Unfettered III

  The scat of lesser predators began to appear at the edges of our little world. I found one leg of a full-grown makkim, gnawed by a big cat and so befouled that I scorned the meat. Bits of shed skin, claw-tracks, and belly-tracks from lionsnake and lizard. Once I hopped down into the shallow crack favored by the salt-hungry dhurga and nearly landed knee-deep in ghat shit; there would be no more goat meat for us.

  It was only luck that had kept us safe from the sun, fed, and hidden from our own kind—and luck, I worried, has never been our friend.

  Sure enough, the same night that thought occurred to me, Haviva tapped into the sabra’s root and was able to coax forth only a mean trickle of cloudy sap. She turned to me, stricken, and for the first time in my life I could not meet my sister’s eyes. With no source of water ready, we would have to abandon our last hope of a home and go . . . where? It would be impossible for us to go inland, or for us to run to Min Yaarif with my sister’s big belly dragging behind us, and we were already so far out on the Edge that it cut our feet.

  I lay awake deep into the day, gnawing at the bone of things I was unable to change. Across from me, where Hadl once slept, Haviva twisted and moaned and shifted till I wanted to throw something at her.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I cannot get comfortable. I think I am going to have an entire litter of babies, like a cat.” She groaned again, a strange, low sound that made the hair along my arms prickle.

  “Is it your time?” Please, no.

  “How am I to know?” She wailed. Then, “I think not. I just cannot sleep.”

  “Neither can I.”

  She went very quiet. I sighed and tried for a kinder voice. “Would you like me to rub your back?”

  “Please.”

  So I moved to her side and I rubbed her back, and I rubbed her swollen legs and even her great, round moon of a belly. The skin was taut and strained to bursting and I wondered at it; that the body would strive so to bring forth life, even in such a world. It seemed senseless to me, and cruel.

  “Do you hate it?”

  “Hate it?” She twisted to look at me. “The child?”

  I shrugged. “Your belly, Hadl, the child . . . the whole thing.”

  “I hated Hadl, but he was just a man. And he is gone. I could never hate my child.”

  “Even if it looks like him?”

  “What, hairy?” She laughed. “I suppose I will love it, even so.” Haviva stroked her rounded belly, and I saw the child within writhing beneath her touch.

  “I could not, I think. If it were me.”

  Haviva opened her mouth to argue with me, but paused and then spoke more slowly. “I think . . . I think you are right. Perhaps it is better this way, that you are the warrior and I am to be the mother. I will be a mother,” she said again, and smiled a little.

  “I, a warrior.” I snorted.

  “You are,” she insisted. “I never said so, when Hadl was alive, but it was you who brought the meat and kept us safe. It was always you.”

  I wrapped my arms about her, and we finally fell asleep. Sunlight waned, and we slept on into the cooler night.

  Had I known it would be our last peaceful moment, I would have treated it better.

  Late that night I ranged inland, far to the east. I judged our need of sabra to be greater than the risk of discovery.

  I was wrong, and Haviva paid the price.

  I knew I had misjudged as soon as I smelled the cat. My head jerked up and I saw her, a sleek, fine, dark little beast. She flicked the tip of her tail, annoyed that she had been sighted, and melted into the night like dappled smoke, but not before I had seen the hunter’s collar at her throat.

  We were discovered.

  Stealth would not save me now—likely nothing would save me now—so I threw aside all caution, all fear, all hope, and ran for home as fast as my terror could carry me.

  It nearly came to an end when in my hurry I slipped and fell the length of our rope. Had my sister not pushed aside a pile of our worst rags to be mended, I might have broken my neck and died. Often, I wish that I had.

  As it was, I managed to scramble to my feet and claw my way across the floor to where Haviva lay. I smelled the blood before I saw it; she lay in a spreading pool of gore and water, and as I stared in horror she arched her back and screamed.

  “No.” I whispered. “No no no nooooo. Haviva, my sweet, we have to go, we have to go now, we must.”

  “Can’t,” she panted. Her eyes were wide and stared past me, pupils dilated and fixed on some desperate goal; never had she looked more like me. “Yaela . . . sister. It hurts. It hurts.” And she screamed again.

  Did I imagine its echo, far to the east? I slapped her face, hard, shook her by the shoulder so that her head lolled on her neck. “My sister, my sweet, I know it hurts, but we have to leave. They have hunting cats, Haviva! If they catch us here . . .”

  She moaned again; my fingers were digging into her shoulder. I let her go and saw that I had bruised her beloved flesh with my own hands.

  “You . . . go.” She strained again, panted. “Go.”

  “No, Haviva, no. Oh Atuim, no. Haviva, I will stay with you, I will . . .”

  “Yaela. Sister. Go.” Her body rippled, betraying her to her death. “Do not die here with me . . . please. Please. Sister, choose life. Please. Take my child, take her and . . . and dance . . . dance the road to Min Yaarif.”

  Choose life.

  “I am not strong enough to do this, sister,” I whispered. “Not without you. This price is too high for me to pay.”

  A cat screamed in the distance.

  “I will pay it.”

  “Haviva! No!”

  “For once.” She bared her teeth in a feral snarl. “Let me do this, sister. Let me be the warrior . . . for you. One last time.”

  “Haviva!”

  “No time.” She panted. “No time, sister. We can do this. We can.” She struggled to sit up, and pointed at the little red clay pots. “Sister . . . help me.”

  Were those men’s voices I heard on the wind, raised in triumph?

  In the end, I did as she asked. My hands reached to the little red pots, Hadl’s drink. My hands carried one to her, lifted the lid; my voice bade her drink, drink yourself to sleep, sister, drink deep. She cried out only once, when the stuff touched her lips.

  I held her to my breast as her breathing grew ragged and then slow, as her body labored on.

  “Go,” she whispered, but I would not. I knew she was in pain, and my heart broke to think of all the times I had scolded her for her tears. “Take the child. Go.”

  Then she brought my hands to her throat, she pressed them hard against her own flesh.

  “Do it,” she said, staring hard into my eyes, my cursed eyes. And she did not look away, even as I—

  I loosened her grip, kissed her eyes closed. Her body’s labors had brought the child forth, even as she slipped into death. It was a small thing, beautiful and frail and doomed. I hated it for killing my sister, hated it. But I had promised, and so I fetched up the tiny murderess—for a girl child it was, whole and shrieking—and cupped the back of her tiny head in my hand when it would have flopped backward. Eyes that would be brown met mine—

  I learned in that moment what Haviva had always known; I still held, deep in the chasms of my seared and hateful heart, some capacity to love.

  My heart split open, dead, dry thing that it was, and spilled forth such a wail, such an anguish, that my jaws cracked with the force of it. A terrible keening burst forth and as it hit the night air it lived, and breathed, a raw and beautiful music pregnant with death, thick with venom. I did not unfurl gently into the night this time; I tore through it, shredding its false promise of safety, and felt the fabric of life fray and tremble at my touch. I knew then what I should have always seen, I with my eyes of Pelang; my soul danced not to the melody of the hunt, or the harsh cacophony of life, but to the long, slow lullaby of death.

  Shadows flew to me from
the sky, from the ground, they tore themselves from the very sky to come to me. Trembling in fear, they knelt at my feet, thick as birthing-blood, bitter as death.

  Princess, they babbled at me, a shade of sound I could almost hear. Your will, Princess.

  “I am no princess,” I told them in a voice strange from screaming. “I am your Queen.”

  This time, the shadows wept with fear.

  I stripped to the skin and wrapped the babe as best I was able, knowing it would not help. I did not hurry as I covered my Haviva with our best blanket; let the hunters come, with their cats and their knives and ropes. Let them dare. The only reason I left, in the end, the only thing that might send me from her side, was this: I had the child’s life to save. And after that—

  After that, I vowed, I have many, many lives to take.

  The men were close, so close I heard them shout as they found my tracks. I crept up onto the scorched earth, a tiny and wailing babe clutched to my breast, and stole away into the fading night.

  I held Haviva’s child in my arms and watched the sky over the Jehannim. A hot wind rose, scouring my bare skin, tugging at the rags which were all I had left and which I had wrapped about her tiny, dear self.

  “You are my Maika,” I crooned, kissing the rags. “My tiny queen.”

  Run, sang the wind, run while you can.

  Hide, whispered the sand as it scoured my naked skin. The men are coming. Akari is coming. Hide.

  Die, suggested the shadows, lie down and die with us, sweet Queen. Your struggle is for naught.

  But I did none of these things. The time was past for running, and for hiding, and for all things born of men and shadows and cowardice.

  And besides, I told the wind, and the sand, and the shadows, I have never seen the sun rise. I have heard it is glorious.

  I took a deep breath as the sky beyond the Jehannim turned to white gold.

  Come, my darlings, I commanded the shadows, come. They rushed to do my bidding, wailing in defeat, wrapping me in a shroud of darkness.

  Come on, girl, I told myself, rising up on the balls of my feet and taking a deep breath. It is time to dance.

  When Akari burst into the sky, setting the sky aflame, I leapt to meet him, and the shadows leapt with me.

  We danced, Akari Sun Dragon and I, we danced on the Edge of the world, and it was glorious.

  TODD LOCKWOOD

  BEFORE MY DEBUT NOVEL RELEASED, I HELPED SHAWN OUT WITH HIS first Unfettered collection. He asked if I would donate the cover, in the spirit of all the stories donated by so many authors whose work I knew and admired. I was happy and proud to do so. He had recently read an early draft of The Summer Dragon: First Book of the Evertide, so I found myself saying, “I’ll write you a story too.”

  “Great! Cool!” said Shawn, without batting an eye. That story was “Keeper of Memory,” set in the distant past of my world. While I work on the sequel to my novel, it only seems right to put a sneak peek in this third volume of Unfettered. So here is the prologue to the Second Book of the Evertide, tentatively titled Autumn’s Ghost.

  Todd Lockwood

  Prologue: Second Book of The Evertide

  Todd Lockwood

  The Torchbearer was flame made flesh.

  Body and limbs black as coal, with face and wings of fiery red. Stripes of orange and yellow twisted up her forelegs and shoulders like a rippling blaze. She even smelled of smoke. All the Juza rode Torchbearers; the dragon breed belonged to them alone. The Juza, the fabled warriors and mounts of the Temple’s most elite fighting force, were sometimes called the “Keepers of the Flame.” Rumor said these dragons could breathe fire.

  The thought of all that heat only made the night feel colder. Magha watched the Juza warrior and his dragon for any furtive glance, any hint that they studied him in return. Magha didn’t trust them. He didn’t want them here. Which is the Keeper? he wondered. Is it the dragon who keeps the flame? Or the rider who keeps the dragon? Or the two together?

  And who keeps the Keepers?

  The Juza fighter called himself Qorru, but did not identify his mount. He didn’t speak as he worked, or much at all, actually. But he moved through the making of camp with efficiency, as he had each of the last five nights, only shedding his armor once he’d fed his dragon and put her to bed. His bow and his quiver of red arrows were never more than a few feet away. His sword remained strapped to his back at all times.

  Magha poked another stick into the fire and adjusted the pot of beans bubbling there, scented with the last of their salt pork. “What have I done, Shuja?” he said low to his bondmate, his old war-mount.

  The big dragon looked at him askance. Black overall, but smoky on chest and underbelly where his battle scars showed white. He’d been very quiet on this trip so far and said nothing now.

  Magha shook his head. His lost, reckless son, Darian, had taken his newly bonded dragon Aru out into the wilderness to chase a fantasy—to join the Dragonry, like his father did as a young man. Curse his impulsive blood.

  “I thought if I could pick up Darian’s trail quickly, I might avoid greater harm. But I was wrong. This trip has been a bad mistake.”

  Shuja blinked slowly.

  “Everything has changed so much. I feel the aeries slipping away, and I’m powerless to stop it. I had to at least try to bring Darian home. It was something that I could…” He looked down at his hands. “Something I could do.”

  He needed to find evidence of Darian’s passage soon—a cold cookfire, rumor at an outpost, a carcass where a dragon might have dined—so he put his eldest son Tauman in charge of the aeries. As Broodmaster, in fact, with the aeries’ signet ring on his finger.

  And he wanted to move light and fast, to pick up Darian’s trail quickly, so he begged the Juza commander, the prelate Addai, to please not burden him with an escort. But Addai insisted on sending Qorru. The Juza team caught up to Magha with ease. He never waited for them, but he couldn’t shake them either. They dogged him. Never helpful, only ever-present.

  Magha worried more with each passing day; he knew the Juza and the Dragonry had designs of their own. Could Tauman handle them? How was he coping? “We’ve been gone six days with no rest, old friend. Running out of food, and nothing to show for my stubborness.” He noted the callus where his finger had grown accustomed to the signet ring, now absent. “I put too much responsibility on too few shoulders. I was rash. And poor Maia stuck in the center of it, the focus of all the striving.” His daughter had shown incredible grit and tenacity in the face of combat, threats, and accusations. He knew that Maia, at least, would stand up for herself. But he shouldn’t have left them alone for so long. If at all.

  “Anger got the best of me again,” he said. “It always does. Reiss knew that about me, bless her light. You’d think I’d have learned by now. Instead, I find myself in the wilderness looking for signs of passage left by a creature who can fly.”

  Shuja snorted. Magha chuckled and patted him on the elbow. “We’ll be two days returning, I think. Not three, counting on luck.”

  Shuja tilted his head in order to meet Magha’s gaze. “Home then?” he said, the first words in two days.

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” said the dragon, adding a rumbling purr of encouragement.

  Magha pushed to his feet. That was that. If Shuja agreed, then it was time. He felt a burden lift for having simply made the decision, but also heavy emptiness in the pit of his stomach. I’m sorry, Darian, you impulsive child. You are truly on your own now. He looked for the northern horizon, but twilight and mist hid it from sight. I pray that you find what you need, and not what you’re looking for.

  Shuja rumbled and Magha took a deep breath. “I’d love to give this guy the slip in the middle of the night, but that hasn’t worked yet. So we’re stuck with him.” He crossed his arms. “Qorru!” he called.

  The Juza warrior looked up from laying out his armor for the night. Magha raised his chin. “Qorru: I thank you for your assistance t
hese last few long days. I’m sorry you had to be here.” He swallowed uncertain words. “It’s time to abandon the search for Darian and Aru. The trail has gone completely cold, if there was ever a trail to find. We’ll start back to the aeries at first light tomorrow.”

  “I understand,” said the warrior, his brow knitting. “I am sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. If we haven’t found evidence of an encampment by now, then he’s beyond our reach.”

  “You have my condolences, Broodmaster.”

  Technically, he wasn’t really Broodmaster any longer. Tauman was. But he said “Thank you” and turned to his own bed, frowning as he unrolled his blanket.

  Shuja leapt to his feet,. “Stop,” he growled. The Torchbearer froze in her tracks, head low, as if she’d been caught attempting to flank Shuja. He twisted to face her, putting Magha at his back.

  “What is this? What’s going on?”

  Qorru shook his head. “I did not wish to confront you, but your dragon has caught mine being unstealthy, and spoiled my surprise.” He pulled his blade from its sheath. It glittered in the firelight.

  Magha felt ice flash inside him, the cold fire of combat readiness. The automatic response to threat that sometimes woke him—he and Shuja both—out of dreams. “What are you talking about?”

  Qorru planted his feet shoulder-width apart. “I am sorry because I cannot allow you to return to the aeries.”

  Magha stared at him. “Why not?”

  “If we had found your son, neither of you would return. Those were my orders. Now at least your son has a chance. But it’s better this way, I think. Man to man. I’m not an assassin. I didn’t want to murder you in your sleep.”

  Magha scanned about for a weapon. His sword was scabbarded on his bedroll, eight feet away. His bow and quiver lay beyond. Time—make time. “Not an assassin. And you’ll simply return to the aeries and tell them what?”

  Qorru rocked from foot to foot. “I can never return to the aeries. I will fly instead to Avigal and report to the Temple.”