The advisor pulled aside the tent flap cautiously. “Your Excellency,” he said, “you do not sleep?”
The Emperor scowled at the brazier that still glowed brightly and kept the chill of the desert night at bay. That was one thing they had not counted on: how very cold it got here at night. The contrasts were startling, to say the least. The ki-lyn, too, was wide-awake, huddled and shivering, but from cold or fear, the advisor could not say. He did not care to speculate.
“Do I look as though I am asleep?” the Emperor snapped. He glanced up, and the advisor was startled at the hollows underneath the Emperor’s eyes. “One of them is there. I know it.”
Fear flooded the advisor. “Surely, not, Your Excellency. You are weary. Perhaps your…intuition is playing tricks on you.”
The Emperor shook his head. “It’s faint. It shouldn’t be. I should know which one it is, who it is. I ought to be able to sense—”
He slammed his fist down on the small table next to him and his cup of wine went flying. The ki-lyn started and tried to avoid the object. It pulled away it but was caught up short, gasping as the collar around its neck halted its movement and the ever-present chain that connected it to the Emperor pulled taut. The ceramic cup struck its head. Red wine splashed and trickled down its long neck, looking for all the world like blood. The creature folded its delicate, graceful legs beneath it again and simply sat, shivering.
“It’s stopping me, somehow,” said the Emperor, glaring at the ki-lyn. “It hates me. It wants me to fail.” The creature shrank back from the loathing in that gaze.
“Why must you keep it?” asked the advisor. “If you just had it killed—”
The look the Emperor gave him made his legs quiver. “If you suggest that again,” the Emperor said with deceptive calm, “I’ll cut off your head myself and stick it on a pike.”
“Yes, Your Excellency,” stammered the advisor.
The Emperor sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I imagine you had a reason for coming here?”
“Yes, of course. We have had several desertions.”
“That’s to be expected, this close to their homes.”
“It’s not helping morale, Your Excellency. Should I make an example of the ones who remain?”
“Did they try to desert?”
The advisor was flustered. “Well, no, but they are Arukani and—”
“And we need every one of them right now. We don’t know what’s going to greet us on the other side of the mountains.”
The advisor swallowed hard. “Speaking of that, Your Excellency….the scouts have not yet returned.”
The Emperor stared at him. “No, of course they haven’t,” he said softly. “He’s gotten to them. That’s how I knew he was here—he attacked.” Harshly, he jerked the golden chain and the ki-lyn made a strangled sound. “Why won’t you let me see him?”
The advisor eyed the creature with distaste. “Your powers will grow with time, Your Excellency. Surely, even that creature will not be able to hold you back much longer.”
“That is true,” said the Emperor thoughtfully. “Go to bed. We will march in the morning. I still have the advantage of numbers, even if my magic is stifled. We will hurt the Arukani badly and take their country. If one of them is there, I will deal with him when I see him, this pathetic thing be damned.”
Kevla kept her face as calm as possible when she told the khashims about the attack on the scouts. They were alarmed that the enemy had gotten this far, but praised her and the Dragon for their quick thinking in destroying the threat.
“There is more,” she said, trying not to curl protectively in on herself. On the way back, something had brushed her thoughts that still made her quail. Something that was angry, and dark, and powerful.
“I do not think we are dealing with an ordinary army. I sense…I sense that there is magic here as well. Abilities that haven’t shown themselves yet.”
“We cannot fight magic,” protested young Raka.
Kevla turned to him. “Yes, we can,” she insisted. “There are many toiling up the sides of these mountains now who eat, sleep, sweat, and bleed just like you do.” Just like the scouts did. “If you deal them a lethal blow, they will most certainly die.”
The words came easily out of her mouth, but inwardly she grieved their utterance. It was so strange, to be talking so comfortably about killing. Only a few weeks ago, she was merely a servant in a great house, her only concern when she would next see Jashemi. Now, she rode the Great Dragon of story and song as comfortably as she had ridden a sa’abah, and had used her fire skills to take lives. The love and light of her life was dead by the same magic that now needed to be turned against the advancing army, and all the leaders of all the clans were looking to her to save them.
Her power was great. Startling, wondrous, amazing, and she knew she had not begun to probe its limits. But she would have traded it all for one more conversation with Jashemi, alone in the cavern at the House of Four Waters, ignorant of the blood bond between them and feeling only a deep and profound connection.
She blinked and came out of her reverie as one of the khashims was speaking and, blushing, had to ask him to repeat his question.
“When will they arrive?”
She and the Dragon had discussed this. “Judging by the progress they have made so far, we have until the day after tomorrow.”
“Then we must make haste,” said Tahmu, “to get everything in place. We must be ready for them.”
That night, Kevla curled up close to the Dragon, and away from the prying eyes of the clansmen of Arukan grieved for all that she had lost.
The day of the battle dawned clear and bright, one of the loveliest mornings Kevla had ever seen. She had been awake for some time, addressing each of the separate forces in turn, sending them off to fight with inspirational words that she wasn’t sure she believed. Her exchange with her father, who was leading one group, had been stiff and formal. She was not sure that was how she wanted it, but any conversation with him would be highly emotional, and instinctively she knew she needed to guard against that right now. She needed to keep everything tightly in check, or else, like Mount Bari, she would erupt.
Melaan accompanied her as she walked to where the Dragon waited. At one point, he said, “It was supposed to be Jashemi, wasn’t it?”
Color rushed to her cheeks. “What do you mean?”
“Over these last few days, I have become the closest Lorekeeper to you. I’m the one you turn to when you need information, when you need to have word spread among the Lorekeepers. You have trusted me, and you honor me beyond words with that trust. But it wasn’t supposed to be me. It was supposed to be Jashemi.”
“Yes. It was.”
“Kevla—how did he die?”
She didn’t want to answer, but she looked at him with such a stricken expression that she felt sure he guessed at some of the truth. His face softened and he reached to squeeze her arm. “Be careful, Flame Dancer. Any of us is expendable. Even Jashemi was. But you aren’t.”
His words were obviously meant to comfort, but they had the opposite effect. Kevla didn’t want any of this. She didn’t want to be the leader of a force of armed men more than three thousand strong. She didn’t want to be perched atop a dragon, knowing that she had almost unimaginable power at her fingertips, getting ready to use that magic to kill.
But she had to be here. She had to do what she didn’t want to do, so that her people would survive. This strange Emperor had little mercy, and she harbored no illusions that he would accept anything other than complete victory.
She was shaking and her stomach roiled as she mounted the Dragon. Her mouth was dry as the sand, and no amount of liquid from a waterskin eased it.
The Dragon crouched, then leaped into the sky. The earth fell away from them. Kevla looked down, watching as the tents grew smaller, and the warriors looked like small white dots on the sand. As they went higher, Kevla was able to see all four of the separate fronts the gathered clans had formed standing ready to meet the enemy. The Dragon’s wings beat the air steadily and they flew even higher. The faint sunlight touched the white stuff on the top of the mountains, turning it a delicate shade of rose-gold. Kevla laughed aloud at the thought of such a pretty color heralding a morning that would end with blood spilled on the sands. She clapped her hand to her mouth, stifling the hysteria.
It was at that moment that the first wave of soldiers crested the mountain ridge.
The Dragon said nothing; he must have felt her subtly tighten her legs as she sat astride him. For a long moment, Kevla looked at the men as she and the khashims had discussed. She was trying to guess their numbers, but the sheer mass of them was so great it overwhelmed her senses. It was like a flood, a river, a—
“At least five thousand in this first wave,” came the Dragon’s calm, deep voice, cutting through her shock. “They are the vanguard, making preparations for the second, third and fourth waves.”
Twenty thousand men to the Arukani’s three thousand, then. Kevla took a deep breath and tried not to give in to despair and panic.
As she and the khashims had discussed in their strategy sessions, the Emperor’s army was using the only pass between the mountains. It curved around the peak of Mount Bari, creating a flat saddle for a few leagues, and then wound down through the jutting, raw-looking areas of the mountain and into the softer, swelling foothills.
The first line of Arukan’s defense was waiting along that pass. Kevla could not see them now, but she knew they were there. They had taken position well before dawn, and would stay in hiding until the moment was right to attack. The enemy was approaching slowly, about ten abreast through the narrow passage. The ones in front had long, sharp spears. The ones who followed managed horses which pulled wagons covered with blankets to conceal their cargo. Other machines of war came into sight now, cresting the mountain and moving along the flat part of the pass. Many of them she could not put names to. One looked like a giant bow, lying flat across the wagon instead of being held properly upright, the arrows which were lashed to it twice the length of ordinary ones. For an instant, Kevla let herself wonder how such a thing could be aimed and released.
Suddenly the Arukani archers leaped from hiding. Arrows rained upon the approaching army so thickly that for a moment Kevla’s vision was obscured. The strange metal the men wore protected them from some of the arrows, but not all; many fell, as did their unprotected horses, amid shrieks and screams of pain.
“First line, fire!” cried Melaan. Two dozen archers leaped up from where they had been hiding. Their clothing had been carefully chosen to blend in with the natural hues of the stone, and Melaan felt hope rekindle in him as every one of the Arukani archers took down an enemy. He stood behind a large boulder, which protected him and allowed him to see in almost every direction.
“Drop! Second line, fire!” The first line fell back into hiding, to refit arrows to their string, and the second line erupted. More of the Emperor’s men fell.
“Drop! Third line, fire!”
But this time, as the third line of defense leaped up, the Emperor’s men were ready for them. Some fired their own arrows almost as quickly as the Arukani. Others headed to where they knew the archers lay in concealment. Leaping over the stony ground, they jumped headlong into the Arukani hiding places. An arrow was no match for a sword at close range, and Melaan heard the grunts and screams as his men began to die.
He had expected this. It was why he had volunteered to lead this front, insisting that his khashim fight elsewhere. Melaan had no wife or family, unlike Terku. The men who had agreed to hold this first line of defense had done so in the full knowledge that they would be the first to die.
“Drop! Fourth line, fi—”
He never saw the arrow, nor heard it sing as it flew with deadly accuracy. Suddenly, he found himself facedown on the stone, unable to move. Breathing was agony and his legs felt cold.
From where he had fallen, he could see boots running toward him. They stopped in front of him and then he heard a sound he knew; the sound of a sword slicing through the air.
Be careful, Kevla.
Kevla watched in horror as the balance shifted abruptly and the Emperor’s men began firing on the Arukani. Some ducked back to safety; others clutched their chests and toppled from Kevla’s sight among the boulders.
The attack continued, and while the advance was slowed, it was not stopped. Fewer arrows came from the Arukani side; fewer men rose to fire them.
Kevla swallowed hard and tried not to count up the dead. The rest of the clans’ warriors waited in plain sight, at the base of the mountain, armed and silent. Their numbers were a handful compared to what was spilling over the mountainside. Her people were waiting to be slaughtered.
Suddenly, a fierce protectiveness welled inside Kevla. It snuffed out her panic, her fear, her sense of inadequacy, as easily as she might snuff out a candle. She felt as if there was something deep inside her, growing larger, pushing her to extend and open. She was bigger than Kevla Bai-sha. She was bigger than any of the other lives she had ever lived. Her people needed her to be there for them, to fight for them, to embrace every bit of what it meant to be the Flame Dancer, both the light and the dark. She didn’t have the luxury of being small anymore, of being afraid of her powers, of being unwilling to use everything she could to defend and protect. And with that surrender, she felt power and knowledge flow into her.
She had been clutching the Dragon’s spine ridge so tightly that her hands ached, but now she released her grip. She did not need to worry about balance. She was the Dragon, and it was her. There was no risk of falling.
Kevla lifted her hands, feeling the movement as sensuous and graceful, and for the first time understood on a primal level why the guardians of the worlds were called Dancers.
It is like a dance, she marveled. I know each step, but I don’t know that I know it—
Suddenly her mind was filled with images of Jashemi holding her, kissing her, making love to her. That fire that had burned in her, roused by his touch, smoldered inside her still. She could call on it, control it. Use it to protect her people.
Her eyes flew open. Her vision took on a clarity it had never had before. Her skin sensed the wind caressing it with vibrant intensity. Everything was heightened, sensitive—ready to accept Fire.
Attuned to her as he was, the Dragon sensed her readiness and swooped down toward the Sacred Mountain. Kevla stared at it, at the smoke that drifted upward. In her mind’s eye, she saw again the pool of red-orange liquid. She reached out toward it with her mind and her hands as if to embrace it.
“Not yet,” cautioned the Dragon. Kevla blinked as if emerging from a trance and saw the wisdom in his words. The army had only begun to come down the mountain. She looked over her shoulder at the tiny figures of the clans of Arukan.
“Dragon, they’re dying down there!”
“I know,” he said, gently. “But you must wait.”
Kevla kept the simmering energy bottled inside her. Wait. Wait.
The sun rose higher and more soldiers flooded down the mountainside. Tahmu, atop Swift-Over-Sand, tensed, but did not charge.
“Hold your ground!” he cried. His men, many from his own Clan but a greater number from the Star Clan and the Horserider Clan, shifted uneasily. He shared their feelings. He had sent his best archers up to the pass, and had watched them kill and be killed with pain and resignation. This was the first place where the Arukani army—strange, to think of it that way—had tried to dam the flood of warriors. They had slowed it, but not stopped it.
Now, it was Tahmu’s turn to try to hold them before they reached the open plains. His heart pounded in his chest and every sense was alert as he watched them come, some on foot, some on horses. Wait. Wait. Let them come to us, waste their energy in running.
“Now!” he cried, and kicked Swift. The warhorse charged, snorting. A hundred other mounted warriors did likewise. Scimitars glinted in the bright morning light as Tahmu’s men surged forward, greeting the enemy with naked steel and the resolve that can only come from defending one’s homeland.
Tahmu grunted as he swung his scimitar. The men were armed and armed well, and some of the men he led had already fallen beneath their blades, but they were not invincible. Their metal was vulnerable at the joints of neck and shoulder, and once he had spotted the weakness he did not hesitate to exploit it.
Suddenly, Swift screamed and collapsed beneath him. Tahmu barely leaped clear in time. Landing on his feet, he whirled to look at his mount. Swift had been eviscerated by a single long stroke. The blow had missed Tahmu’s leg by a hair’s breadth. Now the mighty beast churned up sand with its frantic kicking, his entrails spilling forth in a glistening red pool.
Pain sliced through Tahmu’s heart. He had ridden Swift for over two decades. Even as he mourned his fallen friend, his heightened senses alerted him to danger and he whirled, bringing up the scimitar just in time to block a sword stroke.
For the briefest span of time, he thought about allowing the enemy to take him. He would make a good end that way, dying in battle. The way he died would be more honorable, more respected, than the way he had lived. It would be sweet, to put down the burden of guilt he bore for all the wrong choices, the lives lost.
But no. That was a coward’s way out. Whatever his flaws, Tahmu knew he was a strong and cunning warrior, and Kevla needed every one of her warriors now if she was to succeed. Her success, the protection of their people, was more important to Tahmu than any false peace he could achieve by bowing his neck to the enemy’s blade.
He parried his foe’s next stroke, calmly eyed the gap in the enemy’s armor, and with powerful arms that were strong and sure he struck.
It was then that the sheets of flame erupted.
Kevla watched as the Arukani battled the flank that charged forward, but her attention was caught by the second flank. They busied themselves digging ditches and pouring barrels of fluid into the channels. One of them touched a torch to the shiny pools and leaped back.
Fire sped along the pool and Kevla realized what they were doing. The warriors in the first wave were a sacrifice, a distraction. Now the army had made what they perceived to be a successful defense against the gathered Arukani—a wall of flame with a heavily guarded break.
They’re protecting themselves from attack until the rest of them get here, Kevla thought. She felt her lips twist in a harsh smile.
“Take me closer,” she called to the Dragon.
“Kevla, I don’t—”
“Take me closer!” she cried, anger flooding her. The Dragon obeyed, tucking his wings and diving down at a staggering speed. Kevla extended her arms out to her sides, her movements fluid and in control. She fastened her eyes on the leaping flames, concentrating on them.
As if they were living things, the sheets of flame dove for their tenders. Men staggered and fell, uselessly beating their bodies in an attempt to douse the fire. Others, seeing what was happening, turned to behold the Great Dragon swooping down. He opened his mouth and breathed a long sheet of flame, further adding to the conflagration.
Kevla heard a strange noise. It was a sharp pinging sound. It took her a moment to realize what it was as an arrow whizzed past her ear. The sound was that of arrows striking the Dragon’s heavily scaled frame.
Suddenly, she felt giddy, indestructible. The fire blazed through her and she had never felt more alive in her life. She began singling out men, taking aim and reaching out to them, the fire forming at her fingertips to rush in a glowing orange ball toward their chests.
Abruptly the Dragon began climbing upward again. The pinging diminished.
“Why did you—” Kevla began, but the Dragon interrupted her.
“Look at the pass,” he cried. She did as he asked. Many more had come over in the time she had spent battling the front line. It was at least double, perhaps triple the numbers. She could see that the Arukani line of defense was falling back; could see fallen bodies in rhias being trampled upon in the melee.
Now.
Rage boiled inside her, and she turned again to face Mount Bari, to summon in her mind’s eye the image of the boiling pits of liquid fire.
Come forth!
She heard the rumbling even from this distance, and knew that those with their feet on the earth could feel it. Perspiration dewed her forehead and she began to breathe raggedly. It was harder to control than she had expected, but she called it, and it came.
Lava erupted from the depths of the earth with a terrible roar. Bright orange flowed down the mountainside.
“Take me down,” she called to the Dragon. “I need to be closer!”
He obliged. She could see the individual rocks in the tide of liquid fire now, darker spots being swept along in the glowing yellow-orange flow. With a flick of her fingers, she summoned more lava. It spilled over another side of Mount Bari, this flow streaming over the pass. Anyone who had not yet crossed into Arukani lands now was completely cut off. A good quarter of the army would now never make it down the mountain.
The first stream twisted and snaked downward. It chased the men, who screamed and ran before it, into the waiting arms of the Arukani clans. Those who were not swift enough were engulfed in its lethal wave. Men, horses, wagons, casks of oil that exploded on contact, weapons—all fell beneath the merciless lava flow.
She heard the cries of the armies as they met in battle, heard the clash of steel on steel, but suddenly her attention was directed to a handful of men. Some of them clustered around the enormous bow and were pointing up at the dragon. Straining, they tilted the weapon skyward and fitted an arrow. One of them leaned forward, using his weight to pull back the string and—
Numbed with horror, it seemed forever until Kevla regained the use of her tongue.
“Dragon, watch—”
She felt the impact of the enormous arrow as it plunged into the Dragon’s body. He let out a dreadful cry and bucked. Kevla clung to his neck, and looking down she could see the awful thing impaled in his left side, between his mighty forepaw and his wing. It had gone deep, and for a long, terrible moment, the Dragon’s wings stopped beating.
He bellowed in pain and began to stroke the air once again, desperately trying to keep them both aloft and alive, turning away from the dreadful bow.
Fear for her friend erased everything else. She hugged him, leaning on his neck to cry to him, “Get down, get down! You’re hurt!”
Kevla heard a stinging sound and felt a hard blow to her back that almost knocked her off the Dragon. Searing pain ripped through her and she couldn’t breathe. Something wet was tricking down her right breast. She looked down and for a moment didn’t see the blood, the same color as her flame-created clothing. There was a lump where there shouldn’t be and—
A wave of dizziness and white-hot agony swept over her as she reached with her left hand and her questing fingers found the sharp metal tip of an arrow protruding through her shoulder.
“Kevla!” roared the Dragon. “Fight it, Kevla….”
But she couldn’t. The world began to turn gray. Kevla swayed forward and tumbled from the Dragon’s back.