She turned around and waded toward the merchants with all the grace she could manage. She was panting hard as she reached the rim, but she did not give them time to study her. "Back away from the edge," she commanded. "Back away! Drop to your knees and bow."
The men looked startled, scared even, but one after another did as she commanded. Several had to dismount, but they did so quickly. Soon the entire company around her-merchants, nobles, laborers, and the ragged children-pressed their knees to the ground, waiting, jittery, caught between obeying her and their desire to watch the water rise. The Numrek contingent stood straight backed, their weapons in hand, looking as if they were ready to attack the merchants, slaughtering them. Not today, Corinn thought.
She stood gathering her breath, holding the moment, using it. Aaden still sat on his horse. She glanced at him long enough to smile away his concern. In a gesture meant only for him, she rolled her eyes, as if acknowledging the silliness of it all. The gesture almost knocked her off balance. She indicated that he should dismount and stand beside her. Then she turned her attention to the bowed heads.
"Are you true to me?" Corinn asked.
"Of course," Elder Anath said.
"Why?"
"You are our queen."
"Are you the only one who thinks so?"
The others spoke then, praising her, talking over one another, some bending forward like worshippers. It was what she wanted, but the sight of them annoyed her also. They were scared now, cowards. "Do not ask how I have done this thing, but see that it was I alone who did it. Tell the truth when you speak of this. The water will rise and rise and never stop as long as this is my wish. It will fill the tank and will replenish itself as you open the gates and feed the fields. This heart spring belongs to all Bocoum. Don't let me learn that any of you have called it your own or deprived others of it. You may look up now."
Corinn's gaze moved from one person to the next, pausing at each one, speaking to them all-old and young, rich and poor-with the same authority. Before, there might have been much to read in the hidden thoughts and emotions behind the various faces. Now, though, they all looked the same. Sinper Ou shared the same slack-mouthed expression as the boy standing a little distance behind him. Elder Anath had a face of wet clay, upon which she could write what she wished.
"I am not just the mother of this child. I am the mother of Acacia. Say that. Say that I am the mother of Acacia."
"You are the mother of Acacia," they intoned raggedly, in different volumes and pitches of voices.
"Say that I am the mother of the empire."
The kneeling group did.
"And remember to pray each day for my health, for should I die, this spring will as well. Betray me," Corinn said, "and your world will dry, shrivel, and burst into flames beneath my sun. This water that I give"-she motioned to the rising body behind her-"I can take away. So say I, and my son." As hard as it was to do, she raised Aaden's arm with hers. For a few moments longer, her eyes moved from person to person, until she was sure that she had made eye contact with them all. Then she smiled and said, soft voiced, "That's the truth, but we are friends here, aren't we? Do not think me angry. I just enjoy speaking the truth. Now drink of this water, friends. It will not cease flowing. Never. Grow your crops, and spread word of the gift I have given Bocoum. I am your queen, and I give this to you."
As the merchants rose and moved toward her, she had to speak over their adulation to announce that she would return to the city now, without the merchant escort. Though they fawned around her until she moved away, it was clear they did not care. They rushed toward the edge of the bubbling tank as soon as she turned her back to them. On her horse again, she rode without looking back. Aaden did, though.
"What are they doing?" she asked.
The boy laughed. "They're acting like children. They are dancing, shouting, and hugging each other. I didn't know you were going to do that! You did magic, Mother, and everyone saw!" He laughed again, and Corinn knew the child in him would have liked to have joined them, to share their giddy enthusiasm, maybe even to jump in and swim. She needed him, though. She could not fall from the saddle. If she did, the Numrek would carry her back to the city, but that wouldn't do.
She began to reach out to touch him, but just lifting her hand from the pommel made her feel she might fall. She returned it, gripping hard and trying to find the swaying balance she needed. It would not be easy, but she knew she could do it if she kept her focus. For that reason, she rode in silence for several minutes.
"Aaden, ride close to me. Watch me carefully."
"Why?" Serious now, the prince drew up near her.
"Doing such a thing as that tires me very much. I need you beside me."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
If the tales were to be believed, she faced a winged monster. A dragon. A lizard thing of such massive proportions that the beating of its wings snapped trees and blew roofs off houses and sent unfortunate people swirling into the air. It swooped down and grasped cattle two and three at a time, flying loops in the air and tossing its prey like a playful cat. It swallowed cattle whole, in midnight. Its jaws and neck convulsed with the grotesque gluttony of a river crocodile. One farmhouse was destroyed when the thing landed atop it, plunging its claws to snatch at the inhabitants within. High up the southern basin entire herds of goats and their minders had disappeared. It had been spotted as far away as Tabith, which was grave news indeed. If it could travel that far, it might soon discover Bocoum and the bounty of human life all around the Inner Sea, including the isle of Acacia itself.
While Mena had focused her attentions on the tenten creature and on the scourge of the Halaly lake, small bands of Talayan runners had narrowed in on the new creature's lair. They compared one sighting with the next, slowly piecing together when it was on an outbound journey from its lair. It had not been easy to track its movements. The thing was aloft, and it could travel much faster than a person could run.
Still, they managed it, and because of their work Mena was awakened one morning to the news that it had landed a mile away from her new camp. She was up and jogging the distance with her officers immediately. Melio and the rest of her force followed, bearing with them the tools they would need and traveling with stealth. They were in a shallow dale west of Umae, in a land that benefited from the moisture that evaporated from the great lake, blew north on the winds, and then settled nightly to condense among the orchards and pastures that distinguished the country. The marching was easy, the cover good. The Talayan trackers, aided by local farmers and herders, moved them along in the shade of trees, using the lees of hills and the shelter of brush-banked streams.
In no time at all Mena approached the last group of spotters, men and boys with their fingers to their full lips. They indicated with gestures that they were near the top of a hill. Another few paces and she should crawl the last few feet and look over the edge. She did as they advised, awkwardly, with her sword at her side and a waist pack of supplies nestled against the small of her back. She ended elbow to elbow with a herd boy on one side of her and a Talayan tracker on the other.
"Look carefully and you will see it," the Talayan said.
All she saw at first was a wide vale filled with short, rounded, evenly spaced trees. A stream traced a meandering line through the center of it, and here and there she could tell the vegetation had been managed, lanes left open, ponds dug as water catchments. It took her a moment to spot any movement among the tranquillity of the scene, but then a serpentine head moved between two trees. It was there for a second and then gone, and so far away on the other slope of the vale that she was not sure of what she had seen. Squinting, Mena followed it, and was looking in the right spot to see its head rise above the crown of one tree, cock to the side, and, with gingerly precision, nip at the foliage. And then it was hidden again.
Something about what she had just seen sent tingles over her flesh. There was fear in the reaction but a hint of something else also. "What are tho
se trees?" she asked. "How tall are they?"
The local boy whispered an answer in Talayan, two words that Mena repeated. She was quite fluent in the language, but she was constantly being thrown by the Talayan tendency to name things through descriptive use of other words. "Blood… heart?" she asked.
The tracker lying on the other side of her cupped his hand to her ear. "You don't call it blood heart. It's orange in your language, but orange with red inside. The trees are two men in height, some a little more."
"What's it doing here? Is its lair near here?"
He creased his dark-skinned forehead. "No, I don't think so. It just landed here. We did not expect it."
"Just a coincidence, huh?" Mena muttered. She squirmed forward a few more inches and looked back at the orchard.
When she spotted the creature again, it was somewhat closer. It stepped into a lane and paused, raking its head from side to side and then freezing. It was lean and light on its four feet. In that position it must have been no more than a person's height, but that changed when it reared up on its back legs and took in the orchard-again going still as a statue-from a higher vantage. She could see the reptile in it. It was there in the sinuous lines of its neck and the blue patches along its back and in the long, whiplike expanse of its tail. It was, she thought, akin to the sand lizards that lived right in the huts of Talayan villagers. Its eyes were shaped just like those of the harmless creatures. They were larger by many times, but their size did not completely obscure their origins. She had once thought them curious eyes, innocent, fearful, and yet full of mischief.
There was an avian quality to the creature as well: flares around its neck that seemed like feathers, a crest on its forehead that snapped forward and back with a mind of its own, like the plumage a peacock displayed. When it bobbed its head the motion was comical, like both the tiny lizard it reminded her of and the motion of birds. It moved into the trees again, hunting the juiciest oranges, apparently.
Moments later, down away from the hill, Mena tongue-lashed the trackers for the absurdity of what she had just seen. "Does it not seem strange that the scourge of Talay dines on fruit? That thing is the great dragon people have been speaking of?" The group of men and boys stirred uneasily. "It eats the fruit of trees and walks around bobbing its head as if to a tune. It's as dangerous as a hen! Is that truly the thing we hunt? Look me in the face and tell me that's the last of the great foulthings."
Eventually, several affirmed that it was what they hunted. When Mena pressed them as to whether that exact creature was the one they had seen time and again over the last few weeks, they admitted it was. When she asked them why they had not corrected the rumors about its size and ferociousness they let a long silence sit, before a man answered that it was still dangerous. It was much fiercer than it looked. They had seen it in flight and-
"It flies without wings?" she snapped. "I saw no wings. Did you? Has anyone here fought it? Have any of you seen it take cattle, squash homes, terrorize villages?"
When none of them could explain the discrepancy, she turned from them and walked away a few paces, exasperated. Melio followed her, almost laughing, but she hissed, "This is a farce! Do they know how we've prepared? All the precautions? The worry we've lived with-all because of a giant sand lizard? I should have known: dragons have never lived and never will! What's happened to our reason?"
"Well," Melio said smirking, "you know, I did hear about a group of young men caught poaching near the southern basin. Might be that-"
"Poachers? People have been poaching while we risk our lives to protect them?"
Melio shrugged. "Somebody will always take advantage, Mena. On the day that anything happens in the world without somebody finding a way to cheat a profit out of it I'll dance a jig naked before any who will come and watch. Don't sell tickets, though. I doubt I'll ever be called to make such a show."
Leaning toward him, Mena exhaled a long, fatigued breath. She slipped one hand up around his side, feeling the flare of his back muscles. "Okay," she said, "that lizard is our last monster. It's no dragon, but we still must do something with it. Do we toss fruit at it or kill it? Perhaps we could walk up and put a leash around its neck."
Melio returned her embrace. "You're funny, Princess. Some people-not you, of course, but some sane people-would view this as a boon. Think about it. You woke up this morning ready to risk your life battling a terrifying beast. Instead, we've been given a gift. It's all but over, Mena. We can leave here and get on with our lives. I for one will be very happy to go home and warm your bed for weeks on end. I hope you'll join me. Think of it! We can go home and then you can stop taking those herbs. You'll do that, yes? Stop and be fertile again. I'll plant a child in you and-"
"Don't," Mena said, softly. "Don't talk about that now."
"And we can live our lives," he completed. "Why not now? Now is exactly the time to remember it. I have loved you since the afternoon I saw you striding along the dock in Vumu, bare chested and all, a priestess of Maeben. I loved you then, and I love you now. You are angry you're not going to die today? Put that aside, Mena. Let's go finish this, and then go home.
The preparations took very little time. Her officers had been readying the men and supplies from the first news of the sighting. By the time Mena confirmed they were to proceed, the troops were arriving, weapons in hand. Not wanting missiles to end up zinging willy-nilly through the orchard if the creature bolted, she chose her twenty best crossbowmen and explained to them a variation on the original plan. She sent the trackers and extra soldiers to ring the entire vale to keep the creature hemmed in. With the main group she followed a contingent of excited local boys who led them through a hidden wash and in toward the center of the orchard, low enough to remain unseen by the creature. They crept with increasing stealth, which was no easy task considering the way they were encumbered.
The bowmen walked with their weapons pointed toward the sky, each of them connected by a cord that ran from the bolt and into coils held in their seconds' palms. The line did not stop there, but trailed farther to a third, and sometimes fourth, assistant. These men carried stones cradled to their chests. A few had them in slings over their backs. Some of the rocks were large enough that two men strained to carry them, waddling together, their muscles taut and brows dripping with sweat. Each of these stones had a hole through it. It was this to which the cords from the bows were secured.
Mena kept them all in a tight group, close enough that she could communicate with gestures: a raised palm, a clenched fist, just enough of a beckoning motion with her fingers to move them forward on silent feet. When they reached the final rise that separated them from the grove the creature was feeding in, she made eye contact with them all, touched a finger to her lips, and then turned and led them forward. She drew her sword carefully as she did. She moved into the ordered rows of orange trees, smelling the tang of them, the sickly ripeness of the split fruit that dotted the ground.
Her hand snapped up. Without looking, she heard the group behind her pause, not so much a sound but the sudden absence of whatever sound had been there before to indicate them. She had spotted the foulthing. It was but fifty yards away, on the hillside facing them. It moved casually through the trees, its long neck curving selectively among the branches and leaves. Its back was to them. Mena waved her fingers in the air, and the group moved again, more stealthily now than ever.
As they got nearer, Mena had the hunting party fan out to either side. She slowed the center and let the flanks swing forward, making the group a crescent that half surrounded the foulthing. She knew they could not hope to get much closer, but she moved on light feet, thankful for every inch gained. She could now see that the creature was feathered, a close, tight coating that revealed the muscled contours and bone structure beneath a slick sheen of light plumage.
Without really realizing she was doing it, Mena drew to a halt, staring, curious now instead of angry or excited or frightened. The creature had knobby formations high on
its back, and an indication of violet crest feathers running up its long neck. Despite these avian features, it was equally reptilian. Its body stretched long and lizardlike, with a tail that tapered to a thin point. For the first time, Mena realized, she did not feel the stomach-turning nausea the other foulthings had always invoked. She suddenly wanted to watch this one, to study it, to call back the slow-creeping crossbowmen and reconsider. She did not get to.
In the end it was not sound that gave them away. It was the breeze. It shifted. Mena felt it happen, felt a playful arm of the wind reach out and swipe at them and pull their scent and sprinkle it over the creature. The others must have sensed it, too. They stood frozen, breathing hushed, eyes wide.
The beast stopped feeding. Its head sank a few feet, and then it lifted its snout and inhaled through a few silent nostril flares. Without moving its body, it turned its head around and looked over the ridgeline of its back, its neck as supple as a snake. It saw them. Mena knew it saw them both because it looked right at them and because its eyes grew larger.
They were near enough, Mena decided. She lifted her hand to signal the crossbowmen, but realized they might not see her, as focused as they were on the lizard bird. They might not see her, but the creature did. Its gaze snapped to her, met hers, and held her with an intensity that was both animal savage and intelligent. Again, Mena wished she could back away. She could not have said exactly why. This was a foulthing. It was unnatural. It was a threat that did not belong in the world. Before, each time she had looked into one of these mutated beast's eyes, she had seen a perverted malevolence that had to be extinguished. That was not what was looking at her now. She needed time to-
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