“I tried this in our last three transits,” Ethis said, shaking his head. “We brought half of the army in to establish the forward boundaries of our camp and deployed the other half to guard the rear boundaries on the far side of the folds.”
“And?” Gradek asked.
“And we lost three hundred and seventeen warriors before the folds were closed,” Ethis said, straightening up from the map table. “The shorter the distance between the folds, the sooner the sirens are finding us and encroaching on the encampment. The longer we stay in one place, the more of them will come…and the more we will lose to them.”
“But couldn’t we reason with them?” Jugar asked. “Tell them to leave us alone or strike a bargain with them to go away and leave us in peace?”
You don’t understand,” Ethis said, shaking his head, his face smoothing to its normally blank features. “It isn’t a question of reasoning with them. They already understand that it is the Queen’s command that we be left alone in our journey. But they are drawn to us, nevertheless, and cannot help themselves in their desire to empathize and please us. They do not understand the danger both to us and to themselves. They honestly think they are helping you when they lure you to your doom, Jugar.”
“What can we do?” Drakis said.
Everyone around the table was so intent on their discussion that the question startled them.
“The sirens are following us, calling especially those who are tired and susceptible away from the camps,” Ethis asserted. “The longer we stay anywhere and the shorter the distances of the folds, the worse the problem will become.”
“So we must keep moving,” Drakis nodded grimly.
“This isn’t a trained army that you can force-march for days on end,” Jugar said. “These are families with children and grandmothers. There are supply wagons and livestock to be moved. They’ve gone for three days without stopping. Soon they’ll stop whether we tell them to keep moving or no.”
“Then we need to find a way to lengthen the fold distances,” Drakis observed. “Our Aether is being weakened by the distance. If we had a closer source of Braun Aether—a turned Rhonas Well—could we lengthen our folds and get through Ephindria sooner?”
“Certainly,” Ethis nodded, pointing down to the map of Ephindria on the table before them. The details were necessarily sparse but the settlement was clearly marked. “There is such a Well located here in Shalashei. It is defended by a Centurai of Rhonas warriors but…”
The canvas of the tent rustled noisily.
Ethis looked up from the map table, nothing registering on his neutral face.
Urulani, her leather dragon flight doublet still streaked with mud, pushed through the flap of the command tent, her dark face taut with strain, her eyes bright and shining.
Drakis turned and recognized her. “Urulani! You’ve found us at last. I was beginning to wonder…”
Urulani’s fist slammed into Drakis’ face.
Drakis reeled, falling flat on his back from the fierce blow. Gradek reached instinctively for the hilt of his sword but was suddenly uncertain who to use the blade against.
“Found you? I did find you but not where you were supposed to be!” the dark woman raged over him, her fist balled up tight, ready to strike again. “I was supposed to have found you somewhere on the Shadow Coast! I was supposed to have provided you with an open road into Vestasia! I’ve spent the last ten days convincing half the population on the Shadow and Thetis Coasts that the Man of Prophecy has returned, that he’s on his way to come and free them from the elven oppressors and now I find you here?”
“I know,” Drakis said, raising his hands palm out in surrender. “There were changes…opportunities which…”
“Opportunities?” Urulani snarled. “Opportunities to leave those people on the coast defenseless against the elven Legions?”
“What Legions?” Ethis asked.
“I’ve seen them,” Urulani seethed. “They were outside Port Dog not a day ago. They’re marching northward along the Shadow Coast.”
“That’s good,” Ethis noted.
“Good?” Urulani’s voice nearly broke in her rage.
“Yes,” Ethis continued. “It means they’re moving in the wrong direction.”
“It may be the wrong direction for you,” Urulani countered, “but because I told those port towns about Drakis and his prophetic return, there are now an entirely new group of pilgrims making their way up the coast ahead of those Legions. They’re expecting to join up with the encampment and its marvelous, victorious army! Instead, you’re here in…where is this place?”
“Near the northern boundaries of Hrynth,” Ethis answered.
“Where?”
“Deep within Ephindria,” Ethis replied.
“Well wherever this is, it is not where the coastal pilgrims are ever going to find you,” Urulani said. “The elven Legions will overtake them, Drakis! They will murder them, parent and child, unless we do something about it.”
“What do you suggest, Urulani?” Gradek asked in a quiet, thoughtful rumble.
“I don’t know.” Urulani thought. “What about the dwarves? Couldn’t their warriors at least feign an attack at the rear of the Legion? That would at least delay them long enough to…”
“There are no dwarven warriors,” Jugar said.
“But you went…”
“I searched deep within the mountains of Aeria,” Jugar affirmed. “There were no dwarves to be found.”
“Urulani,” Drakis said, slowly standing once more. His voice was heavy. “I’m sorry. Ethis returned with an offer from the Queen of Ephindria and we could not delay in accepting it. If we had followed our original plan—if we had charged toward the coast and Vestasia—then we would be facing those same Legions ourselves. The Lyric has gone north to see what can be done for your refugees. As it is, our situation here is not much better at the moment than theirs.”
“I gave them my word, Drakis,” Urulani breathed out the words.
“And I’m going to do everything I can to honor that,” Drakis replied. “But to do that we have to take down a city of the elves…and to do that, we will need to find a way of surviving the land of our ally.”
CHAPTER 22
A Place Called Home
“DRAKIS?”
“I think he’s coming around!”
The sounds seemed far away. Drakis was struggling to place them.
“He’s breathing!” came another voice, its familiarity playing at the edge of his conscious thoughts. “It’s a miracle of the gods!”
Drakis drew breath painfully into his lungs; he pushed himself to sit up. His cloudy vision cleared.
The rolling hills of grain waved around him in the southern breeze. The sun was just cresting the top of the hill, casting long shadows across the landscape. Great shadowy clouds edged in brilliant salmon colors of the morning drifted through the sky above him. A low-lying mist stretched across the tide pools to the south, rendering the tall reeds in the shallows in shades of blue and gray. House totems lined the path to the east, winding around the hills toward…
Drakis caught his breath, holding it…afraid to let it go lest he should disturb the moment.
“We thought we might have lost you,” purred ChuKang.
Drakis blinked at the enormous manticorian warrior. “Lost me?”
“There was no need to hold off the entire ‘Blade of the West’ on your own,” chuckled Thuri, folding three of his arms across his chimerian chest and gesturing behind him with the fourth. “If Braun hadn’t extracted us with a fold portal at the end, you might not have made it this far.”
Drakis followed Thuri’s extended hand and saw Braun, in his Proxi robes, looking back at him with a haunted and pitying expression.
Drakis glanced around him. Thuri pushed his blank face into the semblance of a grin. ChuKang, captain of their Centurai planted his enormous hands on his hips and let out a roar of joy. KriChan, another manticorian warrior stood b
eside him nodding with a fang-toothed smile. Next to them stood Karag, Belag’s brother, still wearing his battle armor. The gnomes Onras and Druth Ophas were straining to get a look at him.
His Octia…His Centurai…
He looked down at the bier on which he was sitting. It was a hero’s bier, draped in linen and covered in flowers.
“You thought I was dead?” Drakis grinned. He felt dizzy and euphoric.
“Well you gave a very good impression of dead,” ChuKang bellowed and the rest of the warriors around them joined at once in the laughter.
Drakis turned. Behind him sat the familiar temple. Jerakh, Skyu’klan, Indrisi…the rest of the Centurai were pouring from the octagonal fold wavering between two crystalline pillars.
Smoke and the shadow of fallen days
Welling from dreams that are dead
Familiar faces.
Lost from all traces…
“We had thought to bear you back as a dead hero,” Thuri said, “but given the circumstances, I suppose a live hero will have to do. I believe you have earned the right to present this.”
The chimerian reached with his uppermost pair of arms back over his head and pulled a metal circle from his pack. He pressed it into an astonished Drakis’ grip.
The Crown of the Ninth Throne of Dwarven Kings lay in his hands.
“A parade of triumph?” Braun suggested quietly. “Our hero is perhaps due a parade of triumph?”
“A parade of triumph indeed!” Karag called out. The Centurai cheered, raising their weapons into the air in acknowledgment.
ChuKang dragged Drakis off the bier, planting him on his feet, pushing him to the head of the column. “Form ranks! We’ve earned our pride. Drakis Sha-Timuran!”
“Yes, ChuKang?”
“Lead us home!” the Centurai commander ordered with a weary smile.
Drakis turned to look down the road across the familiar fields lined on either side by House totems. He could hear the Centurai of his brother warriors falling in behind him. He gazed down at his hands, his mind reeling as he contemplated the Crown of the Ninth Dwarven Throne in his hands. He knew the coolness of its metal and the heft of its weight. He could see the very top of the avatria of house Timuran shining in the morning rays. He knew that she would be there standing on the wall, searching for his return. Now he would come through the gates as a hero of House Timuran, just as he had dreamed he would so many times before.
So many times before…
“Wait,” he turned to face the Centurai. “Where is Braun?”
“Here, Drakis,” responded the Proxi quietly, his eyes averted.
“What…what about Ethis?” Drakis asked.
“He is coming later, my lord,” Braun replied, still looking away.
“And Urulani?” Drakis asked. The pain in his head was unbearable.
“Who?” ChuKang asked.
“Urulani,” Drakis responded. “She is…she is a dark-skinned human—a raider on Thetis Bay…”
“A dark woman warrior?” KriChan trumpeted with laughter. “That blow to your head must have been harder than we thought!”
“But she…”
“You need not worry about that right now,” Braun urged. “The Centurai is waiting to present their victory to Lord Timuran. We must proceed quickly. They will be waiting and our masters will brook no delay.”
Drakis nodded in dull agreement. He turned to face the path that was so familiar to him and so inviting. He breathed in the cool air, the fresh smell damp with the morning dew on the fields. He could hear the distant birds call down by the tide pools and from the woodlands on the far side.
Everything was just as he remembered it.
The thought brought doubt into his mind.
Then he gripped the prized crown in his hand and, raising it above his head, yelled out, “Brothers of House Timuran! We return in triumph at last!”
A great cheer rose from the warriors behind him. He marched forward, down the path toward the sunrise, climbing up over the crest of a hill. Before him, crowning the next hilltop, stood the glorious structure of House Timuran. The slender avatria rose up above the subatria wall, outlined in the growing light of dawn.
She was there. He could see her silhouette atop the subatria wall, her cleanly shaven head aglow. Already she was running along the wall toward the servant’s stairs leading down into the garden, eager to greet him.
“Mala,” Drakis said her name in a whisper, as though he were afraid to utter it, that somehow doing so would break the wonderful moment.
Thoughts tugged at his mind. Wide savannas and ocean voyages…vast deserts of sand…ruins obscured by foliage so thick as to nearly hide them completely…dragons breathing destruction and death…and a woman with skin as dark as midnight who was beautiful and terrible all at once…
Mala waved at him and, smiling, he marched on.
The Centurai came to the gates of the chakrilya—the Warrior’s Way—and found them thrown open at their approach. The household slaves were lining the curving passage, their cheers unrestrained. Drakis held the crown high once more as he marched through the gates, to even greater cheering from the Centurai that marched behind him.
Se’Djinka, the war-mage of House Timuran and a Tribune of the Imperial Army stood in the center of the chakrilya in his battle robes his arms folded across his chest. The ancient warrior held up his arm, palm facing Drakis in salute.
“Victorious and bearing the greatest of honors,” Se’Djinka proclaimed. “The warriors of House Timuran are home at last.”
Drakis smiled broadly and bowed, extending the crown toward the war-mage with both hands.
Braun stepped forward, standing just to the right and slightly behind Drakis as he spoke. “May Drakis—champion of Timuran—present the crown before the altar of Devotions?”
Se’Djinka frowned, his featureless black eyes resting on the Proxi with disapproval.
“It would be his greatest desire,” Braun urged.
Se’Djinka straightened up and turned, passing through the open gate between the chakrilya and the interior of the subatria. Drakis followed him, trailing Braun, and the rest of the Centurai marched behind him into the central garden of the House. The inverted dome foundation of the Timuran avatria floated above their heads, perfectly restored.
Drakis’ smile diminished slightly. When did it look any different? When was it that I saw it fall to the ground?
The bowl of the garden lay before him. The altar of Devotions stood near the center, directly before the Aether Well of the House. By now the entire household had turned out to stand against the walls of the central garden. Slaves, free elven servants, craftsmen of every estate and all of the Impress Warriors from their Centurai watched in adoration, admiration and wonder.
Next to the altar of Devotions stood Sha-Timuran, tall and noble in his appearance. His wife and daughter were nowhere to be seen but he barely took notice of it.
Next to Timuran, stood Mala.
He could clearly see the Sinque mark at the crest of her shaved head. Her large eyes set in her heart-shaped face sparkled with joy. She held out her hand to him, beckoning him to come to her.
Drakis marched proudly down the path to the center of the garden. He stopped before Sha-Timuran—the elf who had been like a father to him…
Drakis winced. He felt the blows on his back, the sting of the firereed whip across his flesh.
It must have been a dream…a bad dream…
“Drakis Sha-Timuran!” The high-pitched, nasal voice of the House Lord cut above the cheers of the household, calling them to silence.
Drakis looked up into the pinched face of his master. Then, without another thought, the human knelt down before the tall elf and, extending his hands above his head, offered the crown to Sha-Timuran.
“Never before in the glorious history of our House has any Impress Warrior performed his duty with such distinction. Of all the Houses of the Rhonas Imperium, you stand alone as victor. You hold
the spoils in your hands of the defeated dwarven thrones. Your name shall be whispered with reverence and sung in songs of magnificent accolades for ages to come. Look upon me, Drakis Sha-Timuran!”
Drakis raised his face to the House Lord.
“I have pled your name before the Ministers of Imperial Estates,” Sha-Timuran said, his voice raised so that all might hear in the garden. “By the Will of the Emperor, you are hereby granted your citizenship in the Imperium and your elevation to the Sixth Estate! Drakis Sha-Timuran is no more. Long be the life and great the fortunes of Drakis Sha-Drakon…first Lord of House Drakon!”
The tumultuous cheers rang across the garden as Sha-Timuran took the crown from Drakis’ hands and then, extending his own, pulled the human to his feet.
Drakis barely noticed Braun moving softly behind Lord Timuran. What was the Proxi doing back there?
“Every House Lord requires a mistress of his house,” Sha-Timuran observed, arching a thin eyebrow over his dull, black eyes. “Would you take a wife?”
“I would, my lord,” Drakis turned his attention and gazed at once into the large, violet eyes of Mala, staring so hopefully up at him. “I would with every breath of my life take Mala to me in mine.”
“Then as the Emperor has given you your citizenship,” Sha-Timuran nodded, “permit me to give you Mala as my thanks for the honor you have brought to my House.”
Tears welled up in Mala’s eyes.
They threw their arms around each other.
Drakis drew in a shuddering breath. Mala was here. She was solid and real. He could feel her warmth in his arms, the brush of her eyelashes against his neck and her hot tears of joy.
It was everything he had wanted. Every desire he had ever dreamed.
Drakis lifted up Mala, spinning her around in his embrace. The cheers of the assembled servants, retainers, and his brother Impress Warriors rang around him.
Then he saw Braun standing next to the House Aether Well.
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