After the Downfall

“None of your business,” Hasso said sweetly.

“Gotta be a broad,” Sca

“Shut up and piss off,” Hasso said, more sweetly still. Sca

“Take it easy. If I pull out my sword, you’re dead,” Sca

“If you pull out your sword, I shove it up your ass,” Hasso told him.

Sca

Hasso’s hand clamped down on his wrist. Sca

“I’ll kill you for that!” Sca

As his hand flashed to the hilt of his sword again, Hasso kicked him in the wrist. He didn’t know whether he broke it or not. He didn’t much care, either, though he wouldn’t have been surprised. Sca

“Don’t mess with me.” Hasso stood over him, breathing hard. “Don’t even think about messing with me. You mess with me, I make you sorry you were ever born. Then I set a spell on you and make you wish you were dead.”

Sca

“Ha!” Hasso laughed harshly. “I tear off your stupid dragon-bone amulet, and then I cast my spell.”

His mouth was ru

“Fuck me,” he said in German. “Oh, son of a bitch. Fuck me.”

“What are those fu

“Never mind.” Hasso stepped away from him. If Sca

Sca

Hasso knew the way to Lavtrig’s chapel. It boasted more fancy decoration than the one in Castle Drammen dedicated to the goddess. That only made him surer he’d got it right before: the less a deity actually did, the more ornament he or she needed to disguise that laziness.

Drepteaza was lighting a silver lamp in front of a gilded statue of the chief Bucovinan god when Hasso walked in. (He thought the statue was gilded, anyhow; it might have been solid gold.) What burned in the lamp smelled of perfume and, under that, hot lard. The priestess glanced up in surprise. “Good morning, Hasso. What is it?” After a moment, she added, “By the look on your face, it must be something important.”

“You might say so. Yes, you just might.” Hasso nodded emphatically. “We need to talk – right now.”

Her mouth tightened. “Are you sure? Or will it only cause more trouble and pain than it eases?”

“It will cause trouble and pain, all right – for the Lenelli,” Hasso answered.

“Then I will listen,” Drepteaza said at once. “Can we talk here, or do you need to go someplace where no one else can listen?”

He looked around. A couple of other Bucovinan priests, of rank lower than hers, were puttering around in there. “It doesn’t matter. They can hear. I think I know why magic doesn’t work so well around Falticeni. I think I can make it so Lenello magic doesn’t bite on Grenye most of the time. Not always, I suspect, but most of the time.”

Her eyes widened. The way she looked at him … It might almost have been the way a lover eyed her beloved. Almost, but not quite. Hasso made himself not think about that. It didn’t matter, not for this. “Well, you’ve got me interested,” Drepteaza said. “Tell me more.”

“I do that,” Hasso said. “In this palace, you have the tooth of a dragon.”

“Yes. It is a treasure. And so?”

“Under the walls here, you have more bones of this dragon, right?”

“Of course we do. We are proud that we managed to kill it. We are lucky that we killed it, too. If we hadn’t, it could have wrecked Falticeni worse than the Lenelli might.”

“Ja.” All Hasso had seen of the late, unlamented dragon was that one fang, but it was plenty to convince him. “You know that magic does not bite on Sca

“I have heard it, yes,” Drepteaza said. “I don’t know for myself that it’s true, but I have no reason to doubt it.”

“It’s true. I see – I saw – it for myself. It drove Aderno crazy, trying to figure out why his spell wouldn’t work.” Hasso remembered how the wizard had experimented on a Grenye woman to find out, too. He didn’t say anything about that to Drepteaza. Instead, he went on, “Sca

He wondered if she would make the co

By the standards of this world, Drepteaza was an educated woman. By the standards of any world, she was a bright woman. All the same, the frown that crossed her face said she didn’t get it right away. And then, all at once, she did.

It was like watching the sun come out from behind clouds. “You think dragon bones block spells,” she whispered.

“That’s right,” Hasso said. “That’s just what I think. If all of Lord Zgomot’s soldiers have amulets, if their horses have them, if my pots of gunpowder have them, too … If that happens, the Lenelli have to fight fair.”

“Fight fair.” Drepteaza went on whispering while she echoed him. “That’s all we ever dreamt of, since they first came across the ocean and landed on our shores. It would be so wonderful.”

“Would be?” Now Hasso echoed her.

As she nodded, the sunshine that blazed from her face faded once more. “We are missing only one thing: dragon bones enough to make the amulets we need. There aren’t many dragons, and the ones there are live far to the north. They’re hard to find, and even harder to kill. Men don’t just hunt dragons. Dragons hunt men, too, and they win more often than we do.”

“Somewhere in Bottero’s realm lies skeleton of a dead dragon,” Hasso said. “Sca

Drepteaza stared at him. He watched the sun come out on her face again. “If you are right,” she said, “you know what this will do to the Lenelli?”

“I hope I do,” Hasso answered. “I want dragon-bone amulet, too.” So far, his own little spell was holding its own against Aderno and Velona. Here in Falticeni – which also had dragon-bone amulets of a sort – he could believe it would go on holding. If he headed west again? He wasn’t sure what would happen then. He wasn’t anxious to find out, either.

“Does Sca

“He … may.” Hasso explained how he’d brawled with the renegade, and the thoughts the brawl called to mind.