Spine of the Dragon

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “You certainly got their attention, Sire,” Elliel said, adjusting her warm cloak as she settled into her saddle. Beside her, Thon mounted up.

  “I still don’t have my grandson back,” Koll said. “This isn’t close to over.”

  The raiding party retreated from the lakeshore and into the thick trees. The king patted his black warhorse and took one last look at the frozen lake and the looming fortress. No doubt about it, he had just declared war.

  97

  GLIK pushed on into the desert for days until her supplies and water dwindled. Her sunburned skin was gritty with sand and dust, and she wondered if she would ever find Penda or the wreths and their dragon hunt.

  Ari flew high overhead, still searching. Surely, her ska would find some sign of the sandwreths. Glik hoped she hadn’t missed the dragon hunt. She had envisioned it as an exceptional tournament with hundreds of warriors against a huge reptilian beast.

  She scratched another circle mark on the red rock. “The beginning is the end is the beginning.”

  Some odd call pulled her onward. Each night, Glik felt the power in her dreams, sensed a destiny out here, but she had underestimated the vastness of the Furnace. This entire desert might be the scarred remnants of an ancient battlefield, like the Plain of Black Glass.

  She hiked along, lamenting the state of her footwear. The rocky terrain had been hard on her boots, and the soles were wearing thin. Discouraged, she stopped, sat on a rock, and removed her left boot to shake out an annoying pebble. Before tugging the boot back on again, she felt the blister. Years of walking had toughened her feet, but apparently she still had some tender flesh left. Once she found Penda and the king, maybe they would let her accompany them back to Suderra. Her ska kept searching.

  The girl squinted at the veil of dust clouds that had blown up from a dry lake in the distance. Ari soared over the landscape, but by now Glik could sense through their heart link that her pet also yearned to see trees and rivers again. When the ska let out her familiar call, Glik made a similar sound in her throat, breaking the desert silence. Yes, they both wanted to go home.

  She stood up again, kicking her heel to seat her foot in the boot, and set off through a high-walled canyon.

  Ari alighted on her shoulder, and Glik stroked the blue plumage. “What did you see from up there? Cra, we’re not completely lost, because you can always find where we’re going, but maybe we should start back.” The ska buzzed, her faceted eyes catching the sun. In order to get a better sense of where they were, Glik removed the fine collar that Shella din Orr had given them. She activated the magic in the mothertear, releasing the images it had captured.

  The unexplored canyonlands were beautiful, but Glik’s heart sank. The arid expanse extended as far in front of her as back in the direction she had come. That was not a good sign. She pulled and expanded the images, looking more closely, trying to find some oasis, a settlement, a wreth encampment.

  To her surprise and relief, she discovered a large collection of structures and figures down the side branch of a canyon, not far away. Although cliff overhangs obscured details, she saw walls, buildings, fences … people. Utauk tribes would only make camp in a place that had water, plants, something to eat. What she saw in the image had to be an oasis of sorts in order to support so many people. This was her best chance, and she decided at last that it was best to give up on the idea of finding Penda or the dragon hunt.

  When she replaced the collar, Ari flapped her blue wings. Glik trudged off, heartened now. She drank much of her remaining water, hoping she no longer needed to conserve so tightly. She kept to the shadows at the side of the canyon wall, but the high sun left very little shade.

  From the mothertear images, she knew where to go. As she hiked deeper into the canyon with towering rock walls on either side, she saw footprints in the trampled dirt and loose stones. Booted feet, bare feet, and large three-toed reptilian footprints.

  Instinct made Glik cautious. Instead of boldly approaching the oasis camp, she kept to the edge of the canyon. As soon as she entered the side canyon, she could smell the settlement ahead, smoke from fires, old latrines, and the stink of countless unwashed bodies. She had been in many large Utauk camps. The tribes insisted on proper hygiene, disposing of garbage and human waste. This, though, seemed squalid and sloppy.

  She heard activity ahead, shouts, the clink of metal implements on rock, guttural commands. When she came around a curve in the canyon, the view opened up to reveal walls and fences, barricades across the wide floor. She saw low huts made of mud bricks and fused sand, fabric roofs stretched across hardened rock knobs for shade.

  And humans—hundreds, maybe thousands of them—were crowded together like cattle fenced in the butcher’s quarter in Bannriya.

  Glik drew back. The ska on her shoulder fluttered in alarm.

  The humans—prisoners? slaves?—labored in gloomy, silent teams. They worked to build fortifications, digging trenches in the canyon. Standing guard, Glik saw tall, copper-skinned sandwreths with ivory hair, scaled leather armor, obsidian and bone spears, pikes, axes. The wreths roared orders, and the captive humans moved about, sullen and weak.

  Glik recalled the empty hill villages she sometimes found on the fringes of the desert, abandoned settlements blown over with dust. She had thought—hoped—that all the people had simply left to find a better life. Now, she realized that they must have been kidnapped and thrown into these sprawling ugly camps. Many Utauk caravans had also mysteriously vanished in the hills.

  In her shock, she stared a moment too long. Two sandwreth guards spotted her and shouted in loud voices that echoed through the canyon. Glik began to run, sprinting over the rocky sand of the canyon floor. She didn’t bother to cry out in alarm; she just fled. Ari sprang into the air with a beat of blue wings.

  The sandwreths came after her, leaping over their fences, racing down the side canyon.

  Glik ran for all she was worth, but when she turned the corner into the main canyon, she skidded, her boots kicking up small stones. Two more ominous sandwreths bounded toward her on large augas. The lean warriors raised their spears to block her escape. The others closed in on her from behind.

  Glik stopped, fists clenched at her sides, and turned back and forth. She could see no way out.

  In despair, she watched her ska fly away. At least Ari would remain free.…

  98

  WHEN Cemi ran into the empra’s chamber, knife raised to defend herself, she saw Iluris sprawled on the floor near the wall at the base of a thick stone bench. The empra’s skin was gray, and a lake of blood spilled out around her head. Her skull had smashed into the sharp edge of the bench—did the assassin do it?—and now the woman lay with her eyes closed, left hand twitching, fingers trembling. A soldier bent over her, looking helpless.

  “Is she dead?” Cemi demanded. “Did that bastard kill her?”

  “She lives, just barely … and maybe not for long. A wound like this…”

  Cemi barked a sharp command to the soldier: “Get a doctor—and anyone else who can help!” She suddenly realized there might be more than one assassin, that the danger might not be over. “Bring Captani Vos and the hawk guards! We have to protect the empra. Guard this room.” She dropped to her knees and touched Iluris’s cheeks, pulled up her eyelids. The empra’s eyes had rolled back up into her head, showing only the whites. Blood trickled from her ears.

  After the soldier bolted out of the chamber, Cemi grabbed the scorched sheets from the bed and tore off a swatch of cloth much too large for what she needed. She wadded it and very gently lifted the empra’s head off the stone floor. The back of her skull felt caved in, too soft. More blood oozed out.

  “Oh, Iluris!” She pressed the cloth against the matted ash-blond hair. The empra lay deeply unconscious, on the verge of death.

  Furious, the captani of the hawk guards barged into the chamber, stepping over the dead body in the hall and bringing two other red-faced hawk guards with him. “Our mother
has been attacked, and Nedd is dead out in the hall.” He strode forward, unable to tear his eyes from Iluris and all the blood. “We failed in our job. She’s dead!”

  Cemi looked up, pressing against the red-soaked rag. “She’s alive, but wounded badly. I don’t know enough to tend her, not with this kind of injury.” Though she was young, the girl had seen more than her share of death, beatings, and slow recoveries on the streets. “She may never wake up from a head wound like this.”

  “I’ve treated many battlefield injuries,” Vos said, kneeling next to Cemi. He looked up at the hawk guards who had accompanied him. “Bring the rest of our men, all of them. I want them at the empra’s side—now! Why is she all alone here?”

  “Some soldiers ran off to fight the assassin,” Cemi said. “It was the Brava, the one who came with Konag Conndur. Utho.”

  “Then he should be hunted down and killed,” Vos said. “And for certain, his orders must have come from the godless konag. We are all in grave danger. We’ll have to make a defensible stand here.”

  From the distant clamor, accompanied by the sound of thunder and rain outside, Cemi guessed the battles were continuing elsewhere, possibly throughout the garrison. An alarm bell clanged in the courtyard. More Commonwealth soldiers raced to the keep.

  “It was a trap,” Cemi said. “The konag lured us to this island meaning to kill Iluris all along.” She looked up at the captani’s face, remembering how she had embarrassed him and his men by slipping past their security in Prirari. But that had been a game, and since then she had gotten to know Vos and the other hawk guards, and she understood they were entirely devoted to the empra. She saw them as kindred spirits.

  Cemi realized she was speaking with the tone of command she had learned from Empra Iluris in the last few weeks. Bending over the woman’s supine form, the captani went through the same motions she had: touching Iluris’s temples, peeling her eyes back. “This is bad.” He pressed his fingertips to her throat, found the thready pulse. Without looking up, Captani Vos barked to the additional hawk guards standing at the doorway, “Prepare to defend our mother with your lives. This may just be starting. Once the konag learns that she still lives, he will send reinforcements to wipe us all out.”

  As soon as Cemi had arrived on Fulcor Island, she had studied the garrison and the barracks, watched the Commonwealth soldiers out in the courtyard. She had a good guess as to how many of them were stationed here. Although the Isharans had brought along a significant honor guard, and their warships lay anchored beyond the reefs, Cemi did the math as if she had an abacus in her head.

  “They outnumber us significantly in the garrison, Captani. Surely they mean to kill us all. They have us trapped here.” The answer was obvious to her. “We have to stabilize the empra and carry her to the landing boats while the fighting continues and under cover of the storm. We’ve got to get her to the warship anchored just beyond the cove.”

  Vos was startled. “It would be madness to leave. She’ll die if we carry her now.”

  Cemi swallowed hard. “She’s strong. It’s just as dangerous to stay. We’re bottled up here, and they will kill us off one by one.” She looked intently at him. “Should we just surrender and die? Or should we take a chance, as small as it might be? We’ve got to save her.”

  The captani paled and stiffened. “And someone must make it back to Serepol to report what happened here, otherwise the godless konag may try to say it was merely an accident.” His voice grew more hoarse. “He could sink our ships and let Ishara believe that the empra simply died on her voyage home! He would be able to claim anything he liked!”

  “We have to go,” Cemi insisted, “whatever happens. Oh, I hope we can save her.”

  Vos wrapped tight cloth bandages around the empra’s head, as if it were a battlefield wound, and wiped his blood-smeared hands on a torn sheet. “I swore my life to protect our mother empra, and if that’s the only way…” He stood. “Call our soldiers! Hawk guards, to me! Form a wedge. We will carry her to the gates, retreat down the cliff stairs, and get into our landing boats. We must live long enough to get her to safety.”

  One of the hawk guards groaned. “We should have brought a godling. Priestlord Klovus said we should have brought a godling!”

  “We should have brought a thousand more fighting men, too, but we can’t win a battle with wishes. Now go, spread the word to all Isharan fighters. Right now, we can take advantage of the chaos. We have to retreat before the trap is entirely sprung.”

  Two of the hawk guards rigged a makeshift stretcher to carry the empra, and with Cemi helping, they carefully transferred the limp form onto it. Though rushed, they took exquisite care as they lifted her and prepared to evacuate.

  Cemi followed close, not leaving Iluris’s side as the guards moved her out of the smoke-filled room. Her hands were covered with sticky blood, and the cloth wrapped around Iluris’s head was also soaked. The empra didn’t stir. Her expression was slack, her skin clammy.

  Cemi felt desperate, but she drew a breath and steeled herself, refusing to act like a helpless, shuddery girl. Their only hope was to get to the ship, and they all knew it. “Hurry!” she whispered, and the armored guards moved at a brisk pace through the keep.

  They knew they might have to fight their way across the courtyard, and even descending the steep, rain-slick cliff stairs to the docks would be treacherous for all of them. Cemi was sure they would have to leave some Isharan fighters behind to cover them. Captani Vos would resent that, but getting the empra to safety was the highest priority. The hawk guards had to save her.

  As they emerged from the great doors of the main keep, rain slashed down. Men were fighting outside, and she heard swords clashing on the roof above. The hawk guards shouted orders, which were passed on to Isharan soldiers who broke away to fight in the courtyard, providing cover so the smaller party could get away with the stretcher. The clash of metal and screams echoed against the thunder.

  Cemi clasped the empra’s cold, motionless hand, silently begging her to stay alive. She wished they did have some godling to protect them, but Iluris herself had hampered the godlings and the priestlords. Even if she survived to reach Serepol again, would the godlings deign to assist her? Throughout her entire reign, she had curtailed their power. Perhaps the godlings resented Iluris. Cemi wondered where Priestlord Klovus was now.

  The darkness was deep and intense in the pouring rain. Loud, desperate fighting was concentrated on the roof of the keep, and shouting soldiers ran along the top of the boundary wall. The Isharans continued to sound the retreat, their soldiers battling Commonwealth fighters at the barracks, in the courtyard.

  Captani Vos was focused on only one mission. His hawk guards formed an impenetrable wedge around the wounded empra as they pushed their way across the muddy courtyard. Commonwealth soldiers converged to cut off the remaining Isharan fighters, but once Captani Vos had cleared a way across the courtyard, the fighting became easier. They reached the gate that led to the cleft in the cliff and access to the exposed stairs down to the docks in the harbor cove.

  A bruised, disheveled, and frantic-looking Klovus scuttled after them, his caftan drenched, raindrops glistening on his bald head. Two Isharan soldiers followed him like bodyguards. He saw the motionless figure on the stretcher and rushed closer. “You retrieved the empra’s body? We must hold a proper funeral for her back in Serepol.”

  “She’s not dead!” Cemi cried. “We’re rescuing her.”

  The priestlord was taken aback. “Hear us, save us! Yes, we must get her to safety, no matter how badly she’s injured. If we weren’t so far from blessed Ishara, I could summon magic, and I could help us fight. I should have brought a godling, no matter what the empra said, but she wouldn’t let me protect her.”

  “Then help us escape, Priestlord,” Vos growled. They worked their way through the rock cleft, two hawk guards carrying the stretcher, then started down the exposed cliffside stairs. Several defenders volunteered to remain behind a
nd hold off any attacks from above.

  The landing boats were tied up to the dock, covered in canvas. The cove’s high cliffs blocked most of the rain, but spray made the piers and steps treacherous. Three hawk guards raced down the stairs ahead of the empra. They tore off the canvas and untied the ropes for immediate departure.

  Cemi clutched Iluris’s hand until they reached the dock and carefully loaded the bleeding woman aboard the boat. “Go as soon as she is aboard! Don’t wait,” Vos cried.

  Cemi sprang into the boat, sitting on the gunwale next to the empra. The captani called back, “Priestlord, come with us to the safety of the warship. We don’t have much time.”

  “I have two personal guards. They must come along as well.” Klovus indicated the pair of silent soldiers accompanying him. “They will help protect me.”

  Vos scowled, but didn’t have time to argue. “Bring them, but we have to go now!”

  Cradling the empra, Cemi heard the increasing shouts and clang of metal behind them. The fight was intensifying up in the cleft with the enemy soldiers coming after them. One of the hawk guards sprang from the landing boat and back onto the dock. “Go, Captani—take our mother. We will stay here and defend your escape.”

  “As soon as we’re gone, take another landing boat,” Vos said. “Get to the anchored ship.” Without waiting, they threw off the ropes, and soldiers rowed hard out of the cove toward the warship waiting just beyond the reefs.

  Once they were out of the narrow harbor, the waters were choppy. Cold rain poured down, and Cemi leaned over to shield the empra. With a flash of lightning in the sky, she saw the unconscious woman’s drawn, empty expression. “Stay alive,” she whispered, “please.” With such a head injury, Cemi knew that sometimes a victim never woke up. Other times, if they did, the person’s mind was gone. “Please stay alive. Please be well again.”

  The guards rowed furiously toward the anchored ship, and alarms kept sounding on Fulcor Island behind them. Ahead, Cemi saw lanterns appear on the Isharan vessel. The crew aboard knew that something terrible had happened.