But Ja’Akari are not trained to rely on luck.
Sulema stepped back into the shadows of the Bones of Eth. Between the ringing in her ears and the trapped-bird pounding of her heart she was near deaf, but she schooled herself to stillness as the lionsnake thrashed and wailed, half-blind and maddened with pain.
It might be enough. She felt the fluttering in her soul as she felt the young vash’ai—Azra’hael, she thought, his name is Azra’hael— take a step toward the Lonely Road without her. It will have to be enough. I cannot lose him.
She watched as the lionsnake’s shoulders bunched and flexed, claws gutting the sand as the wounded beast dragged herself forward, propelling her bulk with agonizing slowness. In her youth the beast would have moved swiftly over short distances, but a lionsnake this massive would need the meat to come to her. Likely this had not posed a problem until this day, as there were always creatures that needed shade and shelter more than they feared ambush.
The Bones of Eth were cold and hard against Sulema’s back. The vash’ai lay tumbled to one side, limp and broken but still breathing. She could hear Atemi whinnying in fear, and smell the hot sand, and the stink of venom and blood and carrion. She realized that within the hour—perhaps within minutes—either she or the lionsnake would be dead.
She drew a deep breath and nocked another arrow.
The broad plumed head wove back and forth, foul breath wheezing and hissing as the lionsnake sought her prey. Her head was tipped so that Sulema could see the dim light of her good eye flickering and moving behind the protective lid.
Ha, you old bitch, Sulema thought. I am Ja’Akari, and I am no easy meat.
She drew the arrow back to her cheek, slowly, slowly… and let fly, shot high and wide, so that the steel tip of her arrow skittered along the Bones, drawing a thin line of blue sparks. The lionsnake whipped her head toward the sound and shrieked, plumes bristling and rattling, venom pumping as she prepared to strike.
Sulema loosed a third arrow, and watched in satisfaction as this one sank deep into the unprotected folds of the lionsnake’s engorged venom sac. She reached for another, ready to make an end of this.
Easier than I thought.
The lionsnake bellowed and reared, clawing at the sky and thrashing wildly from side to side. Sulema was hit by a wave of malice so strong that she reeled, stumbling and falling to her knees. Stupid luck saved her hide. The creature’s claws swiped so close that she went tumbling ass-over-end across the dirt. Hot agony blossomed in her shoulder and Sulema screamed with the realization that the claws had not missed her, after all. She screamed again as the massive tail whipped sideways, catching her in the thigh and sending her rolling like a sheep’s head in a game of aklashi.
She staggered upright, spitting sand and blood, unable to stand fully upright or raise her left arm. As the lionsnake reared to its full height, bellowing in injured outrage and planning to crush the small intruder who dared bring the fight to her very lair, Sulema realized three things in quick succession.
She had lost her bow.
She still had her sword.
And this had been a very, very bad idea.
Sulema drew her sword and threw herself to the ground, face-down, sword point up, and hoped that Atemi would make it back to the pride unhurt.
The cool shadow of the lionsnake washed over her, and then the full weight of the beast crashed down upon her like the end of everything, a massive weight that blocked out sun and sound and hope, smashing, crushing, suffocating her. The lionsnake’s flesh was slick, corpse-cold, and soft.
Soft…
Sulema felt the bones of her lower arm snap as the thing fell upon her, sword sinking deep, deep into the soft flesh of its throat. She screamed as the beast came down, screamed again as it thrashed upon her in a lifetime’s worth of dying, and a third time as it rolled off her, crushing her shoulder as it went. It writhed and humped along the sand in its extremity, shrieking, moaning, spraying hot blood and venom that smoked and burned where it hit rock and sand and flesh.
As she crashed down upon the shattered rocks, the lionsnake released a musky stink so vile that Sulema gagged and heaved, rolling over onto her side so that she would not choke on her own vomit.
Her shoulder and arm were on fire, an exquisite chorus of agony. Every bit of exposed skin itched and stung as droplets of the lionsnake’s venom burned her skin.
She rolled to a sitting position, cradling her broken arm, and then struggled to her feet—prepared for the worst—but the lionsnake was dead. Nothing could stink like that and not be dead. The lionsnake was dead, and she had survived.
Eventually she would be glad of it. At the moment, however, she concentrated on standing upright and not passing out from the pain.
The creature gave a final, bubbling hiss. Sulema jerked away, and cried out in pain as the bones in her arm ground together, but the creature seemed to deflate as sa and ka left its massive, stinking body.
I need to clean my blade, she thought. But her arm would not respond. Might as well skin the lionsnake while I am at it. Sulema giggled, a bit drunkenly. She would skin it and collect the plumes— just as soon as she could coax Atemi to enter a lionsnake’s lair, carry her wounded vash’ai to safety, and perhaps bind her wounds as well.
Za fik, everything hurt.
“That was the stupidest thing I have ever seen.”
Sulema nodded—there was no arguing with that. Then she stiffened, new agony screaming up her arm, and turned slowly toward the far, dark corner of the Bones. A figure stepped from the shadows. She held her breath, wondering if the Guardian of Eid Kalmut had come to snatch her breath away, for surely such a thing could only have come from the Valley of Death.
He might have been a tall man, bent in upon himself to conceal his true size, or he might have been twisted like an old tree left too long in bitter winds. It was hard to tell, enshrouded as he was in layer upon layer of shadowy robes. A mask of beaten metal and leather strips revealed more of twisted ruin of his face than it concealed, and he leaned easily against a massive war hammer that reeked of old blood and new murder.
“Brave, though.” Another voice, softer and higher than the first. Sulema searched the edges of her vision for the source of it, not willing to let this man slip from her sight, certain that if she looked away—even for a moment—he would disappear into the shadows again.
“Brave of a certes, sweet one, but the brave light the paths of Eid Kalmut. The dead are no less dead for having been brave.”
“Ah, but she is not dead yet.”
Sulema shivered, and grunted a little as the bones ground together in her arm. The voices were all coming from the twisted figure in black.
Nightmare Man, she thought. So you were not just one of my mother’s stories.
The figure drew nearer, though Sulema had not seen him move. She blinked the blood away, blinked again as her vision blurred and she fell to her knees, jarring loose a small, helpless sound that surely did not come from her throat.
“No? Not yet, then. But the venom will have its way with her.”
“If the lionsnake had bitten her, she would be dead by now. I think it just kicked her ass.”
“I was not speaking of the lionsnake.”
“What about this one?” The figure jerked its free arm toward the still form of the fallen vash’ai.
“Kill it if you like.” The voice was low and sweet as dark honey.
I know that voice, she thought, and a cold dread coiled deep in her gut. I have heard it before… but when?
“You… I know you…” She struggled to clear her head. To stand. Was she standing? She struggled to raise her sword arm. Had she lost her sword? How could she be a sword-sister, if she had lost her sword?
The dark form bent over the vash’ai, and Sulema fought against the darkness like an insect caught in a web. Or like a dreamer caught in a nightmare.
“No,” she whispered. “No.”
An image tickled up through her m
emories, like bubbles from the mouth of a drowned girl. This same face looming over her as she huddled deep in a nest of soft blankets, too terrified to cry out.
I wet the bed, she thought, but nobody ever came. In her memories, he was a giant.
A blade slashed across her throat—his throat—her throat, and the image shattered.
The vash’ai yowled, a terrible and final cry, cut short, sliced in half. Sulema wailed as her soul bled out into the endless night.
Azra’hael, her heart whispered, broken. His name was Azra’hael.
Flashes of blue light crackled across the man’s mask like lightning as he stepped back from Azra’hael’s limp body and turned to face her. He smiled, or perhaps he screamed without making a sound, and then he threw something at her. Something small and pretty that glittered as it flew, and she snatched it from the air with her good hand without thinking twice.
“A gift from Eth,” he said, and then he threw back his head and laughed like thunder, like fire in the tall dry grass.
Sulema fell to her knees—or had she fallen already?—and gasped as the bones in her arm ground together, gasped as she saw what she held in the palm of her hand. A shadow-jewel, a dark crystal the size of a plover’s egg, set into a silvery brooch in the shape of a spider. It danced with shadows in the pale moonslight, waving its forelegs at her as if tasting the color of her blood.
She struggled, a fly caught in its web.
“No,” she whispered. That was not right. It was latesun, no later, and she had to get Atemi. Had to skin the lionsnake, to take the plumes back to Hannei. She had to save Azra’hael, so that they could become Zeeravashani. “I cannot accept this gift, it is too much.”
She struggled…
“No?” He stood over her, smiling, and the sky was dark with regret. “No, then. But your father will be so disappointed.”
…caught in its web.
“I know you,” she whispered. “Nightmare Man.”
The spider crouched and leapt, trailing a silken strand of glistening moonslight. It landed on her injured shoulder and she screamed as its fangs sank into her too-soft flesh.
It burned. Venom flooded through her veins like a river of fire, and it burned. The sand rushed up to greet her, soft as her mother’s embrace.
Struggled…
Memories crowded forth in a shrill chorus, trapping her in a dark place filled with fire and death. There was no escape. There was no escape. And Mama would not wake in time to save her.
…in its web.
The wagon broke open, and she saw the face of Akari Sun Dragon, white-hot with rage.
She fell.
She burned.
ELEVEN
Daru fell headlong into her tent. “They have found her, Dreamshifter!”
Hafsa Azeina stood, ignoring the pins and needles in her long-folded legs, the angry sound Basta’s Lyre made when it fell from her lap, and the manner in which the spirits sewn into her tent strained toward the boy as he lay prostrate on the ground.
“Where was she? Who found her?” She did not ask whether the girl was alive, or unhurt. Three days past she had felt her daughter’s screams in the very marrow of her bones, and if the girl had died, she would have known it.
“The First Warrior found her,” Daru gasped. “At the Bones of Eth. They have taken her to the Healers’ Quarters and Nurati is with her now…”
“Sareta.” The woman’s name susurrated through the air, whispering along the lines of here and then, catching her hunter’s eye. There was game at the end of that trail… but there would be time for that later.
I am here, Kithren. I was hunting rabbits in the garden. The shadow-dancers are here, stinking of fear and spiders. Paraja is here, as well… best bid the little mouse stay home.
I am on my way. Do not let them touch her.
Best hurry, Kithren, those shadow-dancers are doing something… I will distract them. A silent cat’s laugh rippled across their bond.
“Daru, you stay here. I need you to call as many of the shadows away from the healers’ rooms as you can.”
The boy hesitated. “I will try, Dreamshifter.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Try?”
He bowed, and produced his apprentice’s flute. “Yes, Dreamshifter.” He sat down, lotus-style, and closed his eyes. She did not miss the tremor that shook his hands, but she had no pity to spare.
She took Basta’s Lyre but left the shofar. The golden ram had fed on human flesh, and she did not yet trust his spirit in the presence of blood. Her bare feet carried her up the pass and the path and the steps to the healers’ rooms fleet and quick as a girl’s, but she could not outrun the smell of her own fear, the images of her daughter bleeding and broken and hurt. It had been four days since Sulema had gone missing, and three since she had felt that scream.
If she dies, Hafsa Azeina thought. If she dies…
Somewhere in Shehannam the Huntress lifted her head and smiled.
Warriors and wardens scattered before her as leaves in the wind. One young mother snatched her child up, and the terror on her face only inflamed Hafsa Azeina’s wrath.
If she dies…
She will not die today, Kithren. Not of this.
She heard his warning hnnga-hnnga even as she reached her destination and threw the doors open with such force that the wooden frames cracked. Before her was such a tableau that, had she not been in such a state, she might have laughed till she cried. Khurra’an had the humans in the room backed into a far corner and was sitting on the shadowmancer. Paraja stood before him, eyes blazing, hair along her spine standing on end, spitting with fury… and the great sire was licking his male-parts as he ignored them all.
Paraja rounded on Hafsa Azeina as she blew into the room, but she ignored her as if the vash’ai queen could not eat her in two bites. Nurati was in a fury as well. If she had had hackles, they would have stood on end, and her black eyes showed whites all the way round.
“Dreamshifter. Dreamshifter, you call off this stinking beast of yours, or I will… augh!” Khurra’an shifted in his bathing so that his tail caught her in the face. Paraja snarled.
“Dreamshifter.” Again came the soft, low voice of the shadow-mancer, a little out of breath. “If you could just… ugh… if you could just let me up, I might be able to… mmf.”
Cat balls in the face to you, sorcerer, she thought. It really was too bad there was no laughter left in her soul. She said nothing, but strode to the pallet where her daughter lay sleeping.
Sulema was asleep. Not dead, not even near death, though her wounds were grievous, nor caught in the long-sleep from which few ever roused.
She touched her fingertips to her daughter’s face, tracing the bones unbroken, the swollen flesh, the map of pain and sorrows. Victory was here, as well, and fear long buried, and… something else. Something worse.
Nightmare Man, she thought, and the ground in Shehannam trembled. So you have found her at last.
“Dreamshifter,” Nurati spat, “release us at once.”
“Meissati,” the shadowmancer implored, “if you would only… mmmf!”
That tickles, laughed Khurra’an.
Deep in her sleep, Sulema stirred. Hafsa Azeina reached out to her. Hush, my darling, sleep now. Mama is here.
Istaza Ani burst through the wrecked doors, Leviathus at her heels.
“Where is she?”
“Does she live?”
“Shhh. She sleeps.” Hafsa Azeina met the eyes of the woman who loved her daughter. “She will live.”
My balls are clean. Shall I let this one up? He is not a comfortable seat, after all.
You might as well. There are too many people in here for me to feel the truth of things, anyway. Someone in the room knew what had happened, she could feel it, but too many dreams pressed too close together obscured the scent.
You do not think this was an accident?
There are no accidents. Aloud she said, “This was no accident. Someone attacked my
daughter. See here…” She brushed the braids away from Sulema’s flesh. There was a small puncture wound there, almost lost among the chaos of her larger hurts, but to her dreaming eyes it seethed and pulsed with wicked magic.
A strange music floated through Shehannam, catching the attention of the shadows. Some of the lesser ones drifted off to seek its source and even the greater ones swayed, distracted. Daru was playing his flute. Drawing these hungry shadows to himself was a terrible risk, but she shut her heart tight lest concern for her apprentice distract her from the needs of her daughter.
“Move,” she said. When Leviathus did not comply, she gave his shoulder a push. Yeh Atu, the boy was a young giant. “Move!” He did, and she seated herself near the head of the pallet near the still form of her daughter. Folding her sa inward, her ka outward, the dreamshifter rested Basta’s Lyre against her cheek.
The First Healer, a woman as wizened and tough as blackthorn bark, hustled over with a scowl. “I need to tend the hurts of the body.” Without waiting for an answer, she took a small knife and began to cut Sulema’s clothes away.
Hafsa Azeina shut her waking eyes, but the sight of her daughter’s wounds pressed against her soul like an unwelcome lover. When I find the one responsible…
She stroked the gut strings of the lyre. To her ears—and her ears only—a man’s voice wept with pain.
He had been very beautiful.
The greater shadows had been enchanted by Daru’s music. They fled hers. Her fingers danced upon the strings, plucking and stroking and teasing live voices from the dead as the gut trembled and wailed and the horned cat’s skull let out a long sigh of sorrow and loss. Hers was angry music and sad, a call to battle without hope, a cry for vengeance denied. Hafsa Azeina groped blindly between the sounds of this note and that, seeking her daughter’s resonance, for she had long since tasted the song in her daughter’s blood. She could find it anywhere.
She found it now.
There you are, she thought. As always, her daughter shone like the bright moons against the pale light of Shehannam. Her bright light was tainted by an odd and murky cloud, as if poison had been dropped into a glass pitcher of mead.
The Dragon's Legacy Page 13