Rune Song (Dragon Speaker Series Book 2)

by Devin Hanson

  “We find the Incantors and we destroy them.”

  “There are bound to be innocents here as well. That kind of battle would have many unintended casualties.”

  “If saving Khar Bora means killing a few hundred socialites,” Iria said, “I would let their blood myself.”

  The Speaker grimaced but nodded. “You’re right. And we must not let them run away. This is our only opportunity to cleanse the corruption. If a single Incantor escapes, the dragons will erase humanity from Nas Shahr.”

  “That will be the most difficult part. The Rising Sun is isolated, but there are still many exits.”

  “It is possible alchemy can assist with that. I will think on it, and prepare. It would help if there was a place I could sit that had a better view.”

  “Perhaps on top of the hall?”

  Andrew turned to the massive building and nodded. “Perhaps. When I begin my preparation, I will be concentrating pretty hard.”

  “I will watch your back,” Iria promised. “Just give the word when you are ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I have some preparation of my own to do. If you need me, ask a balai and he will locate me.”

  The Speaker sketched out a little bow and Iria turned away. Like most of her conversations with him, she was left with thoughts spinning in her head. His concern over unnecessary lives lost was touching, but naïve. This was a war, despite the wagonloads of flowers being brought into the courtyard, and in war there were casualties.

  Unlike many soft-hearted people Iria had dealt with over the years as a balai, the Speaker hadn’t reacted badly to her ultimatum of killing everyone she had to in order to protect the city. On the contrary, he supported it, recognizing the necessity for what it was. He was kind, Iria decided, but did not let it blind him from the necessary. A rare combination. Most people were either one extreme or the other: fearing to kill out of kindness or had the capacity for compassion burned from their souls.

  She pulled herself out of her musing and flagged down a passing balai. “I would speak with Sergeant al Din,” she said.

  “He is overseeing the deployment by the entrance to the courtyard, Lieutenant.”

  “Thank you. I will find him.”

  The balai nodded and Iria turned to the east. The sun had risen high enough that direct sunlight was no longer pouring through the gap in the arches, but stray beams of light found passage through the tangle of stonework that made up the palace and stabbed into her eyes as she walked. She flipped the sand mask back down over her face and sighed at the comfort of anonymity and protection it always gave her.

  Fakhir was speaking with a pair of balai, but directed them away when he saw her approach. “Lieutenant,” he greeted her, “what can I do for you?”

  “I have been in the north across the real land for too long. I have questions.” She wasn’t surprised that the balai sergeant recognized her. Working with people who kept their faces covered all the time taught one to read body language cues to identify people.

  “Of course. I will answer what I can.”

  “First, know that I appreciate your assistance, and the balai who follow you.”

  “It is our honor.”

  “But I would ask why? Why are there so many balai in Khar Bora? Why do they assist me?”

  Fakhir nodded before she finished talking, but let her finish before saying. “It is true, you have been gone long. Being balai is not what it was a year ago.”

  “How could that be? The Emperor himself gave us our writ.”

  “The Emperor is dead, or silenced. None have seen him these last few weeks, and he had lost the will to control his Speakers long before that. The tradition of the balai is all that holds us now. The Speakers have taken over for the Emperor and have made reforms to the laws.”

  “The Emperor is dead? Why is there no mourning? No criers?”

  “We do not know for certain. Our belief is that the Speakers use the time to consolidate their power. They will announce it when they feel the time is right.”

  “And nobody stands up to this? Nobody fights?”

  “There are those who have. But many of the senior balai have gone missing, and some have sided with the Speakers, preferring power over their oaths.”

  “What of Colonel Mohandi?” Iria asked, on a hunch.

  “He stayed faithful to his oath. He has gone to the north to search for something that might help. Did you meet him there?”

  Iria nodded. “After a fashion. He found his power, but it is not the solution he hopes it to be. What have the Speakers changed?”

  “They claim power over death to be the right of themselves and their representatives. They have not yet disbanded the balai, we are too many for that, but it has been made understood that should we continue our normal activities, the law will no longer protect us.”

  “With the Emperor dead, they would destroy his powerbase before announcing it.”

  “Just so.”

  Iria felt a curious lack of surprise to Fakhir’s words. She felt vague stirrings of grief over the end of the Emperor’s life, and sadness that the balai were being slowly stripped of their power, but she wasn’t surprised. If only the Emperor had sired a legitimate son, the Speakers would not have grown to their current power.

  “Why help me, then?” she asked.

  “Those who know you speak well of you,” Fakhir said simply. “We are without direction,” he turned to gesture at the bustle of activity in the courtyard, “but you have a plan.”

  “What do you think my plan is?” Iria asked, genuinely curious.

  “You set a trap,” he said and shrugged. “Whether the auction is real or not, your purpose is not to make money, that I am sure of.”

  “How well do you trust your men?” Iria asked.

  “All are loyal to their oaths. I would not have them otherwise.”

  “Then I tell you this in confidence so you may guide your men as needed. There is to be no auction. You were right, this is a trap.” Iria watched Fakhir closely, her arms folded casually but the hilt of a knife hidden up her sleeve gripped hard in her hand.

  Fakhir nodded, relief making his shoulders sag a little. “You do have a plan, then?”

  Iria relaxed her grip on the hilt but kept her arms folded. “The two Salians I ride with are not traders like I said.”

  “That is obvious.”

  “The woman is a Salian noble and an alchemist. The man is an alchemist and a Speaker.”

  “Alchemists? And more Speakers?” Fakhir couldn’t keep the disgust from his voice.

  “No, not a court advisor. A kossirith. He speaks with dragons.”

  Fakhir blinked at the use of the old word. “That is not so.”

  “I have seen it myself.”

  “Then you really do have a dragon in that wagon?” the sergeant’s voice was heavy with awe.

  “No, the cage is a ruse,” Iria shook her head, glad her mask hid the smile on her face. Her next words wiped it clear again as she remember the seriousness of their situation. “But the tidings we bear are grim. There is more at stake here than the power games of the speakers. We arrived in Khar Bora days ahead of an army of dragons that march on the city.”

  Iria explained the situation, leaving out the details of her trip across the real land on dragonback and much of the Incantor knowledge Andrew and Jules had learned as she was not too clear on it herself. “The Speakers, at least some of them, are Incantors,” she finished. “The dragons are coming to cleanse the corruption in the city. If we can do it first, the dragons will leave us in peace. If we fail, then all of Nas Shahr will be destroyed.”

  Fakhir bowed his head and Iria could read the shock in his eyes as he processed everything. Finally he looked up, his face determined if a little pale. “We will need more balai.”

  Chapter 18

  The Court of the Rising Sun

  It never ceased to amaze Andrew how much could be accomplished if one was not shy about throwing money at
a problem. Under Jules’s direction, the Court of the Rising Sun had transformed from an empty courtyard to a decorous festival ground.

  Andrew stood aside from the comings and goings of the caterers, feeling out of place in his worn clothing. He still smelled faintly of cinnamon from his morning excursion, and people who got too close to him gave him odd looks and left him alone. It was obvious that every person present knew the auction was about a dragon and the redolence of cinnamon linked him directly to the supposed creature caged in the hall.

  He supposed he should go take a bath and maybe ask for new clothes but felt piqued by the catering staff avoiding him. They’d have to live with him as he was.

  His attention kept getting drawn back to Jules. She was in her element organizing the auction, and even in her assumed role of traveling merchant she had an air of nobility in the way she delivered her orders. He couldn’t help but notice that none of the caterers were avoiding her, and he knew she hadn’t had time to change her clothes yet. Maybe the cinnamon made her more exotic instead of repulsive.

  Part of him wished that the whole situation wasn’t his responsibility to resolve. Surely there was someone more qualified to do it? But no, there was no one else. Having knowledge made him responsible. How could he possibly explain to someone in charge that there was an army of dragons about to crush the entire city? Nobody would believe him, and even if he was somehow able to convince them of the truth, what could they do? The most powerful men in Nas Shahr were among the enemy. Any concerted official effort would be shut down or foiled long before the necessary actions were taken.

  As the day dragged slowly on, Andrew noticed a marked increase in the number of balai. They weren’t obvious, but normal caterers didn’t have knives strapped under their sleeves or have the knotted cords of muscle developed by a lifetime of violence. He could easily count at least thirty balai about the courtyard and knew that for every one he could see, there were two in hiding or in some other part of the Rising Sun. Where had all the balai come from? There were hundreds of them!

  Not that he was complaining. If they were even half as good in a fight as Iria was, there was a gathered force here sufficient to route an army. Not to mention what Jules and he could bring to bear on the fight in the form of Alchemy. Stanzas from the rune Song pieced together in the desert lurked in his mind just below his consciousness. He really should be working on putting together a Song to assist in the combat, as well as contingencies for things that might go wrong, but he was loath to lower himself into the meditative state necessary to form the stanzas. Besides, he wasn’t sure what he could do yet; or rather, what he should do.

  There were a lot of birds calling. Andrew abruptly became aware of the anomaly at same time as he noticed an unusual concentration of people about the entry arch. He belatedly identified the calls as balai signals. The caterers, the real ones, had all seemed to be occupied elsewhere and only the balai were left. To Andrew’s eye, it was a poor sham, but perhaps that was because he was already aware of their presence and was looking for the telltales that gave them away.

  Curious and a little worried, Andrew pushed himself off the railing he had been leaning against for the last hour and made his way around the courtyard toward the entrance of the Hall of Morning. A glance inside showed more of the “caterers” bustling about setting tables and folding napkins. A caterer near the door took two steps in his direction, one hand behind his back before recognition flared in his eyes and he turned his next step into a short bow and stepped aside, letting Andrew pass into the hall.

  The wagon was where Iria had left it, though someone had unharnessed the aurochs. A dozen balai, their masks in place and weapons drawn, stood in a circle about the wagon. Besides the ones obviously on guard, there were a score more balai on high alert. Sensing that he was in the way, he hurried to the side and climbed a staircase leading to the balcony floor that ran around the circumference of the hall. On the second floor, out of sight from the ground, Andrew discovered even more of the balai. They stood in small groups, talking quietly among themselves, going through weaponry and doing the myriad of small equipment maintenance tasks professional soldiers occupied themselves with while waiting.

  Andrew didn’t even try to get a count, there must be over a hundred more around the balcony. Another group of balai saw him at the top of the stairs and surged to their feet, then relaxed when they saw his face. Figuring this was as safe a place as any to watch whatever drama was about to unfold, Andrew found a spot in a shadowed part of the balcony where he could observe without being obvious. The nearby balai shifted away, giving him space.

  He was struck by how polite the balai were. As far as he knew, they weren’t paying the balai anything to guard them, but they were treating him like he was a noble they were hired to protect. He wondered what Iria had told them. He didn’t look like a noble in his admittedly limited experience. Jules could pull off the look while wearing a burlap sack, but he just felt like Andrew, not any more haughty than he had felt yesterday.

  What had Jules said the night before? Being a Dragon Speaker suited him? He wondered what she meant by that. At the time, of course, he had other things on his mind, but now he wondered what had changed about himself that had caused Jules to comment.

  A commotion at the wide open entry to the hall broke him out of his reverie, and he leaned forward to get a better view.

  Jules strode into the hall, her bearing royal, each step shouting conviction and ownership in a way that only someone born into it could convey. If someone had asked him, he would have said that Jules had owned the Hall of Morning and that her family had passed the deed down through generations. Behind her followed a brace of balai, their sand masks in place. Andrew thought he recognized the sway of Iria’s hips in one of them but he couldn’t be sure.

  Next through the door was what he could only describe as a contingent, headed by a pair of men dressed in gaudy, and incredibly expensive, robes. Cloth of gold glittered in the lamplight, jewels dripped and swayed from velvet and lace. Around the two men, another armed force nucleated. They were dressed similarly to the balai in cut and cloth, but their robes and masks were black.

  Andrew felt a sudden wave of emotion from the balai about him and looked back to see postures locked in anger. The balai had hands on weapon hilts and a few dozen of them had bows strung, arrows knocked and pulled to half draw, crouched down below the lip of the balcony where those below couldn’t see.

  If he had to guess, his balai were not on friendly terms with the black balai.

  Jules drew to a halt halfway down the center aisle and bowed with a flourish. Her words drifted up to Andrew. “My Lord Speakers, I can bring you no further. Beyond, you see the dragon caged.”

  “Surely you can provide us with a preview,” one of the Speakers said, his voice nasally and his Salian blurred through some accent Andrew had not heard before.

  “Come now, your Honor!” Jules returned, her voice playful, “That would hardly be proper! The Emperor himself wishes to see the dragon, I’m told, perhaps even wishes to bid on it! Even your honored persons must understand that it would be ill of me to allow anyone to view the dragon before his Excellence.”

  “Yes, his Excellence,” the other Speaker said, sarcasm heavy in his deep voice.

  Andrew saw the balai tense around him and he turned, snapping a hand flat in a stand-down gesture. The balai looked at him and one of them bowed his head before repeating Andrew’s gesture. The balai relaxed, if that was the word for it. Tension was partially relieved from bowstrings pulled to full draw, hands gripping hilts shifted to rest on the pommels.

  Satisfied that the Speakers’ delegation wasn’t about to be slaughtered, at least for the moment, Andrew turned his attention back to the floor below.

  “–you’re very kind, your Honors,” Jules was saying, “but I’m afraid I must insist.”

  “We can expect reserved seating, at least?” the nasally Speaker asked, his voice trying for jovial and falling
short. Anger tightened his voice, making his accent even harsher.

  “My Lords, it is already done! Front row seats.” Jules gestured at the black balai around the Speakers, “Though I’m afraid seating is limited, so only a few of your friends will be able to sit with you.”

  Andrew grinned as the black balai stiffened. He could see them flicking glances at the caterers working quietly around them. They weren’t fooled by the disguises any more than Andrew was, and he could see the odds become plain to them as postures wilted and hands returned to their sides. One of them stepped forward and whispered something to the nasally Speaker.

  “Yes. Well,” the Speaker addressed Jules after the black balai returned to his position. “My men will have to make do. I can hardly pass up this opportunity.”

  “Oh, my Lords, I wouldn’t have you miss it for the world! If there is anything we can do to make your visit tonight perfect, do not hesitate to let my people know. We will do everything we can to make this a night to remember.”

  “I am sure,” the other Speaker said, clearly still disgruntled. “We will be present, that I can promise you.”

  “My Lords,” Jules bowed again, and the delegation passed back out into the courtyard.

  “My apologies, Speaker.”

  Andrew turned to see the balai who had passed on his order to stand down. “For what?” Andrew asked.

  “It is not the balai way to act prematurely,” the man answered, his Salian smooth and practiced. “For that, I must offer apology.”

  Andrew saw the genuine regret in the man’s eyes, but also the smoldering anger, the fury that had built over months as he watched, unable to do anything, as the balai were stripped of power and the Emperor undermined. Andrew reached out a hand and grasped the balai’s shoulder. “There are no apologies necessary. We will destroy them for what they have done, for the corruption they have brought and encouraged to fester here. None will survive this night.”

  The balai bowed his head. “My Lord Speaker.” His voice was tight.