The Foundlings (The Swords of Xigara)

by J. Mark Miller

  The boy worked to relax and act more like a mature adult and less of a child. He took a long draught of water, hoping to calm his stomach and ease his mind.

  “Have you heard the name Xigara, manling?” Sidero asked.

  “Of course,” Tander nodded. “He’s one of the central figures in my hometown’s history. He was the adopted son of our city’s founder, and if you believe the legends, he was the greatest smith who ever lived.”

  “Believe the legends,” Sidero said. “I met him once, at the height of his prowess.” The dragon’s gaze shifted to the knife at Tander’s side. “He made that Blade hanging from your belt.”

  Tander fingered the knife, the heirloom his father had grudgingly passed down. He knew it was of great worth and quality, but had never been told its history.

  “I didn’t know,” the boy whispered.

  “Do you know anything of the trust that Blade signifies?”

  “No,” Tander’s voice broke. “Father would never talk about it, and he’d get angry if I dared to ask. He only gave it to me because Mother made him promise on her deathbed. He seemed almost glad to be rid of it.”

  “Xigara forged five such blades,” Sidero said, “each one representing a House bound by oath and honor to his own.”

  “But the legends say Xigara had no heir.”

  “Yes, but there are times when you cannot place your trust in tales passed down, especially when that tale was crafted to misdirect.”

  “A lie you mean.” Tander turned an accusing eye on Vonedil. “The bards have been spreading lies.”

  Vonedil cleared his throat. “Let’s say rather a modification of the facts to protect those in need of preservation.”

  “But a lie is a lie,” Tander insisted. “You dedicated your life to the truth.”

  “You must understand,” Sidero said, “the progeny of Xigara is alive and well. This truth must be hidden from the Enemy at all costs. It was far better to propagate a false history and allow his legend to sink into the dust of history. How better to protect his children from harm than to make the prophecies little more than children’s fables?”

  Tander squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his head. “I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”

  “The Enemy has returned from exile and is on the move. The scions of Xigara’s legacy must be gathered together, for his heir will soon be revealed. They must take up arms against the dark tide.

  “Tander, son of Festin, progeny of the House of Lonarch, you are such a one.”

  12

  The Celadine Mountains

  Dwarven warriors stomped and clanked through the broad corridors, the noise of their passage heard all through the citadel. Elven rangers wended their way around the ranks of dwarves as they raced toward their posts. Carts laden with food and supplies were pulled down the corridor edges toward the deeper levels below.

  Katalas and Duras stood on a ledge overlooking one of the citadel’s central caverns, leaning on the guardrail as they watched an infantry of dwarves gather into their companies and move off down a tunnel leading to the surface. Swift-footed couriers ducked through gaps in their lines, running dispatches through the subterranean maze. The elven ranger watched it with hard eyes, attempting to focus on the preparations at hand and failing. His heart was torn between desire and duty.

  “What troubles you?” Duras heard his friend’s sigh. “We’ve lived through battle before, and we’ll do it again.”

  “It’s not the threat of battle. I’d prefer the simplicity of risking my life in war to being an instrument of a vague prophecy.”

  “Aye,” the dwarf agreed. “We fight an unseen enemy, not one we can look in the eye with a blade in hand. We’ve become the sword held by an unseen hand. Give me a flesh and blood wrestling match any day.”

  “I never thought the prophecies would come to pass in my lifetime. I always imagined they would affect some descendant of mine in some far distant future. A future that has nothing to do with me.”

  Duras frowned. “No offense my friend, but that’s foolish thinking. It might make a bit of sense for the other heirs, but not you. Elves are so long lived that any of your family should have expected to be around when the prophecies came to pass.”

  “Not me, Duras,” Katalas gave him a sad smile. “My family’s rife with stories of calamity. There’s not a one of us who’s followed our grandsire’s example and lived a life of peace. We’ve been warriors all. It’s a wonder our line survived to pass down the trust from one generation to the next.”

  “And you without an heir is a problem, considering the dangerous life you live.”

  “I never expected to be the heir, so I made my choices,” the elf shrugged. “I wouldn’t be the Bearer if my father and brothers hadn’t died in battle against the corsairs on Petara.”

  “The work of that unseen hand,” Duras said.

  Katalas rocked back as if he’d been slapped. “You think Onúl is so capricious he would kill my family to put the Blade into my hand?”

  Duras held a hand up to stave off his friend’s anger. “I’m saying I don’t believe in chance. If you were meant to be the Bearer for House Katsumas then nothing could have prevented it from happening.”

  “That’s what we’re raised to believe, but I’m not so sure. Either way, that’s not what’s bothering me. It’s the unknown. I fear what I can’t see. If I were out on the frontier I could use my senses to determine the nature of any threat and formulate a strategy to fight it. I could see what’s ahead, hear what’s behind, and know my enemy’s face. Now, I’m blind and deaf.”

  Duras didn’t know how to answer his friend, so he let the silence stretch back out between them. They turned back to the hubbub below to find a group of mages conferring in an alcove over a map of the citadel. Wranglers herded a pack of snarling rock gnawls across the cavern. One of them barely missed knocking over a cart stacked with fresh hewn lances passing the opposite direction.

  “Who’d you send to Nesos?” Duras asked finally.

  “Ilnumil and Iluth,” Katalas said. “They’re lifemates, so they travel as one. They have relatives on Nesos.”

  “I’ve never understood you elves sending husbands and wives into danger together.”

  “Lifemates have always fought shoulder to shoulder. Who better to trust than the one who’s given you their life? At best, they’re able to live as one as intended, at worst, they pass on in the arms of their beloved.”

  “Makes no sense to the dwarven mind,” Duras said, “but our women don’t fight anyway, so I guess it wouldn’t.”

  Katalas turned his head to hide his smile.

  “Don’t you think it was too soon to send them out?” Duras asked. “They’ve spent months on the frontier. They’re due some rest.”

  “They’ll get more rest and be more safe than anyone here,” Katalas said. “The citadel will see battle soon enough, and there’s not a place in the world more safe than Nesos, provided they can make it there.”

  Duras nodded in appreciation. “You thought we’d be of more use here than at the Shrine didn’t you? That’s why you went around my back and sent others in our place isn’t it?”

  Katalas sighed, glad his friend had finally brought up the unspoken rift between them.

  “I had my reasons,” the elf said. “I’m not avoiding our responsibility, only putting it off for a time. You said it yourself, if we’re fated to play a part in things to come, then my sending a pair of rangers in our stead won’t change anything. Besides, it’s likely at least one of the other Bearers will pass through our mountains on their way to the Shrine. There’s no use sitting in the jungle waiting for them while we can be of help here.”

  Duras grunted in grudging agreement. “Who’d you send to the Shrine?”

  “Two others from my cadre,” Katalas said, “Linil and Aelsona.”

  “Lifemates?”

  “Yes, and what’s more, they are with child. I sent a sealed letter for the Keepers, a r
ecommendation for them to join the honor guard. At least one child might be born in peace in the middle of the coming war.”

  “I don’t know where you got your reputation for being so tough,” Duras clapped his friend on the back. “Don’t worry though, I won’t tell anyone.”

  The last regiment of foot soldiers marched out of the cavern and silence fell like autumn leaves. They stood for a time, content in the privacy of their thoughts.

  “You did a good thing, my friend,” Duras said. “You’ve given those young ones a better chance at life than they had yesterday.”

  “Saving lives is my duty,” Katalas said.

  13

  Madhebah

  Madhebah burned. The crown jewel of the Maehdrasian Empire, culmination of human civilization on the face of Awia, faced annihilation. The sulfur dragon’s fire set whole swaths of the residential quarter ablaze, and he’d knocked down the eastern aqueduct with his tail.

  Humans didn’t understand how blessed their cities were. Dragons gave small attention to humanity’s masses, and Madhebah was the largest, boasting thousands upon thousands of souls. The city was easily the largest target in existence.

  A single dragon could lay it to waste faster than a fire sweeping across a dry prairie.

  Nothing short of an army of mages could stop the juggernaut. There was no legendary dragonsbane, no blessed weapon, no weak spot on the belly. Some said killing a dragon was impossible, and even if you could drive it away you could be sure it would one day return to finish its slaughter.

  Known as the Stone City, Madhebah was constructed of massive amounts of marble and granite. But in reality, all but the most opulent structures within the Emperor’s Circle could boast only a thin veneer of rock. The skeleton of most structures consisted of wood with interior walls of plaster or stucco. The poorer sections fared worse and possessed no such veneer, only whitewashed parget painted in rough imitation of marble.

  Those houses were gone.

  Without the aqueduct there was no water available to try and fight the fires. Citizens gave up hope and fled for their lives. Most of them never escaped.

  Some of the city, the artisan’s quarter and the warehousing district, had mostly escaped harm, as well as the city’s two innermost circles. Kitrinos had descended upon the southern merchant’s quarter only moments before the copper dragon’s counterattack. Now, the pair battled tooth and claw in the skies overhead. The evil dragon was seemingly not attempting to escape as much as striving to resume his destruction of the city below.

  The city’s master-planned design was serving her well. The emperor Madhebah had envisioned a city standing on the hill overlooking the river Shalash, and designed it as a monument to his own greatness. Fashioned it with massive growth in mind, only recently had it approached capacity, mostly due to a law barring any but full citizens from residing within her walls.

  Madhebah was built in a series of concentric circles, each one ringed by a massive defensive wall. The Emperor’s Circle stood in the center atop the crest of the hill, consisting of the Imperial Palace, numerous government buildings, and the homes of the aristocracy. Open in times of peace, the circle’s gates stood closed in an attempt to create a fire break, a precaution that would prove useless if the sulfur dragon worked his way free and turned his destructive attention uphill.

  It was here in this conflagration that the purpose of the city’s second ring stood revealed. It served as a buffer zone between the upper and lower city, a shield between the upper classes and the rabble.

  Citizens could be found enjoying the gardens and wooded spaces on any given day, strolling the wide boulevards and enjoying the restaurants. Public works like the Royal Baths and numerous museums had been erected in the greenbelt by emperors striving to leave their mark on the city of their forefather. All of them now stood empty but for the Grand Coliseum and the Great Amphitheater where soldiers were mustering, ready to protect the Emperor’s Circle from mobs of panicked citizens.

  Had the dragon struck earlier in the day, the loss of life would have been catastrophic. Though the residential quarter was in the throes of immolation it was all but empty. Every able-bodied adult was plying their trades elsewhere in the city, or in the fields beyond. Women were trading in the bazaars, keeping their young close at hand. Older children not working alongside their mothers and fathers were serving as apprentices, or learning under artisan tutors.

  Madhebah’s people would survive and rise from her ashes.

  The old emperor’s designs, meant to defend the city from external threat, became her ultimate salvation from the flames. The towering walls forming the circular boundaries served to chock off the inferno’s advance. Flames ripped through neighborhoods, surging down row upon row of homes, only to find itself arrested by the stolid granite of the city’s interior walls.

  High atop the central spire of the Imperial Palace, the cold eyes of the emperor watched as the dragon responsible for the destruction of his city was hauled away by another dragon. Eldinn, emperor of all Maehdras, stood in fury as he watched his legacy transfigured by smoke and fire. The trust handed down by his forefathers had been smashed to rubble by the whim of a capricious beast. His plans to renovate and expand was now dashed by the necessity to rebuild.

  So be it.

  History would call him Eldinn the Restorer. He would rebuild Madhebah in his image, raising it to heights more splendid and noble than all those who’d come before him. The cost would be high but he had no fear, the people would rise to his call. Payment would be made, of that he was certain.

  Someone would pay in blood.

  “We’re trapped!” Zalas yelled over flames. “We can’t get to the stables from here.”

  “We’ll have to try another way,” Onahim bellowed. “We’ve got to get to the horses if we want any real chance of escaping.”

  “There’s no way back. We’ll have to find another way.”

  “Any ideas?” asked Cedsul.

  Zalas looked up and down the street as it turned into a death trap around them. Buildings on every side were in flames and he knew there were no safe paths back through the maze of streets behind them. The others looked on with growing concern as he studied each building as if trying to see through them.

  “I know where we are,” he pointed at one of the buildings. “The street on the other side of that bakery leads down to the Boar Gate near the western wall. If we can get there, we can get to my boat and escape down the river.”

  They looked to see a single story building alive with flames. Doulos was bent over, resting his hands on his knees. Tenna leaned close and whispered, “Can you do something?”

  Doulos could barely lift his head. “No.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  The mage shook his head. “Drained. Magic exacts a price. I need rest, and I won’t find it running for my life.”

  Onahim suddenly stomped forward and dropped his heavy pack to the ground. “This looks like a job for a dwarf,” he said.

  “And an elf,” Cedsul stepped up beside his friend.

  “What…?” Zalas asked in momentary confusion. That confusion evaporated when he saw Onahim pull two velvet sacks from his pack.

  “You can’t be serious,” Zalas stumbled back. “You’ll kill us all.”

  “You see any other way?” Onahim asked. “It’s not too smart an idea for me to be carrying blasting powder around on my back through a burning city. Best to get some use out of it before something goes wrong.”

  “But how…?”

  Cedsul put a hand on Zalas’s shoulder. “My friend, lead the others to cover and let us do our job.”

  Zalas pinched his nose like he had a sudden headache, then turned away and marched toward an overturned cart. He muttered something about the madness of dwarves while motioning for the rest of the company to follow.

  “I hope we survive this,” he said to the empty air.

  Tenna peered over the edge of the cart and watched the mismatched pair put
their impromptu plan into motion. Onahim measured out the two different colors of powder into several smaller linen pouches, tying each of them off and stacking them in a neat pile at his feet. Cedsul was busy carving notches into the shafts of his arrows a few inches behind their heads. He then took Onahim’s pouches and tied it to those notches with a piece of hemp string. This done, he pushed the arrows head-down into the ground, creating a tight semicircle of ten arrows.

  Then the elf stood still, closing his eyes as he worked to slow his breathing. His hands brushed across the fletching of the arrows before him.

  Onahim stuffed his odds and ends back in his pack then clasped Cedsul’s shoulder. “Be fast, my friend.”

  Cedsul smiled but didn’t open his eyes. Onahim lifted his pack with a grunt and made for the cart’s dubious shelter.

  The elf lifted his bow and his eyelids. He centered himself, visualizing each of his ten shots. He nocked the first arrow, compensating of the bit of extra weight the little pouch of powder exerted on the shaft. The first shot was critical, for it would help him judge how to release the nine remaining shafts. His targets were easy, open windows and doors licked with fire, but he’d still need to be at his best. The lives of his friends were at stake.

  He took one last breath then blew it out slow and steady. He pulled back on the bowstring, holding the draw for bare seconds as he sighted the bakery’s open door. He loosed. His hand was drawing the second shaft from the ground before the first was halfway to its destination. He let the second fly as the first made impact, and sent the next eight in rapid succession. He was in motion before the final bolt struck home, running towards his friends behind the cart.

  Tenna watched through a gap in the cart’s slats, staring wide-eyed as the destruction unfolded. A sound like a giant pile of logs falling sounded from the bakery. It grew in a roaring tide as a rapid barrage of small explosions rocked the already ruined building. Large chunks of wood flew in every direction. The company ducked down behind the cart as flaming shard whipped overhead to careen into neighboring facades, setting the area’s flames roaring higher.