The Chernagor Pirates Read Free Page A

perfect countenance showed no emotion. Rage rippled over it now, though. “After yours, their turn shall come,” he snarled. “You need not doubt that. Oh, no, do not doubt it. Their turn shall come.”
    He reached for Lanius, the nails on his fingers sharpening into talons as his hands drew near. As one will in dreams, Lanius turned to flee. As one will in dreams, he knew he fled too slow. He looked back to see how much danger he was in. The Banished One, apparently, could make his arms as long as he chose. His hand closed on the shoulder of the King of Avornis.
    Lanius shrieked himself awake.
    â€œAre you all right?” The hand on his shoulder belonged to his wife. Even in the dim light of the royal bedchamber, Sosia looked alarmed. “I haven’t heard you make a noise like that in …” Grus’ daughter shook her head. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you make a noise like that.”
    â€œBad dream,” Lanius said.
    He would have left it there. He didn’t want to worry Sosia. Grus had arranged the marriage—forced it on both of them, in other words. The new king wanted to tie himself to Avornis’ ancient dynasty as closely as he could. In their seven years of marriage, though, Lanius and Sosia had come to care for each other as much as a married couple could reasonably be expected to do—which was, perhaps, more than anything else, a triumph of good manners and patience on both sides.
    Sosia shook her head. Her dark, wavy hair, down for the night, brushed across his face. “That wasn’t any ordinary dream,” she said. “You don’t have dreams like that—nightmares, I should say. Did you see … him?”
    She didn’t even want to call him the Banished One. She didn’t know the name Milvago, or what the Banished One had been before his ouster from the heavens. So far as Lanius knew, only he and Grus knew that. Grus had told him not to tell anyone—not his wife, who was Grus’ daughter, and not the Arch-Hallow of Avornis, who was Grus’ bastard son. Lanius hadn’t argued. He too could see that the fewer people who knew about exactly what sort of enemy Avornis faced, the better.
    After his scream, he couldn’t very well lie to Sosia. “Yes, I saw him,” he said with a reluctant nod.
    â€œWhy doesn’t he leave you alone?” She sounded indignant, as though, could she have been alone with the Banished One, she would have given him a piece of her mind. She probably would have, too.
    â€œHe sends me dreams. He sends your father dreams. He doesn’t bother other people—General Hirundo never gets them, for instance,” Lanius said. The Banished One didn’t trouble Sosia, either, but Lanius forbore to mention that.
    His wife sounded more irate than ever. “He should bother other people, and leave you alone.”
    But Lanius shook his head. “In an odd way, I think it’s a compliment,” he said. “He knows your father and I are dangerous to him, so we’re the ones he visits in dreams. That’s what we think, anyhow.”
    Maybe we’re giving ourselves too much credit, he thought. Could he and Grus—could any mortals—seriously discommode the Banished One? On days when Lanius felt gloomy, he had his doubts. But why had thralls under the Banished One’s will tried to murder the two Kings of Avornis the winter before, if those kings didn’t represent some kind of danger?
    Sosia said, “What I think is, you ought to go back to sleep, and hope no more bad dreams come. And if they don’t, you can worry about all these things in the morning, when you feel better.”
    Lanius leaned over and kissed her. “That’s good advice,” he said. In fact, he could think of no better advice for the wee small hours of the morning. He took it, and the Banished One left him alone … then.
    King Grus and the man he hoped