“Soorararas, I’ve never seen you out of breath,” said Melissa.
“Seakeep attacked Rampart last night,” said Soorararas. “We had no warning. The help Hlissosak Anspark expected from the Whites will not be coming.”
“Melissa K'Naribo,” said Mirrorwing. “You pursued healing and peace when only war and death seemed possible and mended a deep division. I honor you for that, yet war can no longer be postponed. I spied out the tunnel entrance. Seakeep holds the hill above it, and many wounded Lissai are grounded, helpless before the charging jawmaxtons. Their march to stop the census will tarry while they feast on the ones who subjected them to it.”
Melissa saw a disturbance in the flow of circulating birds. It broke up and great numbers swarmed to the north. She propelled her focus forward. “Rukhs. Dactylaries. Raptors of every kind. All nature joins the conflict. Our only hope is to fight our way to the entrance, seize the census machinery and use it to disperse the animals. Agreed?”
All nodded. A Green stepped forward. It was Soomani, the one with the music box. “Our leader deceived us, but we will not fight our kindred. We Greens who signed your pledge will honor it. We will face the herds, rescue the wounded, and atone for the misery we brought upon our world.”
They located ten wagons, set them aright and sifted through the wreckage, combining the contents of half-empty casks of liosh and water until they had a caravan ready to go. Fear found his master, and Shoroko drove one of the carts, while Greens pulled the rest.
Bannirah the Brown confided in Soomani as she hitched her to a wagon. “If only that one were a Claw, I would let him woo me. So strong and fearless, he’s already half Lissai. See how he loves her?”
Overhearing that in the middle of such distress made Melissa grin.
* * *
After days saddled to a jummax, Shoroko was relieved to rattle along at the back of the train. He’d already gone far beyond his strength, a flower petal descending the rapids amid a tangle of coilangi. He’d deliver liosh to as many Claws as could walk, and they’d blast a path through the alissaren to the stone’s entrance. They followed the road that hugged the western edge of the Census Stone so nothing on the ground could attack from the right. He looked up often at the mesa’s looming mass; their enemy held the heights.
Melissa, Soorararas and Mirrorwing flew ahead, shooing carrion away from the fallen until the caravan of flightless Claws arrived. She flitted about healing whom she could, and dodging Green patrols, whom she easily outflew, until the sky clouded over completely. Thanks to her ministrations, their force multiplied, reaching five thousand strong. The straggling jummaxes and stray rukhs were manageable until they rounded the north side of the mesa. Census Ridge was to their right. The twenty lisstai high line of hills ran north from the mesa until it met the Hearth Mountains. As for the secret entrance beneath the second hill, it was secret no more. The jummaxes were congregating there, joined by other creatures growling and roaring for a feast.
Shoroko tightened his grip on the reins and swallowed hard. A thousand Reds and Browns were surrounded by triple that number of Greens. His eyes followed as a Green flapped hard, attained sufficient height, pulled in his wings and dove. He let out a battle roar to signal to his partner and collided with his Red target. As the two plummeted, the partner swooped in, sunk his claws into the Red’s wings and disengaged. The diver pushed off, spread his wings and leveled off while his victim fell to the ground with just enough resistance from his tattered wings to break his fall and escape death.
Once he regained his feet, rukhs and dactylaries by the score swarmed and latched onto every square inch of the Claw, drawing blood and forcing him down. Shoroko’s mind struggled to find valor or cowardice, purpose or reason in all he witnessed, but it failed. The story was over. Twenty minutes later the remaining Reds and Browns retreated, leaving the Greens in command of the sky.
Orokolga slowed down so Shoroko and Fear could catch up. “Have you a special weapon or stratagem for our next confrontation? My size, strength and resilience have made me stupid in such matters.”
Shoroko sighed and tried to act confident despite his exhaustion. “I’m deciding which doom I’d rather face. The sons of Seakeep can fly and spy out all invaders, evade capture and outrun any foe, but once they incapacitate you, they mostly let you live and move on to the next. The jummaxes are slow and stuck on the ground, but they kill and eat their prey. And they hate me. It all depends on Melissa.”
“How so?” Orokolga squinted and turned her head left and right. “And how does this constitute a plan?”
“If Melissa lives, she can heal me, so I’d opt for attacking Greens and merely getting maimed. But if Melissa dies, I’d rather face the jummaxes. I’m not lingering in this world as a cripple.” Or without her. “Why are you staring at my chest?”
“I wonder if we got all the unicorn horn out of you. If you really want to die, I have superior reasoning. The Greens fight against us, but not against the Census Stone. I don’t know what use they have for it, but they’ve risked everything to capture it. The jawmaxtons mean to wreck it, and bring all our striving to nothing. We must fight the jawmaxtons.”
The funny thing about choices is they go away if you wait too long. The column of marching Claws met the rear of the animal rabble a hundred lisstai from the tunnel entrance. It was one Hand and five thousand Claws versus hundreds of thousands of alissaren. Only the distraction of facing the Greens kept the unruly monsters from confronting Melissa’s legion en masse. Curtains of lissine fire kept the jummaxes from battering down the tunnel door, but the torrential rain made its maintenance costly. The thunder changed everything.
A white flash ripped the darkness. Jagged light trails shot out in a dozen directions. Two ricocheted off the protective black smoke encasing alert Lissai. The other ten each strung a necklace, smiting flyers and hopping across to more targets before sizzling into the ground. A second and a third flash exploded, as the first of the thunderous echoes arrived. The flashes continued, spidering out to hammer justice upon the usurping legion.
“Heaven speaks,” said Orokolga, “with decisiveness.”
Shoroko gaped. Justice. Justice’s courts nearly took Melissa away from him in Four Rivers. Justice’s knife nearly claimed him that morning. He didn’t smile at justice, he trembled. Like a meteor shower, a third of the Green Lissai plummeted into the mud, charred and delicious to the hordes waiting below. The rest scattered.
Up ahead, Bannirah and Soomani wept.
Orokolga walked up and curled her tail around Soomani’s. “Now you need not fight against friends.”
Shoroko still watched the sky. There was one more flash. The dim light of its fading revealed that the primary focus of each previous strike was not a cloud, but a living thing. Unlike the free-falling Greens, it angled into a dive, wings spread, but unmoving. A paralyzed Claw was hurling toward the plain. Caught by a gust, he leveled off and banked west. At that trajectory he’d crash a quarter kilolissta away. Despite distance and darkness, Shoroko knew who had harnessed the lightning. K'Pinkelek, peacemaker and lover of truth, had brought the civil war to an end.
Shoroko heard flapping and brought his arms up to protect his face. He heard a thud and opened his eyes. Melissa had returned. Mirrorwing was with her. Soorararas was not.
“Your world is dying,” said Melissa. “I don’t know why I was sent here, but our last chance at redemption lies underground.” She flourished her wing to point northeast. “Follow me if you dare. We haven’t time for councils, or siege weapons, for tunneling or gathering bombs to rain upon our enemies. There will be no flanking maneuvers, feints, false retreats or ambushes. We make one last charge into victory or death.” She hopped onto a cart and spread her wings. Despite darkness and the exhaustion scribbled across her face, she gritted her teeth. Fierce brilliance filled her eyes, flowed down her neck and onto her chest, as though she were reaching into her soul. Her wings shimmered an instant, faded, then burst into an aurora a
nd lit the gloom. “We are Brown, Silver, Red, Green, Gold and White, but will you march under the sign of the rainbow?”
Shoroko nudged Orokolga, “She doesn’t have a plan either.”
Orokolga shook her head. “You may love her, but you do not understand her. She doesn’t have a plan, she is a plan.”
Boom. Boom. Boom. In the distance, the jummaxes were ramming the door.
Chapter 38: Behind Door Number Three
April 28th. Census Ridge.
Melissa could fly but her army could not, so she went on foot. Earlier surveillance revealed the path to the door with the fewest jummaxes ran east, hugging the north side of the mesa, then ascended the first hill, ran north along the ridge to the second, and finally descended the western slope into the heart of savagery.
“I will run before you,” said Orokolga. “Kilgain is near. Nothing can withstand me.”
Melissa nodded her assent, but when Shoroko rode up on Fear intending to follow Orokolga, she said, “I almost lost you once today. Please, do not ride at the front.”
“Every hour we’re apart is an hour lost,” said Shoroko.
She relented. “Mirrorwing, how does one start a charge on Kibota?”
He threw his head back, opened his mouth wide and trumpeted his challenge. It resounded like an elephant’s bellow with a rhythmic warble. When he finished, five thousand voices echoed his challenge and Orokolga broke into a gallop. The company elongated into a triangle and began to plow through the field of jummaxes. The sides of the wedge disgorged flame and they made a swift advance. Orokolga swung her head back and forth, slamming it into the head of any creature foolish enough to stand its ground, felling each with a single strike and moving on.
Melissa favored the pounce. As she bounded forward, she sprang with her hind legs and forced her front claws into the chest of her taller opponents. Their giraffe-like necks and long rows of teeth were useless once she shattered their rib cage and punctured their lungs.
Halfway up the first hill the mud slowed their advance. They piled up and the jummaxes turned to face them. The shock value of the flame wore off as the rain rendered it harmless. A military commander would have had a tactic for how to restart a stalled attack, but all Melissa could do was stare at her claws. Cutting should be followed by sutures, and blood flowing out replaced by fresh infusions. She was comfortable causing pain, not dealing death.
* * *
Riding Fear surrounded by the powerful made Shoroko feel not secure, but useless. He reached over his shoulder behind his back. Stupid. Lost my bow. He drew his klafe and sheathed it again. He turned his bare hands over and balled them into fists. While he was wishing his hands were massive claws, he wasn’t holding the reins. A snarling monster spooked his mount and he instantly had something for his hands to do. He ducked branches, batted ferns from his face and threw his weight about to keep from sliding off as Fear plunged down a ravine into the swelling stream at its bottom. A Claw interposed betwixt him and the towering fiend and the trees growing along the side of the ravine provided cover. As Fear splashed through the knee-deep water, Shoroko observed piles of smooth pebbles. He reached into his saddlebag. Got you! He still had his sling. He loaded his bag with stones, charged upstream until he was near the hilltop, dismounted and hid in a thicket.
When the jummaxes were looking away, he spun up a stone and let it fly. It missed. Ten in range the size of barns and I miss? Though hitting one is more likely to get me killed than missing. Do I really hate farming so much? Darda should be receiving a new batch of bonejiss for the new quagga barn. I could be home now, hammering together trusses and applying the last treatment of jiss-paste. The living paste would eat away the wood and petrify it like bone. Strong as steel, it never rusts, rots, or burns, which is important around fire-breathers.
Thinking of jiss-paste made him groan. It’s all your fault, Shorascal. You and your stories about how I’d be a great warrior and you’d be a princess. Hands don’t have kings and queens so how would that happen? So convinced, you thought all I needed was a little help. Next thing I know, I wake up covered in jiss-paste. For strong bones and a strong heart, you said.
He wasn’t made of wood, so the jiss didn’t infect him. Instead it was her stories. Her invincible confidence in him wore him down, infecting him with dreams of glory. He remembered the first of those stories: her magic seeds. He never believed it, and now that one had healed him, he had no choice. He had to be a hero, with sling and rocks and breakable bones.
He fitted another stone, whirled it about, and released. This time he hit the neck. The beast snarled and swung its head about, looking for the cause. It spotted a broken branch on the ground, snorted, and resumed its charge against the approaching Claws.
Wrong. Hitting one and being ignored, that’s painful. After every shot, Shoroko ducked into the high brush to avoid being seen, but pride and poor shooting made him stop. He wanted them to know it was him throwing silly rocks at them! All the hiding meant he was getting off hardly any shots. Returning to the stream ten times, he gathered a mound of stones, stood on a boulder, called out Fear for being a coward, and fired another. He beaned a jummax on the head.
It stomped in a circle, glared at him and pawed the ground, ready to charge. Shoroko fired another, which shot down its open gullet. While it choked and retched, he scooped another stone. Pop! He struck it in the eye and picked up the pace as the one-eyed beast charged. Two more shots and he nailed the other eye. While the blind and furious jummax sniffed about for him, he retreated to the stream and plunged into the chilly water to wash off his scent. He gathered more rocks and staked out a new position. One by one he blinded the beasts. He lost count at fifty, because by that time so many blind jummaxes were bounding about colliding with each other and the sighted ones that their ranks broke and the Claws reached the summit.
That was a smashing success. Thanks to me, the Claws have a clear run across the ridge to the next hill, and I have a thousand vengeful lizards between me and Melissa. Shoroko called for Fear. No answer. Then he called out in Quaggish, “Fear, come here!”
He heard whinnying from downstream, a big “NO”.
Shoroko wanted to vocalize a monumentally clever insult, except there was no way to say clever things in Quaggish, and the Claws were nearly to the summit of the second hill. If he was wanted a ride, he had one choice. He climbed a tree, waited for an aimless, blind brute to walk underneath, drew his klafe and plopped onto its back.
He expected the fight of his life; what he got was laughter.
“Look! I’ve got mad two-legs! On me head! Terrified is me! Lord Jumaar left two-legs to die. Now he wants us finish kill.”
“No,” said Shoroko. “Who did I threaten first?”
“Hlisskan Jumaar.”
“Who has the right to fight me first?”
You never heard a jummax sound so disappointed. “But I lost me eyes!”
“Oh, it’s just swollen shut, is all,” said another. “Always complaining, Tomax.”
“But it hurts,” said Tomax. “You ate a whole Lissai leg. All I got was half a tail. Bony. I eat two-legs!” It started thrashing its head back and forth to dislodge him.
“Take me to Hlisskan Jumaar,” said Shoroko. “Let him decide.”
“Yeah, let Jumaar decide!” said three jummaxes who were licking their lips and closing in.
Tomax became silent. It stopped its bucking and started to trot. “To Jumaar. Then I eat mad two-legs.” They descended the hill and ran north along the plain.
Shoroko watched the Claws’ progress to his right. They were nearly to the summit of the second hill, but their numbers were halved. Down on the plain the mass of jummaxes parted so Tomax could pass. The reverberation from the pounding on the tunnel door grew. Shoroko looked up again and saw Orokolga cast down the last jummax to take the summit.
Ha, beat you here!
In cavalry charges, it is not wise to arrive first, as the gleam in Jumaar’s eye made clear when it
spotted Shoroko riding up. The leader of the jummaxes stopped its personal assault on the door and staggered over, shaking its head to stop the dizziness.
Head for a battering ram? Why are we having so much trouble defeating you? Shoroko held his breath and looked up the hill, where Melissa stood beside Orokolga. Now would be an agreeable time to attack, love.
When Jessnee told stories, the villain always spewed out a big speech before trying to kill the hero. But those heroes never fought a jummax. Jumaar reared up, screeched its challenge, opened its jaws, white and full of slobber, and pounded its paws knee deep into the mud as it charged.
Death was four lisstai away.
* * *
The rain receded to a light drizzle as Melissa neared the summit of the second hill. The tunnel to the census machinery was directly below. Bloody scratches covered her and every breath made painful the bruises on her ribs. The pounding meant the jummaxes were still outside. The brutes on the plain were fresh and ready for battle, so every minute’s delay favored her. “Orokolga, what do you see?”
“Our call to battle! Hurry!”
Melissa limped to the summit, wheezing, her head pounding. At least I’m not thirsty. Rain’s good for something. She tried squinting to magnify the vista, but blood trickling down her forehead clouded her vision. Her eyes regained focus as the jummaxes’ hlisskan began its charge. She traced the path in front of it and saw Shoroko jump from the back of one jummax and scamper under the belly of another, whose efforts to sit on him were met with his klafe.
Melissa cried, “For the restoration of the rainbow!” She charged down the hillside, and Orokolga and the Claws followed. She launched into the air and Mirrorwing joined her. Flapping her wings exceeded her strength and her tolerance for pain, so she glided. Shoroko was pinned under the foot of one jummax while their leader lowered its jaws for the killing strike.
Shoroko would be dead in two seconds; she would be there in five. You lost your beloved sister, and sought vengeance in its place. I will follow you and claim mine.
A Most Refined Dragon Page 41