Hardly even noticing the movement, the battered old man went to the sword and stared at it hard. Even in the dim light, its blade seemed to gleam with strength. Timig reached his hand up to feel the cool metal, wrapped a thousand times over itself. His was an ancient sword, passed down through the warrior generations, and so it had seen many, many battles, wearing away the top layers, making its edge even finer.
Kaliit Timig held the blade up before him horizontally, studying the intricate runes carved in the metal.
He looked back to the door once, considering the words of the God-Voice and knowing that they rang with truth.
Kaliit Timig walked back to the center of the room, placed the butt of his magnificent sword on the floor, then propped the razor-sharp tip against the hollow of his breast. He had failed; he could not deny it any longer, nor could he hope to redeem himself within the Chezhou-Lei order.
With a nod, the man let himself fall forward.
News of Kaliit Timig’s death reached Chom Deiru the next day, and did not surprise the Chezru Chieftain in the least. In fact, Douan was quite pleased by the turn of events, for this suicide would allow him to continue to lay the blame in whole upon Timig’s shoulders.
That was all that he truly cared about at that time. Since the disaster at the Mountains of Fire, several of the Yatols overseeing the surrounding areas had been sending screaming emissaries to Jacintha, pleading for more soldiers in case the dragon came after them, and many more had taken up the cry of panic.
But to Douan the defeat was no tremendously important incident. He had a line of couriers spread from the Mountains of Fire all the way to Jacintha, and reports came in every few days. None of those, not one in the months since the disaster, spoke of any ominous activity in the land of the Jhesta Tu. Certainly none had reported any dragons flying about!
The Jhesta Tu had thinned the Chezhou-Lei order considerably, and the loss of leaders to Douan’s army was no small thing. But To-gai had been tamed again, it appeared, by Yatol Grysh’s cunning feint to defeat the rogue Ashwarawu, and all seemed quiet in the northern kingdom, with no appreciable shifts in policy against Behren after the ascension of the new Father Abbot, Fio Bou-raiy.
Thus, Yakim Douan spent the summer, God’s Year 842, in the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear, about the lands of Entel, traveling informally and in relative peace, even beginning to entertain again thoughts that his time of Transcendence was drawing near.
Brynn took a deep breath—several, in fact. There before her lay the first village she had entered on her return to To-gai, a place whose name, Telliqik, she had only recently heard. For the last few months, she and her four unlikely companions had traveled the length and breadth of the steppes, stopping at every village they could find, with Brynn then going in to spread the word about the Dragon of To-gai, about how she would lead the To-gai-ru to freedom, but only if they all joined in with her. Truly it pained the anxious woman to spend these days in relative peace and quiet. After the victory at the Mountains of Fire, with the Chezhou-Lei shattered, it seemed as if Behren was ripe to be plucked.
Belli’mar Juraviel had counseled the woman for patience, though, had reminded her that their enemy remained formidable. And though many villagers had witnessed the great victory and the sheer power of the dragon, communication throughout the land would be slow and inexact, with the story likely changing from one town to another, even from one person to another. The companions would count on that inaccuracy to work in their favor as word spread back to Behren, but they knew that it could well be a liability if it was not parsed correctly on its path through To-gai.
And so they had flown out upon Agradeleous, and the dragon had even taken Runtly along, holding the pony in a harness the Jhesta Tu mystics had fashioned, journeying from town to town to begin the quiet resistance that would signal the start of Brynn’s campaign against the Chezru Chieftain.
It was called Autumnal Nomaduc, the Autumn Walkaway, and such an action was not unprecedented in To-gai-ru history. Many times before, when one tribe had conquered another, the survivors of the conquered tribe would simply wander away from their conquerors, moving out into the open steppes. Never before had it been tried across all of To-gai, but never before had the conqueror been the Behrenese, and never before had the rebellion leader been an elven-trained ranger, riding atop a dragon!
The ranger stooped over, as if weary and road-worn, and certainly less threatening, and hitched the cowl of her worn cloak up over her head. She murmured to herself in a gruff peasant accent as she approached the gate, and peeked out under the cowl only once, to note the strange looks coming back at her from the guards.
“Oh, but me wagon is lost, and all me poor horses,” she said, closing to stand right before the two Behrenese.
“You had a wagon?” one asked.
“A wagon, a husband, and a few friends, I had!” Brynn snapped at him, turning a wild eye his way and moving very close. She didn’t really recognize the man, but feared that he might know her, for she had stood tall and distinct when last she was there, that year ago, when she had killed Yatol Daek and Dee’dahk.
“And you lost them?” the man asked with a smirk.
“Killed on the road!” Brynn screeched. “By robbers … so many damned robbers! They took me wagon, and killed me friends. Get yer weapons, soldiers! Protectors! Get yer weapons and go out and kill them to death!”
The man was patting the air to try to calm her, and was obviously trying to hold back a smile. Robbers were no major catastrophe in the unruly steppes, Brynn knew, except of course to those victimized. And she knew as well that these guards wouldn’t be quick to send out any patrols, certainly not on the word and plea of a lowly To-gai-ru woman.
“Now tell me where this happened,” the soldier bade her.
“Fifteen days o’ walking,” Brynn said, waggling a finger in his face.
“Fifteen days?”
“Fifteen!” Brynn cried. “Now, ye get yer fellows and run south, and ye’ll find them. Kill them to death.”
Now the man did chuckle, as did his companion. “We will speak with Yatol Tornuk about it.”
“I’ll be seeing him!”
“No,” the man cried back, and then he calmed, and tried again to calm her. “No, good woman. We will speak with him. You just go in and find yourself a place to rest, and get some food.”
Brynn stared at him hard, wild-eyed even, but then she slipped past, entering the village.
Her relief was huge when she entered the common room to find the place bristling with To-gai-ru, several familiar faces—including two in particular—among them. Brynn made her way to a corner table and slid into a chair beside Tsolona and Barachuk.
She looked up from under the cowl, smiling widely, then pulled the hood back enough so that they could see her clearly.
“Ah, Brynn!” Tsolona said quietly, and she cupped the young woman’s chin in her hands, then bent in and kissed her on the cheek. “So much have we worried for you.”
“The Dragon of To-gai, returned for a visit,” whispered Barachuk, leaning in across the table.
His reference to her in that manner nearly knocked Brynn right over. How could he know?
“You have come to tell us of the nomaduc,” the surprising Barachuk reasoned. “Ah, but it is already in place here in Telliqik. The word outdistances you, and many are eager to follow the way of resistance.”
Brynn just sat there, shaking her head.
“Were you really astride a dragon?” Tsolona asked, after looking around to make sure that there were no Behrenese soldiers, or To-gai-ru informants, nearby.
“It is a long story,” Brynn replied.
“Then stay with us this evening and tell us your tale,” said Barachuk. “And we will tell your tales to our comrades out in the steppes, in whatever manner you wish them related.”
Brynn smiled, knowing well that she had fine allies there. She nodded, and stood to leave, and the other two were right behind her as she exited
the common room.
The three chatted until late into the night, with Brynn relating the tale of the battle at the Mountains of Fire honestly and openly. She was surprised to learn that the couple had already met one of her elvish companions. She bade the couple not to mention Juraviel or Cazzira, though, fearing that her story might overwhelm any would-be soldiers.
“You can have your old bed back,” Tsolona said to her, the hour well past midnight.
Brynn considered the offer, remembering the fine times she had spent with these two, whom she regarded almost as surrogate parents. “I must be out this very night,” she answered. “I have but three days to make the final preparations for the Autumnal Nomaduc. Everything will move quickly after that.”
“You will assemble your army?”
“As many as will join.”
“And then strike at the Behrenese within To-gai?” Barachuk pressed. “Like the new dog, Tornuk, who replaced the dog you killed?”
Brynn understood the man’s eagerness, for the name alone marked the new Yatol of Telliqik as To-gai-ru. To the proud To-gai-ru people, that betrayal was even worse than the invasion of the Behrenese.
“We will find our ways to gain our freedom, and will pay back those who have brought so much grief to us,” Brynn promised. She moved over and kissed Barachuk, then turned to Tsolona, wrapping her in a great hug for a long, long time.
And then she was back out into the dark To-gai night, with Juraviel, Cazzira, Pagonel, and Agradeleous, laying the final plans for the Walkaway.
Three nights later, streaks of fire highlighted the To-gai sky, Brynn astride her dragon flying the length and breadth of the steppes, her fiery sword held high and the fire accentuated every so often by a tremendous gout of the dragon’s fiery breath. She flew up very high so the spectacle could be seen from far, far away.
That night, taking the signal, tens of thousands of To-gai-ru slipped out of their respective settlements for the safety of the darkened steppes. There were skirmishes in some towns, where guards caught on to the escape, but in all but a few of the outposter settlements, where the To-gai-ru were outnumbered by the Behrenese many times over, the To-gai-ru got out, moving to appointed meeting places, where new tribes were formed.
Yakim Douan seemed as if he would simply explode. He sat in his chair, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles whitened at his sides, and he trembled so violently that his teeth were actually chattering.
Carwan Pestle, who had delivered the terrible news from Dharyan, looked to Merwan Ma with alarm, and the Chezru Chieftain’s attendant motioned for the man to step back from the leader’s chair.
“Not again,” Yakim Douan growled, his jaw clenched so tight that he hardly seemed able to get the words out of his mouth.
“Yatol Grysh begs your pardon, God-Voice,” Carwan Pestle offered, bowing repeatedly. “He wished not to trouble you with such unpleasantness as this, but he fears that we cannot ignore the desertion.”
“All of them?” Douan asked.
“Yes, God-Voice,” Pestle replied. “All who were not captured trying to escape. We have soldiers scouring the steppes; the outposters are banding together for defense.”
“And have you recaptured any of the missing To-gai-ru?”
Carwan Pestle seemed to deflate quite a bit. “No, God-Voice,” he admitted. “The outposter militia fought one battle, but it was against this … this crazy woman, the Dragon of To-gai, and they were overwhelmed.”
“Dragon?” asked Douan. “What say your reports? Was there really such a beast as that fighting the outposters?”
“We have heard reports of a dragon flying across the sky on the night of the great desertion, but no, there was no battle against any real dragon. Just against this demon woman and her followers, and their numbers are growing rapidly. Yatol Grysh would not have intruded upon your precious time, God-Voice, but he fears that this foe is more dangerous by far than was Ashwarawu.”
Yakim Douan smiled at that remark, for he knew that it had been said for no better reason than to remind him of Grysh’s great victory over the fool Ashwarawu at the gates of Dharyan. That was the last good news Douan had heard!
“Indeed he must believe it to be so, to send his closest advisor all the way here,” the Chezru Chieftain remarked. “And Yatol Grysh has indeed earned my trust and respect. You ask for two twenty-squares, and so you shall have them, and a third besides! And the mounts to support them, that they will sweep out with great and overpowering speed and strength!”
Carwan Pestle’s eyes widened nearly as much as Merwan Ma’s! Three twenty-squares, along with enough horses to support them as a cavalry unit? It was unheard of!
“But on the condition that you use them for more than the defense of Dharyan,” Douan went on. “I doubt this new leader will be fool enough to charge in to her death, as did Ashwarawu. I will give Yatol Grysh his soldiers—some of the best of the Jacintha garrison!—but he must promise to use them to march across the steppes, destroying all resistance, and punishing the To-gai-ru so terribly that they will never again think to defy us!”
“Yes, God-Voice!”
“Do you understand?” Douan asked, coming out of his chair to stand right before the man. “Do you truly? Tell your Yatol to exact a generational purge of the To-gai-ru. I will not have them as any threat during the time of Transcendence.”
Carwan Pestle’s face screwed up with confusion, as if he did not understand.
“A generational purge,” Yakim Douan repeated. “Eliminate their would-be warriors. All of them! I expect that I will not hear any further requests from Dharyan, but only the news that the To-gai-ru have been properly punished.”
Carwan Pestle nodded and bowed, and followed Douan’s motion that he should then leave the room.
“What troubles you?” Douan asked Merwan Ma after the emissary from Dharyan had gone, for it was obvious that the young Shepherd was not pleased.
“God-Voice, it is not my place to question—”
“But it is, because I just told you that it was,” Douan told him. “You are troubled by my command to Pestle?”
“A generational purge?”
Chezru Douan grinned wickedly. “I grow weary of the stubborn To-gai-ru,” he explained. “I’ll have no more trouble from them. They have brought this upon themselves—let them suffer the consequences of their insolence and disobedience! Twelve hundred soldiers, my friend, and each square will be led by a Chezhou-Lei … no, by two Chezhou-Lei. We will conquer To-gai all over again, and this time to even more devastating effect. And then I can go to my rest, Merwan Ma. My patience is at its end.”
Merwan Ma could hardly believe the coldness in Yakim Douan’s voice, but he didn’t dare to question the man at that time.
He bowed and left the room.
Yakim Douan stood very still for a long while, considering the decision. Three twenty-squares!
But he knew what the stakes were, and after the catastrophe at the Mountains of Fire, they were very high. Douan needed Grysh to put down the rebels and to destroy this newest legend in the making, this Dragon of To-gai.
He took some comfort in the fact that his latest reports put the Jhesta Tu still in their mountain abode, with no signs that they were planning to march in force and join the uprising on the steppes.
Chapter 26
Playing to Their Weakness
“THREE TWENTY-SQUARES,” PAGONEL REPORTED TO BRYNN THAT TENTH DAY OF Bafway, the third month of the year.
The warrior woman smiled wickedly.
“Twelve hundred soldiers,” Pagonel said somberly.
“Then the blow will prove even greater,” the woman replied.
The mystic started to argue, but paused and stared at Brynn’s knowing smile. They had spent the winter months rounding up the soldiers willing to ride with Brynn Dharielle, and the number had proven considerable indeed, beyond anything that Brynn dared hope after the disaster at Dharyan with Ashwarawu, for her reputation from that one fight at t
he Mountains of Fire had swept across the grassy steppes like wildfire. If this woman, this Dragon of To-gai, could destroy such a collection of Chezhou-Lei, and send a Jacintha twenty-square fleeing at the same time, then what did the To-gai-ru have to fear? And so her army had eagerly followed her down from the plateau divide and into the desert sands of Behren, some distance to the south of Dharyan.
“We have near to six thousand warriors,” Brynn said to the doubting mystic.
“Only four thousand at our disposal,” Pagonel reminded. “A third are out helping the common folk, as you ordered. They will not rejoin us for another month or two, at the least, until the spring is on in full. Even then, by going east, you are ignoring the many secured settlements within To-gai, and now behind our lines.”
“You do not agree with me?”
Pagonel gave a helpless chuckle in the face of Brynn’s too-innocent tone. “I am playing against your choices,” he explained. “As you asked of me.”
Brynn laughed aloud and squeezed her dear friend’s shoulder. Indeed, she had instructed Pagonel to play the part of her conscience and her better judgment, to question everything she decided with every argument he could find for alternate courses. She just never realized how good the mystic would be at such a task!
“Four thousand will be more than I need,” Brynn decided. “Dharyan will fall.”
“Burned by the fires of a dragon?” the mystic asked. “I warn you, the city has ballista emplacements—many of them. One shot from such a weapon could bring Agradeleous down to the ground, and once there he would face a concentrated barrage that even his great armor could not withstand.”
“Agradeleous will play a small role, if any,” Brynn replied, and the mystic’s expression became one of surprise. “I do not need him for this.”
“But …”
Brynn noticed that some of her other commanders had heard that last remark and were now listening more intently than they were letting on.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 157