It battled a smaller gyanrigot that had a domed shape, the edges of which plowed the sand as it moved. The tracks it left revealed some sort of wheels that provided mobility, but it didn’t move very fast. Spikes festooned the dome, and a number had tapered heads that spun. By some mechanism, it could extend some of those spikes if it got in close, piercing the enemy. Several of the spikes had been sheared off, presumably by the scorpion’s claws.
Borosan kept his voice low. “Both of these battlers are built for close combat. But you’ve seen my thanaton. It is nimble enough to stay out of range, yet can still damage its foes. It’s accurate enough not to miss at this range, which means I should win.”
Moraven nodded. “You have spent time scouting these fighters?”
“I have. Skorpe should win and will be the tougher kill, but I can handle Quillbeast, too.”
Ciras managed to strain most of the disgust out of his voice. “Curious names. What will you call your thanaton?”
The gyanridin blinked as if he did not understand the question. “Name?”
“So we can bet on the battle, Master Gryst.”
“Bet?”
Moraven rested a hand on Ciras’ shoulder. “Perhaps you should call it Serpentslayer.”
“I-I suppose I could. I just call it thanaton Number Four. I mean, you know it is really the third one with modifications, but there were enough that I felt it had become a new gyanrigot.”
The Viruk rested his hands on Gryst’s shoulders. “Perhaps you would honor me by calling it Nesrearck.”
Borosan smiled. “Is that Viruk for Serpentslayer?”
“Similar, and appropriate.”
“Nesrearck it shall be.” Borosan jerked his head toward the action. “I’d best get down there. Nesrearck is waiting, and I need to tinker so I can defeat the winner.”
As he departed, Moraven looked over at the Viruk. “You will forgive me, Rekarafi, but I heard you use that word before, as a curse—or so I thought. You applied it to the things merchants offered you. Did I mistake its meaning?”
The Viruk laughter sounded like breaking bones. “Permit me a jest. It means ‘bad toy.’ ”
Ciras snorted.
Moraven watched Skorpe feint left, then cut right and catch Quillbeast with a claw. Quickly the larger gyanrigot surged forward and flicked its claw upward. The domed gyanrigot flipped over, scattering sand, and landed heavily on its back. Its spikes dug into the earth and its little wheels spun madly.
Remorselessly, Skorpe shifted around and began to pick the wheels apart with its claws. The tail quivered and everyone in the arena seemed to hold their breath waiting for it to punch straight through Quillbeast’s belly plate. Before that could happen, however, a clanking length of chain was tossed noisily into the arena, then bells sounded and Skorpe withdrew to the arena’s far side.
Moraven’s apprentice looked at him. “Master, it is obvious that these machines are a perversion of life. Master Gryst’s thanaton had its uses; I will not deny this. The mouser aided in the survey. But this is wrong.” Ciras waved his sword hand at the arena. “Do you not see that this is a mockery of what you and I seek to perfect in life? Look down there. You have two combatants in a circle. They fight, but for what? The pleasure of a rabble and a few ounces of magic dust?”
“There are those, Ciras, who enter the circle and fight for pleasure.” Moraven smiled. “It is a common enough entertainment, sometimes fought to the death.”
“But, Master, we fight to perfect our skills. If we succeed we become more than we were. If these succeed, they have the dents pounded out and return to fight again for no real purpose.”
The Viruk lowered his head. “Would you say, Master Dejote, that it is better to have people shedding blood and dying than it is for metal to be twisted? It is easier to recast metal than to reanimate the dead. Would not wars fought between armies of these gyanrigot be preferable to the conflict that triggered the Cataclysm?”
“Can you imagine that these machines would not make war on people?” Ciras lowered his voice. “We know the men who have been raiding the area and we know they are in Opaslynoti. They must see these combats and realize the potential. With enough thaumston, would it not be possible to create a Skorpe large enough to carry men? Would the claws not be employed against houses, livestock, and people? If we wish to keep the world safe, we should slay every gyanridin we can find.”
The Viruk leaned forward, resting his weight on his fists. “We have a saying: ‘The ocean’s water cannot return to the mountains.’ Gyanri exists, and there will be no destroying it. Furthermore, I think you should welcome it.”
Ciras’ eyes grew wide. “How can you say that?”
“You complain that these machines do not have the ability to make decisions as do you. That is their weakness. Study them as you would any foe. Exploit that weakness.”
Bells clanged, drawing their attention back to the arena. A man in red robes strode to the center and raised his voice for all to hear. “In this battle we have the challenger from far Nalenyr. Borosan Gryst brings us Nesrearck the Serpentslayer.”
Scattered applause broke out, but Moraven was not surprised by how sparse it was. Nesrearck just sat in the sand like a featureless ball. He’d have thought Borosan didn’t want to reveal anything about the thanaton’s capability to his foe, but Borosan was not that subtle. He simply had no sense of the theatrical.
Skorpe’s owner, on the other hand, knew exactly what he was doing. As the announcer welcomed the champion, the scorpion dashed toward the center of the arena, claws raised and clanging loudly. It then backed away slowly, strutting, claws and tail up. The crowd began to chant “Skorpe! Skorpe!”
The announcer scrambled away through a door in the arena’s wooden walls, then bells sounded. Skorpe again raced toward the arena’s heart and for a moment Moraven feared Nesrearck had broken, for the sphere lay there inert. Then panels slid back, legs popped out, and the harpoon’s barbed head appeared to point at the larger gyanrigot. Before Skorpe recognized any sort of a threat, the harpoon shot forward and pierced the scorpion’s face, popping out just above the last set of legs.
Skorpe rocked back, then its legs collapsed beneath it. It flopped down in a clatter of metal, and a cloud of red dust rose to obscure it. The claws clicked at random, and the tail slackened. The left claw closed on the harpoon’s shaft, but made little headway in tugging it loose.
Nesrearck circled Skorpe twice, moving laterally to keep the next projectile—a much smaller bolt—pointed at it. Aside from the claw’s grinding at the haft, the champion gave no sign of even being aware of its foe. Legs twitched, but at random.
Nesrearck circled one more time, then the bolt withdrew. The panels that had concealed the crossbow mechanism slid shut with loud clicks. Moraven thought, just for a moment, that he’d heard an echo, then noticed that Skorpe had finally snapped the harpoon shaft.
Quickly, the champion rose. It darted forward and almost effortlessly caught two of Nesrearck’s legs in its claws. As if a bhotcai pruning a tree, it snipped the legs off, canting the spherical gyanrigot to the right.
Though severely wounded, Nesrearck did not give up. It pushed off with its left legs and tried to roll out of danger. But Skorpe closed too quickly, catching the severed stumps in its right claw and holding Nesrearck on its back. The crossbow panels again snapped open, and the shot should have ripped up through the larger gyanrigot. The only difficulty was that the crossbow relied on gravity to keep the bolt in place, so that while the mechanism functioned, the bolt spilled harmlessly onto the ground.
Skorpe’s left claw rose and plunged deep into Nesrearck’s belly. The legs spasmed, then curled in. The chain clanked into the sand not far from where Borosan stood. Someone else had clearly tossed it, for Borosan’s shock was all too evident on his face.
Moraven tapped Ciras on the shoulder. “Go to his aid. Gather his device and see him back to our home.”
“As you wish, Master.”
&nbs
p; Applause thundered through the arena and Skorpe scuttled around in a circle as attendants gathered up Nesrearck’s broken parts and rolled it from the battleground. Skorpe returned to where its creators waited. They drew the harpoon from it with a screeching of metal. They tossed the harpoon into the crowd and one man raised it triumphantly in a clenched fist.
The announcer returned to the center of the arena. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am assured that Skorpe is yet battleworthy, but we have no more combatants registered this evening. If any of you would challenge our champion, please come forward now. If not, we shall move to the smaller class of gyanrigot.”
Rekarafi rose to his full height. “I would challenge Skorpe.”
Heads turned as the Viruk’s bass buzz sliced through the hubbub. People shrank back, giving the announcer a clear line of sight up to the top tier. “It has been a long time since a Viruk has offered a combatant. Bring your gyanrigot here and we will—”
“I offered no rearck. I will challenge it.”
The announcer hesitated. “We don’t let men fight—”
“I am not a man.”
Across the arena a chant of “Die, Viruk, die,” began, and picked up volume as it spread. The announcer looked at Skorpe’s creators, who nodded adamantly. The red-robed man waved a hand. “Come on down, Viruk.”
Moraven grabbed Rekarafi’s arm. “Why?”
The Viruk laughed. “Your apprentice fears toys. I do not.” He turned and galloped on hands and feet down the narrow stairway and leaped the nine-foot wall. He landed in a crouch, red dust puffing lightly around his feet. Rekarafi extended one hand and crooked a finger.
The announcer fled the arena. The champion gyanrigot approached, but slowly and cautiously. The Viruk clearly did not appear to be its normal sort of foe. The fact that it did orient on him, claws wide, tail high, confirmed Ciras’ prediction that these machines could and likely would be used against people.
Ciras appeared at Moraven’s left shoulder. “What is he doing?”
“He is proving to you what he suggested. He has found a weakness and will exploit it.”
“What if he is wrong?”
“Then you will see what color a Viruk bleeds.”
Rekarafi stayed low and moved in a crouch to the right and left. He let Skorpe dominate the center of the arena as seemed to be the gyanrigot’s wont. He extended first his left hand, then his right, and watched the claws rise to fend them off. He cut to the left more quickly, as if to take advantage of the machine’s blind eye. Skorpe spun fast, keeping the Viruk centered between its claws.
The Viruk brought his hands back in, resting them on his knees. He hunched his shoulders, then raised his rump, thrusting his face forward. He snapped his jaws open and shut, and the machine responded by clicking its claws. Like him, it leaned forward slightly. Then, in a blurred burst of speed, it charged.
Rekarafi leaped up and forward, his powerful legs propelling him well above the claws and beyond their grasp. As they closed noisily on emptiness, he soared above even the tail and its spike. As he began to descend, he extended his right foot and twisted in the air.
His left hand whipped around behind him as he turned and caught Skorpe’s tail, right beneath the thickened bulb from which the stinger sprouted. With a flick of his wrist, the Viruk flipped the gyanrigot over onto its back. Planting his left foot, he completed his turn as his left hand stretched and locked on the tail. His right foot came down at the point where tail met body and snapped the appendage clean off.
Contemptuously he smashed the tail against the gyanrigot’s lifeless hulk. “Nesrearck!”
Utter silence greeted his victory, but the Viruk did not seem to care. He strode to the wall and pulled himself over it as easily as he’d vanquished Skorpe. He let spectators flee before him, laughing almost gleefully.
Ciras frowned. “How did . . . what did . . . I don’t understand.”
Moraven smiled. “He found the weakness. The gyanrigot looked like a scorpion, so Borosan struck at its head with a shot that would have killed a scorpion. It failed. Therefore, whatever drove Skorpe was not located in its body. The bulb on the tail, on the other hand, was far from damaged, and never used the way it should have been.”
“I see that now, Master.”
“Then you should also see something else, Lirserrdin Dejote.” Moraven pointed at the gyanrigot and the men dragging it from the arena. “Disgust and dismissal prevent you from understanding your enemy. Gyanrigot may never be something you have to fight, but by understanding them and their limitations, you can be certain they will never defeat you.”
Chapter Fifty
2nd day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Wentokikun, Moriande
Nalenyr
The sun had reached its zenith, but Prince Cyron still could not shake the dream that had awakened him nine hours earlier. He seldom had nightmares, and never believed in the prophetic powers of dreams, but this one disturbed him. As he recalled flashes of it, his mouth went dry and his head began to pound.
He had been the dragon and had lain in twisted coils on the ground—a rocky, desolate ground that had cracked beneath the sun or the impact of his fall, he could not be certain which. Every bone in his body felt equally cracked, and when he tried to move, the grating pain of fragments locking and shifting clawed through his brain. The frustration of his being crippled pained him even more than the agonies of movement.
His body lay rent and bleeding. Looking down his length he could see limbs impaled on stone spikes. Black blood welled up around them and flowed over him. He thought of the Black River and tried to remember Desei geography, to see if he, the dragon, lay with his spine shattered on the banks of the Black River, or if there was some other symbolism he was missing. It struck him as ironic that he was the master of the world’s greatest power because of the Anturasi charts, and yet his knowledge of geography had become so poor he could not identify where he lay in the dream.
While the significance of the land escaped him, none of the rest of it did. A massive hawk landed on his chest and dipped its sharply hooked beak into his entrails. It tore at him, supping on liver. Its left wing had two feathers clipped, but that had not hindered the bird. Down below it, a dog lapped at black blood. At his tail the Virine bear nibbled lazily.
Those symbols needed no translation, but two others did. Swarming around him and the bear, a living carpet of black ants moved steadily forward. Mindless and relentless, they devoured everything, and somehow he knew the desolation surrounding him was something they had caused. They attacked the bear and it yowled as white bones appeared, picked clean of meat and sinew. The dog barked and retreated, and the hawk took wing.
The black ants approached from his tail, but he could not study their progress too closely because of the vultures seated on his snout. He could snap his jaws at them, but never quickly enough to catch and crush one. They, in turn, struck at his eyes and ears. They tore bits from his tongue. The vultures blinded him. They made him deaf. They silenced him so he could not even scream as the ants ate him alive.
“Are you well, Highness?”
Cyron blinked and let the world swim back into focus. He sat on his throne, with Pelut Vniel kneeling off to his right. Both men wore white mourning hoods, though far enough back on their heads that conversation was not precluded. “Yes, Grand Minister, I am well.”
“I know, Highness, that Grand Minister Lynesorat’s death is a surprise, for we had all expected a great many more years from him. And the proper waiting period would have been observed before I was elected to serve you in the capacity he did, save that his widow’s request and dire times superseded convention.”
Cyron nodded. Yes, best you think I am truly mourning than believe I am lost in ruminations about a dream. “I have no fear, Grand Minister, that you will serve well in his s
tead. Serve greatly, even, for you know me better than he did. And you are more attuned to the needs of state.”
The man bowed and pressed his forehead to the floor before coming back up. “My only wish is to free you from the mundane so those decisions that only you can make become your primary concern.”
And there are many of those, to be sure. Vniel undoubtedly referred to the Helosundian problem, which had become a tangled knot. Prince Eiran had taken Cyron’s orders to heart and was actually winning the loyalty of his people. As he stepped into his responsibilities, the possibility of assassination increased. Pyrust would never do it, but Eiran’s Helosundian rivals might, as well as Naleni malcontents.
But Cyron had a more pressing concern. Qiro Anturasi had continued to generate charts, but reports from the Stormwolf and the Ixyll expedition had become short and terse. To make matters worse, reports came from along the coast of raiding by ghost ships. His navy had been unable to find, much less engage, the ghosts. Merchants didn’t want to send ships out without protection, and the resulting disruption in trade threatened to destabilize his government. Without money, he could not move forward. And, eventually, he would fall prey to Deseirion.
Vniel frowned. “You are preoccupied, Highness?”
The Prince hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I have a concern, yes. Tell me what you know of prophetic dreams.”
A little shiver ran through the minister, but otherwise he masked his reaction. “There are those who set great store in the symbolism. Prince Pyrust, as well you know, is one. I had not thought you believed in such, Highness.”
“I do not, Minister. Have no fear for my sanity.”
“I had none.” The man smiled. “Was it a dream of yours, Highness, that concerned you?”