“Damn you!” I screamed. “Did you hear a word I said?”
“Of course. If you fear Berys, you need not be anywhere near him. Mirazhe will be glad of your company, as will young Sher6k.”
I reached out with my mind, but his was closed to me. I could not reach him. Oh Hells. Is he lost to me, so suddenly? I was shaking, whether with fear or anger I couldn’t be certain. Just like that, to have him turn from me?
“You must do as your heart tells you,” he said quietly. “So must I.”
Thank the Goddess, just then he reached out to touch my cheek, and his hand trembled as well. “There are some things in this world, Lanen, that must take precedence even over the truest love that ever was. For all that I have the form of a child of the Gedri, I am yet the Lord of the Kantrishakrim, the King of my people. I have been so for more than seven hundred winters. How then? Shall I turn my back on my people in their hour of need? Even if I cannot fly into battle, yet I know them. I know their hearts. If I am with them, I may not make any real difference to the battle, but, Lanen”—he reached out for my hand and held it between his two as gently as if it were a rose—“if I am a thousand leagues from them and they facing the worst evil our race has ever known, how shall they have the heart for battle? The Kantri choose their King in each generation. It is a sacred trust. I cannot break it, kadreshi,” he said, and his voice shook just a little, “even if keeping faith with my people breaks my own heart and yours.”
For a fleeting moment as I reached my own decision, I wished with all my soul that we had been willing just this once to stick to comforting lies; that just this once we might have done what we wished rather than what was right.
“Oh, Hells’ teeth,” I muttered, swearing rather more than that. “Come on, then, we have to catch Shikrar.”
“But—” he said.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. Shia only knows what you might get up to if I left you to your own devices.”
“And what of Berys?” he asked quietly.
I lifted my chin and stared intently into his emerald-green eyes, so full of hurt and sorrow.
“Just don’t bloody well lose.”
Shikrar
When I landed in Verfaren I found the others ready to depart on my word. Of all of them, it was Aral alone who came forward to meet me, her eyes full of sorrow. “Varien told us, Shikrar,” she said, reaching out to touch me. I took a strange comfort from the gesture, though I could not feel it. “I am so sorry to hear of Tréshak’s death. May the Winds and the Lady preserve us all. This is a terrible day.”
“All hath gone ill this day, truly,” I replied sadly. “Let us hope that our fortunes will improve.”
“At least the Healers and the Lesser Kindred have made their peace,” she said, doing her best to speak something of hope to me.
I nodded. “So much good at least is done. And you remind me, I would speak with Salera before we leave. Forgive me.”
Aral nodded and hurried off to join Gyrentikh. The Healer Vilkas awaited her.
I bespoke Salera. She flew swiftly to meet me, showing me gleefully Mik’s surprise at her abrupt departure aloft. She landed neatly before me. “How may I serve you, Eldest?” she asked.
“Lady, forgive that I am so abrupt, but time presses. Have you any knowledge of what lies before us away east?” I asked.
She bowed and closed her eyes. “It is desperately hard to tell, Eldest,” she said apologetically, speaking with her eyes closed. “There are so many images, so many possible ways that the future might go. But a few things are surely to come. The battle will take place on a bright day, with clouds of smoke. Vilkas rises, but whether Sun God or Death of the World I cannot say, for he knows not. Lanen crushes that which was stone.” She opened her eyes, and I felt a terrible sorrow pouring from her. “Many of us will never return, Eldest,” she said, her voice suddenly rough. “Far too many. Forgive me. I have seen no more.”
I bowed to her, my heart weighed down as with great stones. “It is enough, Lady. Thank you.”
Lanen and Varien stood together outside the ruined wall of the College, their arms about one another, waiting for me. From a distance I could not be certain where the one ended and the other began, and it struck me as a good thing. The moment Salera left, they hurried up to me.
“Do you come to bid me farewell, my friends?” I asked, surprised.
“No, Shikrar. We come to beg you, of your kindness, to bear us eastwards,” said Lanen.
“Lady, I thought you both meant to remain here,” I began.
“How could we disappoint the ballad-singers?” said Lanen lightheartedly, but I had known her longer than any other Gedri, and I could see the dread that wrapped her round.
“Shikrar, how should I wait here when the Black Dragon is come?” said Varien, his words full of resolve, his heart awash with fear and sorrow. “It cannot be. I will not abandon my people.”
“And if you think I’m going to let him leave me here,” said Lanen as they climbed into the shelter of my hands, “think again. We’ve been apart long enough. What if Berys should have a demonline ready to return here? No. Together. It’s the only way.” I noticed that she carefully did not meet my eyes, or use truespeech.
“It is well, then, my friends. Together,” I said, crouching. I spread my wings and leapt into the sky. Idai, Gyrentikh, and Alikírikh with their charges followed close behind.
The winds were behind us, for a blessing, blowing light rain away east. The moment I reached soaring height I let out the breath I had not realised I was holding. I could not really feel those I carried, as they were so light, but their minds were far more open to me than I think they realised.
Varien/Akhor felt a measure of joy to be aloft once more, riding the spring wind, studying the land as it passed below him—but that joy was tainted with fear for Lanen, fear that he should have tried harder to persuade her to stay behind, fear lest we should lose and Berys rise triumphant.
Lanen’s thoughts were harder to read, but I caught them when they were wrapped about her babes. She, too, feared Berys to the depths of her soul and was terribly upset and unsure of her decision. She knew that she had made it based on sheer emotion, but even as we flew I felt her resolve strengthen. She was with her husband. Whatever else might happen they would not be parted again, and that was good.
I kept to myself the visions that Salera had spoken of. It was her sorrow that most moved me, and I had the very strong impression that she had lied when she declared she had seen no more. I have to say that I did not envy the Aiala that very strange ability. I would far rather go into battle with a heart full of hope.
I found an obscure source of comfort in the fact that I was ignorant of my own future as I rode the sky, with the wind and the sun behind me, eastwards.
Following the Black Dragon.
x
A Brief Respite
Shikrar
I soon outdistanced the other three. I could not help but smile, and bespoke Gyrentikh with a small jest regarding the flying lessons I had given him so long ago. He laughed and suggested that perhaps the fact that I was half again his size with near twice his wingspan might have something to do with the matter. True enough, he did have a point.
The sun was nearly gone down in the west when my companions and I saw in the distance a great mass of the Kantrishakrim, flying slowly and wearily. I bespoke Kédra and learned they were seeking a place to land for the night, and indeed they began to descend even as we spoke. I caught a late updraft and wheeled, rising, as they all began to land upon a vast grassy plain.
“We are all desperately weary in body and in spirit, my father,” Kédra said to me privately. “The strength of the Dhrenagan we cannot yet fathom—indeed, I am not certain that they yet know it themselves—but it seems that for this night at least they are willing to rest with us.”
“Where is the creature?” I asked, resolutely ignoring the wash of sorrow that swept over
me. Poor Tréshak.
“Not far ahead. It looks neither left nor right, it has ignored us entirely. Eastwards, ever eastwards, in unbroken line. Forgive me, my father, I can do no more,” he said, and I watched as the last of the small figures below went to land. The ground so far below was falling into shadow as I sped on. I sought greater height, that I might not come upon the thing in the darkness by accident. Twilight did not last so long here as on our vanished home, and the moon would not rise for many hours yet—wait! there!
Varien, Lanen, and I watched it, flying low to the ground, flapping stupidly—I wondered again that it could remain airborne. It flew like the veriest youngling, expending vastly more energy than it needed to. At the size, I had thought it must exhaust itself soon with such wild exertion—but no. We watched it as it flew and flew, in a straight line, working ten times as hard as it needed but showing no signs of weariness. I fell off a few points north, that I might not fly directly over the thing. The Raksha-stink was terrible, even so high up as I was, and I could not answer for my instincts if I came any closer. So I flew far around it, going some way north then turning back east. Now that I was not trying to keep it in sight, I fell into my normal rhythm. It was vastly easier than having to hang back at the pace of the evil thing. It was soon far behind us.
That in itself was a blessing.
“It is not alive, Shikrar, it cannot be,” said Varien at last. “Nothing that breathes could fly like that. It would fall from the sky. It is a golem, it must be.”
“Your thoughts echo mine. Animated by the Demonlord, given the energy to continue by who knows what obscene arrangement with Berys.” As weariness overtook me I could not keep the plaintive note out of my mindvoice. “Akhor, what is there to do? It is made of molten rock! I cannot think how to defeat it.”
I heard his mindvoice laugh a little. “Is this my old friend Hadreshikrar, come to despair so soon? I cannot believe it. We have only known of its existence for a few hours, my friend.”
“It is no laughing matter, Akhor. You know yourself that time is short. It flies towards something with a singleness of purpose, and I expect that something is Berys. cannot imagine what is going to happen to it when it finds him, my friend, but I would wager that things are only going to get worse for us all.”
“I fear you have the right of it, Shikrar. But though it may be inanimate, you are not. How fare you?”
“I am weary, I must confess,” I replied, though that was not the entire truth. I was exhausted.
“Then let us take our ease and go to land,” he said. “The morrow will be time enough to pursue.”
“Surely the best strategy is to get wherever it is going before it does?” I said, trying to sound as if I had the strength to fly all the night through.
He snorted. “Don’t be an idiot, Shikrar. You need rest, and by all accounts it is a very long way to the East Mountains.” More solemnly he added, Lanen and I are weary as well, my friend, and it would be useful to spend some time in careful consideration. We must find some way to fight so fierce a fire, where our own strength avails not.”
I began to look for a landing site and discovered that there was a sizeable river below us, running northwest-southeast. I began to spiral downwards, faster than I would have liked, but the air here was very still and it was hard to keep altitude. I fear that my friends had a bit of a rough landing, but when they found their breath again they assured me that they were not injured.
We had came to ground in what appeared to be an uninhabited stretch of land beside a tributary of the great river that divides the north of Kolmar from the south. There was a small wood nearby from which Lanen and Varien gathered fuel for a large fire, and the river graciously provided both drink and food. The fish were much smaller than I was used to, but there were enough for all.
“Idai and Gyrentikh are together,” I told Lanen and Varien. I lay curled around the fire, they sat together on the other side and ate. “Idai bespeaks me. They have not seen our blaze yet. I will build it a little higher, that it may be more readily seen from aloft. Alikírikh comes also, but she despairs of finding us before dawn because of—oh!” I was pleased to find that even at such a time, I could still find amusement in the little things.
“What has delayed her?” asked Varien grimly.
“No, no, there is nothing amiss—it is only that she has had to deal with Will,” I said, starting to hiss with amusement. “It seems that Will—well, Alikírikh reports that he is a typical useless Gedri, and that he hates flying.” I rejoiced to see a real smile cross Varien’s face. “The poor soul grew ill and demanded to return to land after the first hour. I gather that after he rid himself of his last meal he felt a little better.”
Blessed be the Winds, they both laughed. “Poor Will!” said Varien. “Is he still so convinced that he must come with us?”
“He is,” I replied. “Though I cannot fathom his reasons.”
“Can you not, Eldest?” asked Lanen quietly. “It seems clear enough to me.” Varien and I stared at her blankly and she sighed. “Man or Kantri, it obviously doesn’t matter, you are both blind as moles at noon. Have you not seen the way Will gazes at Aral when she’s not looking?”
“I confess I had not noticed,” I said, intrigued.
“It breaks my heart,” she said sadly. “He’s a good man. If only she could see past Vilkas. She desires to be warmed by that furnace that burns in her friend, and she will not turn and see the home fire and welcoming hearth that await her lightest word.” She yawned then, hugely, and smiled up at me. “Forgive me, Eldest. I am weary beyond belief.” She moved nearer Varien and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Alikírikh says that Rella has mocked Will unmercifully,” I reported, speaking quietly so as not to disturb Lanen. “Strangely, it seems to have given him comfort.”
“Good for Rella,” replied Varien, grinning. “Thank the Winds that she at least can keep her sense of perspective.”
“I will confess that I am finding that difficult,” I said slowly. “The legend …”
“The legend of the Black Dragon indeed!” Varien snorted. “A story to frighten younglings into behaving. I am not a great believer in legends, Shikrar, and now that I have seen it—well, there may be a grain of truth in the centre of every old tale, but I do not think that our world is going to end.”
I looked up, stretching my wings and my neck, working out the knots in the long muscles. “Perhaps you are right, and legend is … exaggerated.” I sighed. “The air here is sweeter than at home,” I said wistfully. “Have you smelled the flowers on the night breeze, Akhor? Even so early in the year. They are intoxicating.” I breathed deep, savouring the heavy scent of the blossoms, the clean smell of the river, the sparkling glory of the brilliant star field above us in the deep sky. “The water is good, the land is good, and I rejoice with all my soul to see you and your beloved together again.”
“As do I, Hadreshikrar, as do I,” he replied, kissing her hair lightly. She slept.
“I believe there is much of good in most of the Gedri, and much that may be done between our two races for the betterment of both.” Another sigh escaped me. “Truth be told, Akhorishaan, I would prefer not to die just now.”
“Surely you cannot believe that old nonsense?” he scoffed.
“Perhaps not—but my thoughts have been much concerned with death, of late.” I could not stop myself from shuddering. “You did not see it, Akhor. Our home died in flames. That green gem of an island was covered in fire and molten rock, there was no hint of green left—it was black from side to side before it sank below the waves. There is a part of me that died with it, I fear. I cannot tell you how that image has burned into my heart.”
Varien bowed his head for a moment, in deep thought, when Lanen let out a snore. He grinned and gently lowered her to the ground, covering her with his cloak and resting her head on his pack. I was faintly distracted by the shifting gleams of the firelight on his long silver hair, so different fr
om his scales yet so similar, and on his brilliant soulgem gleaming in the golden circlet I had made for it when he was new-made a man—but when he looked up from tending to his wife he astounded me, for there in Gedri eyes was shining the warrior soul of Akhor, my soulfriend of nearly a thousand winters.
“Do not let them win, Shikrar,” he said, rising, his voice deep and powerful, defiance in every line of him. “You know what the Rakshasa use when force is not enough. Despair is their greatest weapon and our final defeat. The world, our lives, are changed, not over!” He stood and, moving away from Lanen, began to pace before the fire. “You are right, you know. This is a good land, and surely with goodwill and a little assistance from those Gedri who know us, we will make a new homeland for ourselves.” He glanced over towards his beloved, fast asleep, and lowered his voice. “I am already bound to this land by ties of marriage and blood, and I rejoice in it, but what future awaits my childer if they have not Grandfather Shikrar to teach them? And what of your own Sherók, our cherished youngest? Will you so easily desert your grandson, so new-come to this world?”
“Of course not,” I snorted. “You know me of old. I will fight with the last breath of my body and the last beat of my heart to protect my family and our people. But sometimes courage is not enough, old friend.” I shivered, snout to tail-tip, and not from the cold. “My word on it, Akhor, that great black thing has shaken me to my core. My soul is more bleak than I have ever known it, and I begin to think of Yrais more and more.”
Varien did not speak, but he walked around the fire and stood next to me. I lowered my head to his level to see him better, and for the only time in all our years of friendship, he leaned forward and touched my soulgem with his. I was shocked, for it is a delicate intimacy, more normal between a mother and child. I had not known such a contact, aside from Kédra, since my beloved mate Yrais left this life to sleep on the Winds, but at that moment, somehow, it was entirely appropriate. At the touch of his soulgem, the torrential river of his loving concern came pouring over my parched soul. True friendship, born of long knowledge, born of knowing all the faults and accepting them as part of the whole—such a thing is rare and precious, and that was the gift he gave me that night; the full knowledge of the depth of his love for me, as mentor, as friend, as father to him since his own went to sleep on the Winds.