The White Dragon

by Laura Resnick

  Without mastery over water, a waterlord was just a man. His assassins were still formidable fighters with unusually dangerous weapons; but other good fighters—not to mention fire sorcerers—could challenge them and win.

  Tansen swept through the inferno which had once been Liadon's garden, slaughtering assassins who stood between him and his target. The roaring Guardian fire consumed Liadon's stone house, blasting Tansen with its fiery heat. The dark-moon night glowed golden with sorcery, making Liadon easy to spot. He was the unarmed man ignoring the battle raging all around him as he desperately tried to regain the power he had just lost.

  "Siran! Watch out!"

  An assassin leaped between Tansen and Liadon, defending his master with his life. Tansen knocked aside his yahr, parried the thrust of his shir, whirled once, and cut off his head. Blood shot up like a geyser for an ugly moment before the body keeled over.

  Liadon, as spattered with blood as Tansen was, stared at him in open-mouthed shock. "It's you."

  "It's me," he agreed.

  "Kiloran warned us about you. He said—"

  Tansen killed him. "I don't care what he said."

  Ronall, whose brandy-fueled blood was pounding loudly in his ears, let the girl drag him through the trees until they reached a spot where he could see for himself.

  He thought his heart would stop. Instead, it started thundering painfully in his tight chest. Elelar's gelding was dancing uneasily, tugging at the reins by which Ronall led it. He didn't blame the beast a bit.

  Toren Porsall's elegant house was ablaze beneath the dark-moon sky. It was slightly smaller than Elelar's country villa, and modest compared to Ronall's father's rural residence... The one which Ronall suddenly realized was now his, since his parents were dead. Porsall didn't appear to be filthy rich by the standards of Valdani toreni, but this was a substantial family estate.

  It would be ashes by morning.

  Dozens of shallaheen surrounded the place. The blazing torches in their hands made it quite unnecessary for the girl to scream right in Ronall's ear, "They're burning it down! They're burning the house!"

  "Dar have mercy." She was right, he realized. They were killing the toreni. The local shallaheen were after the lifeblood of the Valdani in their community.

  "Please help us," the girl cried. "Help us, toren! Those people are your kind!"

  He glanced sharply at her, but he couldn't make out her expression in the dark.

  She insisted, "The shallaheen will listen to you!"

  So she took him for a full-blooded Silerian? Maybe the murderous crowd would, too, in that case.

  Or maybe not. Fear flooded Ronall's thoughts. These were exactly the kind of bloodthirsty Silerian peasants who had murdered his own parents not long ago.

  "I know they are Valdani," the girl said, weeping copiously, "but the toren has never been unkind to me, and the torena is very good! She took me in when I was driven out of my village in disgrace! When she saw that I worked well, she made me her personal maid and... gave me... many things... And was always... Please! Please, help!"

  Watching the frenzied mob circling the burning villa, Ronall's throat was tight with fear. His stomach churned sickeningly. He was pretty sure he was shaking. "What makes you think the toreni are even still alive?"

  "Can't you see?" She pointed. "The fire has driven them to the roof!"

  He lifted his gaze and studied the red-tiled roof. Sure enough, a man and a woman were cowering up there, visible in the bright light of the raging fire.

  "Where's a waterlord when you need one?" Ronall muttered.

  "A waterlord will not help them! They are toreni," she snapped.

  "A waterlord won't help them because it's too late to save whatever they owned of value," he corrected absently, concentrating on his terror.

  "You must help them!"

  Ronall suddenly didn't want to die quite as much as he'd thought he did. His palms were sweating so badly that the reins were becoming slippery.

  "Stop crying!" he snapped at the girl, afraid he'd start weeping, too.

  "Please, toren," she cried. "Even a Valdan is a human being!"

  He stared at her, grief sweeping through him.

  They're killing them because they're Valdani. They're killing them because they're not real Silerians.

  "Dar curse them all," he said on a half-sob.

  The girl flinched, then wailed, "If you won't help him, then please, please, at least help her! She is half-Silerian! Help her! Help her!"

  He wasn't sure if it was the victims' Valdani blood or the girl's shrill hysteria which drove him into the fray, but suddenly he was mounted on Elelar's unhappy horse and galloping straight toward the reeling, raging, murderous crowd of shallaheen.

  What in the Fires am I doing?

  "Stop!" he screamed in common Silerian, his command of shallah being almost non-existent. "Stop! Stop this now!"

  The wiry bodies of mountain-born peasants careened into his horse as he reined it to a prancing halt among them.

  Guttural cries assailed his ears.

  "Kill the Valdani! Kill the Valdani!"

  "Take back what is ours!"

  "Kill the roshaheen!"

  Three have mercy, Ronall knew his time had come. He would die like his parents. He would die like every last Dar-cursed Valdan in Sileria.

  "Stop this!" he shouted.

  "What's it to you, toren?" demanded an old, scarred shallah who had finally deigned to notice him. "Who are you?"

  He ignored the question and took a wild stab at reason. "The war is over! The Valdani have surrendered!"

  "Then why are they still here?" someone screamed.

  "This is their home!" he insisted, remembering what the old innkeeper had said earlier. "This family has been here for generations."

  "They stole it! They took it from Silerian toreni like you! Where is your manhood? Where is your pride, toren?"

  "Then let's talk to the family they took it from," he shouted. "Let's ask them what—"

  "They are long since dead and gone!"

  "So now you're stealing," he challenged, waiting for someone to haul him off his horse and beat him to death.

  "This is Sileria. It is ours. They have no place here! The Valdani must leave!"

  "Kill the roshaheen! Kill the roshaheen!"

  "They were born here!" Ronall's heart thudded so hard it hurt. "Please, let's all talk. Let's act like men, not animals."

  "They have made us animals!" the old shallah snarled. "And now we will make them pay!"

  Someone cried, "They're coming down!"

  Ronall looked up. Sure enough, even the roof was flaming now, and the terrified couple up there had no choice but to descend into the violent crowd and meet their end.

  I'm going to die here. I'm going to die...

  Elelar would probably never know what had happened to her wayward husband, how or when or where he had died. Nor would she care, since she could declare abandonment after three years and finally be free of him.

  She would miss the horse, though.

  Tell them who you are. Tell them you're half-Valdan. Finish it. Let it be done at last. Let them finish it.

  Or... he could just turn around and run away. He looked longingly over his shoulder, knowing no one would follow him. With one quick jerk of the reins, he could be free of this disaster. Safe. Gone.

  Get out! Get out! Get out!

  He would never know why he did it, or how he found the guts to do it, but he reached down to grab the old shallah by the shoulder and said insistently, "Please. They are unarmed. You've destroyed their home. You're taking their estate." Taking it until someone more powerful put these shallaheen in their place, anyhow. "There is no government left to support any of theirs to reclaim this place. No Outlookers to protect them." When the old man tried to pull away, Ronall tightened his grip. "Please. Let them come with me. You don't need to kill them. Not now."

  The old man shook off his grip and turned away, pushing through the
crowd to confront the sweating, dirty, frightened aristocrats who had just made a messy and hazardous descent from their blazing rooftop.

  Ronall kicked his reluctant gelding forward. "You don't need to kill them!"

  The toren—Porsall—was having trouble standing. It looked like he had broken his leg coming off the high roof. The torena was clinging to him, shaking with sobs.

  "Let them come with me!" Ronall shouted again. "You don't need to kill them. Not now!"

  The toren looked up, noticing him now. "Who are you?"

  In a stroke of genius, Ronall announced, "I am the husband of Torena Elelar shah Hasnari!"

  The bloodthirsty crowd paused in surprise.

  "The torena?"

  "Torena Elelar?"

  "Dar praise Elelar shah Hasnari!"

  "The torena has a husband? But didn't she live with... Um..." The shallah who had spoken up now hesitated, then coughed.

  Someone interjected, "They did say she was married."

  "Yes, I heard she was married," someone else said. "To a Valdan."

  "A Valdan?" The scarred old shallah eyed Ronall.

  Ronall thought he would piss on himself as a perceptible wave of hostility swept across the crowd. A blessed instinct of self-preservation inspired him to say with amazing dryness, "I'm sure I would know if that were the case."

  "Why would Torena Elelar's husband be trying to save Valdani?" the old shallah demanded.

  Another lie sprang to his lips. "Torena Chasimar is my wife's cousin." His head spinning, he added, "You do know you're about to murder a half-Silerian woman, don't you?"

  The rabble all around him began murmuring restlessly now. Killing a woman didn't sit well with Silerians, now that they paused to think about it. Killing a Silerian woman was even worse.

  Ronall pressed his advantage, "When the massacres began in Shaljir, my wife was afraid something like this would happen. Elelar couldn't leave the city herself, so she sent me to protect her cousin." He met Torena Chasimar's bewildered, watery gaze and added, "I'm glad I arrived in time. Elelar would be very distressed if I couldn't bring you back with me."

  "Torena Elelar's cousin..." The old shallah looked thoughtfully back and forth between Ronall and the woman. Ronall's clothing was more Valdani than Silerian (not to mention dirty and rumpled), but it was, above all, the rich clothing of a toren. Besides, Ronall doubted that a mountain peasant knew all that much about fashion. "I suppose," the old shallah said at last, "it's possible."

  Ronall called on long-forgotten lessons in comportment as he looked down his nose at the old man and said with all the pomposity he could muster, "Are you questioning my word, shallah?"

  "A woman," someone else murmured. "A Silerian wo—"

  "Half Silerian," the old shallah snapped.

  "And which half will you kill?" Ronall asked, wondering if any of them noticed how he was trembling. "Which half can you cut out to leave her as pure-blooded as you?"

  "I don't want to kill a woman," another shallah announced.

  "Nor do I," someone else declared.

  "But you do want to kill an unarmed toren?" Ronall asked. "Just to clarify."

  "No one is threatening you, toren!" The peasant who addressed him seemed aghast at the idea.

  "I was referring to him." Ronall indicated Porsall, who listened in sweat-drenched, wide-eyed silence.

  "He must pay," the peasant replied. "Vengeance is our right."

  "Vengeance for what?" Ronall demanded.

  "He's a Valdan!"

  "If you can't be more specific than that..." Ronall said.

  The scarred old shallah came to a decision. "You can take the woman with you, toren. We will not harm Torena Elelar's cousin."

  Another shallah argued, "What if he's lying?"

  The old man replied, "What if he's not?"

  "And Porsall?" Ronall asked, already knowing the answer.

  "Take the woman and go," the old man instructed.

  "Let me take her husband, too," Ronall urged. "He is Elelar's kin by marr—"

  "Take the woman now, toren, or she will see us kill him."

  Frightened and out of ideas, Ronall met Porsall's eyes.

  Porsall looked at his wife. "Go," he said. "You must go."

  The torena didn't touch or embrace him. Just stared blindly at him while sobs wracked her body.

  "Go," he repeated.

  She turned and started stumbling towards Ronall. Her light brown hair was a dusty tangle, her pale sleeping linens streaked with soot and dirt, her face contorted by fear and grief. She hunched her shoulders as she passed through the crowd, flinching at any contact with her would-be killers.

  When she reached Ronall, he leaned over and tried to pull her up onto the horse with him. She wasn't heavy, but he wasn't that strong. A life spent lifting mugs and throwing dice didn't build muscle. After he made two fumbled attempts, someone else assisted the torena. She gasped and sobbed at the contact, but Ronall was just glad she was finally on the horse.

  He looked at Porsall again, and he wanted to cry. "I'm sorry."

  "Go," Porsall said. "Take her where no one knows. Take her... Find someplace for her. For people like us."

  Ronall nodded, turned his horse's head, and gave it a gentle kick. For people like us. Did Porsall know? Did he somehow recognize that Ronall was Valdani, too? Or did he just mean himself and his wife when he said "us"? Ronall supposed he would never know.

  Torena Chasimar's sobs became louder as they rode away. Ronall's spine stiffened when he heard a howl of pain behind him, followed by raucous cries of triumph. The torena gave a muffled scream against his back and clutched him tighter.

  "Oh, Dar," she wept. "Dar have mercy. Where will I go? I am Silerian! Where can I go? Dar help me. Where can my child go?"

  Ronall flinched, making the gelding prance nervously again. "Your child?"

  "I'm pregnant," she wept. "Where can this child live? Where can we go? Oh, Dar have mercy on us!"

  Ronall slumped, feeling the tension leave him on a wave of despair. "Dar won't have mercy," he said bleakly. "She is the destroyer goddess."

  Mirabar was shaking so hard, it was difficult to maintain control of her fire. Some of her attackers came within moments of killing her before being slaughtered by her defenders. They died so close to her that their blood splattered her. And the power needed to build and maintain this enormous ring of fire was so great that she couldn't defend herself if her companions failed her. She had no strength to spare.

  "Did you hear that? They've called for retreat!" Pyron cried, his face streaked with blood. He was breathing hard, his eyes glowing with exultation in the golden light of Mirabar's fire. "Dar be praised, the assassins are retreating!"

  "So Najdan's plan worked," someone said.

  "He knows how they think," Pyron said, evidently forgetting that he had questioned the plan.

  Mirabar didn't comment. If she faltered now, the assassins might realize it and turn back to finish their grim job. She kept plodding through the dark forest, arms spread, coaxing the wall of fire which she dragged with her at enormous cost to her strength.

  It became harder with every step. The mountaintop battleground was already three-quarters encircled by fire. If any Guardians were still alive out there in the dark, they were too disoriented or too badly injured to realize what she was doing and help her. The farther Mirabar got from the spot where she had first blown this fire into life, the harder it became to control it without letting it sizzle out, and to feed it without letting it become an inferno that would destroy the forest.

  Her breath came harder and thinner as she continued chanting, singing her magic in archaic High Silerian, a tongue that hadn't been used in common speech for centuries but which gave voice to most Guardian rituals.

  She faltered weakly in the dark, stumbled and fell.

  "Sirana!"

  Pyron hauled her to her feet, his blood-slick hands slipping on her bare forearms.

  "Look out!"

&nbs
p; A black-clad assassin melted out of the dark night and came for her, his shir glittering with the cold sorcery of his master. Mirabar watched in fearful exhaustion as the shining wavy-edged dagger descended toward her in a deadly arc.

  He ducked as something struck at his face.

  Pyron's yahr, Mirabar realized. It missed.

  The assassin knocked Pyron aside and lunged for Mirabar. She fell back, scrambling to get away. She tried to ward him off with fire, but nothing came to her palms, and her breath was soft and empty. He was a big, strong man, and his grip on her was firm.

  "Get him!" Pyron shouted.

  "Watch out! Another one behind—"

  "No!"

  The shir flashed at Mirabar again. Terrified and weak, she did the only thing she could think of, and dived straight into the raging wall of fire she had made, taking the assassin with her.

  He screamed in agony, and his shir cut her in passing as his arms waved. He let go of her, but now she grabbed him. He struggled to get away. Burning. His long hair blazing. His clothes on fire. His flesh burning, melting, cooking.

  Heat flooded Mirabar. Surrounded her, engulfed her, filled her. The raging inferno of Dar-blessed fire. The gift of the Guardians, the gift of the destroyer goddess.

  It would kill her, too, if she lost focus, if she stopped concentrating, if she became too weak. She was flesh and blood just like the horribly screaming assassin dying even now, dying so hideously at her hands. Dying because she was killing him, trapping him here in the fire with her.

  "Dar have mercy, what's happening?" someone cried.

  "Mirabar! Mirabar!"

  She ignored them, ignored everything but the grip she must maintain on the burning, writhing arm, and the fire she must shield herself from.

  Lava poured through her veins. The rich blood of the volcano flowed along her senses. Flames toyed with her hair before melting into her shoulders and her back. Her skin glowed like live coals beneath her clothing.

  The assassin stopped struggling and became a dead weight.

  Dead.

  She let go. She didn't know what happened to the body now in the consuming fire, she knew only that it was no longer alive.

  Darfire. I've killed a man.