When Varama finally broke away, a smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. “It is good to be so well loved, Rylin. Thank you for that. As for how we survived, the Goddess had little interest in me once I closed the portal. After watching Rialla do it, and holding open Cerai’s, I imagined I could accomplish the opening of one, but it took me some time to develop a safe method given our circumstances and the limited power available.”
“You seem to have figured it out now,” the blood mage said. He sounded both impressed and pained.
Varama faced him, her expression shifting to one of deadly seriousness. “It’s said blood mages can contact people across vast distances without a hearthstone. Is that something you can do?”
“It is,” Muragan answered with weary curiosity.
He looked as though he meant to say more, but by then the workers were calling to them, asking how they’d gotten there, and if the battle was won. He glanced over at them.
“You are healthy still?” Varama asked.
“I already feel better, thank you.”
Varama returned to her main concern. “The land treaders, they serve as sort of sorcerous batteries for your spells. Will you have to kill one for a sending?”
“It may not kill one,” Muragan answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Because we have to contact Elenai, and quickly. How well do you have to know a person to send to them?”
Once again Rylin was astonished by the speed with which Varama developed a new idea and implemented it. Behind them, Thelar addressed the workers, explaining that the war still waged without providing expansive details.
“Do you know approximately where she might be?” Muragan asked.
“The wastelands of Kanesh,” Varama answered.
“I’ve never been to the wastelands,” Muragan said. “But I’ve passed through Kanesh. It might be possible.”
“I don’t need ‘might be’s.” Varama said. “I need you to find a way. The hearthstones have grown too dangerous to use.”
Muragan cleared his throat. “Very well. I will find a way.”
“Good. It must be your priority. Contact me when you’re ready.”
Lelanc circled low, asking what she should do, and Rylin called for her to seek food and rest. The squires had set up a rookery for them on the palace grounds after the battle of Darassus, and he presumed it was still there. He raised a hand in farewell as she flapped off. A moment later Drusa followed her.
He turned to Varama. “What are we going to do about the chaos spirits? Should we make more stones and try to capture them once more?”
“I think we shall have what we need without them,” Varama said. “And we are short on time in any case.”
Thelar formally greeted Varama with a salute and a bow of his head. “We’d been told you were dead, Alten. I’m glad that was wrong.”
Rylin felt a pang of guilt for having intentionally kept information to the contrary from him.
The exalt reported the good news he’d learned from the workers: Tretton, Gyldara, and the Darassan troops had returned to Darassus, along with some Kaneshi cavalry.
Varama led them through the rubble on stage and out through a rear ramp. Soon they were on their way toward the city wall. After a brief consultation with Varama, Vannek and Muragan made their farewells and hurried off on their mounts.
“What happened back there after we left the paradise realm?” Rylin asked. Thelar, riding on Varama’s other side, listened intently with him as she summarized her encounter with an incurious goddess and her long journey upon the white road with Vannek and Muragan. She then informed them N’lahr had developed a plan that would get them free of Cerai, explaining in brief about the commander’s connection to a hearthstone shard.
They neared the main gate to Darassus. The repairs had advanced in the intervening days, for new stones had almost completely replaced those blasted during the Naor attack. More startling was the presence of men who almost certainly were Naor, for few Darassan men wore beards. They were passing stones along to hoists and clambering along the scaffolding as though they belonged there.
“Someone is showing foresight,” Varama said. “I wonder who decided to incorporate the Naor into the building crew?”
A horn call sounded from the gate tower, the high clear notes announcing the arrival of Altenerai. The call was taken up deeper in the city, which meant a bugler on duty within the palace had repeated it. Over the last years the queen had dispensed with that formality, and it pleased Rylin to hear it again.
“More foresight,” Varama said in approval, then patted her frizzy locks.
“It’s pulled to the left,” Rylin said.
“Thank you.” Varama produced a brush from an inside pocket, unfolded the handle, and set quickly to work with the curling mass of hair. “Better?” she asked.
Rylin nodded approval.
She halted before advancing through the opening gate and eyed them both. “Now we must make haste. For a short time we have Cerai at a disadvantage. We need to act before she knows it. Both our enemies suffer from the same weakness: arrogance. And that shall prove a tremendous advantage.” She turned to acknowledge the salute from the gate guards, then led them into the city.
29
What the Future Holds
The dragon was sleek and rippling with muscles beneath its gleaming scales, a tidy nightmare of shadow and fang, small only in comparison to the others Vannek had seen, for it towered over the surrounding tents even when lying on its belly, crunching a bloody cow carcass.
When the other dragons had been eating, they had only responded if something to eat or drink was placed directly in front of them. The rest of the time they merely lay in place until one of the mages commanded them.
This one kept looking over at him and his bodyguard as it chewed, its expression unreadable.
It crunched through a bone so thick it must have been a part of the bovine pelvis. He liked this dragon. It seemed strong. Muragan’s two assistants had ably completed the job of healing it, and he hadn’t been certain of their abilities.
Only a short while later, he stood before his remaining soldiers, facing him in a half circle. There was no stage, only a chair, which he climbed on to be better seen. Few were here. Some of his people remained within Cerai’s fortress, and some were out among the Dendressi. He’d initially been surprised to hear how many volunteered to rebuild the walls they’d dreamed for years of tearing down, but on further reflection it made sense. They were receiving more than food and wine—they had found a purpose through which they could forge fellowships. Men need community.
Those left before him weren’t smart enough to recognize the need, or bold enough to seek its fulfillment on their own. He’d have to connect them, despite their vices and prejudices. He’d have to provide both motive and method to move them.
He gathered his thoughts and began to speak. “Twice now our forces and the Dendressi battled the queen and the sorcerous thing she summoned. In the first battle, we struck by surprise and destroyed her followers. I took the queen’s head. But her sorcery was mighty and the death goddess she called up flew away, killing the very land she moved over. If the Goddess is allowed to live, she will destroy every realm, from here to the Baneridge Mountains. Nothing will remain. No crops, no beasts, no people. Nothing. Which is why we must ready ourselves for battle.”
His soldiers listened in stunned silence. “Most of the men who went with me are still alive, but they’re in a fortress with Anzat, and Anzat has allied with a mad Dendressi exile who wants the death god’s power for herself. I mean to get them free of her. To be clear,” he said, “we face a demon goddess on one hand and a sorceress on the other. You might wonder what ordinary warriors like you and me can do against these creatures. But I think the mages count too much on their sorcery. The right blade, at the right time, can make the difference. I mean us to be that difference. Let the Dendressi fight with their magic. When the time is right, and the opening is there
, we will be the sharp blade! We will draw the blood and strike down our foes!”
They stirred at that. He wished he had more to tell them. “Gather provisions. Hone your swords. Sharpen your spearpoints. We must be ready to march at a moment’s notice. When the time comes, I will lead the way.”
The cheer that greeted that final pronouncement surprised him, and he stood looking out at their glad faces, pretending he understood their acclaim.
Vannek did not let them cheer long. At his signal, they slowly quieted, and then his bodyguard dismissed them. After taking status reports from their leaders, Vannek joined Muragan, who was kneeling in the dirt.
The blood mage had burned away a wide swathe of grass, assisted by the scrawny low-level apprentices. They were the only surviving Naor mages from the battle of Darassus, for they’d been left with the trailing baggage. Muragan wielded a sharpened spear to incise intricate runes, lines, and circles into the black earth.
One of the land treaders munched on a heap of hay nearby. The mound of manure behind the animal was already almost a third the size of the fodder in front.
“Quite a stench,” Vannek observed.
Muragan only seemed to notice him then. The blood mage’s face was still pale after the attack of the chaos spirit, and Vannek would have asked how he felt, if he hadn’t worried about making him look weak in front of the assistants.
“When I told them to bring the beast I should have had them move it farther off,” Muragan said. “But we’re almost ready now.”
Vannek again scanned the two assistants, and once more was underwhelmed by their appearance. But these two, after all, had finished healing that dragon based only on advance instruction from Muragan. “How is this pair doing?”
“They’re better than nothing,” Muragan said, which Vannek knew to be a compliment.
The apprentices strove to pretend they hadn’t heard, but there was no missing the prideful way both raised their heads.
“How likely is this summoning to work?” Vannek asked.
“There is always some risk with such attempts,” Muragan admitted.
“How much risk will you be under?” Vannek hadn’t meant to reveal his own concern, but the blood mage heard it in his voice anyway and looked up at him. Vannek kept his expression bland.
“I’m taking appropriate precautions. I would like it far, far better if I knew Queen Elenai’s precise location, and if she knew I’d be contacting her. But this may work regardless. I’m honestly surprised the Dendressi even considered the idea.”
“It’s that Varama. I think she’s desperate.”
“Desperate, or inventive?” Muragan asked.
“Both.”
“You look terrible,” Muragan said quietly, almost solicitously. “You should rest.”
That familiarity set Vannek scowling. Did he think they were friends and equals? That he would trust anything the mage told him without due consideration? He had never yet provided a believable explanation about his almost selfless devotion.
Vannek came very close to reminding the mage of his place. And then he saw just how slowly Muragan climbed to his feet, and that he was so pale even the blue of his eyes seemed lighter, and despite his natural inclinations he felt a contrary impulse and spoke to it with very little forethought. “You’re pale and sweating,” he said brusquely. “Turn things over to your apprentices and rest.”
The blood mage frowned, but as he walked toward another batch of lines and lowered his spear, his hand trembled. He swore lightly. “Perhaps you’re right, Lord General.”
“Come. You can brief me while you recuperate.”
After some curt instructions about deepening the lines without lengthening them, Muragan followed Vannek to the general’s tent.
Vannek found himself offering the man some of Chargan’s wine. Much as he hated to admit it, he’d grown fond of the stuff while drinking with Rylin. He passed it over, then sat on the stool across from the mage. The tent was dim, apart from the sunlight streaming in from the smoke opening in the center of the roof.
“Thank you, my liege. This is fine wine.”
Vannek nodded his agreement.
“Did you want a briefing?” Muragan asked. “There’s not much you don’t know.”
“What I want is a real answer.” He spoke slowly, the way his father had when he was serious, without sounding stern. “You’ve served me loyally, yet I still don’t know why. And don’t tell me it’s because I’m your liege.”
“You have vision, and tenacity.” Muragan wiped his brow.
“You could have blended in with the Dendressi long ago. You said so.”
“Could I? Maybe. But maybe I’m tired of pretending. I’d come all this way to find Chargan, only to learn when I got here we’d lost again, and Chargan was dead. I thought I would see what you were like before I walked away from it all.” He laughed to himself. “I thought I might even mold you, but this pot’s already fired. You have greatness in you, Vannek.”
It was the first time Muragan had ever called him by name, all the more surprising because of the blood mage’s piercing gaze. He continued: “You’re the only one of your father’s brood with his instincts.”
“You knew my father?”
Muragan nodded slowly, gravely. “He was our future. Even Mazakan knew it. Men followed your grandfather out of duty and fear. They followed your father out of devotion. He inspired everyone he met, no matter their tribe. You have some of that same gift. Your brothers were fools not to see it.”
“It’s because of my woman’s shape,” Vannek said in disgust.
“More fools us, then. We can learn from the Dendressi, who make space for women to counsel, and to war, and to lead. They do not have to pretend to be men, because they can take whatever path they excel on.”
Vannek mulled over the gentlest criticism he’d yet heard of his choice. “My spirit feels like a man’s spirit,” he said at last.
“If true, then you’re as much a man as I. Maybe more. But perhaps that’s because you don’t know what a woman’s spirit feels like when it’s not trapped in Naor roles.”
“That might be right,” Vannek conceded. “I know the only person I’ve ever desired was a man. If I truly had a man’s spirit, I would only like women.”
“That’s not true,” Muragan said with a laugh. “N’lahr’s a man, isn’t he? Perhaps the best man among all the Dendressi. But he’s loved men and women.”
Vannek was surprised someone so highly placed had swallowed such nonsense. “Those are just lies grandfather told to make the Dendressi look weak.”
“No, those are stories even the Dendressi know. It’s not a secret, General. Their only taboos are underage or underpowered mates, and rape. Anything between equal adults who both want it is fine by them. They never say, ‘oh, that’s a man-loving Altenerai.’ Nobody cares.”
“Are N’lahr and Kyrkenall lovers?” Vannek asked. “That man is beautiful as any woman.”
Muragan laughed with more gusto. “You’re too ready to judge by appearances, still! Like someone would do with you. Kyrkenall only wants women. But does that matter, should it matter? Knowing this, don’t you still respect him and N’lahr both?”
It was then Vannek finally guessed the truth. “You’re a man lover, aren’t you?”
He saw the guess had hit home. Muragan eyed him warily.
“By the Three,” Vannek said slowly. “Why didn’t you go hide among the Dendressi years ago?”
“Because I’m not Dendressi, am I?”
“No. You’re Naor. And so am I. That just means more than it did before.”
“I would like to think so. Our people would be stronger with more hands and heads allowed to join in the work.”
“Yes. Yes, they will.” He put his own hand to the mage’s shoulder. “Let’s get you back to work on that circle.”
“I’ve said too much.” Muragan shook his head.
“No,” Vannek told him gently. “You’ve given me the t
ruth and that’s a crafting material. Now let’s go. We have to win one more battle before we can bring any future to life.”
30
The Queen in Blood
Rylin found it sheer joy to drop into the warm water of the Altenerai baths, and almost agony to depart, but he forced himself not to linger. Once he dried off, he found Thelar risen from his own bath and changing into the garments squires had laid out for them, uniform pants and shirts and extra footgear. While they’d permitted their khalats to be cleaned, neither man had turned over their blades, and they wore them as they headed upstairs.
Three figures stood at the duty desk in heated conversation with the squire behind it. The man at the forefront seemed frustrated he could not speak with Alten Varama, or someone, anyone, who could provide information he sought.
Rylin reluctantly accepted he’d have to volunteer himself, then turned at a shout from behind.
“Alten Rylin! Sir!”
Squire Donahla, of the second rank, jogged up to him. The short-haired brunette drew to a stop and presented him with a formal salute.
Rylin and Thelar returned it.
“At ease,” Rylin said.
The young woman looked anything but. “I’m glad to see you, sir,” she said. “And you, Commander.”
“Exalt will do,” Thelar said. “N’lahr is our commander.”
Donahla’s head bobbed nervously, and she tried, failed, then successfully brought her eyes up to meet Rylin’s. “You may hear rumors of things I’ve said. Terrible things. About you. I’m sorry.”
When the Goddess Wakes Page 33