Gold, Ice and Steel by Daniel Gibbs (best book club books .txt) 📖

As the sun rose over the city of Dragontower, the people woke with a sense of anticipation and childlike excitement. The bright star’s light was misleading; the sixteen soaring towers of the city were still glistening with winter frost. But the months of cold were finally coming to an end, as the vast, war-torn lands of the March eased into spring. The tallest of the cities towers, a magnificent spire as dark as ebony that shot over nine-hundred feet into the sky, was awash in the hurried workings of a hundred builders and servants. By midday, the wide stone courtyard beneath the Black Horn had disappeared beneath a sea of men and women, surrounding a long, hastily erected tilt, eager to celebrate the coming of spring with a tournament like none before. The ruler of the city was an aged despot, a wilful barbarous demagogue who styled himself the Dragon King, and his ability to organize a bloodthirsty spectacle was renowned.
The inn that overlooked the courtyard was all but abandoned, save for a single attendant, which suited Eyssalin’s needs perfectly. He did not wish to be distracted on that day. The room was all but bare, save for a straw mattress in one corner and a half rotten cupboard across from it. Eyssalin swung the creaking door shut behind him, and swiftly strode to the wide window that overlooked the tournament. He was not a young man, almost thirty years of age, but his turquoise eyes still darted across the courtyard with the attentiveness of a serpent. Eyssalin’s face was narrow and pale, with high cheek bones and an aquiline nose. Across his thin but tall frame he had wrapped a long cloak of rough wool, dyed as black as night. All the better to hide his true identity from those who would hinder him on his mission. He could not risk making any mistakes.
A thin smile twisted across his lips as he observed the ensuing festivities below him. The ordinary folk of Dragontower, the richest in the March, clamoured for a view as mail-clad knights thundered towards each other on heaving black destriers. Like clockwork, their thin, wooden lances would burst into splinters against shields and flesh, often leaving one steel armoured knight standing triumphant in his saddle and another sprawled and bruised on the cobblestones.
Away from this, more curious fancies bared their heads to entertain and bemuse passers-by. Rotund, grey-bearded Pyromancers, draped in red kaftans, spat columns of flickering fire into the sky to the delight and terror of hundreds. Few had the sense to realise it was nought but an illusion. But far off, directly in the looming shadow of the Black Horn, was a squat wooden pavilion, decorated with only two wooden chairs and four spearmen, clad in black armour from head to toe. There sat Eyssalin’s prize. On one chair sat a bull of a man, only a few years Eyssalin’s senior. A brute and a dimwit, who cheered raucously whenever a knight was sent tumbling from his saddle. Next to him sat one who looked almost his twin, had he been only a few decades younger. His sharp face was creased and anxious, and his lank, thinning grey hair was half hidden by a slim circlet of gold. A costly extravagance, the crown was shaped as two scaled dragons entwined, with their ruby eyes alight with fury. The aged figure of Ayrlin, the Dragon King.
Eyssalin jumped to his feet as a fist knocked on the door behind him. Instinctively, his ghostly fingers rested upon the golden pommel of his sword, hidden beneath his robe. The sword would have been enough to give him away; its hilt took the form of a single wyvern, carved in gold. One wing, stretched into the air as if to take flight, formed the cross guard, and a golden head roared defiance across from it. If Ayrlin had somehow caught wind of his plans, Eyssalin would not give himself up easily.
A sudden crash from outside shocked him into movement, and he padded swiftly to the window. Nothing had occurred of any note; merely one of the heavy set warhorses had tripped and fallen through the barrier of the tilt. Eyssalin exhaled coolly, trying to steady his nerves.
“I am sorry to disturb you, sire, but I bring urgent… advice.”
Eyssalin whirled around with the Wyrmsword bared afresh in his grip. The visitor was a woman, only a head shorter than him, with skin the shade of burnished bronze. She was clothed in a long grey robe of rough cotton that clung tight to her slender frame. Her almond-eyes were impossibly dark: as dark as the oiled-back hair that rolled to the base of her shoulders. At the sight of the blade, her full lips twitched into a smirk. “I apologize if I worried you so much…”
Eyssalin cursed his impetuousness, and returned the blade to it’s leather bound home. “Do not presume to mock me, woman.” he snapped, “Your gender will not save you if you continue to insult me.”
The messenger swallowed nervously, and shut her eyes as she spoke, all previous bravery forgotten. Her words were clearly not her own, for the flatness with which she recited them. “I apologize once more for the disturbance. My mistress would offer her services to this kingdom, and she feels that you would be her safest option. She wishes to offer congratulations to you. She has seen your victory to come today, Eyssalin, Prince of Dragontower.”
Eyssalin frowned, but he could barely suppress his surprise. The girl’s accent was one of the thickest he had ever heard, tinted heavily with the rolls and lilting song of the lands beyond the Western Sea, and he had never come into such close contact with one of those foreigners to explain her instant recognition of him. Heedless, he continued his ingress. “And what can ‘your mistress’ offer me? I have no need of aid at the moment.”
The messenger gritted her teeth at his venomous tone. Strange. She seems very defensive of her Mistress.

“No, not at the moment. But she has seen and heard more than you know. You will have need of her powers soon enough.”
“Her powers? What force can this woman empower that I cannot?”
The Messenger smiled proudly. “My mistress has no need to command men and armies like you do. Not when she has the power to control fire itself.”
Eyssalin chuckled incredulously. “A Pyromancer? Seriously?” He led the bronze Westerner over to the wide window, and directed her gaze to the red-robed gluttons on the outskirts of the courtyard in the shade of the Black Horn. “Those claim to control flames, but that is nothing more than an illusionist’s farce. Your beloved Mistress is of no more use to me than a juggler or a jester.”
“Perhaps here, these false magicians are ridiculed. But in the west, we have those who can truly manipulate and even summon flames from air. Some also have the power to see into the morrow. It is in the future that you will have need of her abilities.”
And still she will tell me nothing of the threats I will supposedly face. This western whore is playing me for a fool, surely.

The Prince of Dragontower scowled. If the threat was supposedly so great, he had to take the risk on the Pyromancer. And after all, it could not hurt him to err on the side of caution for once. “Where is your Mistress now, then?”
The messenger bit her lip, trying frantically to remember. “We…She has been living in the Kingdom of Godsport for the last two months. She wished to stay there in case you refused her.”
Eyssalin nodded to himself. Godsport was hundreds of miles away, far enough to keep both the messenger and her mistress hidden in the turbulent times to come. “Good. Tell her to remain there for a few months, maybe even a year, until I tell her it is safe for her to settle here. Now, leave me. I cannot risk missing this opportunity.”
The grey-clad messenger turned to leave with light, dancer’s footsteps, until she remembered something. Her bronze fingers fumbled at a slim, leather cask at her belt. “Before I go, my Mistress wished for me to give you this, as a token of her esteem.”
Eyssalin grasped the cask, and filled a small, clay goblet with the liquid inside. As he poured it all out, the strange fluid had the colour of an exceptionally dark wine, and yet there was something odd about it. The stench of it caught Eyssalin as especially curious; the faint but coppery odour of blood. As the goblet filled with the viscous red, a faint crimson vapour sublimed off of its thick surface.
“What is this?” His time was running out, so he could not waste time with false niceties.
“It is lirum, the blood of the beast your people call the Manticore. It is the key to my Mistress’ power, and she would wish to bestow such a gift unto you.”
Eyssalin raised the cup of blood to his lips as the Western girl disappeared with neither word nor second-glance. The lirum smelled so strongly it was revolting, but Eyssalin was too proud for that to put him off. Without a thought, he gulped down the hot blood in three short bursts. The Dragon Prince felt no different for a heartbeat or two, but then the change hit him. First, the tips of his fingers began to tingle in tune with a fresh burning in his throat. Almost as one, the heat flared up his arms and through his chest, racking his entire body with agony. Eyssalin doubled over as the heat reached his stomach, and his legs soon buckled under the pain. His mind blurred and swam, and he did not even notice as he fell to the ground.
As swiftly as the flaring fire had shot through him, it subsided. Eyssalin rose warily, his whole body now surging with energy impossible to comprehend. His head still throbbed, but almost by instinct, he strode to the window, the Wyrmsword’s golden pommel gripped tight in his fist. The long tilt in the courtyard’s centre was begin demolished in preparation for Ayrlin’s speech. Eyssalin smirked, watching as his elder brother, Gurylin, japed with his father. The aged King guffawed loudly. Joke while you can, dear father. Your time has come.

Eyssalin appeared before his father like a phantom, bursting from the crowd before his aged King could even bat an eyelid. The Dragon King creased his already wrinkled forehead into a scowl.
“Eyssalin, I believe you have forgotten our agreement.” boomed Ayrlin, shaking with rage, “Do not force me to send my guards against you.”
“And it appears my little brother has the audacity to wear his stolen sword before me,” snarled Gurylin, “Have you no sense?”
Paying no heed to his threats, Eyssalin dropped to one knee. “I am deeply regretful for my insults against you, my father and King,” recited Eyssalin with all the false remorse and humility he could muster, “If you would accept me back into your realm,