Spine of the Dragon

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Utho slid a bench from the wall over to the table. “He is still a Brava. He still has his code of honor and his heritage.” For now. The thought made Utho ill. There were few enough Bravas left, true half-breeds with both human and wreth heritage. The wreth bloodline had been diluted greatly over many generations, but Bravas kept their lines strong, their training rigorous. Because of their prowess in battle, Bravas were in great demand. Most signed on to serve a lord or a powerful business leader. One minor lord boasted four bonded Bravas, not because he needed so much protection, but to inflate his own importance.

  More than a millennium after the wreth wars, the undiluted half-breed descendants of wreths and humans had sailed across the ocean to establish a colony in the new world, but the fearful Isharans murdered the settlers by unleashing a horrific godling, a kind of creature which at the time no Brava had ever seen. After barely surviving such unprovoked aggression, the remaining Bravas felt they had to develop a rigid code of honor. It was their safety net, their armor, and now it was their obligation.

  “Tell us what happened in Mirrabay,” asked Gant, a gruff brute of a Brava who moved another chair to the table in the dark shadows of the remembrance shrine. “What exactly did Onder do? Why did he run?”

  “He will tell the story himself, when he arrives,” Utho said. “That is part of his punishment.”

  The group took their seats and waited. Klea went to a shelf in the back, retrieved another candle, and lit it. Four more Bravas came in a group, but none of them engaged in light conversation. With each new arrival, the Bravas rose in greeting, then sat down again.

  Finally, Onder arrived, looking paler than usual in his black garb. His short hair was unkempt, and the shadows around his eyes were deeper than could be explained by the dim candlelight. The other Bravas remained seated at the table, refusing to give the young coward any sign of respect.

  Klea said, “We’re glad you came, Onder.”

  “Not glad,” Utho said, “but we acknowledge the necessity of what we need to do.”

  Hanging his head, the young Brava closed the wooden door behind him as if he were cutting off all hope. As the others turned to face him, he stood at the foot of the table, arms limp at his sides, like a scarecrow built out of shame.

  Utho addressed them. “A Brava is a rare thing, and we cherish every member of our people. We keep our bloodlines strong. We train in our isolated settlements before we venture out to serve the Commonwealth. But what we cherish even more is our code of honor. Without that core, we are nothing. Onder, you no longer have that moral core. After tonight, you will no longer be a Brava.”

  The young man trembled where he stood.

  “We are here to sever you from our community. Everyone in the Commonwealth will know that you betrayed your people and your honor.”

  Onder’s lip quivered, but he did not speak.

  Gant spoke up in a coarse voice. “Tell us about Mirrabay, lad. We need to understand what you did and how you failed.”

  “So that it may never happen again,” Klea said.

  Onder began, “I was a paladin, moving freely up and down the coast. I fought bandits, I protected the villages. I rescued a family when a flooded creek washed away their home. I—”

  “Did you swear to protect Mirrabay?” asked Klea.

  Onder hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, Mirrabay and other towns. I went there to see Utho. He and I came from the same Brava training settlement, we had the same training master.” A plaintive undertone in his voice seemed to be searching for sympathy, but Utho had none for him. “I was there when the Isharans came.”

  “And had Utho himself sworn to protect Mirrabay?” pressed another Brava, a man named Bron. “Was he bonded to the town?”

  “No, he was visiting on behalf of the konag, gathering information for a report. When the attack began, we thought we could defend against the Isharans. The two of us ignited our ramers, ready to face them, but.…” His voice cracked. “They had a godling, like the one that destroyed our colony of Valaera so long ago.” The Bravas muttered around the table and continued to look intently at the pale man. “When the thing attacked, it was so huge and powerful. It—”

  Utho interrupted, “He fled in panic, leaving the people undefended. A Brava with a ramer is worth any ten regular fighters. Their homes burned. The villagers of Mirrabay were slaughtered, just as they were thirty years ago.”

  Onder looked down at his hands, squeezing his fingers together. His face was shadowed in the low candlelight. “But a godling once wiped out a whole Brava colony! What chance did two of us have? It would have killed us. I would have died if I faced it.”

  “You should have died fighting,” snapped Bron.

  “I fought it,” Utho pointed out, “and yet I survived.”

  “I wish I had fought,” Onder groaned. “I wish I had died. But I can’t change that now.”

  “We can.” Utho nodded solemnly. “With that one act of cowardice, you erased your legacy, so we are here to complete the task.”

  Onder swallowed hard. “And I am here to submit to it.”

  Klea drummed her fingertips on the tabletop. “Are you certain it’s necessary, Utho? He’s young, and his bloodline is strong. This hasn’t been done since Elliel…”

  “Elliel’s crime was so great that I did the purging myself,” Utho said. “But here, in Convera, I called all of you together. Is there a single Brava among us who doesn’t agree our action is necessary?” He looked around the table, from one face to the next.

  Onder waited, his expression hopeful, but no Brava spoke up in his defense. Utho had known they wouldn’t. The disgraced man’s shoulders sagged.

  Utho removed a leather-wrapped packet from his black jerkin and unrolled it on the table to reveal a set of needles and two small vials of ink, black and red. Seeing them, Onder let out a quiet moan of dismay.

  “Your legacy is gone, and it shall be forgotten,” Utho said. “Those of us here will remember your crime of cowardice, but you will not. Everything that you were up until this point, every memory, every deed, will be erased.”

  The others stood up with a scraping of chairs. As Utho removed his needles, he said, “Bind his arms. Make him sit before us, alone.” Two Bravas took Onder by the elbows, lashed his wrists together, and pressed him down into a sturdy chair at the end of the table. He didn’t resist, but his eyes filled with tears.

  Utho picked up the needles, opened the vials of ink. “I will place the rune of forgetting on your face for all to see. The spell will reside in your skin and work its way into your mind.” He bent close to the younger man’s face and used the back of his hand to brush away a tear that trickled down Onder’s cheek. When the skin was dry, Utho dipped one of the long needles into the black ink and pricked the other man’s skin, stabbing and stabbing as he traced out an intricate pattern for more than an hour.

  Over time, his wrists ached from the repetitive motion, and his fingers grew numb. He infused the design into Onder’s cheek in such a way that the spell would draw its power from the young man’s wreth blood.

  The disgraced Brava wept openly. Utho switched to red ink, ignoring the tears as he continued inscribing the tattoo. The witnesses remained solemn and silent while he completed the task.

  Klea took a blank sheet of paper and wrote out in painstaking detail the story of Onder’s cowardice. When she was done, she folded the paper and tucked it inside the young man’s shirt. “At some time later, you will find this. You’ll read what you did, so you can know what happened to you, but you won’t remember it. That is not a blessing. Your entire legacy is gone.”

  Onder didn’t struggle against the bindings on his arms, but his shoulders shook. He seemed utterly defeated.

  “This punishment is used in only the rarest and most unforgivable circumstances.” Utho dipped the needle into the red ink again and bent closer. “When I complete this line, the rune of forgetting will take effect. You will no longer be a Brava. Your finemail armor is forf
eit. We will replace your cloak with one of plain wool, leaving only your common clothes and your ramer. But you will be an empty vessel, always knowing only a hint of what you lost.”

  He finished connecting the spell lines in the tattoo, and Onder’s pale skin began to glow. The ink smoked as it burned its way into his tissues, and the young man went rigid. His expression fell slack. Utho stepped back to regard his handiwork, then nodded. Just as he had done with Elliel.

  The Bravas removed the ramer bands from their belts, and as Onder made inarticulate mumbling sounds, they clamped the golden cuffs in place. Blood welled up, and they drew upon their inner anger to ignite the flames, which swallowed their hands. Together, the nine Brava witnesses stood with blazing fists raised, filling the dim remembrance shrine with light.

  In the chair, Onder blinked and sat up, struggling against his bonds. “What happened? Who are you?” He looked from side to side, staring at the ignited ramers and the Bravas. “Who am I?”

  “You are no one,” Utho said. “Not anymore.”

  In unison, the Bravas extinguished their fire, and Utho set the disgraced man free. Later, when Onder found the note in his shirt, he could read it over and over again. And that was all he could ever know.

  16

  AS he walked the streets of Bannriya, Hale Orr used good cheer as a mask to hide his real thoughts. This was not a normal day. The sandwreths had left a shadow over the city.

  He wore a loose maroon tunic that fell below his hips, embroidered with the circle symbol. The beginning is the end is the beginning.

  In the ancient walled city, people continued to repair windows and roofs after the storm. Farriers groomed horses, wheelwrights fixed carts, blacksmiths hammered a sharp metal rhythm into the air. Grocers haggled with farmers for better prices on the loads of winter squash, carrots, and potatoes they brought to market from the foothills. Hale chatted with merchants, sampled pastries and fried corn dumplings from vendors who had set up stalls around the great bazaar.

  In the years since Adan took the throne from the unpopular regents, the mood in the city had brightened, trade increased, and Utauk groups came through more often. Hale wanted to speak with the leader of the caravan that had arrived from the plains today. With ponies and horses tied up near watering troughs, the people set up camp in the streets and the square. Utauks could afford rooms at the finest inns, but they preferred to sleep outside, where they felt free. This group wouldn’t stay long within the walls of Bannriya, and Hale wanted to get their news as soon as he could.

  The pack animals carried pouches of sweet raisins, bolts of cotton fabric from the south, bushels of nuts from a village aptly named Walnuts, barrels of pressed cider, sacks of roasted squash seeds. In the main bazaar square, the caravan had erected a silk pavilion for the caravan master and his family. Children splashed in the water troughs and fountains.

  Hale had led many caravan treks and sailing voyages in his younger years, although now, thanks to Penda’s marriage and his impending grandchild, he was content to stay in Bannriya. Cra, he was growing soft!

  He approached the green pavilion and pushed open the flap to greet Melik, the bearded, slow-voiced leader. Melik was on his second marriage, and very happy with his life. He gestured for his visitor to sit on the cushion next to him, offering strong tea.

  Hale situated himself. “So, you’ve had another successful journey across the land?”

  Melik drew a circle around his heart. “Any journey is successful when we arrive with our goods intact.”

  Hale asked with careful curiosity, “Have you seen anything interesting to share and be shared?” The Utauks had an unparalleled network of information that was not available to outsiders.

  “I have.” Melik took a deep sip of his tea. “You’ve seen strange things in Bannriya, too, I hear. Wreths from the past? Is it really true?”

  “Cra, I saw them myself.” Hale added honey to the tea, as if that could temper the bitterness of his words. “A hundred of them riding on the heels of a dust storm. Who knows how many more are out in the Furnace?”

  “Too many,” Melik grumbled. “We have seen signs in the sky. Our skas have flown wide and far, scanning the landscape, and when we view the images from their mothertear collars, we are troubled. In the southwestern hills, we saw roaming bands that we could not identify. They might be wreth scouts.” He finished his tea with a loud slurp and poured himself a second cup.

  Hale rested the stump of his wrist on his lap as he played the conversational game. “What else did you see?”

  “A great deal more. We have watchers everywhere, collecting records, skas recording images. I’ll give you a complete copy of all their documents for Shella din Orr.”

  Hale set his empty cup on the low table. “Our great gathering will take place soon, and I will give it to her then. I have a report for you as well, to share and be shared.”

  Hale handed him a code-written document in their secret language, a summary of intelligence gathered from around Bannriya, including information that noble families and wealthy merchants thought was private. In exchange, Melik slipped him a densely written set of charts and notations, records of the places and people his caravan had encountered, opportunities to be considered, warnings about certain untrustworthy individuals, as well as a handful of mothertear diamonds with recorded images of what the skas had seen.

  After he left the pavilion, Hale smiled outwardly but felt more troubled than ever. As he walked away from the fraternal chaos, a dark-skinned girl in dirty, oft-mended clothes trotted up to him. “Thinking of going on a caravan again, Father? You’ve been too long in this stone city.” She moved with a graceful catlike stride. “Need to remember Utauk ways!”

  Hale let out a loud laugh to see the orphaned girl. “Glik! Do you travel with Melik’s caravan now?”

  The girl scoffed. “Just the last three days. Caravans are too crowded, noisy, and smelly. I go my own way, you know that. Was by myself for nearly a full month before that.”

  “We worry about you out there all alone.”

  She made a rude noise. “I’m both inside and outside the circle. I find my place.” Glik closed her eyes and drew a circle around her heart. “The beginning is the end is the beginning. And I am somewhere in the middle.”

  Beneath her serious expression, Glik’s face was streaked with grime, and her raggedly cropped dark hair was a tangle that might have served as a bird’s nest. “You look like you could use a good meal,” Hale said. “Come back to the castle, and we’ll feed you.”

  Glik followed, weaving back and forth as if she found straight lines too dull. “Only if I don’t have to wash beforehand. I am part of the earth.”

  Hale assessed her disheveled appearance. “You look like you’re wearing half of the earth. The cooks will complain about dirt falling in their food. You have to clean up a little.”

  Glik was twelve or thirteen, as best as he could tell. All the Utauk tribes welcomed the orphan girl, who flitted in and out of the community, always searching for something. More than most Utauks, Glik was sensitive to circles and signs in nature, to meaningful dreams that did not always have a clear explanation.

  They walked together down the wide road, past two men fixing the broken wheel on a cart while a mournful-looking donkey stood by. Bright banners flapped in the wind from the rooftop of an ornate remembrance shrine near the heart of the old city.

  Recalling the ominous report he had just received from Melik, he asked, “What did you see out there all by yourself? Did the land speak to you?” He brushed a smudge of dry dirt from her cheek.

  Glik often struck out on solitary vision quests, returning only when she had something to report, or when she was hungry for human companionship, which wasn’t often. She answered Hale with a nod. “Saw plenty.” Her expression had a haunted undertone, and her eyes were red rimmed, as if she had slept poorly, or cried a great deal.

  Hale became serious. “Tell me.”

  “Went to the far s
outhern mountains and explored the fringe of the desert. Spent two days out in the red rock canyons before running out of water. Had to come back. Even caught a glimpse of the Furnace.”

  He thought of the dust storm and the sandwreths. “Better you than me.”

  “In the forested hills up above the desert, a lot of tall trees are covered with sand. Small settlements, a farmer’s house or two, even a tiny village, swallowed up, as if they’d never been.” She flashed her dark eyes at Hale. “People gone. Just dust and nothing else!”

  Hale muttered a curse. “Can you show me the images? Your ska’s mothertear would have recorded them.” He suddenly realized what was wrong. “Where is Ori? Is he out scouting?”

  The girl looked like a flower drooping in a sudden drought. “No, he’s … gone. Lost him on this last trip. He was getting old, but I thought our heart link was still strong.” Grief welled up in Glik and seemed to engulf her. With a trembling hand, she drew another circle around the center of her chest. “Ori left me, flew away and broke our bond.” Tears trickled from her reddened eyes. “The beginning is the end is the beginning.”

  “The beginning is the end is the beginning,” Hale repeated, wrapping his arm around her bony shoulders. He held her for a long moment. “Tell me what happened, if you can.”

  Older skas often left their masters and flew away to die alone. Glik had bonded with Ori after the reptile bird was already full grown, when the girl was only eight, but the two had been extremely close, more than pet and partner.

  Glik sucked in a deep breath, drawing courage to tell the story. “Ori flew off into a dust storm. Could see him, just a speck up in the clouds, caught in the winds. Screamed for him to come back. Felt the fear in his mind, but there was something else—I could tell. Couldn’t control it. Pulled on the heart link, but I knew … knew he had made up his mind to leave me.” Her voice broke.

  “Wanted to chase after him, but the storm was coming for me, too. Had to run and take shelter in a cluster of rocks, still sending out my thoughts to him. But he didn’t respond. Spent hours listening to the hissing wind, and I dreamed of the scouring dust, the howling storm, and wings … giant black wings.” Her eyes had a glazed, distant look. “Survived and dug out, but Ori never came back. Lost his thoughts. Just an empty hole inside me now.”