Banewreaker

SIXTEEN

Dwarfs came out of the gloaming.

It happened a few leagues west of Malumdoom, the young knight Hobard’s ancestral estate. As twilight fell over their kindling campfire, the shadows moved, twining like roots. Four figures, waist-high to a tall man, with gnarled faces and knotted muscles, spatulate hands engrained with soil.

“Yrinna’s Children.” Malthus the Counselor stood to greet them, bowing in his scholar’s robes. “Hail and well met.”

“Haomane’s Counselor.” One of the dwarfs acknowledged him in a deep, calm voice, then turned to Hobard. “Son of Malumdoorn. You have broken Yrinna’s Peace, bringing them here.”

“I had cause, Earth-Tender.”

The Vedasian’s voice was strung tight, Carfax noted. He sat quiet with his arms wrapped around his knees, watching with wonder. Dwarfs! Yrinna’s Children had not been seen west of Vedasia for long ages.

“It must be a mighty cause to break Yrinna’s Peace.”

“It is.” Malthus took a step forward, touching the Soumanië on his breast. “You have an item in your possession that does not belong to you.”

There was a pause then, a long one.

“It may be,” the Dwarf leader allowed, his deep-set gaze scanning the small company. “Haomane’s Child. Do the Rivenlost venture in search of this thing?”

“We do, Earth-Tender.” Peldras the Ellyl bowed, light and graceful. “Will you not hear our plea?”

A hushed conference, then, among the four visitors. Carfax strained his hearing to no avail. “Uru-Alat!” A soft whisper sounded at his ear. “They’re so small! Are they Men, or children?” It was the boy, Dani, squatting fearless at his side, his dark eyes wide in the firelight. They tell him no more than they do me, Carfax thought, pitying the boy. What was Malthus thinking, to venture into the Unknown and drag the boy from his home, keeping him in ignorance? At least in Darkhaven, one knew the price of one’s bargain.

“No,” he said. “They are Dwarfs, Dani. A long time ago, they withdrew from the affairs of Men.”

One dark hand rose to clasp the flask at his throat, dark eyes bewildered. “What is it Malthus thinks they have?”

“I don’t know.” He wished he did.

A decision was made, and the Dwarf leader stepped forward. “There will be a hearing on the morrow,” he said. “In the orchards of Malumdoorn. Come in peace, or not at all.”

“It will be so,” Malthus said with dignity.

Night.

It fell hard and fast in the swamps of the Delta. Turin hurried after the fleeting form of Hunric the tracker, falling and splashing and cursing his speed. Before them, the hummock of dry land loomed, elusive and retreating in the fading light. A last, dying spear of light lit the palodus tree that stood sentry over it.

“Come on!” Hunric shouted, scrambling up the hummock ahead of him, the slow-lizard’s carcass tied to a string about his waist. “Come on!”

Waist-deep in water at the foot of the hummock, Turin set his teeth and grabbed for a handhold. Shale rock, plates as broad as both his hands, slick and overgrown with moss. There would be nothing edible growing on this island. By main force he hauled himself, hand over hand, up the steep incline, his breath searing his lungs.

At the top, he bent double, panting.

“Look!” Hunric was grinning, arms open wide. “The heart of the Delta. Is it not a glorious thing?”

Turin could have wept.

There was nothing, nothing atop the hummock, only moss-covered black shale in articulated ridges that hurt his sodden feet, and a few fallen branches of palodus wood. He was tired and soaked and footsore, and his loins ached with gnawing desire.

“A freshwater spring would have been nice,” he said wearily, sitting down and removing his pack, beginning the tiresome process of peeling off his boots. “You’re sure this is the way out?”

“The way in is the way out.” The tracker eyed him, then began gathering branches. “You’re done in. Sit, then. I’ll do it.”

He sat, rubbing his aching feet. No need for a fire, really. The shale was warm, retaining the sun’s heat like a forge. He could almost smell the sulfur. It would be nice, though, to have fresh-roasted meat, even if the kill was a day old. Meat went off fast in the heat; no wonder Hunric was minded to eat it raw.

So warm, here. So warm.

It made his aching flesh prickle.

“This is his place.” At the crest of the hummock, Hunric had stacked branches into a neat structure and knelt reverently over them. “His place!” he repeated fervently, striking a spark and blowing. An ember kindled, tiny flames flickering.

“His place,” Turin echoed dully. In the dark swamp beyond, an ember of yellow-green kindled. “And tomorrow, we head straight for Pelmar, yes?”

“Pelmar.” Hunric, kneeling, grinned at him. “Oh, yes.”

Something in the air throbbed, echoing the throbbing in his loins. He thought again of the white limbs of the Lady of the Ellylon, gritted his teeth and thrust the thought from his mind. In the air? No. It was the very rock beneath him that throbbed, slow and steady, warm as a pulsing heart.

An ember of yellow-green, lifting.

“Hunric.” His voice was frozen in his throat. “Hunric!” A shape, moving, impossibly large. Roots ripped, dripping, from the swamp itself. Slow, so slow! An ember of yellow-green. A lidded eye, a dripping chin. “Hunric …” he whispered.

“What?” The tracker sounded almost friendly as he gauged the coals, skewering the slow-lizard and thrusting it into the flames. “Pelmar, yes. I remember. We’ll leave on the morrow. Is that what troubles you?”

Unable to speak, Turin pointed.

“What?” The tracker squinted into the swamp.

When it struck, it moved fast. A wedge of darkness blotting out the emerging stars, swinging on a sinuous neck. Its hinged jaws opened wide, rows of teeth glistening like ivory daggers. The ground beneath Turin lurched, surging with the motion of the strike as, somewhere in the swamp, anchored talons gripped and heaved. He saw the lidded eye as it swung past him, the open maw snapping.

A strangled sound cut short, and the embers of the campfire scattered.

Hunric.

Turin gibbered with fear, scuttling backward crab-wise. Plates of shale beneath his hands and feet, the edges cutting his flesh. Not shale, no; scales, ancient and encrusted, dark as iron. Before him, the long neck stretched high, lifting the massive head to the top of the palodus tree while the throat worked in gulps.

It didn’t take long. Not long enough.

“Please,” Turin whispered as the terrible head swung back his way, arching over its own back, bearded and dripping with moss. “Oh, please!”

A nictitating lid blinked over the yellow-green eye. “Who assssksss?”

“Turin of Staccia.” His voice emerged in a squeak. “I am here in the service of Lord Satoris.”

“Sssatorisss …”

“Third-Born among Shapers.” Summoning a reserve of courage he hadn’t known he possessed, Turin found his feet, confronting the hovering head, fighting his chattering teeth. “This is his place, Lord Dragon, and he sent me here!”

“Yessss.” The yellow-green eye blinked. “Your companion was … tasssssty.”

“Lord Dragon!” Terror threatened to loosen his bowels. “My Lord was a friend to your kind!”

“A friend,” the dragon mused. “Yesss, onssse.”

“Once, and always.” Breathing hard, Turin wrestled his sword free of his pack and held it aloft. Its steel length glinted greenish in the light of the dragon’s eye. “I carry a message for the Sorceress of the East and the Dragon of Beshtanag. Will you not let me pass?”

“I grieve for my brother.” There was something resembling sorrow in the dragon’s fearful mien. “He has chosen his path. There is power in thissss plassse, Sson of Man. It might even have healed Sssatoriss the Ssssower, onssse, but Haomane’s Wrath ssscorched his thoughtss to madnesss, and he fled north to the cooling sssnows. It is too late for the Sssower. Now this is my plassse, and I mussst abide.”

“Who are you?” Turin whispered.

“Calanthrag,” the answer was hissed. “The Eldessst.”

Swift came the attack, the massive head darting. Turin dodged once, striking with his sword, aiming for the glinting eye. He missed, his blade clattering against impervious scales. This, he thought in an ecstasy of terror, is the end. The dragon’s head reared back and swayed atop its sinuous neck, blocking out the sky. Turin’s hand loosened on his sword-hilt. He stood on a dragon back, feeling the warmth under his bare, lacerated soles, and thought of the vows he had taken, the women he had known. A smell of rot hung in the air. The dragon’s eye roiled, yellow-green. Old, so old!

Older than the Delta.

There were things he knew before the end, Turin of Staccia, things he read in the dragon’s roiling eye. Of a knowledge older than Time itself, older than the Chain of Being. Of the birth of dragons, born of the bones of Uru-Alat; first-born, Eldest. Of warring Shapers, and how they had Sundered the earth. Of their Children and their wars, their endless hierarchies and vengeances. Of Lord Satoris, who spoke to dragons; of dragons, who aided him. Of dragons dying by steel borne by Haomane’s Children, by Arahila’s. Of Calanthrag the Eldest, hidden in the Delta.

All these things, and the whole more than the sum of its parts. This was the knowledge vouchsafed to Turin of Staccia, whose yellow hair was caked with mud, who stood barefooted on a dragon’s back, with a useless sword in his limp hand, bannock-crumbs and gold coins at the bottom of his pack.

He was a long way from home.

Oh mother! he thought at the last.

It was fast, the dragon’s head striking like a snake, low and sure and swift. Massive jaws stretched wide, breathing sulfur fumes. A snap! A gulp and a swallow, the impossibly long gullet working, neck stretched skyward. In the swamp of the Delta, the tall palodus tree stood unmoving, while small creatures keened in distress.

Inch by inch, Calanthrag the Eldest settled.

An insect chirruped.

Stillness settled over the Delta, ordinary stillness. Lizards crept, and snakes stirred their coils. Gnats whined, protesting the fall of darkness. A dragon’s talons relaxed their purchase in the mire. Straining wings eased their vanes. A long neck settled, chin sinking into muck. Membranes closed over glowing eyes to the lullaby of the Delta. In the moonlight, a hummock, black as slate, encrusted with moss, loomed above the swamp.

Calanthrag the Eldest slept.

Green. green and green and green.

It whirled in the Ravensmirror, reflected in the sheen of glimmering feathers. Green leaves, palodus and mangrove, a dense canopy. Dark green, pine green, the forests of Pelmar. Softer green, new vines and cedars, wings veering in fear from Vedasia, where death lurked, arrow-tipped.

“ENOUGH!”

Ushahin Dreamspinner pressed his fingertips to his crooked temples, his head aching at Lord Satoris’ roar.

The Ravensmirror shattered, bursting into feathered bits, heads tucked under wings in fearful disarray.

Back and forth he stormed, red eyes glowing like coals. The tower trembled beneath his tread. A smell in the air like blood, only sweeter. “What,” Lord Satoris asked with deceptive gentleness, “is Malthus doing?”

“I don’t know, my Lord,” Ushahin whispered.

“My Lord.” Tanaros executed a crisp bow. “Whatever the Counselor attempts, it matters naught. Our plans proceed apace, and your army stands in readiness. Our course through the Marasoumië is plotted, and Lord Vorax has seen to our lines of supply. Haomane’s Allies walk into a trap unwitting. We are prepared.”

The glowing red gaze slewed his way. “I mislike it.”

“My Lord.” Ushahin cleared his throat. “There is one way.”

“What?”

He flinched under the Shaper’s regard. “Ask the Ellyl. Put her to questioning. I cannot breach Malthus’ defenses, my Lord. I have tried. It may be she knows his plans.”

Tanaros shifted, disturbed.

“No.” The Shaper shook his head. Deep in their throats, ravens muttered. “I am a Shaper, one of the Seven. Let my Elder Brother name me what he will; I will not play into his hands by accepting the role he has allotted me. He holds his pride dearer than I, yet I am not without honor. Would you see it stripped from me? My Elder Brother has made a move, and I have countered it. I will not become the monster he has named me.”

Frustration surfaced in Ushahin’s crooked gaze. “It is better to live a monster than to die with honor, my Lord!”

“No.” There was finality in Lord Satoris’ deep voice. “She is a guest, Dreamspinner, and to be treated as such. I will not allow aught else.”

“My Lord …”

“I said no.”