Song of the Dragon (54 page)

Ethis caught his breath sharply. “Dead?
All
dead?”

Belag looked curiously at the chimerian. “Yes . . . though we know that most of the mud gnomes escaped thanks, I believe, to RuuKag. He found his heart at last.”

“But,” Mala struggled to find her words. “Who would do such a thing? I mean . . . the mud gnomes weren't a threat to anyone and had nothing anyone would want.”

“They had Drakis,” Belag said, his gaze fixed on the human warrior.

“No,” Drakis said, closing his eyes as he shook his head.

“There were seven robed elves among the dead,” Belag continued. “Nearly a full unit of what the Iblisi call a Quorum. It took only seven of them to destroy perhaps a thousand of the gnomes, but RuuKag managed to help stop them at last—stop them to protect you, Drakis.”

“No, please,” Drakis moaned. “Not for me.”

Beyond, among the huts of the village, the shadows were moving swiftly. Men emerged from the edge of the jungle forest, all rushing with sacks and chests shouldered as they charged down toward the ship behind Drakis. Elsewhere along the shoreline, the other ships were being readied in haste to depart.

“They tracked us to that city,” Belag said. “They tracked
you
. Perhaps the death of their Quorum was enough to give them pause but if there is more than one Quorum pursuing us . . .”

“They'll know where we went,” Ethis finished. “They'll come directly here.”

They won't stop,
Drakis thought.
They'll never stop.

Mala started to ask, “How much time do you think . . . ?”

An explosion rocked the ground. An enormous ball of flame shot into the sky south of the village. The heat of it burst against their faces as they watched it roll upward into the night.

“How much time?” Ethis drew his sword. “I would say . . . not enough.”

“N
AME OF THE ANCIENTS!” Urulani swore from the deck of the ship as she watched the fireball climb high into the night. “Those are the inner defenses. They slipped past the outer two!”

“How close are they?” Drakis called up to Urulani.

“One hundred yards from the edge of the village,” she replied. “They are very close, prophet-man!”

Belag turned at once to Drakis. “They know we have ships, and their objective is to destroy every breathing thing here. Their first move will be to cut off our escape.”

“That means they'll try to take the beach,” Drakis nodded as he drew his own sword, “probably from the sides—or at least they'll try to destroy the ships.”

“If they manage either one, we're finished,” Ethis agreed. “We've got to protect the flanks of the beach until the ships are away.”

Drakis turned to the manticore. “Belag, you and Ethis take the east end of the beach. Gather as many of the Sondau raiders as you can. There's a jumble of boulders about a hundred yards down there just above the seawall . . . do you see it?”

“Yes, Drakis,” the manticore nodded.

Two more explosions erupted over the treetops, followed shortly by a third. The beach was getting crowded with people from the village, many of them readying the boats and others tossing supplies and children in as well. The Sondau raiders were just as readily tossing the children back out, shouting for others to wait until the ships were ready to sail. The cries and confusion were both rising precipitously around them.

Drakis kept talking to the manticore. “Take anyone you can gather there. You'll have a good view of the eastern side, and the position is defensible. Fall back below the seawall if you have to and make your way back here, got that?”

Belag nodded.

“Ethis!”

“Yes, Drakis?”

“It looks like you'll get your wish after all,” Drakis said. “Don't let them through. If they close off this beach it's all over.”

The chimerian nodded; then, drawing his two long scimitars from their scabbards at his back, he followed quickly on the heels of the manticore.

Drakis turned to Mala. “You get the Lyric aboard this ship. Help Urulani get it ready to sail . . . do anything she says . . . and wait for me here.”

“Drakis, don't go,” she said, her voice in near panic. “I've seen you go off to battle so many times but . . .”

“I'll be back,” Drakis repeated. “I've got to come back . . . you're here.”

Mala nodded then looked away, unable to watch him go.

Drakis turned, slapping Jugar on the back. “Let's go, dwarf! Have you ever actually been in a battle or do you just talk about them?”

“Oh, I've been in a few,” Jugar chuckled. “Mind you I prefer just talking about them, but I believe I'll manage.”

With that, the dwarf drew his broad-bladed ax in front of him and charged west down the beach, dodging between the humans rushing toward the edge of the water.

Drakis shouted and followed after him.

Soen stepped through the fold just as an explosion to his left rocked the ground. He lost his footing and fell to his knees.

He cursed again, his eyes wide with anger and frustration. Everything had gone wrong. He had come to the northern reaches of the Empire with a simple plan and, he had hoped, the blessing of Keeper Ch'drei to recapture this Drakis quietly so that they might use him for their own purposes. But Ch'drei was always a devious woman and never made an honest wager when she could concoct a dishonest one. Soen had not been more than a few days out on his journey when he knew that he was being followed and tracked through the folds. It didn't take him long to determine that he as the hunter had become the hunted—the bait for a rather bloodier and more bludgeonlike approach to solving the problem. The subtlety that Ch'drei mastered in her politics had apparently failed her in execution of policy, and she preferred the finality of death to more delicate influences. Still, Soen had hoped to complete his mission as he had originally intended—confront this Drakis human and determine if, indeed, he was the prophesied doom of the Imperium.

Information like that brought opportunities that he could scarcely calculate—and capabilities that even the bloodthirsty Ch'drei could not deny.

But all of that was crumbling around him. Even as he was making contact at last with the Beacon among these bolters, the Inquisitor who had been tracking him had grown impatient and clumsy. A Quorum had attacked and laid waste to an entire mud city of the Hak'kaarin—managing somehow also to get themselves destroyed in their zeal—and leaving behind such undeniable wanton carnage that even Soen was appalled. Worse, the stories of the slaughter were now spreading like a grass fire across the savanna by the surviving mud gnomes. The two stories were already merging—of Drakis and of the Iblisi Quorums out to destroy him at any cost. Soon, if it had not happened already, these stories would reach the Dje'Kaarin townships around Yurani Keep. Within a week, every ministry and Order of the Empire would know that there was a “Drakis” loose in the northlands who was being hunted by the Iblisi. Their very hunt would give the rumors credit—and what was once a containable flicker of an idea would become a raging bonfire of debate in the courts of the Emperor himself.

He had managed to find their fold Standards and followed them here to this human village on the shores of the Bay of Thetis, where once again this blundering Inquisitor was trying to capture a butterfly with a two-handed club. The outer homes of the village were already blazing, the walls of several of them blown flat. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. He could see robed figures hovering at the edge of the town, the spells from their Matei staffs creating a wide clearing all around the village where no one could cross unnoticed. The path was closing toward the beach as he watched.

He had to put a stop to this.

“There!”

“I see them, Drakis,” the dwarf responded.

They had gathered a dozen men of the Sondau with them toward the western edge of the village. All of them were arrayed along a jagged, low ridge a few yards from the beach.

“They're moving to the right.”

“Aye. Now, lad, there's a few things you need to know about this particular enemy that in your experience you may not have considered before tonight.”

“What?”

“These are, if I may be so bold as to inform you, Quorums of the Iblisi Order—Keepers and Guardians of the Truth. They're rather powerful, experienced users of the elven Aether magics and are superbly trained warriors. For someone like yourself, skilled warrior as you are, to attempt to best one of these in single combat would be an act of supreme foolishness and what I believe is commonly referred to as a ‘sucker bet.' ”

“You're telling me this now?” Drakis answered in a hoarse whisper. “What are you suggesting . . . that we just surrender and get it over with?”

“I never counsel surrender, my friend, unless there is profit in it,” the dwarf chuckled back. “I only tell you this so that you will have no romantic notions about this combat. The Hak'kaarin were fine warriors despite their size: organized and efficient. There were only seven of these Iblisi, and the mud gnomes died by the thousands. In the end the gnomes won because their numbers—and the key help of RuuKag—overwhelmed the Iblisi.”

“So you want us to charge them in force?” Drakis asked, his voice skeptical. “I don't think we've got quite the numbers that the mud gnomes had . . .”

“Nonsense!” The dwarf winked. “This calls for subtlety and a large dose of legerdemain. I want you to keep an open mind. If nothing else, remember this: There are only seven in a Quorum. They are each powerful beyond belief, but with each one you kill they are diminished just as greatly. In such a contest there are no rules but one: He who lives, wins. You cannot take any of them in open combat. No one can. You have to be where he does not suspect you, attack from where he cannot see you, and kill him before he knows he's dead.”

“Clever trick,” Drakis agreed, “but they're almost to the beach. Their fires are burning a path before them, and anyone who tries to cross it is being burned to cinders before they reach the other side. We have no time for an elaborate defense.”

“Not elaborate,” the dwarf grinned. “Just subtle. I've been saving this one up.”

The dwarf reached inside his waistcoat.

In his hands he held the dwarven Heart of Aer.

The rocks shattered before Belag's face, collapsing in front of him into a blue haze. The manticore instinctively fell back away from the powerful eye of the Iblisi staff that was searching him out among the rocks, and he tumbled down the seawall.

“Ouch! Get off!”

Belag rolled over, pushing up off the sand while throwing himself against the seawall. “Ethis! We need to get closer to them!”