Cyrion (17 page)

Ribbons of bright fuchsia.

They waited a few moments after the band of goblins faded from view before rising from behind the bushes.

“What was that?” Saul asked.

“They’re leading those children somewhere,” Jon said. “Where?”

“And you recognize at least one of them,” Anya said.

G’hanjl nodded. “Is my youngest sister.” He reached into his pockets then produced a small, stoppered clay vial and several squares of tattered fabric. He opened the vial and shook a drop of evil-smelling muck onto each square of fabric.

“G’hanjl is not to be knowing where they go. D’hadhii say they offering to goblin gods.” He gave one handkerchief to each of them. “All G’hanjl know is they leave as children. They come back as bones. No one knows more than that.”

Jon felt a wave of sympathy, followed by cold fury, rush through him.
Anya.

“We’ll stop this,” Anya said. “We’ll get you away and stop this.”

Jon studied Anya’s stony face. “You suspect something, don’t you?”

Anya waved her hands at their surroundings. “All this? All the magic required to create and sustain this…this…frivolous nonsense? Well, it requires energy. A lot of energy. Life force energy. Notice how they were all children?” Her face twisted with a combination of disgust and rage. She turned to G’hanjl. “You were right. They are going to eat your sister. To eat all of them. They will suck all the life force out of them. The way they sucked the life out of that puppy. And they will use their life force to feed this…stupid vanity!”

Jon caught the panic on Saul’s face. They both remembered the time when she nearly lost her temper.

“Anya,” Jon said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “I understand your reaction, and I agree. But this is, perhaps, not the best time for a showdown?”

“Yeah,” Saul said. “Let’s just get to where we are supposed to go and get the Ha’rani out. Then they’ll have to stop, right?”

“Fat Watchers to be right,
MataPerak,”
G’hanjl said. “We needs to be going now.” He motioned to the square of handkerchief he gave her. “Use good medicine G’hanjl gave you. After that, we go.”

“What are we supposed to do with this?” Saul held up one corner of his handkerchief with a thumb and forefinger.

“You breathe in.” G’hanjl then demonstrated its use. “Good medicine.”

Saul started to mimic G’hanjl, and then reared away from the foul-smelling rag.

“This smells awful,” Saul said, between bouts of gagging and dry-heaves. “What is it?”

“Dog liver,” G’hanjl said, his voice muffled under his handkerchief. “Five months dead. At least.”

Anya tied the fabric around her head, covering her nose and mouth. “It counteracts the spell of euphoria in the air. Stop complaining and just do it.”

With reluctance, Jon tied the fabric around his head, as Anya did, and motioned at Saul to do the same. After the few moments it took for his sense of smell to shut down, he noted a change in himself. A marked decrease in the giddy euphoria that earlier tempted him to cartwheel alongside Saul. He glanced at Saul and saw a new sobriety in his friend’s blue-grey eyes.

“Better?” G’hanjl said.

The boys nodded.

“See? Good medicine.” G’hanjl returned the vial to his pockets. “Come. We go.”

GENERAL D’HOREK

General D’horek stood up from his chair and looked out of his second floor study window to the street in front of his palatial home. His large, callused hands rested on his desk, currently littered with official correspondence and confidential reports. He sighed, unable to stop his attention drift from the street outside back to the useless stack of notarized pedigree papers.

Yes. That.

He sighed again, and forced himself to study the scene outside his window. A Ha’rani, polishing the brass gate of the cemetery across the way, had his cleaning supplies strewn too close to the middle of the sidewalk. D’horek gave a small
tch
of annoyance.
There’s an accident waiting to happen
. He briefly considered sending a servant out to warn the Ha’rani, and then dismissed the notion as sentimental nonsense.

They need to learn. No sense coddling them.

He returned to frowning at the piles of pedigree papers of eligible females. Giving in to the inevitable, he sat down and pulled papers toward him yet again. So close. He was so close to earning the right to breed another child. A child of the D’hadhu caste.
A son
. It would have been a son. He knew, in his soul, it would have been a son. A son to inherit everything. A son to carry on the name and proud traditions of his family.

His hand clenched into a massive fist and slammed into the cherry wood desk.
The fool D’hibuk. To be outwitted by a human. And an immature human, at that.

D’horek rose from his chair and paced the study. Not only did the
MataPerak
slip his grasp, she fell into the hands of the Watchers.
Blast D’hibuk to all the hounds of Hell.
The Watchers, of all people. Our most ancient and hated enemy.
They would never let her go. He would never have this chance again.

And he would never have a son.

Sounds came. A disturbance outside his manse. D’horek glanced out the window.
Tch.
A pair of D’hadhii stepped over a dying Ha’rani.
See what happens when you coddle them? They forget their place, get themselves killed, and leave a mess while the work remains undone.

Annoyed, D’horek stalked to the mantle above the fireplace next to his desk and reached for an ornate silver bell. He shook it gently, twice. Hurried footsteps from behind the closed study door, muffled by the costly carpet on the stone floor. A discreet knock, followed by the entrance of a subservient Ha’rani, ready to take orders. Orders given to clean up the mess across the street and the gate. No reason D’horek had to stare at a dirty gate because some fool Ha’rani was too stupid to stay alive and do his job.

He turned away, ready to dismiss the Ha’rani, when more urgent murmurs reached his ears. A visitor, a
special
visitor, awaited his pleasure. D’horek ordered the caller to be shown in after ten minutes. Murmurs of assent, then the gentle
snick
of the study door closing.

Which one is he?

D’horek sat in his chair and took the time to compose himself.

Another discreet knock, a supplicant appeared. A familiar supplicant. With a pinched face, rags for clothes, and the unmistakable stench of the Ha’ran Quarter. Subdued murmurs revealed interesting new developments. A coin tossed on the rug. Grubby hands scrabbled for the metallic glint. A corner of D’horek’s mouth lifted in a contemptuous sneer.
Filth for the filthy
. A curt dismissal. Obsequious apologies and farewells. The study door, gently closing.

Snick
.

D’horek got up and resumed pacing.
The MataPerak. Here. In the city. Within my grasp.

A smile emerged on D’horek’s bestial face.
That fool D’hibuk was good for something after all
. He pulled some books from the shelves that lined the study wall across from the fireplace, and threw them on his desk. He opened and pored over them, his mind, racing.

Restart the Southern Campaign
.

The avenues for clandestine infiltration into the Continent were already in place. There were many ill-guarded passes through the mountains, not to mention the warrens of secret tunnels painstakingly built over the centuries. D’hibuk and his squad had used these to enter Watcher territories, undetected, and hunt for the
MataPerak
.

D’horek’s breath grew ragged in anticipation.
Then there are the sea routes at our disposal.
According to his sources, the Watcher fleets were downright puny in comparison to the goblin fleets. While Watcher forces had grown soft and lax in the centuries of peace, goblin military forces had grown stronger. Much stronger. They were poised and ready to resume war on the Watcher-controlled Continent.

We’d already have the Watchers crushed under our feet and the entire world in our grasp, if not for the fool G’hurii and their bleating insistence of a guaranteed victory.

However, if he captured the
MataPerak
, no one could stop him from restarting, and winning, the infamous Southern Campaign.

D’horek flipped through the pages of the tome on heraldry at a frantic pace. He found the place in the book where a page had been torn out. His heart raced with excitement and eager speculation. Every existing copy of this book had this exact page torn out and burned. The Southern Campaign, which took place over a thousand years ago at the behest of the gods themselves and led by one of his ancestors, ended in ignominious defeat.

This torn page depicted his ancestral coat of arms.

They had the
MataPerak
on their side then, and they were winning. The goblin vanguard reached all the way to the Achillean Peninsula, the living, beating heart of the hated Watchers. The proud emblem on this page would have been borne on numerous fluttering pennants that fateful day, emblazoned on the chest plates of thousands of D’hadhii troopers.

They stood on the cusp of ultimate victory over their ancient enemy, when they were stabbed in the back. The G’hurii, claiming the gods had announced their decree, called for the immediate mass retreat of all goblin forces.

With disastrous results.

His ancestor never abandoned the
MataPerak
’s side. The
MataPerak
, grieving at the massive loss of life rendered useless by the G’hurii’s order, lost control.

The Achillean Archipelago, consisting of tens of thousands of islands, now stood where the Peninsula once was. There were no known survivors and D’horek’s now infamous ancestor was never heard from again. His many times great-grandfather, still a babe in arms, was left an orphan. His family’s reputation, in ruins. The proud emblem, which for centuries stood for honor, valor, and glory, struck from all records. An emblem that was his, by right of birth and rank.

It took this long for his family to reclaim some of their lost honor. All this time to offset the stain of descending from the Battle Commander in charge of the worst military defeat in the annals of goblin history.

Now, he had the power to turn everything back to the way things should have been. This time, when the
MataPerak
fell into his grasp, he’d ensure she would imprint on the D’hadhu caste. She would never come into contact with the traitorous G’hur caste. Rules be hanged. Let the G’hurii sheep bleat their protests and lodge their complaints. With the
MataPerak
in his hands, he could attempt anything he wanted, and still do no wrong.

She might have already imprinted on others, but all his reports stated she was still young. No more than one hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred years old, at most.
There are ways to bypass previous imprints
. And D’horek would ensure the re-imprinting process would get all the resources and time it needed.

Yes. Restart, and win, the Southern Campaign. With himself as Supreme Battle Commander. It would complete what his ancestor started, and give him all the breeding rights he could ever want. He would not just breed one son. He would breed many sons. A multitude of sons.

D’horek leaned back in his chair, steepled hands resting on his muscled chest, pondering the question:
now or later?
Moving now would catch the
MataPerak
unaware, and therefore have the greater likelihood of success. Moving later would mean a higher risk of failure, but would net him most, if not all, of the heretic Ha’rani.

Later
. Netting the Ha’rani heretics might earn him early breeding rights. His little mole would keep them under control in the meantime.

After all, it would be nice to exercise some of those rights before he left for the Southern Campaign.

RUMINATION

Naeem and the rest of the grumps pulled their heads away from the ornate silver basin at the sound of the study door swinging open.

“Come away from that there and eat somefin’.” Greta pushed a trolley laden with food into the candle-lit study. “Geoff, get us some more chairs? There’s a love.” She pushed the basin to the side and unloaded the contents of her cart onto the circular table. “Come on then, don’t make me tell you twice.”

While Geoff left the room in search of more chairs, the rest of the grumps filled their plates with food arrayed on the table. They knew better than to argue with Greta. Only Naeem remained pensive and distant, pacing in front of the wooden bureau beside the open study window.

“Those glyphs were elven script,” Arti said, toying with her food.

 “Yes, but which dialect?” Geoff deposited the chairs and rushed over to the spindly table. Tapping his blunt fingertips on the table, he frowned over the odd lettering he had frantically copied down only moments ago. “And what do they mean?”

“Who cares?” Karin said, unconsciously mimicking her son’s words. “Goblins haven’t been seen in over a thousand years. Elves haven’t been seen for at least twice as long. I say we get them out now.”

“Those glyphs, they were in the dialect of the Drow. Dark elves.” Naeem stared out the window, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Drow?” Karin’s voice rose in panic. “We truly have to get them. Right now.”

Arti set down her plate of half-eaten food and bit her lip, her brows furrowed with indecision. Logan knew her well enough to guess the turmoil raging within—the battle between her first instinct, to protect the cubs, and keeping her solemn word not to interfere.

“But they’re not in any immediate danger now, Karin,” Logan said. “The rationale for not stepping in still holds.”

“Can you translate the elven script, Dad? You must have
something
which can tell us what those words mean.” She got up from her armchair and headed straight for Naeem’s wall of books. “Which references should I pull out?”