The Fifth Dawn

by Cory Herndon

  “Yes, I thought so,” Malil said, and reached down to grab Glissa’s ankle.

  The elf girl put everything she had left into the kick. Her boot caught Malil squarely in the jaw. The metal man was thrown backward and tumbled over the edge of the lacuna, and disappeared.

  Glissa winced and coughed as she struggled to her feet and gave chase. She tripped over her own feet when she reached the edge, and felt a fresh wave of nausea as gravity turned sideways again.

  The silent vedalken assembly stood waiting. One who she thought was Orland—she hadn’t gotten a good look at him, and frankly they all looked alike to her—broke from the ring of menacing four-armed beings and lunged at Glissa. The elf girl dropped to a crouch when the vedalken was on top of her then came up leading with one shoulder and caught her attacker where his abdomen should be, using Orland’s increased weight against him. The vedalken still didn’t make a sound as he tumbled into the open lacuna.

  “It’s a little pointy about halfway down!” she shouted over her shoulder. She didn’t know if it was the healing properties of the bandages, or simple adrenaline, but Glissa felt reinvigorated. She clenched one hand into a fist and extended the other palm upward in invitation. “Anyone else?”

  She was met with silence, both inside and outside her head. The milky fluid that filled the helmet of the nearest warrior obscured any hint of emotion or intent. If she had to read anything in their behavior, it would have been confusion. They seemed uncertain.

  “Glissaaaaaa!” a familiar voice screamed from directly above. “Heeeelp!”

  Glissa searched the dazzling sky above and spotted Slobad and his captor, another huge vedalken. The pair were lazily floating upward toward the center of what looked like a patched-together Panopticon.

  “Flare,” she swore, and turned back to the looming vedalken, several of which were closing in slowly, obviously wary of being tossed into the pit behind Glissa. “Sorry boys, no time to play.” Hoping they were as slow as they looked, Glissa charged between two of the towering beings.

  Malil finally emerged from the lacuna behind her, and bellowed, “After her!”

  Glissa wasn’t sure exactly where she was going. She couldn’t fly—not without help—and even if she could somehow bring Slobad down safely, the goblin would be in even more danger once he hit the ground. She hopped and danced around dozens of small, skittering artifact creatures that had not been here the last time. Why did Memnarch need millions of diminutive constructs? Why now?

  The elf girl ducked as a heavy, three-fingered hand swiped overhead. The vedalken were right on her tail. She skidded around the wide base of a mycosynth spire and almost collided head-on with a wall of iron.

  No, not a wall … a leg. Her eyes ran up the length of the flat black tower, one of four holding up the massive black ring overhead.

  “Oof!” Glissa grunted as a fist connected with the small of her back, where Malil’s blade had skewered her, and she slammed face first into the massive support strut holding up one quarter of the rebuilt Panopticon. Despite the blinding pain, it was exactly where she wanted to be. She dug into the iron surface with the claws at the end of each hand, gaining solid purchase, then kicked back like an angry pack animal. She felt a satisfying crash as one foot shattered a vedalken faceplate. She scrambled hand over hand up the side of the mammoth black support strut.

  Every time Glissa pulled herself up another few feet, agony pierced her abdomen, but she kept going, ignoring it. She ignored the warm blood that once again flowed from her wounds, and the greenish copper stains that seeped into her bandages. She ignored the ominous hum of vedalken machinery kicking into gear far below, and growing closer by the second.

  She craned her neck and caught sight of Slobad and his vedalken captor once again. They were hard to make out against the dazzling energy output of the core, but they were the only things moving up there. She involuntarily groaned and dug in her claws to continue her ascent when a wide shadow fell over Glissa. Keeping one set of talons firmly embedded in the metal, she slowly turned out, one hand in a fist, to see what she could see.

  Malil stood before her astride one of the many varieties of vedalken hovercraft with which Glissa had grown far too familiar over the last few weeks. His arms were crossed, and his cold metal features twisted into a smile. The effort to show amusement looked ridiculously awkward on the metal man, but maybe he just hadn’t had much practice, Glissa thought deliriously. She was fading fast, again. What little blood she’d had left drained into the soaked bandages around her torso. Her grip was slipping.

  “Tell Memnarch … he can find his spark somewhere else,” she said, and squinted up at the tiny dot that even now moved through the ring above and disappeared against the bright light of Mother’s Heart. “Sorry, Slobad,” she whispered and let go.

  THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KHA

  “Please, my Kha, you must hold still,” the healer insisted, “I cannot set the bandages if you keep moving. Now please, just breath as steadily as you can, and be patient. Be my patient, and behave.”

  “Only a healer would speak with such impudence,” Raksha Golden Cub snarled with a deep growl, and involuntarily sneezed. Glittering green flies buzzed about the tent, causing metallic dust to swirl in the candlelight. The sounds of battle on the plains, no more than half a mile distant, failed to penetrate the enchantments that helped maintained a calm, quiet atmosphere. Though a fighter born and bred, the leonin Kha of Taj Nar was glad for the brief respite from the howling din of war.

  Of course, at the moment that respite made him Shonahn’s only patient, and his childhood nursemaid felt free to speak her mind—at least, now that the two of them were alone. Shonahn’s unusual familiarity would be a gross breach of custom, and a disrespect technically worthy of execution according to ancient law.

  Still, he could no more blame Shonahn than he could ever bring himself to punish her for being honest with him. He had almost gotten himself killed.

  “If we—ow—if I could … breathe steadi … ly, I wouldn’t be—” Raksha wheezed.

  “Hush.” The older female placed a paw over the end of the Golden Cub’s mouth. “Only a Kha would give his healer such grief. How long have I looked after his every cut and scrape? Some thirty years?”

  “Yes,” Raksha managed. “Could you just—?”

  “Haven’t I always managed to put you back together after these adventures? Remember that time you tried to grow night-blooming razor grass under your bed?” Shonahn’s light brown muzzle split into a grin that exposed only the tips of her eyeteeth. “I must have been pulling blades from your haunches for a day and a half,” she said, wrapping the last length of silver gauze around the bound wounds that cut across Raksha’s chest. The healer closed her golden eyes and purred a soft incantation, and the leonin Kha felt the bandages fixing firmly around his torso. The sharpest of the pain began to ebb away, leeching into the enchanted wrappings. He drew a breath and felt only a tingling where before the pain had been like a thousand razor cuts. The material didn’t just help with the pain, it also expanded with his diaphragm as he breathed, and remained fast against his hide, even as he slipped off the side of the bed and straightened to his full imposing height.

  “The nim’s claws have proven to be quite resistant to our healing magic, my Kha,” Shonahn said, flashing teeth in an expression of frustration, “That’s why I had to rely on those stitches, by the way, and the bandages. They’re of Lumengrid manufacture, I found them on my travels. I ordered several lots for distribution to the healer’s corps while I was there. Come to think about it, they’re late. But what do you think? They work, do they not?”

  “We did not need stitches … or vedalken trickery … to heal—”

  “Yes, you did,” the healer interrupted, “And you must listen for a change, my Kha, to your elder. Grant me that courtesy.”

  Raksha nodded.

  “You were unconscious when they brought you in from the battlefield. Every binding spell I attempt
ed simply flashed into nothing. You were bleeding to death. The nim have some enchantment—something—that I can’t counter.” She turned and busied herself with putting away her medicines. “The bandages are a stopgap measure, and will let your body heal the wound on its own. I despised turning to the slavemongers for aid, but our losses … many more warriors will die without this ‘vedalken trickery.’” She bowed her head. “My Kha, I must be blunt.”

  “You usually are.”

  Shonahn nodded in respect. “You must let Yshkar take command of the troops. You know he desires command, even if he won’t tell you directly.” Shonahn left her medical kit and placed a hand gently on Raksha’s shoulder. “And our people cannot afford to lose you. The bandages can only do so much.”

  He thanked the gods once more that the old nurse had survived so many campaigns at his side. Her counsel, even when he didn’t agree with it, always prompted him to find a better solution on his own. The Kha doubted he’d be the leader he was if not for Shonahn, and her recent return from journeys abroad had been welcome. Though ostensibly a sabbatical, the wise old leonin had acted as an ambassador with some scattered tribes, forming trade pacts with other humans, goblins, and others that had never met a leonin before.

  Still, some of her more outlandish claims were best taken with a grain of salt. In her later years, Shonahn had developed a habit of embellishing her stories for effect. Or maybe he’d just started noticing. She claimed to have seen, for example, a pit in the Oxidda Mountains that went all the way to the center of the world.

  Whatever her proclivity for fanciful stories, her advice had never steered him wrong. Raksha placed his paw over Shonahn’s. “I have already considered it,” he said. “But I cannot return to Taj Nar. They drove me back there once.”

  “But they had help, did they not? These artifact creatures? Please, Kashi,” Shonahn pleaded, “Think of your wounds, and your recovery—and the omen.”

  Raksha bristled slightly at the childhood nickname. “You were right, Shono,” he growled, responding in kind and lapsing into less formal speech, “Our people can’t afford to lose me. That means I can no more return home than leave this world. Our survival will be decided on these plains, under my watch, though I give immediate control of the troops to Yshkar. Nothing else is acceptable.” He added, “As for the omen, you said yourself the seers hadn’t been able to determine whether it’s even an evil one.”

  “My Kha,” Shonahn insisted, “how could a new sun be a good omen? The very world we stand upon is coming apart!”

  “I don’t think so,” Raksha said, shaking his head. “I can’t explain why, but the presence of that green sun—it feels right. The world feels right. Like a great weight has shifted in the sky, bringing everything into balance. I can sense it in my bones. It can only be an omen of victory. It is no disaster.”

  “Really, that’s what you ‘feel in your bones,’ is it? With all due respect, my Kha, I think it’s tied to that Viridian elf girl. The sun did emerge from the Tangle, the elves’ homeland.” Shonahn made a noise halfway between a growl and a snort. “Has it occurred to you that Ushanti may have been right about her? That this new sun is just the beginning of the end?”

  “If it is tied to Glissa, whom I remind you we have called friend,” Raksha shot back, “then it can only be a good omen. And Ushanti no longer has my confidence. You know this. We allow you to speak freely, Shon, but we are the Kha. We guard the temple of light and the secrets of the Great Deep. We will fight, and we will survive. If anything, the green sun is a sign that should bring us renewed hope.”

  The healer sighed. “So should Yshkar begin writing his coronation speech? I can only do so much against this nim necromancy, my Kha,” Shonahn said, sidling to the closed tent flap. “You will not heal if you do not rest for at least a week. If you do not heal, you will die. It is that simple. Need I remind you that you have not produced an heir? Your cousin is a noble leonin but proud. He is not ready to rule, but he is ready to lead.” The healer crossed her arms across her chest, straightened as best her age-racked body would allow, and locked eyes with Raksha.

  The Kha was silent, lost in contemplation. Shonahn stood her ground, cocking her ears curiously. “Very well, Shon,” Raksha finally said, “We shall stay off the field. You are right. Yshkar is ready to command them.” There, he’d said it. He felt curiously exhilarated and more relaxed, which might just have been the vedalken bandages working their magic.

  “He’s been ready for months.”

  “Maybe so. And he’s desired command for even longer. But unless our warriors trust his command, it doesn’t matter how ready anyone thinks he is,” Raksha said calmly as the soothing curative magic diffused through his body. “His performance in this campaign has earned that trust, and that is why he is ready for field command. But this must be taken slowly. If the Kha retreats to Taj Nar and leaves Yshkar in command, morale suffers. You know how soldiers are. The rumors about the ‘horrible wounds the Golden Cub suffered at the hands of the fearsome nim’ will be back to Taj Nar before we are. And the nim will have won.”

  “What do you propose?” Shonahn asked expectantly. Raksha could tell that she was beginning to think along the same lines as he was.

  “The nim press forward every day. Every hour, the damned Mephidross swallows another few acres of the Glimmervoid. Every minute, another blade of razor grass rusts away into that rot.”

  “The corrosive properties of the Mephidross aren’t exactly something you can change through sheer will,” Shonahn said pragmatically. “Nor is Geth. We were mistaken to think he wouldn’t raise another army sooner or later. He was only cowed for a time by the elf girl. You have enemies, my Kha, and he’s more mercenary than necromancer. He could be working for anyone.”

  “Unless he’s finally acting independently,” Raksha said. “The new moon, the leveler attacks, these damned vedalken … they’ve thrown everything up in the air. But it is no matter. If it is him, we shall take his head personally. The more immediate concern is how to stop the things that are spreading the Dross. We’ve slowed them down, but it’s still been one long retreat, ever since the resurgence.”

  “You don’t think Geth is in charge anymore, do you?” Shonahn asked.

  “Something’s different about them now. They’re more organized, they’re—they’re smarter. A tangled mob of zombies is one thing, an organized army is another matter. This isn’t Geth’s style.” Raksha began to pace slowly in front of the healer, oblivious to the way Shonahn winced with every step he took.

  “That still leaves you with a war to fight. This new leader, if he is someone new, will reveal himself in time,” Shonahn said. “But if it is the one who sent the machines against you, a change of command may not be enough.”

  “Shon, we may need you to pull ambassadorial duty again. See if you can get help from any of the human tribes, starting with the Caravaners. If you can find them.”

  “Yes, my Kha,” Shonahn replied. “By your leave, I shall assign my finest apprentice to tend to your health. But what shall you do?”

  “The men need to see we’re fighting back with our brains as well as our blades. Starting tonight, we stop retreating. We are establishing a field command post. A den away from home where we can plan strategy and house troops, as well as stockpile supplies, weapons, and armor.”

  “Can you really spare the resources? The men?” Shonahn looked doubtful.

  “We don’t have a choice. It’s either draw the line here, or lose the Glimmervoid to the nim. Taj Nar will never fall,” he added with a toothy grin, “but we’ll be damned if we going to lose any more of the ancestral plains.” Raksha walked gingerly to the tent flap and drew it back slightly, allowing the clamor of battle to suddenly burst into the tent. The Kha’s ears twitched, listening to the night. His whiskers detected nothing moving in the blackness. Greenish-silver mist, a foul blend of the dust of the plains and the necrogen atmosphere of the Dross, obscured the distant fighting, but the howling nim
and roaring leonin fighters sounded just a little closer than when he had gone into the tent. He twitched his ears and focused his sharp hearing on a particularly violent fight that he should have been leading.

  Raksha’s ears snapped forward. For a moment, he could have sworn he’d heard a human voice chanting. He vainly scanned the night with feline ears, but the voice, if it had been there at all, was lost in the din of clashing blades and dying warriors.

  Despite his promise to Shonahn, he instinctively rested a hand on his sword hilt and waved in one of the guards at the door, a young leonin named Jethrar. The inexperienced warrior somehow simultaneously straightened to attention and ducked awkwardly into the tent, careful not to jab the Kha with the silver battle-scythe clutched in his hand. The warrior was new to the Raksha’s guard detail, and was painfully and obviously anxious at being called into an audience with his lord and master.

  “Y-yes, my Kha?” Jethrar stuttered.

  “We need to speak with Yshkar. Fetch him immediately.”

  “My Kha, sir, Commander Yshkar is on the front line.”

  “We know that, Jethrar, we sent him there.” Raksha grinned. “We have every confidence in you, warrior.” The Kha slipped a slim dagger from his belt and offered the hilt to the youthful guard. The small dagger had been a gift from Yshkar, and carried a moderate morale-boosting enchantment. It would help the young guard’s confidence, he knew. “Show him this, and he’ll understand the urgency. But do not give him the dagger. That would be an insult. Do you know why?”

  “Presenting a weapon to a field commander in the field, even if his life is threatened, symbolizes a lack of confidence. A commander must rely on what he brings with him, for he leads alone,” Jethrar said crisply, falling into the military discipline of the well-trained leonin warrior.

  “Correct, Jethrar,” Raksha said. “But remember also that only a fool refuses an ally. You want to know a secret?”