Reawakening

by Amy Rae Durreson

  Sethan rolled his eyes but simply said, “And that means?”

  “Alagard himself is vanquished or constrained.” Tarn thought a little further. There were methods that could control even the greatest nature spirits, but he was loath to share them. “Perhaps corrupted, so his love for the land is turned to disdain.”

  “Now he talks,” Ia grumbled. “What has the power to do that?”

  “A greater spirit,” Tarn admitted. He could have done it himself, but he wanted to win Alagard for his hoard, not enslave him.

  “How does this fit into the larger mess?” Ia asked.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Sethan murmured, leaning over his maps. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

  “We say that a lot,” Cayl observed. “Tea, Tarn?”

  “Aye,” Tarn said. “The larger mess?”

  Cayl passed him a mug and asked, “Have any of the company gossips told you how Sethan and I met?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I was a lawman,” Cayl began reminiscently, “up in the foothills of the Astarans, on the River Seil. Barges were passing through the village and then vanishing before they reached the next trading post. I investigated and could find no natural cause. I was out of ideas when this pretty young bookseller came in with the next barge, boasting about all the arcane lore he’d learned from his books. I persuaded him to help me solve the problem.” His smile faded.

  “Which we did, naturally,” Sethan said, reaching out to squeeze his lover’s hand. “It was a nixie prince, suddenly roused to fury and objecting to human freight on his river. We survived the experience—”

  “Not without cost,” Cayl murmured.

  “We survived,” Sethan repeated, lifting Cayl’s hand to his lips. “The experience made me take notice, however, of how many similar stories were arising.”

  “So they investigated,” Ia said. “Being a lawman and a nosy bastard, as they are.”

  “The elementals had been dormant or disinterested for centuries,” Sethan explained. “Now they are awakening, but not all at once. We mapped it, with Ia’s help, and found our source.”

  “The reawakening began in Tiallat twenty years ago, about the time the Savattin got kicked over the border. It spread steadily from there.”

  Ia snorted. “Causing absolute fucking chaos. Human society isn’t equipped for that level of magical intervention. Maybe back during the Dragon Wars we could cope, but we’re too set in new ways now.”

  Tarn nodded agreement. He had been walking through the new world for months now, and he still barely understood it. He and his kindred had always been considered the most intelligent of the great spirits. If he could not adjust, how violently must those lesser elementals be reacting?

  “And you?” he asked. “Who are you, with your battle room and your cunning plans?”

  “More or less what we seem,” Cayl said. “A lawman, a caravan master, and a merc. We just have other friends, powerful, worried friends, in Shara and Hirah and all across the land below the mountains.”

  “I have this dreadful fear, you see,” Sethan said idly, “that all this is happening for a reason, and that reason is to be found in Tiallat.”

  Tarn was disappointed. Curling his lip, he muttered, “Spies.” It had never been his favorite part of war.

  “Partly,” Ia said. “No one really knows what’s happening over there. I reckon you know the value of good intelligence, being who you are.”

  “I?” Tarn said.

  “Ia has a theory about you,” Sethan said. “It’s so outlandish it may even be true.”

  “We reckon,” Cayl continued, “that there really was a dragon flying over Tarenburg in the spring.”

  “It fits my projections,” Sethan said, waving at his maps. “This wave of reawakening should have reached Amel by now.”

  “And here you are,” Ia said, “straight out of Amel with your ancient armor and no knowledge of anything except the Dragon Wars.”

  “And don’t forget his frightfully big sword.”

  “Sethan…,” Cayl grumbled.

  “Which probably was forged by dragon fire, to have survived so long with a keen edge.”

  They had him caught, and Tarn flushed with chagrin. He’d thought he was being so subtle. He’d passed for human before.

  “Now,” Ia said, “I’ve studied this. Up until about a century ago, there were persistent rumors that the descendants of Tarnamell’s host had survived up in the mountains. But the stories all stop then. I’ve always thought that Drake Clan either died out or hid themselves so well that everyone gave up looking.”

  “Drake Clan, you think?” Tarn asked, relaxing a little. He still had them fooled a little, and he was loath to admit anything more. If what they were telling him was true, this new world was more dangerous than he had realized, and he had no desire to reveal all his weapons too soon.

  “Sent out by reawakened dragons to discover how the world has changed,” Cayl said.

  “Fucking cheeky to sneer at us for being spies,” Ia pointed out, crossing her arms.

  Tarn considered his path. He liked them all, but he hadn’t known them long enough to trust them. What, then, to reveal and what to keep secret?

  “One dragon only wakes,” he said at last.

  They all sighed, shock and relief gusting through the wagon.

  “Which?” Ia asked, leaning forward urgently, and he remembered this was her passion. Of course she would be curious.

  “The last to sleep is the first to wake,” he replied.

  Her eyes widened, and she brought her hand up to her mouth. “Tarnamell?” she breathed. “The dragon king himself?”

  “Yes,” Tarn said and then admitted reluctantly, “The others were so tired after the battle. They may sleep until the end of time.”

  “But your king has woken?” Cayl said urgently. “What woke him?”

  Tarn cast his mind back to those first blurry moments of waking, before loneliness and yearning had thrown him onto the wind. At last he said, “A shadow moving through the world.”

  “How helpful,” Sethan grumbled, but the other two were somber.

  “The kind of Shadow he fought before?” Ia asked sharply.

  In almost the same moment, Cayl said, “A Shadow in Tiallat?”

  Tarn shrugged. He had hardly been awake. How was he supposed to know?

  Sethan sighed and put his cup down on the map table. He’d finished off his tea and was starting to look weary. “All this is fascinating, my loves, but merely tells me that Tarn here is in the same straits as the rest of us.”

  “The things he must know!” protested Ia.

  Sethan held up his hand. “More to the point, should we continue with the caravan? There’s plenty of political intelligence that suggests Tiallat would like to control the desert routes. Now some power has attacked the desert at an elemental level. Is it safe to continue?”

  “No,” Cayl said. “But is it ever?”

  “We have friends traveling with us,” Sethan said, his eyes tired.

  Tarn cleared his throat. “The situation in Tiallat—well, every guard knows, and I have spoken to many traders too. We do not ride blind.”

  “We really need the extra information,” Ia said, rubbing her forehead. “I don’t like putting these folks in danger, either, but Tarn’s right. Everyone knows this is a risky run.”

  Cayl drew a map closer. “We could reassess the situation when we reach Istel.” He turned to Tarn. “It’s a trade city, our halfway point, where we swing east toward the pass across the Illiat Range. They’ll have more recent news out of Tiallat. If we are forced to turn back, we’ll be able to sell some of what we’re carrying there, and buy water and salt.”

  “We make the decision at Istel, then,” Sethan said and pushed back a little from the table. “Now, I’m for my bed, so those who aren’t sharing it should make themselves scarce. Tarn…. Oh, why am I bothering? You don’t talk anyway.”

  “I will keep my silen
ce,” Tarn agreed and bowed to them. “Sleep easy. The firstborn watches over you.”

  “Land of a thousand gods,” Ia muttered and followed Tarn out into the cold desert night.

  As he stood his watch that night, he gazed up at the stars, so much brighter here than in his old kingdom, and thought of the fierce, protective, bright-hearted spirit of Alagard held somewhere by the Shadow, and grieved. If the Shadow had truly risen again, in whatever form, Tarn was bound to fight it. If he had been created for any purpose, it was to combat the Shadow, cold, hungry horror that it was.

  He had never imagined fighting without his brethren, but he would if he must, even if it brought him low. In any case, he vowed he would not die until Alagard was free to whirl across the desert again.

  Chapter 7: Defending

  THE ATMOSPHERE of the desert did not improve. The sun pounded down on them, harsh and relentless, and there was no comfort in the brightness of the sky. The desert itself seemed simultaneously drained of color and full of blinding, painful reflections of the fierce sun. The high twisted rocks that rose out of the dry ground cast shadows too narrow to offer relief. Constantly they found the road riven by crevasses, and had to divert their path under great arches of blood-red rock, where the wind sang hollowly in the curves of the stone. The poles and flags which marked the route had bowed or broken under the force of the wind, sitting half-buried or reaching up in jagged splinters to snag at the horses. A thin wind blew constantly, sending sand scraping across any exposed skin and into any chinks in their clothing to itch and scratch. Everything chafed.

  At night, it was so cold their water supplies tried to freeze solid and had to be carefully tended until dawn by Tarn and the other fire mages, lest they split their barrels and leave the caravan thirsty. Tarn could have kept himself warm easily, there being some merit to having fire in his belly, but he chose instead to crawl in with Barrett and Dit. They had stopped fucking the night away, complaining about the sand that crept in everywhere and made all friction unbearable.

  Their human warmth and the awareness of their lives curled close against him was a comfort, and he was sure they appreciated his warmth in equal measure. It didn’t help him sleep, though, and he spent long hours staring at the canvas overhead, made bright by the moon, and wondering how he could find Alagard and set the desert free.

  A WEEK after his meeting with Sethan and the others, they spotted what looked like a stopped caravan on the road ahead. The wind had been steadily rising all morning, lifting the sand into a brown haze, and it was impossible to see if anything was moving.

  Sethan signaled a stop and waved Tarn forward. “Spellsword, how do you fancy wandering over there with a few friends and seeing what’s wrong?”

  “Not much,” Tarn said, “but go I will.”

  He drew his sword as they rode and laid it across his saddle in readiness. Something felt wrong here, as if someone had taken the way the world should be and twisted it out of shape.

  The others had picked up on it too, he saw. Jancis had an arrow strung, and Ellia had one chakra already spinning around her finger and the rest ready on her wrist. Dit had his swords out, and Eryl was raising power in blatant disregard of both guild rules and his contract, which claimed he was a spearman.

  The caravan seemed deserted. The wagons were broken, some overturned and others with their sides shattered. Their canvas hung in tattered shreds. Crates and barrels were strewn over the ground, many ripped open to spill their contents across sand darkened with thick stains. It stank of sour milk, shit, and rotten meat.

  Something moved under one of the wagons. Tarn focused on it, his snarl alerting the rest.

  A woman crawled out. Her hair hung in rough hanks, and her movements were jerky and awkward, her hands groping convulsively as she scuttled forward. She was moving fast, though, straight toward them, staggering to her feet as she reached out.

  It was then they saw her face, and Jancis screamed, letting her arrow fly.

  There was only a moment before the arrow hit her, destroying that ruined face, but Tarn saw it clearly—the eye hanging from its socket, the bare skull showing where half her face had been torn away, the rotting skin that dripped from her jaw, the jiggling of the flesh tearing away from her neck and shoulders.

  Dit yelled, his sword flashing out, and Tarn realized there were more, the dead rising up from where they had fallen to grab at the riders, trying to pull them down. Dit’s stroke had made no difference, only adding another cut to the already torn body, and it was clawing at him, lunging to bite at his horse.

  Tarn had seen this before, a favorite trick of the Shadow, and he shook off his shock to yell, “Strike their heads! They can’t move without their brains!”

  Dit’s next slash beheaded the corpse, and it fell to twitch by his feet. Tarn switched his attention back to his own side and chopped down hard to fell another one.

  The horses were starting to panic, so he roared, “Ride for the dune top! Now!”

  He obviously still sounded like a general, because everyone moved. The horses leapt into a run in screaming relief, though Ellia’s was trailing a dead woman who clung and bit even as it kicked and reared.

  He saw the moment when Ellia finally lost her seat as she was thrown out when her horse went mad, its sides streaming blood.

  She hit the ground hard and lay unmoving with the sand pluming around her.

  The dead woman released the horse and began to crawl toward her, dragging itself across the sand with torn hands.

  Jancis’s scream could have cut glass, but her arrow flew true, pinning the dead woman to the ground.

  The rest of the dead were still coming, though, charging up the hill with unnatural speed, already running in from the sides as well as behind. They needed to reach the crest, where they couldn’t be overwhelmed from above. Despairing, Tarn raised fire before them, but he couldn’t build a ring that would include Ellia without trapping many of the dead in with them.

  “Ride!” Dit yelled at him and threw him the reins of his own horse. Then he was on the ground and running toward Ellia as fast as the dead.

  Tarn went for the crest of the dune, herding Jancis and Eryl before him. The moment he was there, he called fire again and raised an almost complete circle around them, wide enough that he hoped the already terrified horses wouldn’t panic more. He left a gap in it, and turned back to the approaching dead, hurling flames into their midst, hoping to slow them.

  Dit was running ahead of them, Ellia’s slight form slung over his shoulder as his long legs stretched out.

  “Get a signal up!” Tarn snarled at Eryl, and moments later a green flare was arching into the air. Tarn hoped the rest of the caravan would be able to see it through the flying sand.

  The dead were reaching for Dit now, but he was still running, and Tarn thought he’d never seen a human move so fast in his life.

  As he reached the circle, the leading corpse closed its hands in Ellia’s long hair, jerking her back. Dit locked his arms around her, but he was slowed, and the dead were on them.

  “One stride!” Tarn bellowed.

  Dit threw himself forward, dragging the dead with him, and Tarn raised the fire behind him, fast and hard and hot, searing the dead’s hands from their rotting bodies.

  Jancis ran forward to help Dit, but Tarn was watching the fire and the crowd of stumbling shapes he could see through it.

  When the first one ran into the flames, he braced himself for the noise.

  It burned with a hiss and crackle but kept moving long enough to pass through the fire. It was alight by then, though, and fell as its last flesh melted and smeared away from its bones.

  Tarn ignored the reactions of the others and wove the fire tighter and wider as more and more of the dead threw themselves into it.

  “What are they doing?” Eryl gasped. He was calling fire too, impressing Tarn, but his hands were shaking.

  “They’re dead,” Tarn said flatly. This never got easier. “They can’t reas
on or weigh up dangers. All they are now is a desire to live again, and so they are drawn by our life force. They hunger for us.”

  The dead continued to hurl themselves into the fire, and Tarn kept his sword out in case any of them broke through. The sword alone reassured him; it had been forged to fight this battle, and the sigils etched into the blade were glowing brightly, ready to strike down the work of the Shadow.

  He couldn’t see what was happening beyond his ring of flame, but when one fell through the flames with a burning arrow in its back, he sighed in relief and brought his blade down to slice off its head. He hurled the rotting head back out, hoping the reinforcements would understand the message.

  The next one came through with an arrow through its brainpan.

  It was over quickly then, and when the dead stopped coming, he drew the flames back into himself wearily. His human body was not made to channel such powers, not in the midst of battle.

  The dead lay smoldering in a ring around them, piled high. Some were still jerking, though their heads were crushed.

  Ia was on the other side of the pile, her face grim. When she saw him, her shoulders sagged in relief, but she only said, “You’re lucky I know my history.”

  “Very lucky,” Tarn agreed. “Is there a chirurgeon with you?”

  “Tal. Who’s down?”

  “Ellia. Landed hard. The rest of us are standing.” He didn’t tell her that was a miracle with inexperienced fighters. Even he’d fumbled, taken by surprise by a horror he had thought long vanquished.

  One bellow brought Tal, their apothecary, at a run, and then Ia turned back to Tarn and admitted, “I thought we’d already lost her. I saw what they did to her horse.”

  Tarn nodded shortly. He could well imagine. “She loved that beast.”

  “Silly, spirited thing,” Ia said, but her tone was regretful. “Is there anything more we need to do here to give these folks peace?”

  “A pyre. Give me two or three people with strong stomachs, and we’ll do it quick. Send someone with an ax to check under the rest of the wagons, in case there were any already missing limbs.”