The Dragon's Legacy

by Deborah A. Wolf

  Hannei shut her gaping mouth, bowed to Istaza Ani, bowed again to the massive sire, and spun on her heels. She had no idea what had just happened, and a simple task was exactly what she needed.

  Get the box, track the hatchling, catch the hatchling. That much she could manage.

  It was as Istaza Ani had said. The little creature, long as her arm and weighing about as much as a bag of grain, lay panting on its side not far past the Bones. Hannei pinned its head to the ground with the flat of her sword, grabbed it firmly behind the jaw—even more firmly once she got a good look at its needle-sharp fangs—and proceeded to learn that lionsnake hatchlings are stronger than they look, that the hooked claws on their forearms are just as nasty as one might imagine, and that little lionsnakes do not appreciate being stuffed into boxes.

  * * *

  By the time she returned, Hannei’s arms—and her dignity—were shredded beyond recognition.

  Her mission accomplished, she dropped the hissing, spitting box in the shade, though by then she did not much care whether the daespawned little fucker lived or died. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked across the hot sands to the dark corner where the youthmistress stood with the broken-tusked vash’ai. Shame was a weight she dragged behind her, but she would not allow that to slow her steps. She was a full warrior, now, not a child to avoid the consequences of her dereliction. She halted and bowed, but neither woman nor cat took any notice of her. They stood in the darker shadows, staring at a pile of fresh cracked bones.

  “Youthmistress,” she began.

  “Hsst.”

  “But I…”

  “Hsst!” Istaza Ani held up a hand. “Not now, girl. Tell me, what do you see?”

  Hannei rocked back on her heels and caressed the hilt of her sword as she studied the pile of bones. Any Zeerani would recognize those bones.

  “Vash’ai,” she said. “Young. Very young. And… oh.” She stepped closer and felt her gorge rise as she studied the skull. Oh, no. She dropped to a crouch and leaned as close as she could get to the remains without disturbing them. “No, no, no. This is not right. He was—”

  “He was butchered. Skinned.” Istaza Ani’s voice was low, and hoarse. She reached out and touched the vash’ai on the shoulder. The massive sire was so caked and matted in blood that his pale mane stood out in red-tipped spikes. He might have looked ridiculous but for the waves of fury that boiled the air about him.

  The hair stood up along Hannei’s arms, and at the back of her neck. The young vash’ai had been butchered. Nothing else would leave such neat hack-marks at the ends of the bones, nor explain how they were arranged so neatly with the big ones all in one pile, topped by the skull. And worse had been done.

  “His tusks,” she whispered. “Who would… who would…?”

  The vash’ai growled, a low rumble she felt through the ground. His yellow eyes flickered with a furious grief that pierced her shallow human heart. Istaza Ani looked at him, and then closed her eyes.

  “This was his son,” Ani whispered. “His name was Azra’hael. He came here seeking his kithren.”

  “Oh.” Then, “Oh, Sulema.” Pain lanced through her heart. To lose your vash’ai at bonding… what would that do to a warrior?

  The big cat stood, shook himself, and stalked off. The older woman watched him go, eyes unfathomable.

  “Istaza Ani, forgive me, but are you and he…? Are you…?”

  The youthmistress raised both eyebrows at her. “His name is Inna’hael.”

  “Are you… are you and he… are you Zeeravashani?” She had never heard of one so old bonding with the vash’ai. Then again, before today she could not have imagined anyone butchering a vash’ai, any more than she could have imagined taking a blade to the flesh of a child.

  Istaza Ani almost smiled. “We have… an understanding. Beyond that, who can say? His son has been murdered, and I have agreed to help him find whoever is responsible.”

  Hannei felt as if the world had tipped to one side, and everything she knew was out of place. “Murder a vash’ai? Who would do such a thing? Who could do such a thing?”

  A roar shook the sky. It was a heart-sound, a soul-sound, thick with rage and grief.

  “You are asking the wrong questions.” Istaza Ani’s eyes had gone flat. Hannei had seen that expression on the other woman’s face once before, when a young girl’s rapist had been caught and the man handed over to her for justice. He had died… eventually.

  “Youthmistress?”

  Istaza Ani stepped toward the bones, and kicked one away from the pile before Hannei could object. Then another, and another.

  “You ask who. You should be asking why.” She picked up the vash’ai’s skull. It was unbroken, save where the tusks had been broken out. “Why would someone kill a vash’ai and desecrate his body? Why leave it where he was sure to be found, sooner or later, by his kin? Think, girl. How will the vash’ai answer this abomination? What will the Zeeranim answer be, when we find those responsible?”

  Drums sounded deep in her heart. “War.”

  “War is always the answer. War with the vash’ai. War among the prides. Or war with Atualon… How do you think that war would end for the people?”

  Hannei thought of the great ships, the gold-masked mages, the soldiers’ armor bright in the sun. “Not well,” she admitted.

  “Not well. That is one way to describe total annihilation.” Youthmistress Ani snorted. “You begin to understand what is at stake now. Someone killed this cub and left him here in order to wound us, to anger us, perhaps even to cause bloodshed between the two-leggeds and our sweet kithren. They killed him, they desecrated his body. They took his tusks.” She stared into the vash’ai’s empty eye sockets, and the hand that touched her sword trembled. “See the hatchmarks here, and here. They took his skin as a prize.”

  Hannei wanted to throw up. She wanted to cry.

  “They took his skin.” She stepped toward the pile of bones, and something rolled beneath her sandal. She moved her foot and bent to pluck the object from the sand.

  Her head spun, and she was seized with a strange feeling, one of those odd dark moments like the echo of a dream, of a life already lived, of following one’s own footprints. She balanced a strange knife in the palm of her hand. It was an evil-looking thing with a half-moon blade, hooked on one end and pointed at the other. This blade was set crosswise into a haft of heavy red wood carved into the shape of a pile of human skulls, the topmost of which was jealously clutched by a golden spider with a cluster of glittering rubies for eyes.

  Air hissed between the youthmistress’s clenched teeth.

  “Flayer.”

  Indeed the blade was made for it. Hannei could see that the thin crescent would be used for cutting through flesh and scraping it clean, and its sharp hook for the more delicate acts of flaying—the initial incising of the carcass, the pulling out of veins and tendons, and cutting around the orifices of the skin. Her own skin crawled at its touch. This was a wicked thing, made for more than the skinning of game. It was heavy in her hand and smelled of murder.

  “Do you remember the stories you used to tell us,” she asked the youthmistress, “late at night when we were far from camp and you wished to scare us witless? Terrible stories of Arachnists, cult-priests with knives such as this.” She forced these words out between stiff lips. The priests worshipped Araids, giant man-killing spiders of the Seared Lands, and were served in turn by their foul not-dead Reavers. Creatures of legend and nightmares. “The Arachnists come from Quarabala, do they not? Same as that outlander shadowmancer. This must be his.” She was so angry her hands shook.

  Istaza Ani held out her hand, and Hannei surrendered the blade gladly.

  “The shadowmancer? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Such a blade might as easily belong to that apprentice of his, or to another of the Atualonians. It may have been dropped here in order to draw suspicion toward the outlanders. But it does seem certain that Sulema’s encounter with the lionsnake
was no accident. She was lured here to die.”

  “By the outlanders.”

  “That seems the most likely explanation, but let us not be too hasty to jump into the pit…”

  “…until we know what kind of snakes are there.” Hannei favored her teacher with a humorless smile.

  “Ah, so you were listening. You were always so quiet, sometimes I wondered.”

  “I was listening.” Hannei stared at the pile of bones, the cat’s skull with its missing tusks and telltale hatchmarks, and then at the knife that Istaza Ani held in her hand as if it might bite. And again at the bones. She could not meet her teacher’s eyes.

  “Hannei.” The youthmistress’s voice was gentle. “What are you thinking? Do you know something of this?”

  She looked to the side just as the wild vash’ai padded back into sight. He was magnificent, and broken. Yellow eyes met hers and she could feel his pain singing deep in her own heart.

  “No. I do not know.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe.”

  Istaza Ani rocked back on her heels and waited.

  “I heard the First Warrior speaking with First Mother. Before we left.” The words felt as if they were being dragged from her chest. “They were speaking of… I am not certain, but I think they were speaking of Sulema, and of her father, the Dragon King. Umm Nurati said that if Ka Atu rises, war will come again to the people. The First Warrior said, ah, she said, ‘that heart of Atualon will be the death of Atualon.’ She said that the outlanders would wake the Dragon, and then the world would die.” She looked down, away from the pile of bones, away from the knife, and especially away from the youthmistress.

  “I see.” Istaza Ani was as still as death, but her eyes were bright. “And did they know you were there?”

  “No, Youthmistress.”

  Istaza Ani touched her shoulder. “Hannei. Hannei Ja’Akari.”

  Hannei straightened her back and raised her eyes. “Istaza Ani.”

  The older woman nodded once. “Ja’Akari, do you know what must be done?”

  “I must warn Sulema. She may be riding into a trap.”

  “This is bigger than Sulema, girl. What do you know of our history of Atualon? Of the Sundering?”

  “The Sundering?” She blinked, confused by the change in subject. “Only what you told us when we were young. There was a war between Sindan, and Atualon, and Quarabala, and the outland sorcerers went mad and killed everyone they could. They poisoned the air and the water, and they burned the land, and they made the kin so angry they started attacking humans. A lot of people died, and everyone thought it was the end of the world. But that was a long time ago.”

  “A long time ago.” Istaza Ani stared at her. “A long time ago? Have I failed you so badly, then?”

  “Youthmistress?” She was confused. What had she done wrong?

  “The Sundering is as real for us today as it was a thousand years ago. Why do you think there are so few of us left? Why are there more ghosts in our cities than there are children? Why do so few vash’ai choose to bond with humans?” She nodded to the great cat. “Inna’hael was a sire grown when last Atualon warred with Sindan, and the daeborn took his people to sell as slaves. Ask him whether the wars were ‘long ago.’ Ask my people, as well. The Dzirani caravans once stretched across the desert like jewels on a woman’s necklace… Now we are memory and song, our daughters sold into the Zeera to keep them from ending up as slaves, or worse.”

  Hannei lowered her eyes and bowed low. “Ina aasati, Istaza.” She had not meant to cause pain.

  Istaza Ani snorted. “Oh, stand up. Not your fault I taught you too much about the tenets of honor and not enough about your own history. But it looks as if that history is opening its mouth to take another bite of us, and we need to think before we act. I will carry this warning—and this knife—to Hafsa Azeina. Like as not, the dreamshifter is knee-deep in this horse shit. You will return to Aish Kalumm and report our success here to Umm Nurati, and say nothing of any of this. Keep your wits sharp, your eyes open, and your mouth closed.”

  “What will I say when you do not return with me? Do I tell them you have gone to Atualon?”

  “No. Tell them…” She glanced at the copper box and smiled. “Tell them I have gone to the outlanders’ markets in Bayyid Eidtein, to sell the whelp. Such a thing would be worth many salt jars, and our need is great.”

  Hannei could feel the Bones of Eth pressing in upon her, as if the giant’s fingers would curl closed and crush her. Akari Sun Dragon felt far away, his light thin and weak. Perhaps he had turned his face from her for her treachery.

  “As you say, Youthmistress.”

  Istaza Ani studied her face. A strange little smile upon her lips. “You are Ja’Akari now in truth, and as honorable a warrior as I have ever met.” She bent her head, just a little. “Under the sun I see you, Hannei.”

  “Under the sun I see you… Ani.” Hannei bit her lip hard. “I will do as you say. And anyhow, as you are always telling us, it is a good day to die.”

  Ani laughed. “Indeed it is a good day to die, Hannei Ja’Akari. But always remember this: it is a better day to live.”

  Hannei had much to think on. “Istaza… Ani. You do not think the First Warrior and Umm Nurati had anything to do with all this, do you?” She gestured to the pile of bones. “It would be… abomination. Unthinkable. For one of the people to harm vash’ai…”

  Inna’hael, the wild vash’ai, curled his lips back from his tusks in a silent snarl.

  “Unthinkable, yes,” agreed the youthmistress, shaking her head.

  She did not answer the question.

  TWENTY

  I have found her kima’a. Khurra’an’s physical body lay stretched out beside Sulema’s still form. His voice rang with the echoes of Shehannam.

  Hafsa Azeina looked up from the new-strung lyre. Is she injured, or is she held?

  Both.

  Shifter magic, or atulfah?

  Neither, he answered. But this magic tastes of spiders. It is draining her sa. Best come quickly.

  Spiders. She set Basta’s Lyre upright, one ridged horn resting against her cheek. So Sulema’s dream was a true one—we are dealing with an Arachnist. The cult of Eth has risen once more.

  So it would seem.

  Hafsa Azeina let her fingers rest against the gut strings for a moment. The harp was eager, but she was worn from the journey, from the worry, from a life of bloodshed.

  Damn the Araids, what have they to do with this? I have no quarrel with the spider folk. Or had none, until now. Can you find Ani for me?

  Will you give me the boy?

  Never.

  It was worth a try. Khurra’an twitched in his sleep as his laughter faded from her mind.

  Hafsa Azeina snugged the lyre closer, let her eyes go soft, and began to play. The notes were sweet, low and mellow as his voice had been.

  The minstrel had wandered into Shahad half a year past. His mouth was filled with stories for children, his bags full of exotic trade goods, and his eyes full of flattery whenever they lit upon her. She could almost see his face, the high cheekbones and bright smile, and his breath smelled of honey and spices and sweet lies.

  I can help you, he had whispered, reaching up as if he would brush the hair back from her face. I can help you both, keep you safe, just tell me where the girl-child is and I will keep you safe.

  His words had not been so sweet once he started screaming, and his heart had tasted neither of honey nor of spices, but the lyre cradled against her cheek had a lovely voice nevertheless. Strings made of human gut had a resonance none other could match. Hafsa Azeina closed her eyes and played a song of triumph and redemption sharp enough to make the Zeera weep.

  So smoothly she slipped into an open state these days, easy as a drink of water. How little there was tethering her soul to this plane. She envisioned her intikallah as flowers on a vine that twined up and about her spinal column and bloomed one after the other, each blossom brighter and more comple
x than the last until the final blossom—the heart’s-eyes kallah—unfurled into a ball of such radiance she could feel it spilling from her flesh-eyes. This light caught on Khurra’an’s jeweled tusks, wreathing his beloved face in a halo of redgold sparks. She closed her waking eyes, and opened her dreaming eyes, and beheld the path to Shehannam. Down it led, and into the dark. Hafsa Azeina broke free of her body and let herself be sucked into the otherworld.

  How many times had she done this, how many hundreds of times? And yet she still felt a faint urge to glance over her shoulder at her body, slumped now in the middle of her tent, breathless and cold as a corpse. The music hung in the air about her, one last note to hold time still, and this note was all that would sustain her body until her soul returned. She could have opened a door between worlds and made this journey in the flesh, but she had broken the laws of Shehannam time and again, and the Huntress was hot on her trail. Safer to leave her body behind.

  Safer, Khurra’an agreed. Not safe.

  The light failed as the way to Shehannam closed behind her and for a moment she was suspended weightless in the dark. The sky began to clear, and the light from a younger sun filtered in through the darkness all around her and she was floating, flying, lighter than a child’s last breath. She knew that if she looked down she would see no feet, no body, but these things no longer interested her. She focused her will and swooped lower, feeling the wind rush past her face and her outstretched arms even though in this time and place she had neither.

  There. Khurra’an had marked the path for her with his own essence.

  True friend. She gathered her will, and plunged down.

  The air had a strange, shimmery quality to it, and the sky was sticky and wet. She found herself wanting to swim through it with arms her mind kept insisting were there. She was buffeted by winds that should have passed right through the mist of her thoughts and her descent was slowed to a painful crawl. Determined, she gathered in the tendrils of her aura and plunged down, down.

  A quick shift, a moment of red pain, and she stood on the lush green grass wearing a golden collar, her golden shofar, and the face of Annubasta. She could not hide her true nature in Shehannam. She tightened her claws on the skull-topped staff and flicked her tufted ears this way and that, seeking her prey, wary of the Hunt. A slight breeze rippled through her fur and teased at the hem of her skirts. She lifted her face, wrinkled her lips back, and tasted the wind.