Nanya of the Butterflies (Sun Wolf and Starhawk) Page 5

  “We’re all right.” Lord Darvi, supporting Queen Caia on one arm, made a gesture like the King of the Ocean quelling storm-waves: Everything is all right now. Even in his nightshirt – in which, Sun Wolf learned later, he had fled, groggy from Martus’ drugged wine, to his niece’s chamber to defend her – he radiated calm dignity. “The dragon is gone, but alas! My Lord Martus fell in defense of Her Majesty. As for these people—” The movement of his hand took in the Raptor as well as Sun Wolf and the Hawk. “Arrest them, lock them up, and let them speak to no one on pain of death.”

  *

  “Oh, I know crap-frakking well why he’s doing it.” Sun Wolf yanked irritably on the chain that fettered him to the dungeon wall. “Martus is dead, Caia’s a widow, somebody has to have gotten rid of Dragon Number Two, and His Lordship isn’t about to cloud the issue of who gets to marry the bitch next—”

  “You did kill her husband,” pointed out the Hawk.

  “He was trying to murder her! And her scab-sucking uncle…”

  The Raptor, chained on the opposite wall with his bare chest tightly bandaged, grinned, enjoying his cell-mate’s ire hugely. “Looks like Nanya and Martus weren’t the only ones who didn’t want witnesses.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I did ask,” said the Hawk, “if this was any of our business.”

  Sun Wolf sat down on the straw in his corner of the cell, and used some of it to wipe the soles of his feet. The floor was slimy and his boots were at the bottom of the harbor… At least the straw was clean. “Next time I’ll listen to you.”

  A small percentage of a smile flexed one corner of her mouth. “No, you won’t. So was all this—” She turned to the dark, wiry mercenary captain beside whom she was chained, “—Martus’ idea, or Nanya’s?”

  “Oh, Nanya. Martus was as handsome as the gods make men, and a brave man in battle, but he couldn’t figure out how to get the stopper out of a jar. I thought killing the villagers was a little much, though I’ve seen worse sacking towns. But Nanny pointed out there couldn’t be witnesses, or they’d have a full-scale rebellion of the land-chiefs on their hands.”

  “Was Nanya his mistress before he slew the dragon?”

  The Raptor shook his head. “But she didn’t waste much time once he married Caia and settled in town. She’d come to this part of the world a year and a half ago – pretty soon after the Wizard King went to meet his ancestors in Hell. Like I said, her mama’s got a tavern over in Gwenth. She mostly sold love-potions, but it—”

  Starhawk turned her head sharply, at the same moment that Sun Wolf’s quick ears caught the faint jingle and creak of armor, far up the stair that led to the guard-room. The Raptor glanced at him, and seemed to draw together into himself.

  Footfalls in the darkness. Torchlight reflected on the wall. Queen Caia said, with deadly softness, “I don’t care. I will see him die.”

  Caia, Lord Darvi, and two guards appeared in the barred archway that fronted the cell. A guard unlocked the door. His Lordship bent his head a little, to step inside, the Queen holding to his velvet arm.

  In the Megantic kingdoms it was customary for a widow to cut off her hair and its absence did nothing to improve the plump little lady’s appearance. Her black garments made her haggard pallor all the more obvious, and by the look of her eyes she had clearly been weeping. The three prisoners rose to their feet and when Caia would have gone to stand before Sun Wolf, Lord Darvi – with an almost-imperceptible tightening of his grip – held her back. Keep your distance. This one’s still dangerous.

  Glad you think so, you pen-pushing bastard.

  “I do owe you thanks,” said the Queen, as if she’d rather not have admitted the fact.

  “You got a damn particular way of showin’ it.”

  The rosebud mouth hardened and she swallowed – She really loved the s.o.b.

  Were the tears for his death, or his betrayal?

  “Her Majesty is fully cognizant—” His Lordship stepped forward, and the Queen, with a look of gratitude, fell back a half-pace, “—of your heroism last night, as indeed am I. Lord Sun Wolf – War-Lady – you are free to go, and not without suitable recompense, I assure you.”

  One of the guards came into the cell, carrying the fetter keys.

  “But since, in the fall, the child of Martus Dragonslayer will be born, Her Majesty deems it more appropriate that no word of scandal against the child’s father be bandied about in the realm.”

  Sun Wolf opened his mouth to say SCANDAL??? The bastard and his girlfriend had twenty people killed and half your palace burned down trying to kill YOU—and Starhawk kicked him in the ankle. Hard.

  “Thus I’m sure you will understand our request that you depart Ilfagen, and not return. Horses await you in the courtyard. Her Majesty has suggested that a quantity of the teeth, scales, and bones from the dragon originally slain by my Lord Martus be given you, in thanks for saving her life. I am given to understand that these things are valuable and quite costly.”

  Crap. The value of the gift made what Sun Wolf knew he had to do much harder. Frak crap damnation of all the ancestors…

  “Thank you, my lady.” He knew enough protocol to bow to the Queen first, then her uncle. “And my lord. But rather than those, if I might, I would rather ask release for my comrade here.” He nodded toward the Raptor, who looked up in surprise. “He was only doing as he was paid to do, as he would have in war – and if the attempt to take over your kingdom had been war rather than fraud, there’d have been more than twenty people killed. A lot more.”

  “And those we took alive from the villages are being held at a base-camp in the Islands,” added the Raptor. “I will, of course, inform Your Majesty of how to find them—”

  “I have men seeking them already.” The Queen’s flat voice held steady with effort. “You would have taken my ladies-in-waiting to the place also, I daresay, had you succeeded in your capture of the palace… Were they to be the payment for your deeds?”

  “Well—” The mercenary captain looked embarassed. “But any of them will tell you, m’am, that they weren’t harmed…”

  “I have given my orders that you will be hanged in the morning.” She turned back to Sun Wolf and Starhawk. “I owe you my life,” she said, and her voice broke with the tears that suddenly flooded her eyes. “I cannot deny that. But I hope you will understand that I never want to see either of you, ever again.”

  She turned and fled the cell in a dark billow of mourning . Lord Darvi took the fetter keys from the guard, and gestured to the retainers to follow her. The last one stuck the torch into the wall-bracket as they all departed.

  “She was very fond of him,” sighed His Lordship, as he unlocked the iron cuffs from Sun Wolf’s wrists, and Starhawk’s… and the Raptor’s. “She would have given him anything he asked… except power. She will learn, and be twice the King her father was. But you see it wouldn’t do, for anyone to go about saying that the father of the next heir to Ilfagen was less than a hero.”

  “Looking forward to a nice, long regency, are we?”

  “We all have our jobs to do, Captain. Assuring Ilfagen of strong and responsible rulership is mine.”

  “And I suppose—” Starhawk rubbed her wrists, “—that we overpowered you and freed the Raptor in spite of your struggles?”

  “Her Majesty will be very angry about that,” Lord Darvi warned, taking the torch to light the three released prisoners up the dungeon stairs. “I suggest you don’t come back.”

  *

  “At least we didn’t have to fight our way out,” said Starhawk, as they guided their horses over the westward trails to take ship at Oshar. The Raptor had gone north toward Kedwyr, where his troop was waiting for him (there was supposed to be war brewing between that city and Ciselfarge). The moon was sinking, the spring night cold. “And he even gave you a new pair of boots.”

  Sun Wolf growled, though Darvi had given him a sword as well – armory issue – and a couple of daggers. “If His Lord
ship thinks he’s won any favors from the Raptor next time he needs mercenaries, he’s in for a surprise. The Raptor wouldn’t do his own mother a favor, if the other side was offering more.”

  “Serve him right,” said Starhawk cheerfully. As they crossed the stony bed of a little stream where the road mounted into the hills, she drew rein, fished something from her saddlebag, and flung it against one of the boulders. The still night air was momentarily filled with the nostalgic scent of sweet-grass and and the western sea.

  Wise, the Wolf thought. Only the ancestor of mages knew what spells had been entangled in those essences and oils.

  He’d miss it, nevertheless.

  “And serve us right,” she added as they rode on up the moonlit ridge, “for poking around in other peoples’ business. At least you got some dragon-scales out of it, Chief, so it wasn’t a total waste.” Lord Darvi had been ready to take Sun Wolf at his word about trading the Raptor’s life for the undoubtedly-valuable salvage of Martus Dragonslayer’s first kill. There had been a rather undignified haggle in the courtyard.

  “Not a waste at all,” returned the Wolf. “For one thing, I’d way rather have Darvi – may his ancestors rot – in charge of a city the size of Ilfagen rather than Miss Nanya: I think we’ve done this whole section of the world a favor. Think for a minute about what her next little scheme might have been. And I learned all the things that I need to practice this summer, like what you can do with illusion, or with blazing rafters in a burning building… and making perfume. All that’ll come in handy, if I can find anything in the books that tells me how to do it.”

  “Good thing if you do,” agreed the Hawk. “Because I’ll bet you fifteen thousand gold pieces in our next poker-game that before a year is up Darvi’s going to be on our doorstep, offering to hire you as a warrior who can work magic.”

  He shot her a dour glance. “Something else to practice this summer,” he grumbled. “Spells to keep people from finding our place with offers like that.”

  “They’ll figure it out.”

  Sun Wolf heeled his mount sharply in the sides, and quickened to a trot down the dry trail.

  He had the uncomfortable suspicion that the Hawk was right.

  About the Author

  Since her first published fantasy in 1982 - The Time of the Dark - Barbara Hambly has touched most of the bases in genre fiction. She has written mysteries, horror, mainstream historicals, graphic novels, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, romances, and Saturday Morning Cartoons. Born and raised in Southern California, she attended the University of California, Riverside, and spent one year at the University of Bordeaux, France. She married science fiction author George Alec Effinger, and lived part-time in New Orleans for a number of years. In her work as a novelist, she currently concentrates on horror (the Don Simon Ysidro vampire series) and historical whodunnits, the well-reviewed Benjamin January novels, though she has also written another historical whodunnit series under the name of Barbara Hamilton.

  Professor Hambly also teaches History part-time, paints, dances, and trains in martial arts. Follow her on Facebook, and on her blog at livejournal.com.

  Now a widow, she shares a house in Los Angeles with several small carnivores.

  She very much hopes you will enjoy these stories.

  The Further Adventures

  by Barbara Hambly

  The concept of “happily ever after” has always fascinated me.

  Just exactly what happens after, “happily ever after”?

  The hero/heroine gets the person of his/her dreams, and rides off into the sunset with their loved one perched on the back of the horse hanging onto saddlebags stuffed with gold. (It’s a very strong horse.)

  So what happens then? Where do they live? Who does the cooking?

  This was one of the reasons I started writing The Further Adventures.

  The other was that so many of the people who loved the various fantasy series that I wrote for Del Rey in the 1980s and ‘90s, really liked the characters. I liked those characters too, and I missed writing about them.

  Thus, in 2009 I opened a corner of my website and started selling stories about what happened to these characters after the closing credits rolled on the last novel of each series.

  The Darwath series centers on the Keep of Dare, where the survivors of humankind attempt to re-build their world in the face of an ice age winter, after the destruction of civilization by the Dark Ones. Ingold the Wizard is assisted by two stray Southern Californians, Gil Patterson - a historian who is now part of the Keep Guards - and Rudy Solis, in training to be a mage.

  The Unschooled Wizard stories involve the former mighty-thewed barbarian mercenary Sun Wolf, who finds himself unexpectedly endowed with wizardly powers. Because the evil Wizard King sought out and killed every trained wizard a hundred years ago, Sun Wolf has no teacher to instruct him in his powers. With his former second-in-command, the warrior woman Starhawk, he must seek one - and hope whatever wizard he finds isn’t evil, too.

  In the Winterlands tales, scholarly dragonslayer John Aversin and his mageborn partner Jenny Waynest do their best to protect the people of their remote villages from whatever threats come along: dragons, bandits, fae spirits, and occasionally the misguided forces of the distant King.

  Antryg Windrose is the archmage of the Council of Wizards in his own dimension, exiled for misbehavior - meddling in the affairs of the non-mageborn - to Los Angeles in the 1980s (that’s when the novels were written). He lives with a young computer programmer, Joanna Sheraton, and keeps a wary eye on the Void between Universes, to defend this world from whatever might come through.

  Though out of print, all four of these series are available digitally on-line.

  To these have been added short stories about the characters from the Benjamin January historical mystery series, set in New Orleans before the Civil War. As a free man of color, Benjamin has to solve crimes while constantly watching his own back lest he be kidnapped and sold as a slave. New Orleans in the 1830s was that kind of town. In the novels he is assisted by his schoolmistress wife Rose, and his good-for-nothing white buddy Hannibal; two of the four Further Adventures concerning January are in fact about what Rose does while Benjamin is out of town.

  I have always been an enthusiastic fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. Over the years I have been asked to contribute stories to various Sherlock Holmes anthologies, and when the character went into Public Domain, I added these four stories to my collection.

  Quest For Glory is a stand-alone, a short piece I wrote for the program book at a science fiction convention at which I was Guest of Honor.

  Sunrise on Running Water is tenuously connected to the Don Simon Ysidro vampire series, in that Don Simon makes a brief cameo appearance. After seeing the movie Titanic - and reflecting that the doomed ship departed from Ireland after sunset and sank just as dawn was breaking…and that vampires lose their powers over running water - I just had to write it. It’s the only story that’s more about the idea than about the characters.

  The Further Adventures are follow-ons to the main novels of their respective series. They can be read on their own, but the Big Stuff got done in the novels: who these people are, how they met, what the major underlying problems are in their various worlds. I suppose they’re a tribute to the fact that for me - and, it seems, for a lot of fans - these characters are real, and I at least care about what happens to them, and what they do when they’re not saving the world. They’re smaller issues, not world-shakers: puzzle-stories and capers.

  Life goes on.

  Love goes on.

  Everyone continues to have Further Adventures for the rest of their lives.

  *

  Novels in the Sun Wolf Series (out of print but commercially available digitally)

  The Ladies of Mandrigyn

  The Witches of Wenshar

  The Dark Hand of Magic

  Butterflies (Sun Wolf and Starhawk)