Blood of the Emperor (25 page)

Everywhere else was pandemonium. A succession of flags from each of the camps waved in the air, drawing members of that camp toward them and beckoning them to more flags farther on and to their allotted space across the valley floor. Angry shouts punctuated the murmurs of the frantic crowd around Urulani as each member of the pilgrim encampment sought desperately to move toward the flag of their designated camp through a sea of others trying to move in every other direction. This struggling sea of manticores, chimerians, humans, gnomes, and elves was further thrown into disarray by supply wagons and carts struggling to continue forward through the throng and the occasional goblins on wyvernback adding even more confusion as they charged unheeding through the mob, scattering pilgrims in their wake.

Where is the army?
Urulani wondered, biting at her lip.
Where is Drakis?

Something caught her eye.

The green and yellow markings of the dragon were distinctive. Marush craned his great neck skyward near the crest of a hilltop overlooking the valley from the east. Urulani could just make out the tent south of the dragon.

She set her jaw and started pushing through the horde of exhausted and disheartened pilgrims, her eyes fixed all the while on Drakis’ tent.

“We cannot stop now,” Ethis argued. His face was contorted both by fatigue and rage as he planted all four of his fists simultaneously on the map table between them. “We’ve got to press on!”

“How?” growled Gradek, standing on the other side of the table. The manticorian commander swept his massive hand across the map laid between them. “How do we continue? The folds are getting shorter with each transit—the Aether magic of the humans is growing dim with distance. Without time for the Braun sorcerers to recover,
we shall only grow weaker and may find ourselves in the midst of Ephindria without any magic and no means of escaping this place.”

Drakis stood silently at the head of the map table, his arms crossed with his left hand resting over his chin.

“But if we stop, the consequences would be unthinkable,” Ethis urged.

“You mean in contamination of your precious chimerian society?” Gradek snarled.

“I mean for us all,” Ethis responded, his frustration showing in his voice. “Since we have entered Ephindria we have lost members with every transit of the folds.”

“Is there a problem with the folds then?” Jugar asked. The dwarf stood next to Drakis on his left. He was wearing his leather flying doublet but had somewhere found a long strip of crimson with which to form a sash. “Perhaps this magic of Braun is at fault?”

“For the last time, we’re not losing them to the folds,” Ethis asserted. “It’s when we regroup. For the first few transits, it was barely a noticeable problem but in the last three folds alone we have lost nearly a thousand from our company.”

“Lost?” Jugar suggested. “As in misplaced?”

“No! Lost as in having been lured away,” Ethis said. “The sirens have discovered we are here.”

“Sirens?” Gradek sniffed. “They don’t exist!”

“They have always existed,” Ethis responded. “ ‘Siren’ is the name we give to the young and unwary of our race, those who are in that dangerous age between acquiring their shaping ability and learning how to control it. We protect them, shelter them from the outsiders not just for the sake of our young but for the sake of those who fall prey to them. Sirens naturally desire to empathize with those with whom they come in contact but are unable to filter those feelings and thoughts or control their reaction to them. These sirens, through no fault of their own, do everything they can to give or show to those whom they meet the heart’s most secret desire.”

“Well, now, that doesn’t sound so bad,” Jugar observed. “Sounds rather pleasant if you ask me.”

“So everyone is tempted to believe,” Ethis said, his words coming
in a chill voice. “But the granting of these visions and wishes is unrestrained by the sirens. These fulfillments are rarely permanent or real: they are promises without substance. Our experience is that other races are consumed by their desires when they are so freely given but never fulfilled, ensnared by having their own dreams constantly just beyond their reach and ultimately imprisoned or destroyed by their own passions that are never truly sated.”

Gradek drew in a deep breath, his lionlike face grown stoic but horror reflected in his eyes. “A golden curse most terrible! Can we not deploy the army around the encampment…protect the pilgrims from this danger?”

“I tried this in our last three transits,” Ethis said, shaking his head. “We brought half of the army in to establish the forward boundaries of our camp and deployed the other half to guard the rear boundaries on the far side of the folds.”

“And?” Gradek asked.

“And we lost three hundred and seventeen warriors before the folds were closed,” Ethis said, straightening up from the map table. “The shorter the distance between the folds, the sooner the sirens are finding us and encroaching on the encampment. The longer we stay in one place, the more of them will come…and the more we will lose to them.”

“But couldn’t we reason with them?” Jugar asked. “Tell them to leave us alone or strike a bargain with them to go away and leave us in peace?”

You don’t understand,” Ethis said, shaking his head, his face smoothing to its normally blank features. “It isn’t a question of reasoning with them. They already understand that it is the Queen’s command that we be left alone in our journey. But they are drawn to us, nevertheless, and cannot help themselves in their desire to empathize and please us. They do not understand the danger both to us and to themselves. They honestly think they are
helping
you when they lure you to your doom, Jugar.”

“What can we do?” Drakis said.

Everyone around the table was so intent on their discussion that the question startled them.

“The sirens are following us, calling especially those who are tired
and susceptible away from the camps,” Ethis asserted. “The longer we stay anywhere and the shorter the distances of the folds, the worse the problem will become.”

“So we must keep moving,” Drakis nodded grimly.

“This isn’t a trained army that you can force-march for days on end,” Jugar said. “These are families with children and grandmothers. There are supply wagons and livestock to be moved. They’ve gone for three days without stopping. Soon they’ll stop whether we tell them to keep moving or no.”

“Then we need to find a way to lengthen the fold distances,” Drakis observed. “Our Aether is being weakened by the distance. If we had a closer source of Braun Aether—a turned Rhonas Well—could we lengthen our folds and get through Ephindria sooner?”

“Certainly,” Ethis nodded, pointing down to the map of Ephindria on the table before them. The details were necessarily sparse but the settlement was clearly marked. “There is such a Well located here in Shalashei. It is defended by a Centurai of Rhonas warriors but…”

The canvas of the tent rustled noisily.

Ethis looked up from the map table, nothing registering on his neutral face.

Urulani, her leather dragon flight doublet still streaked with mud, pushed through the flap of the command tent, her dark face taut with strain, her eyes bright and shining.

Drakis turned and recognized her. “Urulani! You’ve found us at last. I was beginning to wonder…”

Urulani’s fist slammed into Drakis’ face.

Drakis reeled, falling flat on his back from the fierce blow. Gradek reached instinctively for the hilt of his sword but was suddenly uncertain who to use the blade against.

“
Found
you? I
did
find you but not where you were supposed to be!” the dark woman raged over him, her fist balled up tight, ready to strike again. “I was
supposed
to have found you somewhere on the Shadow Coast! I was
supposed
to have provided you with an open road into Vestasia! I’ve spent the last ten days convincing half the population on the Shadow
and
Thetis Coasts that the Man of Prophecy has returned, that he’s on his way to come and free them from the elven oppressors and now I find you
here
?”

“I know,” Drakis said, raising his hands palm out in surrender. “There were changes…opportunities which…”

“Opportunities?” Urulani snarled. “Opportunities to leave those people on the coast defenseless against the elven Legions?”

“What Legions?” Ethis asked.

“I’ve seen them,” Urulani seethed. “They were outside Port Dog not a day ago. They’re marching northward along the Shadow Coast.”

“That’s good,” Ethis noted.

“Good?” Urulani’s voice nearly broke in her rage.

“Yes,” Ethis continued. “It means they’re moving in the wrong direction.”

“It may be the wrong direction for you,” Urulani countered, “but because I told those port towns about Drakis and his prophetic return, there are now an entirely new group of pilgrims making their way up the coast ahead of those Legions. They’re expecting to join up with the encampment and its marvelous, victorious army! Instead, you’re here in…where is this place?”

“Near the northern boundaries of Hrynth,” Ethis answered.

“Where?”

“Deep within Ephindria,” Ethis replied.

“Well wherever this is, it is
not
where the coastal pilgrims are ever going to find you,” Urulani said. “The elven Legions will overtake them, Drakis! They will murder them, parent and child, unless we do something about it.”

“What do you suggest, Urulani?” Gradek asked in a quiet, thoughtful rumble.

“I don’t know.” Urulani thought. “What about the dwarves? Couldn’t their warriors at least feign an attack at the rear of the Legion? That would at least delay them long enough to…”

“There are no dwarven warriors,” Jugar said.

“But you went…”

“I searched deep within the mountains of Aeria,” Jugar affirmed. “There were no dwarves to be found.”

“Urulani,” Drakis said, slowly standing once more. His voice was heavy. “I’m sorry. Ethis returned with an offer from the Queen of Ephindria and we could not delay in accepting it. If we had followed our original plan—if we had charged toward the coast and Vestasia—
then we would be facing those same Legions ourselves. The Lyric has gone north to see what can be done for your refugees. As it is, our situation here is not much better at the moment than theirs.”

“I gave them my word, Drakis,” Urulani breathed out the words.

“And I’m going to do everything I can to honor that,” Drakis replied. “But to do that we have to take down a city of the elves…and to do
that
, we will need to find a way of surviving the land of our ally.”

A Place Called Home

“D
RAKIS?”

“I think he’s coming around!”

The sounds seemed far away. Drakis was struggling to place them.

“He’s breathing!”
came another voice, its familiarity playing at the edge of his conscious thoughts.
“It’s a miracle of the gods!”

Drakis drew breath painfully into his lungs; he pushed himself to sit up. His cloudy vision cleared.

The rolling hills of grain waved around him in the southern breeze. The sun was just cresting the top of the hill, casting long shadows across the landscape. Great shadowy clouds edged in brilliant salmon colors of the morning drifted through the sky above him. A low-lying mist stretched across the tide pools to the south, rendering the tall reeds in the shallows in shades of blue and gray. House totems lined the path to the east, winding around the hills toward…

Drakis caught his breath, holding it…afraid to let it go lest he should disturb the moment.

“We thought we might have lost you,” purred ChuKang.

Drakis blinked at the enormous manticorian warrior. “Lost me?”

“There was no need to hold off the entire ‘Blade of the West’ on your own,” chuckled Thuri, folding three of his arms across his chimerian chest and gesturing behind him with the fourth. “If Braun hadn’t
extracted us with a fold portal at the end, you might not have made it this far.”