Hearing gasps from the people around her, she finally severed the connection and opened her eyes. She stumbled off the slave’s back and gazed up at the arch as the youth climbed to his feet. Zara felt a thrill of satisfaction.
The relic of Nisos had been activated. The entire arch was glowing and pulsing, radiant with the colors of the sun and moon, fire, and shadow. It fairly hummed with power, shimmering like a rainbow of molten metal.
Zara stepped back. She smiled and waited.
Slowly her smile faded. Nothing else happened.
The arch was functional; she could see that much. She frowned, returning to the first basic question she’d asked herself. Why an arch?
‘You.’ She nodded at the young slave. ‘Walk through it.’
The youth stood frozen on the spot, staring at the glowing arch and then at Zara. She frowned and walked slowly toward him, her finger lifted. The youth’s face turned pale, terror showing the whites in his eyes. Though she didn’t hold a weapon, he backed away from her.
‘Do I need to ask you again?’ she hissed.
The youth gulped and looked at the relic, before returning his gaze to Zara and then nodding. He walked hesitantly toward it, glancing over his shoulder, as his fear of the unknown fought his fear of her.
Finally the youth reached the Arch of Nisos and stood in front of it. Taking a deep breath, he walked through.
White light dazzled Zara, blinding her.
Far away, in the land of Sindara, a pool at the bottom of an immense basin glowed with a gentle green light. Beside the pool, a lawn of lush grass interspersed with young willows and elms stretched from the basin’s limestone walls to the water’s edge, almost encircling it. Bees buzzed over the grass, searching for flowers to pollinate. Sparrows flitted about with apparent indecision. It was a pleasant place, filled with the magic of life.
An onlooker would have seen the pool gradually shift in color. From the shade of emerald, the glow from within its depths suddenly changed to yellow. The yellow deepened and became fiery orange.
Finally the pool was searing red, the color of blood.
But only the rustling trees and the birds that suddenly took flight were present to witness the transformation.
The pool’s color then shifted back to green.
In a deep cave on the island of Athos, the Oracle sat and stared into a white fire, struggling to see the future, casting along the twisting paths of fate before attempting the next fork in the road, trying to find a path that would lead to the least death and destruction.
The pale flames flickered and danced, burning without tinder over the solid stone of the cavern floor. The fire was her link to the Source, the great jewel buried at the very end of the tunnels.
The Oracle’s breath caught. Her eyes shot wide open.
The white fire in front of her flared up to twice its height. She backed away, keeping her distance.
The fire began to change color.
The Oracle shook her head as it shifted to orange and then an angry red. For a moment the flames cast iridescent crimson light throughout the cavern. Feeling the hairs stand up at the back of her neck, she realized she was holding her breath.
Finally the fire shrank and the light dimmed, changing hue, returning to its previous appearance.
Soon the fire was white once more.
‘No,’ the Oracle whispered. ‘Not again.’
Zara blinked and her eyes slowly regained focus. The flash of blinding light left sparkles in her vision, dancing stars that disappeared one by one.
Just a moment before, the young slave with the scar under his eye had entered the arch. She looked for him, expecting him to emerge from the other side, but now all she could see was mist billowing around the gateway, a mist that gradually cleared.
She saw the flash of a reptilian tail.
Zara gasped. The billowing cloud cleared further and now there was a long, sinuous shape where she’d expected the youth to be.
Wings fluttered, blowing away the last shreds of vapor, revealing the creature in all its glory.
Zara’s wide eyes traveled from one end to the other.
A spiked tail broadened as it reached two powerful hind legs. Thin, wide wings like canvas folded in and out, connected to the creature’s broad back by a framework of bones, with skin stretched over them as taut as a drum. Muscles rippled in the shoulders, while under its belly two smaller forelimbs scratched sharp claws on the stone floor. In front of the shoulders, a slender, serpentine neck craned, supporting a head ten times bigger than that of a horse, with angular protrusions sweeping back from the brow and eyes as big as Zara’s hand.
It was a dragon, chest heaving, looking back at Zara with a panicked expression, a thin scar under its eye. There was no mistaking what the arch had done.
Yet this dragon was different from any that Zara had seen before. The stories had always said that the eldren were silver scaled. The mixed-bloods she’d forced to change were sometimes the color of charcoal, other times a lighter gray.
This sinuous monster’s scales were red, a deep shade of crimson. The color of bright arterial blood. It was deadly, but for the time being it was confused.
That could soon change.
Zara shook herself.
‘Quick!’ she barked at the magus with the neat beard. ‘Get copper chains. Go!’ She leveled a finger at the group of stunned slaves.
‘And somebody find me the king!’
53
Dion, Eiric, and twelve of Eiric’s most powerful warriors soared high in the open sky, searching for the fleet of Ilean warships. When they combined their forces with Kargan’s, the fate of the people from across the sea would be sealed.
The ocean stretched on endlessly, the rows of waves rolling relentlessly forward below them.
You saw them in the Maltherean? Dion addressed Eiric.
Yes.
They might still be crossing through the Chasm, Dion said. Let’s head over there.
Agreed.
Eiric passed the instruction to his fellows, and the fourteen dragons all wheeled. But then Dion suddenly sensed shock and awe from his companions, swamping him with emotion as he tried to filter it out. Wondering what had alerted the eldren, Dion’s gaze swept over the sea, but he couldn’t see anything.
Dion . . . The sky, Eiric said.
He looked higher, casting his vision in all directions, and then he saw them.
Dread sank into his chest, slowly turning to horror. He was stunned, unable to believe what he was seeing.
Distant, but so numerous that they filled an entire swathe of sky, well over a hundred dragons were flying in the direction of the Chasm. Traveling in close formation, each had a rider on its back, an armored soldier or a sorcerer with a staff.
How is this possible? Eiric asked. The eldran king’s composure was truly shattered; he was as shocked as Dion was himself.
The scene was just like the painting. It could only be the Arch of Nisos. The descendants of Aleuthea had found it, and now they’d put it to use.
And as in the painting, all the dragons were fiery red. Their savage coloring, bright scarlet, contrasted with the eldren’s silver scales and Dion’s black.
Dion knew then that Palemon had accomplished the impossible. He’d secured the copper chains he needed, but more importantly, he now had the dragons to harness.
Eiric . . . They found an artifact in the ancient city. An arch. I . . . I don’t understand it. But we’re too late.
We have to get out of here, one of the other eldren said.
I know, Eiric replied. He turned, and the golden orbs of his eyes met Dion’s. But they have a purpose. We know what they plan to do.
Kargan paced the deck of his flagship, the Nexotardis, and proudly took in the sight of the fleet around him. If Javid had once thought that he wasn’t taking this Palemon seriously enough, well, he couldn’t say that anymore. He’d spent a fortune and deployed the full might of Ilea, the most powerful naval force in
the world. Bireme after bireme sailed ahead, oars churning the sea into foam, pulling in beside each other to form long rows.
Under the command of their skilled captains, the warships were forming up as soon as they passed through the narrow strait that divided the Maltherean and Aleuthean Seas. Flags communicated positions; helmsmen nudged vessels to keep them all in their place. With only the occasional signal to a wayward vessel, Kargan managed it all with a lifetime’s experience behind him.
At the back of the armada, another eighty-foot-long bireme exited the steep-walled Chasm. It was a dangerous crossing, with towering cliffs on both sides, but Kargan hadn’t lost a single ship. The first row of vessels drifted forward, clearing space for the newcomers. Crewmen shouted to one another, voices carried on the stiff ocean breeze.
‘That’s the last of them,’ General Dhuma called from the other side of the ship. Dhuma had been instrumental in preparing the fleet’s departure, and Kargan had finally restored the man’s rank.
‘Raise the flag,’ Kargan ordered. ‘We’re now on the Aleuthean Sea, and we’ll maintain battle formation from here on.’
Sails unfurled on every vessel and drums stirred the blood, the pounding beats sounding primal, sparking a memory from the days when men lived in caves. Leaving the Chasm far behind, miles soon separated the armada from the narrow passage and Kargan again paced the deck as his thirty-two biremes spread out to form two perfect lines. He squinted ahead into the setting sun.
‘Messengers! Assemble!’ Kargan bellowed. He headed up to the bow, nodding as he cast his eyes over the fleet, before turning to wait impatiently near the forked bench as the dozen young messengers gathered.
‘Take these orders to the captains,’ Kargan said. ‘We’ll head slowly to Malakai through the night. Keep the men rested; work them in shifts. We’ll arrive with the dawn. My flag will signal the attack.’
He gazed ahead, to the row of sixteen warships that made up the first wave. Their decks were cleared for battle and they were burdened mainly by archers. The Nexotardis was at the midpoint of the second wave, where Kargan could watch every ship and issue adjustments if needed. The vessels at his flanks traveled far more slowly under the weight of all the heavily armored soldiers on board.
‘The first wave,’ he continued, indicating with a sweep of his hand, ‘is to take the brunt of any attempts to strike the fleet itself, whether from the sea, land, or sky. When we arrive at the city, the captains are to engage with any enemies and peel to the sides, allowing our troops to disembark on the shore.’
Kargan glowered at the young messengers.
‘Understood?’
The youths nodded. They’d all been trained to recall orders word for word, even to the point of Kargan’s inflections and hand gestures.
‘Our first objective is to control the harbor. Then, when we’ve unloaded the men, we’ll storm the gates.’ He glanced at Dhuma. ‘I know Malakai. The gates facing the harbor aren’t strong. Our iron ram will make short work—’
Kargan frowned when he was interrupted by a growing chorus of chatter. The murmurs became cries, and then he began to hear distant shouts of alarm. He turned and faced forward, shielding his eyes.
‘What is it?’ he muttered.
All around him, men were gazing at the sky. Finally, spread across the sunburned heavens, Kargan saw them. A great flock of birds hung just over the horizon, growing larger and larger with every passing moment. Their wings were spread in twin arcs, joined at the middle by a lean, muscled body. The wings were more like a bat’s wings than a bird’s . . .
Immediately he realized what they were.
The witnesses to the destruction of the barges at Verai had spoken of five dragons, or sometimes six. He had enough archers to deal with half a dozen dragons, and enough ships to cope with losses.
But this was . . . a hundred or more. He was staring at more dragons in one place than he’d ever thought possible.
He opened his mouth to order any man with a bow to draw his arrow, but for once his voice failed him. Wave after wave of scarlet dragons, dozens upon dozens of them, soared down from above, plunging to meet the lead warships. There were riders on the dragons’ backs, he saw – soldiers in armor of chain. The pale-faced warriors held huge swords, spears, and axes in one hand while the other gripped metal reins as red as the beasts they commanded.
In an instant the sky was a confusion of flying monsters, separating further into groups of three and four, diving down onto the ships. Archers on the nearest warship in the forward line fired arrows that bounced harmlessly off the dragons’ tough hides. Fixing his stunned eyes on the biggest of them all, Kargan saw its jaws bite down on a bowman, tearing him in half. Its rider, a tall warrior with long, gray-streaked hair swept past the file of archers, decapitating one man after another with his broadsword. Behind him, a stocky man with bushy eyebrows bent down from his own dragon to strike his axe into the crewmen who were trying to flee in terror.
Every ship in the first wave suddenly had half a dozen dragons snapping and tearing over it like scavengers on a corpse. On a distant bireme, a blinding silver light appeared at the end of a robed man’s staff, accompanied by a powerful blast that threw a dozen crewmen into the water. An ear-splitting sound filled the air and everywhere archers’ weapons fell out of their hands as they collapsed and clapped their hands over their ears. Seeing the tall warrior make another sweep, clearing the ship’s deck with every blow of his sword, Kargan noticed his braided beard and face set in a mask of fierce determination, and then with a start he realized who he must be.
Palemon was more powerful than he’d ever imagined. This magic . . . He couldn’t begin to comprehend it.
All along the warships of the forward line, brave soldiers who’d fought across the empire were throwing down their weapons and leaping over the sides of their vessels. The ships themselves were surprisingly intact; the dragons and their riders were targeting the crews, leaving the vessels undamaged.
Despite the efforts of the occasional Ilean soldier who managed to score a hit on a dragon’s crimson hide, or archer who landed an arrow in an Aleuthean warrior’s eye, the outcome of the assault was never in dispute. Soon the sixteen ships of the front line would be floating without crews, dead in the water. A crippled warship drifted away from its fellows, sail blazing, decks a flaming inferno. It looked as if one of Kargan’s captains had sacrificed his vessel rather than let it fall into enemy hands.
And soon the dragon riders would turn their attention to the second wave of biremes.
Kargan swallowed. His face drained of color as he watched it all unfold. He was a man used to winning. He’d helped Solon gain his empire and then seized power against all odds after Solon’s death.
Now he was going to lose his entire fleet.
‘Turn us around!’ he roared.
He felt a strong hand grip his upper arm. Whirling, he saw Javid, the huge man looming over him, staring into his face. ‘There is no way to fight this. We have to abandon ship if we want any chance of survival.’
‘No,’ Kargan said. ‘I cannot lose my fleet.’
‘The decision has been made for you! We have to dive overboard—’
Javid’s voice broke off as he looked into the water. Kargan followed his friend’s eyes, staring down at the sea. An immense silver-scaled creature, long and serpentine, as wide as the ship but twice the length, was passing under the Nexotardis.
Something struck the bow, hard enough to make the entire vessel shudder from keel to mast. But rather than disappear, the pressure continued, and suddenly the Nexotardis was moving. The bireme tilted as a powerful force pushed against the vessel’s end and it began to spin on its axis.
Kargan couldn’t fathom what was happening. He stared down and saw the great silver leviathan, perpendicular to his warship, its head pressed against the bow as its tail thrashed at the sea, rotating the bireme until it was once again facing the Chasm.
Then he heard a voice calling his name.
Kargan turned to see a young man with flaxen hair and pale brown eyes approaching. Though he wasn’t as tall as Kargan, he had an athletic build and carried himself with authority, despite the fact that he was wearing a ragged tunic and was soaked to the skin, dripping water on the deck as he walked. He looked familiar, but Kargan couldn’t recall where he’d seen him before.
‘King Kargan,’ the young man said again. ‘I am Dion of Xanthos. You cannot defeat them, but I can help you survive.’
Dion’s gaze traveled to the ships flanking the Nexotardis on both sides, and Kargan now saw that nearly every bireme had a serpent rotating it to point back toward the entrance to the Maltherean Sea.
‘The eldren are here to help you,’ Dion said. He glanced at the forward line of biremes and the struggle taking place, and shook his head. ‘I thought Palemon was dead, but it appears otherwise. He wants ships. And we both need at least some of your fleet to survive.’
Kargan hesitated, but then nodded. ‘What do we do?’
‘Signal your captains to row. We need your men to work harder than they ever have before.’
‘And the enemy? Won’t they just follow?’
‘Leave them to us. Just get your ships moving. Head back to the Maltherean Sea.’
Without another word, Dion ran to the side of the vessel and leaped off, diving head first into the water.
‘I suggest we do as he says,’ Javid said.
Kargan shook himself. ‘Run the flag for ramming speed! The serpents are here to help!’
Suddenly the pressure on the bow eased, and looking down into the water, Kargan saw a dark shadow passing beneath the ship. The Nexotardis was now facing the Chasm, while the other vessels in the row were in varying stages of turning toward their only hope of escape.
The sail went taut as it pocketed the wind. The drum began to pound below decks, immediately thundering at ramming speed. Oars pulled at the water, over a hundred rowers knowing that they had to match the rhythm of the drum if they ever wanted to see home again.
Copper Chain (The Shifting Tides Book 3) Page 32