The Prince of Shadow

by Curt Benjamin

  Even in Shan, however, too much lay vulnerable to attack. The thought of the Imperial Water Garden trampled in battle burned in his chest. His own imagination would have paralyzed him then, but General Shou shook him out of his thoughts. “Hold fast, if you can,” Shou directed Llesho’s little band. “Don’t let the Harn join their forces in the city.” Then he disappeared into the fray.

  Llesho took a quick survey of their position. The temple stood at one corner of the market square. They had themselves come out a side door and down a small alley, which the priests had cluttered after them with baskets and old cooking pots to delay the enemy. A wide avenue on the far side of the building would be much harder to secure, however. With the point of his sword, he directed Bixei and Kaydu to the more open position. He would have sent Shokar with them, but his brother read his mind and gave him a baleful glare.

  “Harry them and fall back,” he told his two guards. “We cannot hope to hold for long, but we can make them pay in blood for every step they win.”

  General Shou had gathered to himself a small troop of Imperial Guards, still dressed as peasant farmers come to sell their wares. These farmers, however, wielded swords instead of plowshares, and they followed the general, defending the roads that led to the palace. If the city fell, Llesho knew, all of the Shan Empire fell with it, and all hope that they might free Thebin as well. Though his arm had grown heavy, he raised his sword in fighting position again, his Thebin knife held poised for the next attack. He would stop Master Markko and his allies or die in the attempt.

  Although the Thebin princes were badly outnumbered, no enemy could touch them. Pressed on all sides, Llesho moved without thought, one with his blades and the rhythm of his deadly dance. Blood slicked the paving stones and he slipped, righted himself before he fell, and plunged his knife to the hilt into the throat of a soldier. The man opened his mouth to scream, but only blood spewed forth, and a death rattle as he strove to draw breath while drowning in his own blood.

  The knife had caught on bone, and Llesho could not pull it free. For an almost fatal second he held on, while the falling man dragged Llesho’s arm down with it, leaving the heart in his breast an open target. A spear came toward him out of the melee, was knocked away by his brother’s sword but not before the tip had drawn blood. Shocked at how close he had come to losing his life, Llesho abandoned the knife along with the body of the Harnish raider and turned to the next attacker, then the next, until he and Shokar were surrounded by a ring of wary soldiers held at bay by the swords of their prey.

  For a moment the battle seemed to pause, as if the world held its breath, and Llesho became aware of the bodies, and the gore, and his own hands, slick with blood up to the elbow, gripping the hilt of his sword between them. On one knee, his brother gasped for breath, and Llesho felt his own blood trickle down his cheek, though he did not remember the strike that had cut him. Stealing a glance toward his companions who struggled to hold the wide boulevard, he raised his head, a triumphant grimace turning his blood-smeared face into a death mask. Habiba’s troops had arrived, orderly columns of them passing into the square from the main road at each of the four corners.

  “Surrender!” Llesho demanded. His attackers followed Llesho’s gloating stare, and struck again with a fervor fueled by their desperation. It was now or never, he realized. Of the two choices that confronted them, most of the enemy soldiers would rather face death at Llesho’s hand than the slow, lingering torment they would suffer from Master Markko if they failed.

  Shokar struggled to his feet, but his sword dragged heavily at an arm leaden with fatigue. Llesho shifted closer to his brother. He didn’t have to win, he told himself, he needed only to hold off the attack until Habiba’s men had secured the road. He would have reinforcements, if he could just keep his brother alive for a few minutes more. A sword slipped past his guard and cut him under the arm, but he rallied and knocked it away before it could do more than scratch the skin. He heard Kaydu’s voice urging him to hold, but her words were cut off by the sudden cry of a great bird.

  The creature swooped from the sky with talons stretched; Master Markko’s own men dropped to their faces in terror as the beast flew at his prey. Llesho raised his sword over his head to stop the beast, which opened its beak to cry its scorn and defiance. With one powerful foot it swept aside Llesho’s sword, and with the other it tore past his shoulder, talons gouging deep gashes from Llesho’s throat to his hip.

  Llesho grunted and fell, at the mercy of the bird, his sight blurring as the curved beak drew closer.

  I will tear out your heart, and eat it in the market square.

  Though the bird could not speak, Llesho heard the words in his mind. So this is dying, he answered, and heard again Master Markko’s answer in his mind: Among cowards and weaklings, yes; this is dying.

  He felt the piercing pain as the beak cut into the flesh over his heart, and then he heard a growl behind him.

  “Lleeee-shhhoooo!”

  Lleck! The bear raised up on his hind legs and howled over his fallen charge, the spittle flying from his long, sharp fangs. With his claws extended like curved knives, he swatted at the bird, raking long streaks of blood across its feathered breast. It seemed then that he was cradling the bird, for both huge arms wrapped about its wings, pressing it down, until the full weight of bird and bear crashed to the paving stones at Llesho’s feet.

  The bird redirected its attack, raking Lleck’s thick pelt with claw and beak. Lleck cried out and lowered his head over the neck of the magician, who changed himself into smoke as the bear’s teeth clamped together. Taking solid form again, the invincible bird of prey that Master Markko had become transformed again, growing the head of a lion and the long, spiked tail of a serpent held aloft by the feathered wings of the bird. The creature fell upon the bear and locked its teeth into the back of his head.

  The lion jaws tightened. Bone crunched. Lleck bellowed one last anguished cry and the light went out of his eyes.

  “No!” Llesho cried, while Markko’s insane laughter filled his head.

  He had lost his sword and a good deal of blood. Llesho stood and faced the creature of his nightmares with no hope of victory, only a determination to take the evil creature before him into hell. As his bloody end drew near, however, Llesho saw a woman standing just above him on the temple steps. Carina, the young healer, defied the monster with calm, sure eyes. Unarmed, she raised both hands above her head, chanting some prayer of supplication. Although he knew she must follow him quickly into death, he was unaccountably comforted by the sight of her.

  In that moment of peace, the short spear from her ladyship pressed a reminder against his side. He drew it. “Die!” He screamed, “Die! You twisted demon out of hell. Die!”

  He plunged the spear into the side of the monster, and it screamed, dripping gouts of blood that steamed and blackened the paving stones where it fell. Enraged, the creature writhed away from the weapon and rose into the sky, still shrieking in pain and fury.

  Suddenly an answering roar filled the sky and made the very temple shake. A horde of dragons filled the sky, the Golden River Dragon in the lead, a smaller silver queen following with three younger dragons behind her. The dragons separated at the market square, the younger ones fanning out into city, while the silver queen descended upon the battle being waged before the palace.

  The Golden River Dragon, vastly larger and more terrible than the magical apparition that Master Markko had created, fell in a steep dive aimed right at the magician. The dragon’s roar spat fire into the marketplace, and Shannish citizens as well as Harnish raiders fell to the ground, cowering with their hands over their heads. Markko’s beast roared an answering challenge.

  The two unearthly creatures met, the long and sinuous body of the dragon tangling with the lashing tail of the beast in the air above the market square. As they tore at each other, the patched-together beast of Master Markko’s creation struggled frantically for the advantage. The larger and more p
owerful Golden Dragon thrashed its tail in anger. Up, up, they flew, until they were just glittering specks in a sharp blue sky. Then a path of flame reached out, and the fiercely struggling monsters were falling, growing larger and larger. A scream rose to shatter the sky, and the beast that was Master Markko vanished.

  With a last trumpeting bellow of victory, the Golden Dragon circled lightly on a thermal created by his own fiery breath. Lazily he floated to a soft landing in the square, and lowered his head at the feet of Carina, the young healer, on the temple steps.

  “Father.” She kissed him between his smoking nostrils, and tapped him sharply where she had placed the kiss. “Time to let Mother go.”

  The dragon’s eyes sparkled in the sun, a deeper glint than his golden scales. He opened his huge mouth as wide as the temple doors, and belched. From his throat a querulous voice drifted.

  “Wretched beast. I don’t know what I ever saw in you. Put me down.” Mara, but as they had never seen her before, walked out of the dragon’s gorge and stood on his tongue, arms folded over her singed and smoking garments, while he gently put her down. She looked taller than she had in the forest, her back straight and her hair black instead of gray. She did not look young, but neither did she look old. In fact, traveling in the belly of a dragon seemed to agree with her.

  “Thank you, Father.” Carina hugged her mother and patted the giant head of the Golden River Dragon.

  “Where is your sister dragon, old husband?” Mara asked the dragon.

  Llesho did not find out if the dragon could in fact answer the question, because at that moment the silver queen descended lightly at the foot of the temple steps. His vision blurred, and Llesho wiped his eyes, leaving a bloody streak across his forehead. “Am I hallucinating?” he wondered. No silver dragon stood beside the golden monster, but Kwan-ti, the healer he had thought lost at Pearl Island.

  “Llesho. You look awful.” She brushed his hair out of his eyes and pursed her lips in displeasure. “Three healers standing about while the young prince bleeds unattended.”

  “You were dead—” He resisted her urging toward the door. “This is some kind of trick!”

  “Never dead,” she answered with an enigmatic smile. “A trick, yes, but the same trick it was when you knew me as Kwan-ti.”

  “You saved my life.” Llesho remembered the sea dragon that had come to him when he had tried to die in the bay. It was not a moment he wished to relive, and Kwan-ti acknowledged it with a bow of her head, but did not intrude the memory upon him further.

  “The children have returned to Golden River, brother,” she addressed the Golden Dragon with a sad droop to her shoulders. “The sea around Pearl Island still reeks of death. You will take care of them until it is safe for them to come home?”

  The dragon nodded his head in an affirmative. With an affectionate snort of curling smoke, he hauled his body into the open square, picking his way carefully among the fallen, too many dead for Llesho to count in his dazed condition. Survivors helped their more severely wounded brethren out of the dragon’s path, more frightened of their terrible ally than they had been of the battle.

  When the Golden River Dragon lifted on his powerful wings, the wind he created in his passing nearly knocked Llesho to his knees. Falling down seemed like a good idea, but while he could stand, he needed to find his companions. Shokar sat at the head of the bear who had saved Llesho’s life, stroking the fur between Lleck’s ears. The prince did not seem to have any physical wounds on him. Shokar was no soldier, however; the horrors of battle had almost broken him.

  Slowly, the living converged on the temple. Stupid with the shock, Llesho watched them ascend the wide steps and enter the sanctuary. Though weary and bleak, Kaydu and Bixei seemed unhurt as well.

  “You must come inside,” Mara reminded him. “Those wounds need tending.”

  “Soon.”

  Carina and Kwan-ti had already entered the temple, following the wounded who would need their care, but Mara waited at Llesho’s side as Kaydu drew up before them to report.

  “Did the general make it?”

  “I don’t know.” Kaydu shrugged, not indifferent, but helpless to offer greater assurances. “Maybe he’s already inside.”

  Bixei took Shokar by the arm and drew him away from their dead companion. Together the four entered the temple, where the wounded were laid out in rows on the floor. Llesho scanned the rows, seeking Adar as he had with scrapes and minor hurts when he was a child.

  “Llesho, you’ve been hurt.” Adar came to them, and touched his arm.

  “The brother. Good.” Mara nodded with satisfaction and left them to offer aid among the injured groaning on their mats.

  The tension in the pit of Llesho’s stomach relaxed. “When you have time.” He waved a careless hand and dropped it to his side again, suddenly realizing that he was brandishing the short spear in his bloody fist. “I just need to sleep.”

  Adar used his hold on Llesho’s arm to guide him deeper into the temple. “Now,” Adar said. “Before you bleed out on the priest’s nice floor.”

  Llesho hadn’t realized he was still bleeding, but he accepted Adar’s word, and followed him to the bandaging station. “I’m glad you’re alive,” Adar told him, and Llesho let his head drop on the curve of his brother’s shoulder.

  “I’m so glad I found you,” Llesho agreed. And then he fainted.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  SHADOWS moved through the darkness, broken only by the dim glow of scattered lamps and the weak moans of the wounded. At Llesho’s head, a heavier darkness sat, solid and reassuring. Shokar snored lightly. Tomorrow, the healers said, Llesho could leave the makeshift infirmary set up in the Temple of The Seven Mortal Gods. He would be taking with him his brother, who refused to leave his side, and his guards, who refused to accept any defense of his sleep but their own. Bixei had assumed guard duty at the front entrance to the temple and Kaydu had watched over the secret entrance into the side alley. Torn between his duty and Lling who had joined them after the battle at the palace, Hmishi had spent days pacing the length of the long hall from her bedside to the entrance onto the square and back again.

  When the companions paused in their vigilance to meet the new princes and tell their stories, Shokar had listened with avid horror. Alternately, he’d berated Llesho for the chances he had taken and scolded Adar to check Llesho’s wounds for proper healing and signs of lingering damage. Llesho forgave the healers their unseemly relief at his recovery; his protectors were starting to get on his nerves as well. And, much as he loved his brother, Shokar’s worry was driving him mad. These few moments of contemplative silence while his brother slept nearby were precious. Not as dear as the opportunity to speak with Adar, however. The healer sank to the floor beside him with a wry smile mellowed by the lamplight.

  “He just wants you to be safe.” Adar gave the sleeping prince an indulgent smile.

  “I love him, too.” Llesho sighed. “But there is no safety anywhere for us. And I am not a child he can protect from the truth.”

  Adar laughed softly. “Convincing Shokar that you are no longer a seedling of seven summers will take stronger magic than either of us possess.

  “As for the danger,” the healer shook his head, sorrow creasing his features, “Shokar has always blamed himself that he was not in Kungol when the Harn attacked.”

  “The raiders would have killed him.” Shokar could have rallied the Thebin people to his cause; the Harn would never have let him live.

  “He’s not a coward,” Adar said, as if that needed explaining, “but he is a man of peace. A farmer. And when he saw you in the countinghouse, he truly believed the goddess had given him a second chance at redemption. If you died, it would surely destroy him.”

  “I do understand.” Llesho closed his eyes, weary and achy, and unwilling to think about it anymore. “But I can’t stay.”

  Adar patted his shoulder. “Sleep,” he said.

  Llesho decided it was just too mu
ch work to open his eyes. In the distance he heard the soft voices of the priests, and a name—ChiChu, god of laughter and tears—called. And it seemed that the god answered in Master Den’s voice. But that must be a dream, and then it was a dream.

  And then it was morning, and Master Den was standing at the foot of Llesho’s pallet, roaring for him to get up, no time to waste on sleeping. He dropped a stack of linen beside him, and Llesho noted that the clothes were day wear of her ladyship’s household, neither the uniform he had fought in nor the house pet disguise he had worn on the day of the battle. And he did not know where Lleck’s pearl had gone. Llesho moved stiffly, and the sharp pain when he lifted his arms to slip into his shirt was explanation enough of his pallor. General Shou had advised him to confide in Master Den, but he could hardly do so while surrounded by his well-meaning companions. But if he could discover the whereabouts of his other possessions, perhaps he would find the pearl there as well.

  “My weapons?” he asked. “And the gifts her ladyship returned to me?”

  Den had not been there when her ladyship had given Llesho the short spear and the jadeite cup, but he knew of them nevertheless. “In your room at the palace,” he said, “with whatever other valuables you may have acquired on your journey.”

  That sounded like Master Den knew more than he was telling, but he couldn’t ask about it here.

  “General Shou?” he said, one thought turning on another, “Was he hurt? Has anyone seen him since the battle?”

  Kaydu shifted Little Brother in her arms and shook her head. “The last time I saw him, he was exhorting us to hold the square.”