Lords of the Sky (14 page)

This was a country far richer than bleak Ur-Dharbek, and the sorcerers bent all their powers to making Changed that they sent back across the Slammerkin into Ur-Dharbek, that the dragons hunt them and not Truemen. Then the sorcerers, like the Dragonmasters before them, were hailed as saviors, and the aeldors of the Dhar joined together in the building of the Border Cities, along the south bank of the Slammerkin. Seven cities they built, each with a band of sorcerers whose task it was to create Changed and send them north and deny them return, or the dragons passage over the dividing gulf. Thus did Ur-Dharbek become the province of the Changed, where they might live free, and
Truemen be safe. No Trueman goes there, but any Changed who so elects, if his or her duty be done, may cross the Slammerkin to join the wild Changed.

The Dhar prospered then and spread across all Draggonek to the gulf of the Treppanek, and across that into Kellambek, where they found a new tribulation.

There was a folk already there, who named themselves the Ahn. They were hunters and fishermen, and few in numbers, but very fierce, and they opposed the people’s coming into Kellambek. But the Dhar were strong and would not give up this new land, and in time the Ahn were defeated, made slaves or banished renegade to the lonely places, where they lived as the beasts.

The people owned all the land now and named it Dharbek. The dragons and the Dragonmasters were gone into legend and the Ahn made subject folk: the Dhar prospered. And as is the way of these matters, the petty chieftains fell to warring one with the other, vying over borders and fishing rights, hunting lands, and farm country. Those years are named the Red, and they were ended by Emeric, the first Lord Protector.

He was but an aeldor then, his keep that of Kherbryn, but he was wiser than his fellows and saw that save peace be imposed on the people, they must destroy themselves.

Kherbryn was a strong keep even then, and through all the Red years it was never taken, nor Emeric defeated in battle, this in part due to his skill in war, and also because he was aided by the sorcerer, Caradon. He gathered about him other mages and made alliance with such aeldors as shared his views, or could be persuaded to them, until he commanded an army, which he sent out in battle, himself at its head, conquering keep after keep until all Dharbek was his. Then did he name himself Lord Protector and vow that never again should Dhar go awarring with Dhar. Thus were the Red years ended and the land given peace.

And in peace as in war, Emeric was a wise leader. Of Kherbryn he made a great city, and when he died his son, Tuwyan, decreed that Durbrecht be built, no lesser but devoted to the arts of peace, establishing here the Sorcerous College and this of the Mnemonikos. And that all the people be further bound, Tuwyan embraced the worship of the One
God, renouncing the Three, and built the Seminary of the Church in Durbrecht.

But while the Dhar came to worship of the God, the Ahn clung to the old ways. Their deities stood triumvirate—Vachyn of the Sky, Byr of the Earth, and Dach of the Waters. This was frowned on by the Church and the shrines of the Ahn torn down, but they were a defeated people and none paid overmuch attention to their furtive ways. Thus were they able to effect their great exodus.

Kellambek was not then much populated, and as the sorcerers created ever more Changed to perform the menial tasks, there was less need of Ahn slaves. They were, anyway, a surly and secretive folk, given to resentment and sly escape, and so were not much missed when they slipped away. They built their boats and murdered any who found them or endeavored to halt them, and they sailed from Dharbek eastward across the Fend, which then was only the eastern sea, and for long years were never seen again. Indeed, they were forgotten like the dragons.

Then, when Laocar was Lord Protector and the Dhar grown used to peace, they returned.

Great skyboats were seen, propelled by magic, a fleet that bore beneath them huge carts filled with fylie of Kho’rabi warriors. They grounded across Dharbek, and there was a dreadful slaughter, for the Kho’rabi were terrible in battle and would sooner die than admit defeat. This was the first Coming, and the dead were numbered in the thousands. Keeps were razed, villages and whole towns laid waste. That word—
Kho’rabi—
became a dread thing, a curse. Laocar readied for war then, but when the last Sky Lord was slain there were no more, nor another Coming in his lifetime.

For fifty years there was not another Coming. Then once more a fleet, and fighting, and after that the airboats were sometimes seen, but not often until the century turned and the Kho’rabi attacked again. And so it went, fifty years by fifty years did the Ahn send their warriors against Dharbek to take back the land, their Comings like a plague that visits death and destruction. The people learned to fear these cycles, when the Sky Lords’ great boats would fill the sky, and Theodus, who was Lord Protector after Laocar, and Canovar
after him, looked to the sorcerers for explanation, for it was clearly magic that governed the Comings.

And the mages decided that it was, indeed, sorcery that drove the airboats, but also the worldwinds, that each half century turn and blow from the east, that allowed the Ahn wizards to send the Kho’rabi knights against us. They looked then for a means to defeat the attacks and told Canovar that just as the Border Cities defend the Slammerkin shore, so he must construct fortresses on those islands we now call the Sentinels to destroy the airboats ere they reach our coast.

At this point in Martus’s narration a student called Braen said, “Not always,” and our tutor sighed and nodded and said, “The wizardry of the Ahn grows stronger, I think.”

Another said, “But surely not so strong as to overcome the Sentinels,” and our history lesson became a debate, which Martus seemed not to mind. At least, he made no attempt to return us to our original course, but did his best to answer the questions that were flung at him.

“There were three skyboats come but recently,” cried a fellow named Nevvid, “but this is not the time. How could they pass the Sentinels?”

Martus shrugged and spread helpless hands. “I am no mage,” he told us. “I can only think the Ahn have found new powers.

“They’ve come unseasonal these past few years,” said Tyras. And Leon echoed him with: “Do they overcome the worldwinds now?”

I said nothing. I could see that Martus lacked the answers; I wondered if any save the Ahn themselves could explain. And I was intrigued by all our tutor had said. Whilst my fellow students fired their barrage of questions, I thought of dragons and Dragonmasters, and of a land filled with Changed. I sat silent through the babble until Martus roused me from my musings, asking if I had nothing to say.

My head was aswim with unshaped notions that I could not articulate, and so I asked, “When is the next Coming?”

“Be it as before,” Martus said, “in twenty years.”

“Shall we be ready?” I asked.

Cleton said, “The keeps are ready,” and Martus nodded and amplified: “As is the Lord Protector, so are the koryphons and the aeldors of Dharbek sworn to defend the
land. For that reason they maintain the warbands, even in peaceful times, that the Sky Lords never find us unready.”

I thought on things Andyrt had told me and said, “But our soldiers are not enough.” I smiled an apology to my friend and went on, “Save the Sentinels be strengthened, how shall we defeat them?”

“The Sentinels
are
strengthened,” said Martus. “Even now the strongest of the young sorcerers are sent, to lend their untrained power to the adepts.”

I frowned and said, “But still—the three boats that came …”

Martus smiled somewhat grimly, nodded, and said, “They overcame the Sentinels, aye; but the strengthening goes on now, and soon, I think, shall be unpassable.”

That raw young sorcerers were taken from their College was indeed true—but that the Sentinels should soon be unpassable? I must wonder at that: we Dhar knew nothing of the Ahn, save we had once defeated them and they had fled. We knew they returned out of the east, but not from where. We knew they commanded powerful magicks and that their warriors came to slay us, but nothing of their ultimate goals. Perhaps they were bent on our destruction, dedicated to the reconquest of the land that was once theirs; perhaps purposed only to revenge.

I could only nod, accepting, and hold to myself the thought that save we could destroy the Sky Lords in the air, before they reached our shores, we must forever live in dread of the Comings. An image entered my mind then of the Sky Lords locked in combat with the dragons of legend. It was an exciting thought, but fleeting and I set it aside as Cleton spoke.

He was ever more practical than I, and son of an aeldor, his thinking shaped by familiarity with his father’s warband. Pragmatically he said to Martus, “We saw those airboats as we entered the Treppanek—all three, unharmed. They had passed the Sentinels, then, and were not brought down until they closed on Durbrecht. How was that?”

“The Sorcerous College,” said our tutor. “Save for the Border Cities and the Sentinels, Durbrecht’s the greatest concentration of mages, and some of the most powerful: their work, it was. They sent their magic against the Sky Lords and slew them ere they could ground.”

He paused, and I could see from his expression he was concerned that the more timid amongst us might find cause for fear. He set a confident smile on his mouth and added, “I think we could not be in a safer place. We’ve the Sorcerous College and the koryphon Trevid’s warband, both, to protect us.”

Cleton nodded, satisfied, and I heard a murmur of relief from the timorous.

Our lessons with Martus were like that: an account of a Lord Protector’s life was likely to become a debate, a discussion of
why
and
how,
questions asked and answered before we returned, often as not days later, to the original topic. He instilled in most of us, beyond the basics of our technique and the history he taught us, a
desire
to learn, a curiosity that prompted us to investigate, seeking ever more information with which to fill the drawers of our memories.

For that year we knew mostly peace. We heard of airboats burned over the Fend, and twice saw the great ships erupt in explosions of terrible fire within a league of Durbrecht. Once there was a great alarum, when an airboat grounded east of the city and Trevid sent his warband out in full force to confront the Kho’rabi. The city was loud that night, and Cleton persuaded me to an adventure.

Word had come from the Sentinels that a ship had eluded them, passed from mage to mage along the line of keeps down the Treppanek. We were told the warband rode, but even had we not received that information we should have known something was afoot, for the streets outside the College rang with the nervous cries of the populace and we could hear the thunder of urgent hooves, the clatter of armor and bridle bits. It was evening, our lessons were done, and we had eaten. Cleton and I had repaired to a secluded part of the College grounds, a storage area close by the north wall, where he continued my secret instruction in the martial arts. Since dusk, when word first came, our conversation had been of the landing and the koryphon’s response, and we were agog with curiosity.

It was late summer then, the days long and the nights light. I remember a full moon, pale yellow, hung in a cloudless sky. Our practice was interrupted by the sounds from beyond the wall, for we would halt, trying to discern what
was shouted or what the latest passage of horsemen meant, and then fall to discussing what we would do, were we in Trevid’s shoes. Finally we left our exercises altogether and only listened.

Cleton eyed the wall, and in the moonlight I saw a smile curve his lips. He turned it on me, and it was like a challenge.

“We could climb that,” he said.

It was as if he made only a casual observation, but I knew him well by then. I said, “We are forbidden. Would you spend the rest of the year shoveling dung?”

He gave no answer except that smile and crossed to stand beneath the wall. After a while he said, “My father keeps his walls smooth. This is rich in handholds.”

As if experimenting, he probed a crack, found another, and was soon perched like a fly above me. “We might gain the top and watch,” he called. “No more than that.”

I knew him and he knew me: well enough that he was confident I would follow. He clambered higher; I went after him.

We gained the vertex and lay flat across the width. We were on a level with the upper windows of a repository. My fingers stung where the sharp-edged niches had inflicted small cuts, and I had torn one nail. I sucked the wound as a half-squadron galloped past below us. They were mounted archers.

“They go east,” said Cleton.

“The Sky Lords grounded to the east,” I said. “They’re going to the east gate.”

Cleton nodded absently and turned his face in that direction. Durbrecht was encircled by a protective ridge, and atop that was the city wall. I could see beacons there, and a multitude of individual torches shifting and flickering in the night.

Cleton said, “It would be interesting, eh?”

I said, “Is dung interesting?”

Cleton said, “We’ve come this far.”

I said, “Yes,” and my friend was promptly sprawled across the wall with his feet probing the outer surface for holds. I sighed as he slipped over, still smiling.

The descent was harder than the climb, but we reached the street safely and huddled a moment in the wall’s shadow.
A full squadron of lancers went by without a glance in our direction.

The warband was long gone by the time we reached the gate. Above us on the wall beacons burned, and we could see soldiers moving there. A squad of halbediers approached, and Cleton asked the jennym what went on. The officer returned him the suggestion we go home, leave what fighting there might be to those trained for such duty. We hung about a while, but nothing exciting arose to capture our attention, and before long we agreed we should return.

This time I thought the College wall looked higher. The moon certainly was higher, and I thought we had been longer gone than we had anticipated. I was correct.