“All right, Rhapsody, enough of this,” he muttered. “The last time you needed healing I had to sing to you, and believe me, nobody wants to repeat that.”
Rhapsody nodded incoherently.
“Nobody,” she whispered faintly in assent.
Achmed smirked in spite of himself. Somewhere inside this draconic woman was a trace of his friend still. He concentrated on the beating of her heart, one of the few rhythms he could still hear from the old world, and found it fluttering weakly within her chest. Achmed’s hand trembled slightly. There was no wound as there had been the last time; the bleeding was coming from within her.
“I don’t have a place to begin,” he said tensely. “There is no external wound.”
“Find the path,” said the dragon. “Blood flows through the body as water travels the pathways through the earth.”
The airy words reached back into the recesses of Achmed’s mind, drawing forth memories he had hidden there. Half a lifetime before he had climbed into the root of Sagia with the only person in the world he trusted—Grunthor—and a struggling hostage who had complicated his escape plans and turned his world on its ear. As unwelcome a companion as she had been at the beginning, over the timeless centuries they had traveled together she had become only the second living person to gain his trust. The three of them had crawled through the very belly of the earth, witnessing horrors that no living man had seen, surviving challenges that seemed insurmountable by remaining together, bonded in their odd triad, while time passed them by in the world above them.
The woman he had dragged along with them as insurance in their escape from his F’dor master had irritated him, crossed him, and, when loathing finally turned to ambivalence and finally to friendship, had sung to him and to Grunthor, sharing the lore of the upworld, the green fields and plains beneath the open sky. It had kept the madness at bay for the most part. And while Grunthor trained her to use a sword, and she taught him in turn to read, perhaps the greatest gift she had given both of them was the purification of their names.
At the center of the world an inferno of elemental fire burned, impassible. While he and Grunthor believed it meant the end of their journey, trapping them forever inside the earth in a grave of wet tunnels and hairlike roots, their hostage companion had chosen to sing them through the fire, wrapping them in a song of their names, or what she presumed to be their names, and endowing them with lore they had lost, or never had before. While the song she sang had tied Grunthor beautifully and inexorably to the Earth, whose heart rhythm now beat in time with his own, she had given Achmed back his tie to blood, and more, by virtue of the name she had bestowed on him in her song.
Achmed the Snake, she had called him, eradicating the name by which he had been called for centuries, the Brother, freeing him from the bonds that had enslaved him through it. Firbolg, Dhracian. Firstborn. Assassin. Those appellations had been true before they had entered the earth, but then she added something more.
Unerring tracker. The Pathfinder.
With that nomenclature had come those powers.
From the moment the namesong had left her lips he had never been lost again. Concentrating on a path he had never seen, his mind’s eye suddenly took on a new perspective, a dimension high above him. An inner sense he had not had before guided him now, showing him the way he wanted to go to anything he sought. That sense had led the three companions along the Axis Mundi, through the countless tunnels, roots, holes, and passageways in the flesh of the world, to this new land, this continent on the other side of the world, and of time. It had served him well since.
The woman who gave it to him now lay before him, her life spilling onto the floor with each breath.
Achmed dipped his finger into the pool of blood on the cave floor.
He closed his eyes and sought the path, hearing her words in his mind again.
Unerring tracker. The Pathfinder.
The blood on his fingertip hummed in the sensitive nerve endings of the digit.
An image of tunnels, now veins and arterial pathways rather than root passageways, filled his mind.
One of them ran with a river of dark blood turning brighter as it fled her heart.
Slowly Achmed expelled his breath, then loosed the path lore he had gained from Rhapsody’s namesong in the center of the Earth. His mind cleared; the dragon, the wyrmkin, the midwife, and the lair faded into mist at the edge of his consciousness and vanished, leaving nothing but the tunnels in his mind, passageways inside the woman who had become the other side of his coin.
A sickening nausea came over him, a chill recalled from other sickbeds. He beat the sensation back and concentrated.
His mind’s eye followed the trickling blood up through dark hallways, internal caverns that made him cringe. He tracked its path as he would the scent of an animal or the heartbeat of human prey; having been born with the gift to track those born in his birthplace by their heartbeats, he was used to hearing them, to feeling them in his own skin, to lock his own life’s rhythm on to theirs.
But nothing he had ever done had prepared him to visually see inside another living person. Especially not one for whom he felt the damnable emotion of love, denied, confused, and forbidden as it was.
The trip along the internal path moved with a lightning speed; in a heart’s beat he was seeing the inside of Rhapsody’s womb, where blood welled from a tear in the wall. He concentrated, willing the wound to close, the blood to cease, and to his amazement, he saw the spongy tissue swell for a moment, then slip back into itself, stanched and red. Then the wound disappeared. The veins in his own skin pulsed, as they did when he was tracking a victim and had successfully locked on to that victim’s heartbeat.
Achmed shuddered. He closed his eyes, preparing to unbind his mind from the path, but hesitated for a second, long enough to see what floated near the former wound.
Wrapped in a translucent membrane, torn down the middle, was an almost human form, a form with eyes closed as if in slumber, the shape of a head with facial features obscured by the broken caul. The membrane was gleaming in the dark, as if it had once been a sack filled with light, striated with streaks of every imaginable color.
The child within it lay motionless, the only movement a weak flickering beneath its breastbone.
With his mind’s eye Achmed stared at Rhapsody’s child, captivated by the sheer beauty of what he was witnessing. Rather than the despised spawn of wyrmkin, the very thought of which gave him to nausea, the infant was tiny, perfect, wrapped in light and color and darkness all at once. Even through the sticky caul golden wisps of hair were visible, and a warmth emanated from it that was compelling to behold, the same warmth that had radiated from its mother before she had come to this dank cave some months ago.
The path now found, his vision faded to darkness again. As it did, Achmed was struck with two thoughts in the same instant.
The child was not the freak he feared it would be. It favored its mother, but had a light about it of its own, and rather than emitting the ancient avarice and twisted lore of a wyrm, it seemed human, tiny, and vulnerable.
And it was dying.
Achmed pulled his hand from the pool of blood as the vision disappeared, leaving him cold and shaking.
“The bleeding is stanched,” he said, his face gray with sweat. “But you have to get the child out now.”
Far away, within the depths of his kingdom, unbeknownst to the Bolg king, another Sleeping Child’s heart was beating more faintly as well.
37
YLORC
As chance would have it, the guard of the Blasted Heath, to the immediate west of Kraldurge, was changing just as the beast bored up through the dry riverbed that had served as a barrier against human attack for centuries. A consequence of this timing was that twice as many soldiers were on hand to witness the arrival, and twice as many bolts from crossbows were loosed at her a moment after she did, thudding through the air with a dull war tom that served to gain the notice of ma
ny who otherwise would have been caught unawares.
It also meant that twice as many died in the single moment that followed.
At first it began with a rumble of earth; the rocks of the crags of the Teeth loosened and began to rain down into the crevasses of the east and onto the steppes to the west with the force of a violent hailstorm. The Eye clans, holding their customary watch over those crags, scrambled down from the summits, trying to find purchase in the rocky terrain shifting beneath their feet, but many were caught in the beginnings of avalanches, and tumbled with those rocks a thousand feet or more into the canyon below.
The Claw clans were guarding the inner and outer passes of the Cauldron, also not far from Kraldurge. Their training had led them to be ever watchful from all directions—the four compass points and the air above—as an attack might come from anywhere. And while they had been schooled to believe that the earth itself might be a point of entry, in reality it was difficult to imagine that the very ground upon which one walked could be monitored as a hazard. So when that ground sundered suddenly, splitting open like the maw of a great stone beast and erupting fire, the Claw soldiers could do little more than roll and run, shielding their heads from the broken earth that rained back down upon them, burying them alive.
The Guts, who by heritage had claimed the lands beyond the canyon to guard, could only stand by, exposed, and watch as a great shadowy beast rose out of the ground, light glittering madly off the copper scales of its hide from the innumerable fires that ignited in bare trees and wintergrass along the Blasted Heath. It was to this group of soldiers that the dragon turned her attention first.
All of the building anger, all of the unspent rage, fostered over the months of travel, listening endlessly to her name cursed aloud in unmistakable loathing; all the betrayal, the loss of these lands that she knew were once hers, all of the confusion and terror at being unable to clearly recall the Past, and, above everything, all of the blame she held for the woman whose face haunted her every waking and dreaming moment, was given vent in the scourge of her first attack. The beast vomited the fire that had been stewing in her belly, inhaled and breathed it again, at every living being she could see or sense in her old lands, tingling with joy as her dragon sense felt them roast alive.
Another round of arrow fire and crossbow bolts were unleashed; they bounced off her ironlike hide, futile. The sensation was little more than a tickle; in fact, it delighted her to the point that the dragon began to laugh, a hideous guttural sound that formed in the very air and echoed harshly off the canyon.
Then, crouching low to the ground, she slithered along it, dragging power from it, devouring the lore of the Bolglands as she devoured the unfortunate soldiers trapped on her side of the canyon, sucking the power into herself, becoming more invulnerable each moment that passed, as she stripped power from the earth.
Able to do so because the king who claimed that power was not there to defend it.
Making her way to the summit of the nearest crag, to taste the wind, searching for any sign she might find of the woman.
Grunthor knew within seconds that the dragon had come, though where it had come from, and who it was, still was unknown to him.
He tossed back his head and roared aloud, a war scream known for its frightening effects on men and horses alike, startling the Archons and tribal leaders with whom he had been meeting.
“Hrekin!” he shouted, slamming his heavy oak chair back from the meeting table and lunging to his feet. “Jump to! We’re under attack!”
Instantly the chairs were cleared of their occupants as the elite of the arch-Archon’s fighting forces readied for the orders they knew would follow.
“Ralbux, take Harran to the tunnels into Grivven post,” Grunthor commanded. “It’s a dragon, by the feel o’ it; nowhere’s safe, so try and stay low, near somethin’ stone.” The education Archon and the Loremistress nodded and headed to the door of the room; both understood the need to keep alive at all costs their training and knowledge. Without the history Harran had studied, the Bolg would return to the demi-human status they had been saddled with before Achmed, or, more accurately, Rhapsody, came to Ylorc, though both had been trained to fight.
Harran stopped at the threshold.
“Reciting,” she announced; Grunthor’s ears perked up. “Dragons are sensitive to an extreme, a quality commonly known as dragon sense. Within a radius of approximately a league and a half, five miles above ground, or twice that within the earth, their ordinary senses are magnified to five hundred times that of Bolg. Taste, sight, odor, hearing, and tactile senses are extended thus, as well as an inner sense of awareness. The firegems within the belly of any dragon whose scales are based in a red or copper-colored metal contain a chemical commonly known as Red Fire, which burns at one and a half times the temperature of true fire. Being an acid, it is also corrosive. Most vulnerable spots include the eyes, behind the ear hole if one is present, and under the wing, also if one is present.”
“Go!” the Sergeant shouted impatiently. Harran and Ralbux disappeared through the doorway. He exhaled angrily; Grunthor had had more than enough experience with dragons to understand how truly outflanked they were.
Within seconds, thudding bootsteps could be heard approaching rapidly in the inner corridor; the Eyes that survived from the parapets were rushing through the underground tunnels of the Cauldron with their report. While he awaited their intelligence, Grunthor turned to his aide de camp.
“Blast muster,” he ordered. “Get me every bloody commander within earshot o’ this place; all Oi got now is tribal leaders.” The aide fled into the passageway. Grunthor turned to the Archons and pointed to the interior and exterior schematics of Ylorc that hung, rendered in minute detail, on the wall of every interior meeting room.
The Eye spies, their normally dark and hirsute faces stained with ash, came into the room, three in all.
“Report,” Grunthor demanded. His skin, normally the color of old bruises, had flushed to an angry leather color, his amber eyes blazing almost gold.
“Dragon; out of ground above Kraldurge,” said the first of the Eyes in the tongue of his tribe. Grunthor smacked the table angrily, and the shaken man quickly switched into the common dialect. “Copper hide. Keeping to the ground, not taking to the air like one at council. Same color.”
The second Eye nodded. “Torn wing,” he said quickly. “May not be able to fly. Perched on Trexlev crag now, not attacking; seems to be watching or listening.”
“Blasted Heath is burning,” reported the last of the Eyes, a woman. “Brushfires on wintergrass; frozen ground will stop the spread at frost line.”
Grunthor nodded. “Back to yer posts,” he said, then turned to the Archons. “Assessments?”
“Traditional weapons will be useless,” said Yen the broadsmith. “Can’t even use the heat of the forges against a dragon; fire will not harm it. Need special arrows, special blades to pierce dragon hide. We have none.”
“Correction,” Grunthor snarled. “We have one, but o’ course it’s not ’ere, as usual. Next?”
“Breastworks, redoubts, defense, irrigation, and sanitation tunnels will all be vulnerable,” Dreekak, the Master of Tunnels, said solemnly. “Beast can use them as we do; can travel wherever they reach. Our own defenses will work against us in this.”
“Good point,” noted Grunthor with a grudging admiration. “ ’Oo else?”
“Many catapults working,” suggested Vrith. “In peacetime have used them to fling hay and seedbags across the Blasted Heath to deeper settlements. Perhaps rocks, if not weapons, can injure it?”
The mining Archon, Greel, the Face of the Mountain, spoke up quickly.
“Much scrap rock outside of Gurgus from tower rebuilding,” he noted. “Much sharp, full of glass shards. Might even make dragon sick.”
Grunthor’s bulbous lips pressed together appreciatively. “Hmmm,” he said.
“One more thought,” added Trug. “If we knew anything about
this dragon, we might have a better idea how to attack it.”
Omet, the only non-Bolg Archon, stood up suddenly. He said nothing; his elevation to his feet was more a sign of a sudden realization than an intention to speak. The Sergeant recognized this, and held up his hand to stem any other commentary.
“You were all here three years ago, when the council was assaulted by the dragon Anwyn?” he asked, trying to recall history in which he had not taken part.
“Yeah,” said Grunthor irritably.
Omet spoke even more slowly and deliberately. “And was not the wing of that dragon injured as well? Didn’t Rhapsody drag her blade through it when the beast had her in the air?”
All sound left the room; the Archons ceased to breathe at the expression on the Sergeant’s face.
“Yeah,” Grunthor said again, a deadly dryness in his voice. “But that bitch is dead; Oi saw ’er fall out o’ the sky, and closed the grave on ’er myself. She’s dead.”
Dreekak coughed nervously. “Late summer, a patrol near the breastworks reported some rumblings in the Moot,” he said quietly. “Thought them to be aftershocks of Gurgus explosion.” His last words came out barely above a whisper. “Sent you the report, sir.”
Grunthor’s face flushed an even deeper shade of purple. He threw back his head and roared again; the blast echoed through the corridors of the Cauldron all the way out to the openings above the canyon, and reverberated below.
The Archons waited for the string of hideous profanities that followed, some in Bolgish, others in Bengard, Grunthor’s mother tongue, to subside before exhaling.
“Hrekin,” the Sergeant muttered finally. “Dragons; ya can’t never get rid of the bastards. Guess ya got to kill ’em more than once. Wonderful.”