by T. A. Miles
Xu Liang began to consider whether or not a forced dislodging would be necessary. Miao Yuntai was out far enough from Bei Xo that his loyalty to Ha Ming Jin might have been stretched thin, particularly since he had been among Ha Sheng’s peers. It was often true that a man of experience had less patience for the ambitions of youth. Ha Ming Jin was no youngster, but he was also far more his own man than his father’s son. Ha Sheng’s most loyal men could easily have become somewhat disenchanted with the bold defiance of their current governor, particularly as it was at the expense of the land and people they were responsible for.
The tent entry became shaded with presence as Shirisae returned. Cai Zheng Rui and Shi Dian remained outside with Wan Yun. The elf they’d escorted acknowledged Gai Ping and otherwise carried herself to the table at the tent’s center. She lowered onto her knees and scanned the maps and charts briefly before she laid a single wildflower on top of them.
The action halted Xu Liang’s study. He glanced at Shirisae before he lifted the delicate stem and held it upright to examine. It was a variety of poppy known to grow prolifically throughout the Kang Su Province, which they had only just entered after a day’s travel from the Imperial City. The shade of its thin petals was several tones lighter than the orange of the fire elf’s hair.
“I was reminded of your appreciation of the natural terrain,” Shirisae said.
“Kang Su is one of the Jade Emperor’s finest gifts to the people of Sheng Fan,” Xu Liang replied. “The province covers a large portion of the hills and mountains we will be traveling through.”
“Sheng Fan is a very large place,” the elf continued. “I think many from the west would be surprised to know just how large, and how densely peopled.”
“I believe that many from Sheng Fan would be equally met with surprise, were they to visit the lands across the sea.” He set the flower aside, then rolled the scroll it had previously lain upon. “And now, we should eat and study.”
Shirisae agreed with a nod, which she transitioned to a bow of deference toward her teacher.
They had much to teach each other, so Xu Liang returned the gesture, including with it his appreciation for her willingness to adhere to the customs of Sheng Fan. For that, he was grateful to all of his allies from the western realms.
Chasing Shadows
THERE WAS NO telling the precise time of day while underground, but Tristus believed they’d burned several hours performing an exhaustive search of the shadows for the one or more young dragons Alere had spied. It was very likely getting on evening. In that time, they had indeed located one of the smaller beasts. It refused to come within range of their weapons, which was understandable, since it undoubtedly wanted to survive as much as they did. That said, if it would not come within physical reach of the weapons, they were going to have to resort to the Blades’ extended range. Considering the loudness of the Dawn Blade’s magic and the rock walls it had nearly brought down in Aer, Tristus was unwilling to mount such an attack. The Night Blade had not demonstrated tremendous projectile capability with its peculiar power, so that left Aerkiren. Unfortunately, the young dragon was lingering at such a height that it had ample space to determine the magic’s trajectory and move from harm’s way. Alere was to arrows, but the depth of shadow along the ceiling of the cave made it an articulated guessing game. Articulated, only because it was Alere doing the aiming and his guesses were far nearer to mark than Tristus would have hoped his own to be.
“So, what now, lads?” Tarfan asked from his stand upon a rock that put him nearer to level with the rest of them.
“Now I continue to take aim at whatever moves more than it ought to within this cave,” Alere replied.
Tarfan bristled at the implied threat.
Tristus touched the dwarf’s shoulder, and to the elf, he said, “Alere.”
“I think the Storm Blade would have been a better fit for this task,” Tarfan murmured. “Hard for the greasy little beast to dash away from hot lightning crawling across the surface of these rocks.”
“That may be true,” Tristus allowed, speaking quietly so as not to disrupt Alere’s concentration. “Still, I’d be worried about too much power bringing those rocks down on us.”
“Possibly…possibly,” Tarfan mumbled, folding his stout arms across his chest. “Is there a way to lure the little beasty down, I wonder?”
“Without hanging you out?” Alere said, following the movement of the young dragon with the nocked tip of his arrow. “I’m willing to take suggestions.”
“Now, look here, you damned creature of ice…”
“Tarfan,” Tristus interceded. “Your people are accustomed to dealing with cave dragons. What would you suggest?”
The dwarf relaxed somewhat. “There’s not much that can be done about them when they venture to such heights. I’ve not dwelled in the caverns myself for some time, but I do recall the more successful tactics involving a bit of enticement.”
“Perhaps food,” Huang Shang-san suggested, after he’d translated what Tristus presumed to be the gist of their conversation to Guang Ci.
Tarfan nodded. “Aye, cave dragons will eat nearly anything…fresh or rotting; they’re not particular.”
“All right,” Tristus said. “Well…what have we brought with us?”
Alere released his arrow. A shriek of protest echoed off the walls of the cave, followed by the erratic movement of the dragon nymph through the ceiling’s odd pattern of shadow and light.
“I think you may have gotten a wing, Alere,” Tristus said. He looked to Tarfan and Huang Shang-san. “Please, wait for us here.”
Huang Shang-san nodded in agreement while Tarfan gave a small roll of his eyes.
Tristus forwent apology, except for whatever may have been offered in his expression before he turned toward the others. Alere had already started off on foot. Guang Ci was quick to move after him, so Tristus followed.
“It might be looking for an alcove,” Tristus suggested, imagining that once the beast got into a hole it would be impossible to drive it out, particularly at such a height.
Alere paused long enough to plant his feet, draw the Twilight Blade, and to send an arc of its glow toward the shadows overhead.
The first arc off the Twilight Blade fell short, but illuminated the space significantly. The dragon had been relegated to crawling along the ceiling, dragging a useless wing after it. It was reminiscent of the larger creature’s response to such injury above ground. Thankfully, this one was much smaller—no greater than a large fowl. The second strike from Alere’s sword made its mark. The dragon plummeted to the cave floor, hitting with a smack that suggested that the fall had been lethal to it, if the magic was not.
“Well, that’s one,” Tristus said when he came to a stop beside Alere and Guang Ci.
“Of how many?” Alere replied.
“I would hope not more than a few,” Tristus answered.
While he spoke, Guang Ci wandered away from them. The newly ranked soldier seemed interested in something on the floor.
Alere noticed his movement as well, and he and Tristus decided to join him.
Guang Ci crouched down. When Tristus and Alere arrived, he pointed to what had his interest, which was a broad section of floor littered with fragments of what may have been shells and the leftover bowls of what appeared to be hatched eggs.
“We’d probably better look for any intact ones,” Tristus said.
Alere nodded. At the same time, he was scanning the floor. It was covered in a layer of loose rock and sediment. The elf pointed out that there were patterned deviations in the dust. The forms were unrecognizable, but the repetition made it possible to surmise what they had come from. Alere rose and followed them, his feet matching them, which revealed the distance between each constituted what could easily have been a human stride.
“The elder did come through here, then,” Tristus said.
“It would seem so,” Alere replied.
“And he visited the nest.
Why?”
Alere walked back to them. “Perhaps to collect unhatched eggs.”
“For what purpose?” was Tristus’ next question.
One which Alere had no answer to. The elf merely shook his head.
Guang Ci rose to his feet nearby. He unsheathed his sword and held it point down over the nest while he stepped among the remains.
Tristus unstrapped Dawnfire from his back. “I suppose we ought to join him.”
“I’m going to follow the tracks,” Alere decided.
Tristus looked over at the elf, then toward the footprints, before nodding. “All right.”
He almost asked about Breigh, but then Alere stepped away from him, summoning the mare with a whistle. It was not long before Tristus could see the animal in his peripheral view. He watched Breigh and her rider reunite and depart, then turned his focus to the task at hand.
His gaze moved over dozens of broken pods, toward Guang Ci when he heard the former guardsman smash one open with the end of his blade, then beyond him and toward a greater opening. It had been difficult to see at first, given the shadows, but upon inspection he could detect the depth of the area…that it was large enough to house an adult dragon. He envisioned the beast in the space, majestic though dangerous, its head alone much taller than a man. And then he thought of the fight that had taken place above, that had resulted in Jiao Ren’s death. He wondered if it was only timing, or if the Sun Blade had been the one destined to make the killing strike…if Jiao Ren had been doomed from the moment he was given the role as champion bearer. And what if there were more dragons? Would it require another such sacrifice to be rid of the beast?
He felt eyes on him and lowered his gaze to Guang Ci. Behel’s bearer seemed almost to be glaring. An instantaneous apology queued itself on his tongue, but he refrained. He could not think of what he had done to offend the man, and thinking of that, it was occurring to him that Guang Ci had been eyeing him askance on more than one occasion since they’d been given this task. A part of him felt challenged. It was that part which returned Guang Ci’s glare. And it was that part which Tristus knew instantly he did not want to have come forward. Not now. Not here.
Not ever again.
He lowered his head by force of will, managing a gesture somewhere between a parting nod and an apologetic bow before he gave his attention back to the nest and seeking out any progeny that may have been waiting to emerge into the world.
GUANG CI TOOK his gaze from Tristus, swinging the end of the Night Blade over the broken top of an egg that had already hatched. The stone-colored shell crushed inward with the motion, fragments splitting away to join the rest of the pieces already littering the area. The sword was heavy—it was a weight even when the darkness of it wasn’t weighing intentionally. It was proof that the gods provided mankind with curses, that they might be faced with destruction and prove their worth. He had watched Lord Xu Liang be met with such challenge. He presumed it was the burden of greatness once, but he understood now that it was the cost of existence. Any man might be called upon by the gods. Any man might be taken by them, just as General Jiao Ren had been…as Guang Ci’s fellow bodyguards were; lost to the perils of the outer realms.
Shells cracked underfoot while Guang Ci traversed the length of the nest, toward the interior of the adjacent cave. He walked until the shadows began to close about him and he was beginning to rely on the muted glow of the Night Blade to see. It allowed him only to see the space immediately around himself, however, which was nothing at all. Behel seemed to draw light into itself, rendering even the cavernous shadows of the nest somehow darker. The weapon hardly seemed an artifact of the Heavens.
Guang Ci looked over his shoulder, toward the light he had left behind him. He should have been able to see Tristus and if not him, then his spear. Neither were visible. Taking steps backward, it was the golden fire of the Dawn Blade that came into view first. Afterward came his fellow bearer’s shape—or what he thought was his shape. It held the form of a man, but it was taller and thicker, its features sharp like a devil’s. Guang Ci had seen it before, roaming free within the city. Now it loomed over Tristus. As the man came into view, Guang Ci had an impression of both. The demon mirrored Tristus’ motions, stalking incessantly on the man’s heels. Guang Ci understood that it was the force behind Tristus’ berserk attack.
It was with recognition of that when the demon looked in Guang Ci’s direction, and seemed to point. He felt a cold weight slip into his being and settle uncomfortably in his feet. His boots felt momentarily as heavy as the Night Blade during its moments of protest. He nearly had to drag himself back into the light, where Tristus then came back into full view. He also happened to be looking in the same direction as his devil counterpart, but his demeanor was quiet, unlike the spirit.
Tristus raised his arm to gesture toward Guang Ci in an eerily similar manner to the demon, though the sensation the demon had invoked was absent. With a pondering frown, Guang Ci looked ahead of himself. The shadows shifted.
The sensation startled him, as he had just been in those shadows and neither saw nor felt anything. What he saw now was the movement of many things.
As if a greater beast disgorging a breath of destruction, a wall of winged creatures rolled out of the nesting cave. The force of them knocked Guang Ci over. He shielded his face with his arm while the fury of many wings beat rapidly over him before the numbers arced upward. Their sound was a thrashing, like the melee of a battlefield, though their assault came with no injury beyond surprise.
Guang Ci rolled onto his stomach and looked toward Tristus, who was crouched down, watching the creatures bank like a strong river in the direction Alere had gone. It was undoubtedly for that reason that Tristus did not stay low for long. It was for the same reason that Guang Ci also got to his feet and pushed himself to run after his companions.
THE TRAIL OF FOOTSTEPS carried on until there was not enough covering upon the cave floor to show them. Still, it was easy to glean that they marked the passage of a man, and he had no doubt been headed for an outlet.
Alere reined Breigh in and looked ahead, toward what may have been the beginnings of better light coming into the caves—though at the given hour it would have to be sunset or moonlight. The floor seemed also to be growing steeper. Listening, he detected the low crashing of what was either thunder or waves. Xu Liang was correct. The tunnels carried to sea. The geomancer’s escape had likely been by ship, though it would have taken some coordination in advance to have one at the ready. Alere suspected a man as devious and compelled as Han Quan sounded to be would have had several scenarios of escape planned. He had likely been plotting the assassination of Xu Liang for some time. How he had gained the allegiance of a dragon remained a mystery.
It was with that thought that the rushing sound of what he presumed to be waves grew stronger. And it was with that, that Alere realized the sound was too forceful, and drawing nearer. He also discerned that it was behind him. He looked instinctively, fearing in the moment that an underground river might have somehow broken through the cave walls. But it was not that. It was not that, at all.
The black tide coming at him was of shadow, not water.
“Run,” Alere said to Breigh, and she did.
The mare ran as only she or another of her breed could—seeming to sprint, but in actuality she was bounding forward. Her gait was that of the most agile deer, but her strength matched a horse of the best breeding and her feet were as sure as the goats of the Verres mountains. Alere never doubted that she would carry him to his destination, not even now, with countless young dragons flying through the darkness, toward the extended shadows of nightfall. They were indeed as bats.
Alere leaned forward, his braid beating against his back while Breigh found purchase wherever she may over the rough terrain, which only grew rougher the nearer they came to the caves’ outlet. He could see early moonlight drifting into the tunnel on the mist from the ocean. He imagined that the lip would be sudden and the f
ace steep. Breigh was not foolish enough to throw herself to the sea over any danger, but he began to draw back on her reins anyway.
Even before doing so, the storm of dragons began to pass over him. The intensity of the number of wings pumping the air created a conflicted wind that swirled about Alere in every direction. He could feel the near passage of their bodies as they maneuvered around him, disinterested in attack. With the realization that they seemed to have no view of him or Breigh as prey, he made further effort to slow the mare. She disliked the disturbance the dragons created and hesitated to obey him immediately. It was at her own pace that she came to a stop. She did so not but a few paces away from the edge of the opening. Alere took in a view of great waves rolling violently far below, shadows rushing out all around him in the form of young dragons. Their shapes cluttered the silver blue sky erratically, as if a handful of sharp stones cast from the hand of a god.
Alere sat winded in the aftermath of their flight, and his. He watched the creatures disperse, as if a horde of the keirveshen released from the shadows to begin their hunt. It gave him all the more reason to stay in Sheng Fan. He had hunting of his own to do.
His gaze drifted from the scattering silhouettes of the dragons, settling on the moon in its early stage. It would not be hindered by cloud tonight. He thought of Xu Liang, and hoped that wherever he had gotten to he would also not be hindered or harassed.
“Aen arydd kiron,” Alere uttered the words for the mystic, then turned Breigh about and directed her back into the caves.