The stinging became unbearable. He twisted his left hand free from his brother’s grasp and punched Gali’s side. Rage grew within him, but he was unable to get free.
Suddenly, his shoulder burned as if it were on fire. There was a strange fizzing sound, and Gali screamed. Kasmir scrambled to his feet as his brother fell backward and rolled off him. Kasmir tore off his shirt and frantically brushed the ants off his skin, where red welts were already showing. He slapped at the burning spot on his shoulder, staring at the strange, twisting design that had appeared on his skin. Then he noticed that Gali wasn’t moving.
His brother lay still in the grass, his face white and his breathing shallow. The outline of Kasmir’s hand stood out gray and dead against the pale skin where he had hit him.
Servants came running, followed by his mother and father. Their visitor stood and stared in shock. They gathered round his fallen brother and took him into the house. Kasmir stayed where he was, rubbing his arm and trying to understand what had just happened. Then his father came and dragged him into the house, and he found himself surrounded by angry, shouting faces.
Kaz Mordan jerked awake, and sat up rubbing his eyes. Outside the window, the blue-gray light of dawn was creeping over the land. They would be in Vedykar soon.
Even with the money he had saved from his pay and bounties, the lightning rail was an indulgence, but it was the quickest way home to Vedykar. He stared out of the window of the steerage cart, ignoring his fellow passengers as they ignored him. He no longer wore the insignia of the Company of the Skull, but his clothing and his demeanor marked him as different from the other good people who rode the rail.
At the back of the cart, a group of dwarves played a game with stone tiles, drinking, betting, and arguing with equal enthusiasm. The other passengers were a cross-section: merchants from Irontown and Vulyar, travelers of indeterminate profession and status, and a single bone knight from Fort Zombie, dressed in his macabre-looking bonecraft armor. He and Mordan had exchanged a nod of professional courtesy when they boarded, but clearly the bone knight wanted to be left alone as much as Mordan did. Some people were overawed by these necromantic warriors, but to Mordan they were no more than herders, controlling Karrnathi undead in battle just as a houndmaster would control a pack of dogs.
Watching the landscape slide past, lit by occasional flares of blue light from the elemental-powered craft, Mordan thought about what the old halfling had told him. He thought about Kasmir ir’Dramon, turning the name over in his mind and trying to get used to the feel of it again. He had been Kaz Mordan of the Company of the Skull for so long that his real name felt strange, like a set of clothes he hadn’t worn for years. His mind went back to the last time he had heard it—after his disgrace at Rekkenmark, when his father had disowned him and banished him from the house.
In particular, he remembered Gali—the golden boy, the son and heir, named for King Galifar, first in his class at the Rekkenmark Academy, the Vedykar Lancer with a shining breastplate. He remembered the smirk of pure satisfaction his brother had worn as he watched their father rage and threaten. Now, Mordan thought, he was going home, where he wasn’t welcome, to check on his brother, who hated him. He wondered if the high and mighty Galifar ir’Dramon would do the same, but deep down he knew the answer.
As the lightning rail got closer to the town, he began to recognize places and landmarks, but they seemed like memories from another life. Disembarking at Vedykar, he found his way to the edge of his family’s estate easily enough, but things had changed in his absence. The well-ordered fields and orchards of his youth were brown and strewn with weeds. The cattle were thinner, and the tenant cottages dirty and in need of rethatching. Like his neighbors, Adalbert ir’Dramon had prided himself on the condition of his estates. Something had changed.
At last, he reached the main gate. It had been designed to impress; the driveway swept between the griffon-topped gateposts, which framed the house perfectly on its low hill. But the gates needed paint, and the griffons were encrusted with lichen and bird droppings. Even the house seemed somehow darker and sadder, hunkering down upon its hill rather than standing proudly atop it. He paused for a moment in the gateway to take in the scene.
“What do you want?”
Mordan started as a harsh voice broke his reverie. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had been able to sneak up on him. He turned to see a stocky man, just past middle age, brandishing a crossbow. As their eyes met, the man’s jaw dropped a little.
“Master Kasmir?” he breathed, lowering the crossbow.
Mordan nodded. A smile somehow didn’t seem appropriate. “Hello, Adrik.”
“You’re back?” The gamekeeper looked uncomfortable at the idea.
“Not for long,” Mordan replied. “I need to see my father.” Adrik scratched his head and stared at his boots.
“You’ll find him changed, Master Kasmir,” he said. “Ever since …”
“Ever since he threw me out?” Kaz suggested.
Adrik shook his head sadly. “No, Master Kasmir, though it has to be said he never was the same after that. No, this is”—he checked himself—“well, it’s not for me to say. Best you hear it from the family. Good day to you, Master Kasmir.” With that, he turned and trudged away along the inside of the wall without looking back.
The other servants reacted in much the same way when Kaz arrived at the house. Many of them looked at him as if he were somehow familiar but they couldn’t put a name to the face. He was leaner and harder than the disgraced cadet hey remembered, and his eyes had acquired the permanent squint of one accustomed to scanning the sun-baked grasslands for enemies. In some eyes he saw disapproval; in others, he thought, a trace of pity. His presence seemed to make everyone uncomfortable. It was understandable, he told himself. He didn’t expect to be welcomed like a returning hero.
Steeling himself, he knocked on the huge door of iron-bound oak. He knew that his father might refuse to see him, and order him off the estate as he had done before. But when Sattel the butler admitted him to the house, his father chanced to be looking down on the hall from the upstairs landing. Kaz noticed how tired he looked, and how old. For an instant the two regarded each other without emotion.
Then, a spark of recognition flashed across the eyes of the elder ir’Dramon, and his face twisted into a mask of rage, Hurling himself down the stairs with an incoherent cry, he flew at his son’s throat.
“Vulture!” he howled, as Sattel tried to drag him off. Have you no respect for our grief?”
Kaz remained still, frightened that he might hurt the old man if he resisted. He tensed the muscles of his neck against his father’s grip but kept his arms passively by his sides.
The disturbance brought several other servants running, and they helped Sattel restrain their master, finally helping him to a tall-backed chair that stood against the staircase. He trembled with a mixture of rage and exhaustion, spewing curses at his son.
“Adalbert?” Kaz recognized his mother’s voice before she came out of the drawing-room. “Whatever … ?” Her voice trailed off as she saw Kaz. For a moment he thought she was going to cry—she had been crying the last time he saw her—but she took control of herself with a visible effort.