Spine of the Dragon

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The wreth party remained outside the gate, which still bore the dark stain where the mindless beast had bashed itself to death. Adan and Penda were ready with their packs and traveling clothes. Xar rode on Penda’s leather shoulder pad, as if looking for a way to cause trouble.

  From his mount, Quo grinned down at the king. “Adan Starfall, I am glad you heeded my invitation.”

  “I thought it was Queen Voo’s invitation,” Adan said.

  “My sister lets me speak for her.” He pouted, then brightened. “You will both enjoy our dragon hunt.”

  Adan nodded. “It will be good to see, just in case Bannriya is one day plagued by dragons.”

  Quo turned to the wreth mage and the other warriors, chuckling. “I like this human king!”

  The people of Bannriya crowded at the walls and gate to watch the departure, but their cheers sounded subdued. Adan turned back to wave reassuringly at them. “We’re off on a fine adventure with our new friends. Penda and I are building our legacies. We will have great stories to tell when we return.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Quo said and gestured to the two augas with empty saddles. “Let us be on our way.”

  Adan studied the strange low-slung saddle. He turned to help Penda, but she sprang onto the mount with an ease and grace that he would never be able to match. She sat astride her auga, ready to ride and waiting for him. Holding on to her shoulder, Xar flapped his wings and gave a buzz of approval.

  Stepping up to the second auga, Adan managed to climb into the saddle without making a complete fool of himself. He took the reins, feeling the powerful creature shift its weight beneath him.

  The wreth escort turned their augas around, and the beasts trotted off down the road, heading to the hills and the deserts beyond. Adan glanced back at Bannriya, then faced forward, trying to prepare for anything.

  As they moved along, the augas raised a great deal of dust, and Adan soon realized that the brown haze was a sort of camouflage summoned by the wreths. Quo called out, “My sister is anxious, and that dragon will not wait for us.” He cocked a thin smile. “Hold on. You should find this invigorating.”

  With a lurch, the augas sprinted off on their massive legs. Black tongues spilled out of their mouths, licking the air. Adan clutched the horn of the hard saddle and glanced over at Penda. A bright smile flashed across her face as her dark hair whipped behind her. Despite the tension, she seemed to revel in the freedom. Xar sprang into the air with a flash of green plumage and cruised overhead, following the mounted party over countless miles.

  The wreths made little conversation, even with one another. The ominous mage in his leather robe spoke not a single word, though he did send frequent skeptical glances at the two human companions.

  Quo gave the mage a dismissive frown and spoke to Adan loudly but conspiratorially. “I make no excuses for Axus. He is a sour sort.”

  “What have we done to make him resent us?” Penda asked.

  “You were not born wreths. Many of our people are surprised that my dear sister places so much stock in humans. Axus considers it a bad precedent for our queen to honor you with this escort as if you were equals, since we created your race long ago.”

  The wreth mage rode grim-faced, staring ahead without replying.

  Adan said, “He resents the escort? But Queen Voo asked us to join your dragon hunt. If you didn’t provide a guide, how else would we get there?”

  Quo sniffed. “She could have demanded that you come by any possible means.”

  The terrain grew more rugged as they left the foothills, crossed the mountains, and entered sheer canyons with strange rock formations at the edge of the expansive desert. Adan knew that some of the greatest battles in the ancient wars had taken place out here, and the signs were clear. Although humans had reclaimed much fertile land in the Commonwealth, parts of the world were still uninhabitable, especially down toward the Furnace. Over the years, some intrepid Suderrans had ventured out into the wasteland to mine crystals and agate, but they had not penetrated far. The sandwreths, however, had found a way to tame the worst of the desert for their own purposes.

  The augas raced onward for three days. At night, the wreth camps were simply for rest, not for jovial gatherings as in the Utauk settlements. Adan and Penda kept each other company, trying to maintain a normal conversation though they were sore, tense, and tired. They would remove Xar’s collar and view the stored images in the mothertear. From the ska’s high perspective, the canyonlands were beautiful and harsh, a tangle of impassable arroyos, rocky washes, and misshapen boulders that had tumbled down from the mountains.

  Xar ranged farther afield as they traveled, but when they entered the deeper desert, Quo glanced upward and chided, “There are dangerous thermals and flying predators here. You would do well to keep your pet close at hand.”

  Penda heeded the warning.

  As they rode on into the fourth day, Adan was concerned with the harsher terrain ahead, but Quo dismissed his worries. “Be patient just a bit longer, Adan Starfall. Our destination is up in that widening canyon.”

  The augas expertly found their way along a wash that led into an expansive elbow of a canyon, where they found that Queen Voo had built an entire city as her camp. Nearly a hundred sandwreths and their augas had crowded into the area surrounded by red rock walls. The temporary settlement was fashioned out of the rocks and sand, which the wreths shaped like pliable clay into curved shelters.

  As the augas strode into camp, more sandwreths came to meet them, nobles in fine clothes, wreth mages in leather robes, and contingents of wreth warriors in scaled armor. Queen Voo stepped forward to receive the guests, her long hair flowing, her scant leather armor revealing much of her golden skin. She wore coppery gossamer fabrics that swirled unnaturally, like heat shimmers in the air. Turning her hands up to the king and queen, she said, “I trust your trip was pleasant enough.”

  Penda swung herself out of the auga’s saddle and dropped to the ground. “As pleasant as possible, considering the terrain.”

  Adan’s legs were so stiff he had to steady himself against the sturdy creature to keep his feet after he dismounted.

  “We built this fine encampment to welcome you, because we know humans are fragile,” Voo said. “Our warriors are eager for the hunt. A great many years have passed since last they killed a dragon.”

  The queen led them into the heart of the bustling camp. Adan saw no fires, merely flat dark rocks that exuded heat for cooking. A flow of water gushed from the side of the cliff, an unnatural spring created by sandwreth mages who had summoned water from deep underground.

  Voo said, “Accept and enjoy our accommodations.”

  “Will we stay here long?” Adan asked. “Before the hunt?”

  She laughed. “Of course not! This is merely temporary, to welcome you. Once the dragon is sighted, we will range far and wide across the Furnace.”

  “So you’ve seen the dragon already?” Penda asked.

  “Oh, yes. We have only to find it again … hunt it, and kill it.”

  Her brother grinned. “It will be excellent practice for the truly great battle that lies ahead.”

  78

  AFTER returning to civilization with her new ska, Glik stayed in Shella din Orr’s camp for several more days, reconnecting with her extended Utauk family. She gave herself some time to remember that she was part of these people, inside the circle, but before long she was anxious to be off again. She and her new ska were excited to learn more about each other on their own, to strengthen their intertwined lives and their heart link.

  Glik followed a small caravan for a while through the Suderran hills, then grew impatient and set off at a faster pace on her own. Ari took wing, flying high and free, and in her heart Glik soared with the reptile bird, experienced the wind simultaneously through her hair and her feathers. With her new partner filling the hole in her heart, she felt whole again.

  Nothing could replace her first ska, but nothing was like Ari either.
The blue reptile bird put on a burst of speed, chasing after a panicked sparrow. Ari could have caught it, snapped the bird in her jaws, but for now she was just playing in the sky.

  That night Glik made a solo camp in a birch grove by a chuckling stream. The young ska landed on a swaying twig nearby, watching her while preening and showing off her fine new collar from Shella din Orr. Ever since seeing that ominous shape lurking in a resinous cocoon in the mountain eyrie, Glik had been troubled with dire dreams that threatened to wake her in terror, yet trapped her in sleep.

  After many years on her own, the girl knew how to deal with restless visions and demanding dreams. Her heart link with the ska could help, just as old Ori had both guided her visions and shielded her from them. The young blue ska hopped down from the unstable twig and took a comfortable position on Glik’s shoulder as she sat cross-legged close to her small fire. She stared deeply into the hypnotic flames and beyond.

  Sometimes, Glik could summon visions for herself, force them to appear behind her eyes. This process was new to Ari, though, and Glik had to teach her young ska and strengthen the heart link. They were partners in the visions. With one finger she traced the circle around her heart and readied herself to enter the trance.

  “The beginning is the end is the beginning,” she mumbled aloud and traced the circle again, round and round. “The beginning is the end is the beginning is the end is the beginning.” She repeated it until it became a chant.

  She felt the presence of the eager ska in her mind and heart. Around her through half-closed eyes, Glik saw circles in nature, stones that fell in an unnatural ring, birch leaves on the ground like a yellow crown, circular ripples in the stream’s flow. They were all omens.

  She went deeper to feel the thrumming call of the world, wispy threads of magic that remained even in the wounded land. Her mind drifted along and took flight again, but this time she and Ari were flying together alone in the sky. Soon they were joined by other reptile birds. The vision became sharper, the images intensifying.

  “The beginning is the end is the beginning is the end is the beginning.” Glik kept tracing heart circles, falling deeper into her trance. She closed her eyes to see her inner journey and imagined herself high above the ground, streaking along. Her body had long blue feathers and sapphire-scaled skin. She was a ska … among many skas, thousands of them. They flew together in the greatest flock she had ever imagined, creating an uproar of chirps and buzzes and clicks in the sky. Their musky odor communicated many subtleties.

  The innumerable dream skas swooped and soared above a vast ancient battlefield. Looking down, Glik saw giant armies, countless fighters in exotic armor, pale warriors and bronze warriors, along with human troops that were being slaughtered. Sandwreths and frostwreths.

  An enormous city loomed in the distance, larger than Bannriya and Fellstaff combined. Mages from both factions unleashed havoc with knots and twists of magic, summoning fiery geysers or sheets of ice that crashed into opposing troops. Ruthless wreth warriors cut one another to pieces until the plain was a carpet of blood. Sandwreth mages hammered the ground with invisible shock waves, but their faction was losing, and the bronze-skinned warriors fell back toward the enormous city.

  In her vision, she and the clouds of skas observed from high above, safe from the fray. More and more reptile birds joined the flock, flying in tight formation as if they meant to assemble themselves into a mosaic, and Glik was part of that puzzle.

  Inside the great city, sandwreth mages erected a huge framework made of gems and inset with magical lines, a horrendous weapon designed to slay the dragon Ossus. It would eradicate the enemy army as well—if the mages could control the blast.

  Glik gasped as she realized where she was in the vision, what she was seeing. The battlefield below would become the Plain of Black Glass.

  As soon as the thought came to her, an enormous flash of light roared out from the mages’ device like rainbow tornadoes. The wash of uncontrolled magic crashed forward, disintegrating the armies that filled the plain—both wreth factions, and all of the humans.

  Then the magic weapon broke loose from the control of the exhausted mages and spun, blasting its magic in vast arcs that engulfed the entire city, smashing it flat and turning the valley into a pool of melted glass.

  Glik and the vision-skas flew higher to avoid the shock waves from the annihilation below. Ari’s presence helped guide her escape.

  But now Glik felt a force even more ominous, something huge and rumbling. The enormous flock streaked at impossible speed across the land and over towering mountains: the Dragonspine range. Beneath them, the world began to crack open. Mountains shifted and split, and great lines of fire rocketed upward as a vast presence stirred below.

  Buried deep in her trance, Glik struggled to get away. She didn’t want to see this. It could destroy her!

  Ari kept pace inside her mind, refusing to let go. All of the skas in the great flock swooped down, picking up speed … flying straight toward the upheaval in the mountains—

  With a harsh cry, Glik awoke next to the stream, shaking and sweating. On her shoulder, the reptile bird flapped her wings, nuzzled Glik’s ear, clicked and burbled, as if in apology. The campfire had died down to dull orange embers.

  “What did we see?” Glik asked in a hoarse voice. She pressed her palm against her chest, felt her heart beating, and traced one more circle, fearing that she had seen an end that would have no new beginning to follow.

  * * *

  She made her way to Bannriya, needing to see her foster sister Penda, as well as Hale Orr. Inside the vast walled city, Glik gradually began to shake off the dread from her vision. She always enjoyed exploring the wilderness of streets, the back alleys. Ari fluttered into the air, then came back to rest on her shoulder, not yet used to the close buildings and noisy crowds.

  The girl talked with the food vendors, musicians, potters, weavers, washerwomen. She didn’t understand how anyone could be content staying in one home, seeing the same people and the same sights every day. She compared city dwellers to trees, with roots planted deep and growing tall, but stuck in the same place. Glik was more like a red fox, going wherever she liked.

  Hoping to get a good meal in the castle kitchens, even if the staff made her wash up, Glik went to the lower side door. The thick-waisted head cook remembered her and teased, “Why, it’s the dirty little girl!”

  Glik followed the woman into the kitchens. “Proud to wear the dust of all the miles I’ve traveled.” She inhaled the delicious smells of the ovens and cauldrons. “Here to visit my sister. Hope you won’t make me dress in fancy clothes?”

  “Ah, the queen’s not here, child, but you can have a fine lunch with me.” The cook rummaged around the kitchen, scrounging day-old bread and a bowl of the previous night’s soup that still simmered in the bottom of the pot. Glik tore open a hard roll and fed pieces of crust to Ari, who gulped them down.

  Taking a stool across from the girl, the head cook adjusted the white bonnet that held her gray-brown hair. Her face bore a troubled expression. “Queen Penda and King Adan left with those terrible creatures.” She lowered her voice as if simply uttering the word would summon the ancient race. “The sandwreths!”

  Glik’s interest was piqued, and she also felt a flash of concern. “Captured? Taken as hostages?” Ari flapped her blue wings, sensing her partner’s alarm. “I’ll go rescue them!”

  “Oh, dear, no, not that. They went with an escort party riding on those lizard things.” The cook’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “Queen Voo invited them on a dragon hunt.”

  “Dragon hunt? Cra!” Glik almost choked on her bread, remembering her dreams of scales and dark angular wings. “Not possible.” She recalled what Shella din Orr had said. “Way too rare.”

  “The sandwreths think they know where to find one. They wanted our king and queen to witness it. Quite something to put in a legacy, I should say … but not for me!” The cook looked very worried.

&nb
sp; The reptile bird burbled and buzzed until Glik gave her the rest of the hard bread, which she happily crunched and swallowed.

  The girl made up her mind. “Ought to witness it, too, I guess. You know which way and when?”

  “They left a few days ago. Who can say how long a dragon hunt is supposed to take? They headed for the outer desert, toward the Furnace.”

  “Sounds like enough time to catch up with them.” Glik wolfed down her soup.

  “Xar went with the king and queen, if that’s any help,” the cook said. “Maybe your ska can follow.”

  “Maybe. Come on, Ari,” Glik said. Through their heart link, she made sure the ska knew Penda and could find her even out in the great open desert.

  79

  AS King Kollanan’s new Brava, Elliel devoted herself to protecting not only him, but also his kingdom. She was bonded to a deserving master and his people, so she set about learning the politics of Norterra, their allies, their history. It was all part of her now.

  This job was fundamentally different from the oppressive service she had given to Lord Cade, who—secure in his political power—had drugged her, assaulted her, and cost Elliel her very identity as a Brava. He was far away on the other side of the Commonwealth, considering himself safe. For now.

  Then there was Utho.

  She walled those thoughts away. Elliel had bonded herself to King Kollanan the Hammer, and his kingdom was being threatened by the frostwreths. She had a higher responsibility than personal retribution.

  Kollanan had already sent a warning letter by Utauk courier off to Convera Castle, detailing the secret operations Lord Cade kept up in his county and explaining exactly what Utho had done to her. The news would likely cause quite an uproar once the konag learned of it. Elliel would also need to address the matter herself, at some point, but Thon had taught her patience.…

  For the time being, she struggled to meld the new person she had become with the person she had been in the past. Her brain was packed full of details, like a remembrance shrine with countless volumes waiting to be read, and she hadn’t had time to review her own life. She had two different legacies for the same life.