The Dragon Round (Dragon #1)(76)

“I’m looking for peace.”

“So am I,” Herse said, “but I’m willing to fight for it.” Herse pushed past them and left the tower.

“I’ll find Omer,” Ject said. “And we will prove him wrong.”

Ject didn’t say anything else on the way downhill, tapping the pocket with his paper instead, until they found the street blocked by a group of tanners. They were arguing loudly about the best way to give Ayden its due. They reeked of urine. One said to Livion, “Hey, hero, if you don’t want to fight, why don’t you leave?”

“Ravis,” Ject said, pointing at him. Ravis pinned the tanner’s arms and marched him to the general. Ject said, “You’re Strig.”

The man said nothing.

“Of course you are,” Ject said. “I can’t forget a face, and how could anyone forget yours, however much you’ve damaged it? What was it, ten years ago, you thought you could outrun me? No, eleven. How’s your sister?”

Strig continued to say nothing.

“I hear of her from time to time,” Ject said. “Nice girl. Hard worker. It’d be a shame if she was brought in because of something you did.”

This got the man’s attention.

Ject opened his hand. Ravis released Strig. “When you see her, let her know I’m thinking of her,” Ject said.

“I’ll be thinking of you,” Strig said. “You’re as bad as the hero here. Waves fall, though, when others rise.” His friends dragged him away before he could say more.

The people looking on might have approved Ject’s actions, except they were too afraid to be seen looking on.

Past the boulevard leading to Brimurray, Livion noticed his okono vendor’s cart was gone, despite it being lunchtime. Near its place a cart full of apples had gotten one wheel wedged in the gutter. The driver asked several people passing by for help, but none had the time.

Ject ordered his men to pull the cart free. They made short work of it. Then they perked themselves with several bags of fruit. Ject chose his own apple, fat and pink, crispy and sweet. “This is what I’m fighting for,” he said. “The simple give-and-take of public service. Why disrupt a perfect system?”

Night has the horizon in its clutches. Livion would get a room at the Round if he could bear the eyes and unspoken questions. Instead he bars the door, sits on the couch, and flops his head back.

A scream wakes him up.





6




* * *



A scream in the Harbor at night is not unusual, nor is a person yelling at the screamer to shut up. When he hears guards blowing horns, he gets up, closes his windows, and lies on the floor. The rug is more comfortable than the couch. He falls back asleep.

Felic rings the ship’s bell Livion keeps on a shelf to announce the morning. He brings in a basin of water, a cloth, and a small pot of soap, then leaves to get him some breakfast. This isn’t the first time Livion’s spent the night in his office, although usually it’s paperwork that keeps him and he wakes at his desk. Felic returns with a green stirrup of coffee from the Round, an okono, and Ravis.

Ravis says, “It’s urgent.”

“So I brought him straight up,” Felic says.

Livion, having washed up and tucked himself together, pours coffee into a bowl. “Have you found Omer?” he says.

Felic shakes his head.

Ravis says, “The general wants you at South.” The wall around the Upper City has five sides; four named after the directions they roughly face and “Gate” in the middle, named after its centerpiece. The city guard’s headquarters buttress the south wall.

Livion unwraps his okono. Crab. “Why?” he says, and takes a healthy bite for appearances.

Ravis says, “I’ll take you. He’ll explain.”

Livion puts down his okono and drains his bowl. The coffee doesn’t wash away the crab. He follows Ravis past Felic, realizing that the casual observer might think he’d abandoned the Shield. Given the threat he felt yesterday, he’s grateful for the xiphos hanging beneath Ravis’s arm.

Unlike most of the buildings uphill in Hanosh, which are faced with stucco, whitewashed, and roofed with blue tile, South is a broad stone structure built out of the gray granite wall itself. Ravis leads Livion to a side door. Two guards outside recognize him and knock. A guard inside looks through a wicket, bars are removed on both sides, and the door is opened. Beyond an antechamber and a door made of iron bars, stone stairs plunge beneath the Upper City. Livion follows Ravis. The door guard locks and bars the exterior door, then unlocks the inside door. Ravis takes a lantern from the wall and starts down.

Livion doesn’t. He says, “Why aren’t we going in the front?”

“The general will meet us at the cells,” Ravis says.

“Keep moving,” the door guard says. “Can’t keep the door open all day.”

This doesn’t feel right.

“Afraid of the stench?” the door guard says. “It’ll get worse below, but after a few minutes you won’t even smell it. Your partner will, though. Tougher to get out of your clothes than blood.” He laughs. “Go.”

Livion can’t see how he could refuse. He descends.

The stairs turn twice before entering a vaulted room with a damp flagstone floor. Ravis says, “We’ll wait here” and sets the lantern on a small table beside, unbelievably, the remnants of someone’s breakfast. Boiled rat, which a live rat is gorging itself on. The lantern doesn’t concern it. Livion is regretting that one bite of okono.