They landed in a desolate landscape of ragged natural terraces, the debris of failed mountains. She barely felt the jolt when his massive tail set her down. He didn’t unwind the coil; instead, it faded into the pre-dawn light.
Shadow Dragon, wait! She ran alongside his disappearing form until she reached his head. The dawn sky shone through his body. You’ve taken me far from the Jazid army. Thank you.
It was not far enough. His thoughts receded. The Dragon-Sun gave him to you, and I have tried to return you, but I can do no more….
His body vanished, and she was by herself in the predawn flush of day. Her own power swirled within her, but it would soon fade as well, when the Dragon-Sun rose.
“Goodbye,” she said. His last thought reverberated in her mind: The Dragon-Sun gave him to you…It sounded like he meant Darz. Right now she would give a great deal to see her puzzle of a husband.
Ginger shivered, alone in the vast landscape with no horse or supplies. Rock formations rose before her in huge steps. She trudged up one, her pace slowed by her bare feet. She had tough soles, but walking on floors and hiking in the desert were very different matters. By the time she reached the top, the sky blazed red and gold, presaging the sun. She needed a vantage point where she could survey the land for a good route north. She limped around a spear of rock, looked out—and gulped.
A group of Jazid cavalrymen had surrounded a man in the rough clothes of a Taka Mal commoner. They were playing with him like cats with a mouse, galloping in circles around him, most of the time just out of his reach. The Jazidians screamed their bloodcurdling cries and lunged in to slash at the man while he turned his horse in a circle, trying to defend himself on all sides. They probably hadn’t been at it long, given the early hour, but the fight would be over soon, with ten against one. Metal clanged as blades struck. He fought with uncommon expertise, but she doubted he could hold them off much longer.
The Taka Mal man suddenly reared his horse, silhouetted against the sunrise—just as Ginger had seen him silhouetted against the flames of a blazing plaza.
Darz! She almost shouted, then stopped herself. It would do neither of them any good if the warriors captured her. The sun would rise any moment, but until then power thrummed within her. The button on her tunic was no good; she needed a stronger shape.
Ginger squinted in the predawn light. The Jazidians wore helmets topped with tetrahedral points. She focused, but they were too far away, and she couldn’t see the shapes well enough to awaken a spell. She headed down the ridge, keeping in the shadows of jutting slabs. Rocks stabbed her feet. At the bottom, she crouched behind a pile of boulders and concentrated on the helmets. She saw Darz’s face, the determination and the fear. He knew he was near death. The Jazidians were tightening their circles, drawing in closer. He kept on fighting, his lips drawn back in a snarl.
Ginger focused again. Her spell caught—and slipped. She wasn’t close enough! But she could go no farther without being seen, and she had little doubt what would happen if they caught her out here. It would only make them kill Darz faster, so they could get to her sooner. Ji’s rough voice grated in her memory: Men die and women suffer.
Not today, she thought. But she had no time! The sky was lightening. She focused harder on the helmets, harder, harder—
The spell caught.
Flames erupted from the men attacking Darz. The spell was neither as large nor as intense as the one she had created in the tent. But it was enough. With shouts of alarm, they turned their attention to themselves. Several jumped off their horses and rolled on the ground, and the others beat at the flames or yanked off the impossibly burning armor.
The instant they let up their attack, Darz wheeled around and took off, galloping south at a hard pace.
Ginger ran out from behind the boulders. “Darz,” she shouted. “Here!”
His head jerked, and she knew the moment he saw her; it was as if a spark jumped between them. Veering toward her, he leaned off his horse, his expression fierce. As he reached down, she grabbed his arm. In the same instant she jumped for his horse, he heaved her upward. She scrambled awkwardly as she vaulted up behind him.
“Hang on!” Darz shouted.
Ginger grabbed him around the waist and held on tight, her front pressed against his back. “We have to get to Quaaz!” she called. It was hard to talk with Grayrider running so hard, but Darz must have heard, because he veered north. Grayrider’s hooves thundered on the hard ground.
They soon left the Jazid soldiers behind. Eventually, when no sign of pursuit showed, Darz let the horse slow to a stop. In silence, he helped Ginger down, his face so fierce it frightened her. Then he had them remount so she was in front of him. As they set off at a slower pace, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair.
“Gods almighty,” he said in a low growl. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
His intensity unsettled her. “You came alone?” Surely the merchants hadn’t stranded him in the desert.
“No one in the caravan would help.” Anger crackled in his voice. “They thought you ran off with Cook. They were furious, both at losing the people who made their food and at me, for bringing you with the caravan. I told them you would never do such a thing, but they didn’t believe it.”
“You said that?” she asked. “I wasn’t even sure you liked having me around.”
“Be sure,” he said gruffly. “I knew the nomads had you. I’ve seen how they operate. When they choose a victim, they’ll dog her forever. They savor the chase.”
“They had a buyer.” She hated the words as much now as when Ji had spoken them. “General Yargazon.”
“Dusk Yargazon? You mean the General of the Army for the Atajazid D’az Ozar?”
“Yes, him. Except they didn’t use all those titles.” She shuddered with the memory. “They just called him the general.”
“He’s the prince’s regent.” Darz spoke grimly. “Right now he’s probably the most dangerous man in Jazid. He escaped executioners from the Misted Cliffs and snuck the prince out as well. Rumor claims he intends to put the boy back on the Onyx Throne.”
Her voice cracked. “Not until he takes the Topaz Throne.”
“Good gods, Ginger, what happened?”
She told him everything. Even before she finished, he was pushing Grayrider to go faster. When she said assassins planned to murder the queen at noon, he urged the horse into a gallop, and Ginger could no longer speak. They swept across the land. She kept silent about how much she hurt; her discomfort was nothing compared to the danger faced by their queen.
The sun climbed in the sky, and Darz soon had to let Grayrider slow down, lest he tire the horse so much, they couldn’t reach Quaazar. After a few hours, he reined to a stop.
Darz rubbed Grayrider’s lathered neck. “I know a water hole where we can rest.”
Ginger could hear how much that cost him, having to stop. But if their horse died, they would never reach Quaaz in time.
The water hole was a pond fed by a spring and sheltered by enough of an overhang that the sun didn’t dry it up. While Darz tended Grayrider, Ginger lay in the shade and closed her eyes. The relief from riding was bliss, but it wasn’t enough. She was going to clatter apart in a pile of bones and skin.
“Ginger,” Darz said.
She opened her eyes. He was crouched next to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should be stronger.”
“You’ve more strength than two of those Jazid monsters combined.” He laid his palm on her cheek. “You need a doctor.”
She had never known a real doctor; they were people in tales from the cities. She smiled wanly. “Not too many out here.”
“No.” He looked miserable. “I’m afraid not.”
“When we get to Quaaz, please don’t turn me out.”
“Good gods, why would I do that!” Then he winced. “Sorry. Too loud.”
“It’s all right.”
“Why do you keep think
ing I’m going to turn you out?”
“All those men looking at me, touching me…”
“I would like to kill them all,” he said flatly. “Slowly. Agonizingly. Make them scream the way you screamed. But I have no intention of losing you, the treasure I found hidden in a mining town.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine how you held out against Yargazon’s interrogators. They’re notorious. Never would I have believed he’d turn them against our people.”
“They thought I was too stupid to understand what they were saying.” It took so much energy to speak.
He sat next to her, one leg bent, his elbow resting on his knee. “If you had told them about me, they would be scouring these lands now, searching.” Softly he added, “You saved my life, Ginger-Sun. Again. In more ways than you can imagine.”
She looked up at him. “What about those men you were fighting?”
“They found me just before you showed up. When I refused to turn back, they attacked.” He pushed his hand through his disheveled hair. “It seemed crazy they would threaten a Taka Mal traveler in his own country. Now it makes sense. They don’t want anyone to find Yargazon hiding an army on the border. Killing a solitary traveler here is easy. They could have left my body in the desert, and no one would have ever known.”
She wondered how many other travelers had met their death that way. “Do you think Yargazon can take the Topaz Throne?”
“Not if we can reach Quaaz in time.” He stood up and offered her hand. “We should go.”
She slowly sat up. “You can ride faster without my weight tiring Grayrider. You should go on by yourself.” She didn’t want to be alone in the middle of the desert, but she wanted even less for the queen to die. “Send someone back for me.”
Darz looked at her with a strange expression, as if she had suggested he cut off his head. He pulled her to her feet, then drew her over to Grayrider. She limped at his side, uncertain how to take his silence. When they reached the horse, Darz stopped and regarded Ginger with that fierce expression of his, as if his eyes could swallow her. Then he offered his hands, cupped together, for her to mount the horse. “Darz?”
He spoke softly. “I could no more go on without you than I could cut out my heart.”
Something happened inside of her then, as if a stiff, rusty bolt had released in her heart. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how much she had locked away her feelings. She touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. Then she put her foot in his cupped hands, and he helped her up onto Grayrider.
Within moments, they were riding, speeding against time to stop the warlords of a deposed child-king from conquering their land.
20
The Topaz Sword
It was nearly noon when Darz reached the outskirts of Quaaz. Ginger thought they were riding through a town, the crowds were so thick. But they hadn’t even reached Quaaz yet; these were just travelers going to the city. Darz let Grayrider walk to rest the horse, but Ginger felt his impatience as if it were a tangible presence. They rode past adults and children on foot or in oxen-drawn carts. People ignored them or watched with mild curiosity and then returned to their business.
They soon reached a wall taller than any other human-built barrier Ginger had ever seen, with crenellations along its top. Two great towers flanked the gate. Darz took an audible breath—and snapped his quirt against Grayrider’s flank. The horse surged into a gallop and surged past the lines of people and animals entering the city. Gatekeepers were stopping everyone and asking questions. Darz raced straight past them, and people scattered out of his way.
“Hey!” The shout came from behind them. “You there! Stop! Sentinels, get them!”
Darz kept going, and within moments they were deep in the teeming streets of Quaaz. Ginger didn’t know whether to gasp at his audacity or gulp. They might end up as prisoners of the queen’s guard instead of rescuing her.
Buildings clustered on both sides of the street and people leaned out high windows, calling to those in other windows. Pedestrians crowded the streets, shopkeepers called out their wares, carts bumped along, and children ran everywhere. Ginger had thought J’Hiza was big, but compared to this place, it was a tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. These streets went on forever, in every direction, each as crowded as the last.
Darz knew the city well. They had to slow down, lest they trample someone, but he maneuvered through the crowds faster than Ginger would have thought possible. People yelled at him when Grayrider bumped them, but no one otherwise paid attention. They were just two more in the multitudes who thronged Quaaz.
Darz immersed them so well in a maze of crooked lanes, she soon had no idea where they were relative to the gate where they had entered. If they were lucky, the same was true for the sentinels following them.
The Topaz Palace rose above the city. Ginger had heard about the golden-yellow stone that gave the structure its name, but until she saw its towers glowing with their golden onion bulbs, she had never known how radiantly beautiful a building could be in the sunlight.
As they neared the palace, the city changed. Streets became wider and less crowded. They clattered across plazas with fountains. The houses set back from the road were hidden by gates and vine-covered fences abloom with sun-snaps and fire-lily vines.
Finally they galloped into a huge plaza where a reflecting pool stretched out to the palace itself. Darz gave Grayrider his head, and they raced alongside the water. Guards on foot were running toward them, coming around from the other side, and also two riders in gold dragon helmets and red and gold uniforms. They bellowed warnings, but Darz kept going, ignoring them all.
“Darz!” Ginger shouted for him to hear. “You have to stop! They’ll think you’re attacking!”
“They’ll recognize me.” He said something else, what sounded like, “I hope.”
By the time they arrived at the courtyard in front of the palace, the men on foot had almost reached them. They yelled for Darz to stop, yet no one drew his sword. Ginger sincerely hoped that continued, that when Darz dismounted, they didn’t skewer him first and demand to know what he was doing afterward.
Except Darz didn’t dismount.
The two great double doors of the palace were open, and a man in a sunrise-plumed helmet stood in the entrance with his curved sword drawn. When Darz rode straight at him, Ginger groaned. Her husband was mad! Or perhaps everyone here was mad, for she couldn’t understand why the doors were open.
As Darz galloped by the man, he shouted what sounded like, “Get spear caster!” Then they were inside and pounding across a courtyard with a circular fountain. The soaring arches of a colonnade surrounded it, and topaz mosaics covered the walls, arches and pillars. Darz thundered under an arch and into the hall beyond. Ginger had given up being nervous; this was so far outside her experience, she had no referent to absorb it all.
They galloped down the gleaming halls, and tiles cracked under Grayrider’s hooves. People scattered out of the way, servants and soldiers and clerks. From their shocked looks, she gathered they didn’t think this was normal, either.
At the end of an especially wide corridor, two gigantic doors stood ajar. Darz clattered past them and into a large hall with stained-glass windows. A carpet stretched from the doors all the way to a dais at the far end, where two thrones stood side by side, plated in gold and encrusted with gems.
As Darz galloped down the hall, a tall man with silver hair ran into the far end, near the dais. He dazzled Ginger, and she couldn’t take in his full appearance, only his brilliant red-and-gold uniform and the huge curved sword at his side. Then she realized the sash that slanted across his chest bore disks enameled in sunrise colors. She recognized them from descriptions in the history scrolls; he had on the dress uniform of a Taka Mal general. She had read only of ranks as high as four disks; if he had five, he must truly be formidable, perhaps even the General of the Army, the man in command of the entire military.
“Darz, we’re in trouble,” she sai
d. If he heard, he gave no sign. He brought Grayrider to such an abrupt stop at the dais, the horse reared up above the general. Ginger clutched its mane and prayed Darz didn’t end up killing the commander of Her Majesty’s armed forces.
As Grayrider came down, the general shouted at Darz, “What the flaming hell are you doing?”
“Where is Vizarana?” Darz demanded.
Ginger expected the general to call for guards. Instead he said, “In the Sunset Garden. Why?”
“Who is with her?” Urgency crackled in Darz’s voice.
“The Jazid envoy. She and Drummer took him to the lake.”
“Both of them?” Darz shouted at him. “Not the baby, too?”
“Yes, actually.” The general frowned at him. “We’ve been entertaining the diplomats from the Jazid army.”
“Diplomats, hell,” Darz said. “How many Jazidians are with her? And how many guards?”
“Just one Jazid officer. Major Tarcol,” the general said, his face puzzled. “And two of our palace guards.”
“Listen to me,” Darz said. “Yargazon has an army that may be marching on Quaaz. His Shadow Assassins exist, Spearcaster. They’ve been murdering our officers. I want you to put anyone here who has anything to do with Jazid under guard. They aren’t to go near Vizarana. And send a full contingent of palace sentinels to the Sunrise Garden. Now.”
With that, he wheeled Grayrider around and took off. He didn’t even pause to let Ginger off the horse. She was too shocked to protest. What she had just seen, Darz giving orders to a general—no, she couldn’t absorb the implications, not yet.
He raced through the palace and under an arch into a huge garden. Trellises curved everywhere, heavy with red pyramid-blossoms. He raced down yellow gravel paths between flower beds of snap-lions. Fire-opal blossoms blazed on bushes sculpted to resemble gold-wing hawks in flight.