Song of the Dragon (12 page)

Drakis did not look up, but considered the dwarf. “You know of the gods?”

“Oh, I know much of the gods,” Jugar smiled, his eyes shining. “We are on good terms; all fools are watched over by the gods. Jolnar, Tsajera, Mnera . . . even Rhon himself look favorably upon fools. But most of all Qin.”

“The Wise One?” Ethis scoffed. “Why would Qin favor a fool?”

“Oh, Qin values fools most of all,” Jugar said, tilting his head to one side as he spoke. “He trusts the fools to live and learn. In them he holds his trust to remember the things that were forgotten. Of the time when the plains of all Chaenandria shook beneath the mighty armies of the manticores, the armor of their fathers and their father's fathers shining in the bright sun as they ran to war, singing to the spirits that ran with them and made their armor bright and their weapons keen. Their manes were long, flying behind them, and they ran into glory in defense of their clan-prides. Their might was great and the prides were free to make war as they saw it. Their ships sailed the Sea of Benis and their justice was feared. This was long ago—long before the Rhonas elves came to Palandria and made it their own.”

Belag snorted. “You are a fool; Rhonas conquered Chaenandria to civilize the manticores. We were a backward, violent race, destroying everything we touched. Becoming a part of the greater Rhonas Imperium brought justice to my race.”

Jugar considered the manticore before he spoke. “Of course, so say the Rhonas, and thus it must be so. I am only a fool telling the tales of a fool, but that is how the gods have made me and so I must be. Qin himself would tell you of an ancient time—long before the elves had formed more than tribes—when manticores, chimera, and dwarves . . .”

“Dwarves?!” Thuri laughed in surprise.

“Yes, and
dwarves
,” Jugar nodded earnestly as he continued. “Together they built a great civilization of their own. Its name is difficult for us to pronounce and lost to the knowledge of the Rhonas, but its name meant ‘the peace of reasoned thought,' and it ruled in glory for nearly three hundred years. The Rhonas have torn down its towers and walls until all evidence of its existence has vanished from its conquered lands, but in the wild lands beyond the Rhonas Imperium its glories are said to be found still!”

“An ancient lost empire of invisible buildings?” Ethis scoffed, poking at the fire with a long stick. “How convenient.”

“Yet that was nothing compared to the humans,” Jugar said in hushed tones, leaning forward toward the fire, its light playing on his ancient, craggy face. “It was the humans who created the greatest empire ever seen on the face of the world. It was they who fought the dragons of the north and won their respect. They alone stood up against the expansion of Rhonas, for their empire was mightier than the dwarves, manticores, and chimera combined!”

Jugar paused for effect, taking in a deep breath.

The silence was broken suddenly by outraged laughter.

“Humans? A great empire?” Belag roared, his large hands grasping at his belly as he laughed uncontrollably.

“Ooh! Fear the terrible two-armed beast!” Ethis hooted, throwing his four arms up in mock alarm. “The brittle-boned warrior in his might!”

“Hey, stop it,” Thuri said through an irrepressible grin that broke into laughter as well. “It's not . . . it's not that funny.”

“Their empire is probably invisible, too,” Belag snorted loudly, his side beginning to hurt. “The gods know their hordes of humans are not to be seen!”

“No, you don't understand,” Jugar shouted into the hilarity that swirled around him. “I can prove it to you! I can show you . . .”

“Show us your invisible kingdom?” Ethis nearly choked.

“We're probably
in
it right now, eh, Thuri?” Belag shook with laughter. “What a fool!”

Jugar sighed and caught sight of Drakis.

The human was not laughing, but rather staring angrily back at the dwarf.

“I can
show
you,” Jugar said emphatically to Drakis, his words nearly buried by the laugher that still rang around him. “Believe me, I can
show
you!”

But Drakis just turned and walked into the complete darkness that had finally fallen over the meadow.

T
HE LIGHTNING EDGES of the fold flashed as Drakis stepped through onto the floor of the small temple. It was a minor community fold that served the local Houses of the Icaran Frontier—the farthest reaches of the Imperial Western Provinces. Three weeks and a lifetime ago, Drakis had marched into this same fold with over eighty of the House Timuran Centurai.

Now he stepped down the wide treads again onto the same tall grasses and low undulating hills. The gentle, early morning breeze drifted across the slopes, rustling the young wheat in the fields that surrounded him. Drakis drew in a deep breath, taking in the familiar smells of the dewy earth and the faint tang of the seashore to the south that lingered in the air. His field pack was suddenly lighter.

He longed to hold onto the peace he felt and linger in its embrace for a few moments more.

“So this is where you are kept a slave, then?” the dwarf said quietly, his voice sounding harsh in the morning stillness.

“No, dwarf,” Drakis sighed with contentment. “This is my home.”

He looked back at his companions. As chimera, Ethis and Thuri had no real faces for him to read, but Belag held his head high, the furrows of his broad brow now relaxed. The manticore, too, was glad to be home.

So few, Drakis thought, would return to share that joy. Less than half of his own Octian had survived, and the rest of their Centurai had fared little better. Part of him longed to return to the camps at the foot of the Aerian Mountains, to see to the Impress Warriors of his Centurai and bring what remained of them back to these same fields. But his orders from the Tribune were unequivocal—and in the morning air he was satisfied that it was so.

Drakis glanced back through the fold. The liquid image of the previous marshaling field—a small plaza surrounding the crystal pillar of an Imperial Aether Well—still had several Centurai trying to sort themselves out through the various folds around the open courtyard.

Drakis turned his back on the war and smiled again. It was easy to discern the sets of parallel House totems—planted by the House mages and much smaller than the Imperial versions—marking the paths from the temple to the various dispersed Houses of the settlement. Drakis did not hesitate, choosing one of the paths and starting between the fields of knee-deep green blades of the young wheat toward the top of one of the low, undulating hills surrounding them.

The dwarf frowned, struggling to keep up as well as peer over the sea of stalks that suddenly surrounded him. “Are you sure this is the right path?”

“Yes, dwarf, I'm sure. I could walk these hills blind, totem or no,” Drakis said, pointing off to his right. “Over there is where I received my first field training when I was young . . . and there,” he pointed off to the left, “those are the fields where I labored with my father and mother for the glory of the House until I was of age to train for war.”

A low-lying morning mist stretched across the shallow tide pools of an inlet to the south, draping the shoreline in subdued hues of blue and gray. Tall reeds slept in the shadows that ran up the undulating slope from the shoreline, quickly giving way to the curving lengths of field that filled the gentle rising of the hills with ordered patterns. Here the colors were awakening under a salmon-colored sky of low-lying clouds set ablaze by the sun that was only now breaking over the eastern hills.

Drakis reveled in it all. “Belag, do you remember our first encampment?”

“The Chronasis campaigns?” the manticore asked.

“No . . . I mean during our first training.” Drakis shook his head. “Down in the hollow below the orchard.”

Jugar jumped nervously at the deafening trumpet-sound coming from the amused Belag. He glanced up at the human next to him. “I take it our manticore friend was amused by something?”

“Drakis and Belag made the mistake of making their camp on the wrong side of the lake,” said Thuri, shrugging all four of his shoulders. “An easy enough mistake in the darkness, but when they awoke the next morning, they found themselves surrounded by their opposing warriors.”

“By Thorgrin's beard!” the dwarf swore in awe. “However did you survive?”

Drakis laughed. “It wasn't a real battle, dwarf! We were just in training. Half the Centurai were to engage the other half in one of the fallow fields. Mostly it was about teaching us Centurai discipline, how to form Octia into a force of Centurai, that sort of thing.”

“So what did you do?” Jugar urged.

“He and Belag stood up and demanded the opposing warriors surrender,” Ethis answered for the chuckling human. “Fortunately Se'Djinka pulled them out before any real damage was done.”

“To either side,” Belag grunted.

Drakis smiled again. They were nearly to the crest of the one hill he had looked forward to above all others. “Here, dwarf,” he said with quiet ease. “We are home.”

Rising on the next hilltop, the glorious edifice of House Timuran pierced the sky, blocking the rays of the newly risen sun. The magnificent structure was cast in stark contrast, its purple-shadowed face outlined in a blaze of new day.

The avatria of House Timuran—the towering central structure of all elven homes—was enormous. Rising almost fifty feet above the ground, its form resembled the graceful shape of an unopened rosebud floating freely above the subatria buildings on the ground beneath it. The avatria's curving petals swept upward from its rounded base to rise to a slight flare at its pinnacle. Ornate latticework between the petals framed the panes of crystal from which the elven family could look out upon their domain and know it was their own. Causing the avatria of an elven House to float in the air in such a manner was a common architectural feat among the elves, an ostentatious display meant to show that the House was of such wealth and prominence that it could use the mystical power of its Aether on extravagance. Of course, as all elves coveted ostentatious behavior, every elven House regardless of its size had long ago adopted the form.

Beneath the avatria and seeming to support but never touch it with its sweeping curves and surrounding minarets was the subatria, the ground buildings of the servants and slaves. In ancient times, the subatria was a warrior's fortification, a curtain wall of defense against enemies while the elven lords sat secure and separate in their avatria stronghold. There still remained many of the features of the warrior's battlements, though distance from the wars of conquest had long ago softened the lines.

Drakis raised his eyes to the top of the fifteen-foot-tall subatria walls.

A lone human figure stood there, silhouetted against the dawn-lit enormity of the avatria and looked longingly to the west . . .

. . . Looking for him.

“Mala,” he murmured.

“Drakis!” she called as he came through the Warrior's Gate.

The high, curving interior of the curtain wall cast shadows onto the packed dirt of the narrow passage within the subatria even during the midpoint of the day. It was known in all elven structures as the chakrilya—the Warrior's Way—and its path curving around the center of the building led to the cells, mess halls, kitchens, and practice arenas where the Impress Warriors were kept. Drakis had marched out through this canyonlike passage five days before, its breadth filled shoulder to shoulder with his fellow warriors. Now he felt small with so few of them standing in its cavernous expanse.

But the sound of her voice cast all the loss, the pain, and the loneliness from his thoughts.

She was reaching for him through the crossed iron bands of the closed portcullis separating the Centurai wing from the other areas of the subatria. Drakis swung his field pack off his shoulders and tossed it quickly toward the base of the wall where Belag and the others were already setting theirs down. He ran over to her, casting a quick, worried glance down the length of the chakrilya as he took her hand.

“You're not supposed to be here,” he said.

“And you've grown hair.” Mala Shei-Timuran gazed up at him through her large, emerald eyes as Drakis pressed her palm to his cheek. She leaned forward against the bars, the sinque mark of the household easily read on the crown of her shaved head. She was half a foot shorter than he, her waist narrow but her hips full and desirable, achingly beyond his reach.

“Yes,” he laughed. “But no doubt I'll be properly shaved and cleaned up before long.”