Song of the Dragon (51 page)

Belag hesitated. “Find it?”

“Yes,” the Lyric replied, shaking her head. “He left yesterday late in the evening. I followed him—invisible as I was—for a long as I could. He crossed over the Cragsway Pass toward the . . . where are you going? The story isn't finished yet!”

Belag was already throwing open the doors of the Elders' Lodge, his pace picking up quickly toward the bay.

“Aye, that's a fine ship, lass,” Jugar said through his wide-toothed grin. “I've never seen the like!”

“Then you've never encountered the corsairs of Thetis,” Urulani replied, swinging around a backstay to land on the planked deck beneath her feet. “She's just three hands under thirty cubits in length from stern to stern, and we can pull her at a respectable speed with a crew of twenty—given a good sea. She's the smallest of our corsairs, but I rather like her.”

“It is a wonder!” The dwarf said, shaking his head as he gazed at the ship where it was moored to the dock. The
Cydron
, as Urulani called it, was a beautiful craft, its hull tapered fore and aft with such elegant lines that it looked as though it could fly across the waves with barely a feather's touch. She was not a terribly large ship—completely unlike the large and rather ponderous galleons that the Rhonas employed against their rebellious cousins on the southern borders of the Empire—but was built for grace and speed. Three slightly angled masts gave a powerful rake to her lines. Her main deck was a single level though a raised walkway just above the level of the oarsmen's heads connected a small enclosed forecastle and a more elevated afterdeck that held the long, ornately carved arm of the rudder. He was a dwarf and his expertise was largely relegated to the realm of stone, but he certainly could appreciate the art involved in such a fine piece of woodcraft. His eyes twinkled as he took in the lines of the ship. “How fast will it sail?”

“She'll cross the Bay in less than three days,” Urulani said. “We've raided coastal towns in Nordesia when necessary and been back in less than a week's time.”

“A wonder . . . a marvel of our age,” Jugar nodded with appreciation. “Perhaps I will have the privilege of sailing aboard her one day. You know, Drakis is such a strange human, even seen through the eyes of his own kind, I might venture to say, that I wouldn't wonder if he would request passage to the north . . .”

Urulani was no longer paying attention to the dwarf. “It looks as though someone else of your group has taken an interest in boats.”

Jugar turned and was astonished—if not a little frightened—to see Belag bounding toward them, crouched over and rushing toward them on all fours. The great manticore slid to a halt on the planks of the dock, rising back on his hind legs as he spoke.

“Urulani . . . Jugar . . . have either of you seen RuuKag today?”

Jugar looked up. “No, but I would not consider that an unusual occurrence. He is, as you well know, a most reclusive individual prone to rather moody withdrawals from our company . . .”

“Urulani,” the manticore said, turning hastily to the dark-skinned woman. “Have you seen RuuKag . . . the other being like me?”

Urulani smiled slightly through her puzzlement. “I do
know
what a manticore is, friend Belag . . . but I have not seen RuuKag since last night when . . .”

Urulani stopped speaking.

“What is it?” Belag asked.

“I was discussing Drakis with some of the Elders last night,” Urulani replied, her smile having fallen. “We were considering additional sentries to be posted in the Sentinel Peaks and along the Cragsway Pass. The discussion turned to whether we should have our warriors travel in pairs to watch each other.”

“Watch each other?” Jugar said, raising his own thick eyebrows. “Why should you be concerned about your own warriors?”

“Because,” Urulani said, stepping up from the deck onto the dock, “the stories of Drakis being spread by the Hak'kaarin and the Dje'kaarin both also now speak of incredible rewards being offered for the location of your friend and any of the rest of you. We were talking of this when your friend suddenly appeared. We changed the subject of our speech, but now I wonder if perhaps he didn't overhear us.”

“The traitor!” Jugar's word's exploded from his mouth. “He's finally done it! We've got to stop him! He'll be the ruin of us all!”

“What do you mean, dwarf,” Belag snarled.

“It's him!” Jugar said, grabbing his pack and shoving at Belag to get him moving as well. “He'll bring the Iblisi down on all of us if we don't reach him first . . . without a doubt!”

T
HE MANTICORE STOOD silhouetted against the bright backdrop of the stars in a cloudless night. He was hunched over, his massive head turning furtively from side to side. The tall grasses of the savanna stretched to the south, west, and east under the starlight. To the north, the dark towers of the Sentinel Peaks stood as a great, jagged wall blotting out the stars. But here, almost exactly beneath his padded feet, two widely trampled roads came to an intersection. One curved down from the mud gnome's city to the northwest and plunged deep into the Vestasian Savanna to the southeast. The other carved a wide path from the Tempest Bay colonies of the Dje'Kaarin gnomes to the east and wound its way to other more southern mud gnome cities to the southwest. Both roads were formed by the passage of gnomes who were in too great a hurry to stop at this singular place and who, in the depths of the night, had left the manticore entirely alone.

The creature continue to shift nervously under the stars, first on one foot and then the other, turning from time to time to look behind him. All the while he held a small stone gingerly between the thick fingers of his right paw, tapping it nervously onto similar stones he held cupped in his right paw.

The manticore stopped for a moment, holding perfectly still in the night, his head straining upward. He shivered abruptly though the night was far from cold, the hairs on his growing mane shaking momentarily. Then he resumed striking the small stones together once more.

“So it is you,” a voice said from the darkness.

The manticore wheeled around, dropping to a crouch, his legs contracted and prepared to spring.

“Peace, friend,” the voice said, seeming to come from every direction at once around the startled manticore.

The manticore relaxed slightly, his eyes straining at the darkness. He spoke quietly into the night. “I am a servant of the Empire!”

“And you have done well,” came the voice in reply from a shadow that appeared out of nowhere before the eyes of the manticore.

“Have we met, Master?”

“Not before tonight,” the shadow responded. Its shape was more defined now against the stars: lithe and tall after the form of the elves. Its head was cloaked in a great hood, and in its right hand it held a long ornate staff. “Although I have followed you for some time. By what name are you known?”

“RuuKag, Master,” the manticore answered, bowing down before the robed elf. “I was a servant in the House of Timuran and the Beacon of that House.”

“You have done well, RuuKag,” the shadow answered. “Are the others near?”

“No, my Master.”

The elven silhouette stopped. “Then why have you called me, Beacon of Timuran?”

“The stones, my Master,” RuuKag replied with evident pain in his voice. “The dwarf has discovered them. He stole most of them from me as I slept and doubtless plans to use them to confuse you, my Master. He will send them away with someone else and instruct them to mislead you—to take you farther from me. I would be lost to you, my Master. I would be . . . lost . . .”

The manticore fell to the ground, burying his head under his forepaws.

“Peace, friend,” the hooded elf said once more, his staff lowering slightly until the glowing blue gem fixed in its head shone down on the manticore.

The groveling creature relaxed slightly and looked up. “Please, Master! Please take me back! I want to forget. I want to go back and forget everything I ever was or did. I had no part in this rebellion, I swear it! Please . . . I don't want to remember any more!”

“In time,” the elf replied calmly. “When you have finished your task.”

“My task?” RuuKag asked as he pushed himself up. Even kneeling his head was still nearly level with the elf's chest. “But, Master, I have done all that was expected! I have led you to me. You have found me!”

“You are not the one I seek,” the elf said softly. “Until I have taken him, you will not have peace.”

RuuKag stood suddenly.

The elf's staff shifted menacingly.

“But . . . Master!” RuuKag grumbled. “I've done all you asked of me! I stayed with the rebels, dropped the beacon stones as I promised . . .”

“And where are they now?” the elf demanded. “I could have taken you any time I wished . . . but just getting recaptured wasn't your task, was it? You were supposed to lead me to the
rest
of the bolters . . . not just you! The entire point of
having
beacons planted among the slaves is so that you will lead us to all the
other
escaped slaves, not just yourself.”

“Please, Master,” the manticore said, wringing his large, fur-covered hands. “I just want to go home.”

“Home?” the elf spat. “You
have
no home, RuuKag . . . it's burned to the ground, its walls caving in on itself as a ruin because your companions wrecked it all. If you're going to have any home at all, it will only be after you finish your task by leading me to the bolters with whom you've been traveling.”

“I don't know where they are!”

“What?”

“They . . . they moved on,” RuuKag said. “That Drakis human said something about going east—maybe finding a ship or something. They've probably left by now . . .”

“Then find them!” the elf insisted. “By the gods, you're a manticore!”

“But, Master,” RuuKag asked with uncertainty in his voice. “I know you are powerful, but they have magic of their own . . . powerful and deadly. How many of your brothers are with you?”

“It's just me,” the elf replied. “And it will go a lot better for all of us if it
remains
just me.”

“I don't understand,” RuuKag said, shaking his head.

“Listen to me, manticore!” the elf was losing patience. “There are three—maybe four full Quorums of Iblisi on the plains who are trying to keep up with
me
.
They
are hunting
me
in order that they may be led to
you
. When they
find
us—
should
they find us—then I can promise you as certainly as the sun will arise in the morning, things will go much worse for all of us—you included—if you do
not
get me to this Drakis friend of yours
first
.”

“I don't . . . please, Master, I've got to think . . .”

“Think!”

The manticore flinched at the elf's shouted word.

“You don't have to
think
about anything! Thinking is what made you a coward!”

RuuKag whined, his ears flattening back against his wide head.

“I may not have Timuran's Impress Scrolls, but I
did
read the Devotion Ledger—especially of certain bolters,” the elf said, stepping closer. “RuuKag, once of the Shakash Pride was supposed to be a warrior—supposed to rush into battle—but he
thought
too much,
felt
too much. So he came home . . . just walked back to his pridelands because the thought of battle and death and pain frightened him. The frightened manticore! A freak and an embarrassment to his father and mother and brothers and everything his Shakash Pride had stood for and taught since the rise of Chaenandria. You were useless, so they banished you to the Vestasian Savanna.”

RuuKag shrank back.

The elf pressed his face so near the manticore that his scent was overwhelming. “How was that for you, RuuKag? Too afraid to fight and your own family not understanding why? They still loved you, still cared for you, but in one way or another they all turned their backs on you and banished you from the pride. You might still be among them, but you could never again be
one of them.
So you banished yourself, making the long way to the cursed lands of the Vestasian Savanna, nursing the wounds in your heart. How was that for you, RuuKag of Shakash . . . oh, pardon me, RuuKag of no pride at all . . . to come again just weeks ago back to the old lands of your punishment? Did even the mud gnomes remember the story of the manticore with no pride?”