The Demon King. Cinda Williams Chima

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СКАЧАТЬ among them was named the High Wizard, adviser and magical enforcer of the queen of the Fells.

      “Stay away from wizards,” Mam always said. “You don’t want to be noticed by such as them. Get too close, and you might get burnt alive or turned into something foul and unholy. Common folk are like dirt under their feet.”

      Like anything forbidden, wizards fascinated Han, but this was one rule he’d never had a chance to break. Charmcasters weren’t allowed in the Spirit Mountains, except to their council house on Gray Lady, overlooking the Vale. Nor would they venture into Ragmarket, the gritty Fellsmarch neighborhood Han called home. If they needed something from the markets, they sent servants to purchase it.

      In this way, the three peoples of the Fells achieved a tenuous peace: the wizards of the Northern Isles, the Valefolk of the valley, and upland clan.

      As the riders drew closer to their hiding place, Han studied them avidly. The charmcaster in the lead had straight black hair that swept back from a widow’s peak and hung to his shoulders. He wore multiple rings on his long fingers, and an intricately carved pendant hung from a heavy chain around his neck. No doubt it was some kind of powerful amulet.

      His stoles were emblazoned with silver falcons, claws extended in attack. Silver falcons, Han thought. That must be the emblem of his wizard house.

      The other two were ginger-haired, with identical broad flat noses and snarling fellscats on their stoles. Han assumed they were brothers or cousins. They rode a little behind the black-haired wizard, and seemed to defer to him. They wore no amulets that Han could see.

      Han would have been content to remain hidden and watch them ride by, but Dancer had other ideas. He erupted from the shadow of the rocks, practically under the hooves of the horses, spooking them so the three riders had to fight to keep their seats.

      “I am Fire Dancer,” Dancer proclaimed loudly in the Common speech, “of Marisa Pines Camp.” He skipped right over the ritual welcome of the traveler and cut into the meat. “This camp demands to know who you are and what wizards are doing on Hanalea, as is forbidden by the Naéming.” Dancer stood tall, his hands fisted at his sides, but he seemed small next to the three strangers on their horses.

      What’s come over Dancer? Han wondered, reluctantly emerging from his hiding place to stand beside his friend. He didn’t like that the charmcasters were trespassing on their hunting ground either, but he was savvy enough not to go up against hex magic.

      The black-haired boy glared down at Dancer, then flinched, his black eyes widening in surprise before he resumed his cool disdainful expression.

      Does he know Dancer? Han looked from one to the other. Dancer didn’t seem to know him.

      Even though Han was taller than Dancer, the wizards’ gazes seemed to flow over him like water over a rock, and then back to his friend. Han looked down at his mud-stained deerskin leggings and Ragmarket shirt, envying the strangers’ finery. He felt invisible. Insignificant.

      Dancer wasn’t cowed by charmcasters. “I asked your names,” he said. He gestured toward the retreating flames. “That looks like wizard flame to me.”

      How does Dancer know what wizard flame looks like? Han wondered. Or is he just bluffing?

      The boy with the falcon signet glanced at the others, as if debating whether to respond. Getting no help from his friends, he turned back to Dancer. “I’m Micah Bayar, of Aerie House,” he said, as if his very name would put them on their knees. “We’re here on the queen’s orders. Queen Marianna and the Princesses Raisa and Mellony are hunting in the Vale below. We’re driving the deer down to meet them.”

      “The queen ordered you to set fire to the mountain so she could have a good day’s hunting?” Dancer shook his head in disbelief.

      “I said so, didn’t I?” Something in the wizard’s expression told Han he wasn’t being exactly truthful.

      “The deer don’t belong to the queen,” Han said. “We’ve as much right to hunt them as she does.”

      “Anyway, you’re underage,” Dancer said. “You’re not allowed to use magic. Nor carry an amulet.” He pointed to the jewel at Bayar’s neck.

      How does Dancer know that? Han thought. He himself knew nothing of wizards’ rules.

      Dancer must’ve struck a nerve, because Bayar glared at him. “That’s wizard business,” the charmcaster said. “And no concern of yours.”

      “Well, Micah Jinxflinger,” Dancer said, now resorting to the clan insult for wizards, “if Queen Marianna wants to hunt deer in summer, she can come up into the high country after them. As she always has.”

      Bayar raised black eyebrows. “Where she can sleep on a dirt floor shoulder to shoulder with a dozen filthy kinsmen and go a week without a hot bath and come home stinking of wood smoke and sweat with a case of the night itches?” He snorted with laughter, and his friends followed suit. “I don’t blame her for preferring the accommodations in the Vale.”

      He doesn’t know anything, Han thought, recalling the cozy lodges with their sleeping benches, the songs and stories told around the fire, the shared feasts from the common pot. So many nights he’d fallen asleep under furs and clan-made blankets with the thread of the old songs winding through his dreams. Han wasn’t clan, but he often wished he was. It was the one place he’d ever felt at home. The one place he didn’t feel like he was clinging on by his fingernails.

      “Princess Raisa was fostered at Demonai Camp for three years,” Dancer said, his chin thrust out stubbornly.

      “The princess’s clan-bred father has some archaic ideas,” Bayar replied, and his companions laughed again. “Me, I wouldn’t want to marry a girl who’d spent time in the camps. I’d be afraid she’d been ruined.”

      Suddenly Dancer’s knife was in his hand. “Repeat that, jinxflinger?” Dancer said, his voice cold as the Dyrnnewater.

      Bayar jerked hard on his reins, and his horse stepped back, putting more distance between Bayar and Dancer.

      “I’d say women have more to fear from jinxflingers than from anyone in the camps,” Dancer went on.

      His heart accelerating, Han stepped up beside Dancer and put his hand on the hilt of his own knife, careful not to get in the way of Dancer’s throwing arm. Dancer was quick on his feet and good with a blade. But a blade against magic? Even two blades?

      “Relax, copperhead.” Bayar licked his lips, his eyes fixed on Dancer’s knife. “Here’s the thing. My father says that girls who go to the camps come back proud and opinionated and difficult to manage. That’s all.” He smirked as if it were a joke they could all share.

      Dancer did not smile. “Are you saying that the blooded heir to the throne of the Fells needs to be…managed?”

      “Dancer,” Han said, but Dancer dismissed his warning with a shake of his head.

      Han sized up the three wizards as he would his opponents in any street fight. All three carried heavy elaborate swords that hadn’t seen much use. Get them down off their horses, there’s the thing, he thought. A quick slash to the cinch strap would do the trick. Get in close where their swords wouldn’t do much good. Take out Bayar, and the others will cut СКАЧАТЬ