Alantris had fallen.
Yes, N’lahr told her. And with that single word she also felt his great fury for the lives lost, for the terror brought to so many innocents. For the horrendous waste. It was incongruous to feel such an enormous well of emotion pouring from someone she ordinarily experienced as so impassive.
How bad is it?
Aradel Sky Rider is dead. Thousands have perished. Thousands more will die.
As his sorrow and, surprisingly, guilt rolled over her, he spoke on. But Varama strikes at them from inside the city, and has slain three of their five dragons. I see ko’aye in the skies above you. Have you made peace? His query was restrained, but she could feel the urgency of his hope.
I’m not sure we can. They’re very angry. No agreement may be possible. Do we still need them if most of the dragons are dead?
She registered his surprise that she should consider that possibility. Yes. It is not just these, here. The sorcerer Chargan has more and he will arrive within a week. We are vastly outnumbered, Elenai. We must snatch any advantage. What has Kyrkenall told them?
She relived the moment for him, finishing by telling him they’d speak in audience before a gathering of the ko’aye leaders.
Contact me when you arrive. Maybe I can help.
That could be interesting, she thought, suddenly imagining herself speaking with N’lahr’s words. And she saw from his thoughts that’s exactly what he intended.
How are you? she asked him. Are there any more hearthstone incidents? Are you slowing down?
I’ve only noticed three of them, which is a decrease, and I wonder if that’s because one of the halves is so far away from me.
Do you have a plan? How to fight the Naor? How to free Alantris?
A plan is under way, he said simply. Enada is here, with cavalry, and she has spoken once with Varama. Our main body of troops is still on the way. We have much to arrange before Chargan reaches us.
His words were simple; the worry behind them was not. Had he been this concerned about Vedessus? Or was he more worried, now? She didn’t articulate the question, quite, but he seemed to hear it anyway. How much of her own thoughts and feelings was she inadvertently revealing?
I am more worried now. The Naor have the city. Their slaughter can continue virtually unopposed. Varama is clever, but they could root out her hiding place.…
His stream of thought was interrupted by Tretton, who’d come up on the left to speak about enemy troop movements. Elenai overheard N’lahr politely asking the older alten to wait before he returned his attention to her. Be alert. We have another traitorous alten. Cerai is leagued with the queen. She recovered a powerful hearthstone that the queen needs to further her own interests.
Do we know what those interests are?
There was no missing N’lahr’s maddened frustration over his inability to do anything about that. He was furious he couldn’t halt the queen’s machinations, or even learn what she planned. All he broadcast, though, was one word: No.
Then: Cerai abandoned Alantris rather than fighting to save it, and attacked Rylin and Varama. She ensorcelled Aradel’s ko’aye and kidnapped her. She has grown very powerful. Be your sharpest if you meet her.
Elenai thought it unlikely they would, but she bowed her head solemnly. We will.
N’lahr glanced at Tretton, waiting impatiently. I must go. My best to Kyrkenall and Ortok, and to you. Contact me when you speak before the ko’aye.
Hail, Commander.
Hail, Alten.
At that, she broke contact and quieted the stone. She gathered her thoughts and rode up to Kyrkenall, bearing the tidings.
His jaw tightened at the news of the city’s fall and Aradel’s death, and his eyes widened in amazement at news of Cerai.
“I can’t believe Cerai’s working with the queen. She hated Denaven.”
“Apparently that didn’t stop her.”
“I’d give a lot to know what they’re really up to.”
“We already have,” she said.
“Aye. And we’re little closer to knowing the truth.” The archer sighed. “I wish I was there with N’lahr, not here. I’m no good at this kind of thing.”
“N’lahr said he’d help, once we started talking.”
“And you’re sure that the hearthstone isn’t hurting him?”
“I’m not sure at all. He says he’s having those episodes less.” When she’d told Kyrkenall about N’lahr’s stone, she’d also informed him of the risks. “He’s really worried about the city. He’s not entirely sure what to do, and he has only a few days to figure it out, because another huge Naor army is on its way.”
“Then we’d best get him these ko’aye,” Kyrkenall said.
“Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“Aye. At least, I think I do.”
“You want to talk it over?”
He didn’t look at her. “No. I need to think it through. I need to think really, really hard about what I’m going to say without any interruptions.” He said the last sharply, as though she made a habit of bothering him, like a nagging shrew.
His tone irked her. “I think I’ll go talk with Ortok.”
She dropped back beside the kobalin, who’d somehow ended up leading the pack horses.
With his larger horse and larger frame, Ortok rode from a higher vantage point. In the last little while his black fur had almost completely regrown. He was gnawing on what must have been a very tough piece of dry jerky, holding both reins in one dark paw.
“I think you look nice with black fur,” she said.
He swallowed, then took another bite and considered her. “Do you wish you had black fur?”
“It had never occurred to me,” she answered honestly. “Do you have any control during a storm?”
“Some. The Gods bless our bodies so they change in the challenge times. I control when to grow the fur, and whether it will be black or gray. Can you change the color in your hair?”
“No. And I can’t grow it as fast as you, either.”
“We kobalin adapt,” he said proudly. “You would not live well in the wild places,” he added.
“Probably not.”
He nodded toward Kyrkenall. “He seems with no cheer. Is there a reason?”
“He’s kind of an ass,” she decided.
Ortok laughed. “Do you wish to challenge him?”
“No. I don’t think I do.”
“You should save challenge words until you do, then, so no one will think you rude.”
She considered that little kernel of wisdom, then wondered how it was she was so often being schooled in courtesy by a creature who had only slept once in a bed. “What do you say to a leader who’s rude?”
“You must decide whether their guidance is worthy of enduring disrespect from them, or whether they should be challenged. But that may not be the way of your people. I have seen. You do not challenge properly. You do not exchange blows or even trade leadership when you win. It is strange.”
She didn’t know how to explain all the societal niceties and particulars, and wasn’t in the mood to try in any case, so she fell silent, fearing for the people of Alantris. The Naor, she remembered, had intended the same thing for her own city, and if not for their desperate efforts, Vedessus now would be a place of horror.
At length they passed a dark little lake before which other ko’aye hunched over the bodies of lanky, long-limbed beasts and tore at their flesh. She didn’t get a clear idea of what the prey animals looked like until she saw a distant herd of the green-backed, long-necked creatures watching the carnage. Even when the things bent to graze, a pair of sensory organs remained upright to scan the horizon. She found those eyestalks faintly unsettling.
They continued following their reluctant airborne guides, and the character of the land grew rocky once more. As they headed up a scree-strewn slope, Elenai spotted dozens of ko’aye swooping over the hills ahead. She marveled a little to see so many of the creatures on
the wing. Most were of gray and blue hues, but many were dappled with splashes of gold or silver, or splotched with tan and brown.
“This is a bad place to be if they grow angry,” Ortok mused. “There are many claws here.”
Neither she nor Kyrkenall answered. Deep as they were in ko’aye territory and surrounded by them, Ortok’s comment was understatement. Should the ko’aye turn on them, they stood no chance.
Drusa returned and landed fifty yards ahead, saying nothing as she led them through a narrow pass in the hills. Beyond it they could see a vast clear spot in the rocks surrounded on all sides by ledge-studded cliffs. Ko’aye were settling onto both the ledges and a grand collection of natural, narrow rock columns rising three and four stories above the stony ground, arrayed in front of the cliffs.
Drusa paused before descending into the area, looking over one hunched shoulder and raising her voice. “Your kobalin must remain here, with the horses. I am to translate whatever words you bring us. I hope that they are good ones.” Drusa then tread downslope toward a clear space before the columns.
Kyrkenall slipped off Lyria and patted her neck while he considered the hostile audience that awaited them. He turned to Elenai and Ortok. “You heard her, Ortok. Can you keep a watch on the horses?”
“What if you do not come back?” Ortok asked. “It shall be hard to avenge you against so many.”
Kyrkenall quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t bother avenging me.” He glanced at Elenai, then down into the gathering. “Just get yourself back to N’lahr and tell him what happened. See if you can get Lyria back alive, too.” He gave his mount a final pat. “She’s a wonderful horse.”
Lyria tossed her head at him, flashing a brown eye.
“I will.”
Kyrkenall turned and started away.
Elenai gave a half wave to Ortok, then walked at the archer’s side down the slope after Drusa.
“What, no questions?” Kyrkenall asked softly. “No advice?”
Was he trying to needle her into a conflict? Now? “You didn’t want any.”
He grunted. “Kalandra would have insisted.”
“I’m not Kalandra. Did you want me to come up with something? Because this isn’t a game. We could have talked about it.”
“Yes.”
She wasn’t sure what that yes was about, but she didn’t ask, for they’d come up to Drusa, waiting for them with her gold-brown eyes unwinking. Maybe it was a neutral look. Or maybe she was tense and sad. Elenai couldn’t tell how much she was reading into the ko’aye’s appearance.
“They will speak first,” Drusa said. “I urge profound courtesy. You have few who do not wish you ill, Kyrkenall.”
Elenai chose then to reach out to N’lahr’s stone. Now she found him drinking from a waterskin. Evening had come to The Fragments, and the sun was half hidden behind a nearby mountain spur.
It’s nearly time, she told him.
He called to Gyldara, standing nearby, that he’d need to be undisturbed for a few moments, then retreated to a tent.
Perhaps if you closed your eyes, she told him, it would be easier for us both. Seeing both his view and her own was distracting.
Good idea.
They followed Drusa the rest of the way in, crossing through the shadows of the stone pillars where close to two dozen ko’aye perched. To her eyes they looked lean, and strained. The columns they sat upon were only a little thicker than those fronting the great temple of Darassa, but rose to varied heights. The smallest towered easily twenty feet from the ground and the highest almost double that.
Hundreds more of the avians waited along the tiered cliff ledges behind the pillars. This apparently wasn’t going to be a conference with leaders alone, but the whole of their adult population. That, she thought, probably didn’t bode well.
The ko’aye blinked rarely, and under so many protracted, focused gazes, Elenai wondered if this is how a rabbit felt when watched by hawks.
Some of the ko’aye she supposed for flock leaders preened their feathers. Others clicked and cawed to themselves. The majority, though, continued to watch, and the most golden-hued of these finally gave out a shrill alert that brought the others to quiet, then peered down with lowered brow and gabbled in its high-pitched tongue.
Drusa translated. “You have come without welcome, so the wing guard is uncertain how to greet your coming. He says that you should say your words quickly so that you do not waste much of their time.”
“Is that Seneksa?”
Drusa cocked her head a little. “Yes. Do not think that will help you.”
Seeing that Kyrkenall readied himself for a bow, Elenai joined him, so that their movement was perfectly synchronized. The archer then threw back his head, and called up to the golden one and the assembled leaders. “My heart soars to see so many of you once more.”
Drusa emitted a stream of clicks and tweets and continued to do so as Kyrkenall finished each phrase.
“Some of you have shed blood with me. Some of you know I risked my life at your side, to defend you. I know that your memories are long, and no matter what has happened since, you remember how we slew enemies together. How you protected me from our enemies. How I fended hunters from Seneksa’s young.”
Elenai sensed N’lahr’s approval of that.
After Drusa’s translation there was extended conversation among those upon the columns until golden Seneksa silenced them.
A black one called down in a voice so heavily accented with warbles and chirps Elenai had a hard time understanding it. “We remember! But there is much we remember, Kyrkenall!”
Another one shouted down in its own language, which Drusa translated with seeming displeasure. “We remember your betrayal.”
Kyrkenall looked undeterred. “Do you remember how we flew against the Naor over the bright fields of Kanesh? Do you recall when Drusa and I landed amidst their numbers to rescue Ekatrin and his mate? How he lived to foster a clutch of hatchlings? I am your friend! My enemies betrayed me, just as they betrayed you! They lied to me, as they lied to you! They told me my brother of the ring was dead! N’lahr, who led us to victories! N’lahr, who counseled with your greatest warriors! Our enemies hid N’lahr away and made peace with the Naor so they could steal what they wished for themselves!”
The ko’aye chattered at this.
Kyrkenall gave them a moment to quiet. “With N’lahr gone my queen put Denaven in charge, and he lied to you! But that speaker of lies has died, and Elenai slew him with her own hand!” Kyrkenall paused to look at her. “N’lahr commands again! He never broke his promise to you, and he means to honor it now that he is free!”
Only a little noise greeted this. Elenai wasn’t sure whether to be cheered or concerned by that.
He’s doing fairly well, N’lahr observed. But he needs to get to the point. Elenai had to agree.
Drusa continued to translate as Kyrkenall spoke with greater confidence. “Even now N’lahr leads a mighty army against the Naor. Already uncounted thousands have been killed by him, with us at his side. If you fly to the battle site you would see no sign of skulls, the Naor prize, but a pyre of dead Naor wide as this clearing!”
The wind riders quieted altogether. They craned their necks.
“We will defeat the Naor! Come fight them with us in The Fragments, and we will help you take back your lands!”
From the right a harsh voice croaked down, “This was promised before.”
Elenai swung around to observe a white ko’aye with bronze feathertips. Vavesh.
Vavesh’s head shook slowly on the end of his neck. “It’s too late, Kyrkenall. The time has passed.”
The ko’aye shrilled at one another then, in disordered cacophony. Elenai waited for a pause, then saw that most of those on the columns were no longer even looking at their human guests, for they were fully absorbed in a vigorous debate.
“What are they saying?” Kyrkenall asked Drusa.
“Some of the young ones want to fight the Naor. O
thers want to see lands rich with game that elders told of.”
“And what do the old ones say?”
“That you lie.”
“All of them say that?” Kyrkenall sounded surprised.
Drusa’s head bobbed, and she continued sadly: “Some of them say you may not lie but cannot be trusted still. They are curious about Elenai and wonder if she is strong enough to kill Denaven, the Oath Breaker. He was a worker of magics.”
“Do you wonder?” Elenai asked.
“No,” Drusa answered gravely. “I think that you have done it. Kyrkenall would not say it if not true. And there is an aura of power about you.”
There was? She bowed her head in acknowledgment of the compliment, and Drusa returned it minutely.
Seneksa, leader of the ko’aye, had at last quieted his flock, and spoke at length while Drusa translated.
“Kyrkenall, all that you say may be true. Many of us believe that it is so. But who is to say that others will not kill N’lahr again and you will disappear once more?”
“If N’lahr falls,” Kyrkenall said, his eyes bright, “I will lead you to your lands myself, and fight the Naor until they’re dead or I have perished in the battle. I swear it by the ring that blazes upon my finger.”
It was such an impassioned, heartfelt pledge that Elenai sucked in a breath. “I swear as well!”
The archer spoke on. “N’lahr will ask this oath of all who wear the ring, and all they command. But no matter what you decide, you should know that with the Naor on the march, the lands they claim will have few protectors. It seems an excellent time to take back your home.”
One ko’aye flew down from its cave and soared past those upon the columns, clacking and chirping and moving its legs in a slashing motion. More outcries arose from the ko’aye, and soon it was clear that another argument was under way.
“What’s happening?” Elenai asked Drusa.
“That is Lelaren, the one who wished to attack you earlier. Some are shouting him down for his rudeness, for he is supposed to let his sentinel speak for him, and he said that they are all too pleasant with you. Now others join in … it is hard to follow.” Drusa fell silent, her head cocking as she listened. Finally Lelaren retreated to the cliff top, where he hunched like a vulture. The tumult calmed, and then a brown one spoke down to Drusa, who relayed its words.
Upon the Flight of the Queen Page 26