking for you then they won’t hear anything from me.” And before Quirk could even thank her, she turned away and stomped back toward her chickens.

  The next morning, Quirk lay on rotting boards and moldering straw and wondered what had woken her.

  Voices.

  Not a few. Many voices. And many more horses, stomping and snorting in the brisk morning air. The other escapees were stirring, looking about. She stood quickly and silently, putting a finger to her lips. When she was sure all had seen her, she crept to the barn’s wall and peered between the slats.

  Fifteen soldiers sat upon fifteen sleek steeds. Their armor gleamed as the morning sun sliced across the plain. They had come at the farm from a different angle than Quirk and the other prisoners, and stood perhaps thirty yards away. Thank all the gods that the barn door was not facing them or they would have had a clear view of all of them, huddled and waiting for the slaughter.

  “Grab everything,” Quirk hissed back at the group. “Bridle the horses as quickly as you can. Don’t worry about saddles. We lead them away single file and pray to Lawl and every other god that they don’t see us.”

  There wasn’t time for qualms about leadership now. Quirk put her eye back to the crack in the boards, as behind her the other prisoners bustled into hushed life. The woman she had seen yesterday was out in front of the soldiers remonstrating at them. A stout man of similar age stood behind her, leaning on a scythe.

  Abruptly, the lead soldier whipped out his sword and slapped at the woman with it. Quirk gasped, bit back hard on her scream. And then the woman was picking herself up, howling furiously, and her husband was pointing his scythe angrily. And it had been the flat of the blade the soldier had used. And Quirk breathed again. But even so, she was amazed that the soldier hadn’t broken a bone, or knocked the sense from the woman.

  “—shall search anything we want!” The lead soldier raised his voice, and Quirk could make out the words now. “And anything you try to stop us searching we shall burn to the ground.”

  “Godless fucking heathens!” spat the woman. Her husband was trying to help her to her feet.

  The soldier dismounted quickly, threw the farmer aside, and planted a gauntleted fist into the woman’s face. She collapsed back to the ground in a spray of blood. Quirk bit back another cry.

  “Quirk.” Afrit was suddenly whispering behind her. “We’re ready to go. Come on.”

  But Quirk couldn’t look away. The husband had picked himself up and was about to throw himself at the soldier, when suddenly a sword was at his throat. The lead soldier leaned down, picked up the woman by the scruff of her work shirt, and planted his fist into her face again.

  “Come on,” said Afrit. “We have to go.”

  Leadership. Power. The will to use power. That was what it all came back to. Goals, and the will, and the power to achieve them. And what were Quirk’s goals? To run. To hide. To find safety for herself and these others.

  And what of all the people left behind? What of everyone left to suffer beneath the heel of Diffinax? What about these two farmers, right here, and right now?

  Quirk knew she had the power. She had used it to rip through the Northern Barbican.

  Blood gleamed on the gauntleted fist of the soldier.

  “No,” she said. And then again, louder, “No.” And she felt all the fire in her soul infusing that word. “No,” she said a third time, and she felt the barn quake with it.

  She pulled away from Afrit, strode toward the collapsed barn doors.

  “Quirk!” Afrit called. “What are you doing?”

  Quirk was through the barn doors, was out into the morning sun, its heat flooding her, filling her to overflowing.

  The lead soldier had picked the woman up, ready to deliver a third blow, when one of his men saw Quirk and let out a shout. She could hear the other prisoners bustling behind her, the sounds of swords being pulled from sheaths.

  They wouldn’t be needed.

  The soldiers wheeled to face her.

  And then they burned.

  It was both easier
and harder this time. The fire came to her easily enough. It seemed almost eager to do what she asked of it, to curl around each man, to embrace him. It was a simple thing to light a man on fire like a match. But it was harder too, knowing she could have slipped away. Knowing she could have chosen to be someone who was not this murderer.

  She wasn’t sure how long it took. For a while, individual actions lost their meaning. There was only the flow and weave of the fire, the achievement of her goals.

  And then it was done, and she was on her knees, gasping at the sudden shuttering of the fire. She looked about. And it was a wasteland. Fire had scoured through the group of soldiers. The earth was blackened scar. The twisted corpses of horses that had died screaming. Soldiers had run from the place, living torches. One had crashed into the side of the farmers’ house. Flames licked up one wall. Crops smoldered.

  Everyone was staring. The prisoners. The farmers. Even some of the fucking chickens.

  She stood up. Slowly. And there had been, she supposed, some honesty in what she had just done. Some acknowledgment of the self that she had hidden for so long. And being a mage, being a conduit of flame … it didn’t feel now the way it had when she burned things for Hethren. Because she had burned this world now for her own reasons. For good reasons. For these people. She had burned down a worse world, so that a better one could survive. And she could live with that.

  “There,” she said. To all of them. Because now seemed like a time to be honest. A time for acknowledgments. “That’s who I am. That’s what I am. What I can do. And it’s ugly, and it’s awful, but right now … right here …” She looked about, trying to judge emotions. Fear? Sympathy? Adoration? Hatred? “This is what I thought this situation needed. This is what I had to deal with it. This is everything I have to offer. So if you want me to lead you, that’s what you’re following. I don’t have a plan. I just have a dream of something better. And I don’t know if I can deliver. And I don’t know if it’ll be worth it. And this won’t be the only ugly, shitty thing you’ll see me do. And I’ll probably end up asking the same of you. And I’ll second-guess myself. And I’ll worry. And I’ll be wrong as often as I’m right. But I will fight. I promise you that. Because I’ve got that ability even if I’ve got nothing else left. So I’ll fight Diffinax until he kills me. Which he probably will. And then he’ll probably kill anyone who chooses to follow me.”