Forged by Fire (34 page)

He was driven back several paces under the savagery of my blows, but then he rallied, counterattacked, feinted, at tacked again. He was debilitated from the torture he’d suf fered during his imprisonment, and his impaired vision from the loss of an eye disadvantaged him gravely. But he was still twice my size and weight, and his arms had twice the reach of mine, so despite my fighting experience in dragonmaster Re’s stables, he easily held his ground against me.
We drew apart, the both of us breathing heavily. My arms trembled. My sword weighed at least a thousand pounds.
“You’ve no wish to kill me, Zarq,” he panted. “Put down your weapon.”
I felt desperate and cornered. There had to be a way to save both Waivia and my Clutch. . . .
I heard her, then.
Savga. Screaming.
And accompanying her blood-chilling shriek was the im age of Agawan being laid upon a stone altar by calloused Djimbi hands, his small, chubby body being cruelly lashed onto the stone like a live sacrifice.
I gasped, and my sword slipped from my loose fingers. Reeling, I grabbed my head. Daronpu Gen was instantly at my side.
“I could’ve killed you with one blow,” he growled, plant ing a foot over my sword as Savga’s screams and Agawan’s wails ricocheted round my head.
“What is it?” he said sharply.
I looked at him, wild eyed, my skin pimpled from chill. “Can’t you hear?”
He opened his mouth, then went rigid. Scented the air wildly, great nostrils flaring. “What is it? Where? Flavor of the otherworld in the air—”
My vision slid sidewise, Daronpu Gen disappeared from my view, and instead I saw Agawan bawling on the stone altar again, and saw Savga this time, too, thrashing, squirming, screaming, in the grip of Djimbi arms.
My vision cleared. The screams were abruptly cut off. I was gazing into the distance, toward the center of the Clutch, at the three white domes of the temple.
“Someone has Savga and Agawan,” I said hoarsely. “In the temple. They’re going to sacrifice them on the altar.”
He frowned. “What?”
Malaban was at my other side, sheathing his dirk, look ing a question at Gen, which Gen was ignoring. Gen jerked rigid again; then his whole rangy body started quivering like a hound’s about to be unleashed for the hunt. “Yes, there, a whiff of Elsewhere in the air . . .”
I wrenched away from him and started for the ladder. “We have to go to the temple, now.”
“Wait!” Gen cried, and I paused, one foot on the ladder rung.
He bent, picked up my sword. “You forgot something. You’ll need it if we run into any of Kratt’s soldiers. But raise it against me again, and I’ll kill you.”

We sprinted along a grassy path, heading toward the center of Clutch Xxamer Zu. Buildings were afire; people were running, carrying goods with them; a string of rishi were hurling buckets of dirt and water upon the flames. Timbers groaned and crackled, and soldiers—ours and Kratt’s— clashed here and there in pockets.

Two soldiers stepped out from behind a mud-brick build ing with cries of, “Temple!”
“Nashe!” Gen roared in answer, and I breathlessly echoed his cry as I brought up my own sword.
I parried a blow, lunged, spun, felt steel glance across my thigh, as soft and cool as a shadow. The man fighting me was huge, and furious, and with each blow he bellowed, “Temple! Temple!” with increased energy.
I caught a ringing blow that drove me to my knees. The soldier raised his sword—
—and Malaban Bri stepped under his arm and buried his dirk into the man’s chest, in the gap in his leather uniform that existed beneath the soldier’s armpit.
The soldier gave a strangled howl and backed up, Mal aban’s dirk still buried to the hilt within him. Two-handed, the soldier swung wildly at Malaban, and cut him halfway through the torso.
With a cry, I leapt to my feet and hacked and hewed at the soldier, until he was a bloody, twitching mess at my feet. A hand wrenched me off my butchering. Gen.
“He’s dead. Leave him.”
I glanced at Malaban. He was on his back, staring sight less at the sky. I’d saved his sister from death. He’d saved me from the same.
“To the temple,” I said hoarsely. Gen curtly nodded.
We ran past clan barracks, past empty granaries, weav ing through people and soldiers. All was chaos around us: screaming people, smoke. We reached the temple market square. Clots of bayen women and children were running across it and gathering at the closed stockade gates, shaking them and clamoring to be let into the austere stone edifices.
I ran through the confusion. A panicked bayen woman barreled into me; we both went sprawling. I tried to clamber to my feet, was knocked to my knees by someone else. An incendiary dropped with a dreadful whine from the skies, right into the market square, and the ground heaved and buckled and I was thrown onto my back. Dust and screams everywhere, and thick, hot smoke. I staggered to my feet, looked for my sword, couldn’t find it. Could see, through plumes of smoke and waves of heat, the temple. I lurched toward it, weaponless.
A mangy bitch ran past me, wild eyed, a pup in her jaws.
I staggered up sandstone stairs and reeled into the tem ple. I paused, one hand braced against a pillar for support, as my eyes adjusted to the dimness of the sunken central amphitheater. Slowly my vision resolved.
There, standing on the tiled floor of the amphitheater, was Savga, struggling against the hands that gripped her. Hands that belonged to my sister, Waivia.
There was Agawan, bawling upon the central altar, lashed to it by leather thongs. A bald Djimbi man was tightening the last of those cords.
To one side stood Kratt, his clear blue eyes almost ghostly white in the gloom. He was looking directly at me.
He spoke; I heard him not for the roaring in my head and the chaos beyond the temple. All eyes looked up at me. My sister’s face was a mask, carved from polished brown stone, her eyes cold carnelian. I couldn’t look at Savga, lest I become undone.
I began descending the temple tiers to the amphitheater below. I felt, rather than heard or saw, Gen appear along side me, sword at his side. I moved carefully, deliberately.
“I told you she’d come when properly provoked,” the Djimbi man cackled to Waivia, and I recognized him, then. Dragonmaster Re. His narrow, green-whorled face was grossly disfigured, as if half had slid south of the rest. One eye ran northwest to southeast instead of on a horizontal plane, and his nose was a cleaved and wizened fig. One half of his mouth hung slack, in a drooling frown. Even the tan gled spill of beard beneath his chin was uneven, half reach ing his collarbone, the other half encroaching in snarls about his chest. He was a gross parody of a human.
“Summon the other one now,” he demanded of Waivia. “A bargain’s a bargain.”
“I summoned her when I called Zarq.” Waivia didn’t turn her eyes to the dragonmaster while she spoke, looked only at me. “She’ll be here soon.”
Beside me, Gen stirred. “Release the children, osmajani, and no harm will come to your own son after you’ve lost the war! You can’t escape; soldiers will surround us soon—”
“My haunt is destroying your soldiers even as we speak,” my sister said, cutting him off, and to give weight to her words, the haunt skirled above the temple, and the ground trembled, and mortar from the temple dome briefly show ered upon us. Waivia’s tiger-banded eyes flashed at Gen as I descended the last step to the amphitheater floor. “You impress me, though. I didn’t think you’d survive my be loved’s play room.”
My eyes flicked to Kratt. He was standing at ease, lean ing against a pillar. His expression would have been one of languid amusement if his diamond eyes had not betrayed him, glittering with a frightening excitement. I found it hard to breathe, looking at him.
“Kratt,” I said hoarsely. I forced myself to not look away from his cruel eyes as I moved closer to Waivia. Closer. “I’m here; you have what you want. Now release the children.”
“I think not.”
“
I’m
the one you want—”
“Ah, but I must keep my word to the dragonmaster. He promised me you, and in return I promised him vengeance. And look, how timely: His opportunity for such has ar rived.” He looked up the dark rows of tiers beyond me.
“Mama!” Savga screamed, and she threw herself forward, wrenched herself from Waivia’s grasp, and went hurtling up the amphitheater tiers. Waivia moved after her, raising a hand that spat green sparks like chips of peridot, but I leaped in front of Waivia.
“Let her go!”
We were inches apart, yet aeons away from each other. We’d never embrace again.
“You should have boarded that ship, Zarq.”
“Don’t turn yourself into Mother,” I said quietly. “Don’t damn your child with your madness.”
“What I do, I do
because
of my child. He won’t suffer as I did, won’t be taunted and despised, abused and starved.”
“Perhaps not.” I refused to flinch before her pain and fury. Not this time. Not anymore. “But if you stay this course, he’ll suffer as
I
did. I know what it’s like to be at the mercy of a mother’s madness.”
“You know nothing about being a mother!”
“I know everything about being a helpless child.”
Tansan hove into my view, statuesque, sweated, raked with sword cuts. I saw her deliberately lay her bloodied spear on one of the tiers halfway down the amphitheater before continuing her approach.
When she reached the ground floor, she and Waivia faced each other. Tansan was taller, straighter, all strength and vigor held still. Waivia was all dusky curves and fury, a flame-eyed virago crouched to spring.
“Release my baby,” Tansan said.
“Come and get him.” The dragonmaster cackled, and he held a dagger against the soft folds of the bound baby’s neck. “Yes! Yes! Come and get your by-blow.”
Tansan looked at me with eyes as black and dense as venom. “Savga, go with Zarq.”
“Mama, don’t—”
“Now.”

Kratt stepped away from his pillar. “Zarq will be coming with me.”
Daronpu Gen shifted, raised his sword. “Stand down, Kratt!”
“Gen!” I shouted. “It’s me he wants. Waivia . . .” I turned to her. “Release the baby. He’s not that much older than yours. You’re not an infant killer. Don’t do this. Let the baby go. Tansan will go with the dragonmaster, but
let her baby go
.”
“I told you once before, Zarq: You take what’s mine, I hurt you,” Waivia said.
“Hurt me, then. Hurt
me
. But not a baby.”
Her nostrils flared. Agawan was crying in hoarse spasms, his tiny ribs heaving against the leather that bound him so cruelly. His hands were clenched into small red fists. His cries had started Waivia’s milk flowing; the front of her bi too was damp in two spreading patches.
Waivia’s eyes flickered at the baby, then back to me. They were cold, hard. “Go stand beside Kratt.”
“Sweetling,” Kratt said, voice hard as iron. “The baby stays where it is.”
A look of revulsion crossed Waivia’s face, and I knew, with utter surety, that she held neither love nor respect for her claimer. He was a tool she used, nothing more.
“The baby,” she said tightly, “is unnecessary. You have Zarq.”
“Gen, take Agawan and Savga and go,” I said breath lessly.
An unbearably tense moment followed, broken when Waivia moved to the altar. She spoke a word; viper-green light flashed, and a cloud of smoke puffed above the altar. Then she was lifting Agawan from the stone slab, severed cords trailing from his unharmed body.
Gen’s one-eyed gaze met mine. Sorrow, frustration, and admiration were in his look. He nodded once, lowered his sword but didn’t release it, and approached Waivia. An other tense moment as they stood before each other: two enemies, one armed with a sword, the other with an infant. Gen growled, dropped his sword to the ground, and took the baby from her.
In that moment, while we all watched Tansan’s child be ing placed in the rebel holy warden’s arms, the dragonmaster moved. Swift as an eel, he slid from his place behind the altar and placed his dagger at Tansan’s neck.
Since then, I’ve often wondered if she saw him coming, but forced herself to stand still and defenseless. She was a warrior; she would have sensed him moving, surely. But no, she chose to stand still. I’m not surprised. After all, I’d seen her give herself away without a fight before, to two drunken bayen men, just to keep a promise to one of her children.
“Mama!” Savga cried, breaking free from Daronpu Gen.
“Don’t come closer, Savga!” Tansan barked, and her voice was harsh, bloodless.
Savga stopped, went rigid.
“Brother, put the blade down!” Gen shouted. “She’s one of us—”
“Fool,” the dragonmaster shouted. “Arrogant, blind dupe! Zarq’s not the one; I told you all along!”
“Put down the knife,” Gen boomed.
The haunt skirled; a dragon screamed. The attacked dragon must have plummeted into a building outside; there was a dull crash just beyond the temple, and thatch and bricks exploded into the air outside.
“The puling kitten is the one!” the dragonmaster shrieked. “
Here’s
your cursed Skykeeper!”
He drew his knife hard, deep, and fast across Tansan’s throat.
I screamed, Savga screamed, the baby in Gen’s arms screamed. We surged forward as the dragonmaster released Tansan with a shove. She staggered forward—one step, two steps—hands going to her throat. Swayed.
Blood pumped down her neck, red as flame. Where her lifeblood gushed, fire ignited. Behind her, the dragonmaster shrieked triumphantly and held his hands above his head. “Nashe! Nashe!” he screamed. “You’ll die now, Kratt, and Temple along with you! Triumph the Djimbi!”
Kratt’s face was alabaster as he realized he’d been double-crossed. He moved forward, as if to hew the drag onmaster down, but Tansan was now engulfed in flame, and Kratt threw up an arm to shield his face from the fierce heat and thought better of going after the dragonmaster.
With eyes upon the growing cyclone of flame that had been Tansan, my sister slowly backstepped, hands weav ing jade symbols in the air, some of which shattered into shards from the heat, others that snaked toward the vortex of flame.
Daronpu Gen leapt toward Savga, grabbed her by the back of her nape as if she were a small cat, and, with Agawan tucked like a gourd under one of his rangy arms, scooped Savga up and threw her, shrieking and kicking, over one shoulder.
“Nashe!” the dragonmaster cackled, knees jerking into the air in a macabre parody of a dance. Flames began to consume him, too. “Nashe!”
Overhead, my mother’s haunt skirled, and men and dragons died.
The flames grew, and the dragonmaster gave a gurgling shriek and ran in circles, arms windmilling as he uselessly tried to bat out the flames devouring him. I staggered back, away.
“Get the children out of here!” I screamed at Gen.
“Zarq, run!” Daronpu Gen bellowed at me, and for the last time our eyes met. Then he turned and lumbered up the amphitheater’s tiers, Savga slung over one shoulder, Agawan tucked under his other arm.
I ran, too.
But not after Gen. No. I had a debt to settle.
I dove for the sword Gen had dropped to the ground, that he could accept Tansan’s babe. The heat from the ex panding maelstrom of flame that had been Tansan scorched my cheek. I grabbed the hilt of the sword, rolled, came up against the cool stone of the lowermost tier, and rose un steadily to my feet.
In the unnatural blaze of orange light thrown from the column of fire that now towered to the very apex of the central dome, Kratt’s eyes met mine. They weren’t pale blue in that light, but shimmered like opals.
They were focused exclusively on me.
He raised his sword. I raised mine. We drew closer to each other.
Without removing his eyes from me, Kratt sidestepped up onto a tier. I moved as if his mirror image. Up another tier, up another, each time putting distance between our selves and the fiery cyclone that had been Tansan. From the corner of my eye I was vaguely aware of Waivia standing her ground near the heat-sundered altar, partially shielded by a dense green light. Her bitoo billowed about her in the heat, smoking, flames licking over it here and there but soon dying beneath the necrotic green light she commanded.
Whatever spells Waivia was weaving were preventing Tansan—a Skykeeper in the fiery throes of birth—from bursting from the cyclone of flame and exploding through the temple’s dome, into life and freedom beyond.
Kratt attacked.
Our swords crossed, crossed again. I staggered back, my entire spine whiplashed from the blows. I summoned ev ery gout of fury I’d ever felt against him, channeled all my years of suffering and hatred and craving for dragonsong into a rage as fiery and powerful as the otherworld cyclone towering above me.
“For my father!” I bellowed, and I ducked under one of Kratt’s swings and slashed my sword low, at his calves. Felt the sword tip drag slightly as it cut cloth, caught flesh. “For my brother! For my mother!”
He’d been trained by swordmasters since childhood, whereas I’d had but a year of discipline from a venomaddled dragonmaster, using a wooden cudgel instead of a sword. My rage, although briefly potent, could not over come his skill, even as blood ran from the slash I’d dealt his leg.
I barely stopped a crashing blow meant to cleave my shoulder from my body, lost my footing, teetered on the lip of a tier . . .
. . . and fell.
I landed hard, on my back, sword clattering to the tier below me.
Kratt paused, a cruel smile playing on his face as he stood above me, savoring his victory.
Beyond him, I saw that Daronpu Gen had deposited Savga upon the uppermost tier of the temple; she held Agawan in her arms. They were small silhouettes, backlit by white, smoky light. For a second Savga paused. Then she turned and ran, away from the temple, away from my death, her baby brother clutched against her.
Gen himself had bounded back down the tiers, had re trieved the spear Tansan had set down upon one of them. He had it raised above his head. Aimed at my sister.
“No!”
I shrieked.
Gen was a better osmajani than he’d given himself credit for.
He hurled the spear while bellowing a word that was an explosion of Djimbi magics, a starburst of pagan power, and his magic-borne spear flew with unnatural speed and strength. The force of it picked Waivia off her feet, drove her through the cyclone of fire, and impaled her upon a great wooden carving of a dragon hanging on the far wall.
Someone screamed, and I was running, stumbling, clam bering down tiers. The emerald ropes of magic that had trapped the Skykeeper within the fires of its birth began to shatter.
I reached Waivia.
Tried to pull the blood-slick spear from her back. Couldn’t.
No. No. No.
I stroked her sooty cheek, where she was impaled face first against the great wooden face of a dragon. Her bitoo was a diaphanous gown of char; her hair was a smoking snarl. Her eyes were lifeless.
No. My sister, my sister. No.
A movement beside me.
Kratt.
He stood swaying. I must have wounded him on the chest, too; blood was flowering across his waistshirt.
Vain thing, I thought inanely; he should have worn armor.
He raised his sword to kill me.
Two things happened then, simultaneously.
A hideous sound blasted through the temple, on a wind rank with the stench of necrosis. I looked away from Kratt, away from his bloodied sword, looked up the many tiers of temple, and saw . . .
. . . an impossible thing beyond them. A massive beaked maw lined with razor-sharp teeth, growing larger, faster. I could see the trembling muscles lining that rot-corrugated throat.
My mother.
Coming for her dead child.
And in that exact moment, the last of my sister’s insidi ous green ropes binding the cyclone of fire to the earth shattered, and Tansan—the Skykeeper—burst through the dome of the temple and out into the white skies beyond.
Glass tesserae and plaster and ceramic shattered in a great cloud of dust as the pillars of the temple were blasted apart, and the ground beneath me shook, and an avalanche of crumbling dome and walls roared around me, and I dropped to the heaving ground and covered my head and bellowed fear and anguish.
And then there was silence.
Stillness.
Smoke.
Slowly I raised my head.
My sister’s lifeless body was gone. The great carving she’d been impaled upon was gone. Kratt was gone. Gen was gone. The temple we’d been within—the mortar and pillars that had supported it, and the gilded spire that had topped its three white, smooth domes, and the great stone altar that had been the center of it—was entirely gone.
I stood in a crater, a great blasted hole of corrugated, scorched earth.
And within me, railing and roiling in grief, and powerless without Waivia, was my mother’s haunt. She’d protected me, in the end.