The Wood shuddered with the pound of marching feet. Trees turned to look and saw shadows moving beneath their branches, following that Path which made the whole of the Wood shrink and draw away in terror, hiding itself from view and reach. And so there was only the swirling mist of the Dream to shroud the evil Path. The Chhayans passed between the worlds, following the lead of the young dragon at their head. He felt the power of all his people behind him. Men of blood, men of the plains, men of brutal intent. He felt them behind him like a surging tidal wave, and he knew that nothing could turn back the coming destruction.
He put up a hand. He felt the power of all the Chhayans become his own when they, seeing that gesture, stopped. The Path shuddered with the force of their feet coming to rest all at the same moment, and the silence of their collected waiting was deafening.
The young dragon turned and faced them. And, because the Between is not like the Near World, he felt as though he could look into every single face of all those thousands individually, at the same moment. So it was to each man personally that he spoke.
“The Kitar dogs must die.”
As one motion, they brought their hands together about their weapons: swords, lances, spears, clubs, axes. As one voice, they echoed his: “Die!”
“The Kitar dogs must die,” the young dragon repeated.
“Die!”
“The Kitar dogs must die!”
“Die!”
“Die!”
“Die!”
Now their voices rolled together into the various battle cries of their clans, and the Between was filled with their roaring, tearing, animalistic thunder. And before each clan chief, a doorway into the Near World opened. Each chief saw the city of Lunthea Maly before his eyes, the winding streets leading up to the palace on the hill above. Save for one chief, who saw the darkness of a dungeon cell and knew that he and his men should have the first taste of Kitar blood upon their blades.
A doorway appeared before the young dragon as well, and he licked a long forked tongue across his teeth at the sight. He felt his man’s form giving way, felt the sinuous power of his true form, his dragon’s body, taking over. It was agony and it was glory all rolled into one.
“Go!” he shouted, and his voice was a roar, and fire burst from his throat.
“Go!” the Chhayan chieftains bellowed, and rushed forward to their various doors.
The young dragon dove out of the Path and into the darkness of a heavy night, into the disgusting, cloying mortality of the Near World. His wings pounded the air and the dust of the street, and he took to the sky. In a vertiginous spiral, he climbed into the night, snarling at the stars above him, at the moon herself. What fools the Chhayans had been to worship her all those long generations! But no more. Tonight they would prove the might of their hearts, the strength of their arms. No more pitiful, prayerful pleas to a goddess who did not care. No more songs and chants for deliverance from an enemy she always favored. They would take back what belonged to them.
Never in his life had the young dragon been more Chhayan than he was as he spread wide his wings, caught the rising heat of an updraft, and circled slowly, high above the city. Lunthea Maly was but a child’s toy, and he would play as he liked tonight. He saw the Chhayan chieftains and their armies emerging from the Between at different points all around the city, surrounding the palace and the temple. He saw the flash of the Long Fire as they shot the first of their rocket-arrows into the roofs of civilian houses, and soon the city was alive with fire. But the stone walls of Manusbau itself would be far too strong for those small flames.
The young dragon smiled. So much of what had been Sunan was lost. His fire was too great to allow for remnant shreds of humanity. Every time he flamed, every time he took on this powerful, horn-crowned form that was the truth of him now, more of the man was demolished, swallowed up, and forgotten.
Nevertheless, as he tilted his wings and sped down from the heavens, swooping toward the massive palace walls, the shining towers of the Kitar emperor which would soon go up like matchsticks under his flame, he remembered his brother’s words to him, spoken what seemed an age ago now:
“You rose up in the form of a dragon. A great, fire-filled dragon, Sunan, such as the legends speak of! And you were mighty, and you were beautiful, and all who saw you trembled, even our father. You were terrible in the eyes of the Khla warriors, and you led them into battle.”
At the memory of his brother’s voice, the fire swelled so greatly in the young dragon’s breast that he had to give it vent. He opened his mouth and, as he flashed past the great south gate of the palace, he blasted it with all the force of his hatred. The gate, built of stone and age-hardened wood, burst under the intensity of that blast. The wood caught flame, and the stone melted, and men fled screaming or were consumed.
The young dragon smiled as he gained altitude again. But then he looked back, his long neck twisting grotesquely over his shoulder. He pivoted in the air and hung suspended on the night sky, staring down at the wreckage he had caused. He saw the Seh Clan swarming up from the streets, making for the break in the wall, their rockets firing as tiny mimics of his own great blast. They would burn themselves and even die in the poison of dragon vapors as they sought to burst through.
But there was something wrong. The young dragon snarled with anger as he realized.
The Kitar dogs were not taken by surprise. The emperor’s mighty battalions led by various warlords gathered in formation. Their armor, structured according to all the most advanced designs of the known world, shone in the firelight. They lined themselves up in defense against the oncoming Chhayan barbarians clad in leather and furs. And the Chhayans, burning up with rage, flung themselves upon those armor walls and broke and died.
The surprise had not succeeded. The Kitar were prepared.
Fury burst from the young dragon, from his eyes and his nostrils and his gaping mouth. Like a demon from the deepest pit he fell, streaking through the darkness, and set upon the wall again, breaking and melting it wherever his fire struck. He felt arrows biting like gnats, pinging ineffectually off his scales. One brave Kitar warrior stood his ground under the dragon’s approach. The dragon saw the wide whites of his eyes just before he was engulfed in fire. But before the fire took his life, he flung a spear with dreadful accuracy. The dragon felt the spear bite down into the softer flesh around his eyes. One small variation in its flight, and the spear would have pierced the eye itself.
Roaring in fury, the dragon soared up again, tearing at his face, tearing away the spear. He watched as other Chhayan clans swarmed over the breaks in the walls. He watched them hurl themselves at the Kitar front, watched them driven back, slowly, into the gaps.
Sunan had never cared, or had pretended never to care, for his father’s dream. He had never been truly Chhayan. But the young dragon was not Sunan. Not anymore.
“We will not lose this night,” he swore. Even as archers filled the air with clouds of arrows aimed at his wings and soft underbelly, he swept over the walls and into the broad grounds of Manusbau. All was alight with war and fear, but in the sprawling gardens he found a dark place, and there he landed and assumed his man’s form once more. Keeping to the shadows, moving with the strange subtlety of a shade, he ran. And warriors searching for the great, snakelike body of a monster from myth did not turn or look his way. He did not wear the armor of a Chhayan, and might easily be mistaken in his tattered Pen-Chan robes for some slave of the household.
So he gained access to the main structure of Manusbau, the emperor’s own hall. Sunan may have paused, gasped, and been overawed by the beauty and magnificence of the Anuk’s abode. But the dragon neither saw nor cared. Still skulking through the deeper shadows, avoiding detection, he slipped through the gilded halls, following his nose and his hatred. These led him unerringly to a massive red and gold-plated door. When he pushed this open, he stood on the threshold of the emperor’s throne room.
It was dark. Very different from the cham
ber it had been the afternoon before when the emperor sat and listened to the complaints and arguments of his gathered court. All was heavy with shadows and gloom, for none of the massive lanterns had been lit. Only a small lamp, burning bright at its spout, stood at the opposite end of the chamber at the feet of the emperor, who sat upon his throne. The gleaming lamplight shone upon the blade of his sword, which rested across his knees.
The emperor sat with his head bowed in an attitude of prayer. One hand lay on the hilt of his sword. The other hand rested upon his heart.
Sunan had never cared about the fate of the Emperor of Noorhitam. He had never been Chhayan enough, never been truly his father’s son. But he cared with all the intensity of passionate loathing for his brother Jovann. And once more that night, he recalled what Jovann had told him.
“I saw myself standing before the Emperor of Noorhitam, and I knew it was he, though I have never seen his face. He sat weak before me, pleading. Begging me for something I could not hear. But I was strong, and I stood before him, ragged Chhayan that I am. I saw it, Sunan, as clearly as I see you now. More clearly even! And I know it will come to pass.”
But it would not come to pass. For it was not Jovann who would stand in power before the pleading Anuk Anwar.
“I have taken everything from you now, my brother,” the young dragon whispered even as he slipped into the hall and pulled the heavy door shut behind him. The emperor did not raise his gaze or move even so much as a flickering eyelid. “I have taken everything from you. Your father. Your inheritance. Your power. I have even taken your dream. You have become nothing. I have become everything.”
With each word he took a step, and so he crossed the hall. He still wore the form of a man, but fire spilled in liquid heat down from the tear ducts of his eyes, trailing burns across his skin, and more fire trickled from the corners of his mouth. He was a monster nightmarish to behold, the stuff of the most evil, most poisonous dreams. He reached the steps leading up to the emperor’s throne and took the first one.
But he did not take a second. For Princess Safiya’s blade sliced through the shadows and across his throat.
The Chhayan heartbeats all around were no temptation to the raven as it followed the Seh Clan warriors along their Path. The warriors had marched this Path too many times, and there was too much death in their hearts. The raven liked living hearts pulsing with living blood.
A tongue flickered between the cruel curves of its beak, tasting the bloodlust all around. Its master had given it no duty or task, so it had taken to the air and followed the warriors, eager to have its own part in the night’s coming terrors. It was no great beast like the brilliant young dragon, and its feathers were not armor-plated. But it knew that where they were going it would find plenty of soft flesh. Plenty of young beating hearts.
“The Kitar dogs must die!” rang the battle cry. But the raven did not care for that. Nor did it concern itself with tactics or strategies. It merely watched for the doorway nearest to its goal. And when the portal opened, it darted ahead of all the others into the mortal realm.
It was a little surprised to find that the portal opened into black, close, underground space. But its surprise did not last long. It liked blackness, and while it didn’t care for the confines of stone and dirt all around, it could feel the faint wisps of air flowing down from some opening above. It would find access to the upper world.
So the raven flitted ahead of the Chhayans into the winding dungeon passages. And it was first to realize that it was a trap.
The raw shriek of the raven startled the Kitar men braced in the narrow passage behind many layers of shields, but they held their ground. And the next moment they saw by the dim light of the lantern at the end of the passage the first shadowy forms of their oncoming enemies. So the impossible had happened! Somehow the Chhayan dog-men had found a breach beneath the temple walls and infiltrated the dungeons! It was no hoax, no distracting ploy, but a real threat. And one for which they were, however unwillingly, prepared.
The first of the shadows stopped in its tracks. He had no chance to cry out a warning to the brothers at his back before he was cut down by the waiting Kitar soldier forefront in the line.
Then the battle truly began. The lantern swinging up above cast the blood-spilling in rage-hewed highlights, and the roars of furious men deafened the ears of all within the dungeon passages. Chhayans poured from the lowly chamber into which their portal had opened, refusing to retreat, pressing up against the wall of Kitar warriors until the bodies of both sides were piled too high. But the Chhayans grabbed the dead by their ankles and tossed them back through the portal into the abyss of the Dragon’s Path, and so cleared a way for themselves.
The battle spread, for the Chhayans were far more determined than the Kitar had expected, pushing back the defenders into the dungeon passages. Torches were lit to illuminate the fight, and many men were burned in the close confines, while others clung to the darkness which, while blind, was somehow safer. But though the Chhayans battled with a will, they could not breach the Kitar front and gain access to the temple grounds above.
The raven watched all from a secret alcove, violent eyes searching out the first opportunity it might seize. The bodies of the slain littering the passage floor did not tempt it in the least. They were dead and unappetizing. Nor did it crave the hardened flesh of warriors.
Suddenly, the raven’s serpentine tongue caught a taste on the air that it liked much better. A living taste and much younger, much softer. Its gaze pierced through the heavy mortal darkness and saw a figure darting into the near-deserted passage in which the raven hid.
Sairu, her forehead boasting a line of blood from a either a Kitar or Chhayan weapon—it was impossible to tell in the dark—slipped around the corner of the outer passage, her eyes wide with a terror that was new to her: the terror of battle in close spaces. Had she known, had she realized into what horror she plunged, she would never have found the courage to enter the dungeons beneath the Crown of the Moon, no matter how driving her need.
But she had done it. And somehow, though it should have been impossible, she had slipped through both the Kitar defense and the Chhayan assault, navigating narrower passages though which the armored men could not fit. It was as though a path were made especially for her, and no one could follow her, no one could intervene. The cat, she knew, was somewhere close, but she could not see him when she looked, so she focused her gaze ahead.
The din of battle and the roar of Long Fire explosions up above rang in her ears. But with some sense deeper still, she felt or heard the nearness of the portal, the nearness of other worlds. If the Chhayans were indeed using a portal in the dungeons to access this world (and Jovann wouldn’t lie . . . he wouldn’t!), surely that same portal must lead back from whence they came.
Back to Ay-Ibunda.
She paused as she entered the passage, nausea threatening to overwhelm her at the sight of the carnage between her and the cell door she must achieve. But there was something more, something even more dreadful than all this near death.
The raven in the shadows breathed a hiss of delight. Sairu could not hear it. But she felt it, and she brandished her knife just in time as the raven swooped down at her head. The blade caught among black feathers and tore several away even as the raven altered its course, dodging a more fatal blow. With a roar that was not at all avian, the raven pivoted in midair and dove again, aiming for Sairu’s eye.
Sairu ducked, avoiding the blow that would surely have torn her eye from its socket. But her foot caught on the body of a fallen warrior, and she fell, tumbling among the corpses. Her knife was lost, never to be found again.
She rolled with difficulty, her hand reaching up her sleeve for her second knife. She would not have drawn it in time, for the raven was even now in its dive, this time aiming for her beating heart.
But suddenly there was a flash of golden eyes. The cat leapt up and caught the raven between its paws, dragging it down to the dungeon
floor in a mound of black feathers and orange fur. The raven shrieked, and the cat yeowled, and the light of the lantern flickered so wildly that Sairu could not see what transpired.
There was a dreadful stillness. Then: “Dragons blast it all!”
“Monster?” she gasped, pulling herself up from among the fallen dead and searching for the cat.
“I lost it,” the cat growled, his eyes glowing with their own light as he turned them up to her face. “It slipped my grasp and fled up the tunnel. Nasty demon, not what I expected to find down here! Should I pursue it?”
“No,” said Sairu, turning even as she spoke toward the cell in which Jovann had been so recently held captive. “We’re too close. Hurry.”
The cat sprang up and followed at her heels, crying out as he did so, “I think I know your plan! It’s a fool’s errand at best, but I’ll follow you to the end. I swear it!”
Sairu made no response. She leapt over bodies and nearly fell, catching herself on the doorway into the cell. She gazed inside and once more nearly lost her courage.
The crack in the worlds was open still, though no more Chhayans passed through. Sairu had never imagined—could never have imagined—what it would be like to stare out of her world into another. Everything she knew, the tower of training and precision she had built in her mind over all the years of her life, crashed down in ruins, leaving her, for a moment at least, truly insane. For a mortal cannot look upon such a sight without tasting of insanity.
But with the madness came a rush of something like courage. Gripping her remaining knife tight in her hand, she leapt across the cell and through that crack, and the cat sprang through behind her.
The moment Sairu passed through the gate, she plunged into darkness. She tried to scream, but her voice was stolen away. She thought she would fall forever, that she would never find her footing, tumbling through eternity, through this space between the worlds. Falling and unable to accomplish the purpose beating in her heart.